Sophia's Freedom

Chapter 8 : The Oppressed

With a lot of questions in mind, and none of them answered, we made the journey back home to Purulia. We were determined to meet Mr. Banerjee, but at the sight of Garima, we changed our minds and decided to confront Sophia instead.

By the time we left Kolkata, it was already late. Vikash decided to have dinner at a roadside hotel and continue our journey back home. We completed our dinner by 9:00 PM. I told Vikash about my hesitation to travel in the night. He asked me to stay calm and trust the driving skills of Sanjay and Joy dada.

He said "Remember I told you these guys are the best. You will know why I said that."

The journey started. Sanjay dada was in the driving seat. He made certain adjustments on the control panel of the car and then asked us to put on the seatbelts.

On the way, Joy dada who was sitting on the front seat, suddenly commented, "Vikash, I must say, yours and Aarusha chemistry is spell bounding." he began to smile and then continued "Sometimes I get this feeling that she has something for you."

Sanjay took turns to add, "As a matter of fact, I think she is the only girl who has not made Vikash her brother."

Vikash reacted in uneasy tone “Come on guys, will you please shut up."

"You know what, today when we met Arusha di, guess what she called him," I said.

Vikash replied, "Come on guys, stop it."

Joy asked to tell me what she said, and I replied, "A GOOD-LOOKING CHARMER."

"Wuuuu.... A good-looking charmer... wuuuu wuuu..."  and then be began to laugh at him.

"By the way Vikash did you tell Joe the truth?" Asked Sanjay dada.

"What truth?"

"the truth between you and Aarush?"

"Come-on Sanjay... stop it!!!"

"What truth Sanjay dada... I want to know too?"

Vikash didn't resist much and out of frustration he blurted out "I had proposed Aarusha?"

The moment he said those lines, I immediately replied "Whaaaaatttt?"

Before Vikash could say another word Sanjay dada said "Comeon Vikhash you actually think we would believe that..." he paused and said "Joe... the truth is last month Vikash and I came over to Kolkata for some work. After our work, we decided to visit Someplace Else disc in Park Street. Since Stag entry was not allowed, I decided to call up my girlfriend while Vikash decided to ask Aarusha out. Once inside the disc, we decided to have some food first since we were there early and the disc wouldn't start for another couple of hours, at that moment, I and my girlfriend who was sitting on another table saw the funniest moment ever, Aarusha asked him if he wants to marry her and for the first time ever he didn't hesitate and actually took out a ring from him pocket, got off the chair, stood on one of his knees and proposed her..."

 I was surprised at the sudden revelation and asked him "What did Aarusha di say?"

"She agreed and they got engaged in front of everyone present there at the restaurant."

Before I could say anything Vikash replied "This is still unofficial... we are officially about the announce our engagement on the day of Teej"

I was angry at Vikash for not telling me about this, but as his best friend, I was also happy that he found his soulmate, and I know for a fact that there can be no better girl for him them Aarusha di.

The discussion continued. We were so engrossed in it and pulling each other's leg, that we didn't realize we reached Purulia before schedule.

I was tired and decided not to return home and went off to sleep in Vikash's place. Joy and Sanjay dada left after parking the Beemer in the garage.

                                                            ********

It was about 2:00 PM when I woke up. Vikash was already awake and had a cup of coffee in his hand, which he offered to me. I drank the coffee, went to freshen up, and decided to go back home.

Vikash told me to wait as he had asked the caretaker to cook lunch. We finally had lunch together and then he dropped me back home in his motorcycle.

By the time I was back home, it was already 4:00 PM. After some time, I was sitting on the balcony and thinking about all the questions that were left unanswered.

Out of all, one particular question kept surfacing in my mind: "Why did uncle lie to Arusha di, the whereabouts of his family? Is he trying to protect someone?"

As I was engrossed in my thoughts, I got startled by Monika's voice calling and urging me to accompany her in scrabble, I obliged. Monika has managed to convince Mom and Dad to play with us.

I found dad was holding Mom's hand and said "I think we should order dinner from outside, your mom has been busy the whole week, she needs some rest too."

Monika looked at them and commented, "Wow, how romantic."

I looked at Monika and put the finger on my lips, hinting her to keep quiet. She looked at me, got up, and hugged dad before he could get angry at her and say something. We all started laughing looking at dad's surprised expression.

