11 Hours

by Daniel Paul Singh

  “There could be hundreds of Ganpaths, any second names?”

  “No, I don’t know. I hadn’t had the need to know. Strangely, I don’t even remember Brindha’s sister’s name now!”

  “Her Australia number is defunct. Either she has changed her number, or she may have even returned to India.” Prabhu concluded. That seemed quite logical.

  “Yes, that is another possibility. We can’t overlook that.” I said. I stood up and started pacing around the room restlessly.

  “Do you know any HR in VCS, Rob?”

  “I know a few, but it is almost 1 AM now. No one would be awake. Besides, what will I tell them? How will they have access to any system at this odd hour?”

  “Check with them, preferably only your trusted friends. Check if they know this girl, or any of her teammates, or boss, or anyone in her close circle. See if you could find her.”

  All these suggestions weren’t making any sense to me. I called up one of my HR friends, who was shit drunk. I knew I couldn’t get any sensible information from him and cut the call. I then decided to send a mail to Brindha’s official mail ID and to my horror, the mail bounced back stating that the email ID was no longer valid.

  “Damn, Prabhu, she isn’t with VCS as well. She should be with some other company now. My guess is she should be back to Bengaluru now, what do you think?”

  “I think your brain is functioning well, Rob” he uttered and looked at me.

  “But there is still a possibility where she could be working at Australia in some other company” I let out a dry smile.

  I couldn’t trust the loser and be content with locating Brindha and hope that he would let go off my wife. I was looking for a plan where I should find Brindha, locate her in person and then be able to come back to Chennai to my wife within the stipulated 11 hours. I had a gut feel that Diana was still somewhere around in Chennai as there was only a four hours’ gap between the kidnapping and the loser’s call. As much as I was trying to locate Brindha, I had to locate the Loser and thereby Diana as well.

  It was 1 am by then, I still had 10 hours in my hand to find Brindha. I discussed with Prabhu on all possibilities ahead of us.

  “If she is in Australia, and if I have to travel there, my wife would be dead by the time I board the next available flight! If Brindha is in Bangalore, going there by car would easily take 4 hours. If she is in Trichy, a swift drive would take us there in 3 hours. I am not sure if we would find her in any of these places though. Even if we did, I am not sure if we could return on time as that is the priority for me. We never know what the Loser would and could do.”

  “Makes sense, Rob” he said.

  “Contacts, Prabhu. I need contacts of those who could help me in locating her swiftly.” I said as my mind whirled with innumerable conflicting thoughts on what should be the next step for searching Brindha when I got a message from the LOSER,

  “Brindha is not in Australia. And you won’t be able to locate me”

  I jumped from my chair. “Prabhu, see this message. It looks like the LOSER knows where she is. He says Brindha is not in Australia, but how does he know she is not there?”

  “Hmm... Good question. Didn’t you tell that your cell phone was bugged? You just called some friend in Australia, didn’t you?”

  “But, that’s a WhatsApp call!”

  “A call is a call.” Prabhu replied as he tried to hack the Facebook account of Brindha.

  Brindha Krishnan. Brindha K, I dreamily remembered those exam sheets that came for correction during my ASPIRE coaching days!

  As I switched back to reality within seconds, I couldn’t still come to terms with the web of misfortunes that I was caught in. I couldn’t talk to anyone without being traced.

  Prabhu banged on the desk in frustration. “Unable to crack the password, Rob! It is quite difficult. I neither have the mindset, nor do we have much time to spend on this right now!”

  “Prabhu, please don’t give up. You are my only hope.” I begged.

  “Rob, please understand. Looks like she has created her FB account using some other mail ID. I will have to crack both the username and password. It would take more than an hour. We don’t have that much time to spend on this. Think of some other idea.” Prabhu insisted.

  I remained silent. I couldn’t think of any other way to pursue this search.

  “How long do you know her?” Prabhu questioned.

  “11 years.”

  “How long have you been her Facebook friend?”

