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

Suddenly Menaka started feeling odd and she expected a feeling like this and in fact she prepared to that. It was the room where a twenty two year old girl committed suicide with no obvious reason. To that very ceiling fan hook she hanged herself with her chunni. Until she was compelled by the thought to commit suicide, she lied on this bed itself.

It was the night of the first day of her staying in that room. However much she prepared for the odd feeling in that room when she was alone especially in the night time, still it was troubling, uneasy and creating fear in her. It was just like someone else also was with her and however much hard she tried, she could not get rid of that feeling. For a moment she desperately wanted to go away from that room. While trying to control her feelings, she turned around and looked the room. On the eastern side wall she found the photo of Nirupama. Then involuntarily she remembered the old woman who became mad. Then she remembered the old man who was in even more worse situation than the old woman. 'Was this girl could not think of what would happen to her parents if she ends her life so' she raged in herself. She slowly went near to the photo, stood just before it and looked into the eyes of that girl.

'Did not you know how much your parents would be affected if you die?' she asked with a small voice. She forgot that it was just a photo and has no life. The bubbling anger in her seeing the pathetic situation of her parents because of this girl's suiside killed all the logic and reason in her.

'Have you seen how your mother has been turned out?' Menaka asked again.

She paused for some seconds as if to hear the answer.

'Why you did such a thing? Why did not you think about your parents even for few seconds before committing such a horrendous thing? If you did, you would not have committed suicide.'

The whole environment was with unbearable silence. Unknowingly Menaka's heart filled with uncontrollable and unexplainable rage. Suddenly and surprisingly she lost sympathy on the girl she was looking at and her heart filled with only her mad mother and saddened father.

'Your father is breaking his head to know about the reason for your suicide. He just wants to prove to the world that you have not committed suiside for a simple and silly reaon. It seems you are so happy giving an end to your problem by committing suicide. I don't know why you wanted to keep that bloody reason which compelled you to commit suicide a secret but I do know about it and make it known to your father.'

'I never let you do that.'

Menaka at once froze. She heard it so clear and it could not be her hallucination. Suddenly she started feeling someone breathing on her neck. Slowly and slowly she turned around.

Only to find nothing, empty space.

***

"Have you slept peacefully on yesterday?" as soon as Menaka came down Nirmala asked her.

Menaka hugged her and kissed on her right cheek. "Yes. I slept peacefully." She smiled. Then she looked into the face of that old woman. Deep in her eyes were the traces of sorrow. 'Yes, what uncle said is right. She knows that her daughter is no more. She is just forcing herself to imagine like that.' She thought.

Ranganath came there and surprisingly there was some colour in his face. "I am happy that you are feeling comfortable here." He said. "Don't hesitate to ask anything."

"In fact" Menaka said. "You are not giving me a chance to ask anything. You are providing it before I ask."

Nirmala silently turned back and walked away from there.

It took half an hour or so to Menaka to finish her morning routine. She thought that it would be better to talk with her uncle. She said to Nirmala that she would come back in an hour and went out.

***

"I am glad that you are not feeling odd there. May I hope that you do continue in that home for this one month or so." Smaran asked Menaka.

"It is not so that I did not feel odd." Menaka explained to him the previous night's experience.

Smaran laughed loud and said "I am feeling surprise that you too subjected to hallucinations."

Menaka's cheeks were blushed on hearing that. "I did not subject to anything like that."

"What it is then? Really there is Nirupama now?"

Menaka did not say anything but breathed deeply.

"There is no surprise. Anyone in your place may have such hallucinations in that room as that is the room in which that girl committed suicide like that and we know very well that she did not want at all the reason for her suicide to be known to anyone. Anyhow....." he paused for a second before saying again. ".............if you don't like to stay there you may go your home. I am confident that I can complete this assignment without your help also."

"I do stay in that house and in that very room." There was sudden firmness in her voice. "There will be no change in it."

"Alright. We talk business now. What is your opinion on whole of this? Can we get what that Ranganath wants?"

"Just one or two days have passed after we have started it. It is too sooner to express an opinion on this." she leaned back in the chair and said. "But I am not too happy to do this. It is not like other assignments. I am still angry with that Nirupama that she did such a thing."

"You are right. I am also not feeling too happy for doing this." Smaran sighed heavily. "But I have accepted the assignment. I need to do this. You need to help me."

