This Is Our Destiny

"Let's search there!" said Arun pointing to the long grass on the corner of the school ground.

We were looking for germinating seeds of Indian Laburnum for our biology project to study cotyledon. We searched the whole ground of our school which was bordered by the tree but couldn’t find even faulty seeds. At last, we decided to go to that side of the ground which is usually unconquered by the children because of some rumors.

We couldn’t find anything in that grass as well. Then Arun suggested searching for the Banyan tree seeds. But the only problem was the fear due to the stories of the first batch of the school. But we gathered courage and said to ourselves that we are science students and hence must not believe in such stuff.

We looked on the tree and found the fruits hanging. So, there was a probability of finding at least one germinating seed. We searched but got nothing but disappointment. But then we realized that it too was possible that the seeds might got buried under soil due to rain earlier that night. So, we started digging like dogs.

It took not much time when I realized that there was something hard in there. I called Arun to help me to dig deeper there. What we found was more interesting than the biology project, at least it seemed so.

It was a red box with a golden border locked with a typical padlock. We were curious to know what we had discovered. So, I took a stone and broke the lock. The box contained papers and a rustic pen. Initially, we were spellbound over the pen and trying to figure out who should keep it. Quarreling over the same to decide to settle down on that later and check if the pages were interesting enough to make us famous. We starting reading each page one by one and discovered that they were love letters. It was not something to make us famous but was a great time pass . So we took the box to my home as I was alone that night and Arun planned to stay over.

After we had our dinner, discussing about our mates and planning to bounce about our discovery. Then we went upstairs to my study room. But this time there was a sense of terror, because of something. We were feeling as if we’re not alone. We opened the box and decided to read the letters and try to figure out the love story. But there was no zeal to do so as it was earlier. There was complete silence in the rooms until I suggested checking if the pen worked. I decided to write my name as we all do when we check a pen.

I took my notebook and started writing, “I am Varun.” But when I saw the paper, it was written, “I am Meena.”

I was shocked, pen dropped from my hands, my heart starting pounding as fast as it never had, I was sweating and shaking.

Arun saw me in this terrified condition and asked me what the problem was. I wanted to say but couldn’t utter even a word. He took the notebook from the table along with pen, saying, “You cannot scare with this stupid acting of yours.”

He also started writing. I wanted to scream and stop him but I was frozen. The next thing I remember was that the pen dropped from Arun’s hand and he looked at me as if he was saying that he understood why I behaving like that.

For the next few moments, the room was quiet. Both of us were starring at each other, not knowing what to do. Suddenly a breeze blew which closed the door with a bang sound, made us scream and return to our senses. We left the study room and went downstairs as fast as we could but the fear seemed to lock our knees. But we somehow managed to reach the storeroom and lock every room. I tried calling my parents but was unsuccessful.

I found myself standing under that Banyan tree, the letters dipped in a river of blood flowing from the roots of the tree and the pen with ink made of blood. Suddenly a corpse fell from the tree.

Arun shook me to wake me up and I discovered that it was all a horrible dream. We were quite.

We went upstairs to take our bags and the box. We decided to destroy the box. I locked the house and we left for school.

As expected we were not allowed to attend in biology lecture.

We were sitting in the library remembering the humor we learned in childhood. We found the book written by Dishank, a student of the 1^st batch which said on page number 25 —

“It was the second term of the 1^st batch of the Wisdom Public School. Meenakshi and Harshvardhan of class 11^th were the hot topic of the school because of their blooming love. Both used to exchange love letters in the library. Meenakshi’s parents decided to get her married, unknowing of her love. She didn’t tell her parents about Harshvardhan and agreed to marry the boy of her parents’ choice. Both of them started spending more time together. On the last day, they buried their letters under the Banyan tree in the school ground and sat there enjoying the sunset for last time together. But society couldn’t bear love anymore. The mates of lovebirds secretly clicked their photographs and to threaten them by saying that they would show the pictures to her parents. They both requested but they didn’t listen. Harsh couldn’t bear Meena crying, so, he pushed the boy with a camera and the camera fell from his hand and broke. The boys got angry and lynched Harsh. But this wasn’t enough they raped Meena and buried her face under the soil and left her to die. But the matter was somehow obscured by the school.”

Now we understood everything and the reliability of the rumors. We felt pity for them and decided to know if we could do anything to free her soul. We took a paper and held the pen over it. It read—

“I am Meena. My soul is trapped in the ink of this pen. You can free me if you want. If you can get me a drop of blood of any one of my offenders. One of them is Dr. Rajesh Gupta.”

We couldn’t believe because he was our biology teacher.

We couldn’t digest it. But we got his blood during one of the experiments to study red blood cells that day only. We locked the box with the pen, letters and the slide of Gupta sir’s blood. Then we threw it in the nearby dumping zone where it got burnt along with other waste.

We did what the paper read but still, we were depressed from inside. So, we decided to visit a temple that day. The priest was staring at us as if we were extraterrestrial. When we went near to him, he just said that to be careful and left.

We tried forgetting the incident and life started to get back to track slowly.

It was one of the normal days. I got ready for school and went to my study room to arrange my bag. But I was shocked to find that every pen n my bag had red ink and every paper in my notebook read, “Be careful.”

To my surprise, Arun also had the same experience. Now we decided to tell all our parents.

I called Arun’s parents to tea that evening. When everyone was enjoying tea, we interrupted and told everything to them. Our parents were shocked to hear that. They looked at each other and said, “This was supposed to happen.” We asked them what we could do, to which they replied, “This is our destiny. You cannot change it. Just accept it. Like we did. You are also a part of the story which started years ago. She is back.”