Voiced Whispers Part 7

"nn.. Nothing..nothing...... I'm fine. I'm just surprised why a girl this young would commit suicide. I don't understand their logic of doing such things."

"It might be due to poverty. She may not have seen a way out."

"It's still very surprising. Also, I don't understand why the police are dismissing it as suicide so soon."

"It all connects pretty well, and there seems to be no other reason for such a thing."

"But it could be that somebody killed her. They should at least explore that possibility!"

"Stop being a detective now Ansh. The police will do its job, and you don't have to do it for them."

"If they did their job, then we wouldn't be cursing them so much."

"Read the sports section. You'll feel better."

"I don't think I will. Given how United has been performing, it just seems unreasonable to even think that they'll do anything more than finish fourth this season. It's disappointing, really."

"Then go play on your gadgets, or watch something on your laptop. That's what you generally do at home anyway."

"Yeah, I'll do that," I said, and I went to my room and switched my laptop on, playing my favourite TV series on it.

The thought simply wasn't going away from my head. This was obviously Gujjar's work. He must have killed her, and then paid of the cops to dismiss her case as a suicide. Since she knew no person who was powerful enough to challenge him, n.o.body would ever question this entire fiasco, and she would be buried forever. If Gujjar could do this to her, it scared the life out of me to think what he would do to get Meira back.

I continued to watch the series, and soon put these thoughts behind me. Home has an intoxicating effect on a person's mind. One seems to forget all the difficulties, problems and issues that one faces when one is at home. I knew that the problem of Gujjar was looming upon me, but I also knew that there was nothing I could do about it at the present moment, and therefore I had to let it go. The loving care of my mother ensured that I didn't think of my problems too much, and stayed as happy as I could have been.

I did think about Aliya from time to time. The realisation of being in love with her hit me hard. I had never thought I would fall in love with someone, as I was far too focussed on my future. But then, a lot of unexpected things had happened in the last few months, and this was the least surprising one of them.

I thought of her surprise as she saw me for the first time in over a decade, that anger that she could never take out on me. Both of us knew that I was too young then to do anything about it, but somehow, she always expected me to do something.

Her happiness now gave me happiness, and whenever I thought of her smile as she tasted freedom after so many years, it brought a wide grin to my face. I was content with myself for doing this for her. This redemption was definitely worth the risk attached to it.

I didn't realise that my daydreaming and browsing on the laptop had taken up so much time that mom was now calling me for lunch.

"What's for lunch today?"

"What do you want?"

"I want Pizza!"

"Stop saying pizza every time I ask you what you want for lunch. I've made you parathas and your favourite curry. You're going to love this. You can have your pizza for dinner."

"That's great!" I exclaimed as I dug into the food.

My mom always loved it whenever I came home. With my sister and I both living outside home now, and dad working all day, mom would get a little lonely staying alone at home. Having me over for company was always fun for her.

I finished up lunch and lay down on the bed in my parents' room, watching the television. I heard the doorbell ring a while later, and mom let someone inside.

"Who is it mom?"

"It's an insurance person from Surana uncle's office. He needs your signature on a doc.u.ment."

"Stop making me sign so many autographs! I don't like the celebrity status," I joked, as I walked into the living room.

All of my happiness was washed out of my face as I turned pale when I looked at the agent's face.

There, smiling at me, with the insurance doc.u.ments in his hand, was Gujjar.

CHAPTER 20.

I stared at him for a few seconds, with my mouth wide open. He just looked back and me and kept smiling, his expression unchanged. I gathered my senses, and went back to normal. If he was pretending to be normal, then it was upon me to ensure that mom didn't find out about the entire episode. I sat beside mom on the sofa.

"Sir, you just need to sign here and here," he said, as he pointed out to two places on a piece of paper.

I picked up the pen and went on to sign. I browsed through the doc.u.ment first, at which even mom was surprised, since I had never done that in any scenario before. Finding nothing fishy, I signed the papers.

"Ma'am, could you get me a gla.s.s of water please?"

Mom went into the kitchen to get him some water. Just when mom went inside, he turned to me, and said, "Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. I won't wait longer than that, and if you don't turn up, you and your family will be in some serious trouble."

Mom came with the water, and he drank it quickly, and left.

I walked back to the room, thinking of some excuse to leave and go downstairs. Five minutes later, I pretended to take a phone call from a friend.

"You want to play now? Okay, I'll be there."

"Mom, Deepak wants to play pool with me. I'm going to the games centre with him. I'll be back in a while."

"Thank Deepak from my side for finally being successful in getting you out of the house."

"Very funny. Be back soon!"

I left to meet Gujjar, hoping that he'd be sane enough to not kill me in my residential complex. Whatever he would accuse me of, I had to go for outright denial.

"h.e.l.lo, Ansh. It's been a while since we met."

"Why have you come here? You asked me to stay away from you, and I did. You shouldn't interfere too!"

"Well, if only you were speaking the truth Ansh. I know what you have been up to."

"Please tell me what I've been up to."

"Stop acting so stupid. Meira and Aliya are missing, and both of us know how they got away."

"Meira? Aliya? I've never heard these names before."

