Funny how dark and daunting the corridors appear at night without the bubbling energy of a hundred chattering voices, bright sunlight and the hustle-bustle of students running to their classes. Here I was, standing in the same corridors after 20 years, waiting for my appointment. Whom was I meeting – a nemesis from my past, a person whom I had promised to meet on this date and at this time – 1am in the night – at the corridors of our college....
She was the love of my life, my one- and- only during our college days. Intelligent, good-humoured and attractive, Geeta charmed her way into most hearts and into my heart the day she asked to share my seat in the U-Special (our University bus). Flattered and flustered at the same time, I shifted to accommodate her and was horribly conscious of her light perfume and nearness. Geeta, of course, was sublimely unaware of my state and chattered away almost the entire time – where do you stay? Which course are you in? Did you get ragged the first day? Who is your favourite teacher etc. etc. Trying my best to keep up, I alternated between mumbling a specific and a general reply. With a cheery wave, she said goodbye as the bus stopped and we went our ways inside the college corridors.
Still a little bemused, I could not pay much attention in the class; thankfully it was an English subsidiary class, so not much attention was anyway needed. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t even know her name nor her course...maybe I would be lucky and run into her again, I thought optimistically. I waited eagerly for her in the afternoon U-special but she didn’t board the bus. So continued many days of that summer of ’90, and I didn’t get to talk to Geeta again though I did get a few glimpses of her at the college corridors and the canteen and managed to discover her name and course – English honours.
When college re-opened after the summer holidays, I was pleasantly surprised to see Geeta board the U-special again on the way home. This time, I took the initiative and called out her name indicating the empty seat beside me. To my delight, she obliged and we were soon chatting away like old friends. Thus began the start of a relationship that continued even after college and we had enrolled for post graduation studies. More by design than chance, we both enrolled at the same university and spent all our waking moments together. But we never forgot the college corridors where we first met and often went back to the canteen to relive the moments. In fact, we promised to each other, in the unlikely event of us parting ways, we would meet 20 years hence at these very corridors on 10th July.
Life continued blissfully till one day Geeta came to our favourite haunt looking worried and unhappy. Apparently, like all Indian families, the relatives had started hounding her parents on marriage and proposals were coming in by the dozen. She begged me to meet her parents and ask for her hand formally. But, I was not ready for marriage; I wanted to travel, explore, and try my hand at different jobs before I settled down.
Geeta was distraught, we started having terrible fights and arguments and she accused me of using her and leaving her in the lurch. Even though I knew we were soul mates, I was just not able to convince her that my reluctance for marriage was more an age issue than a problem with her. After some rather ugly and angry words flung at each other, one fine day Geeta just stopped meeting me. No calls were returned, no messages though friends found an answer and she stopped all contact. The family moved to another city and left no forwarding address...it was almost as if she had disappeared into thin air.
Life went on, I never married. Maybe I was just not cut out for domesticity or maybe no girl could fit into Geeta’s shoes. I was now the CEO of a large corporate and 20 years later, I still wonder where Geeta went. Little did I know that I would soon have my answer....
I can still recall that pleasant October evening in Delhi, as I lazily scrolled channels waiting for my favourite show to come on television. Sprawled on my favourite bean bag, imagine my shock and surprise, as a face flashed by in between my channel switching. Unbelieving, I urgently traced back all the channels I had switched and saw her again – yes it was Geeta or at least someone who looked a lot like her! I pinched myself to make sure I was awake and watched in a daze as Geeta or her lookalike rattled off some ad lines on the TV. Very soon the ad was over and Geeta had again vanished into thin air. It was like I never saw her. It was eerie how I waited the whole night for her and the ad to come again but to no avail. For weeks, I kept tuning into the same channel and at the same time but the ad did not come again, nor did Geeta.
I used all my corporate contacts and powers to find out about the ad, the agency and through them Geeta. The agency contact was equally clueless, “She just came for one shoot through a common reference, I don’t even remember her name now but I don’t think it was Geeta. Anyway, we liked her so made this one ad with her. Then my boss got a call from a higher-up from the client side saying that the ad should not be aired again and Geeta too disappeared”. I had lost her yet again...
