An autumn morning was making its presence felt. Just outside the monsoon forest cover was a small lake, that had been bigger than its present size. But time hadn’t been much supportive, it brought in those who made less of what was in abundance.
At the edge of the lake stood a fairly expensive dark blue sedan. If you sat inside the car and looked to the left through its window, towards the lake, you would see the back of a man in his late fifties standing and not moving and doing anything else, just admiring the lake.
Some time passed and at a certain house, 274 km away. There were a lot of people in a house and an expression of worry was carried by most. Mr Trivedi had left the house without telling anyone. He had left his smartphone at home. As seen on the security camera outside in the parking area, Mr Trivedi was quite relaxed as he entered his parked car, he even looked at the camera and waved. Then he drove away, not in a hurry.
More of the camera recording was seen to find if there was anyone else entering or exiting the vehicle. The police continued with its investigation. Trying to track the movement of the car through the available traffic cameras since a considerable number of them were not working.
The smartphone was checked, for messages. Mr Trivedi’s goods transportation had taken a challenging turn, everyone knew about that, but had things taken a dive for the worst, most feared but no one said the right words.
The grey hair moved with the passing wind. Mr Trivedi looked around sitting on a small rock. It used to be so beautiful, full of fish. The sound of cars was heard. Mr Trivedi saw the police jeeps approaching and he quickly got up and ran and he hastily dived into the lake. The policemen rushed to save the man from drowning. But what they found was a man covered in mud. Apparently, the lake was much less deep than what Mr Trivedi had assumed.
Back at home he tried to explain how years back he had gone to the lake with his friends and a dive in it had given gim fresh perspective at life, inspiration for his business and he thought maybe it would show a way in this difficult time as well. But others still argued that it was well a failed attempt at a particular end being covered up by a made up story.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
