A Social Psycho

A Story by C'vasis J'c

Make me immortal in that realm, Where all longings and desires disappear

The police van had parked in front of the main gate. It was obvious that something was wrong. Aditya threw his school bag and ran towards the door. His heart was beating like a break-failed car. He was wondering what had happened.
He entered the house and went into his room to find this that his friend Sudan was surrounded by cops and some of them were searching the whole room. He was stunned. “Sir, look here,” said a policeman in surprise. “Oh my God”, said another cop who seemed to be the officer. “So you are a drug dealer, Mr. Sudan, huh?”
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“I am happy that you are happy”, said Sudan emerging from his flashback. He was alone, holding a photograph with both his hands and muttering to himself. “After all, my love for you was something that inspired me to lead a peaceful life despite all that happened,” said he, to himself. He was in a room with a book shelf, a pair of sofas, a bed and surrounding darkness.
He took a deep breath and put the snap on the bed beside him.
The sky had started brightening a bit but the dawn had not yet arrived. An alarm in his wrist watch started ringing. He stopped it, rubbed his eyes and got up from the bed. As he opened the door of his room, cool fresh air struck his face, entered his nose and through the passage of throat, gushed into his lungs. He yawned.
Unbolting the main door of the house, he walked up to the gate. He shut it behind him and started walking on the unrecognizable path. It was his usual morning walk but somehow it felt unusual this time. He tried hard not to go back into his dark past, but failed.
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Sudan had caught a glimpse of his friend standing at the door seconds ago, but now he was gone. “Tell me. What is this briefcase full of ganja doing here in your room?” inquired the police officer. “I do not know,” cried Sudan. “Every criminal says the same thing when caught,” another cop snapped.
“I really do not know. I share this room with my friend and…”
“Friend? What’s his name?”
“His name is Aditya. We come from the same hometown.”
“Where is he now?”
At this, Sudan remembered having seen Aditya only moments before. But whatever he told the men in uniform, they would not believe him.
“He must be in his college. Assam Engineering College,” Sudan replied.
The officer instructed two of his fellow men to go and fetch the friend. At the same time he was taken under custody and the room was seized. The police officer took hold of his wrist and marched towards the van parked outside. As Sudan came out of the house, he noticed that men and women of the locality had gathered to find out what was going on. With head bowed, he followed the policemen and sat in the van.
The vehicle started and within 15 minutes they had reached the police station.
A few hours later the men who had been sent in search of the roommate arrived and reported that he was not in the college. “He must have planned to escape the city,” thought Sudan. The officer ordered all the highway check posts as well as the railway stations to be informed. It was not too difficult for them to identify Aditya as they had acquired a photograph of his from his room.
He was caught after two days from a railway station.
Both of them were put behind the bars in the same cell. Aditya avoided his friend’s gaze. This confirmed to Sudan that his doubts were correct and that his friend was indeed into drug dealing. He did not know what to say. Sudan had his own fears.
“What if mom and dad come to know about this? They shall die. Elizabeth would never love an accused drug dealer anymore. She would marry someone else,” Sudan started weeping.
Everyone in their hometown came to know about the matter along with their parents. The police started torturing them so as to bring out the truth. They stripped off their clothes and hit them with hot iron rods. Sudan had nothing to say as he was clean. But the other convict soon broke down and confessed to his offense. He also said that his roommate had nothing to do with the whole business. Thus, Sudan was released the next day.
Although he was proved innocent, his parents believed that it was his wrong choice of friend that had led to the whole mess. So they sent him to a distant land, a different country, Nepal, to continue with his studies, on his own.
With the help of some of his distant relatives he managed to rent a room, the landlady providing him with the meals. He also joined a college nearby.
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Sudan smiled at his past and stopped walking as he reached a temple, the Pashupatinath. By now the sun was out, smiling at the sight of a flowing river besides the temple. The boy found that the stairs of the temple were occupied by the half-naked, dreadlocks-haired, long-bearded people smoking cigarettes filled with ganja. Seeing him, one of those men offered him a cigarette. He, an occasional smoker, accepted it and started smoking. The first puff was followed by a second one, then a third, fourth, fifth….
He entered a different realm, the realm of peace. All the noise around were no longer audible. All the reasons had left him. He sat down along with those peace searchers and started smoking, one after the other puff.
The local people would later report to the police who had arrived at the temple premises in search of a missing boy that they had sighted a young boy in decent clothes on the day of Mahashivaratri sitting on the temple stairs. They also reported to the officials that he was sitting amidst the sadhu babas, smoking ganja. The boy was seen no more after those half-naked people left the temple premises on the day following the great Hindu festival.
The police officials told the boy’s parents that Sudan must have left with the sadhus, and maybe, turned into one of them.