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I was once a free bird and did what I wanted to do. Today I live behind bars, hoping to spread my arms someday and experience the rain falling over me. Through several sleepless nights, I have heard the thunder roar. But, the rain has remained silent…silent and still. It is weird how things change. Years back, I was a content man and had everything one could wish for—I earned well, had lots of friends, and was famous. But who knew, a renowned crime thriller novelist would one day, himself fall prey to a felony with no way to escape. Convicted of a crime I never did, I complete ten years of solitary confinement today.
Ten years back
It was Friday, the 13th of April—a date which I would probably never forget. Everyone around me said it was an unlucky day, a bad omen. But as an open minded individual who believed in science more than spirituality, I chose to ignore their warning. It looked like just any other day. I had a cup of morning coffee with my wife, Nina, as the news on TV aired India’s peace agreements with the neighboring countries. My adorable, 8-year-old daughter, Nancy, screamed from the door while leaving for school, ‘See you in the evening Daddy. I love you!’ Nina seemed a little disturbed, and when I asked her, she said, ‘I have a slight headache. It’s probably because of the cold that I’ve got!’ I told her to get some medicine as I got up to change.
While driving towards my publisher’s office for a meeting related to my next book, I couldn’t help but think how I had come a long way. An engineer by profession and a writer by passion, life had been lucky for me. I had written almost ten novels and more than half of them were bestsellers. Fiction is very often derived from reality, and so it was in my case. While most of my books had fictional characters, real life had always been my inspiration. One of my books, Crime of Passion, talked about a man named Babu Francis, who murdered his entire family when he got to know about his wife’s infidelity. The novel was a roaring success. It earned me accolades from the Writer’s Guild and was even made into a feature film.
My publisher was a cranky, old man who had earned the reputation of a perfectionist. As expected, the meeting was tiring. He raised a thousand queries, questioning my theories written in the manuscript. At the end of the meeting, he said, ‘Seriously, Gautam, you have a wonderful wife. It is astounding, how she has put up with a crazy fellow like you for 15 years!’ He was right. Nina was indeed special and she had been my biggest support. She had done endless sacrifices to make me feel at ease and do my work properly. Somehow, I felt an urge to let her know the same. It had been long since we had spent some quality time together. Damn! We hadn’t even made love for six months! I was busy all the time. Not tonight, I thought. Tonight’s going to be special and different!
On my way back home, I picked up some carnations and a bottle of champagne. Those flowers were her favorite and always cheered her up. I had even presented a bouquet, when I proposed her for marriage. I felt happy and the nostalgic moments made me smile. Tonight I’m all yours Nina, I said to myself. It was late and I knew that my daughter Nancy would have slept by now. As I reached the parking area of my bungalow, I thought to myself, this is where I belong! Situated away from the noisy streets of the main city, my house was a peaceful haven cocooned in a quiet, isolated area. I reached for the doorbell only to realize that the door was unlocked. When I entered the house, what met my eyes, left me completely dumbstruck.
The furniture in the living room had been turned upside down, with the tableside lamp toppled on the floor. In the kitchen, I saw broken, blood-stained crockery scattered all over. My heartbeat doubled when I saw the mess. In an urge to find Nina and my little girl, I ran to my bedroom. What I saw left me shattered. Leaning on a blood-stained bed sheet was my wife, with a butcher’s knife stabbed in her stomach. She had bruises all over her face. It was clear that someone had hit her with the kitchen crockery. Horrified, I held her in my arms and pulled the knife out of her stomach. My shirt turned bloody red as I incessantly tried to rouse her. But, all my attempts failed, since she was already dead. As I wept uncontrollably, the thought of Nancy crossed my mind. I ran all about the house, but couldn’t find her. I rushed back to my room, when suddenly I heard the sound of water. It was coming from the bathroom. She has to be there. She must have hidden there to save herself from the killer, I told myself only to be proven painfully wrong the very next minute. There I saw my little angel in the bathroom—the most dreadful scene of my life, more dreadful than my wife’s massacred dead body. It was my daughter’s body floating in the bath tub. Daddy, I’m scared of water, that’s what she told me every time I took her out for swimming. And there she was—dead—with water all around—the reason of her death.
