Cursed Part 2

for the earlier part: Cursed Part 1 (october archive)
29.10.2009

After surrendering to seniority, white hair of Keshav uncle I promised to myself I will act just opposite to my nature and show his employees what attitude is all about…

I went to the office, Jhumamasi showed up within an hour. She took one of the girls of the office aside and asked her to call me up during lunch hour.

“Don’t take your lunch alone in your seat, join the girls.” She told me later. “Slowly it will break the ice and will keep the people who are bothering you silent.”

I too thought that and started to eat with them. Even though I could clearly see their coldness hidden under their politeness I practiced polite warmth. Because I knew they can afford to be rude to me, I cant, because it was my aunty’s office, and I was answerable to her.

Slowly their second skin started to fall off. I have been an avid reader of all sorts of detective books. I started to observe certain things in them and then used to test them under the wrap of innocence.

Sometimes my relatives from home used to call me up during office hours, as I did not had a phone at home.

I used to note that whenever a phone came one of the girls used to flitter around me, as if trying to understand the conversation which I was having with the person on the other side. Though they pretended they did not knew a single word of bengali.

I started my own game, I used to watch them keenly and say most offensive things in pure bengali about them to see how the colours of their faces changed. They used to look at my placid face keenly to note if I have guessed their games.

Though they were too sly to be caught red handed, I guessed that a lot of them can understand bengali but pretend that they don’t.

Next I started my experiments with the eavesdropping case. There also I started to play the same game, I used to raise my voice to various levels before getting abusive about the employees of blue star, mentioning their names… and soon I realized that most probably they have bugged the households.

My suspects were naturally Ritumasi and her sons.

31.10.2009

Soma became my shadow. Wherever I went she was sure to go (other than office) even when I visited Jhumamasi’s home she stayed there with me in place of going to her mother’s home. Even if she did, she used to return before my returning from office.

It seemed mystery was second name of Rajpur. Things started to disappear and come back on their own. I still remember the day when I first became aware of this disappearing and returning act. A bunch of letters arrived from my family, I was reading one of them when Sulata called me and I got busy with her.

I returned after half an hour and saw that the letters have vanished, I searched every where but could not locate them.

When I returned from office next day they were back, they were at a place where I always searched first… under my pillow.

That again convinced me someone is over curious about my personal life.. the only person who could smuggle those letters out was Soma. But to whom? Both Sharma and Jain family were hundred percent Marwaris.. though they knew Hindi well but none knew B of bengali.

My suspicion again reverted back to Ritumasi, it was not impossible for Soma to call them up and tell them that a bunch of mails have arrived for me, someone might have been waiting outside to fetch those mails. They might have been done it before without being caught.

As it happens, when an innocent person is forced to suspect, he or she starts to suspect every one.

I always had a feeling about Sulata that she was Bengali, and Abhishek though he claimed he was a Marwari born and brought up upto his college in Sawai Madhopur, looked like a typical bengali guy.

I still distinctly remember how I asked Rik if Sulata was bengali when I first saw her from the roof top, she was in the courtyard below doing something.

A deep suspicion started to form that they were living there with some other intention.

The thing which fuelled my suspicion most were the weird things Sulata used to say quite often.

Things which were often outrageous to my small town taste. She used to glorify the lifestyle and happiness of a friend of hers who became a mistress of a rich old man. I never had the taste of asking her if that man had another wife or not.

Or she used to do things which I have only seen sex workers doing on silver screen. The same gestures of body or eyes, which are trademark of these women.

I used to feel quite uneasy with these behaviours, even though I had deep sympathy for sex workers but I would have never loved it if someone thought her as one. So I one day blurted out some thing about these gestures and some offensive words about sex workers.

I saw the colour of her face changing. Though she recovered it instantly but for a second she lost her composure.

That one incident started a journey of nightmare for me I believe. Wise people say that if you call Jesus Christ evil he will forgive you, but if you call devil evil he will leave no stone unturned to destroy you, such is the fury of a guilty soul.

to be continued ...............