The Catalogue - Part 4

The doorbell rang.

Rhea was having her breakfast. Generally, she and Nishigandha had their breakfast together. But that day, Nishigandha was a bit late. With a cup of tea in her hand and taking a sip of it, Rhea opened the door. It was Devarsh. Rhea did not recognize him but she had heard about him from Nishigandha.

‘Hello. Good morning. I…I am Devarsh. Nishi and I work together at Sunrise.’

‘Oh. Hello! Please do come in.’ Rhea let him inside. ‘Would you have some tea or coffee?’

‘No. Thanks.’ Devarsh sat in the couch in a bit hesitant way. ‘I just had my breakfast. Actually, Nishi is not picking up her phone and we had planned that we would go to office together today.’

‘Oh My God! Let me first check whether she is ready or not. I will bring you some water.’ Rhea went inside to call Nishi. And there she saw Nishi all ready for the day.

‘Someone seems to be very happy today, huh!’ Rhea said as Nishi was getting all decked up in front of the mirror.

Nishi laughed and said, ‘I knew he would come upstairs. Actually I got late yaar. Hence I could not attend his calls. And here he is.’

‘Yes. Yes. I understand.’ Rhea said while Nishi turned back and looked at her. ‘Oh c’mon! No Rhea! He is just a friend.’

‘Wonderful! So he is no more just a colleague, huh? That day you told me that he was a colleague. Well, let me know if you are thinking of promoting him further.’ Rhea kept her teasing act on.

‘Oh! Sure. You are an official match making professional, right? But madam, hold on. There is no assignment for you yet.’ Nishi hugged her and left the room.

While on Devarsh’s bike, Nishi asked him, ‘What was it so important to talk that you messaged me at 3 in the morning?’

Devarsh had messaged her. Nishi, let us go together to the office today. I have something to tell you. May be I will not be able to tell you in the office. I will pick you up at 8.30am. Be ready. See you.

He stopped the bike near a footpath. Nishi could see that he was sweating.

‘Hey, relax. Look at you. Have some water.’ She took the bottle full of cold water from her bag and gave it to him. He drank all the water. Nishi could almost hear his heartbeats. His face was a bit horrified. He was not looking at her eyes but making a constant effort to say something.

Finally he said. ‘I have to tell you something about our office.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know how to say. But this is dangerous.’

‘Devarsh, can you please get to the point? Just relax and tell me.’

‘Well last year, that is in December 2011, an inhuman incident happened at our office. Have you heard someone by name Pooja Mehta?’

‘Well, not exactly. But somehow I feel I have heard this name.’ She paused for a while. ‘No, Devarsh. I am not able to recollect where I have heard her name. But what about her?’

‘She was raped and murdered in our office by someone from our office.’

‘What?’ Nishi’s face turned red and horrified. ‘What are you saying? And how do you know about it?’

‘Last Saturday, I got a very weird dream. There was a lady but her face was not visible. She was telling me. 

I have been raped and murdered at Sunrise on the 31^st of last December. When all others were enjoying the new year night, I was being assaulted and killed. Can you please help me in punishing the people behind it? I beg you. Please help. They raped me and killed me there. Please help.

I woke up soon after. It was around 2.30 in the clock. Well, at first I thought it was a nightmare. I spent the entire weekend thinking about it. The lady’s voice was quivering. It seemed to be real to me. Her words seemed to be genuine. But I tried to explain myself every time that it was nothing more than a nightmare. And the weekend passed away.

On Monday, I tried to access our directory website. Can you believe this? I found her name in the employee directory. Pooja Mehta.’

Nishi had an extremely calm look on her face.

Devarsh went on. ‘I know Simi from HR. We studied together in school. I met her in the cafeteria and asked her if she could find out some general details of Pooja Mehta. The same evening, she called me and told me that Pooja Mehta is an ex-employee of Sunrise and resigned from her services on December 10, 2011. And that was all she could tell me. She had no more specific details except her department and employee ID.’

Nishi still maintained the calm look.

‘I could not reach Simi at office as she was very busy. You know Nishi, I am not able to sleep at nights. This thing is bothering me. Especially, after I got to know that a woman with the name Pooja Mehta worked at our office. Why will someone with the same name come in my dreams?

I feel that this might be real. I am very confused yaar.’

He looked at her. Seeing her so calm, he said, ‘Please say something yaar.’

Suddenly, Nishi burst into a big laughter. She was laughing continuously like mad. Devarsh just kept looking at her. And Nishi was laughing and laughing.

‘Oh my! What to say Devarsh?! You are simply mad.’

‘So you think all this is a joke. I am doing timepass. Isn’t it?’

