The Calamitous Call

The phone rings in Mr.Jagadish’s house. It is a call from USA… Jagadish picks the phone up….after a long pause a low voice responds….”Hello “.

Jagadish says “Hello”

After one more pause the voice says “I really don’t know how to say this to you”.

Jagadish feels that something’s wrong and responds “who are you and what’s the matter?”

This time after a deep breath, a trembling voice responds “I am your daughter’s friend rahul and I am sorry to say this …………YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEAD.”

Jagadish is dumbfound and goes into a deep state of shock and he won’t be able to speak a word for a minute. I think this would have been the worst call in his life or for that matter in anybody’s life. After trying hard, he gets back to his senses…. totally disturbed …dejected….and somehow gains the courage to respond back…”when and how this has happened”.

Rahul responds” I don’t know when and how this has happened uncle…but her body was found lying in her house a few minutes ago”. This reply made him distressed and totally out of sorts. How much a father like him could do being a thousand miles away?

He was then informed by rahul that police have been informed and the formalities done. He was also informed to be prepared for travel to USA and asked him to wait for his next call in a couple of hours. Not having the nerve to inform his family about this ghastly incident, he just drops down on his bed. Closing his eyes, a whole lot of emotions and memories flood him. His mind unwinds her daughter’s journey abroad.

Anitha was an aspiring under-grad from Hyderabad who went to pursue her masters in the USA. Thousands of enthusiastic Indian students like Anitha set out on a journey to pursue their higher education in the United States of America and other countries. Most of them would have made up one big Hollywood Fairytale story of theirs even before they took off their dream destination…..Affluent lifestyles...Romantic long drives…Quality education…the Friday night Fever… safer places and what not? Like most of the Indian techies, she made it big academically. She was the most innovative student in college and won an international paper. At last, her determination and struggle in the so called Land of Opportunities was fruitful. She was offered a job in a dream company. It would have been beautiful if I could have ended this story saying “she lived happily ever after”. But it is not so.

Jagadish’s mind could not contain thoughts and visions of the incident that boomeranged his mind. Who could have killed her? What might be the reason? Was it a gang of muggers who could have killed her for some petty money or would it have been professional rivalry intended to suppress a budding engineer?

Mr.Jagadish would have been having the worst nightmare of his life and suddenly the phone rings again. A phone call would never have brought him such pain and suffering. He was informed that the murder took place two days ago in her apartment. Tears rolled down his cheeks…..and he just cries helplessly blaming himself for sending his daughter to the USA for all this to happen.

It is not that something of this kind would not happen in India….it could have…but here you could at least act on the situation. But if it is a thousand miles away, it makes you debilitated. What also worsens the situation is that they identified her dead after two days of the murder. All of this happening in a place where safety is given the top most priority. What should people do…restrain from sending their children abroad….or do they just have to be oblivious to such news as it happens to one in a bunch of thousand??? Well we really can’t come to a conclusion based on one such incident…But I feel its time people realize the growing number of suspicious cases like this…people have to be aware of incidents like this and take necessary precautions.