Continued….
Raj saw the clock which displayed 8.27am to be precise, hanging on the library wall adjacent to the exit. It was Monday and fortunately occupied by many juniors, who preferred to sit in couples fondling, playing tricks as if they were sitting in park, which Raj considered cheap. Now he didn’t intentionally sneak around the library to find out if somebody he hated from the bottom of his heart did make her presence, it just happened. One can say it was just a weak response to stimuli: a stimulus here refers to her absence for which he had weak response. He had CORPORATE ETHIC Xerox with him & the 2 page explanation. After going through that paper again & again he had become perfect in that and was patronized to study more. He sat in his first bench where by default only his trespassing was strictly allowed.
By the time he could settle down with all his stuff he still kept staring at the entrance & wondered what made MISS SCHOLAR to be late. He started studying the next chapter but felt helpless as usual after some time. The time passed by and soon it was evening, but still Devika didn’t turn up. He felt very stupid of himself to see her!!
He went back to hostel as usual at 6pm, but this time he had been able to absorb something from the book.
*
The next day pretty much was the same. Raj went to study & was surprised to see Devika’s absence.
*
He came to library at around 8.30 and she still wasn’t there. He enquired other girls who were junior & lived in the hostel about Device and was disappointed after learning that Devika wasn’t close to anyone. Those girls didn’t have any idea about her whereabouts. So he made up his mind to do an autopsy in the evening while returning to hostel. He got out of library when it was dark just to be sure that no one could see him going to the hostel. He went near the girl’s hostel which was quite far from the library. The road to hostel was carved out of dense banyan trees, at night it would seem as if anyone’s going into deep forest. It wasn’t a new thing for Raj to visit girl’s hostel since he had been there for numerous times, shedding out crocodile tears just to have an upper level of emotional trust. But this time it was for a different cause. In this whole process he still didn’t figure out why he was being so unobtrusive about her, that generous help of hers did manage to produce a small cozy place of sympathy in his heart.
He had to take a U turn which was very long & it lead to girl’s hostel. This turn was in the amidst of bushes to which no one paid any considerate heed, they were left unattended & Raj just had an indecorous look. While moving his eyelids he suddenly saw something mysterious, some babel. He went off the road towards it & sneaking behind the big banyan tree in the realms of dim light of moon, he stood there stunned Devika’s soda glasses broken into two pieces and Devika laid totally unconscious in the pool of blood around her caused by a knife stabbed right in her abdomen & witnessing this scene Raj stood numb, at the back of his mind a Hindi phrase’katon to khoon nai’ studied during school days appeared. He got goosebumps and soon he went into a no mind state. He heard some noise yelling at him ‘Raj, Raj!!’, a girl’s voice,he thought as if he was been accused for that… he fell down thud!!! & saw blurred image of Devika which soon converged into a HD image & before he found he had been dreaming, Devika hurriedly said,” Aruna’s car met with a fatal accident. A truck just got in her way; she’s in the hospi we need to go. Hurry up. I got a call from hospital” & soon they left for hospital on his bike, while Raj still couldn’t take that dream out of his mind, on the other side his mind was poking him cunningly making him realize that Devika was behind him & too on HIS BIKE!!!!
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