Neel searches the contacts on his mobile phone and gets Titiksha’s office number. There aren’t many contacts in his phone anyway.
‘Hello.’ A man speaks on the phone.
‘Hello. This is Neel Chatterjee. Could you please tell me if Titiksha has left or not?’
‘Yes, yes. Titiksha ma’am has left on time.’
‘At what time?’
‘On time. Titiksha ma’am has left on time.’
‘Could you please tell me at precisely what time? I’m her…’ Neel was a bit cautious. Live-in partner may not go down well so he says, ‘I’m her husband.’
‘Titiksha ma’am has left on time.’
What’s wrong with this man? Is he a robot?
‘Thanks.’ Neel cut the line, a tad disturbed as well as frustrated. If she has left on time, then she should have reached home by now. Or is she with the other guy, hatching another scheme to humiliate him?
Neel’s gut feeling says she won’t be back for dinner. He searches for one of the Domino’s Pizza pamphlets which someone keeps dropping at his doorstep time and again. He finds it, dials their number, and orders a Pizza, coke, and chicken nuggets for himself.
Let her come when she wants to, Neel tells himself.
The pizza comes in within thirty minutes. Neel takes another thirty minutes to finish it, and then sits in his balcony looking at the distant silhouette of the city, thinking nothing crucial. He is feeling sleepy as he yawns three-four times within a span of few seconds. What if he falls asleep before Titiksha comes in?
He reluctantly goes to his table in the bedroom, tears off a page from a notepad, and goes to the hall. With a cellotape he sticks one end of the paper on his door and the other end on the wooden frame beside it in a way that if someone opens the door, the paper will get torn from the centre. It’s his way of knowing if Titiksha comes and leaves without his knowledge. Impressed by his intelligence, Neel goes to the balcony again. He falls asleep in no time.
It is morning now. Neel wakes up with a start when something hits him on the face.
‘Sorry dada, by mistake,’ Shouts the newspaper boy from below.
He has thrown the newspaper to the wrong floor.
‘Please throw it back,’ the boy requests.
Neel gets up and hurls the newspaper back. He goes inside and is surprised looking at the main door. The piece of paper is intact. That means Titiksha has not come back all night. Something has to be wrong with her.
Neel dials her number with his heart beating faster than normal.
The number you have dialled is unreachable, says a female voice in Bengali.
Neel wastes no time and dials his parents’ number next.
‘Hello Babushona, good morning.’ It is his father on the line. It always is his father on the line whenever he calls.
‘ Did Titiksha call?’
‘No. What happened?’
‘She has not come home last night and her phone is unreachable.’
‘What? Why?’
‘How do I know? I’m a bit worried now. Should I report it to the police?’
‘No!’ The response is instant. Neel is taken aback. ‘Not the police.’
His father sounds overtly concerned as if the first thing the police would do, if called, is arrest his father for the sudden and supposed disappearance of Titiksha.
Neel has gone to his parents’ place. His father is at the breakfast table, eating.
‘O-go shuncho, Neel is here. Give him breakfast,’ he calls out to Neel’s mother.
‘I won’t eat anything. Titiksha is missing.’
‘How can you say she is missing? It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You told me over the phone Babushona that she didn’t come home last night. Now it’s daytime. Hardly twelve hours.’
‘Hmm. But why did you ask me not to report it to the police?’
‘They will also ask you to wait for 24 hours, that’s why. Moreover, reporting it to the police may take the matter to everyone’s drawing room in the neighbourhood. You understand what I am saying?’
‘I do. But what else can we do? Her phone is not reachable. I don’t even know if she is alright or not.’
‘She is alright.’
For a moment their eyes meet. Neel doesn’t look in to his father’s eyes often.
‘Breakfast is here for my Babushona.’
Neel’s mother comes in the dining space followed by a servant who has a tray with a plate full of delicious fulko-luchi and another plate of alur-dum. She places a glass of Apple juice beside the two plates in the tray.
‘Mom, Titiksha is missing and dad doesn’t want to file a police report.’
His mother momentarily pauses, glances at her husband once, and then looks at her son.
‘He must have good reason for that.’ She pulls a chair and sits in between her son and her husband by the dining table.
It’s now that Neel considers his father’s reason. He understands if he files a police report, and even if they accept it, they would keep coming to their house to update them or gather more information, thereby letting other people know about the matter. People have a special power of sniffing other’s problem, and relaying a distorted version of it to the world.
Neel quietly has his breakfast against his wish, pondering about what he should do if not report to the police. One reason why he wants to involve them is because he needs someone to conduct the search for him. Now he will have to pursue Titiksha else he won’t be able to rest in peace. But for how long?
‘What if Titiksha doesn’t return even today?’ he asks.
Instead of his father, he hears his mother say, ‘Another luchi, Babushona?’
‘No. I have a meeting.’ He looks at his watch and realizes he is already five minutes late. He quickly finishes the remaining luchi and alur-dum.
