An untellable secret
(Some secrets may better remain secrets for ever)
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
“What’s your opinion on that Niranjan?” Menaka laughed. “I am asking the same thing again. Just see if your previous opinion may change.”
“My previous opinion never changes. He is a very interesting person and Nirupama and I also respect him a lot.” Sukanya knitted her brows together as she could not understand what Menaka wanted to know.
“Yes, you said to me. Nirupama respected him a lot and treated him just like her father. Don’t get irritation but I express my old doubt again. Until we unearth the truth, we have to consider the same things also again and again. When her feeling on him was like that, if he did something on her, I mean rape or rape attempt, is it would not be a sufficient reason to her to be depressed herself too much and commit suiside like that? She could not share that with anyone else also. How she can say to anyone that someone whom she treats just like her father has raped her or made a rape attempt? It would have happened somedays before her post mortem and could not be found out?”
“Even however much important it is to consider the same things again and again, I don’t like it.” With lot of anger in her face Sukanya said “I am giving the same answer to you. Niranjan is a very respectable person and he never does such type of a thing to any girl not to say on a girl whom he considers like his own daughter.”
“Keep your emotion under control and try to think reasonably. There are people who appear so good outside but do bad things all the time. This Niranjan also might be someone like them.” Menaka said.
“If something like that has happened in the hands of Niranjan to her, I am sure she would not have behaved like that with me afterwards. I said I talked with her over phone and I could not discern any difference in her voice. Of course, I was not particular then to discern any difference in her then but if she was raped in the hands of that Niranjan or some attempt like that happened on her by him, she could not conceal it like that. Not just that…..” Sukanya paused for a second before saying. “Her parents also could not see any difference in her. Are you thinking that she could behave that usually with her parents if she has been raped by that Niranjan or faced some misbehavior from him?”
“You are right. I agree with you. That Niranjan may be a clean personality.” Menaka nodded her head. “Then what cuased such a feeling in her?”
“Rather than dwelling on that all the time, we think about the other sentence she left ‘I want to pluck my eyes out’. Why?”
“More puzzling than the previous one.” Menaka breathed heavily and hissed out. “Why anyone does want to pluck out his or her own eyes?”
“We are asking ourselves the same questions again and again.”
“No way. We must do this if we want the answer and if we want to solve the mystery. You are my close friend. Please help me in solving this.”
“I do help you all in my capacity to solve this mystery.”
“Is it is because of some unbearable pain that she did want to pluck her eyes out?”
“If it is like that she would have told it to her parents and me also. There was no necessity to keep it a secret like that.”
“Of course you are right.” Menaka nodded her head. “Why cannot we come up with a better answer for this?”
“Just because there is no better answer to this I think” Sukanya said.
“I almost forgot to tell you a very important thing.” Menaka said suddenly. “I have talked with that boy Bittoo again. A very important thing came into light.” She already told Sukany about her talking with Bittoo.
Sukanya made herself straight in her chair. “Tell me what it is?”
“After thirty minutes or so on that day Nirupama left the house, Niranjan came out of it.”
“What? Is it is true?” Sukanya startled on hearing that.
“Hundred percent true. Bittoo remembered it very well. He very clearly saw him coming out of that house.”
“He is their family friend. He went to their home many a time before also. We need not feel surprise if he came out of that house on that day.” Sukanya said.
“Are you thinking about it really like that?” Menaka asked her.
“What I have to think then?” Sukanya irritatingly asked her.
“No. In fact I am not taking it so.” Menaka got off from the chair and went to the middle of the room. “There are reasons for my not taking it like that.”
“Pour your reasons out.” Sukanya encouraged her.
“Nirupama came out of the house with tearful eyes. After half an hour or so Niranjan came out of it.”
“Then? What’s the problem? Niranjan should not stay in that house at all once Nirupama came out of it so?” Sukanya knitted her brows.
“Look at it like this. Nirupama was so dear a girl to Niranjan also. If he found Nirupama worrying for something like that how he could leave her go so? He should have tried to stop Nirupama and make her get rid of the worry from what she was struggling herself.” Menaka said.
“You are hundred percent right.” Suddenly there was a brightening expression in the face of Sukanya as she understood what Menaka meant.
“That too he came out of the house after half an hour or so of Nirupama’s leaving.”
“Did he see Nirupama at all in that house then?”
“Nirupama went into the house and stayed in it nearly half an hour or so. Bittoo was in front of his house all the time and he had seen her going into the house and coming out of it. It appears impossible that Niranjan did not see her then inside of that house.”
“Another question. Were Nirmala aunty and Ranga uncle also in the house at that time?”
“Might be. Difficult to say. Atleast one of them at home. Otherwise Niranjan would not have preferred to come there at all.”
