Fiction: Meera is abducted on a work visit to a factory. Who are her captors? What happens to her?

How stupid do you have to be to do something that you certainly know is wrong? An identical thought crossed their minds at the same time as they stared at each other across the breakfast table. Each could provide a different reason for harbouring such a thought; for his part, Mr Sharma could not believe his sensible daughter was considering resigning from the job he had hooked her up after so much hassle. He’d almost staked his friendship with Ajeet to get her in; Ajeet hadn’t taken well to Mr Sharma’s sudden interest in his ex-wife’s company. Mr Sharma’s prying had reopened old wounds and things had taken a good deal of time to settle down again. But young Meera evidently didn’t understand the worth of time, money or anything. In fact, she seemed set on ruining all her father’s efforts. It’s crap from movies in her head. Nonsense radicals and their motivations. Mr Sharma shook his head, cursing the monolithic force of Western culture yet again.

Meera, however, believed that she had been stupid to accept this job in the first place. Her father had placed her under Namita’s wing so she couldn’t fly away from home in search of another job.

“So you feel that your job is not exciting?” Mr Sharma pulled out one of the flimsier reasons Meera had flung on the table so far, and his words prickled her exactly the way he’d wanted them to. She inhaled deep and bit the inside of her lower lip. He saw the lines of her forehead crease in submission, marking the steps towards his victory. He was certainly not everyone’s cup of coffee, especially not hers.

“What excitement do you expect? People work to make a living.” He looked at his wife for affirmation. “Of course,” Mrs Sharma said, slipping into the chair next to him. “Do you even realise how many people only dream of this job? You’re lucky you never saw those long interview queues.” Mr Sharma looked at both women. He had perhaps expected a more stalwart defence from his wife.

“That’s what I’m saying, mom. I don’t deserve it,” said Meera. “I don’t think Namita has ever liked me either. Every time she looks at me, it reminds me of how I got in here. I’ll never make it to her list of the best, no matter how hard I try.”

Mr Sharma gave a sly smile. His beady eyes swung towards his daughter, while his sparsely covered skull stayed still. Controlled and confident, he said, “You should make her like you then. Prove to her that you’re worthy. Instead of quitting, you should think about a promotion.”

There he goes again, Meera thought, watching her attempts finally collapsing. She’d wanted to put better explanations on the table, but she knew deep down that they wouldn’t have worked either. She looked blankly at the plate for a few seconds and then picked up the spoon, poking vaguely at a vacant side of her plate. Helplessness and disgust eclipsed the charm of her young face as she straightened hair behind her ears, letting it flow down her back over her striped blue formal shirt.

Mrs Sharma pulled the chopping board towards her and began slicing potatoes to go with the carrots she’d diced a while ago. She had cared less and less for these discussions within her family since she’d accepted that her husband would make the choices for her children. At once, she remembered the bowl of eggs. She rose from her seat to uncover the bowl on the other side of table.

“You want an egg? I boiled a few,” she said, passing them to Meera. Her daughter looked at her in disbelief and finished her breakfast without another word. Mr Sharma, though, plucked an egg from the bowl.

He did not like Meera’s defiance, even if it was directed at the eggs. He strongly wanted to object. But after seeing her morose condition, he decided to relent. If he had begun, the opening line, like for most of his other sermons, would’ve been “when I was your age”, leading to a climactic account of his childhood greatness. Of course, Meera doubted the authenticity of these stories, but she never dared question them.

Meera rose from her chair a few minutes later to grab her laptop and handbag. “All right, I should go,” the girl said coldly, looking right through her parents. Mr Sharma glanced through his thick spectacles. “I can drive you to work. I’m heading that way,” he said hoarsely. But the girl had already marched towards the door. “I’m fine,” she replied calmly and shut the door behind her. This, she knew, would not be ignored; he would get her back in the evening. For now, though, he merely watched her angry departure.

Mr and Mrs Sharma had a reputation to uphold. They were one of those tough couples who’d been = born into the middle class but worked their way upwards to upper middle class. This accomplishment was something that Mrs Sharma never forgot to talk about with her sisters, especially the two who had married into average households in Dehradun. It took Kundan Sharma years of exertion to establish his real estate firm in south Delhi, which he’d crafted single-handedly, starting with nothing but a small chunk of land from back home that he’d traded off to make his first investment in Delhi. Many who insisted that Kundan’s success was only due to the spontaneous boom in the economy also believed that not every investor could survive the recession that had followed it. But Kundan had not only survived, he had thrived, cementing his reputation as a shrewd businessman.

He’d secured the best possible education, lifestyle and facilities for his kids. They’d gone to the best private school in Delhi, learned three languages, joined sports teams, and had (mostly) kept away from bad company. As twins, Meera and her brother Sunny had nothing in common in terms of demeanour, behaviour or their roles in the family. Mr Sharma focused on the three things that he believed would best generate profit, and did so in exacting proportion: his business, his son, and himself.

When his son had wanted to join an expensive aviation academy, he’d paid the enormous training fees for “his boy” to obtain a licence. Things were, however, rather different when Meera expressed the same desire. Her plea had been tactfully denied. She was told to focus on her MBA; piloting was not a good career choice. She wasn’t surprised. As matter of fact, she knew that her father wouldn’t agree, as the programme involved huge investments of time and money and, therefore, accepted her father’s decision. Mrs Sharma had silently admired her daughter’s meekness, as this was exactly how she wanted Meera to be: sensible, well behaved and compliant.

Excerpted with permission from Diamonds and Stones: An Unlikely Story, Navreet Sran, Rupa Publications.