I was devastated. The two most important people in my life had been brutally, mercilessly, hacked to death. I kept crying only to be interrupted by a police officer, who held a gun to my head and snapped, ‘You’re under arrest sir!’ I looked at him in disbelief and tried explaining the whole situation. But it was of no good, as he told me straightaway, ‘You’re under arrest until proven innocent!’ Apparently, somebody had called the police station and reported of a disturbance at my household. I gave up and reluctantly surrendered myself to them. I was taken to the station and put behind the bars with a charge of murder against me. The pain of losing my sweethearts accentuated the pain of being accused of their murder. Friday the 13th had proven ominous as my scientific belief crumbled to the dust.
A detailed examination of the house was done, which had become the crime scene. I was confident that I would come clear, but the evidence found, left me thunderstruck. When I was put on trial, the public prosecutor told the judge, ‘Gautam’s fingerprints were all over the place—the crockery, furniture, lamp, knife, and also the bathtub.’ ‘It’s my fucking house! What do you expect?’ I shouted back, to which the prosecutor replied, ‘You sir, you killed your family because your wife had an extramarital affair. You knew she was planning to leave with your daughter, didn’t you?’ I looked at him in amusement. I was benumbed, because I couldn’t believe a word of what he was saying. As my lawyer questioned him about the authenticity of his claims, the prosecutor took out a big brown envelope. He opened it and presented a series of love letters my wife had written to a guy named Karan. He also showed mails which Karan had written to my wife in the last four months. Each letter revealed closeness between the two and the last one from my wife articulated her intentions of leaving and divorcing me. I was shaken.
The prosecutor called the murder Crime of Passion, as he explained further. He said, ‘Gautam couldn’t believe that his wife was going to leave him and take their daughter along. So in blind rage he murdered them both!’ Karan, a real estate guy, was also brought to the court and he confessed about his affair with Nina. To add to my woes, a female lawyer revealed that Nina had approached her for divorce advice. Nina told her that she couldn’t stay with me as I had no time for the family and also that she was tired of me and needed love in her life. I screamed and pleaded for innocence but nothing worked and my lawyer couldn’t provide any evidence to support my innocence. At the next trial, I was given life sentence for a crime I didn’t do… a life sentence for the murder of my wife and daughter—whom I loved more than my life.
There I was, in jail with a question in mind—Who killed my wife? The guilt that I took her for granted suffocated me. My insensitivity had made her fall in love with someone else. I had no relatives in the city; so I was quite surprised when I was told that someone had come to visit me. When I went to the special room, it was like all the wounds I had, had been stripped bare. It was Karan! He smirked and asked how I was. ‘I’m good, but why are you here?’ I questioned. Karan replied, ‘You know Gautam, your family’s murder reminds me of something.’ ‘I didn’t kill her! And anyways what does it remind you of?’ I shouted back in anger. ‘Your book my friend—Crime of Passion. I think fiction has finally become reality.’ ‘Who’re you?’ I bellowed as my anger turned into confusion. ‘I didn’t expect you to forget the villain of your book so easily Gautam!’ I was taken aback and retaliated by saying, ‘Babu Francis was killed in a prison fire years ago and he certainly didn’t look like you!’ Chuckling like a beast, he said, ‘Well then you didn’t look at me properly!’
I observed him closely and it dawned upon me that it was indeed him, it was Francis! But he looked different and moreover, if he was really Francis, why would he have an affair with my wife? There were questions in my mind that only he could answer. He retorted, ‘When there was a fire at the prison, most of the prisoners died, but I somehow managed to escape. I was badly burned. The next day’s newspapers wrote about 86 prisoners dying in the fire, including me. While I died in the prison records, it was a new birth for me. I had a stack of money saved up from my days of working at a friend’s and with that I gave myself a new facelift, a new identity, and a new business. I kept following you and your family. Your wife saw a therapist to cure her loneliness but never told you. I came to know about it and that’s when I decided to act. I bumped into her deliberately at a supermarket, befriended her, and in no time got real close to her. She loved you, but I was the one who made her believe that you were a jerk and didn’t care for her. When you were away at your publisher’s, I did what you should have done—I made love to your wife. I wrote letters to her and asked her to do the same. In the fear of losing me, she did that thinking it was special to me. I wanted her to take the decision to leave you and take counsel from a lawyer for divorce—the day she did that, I killed her. She wept, questioned, when I was doing it, but I just killed her. I broke the crockery and the lamp on her face and then stabbed that butcher’s knife into her stomach. I didn’t want to kill your daughter, but she saw it all and therefore had to die. God! It was so hard killing her in that bath tub. And as for the finger prints, gloves did the trick. And there it was—your finger prints all over the crime scene, because it was your goddamn place!’
