The Parcel From London

Alekh and Sridhar were complete strangers before they started a motor parts business together. Sridhar had saved two lakhs of rupees while working as an LIC agent. His father, a retired OAS officer gave him two lakhs more. Alekh belonged to a poor family and with great difficulty contributed one lakh rupees only. 

Both the young men were extremely diligent and industrious. Their business boomed and they collected large profits. Aklekh was not at all willing to invest any more money in the business but collected his share of the profits most aggressively. Frictions started between them. Eventually, the minor skirmishes acquired the portions of a big quarrel and a fight. They even took the matter to the police. The two friends and partners became dreaded enemies. The business that was growing most encouragingly had to be wound up.

Their business was in Jajpur. After this, Alekh was so enraged that he wanted to take Sridhar's life. Alekh was so powerfully charged with revenge that he was trying his best to kill his former friend. 

Alekh had to go through phases of the financial crisis. Finally, he landed the job of a clerk in the Odisha Secretariat. Now he was trying to choose a girl for him.I came to know all this after he settled down on the ground floor of my house at Laxmisagar. He often came to me and talked. I began to like him because of his loving and sweet manners. He addressed me as brother and consulted my opinion before taking every major decision. My wife and daughter began to treat him as a member of my family. 

Perhaps he had lived with us about six months when I said, "Alekh, don't delay your marriage any further. I have found a beautiful girl for you. She has recently got a school teacher's job. She is also very good looking." Alekh evaded an answer and I knew she reason the day I came to know about his romance with an English girl. Her name was Laura Carter, a buxom blonde girl whose charms were so captivating that any young man could get hooked by them. Alekh started chanting the word Laura almost every moment. She said she had a jewellery business in London. I thought I must tell my friend Dibakar to search for a boy and not to wait for Alekh. 

Alekh's English was not very good and that was the reason why he dropped in every now and then and I would explain a message to him. Messages came to Alekh from London in large profusion. Both my wife and daughter volunteered to facilitate his understanding of Laura's messages. 

Coming back from a coaching centre, I was having tea. The young man in love came to me. This time the message was exciting and irresistible. Laura had expressed her strong desire to buy some clothes for her future husband. She wanted to know Alekh's sizes. She was putting tremendous pressure on him to give her his clothes sizes and details of his residential address. I read all the messages and told him to wait for a while. But Alekh was so intensely passionate and stirred that it was hardly possible for him to wait. Then he avoided me since I might chill his enthusiasm. 

Ashok Gupta was an elderly person and a good friend of mine. Gupta's son Rohan was my student. The boy was studying engineering and had a coterie of friends in the locality. He said to me, "Uncle, don't worry. I know how to handle the matter."

I knew that Laura was coming to India in the forthcoming month of October. She had asked him to go to Hotel Meghdoot at Shahid Nagar. It was natural because foreigners frequented that hotel all year round. The time of Laura's arrival was drawing near. Alekh was restless and was in a hurry to decorate his little room. 

On the 27th of October, Alekh got ready to visit his English sweetheart. But a piece of disappointing news came. Laura had sent him a parcel and would surely meet him in a month's time. In spite of the disappointment, he went to Hotel Meghdoot to receive the expensive clothes his sweetheart had sent him. 

Alekh reached Hotel Meghdoot and waited for Aryan who was Laura's brother's friend. As Alekh was waiting, a battered white alto Maruti car stopped near him. An Indian man came out of the car and called Alekh. Rohan and nine of his friends surrounded Alekh and the stranger. The stranger was holding a parcel. As he saw Rohan and his friends, he began to tremble. Then he started running like lightning but he was caught and brought back to the Sahid Nagar police station. He had attacked Rohan and his friends with a knife. The police interrogated him for three hours and came to know that Sridhar had paid him 55 thousand rupees to deliver the parcel to Alekh. The parcel contained deadly explosives. The police revealed all this after some days. Sridhar had been doing the whole mischief from Noida(Delhi). But the police didn't succeed in nabbing Sridhar. 

Alekh was very much astonished why I suspected 

Laura and employed Rohan and his friends to keep watch over him. I told him we had experienced two or three such incidents. Some crooks in Delhi were engaged in playing these dirty games. 

The police found out that Shridhar was staying there.

We are still waiting to see Sridhar arrested. Now Alekh is happily married to the girl I had chosen him. Now he hates social media and avoids befriending unknown people.