The Nose Pin (Paperback)

Manu an inept unemployed villager pestered from the atrocities of his brother-in-law on him and his sister approached Bhai ji an MLA of the constituency for a job. Bhai ji takes him under his wing and treats him as his own brother as he belonged to the village from where his ancestors hailed. In exchange of a menial job profile i.e. monitoring the other servants in the mansion Manu receives all the reasonable comforts for a servant. Manu finds bhai ji s wife Bhabhi ji a very decorous woman who is always seen clad in beautiful sarees and matching ornaments. Her head always covered with the pallu of her saree and a flickering ancestral relic a diamond studded nose pin on the left side of her nose. As the days go by Manu develops a feeling that Bhabhi ji is living in some grief and gradually as he becomes an integral part of mansion s affairs he finds out that whatever looked intriguing to the public eye was equally loathsome from the inside. One day Manu faints after seeing something in bhai ji s drawing room squealing Bhabhi ji though he finds nothing wrong in the room after gaining consciousness. Bhai ji orders a confused Manu to accompany Vikas one of his most loyal servants for an important assignment which they are supposed to accomplish before dawn. Bhai ji assured Manu that his brother-in-law Charan won t bother his sister again as he has been taken care of. Vikas takes Manu to a dense dystopian forest and tells him to stop near an old haunted fort. On Vikas s insistence they first eat and drink during which Vikas tells Manu that there is a sack at the back of their jeep which they are supposed to burry. These words of Vikas hit Manu like a sucker punch. While pondering over the suspense of the sack the drunken eyes of Manu see an image a shadow moving briskly behind a nearby Kāla Bhairav temple. Startled he shouts Bhabhi ji and is meted out with a scolding from Vikas who tells him to keep a check on how much he is drinking. Later both Vikas and Manu get the shock of their lives when they peek inside the sack. The next day back at the mansion when Manu goes to Vikas s quarter he sees Vikas s sister Kshama who had come uninformed to tell Vikas about their mother s ill-health. Manu finds Kshama very attractive and develops a soft corner for her. Bhai ji gives Vikas and Manu another task of finding and bringing along some one for which they set out in the afternoon dropping Kshama at home on their way. Meanwhile Vikas and Manu fail to locate the person and take a night s halt at Vikas s home on their way back. Manu rises up early in the morning and in pursuit of seeing Kshama finds Vikas s mother and Kshama coming from the fort. This makes Manu a bit suspicious as to why two ladies had been to that area. Manu isn t aware as to who are they on the look-out for so he lets Vikas do the entire enquiry. During their journey Vikas tries to cheer Manu up from the last night s shock. After all why and where were both of them sent on a secret mission? To know all about you are invited to read my novel The Nose Pin.