An untellable secret
(Some secrets may better remain secrets for ever)
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
“Our Menaka is a big help to you in the kitchen, is it is not?” Ranganath asked.
“I did not do even a little work there.” Menaka confessed. “I am not a much performer in the kitchen.”
“I shall make you perform wonders in the kitchen.” Nirmala said. “I do give coffee to you both now.” Nirmala said and went into the kitchen.
By his facial expression Menaka understood that Ranganath wanted to say something. Before Menaka say anything Nirmala came there with coffee cups in a tray. “Take it.” She said.
Menaka and Ranganath took the two coffee cups from the tray. “Why? Don’t you take coffee?” Menaka asked her.
“Not many times. I took my share before you came to home.” She paused for a moment and then said. “Now I go to the market and come back. You just talk with each other and pass the time.” Taking a bag from there she left the house.
“What is this?” Menaka asked once she made herself sure that Nirmala left the house and could not hear them. “I just cannot believe that she is mentally unbalanced.”
“But what we do call her imagining a dead girl as living? Except that in every other aspect she is alright.” Ranganath said.
“You want to ask me something?” Remembering his facial expression just before, Menaka asked him.
“Did she say anything about Nirupama while you were in the kitchen with her?”
“Yes, she mentioned her.” Then Menaka said to him what Nirmala said about Nirupama to her.
“In her opinion Nirupama is in her relatives’ home now.” He too deeply breathed. “Or atleast she is imagining like that.”
“I just cannot understand here. How anyone can imagine like that?”
“Quite peculiar, is it is not? Why things are happening like this only to me?” Ranganath frowned. “In one way she is luckier to me.”
“How?” Menaka asked him surprisingly.
“She is happy imagining her daughter like that. She does not acknowledge the fact that her daughter is no more. It is not so for me. The fact that my daughter is not alive on this day is scorching my heart.”
“Oh, Please. You must adjust yourself to the truth. There is no other way.” Menaka started intensely feeling bad seeing Ranganath like that.
“I never can, I never can adjust myself to the ghastly truth.” Ranganath helplessly said. “You just cannot imagine how much my daughter loved me and I loved her.”
“I can imagine how a relationship between a father and daughter.” Menaka said. “Even I lost my father in my childhood itself.”
“Is it is so? I am very sorry.” Ranganath said.
Menaka hissed out heavily. “You need not. I have adjusted to that truth a long time back itself since it happened in my childhood. Moreover my mother looks after me that well I don’t need anyone else.”
Ranganath nodded his head and smiled. “What is your mother doing now?”
“She is a bank manager. I am the only daughter to her.”
“Your mother is lucky. She got a pretty and intelligent daughter like you.”
“Not so. I am lucky. You don’t know what a nice lady my mother is.”
Ranganath laughed and said “You both are lucky. You are having each other.”
Menaka became serious and said. “I want to ask some questions, if you don’t mind.” She paused for a moment and said again. “These questions may be uncomfortable to you.”
“Go on. I never mind.” Ranganath said.
“How aunty has turned up when she found her daughter dead?”
“I already told. She became mad.” There was sorrow in his tone.
“I want it in more detail. Did she imagine like this then too?”
“Yes. She did not accept the truth. Even at the time of taking my dead daughter away also, she just remained like that as if it were someone else.”
“Horrible! But I cannot understand ….. How it is possible?............ How she remain normal in every other thing?” Menaka exclaimed. “How the news of it not affected her at all?”
“It affected her in the worst way you see.” Ranganath’s face clouded with distress. “She lost her sanity.”
“But not in a complete way.” Menaka got off from the chair. “She is normal in every other way. There is no problem to any one by her. The only most peculiar thing here is from the moment of her daughter’s death, she did not accept it at all. She is still assuming and believing that her daughter is alive. Strange madness!”
“You are right.” Ranganath could not understand what Menaka is driving at. “What you are really trying to get at?”
“I cannot say. I don’t know.” Menaka shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “But deep inside me I am having a feeling that there is a link between the reason for Nirupama’s suicide and aunty’s strange madness.”
***
“So, there is nothing material you have got so far.” Looking into the eyes of Menaka, Smaran said.
“I am sorry.” Menaka leaned back in the chair and said.
“You need not. There is still time. I am confident that we can solve it.” Smaran said.
“Do all the detectives be optimistic like you?” Menaka asked him.
“All we need to be optimistic to some extent.” Smaran laughed. “We have discussed this topic many a time.”
“Any you are incurably optimistic.” Menaka smiled. “I just cannot understand whether this Nirupama is a fool or intelligent. In my opinion no intelligent person commits suicide.”
“You must change your opinion. Very great people also committed suicide. Sometimes circumstances compel even very clever people also to commit suicide.”
Menaka did not say anything. It appeared to her that her uncle was going to launch on something.
“We can divide people who commit suicide mainly into three categories.” He paused for a moment looking straight into the face of Menaka whose forehead was with straight three frowns.
