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

"I cannot understand. Why my wife is behaving like this? Every time she is inventing a lie to keep her daughter alive in other people's thinking. Is she is really believing that her daughter is alive?" Ranganath asked Smaran with surprise.

"Yes and no both." Smaran laughed.

"Uncle you are as much confusing to us as that aunty. Tell us straight." Menaka asked him.

"Yes, she is right. Please tell me why cannot I understand my wife as you understand her?" there was distress in the voice of Ranganath.

"Deep inside her your wife knows your daughter is late. She is no more. But her conscious mind cannot accept the truth. So she is willfully imagining her daughter as alive. She invents situations in such a way that keep her daughter alive in her imagination and in others' thinking all the time."

"My god! I just cannot understand! How long it will be like this?" Ranganath nodded his head helplessly.

"Still pathetic. I am feeling enormous pity towards her." Menaka's voice filled with sorrow again.

"We are still at the doorsill. Shall we go into the room and see it?" Smaran asked as if he had no feeling whatsoever.

Ranganath led those two deep into the room.

"This is the room of my daughter. That is the photo of her." Ranganath said showing an enlarged and life-sized photo on the wall there.

Smaran and Menaka remained staring at the life size photo of Nirupama. This was infact a replica of the photograph Raganath gave to Smaran which was enlarged and framed. She was appearing more beautiful, more intelligent than in the small photo they had seen before.

"This is the ceiling fan to which she hanged herself."

Menaka felt a shiver through her spine. For few seconds she had seen that girl hanging from the ceiling fan. How that old woman would have felt finding her daughter hanging like that from the ceiling fan? What is the surprise that she turned mad like that? Menaka thought.

"Can you stay in this room or do you want a change?" observing carefully the expression on Menaka's face, Smaran asked her.

Menaka breathed deeply and hissed out. "I am going to stay in this room itself."

"Are you sure?" Smaran knitted his brows and asked her while looking into her face.

"Damn sure, of course."

"I am happy that you are not feeling fear here." Ranganath said with a small voice.

"Why feeling fear? Until few months back she was a young, energetic and intelligent girl. For the reasons only known to her she ended her life. That does not make her something that we need to feel fear. As long as I stay here, I do stay only in this room." With the same firmness Menaka said.

"Alright then. We go downstairs and report the same to your wife." Smaran said.

***

"So you liked the room. I am feeling happy. Don't feel shy to ask anything." Nirmala said.

"Why am I? I am feeling so close and near to you." Menaka said. Her heart was becoming more and more heavier observing the old woman so.

Nirmala hissed out heavily. "You are in all respects just like my daughter. I don't get the feeling of missing my daughter if you stay in my home like this. Whenever she comes home, I have no objection whatsoever." Saying so she left that place.

"I think you do remember your assignment." When only they both were left Smaran said to Menaka. "Try to give me reports as frequently as possible. If there is anything important don't delay to tell that to me."

Menaka nodded her head. "As you say." She threw her charming smile again.

***

"Yes, we both intimated with each other a lot." Niranjan said. "She used to share everything of her life with me."

"You are the reason for her joining in psychology post graduation." Smaran made himself more comfortable in the chair which was opposite to Niranjan in his study room in his house. There was a vacant chair beside Smaran's chair and a table with files and paper weight between Niranjan and Smaran.

"You are right. I did not ask her to join in psychology. But she got lot of interest in psychology after seeing me."

Smaran did not feel surprise. Niranjan was appearing like an interesting figure. There was strange calmness and intelligence in his face. His odd black spectacles were in their place.

"The interesting thing here is; her acquaintance with me increased a lot only after I settled in this town. Even though I was an uncle to her, I always was in a far away place and she just knew about me. After my retirement while I was thinking to settle where, Ranganath insisted me to buy house in this town and settle here. Not just that he located this house for purchase and did everything except paying the money to make it my own. So I am here." Niranjan laughed.

"But you are a relative to his wife and more intimated with her than Ranganath also."

"I am a cousin to her. Elders on our both sides wished very much to perform her marriage with me and Nirmala also was very much interested in it. But Mr.Smaran I have no good opinion on cousin' marriages. In my opinion there should be no sort of blood relationship between wife and husband so I did not agree to that marriage." Niranjan paused for a second before saying again. "Even he was not a relative to our families, Ranganath also used to live in the same village. He was working as a government teacher by that time and after me he appeared as a most eligible candidate for Nirmala to her parents. So they proposed her to him and they became the couple." Niranjan laughed.