It takes Neel a little more than twenty minutes to arrive at one of the exits of the Park Street metro station. He stands at a corner, watching the sea of men and women moving out with the clutches of impatience and indifference. Neel would have taken his father’s car but it has been in a service station since a day before. A taxi would mean reaching where he wants much after the scheduled time because of the peak traffic hours. Hence he reluctantly took the metro from Belgachia metro station.
Neel moves out of the metro station only when a majority of the crowd has pushed themselves out.
As he comes out, he takes a sharp left turn, and a few steps later he crosses the main road and takes a right on the footpath to go towards the Apeejay House. He is supposed to meet Nivrita there.
He waits for a minute by the Kotak Mahindra Bank inside the Apeejay campus after which Nivrita comes out. Just like the other day, Nivrita is in Indian wear. It’s a white and blue figure-hugging salwar suit this time.
‘You look fucked up. What happened?’ she says continuing to walk. Neel tries to catch up with her.
‘Titiksha didn’t come home last night.’
Nivrita stops. So does Neel.
‘Let’s celebrate!’ she says with a brio that doesn’t go well with Neel.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t even have to snatch you from her now. She herself withdrew from you. So let’s celebrate.’
Titiksha is my girlfriend. And I’m serious.’
‘Don’t expect me to find her for you. I am not a detective.’
Neel hasn’t even made such a proposition.
‘Can you at least accompany me? I have no friends. My parents also don’t seem much interested. They say I should wait till night, but I won’t be able to. And I don’t like going around alone searching for her.’
‘Okay. I will accompany you.’
‘Thanks Nivrita.’
‘Thank me when you find her.’
She begins to walk again. So does Neel.
‘Now tell me,’ Nivrita says, ‘Have you been to her office?’
‘No.’
And she just said she isn’t a detective? She certainly thinks like one. First her figure aroused him, now her intelligence does. He wonders in how many other ways will Nivrita arouse him in the future.
‘Do you even know how many illicit couples go to Digha and Mondarmoni citing office work and have fun there?’
Neel doesn’t know. He hasn’t even heard the names of the places.
‘Where does she work?’ Nivrita says.
‘Cintus Finance.’
‘Have you been there before?’
‘Yes.’
Neel thinks a little and then says, ‘Once.’
‘Good. Where is it?’
‘Infinity Building, Sector 5, Salt Lake.’
‘Let’s take the metro till Shova Bazaar and then we will take a shared-auto from there to Ultadanga, and change in-between to Karunamoyee and then to Sector 5.’
Nivrita starts scooting towards the metro station. She suddenly pauses and turns to see Neel standing still. She shrugs at him.
‘Can we please take a taxi?’ He has already dared a crowd once in the morning. Twice in a day will be too much for him to handle.
‘Sure!’
In the taxi, Nivrita takes the opportunity to narrate a bit more of the story to him. Though Neel’s mind is on Titiksha, still work is work. He listens carefully. Due to heavy traffic, it takes them two hours from Park Street to the Infinity building in Salt Lake Sector 5—the IT hub of Kolkata.
‘Third floor,’ he tells Nivrita who waits for him to pay off the taxi driver.
As the taxi speeds away, they enter the Infinity building, which, if Neel is to believe, has leased out one of its floors to Cintus Finance where Titiksha works. There weren’t much people going inside or coming out at this point in time.
Together they go inside the giant building, take the elevator to the third floor, and move out to see the entire floor getting renovated. There is no proper entrance.
‘Is this where she works?’ Nivrita is as dumbfounded as Neel. There’s a continuous noise of hammering which disturbs Neel. He keeps blinking involuntarily with every hammering. There’s also too much dust in the air. Both Neel and Nivrita cough together. Nivrita covers her nose with a handkerchief.
Neel excuses himself to a worker who is skinning a wooden frame.
‘Excuse me dada, this is Cintus Finance, right? Where are all the employees?’
The worker looks up at Neel continuing to skin the wood, ‘I don’t know babu.’ He is talking Bengali with a Bangladeshi accent.
‘We have been working here for the last two weeks. I haven’t seen anybody except our sahib who comes from time to time,’ he adds and shifts his focus to the wood again.
‘Two weeks?’ Neel first darts a look of disbelief at the worker and then at Nivrita. Even she seems surprised.
‘But I called the office last night,’ Neel declares. Though he is looking at the worker, he is actually telling that to himself.
‘Why don’t you try the number again?’ Nivrita suggests.
Neel takes out his mobile phone from his jeans’ pocket and dials the office landline number of Cintus Finance that he has saved since the time Titiksha joined the firm.
‘Does the office number even work?’ Nivrita speaks with her handkerchief pressed against her nose.
‘Of course! I dialled it last night itself. A man answered it.’
As the call matures, Neel puts it on speaker.
‘This number has been temporarily suspended’, says an electronic voice out aloud.
Neel gapes at his phone for a moment and then looks at Nivrita.
‘What the…’he starts.
‘Fuck!’ she finishes off.
They quietly move out of the Infinity building. Nivrita spots a roadside tea stall on the right side of the building.
She goes up to it and orders two cups of tea to the lady running the stall. Her kid whispers something in her ear looking at Neel and they together laugh. Nivrita lights a Marlboro for herself. Since it’s an open area, Neel doesn’t mind Nivrita smoking. He just makes sure he is at a safe distance from her.
