GIRL WITH THE BLUE SCARF

She sat in the Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her blue silk scarf.

As she was sipping her coffee, her eyes were constantly fixed on the glass door and she was getting impatient as he did not turn up yet. He was supposed to meet her at 5 p.m. and she would be proclaiming her love to him. He would be happy to know that the only hurdle in their way now lay dead below the earth and the only proof that she had, lay enigmatically in her favorite-his favorite blue silk scarf. How he had remarked one day with a boyish smile. “Hey the blue silk scarf looks so beautiful with your silky long hair and the way it covers your hair gives a very sexy look from behind”. She smiled at the thought of how he looked handsome with his naughty smile and her blushed face turned into a crimson shade in the midst of the orange evening tinge. She was sitting by the window and the orange setting sun had covered all the Starbucks cafe spreading its reddish orange rays across the garden that surrounded the cafe. There were also few restaurants and an ice cream parlour adjoining the Starbucks but this was always their meeting point, always their love den mainly because both of them were coffee lovers and they could sit there sipping their coffees and lost in their lovely conversations without anyone bothering them to get up.

Her thoughts were fully loaded with him and she escaped into a lovely reminisce blushing on the memory when they first met and how they ended up being ardent lovers. How she loved him deeply and passionately, how she longed to marry him, how she craved to be in his arms, how she badly wanted to see his face first in her mornings, how she would give anything and do anything just to be with him. Her encounter an hour or two before was proof of her eternal love for him. Now, there was no stopping, no going back, even GOD could not stop her marrying him and becoming his for this lifetime. They cannot be separated now-yeah they cannot be separated now. She know she had to do this for his sake for her sake for the sake of both of them.

“Hi, I am Amod” were his first words to her. Amod was suffering from paranoia after he had lost his wife two years back in a domestic accident. She had accidentally rolled over the steps at her home, though this was not a fatal accident, somehow the fall had a damaging effect on her brain and she died instantly. At the time of the incident there was no one at home and Amod after returning from his work was the first one to find her. He was completely shaken by the dead figure and did not knew what to do. He called his in-laws and then the usual routine of police, ambulance had taken place. He would not have believed that his wife was dead if he was not the one who found her body. The police had given a clean chit to him and mentioned in their report that it was a tragic accident but his father-in-law never believed that. He held Amod guilty and even said that Amod killed his daughter.

Well this bold statement was based on the fact that the couple was always involved in fights every day and recently these have been increasing and regular. As per Amod’s father-in-law, it was always the fault of Amod who did not take proper care of his wife. Veena, Amod’s first wife was very possessive of him and always doubted about his fidelity, made strange remarks to his lady friends and even accused him of having an affair with one of his lady colleague. Amod is a very simple and effervescent guy. He likes to talk to people and just manages to catch attention of every one not only because of his charming looks but also on his skill of gluing the others with his sweet conversations. He was very soft spoken, remembered every detail about the other person and had a skilful tact in involving others into conversations. To Dhristi, he was a charmer-that’s what she had thought when she first met him as his counsellor. Actually, Amod did not come to her as a patient. One of her school friends had asked her to just meet Amod and counsel him as he was in a great depression. Unlike Amod, she had very few friends and best friends fewer and she would not dare say no to her school friend. She was a common friend and had met Amod in this Starbucks cafe itself. This was just a friendly act and she would not be charging any fees though she was very busy at that time. She had estimated that she would close the case maximum two or three interventions followed by one deep counselling session at her office. But she did not anticipate in the slightest thought that she would fall for him and love him so ardently.

Their casual sessions gradually turned into friendship sessions and slowly into romantic sessions. One day Amod confessed his love for her and she had reciprocated. They met in the weekends and Amod would buzz her during her office hours and their sweet nothing chats would go overnight sometimes that Dhristi once actually dozed during one of her sessions and her patient was very angry with her and ended up threatening her that he will sue her in the court of law. She always wondered how Amod kept to his work schedule. Amod would say, “You are a mirror and I see myself in you. I can talk to you about anything and just be me with you. The biggest advantage is you never Judge” That was the thing which draw Amod to her and somehow he tend to forget that it was her job not to judge people. She was a practising Psychiatrist and she knew how to make a person pour their heart and mind and she should not be judging her patients. That was the first thing that was taught to her in her first class. Nevertheless, she too was attracted to Amod for his plain honesty and frankness. But there was one problem she needed to tackle.

