What if your past was never yours to begin with?
In Inheritance of Silence, Dr. Riya Choudhury—an esteemed forensic psychiatrist—receives news that her estranged father has been found dead in the Hooghly River. But when the forensic details don’t add up, Riya is pulled back to the tea estate of her childhood, where buried memories and literal graves begin to surface. A haunting psychological mystery unfolds, tracing secrets, identity, and betrayal across decades and state-sponsored silence.
A story about memory, manipulation, and reclaiming truth—this is one unraveling you won’t forget.
Dr. Riya Choudhury sat in her Kolkata office, surrounded by the quiet hum of success. Certificates lined the walls, each one a testament to her skill as a forensic psychiatrist who could read lips on grainy interrogation videos and unravel lies. A steaming cup of tea rested on her desk. She dipped a finger to check its warmth—a habit she never questioned—and took a careful sip. Her eyes scanned a case file, but the sharp ring of her phone broke her focus.
“Dr. Choudhury?” The voice on the line was heavy, hesitant. “Inspector Das, Kolkata Police. We need you at the morgue. It’s to identify a body.”
Riya’s chest tightened. “Who is it?”
“We believe it’s your father, Dr. Aniruddha Choudhury. I’m sorry.”
The morgue’s cold air hit Riya like a slap. The body on the slab was bloated, the face unrecognizable, swollen from days in the Hooghly River. She stared, searching for something familiar. Then she saw his hands—perfectly manicured nails, trimmed with obsessive care. Her father. Tears burned her eyes. She sank to her knees, a sob catching in her throat. “Papa, why did you do this?”
That night, in her small apartment, Riya curled up on the couch, clutching a photo of her father from happier times. He’d been her rock after her mother died when she was ten, raising her alone on the Sundarbani Tea Estate. But two years ago, his drinking spiraled. They fought, words cutting deeper than they meant. She moved out, leaving him to his bottles. Guilt gnawed at her now. “If I’d stayed,” she whispered to the empty room, “maybe you’d still be here.” Her gaze fell on an ivory hairpin on her dresser, a childhood keepsake. She couldn’t remember why it mattered.
A week later, a package arrived from the police. They’d ruled her father’s death an accident—drowning after too much whiskey. Riya flipped through the postmortem report, her training kicking in. Fresh river water filled his lungs, but his clothes carried traces of stagnant tea estate runoff. The mismatch made her pause. Among his possessions were a 2001 train ticket to Guwahati and a child’s ivory hairpin, identical to hers. She froze. At the morgue, she’d noticed faint rope burns on his wrists, overlooked in the report. “This wasn’t an accident,” she said to herself. “Someone killed him.”
Riya had seen sloppy police work before. The ticket and runoff pointed to Sundarbani Tea Estate, where she’d grown up. She booked a train to Guwahati that night, determined to find the truth.
Guwahati’s railway station buzzed with morning chaos. Riya checked into a budget hotel, splashed water on her face, and rented a car. The drive to Sundarbani stirred memories. She saw herself as a child, running through tea bushes, her father laughing as he chased her. Her mother’s death had left a void, and then there was Maya, her twin sister, who drowned at eight. Riya’s memories of Maya were fuzzy, but the nightmares were vivid—hands holding her underwater, her lungs screaming. They’d haunted her for years.
The estate came into view, wild and overgrown, tea bushes strangling old colonial bungalows. Workers moved quietly, some touching amulets around their necks, a gesture to ward off bad spirits. One whispered, “Doctor saab,” her father’s old title, followed by something sharp—maybe “trouble.” Riya couldn’t catch it, but unease settled in her gut.
Biren Gogoi, the estate manager, met her at the gate. His face was weathered, his eyes guarded. “Dr. Riya,” he said, offering a stiff handshake. “I’m so sorry about your father. I worked for him when you were a kid. Good man.”
Riya forced a smile. “Thanks, Biren. I’m here because… he was planning to visit his old home before he died.” The lie came easily. “I just need to understand why he’s gone.”
Biren poured tea, his calloused hands trembling slightly. “You won’t find what you’re looking for here, Doctor.” His voice was polite but strained, like he was hiding something. Riya swirled her tea, checking its heat, and noticed Biren’s eyes linger on the gesture. He offered her father’s old room. “Stay as long as you like.”
The room was bare, scrubbed clean, no trace of her father’s life. Riya’s thoughts drifted to the estate clinic, where he’d worked. Under cover of night, she crept across the compound and slipped inside. The air was thick with dust, but a locked cabinet held secrets. She found a file with her name, dated 2001, when she was eight. It listed a hospital stay for “malaria” during the months Maya supposedly drowned. A hidden note read, “Subject 7 – neural transfer initiated.” Her heart pounded.