  “Ever since I joined Facebook; ever since I was into social networking. In fact, I was her friend right from the days of Orkut.”

  “Orkut! Damn man! Why didn’t you tell this before?” Prabhu said excitedly.

  “You asked only now. Why? What are you going to do with an Orkut account? Isn’t it outdated?”

  “Did you know we could download our personal details from Orkut? You told she had deactivated Facebook, but she couldn’t have deactivated Orkut. Google deactivated Orkut on September 30, 2014. With whatever you say, this girl should have been inactive in FB only for the past 7 months. Let us try and see if we can download the details from her Orkut account. I am not sure if we can download her friends list, but we can definitely download her testimonials and check if any of her family or close friends or even her boyfriend had given any testimonial and then search them back again in FB to contact them and in turn her.”

  Prabhu’s plan gave us a new ray of hope. Incidentally, Brindha had used her old mail ID for her Orkut account. Within few minutes, he hacked into Brindha’s Orkut account and started downloading her testimonials.

  “How long do you think it would take for the download to complete?” I asked him.

  “Maybe, 10 to 15 minutes.” He uttered without looking at me.

  “I want all the names, Prabhu. Don’t miss any of them. I hope that we will be able to trace her close friends, relatives and family members from these testimonials.”

  “Aren’t you her close friend?” he asked teasingly.

  “Believe me, Prabhu. I am not anymore. Now, don’t ask so many questions. Just show me the testimonials. And are you sure we would not be able to download her friends list? That would make my job easier. I could get a phone number from that.”

  “We wouldn’t be able to download those, Rob” Prabhu let out a breath of disappointment.

  Just then, I got a call in WhatsApp. It was Jithesh.

  “Rob!” he screamed from the other end.

  “I know, Jith.” I uttered.

  “What do you know?” he screamed again.

  “The number has been deactivated long back.” I said in a dead tone.

  “If you already know, then why did you ask me to check?”

  “I came to know just now. Thank you very much for your help. Will catch up later.” saying, I hurriedly cut the call.

  Then, I spoke to Prabhu. “Get me a Nokia 1100 phone without mobile internet. I need to change my phone. I can’t have these always smart devices and be traced by the loser. Do you have a backup SIM?”

  “I have a phone, but not sure if it has any charge, or if there is a SIM. Don’t you have a dual SIM?”

  “I do, but I am not sure which number he is tracing. Anyways, get a phone without internet first.” I said.

  “Do you really think internet connection is needed to trace your phone?” Prabhu asked quizzically.

  “You are the boss, you know best. But just get me a damn no-net phone with a new SIM” I almost ordered him.

  Prabhu searched in his wardrobe for the old phone. It had no charge. To my relief, he soon found the charger too, and he brought the phone back to life. He also managed to find an alternate SIM and inserted it into the phone.

  I felt good about it, when I heard a beep sound on my phone.

  “Do not change your phone or SIM.” the LOSER had sent a message.

  My happiness vanished instantly. My heart sunk in disappointment. How in the world did he know what I was talkin
g? If he knew it all, why was he broadcasting it? What was his point?

  I looked at Prabhu doubtfully.

  “What happened, Rob?” Prabhu asked me reading my expression.

  I showed him the message, and he too looked flabbergasted.

  “How did he find out what we were talking?” he quizzed startled.

  “How would I know? Maybe, you would?” I looked at him with piercing eyes.

  “Don’t you trust me, Rob? Are you crazy?” Prabhu was visibly disgusted at that thought.

  “I can’t trust even my own shadow now, Prabhu!”

  “I understand, but believe me. I don’t work for him.” Prabhu assured.

  “Not sure if I can trust anyone now, Prabhu. But if I have to go by what you say, I think he is not tracing just my calls. He is somehow tracking my conversations as well. For all you know, he may be even hearing this very sentence of mine!”

  I signaled to him for a paper and pen. We decided to have all further conversations over pen and paper. I had seen this type of tracking in a recent popular Tamil movie where the hero will be bugged and his every move will be tracked by the villain.

