It is not about a murder committed by me; rather I am going to tell you a story about how I was murdered once. Don’t get shocked; you have read very correctly – it is all about my murder.
That day it was the seventeenth day of January. Silpi Divas. A handful of organisations had been making preparations for paying tributes to Rupkonwar Jyotiprasad Agarwalla who was slowly moving into oblivion from the minds of the people of Assam. I just thought – I would make public on that special day the results of my five year long research. A meeting was arranged accordingly in the university auditorium. The time of the meeting was five o’clock in the evening. Many people had been invited to the meeting. Journalists from print and audio-visual media were scheduled to come.
My assistant Debojit printed out a very beautiful booklet to be distributed amongst the distinguished guests expected to attend the meeting. In that booklet there had been introduction about the subject of our research; like – what is nanoscience? What effect would this nano technology have on the human society and along with that some basic information about our research. I planned to demonstrate the main object of my innovation at the end of my lecture. The audio-visual arrangement in the
auditorium was state of the art. Apart from computer and LCD projector there had been video camera too so that my demonstration could be visible to everyone in the large screen provided there.
I prepared the entire content of my lecture in power point slides the night before and practiced the previous night to check, coordinate and match the time duration. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, Debojit inserted a plastic needle attached to a canula in my left hand and fixed it with adhesive tape. I injected myself with some hundred millilitre of the specific medicine through a saline injecting pipe using the canula. The medicine takes about half an hour to take effect. I removed the needle immediately after the medicine entered into my body.
I asked Ramprasad, the watchman to lock up the laboratory. It was only half a kilometer to the auditorium from my laboratory. Though Debajit said he would come, thinking that he might not make it due some last minute preoccupation I decided to walk alone.
As I stepped onto the by lane that connects the main road with my department I noticed a jeeplike vehicle parked on the right side of the road fitted with dark glasses. As I reached near it, the rear door on my side was opened suddenly. I saw Dr. Bikash Singh sitting inside. Though he is known as a doctor, the authenticity of his degree and also from where he acquired it is questionable. He is also involved with
many illegal activities. I was to depose before the commission that was formed to investigate into his activities. By this time a bearded person alighted from the vehicle and stood behind me. Singh beckoned me from inside, -‘Get in, come with me here.
It is such a big meeting, it does not look proper if one arrives on foot.’ I refused to go with him; but the person standing behind me pushed me inside the car and sat down beside me. I sat sandwiched between Dr. Singh and the bearded person.
I interjected – I have got an important meeting to attend. Dr. Singh curtly replied – Enough of those meetings, now we shall have our own meeting. The vehicle starting rolling and reached top speed soon after. The bearded man snatched the mobile handset from the case tied to the belt at my waist and threw it to the front seat and held me tightly. Singh brought out an already prepared syringe from his pocket and jabbed it into my leg. I felt a numbness enveloping my body. I lost sensation and control over my limbs. I wondered if I had been injected with something like Scolin – the muscle relaxant! Slowly I was even unable to breathe.
Even I could not move my eyelids. I reached such a state eventually that, I appeared to be a lifeless something. I pondered, is it how the death feels? But I was hearing everything. Singh said, ‘Check whether this old scoundrel died. If he is still breathing, just clutch his neck – strangulate him.’ I felt a hand wave before my nostrils. I thought I saw something hazy. The bearded one said, – No, he is dead. He is not breathing at all.’
True, there was no energy left on my body. Forget about moving my limbs or breathing, I could not even move my eyelids. The vehicle stopped at a place after moving some time. Two people pulled my limp
body out of the vehicle. I felt a stabbing pain at my back and my head hurt as I was roughly dropped onto the hard ground. But I regained my vision slowly. Perhaps I could even move the eyelids. There were three people to count – the bearded one, Dr. Singh and another I did not know. I heard Singh command – Roll him down. I felt two people pull me to the edge of a precipice and push me down. I hurtled down at great speed and the fall was broken with a huge splash. I felt a tremendous jolt. It felt as if my back broke into two. Slowly I plunged under water. I understood that I was dropped from a high place into water. I continued going deeper and at last settled at the surface at the bottom. Though I felt some discomfort for the cold water brushing my skin still I felt some strength returning to my numb body. It was pitch dark at that depth and nothing was visible. Then I regained some control over my hands. I
groped to check what was that hurting my back. I was lying on a football sized rock amidst thick layer of mud.
