Blue Eyed

Pritam had an aura around himself, the way he presented his own self or the ambience he created around him. I knew him from childhood and he always had that something extra which was absent with us, the others. From class room to the playing field he was given that extra respect that was missing for us. Not that we didn't have that quality but we had to work overtime to get that recognition but however most of the time our efforts were overlooked. So among our friends, Pritam was known as the Blue Eyed.

Once in our neighborhood a strange object was found. It was metallic in character but was not too hard. The edges were surprisingly quite soft and didn't have that roughness where by touching it one's hands would not get cut. Naturally, the object aroused a lot of curiosity. Every Tom, Dick and Harry of our township had a look and feel of it. The Police also examined it and followed it up going by their rule books. But they didn't pursue with it further finding it of little interest and avoiding unnecessary complications for their department which was already burdened with many curious cases.

Our blue eyed boy Pritam had a look over it and to further quench his thirst for knowledge, took it with him and carried it home. He was studying Chemistry, so he said, 'I'll search the Periodic table of elements and try to find a solution.' Some rag pickers wanted to take it with them and show it to their buyer agent if it could fetch them a tidy sum of money. But these traders didn't show any interest as they were not aware of it's usage and also they had suspicion over it's effects on their businesses more due to their thought of bad omen.

Pritam had a laboratory of his own at his home. He kept the object there for further investigation at his own free time. We heard that his family members had mildly objected but, Pritam treated the matter lightly and didn't discuss it further.

From then onwards, Pritam never discussed it with us. We tried hard to gather information but Pritam remained as tight lipped as ever. Due to our too much probing made Pritam becoming aloof. He stopped seeing us and rarely talked with us.

His appearance was also undergoing a change. But we kept our constant observations over him.

After few months, we observed Pritam behaving more affluently. He had got a teaching job after completing his education but he mostly stayed home. We couldn't ascertain his source of income but he had recently bought a swanky car.

His style of dressing had also changed. He now dressed very ostentatiously and without reason.

Our intelligence group from our friends gathered information from a local jeweller that periodically Pritam offloaded good volume of gold for cash.

Our friend circle got more curious and a tad worried for Pritam. Had he got to the source of Midas's gold? If not then what was his source of affluence? Among us friends the topic of discussion remained Pritam and only him.

'Wait, some day the authorities will catch up with him and all his suspicious transactions unearthered,' said Rohit, a friend with a serious tone.

Then one day, we saw many people enter his house. They were all dressed in civilian clothes. We suspected that probably a raid has been conducted at his house. After spending more than half a day, the officials all left the house.

We couldn't gather a single information. Then we caught hold of his servant and tried to source news from him. But he was frightened and as a result tight lipped and failed to know anything. From the next day onwards he stopped visiting Pritam 's house. Probably he had given him the sack. Poor chap, we felt sorry for him. Because of our over inquisitiveness the fellow had lost his job.

The suspicious nature of activities continued further. Then we tried to source our information from the jewellers. But here again we reached a dead wall. All the jewellers informed that they had signed a contract of secrecy and they are bound by it. So they were equally non porous.

This hide and seek game continued further. We also became busy with our lives and put a pause to our ongoing investigation. One of our writer friend Rakesh however didn't lose hope and pursued with his investigation. He intended to write a feature article in the centre column of a Sunday newspaper and later compile it into a book.

After few months we came to know that Pritam had become an honorary Consul General of a small island nation in the Pacific. His car carried the sign board displayed ostentatiously. A lawyer friend informed that Pritam had now earned diplomatic immunity and couldn't be easily booked under the law.

A few further months down the line a servant who was currently employed said that Pritam had left our country for an indefinite period and gone to the country of which he was the consul general.

One day we were sitting idly at the tea stall of our nook and discussing matters here and there when Rakesh came with a bunch of papers. He had finally compiled his article on Pritam. For the compilation work he had to visit the embassy of that island nation many a time. He even visited the nation and surprisingly took an interview of Pritam.

The strange object that Pritam took to his home was a magic stone that could convert into gold. So Pritam slowly and steadily built a huge asset of gold. Some of this he offloaded and converted into liquid assets and cash. Few months ago when some plain clothes authoritative person visited his house he had obliged with huge payback. So they had hushed up his case as Pritam had deposited huge quantity of gold to the local politicians godown.

Then with his growing wealth he had purchased the honorary consulship of the little island nation. Later on with their invitation Pritam had gone there . Further by depositing huge gold that he had sent through hawala transactions into the island nation's coffers he was offered their golden citizenship.

As per Rakesh, Pritam, who has built a humongous base of gold and cash assets, now has floated an asset management company in the famed Wall Street. He intends to use the wealth for the welfare of the humankind and wants to fund research on disease fighting and poverty.

As usual, Pritam remained our elusive blue eyed boy forever whom we could never emulate.