Seeing him getting disappointed, Nishi said, ‘Hey, no. I did not mean that. I am not saying that this is a joke. But see, it might be just a nightmare. Or are you sure you were sleeping that night? May be somebody might have played a prank on you.’

‘No. I am pretty sure I was sleeping and I saw that dream. I am not mad to get so bothered.’

‘Then maybe you must have read her name somewhere that day and you heard her in your dreams. It does happen sometimes. The things which we see or hear during the day make an appearance in our dreams when we sleep at night, especially when we are in a deep sleep.’

She tried to calm him. ‘See, calm down. Do not tell about it to anyone. Or you know how people are. They will term you mad. Just stop thinking about all these things. And anyway, such things do not go unnoticed. If such an incident really happened then it would have been a big news. C’mon, it is Sunrise Technologies man!

Just stop thinking about it now. Let us leave. We are already late.’

Devarsh was not convinced. But somehow he tried to show a relaxed expression on his face.

During the lunch time, Nishi was thinking about this morning incident. She could not control her laughter. Radhika, her senior team-mate and she were having lunch together.

‘Hey, what happened? Radhika asked her as she saw Nishi giggling.

‘No. Nothing. Just remembered a funny incident that happened in the morning.’

‘Oh! What was so funny?’

Nishi tried to change the topic and saw Dia coming towards their direction.

‘Hey, Nishi! How are you?’ Dia had applied a lot of make-up that day and Nishi and Radhika could not ignore it. They looked at each other and smiled.

‘I am good Dia. How about you?’ Nishi said.

‘Yes. I am good too. So when are you leaving for New York?’

Nishi knew that Dia would ask her something about New York. She was already very jealous about Nishi’s onsite tour. Dia had joined Sunrise along with Devarsh and Nishi in their graduates’ batch.

‘Well, I am not yet sure. But…’ Nishi was interrupted by Radhika.

‘Next month.’ Radhika filled in the words. Suddenly Dia felt Radhika’s presence and the fact that Nishi was having her lunch with her senior team mate.

‘Oh I am so sorry. Dia, she is Radhika from my team.’ And looking at Radhika, she said, ‘Radhika, she is Dia, we joined together.’

‘Nice to meet you Radhika. Well, Nishi, I would go now. I have to attend a meeting. My team lead is already in a bad mood since morning. See you people. Bye.’ And she went away.

Nishi smiled at Radhika. ‘How do you know that it is next month?’

‘You mean your onsite tour? Well, I had a talk with Singhania this morning.’ Singhania was their Project Manager. ‘He told me that you and Mohit would be leaving for New York in the middle of next month.’

‘That’s nice.’ Nishi smiled.

As she came back to her desk, she got a message on their office messenger from Mohit.

Mohit said: Busy?

Me: No. Why?

Mohit: Can we discuss our travel’s preparations for a while?

Nishi was surprised. The guy who gave her inferior looks the other day was trying to strike out a conversation. Moreover, Nishi was looking really good that day. Thanks to Rhea and her expert guidance, she had started visiting beauty parlors. Nishi inherently looked beautiful, even better than Dia and many of her female office mates. But since everyone knew that Nishi is not originally from Mumbai and from a village of Maharashtra, people started having notions about her. Especially Mohit. But that day was different.

Me: Alright.

Mohit: Ok. Meet me at the couch.

He brought coffee along. And both sat down on the couch. ‘Do you always have coffee after the lunch?’ Nishi asked him.

‘Well, yes. Or else I would just doze off on my desk.’ Both had a brief laugh. Nishi observed that Mohit was behaving really nicely and in a very ‘gentleman’ way with her. Mohit, anyway, looked good and handsome but he had this unnecessary pride about his looks and personality. Surprisingly, that day, he was in a very good mood.

‘Let us get to the point. Well, I have to do a lot of shopping for NYC. Have you done yours?’ He asked.

‘No! Not at all. ‘ She said.

‘Hmm. If you don’t mind then let us go for it this weekend? May be on the evening of Saturday. What do you say?’

She pretended that she was thinking about her Saturday’s plans but in a corner of mind, she was trying to judge what can be the motive behind this gesture!

‘Well yes. I think I am free. But will it be fine if I confirm by Friday evening? I will text you.’

‘Alright. No problems. Since we are going together to NYC, we can jot down the things which we can shop and complete the shopping together that very day.’

‘Yes. That would be better.’

‘Ok. Let me know. I will go on my desk now. There is a meeting with Prakash in a hour.’ Prakash was their Team Lead.

‘Yes, sure.’ Mohit stood up and went away. Nishi kept sitting on the couch. From the location of the couch, Devarsh’s desk was visible. She saw him. He was looking at his computer screen.

It reminded her of the morning ride on his bike and the conversation with him. What a start of the day it was! And she kept thinking and looking at him.