When Arvind sent letters to his siblings unaware that someone is watching his activities. Far among the sands of desert a woman is sitting in the small house in Jaipur writing something on a paper. It's like a descriptive essay of two pages. Aarohi, a 25 year old girl, folded the piece of paper and put it in the red envelope as if she was writing a love letter to her boyfriend. She called, " Ramu kaka, kindly hand over this letter to prince through his agent Suresh please keep it confidential." She also sent four other letters mentioning a note in it the note says,"
"You are not who you think you are. The truth lies in Rajasthan. Come back to where it all began." Attached was a photograph, four children playing under a banyan tree, with a Haveli in the background.
The letter came a week ago, plain, yellowed, with no return address, sealed with an odd wax stamp resembling a peacock feather entwined with a serpent. Each of the four siblings had received one, though thousands of miles apart. Arvind also received a letter from someone whom he is unaware of.
Sanya was in New York, wrapping up her medical conference, when she opened the letter. Her eyes scanned the contents once, then twice. "You are not who you think you are. The truth lies in Rajasthan. Come back to where it all began." Attached was a photograph, four children playing under a banyan tree, with a Haveli in the background. She clutched the photo, a storm brewing in her heart.
Aarav received his letter in a cozy flat in Manchester. He was used to formal emails, not cryptic letters scrawled in ink. The moment he read the words, his hands trembled. He remembered nothing of his childhood, except vague images of sand dunes and a little boy singing lullabies.
Aakash felt his knees weaken when his mother confessed the truth after he confronted her with the letter. "Yes, beta… we adopted you. You had siblings. But there was a fire… and we thought everyone had died." Her voice broke, and for the first time, Aakash saw her not as his mother, but as someone who had tried to heal a broken child. Your elder brother handed you to us. His name is Arvind. Aakash was shocked to hear that. It is intolerable for a little boy of fifteen years old.
And Arvind, the one who never left India, received the letter in a small town near Delhi. His world stopped. For years, he had dreams about a palace burning, people screaming, and a lullaby sung in the desert wind. When he asked his foster father, the man knelt and confessed everything. "Your real parents were noble… brave. But fate had other plans. That Haveli… it belonged to your father." When Suresh revealed his true identity and handed over the letter to him a 28 year old expert lawyer fell on his knees. Today he understood the nightmares he saw after Ramakanth and Sanyuktha died and when he was left alone in this whole world.
They all agreed to meet in Rajasthan. When they stepped off the train, the dry, hot wind carried with it not only sand, but memories. The land stretched endlessly in hues of ochre and burnt gold. Camels trudged slowly on the roads. Peacocks cried in the distance, and the setting sun cast long, dramatic shadows over ancient ruins. The air smelled of cumin, dust, and forgotten tales.
As they approached the Haveli, now a cracked skeleton of its former glory, Arvind stopped in his tracks. The wind howled, but inside his mind, it was a different sound he heard, his father's laughter, his aunt humming, his uncle narrating tales of valor by the oil lamp. Tears streamed silently. The gates, once studded with gold, now hung loosely. Paint peeled from the high domed walls. Weeds had invaded the courtyards where once soldiers marched and dancers twirled. A nameplate rusted: "Thakur Mahendra Pratap Singh." His father.
Arvind walked in slowly. Every step triggered a memory. His father's firm hands guided him on a horse. His aunt puts tilak on his forehead every morning. His uncle gave him a wooden sword, whispering, "One day, you'll protect this land." Then came the memory of the fire. The screams. A man with a scar. A bag hurriedly packed. And darkness. He fell to his knees in the center of the Haveli. "I'll rebuild you. I swear," he whispered to the cracked marble floor.
The village near the Haveli was unrecognizable. What used to be green with millet and barley fields was now dry, cracked soil. People walked like lifeless shadows. Children had swollen bellies. Adults sat under the neem trees, their eyes dull, their speech broken. "What happened here?" asked Sanya, horrified.
A local woman, toothless and frail, said, "Vish. He built a hospital... said he would save us. But he fed us poison. Now the land is cursed." Vish, the traitor who demolished the whole Rajputh client had built a massive hospital in the name of charity, while turning the Haveli's underground chambers into a godown for illegal drug manufacturing and storage. The drugs were tested on the villagers in the guise of "free treatment." Now, many behaved like zombies, emotionless, unaware.
Sanya knew she had to act fast. She contacted her research team from New York. Within 48 hours, a team of expert doctors and forensic chemists landed in Rajasthan. They took blood samples, tested the water, food, and even the air inside the hospital. The result was staggering.
"This is not medicine. It's biochemical control," said one of the doctors. "He's sedating them to turn them into controllable labor." Meanwhile, Vish was out of station, rumors said he was in Dubai for an expansion deal. The four siblings knew they had a window, and they had to act fast.
But not all was well. While Arvind and Sanya had natural leadership skills, Aarav and Aakash struggled. Aarav, brilliant in logic and economics, turned pale in front of crowds. He has the problem Aakash, though a confident student in school has stage fright, froze when asked to address the villagers. His hands trembled, voice cracked, and anxiety overwhelmed him. Sanya, being a psychologist apart from a doctor, took charge. She started evening therapy sessions under the banyan tree. One evening, she spoke to the villagers about bravery and loss, while Aarav and Aakash simply watched. Then one day, Sanya turned to Aakash. "Say something. Just your name and why you're here." He looked down. Then up. Then down again.
And finally said, "My name is Aakash. And I… I want to save my real father's land." Silence. Then claps. Small. But real. Over time, he began speaking more. Aarav, too, took a different route. Instead of speeches, he used chalk and slate. He started drawing out plans, using visuals. Slowly, the villagers began to understand. And believe. Arvind, meanwhile, immersed himself in helping the villagers. He is also searching for the person who sent him the letter , but after a long search he cannot find anything. Aarohi is witnessing these things from her house and Ramu kaka is helping her to keep her identity secret.
He met an old man named Ramlal(Ramu Kaka) once a friend of his father's. "Your father taught us to farm with little water," he said. With his help, Arvind began teaching desert farming, methods of drip irrigation, using local plants like khejri and aloe vera, and harvesting morning dew with nets. Fields once brown slowly began to show green.
He even encouraged villagers to revive local handicrafts. The women started stitching traditional patchwork quilts again, while the men cleaned and restored the old wells. The village began to breathe.
One night, under the stars, the siblings gathered on the Haveli terrace. "I still hear his voice," said Arvind. "Every day." Sanya placed a hand on his. "We're going to make this right. For them. For us." Aakash, smiling faintly, whispered, "And for the children who live like ghosts now." Aarav added, "I've started working on a financial shutdown plan. If we block Vish's accounts and expose his network, he'll collapse."
As the first monsoon clouds gathered over the horizon, Arvind stood again before the Haveli gates. The desert smelled of wet earth.
He remembered the day he had left this place, holding the hands of Sanyuktha and how he said that he will take care of Aarav and Sanya holding both of them in his hands, as the fire behind consumed his lineage. Now, twenty years later, he returned not alone, but with an army, of siblings, of villagers, of truth. He picked up a chisel. And struck the first stone. Not to destroy. But to resurrect.
Their master plan began to take shape: Lab Reports: Sanya's team would release a formal report to the World Health Organization and Indian Medical Council.