Nirupama

(Some Secrets May Better Remain Secrets Forever)

'I cannot bear this', 'I want to pluck my eyes out' only these two sentences were the clues which the late girl Nirupama left in writing one on a wall and one in a book quite unintentionally and involuntarily to know about the reason for her committing suicide. Her father Ranganath, detective Smaran and his niece Menaka along with Nirupama's friend Sukanya pretty well understood that Nirupama did not want the said secret to be known to anyone else. But since her father Ranganath hell bent upon knowing about the said secret, detective Smaran and his niece Menaka ruthlessly investigated the matter only to unearth the said ghastly, shocking and astounding secret which the dead girl terribly wished to keep only with her in her grave forever.

x x x x x

Menaka wondered, what this means? Tears flowing down, completely distraught. Finding her cheerful again would not change anything. She might be forced herself to behave like that.

Then they heard sounds and looked at the entrance. Two elderly people one man and woman entered into the house. Menaka understood they were the parents of that boy and stood up.

"I think you are that girl staying in Ranganath's house?" the woman asked while looking at Menaka.

"Yes," Menaka nodded her head.

"Are you a relative to those people?" the man asked.

"Yes." Menaka felt uneasy.

He deeply breathed and hissed out. "Very sad. Their daughter died like that."

Menaka nodded her head. "You are right."

"I just cannot look at them. I don't know why but I am having a guilty feeling whenever I looked at that couple."

"Never feel like that. What they both do want now is all of our support. Please try to talk with them, be friendly with them." Menaka pleaded.

"You are right." That woman said. "Even you are so young, you put it right. Now what they do want is our support as you said. I go and talk to that old woman. Suhash, you go and talk with that Ranganath. They must not be left like that at all."

"Oh, sure. I do it." He said.

"Thank you very much auntie. I come again." Menaka said.

"Take some coffee. For the first time you have come to our house." That woman said.

"Not now. When the next time I come I sure take it."

Saying bye to Bittoo also she left that home.

***

"I just have no time pass sitting all the time in that house, so I have come." After entering into the house of Sukanya, Menaka said.

"Indeed my pleasure. Please sit." Sukanya's smile was really warming

"Are you busy in something? Am I disturbing you?" with a frown Menaka asked her.

"Not at all. This is Sunday and I just don't know how to pass my time." Sukanya once again laughed.

As they both were talking like that Sukanya's mother came there.

"Oh, you came! This time you must take your lunch with us." She said.

"Alright then." Menaka nodded her head.

Then that woman went inside.

"Tell me. How the life is going inside that house for you? How long you have planned to stay there?"

"Twenty days from now on. Ten days passed without much progress. My uncle gave promise to solve this mystery in one month."

"I see." Sukanya nodded her head.

"Now I have to answer your first question. Not very much happy. I am feeling so sad whenever I looked at that Ranganath. My heart is cringing whenever I looked at that old woman."

"Your feelings are understandable." Sukanya said.

"Auntie's madness is surprising to me! She is perfect in all other things but imagining her daughter as still alive."

Sukanya breathed deeply and hissed out. "I too cannot understand that." She said

"You have not come there even for once after I came into that house. Have you gone to that house after Nirupama's death?"

"I came there only on one or two occasions. I just cannot bear the feeling in that house without Nirupama."

"I can understand. But that old couple needs all our support now. How can you leave them so?"

Immediately there was a change in Sukanya. "You are right. Why don't I think like that?" she paused for a moment and then said. "I come there on this day evening itself."

"Please do that."

"What about your uncle? What he exactly does?"

"Detection. He has been doing that quite successfully for the last twenty years or so." Menaka paused for a moment. It was so that she wanted to tell something more and Sukanya remained silent expectantly.

"Just twenty years or so back his wife died in a road accident. She was three months' pregnant at that time."

"How horrible!" Sukanya exclaimed. "I did not expect this at all."

"My uncle used to work as an Inspector in police department. He resigned to his job then."

"But why?" Sukanya frowned.

"I don't know. After that, he started this detective agency. It is going successfully."

"I am very sorry. No one can think that your uncle has such a past." Sukanya paused for a moment and then asked. "Why did not your uncle chose to marry again?"

"My mother compelled him a lot for that, she said to me. But he chose that strongly not to marry again."

"Great. Indeed great." Sukanya mumbled.

Time went unnoticed. They both were involved in talking like that. They both enjoyed talking and listening to the other. It was the ringing of the cell phone of Menaka that took her into this world. "Ranganath. He may be looking for me in the home. I have to go."

"Come again. I really liked talking to you like this." Sukanya said.

"Sure. You too do come there. You must not leave the old couple like that." Menaka said.

"I shall come very soon." With firmness in her voice Sukanya said.

***

"Where did you go?" Ranganath asked Menaka.

"I went to Sukanya's home." Menaka smiled. "She became a friend to me recently."

"Very nice girl indeed." Ranganath nodded his head.

"What aunt is doing now?"

"Preparing dinner. If you want to talk with her go straight into the kitchen."

Menaka did just like that. She went into the kitchen and put her hands around Nirmala's shoulders. "Oh! You came! Just like Nirupama. She too does not know time if she goes to Sukanya's house."

"Is it is so?" Menaka said. By then she accustomed to hear about Nirupama from Nirmala.

"If you want to take rest go and take it. I can manage with the work here myself."Nirmala said.

"No. I want to help you. Tell me how can I help you here?" hugging her even more closely Menaka asked.

Nirmala looked into the eyes of Menaka and smiled. "There is not much to do now here. If you are much interested I make you do the whole cooking in the morning."

"I really do love doing it like that." Menaka laughed. "But you must guide me all through."

As they were talking like that Nirmala finished her work. "Come" she said and both of them entered into the hall there.

"Our Menaka is a big help to you in the kitchen, is it is not?" Ranganath asked.

"I did not do even a little work there." Menaka confessed. "I am not a much performer in the kitchen."

"I shall make you perform wonders in the kitchen." Nirmala said. "I do give coffee to you both now." Nirmala said and went into the kitchen.

By his facial expression Menaka understood that Ranganath wanted to say something. Before Menaka say anything Nirmala came there with coffee cups in a tray. "Take it." She said.

Menaka and Ranganath took the two coffee cups from the tray. "Why? Don't you take coffee?" Menaka asked her.

"Not many times. I took my share before you came to home." She paused for a moment and then said. "Now I go to the market and come back. You just talk with each other and pass the time." Taking a bag from there she left the house.

"What is this?" Menaka asked once she made herself sure that Nirmala left the house and could not hear them. "I just cannot believe that she is mentally unbalanced."

"But what we do call her imagining a dead girl as living? Except that in every other aspect she is alright." Ranganath said.

"You want to ask me something?" Remembering his facial expression just before, Menaka asked him.

"Did she say anything about Nirupama while you were in the kitchen with her?"

"Yes, she mentioned her." Then Menaka said to him what Nirmala said about Nirupama to her.

"In her opinion Nirupama is in her relatives' home now." He too deeply breathed. "Or atleast she is imagining like that."

"I just cannot understand here. How anyone can imagine like that?"

"Quite peculiar, is it is not? Why things are happening like this only to me?" Ranganath frowned. "In one way she is luckier to me."

"How?" Menaka asked him surprisingly.

"She is happy imagining her daughter like that. She does not acknowledge the fact that her daughter is no more. It is not so for me. The fact that my daughter is not alive on this day is scorching my heart."

"Oh, Please. You must adjust yourself to the truth. There is no other way." Menaka started intensely feeling bad seeing Ranganath like that.

"I never can, I never can adjust myself to the ghastly truth." Ranganath helplessly said. "You just cannot imagine how much my daughter loved me and I loved her."

"I can imagine how a relationship between a father and daughter." Menaka said. "Even I lost my father in my childhood itself."

"Is it is so? I am very sorry." Ranganath said.

Menaka hissed out heavily. "You need not. I have adjusted to that truth a long time back itself since it happened in my childhood. Moreover my mother looks after me that well I don't need anyone else."

Ranganath nodded his head and smiled. "What is your mother doing now?"

"She is a bank manager. I am the only daughter to her."

"Your mother is lucky. She got a pretty and intelligent daughter like you."

"Not so. I am lucky. You don't know what a nice lady my mother is."

Ranganath laughed and said "You both are lucky. You are having each other."

Menaka became serious and said. "I want to ask some questions, if you don't mind." She paused for a moment and said again. "These questions may be uncomfortable to you."

"Go on. I never mind." Ranganath said.

"How aunty has turned up when she found her daughter dead?"

"I already told. She became mad." There was sorrow in his tone.

"I want it in more detail. Did she imagine like this then too?"

"Yes. She did not accept the truth. Even at the time of taking my dead daughter away also, she just remained like that as if it were someone else."

"Horrible! But I cannot understand ..... How it is possible?............ How she remain normal in every other thing?" Menaka exclaimed. "How the news of it not affected her at all?"

"It affected her in the worst way you see." Ranganath's face clouded with distress. "She lost her sanity."

"But not in a complete way." Menaka got off from the chair. "She is normal in every other way. There is no problem to any one by her. The only most peculiar thing here is from the moment of her daughter's death, she did not accept it at all. She is still assuming and believing that her daughter is alive. Strange madness!"

"You are right." Ranganath could not understand what Menaka is driving at. "What you are really trying to get at?"

"I cannot say. I don't know." Menaka shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "But deep inside me I am having a feeling that there is a link between the reason for Nirupama's suicide and aunty's strange madness."

(..........to be continued)

(I hope you enjoyed it so far. Please don't forget to rate and review it. I update the next chapter as early as possible.)

#investigation #detection #psychology #hypnosis#hypnotism #love #romance #romantic #suspense #thriller #sentiment #family#suicide #psychology #hypnosis #self-hypnosis #psychiatry #psychiatrist