"I see" Smaran nodded his head thinking what to ask next. Before Smaran was saying anything Niranjan said again. "Ten years, after ten long years, when they both lost all their hope to have children, Nirmala became pregnant and gave birth to Nirupama. I need not explain to you how they both have looked after her. Nirupama, not only intelligent, clever with lot of will power but very beautiful also just like her mother. I just can't.....I just can't......" his forehead creased and his voice became solemn "....why she has committed suiside like that!"

"When her own dad cannot understand it, I don't think you can." Smaran said.

"Then how do you think talking with me in any way would be helpful for your investigation?" Niranjan knitted his brows together.

"I am not thinking that you provide with me any information on that Mr.Niranjan but you don't know much about this detection work." Smaran laughed. "We should try to get the clues from the information available to us. Most of the times the information which means nothing to the ordinary people would give valuable clues to us detectives."

"Then I have no objection whatsoever in answering your questions." Niranjan also smiled and nodded his head.

"Did Nirupama quite often come to you?"

"Twise in a week. Mostly accompanied by her close friend Sukanya."

"You know about that Sukanya also a lot?"

"Of course, yes." Niranjan nodded his head. "Even she did not prefer to study psychology in her post graduation as Nirupama did, she is also very much friendly with me and discuss about everything."

"Now also that Sukanya has been coming to you?"

"Not as she used to do while Nirupama was alive. Hardly two or so times she came to me after Nirupama's death."

"Did Nirupama meet you on the day of her commtting suicide or before that day?"

"No of course." Niranjan nodded his head in negation. "I did not see her at all for fifteen days or so before her committing suiside."

"Why so?" Smaran knitted his brows together.

"I have to go out of station on some urgent work and held up there. By the time I came home, she committed suicide."

"When the last time you have seen her then?"

"Two days or so before my going away from here. That means some eighteen days or so before her committing suiside."

"How she appeared to you then? Distraught, worried, sorrowful?"

"Quite the opposite." Immediately said Niranjan. "Her usual self. Cheerful, active and joyous."

"Can we suppose after eighteen days or so to that day, she committed suicide?"

"It is like that." Niranjan nodded his head.

"If it is so" Smaran got off from the chair and went to the middle of the room. "Whatever troubled her that much and led her to commit suicide was not even as a trace in her then."

"You are absolutely right." Niranjan leaned back in his chair and said.

Smaran came to the table and put his two palms on it and looked into the face of Niranjan. "Then what that much disturbing brewed up just in those few days to make her commit suicide?

Niranajan nodded his head helplessly. "Very difficult to say."

"Where did she meet you for the last time?"

"In my home itself. She used to come to my house for every two or three days. Almost all the times along with her close friend Sukanya"

"Any other friends of her came along with her to see you?"

"One or two of her other friends also visited me with her. But I don't remember them much."

Smaran sat in his chair again. "What type of girl that Sukanya is?"

"Just like Nirupama. Active, intelligent and beautiful." Niranjan said leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. As Smaran was thinking what to do ask next, Niranjan said again. "I can understand Ranganath. I cannot stop pitying him. But what good it would do knowing the reason why Nirupama committed suicide?"

"Are not you feeling surprise that Nirupama ended her life so?" Smaran asked him as if he did not hear what he said.

"How can I remain without feeling surprise?" there was surprise and hurt in the face of Niranjan "In fact I was dumbfounded! Who does not feel surprise if a healthy and active girl ended her life suddenly so? Moreover we intimated with each other like that."

"So you are not having even a vaguest idea why she committed suicide."

"You are right. Not just me no one else also has known anything about it. She did not leave even a hint of it either to anyone else even to her closest relatives and friends including her parents."

There was some silence ensued and Niranjan broke it himself. "Why she wanted to keep it a secret like this I cannot understand."

After few seconds of Niranjan's saying so, Smaran said "Thank you very much. I may have to meet you again."

"Its my pleasure. You can meet me especially in the evenings in my home. I look forward to it."

Smaran came out of that house

(..........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