“Number one: These people commit suicide whatever you may do. Nothing can stop them from doing that. Their only aim would be to commit suicide and escape from the trouble. Even they have been stopped on one or two occasions, they end their lives at the earliest possible opportunity. People who have been suffering from painful diseases, debts, etc. are the example”
Menaka nodded her head with a smile.
“Number two: These people commit suicide on sudden impulse. If they think clearly at that time and postpone that ghastly act, they may not commit suicide again. If someone interferes with them and reason with them, they may not try suicide again.” Smaran paused for a moment. “These people also do have reasons to commit suiside but not as strong as the first category. People who failed in the exams, women subjected to rapes and gang-rapes and those who cannot fulfill their aims however much hard they tried are come under this category.”
“And the third category” before Menaka said anything Smaran said. “People who come under this category do have no problems. Just because of complete boredom and not knowing what to do with their lives, these people do commit suiside. People who commit suicide only to make other people talk about them and create sensation also do come under this category.”
“Really! I just cannot believe it!” Menaka with a smile said.
“It may be surprising but there are such people also” Smaran nodded his head.
“So, in which category in your opinion our Nirupama does come?” Menaka asked him.
“Undoubtedly under the second category.” Smaran’s voice was firm
“Are you sure about that? If someone interfered with her at that time, she would not have committed suicide at all?”
“Yes.” Smaran nodded his head. “If someone interfered with her at that time and stopped her from committing suicide, I am thinking she would be alive on this day.”
“So the problem she was facing at that time was not severe.” Menaka said.
“We cannot say it like that.” He got off from the chair and went into the middle of the room and looked at Menaka. “The problem she was facing at that time was severe. It was that much severe it compelled her to commit suicide.”
“Then how can you say that she would not have committed suicide at all if someone stopped her at that time?”
“Just guess work.” He said. “I cannot say why but my subconscious is telling me so.”
Menaka deeply breathed and hissed out.
“Did you talk with that boy again, what is his name?” Smaran asked her.
“Who?” Menaka asked and remembered whom her uncle meant. “Oh, I too forgot his name. I did not talk with him again. There would not be any use. Everything he could tell, told me on that day itself.”
“There is no new information from Sukanya either?”
“Assumption right.” Menaka nodded her head.
Both of them remained silent for sometime.
“Better you go to your home and show your face to your mother. She is worrying very much about you.”
“Sure I do that. I can understand mom’s feelings.” Menaka laughed. They talked some more time.
***
“At last you have come to our home.” Nirmala said to Sukanya who entered into their home just then. “Why you have stopped coming to our house completely?”
Sukanya deeply breathed and hissed out. She had to use all her will power not to burst out into weeping before her.
“I just could not make. I became busy in preparing for my examinations.”
“But a disappointment for you. Your friend Nirupama is not here. She went to her aunt’s home.”
Sukanya felt fear again that she might burst into weeping but could control this time also. She nodded her head silently.
“If you relax yourself in the sofa, I do get you some coffee.” Nirmala left that place.
Sukanya wearily slumped herself in the sofa there and closed her eyes. Her heart became heavy as if a stone put in that.
“When did you come?”
Sukanya startled and opened her eyes. It was Menaka.
“Just now. Five minutes back.” Her voice was dry. “There is an important matter to tell you.”
Menaka frowned. “Come. We talk about that in my room.”
“Aunty went into the kitchen to get me some coffee. After picking it up, we go into that room.”
Menaka also sat beside her on the sofa. “Alright. First tell me what is that important matter you want to tell me.”
“Just wait. I do tell you. I have come here all the way to tell you about that.”
“Both of you take this coffee.” Before Menaka said something more Nirmala came there with coffee cups. She might have known Menaka’s coming there, she came with two coffee cups.
Menaka and Sukanya took those cups obediently.
“Aunty, we do go upstairs now. We want to talk there.” Menaka said.
“Sure do like that.” Retreating herself into the kitchen again Nirmala said.
Then Menaka and Sukanya went into the upstairs room.
“Please close the door behind you.” There was a sudden change in the voice of Sukanya. Menaka obediently closed that door and she noticed the change in Sukanya’s voice. Sukanya has become just like she was in trance.
Slowly she went near to the wall where the photo of Nirupama was hung with a garland around it.
“Why did you do it?”
Menaka surprised with the force in her voice.
“Why don’t you think about me? Our friendship between us?”
Menaka became a rapt listener.
“Why the hell you have not considered about your parents? What would happen to them after you put an end to your life?”
There were no sounds and the silence there was ominous.
“Where are you now? Are you seeing how your mother has become? What happened to her?”
Seeing the change in Sukanya, Menaka took a step towards her.
“I never got angry with you while you were alive. But now I am angry with you. We have shared everything between us. Why did not you tell me about this?” Sukanya became hysterical and started pounding on the wall.
(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.)
