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

"Very important information. It may lead us to somewhere." Looking at in her cell phone what Menaka got in Sukanya's home, Smaran said.

"Now we are even more sure that Nirupama was troubling with something by the time of her death."

"You are right." Smaran nodded his head.

"What that bloody thing she was suffering with." Menaka murmured "Surely that was what led her to commit suicide?"

"Ninety percent to be so."

Smaran said again. "If we take Sukanya's words, it had happened fifteen days or so before her committing suicide."

"Very first time.....uncontrollable feeling.....these are the words Sukanya used when she saw this writing." Menaka said. "She is positively sure that Nirupama's trouble started from that day.

"That was the day she came early to the home. There was no college to her....some boycott or what .........."

"Some boycott .........Sukanya inquired and she told me."

Smaran got off from the chair and went middle of the room. "I am hundred percent feeling it like that Menaka....If there was no boycott ....or if she had not come home early like that .....she might not have committed suicide at all."

"I am also feeling in the same way, uncle." Menaka thumped on the table with her hand. "Something ....something ....happened in her home on that day which .... alright." Menaka nodded her head.

"Talk with that boy again. I am thinking it was the same day tht he found Nirupama like that. Something...something ...he might have forgotten to tell you. He may know something worth remember to tell you."

"Alright I will do that" Menaka said.

***

"You said that you would hypnotize me. But you have forgotten about it completely." Nirmala said to Menaka.

"Oh! I am sorry. I forgot it, of course." Menaka suddenly remembered her promise to the old woman. "When do you want to be hypnotized then?"

"Now itself. We both are free and there is no one to disturb us." She said.

"Alright then. Which is the best place to hypnotize you?"

"My bedroom itself. Nirupama used to hypnotize me in the chair in my bedroom."

"Then I also hypnotize you in that very place. Come, we go into your bedroom then."

Menaka and Nirmala went into the bedroom and Nirmala placed herself in the only chair there. It was such type of a chair in which one can happily sleep also.

"I think you know the procedure to be got hypnotized as your daughter hypnotized you many a time before."

"Yes. I know the procedure". Nirmala nodded her head.

"Then I do straight go into hypnotizing you." Menaka said.

"Please do that. I am ready in all respects." Nirmala said.

"Now close your eyes." Menaka said. "It starts."

"You are listening only to my voice......There are no thoughts in you.....Your body and mind completely listen what I am going to say....."

Nirmala obediently closed her eyes and started listening what Menaka was saying in a smooth voice.

"You are taking a deep breath... yes a deep breath."

Menaka felt happy when Nirmala took a deep breath.

"Now another deep breath... more deeper than the first one."

Nirmala just did as she has been said.

"You are feeling so happy and relaxed now.... There is no anxiety in you.... There are no troubling thoughts in you...."

There was more and more calmness in the face of Nirmala.

"Now you are falling asleep...completely asleep..."

Nirmala's face has become even more relaxed.

"I do count three. When I finish three, you would be in sound sleep.........one..........." Menaka said observing the face of Nirmala minutely.

There was not much change in her

"two......"

There was some muscle tightening in the face of Nirmala.

"Three...."

Now Menaka could hear the snoring of Nirmala.

***

"Yes. That is my daughter's handwriting. She had written it with a pencil. What I cannot understand is why she had written it like that." Ranganath said. Ranganath has been shown the writing on the bedroom wall of Sukanya.

'I cannot bear this'. What she cannot bear?' Closing his eyes Smaran questioned himself. "I am positive whatever it might be that she could not bear, that led her to commit suicide."

"I am also thinking like that." Ranganath nodded his head.

"I think we already discussed about your daughter's going to Sukanya's house at 12.30 in the morning just fifteen days or so before her death."

"We discussed about that."

"You said you don't know about it at all."

"Yes. My daughter did not come home early like that fifteen days or so before her death. She came home early sometimes but it was not at all just fifteen days or so before her death. She used to reach home by five thirty or so in the evening." Ranganath has fallen in thinking as he did not know what to say.

"Just try to remember. You would have gone somewhere and not at at home at that time. Just shake your memory and think whether you went out out of station or something like that."

That put Ranganath into deep thinking and he closed his eyes. He suddenly opened his eyes after few seconds. "Yes, I went to my sister Srividya's house just fifteen days or so before my daughter committing suiside as her husband suffered heart attack. But everything was alright there and I came home happily. I have forgotten about it completely until you ask me now."

"May be it was on one of those days, that you were not at home, Nirupama came home early."

"It might have happened like that."

Smaran paused for a moment and looked at Menaka there.

"As we have discussed before, the day that the boy looked at Nirupama leaving the house in such an unusual way and the day that she went to Sukanya's home, both are one, the same day."

