Just you and me, Bondita

Searching For The Old Treasures

Batuk and Vashma soon made their way to the Durga temple and ran towards the entrance. However, Vashma halted right before the gates.

"Batuk, you go in. I'll wait out here." Vashma suggested, still being undercover in a burqa.

Batuk was in such a hasty state to even question her and so he just shook his head in agreement and ran inside the temple.

The place was shambled- it was clear that some sort of a bomb attack happened here and it scared him even more. However, as he searched around the place, he found his surroundings to be empty- there was no one here.

Batuk then ran out to Vashma, panicking from seeing all of this.

"T-There's no one here! Not even the priests!"

Vashma also got immensely worried and looked around for help. That was when she noticed someone limping their way to some place and approached them hurriedly.

"Excuse me! Do you know where everyone from the temple have gone?" she asked to the injured person.

"They've all been admitted to the relief camps near the border." he replied weakly before leaving them.

Batuk, who was listening to all of this, rubbed his forehead stressedly and glanced at Vashma who also gave an anxious expression too.

They then jumped on the jeep and raced their way to the border between the two neighbouring villages. As they neared the location, the couple were dumbstruck from viewing the numerous camps laid out in front of them. There were so many that the border was invisible at this point.

The sun had already started to set down and the heavy rain has now shifted to a light drizzle. The couple ran towards the relief camps, not knowing where to exactly go.

As Vashma and Batuk stared around cluelessly, they heard a very familiar voice calling them.

"Batuk!"

They turned around immediately and saw Bondita running towards them. She seemed to be very exhausted and had a very stressed expression as she made her way towards them.

"Boudi! What's going on!" Batuk shrieked to which Bondita shook her head in distress.

"So much has happened, Batuk! The Britishers are so merciless! Look at what they've done!" she breathlessly panted.

Bondita glanced up from her crouched position and noticed that Vashma was also there beside Batuk, however only her eyes were visible.

"Wait but what are you guys doing here? Are you here to help us?" Bondita asked confusedly at the couple.

"No, Bondita. We got the news that Batuk's Kaka got injured and is possibly admitted here." Vashma replied.

Bondita gasped in astonishment, her eyes widening from hearing this shocking revelation.

"What?!?! Omg Kaka Sasurji!" she cried, "I hope he is ok! But I haven't seen him here yet!"

"Please don't worry, Boudi! I'm pretty sure Kaka is fine!" Batuk reassured, "But we need to find him first in order to clear our doubts."

"Yes I think we should all look individually for him as there are numerous camps set up and it would take ages to look through them in a group!" Bondita suggested.

"Yeah we should do that! But where is Big D?"

"He should be here somewhere. Don't worry, if I see him I will tell him the news." Bondita stated.

It was now pitch black and the camps were dimly lit through some paraffin lamps. The trio decided to split apart and started to individually search for Trilochan, praying that he would be fine.