(Dear friends please read the full story to enjoy the climax)

Lakshmi the 60 years old widow of Mr. Narayanswamy was cooking many delicious dishes. She was doing this for the first time after her husband has passed away. It was a month back when all of a sudden her husband had a massive cerebral attack and even before he could be rushed to the hospital, he collapsed. Since then she had almost quit everything. But today Ajit was coming to visit her. Ajit was an ex-student of Mr. Narayanswamy. He was the only ex-student who kept constant touch with them.

 Narayanswamy and his wife were a humble couple. Mr. Narayanswamy was a private tutor and writing stories and novels were his hobby. He never really tried very hard to get his writings published. Though he told some of his friends and students many times but nobody really showed any interest. Lakshmi was an ideal house wife, though she had no children but always considered her husband’s students as her children. She never complained even about the scarcities that she had to go through in her life.

After a whole month of living in absolute obscurity, Lakshmi seemed to pull out all her inherent energy to prepare a lavish meal for Ajit. It was he who regularly read Narayanswamy’s writings and encouraged him a lot. Ajit thought was never a good student was a very successful businessman and from time to time he gave many gifts to Narayanswamy. The last time when he visited their house he had gifted an expensive smart phone to Narayanswamy who all along was contented with his old feature phone. Incidentally when Narayanswamy collapsed the smart phone was still in his hand.

After finishing her cooking, Lakshmi was reminscing all this when the door bell rang. As she opened the door Ajit came in and hugged her. Then he went to the photograph of Narayanswamy and lamented that he could not be beside the family during the hour of need. Both of them talked over how things happened and finally Lakshmi invited Ajit to take his lunch.

As Ajit sat on the dining table, Lakshmi served him the food with motherly affection. Ajit was silent for a while then as he was eating, he said, “sir’s death is really a great loss to all of us”

“Yes, Ajit especially to you” Lakshmi replied and gave him some more custard to eat.

As Ajit was eating the custard, Ajit said, “You are right, he was like a father figure to me.”

“And also a bank”, prompt come Lakshmi’s reply.

“What?” a shocked Ajit looked up. With a deep sigh lakshmi got up from the table took out the new cell phone and as she was surfing it, she replied, “You see Ajit when my Husband died he was reading a book review on a web site. There he found that many of his stories have been published, but the writer of the story was Ajit Kumar. Why did you cheat him Ajit?”

Ajit was startled he was stammering, “What d…do you m…mean to say?” he asked. As he wanted to stand up he felt he could not.

Lakshmi looked at him with cold eyes, gave a wicked smile and said, “Don’t trouble yourself you will not be able to lift yourself from the chair, I have poisoned you.”

                                                         ………….Anupam