From one year earlier till today
It was the middle of December. In the Tamil month of margazhi, which had just begun, there were a lot of carnatic music concerts scheduled at various places of the city. I had planned to attend a couple of them, those which were held on Sundays. Both Aarti and I had a free day. By the way, Aarti was my friend from my college days and we were staying together in the same rented house at K. K. Nagar.
This particular Sunday I had visited a concert by Sudha Ramamoorthy, an upcoming singer who was accompanied by various side artistes. While listening to the concert, I was impressed by the mridangist. He played so beautifully. On a conversation I had initiated with the man on the left side to me, I, by chance, came to know that this mridangist is an orphan and that he works in Laxmi Shruthi Musicals at Vadapalani. I wanted to meet him alone after the concert and hence sent Aarti home.
At the end of the concert, I joined him. Touching his shoulder, I called out his name. He was no wonder surprised. I wanted him to accompany me home and in the process tell me all that he had undergone in the last four years of being in Chennai and before he had been to Chennai. He had mentioned of being in Mumbai, and how in hurry forgot to pack all his clothes, before coming to Chennai. I used this as reasons to convince him come to my home. I, in fact, did not have his luggage. He stayed over for the night and left the next day morning.
I attended two more concerts that he had played in and ensured he became a very good friend of mine. You see, he was an orphan and I too was an orphan. Our eyes met on many things. Slowly and gradually, we became close friends. His line of profession was mridangam. Mine was in the field of Information Technology.
I realized he was a loner. I too had been at his place a long time ago. It feels horrendous to be a loner. Man is a social animal. He needed a friend. I ensured to give him one.
It was some ten months ago from today, when I made him meet Nisha. I understood that he was of unstable mind because of prolonged loneliness he had faced in his life. All four of us frequently dined out and I ensured he got good company. He had to be happy. That was the only way he could be cured of his mental illness.
Slowly but surely, as the wheel of time rotated, I became one of his best friends and he confided in whatever I did. He was so dependent on me that he would ask my permission to even meet Nisha. He blindly believed me. I had noticed this now.
Nisha and Kaushik started spending time together alone. But however, he would always keep me updated of his whereabouts and had trusted me as the sole friend of his life. He would not hesitate to ask any help from me. I was happy to help him always. I felt it was my duty. Two months ago, I had a small talk with Nisha. She said she had fallen in love with Kaushik. I was startled. But I did not show any emotion in front of her, lest she became suspicious of me hiding something from her.
I, over the last week, talked to Kaushik on the prospects of having a life partner. He was grateful to me for being like a parent and guiding him through the way of life. He had called me a godsend friend. I simply smiled at him.
At last, after one year, I had fixed a private meeting for Kaushik with Nisha at the nearby hotel room. I had wanted him to tell her his life history and vice versa so that both would know well about each other before we could all sit together to decide the marriage date for both Kaushik and Nisha as well as myself and Aarti.
I had asked Nisha to wear an expensive wrist watch specifically for the occasion. It contained a spy camera and would record all conversion that the two had. I wanted to ensure that both told the same story to each other that they had independently told me. But both had no idea that their conversation was being recorded by the wrist watch that contained a camera. Hence I was confident; they would only speak the truth. As for the purpose of verification, I could always copy the contents of the camera to the pen drive and see it for myself.
I had asked Nisha to send a blank SMS message to my number in case she was in any trouble. I had told her to delete the saved name of the contact. It would hardly take me five minutes to reach the hotel and solve any problem, I knew. However in reality, I was expecting no message from her. As for Kaushik, there could be no trouble, especially from Nisha, who had confessed her love for him to me.
After the meeting late yesterday evening, I had planned to go to Delhi to exactly find out the cause of death of Kaushik’s parents and sister. For that purpose, I had booked two first class AC tickets by Tamil Nadu Express to Delhi.
It was a bolt from the blue, when I indeed received a blank message from Nisha. I was certainly not expecting it. I hurried to the hotel, past the reception to their room. The door was not latched. I opened it and then saw the lifeless body of Nisha on the bed. Kaushik had gone to the bathroom to take a bath after the murder he had committed. I went over to her body and looked for the watch. It was not there. But as I leaned over her body, I saw it on the floor. Like a fool, I picked it up and showed my face to it, before stopping the recording.
I cursed myself for the action and went out quickly. I prayed Kaushik would not know about the watch. Listening through the door, standing on the deserted corridor of the hotel, I listened to Kaushik’s footsteps coming out of the bathroom. At that moment, I knocked the door and waited for Kaushik to open the unlocked door.
He opened it after a minute. He spoke quickly and the nervousness was unmistakable in his voice. “You came at the right time, Bhagwanji. It’s getting late for our departure to the railway station. Come, let’s go.”
I asked to him about what to do with Nisha. For that he replied, or rather lied, “She’s asleep Bhagwanji. She got bored listening to my story and told me she would rather sleep than to listen till the end. Also she asked me to leave the room and that she would follow later. I have to obey her.”
He virtually pushed me out of the door and held my hand tight as he moved unstopped to the car to leave for the railway station. I told him to sit whilst I drove to the station. Fortunately for me, he slept while I was driving and then I stopped the car at a nearby cyber cafe to get the recording downloaded to a crimson red pen drive I was carrying. He would have had no inkling, that I had disposed off the watch and the recording had been in pen drive.
We reached the station and boarded the train. Next we waited for the TTE to check our tickets after the train departed. He was perhaps silent for what he had done, while I was silent for what I had seen at the hotel room.
Well after the TTE left the coach, I confronted him his crime. He feigned innocence. I showed him the pen drive recording in my laptop. Barely had the video run for five seconds, he pulled out the pen drive and went and stood near the door, well, to jump out of the train running at full throttle. I found the TTE standing behind me when I turned after seeing Kaushik jump. He is the sole other witness to the suicide.
At his behest, I am sitting in Vijayawada, because Kaushik Swaminathan had committed suicide.