Team Name: Scribblers' Orchard
Shekhar woke up with a start. The doorbell was ringing, with
urgency. He had fallen asleep on his writing desk, resting his head on the
keyboard, thinking over the incidents that took place in the past week in his
life. He looked at the wall clock with
half open eyes. Half past eleven. ‘Must be Tara,’ he inhaled audibly and ran a
hand over his bald head. Nowadays, any ringing bells brought only bad news.
Irritated at this thought, he got up from his desk to get the door.
‘Clink’ went the dirty tea cup left on floor. He ignored it
and chose to answer the door first. But the leftover tea was spilling out on
the floor, between cigarette butts and ash. He glanced at it sadly. He
remembered how Tara hated his messy ways. He hastily pulled a paper from his desk and
covered the spill. Then he dragged his feet to answer the still ringing
doorbell.
Shekhar Dutta had
wanted to change the world. He was the evolving face of courageous and
dedicated fire brand journalists of India. He was already the established nightmare
of corrupt politicians, exposing them on social platforms and brewing up quite
a storm. One of his recent posts on bringing back
black money to India quoted a hacker’s post in a popular forum. It had
revealed the details of many politicians and their bank balance which gained
him more popularity and support. Tara used to worry a lot about him always
inviting the ire of influential people. ‘Why don’t you join me instead?’ She
would say. He would shrug and smile.
Even before he opened the door, he could smell her presence.
Shekhar suddenly felt that his hands were made of jelly. He wanted to just
leave everything and vanish into an abyss. Their eyes did not meet when she
walked in. Crumpled business formals, mussed up hair, puffy eyes and slumped
shoulders… Tara looked poles apart from her old self. Unhappy, accusing and
angry. She walked off to the bedroom wordlessly. Shekhar stood there for a
while, not able to decide what he should do. A pall of gloom had descended
around them. Pictures on the wall in front of him were mocking him. Pictures of
him and Tara, on their adventures, pictures of Roohi…
‘…Roohi,’… a numb sensation ran through his spine and as he
stiffened, his hands nervously searching his French beard for answers. All the
pain came back, suddenly pouncing at him and stabbing him with its many
serrated nails. Roohi, their chubby, bubbly little girl, who had been the core
of their lives together, was now the center of their two different worlds, like
an amoeba nucleus.
Of late, rather than being parents, Shekhar and Tara were acting
like two contestants pulling at the opposite ends of a rope in a game of
Tug-of-War. In order to defeat each other, they were using all their might. But
it was Roohi who ended up being pulled apart. He looked at the pictures again,
and his self-doubt rose up, high, like a snake’s hood, threatening his very
existence. He wanted to give up his million twitter followers in exchange for
little Roohi.
It had been two days since Roohi had gone…
-----------
Shekhar was nervously pacing his little home office. He
checked the time for a hundredth time. He could not calm himself down since he
had heard from Jennifer Joseph.
‘Mr. Dutta,’ a ringing female voice had addressed him on the
phone, ‘I just might have found something very valuable for you.’
Shekhar could not believe what he heard. The entire episode
had unfolded in front of her eyes. Being a photographer, Jennifer was trying to
find the best angle to shoot the old church when it happened. She could see
them from her vantage point without ever being seen.
Her words were replaying in his mind like an old cassette.
Shekhar could not stop himself from running up to the door
when the bell rang this time. She smiled and Shekhar could muster up a weak
smile in reply.
‘Hi, I am Jennifer. May I come in?’ Shekhar nodded,
mesmerized, and slid to one side as if in a trance. She entered, all her bracelets
tinkling, her heavy camera swaying delicately with its strap wound around her
wrist, as she walked. The camera strap was half covering what appeared to be a
tattoo.
She reached the center of the room and stopped, and then she
turned towards Shekhar, as if asking where to sit. Shekhar, staring blankly,
motioned with his hand and she smiled again. Then she sat on one of the lounge
chairs, simultaneously placing her camera on the coffee table.
Before she could say anything, Shekhar blurted out, ‘Does anyone
else know about it?’
She seemed ready with the reply, ’No. I know it is important
for you and kept it a secret.’
She immediately reached
for her camera and switched it on.
Shekhar suddenly realized something and asked, ‘Would you
like to have a glass of water?’
‘Sure,’ she smiled.
Shekhar contained his impatience and went in to bring a
glass of water. When he came back, she was shuffling through the images while
her many bracelets jingled and tinkled. Shekhar sat down.
She picked up the glass of water and placed the camera in
front of him. He picked it up as if on cue and adjusted his glasses to have a
good look. The girl had captured pure gold! Shekhar smiled, for the first time
in many days.
‘People must have seen you coming here.’
‘I am not scared, Mr. Dutta.’
‘The Orchard is surrounded by news-hungry people nowadays. ’
‘No worries, they can think of me as one of them, what with
my camera and my casual look.’ Then she paused, and added as an afterthought, ‘I
am leaving for Kochi tonight. May God bless you Mr. Dutta, and may you find
your daughter soon.’
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