Preface
Sanyukta stood on top of the railing of the bridge. It was the death of the night with barely a car or two passing by, the passengers too preoccupied to notice a worthless girl about to give her life to the unending stretch of water below her. Just one jump and everything would be over. Sanyukta hated herself for being the coward that she was. If her two year younger self would be here, she would have spit at her for such a selfish and lowly act.
But Sanyukta was not the same anymore. She was weak; she lacked the strength to fight anymore. She hated herself and more importantly she hated her life. Sanyukta closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Images of a now nonexistent life flashed across her eyes. There was no pain left in her, no emotions for that matter. Now, she only wanted all of this to end.
Suddenly she felt someone yank her backwards, holding her by her elbows. She fell down on the road. She heard someone yelling at her in Hindi with a heavy accent of Marathi, "What were you doing? This is not a suicide spot."
Sanyukta got up and saw the man standing in front of her in police's uniform. The constable screamed at her animatedly, "You will have to come to the police station now."
"I have not done anything wrong." Sanyukta said coldly. "I did not commit any crime."
"Trying to commit suicide is a crime. You will have to come to police station with me," he said. He turned over his shoulder to call his colleagues. A female constable came up to her and roughly holding her pulled her towards the police van.
***
At the police station, she was made to sit on a stool from where she was constantly visible to the officers. Sanyukta knew it was impossible to move from here now. She did not make any attempt to either. Anyway, there was nothing worse that could happen to her now. She sat there exceptionally quite. Finally the head inspector called her and she quietly went in.
The inspector was a young man of early thirties, who scrutinized her with cynical eyes. Finally he asked, "Do you know trying to commit suicide is a crime and I could take you in custody for that?"
Sanyukta blankly said, "That's the first thing I was told."
The inspector ordered her, "Call your parents immediately."
Sanyukta smiled ruefully, "That connection is not humanly possible."
The inspector frowned, just then her cell phone rang from an unknown number. The inspector directed her to pick the phone up and put it on speaker mode. She did as told and before she could say anything she heard a voice from the other side, "Where the hell were you? Your cell was unreachable for the past three hours and do you know how many times I tried? Did you die in the meanwhile?"
Inspector Rathore noticed anger crash over her till now lifeless form and she began to shake in fury. Rathore said in the phone, "Who is this?"
The other line went quite and after quite a while the man said in a very cautious voice, "Whom am I speaking to?"
"This is Inspector Rathore from Malad police station."
"Police station? Why? What's the matter?" the man sounded anxious, "Did something happened to Sanyukta?"
"Nothing now, she is safe. But Sanyukta tried to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge..."
"Where is she? How is she?"
"Dead... Dead to you, you scoundrel." Sanyukta screamed.
Inspector sternly chided her, "Mind your language. This is a police station."
Sanyukta retorted, "I don't think there's any law against using proper adjectives for people."
"Miss Agrawal, please..." The inspector said and then turning back to the phone he said, "If you are a close acquaintance of her I would request you to come here. There are some things we need to talk about." There was no reply from the other side. Rathore uncertainly said, "Hello?" but still no answer. He checked the screen to see the call had ended.
Udne Ki Aasha