‘I’m sorry. Smoking helps me think better, so do excuse me,’ she says and takes a long puff. They are given tea in a small earthen tea pot by the tea-stall lady.
Neel sips his tea and looks at few guys looking back in his direction. All of them are checking out Nivrita. It makes Neel feel uncomfortable. He goes around and stands in front of her, blocking the other guys’ view of her back.
‘Why would she lie to you about a fake office?’ Nivrita asks almost done with her cigarette. One small puff and she throws it down, stamping it with her foot.
‘It wasn’t a fake office. I have been here before with her.’
‘Once,’ she stresses on the word.
Neel is trying to recollect something.
‘I think I never went inside the building. Or did I? I’m not too sure.’
‘Titiksha brought you here herself?’
‘Yes.’ This he clearly remembers. They had come together after she was selected through a campus interview.
Nivrita continues to sip her tea. Once finished, she turns to throw the tea-pot in a dustbin, when she notices the other guys at the tea stall. They have tags of their respective companies around their neck. Nivrita walks up to them, surprising Neel.
They are four of them in all. All brace themselves seeing the girl whom they had just mentally undressed approaching them.
‘Hey brother!’ she says. Three of them instantly relax as if they don’t want to hear anything more from her. She looks at the fourth one who still looks eager to talk.
‘Do you work in Cintus Finance?’
‘No. I’m in CTS.’ The guy adjusts his tag so that Nivrita can see it properly.
‘Okay. Could you please tell me what happened to Cintus Finance. It used to have its office in the Infinity building.’
The guy thinks hard for a moment and then says, ‘I don’t think I have ever heard of that company.’ He looks at the other guys for some clue but they too nod their head in a ‘no’.
‘Thanks,’ Nivrita says curtly and goes to Neel who has now finished his tea.
‘He has not even heard about the company, wow.’
‘He probably doesn’t know.’
‘I have been working here for the last three years,’ says the guy raising his voice from behind. ‘I can bet my life there’s been no company’s office with this name here in the last three years at least.’
‘Thank you,’ Neel tells the guy.
‘When were you here?’ Nivrita asks Neel.
‘Almost four years back.’
‘The guy may be right in that case,’ Nivrita says with a frown.
‘You mean for the last four years Titiksha has been telling me that she is going to office but she isn’t?’
‘That or she never told you about the new address. Or she just told you about a different office from the beginning. Or maybe she changed in between and never told you about it. Or…’
‘It’s okay. The bigger question is why would she do that?’ he asks.
‘It’s useless to stand here and guess a girl’s intention. Find her. Ask her.’
Both cross the road to reach the opposite side from where they will get a taxi to wherever they decide to go.
‘How about going to your parents and…’ Nivrita proposes.
‘Not my parents,’ Neel blurts out instantly. There is no way that he will present Nivrita in front of them. They will pose unnecessary questions because except for Titiksha, Neel has never introduced any girl to his parents. In fact they may even guess because of Nivrita that Neel and Titiksha have had a fight and now she is missing. His parents are good at guessing things about him.
‘I mean, I’ll see what to do next.’
‘Fair enough.’
A taxi goes
by. The driver slows down seeing Nivrita wave at him.
‘Park Street,’ she says getting in.
‘I think I will go home. Can we please do the rest of the story narration tomorrow?’
Nivrita takes a few seconds to think and then says, ‘Okay.’
The taxi moves forward, takes a turn, and disappears. Waving off the smoke from the taxi, Neel coughs mildly. He gets a call on his phone. It’s his father. He picks it up.
‘Babushona, can you come home? We need to talk about Titiksha.’
Neel takes a second to respond.
‘Is she back?’
‘Just come home Babushona.’
Back at his parents’ place, Neel sees his father sitting with a man who is in a police uniform. Neel stands frozen. He feels there’s some bad news. Has Titiksha committed suicide? Or met with a fatal accident?
‘Come Neel. Meet Inspector Parimal Biswas.’
The inspector glances obliquely at Neel and extends his hand for a handshake. Neel swallows a lump and then grabs his hand feebly. Inspector Biswas shakes his hand with confidence. The man looks too good to be a police inspector.
‘Nice to meet you Neel babu,’ Parimal says. The handshake tells Neel that this man could have rehearsed meeting him a number of times.
‘I have told him about Titiksha’s disappearance. He is going to be investigating the case,’ Neel’s father says.
Neel relaxes. It means they still don’t know about Titiksha. He sits down opposite the inspector on the couch and looks at his father for some clue.
‘After you moved out, I thought about it. You were right. It’s our duty to involve the police.’
‘Where are Titiksha’s parents?’ Parimal asks Neel.
‘Abroad.’
‘Hmm. Where does she work?’
‘Cintus Finance.’
‘Hmm.’
‘But the office is not there anymore.’
Both Biswas and Neel’s father stare at him.
‘I am coming from there. The place where the office used to be has been under renovation from the past two weeks. I called the office landline number which Titiksha had once given me but that too isn’t working since morning.’
‘Since morning?’ Parimal repeats after him.
Neel nods.
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