"After you and I left that horrible hometown of ours twelve years ago, I spotted you again just last year here in Bangalore," Sashi recounted his version with as much wrath as he had felt the day it had happened. "You were walking towards your office and there was so much of traffic that day. I saw you walking on the pavement and I just rushed ahead to get to you. Remember that accident on the pavement when you stopped all the two-wheeled vehicles on the footpath and called the police? I was there then. I had driven over to meet you."
Sashi's gaze of contempt witnessed the mark of slow recognition on Mitra's face. Yes, she remembered it all.
His lips puckered a little and mouth twitching in bitterness, he disclosed, "I came over to you with such longing, and yet, the only thing you did was shove a camera in my face and call me a rogue. You didn't even spare me a glance."
He took a pause and continued, "What did you say earlier? That you would have listened to me had I approached you to warn you about the hustlers? In hell you would! I did approach you but you blew me off. So, don't you try and blame me for not involving you in getting rid of them. I did what I could without any help from you, to save you."
"That was a completely different situation and I was consumed by the accident that day," Mitra tried to reason.
"You didn't even notice the way I was looking at you. I wasn't trying to escape the place like the other bikers did that day. That should have been the biggest hint to you, which you ignored," Sashi retorted.
There was nothing Mitra could say. She remembered the accident and getting all worked up that day, she had filmed the whole incident and posted it to Twitter tagging the traffic police authorities, media and every responsible bureaucrat she could think of to make them aware of the situation there. Yet, she had no recollection whatsoever of Sashi being there.
It all came back to her incapability of remembering people's faces unless she viewed them frequently.
In a twisted sense of understanding, she could get why Sashi had refrained from warning her about the hustlers trying to traffic her. She wouldn't have trusted him ever.
Sashi stared at the fluctuations in the emotions on Mitra's face. She was going between appraisal of the way things had panned out, guilt, reservation, confusion and indecisiveness.
"I guess you now understand why I killed them. They tried to wrong you and me. They deserved it," Sashi reiterated.
"I agree that they deserved it, but there are laws and law enforcement bodies that could have handled it too," Mitra insisted. It was evident from her look that she was trying to disagree just for the sake of it.
"I really dislike it when people can't realize the reality," Sashi fumed.
"Did you accept your reality, ever?" Mitra questioned him in protest. "You never accepted the possibility that I might not know you, that I might not like you, that I have been searching for you just to put you behind the bars for what you did to Lekha and that I might have given a chance to speak to you had you approached me like a normal person, did you?"
"I did, Mitra," Sashi replied wistfully. "Reality hit me quite late and hard. That day, when you called me a rogue and didn't spare me a second glance, I felt so much of... hatred towards you. One year. I spent one year in your vicinity, following you, crossing paths with you, and to hell with it, even saving you, and yet, you didn't know me or didn't even try to get to know me. You even went so far as reporting me to the police for killing that pimp. You know how wronged I was? How furious I felt? That reality burnt me so very badly. Why else do you think you are here?"
Mitra could see it, the reason why she was there.
"You are here because I accepted my reality and couldn't be happy about it. It was so insulting that I felt like making you see for yourself what you have done. That's why I brought you here." Sashi grit his teeth in aggravation for a brief moment and then relaxed, loosening his balled up fists to flex his fingers and leaned back in his chair.
"I think you get it now why I keep recording all our important conversations on camera and posting it over the internet," he broached the big question quite leisurely.
Mitra looked away, ascertaining the reason to herself first. It was as clear as daylight to her. Turning her sharply inquiring gaze to him, she buzzed, "Because I flashed a camera at you when you sought me out that day?"
Sashi bobbed his head to and fro sideways in retrospection and raised his shoulders in an obvious indifference, answering animatedly, "Partly. And majorly because you seem so invested in raising awareness of ill-bred behaviours and occurrences around you. I noticed over the past year that you love these little exposes where you uncover some wrong things happening in your vicinity and post it to social media, as if you are policing the wrongdoers."
He leaned forward and asked in an excited tone, "Have you heard of the saying, "Who watches the watchers?" You play the role of a silent vigilante so well, that I felt it unjust. People should know what you did when Lekha was captured, what you really are. That would make it a full cycle of justice."
Mitra pursed her lips, gulping in nervous thought. She flickered her eyes and with an instant assessment, remarked, "Alas, they are getting to know you more, what you really are."
She expected Sashi to brush it off in his favour, say it didn't matter to him or that it did him good to be exposed as a reasonable man. Instead his eyes darkened and he bowed his head in serious contemplation.
"Can't help it, can I?" he finally mumbled before getting up from his chair and reaching towards the camera.
The day's session was over.
###
"We are on the way," Sandeep was reporting to his superior over phone. Vishal was sitting in the back seat of the police car, listening to the cops' conversation distractedly as they sped out of the city.
An hour back, the latest video of Mitra had sneaked into the Internet portals and along with it came the information tagged to it, a single comment attached to the video, specifying the location where the two dead hustlers were buried. It was near an old graveyard in a quiet suburban area to the less populated side of Bangalore outskirts.
The scale of publicity this piece of information had was so immense that Sandeep had to order the dispatch of a huge force of police, starting with the closest ones to the said location, to seal the place away from civilian access. People had already started gathering at the location by the time the first team of police arrived and a few even attempted to dig around. The officials contained the scene while the others arrived and started with excavating the ground.
In about an hour-and-a half Sandeep, Vishal and the others in the main investigative team reached the crime scene to half-dug soil. Within minutes, they discovered the decomposed bodies, secured with their identification articles.
Vishal was having a terrible setback in his analysis of the situation. It wasn't what he had ever pictured.
Seshu had brought out the details of how Vishal had not been able to shield Mitra from the dangers she faced, mocked his physical absence in Mitra's daily life and questioned their relationship. The whole incident with the hustlers going after Mitra had disturbed Vishal awfully, and Seshu's way of resolving things only made it worse.
True, Vishal could never have done what Seshu did. He would have taken a defensive stance, not an offensive one, and that made all the difference.
Mitra sure had triggered everything that had happened to her, yet that was unintentionally and unconsciously done. Like she said, though she was the trigger, it was Seshu who ultimately took all the shots. He had done vastly punishable deeds, including holding Mitra in a prison and on top of that, he was defending himself for each and every action of his.