I didn’t know what to say and how to react; I was too shocked and angry at the same time. I was crying, fighting my tears. I asked Babu, ‘You killed her just because I wrote a book on what you did?’ He smiled, mocking my foolishness and said in a rather cold voice, ‘Gautam, I killed your family because I never killed mine and you wrote about the exact opposite! You believed the world and mocked at me. You wrote a lie to serve your selfish purpose of becoming this great writer. You had no idea how it felt to be accused of killing people you love the most, and you my friend had to taste that feeling. I was framed by an enemy, just the way you were framed by me! Now, I got lucky and that fire happened, but I don’t really see that happening for you Mr. Writer. So goodbye and enjoy your stay at this prison with an accusation of killing your wife and your daughter—the people you loved more than your life! That my friend is my sweet revenge!’
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Ten years back
It was Friday, the 13th of April—a date which I would probably never forget. Everyone around me said it was an unlucky day, a bad omen. But as an open minded individual who believed in science more than spirituality, I chose to ignore their warning. It looked like just any other day. I had a cup of morning coffee with my wife, Nina, as the news on TV aired India’s peace agreements with the neighboring countries. My adorable, 8-year-old daughter, Nancy, screamed from the door while leaving for school, ‘See you in the evening Daddy. I love you!’ Nina seemed a little disturbed, and when I asked her, she said, ‘I have a slight headache. It’s probably because of the cold that I’ve got!’ I told her to get some medicine as I got up to change.
While driving towards my publisher’s office for a meeting related to my next book, I couldn’t help but think how I had come a long way. An engineer by profession and a writer by passion, life had been lucky for me. I had written almost ten novels and more than half of them were bestsellers. Fiction is very often derived from reality, and so it was in my case. While most of my books had fictional characters, real life had always been my inspiration. One of my books, Crime of Passion, talked about a man named Babu Francis, who murdered his entire family when he got to know about his wife’s infidelity. The novel was a roaring success. It earned me accolades from the Writer’s Guild and was even made into a feature film.
My publisher was a cranky, old man who had earned the reputation of a perfectionist. As expected, the meeting was tiring. He raised a thousand queries, questioning my theories written in the manuscript. At the end of the meeting, he said, ‘Seriously, Gautam, you have a wonderful wife. It is astounding, how she has put up with a crazy fellow like you for 15 years!’ He was right. Nina was indeed special and she had been my biggest support. She had done endless sacrifices to make me feel at ease and do my work properly. Somehow, I felt an urge to let her know the same. It had been long since we had spent some quality time together. Damn! We hadn’t even made love for six months! I was busy all the time. Not tonight, I thought. Tonight’s going to be special and different!
On my way back home, I picked up some carnations and a bottle of champagne. Those flowers were her favorite and always cheered her up. I had even presented a bouquet, when I proposed her for marriage. I felt happy and the nostalgic moments made me smile. Tonight I’m all yours Nina, I said to myself. It was late and I knew that my daughter Nancy would have slept by now. As I reached the parking area of my bungalow, I thought to myself, this is where I belong! Situated away from the noisy streets of the main city, my house was a peaceful haven cocooned in a quiet, isolated area. I reached for the doorbell only to realize that the door was unlocked. When I entered the house, what met my eyes, left me completely dumbstruck.
The furniture in the living room had been turned upside down, with the tableside lamp toppled on the floor. In the kitchen, I saw broken, blood-stained crockery scattered all over. My heartbeat doubled when I saw the mess. In an urge to find Nina and my little girl, I ran to my bedroom. What I saw left me shattered. Leaning on a blood-stained bed sheet was my wife, with a butcher’s knife stabbed in her stomach. She had bruises all over her face. It was clear that someone had hit her with the kitchen crockery. Horrified, I held her in my arms and pulled the knife out of her stomach. My shirt turned bloody red as I incessantly tried to rouse her. But, all my attempts failed, since she was already dead. As I wept uncontrollably, the thought of Nancy crossed my mind. I ran all about the house, but couldn’t find her. I rushed back to my room, when suddenly I heard the sound of water. It was coming from the bathroom. She has to be there. She must have hidden there to save herself from the killer, I told myself only to be proven painfully wrong the very next minute. There I saw my little angel in the bathroom—the most dreadful scene of my life, more dreadful than my wife’s massacred dead body. It was my daughter’s body floating in the bath tub. Daddy, I’m scared of water, that’s what she told me every time I took her out for swimming. And there she was—dead—with water all around—the reason of her death.
