Multifold Ageold

Charu took the decision to reach the Hotel AB ***. She kissed her Grandma who simply held Charu’s hand. Grandma could not speak. She moved slightly and stretched her hand towards what Charu was holding in her another hand. The book named “Multifold” with beautiful abstract painting with Charu’s fingers fixed on page number 67 got slipped into Grandma’s hand. Grandma’s glance intrigued Charu. No way, she thought Grandma knows something about this book. But later she smiled to herself for having such doubts. Grandma had no senses to support Charu’s outreaching thoughts, she concluded. Grandma looked into the eyes of Charu, with some kind of captivating smile.

Talk Grandma, talk, if you know something, these thoughts ran into Charu’s mind and she became more precautious in interpreting that smile. Grandma pointed towards the small table on her bedside. Charu thought she needed something. She could watch a small cubicle having sugar cubes inside it. She picked some cubes and tenderly she slipped those cubes inside the mouth of Grandma. Grandma’s eyes reflected anger, she spat those cubes forcing those out of her mouth. She again pointed towards that table. Ah! The other cubicle had ice cubes inside it. Charu then served a small ice cube inside Grandma’s mouth. Grandma swallowed those icecubes happily and touched Charu’s head and looked at her with some meaningful stance. 

When Charu reached Hotel AB*** she took out the “Multifold”. She saw again the map depicted on page number 67. She took the taxi and followed the directions on the map to reach the villa. But, she got a typical sense of someone following her. She glanced inside the mirror of the taxi and she reached the conclusion that one young boy had been chasing the tax for a long riding on a bike. 

She got down at villa. That boy stood near a nearby kiosk. Instead of going inside the villa, she turned back and straight went near that boy. She yanked his backpack and questioned him, “Let’s sort it out. What’s the problem? Why you are stalking me?”  

“I did not! I stay in this villa”. He pointed out towards the villa.

Charu was on cloud nine listening to his reaction. Soon they were friends on a cup of coffee at that kiosk. He told about himself. He reached Cochin for studying law at the college over there. His intention had been very precise to select such a remote place far away from his native town Nagpur. His aspirations were to crack the UPSC examination with simultaneous study with the Law course in the silent atmosphere. His name was Sameer Vagle

Charu did not reveal her intentions to Sameer about why she visited that place. The book “Multifold” had the description of the villa but it never mentioned who owned it. She never knew that the mystery of the villa got to have something to do with its occupants. Sameer had odd expressions when he talked to Charu. Charu could guess the sense of guilt on his face. She wondered why it should happen when they were meeting for the first time.

Charu sensed some sort of mystical atmosphere inside the villa. She overflowed her friendly talks with Sameer. She had deep urge to investigate this villa. And the result? Sameer suddenly asked her to visit the famous fort in Cochin. She knew, normally only history lovers visit that spot otherwise normal tourists avoid to go there. Still, she felt she should not deny Sameer. Sameer had some charm in him. He had the quality to convince somebody very fluently.  

Charu and Sameer reached the fort. It had very shabby and dilapidated unattended precincts. They climbed up to the main door. The wall had many creepers covering almost the black wall made out of big stones. Charu went ahead and took the right turn. The creepers on the wall moved suddenly. She looked back. Sameer had disappeared. A cold shiver ran down her spine. She called loudly his name. No one answered. Then she realized in that fort that day she stood alone. Sun was going down. Sameer’s disappearance intrigued her and equally the existence of certain things near the open space below the large steps of that main entrance. There laid certain hand gloves blood-stained, few surgical equipment, scissor …. Flabbergasted Charu decided to return back to the city and she started running down the steps of the fort swiftly.  

Slowing her pace when she reached the spot where she could see certain people carrying out their routines on the road passing at the base of the fort. Suddenly she watched at the distance near the beach, some suspicious movements went on. She concentrated on the ongoing chores happening at that place. 

Those people were surely carrying some human body of a young boy aboard a ship. MV 02.. she could guess the words partially,the name of the ship inscribed on its side parts. It transpired to her the code written on page 67 of the book “ Multifold” had such numbers written. Am I directed here purposely by Sameer here? Her thoughts desperately circled round the recalls of Sameer. Her own existence at the lonely place did not give her the chance to think much about Sameer but now it again started. Where he had gone by the way, suddenly vanished!

She decided to go back to the villa. She descended the remaining part of the fort. Again she could see after a few turns the activities happening at the beach. Now! They had long carpets, the new ones and they were enveloping the human body inside the carpet. The shockwave exploded in her brain. Carpets!

It was her Pa’s business, exporting the carpet. For years their carpet shop had ethnic value and it stood with pride at the gateway of Fort Kochi town.

“ Fort Kochi Town…Carpet shop…Ship…bodies…MV02, something is getting intermingled “, her thought process went on.

She reached home. Still, her mind was immersed in the thoughts. Grandma called her. Again same indications! She needed the iceballs. Charu looked for the cubicle, she could not find it in its usual place. Grandma smilingly pointed out downwards, below her cot. Charu looked for it below the cot, there it was. But the whole ice had turned into water. Grandma showed her way towards refrigerator. She went to the refrigerator and placed it in the freezer.