Lost in thought, my mind miles away, I came to with a start at the insistent peal of the alarm...I saw the time – 12 in the night, 9th July. Subconsciously, I had put in an alarm for the fateful meeting of 10th July! I dressed slowly, my mind swirling – will I finally meet her? Will she come? But how can she? What will happen? I have no idea how I got dressed and found myself driving down the empty Delhi roads towards that long journey to my college. Trembling with trepidation, I walked slowly down the dark, daunting corridors, fearing what I would see. I waited afraid what ghosts will emerge from the oppressive, dark silence around me. Yes, you heard right – I feared a GHOST – why you ask, because you see all those years ago, the day Geeta left me and turned down my marriage proposal, I KILLED HER...throttled her with my own hands!
If she could not belong to me, she could not belong to anyone else either. I was obsessed by Geeta, would have laid my own life for her but that little bitch, that loose-morale woman had been two-timing me! It was not me who wanted to live my life first and not marry...it was her! She wanted to see the world, have her little escapades, her flirtations and not be tied down so soon. “You are sweet, “she said. “I was very flattered, very bowled over by your attention but you know we are too young to marry...I haven’t even seen the world yet, not known other men. Let’s wait a while and then if we still care for each other, we can marry”, she continued with a pitying look in her eyes. It was that pitying look more than the words or the refusal that did it...I dragged her into the thick foliage surrounding us and strangled her in a haze of red, jealous rage. Then I laughed like a crazed animal and slunk off into the early evening darkness of December Delhi winter. It was sheer luck that the winter chill and fog had kept both lovers and the police away from that jungle-like foliage of the Deer Park.
Her body was discovered two days later but my gloved hands had ensured that no fingerprints were left behind. Since we didn’t have any mutual friends and even her closest friends did not know we were dating, I was safe. A few years of almost continuous nightmares, I finally slept a peaceful night when Geeta’s death was declared as a victim of acute cold and chill.
So why was I here at these corridors 20 years hence, keeping an appointment with a ghost? Maybe, I wanted to make sure that the ad on TV was indeed with a lookalike. It was I who had ordered the ad not to be aired again...I did not want to be haunted by any reminders – real or unreal.
As I waited fearfully at first and then with growing amusement at my own stupidity, I finally decided to go home. Just as I was turning around to walk towards the door, I heard footsteps. Terrified and shocked to the core, I stopped still and unwillingly, slowly turned back to see a woman walking towards me. It was Geeta, my mind recognised, screaming “how could this be”! Frozen to the spot with fear, I watched Geeta come closer and closer till she stopped a feet away from me. “Recognise me Shyam; I am the Geeta you left behind all those years ago to die in the bushes. I didn’t die...an old rag-picking couple found me half dead to the cold and tended to me day and night till I recovered. To the rest of the world I was dead...my parents and the police must have looked for me for months till they too gave up. Lost to the world in that poor couple’s cottage at the edge of the city border with no newspaper or TV, I had no means of communicating or even knowing where I was. I could not go back, nor could I move forward. I lived in the couple’s hut for years grateful to have a life back and joined them in their daily living activities.” It was only then that I noticed Geeta’s clothes – ragged and torn, her face – dark, bruised and haggard.
“Oh yes, Shyam, you left me with little choice – I had no home, to the world I was dead and I had nowhere to go. You destroyed my dreams, my life, everything and I have liked like a machine since then – eating because I had to, sleeping because my tired body demanded it but my mind working all the time, busy plotting thoughts of destroying you. I had been waiting for this day, when we would meet on this appointed day, 20 years hence. Somehow, I knew you would come and to ensure that you will, I did a small spot on the ad for poor people. I visualised how shocked you would be to see me and how I would enjoy your fear and helplessness”, she continued with a mad gleam in her eyes
Just as I was thinking of taking out my gun, my loyal companion since that fateful night 20 years ago, her next words stopped me. “You know today when I finally do see you; it is amazing how indifferent I feel. I no longer want to kill you, torture you or even punish you in any way. I just want you to live with this fear that I am alive and can have you hanging from that rope anytime and any day that I wish to. That uncertainty and fear is what I want to leave with you for the rest of your life, Shyam”, Geeta said as she walked back into the darkness of the college corridors, confident that I would not try to kill her the second time. Maybe she did know me well, I knew this was the reprisal I had waited for, and this was how God would punish me in this life and maybe even beyond. Broken and alone, I prepared to live my life in fear for that inevitable moment when I would hang to death.
Copyright © 2011 PRO WRITERS
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