I was devastated. The two most important people in my life had been brutally, mercilessly, hacked to death. I kept crying only to be interrupted by a police officer, who held a gun to my head and snapped, ‘You’re under arrest sir!’ I looked at him in disbelief and tried explaining the whole situation. But it was of no good, as he told me straightaway, ‘You’re under arrest until proven innocent!’ Apparently, somebody had called the police station and reported of a disturbance at my household. I gave up and reluctantly surrendered myself to them. I was taken to the station and put behind the bars with a charge of murder against me. The pain of losing my sweethearts accentuated the pain of being accused of their murder. Friday the 13th had proven ominous as my scientific belief crumbled to the dust.
A detailed examination of the house was done, which had become the crime scene. I was confident that I would come clear, but the evidence found, left me thunderstruck. When I was put on trial, the public prosecutor told the judge, ‘Gautam’s fingerprints were all over the place—the crockery, furniture, lamp, knife, and also the bathtub.’ ‘It’s my fucking house! What do you expect?’ I shouted back, to which the prosecutor replied, ‘You sir, you killed your family because your wife had an extramarital affair. You knew she was planning to leave with your daughter, didn’t you?’ I looked at him in amusement. I was benumbed, because I couldn’t believe a word of what he was saying. As my lawyer questioned him about the authenticity of his claims, the prosecutor took out a big brown envelope. He opened it and presented a series of love letters my wife had written to a guy named Karan. He also showed mails which Karan had written to my wife in the last four months. Each letter revealed closeness between the two and the last one from my wife articulated her intentions of leaving and divorcing me. I was shaken.
The prosecutor called the murder Crime of Passion, as he explained further. He said, ‘Gautam couldn’t believe that his wife was going to leave him and take their daughter along. So in blind rage he murdered them both!’ Karan, a real estate guy, was also brought to the court and he confessed about his affair with Nina. To add to my woes, a female lawyer revealed that Nina had approached her for divorce advice. Nina told her that she couldn’t stay with me as I had no time for the family and also that she was tired of me and needed love in her life. I screamed and pleaded for innocence but nothing worked and my lawyer couldn’t provide any evidence to support my innocence. At the next trial, I was given life sentence for a crime I didn’t do… a life sentence for the murder of my wife and daughter—whom I loved more than my life.
There I was, in jail with a question in mind—Who killed my wife? The guilt that I took her for granted suffocated me. My insensitivity had made her fall in love with someone else. I had no relatives in the city; so I was quite surprised when I was told that someone had come to visit me. When I went to the special room, it was like all the wounds I had, had been stripped bare. It was Karan! He smirked and asked how I was. ‘I’m good, but why are you here?’ I questioned. Karan replied, ‘You know Gautam, your family’s murder reminds me of something.’ ‘I didn’t kill her! And anyways what does it remind you of?’ I shouted back in anger. ‘Your book my friend—Crime of Passion. I think fiction has finally become reality.’ ‘Who’re you?’ I bellowed as my anger turned into confusion. ‘I didn’t expect you to forget the villain of your book so easily Gautam!’ I was taken aback and retaliated by saying, ‘Babu Francis was killed in a prison fire years ago and he certainly didn’t look like you!’ Chuckling like a beast, he said, ‘Well then you didn’t look at me properly!’
I observed him closely and it dawned upon me that it was indeed him, it was Francis! But he looked different and moreover, if he was really Francis, why would he have an affair with my wife? There were questions in my mind that only he could answer. He retorted, ‘When there was a fire at the prison, most of the prisoners died, but I somehow managed to escape. I was badly burned. The next day’s newspapers wrote about 86 prisoners dying in the fire, including me. While I died in the prison records, it was a new birth for me. I had a stack of money saved up from my days of working at a friend’s and with that I gave myself a new facelift, a new identity, and a new business. I kept following you and your family. Your wife saw a therapist to cure her loneliness but never told you. I came to know about it and that’s when I decided to act. I bumped into her deliberately at a supermarket, befriended her, and in no time got real close to her. She loved you, but I was the one who made her believe that you were a jerk and didn’t care for her. When you were away at your publisher’s, I did what you should have done—I made love to your wife. I wrote letters to her and asked her to do the same. In the fear of losing me, she did that thinking it was special to me. I wanted her to take the decision to leave you and take counsel from a lawyer for divorce—the day she did that, I killed her. She wept, questioned, when I was doing it, but I just killed her. I broke the crockery and the lamp on her face and then stabbed that butcher’s knife into her stomach. I didn’t want to kill your daughter, but she saw it all and therefore had to die. God! It was so hard killing her in that bath tub. And as for the finger prints, gloves did the trick. And there it was—your finger prints all over the crime scene, because it was your goddamn place!’