Dad decided to order Pizza and we started our game. At around 8:00 PM. dad said that we should call it a day and go to sleep. Playing with my family after a very long time took my mind off the incessant questions for a while.

I went back to my room and broke the news to Monika about my visit to Kolkata. I told her about the series of events, our meeting with Arusha Di, our discovery about the crash, and Sophia being one among the survivors, the other being Abhinu who we assumed to be Sophia's brother or cousin, I couldn't resist telling her about Aarushi Di and Vikash too.

While discussing, I asked Monika if she knew anything about Abhinu.

She replied "We used to be friends in school. Back when we were in Kolkata, Sophia, Abhinu, and I were the best of friends. We were in the same class. However, something happened and Abhinu stopped coming to school one day."

"So, you mean to say, you knew Sophia, back when we were in Kolkata," I asked

She replied "Yes."

Monika asked me "Were you able to meet the middle-aged man your reporter friend told you about."

I replied "As a matter of fact we did. We were able to locate him, but, when we went inside, I found Garima on the balcony, so we decided not to go inside."

Monika asked me in a shocked tone "You mean to say that you have seen the Banerjee daughters in Kolkata."

I replied, "Yes, I have."

"And did you see Sophia around? I have a bad feeling they have not taken her to Kolkata with them. They never let Sophia out of the house." Monika said in a worried tone.

It dawned on me that I didn't bother to check in on Sophia.

Without saying another word, we rushed to the balcony to check for any movements, or light inside the Banerjee residence, anything to indicate if someone is in the house. We kept looking and suddenly Monika said, "Bro, I am absolutely sure that Sophia is there. We will have to go and check in on her."

I looked at my little sister and asked "Are you sure about this. If we go there and we do not find Sophia there, it will mean breaking into a house without permission, and if we get caught, think about Mom and Dad."

Monica replied "Trust me, bro, I know this family. I am very certain that Sophia is inside the house. I am worried about her."

I told Monica "I will go and check, but I want you to stay here."  However, she insisted "No bro, I am coming with you too."

I decided not to argue and started thinking about how I can escape from our house and reach the Banerjee residence without our parents noticing us. My room was on the first floor and we cannot use the front door to leave the house.

I looked over the balcony and figured that if I jumped over, I could land on the soft grass, but Monica would not be able to do that.

I found mom's saree hanging on the balcony to dry, I decided to use that as a rope to get down from the balcony and cross the boundary wall over to the Banerjee residence. We waited for mom and dad to sleep. I asked Monica to put on something comfortable. After about half an hour we left the house. I took mom's saree and tied it around the pillar so that I could lower her down, but then the very next moment what Monika did surprise me. Before I could react, she jumped from the first floor into the soft grass beneath us. I was mad at her for taking the risk, however, I suddenly remembered that Monika has been a trained Kalaripayatu athlete and this particular jump was a piece of cake for her. I jumped off the balcony too.

It took us around 10 minutes to find a way into the house. Once we were in, we headed towards Sophia's room.

We entered the room and switched on the light. There was a stench coming from the room. It was a deep smell of Ammonia.

As the light illuminated the room, the most disturbing scene met our eyes. Sophia was lying semi-conscious on the floor with her hands and feet tied with a dupatta, and a pair of stockings stuffed in her mouth.

Monica shouted "Sophia!" and ran towards her and took Sophia's head and placed it on her lap.

I released her from the binds. Without saying a word, she ran to the washroom and came out after 5 minutes. She hugged and thanked me for rescuing her. She let go of me and was about to say something to Monica when she fell to the ground.

Luckily, I caught her and laid her on the bed.

I saw Monica taking out a packet of biscuits from her pocket and giving it to Sophia. As she was eating the biscuits, I noticed some bruises on her body.

I asked, "Who did this to you, Sophia?"

Monica interrupted "I know it was aunty and the girls who have tortured her."

Looking at Sophia's dehydrated and weak condition, I decided to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital. However, she begged me not to. I was not sure why she said that.

When I insisted and tried to reason with her, she told me "If you call an ambulance, aunty will know that you were here. which would land us in trouble. Also, once I will be back from the hospital, I would have to face the repercussions."

I tried assuring her that there are laws that will protect her.

