“Ms. Pooja what is this? You’ve been skimping this report for a week. This turtle’s trick is not going to work here lady.”
“I apologise sir. I assure you the report will be on your desk by tomorrow.”
She replies with a broken eye contact.
“By tomorrow? Are you kidding me? It shall be in order by this evening. You are being paid for it.”
“I’ll wind it up. Sir.”
She pulls the door of her boss’s cabin to leave.
“And yes, this is not your home where you can come and leave irrespective of the clock.You’ll be accountable for your result.”
Nodding like a tallyman she shuts the door behind.
She’s a second away from dropping off her eyelids as she leans towards her table . But newspaper lying on the table lifts her eyelids up in the very next second.
‘An IT man found barbarically injured on outskirts of the town.’ – Read the bold headline. She should have disremembered this man’s photo in newspaper.
Neeraj Kushwah, an employee of SVGC Firms was attacked late in midnight on fringe of the city. While she’s in the way to hospital, these static words pressed in newspaper hums loudly in her head. After half an hour, she hits hospital cited in news. Her heartbeats leave watch behind. Arising and holding her pace, she battles tooth and nail to avoid emotional eruption. From one end of corridor, she sees a girl with a woman boohooing inconsolably. Girl’s eyes push her in flashbacks of road behind campus, where she had partly enjoyed wryness in similar kind of eyes. The similar eyes in which she had descent once. More than once.
She ceases thread of her thoughts and shifts her vision to the colourless faced lady who seems to be suffering from deficiency of tears now.
He weighs upon his pulses in ICU. His wife and daughter sit hopelessly helpless outside. It anguishes his wife to anticipate the sorry news from doctors. Somewhere in her head, Pooja compares pain over herself and Mrs. _____.
His wife’s name?
She doesn’t know.
Demonic destiny is the name that can be given to the situation of all three women outside ICU.
Playing stare with his daughter, a part of her liver wishes to efface tears from her familiar eyes.
Why liver?
Because heart stops thinking sometimes.
Unwillingly ,she leaves for home. A home to which she actually belongs.
She shouldn’t be surprised to receive a message from RCBL- A young IT company in which she works as a designing manager.
Rather worked.
Though the message is quite long, But it bumps into full stop with a pleasingly aching sentence- …..So, you’re off this job due to your punctual absenteeism.
Like submarines, Pooja remains unaffected by the storms striking hard in her life. Even her sons’ nightout doesn’t cause her whiff. She breathes in a nut shell. Her home.
Job? She has lost.
Husband and children? Usually out of home.
Peace? What’s that shit?
He’s alive. Of course he is. Otherwise she could find it in fatal paper, newspaper. These self baked thoughts keep her busy.
Days race against flow of liquid in veins.
Nights hug her dryly.
Earlier she was in a still boat in a still sea but now she’s in a still boat in a stormy sea.
A similar kind of difference.
One afteenoon she leaves nut shell to Neeraj’s home. After earth’s eight rotations on its axis, she digs enough strength to see him. It’s always difficult to bring heart and brain in an equilibrium. As difficult as it is to put peanut butter back in fridge.
Door bell rings.
“Coming.” A voice comes from inside.
Neeraj’s wife Shahlini gives a half smiling, half surprising look to Pooja.
A smile is always in fashion and a day doesn’t go by when you don’t get surprised.
“I’m Pooja, Neeraj’s colleague.”
A lie that may take care of present but it has no future. Telling a lie to protect someone you love only destroys them in the end.
“Ahh, please come inside. Have a seat lady. It’s good to see you here.”
They wanna see you good but never better than them. Remember that.
Silence greets Pooja when she sits on couch. The same couch where she sat once before.
“Thanks, How’s Neeraj now?” Pooja modulated voice in a formal empathy.
“Better but not fully recuperated.” Shalini says.
“Oh, where’s he?”
“He’s upstairs. Let me take you there.”
And Shalini has no idea that Pooja has been in his bedroom once before.
“Go and surprise him. Meanwhile I’ll bake some cuisines .” Shahlini mocks a funny tiddler while going downstairs.
Pooja sits on a chair close to his bed. Needless to say that they play stare. She leans towards him.
A microsecond kiss.
And her eyes begin leaking.
She has built a bridge of lies to cross a river of risks. But now she has a wordless tongue.
“Do you know who has done this to me?” Neeraj cracks the silence.
She expresses a no with repetitive gesture of neck. Then, she recalls that column of fatal paper which said……by unknown assaulter(s).
“I’ve heard that sons share everything with their mums.” He starts creating suspense.
“I’m not getting you. Stop bushing around.” She insists.
“These wounds are gifts of your sons for the love we made lately.”
She dives in past few seconds to translate his words.
“Wha-a-at ? mean you….Are you…my sons…what?” She can’t even make a sense in a sentence.
“Yes, Your sons.” He replies calmly.
“Don’t be a crap bag to wish-wash about my children. Why the hell they’d have done it?”
“Your sons have come to know about that last time we met, What we did, I mean you know what I mean.” His look doesn’t seem to vary even with intensity of his words.
“I don’t believe this ,even an inch. Don’t say it unless you mean it and if you mean it, be ready to prove it.” She says angrily.
“Ask them to swear on your name. Hopefully criminals will squeal to mother. Police investigation is going on. I’ve given in my statement that they were two young boys who attacked on me. I can tell the police anytime that I’ve seen those boys in this area itself. Maybe I give them your home’s address too. What you..
“Wait.” She cuts him in between.
“How do know that they were my sons ? you’ve never met or seen them.”
“Awe, you think I met you accidentally, all of a sudden that day? Well, that’s enough for your understanding my love.” He says in a strange kind of politeness.
“Means you already knew about me, my husband and children before we met? You stalked me?” She’s more shocked now.
“Yes, Yes, Yes.” He replies.
” Why?” Pooja asks puzzlingly.
“That’s not a question of this hour. I don’t know how your sons got to know that. Nevertheless a crime is a serious crime. I can’t stand on myself. I can’t feed my family for over months. Congratulations! You’re a proud mother of two murderers.” He says.
“If it is so, then why you’ve not told cops the truth yet?”
“Because I knew you’ll come to see me. And before anyone else I wanted you to know this for sake of some business.”
After a wicked look he speaks again:
“I’m likely to see them behind the bars. Oh ya, they’re too young to be in prison. So, they should be in a borstal.” He says firmly.
“You can’t do this.” Her voice trembles.
“I can.”
“You won’t do this.”
“I’ll. My love.” He says sedately.
“I beg you Neeraj. I beg you my sons’ lives. There won’t be any future for them afterwards. Please!! forgive them. At least for the sake of our once upon a time…. I can help you in funds. See, you’re recovering now.” Tears fills her eyes unlike the ones which leaked when she came in his room.
“I can’t leave your sons. Or maybe I can. But,..
This word ‘but’ will top the list of most dangerous words.
“But I’ve a condition.”
To be continued…….
AYUSHI PRADHAN
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