The Song Of The Ring

“So you are telling me that you can find missing persons just by touching their personal objects?” The news anchor jeered at his guest, not even trying to suppress the glee that he felt when he knew that he was on the cusp of a great news story. He could already see the social media storm that would erupt after he finished destroying the career of the con-man who sat smugly in his studio.

“That's true,” Mithilesh nodded his head gravely. “All I need is something that the person had been using regularly.”

“Tell us again,” Bimal shifted on his seat a bit, keeping his eye on his infamous guest, “about how you got this power.” When he noticed a frown on Mithilesh's face, he couldn't help but smile. Perhaps the snake oil salesman was coming to the sad realization that he had walked straight into a trap.

“I have already spoken about it,” Mithilesh kept his voice level. “I don't hide the fact that I got this power from a spirit.”

“A spirit?” Bimal echoed the word suffusing it with sufficient sarcasm. “You mean a ghost, right?”

“Ghost, spirit, witch,” Mithilesh shrugged. “The words can't do justice to it.”

“Where did you encounter this witch?” Bimal latched on to the word with alacrity. It was time to push in the dagger.

Nisha, the second guest, watched the proceedings with a dull expression. When she was sent the invite to join the panel, she knew that it was going to be Bimal's show where Bimal would tear apart Mithilesh. All she had to do was grace the seat and ask some pertinent questions. So far, Bimal had not needed her. She looked at Bimal's clean-shaven face and admired how the layers of make-up hid Bimal's wrinkles. She glanced at Mithilesh and frowned at his disheveled appearance. Mithilesh sported a flowing beard and thick moustache that hid his lips. His eyebrows were pencil-thin though and it made his face look incongruous. She shook her head once. She knew that she had no right to comment on the appearances of other people. She had been reminded brutally many times about her bulbous nose.

“I know that you have to do a show here,” Mithilesh refused to elaborate on his first encounter with the spirit that bestowed an amazing power to him. “It will be great if you could make me look like a clown. Your audience would really appreciate it if you could cut me down a size or two.” He glanced down at his hands once and then looked up at Bimal. “I refuse to play your game.”

The announcement made in a flat voice created a ripple in the studio. A gasp escaped Nisha who immediately looked at Bimal to gauge his reaction. Bimal had an explosive temper and she didn't want to be caught right in the middle of the maelstrom that might hit the studio anytime now.

“Play my game?” Bimal inhaled sharply. “But, what do you mean by that? I invited you here. I asked you some questions. Are you telling me that you are refusing to answer my questions? Are you telling the audience that you are a fake, a charlatan?”

Bimal's shrill voice grated Nisha's ears. She mustered up enough courage to look up at Mithilesh who ignored Bimal's ranting.

“Talking about the spirit,” Mithilesh said, “is, frankly, a wrong way to start the discussion.”

“You will dare teach me how to run my own show?” Bimal's voice rose up some decibels.

Mithilesh kept ignoring him.

“A demo,” Mithilesh nodded his head. “We need a demo. That would let the audience know straight away if I am lying through my teeth or if my powers are for real.”

Bimal's face turned purple. Nisha decided to wade into the row to defuse the situation. She knew that Bimal was a true showman. He would reign in his temper if he could still salvage the program.

“That's a great idea,” she spoke. Mithilesh turned his gaze towards her. “But we need to know how you would go about it. If you can just think aloud, I think we will see how you approach your task.”

Mithilesh grunted. “That's ok with me,” he sniffed. “Now I will try to explain it all. If you have any doubt, let me know.”

Nisha glanced once at Bimal and was relieved to see that Bimal had managed to control himself.

“This Universe is made up of sound,” Mithilesh continued his lecture. “At least, the part that we can sense, is totally made up of sound. For now, let us stick to this wonderful world that is around us. Do you know that everything around us, visible or invisible to us, makes some kind of sound? We are so lost in our own dramas that we can't hear the music around us. It is also true that biologically our ears can only discern a small part of the sound spectrum and majority of the humans would never be able to listen to the song of the mountains or the dirges of the oceans. The trees and the grass, they are almost always singing. The clouds up above you are lost in their own musical world. It is beautiful. When my mind was awakened to the plethora of sounds around me, I thought I was going mad but then I was reassured that the sound is actually there. One can hear it if one can sync to it. It is like trying to find a radio channel on your car radio. Once you are able to get attuned to the frequency, the sound waves would start making sense to you.”

“And you want us to believe,” Nisha interrupted Mithilesh, “that you are capable of doing so?”

