Your Dreams Are Mine Now (25 page)

When all her energy had drained out, Rupali closed her eyes. Noticing that she’d stopped struggling, the guy who was holding her loosened his grip. With that, Rupali’s thoughts became clearer. She began to wonder who these people were and what they wanted from her.

She used the opportunity the loose grip provided her and asked in a panting broken voice,
‘Kaun hain aap log?’
(Who are you?)

No one replied. So she repeated her question.

‘Yeh jaanna tere liye zaroori nahi hai,’
(That’s none of your business) the other guy on the back seat announced angrily.

Rupali became restless. She reached out to the guys on the front seat and pleaded, ‘But why have you picked me up? You could have been mistaken!’

Hearing that, the guy next to the driver turned around. He switched on the overhead light in the vehicle to show his face, ‘It’s you who had made the mistake of messing with Mahajan,’ he said coldly and showed her his mobile on which he had her photograph.

A chill ran down Rupali’s spine.
So she really had been kidnapped by these goons!

She stared at the man—he had a long bearded face with large eyes that almost popped out of his head. A huge red
tika
ran down his wheatish forehead. He had long hair and wore an earring in his right ear. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath had the pungent smell of cheap alcohol. He stared back at Rupali and grinned, scaring the hell out of her. He then raised his hand and passed on a quarter bottle of alcohol to his companions at the back. Then he switched off the light.

Rupali’s breath was caught in her throat as she sat scared shit.

‘Wha . . . wha . . . What are you . . . huh . . . huh . . . going to do?’ she stammered. Then she began to sob loudly, ‘Please, I beg you, let me go . . . please . . .’

‘Shut up,’ said the man in front. They ignored her pleading and continued to drink.

Taking advantage of their momentary lack of attention, Rupali bit at the wrist of the guy who had his arms around her body. The guy screamed in pain. Rupali didn’t release his hand till he loosened his hold. Then she threw herself over the other man in an attempt to reach for the windowpane.

It appeared as if she had gained some energy in the past few minutes and that now she was utilizing it to the fullest possible extent. She hit her forehead against the window, attempting to break the glass. She shouted hard, praying that someone outside would hear her.

The other guy tried to pull her back. He held her by the neck. Rupali resisted and shrieked her lungs out. She kicked and shoved the other guy. Every limb, every muscle of her body moved in protest.

But unfortunately, Rupali’s struggle didn’t last for too long. All of it led to nothing. Her screams were buried under the volume of the music that the driver in the front had increased. Outside those tinted glasses, the road stretched and stretched—there was no one around on that dead cold night.

Another scream escaped from her throat before she collapsed into tears. She was scared and shaking. What could she do now? Was anybody looking for her? Did Arjun know?

‘Where are you, Rupali?’ Arjun was thinking aloud. He had arrived a bit late, expecting Rupali to be angry with him, but had found no one. He checked his mobile to see if there was a message. Then he called on Rupali’s cellphone thinking that she might have gone back to the hostel—it was switched off.

‘Come on Rupali, call me!’ he said desperately and tried her number again.

‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ the guy on the front seat screamed. When Rupali didn’t stop, the guy next to her held her hair in his fist and pulled her with a jerk. The impact was such that Rupali’s entire body got pulled back and the back of her head collided with the other side of the van. Rupali screamed.

When, a few seconds later, she didn’t stop shrieking, the guy lost his cool. He slapped her brutally. It stunned Rupali. He slapped her again. And again. And again. And again. And then again. Poor Rupali could not even bring her hands up to her face to protect herself. They were still tied behind her back.

Rupali felt her face go numb and blood spilled out of her lips. What she did not know was that her lips and her right eye were swollen. All she could feel was pain, intense pain. ‘Where are you, Arjun? Why can’t you find me? Please come and take me away . . .’ she pleaded silently.

Having spent a considerable amount of time trying and failing to call Rupali on her phone, Arjun finally reached her hostel. Never before had Rupali made him wait. Not for this long. If anything, she would call him up and update him. And she would’ve never switched off her phone. She always kept it charged and ready in case her family called.

At her hostel, Arjun somehow managed to get hold of Saloni. He believed Saloni would know Rupali’s whereabouts. But just like Arjun, Saloni too didn’t have any clue.

