Pathological possession and emotional obsession

Toxic obsession is a central relational and moral pattern in the novel, defined by the conversion of affection into entitlement and of emotional dependence into control. Its clearest expression is Sherlie D Costa’s fixation on Shivam Goyal, but its consequences reach beyond their troubled friendship: it keeps Shivam psychologically bound to Sherlie, damages his relationship with Aparna Mahadevan, and eventually becomes entangled with Alex D Costa’s criminal violence against Mohini Bhattacharya. The story presents obsession not as a single outburst, but as a repeating structure in which pursuit, refusal, guilt, caretaking, and renewed pursuit feed one another.

Definition and Relational Pattern

The pattern begins with a mismatch between Shivam’s understanding of the relationship and Sherlie’s expectations. Shivam tells Aparna that he regarded Sherlie as a friend from childhood and never as a romantic partner, while Sherlie had interpreted the bond as something more. His refusal is therefore not merely a rejection of a new proposal; it is an attempt to restore a boundary that Sherlie has never accepted. When he says that he likes her but is not ready, she demands to know when he will be ready, treating uncertainty as an evasion and the passage of time as evidence that she is being denied what is owed to her.

Shivam’s emotional center remains occupied by Mohini. He admits that he may never be ready because he cannot forget her and cannot let her go. Rather than recognizing this grief as a limit that must be respected, Sherlie challenges it directly, asking whether she figures anywhere in his life and whether his heart will ever open to anyone else. Her language turns Shivam’s mourning into a rival claim: Mohini’s memory is not simply part of his past but an obstacle Sherlie believes must be overcome.

The relationship consequently takes the form of a pursuit-and-withdrawal loop. Shivam tries to create distance, yet feels unable to push Sherlie away because he fears provoking another suicidal attempt. Sherlie’s vulnerability thus becomes a force that constrains his freedom. He does not remain close because he has chosen a reciprocal romance; he remains entangled because separation appears morally dangerous. The result is an intimacy governed by anxiety rather than mutual consent.

Escalation Through the Plot

The earlier history of the fixation shows that it has been escalating for years. Shivam recalls proposing to Mohini in college and bringing her to meet his family around Satyam Goyal’s wedding. Sherlie was present and suddenly insulted Mohini. Shivam recognized this as the first unmistakable sign that Sherlie’s attachment had become unhealthy, confronted her, and then learned that she had slit her wrists. The act transformed a romantic rivalry into a crisis requiring the intervention of family and medical care.

Alex sent Sherlie to his sister’s home in France, producing a temporary period of peace. From there, Sherlie continued to email Shivam with apologies for her outbursts, and she even wrote to Mohini. These gestures appeared to indicate recovery and allowed Shivam to hope that the danger had passed. The apparent improvement, however, did not dissolve the underlying possessiveness. The later confrontations reveal that the obsession had been managed, not resolved.

In the present, Sherlie again presses Shivam for emotional recognition. He tells her plainly that she should move on, while she grabs his hand and insists that he must answer for the space Mohini occupies in his heart. Their confrontation ends only when Aparna, Shija Meity, and Pranav Sharma appear at the elevator, exposing the private conflict to the younger team and leaving Aparna to retreat awkwardly with the others. The scene makes the obsession socially visible: what Sherlie treats as an intimate claim has become an embarrassing and destabilizing spectacle.

The pattern reappears on Shivam’s birthday. Sherlie arranges an elaborate celebration for the two of them, despite his lack of reciprocal commitment. Shivam initially mistakes the card for one from Aparna, then feels trapped when he realizes the event is Sherlie’s construction. He repeatedly calls Aparna without receiving an answer and experiences the celebration as a form of emotional cornering. Sherlie responds by promising that she will not attempt suicide again, that she is taking her medication, and that she will not force or suffocate him with her obsession. The promises acknowledge the danger, but they also keep Shivam in the role of witness and caretaker, precisely the role from which he is trying to escape.