Perhaps I breathed instinctively once. I was about to choke. Somehow I managed to overcome. No, there is no question of breathing. But how long can I continue? Slowly I turned over and tried to stand up. But I failed in the effort unable to cope against the strong underground current. I didn’t know even how to swim. So I started crawling on all my fours. I found it difficult to move as my shoes got stuck in the thick
mud. After covering a little distance, I felt as if I was moving deeper. Then I started moving in the opposite direction based on pure intuition. Though I could not make out anything in total darkness but the surface appeared slowly slanting upwards.
Feeling spirited I tried moving faster using all my four limbs. I felt the oxygen stock in my body dwindle. The body was becoming numb again. Then I noticed a faint light somewhere above on the surface of water. The ray of hope provided me the necessary boost and I surged ahead with the remaining strength. At one point my head bobbed out as I reached a zone of shallow water. I stood up and took a deep breath and sneezed and coughed the water out of my nose and mouth. Eventually I reached dry land. Perhaps it was about five thirty in the afternoon. Dusk was setting in and I could see some bright points at a distance that appeared like lamps. The water ahead appeared dark. Perhaps an eddy in a river. A
little further the silhouette of a broken down bridge, or maybe, a water level measuring ramp was visible. I checked my dripping clothes standing up there on terra firma. The pant was torn at the seat. Finding one of the pair of shoes missing, I threw the other away. There was cold feeling. So I kept the socks. I tried to make out the place around me. I could not remember seeing the surroundings before. The intensity of cold made me shiver now. So I somehow dragged myself to the nearby road. There was no one as far as I could see. It felt very painful walking on the macadamised road barefoot as the sharp edges of the stones pierced through the socks at the soles softened by water during the last several hours of immersion. But still I tried to inch my body towards the distant source of lights.
A village youth came riding an old rickety bicycle with a harmonic clanging sound. The metallic sound perhaps emanated from the cyclic contact of the pedal with the chain cover. He stopped suddenly a couple of yards after crossing me and kept his balance resting a foot on the ground. He craned his neck to look back at me. By the time I reached by his side. The youth’s astonished gaze scanned me from head to toe in the faint light. I could comprehend what he thought of my dripping and torn clothes and shoeless feet with just the socks on. Just asked – Want a lift to the nearby market place?
I nodded. He gestured towards the carrier at the back. I somehow managed to sit on it and held tightly to the coiled frame supporting the seat. He rode on with the rhythmic sound of metallic clinking. It felt like a long journey because of my painful condition and the tortuous road shaking my weakened body. But to my relief and astonishment, the youth did not ask anything during the journey. We reached the village market place with a few petty shops after about twenty minutes. The youth dropped me there and went about saying nothing. The people gathered there could not guess my condition because of the enveloping darkness. I managed to find an auto and reached home.
You are perhaps thinking this is all ridiculous, just my mad imagination. Not that, sir, everything is absolutely true.
What ? You are wondering how I remained so long without breathing in the car and then under water.
Don’t get astounded. It was luck that gave me company. Do you know that the subject of my speech and demonstration that day was – how the nano-technology is going to help the people in future. Just before I walked out of the laboratory the medicine that I injected myself with was ‘Respirocyte’ – a product of nano-technology. A respirocyte measured a seventh part of a red blood corpuscle in our body; but its oxygen carrying capacity is 236 times that of a RBC. One millilitre of the fluid contains millions of such respirocytes. So its five millilitre equals volumetrically the same amount of blood in our body. My objective was that – I shall demonstrate how one can survive for several minutes at a stretch without breathing with the help of these respirocytes. Now perhaps you have believed my claim.
Why did they attempt to kill me with that injection?
No, that I can’t reply with certainty. Perhaps they thought, even if my dead body is found, there will be no sign of external injury on the body or maybe even the medicine may not be easily detectable.
What did you say? Do they know about my return and that I should report to the police?
No, I am dead from their angle and I have not intimated the police about the incident; because I have a different plan. I shall take revenge in my own way. No, that I am not going to divulge now. It will invite trouble even if I tell later. But, still, if you give your word not to tell others I can tell you in confidence after I have used it successfully.
