An untellable secret
(Some secrets may better remain secrets for ever)
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
“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.”
***
“I just cannot bear seeing my wife so. Why don’t you do something for it?” looking pathetically at Niranjan, Ranganath asked him.
“What do you want to be done by me?” Niranjan asked.
Niranjan and Ranganath both were sat facing each other in Ranganath’s home.
“You are a psychologist Niranjan. You know what to do. Still you are asking me what should be done about her?” Ranganath frowned.
“If you are worrying about her imagination… don’t worry about it much. She knows that she is just imagining her daughter alive. Deep inside of her she knows the truth”
“That Smaran as well has said the same thing.”
“Clever guy he is.” Niranjan said. “But I don’t like much what you are doing. What would be the use in digging up that so?”
Ranganath breathed deep and said. “I just cannot bear thinking that my daughter committed suicide for a silly reason. I must know the true reason that caused her death.”
“I can understand your anguish Ranga” Niranjan said. “I just don’t know what to say” he remained silent.
“Who is that girl staying in your home now?” after few seconds Niranjan himself broken that silence.
“That Smaran’s niece. He put her here.”
“For what purpose?” there were deep frowns on the face of Niranjan.
“I don’t know. For some investigation purpose I think. But her staying in our home is giving me a sort of pleasure.” Ranganath said.
“I can understand.” Niranjan said. “There is no danger. How Nirmala is feeling with her?”
“Comfortable. In fact it is she who encouraged her staying in this house.”
Niranjan frowned. “But she is also not going to stay here forever. Be prepared to that.”
“I do keep it in my mind.” Ranganath nodded his head.
“Where is that girl now? Is she is in her room?”
“She went to her uncle’s place. Come back at any moment.” Ranganath said.
“Alright” Niranjan nodded his head.
“Did he meet you? He said that he wanted to ask you some questions.” Ranganath asked.
“He met me. We talked for some time. He asked several questions and I answered them. Not very much useful information for him.” Niranjan said. “He told me that he would meet me again. He is appearing quite optimistic.”
“Detectives are like that.” Ranganath smiled. “Otherwise they cannot make their livelihood. I think this Smaran sure becomes successful in his mission.”
“I hope so.” Niranjan hissed out heavily with a sorrowful expression in his face.
***
“Something, may be useful to your investigation, I remembered. If you come I tell you about that.” Sukanya phoned to Smaran.
“Is it is so?” Smaran said. “But I have become busy in some other assignment. I will send my assistant to you. Do you have any objection to discuss that matter with her? “
“Why? I cannot say.” there was confusion in her voice. “Who is he?”
“Not he. It is she. It is my niece.” Smaran laughed. “She is as much aged as you are.”
Sukanya also laughed. “Then no problem. Send her.” She said.
Then Smaran phoned to Menaka and explained the matter to her.
“Sure I do go. Tell me where she lives?”
She heard with frowns on her forehead and once completed that Smaran asked her “Why did not you phone to your mother? She is very angry that you have not talked with her for the last two days.”
“If I phone to her she asks me to come straight to home. Do you want me to go from here now?” Menaka said. “Even she has no objection whatsoever in helping you in your assignments, it is the first time that you made me to stay in some other people home. When I explained this to her, she did not like it much.”
Smaran laughed. “I talked with your mother. I made her fears expelled. She would not say like that now. Talk with your mother before you go to that girl Sukanya.”
Menaka hissed out heavily. “Alright then. I will talk with mom before leaving to reach Sukanya.” She said.
“How do you do mom? Are you O.K?” as soon as she finished talking with her uncle, Menaka phoned to her mother.
“I am alright. Why did not you phone to me for the last two days?” her mother straight asked her.
“Sorry mom. I have become little busy here. Otherwise I never do forget to talk to you.”
“If you do want to stay there, you must talk to me everyday. If it has not happened like that, I do come there to fetch you home.”
“No mom. Please. Everyday I phone to you in the evening.” Menaka pleaded with her. She knew very well that her mother sure could do something like that.
“Alright then. What else? What you and your uncle are doing there?”
“He said that he talked with you.”
“He did, of course.” She heard her mother’s sighing in the phone. Menaka clipped her lower lip between her teeth frames and listened with irritation while her mother was saying to her what care she needed to take. Menaka used all her strength not to blurt out and cut off the call. After giving her all the precautions, Menaka’s mother has chosen to say bye and cut off the call.
Menaka breathed deeply and hissed out heavily. Trying to keep the address told by her uncle in her memory, she came out.
***
“Your uncle said that you are as much aged as I am. But he did not say one important thing.” Once invited Menaka into her home and made her sit in the chair there, Sukanya said. She sat in the sofa opposite to that chair.
“What that is?” it caused an immediate frown on the forehead of Menaka
“He did not say you are this much beautiful!” Sukanya said.
“It is exaggeration. Anyhow he is a liar. He just asked me to come to you but did not say the samething that you are also this much beautiful” Menaka laughed.
They both laughed for some time and then Menaka said again “Alright tell me now. What that you want to say? Is it is something that you remembered suddenly?”
“Yes, you are right.” Sukanya nodded her head. “But I cannot say it will be useful.”
“Don’t worry. We are not going to lose anything by your saying that. Fire away.”
“I think it happened fifteen or twenty days before of her committing suicide. I cannot say exactly. More than six months have passed after her death.” Sukanya was saying.
Menaka was listening intently.
(I hope that you enjoyed upto here. I shall publish the next chapter as soon as possible. Please don’t forget to rate and review.)