Charu had in mind the carpet shop. Somewhere the connection existed between the carpet shop and the ship MV02. Suddenly she could hear some sounds coming from Grandma's room. She went on that side and to her astonishment she found her Grandma talking to a person. Guessing that Charu must be around the room went into silence. She could not remember where did she see the person who visited her house and talked to her Grandma. But the figure was surely recallable but she couldn't.

 She could not disturb her Grandma but she decided to talk to her father regarding this. Why should Grandma behave like that? Why she showed off that she could not speak. Astonishingly her father kept mum and offered no explanation to her. This simply made Charu baffled and more confused. In an instance she thought it better to return back to the US.

That night Charu could not sleep. In the dark night the lonely night helped her to have sudden vision. The vision of the code partially peeped into her dreams, “FK 09”.

‘FK stood for Fort Kochi ‘, it realised to her. And what about 09. She went on guessing and suddenly she remembered her Shop number 09. It was the shop of carpet . The shop of her father, Shop No. 09.

She held the book, “Multifold”. This book holds the information about her father’s shop! She couldn’t believe it.

It was time to run the logic now. Where did Sameer go? Why Grandma and her father and not talking and telling the reasons why Grandma should not be talking to her. And this book, it cam to her from old Bazar.

She remembered the day she bought these old books. It all started when she took the taxi from Cochin airport when she returned from the US. 

“Big Unicorn Yawning, 

Ostrich -Lonely 

Damn Boring

O! 

Ostrich KroonS.

Come soon…come soon!”

 She had opened this message in her mobile. This SMS her Grandma had sent to her in the US insisting her to return back to India. She wondered in the taxi why such kind of message should have been sent to her by Grandma instead of simply saying “Come back to India soon”.

Yes! She got it now. This lonely night is helping her a lot. Grandma knew Charu had the habit of decoding the abbreviations. And in the message, there was a spelling mistake. Instead of croons it was written KroonS. Her brain subconsciously caught the message. Her brain decoded the abbreviations. From there she got the idea of buying the old books. Amused, she read the first letter of each word of the message. BUY OLD BOOK and finally S. Wow this was the semantic transmission of the message which her mind caught so easily. Now she realised why she had been to buy the old books. Of course the shopkeeper is traditionally providing the old books to her family.

That it it is a more dangerous game going on than she taught. It connects to her family. Grandma and father are under great pressure and they want me to understand and resolve the situation. That is why I am called back to Cochin.

The next morning she went to her shop. She did not find anything foul over there. Then she went silently inside the compound of yesterday’s villa. To her astonishment, she found that Sameer was tied with the ropes. Few goons encircled him and had been torturing him furiously. They were asking him why did he allow Charu to enter the villa. Why did he bring her to the fort? Charu realised that Sameer was the victim of blackmailing. She understood that Sameer had been utilized as the caretaker of the villa where all foul activities were going on. The student like person wont have time suspected that's why the choice of Sameer was made by these bad people. But why? What were their intentions otherwise?

These goons came outside and Charu started chasing her. They reached her father’s shop. Charu followed them and suddenly they vanished. 

Charu’s brain was working like a computer now. She recalled what her Grandma did when she swallowed the ice cubes. Okay ! she made me take icecubes from below the cot. These people are not vanished, they must have been gone somewhere underground. But for what, from where?

She went back inside the shop. There she found a tile that could be moved. Okay! Grandma’s next hint. She took the water bag of her father and she slipped the water bag inside the hole formed when the tiles were moved from its place. She hung the water bag. After some time she took out the water bag …wow …it was frozen! Like the ice!

So here it is! The goons have created the underground cold storage for the foul games they are into. She ran to her home back and very cautiously checked Grandma’s room. Okay ! she got it now. It was under CCTV survillience through candid cameras.

“So this is a big conspiracy”, she murmured. She straight went to the police station. Inspector Rober joined her to her shop. But they could not find the door. Charu could observe a small mobile like machine lying at the odd place in her shop. It was asking for some pass code. Now they got the sense that the goons underground are trying to escape from the by pass. The pass code was the utmost necessity at that moment. It clicked suddenly to Charu, “MV02FK09” . She tried that passcode but it did not work. Inspector Robert suggested her try more combinations. She finally tried with great care,” Menon Varghasee to Fort Kochi zero gaze”. This code worked. The code she could decode because of her habit of playing with the abbreviations and of course the name of the author of the book “ Sherryl Varghese” . The photograph on the page number had the remark stating the name of some Mrs. Menon. The bright brain of Charu recalled that the sur name of her Grandma before the marriage was “ Menon”. Zero gazes was the blind girl’s photograph on the book. 

Police caught the culprits. This was sort of human trafficking going on. These people were killing innocent people and selling their body parts for medicinal uses in foreign countries. This was the age-old practice but was stopped for many years. It suddenly restarted in 2020 and the offenders targetted the same old house of Charu whereby earlier they had been blackmailing Charu’s Grand pa and had killed his sister Sherry Varghese after plucking her eyes in the past. Grand ma wrote the book which she knew lies with the old books seller. So finally it worked out to be the game of multifold decoding for Charu in which she succeeded.