Amod’s paranoia was growing day by day. He was obsessed with this stupid notion that the spirit of his wife will prevent him from actually marrying another woman as she was very possessive and would not leave him alone even after her death. He had his house cleansing done by a priest because Amod thought that her spirit is wandering in his house and he can feel the vibes. He narrated some strange incident to Dhristi once which of course, she did not believe and thought that it was all his mind which is playing games on him. But Amod was gripped in his ghostly thoughts and his Paranoia was increasing day by day. He would say “Dhristi, I can’t marry you as my wife would kill you. She can’t bear seeing me with anyone else. Yesterday night, my bed was shaking and I saw her opening my bedroom door and coming to me and threatening to kill whoever I married. I was married to her and in life and death have to stay faithful to her and only to her. She would like to kill me so that we are united in death but she cannot see me dying and is in pain as she cannot leave me in this world and hence could not pass over” Dhristi did not know what to do. These were all Amod’s thoughts. She often wondered how could Amod venture such thoughts but then clearly realized that it was his guilt that made him see and feel such awful things.

He never loved Veena and marriage to her was a kind of return of favor that her father had done to him. Amod had lost his parents when he was a child and his father’s best friend (Veena’s father) took care of all his education and once Amod was independent and had a decent job, he had married away his only one daughter to him and gave the house as dowry on their marriage. Amod was compelled to marry her not literally in physical sense but mentally or emotionally, he was obligated to her father and he need to pay off all his favors but in heart and mind, he never loved her. He hated her for being his wife and wished in his heart that she die, so that he can be free. And one day, she actually died and he blamed himself for that. He felt in a way like his father-in-law accused him that he had murdered her because that thought of she dying was always very strong in his heart and how dearly he wished because other than death, he could not escape her. Now he passionately loved Dhristi but the guilt of him being happy and his first wife died only because he thought about it so badly was all that he could think of and could not come out of it. He was dying day by day, all his lively conversations had become sorrowful and remorse. He was constantly under the pain that he cannot save himself from his dead wife and he has no right to be happy in his life while she wanders this earth as a spirit.

Dhristi had to save him, and she was ready to do anything to save his soul. Only once he believes that his wife has crossed over, then only he resume back to his normal self. She had to do something by which he would believe this and she acted as if she believed all those things. One day he took her to a psychic who pretended to talk to Veena and said that she is okay to leave him alone and she would do it if he is really happy to get engaged and marry with the woman he loved. But she did not know how to cross over. So the psychic talked about a ritual wherein the true love of Amod would have to perform; the ritual in the house where she died and offer a cat as a sacrifice. In the ritual, he would command the dead lady’s spirit to enter into the body of the cat and when her spirit is in the cat, the cat has to be beheaded so that she, the spirit in the cat’s body will believe that she is dead and will cross over and the psychic will help her to do so. Then Dhristi had to bury the cat and some other stuff from the ritual under the ground and that would be the end of spirit. This was all nonsense to her but she had to it for Amod’s sake because Amod believed it. What Amod did not know that she had already approached the psychic before their meeting and suggested that the psychic tell all this to Amod? This was her plan and absolutely one of the treatments wherein the patient would believe the act and then leave the thought that had been so engulfing and consuming him. And as per killing the act, it wasn’t difficult for her as she would help her mother in butchering a hen, cleaning, cooking the meat and feeding it to the entire family whenever she is in her native place. In her caste or community, this was very normal and always done during special occasions. Here it was a cat instead of hen. That was the only difference-just another animal. And so she was there in the house performing all foolish acts and killing the cat and the knife stained with the blood of the cat lay wrapped in her silk scarf as a proof to Amod who will now let go his dead wife and her spirit and will be back to his normal life and free of Paranoia.

She took a deep breath and saw Amod in front of her. He was very apprehensive and scared, “How did it go?” He was just taking his seat and she slowly unwrapped her blue scarf and showed him the blood stained knife. “Oh my God, I could not have killed the cat ever, Dhristi”. She knew he was very timid and could not even kill a fly but she liked him not for his timid nature but for his liveliness and sheer honesty. He will now be back being himself and she can have the man whom she loved all to herself.