"Yes. Then we have to assume that Sukanya first came to her house and then go to her friend's house." Menaka said.

"Why did she go like that?" Ranganath questioned.

"Need to be known." Smaran said.

"Did we gain anything at all?"

"Not yet. We are still at confusion." Smaran said and added again. "But I am sure that we can solve this puzzle before the time I promised."

"I am also confident about that." Ranganath said. "seeing the confidence in you."

"What should be our next step? When we are going to solve all this? I still cannot see a way out" Menaka said.

The three were in the room of Smaran.

"So far we are right in assuming that Nirupama was suffering with something and that was what led her to commit suicide". Smaran said.

"But it still remains a big question what that is." Menaka said.

"Of course." Smaran nodded his head. "If we can find that out, our detection shall be over."

They were all remained silent for sometime. None of them did know what to do next.

***

"You hypnotized me in the best way. I slept quite peacefully." Nirmala said.

"I am feeling very happy that you liked it." Menaka said.

"Nirupama used to hypnotize me just in this way."

"Most of the hypnotists follow the same procedure to hypnotize." Menaka laughed.

"I shall go into the kitchen and start my work now." Nirmala got off from the sofa there and said.

"May I come and help you?" Menaka asked her.

"No. I work better without help. In fact, I don't want Nirupama's interference either in the kitchen."

"If it is so, how we youngsters learn cooking?" Menaka complained.

Nirmala laughed. "I do conduct special sessions for you youngsters."

Menaka proceeded into her room and fall on the bed there. It was ten in the morning and she felt bored.

When she looked up, she was looking at the ceiling fan to which Nirupama hanged herself. She did not like this assignment much. She was feeling overwhelming pity towards Ranganath and Nirmala. She was irritated as there was not much progress even after fifteen days or so of the assignment.

It was a little lead that they found out her writing like that but it was not much. Even before finding that itself, they assumed that Nirupama was struggling with something terrible and that led her to commit suicide.

She started looking carefully around the room with the hope that she might find something that would further lead to know that awful secret. In fact she searched everything in that room quite carefully two or three times. There were only her books, clothes and a dressing mirror. There was not much in her make-up kit and Menaka understood that Nirupama was a simple girl and not much interested in garnishing herself. Considering her in the photograph, Menaka thought that Nirupama did not need makeup. She was a natural beauty.

She was trying so hard to guess what troubled that much Nirupama to compel her to commit suiside but could not get a satisfying lead. She exhausted by thinking hard and stood up. She remembered the experience she has got in this room on her first day. She felt it so real on that day and feared that Nirupama was really in that room then. How real the imagination was then! She turned her head towards the wall on which Nirupama's photo was hung.

She went near to the photo again. "So far we have found nothing concrete to know why you have committed suicide but I am confident that we can know about it." She paused and looked at the photograph.

Menaka startled. It was as if there was life in the photograph and the living Nirupama was in it.

"If you are thinking we stop, you are mistaken. There is still time. In these ten days or so of time.........." She paused again as if to give reiteration to whatever she was going to say. "We hundred percent know about that secret."

"Are you thinking that I do let that happen?"

Menaka froze. It could not be her imagination. It was so clear. She heard it. Menaka was in that room no doubt. She did not turn round with the fear that she might see Nirupama behind her.

She started feeling someone's breath on her neck again. Someone was just behind her breathing on her neck. 'Do souls breathe?' Menaka could not understand. Her heart suddenly filled with lot of fear.

She slowly and slowly turned round only to find nothing.

***

While Smaran was in some routine work in his office on that day, he got the phone call from Sudarshan, the Librarian. Smaran could not remember him immediately so Sudarshan had to introduce himself.

"I am sorry. Tell me what is up now?" Smaran asked him.

"I cannot say this over phone. But if you come to me I do show it to you. It may be something important to your investigation I think."

"If it is so then I shall come to you now itself." Smaran said and cut the call. Then he immediately went to the library. There were only one or two people in the library at that time and Sudarshan was in fact waiting for Smaran.

"Tell me sir. What that is you want to show to me?" going straight and placing himself in the chair opposite to him Smaran said.

"Nirupama used to read English novels and took them home also. It is the novel she took her home on one or two occasions and I think it is the favorite novel to her."

Showing that book to Smaran, the librarian said. It was Sidney Sheldon's Tell Me Your Dreams. He remembered on one day that Menaka also said to him that she was reading that book. Smaran also read that book and he liked that. It dealt mainly with multiple personality disorder and there was no surprise if it was Nirupama's favourite book. In fact this book was liked by all who interested in psychology.

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

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