Shyam’s eyes opened, found Charmi sat on the floor crossing her legs near him. Her face was fresher now. She smiled at him seeing him awaken, “Good Morning.”
“Morning,“ Shyam’s mind filled with sadness. Perhaps, she were Archana, he would smile at her in response, but..?
“You have rested. I hope your mind will work now.” She had still the same smile on her face.
“Of course! I could sleep well after many days as I was not alone in the cell. The mind is also fresh and active.” Shyam felt the vigour in his body and mind after a fast sleep and cold atmosphere.
“You are never alone anywhere. Prayer of your beloveds, as well as God, are always with you We must escape as soon as possible.” He startled, but he felt relieved when he realised Charmi spoke. He remembered Archana spoke somewhat the same as this.
“Hamm! We must slip away from here, anyway.” He firmly spoke because this time he also wanted to run away.
“I am thinking over it. You also think about any way to escape.”
“I always think the same but I will try to think again.” he started to think without caring whether or not Charmi listened to him.
He remembered his own words when he advised his students while teaching. We should remember any past experience related to if we have before doing any work. He tried to remember his old experience to escape. He had bunked classes during his high school times. He had no experience of a college bunk as he had finished his graduation from open university. Class bunk and escape from the kidnapper are two different situations. Even the mad can’t think to use former experience in the later. But he would do what even a madman never do. He laughed at own self.
Introduction on the internet, fall in love while talking on the phone and trapped in the cell, any madman never does such an act. He had no adjective to suit himself. Many lost their sister. Many girls do suicide daily in this country. Does anyone go so far as to accept a handicapped girl?
If I don’t escape, they will kill me someday. If I never try to escape, I will surely live sometime more- sometimes more up to so-called some poll, and If I try to escape, there are two options. If I am caught, the certain death and if I am not caught, it will reward me the life- the life with freedom.
But he suddenly removed the thought. No, this is an excuse. He threw the thought out of his mind before Kajal’s face came against his eyes and hated him.
If you are caught while class bunk in school, it can punish you one or two slap from the class teacher. If the matter worsens, you have to write an apologising letter and submit to the principal. No more risk. But, here if you are caught, the punishment is only and only the death.
One option had a little more life and definite death after that. In the second choice, there was a free life and perhaps death. He felt the perhaps death is a better choice than certain death. Have I not tried to escape due to fear of death? He wondered as for when he fled with Archana if they were caught; the death was sure.
“Archana. Oh! Sorry, Charmi, have you any experience of escape?” he came out of the thoughts and asked her.
“Archana! The name is a good one.” She smiled, “Have you any experience?”
“School bunk and…”
“And..” Charmi asked.
“And to flee with Archana.” Shyam turned his eyes as if he were not ready to face her gaze.
“Love and flee?” she smiled again and cast an arrow of the question.
Shyam was mute. He could not bear the question. He could not understand what to say? did he flee or did he trapped here? He kept himself silent.
“Why are You speechless?” Charmi had many arrow like questions in her quiver.
“I have experience of bunking and elopement but not of breaking.”
“You will have this time for the last one, too.” Charmi laughed.
“Hamm. We will have experience of breaking if we succeed.” He murmured, “Experience is nothing but a past life and you have no past as soon as you die. After death, you will be the past but for others.”
“We have to die someday. You have said they will kill us after some election.”
“And we don’t know when the fucking poll will be. We have only one way, to escape from here the soonest.” Shyam’s voice had the fear and disgust.
“You are right but a problem?” Charmi became nervous.
“What?”
“I want to know who the kidnappers are and why have they kidnapped us? If I can know answers to these two questions, I can think of a full proof plan.”
“Full proof?” Shyam moved to her as he got interested in hearing the word a full proof, “What do you mean by full proof?”
“I am a detective, an army spy. I have been working on many cases and I have solved many cases. I have many enemies and I cannot think about a full proof plan without knowing who the kidnapper from my long list of enemies is.” Charmi was calm and cool now. She was talking about her enemies as if she were talking about her relatives.
“What do you mean by full proof? And why are you saying all these to me? A detective never says to anybody, she is a detective or spy.” Shyam doubted.
“In the army, a full proof plan means minimum casualty. And I told all these to you so you also tell me the truth. Now start to say truth everything and the truth. Who are you? For which agency do you work? What is your mission?” Charmi looked at him with suspecting eyes. Shyam realised he had been in this prison for months. His looks were no more of a teacher. He spread his palms over his beard and hair. Anybody can suspect him being a gangster or secret agent.
“I am not an agent.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am a tutor. I was also doing the job”
“Yeah,” Charmi rolled her eyes.
“And if you really like to listen to the truth, I am a lover.”
“Lover?” she repeated his words with a question mark.
“A long story! I am here due to love.”
“Okay, tell me how were you caught?” Charmi interrupted him as if she were not interested in her love or romance. Your love story is not interesting to others.
“When I was getting on the bus and when I got a conscience, my hands and legs were tied and mouth had tape over my lips.