“Of course,” Mithilesh replied. Bimal's smirk grew deeper.

“How can you prove it to us?” Nisha asked him. “I don't have similar power so I will never be able to hear them.”

Bimal actually guffawed. Nisha thought it was incredibly rude of him. They didn't want to push Mithilesh away.

“That's right,” Mithilesh agreed. “You can't hear the sound of the objects around you. I can. So I will hear them and tell them what they are speaking of.”

“Are these things constantly singing about the same stuff?” Bimal butted in. “Like this pen. Is it singing about its ink running out?”

Mithilesh stared at Bimal for a moment but then his face relaxed.

“You think I am joking?” Mithilesh tapped his fingers on the table. “That pen is least concerned with the ink. It doesn't care if there is ink in it or not. The objects that are around us don't share our values. We can't go around forcing them to behave in the manner we want them to behave. They are lost in their own worlds, much like us. In any case, let us not talk about the pen. Why don't we talk about the ring on your right index finger?”

Nisha noticed a curious expression on Bimal's face when Mithilesh pointed to the ring Bimal was wearing. Bimal put his left palm over the ring to hide it but then made a wry face and thrust out his right hand towards Mithilesh.

“What does my ring say to you?” Bimal asked. Nisha felt weird about Bimal's tremulous tone.

“It is crying out to me in pain,” Mithilesh whispered.

“Take it,” Bimal wrenched out the ring and slid it towards his guest. Mithilesh picked up the ring and clasped it in his right palm. For some seconds, they let Mithilesh meditate in peace but then Bimal, prodded by his assistants hiding behind the screen, began to chat with Nisha for they couldn't stay silent in a live show.

“Did you hear that mumbo-jumbo about the sound of the world?” He fully expected Nisha to agree with him but was shocked when Nisha spoke in Mithilesh's support.

“Everything vibrates,” Nisha mentioned. “And all such vibrations could cause disturbances on the sound spectrum. Of course, we can't hear them. I think the range starts from 20 or 50 Hz and goes up as high as 20000 Hz. You will have to check on the exact values but the truth is that we are capable of listening to a very small spectrum. We can't hear loud sounds or else our eardrums would get ruptured. We can't hear faint sounds for our eardrums would ignore the subtle vibrations. Dogs have better hearing than us.”

“I agree that animals hear better than us,” Bimal agreed grudgingly. “But it is not true that we can start listening like an animal. It is not possible.”

“It is possible,” Mithilesh suddenly spoke. “You must understand that all things, living or non-living, vibrate at a particular frequency. It is something that we don't pay attention to but it is quite critical to our lives. See, people vibrating at a particular frequency, would invite thoughts of that nature towards them. The thoughts make you desire something. Then your will comes into factor. Then you decide to take action to fulfill that desire. By the time, you are even acting on a particular desire, more thoughts are attracted to you. Pretty soon, you are living amidst a violently disturbed life of sometimes chasing this desire and sometimes running after that dream. The idea is that the frequency at which you operate attracts thoughts towards you. What if you change the frequency that which you operate? Simply, different thoughts will manifest for you leading to the pursuit of different desires.

You will soon be living a different life. That's why people meditate or chant mantras so that they could somehow alter their frequencies. But what about non-living objects, the ones without consciousness. Of course, they can't alter their frequency of existence but are they condemned to exist in such a hell where one can't control the nature of thoughts and desires that make their way to them? Of course not! The thoughts and desires that are out there find their way to such objects but they don't stick to them. They touch these objects, leave a faint trail of their arrival, and then they are gone. It is not that difficult a concept to understand. Now, where do I stand? Ever since I have been blessed by the kindest spirit, I have obtained the power to alter the frequency of my mind to attune it with any object in this world. So I connected with your ring here and I got to hear its story. Do you want to know about it?”

“I have never heard such bosh before,” Bimal sneered. “But do continue your fantastic exposition.”

“Let us hear what the ring told you,” Nisha urged Mithilesh who put the ring on the table.

“It belonged to a girl,” Mithilesh spoke.