"Don't doubt it even for a moment." Menaka smiled. "Whether I like it or not I help you in all respects in completing this assignment."

Smaran nodded his head with a smile.

"I just want to share with you how everything is there now. I go back again." She paused for a moment. "What you are going to do next in this?"

"I met Nirupama's uncle Niranjan and talked with him. Now I meet Nirupama's friend Sukanya and talk with her." He paused for a moment. "But I am not expecting anything in first time talking. We have to talk more than two times or so to get something useful in investigations like these."

"I agree." Menaka nodded her head. "I go now." She stood up.

"Don't forget to talk with your mother. She always thinks about you."

"Alright." Menaka smiled and left.

***

"Yes. Ranga uncle told me that you are coming. Please come in."

Smaran formed an opinion on Sukanya as soon as he looked at her. It appeared that Nirupama selected friends who were all just like her. Sukanya was also beautiful just like Nirupama and appearing intelligent.

He followed her into the drawing room and slumped himself into one of the chairs there. Sukanya put herself in the chair opposite to him.

"But I am not thinking I can be much helpful to you in this regard." Ranganath explained why Smaran was coming to her.

Smaran nodded his head. "I heard that she did not share anything about her problem which led her to commit suicide even with her quite intimate people also. But we detectives you know...." He smiled.... "always be optimistic."

"Then tell me what do you want to ask?"

"For how long you are a friend to Nirupama?" he remembered what Ranganath said but wanted to hear everything from Sukanya also.

"From my very childhood. We both took birth in this town itself. We both know each other from the day we have got knowledge of ourselves."

"What type of girl Nirupama is?"

"You may have heard something about her already." She leaned back in the chair. "Intelligent and active. She talks freely but selective in friends. She is having only two or three friends after me. But I am the only close friend to her and it is vice versa."

"Did she share each and every thing of her life with you?"

"Yes. She used to. It was vice versa. I also used to share everything of my life to her."

"Then is it is not surprising that she did not tell you at all about the major problem that made her committed suicide?"

"Surprising, shocking and astounding!" Sukanya got off from the chair. "It is scorching my psyche now also. Why, why she committed such a dreadful thing! I just cannot guess any at all."

"Are you thinking that there might be a strong reason for her committing suicide?"

"Yes. I am thinking that there was a strong reason for her committing suicide."Sukanya came back to the chair and slumped herself in it. "I am thinking that she was not that much weak to end her life for nothing."

"When the last time you have seen her before her committing suicide?"

She closed her eyes and put herself into thinking. "Fifteen days or so before, I think."

"Why did not you both meet for such a long time?"

"I went to one of our relative's home and held up there. So we did not meet." Menaka opened her eyes and said. "But we talked occasionally in phone."

"Did you notice anything different even in a slightest degree in her then?"

"It is difficult to say now. More than six months or so have passed after her death."

"Are you sure that she did not tell about the said reason to anyone else either?"

"If she did not tell about that even to me" she paused for a moment as if to accentuate whatever she was going to say "I don't think she told about it to anyone else either."

"I have talked with Niranajan, the psychology professor. He also said that she did not say anything to him either."

"She liked Niranjan and respected him a lot. But she was not as much intimated with him as she was with me. I don't feel surprise that she did not share anything about that with him either."

"What type of person that Niranjan is?"

"You said that you have met him. You might have formed an opinion on him by now."

"Intelligent and interesting. That is what I am thinking about him."

"And a very good person also. I too liked him a lot. Nirupama impressed by him that much that she joined in psychology post-graduation only because of him."

"I heard that he is a relative also to her."

"Yes. From her mother's side." Sukanya nodded her head.

"How Nirupama's relation with her parents? Especially how she used to be with her father?"

"Nirupama's connection with her parents was always very good. How it can be otherwise at all? She was their only daughter. Born to them after ten years of long waiting!" She paused a second and said again. "When it comes to her relation with her father... they both were just like friends. She used to share everything with her father also."

Smaran nodded his head.

"Not very much useful information. I said to you in the beginning itself." Sukanya laughed.

"We cannot get the whole thing in a single stretch. You answered all my questions in the best way." Smaran got up from the chair he sat. "I go now. But if you do remember anything useful in this regard, please let me know."

"Sure I do that."

Then he gave his cell number to her. Sukanya loaded it in her cell phone.

"Whether you do remember anything or not, I meet you again." Smaran said.

"Please. It shall be my pleasure."

(..........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