“It will be a great obligation if you can tell me in the description.” Shyam couldn’t understand she was mocking on him or really requesting.
“It is a long story. From where should I begin?” Shyam confused.
“From the day they caught you,” Charmi suggested him.
Those scenes floated in Shyams’ eyes as those were the scenes in which he had been with Archana last time. He never forgets those scenes.
How can he forget the time and place where he was with Archana last time?
“We had got down at the exit point of the bus station; I mean bus station of sector-17, Chandigarh. There was a reason. Archana thought it was not safe to go to the bus station. The bus station of Satara was in front of us and the shop-rows of sector-22 was behind us.”
“What do you mean by not safe?”
“You sent her alone in an auto in the night… so late in the night.” Charmi scolded him.
“You think Archana and I fled against her parents’ will.” Shyam met Archan first time there too but Shyam felt it was of no use to tell Charmi that. “It was midnight. Archana wished we be in the crowd hence no one could spot us easily. But the night was darkening and sector-17 was deserted and few autos stood near the bus station. I wanted to drop her at her home but she feared if her family member would see me, there will be a problem.”
“Then…?”
“I got her to sit in an auto.”
“I noted down the registration number of the auto and took a photo image of his license in my mobile. Archana and said goodbye to each other, and the auto started toward the sector-11. I stood there looking the auto going until it faded from my eyes.” Shyam was speaking looking at the corner as if he were watching the scene in the corner of the cell and depicting to Charmi.
“And after that?”
“I was alone but still I was fearing. I have to reach Gujarat.”
“Why Gujarat?”
“Yaar, I am from Gujarat. I came here for Archana. We fled but we couldn’t succeed so I was going to Gujarat.”
“What was the plan? You unsucceeded means?” Charmi got more interested.
“Yes, our plan failed. We had reached Gujarat, but we had to return back even after reaching Ahmedabad.”
“Stop please, you succeeded to reach Gujarat then why did you come back?”
“It is a long story. I will tell you in details later.” Shyam removed his gaze from the corner and looked at Charmi who was staring at him interestingly.
“Okay, I have no interest in your love story. Go ahead and tell me how were you captured?”
“I had two options. I could go to Gujarat either by train or by bus.”
“What had you preferred?”
“It was risky by the train.”
“Hamm. By train was risky. But Why?” Charmi couldn’t understand anything.
“Because the railway station is pretty far from Satara, almost eight km. it was difficult to reach the railway station. Archana’s father had sent both police and some local goons after me.”
“I see.”
“The easiest way to reach Gujarat from Chandigarh is via Delhi but it was only five hours we had left Delhi and the police were searching me there as sniffer dogs.”
“What did you do then?”
“I chose the longest route instead of via Delhi.”
“Which route?”
“Chandigarh to Himachal Pradesh, to Dehradun from there…. then Haridwar… then Bareli, then lucknow.. From there to Madhya Pradesh and at last Gujarat.”
“Isn’t it a long route?”
“Yes, but it it was only the safest route.”
“You would have gotten good marks in geography,” Charmi said but Shyam continued without considering on her sentence.
“It was necessary now for me to enter the bus station to catch the bus for Himachal Pradesh. I entered the bus station with great care. Chandigarh-Shimla. The bus was ready to depart. I was standing little far from the Bus waiting for the bus to be started.”
“Why were you waiting for the bus to be started? I couldn’t understand the reason.”
“I was afraid if I got in the bus before it started and someone came there, no way or time for me to escape but if I was out of the bus, I could run away if anybody noticed me there. I could easily disappear among the passengers waiting for different buses. if I was out of the bus, I would have time, place and the chance to run away
“I am afraid you are not an agent. a tutor can never think and plan so safely.”
“I‘m a tutor. I swear to God. I am fond of James Bond since childhood.” Shyam laughed and Charmi also did so.
“Go ahead.”
“The engine commenced throbbing. The door was open. I approached the door. I placed my right hand on the handle of the door and settled my left foot on the step of the door and I felt a touch, a human touch on my right shoulder. I tried to look back who the person was but my grip over the handle loosens. I felt stung by the scorpion in my shoulder and the severe black pain. I could look back but I couldn’t see or feel anybody there. My brain stopped to process on the signals sent by my eyes.” Shyam stopped to breathe for a while. Perhaps, he feels tired and exhausted remembering that incident. “I heard the sound of the door closing. I realised the bus was going. I was stepping in a certain direction but I was unaware of where I was going and why I was going. I took three or four steps and I felt my legs were going to paralyze. I felt myself collapsing as my legs were unable to hold my body weight. But there was somebody to hold me. I noticed they were the same hands I felt at my shoulder just before. I wanted to escape from those hands but I lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes I was on the floor in a dark room and my hands and legs were tied tightly.”
“Then?”
“Beating and torturing and questioning.” Shyam described how they tortured him and interrogated him.
“Hamm. Propofol... You were injected propofol.” Charmi’s voice murmured and her voice was somewhat inaudible.
“Propophol? What the hale was it?” Shyam heard the word the first time.
***
To be continue...
