I will start a story now and keep adding to it every day.
6 A.M. It was early morning. The cynosure of all the activities was the yellow and green coloured building at the middle of the street. It had been cordoned off by the police. People were peeping out of their windows, gazes fixed at it. An air of anxiety and fear seemed to have engulfed not only everyone but everything in the surroundings. Even the leaves on the trees refused to budge. The eerie silence was sporadically broken by murmurs among the people, standing on the opposite street, discussing and forming opinions from whatever they had come to know.
But, nobody knew much yet. Mr. Sharma, who had called the police, was being questioned by the police and the detectives. He and his wife were sleeping when they were woken up by the shots. But, except the number of shots, which were two, and the time at which they had heard it, which was 3 A.M., neither of them had seen or heard anything which could be of any help to the investigators.
Apart from a couple of isolated incidents of chain snatching, the neighbourhood had so far been by and large peaceful. Parents could allow their children to play on the streets till late in the evening and would even hesitate to double check if they had locked all the doors before sleeping. But, after these horrifying murders, all that would change. As they say in hindi: shaayad kisi ki nazar lagg gayi..
Police, detectives and a medical specialist were examining the scene of crime, taking notes and collecting the objects for fingerprint detection. Photographers were avidly taking photos from every angle and of every nook and corner of the room. One constable was taking notes.
The inside of that house was in perfect order. Prima facie, there was no sign of burglary or forced entry. None of the non-living objects seemed to have been moved or touched for that matter.
The body of the young woman lay on the bed. Two shots had been fired into the eyes and the blood had dried up along the sides of her face and on to the pillow on which her head rested. A huge smile was painted on her face, over her lips, using a red coloured lip stick.
The watchman, who was on the night duty in that building, clearly did not anticipate anything untoward to happen that night. Nor did his low paying and zero perk job warrant him to stay alert throughout the night. He admitted to the police that he had been somnolent most of the times and had even perhaps dozed off for some time.
However, because the street which was largely quiet during the night, he remembered to have woken up twice by the noise of a vehicle passing by. His poor reflexes, helped by the old age, and the high speed of the vehicle prevented him from even noticing what the colour of the vehicle was, or whether it was the same vehicle on both the occasions. He estimated the time of vehicle passing by to be about 1 a.m. and the time difference between the noises to be about half an hour.
Police also spoke to the people living in the building who told them that Ruby had shifted to this house a couple of months back. She lived alone and worked for an IT company. From whatever they had known of her, although she mingled less, she seemed to be gracious and had a twinkly demeanour.
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He was shy and introvert, especially when it came to speaking to the opposite sex. But, it wasn't entirely his fault. He had studied in a boys' school all his life and had little chance of mingling with girls otherwise.
When he joined St. Xaviers' College, he was initially shocked by the skewed sex ratio, which was in the favour of girls. And, there was no dearth of pretty girls either.
In the first year, he was smitten by a girl named Meera. When he saw her during the freshers' orientation, he was naive enough to presume that it was a case of love at first sight. He started paying attention to his hairstyle, his appearance and even got rid of his dark-rimmed spectacles. He made notes and even rehearsed what he would tell her when they first meet.
Meera was going to the library when he accosted her. She stopped and look into his eyes. He got so enamoured by her large and beautiful eyes that he blanked out. He could feel tiny droplets of sweat started oozing out of the pores of his forehead.
He gaped at her for what seemed to be an eternity for him before she asked, 'Hi. Is there something you want to say?'
'Oh. Well. Ummm. Yes. Oh no. No!' was all that he could muster.
'You sure?', she asked.
He stared feeling dizzy and took flight without even answering the question.
When he returned to his room, he punched the wall hard and cursed himself. She must have thought of him as some kind of a nutcase, he thought. But, he promised himself that he would definitely speak to her and apologise for his foolishness the very next day.
Next day, he saw her walking hand in hand with Rajiv. His roommate told him that they were dating. He was crestfallen. For inexplicable reasons, he felt betrayed.
That was it, he thought. After that, he stopped mingling with anybody and even stopped looking at girls. Library became his home and books became his only companion. He returned to his dark-rimmed glasses, unkempt hairstyle and even grew a beard. For the only reason that he topped his class for two years straight, were some girls aware of his existence. But, he was considered to be a nerd and even despised by most of his classmates.
By the end of the second year, most of his classmates had a girlfriend, unless, ofcourse, they had had a breakup very lately. Atleast those who wanted, did.
When Ruby joined their class in the third year as an exchange student, he was unaware that from then on his life would take a ninety degree turn.
to be contd..