They did not talk anything for few seconds. Both of their minds were working so furiously to arrive at something.
“Could it be the same day that she came to my home also?” Sukanya asked.
“I think so” Menaka said. “Tell me again. Try to remember using all your strength. How Nirupama appeared to you when you looked at her on that day?”
“I already told you. Just except for those few seconds, she was absolutely her usual self.”
“Then it cannot be any other day I think. She somehow composed herself and behaved in her usual way afterwards.”
“You are absolutely right.” Sukanya nodded her head.
“What would have happened in that house?” Menaka thoughtfully said.
“Just a moment. I want to change my way of thinking for that Niranjan. It is very difficult to me to do so but I have to.” Suddenly Sukanya said.
“What do you want to say?” with an interesting expression in her face Menaka asked her.
“All the time that we are presuming either Nirmala or Ranganath or both were in the house when Nirupama came to home like that and went out so.” Sukanya said.
“In fact….” Menaka said. “Just fifteen days or so before her committing suicide that Ranganath went somewhere. We can safely presume that he was not present in his home on that day.”
“Alright then.” Sukanya nodded her head. “We think like this. First Niranjan came to the hosue of Nirupama. Then there was Nirmala. Niranjan was a close relative to Nirmala. Nirmala asked him to stay in the house and went out on some work. Then this Nirupama has come into her home all alone.” She paused.
“It is very difficult to you to think like that, is it is not?” Menaka was looking straight into the face of Sukanya.
“Yes, of course.” Sukanya’s face was with full of distress. “But I cannot see any other reason which could make Nirupama that much distressed. Nirupama was so beautiful! He found her all alone in that house to his advantage. He might have been developed desire on her for a long time and he knew she could not tell anyone even he did something like that on her. He would have raped her then which made her depressed like that.”
“Are you…. are you also thinking now in such a way?” Menaka was still looking into the face of Sukanya.
“I just cannot see any other reason to make Nirupama to be depressed that much. All the time she suffered so much but used all her will power to behave normally with all of us. At one moment she just could not bear it at all and committed suicide.” Tears were flowing down on the cheeks of Sukanya.
“Oh, don’t feel that much distressive.” Sukanya hugged her and kissed on her right cheek. “It is also just our assumption. It need not be hundred percent true. That Niranjan may be a Mr.Clean after all.”
“You are right.” Sukanya wiped her tears and some relaxation came into her face. After talking some more time with her, Menaka left to Ranganath’s house.
***
“I am telling you the truth Mr.Rao. There is nothing you need to worry about. You have not been afflicted with any dangerous disease. Moreover there is no devil like thing either in your home.”
Niranjan was talking in his cell phone while Menaka and Sukanya went to his home. His face lit up with pleasure when he had seen them both there. He waved them both to sit in the chairs opposite to him.
For sometime he listened patiently what the other person was saying in his phone and said. “Yes. It is like that. It is called as sleep paralysis. No, no don’t mistake it with physical paralysis. This sleep paralysis is good to us. It saves us from lot of troubles. When you meet me I do explain it to you even more. In the meanwhile don’t do any foolish thing. It does not need any medication at all.”
He cut off the call and put the cell phone down. “Some people are indeed difficult to convince. This Mr.Rao is someone like that.”
Menaka and Sukanya looked into each other’s faces. “I must say one thing here. I don’t know what this sleep paralysis is.” Sukanya said.
“No surprise at all. But we all suffer it at one point or other.” With a smile Niranjan said.
“Then tell us what it is? If we all experience it why don’t we know about it at all?” Sukanya herself asked again. Menaka was listening interestingly.
“It is not a disease as Mr.Rao is thinking. It is not something that you have to feel anxiety. As I said before everyone feels it at some point of time or other.”
“You are saying it as paralysis and not dangerous. How a paralysis cannot be dangerous?” Menaka asked him.
“I did not say simply paralysis. I said sleep paralysis.”
“What is the difference between sleep paralysis and physical paralysis?’
“Before you understand the difference between these two terms, you have to understand the sleep process. When you sleep, in fact two things do go into sleep simultaneously, one is your mind and the other is your body. Only if these two sleep at once it would be a proper sleep. And while waking up also it happens in the same way. Your mind and body do wake up at the same time.
Sometimes your body goes into sleep but your mind will go only into semi-sleep. It still to some extent works. In such situation you get dreams. As your body is sleeping it does not obey the orders of the mind then. That is why you don’t run even you get a dream that you are running in the street. The most lucky part here is whether the mind is in semi-sleep or deep sleep your body does go into sleep. If it does not happen like that you start running when you get a dream that you are running.
(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.)
