11th July

The large pool of accumulated dirty water near their office entrance caused another trouble today. Due to the reconstruction of the road, the condition of the street was nowadays worse in these areas. As Priyasha moved forward hurriedly it splashed on her trousers, drenching it completely. It frustrated her to hell. She cursed while clutching her purple umbrella tightly as the rain started pouring more furiously.

Life's vividness only unfolds to you when you have struggled to that extent, when the darkness have forced you to face your... death. And once you have read between the lines of life's paragraph, your point of view towards life and anything related to it, will never be the same. You'll realize why every little detail about life, either scares you, pulls you down from your high or turns your every movement from an ordinary to a toxic. Because they've taught you to feel everything in deep... closely, be it excitement, anticipation or... pain.

Once the hard experiences from your past have taught you how darkness can hurt you like hell, every emotion will continue to slap you across your face as a constant reminder to you, that you can never really learn the diversity of life. No matter what, life will always find a way... to screw you up.

Priyasha reached her office building and opted for the elevator. Three other gentlemen were already inside the elevator, as she pressed the button of her office floor, 14. She noticed 7 and 12 were already pressed on the board. She bent down to check on the condition of her drenched trousers ends but unfortunately staggered, causing her to graze her upper arm against the man standing next to her. Startled, she straightened up in embarrassment, "Excuse me."

"Excused." He responded curtly.

Priyasha saw from her peripheral vision, the man was tall. More or less 6 feet. He was wearing a light blue button-down shirt with a navy blue tie and trousers. Her eyes grazed up his face.

"Hey!" It was him. The one who saved them last night.

The man shifted his eyes on her. She saw his eyes slightly went wide at the recognition of her, yet he didn't respond. She felt slightly stupid as he didn't reply. The other two gentlemen sent few stealing glances at her and it was embarrassing. She felt the urge of giving him a piece of her mind for ignoring her like that.

"Hi!" She tried again.

This time he reciprocated, "Hi."

"How come you're here? Never seen you in the premises." She asked while putting her wet umbrella inside a plastic carrier.

The same moment the automated elevator dinged relieving her from the silence of the man as the metal doors receded sideways. Priyasha noticed the LED display flashed 'Floor 7' as one of the men moved out of the elevator. She shifted from one foot to another and looked sideways at him, expecting the answer.

He on the other hand, stood taut, looking straight ahead. "First day."

"Oh!"

The automated metal door closed again and went upwards. No one talked after that. The situation became somewhat awkward. Although she often felt nervous around strangers, but this time it was irritating her. Definitely, it was because of the staid demeanor this man was wearing; She felt simultaneously appalled to break the ice and provoked to wipe off the smugness of his face.

The door again receded as the other man left the elevator. She was expectant that he would leave too. However, she soon realized, he would not move out at floor 12, she had now the clear notion he was indeed a new appointment of DevonBolt Technology Services, where she herself worked.

She exhaled and turned to him again, "How is your wound?"

But before their conversation could start, the elevator dinged opened, and the person walked out of the elevator without waiting for her.

What. The. Actual. Hell! He acted tongue-tied while she was trying to start a small talk. How could he behave like a total stranger when they had already met yesterday? Priyasha raised her brows, displeased, and a thought crossed her mind, they'd encounter each other again and again if he was to work in their office, plus they would have to pay a visit to the Police Station this afternoon. This would be uncomfortable. And awkward.

"Priyasha!" Neha greeted her as Priyasha hurriedly sat down, putting her tote on the desk and the carrier with her wet umbrella near the feet of the desk.

"Hey, Neha. How's the morning?" She asked delivering a winsome smile to her 5'5", bubbly, slim, fashionista and smart colleague Neha.

Neha was indeed somebody in the whole office, Priyasha thought. If it can be described as a delicate piece of a specimen on earth god has made in his leisure time with his intelligence and everything that was nice but with a tinge of chemical X, that would be the description of Neha. What Priyasha liked about Neha was, she never felt afraid to give people a piece of her mind. Priyasha was glad that she was on Neha's good list, otherwise, the world for her in her corporate life would have been difficult. Being friends with her definitely had benefited her over one way possible. She got to live with her Aunt as well.

Neha dramatically rolled her eyes and huffed, "You're asking me that? Sonya told me about last night. How did that happen?"

Priyasha sighed, "If Sonya had already told you that, why are you asking me again?"

"To cross check!" She was quick in replying.

"Neha!" She chided softly.

Which she of course ignored and continued, "Vikram wants me to go to Hyderabad for the meeting with his new client. What the hell! I have a life here. How am I supposed to ditch it to help my employer out?"