  Meanwhile, as the Nokia phone was getting charged, the download of testimonials was complete. I didn’t know most of the people who had written the testimonials. As I skimmed through the names one last time, I came across a familiar name, Girija Desigan.

  “Prabhu, I know Girija. She is Brindha’s cousin. Brindha was quite close to her.” I said.

  “Alright then, we shall find her on Facebook.” Prabhu said and searched her name on FB. A few moments later, he sighed in disappointment, “Bad news Rob, I am unable to find her.”

  “Search everywhere, just not in FB. Try Google. Search for Girija D, Giri Desi, Girija Desi, or any other combination, Prabhu.” I insisted.

  “I did. I looked at all the options and possible combinations. But none of the results matched what we are looking for” Prabhu sighed.

  “Damn! Why should online searching be so tough? How am I going to… Wait, Prabhu, I just remember, Brindha had sent me Girija’s resume long back. I guess her details will be there in the resume.”

  “And you tell me this so soon”

  “Rob. Brindha is a thing of the past. I vaguely remember anything about her. Expecting me to remember about other people in her life is too much, to say the least.” I said. Prabhu warned me and asked me to use the paper and pen.

  “And you are asked to find this girl!” he wrote.

  “That’s the silliest thing of all. The LOSER, he should be from one of those asylums” I wrote in the paper and sent him. We both laughed.

  I logged into my Gmail account and searched for emails from Brindha and found Girija’s resume. There was a phone number and mail ID in it.

  “That’s her number and I will call her.” I wrote.

  “Are you crazy? It is 1.00 AM now! Just mail her.” Prabhu responded.

  “Are you even aware of what you are talking, Prabhu?” I shouted. He then kept his silence and reminded me to use the paper. It was tough to get used to writing in a paper instead of talking. I wondered how the ensuing 10 odd hours were going to be. Damn, you loser.

  I cursed him in my mind and looked at the mobile number of Girija. She was my last hope. I knew it was well into the night, I knew it was unethical, but I didn’t have a choice. I dialled her number. The phone rang perennially, but there was no response. I was disappointed when the call was not picked. Not losing hope, I dialed again. No response! I looked at Prabhu for comfort.

  “Give a try again” he said with his eyes.

  I dialed her again for one last time, and after several rings, someone picked the call at the other end.

  ₪ ₪ ₪

  Chapter 12 Wibru Last Week in the Blog:

  “I don’t know her full name, but they all call her Brindha Ramesh. Ramesh is her boy friend’s name.” Ramya gave me the shock of my life.

  “Whaatt?” My castle came down tumbling.

  **

  Brindha had a boyfriend at PARCET? I wasn’t convinced at all about what Ramya was telling me.

  “Ramya, this just can’t be true. I think it should be some other Brindha, not Brindha Krishnan.”

  “There is only one Brindha studying in the third year of my college. She is committed to Ramesh, and I see them together daily in the cafeteria. In fact, the whole college knows it.” She responded like someone from the CBI department.

  I did not know how to react. I was shocked, confused and disappointed. My friends, who were with me then, knew about my crush on Brindha. They started making fun of me. I could not believe that my love story, which had started on an April Fool’s day, finally ended up making me a real fool!

  I wasn’t really sure if I should ask Brindha about her boyfriend, or confess my feelings for her. I had never explicitly expressed them to her till then. Or maybe, it was a better idea just to stop texting her forever.

  After a lot of thought, I texted her that morning, “Hi Bru, what doing?”

  Bru was Brindha’s nickname.

  “Drinking Coffee. My mornings always start with a coffee.” she texted.

  “My mornings always start with your text” I wanted to reply, but couldn’t bring myself to do it and sent some stupid response. The conversation continued with irrelevant messages for a while until I made up my mind to ask her what was exactly happening in her life.

  “Okay, listen. I need to ask you something. Not sure how you would take it, but I will break my head if I don’t ask. May I?”