She replied "The last time I decided to run away, the cops found me after 2 days and returned me to the family. I kept telling them that I am being physically abused but they would not believe me. When I showed them the marks on the body, they told me that I must have got hurt when I ran away from them. You can guess what they did to me after the cops left."

I could imagine what they might have done and refrained from asking her.

As we were about to leave, Sophia requested if we can stay with her till morning. I told her we can stay up to 4:30 a.m. Our parents do not know we were here, so we have to return before they wake up. There are so many questions I wanted to ask Sophia, mostly about her life before the Banerjee home.

Gauging my intentions, Monica intervened "Please don't ask her anything now, she is in pain."

I saw Sophia get up from the bed and take two notebooks from the study table. She gave me the notebooks and said "I sense that you have questions for me Joe Bhaiya, everything you want to know about me is in these notebooks. Please be careful with them. Please return them to me once you are done.” She took a brief pause and continued “Bhaiya… You will have to know about the life of Abhinu Banerjee first before you get to know me. So, if the journal contains Abhinu’s name please don’t panic… it's absolutely fine."

I told her that I will get the books photocopied and make sure that Monika returns them to her.

Looking at Sophia, it was evident that she was in too much pain. I have collected some salt from the kitchen and lukewarm water from their bathroom and added the salt into the water. I took a towel and dipped it in the bucket of water and started to dab her wounds with it. As I was cleaning her wounds, I felt like she was flinching and saw tears brimming her eyes. I saw Monica gently wiping off her tears and consoling her: "Always remember the promise I made to you, you have to be strong."

I asked Monica gently, "What promise are you talking about Monica?" She replied, "It's nothing bro it's just best friends talk."

As Sophia and Monica were talking, I wanted to know the reason why she was in that condition. I was having a hard time controlling my anger at what has been done to Sophia and could not withhold pestering Sophia about it.

She replied patiently, "7 years ago, aunty made me promise never to play basketball in my life again. I kept that promise. I have never touched basketball ever since. On Thursday when you decided to challenge my sisters to play basketball, aunty couldn't say no.”

“She felt like I broke a promise, even though she did allow me to play. Her justification was that I could have made up an excuse and not play in the match, instead of taking your help and making you seek her permission. During the match when her daughters were not able to score, she felt I was solely responsible for their loss and projected all her anger onto me.”

“Darika didi and Garima didi too felt threatened when they lost the match and felt that Joe dada had understood that they were lying and only bragged about being selected to be trained by SAI professionals. All these things piled up and caused my misery soon after you left."

After listening to Sophia's ordeal, I felt helpless because there was nothing, I could do to protect her. She is far too young to stand up against her family. Generally, I do not believe in miracles but today it felt like the figurine of the five-faced Lord Hanuman and the Saint Nikolas bracelet, I gave Sophia's, protected her.

We lost track of time as the 2 girls kept talking, and by the time it was 4:00 a.m., I reminded Monika that it was time for us to get back home. Sophia thanked us once again for keeping her company. As we were about to leave, she asked me to re-bind and re-gag her again, so that Aunty and the girls would not suspect anything. I was surprised at her request and absolutely refused to do that to her, but she kept on insisting that if the family comes to know of our involvement, her predicament will get worse, or they could take measures to distance her from us.

Listening to her I could not refute her reason. I knew that they were planning to return today in the morning. I did not want her to be separated from us and we were far too young to do anything against them legally. 

By the time I can plan on doing something for her, aunty would deduce that we know about Sophia's plight and would do anything to stop us. We were not shrewd enough to stop her.

Despite my conscience telling me not to put Sophia through that again, I knew that right now this is the only way to keep her safe. With a heavy heart, I tied her up again but refused to gag her.

I told her that we do not know when they will be back, and I wanted to make sure she can call out for help if need be. We also assured her that we will be keeping an eye on the house and her.

I was desperately hoping that the family would return soon and decide not to punish her anymore. I was contemplating informing my parents about this incident. Would they believe me, or they would refrain me from mixing up with the Banerjee family?

It boggled my mind as to how someone could inflict such t*****e and humiliation on an innocent child. This level of cruelty is soul-shattering. 

How can an entire family have so much hatred towards a child?

With all these questions in my mind, we left the residence and climbed back to our rooms.

                                            TO BE CONTINUED...

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