Priyasha let out an inaudible chuckle as she opened her bag to pull out her spectacles, "You mean the night-outs with your bae?"

Neha shrugged, "And more than that."

Priyasha pressed the CPU power button to boot up her system as she whispered to her colleague, "Do you know the new guy?"

"Who?"

Priyasha stood up and looked around the office. Her eyes reaching out from corner to corner, over the partitioned cubicles. She saw Biren talking over the phone and scratching his beard; She saw Ritu polishing her nails and blowing on to them; She noticed Vikram, who made a gesture with his wristwatch to remind her she was running out of time to reach her deadline. But she didn't locate Him. She whispered to herself, "The guy... who saved us..."

"What are you talking about?" Neha asked following her gaze without knowing what to look for.

"Never mind. Go now and let me do my work." She sat back down and focused on her screen.

"When are you going to the Police station?" Neha asked.

"Around 5. Can you ask Sonya to meet me at the lunch?"

"Will do." Neha assured then left.

~~~

All blame goes to Sonya. Priyasha cursed her friend while waiting to avail any transport to reach the police station. Sonya knew they had to go somewhere, yet she engaged herself with a client meet, which she could have postponed.

Priyasha always dreaded to go to this one place. Police Station.

Crime and criminal had almost taken over the ordinary lives of the people of the metro. People here are forcing themselves in hiding behind their colorful social networking profiles. Although they are quite aware of social injustice, they are not just willing to stand up, neither for the sake of the fraternity nor for their fundamental duties toward society. Their protests remained up to the thin line between the status updates and blaspheming the system. But no one would go outside the system and do something against it to change it.

Priyasha groaned utterly frustrated because she was waiting for like twenty minutes and still no buses came. Which was when someone shouted at her as a car pulled in right in front of her, "Hello!"

"Wha-" Priyasha jumped up startled, shifting her eyes at the person then froze on the spot for a quick second. It was him.

He called out again, "Need a lift to Police Station?"

She couldn't help but stare at his features more closely now. They somehow had managed to quicken her heartbeats. His night sky like eyes almost captivated her as she fixed her stare at him. He gestured her with his eyebrows expectant of her to say something, or get inside the car. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she reminded of the moment of avoidance in the elevator.

"You?"

"Abhiraj Roy. I'm going to the police station and I'm guessing, you have the same destination. Come inside."

"I see, now you have recognized me. It took you quite long to remember my face." She blurted that in a sarcastic tone, before hopping into the car.

He hesitated before murmuring, "I apologize for morning. I was distracted." Then moved the car to the highway.

Priyasha anchored her attention on him, "Priyasha Chatterjee. Nice to meet you."

He nodded but refrained from responding. Both fell silent as she stared out of the window.

Twenty minutes later they were standing at the entrance of the police station and jail compound. Priyasha began palpitating on the surrounding events. Her heart sank lower observing the ocean of people rushing around here and there. A site like a police station always remains busy despite the days or time you were required to visit there. She watched both the people in Khaki with big guns hanging onto their back and the people wearing handcuffs trailing behind the former. A queasiness covered her senses, and she felt disgusted.

And suddenly she wasn't feeling well.

Abhiraj noticed her state before a solemn expression crossed his face. "You're okay?"

She shook her head in response.

Abhiraj eyed around the place, "It is easy. You tell them what happened, they'll file it down and we'll leave in ten minutes." He murmured, "Do not fret like that." Priyasha watched his tall and firm frame from her peripheral vision, felt her heart skipping a quick beat, before she followed his lead up to the area where they'd lodge the FIR (First Information Report), ignoring all the random glances thrown toward them.

Priyasha thought, he was trying to pacify her random nervousness, however, what he didn't know about her was far beyond his imagination.

This area was comparatively less crowded than the area of the main entrance and in front of the jail. She looked around observing the grave-looking protectors of the code of laws, then stopped walking and blinked.

All her clingy concerns rushed in suddenly, buzzing around her head, as she forcefully swallowed the rising bile. Though she had planned on escaping the police interrogation session all too quickly, her mind ran back to the doors of her past, those which were closed too tightly.

Her fist turned into a ball as her eyes stung hotly in the scorching heat of her memories.

Sometime in past,

"Would you mind?" Priyasha snatched away from her school bag from that annoying person as he laughed out loud startling her, making her skin crawl because of the degree of the viciousness of his tone. His gang members too joined him in his perverted elation. She ignored them as bravely as she could and walked away from them. To her dismay, he followed her close behind all the way through. Often passing on comments, she wouldn't dare response. Sweat broke out on her skin, fighting the urge to turn back and slap him right on his face.

"You don't know what you are messing with!" He warned targeting her attention to him.

She stopped and turned to face him in a quick motion. The cut across his face stretched at the ends as a cruel smirk appeared. As she concentrated on her surroundings, her awareness of his abilities grew. She realized how feeble her nineteen years old self was to his tall frame and dark reputation. Even though she found the courage and gritted at him, "I will call the police!"

In response, his roguish laughter exploded forcing her to consider her next move seriously.

"Police? They won't do anything to me."

She bit the inside of her cheek until a command from inside her head, rolled out and she obliged it rather quickly.

She acted most unexpectedly, her action led her life to the wreckage thereafter, from where, if she could she would have taken a real life rewind.

She smacked his face hard.

Later when she had gone to the police station, with her lips swollen and bloody, complaining about the misdeed she confronted, she was exclusively ignored there. She was told, she didn't need to file a complaint about it, considering her reputation. They'll look into the matter and if needed, the offender would be punished.