Nisha saw that Bimal's face became white as a sheet at what Mithilesh had to say. Mithilesh glanced once at Bimal but then went back to staring at the ring. “What I felt through the ring was a myriad of emotions. Primarily, they are related to anger. Perhaps Bimal gets too worked up during meetings and all the rage that he channels through him gets reflected on the poor ring also. But then I also felt very faint traces of pain and fear. Given that they are very faint, I had to concentrate really hard on them. Then I realized that the previous owner was a girl. A teenage girl. Happy vibes. Lots of laughter and pleasure. Then fear and disgust. Yes, that is the word I am looking for. There is disgust clearly marked on it. Pain. A lot of pain. It is there. But the most interesting bit comes after the pain. It is silence. Total silence. Cold. A cold that would make your skin crawl. I guess it must have been in a grave. Then I see warmth. So I guess someone dug it out of a grave. Then this is again very interesting. Cold again but this time it is related to terror. I actually got confused here but then I got a nudge from my spirit. The ring briefly belonged to another girl but this new owner was dead.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?” Bimal stood up suddenly, his face contorted with rage.

“I am just telling you what I felt,” Mithilesh was still not perturbed by the sight of a pugnacious news anchor.

“Dead?” Nisha was now confused. She felt that Mithilesh was making the story up as he kept speaking. The entire story was a ludicrous one but she was now concerned with the effect the nonsensical story was having on Bimal.

“Yes,” Mithilesh nodded his head. “The poor girl was dead and she was gifted the ring but then the ring was taken away by Bimal. Did you take it off the finger of a dead girl?”

“I took it from Jaleh's finger,” Bimal growled.

“Did you put it on her finger?” Mithilesh picked up the ring and held it up.

“She used to wear it all the time,” Bimal gestured to Mithilesh to return the ring but Mithilesh held on to it.

“When did you take it from her?” Mithilesh asked again.

“When her body was found,” Bimal sighed and sat down heavily on his chair. “She met an accident but we couldn't find her for three days. When we finally found her dead body, I took the ring from her.”

“Isn't it true that when people picked up her body,” Mithilesh stared at Bimal, “the ring fell from her finger and then you picked it up from the ground?”

Bimal looked ashen now. “How did you...?” He sputtered.

“Now if Jaleh was the owner of the ring,” Mithilesh drove his point home, “then the ring would simply not fall off her finger unless she had been starved to death and her finger would have turned bony. But I have seen the police report that was filed after Jaleh's body was found and it clearly states that many people noticed that the ring simply fell down when the body was picked up. By the way, you were quite instrumental in the discovery of her body, weren't you? You were hailed as a little sleuth then, isn't that true? According to the report, Jaleh's face was so badly mutilated that it was difficult to recognize her. You picked up the ring and declared that it was Jaleh's body.”

“Her mother recognized her too,” Bimal pointed out weakly.

“Ah, that frail woman who couldn't stand up to you or to your father who bullied her relentlessly,” Mithilesh remarked.

“How dare you?” Bimal sprang upon his feet again and advanced towards Mithilesh. Instantly, his assistants began milling about, ready to jump in to stop the fight but then some people made them back down.

“Shut it down,” Bimal growled at the cameraman but his order was disregarded. The camera kept playing. The live show kept getting telecast into millions of homes.

“She believed till her dying days that it was not Jaleh who she cremated,” Mithilesh shook his head once. “But let us come back to the ring and its fantastic story. This is what I could figure out. It belonged to Jaleh who went missing one day. You passed off the body of an accident victim as that of Jaleh and you used this ring to convince everyone that it was Jaleh who died in an accident. But the ring tells me that before you did that, it was in a cold and silent place as if it was inside a grave. Did you bury Jaleh somewhere?”

Bimal rushed at Mithilesh who showed great alacrity in getting out of harm's way.

“Give the ring back to me,” Bimal screamed at Mithilesh. The way he pulled his lips back to show his teeth and the erratic way he breathed reminded Nisha of an animal in terror.

“Did you then dig it up to steal the ring from Jaleh?” Mithilesh continued.

Bimal tried to swing at him but Mithilesh pulled a chair in between them and stayed safe. Nisha was sure that for Bimal, everything else had dissolved. Goaded by Mithilesh and blinded by rage, Bimal had developed a tunnel vision temporarily. All that he could see was that his enemy was just beyond the chair that prevented him from reaching his enemy. If only one punch could connect, Mithilesh would be at his mercy. He had even forgotten that he was being watched live by his adoring viewers.

“I was told that she hated you,” Mithilesh smirked. “She would refuse to stay in the same room as you. Ah, let me see. Did you try to rape her and kill her? What kind of sick monster are you targeting your own step-sister? Then you dug a grave for her and buried her. But your step-mother wouldn't believe your story that she eloped and she kept insisting on filing a police complaint and you got scared. So you decided to do something about it. You killed Anvi who unfortunately had a similar build to that of Jaleh. You bribed Anvi's lover to leave for Mumbai and to lie to everyone that Anvi had eloped with him. After three days of leaving Anvi's body exposed to the elements, you crushed her face and put on Jaleh's ring on her finger.

