My Wanderings 162
Short Story No.65
My Friend died young.
While posted as Incharge international banking Division at Jammu branch of my bank , one day, I got some time to call my friend and colleague who was posted recently as Branch Manager at some branch in Yamuna Nagar Haryana. When the bell of his phone rang he was not immediately available on phone . As the bell rang longer, the phone was picked up by a stranger as I heard an unfamiliar voice of some one from the other side.
" who is it calling ?"
"I want to talk to my friend Vijay," I retorted back immediately.
"But Vijay is no more," " He has committed suicide," " His body is lying in the police station." " I am the SHO of police station, Yamuna Nagar. Why don't you come here immediately and collect his body. I was gravely shocked to hear this untoward news of my friend and switched off the phone greatly perplexed. I immediately phoned his family, who were already heading towards Yamuna Nagar after knowing about this shocking news.
My mind traversed back in retrospection , when I first time met Vijay and later on became his fast friend. I was posted as credit officer in newly opened loan cell of our Bank, which dealt with all types of credits I.e commercial loans , housing and car loans. We were two credit officers dealing exclvesely with commercial loans only . We used to receive loan proposals from all the branches of our bank in jammu city. Then we had to apprise the proposals , visit the borrowers place of business and property he wanted to mortgage to bank as collateral security and get the loan sanctioned by AGM, who was the head of loan cell. Then after arranging documentation and registered mortgage etc. through our lawyers , we used to disburse the loan. This was the new experiment of bank to bring expertise in loan appraising and uniformity in documentation and to rationalise the loan process. It was really a cumbersome and hectic process to deal in such a situation , where loan proposals started to come in bulk numbers. Moreover, it was a risky business too . When work picked up fast and it became impossible for only two credit officers to deal with the innumerable proposals, a third credit officer was posted at the the cell to help us. He was a young trainee officer Vijay who started working with us. He was very intelligent and a confident person, with gentlemanly countenace.He aways possessed a smile on his face. He appeared very well versed with his work in the first go. Soon we became very good friends. We could share a lot of experiences, skill and the job knowledge to each other. We also shared our sorrows, joys and mostly the job risks and their remedies with each other. Sometimes, we could snatch some time to visit a street tea seller to take some tea or smoke few cigarettes there and share our experiences and take tips of job from each other, inspite of a staff canteen very close to our place of work. It would give us some respite from heavy work we were alotted.
Vijay once exposed the land mafia operational in jammu , which was getting mortgage loans against fake lands. We could save our skin as all of us received proposals against mortgage of those fake lands. But in some cases, we had already burnt our fingers and they could not be rescued anymore then . All of us had to bear the brunt of such cases later on.
Now proceeding further, When the body of Vijay was brought home for cremation and performing last rites , I also visited his home at jammu. He was survived by his wife and young teenage daughter, who were in extreme remorse and intence grief . The police had closed the case declaring it as a suicide. They were submitting theories that some loans apprised by him had turned bad during his last tenure and he was under tension . They were also saying that he was pressurised by his immediate boss for increasing business of the branch.
But his family and friends including myself, were not satisfied with this thought process , because we knew well that he was not a person to come under such pressures.
One day his daughter disclosed me that there were signs of struggle in his rented room , where police had found him hanging by the fan. She also disclosed that a day before his death, a bank recuitment test was being conducted at the centre , where as an examinee ,he resticated a boy for cheating, who was son of some gang leader thereat , and who later on came with some goons and killed him and made the situation like that of suicide and police also could not take due cognizance of the case and not proceed against him, as he was highly influential person having links with Govt. authorities. This theory appeared to be most probable against suicide theories as per the personality of Vijay. But these were all theories, however remarkable, but could not be shown the day of light due to lack of evidence or circumstantial evidences erased by the culprit or the police. But a wife lost her loving husband and his daughter lost her caring father. We also lost a loyal friend. We can only remember Vijay and give him tributes but can not apprehend the culprit and bring him to justice, even if he exists. God knows better why some mysteries remain unsolved.
Zindagi rehti hai kahan , tawseeh aur tanasul ke wasayil ho jehan.
Maut rehti hai wahan, sikudane aur simatne ke masayil ho jehan.(Ramesh)
rkkaul.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment