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

"So, there is nothing material you have got so far." Looking into the eyes of Menaka, Smaran said.

"I am sorry." Menaka leaned back in the chair and said.

"You need not. There is still time. I am confident that we can solve it." Smaran said.

"Do all the detectives be optimistic like you?" Menaka asked him.

"All we need to be optimistic to some extent." Smaran laughed. "We have discussed this topic many a time."

"Any you are incurably optimistic." Menaka smiled. "I just cannot understand whether this Nirupama is a fool or intelligent. In my opinion no intelligent person commits suicide."

"You must change your opinion. Very great people also committed suicide. Sometimes circumstances compel even very clever people also to commit suicide."

Menaka did not say anything. It appeared to her that her uncle was going to launch on something.

"We can divide people who commit suicide mainly into three categories." He paused for a moment looking straight into the face of Menaka whose forehead was with straight three frowns.

"Number one: These people commit suicide whatever you may do. Nothing can stop them from doing that. Their only aim would be to commit suicide and escape from the trouble. Even they have been stopped on one or two occasions, they end their lives at the earliest possible opportunity. People who have been suffering from painful diseases, debts, etc. are the example"

Menaka nodded her head with a smile.

"Number two: These people commit suicide on sudden impulse. If they think clearly at that time and postpone that ghastly act, they may not commit suicide again. If someone interferes with them and reason with them, they may not try suicide again." Smaran paused for a moment. "These people also do have reasons to commit suiside but not as strong as the first category. People who failed in the exams, women subjected to rapes and gang-rapes and those who cannot fulfill their aims however much hard they tried are come under this category."

"And the third category" before Menaka said anything Smaran said. "People who come under this category do have no problems. Just because of complete boredom and not knowing what to do with their lives, these people do commit suiside. People who commit suicide only to make other people talk about them and create sensation also do come under this category."

"Really! I just cannot believe it!" Menaka with a smile said.

"It may be surprising but there are such people also" Smaran nodded his head.

"So, in which category in your opinion our Nirupama does come?" Menaka asked him.

"Undoubtedly under the second category." Smaran's voice was firm

"Are you sure about that? If someone interfered with her at that time, she would not have committed suicide at all?"

"Yes." Smaran nodded his head. "If someone interfered with her at that time and stopped her from committing suicide, I am thinking she would be alive on this day."

"So the problem she was facing at that time was not severe." Menaka said.

"We cannot say it like that." He got off from the chair and went into the middle of the room and looked at Menaka. "The problem she was facing at that time was severe. It was that much severe it compelled her to commit suicide."

"Then how can you say that she would not have committed suicide at all if someone stopped her at that time?"

"Just guess work." He said. "I cannot say why but my subconscious is telling me so."

Menaka deeply breathed and hissed out.

"Did you talk with that boy again, what is his name?" Smaran asked her.

"Who?" Menaka asked and remembered whom her uncle meant. "Oh, I too forgot his name. I did not talk with him again. There would not be any use. Everything he could tell, told me on that day itself."

"There is no new information from Sukanya either?"

"Assumption right." Menaka nodded her head.

Both of them remained silent for sometime.

"Better you go to your home and show your face to your mother. She is worrying very much about you."

"Sure I do that. I can understand mom's feelings." Menaka laughed. They talked some more time.

***

"At last you have come to our home." Nirmala said to Sukanya who entered into their home just then. "Why you have stopped coming to our house completely?"

Sukanya deeply breathed and hissed out. She had to use all her will power not to burst out into weeping before her.

"I just could not make. I became busy in preparing for my examinations."

"But a disappointment for you. Your friend Nirupama is not here. She went to her aunt's home."

Sukanya felt fear again that she might burst into weeping but could control this time also. She nodded her head silently.

"If you relax yourself in the sofa, I do get you some coffee." Nirmala left that place.

Sukanya wearily slumped herself in the sofa there and closed her eyes. Her heart became heavy as if a stone put in that.

"When did you come?"

Sukanya startled and opened her eyes. It was Menaka.

"Just now. Five minutes back." Her voice was dry. "There is an important matter to tell you."

Menaka frowned. "Come. We talk about that in my room."

"Aunty went into the kitchen to get me some coffee. After picking it up, we go into that room."

Menaka also sat beside her on the sofa. "Alright. First tell me what is that important matter you want to tell me."

"Just wait. I do tell you. I have come here all the way to tell you about that."

"Both of you take this coffee." Before Menaka said something more Nirmala came there with coffee cups. She might have known Menaka's coming there, she came with two coffee cups.

Menaka and Sukanya took those cups obediently.

"Aunty, we do go upstairs now. We want to talk there." Menaka said.

"Sure do like that." Retreating herself into the kitchen again Nirmala said.

Then Menaka and Sukanya went into the upstairs room.

"Please close the door behind you." There was a sudden change in the voice of Sukanya. Menaka obediently closed that door and she noticed the change in Sukanya's voice. Sukanya has become just like she was in trance.

Slowly she went near to the wall where the photo of Nirupama was hung with a garland around it.

"Why did you do it?"

Menaka surprised with the force in her voice.

"Why don't you think about me? Our friendship between us?"

Menaka became a rapt listener.

"Why the hell you have not considered about your parents? What would happen to them after you put an end to your life?"

There were no sounds and the silence there was ominous.

"Where are you now? Are you seeing how your mother has become? What happened to her?"

Seeing the change in Sukanya, Menaka took a step towards her.

"I never got angry with you while you were alive. But now I am angry with you. We have shared everything between us. Why did not you tell me about this?" Sukanya became hysterical and started pounding on the wall.

Menaka immediately embraced her and dragged her back.

Sukanya immediately burst out into weeping. It was the second time to happen like that to her.

Menaka shocked. She did not expect this at all in this way.

"What is this? Please control yourself." Slowly leading her to the bed there Menaka said.

"No. I cannot. You just don't know what was used to be between us. How much intimated we both to each other."

"I can understand. You told me before. Stop it now. There is no use in becoming like this." Menaka's heart also was filled with heaviness.

"Alright." Sukanya wiped her tears with her hand. "We talked hours and hours together in this room. She liked it a lot and used to spend most of her time in it while she was home. What an irony that she committed suicide in this very room itself!"

Menaka hissed out heavily. She felt happy that Sukanya controlled herself. Now she wanted to know what she intend to tell her and hesitating to ask about that.

"You want to know that thing I have mentioned I came to know?" Sukanya said as if she read the mind of Menaka.

"Yes." Menaka said uncomfortably.

"You have to come all the way to my home to know about that." Sukanya said.

"What?" Menaka yelled with a small voice. "I cannot understand what you are saying."

"You heard me right. You have to come to my home to know about that." Sukanya's voice was weak but firm.

"Alright I come." Menaka hissed out heavily. "When we do go? Now itself?" Menaka angrily asked.

"I have come here just now after a long time. Please wait some more time. We both shall go there."

Menaka slumped herself beside Sukanya and put her hand around her shoulders. "How you are feeling now? Alright?"

"I never can feel alright after this heavy loss." Sukanya said. "You may be feeling that I am exaggerating. But I am telling you the truth."

"I can understand. But you too have to understand. You must accept this loss and we all have to go on with our lives."

"I cannot. It is something that I never can come to terms with." She mumbled.

"Her father himself has come to terms with the truth."

Sukanya laughed weakly. "You are thinking that he has come to terms with it? He is dead. He is dead inside. He is suffering hell."

Menaka did not say anything. She did not know what to say at all. She never thought that Sukanya has become this much wrought because of her friend's death.

Sukanya deeply breathed. She was about to say something then Ranganath came into there.

"How do you do Sukanya? After a very long time you have come here."

Sukanya stood up and looked into his face. "Why do I come here? Why do I bother about you people? I am living somewhere comfortably and happily. There is no necessity to me to worry about you both old people."

"What you are talking my child? What happened to you?"

Sukanya nodded her head and said "Nothing."

"She became too much disturbed by Nirupama's death." Menaka said.

"I can understand." Ranganath said.

"I come again uncle." It seemed to Sukanya that she could not manage herself there for long. "We go to my home now." She said to Menaka.

***

Sukanya took Menaka straight into her bedroom and then led her to the coroner of it. It was head place of the bed. The whole room illuminated with the light of the tube light.

"Just look at there." She pointed to a place on the wall with her index finger.

"What?" looking at that place Menaka said. She could not see anything there.

"You have to go even more near, near. You need to put your head there."

Menaka did like that.

"There is some writing on the wall, is it is not?"

Menaka looked closely and said "Yes there is."

"Read that out."

"I.....I......can't.......can't............." Menaka struggled to read that. "....bear .......... this........." then she said with a loud voice "Yes........... I got it........it is 'I can't bear this.' whose writing is this?"

"Can't you guess whose writing is this?'

"Nirupama's? You are thinking that this is Nirupama's writing?"

"Absolutely. It has been written by Nirupama." Sukanya said. "On that day, when she came at twelve thirty or so, I left her in my house and went out. She straight went into the bedroom and I saw her laid herself on the bed. Surely she had written this."

Menaka came on to the edge of bed and sat on it dangling her feet down. Sukanya also came and slumped beside her.

"I think it was the very first day that the suffering started in her .... So she expressed herself some extent on that wall so.....Some uncontrollable feeling in her made her write like that on the wall." Sukanya said.

"Very first day.... uncontrollable feeling....quizzical words." Menaka mumbled. "You are sure that it is her handwriting?"

"I am damn sure. I know her writing very well. Moreover there is no chance that anyone else wrote on that wall so."

"Alright. I took a photo of it. It must be discussed with my uncle without any delay." Menaka went near to the wall again and took a shot of it with her cell phone.

"No one is at home now?" getting off from the bed she asked Sukanya.

"No, my mother went out."

Then they both talked sometime more there before Menaka left that place.

(..........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