RECAP

Sneha re-lives her college days by meeting Anjali. They have a great time together which ends quite tragically with Raj announcing the tragic death of Rahul.

CHAPTER 14

After what seemed like an eternity, Sneha finally got herself separated from Raj’s embrace and led her inside the house. Raj followed sobbing all the while. Sneha quickly got into the kitchen to get a glass of water for Raj. Fifteen minutes later, when she finally thought that Raj seemed to have controlled himself a little bit, she asked as slowly as possible, “How?”  

Rahul was Raj’s best friend. They were almost always together until both of them got married. Even then they did keep atleast a day in a month to get together and share some “boys’ time”.

“I... I can’t believe it....  I mean I met him few days back.. He was .... but he didn’t say...  but now I feel may be there was this something in his voice.... something I should have caught, but I was too preoccupied with my own problems... I wish I had....” Sneha tried to connect the random beads of Raj’s thoughts but whatever he was uttering seemed more like a monologue with his inner mind.

“How did it happen? How did you come to know? Did Vinita call you to inform?” Sneha tried to ask specific questions so that she could make out what exactly had happened. Vinita was Rahul’s wife. Theirs too was a love marriage. They made a perfect couple – happily married for the last four years. Sneha’s mind tried to imagine the terrible condition in which Vinita must be at that moment. Losing one’s husband, and that too at such a young age!

“She’s ...” Raj bit his cheeks harder, as if trying to control the flood of tears that threatened to flow out.

“Is she ok?” Sneha caressed his hand

“She’s dead too.”

Sneha pressed his hand as he uttered those words quickly. A car crash! Sneha was sure of that. Rahul was such a rash driver. How fast he drove!

“He killed her. Then he killed himself.” At first Sneha thought she just imagined hearing those words. The look of horror on her face reflected in Raj’s eyes. The next image that flashed in her mind was that of Rahul and Vinita, holding hands, teasing each other, laughing and enjoying the bliss of being together – the way they were when she saw them last time – which was around a month back.

Moments trickled as both of them sat silently, each one trying to think what to think.

Finally Raj spoke again. By this time, he seemed to have gained a better control of his emotions. Almost like a news reporter but without any sensational tone in his voice, he narrated whatever he knew mechanically,

“Police found the suicide note. He has confessed in it. He found out that Vinita was having an extra marital affair with a guy from her office. He just couldn’t take it. So he got home, drowned her in the bath tub and then slit his wrists.”

Sneha took a big sigh, as if her body had simply exhaled whatever information Raj tried to feed into her. It was just unbelievable. She just couldn’t seem to accept it. First the deaths – that too murder and suicide and then the extra marital affair – but they loved each other deeply. Vinita was not like that! It all seemed too unreal – the stuff that happened in some B grade Bollywood movie. And to think that something like this can happen in real life, and that too in their lives – it was hard for Sneha to believe all this!

Both of them sat there for a long time, just holding each other’s hands. Raj seemed too lost in his own world – Every now and then, a tear trickled down his cheeks probably triggered by some happy moment that he shared with Rahul in past.

Their house was engulfed by a mourning silence for the next few days. They went about performing the daily tasks and in between attended the Mourning organized by Rahul’s family. Raj often looked at his old photographs with Rahul and remembered the ‘good old days’. After a month of mourning, silence and seriousness, normalcy slowly crept back in their lives.  Sneha too resumed her daily domestic chores but along with the monotony was an eerie seriousness that lingered around her like the dead ghosts of Vinita and Rahul. Ever since she had heard about how Rahul “found out” and the nightmarish consequences of that horrible discovery, she had been imagining herself in the same scenario. “I am not having any affair with the Night Wanderer... It’s just ...  I haven’t even met him...” Often she tried to defend herself, but these explanations seemed dishonest in the light of the latest mails that she had started receiving from the NightWanderer. In the beginning, the ‘I Miss You’ cards were cute with lonely teddy bears or puppies, but as days passed the cards and mails became more serious and descriptive. Though Sneha didn’t chat with him but she had maintained regular contact through mails and of late it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to respond appropriately to words like Love, Sexy, Romance etc that the Nightwanderer carelessly and frequently mentioned. She knew that now she had to talk to him once, to clarify the limits and boundaries of their so-called relationship. But before that she had realized that she had to tell Raj. Only then she could stop feeling guilty. But then, knowing how possessive Raj was... and also how his best friend had responded under those circumstances, she felt scared. Raj too seemed to have changed. Vinita’s betrayal seemed to have made him a bit bitter against women in general. “ Will he understand that it was a merely casual chat friendship..? What if he refuses to believe?...” the questions that brought Sneha to yet other kind of crossroad....

…to be continued 

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