This too shall pass.
Writing brings me closer to God.
It's my bridge, my vacation and my delight.
I find stories everywhere, in the blind student's eye and in the glossy nails of supermodels.
There was a story when I got married at the age of 19...
 Email |
 Print |
 Share |
I heard about her disappearance at a party. ‘We are so worried,’ one of the other invitees, a fellow journalist told me , “ she left office and has been missing for 5 hours now”.
Obviously this girl, a new recruit to the organisation, much liked by her colleagues, had left work on her two-wheeler. And clean disappeared.
As this incident and conversation happened in Delhi, I could hear alarm bells ringing louder than usual.
Riding a two -heeler, anywhere in the night, is decidedly dangerous. Narrow escapes are routine, sometimes one is not even aware of the hair’s breadth that has saved one’s life from being extinguished by a passing truck or heavy vehicle that swerved past and away just in time.
That is not the only danger. A girl riding alone in the night is vulnerable. She can be waylaid, whisked into a car. Anything can happen. There have been instances of women in cars being followed if there is no man accompanying them... and a two wheeler is all the easier to follow, overtake, overcome.
Little wonder , the worry.
The evening went on, the party continued. Only a few of us in the know had knitted brows, that would increasemomentarily in general conversation, only to crease again, as the tension continued.
Finally some more news came in. The girl’s two wheeler had been found. It was with the watchman. She had, he reported, parked it with him, as it had failed.
Moreover, she had told him she was finding her way by other means of transport, and her phone to would be off.
And then, she had disappeared. The watchman had found nothing wrong in her statement, he found nothing strange in the fact that she was telling him a fact that had no relevance to him: that her phone was off.
The conclusion everyone who heard this story came to was, that the girl, thanks to some secret assignation, had chosen to run away. To elope or embark on a trip that was hush hush, that her family was not informed of, that quite suddenly removed her from their focus..
Three days later, I hear in Mumbai that the girl is still absconding. Her relatives have visited her office, conferred with her colleagues, and perhaps informed the police about her being missing.
But the general conclusion is still that she has disappeared willingly, and of her own free will. She’s an adult after all....
I refuse to believe this. Something in the story does not ring true. Even if she has gone of her own free will, I do think someone would want to know where she is. And not just her family, but those in her workplace who knew her, who were probably privy toher secrets.
More often than not, my sister tells me, In the UK, when a girl disappears, the family and the police, start with the assumption that she has been kidnapped, that she could be dead.
If no proof emerges to validate their fears, then they try to check if she has indeed run away, either on her own or with a companion. More times than not, the fears prove true, and a body is found, mangled, or multilated, in an attempt to hide its identity. It is a sad truth many families face, but the disappearance of a young girl is never something that has a happy ending.
Something keeps whispering in the back of my mind that the watchman she spoke to needs to be spoken to some more. How much does it take for someone lying in wait for the girl as she parks her two wheeler, to bribe the watchman to say what he did, to allay suspicions of kidnap, for a little time.
The watchman might indeed be innocent, but there is no reason not to check him out. I do hope the police is doing this.
Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the family that must live in suspense, with every waking moment spent in worry and nameless fears crowding in.
Then a couple of days later, I am told, she is back.
Back at home, back at work.
She had indeed gone ‘ of her own free will”.
Hmmm, I tell myself, perhaps it is true, perhaps it is a cover up. If the former, it says much about her that seems out of character to her friends.
The fact is, a girl was missing for almost a week, and all we had to go on, was a watchman’s tale.
U feel we are amiss, for taking the whole thing so lightly. Are we so rushed in our lives that a girl going missing from our midst does not shake us up? Are we so westernised now in our thinking that we believe it is none of our business.
And on her part, is it that, this girl embodies the spirit of her generation; that she thinks her life is her own business and she can come and go out of the lives of those around her at will?
I am still seeking answers!
Newer post