Then you formed a team of young children and went about looking for your poor sister. After wandering about for some hours, you took them to the spot where you had murdered Anvi. The ring clinched the deal for you but I was there when the ring fell off Anvi's finger. I didn't realize then the significance of the ring slipping out of the dead woman's finger but after some years, I finally understood what you did. Of course, I had no proof. Anvi's father never cared for her so no one ever looked for her. Anvi's lover stopped writing to his family after some months. Then Mumbai police contacted his family to inform them of his death due to an overdose of drugs. You were really lucky, weren't you? You went on to enjoy your life and you never cared about the two girls whom you raped and killed.”

“I never raped Anvi,” Bimal hissed at Mithilesh.

“The ring told me that you smothered Anvi,” Mithilesh insisted.

“I didn't smother her, you idiot,” Bimal grabbed the chair and pulled it hard. Mithilesh lost his balance and came in the range of Bimal's punch. “I hit her head with a stone. You bast**d!”

Bimal's punch knocked Mithilesh down. Bimal kicked the chair away and tried to stomp at Mithilesh's head. The blow would have killed Mithilesh but then some people ran inside and one of them managed to push Bimal away in the nick of time.

It took three men to subdue Bimal. He was finally led out of the news studio in handcuffs. The policemen stopped the shooting and finally the dreadful show came to an end.

Mithilesh's actual name turned out to be Harideb. He belonged to Bimal's village. He was a kid when Bimal had murdered Jaleh and Anvi. When he finally figured out the truth, he realized that the cases had turned cold and there was not a sliver of evidence against Bimal. When he grew up, he kept thinking of ways to bring Bimal to justice but he soon began to despair for Bimal became a hot-shot journalist and a powerful man. Harideb finally met his childhood friend Chakradhwaj who had become a police inspector. Chakradhwaj was himself a mute spectator of Bimal's crimes. Together they hatched a plan. The persona of Mithilesh was created painstakingly. A slew of stories was planted on social media about Mithilesh and his amazing power to listen to inanimate objects and to track the missing people with the objects that they used. Mithilesh became a sensation and then they waited for Bimal's team to contact them. Bimal had created his reputation by inviting guests to his show and then by intimidating them into making stupid claims. His viewers loved the dressing down of the guests. The guest didn't matter. What mattered was their degrading at Bimal's hands. They knew that sooner than later, Bimal would invite Mithilesh to his show. When finally the invitation came, Harideb and Chakradhwaj went on their plan of action together.

While Mithilesh kept Bimal and Nisha busy with his ramblings, Chakradhwaj's team came into Bimal's studio and waited on the sidelines to intervene if things turned ugly. Mithilesh's goading made Bimal blurt out the truth about Anvi. Bimal still expected his political contacts to save his hide but his confession on live air kept his supporters away. Two days later, Bimal finally confessed to the murder of Jaleh. He took the police to the unmarked grave of Jaleh where she had waited for justice for decades.

“You did it,” Nisha congratulated Harideb. They were seated in a cafeteria. Harideb apologized to Nisha for dragging her into the drama that led to Bimal's downfall. She had graciously forgiven him. Harideb and Chakradhwaj invited her for a cup of coffee as a token of their appreciation.

“Finally, I am at peace,” Harideb replied. “The murderer is in jail. His confessions have made our task easier. He would definitely be sentenced to life.”

“I have so many questions,” Nisha put her cup down. “How did you know what happened to Jaleh? After all, the ring didn't speak to you, did it?”

Harideb's face sported a cryptic smile. “And what if it did?”

“Come on now,” Nisha shook her head. “Don't pull my leg.”

“I just made it all up,” Harideb confessed. “He fell into it hook, line and sinker.”

Chakradhwaj heard Harideb and noticed that Nisha had her doubts about it but he didn't bother to update her about Harideb's ordeal. After all, it was impossible for anyone to believe that Harideb had seen in his dreams the events leading to Jaleh's death. Harideb had gone crazy trying to understand the violent nightmares he suffered from but at long last, he made peace with his nightmares. He even found Jaleh's grave but he didn't dig her body out. He contacted Chakradhwaj, his best friend and together they hatched the plan to smoke Bimal out. It all worked out in the end. Harideb confessed to him that ever since Bimal's arrest, he was no longer suffering from the terrible nightmares that had made his life a miserable hell for years.

“All is well,” Chakradhwaj patted Harideb on his back and the three of them spoke in unison, “that ends well!”