‘But she should be with you. She left the hostel about an hour and a half back,’ she said.

Arjun hit his fist on his bike in frustration. He was seriously worried now. He knew how infamous the city was. A young girl—alone—walking in the dark—phone switched off, they were not good signs.

‘Did she take an auto?’ he asked, something suddenly striking him.

‘There wasn’t any auto here at that time. I stepped out along with her as I was heading towards the basketball court. Not sure if she would have taken one from the next circle. But my best guess is she won’t take an auto from the next circle because from there it’s walkable,’ Saloni responded worriedly.

She too had called on Rupali’s number several times. She directed Arjun to follow the route she knew Rupali had taken.

Something wasn’t quite right, Arjun’s senses told him repeatedly. He felt restless, as if something bad was going to happen, as if there was something he needed to do.

‘I will follow the same road and look for her. Meanwhile, you please call up your common friends who might have any knowledge of her whereabouts. If you get any news call me.’

‘Yes, I will. And if you find her, immediately call me back.’

The van stopped at what appeared to be an abandoned building on the outskirts of Delhi. It was a mill that had shut down many years back. Wild bushes stood tall amid the broken concrete structures. Creepers ran over the layer of foundation stones and at places clung to the walls. There was dead silence. The moonlight faintly illuminated the place. There was no other source of light. The place looked haunted.

Two of the men stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to take stock of the place, while the person next to Rupali sat holding her mouth. They were drunk, but they’d remembered to be cautious. The two who had gone for a recce came back and nodded.

The men had gone to choose a preferred corner of the mill. They zeroed in on the other side, where a renovation work was left in the middle. A partially built structure with only foundation walls rose till knee length and the pillars in the four corners rose upwards. At the top end of the columns, iron rods crept out and were left uncovered. Apart from a pile of concrete and a stack of bricks, there was heap of sand, which caught their attention. They verified that no other human was present at the site.

Rupali’s heart pounded in her chest but her weak body could not support her. Her head was hurting badly. The continuous torture and the fear that something dreadful was going to happen had made her mouth go dry. She was thirsty.

The man next to her tugged at her to get her to move. The door had been opened. When Rupali tried to resist, he again caught her by her hair and pulled her along. Her feet were dragged through the uneven ground. At one point, she fell down on her knees. She cried in pain and begged the men to leave her. She fell down on their feet and requested for mercy. She reminded them of their mothers and sisters back at home. But then she was pleading to heartless men. Worse, they were drunk, as well. The man they called Babloo kicked her hand, caught her by her right arm and dragged her on. Rupali’s dupatta got stuck in a bush as her body continued to get dragged away from it. She kept crying. She kept begging.

At the site, the man threw Rupali on a mountain of sand and stuffed her mouth with a thick dirty cloth. That’s when her heart sank and her mind went blank with fear.

She heard them talk softly with each other. Then their leader, the one who had been directing everything, stood above Rupali. He took a big swig of alcohol while he stared at Rupali. There was a stony blankness in his eyes, as if he had no feelings. Something within Rupali died at that very moment.

Bhaiyaji pushed himself inside Rupali. Rupali’s eyes split wide open in a flash. Her lifeless body throbbed for a fraction of a second. She screamed and gave voice to her unbearable agony.

Over Bhaiyaji’s shoulder, Rupali stared into the moonlit quiet vast black and white sky. Perhaps, there was a God beyond that infinite sky who was looking at her in that moment. Looking at her and still doing nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And every time her body felt a thrust it burrowed further into the sand. And every time that happened, tiny gravels of sand rolled down the pile. Rupali’s motionless eyes continued to look into the infinite sky, but only for a brief period after which she turned unconscious.

And then it began. It was all a blur—her clothes being torn off, the excruciating pain, the scream dying in her throat, her choking, the pain growing, the faces changing but the pain still being there—and then her fainting and regaining consciousness. Again and again and yet again. Till there was nothing left of her except a bleeding body and a vacant stare.

The sweat from their forehead fell over Rupali’s eyes and her lips. Sand clung on to her hair and the sides of her body. In between her thighs, a patch of sand got soaked in blood. It was her blood. It didn’t matter to the savages blinded by lust and overpowered by alcohol. They continued to tear her apart.

A beautiful innocent soul had been torn apart. The one who had always stood for the right thing had been badly wronged.