  “Yeah, sure! Go ahead.”

  “Who is Ramesh?” There was no reply from her for some time. I felt uncomfortable and immediately sent a follow-up text. “If you are not comfortable, you needn’t tell me.”

  “Nothing like that. I will tell you.” she responded.

  Then, she started to text me her love story on how he proposed, how they always hung out together, and how his parents considered her as their own daughter et al.

  “Your parents know about him?” I asked.

  “No, they don’t. They will kill me if they come to know that I am in love.”

  “Why? Is caste a problem?”

  “Very much. Not so much a problem on his side, but it is a big issue in my family. I haven’t talked to my parents yet.”

  “Oh! So, when are you guys planning to get married?”

  “I have not completed my story, wait” she continued.

  “Tell me.” I so badly wanted to hear from her that they broke up. At times, cupid plays tricks as per our deepest desires. At least, I believed so then!

  “We broke up.” she sent.

  “Oh, no!” I put a fake sad smiley. But, I was all smiling on the inside. If only our mobile phones sent our live reactions through a live capture, many of us wouldn’t be alive to tell our stories to the world. Many would agree that the mute button has saved the job of almost every employee in the IT industry.

  “It’s been a while though. I have moved on.” she texted.

  “But, everyone is still talking about you. They say that you were a pair like no other.”

  “Yes, we were. He was too possessive, and at times, behaved weirdly. I couldn’t tolerate that anymore!”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyways, I have moved on.”

  Every message of hers after that was shouting out loud that she was ready for a new relationship, and that, I could possibly make my move. I resisted the imminent temptation. Nothing brings people closer than adversity, loss or a breakup.

  From then on, we started to text each other more regularly and became closer than ever.

  I got placed in KTS during my final year while she was preparing for her interviews. I helped Brindha with her preparations. I got a new phone for getting placed on-campus and the first thing I did was to put a message booster card, which allowed sending 22,500 texts per month! That was about 750 messages every day. I made sure that 700 of those were sent to her.

  Our conversatio
ns started with a ‘Good morning’ message every day and lasted till late night. It became a habit that her ‘Good morning’ message was the first thing I saw, rather wanted to see, after waking up. I considered her my lucky charm.

  Brindha finally got placed in Wipro. She boasted that going forward, Wipro would become Wi’bru’. I liked the wordplay.

  Things had changed quite drastically between us as days moved on. From strangers, we became best of friends. From ‘buddy’, I became ‘darling’ for her. From my ‘crush’, she became more than a friend for me (yes, only that). I made sure that I was the first one to wish her on all special occasions. The feeling was mutual. She kept awake till 12 in the night to wish me on my birthday and every other special occasion for a Christian. My parents were strictly against love marriages and even if by a change of heart they agreed, it wouldn’t be for a girl from some other religion. The same was the case at her place. We both weren’t people who would do anything against our parent’s wishes. That was one major reason why I didn’t want to take the relationship to the next level.

  Brindha’s dad was working at Bangalore, while she was living with her mom, sister and grandparents at Trichy. She was more close to her grandpa and took his company wherever she went. By looks, she resembled her mom a lot, almost a color photocopy, but claimed she resembled Anushka Shetty, while I found her to resemble actress Kiran Rathod (in her lean version) more, though I never dared to say her that. Her Orkut profile was full of photos of Anushka from the movie Arundhathi. She almost worshipped her and was obsessed by her looks and the movie. Arundhathi movie’s Tamil dubbed version was just released and was running successfully in theatres in Trichy that time.

  “Have you watched the movie?” I asked her after she changed her Orkut profile picture to that of Anushka’s photo.

  “I watched it in Telugu once at a friend’s place, but so badly want to watch it in Tamil in theatre. This movie is a visual grandeur and Anushka is fantastic.” she kept on heaping praise on the movie and the cast.

  “She is indeed” I agreed.

  “Have you seen it?”

  “No, I don’t watch movies you see” I said.