~~~

Life's extremely black and white. It is, either you get anything and everything you've ever asked or didn't ask for, or it takes away basically the minimal everything or anything that you have. It really depends on you, how you react to situations those that are not really in your favor. It is normal to have a satisfying feeling when we get something in life. Undoubtedly, it is good. However, if we keep getting things as we want, our lust grows, and that's really unavoidable. When our lust grows, we want more. More than we deserve or need. Things get frustrating when we can't achieve them as we demand. And that leads to our downfall. As, Lust is the foremost symbol of the six greatest sins.

"Are you okay?" Abhiraj whisper-asked.

She shook her head in agreement slowly as she took a deep breath and sighed. After ten minutes of waiting on the bench outside, they were called inside. They entered the room as her eyes focused on the man in khaki sitting behind the old office desk. The man must be in his late forties, had an enormous mustache covered the lower half of his face. He looked between them as a horrific smirk ran across his face.

"Yes?" He raised one of his eyebrows.

"We were told to file a FIR against the plunder we faced yesterday evening around 7 o'clock." Priyasha enunciated in brief, quietly.

"Oh, yes." The man leaned forward and said, "We've been looking for the rest three accused. We'll find a lead soon. Don't worry."

She shook her head, "But there's something more. We saw a constable when we were under attack, he exclusively let the cab go away, taking no action immediately."

His face grew grave after hearing that. "We'll look into the matter, you need not to disclose this to anyone... especially to media. Okay, Madam?"

Priyasha blinked, stupefied. They're trying to avoid the serious matter. Again. She was about to question back when Abhiraj interrupted, "Sir, I understand that'll be all from us?"

The policeman cast a glance at him, "Who are you?"

"I am the one who punched one of them down."

"Oh!" The policeman leaned back as he looked closely at him, "How do you know these victims and how did you find out they had been attacked?"

"Sorry for being late." Someone rushed through the door and interrupted their conversation.

Priyasha looked over her shoulder at the known voice. Sonya.

She rushed in and occupied the vacant seat beside Priyasha, "Sorry, I'm late."

The policeman asked her name and note it down beside Priyasha's name.

"Yes, please continue, Mr.?"

"Abhiraj Roy."

"Mr. Roy, please continue."

"We're colleagues," As he said so, Priyasha shifted her eyes on him. So, indeed, he was newly employed in DTS. For a split second, a thought crossed her mind. Was this only a coincidence that he was their new colleague? Then she shook it off as he continued, "I found their cab by the flyover. I wasn't aware then that my colleagues were inside the cab. At first, it didn't occur to me but when the constable shouted aloud to the driver to go ahead, I reckoned something might be erroneous in that incident. Since the road wasn't that busy. And the girls were struggling to get out."

The policeman shook his head warily, "We'll look into the matter, Mr. Roy."

"And, Sir, They took away our phones. My gold chain and..." Sonya started but immediately got interrupted, "Ms. Sonya, please go over that table sits in the corner, file a FIR and take the number. Please be aware, any day, you might have to give a visit here in the proceedings." He gave all three of them a pointed gaze and then went on scribbling something down on a pad.

All three of them nodded their agreement and stood up.

Life is unpredictable and dicey. You never know whom to trust and which wanderers of life you meet are faithless. Even so, life continues and we must cope.

Being fearful is one of the major traits of human nature. They are basically afraid of change. For example, on the occurrence of an unfortunate incident, they shout aloud, 'We want justice.' however, when it comes to doing justice, they wouldn't even budge from their respective positions. Their protests remain until the limit of status updates on their social media and then, they go quietly oiling their own machines.

Common men are afraid of the courage that is usually inherent. Only a few of them would stand up for justice because they have found the spontaneous bravery inside their ever radiant soul.

~~~