Tucked inside were polaroids of a man with a caged myna bird—the same bird from her nightmares. She searched his face on her phone. Dr. Narayan Vohra, convicted in 2012 for unethical brain experiments using transcranial magnetic stimulation, a method to alter memory. The articles linked him to NeuPath Laboratories, a Kolkata neurosurgery firm. Then she found a birth certificate: Nayana Choudhury, born the same day and time as Riya, to her parents. Her mind reeled. “Triplets? Not twins?”
The next morning, Riya lingered at the estate’s tea stall, the aroma of brewing chai grounding her as she sipped from a chipped cup. Her thoughts churned, tangled with questions about the clinic’s files and the cryptic note about “Subject 7.” Across the stall, a worker named Laxmi caught her eye. The older woman’s gaze darted toward Riya, then away, her fingers twisting the edge of her sari nervously. Riya’s instincts, honed from years of reading suspects, sparked. Laxmi knew something.
That evening, as the sun dipped below the tea bushes, casting long shadows, Riya followed Laxmi to her hut, a small structure of mud and thatch tucked near the estate’s edge. She knocked softly, her heart thudding. Laxmi opened the door, her face tightening with fear. “I know you’re hiding something,” Riya said, her voice calm but firm, like she was questioning a witness. “Tell me about my father.”
Laxmi’s hands trembled, her eyes flicking to the darkening path outside. “I don’t know anything,” she stammered, but her voice wavered.
“Don’t lie to me,” Riya said, stepping closer, her tone sharp but controlled. “You worked here when I was a kid. You knew my family. What happened?”
Laxmi’s shoulders sagged, as if the weight of years pressed down on her. “Your mother…” she began, her voice barely above a whisper. “She had one daughter. Only one. That girl died.”
Riya’s breath caught, her chest tightening. “Then who am I? Was I adopted?”
Before Laxmi could answer, a flash of steel cut through the dim light. Biren emerged from the shadows, his machete raised, his right arm trembling—just like the shaky hand in Riya’s drowning nightmares. Her reflexes kicked in. She sidestepped, grabbing his wrist and twisting hard until the blade clattered to the ground. Biren gasped, his face gray, and collapsed, clutching a keyring as he wheezed, “You’re not her.” His eyes rolled back, and he went limp. Riya’s pulse raced as she spotted a key labeled “No. 5” fall from his hand. She snatched it up, her mind racing. An ambulance arrived minutes later, rushing Biren to the hospital, his lung disease turning critical.
Laxmi stood frozen, her hands covering her mouth. As they walked back toward the estate under the gathering stars, she spoke, her voice thick with guilt. “Your father paid me to stay quiet,” she said, her words halting. “He brought children to Drying Shed No. 5. I saw them go in, but… they never came out. Biren was part of it. That’s why he tried to stop me tonight.”
Riya’s stomach churned, but she kept her voice steady. “What did they do to those children?”
Laxmi looked down, her fingers twisting her sari again. “I didn’t ask. The money was good—enough to feed my family. I cared for your mother, too, after she lost her child. She was never the same.”
“After Maya died?” Riya asked, her throat tight.
Laxmi’s brow furrowed, confusion clouding her face. “Who’s Maya? Her daughter was Nayana.”
Riya stopped walking, her heart pounding. “Then who am I?” Her voice cracked, raw with desperation. “Was I adopted?”
Laxmi’s eyes softened, but she shook her head. “I don’t know, beta. One day, you were just there, in the big house. Your father called you his daughter. We didn’t question him.”
Riya nodded, her mind reeling as Laxmi’s words sank in. The key in her pocket felt heavier, a clue to the truth she was only beginning to uncover.
Riya drove to the estate, the key labeled “No. 5” burning in her pocket. Drying Shed No. 5 loomed ahead, its sagging wooden walls and boarded windows half-swallowed by wild tea bushes. The air felt heavy, as if the shed guarded its secrets. She pushed open the creaking door, her flashlight cutting through the oppressive darkness. The beam revealed nineteen small graves, each marked with a numbered stick from 1 to 20, dated 2001 to 2005. Number 7 was missing. Her breath hitched—these were children’s graves, hidden in this forgotten place.
A rusted cupboard stood in the corner, its door warped. Riya pried it open, hinges screaming, and found documents, polaroids, and 8mm film reels. Her hands shook as she flipped through the photos: her father, face grim, attaching electrodes to children’s scalps. One image froze her—herself at eight, eyes wide with fear, labeled “Subject 7.” Others read “Subject 1,” “Subject 2,” “Sachin Gogoi.” Her father’s handwriting. Tears stung her eyes.
She played an 8mm film on her phone, the footage grainy. Lip-reading, she caught her father’s words: “The mind must hold both or break.” Two identical hairpins glinted—one in her hair, another on a girl who looked like her. A memory surged: she was underwater, lungs burning, watching herself struggle. Another polaroid showed her father injecting her, a vial labeled “Subject 7 – Memory Stabilizer.” Then, a softer memory—a girl in a garden, someone calling “Nandini” with love. She answered, heart light.
Riya sank to the floor, clutching the polaroids. Her father’s betrayal cut deep, but she steeled herself. She needed answers, not just for herself, but for the children buried here.
