Page 272 - Musings 2020

agencies that I was telling the truth. I exactly remember that night. I couldn’t sleep even for a
moment.

Anirudh: None of my department heads ever told me about any of this, how can these people
be so mean!

Radhika: (responding as if she didn’t hear him) As my feet dragged my tired soul, I saw a
mob standing in front of me, they were people of our residential area. At first, I could not
understand whether it was real or whether I was hallucinating. But the first drop of blood that
fell from my head to the ground cleared my doubt. I had been hit by a stone. That stone was
followed by a shower of stones and abuses. If the police would have not intervened in time,
I’m sure I would have been martyred for the defense project of the government. The next
thing I remember is being in a hospital, injuries all over my body, screaming in pain. Even in
that condition I was certain that the physical pain was hardly a fraction of the emotional and
psychological trauma I had gone through in the last 2 years. I swear while lying on that bed, I
had no desire but just to see you once, to ask you where have you been, to ask if you were
fine, to ask you if it was so difficult to make one phone call in two years, to ask you if there
was an end to this suffering, to ask you if you even remember your Radhika….

Anirudh: (embracing her warmly) Oh Radhika! What all have you been through, all this
because of me?! How could I do this, the person whom I love the most, the person around
whom my life revolved had to experience hell, just because of me. Oh, God! I won’t be able
to forgive myself, EVER! If only I could show my heart to you, you would see there has been
no moment of my life when I didn’t think of you. In those two years I had made all possible
attempts to make contact with you but despite begging badly in front of them, innumerably
many times I have spent sleepless nights just staring at your photograph, remembering the
wonderful moments we had spent together. Your smiling face was the antidote to all my
pains, all my frustration. Right after the initial month, my only aim was to get out of that
project. The project which I had yearned to work on no longer appealed to me, in fact, I
started hating my work because it took me away from you. The only thing that kept me going
was the hope that one day I would definitely be able to walk out of that wretched lab to see
you.

(A sudden noise of metal doors clanging in the background; Anirudh- startled, looks towards
the doors. A woman dressed in a white uniform with a syringe in her hands walking towards
Anirudh, a stout man following her with a metal case in his hands. As soon as he sees them,
the cream-colored walls turn white and the floor turns into cold stone. The sofa on which he
was sitting turns slowly into a wooden bench.)

Anirudh: Who are you guys? How dare you barge in? What’s happening to this place?

(They continue walking in the same direction speechless.)

Anirudh: Mom, Dad, Bhaiya, Radhika... Do you know these people?

(All remain silent, their faces dead and plain.)

Anirudh: (shouts at the top of his voice) Why is no one answering!

272