"I asked you to stop acting stupid. I've done the background checks. You knew Aliya in your childhood. How you know Meira is beyond me, but I'll find that out too. We went looking for them everywhere around, but they weren't there. I'll find out everything about this, and if you're involved, you're going to be in some serious trouble."

"I'm telling you, I'm totally out of this. I haven't been involved in your activities ever since you sent me that message. I won't risk my family's safety."

"You see Ansh, I'm not as gullible as you think I am. Along with those two girls, a third girl had escaped. She ran away to Bhubaneshwar. Unfortunately for her, she didn't know that my goons work there too. The picture that you saw in today's newspaper, if you've read it, is of that girl. She didn't kill herself. I got her killed."

"But the reports say that it was a suicide."

"The cops will say what I ask them to say. You better be careful Ansh. Don't mess with my men."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"You should. This isn't one of the bollywood movie scenarios where you can be the hero and save the day."

I giggled slightly at this reference of his. Gujjar seemed stupider than I gave him credit for. It was probably one of his henchmen who did the scaring and thinking for him.

"You think I'm funny?" He grabbed me by the collar as he said that. "I'll show you what funny is."

He took out his phone, and played a video that washed the colour off my face.

In the video was the third girl, being beaten, raped and tortured by Gujjar's men. They did things to her that I couldn't imagine a human would do to another human. Tears came to my eyes as I saw that video.

"You should be lucky that she didn't say anything, or you would've been in serious trouble. I still have a hunch that you've done this, but I won't take any action till I am sure. But remember this; the day I find out that you've done this will be the last day of the existence of you and your family. You better watch out, Ansh."

This was getting much worse than I was expecting it to get. Gujjar was not supposed to be this ruthless. I would have to be a lot more careful now. No mistakes could be afforded with this person. He may not be that bright, but he had hired people who were pretty smart, and extremely intimidating.

He left in his car, staring at me all the while. When he was safely gone, I took my phone out, and pressed the pause b.u.t.ton on the voice recorder.

This testimony could be helpful in the future, if I would ever get the chance to bring this person to court.

This cat and mouse chase had to end, but an end didn't seem to come close. I had to leave for college in a few days, and I hoped that I would be safer in college. Keeping all of this away from my parents was becoming an increasingly difficult job now, and it was going to be a challenge to keep Gujjar at bay.

I went back home after a while to avoid suspicion, opened my laptop, and began editing images on Photoshop, creating a holiday that had never happened, since my mom wanted to see all the photos.

One hundred edited photos later, my mom exclaimed that we hadn't taken too many photos, and that some of them seemed a little weird. This was the point where I was literally thanking my mother's lack of comprehensive knowledge in technology.

After the day was done, I went back to my room and lay down, to rest after one scary day. Things needed to cool down now, in every aspect of my life. I couldn't take the stress any longer.

CHAPTER 21.

A week later, I was back in Kharagpur, back to the same routine life that I had been living over the past year. The people out here were not pleased that I had been out of touch for the entire week, and needed a confirmed reason for that. Fortunately, I had spent the week at home well.

"I was out with my family in Kerala, and didn't get network for most of the areas. Plus, it would've seemed rude if I had taken out my phone and texted people when I was supposed to spend time with all my family members. I'm sorry."

"Oh, it's fine Ansh," Ayu said, "I was just worried about you."

"Worried? I'd have been at home anyway!"

"Yes, but you're one crazy person. Who knows what you may end up doing."

"Well, that's true.

"So, how was Kerala?"

"It was amazing. We had lots of fun there; we played games, and talked a lot! There were so many things to catch up on!"

"That's great! I'd love to see all the pictures from your trip."

"Sure." I was prepared already this time, "I'll show you the pictures when we meet in the library, okay?"

"That sounds great. I have to go now, have some work pending."

"Even I have some a.s.signments to complete. Take care. See you soon!"

"You too take care!"

I went back to work, and finally decided to open the society's emails. The kind of work I was doing there wasn't really helping me in any way. There was nothing to learn in it, no advantages, no benefits to be gained. It was just boring work that I was doing because apparently the presence of a society in my resume was considered to be a great advantage.

Even then, I was seriously considering leaving this work. There was no use doing it. I could do much better things that would be much more helpful than sticking up posters and selling t-s.h.i.+rts. I decided to quit the society, and went to meet a senior to put that thought into effect.

"Ans.h.!.+ Where have you been for so long? There is so much work pending, and you're supposed to be doing so much of it. What have you done in the vacations?"

"I haven't done anything. I was out of town for the entire duration, so I couldn't get any work done."

"This is not how our society works. We give you enough leeway to do what you want to, but there is a certain amount of work that you have to complete. You've been given certain responsibilities as a subhead, and I expect you to fulfil them. How will you manage the fest if you work like this?"

"Actually, I was thinking of quitting Robotix."

"What? Why?"

"The kind of work I'm doing is not fun for me. Plus, I don't really think this will help me in the future. I'm not really interested in image processing."

"I see. But there's so much more to do too. We can find something interesting for you." The sudden change in tone was fun to hear.

I had to be careful now. This was a typical statement from them whenever anyone wanted to quit. "No. I think I'll be better off without this work."

"Okay, but at least stay till the big workshop. We need to do a lot of work, and abandoning us at this point isn't in the right spirit."