A Weak Moment

 

Waiting for someone after a scheduled time of meeting can be so irritating, but I had no other option than to wait for her. In my two years of career as a youth counsellor, I had never seen a case as sensitive as this one. Ten minutes later, I heard a knock at my door. “Come in please”, I called. The visitor was not the one, I was expecting. A woman in her forties entered my office and wished me with folded hands. I offered her a seat and before I could ask her anything, she introduced herself as Mrs Sengupta, Rubina’s mother. I was surprised by her visit as I was expecting her daughter instead, yet I asked her, “Yes Mrs Sengupta, how can I help you?”

“Madam, I need your help. Rubina has been missing from her hostel since yesterday morning. The hostel warden called us when she didn’t show up at her classes and neither returned to her room. We’ve looked everywhere, all her classmates, and our relatives. Even Shreya, her best friend, had no idea about her whereabouts. While going through her diary, I saw a note about your appointment with her on today’s date…” She explained the purpose of her visit.

“Yes, she had been in touch with me for last six months, visiting me once a week earlier and once a month since last four months. In fact, I was expecting her an hour earlier but she hasn’t showed up”, I replied, an uneasy feeling crept inside me as if something was wrong somewhere.

“Madam, can you tell us, why was she seeing you? She had been very quiet since last six months, ever since she had a nasty fight with her best friend, Shreya. We didn’t know the reason and thought they will reconcile after some time, but it seems things never improved between them. Please help us if you can …” she pleaded with me.

“Have you informed the police?” I asked.

“Yes madam, just an hour before, after we lost all hope of finding her ourselves”, she said, worry for her daughter showing clearly on her face.

“See Mrs Sengupta, although I’m not supposed to reveal the details of any of my clients, yet I feel this is serious, so I’ll tell you everything. “I told her as I was worried about Rubina too.

Six months earlier

I was on my morning walk in the central park. It was pre-dawn time and very few morning walkers to be seen. As I completed my second round, I noticed a lonely figure sitting on a bench at the remote corner of the park. She was shaking uncontrollably with her face covered with her hands. I realised she was crying and could not stop myself from going near her. I sat down beside her and patted her shoulder, she looked up surprised, and wiping her tear strained face with her sleeves. “Is something wrong dear?” I asked her, although I was not sure if I would get an answer from her.

To my surprise, she replied between sobs, “Yes every damn thing is wrong in my life but nobody can help me… It’s my own doing and his fault…” she said, pointing towards Heaven, her voice sounding emotional.

“Friend, if you feel like talking to someone, I’m here. I know we are strangers but it’s easier to share with strangers as they don’t judge you with their pre conceived notions, as the known ones do. I’m a youth counsellor and you can trust me to be discreet. Come to my office at 11am and we can talk there in peace, if it’s fine with you”, I offered her.

She must have been feeling desperate to talk to someone, as she agreed to my offer, after a mild hesitation. I saw her leaving the park and continued with my routine rounds.

She came to my office at 11:30 am, looking much more composed than she was in the park. I gave her an introductory form to fill up for my record, convincing her that it was just for my information, a general one. Looking at her closely, I could not help but notice she was a pretty girl, twenty-one years of age (as she mentioned in her information), round face and almond shape eyes. She had a somewhat vulnerable look in her deep brown eyes, which passed her easily as a teenager. I started casually with her education and career, to which she did not show much enthusiasm. Having completed her graduation, she was pursuing MBA from University and staying at the girl’s hostel in the university campus. She shared the room with two other girls, Shreya and Mansa. Three of them were from different cities. Rubina being an introvert, did not communicate much with the other two, restricting herself to her classes and studies or an occasional visit to the nearby market. She did not have friends at the university either. Mansa was a no-nonsense girl, friendly with everyone yet always maintained a distance. She spent most of her free time in the library, leaving just Shreya and Rubina in the room. Soon Shreya’s easy charm pulled Rubina towards her. In spite of being from a middle class family, Shreya had high ambitions and taste. She liked to enjoy life to the maximum and had innumerable friends even outside the campus. Rubina, being from a business family, had a free flow of money and soon she became a part of Shreya’s ‘gang’, as she loved to call her group, and their parties.

It was a rainy night and both of them were driving back to the hostel, after a drink and dance party, when they found themselves followed by an Innova occupied with boys, heavily drunk. Rubina put her foot hard on the accelerator, not only to evade them but also to reach hostel as early as possible, for they were much late than the scheduled time allowed to remain outside. To her horror, Innova overtook them from the wrong side, with boys passing lewd remarks and stopped just in front of them blocking the road ahead. Two of the boys stepped out and forcing the door open, pulled both the girls out of the car. Tying scarves on their mouth, they shoved them inside the Innova and what followed was something Rubina and Shreya had never dreamed in their wildest dreams. They were five of them and asked the girls to entertain them or else they won’t be able to show their faces to the outside world. Terrified and feeling a little tipsy with the beer they had consumed at the party, they had no other alternative than to comply. A siren from the patrolling police jeep saved them from further humiliation and exploitation, and the boys fled from there, leaving them on the road.

Feeling embarrassed at what they were forced to do, neither of them spoke a word on their way back. Sneaking inside the hostel from the back door, they got inside their room, changed and lay down on their beds. Sleep was a far cry for both of them and Rubina joined Shreya on her bed and huddled close to her. Consoling each other, they fell asleep sometime in the pre-dawn hour. The incident inculcated a deep seated hatred towards the opposite sex in Rubina’s heart. Shreya, being the stronger of the two gently took care of her and they became inseparable.

As time passed, Shreya moved on but not Rubina, whose whole world revolved around Shreya and to a point of possessiveness that she wanted her to herself alone. She followed Shreya everywhere and did not let her alone with anybody else, especially a boy. Although bugged with her behaviour, Shreya did not resist as she needed her money to take care of her expensive interests. But what happened one afternoon, changed their equation forever.

That day Shreya had missed her classes on the excuse of not feeling well and Rubina had gone to attend the classes alone. But worried about Shreya, she left the last class and came back to their room, an hour earlier to find Shreya making out with Rohit, her old friend. Shocked by the intrusion, Rohit left in a hurry, leaving an annoyed Shreya to tackle Rubina’s sudden burst of tears. They had a bad fight with Rubina accusing Shreya of cheating her and Shreya telling Rubina to leave her alone, as she had nothing more to do with her and also warned her not to step between her and Rohit. It was the night before that fateful morning, when I had found Rubina crying in the Central Park.

As expected, Rubina had felt better after pouring her heart out before me. I had then counselled her in several sessions and she had shown lot of improvement, gaining self –confidence and growing calmer with each session. After that fight, Shreya had moved out from the hostel to a live-in relationship with Rohit. It had taken weeks of counselling for Rubina to overcome the shock of this rejection. Since last three months, she just came once a month to see me and had shown remarkable improvement in her personality. She had even talked about making some male friends at the University. She had called me last week to fix up this appointment, but instead her mother turned up with the disturbing news of her being missing. I could not do anything other than console her mother and promised her to get in touch with her as soon as I got any information about Rubina; and asked her to do the same, in case her daughter contacted them.

Next three days were the hardest to pass with no news on Rubina’s front, and then the fourth morning, it was front page heading in the daily newspaper:

‘A young girl’s dead body found floating in the university swimming pool, which was closed due to winter.’

What a waste of a precious life! But I guess, this is what a weak moment does to a person, when all reasoning flies out of the window and a person takes such a futile step. But what brought about this weak moment in Rubina’s life is still a mystery, with the tragedy registered as a simple suicide case in the police files.

By- Vinita Surana