Riya’s phone buzzed as she left the shed, her hands trembling from the discoveries. The hospital reported Biren was conscious. She drove to Guwahati’s general ward, where he lay, his face gaunt under the oxygen mask’s fog. She held up the polaroids, her voice steady despite her churning emotions. “I found the graves,” she said. “Nineteen children, including Sachin. My name was there—Subject 7. What did my father do?”
Biren’s eyes locked on the photos, pain flickering across his face. He pulled the mask aside, coughing, his voice a ragged whisper. “I didn’t want this. NeuPath paid your father to test memory transfers—planting fake memories in children. They wanted witnesses who could swear they saw crimes that never happened, to frame enemies of the state.” His gaze dropped, shame heavy. “My son, Sachin… I gave him up for money. I hear him still, crying for his mother as they took him to that shed. I told myself he’d be fine, but…” He choked, tears welling. “I was wrong.”
Riya’s heart twisted, the image of Sachin’s cry searing her mind. “Why me?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Why am I Subject 7?”
“You’re Nandini,” Biren said, meeting her eyes with a weary grief. “Your real father, Shankar Roy, was a union leader here. He tried to expose NeuPath’s experiments. They killed him. You were alone after that, a child with no one. Aniruddha took you in, used you for the tests because you wouldn’t be missed. I’m sorry, beta.”
Riya’s throat tightened, her father’s betrayal now a wound she could name. She left the hospital, Biren’s confession echoing, and returned to the estate clinic, driven to uncover every truth. The dusty shelves held a 2001 NeuPath contract, its yellowed pages detailing trials to create “perfect witnesses” for fabricated crimes, a tool for corrupt regimes. A list named prisoners from 1999 to 2001, Shankar Roy marked: “Terminated via arsenic.”
A memory flashed: Riya, small and scared, watching Shankar sip tea, his face paling, his hand trembling. Days later, he was gone. Her tea-checking habit made sense—a scar from that poison. She pressed a hand to her mouth, nausea rising.
A ledger, hidden behind a loose panel, listed payments to Laxmi and Biren for “silence.” It revealed Maya was a lie—a fabricated identity woven from other children’s memories to erase Nandini’s past. Her father used magnetic stimulation and tannin-based drugs from the estate’s tea to plant them. Sessions stopped at sixteen when the drugs were banned, her father noting, “Subject 7 stable.” The memories held, burying Nandini.
Riya left Guwahati the next morning, her bag heavy with documents and the weight of her new truth. Before boarding the train, she called Arjun, a hacker friend from her college days. “I need you to get into Papa’s email,” she said, her voice steady despite the ache in her chest. “Whatever it takes.”
Back in Kolkata, Arjun texted her a new password. Riya sat at her desk, the hairpin glinting under the lamplight, and logged in. Her father’s inbox held a draft email to the Human Rights Commission, a confession spilling everything—NeuPath’s experiments, the children, the lies. A reply from an anonymous NeuPath executive was chillingly blunt: “Speak, and you die.” Riya’s pulse quickened. She cross-referenced the postmortem report, confirming the runoff on her father’s clothes matched Sundarbani’s river. He’d been killed there, his wrists bound, then dumped in the Hooghly to stage an accident. NeuPath’s 2025 IPO was days away—they’d murdered him to protect their secrets.
Riya spent the night compiling evidence: the NeuPath contract, the ledger, the polaroids, and screenshots of the emails. She wrote anonymous letters to the Human Rights Commission, Guwahati Police, and three local journalists, attaching copies of everything. Her hands shook as she sealed the envelopes, but her resolve held firm. This wasn’t just for her—it was for Sachin, for the nineteen children, for Nandini.
Fifteen days later, on the eve of NeuPath’s IPO, Riya sat in her Kolkata office, the city’s hum a distant murmur beyond her window. A cup of tea steamed on her desk, its warmth untouched. She swirled it absently, her fingers pausing as she set it down, a quiet smile tugging at her lips. The gesture felt different now, a remnant of a past she’d reclaimed. Her desk held a new nameplate: Dr. Nandini Roy, etched in simple, bold letters. Beside it lay a woven bracelet, Sachin’s, its frayed threads a silent tribute to the boy whose grave she’d uncovered.
The television flickered on, its volume low but insistent. A news anchor’s voice broke through: “Breaking News: Authorities have uncovered the remains of nineteen children in a laboratory linked to NeuPath Industries, days before the company’s planned IPO.” Riya leaned back in her chair, her eyes closing for a moment. The weight of her father’s betrayal, the truth of her identity, and the lives lost in that shed pressed against her, but so did the clarity of what she’d done. She’d torn open the past, exposed NeuPath’s crimes, and given voice to the silenced.
In her desk drawer, the ivory hairpin rested, no longer a mystery but a tether—to the girl she wasn’t, and the woman she’d become. Nandini Roy had brought the truth to light, and that was enough.
