Chapter 8

Brahma turned back to see who it was. He realized it was LakshmiNarayana, who had been playing the game with him. He wanted to probably usurp power from him, he thought. As he moved towards Lakshmi, he found a very familiar figure at the back. It was Arivuthangam, IAS. He introduced LakshmiNarayana as his brother, who had been in the ARA as a police informer. He had gauged Chandru's mentality pretty well, and had made them speak in a way such that Chandru and Brahma would separate. After that, he had made a private attempt on Chandru's life, which got him infuriated. This provoked him to join the government for safety purposes. But there also, he was killed by Lakshmi, and so were Ganesh and Karthik. The idea was to make Brahma a solitary figure, and render him responsible for all the crimes committed by the ARA, and thereby kill him.

The plan had been executed to perfection. They had him cornered now. He seemingly didn't have a way out. But then, he was Brahma, he was a creator by himself. So, he knew the in and out of his creations. So did he know, that right below the place he was standing, was an open jeep, with which he could try an escape. He then said, "Face the music, as you always have been doing."

He tapped slowly with his legs, the hollow sound was very clear. As Arivu sensed something was wrong, and tried to come forward, Brahma stamped his foot on the floor with all his might, breaking through the hollow floor, and falling right into the jeep. The jeep had a key in it, and Brahma rushed out. Lakshmi and Arivu rushed on to their police jeep and gave him a follow. He was never too far away, but the mental edge was with Brahma. As the gear settled out at fifth, and the foot was on the accelerator, Brahma recollected the days, days when Chandru and he were childhood chums, the day he created the ARA, his times with Amritha, his kids, their deaths, the killing of Shukla, that evening when everything changed after the meeting with the chief minister, Chandru's death, everything came to him in a flash. Moments passed by him. The roads he was now riding on for survival were the roads which had brought him up. The roads which had made him from the son in a very orthodox Brahmin household to such a dreaded gangster.

As he drove, for once a teardrop fell from his eyes on thinking about Amritha. She hadn't known of Chandru's or Ganesh's or Karthik's death. He wondered how she'd be able to take his sudden disappearance also. As he was driving, he reached the bridge over the Palar river. Suddenly there was a bullet shot on his tyre, Arivu had been on target. He got down from the jeep, and to escape the two, he tried to run, when they shot him on his left arm. To avoid being killed by them, he jumped into the river.

Arivu and Lakshmi came up to the river, saw ripples, and slowly the ripples became plain water, as the sun slowly dawned..