Possessiveness and Violence

The most destructive form of the pattern appears in the recorded boardroom conversation shown to Shivam by Inspector Didolkar. In the video, Sherlie is distressed by Aparna’s presence in Shivam’s life and complains that Aparna’s messages fill Shivam’s phone. She does not merely ask for reassurance or express jealousy; she tells Alex to get Aparna out of their way. The possessive logic has crossed from emotional pressure into an instruction with potentially lethal implications.

Alex answers that he knows what must be done and tells Sherlie that Aparna will soon be out of her way. He also warns that Mohini’s earlier “incident” had been too risky and that they cannot take chances again. The recording links the two women in a single chain of threatened removal: Mohini was previously eliminated as an obstacle, and Aparna is now marked for the same treatment. Sherlie’s obsession supplies the demand, while Alex’s paternal complicity supplies the means and the language of protection.

The revelation overturns Shivam’s understanding of Mohini’s death. Watching the video, he sees Alex restrain Sherlie and attempt to control her agitation, but the apparent effort to manage her crisis conceals an older crime. When Sherlie reminds Alex that he had already sent Mohini away from Shivam’s life, Alex admits to Shivam that he had Mohini killed. Toxic obsession therefore proves inseparable from a wider structure of enabling: Sherlie’s fixation does not remain inside her own mind, and Alex’s care does not function as a corrective. Together they turn possessive fantasy into organized harm.

Effects on Shivam and Aparna

Shivam is both the object of the obsession and one of its most important casualties. His grief for Mohini is genuine, and Rati Goyal tells him that first love cannot simply be removed from the mind; he must live with the grief without closing his heart forever. Shivam understands the truth of that distinction, but Sherlie’s demands make mourning appear to require a permanent refusal of new intimacy. His inability to separate compassion from obligation leaves him caught between loyalty to the dead, fear for Sherlie’s safety, and the possibility of love with Aparna.

The consequences reach Aparna before she knows the full history. She sees Shivam’s confusion and asks where she stands in his life, exposing the emotional ambiguity created by Sherlie’s presence. At the airport, Shivam explains that he wants Aparna to remain with him, yet acknowledges that his obligations might burden her or deprive her of her rights. His confession is also an admission that the relationship cannot be understood apart from the toxic friendship he has failed to end.

Aparna names Sherlie’s behavior as toxic, and Shivam does not disagree. He explains that he wants to escape the friendship but cannot consciously push Sherlie toward another suicide attempt. This formulation reveals the moral trap at the center of the pattern: Sherlie’s suffering is real, but the threat of its recurrence has become a mechanism that governs Shivam’s choices. Aparna’s response offers understanding without accepting the arrangement as harmless, making visible the difference between compassion and submission to coercion.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

The novel develops toxic obsession through recurrence and reversal. Early acts of jealousy, the wrist-slitting attempt, apologetic emails, birthday pressure, promises of medication, and renewed demands initially seem to belong to the private history of two people who cannot disentangle themselves. The later recording forces those episodes into a darker pattern. What appeared to be possessive distress has helped create the conditions under which others act violently, and what appeared to be paternal protection has concealed murder.

The motif also contrasts reciprocal love with love treated as possession. Shivam’s relationship with Mohini survives as grief, while his emerging relationship with Aparna depends on disclosure, consent, and the possibility of staying without surrendering autonomy. Sherlie repeatedly seeks to make Shivam’s emotional life answerable to her: if he remembers Mohini, she is excluded; if he turns toward Aparna, Aparna becomes an obstacle; if he tries to leave, her self-harm becomes the consequence he must prevent. The story’s decisive warning is that affection loses its ethical character when another person’s freedom becomes intolerable.

By the time Alex’s confession is revealed, toxic obsession has become more than a characterization of Sherlie. It is a system of damaged attachments in which grief is denied, boundaries are repeatedly tested, and caretaking becomes complicity. The pattern explains why Shivam has struggled to move forward, why Aparna feels excluded from his life, why Sherlie remains unable to accept refusal, and why Mohini’s death is finally understood as the extreme consequence of treating love as a right to control another person’s world.