I didn’t know what to say and how to react; I was too shocked and angry at the same time. I was crying, fighting my tears. I asked Babu, ‘You killed her just because I wrote a book on what you did?’ He smiled, mocking my foolishness and said in a rather cold voice, ‘Gautam, I killed your family because I never killed mine and you wrote about the exact opposite! You believed the world and mocked at me. You wrote a lie to serve your selfish purpose of becoming this great writer. You had no idea how it felt to be accused of killing people you love the most, and you my friend had to taste that feeling. I was framed by an enemy, just the way you were framed by me! Now, I got lucky and that fire happened, but I don’t really see that happening for you Mr. Writer. So goodbye and enjoy your stay at this prison with an accusation of killing your wife and your daughter—the people you loved more than your life! That my friend is my sweet revenge!’
24 comments:
Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant story Amar! Loved it! Keep it up!
amazin story the way its narrated just awesome.....loved it...:)
The use of logic and the creation of circumstantial evidence is done well. Wish the story had more dialogues and moved just a bit faster... nice attempt.
Arvind Passey
www.passey.info
Amar,
This is indeed one of the best post and the narration and the plot it brilliant. A different concept and intriguing one
Great way of writing detective fiction. And the suspense was the greatest of all...
This story had me hooked from the first line. Amazingly built up and I could almost feel the taste of revenge in Babu's mouth!
The murder motive was really unique. A brilliant twist in the tale!
Best of luck from Kolkata Knight Writers. :)
Really Amazing Story Amar thoroughly enjoyed it. All The Best
Vikas Khair
vikaskhair.blogspot.com
Very intriguing. Although Karan being the murderer became quiet obvious in the middle of the story for me but nevertheless, it gripped me till the very end. I especially love the part where he sees the body of the daughter..very good depiction of father's plight.
Hi Amar,
This is the first time I visited ur blog. Oh my god that's an amazing story u have written . Good use of words. U held the reader till the end. Amazing plot. Well written and u have spun the story well indeed. All the best....
Cynthia Vincent (www.blogatcynthia.blogspot.com )
Thumbs up!
Saari taarif toh fellow bloggers ne kar di! Mein kya boloon? ;)
Awesome and an Intelligent plot Amar and d way the story flowed was super fluid...loved it :)
Awesome, Amar! That was chilling! I loved the hidden message this story sends across - your karma comes back to you one day, so one should act wisely. I hope, I have got that right? :)
There's a saying in English - horribly good (and there's a term that's associated with such opposite worded phrases).
This was the only thing I could think of !!
That was one awesome short story. I am glad I didn't ignore Avanika's post on FB and clicked on the link. Keep writing, you are too good.All the best.
excellent writing style and the story is indeed intriguing.....Good job Amar:))
Oh My God. I never ever knew, rather never even thought about, how good a thriller you could write sb! Thoroughly astonished and at the edge of my seat! Amazing!
You certainly make the competition seem tougher ;)
Anukriti, Vaisakhi, Stephen, Tom, Sandy, Sudeshna, Vikas bhai - Thanks a lot guys! Motivates me to do better! :)
Kiran Ashraf - I kept it to easy to guess to make the twist in the end impactful! And the thing where he sees his daughter, I actually had to imagine that! :s .. But it was worth it I guess! :)
Keep reading! :)
Cynthia - The firsts are always special.. Nice to know that your first visit to my blog was worth it! Thanks a ton and keep reading for more! :)
Vishal - Bro, you read and liked it that's what makes me happy! Tarif nahi bhi ki toh chalega! ;) ;)
Fatima - Thanks a lot :)
Arti - Thanks a lot Arti! And yes you got the hidden message very right! :) :)
Prashanth - Hahaha! Thanks a lot man! :)
Chaitra - Hey! Thanks a ton for reading this! And I'm happy as well that you didn't ignore Avanika's post! ;) :)
Creative Space - Thanks! :)
Arvind Passey - Thanks! I think giving more dialogues than what already are in the post would have made it unnecessarily long! Never the less, I respect your opinion! Thanks a lot for staying by! :)
Mahi - Hahaha! I know kiddo! I surprised quite a lot of people with this post! The romantic turned crime thriller guy! :P Glad you liked it! :) :)
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