Fruitcake - Volume 1: The Chapter 25 25: Asian Hornet
After what I had read, I was shaken and disturbed to the core, I left my room with the journal in my hand and started calling out for Monika.
“MONIKA !!! WHERE ARE YOU… COME OUT THIS VERY INSTANCE…” I shouted.
Upon hearing me shout, Monika came out of her room and asked me “What happened Bro… what’s wrong with you… why are you shouting?”
My shouts brought mom out of the room too. I had never behaved in this manner before so she looked worried by my reaction.
I showed Monika the last few entries and asked “Read this, tell me how far of this is true? Don’t you dare hide anything from me?”
Before Monika could take the papers from my hand, Mom, snatched it from me, and read the entries too. She turned towards Monika and asked “Tell me, Monika, this is not some sick joke. You guys are not making a fool out of us? A boy living life as a girl.”
Monika let out an exasperated shout instigated by our badgering questions, “EVERYTHING YOU HAVE READ IS TRUE. THEY HAVE BEEN FORCING ABHINU TO LIVE HIS LIFE AS A GIRL. GEETA WHOM YOU MET THE OTHER DAY IN HOSPITAL IS NONE OTHER THAN ABHINU. And that is not all, 6 years ago, there was AAROHI who lived with them. They did the same thing to her.”
“That’s impossible, when did you come to know about all of this?”
“Why did you not tell us about this earlier?” Mom asked Monika.
“I have known about Geeta for 6 years and Aarohi, for 10 years. I kept telling you and dad about Abhinu, but you never believed me and forbade me to stop making things up.” Monika replied.
Mom didn’t utter another word after that and slowly took a seat on the couch. She kept rubbing her right hand to her forehead giving the impression that she was thinking something deeply. It was evident that Monika’s confirming words has impacted her and drove her into deep speculation. She remained immersed in thinking for quite a long time and kept rubbing her forehead with her right hand.
All of a sudden she replied, “I think we should call the cops and inform them about what is happening.”
Monika suddenly interrupted looking very scared “No mom, please don’t call the cops. The last time, Abhinu called the cops, you know what happened.”
I asked “What???”
“Aunty proved to the cops that Abhinu has a delusional disorder, NSSI and simultaneously he is also suffering from a disease called transvestic disorder. They have forged his medical records and everything.”
“You mean to say, they have led the police to believe that he is suffering from a syndrome which is why he likes to dress up as a girl and believes that he is a girl.” Asked Mom.
“Yes,” replied Monika. She was on the verge of crying while replying mom’s questions.
“And how did you happen to know all about this.” my mom asked.
Monika replied “6 years ago, Abhinu ran away from home, because he couldn’t take the shame of having to dress up like a girl in front of all his friends. It was Darika’s birthday. What happened that night, made Abhinu run away from home. Cops found him 3 days later but when he told the cops about his situation in the house, aunty proved to them with the medical reports that he is mentally not well.”
“Let’s go to the hospital, I want to talk to that friend of yours,” said mom in a determined tone.
I and Monika followed her. She asked Monika to stay at the house and asked me to give the contact numbers of all my friends to her.
“Invite all of Joe’s friends at our residence. I want to talk to them, everyone, including Babul, the lady cop, Vikash, Koushik and anyone who knows about this, and call your father too.” mom picked up a key from the table and them continued “Make sure that none of the family members from the Banerjee residence knows about this, not even Mr. Banerjee. Also when the lady cop asks about why I want to meet her give her this number CRPC-1976-34796CH, and tell her to check the number on her system, she will understand.”
Mom went to our garage and started the car. We had a very old Silver Maruti Suzuki Esteem, MH12-BP-7076. I remember when I was a little boy, dad was posted in Maharastra. He had a knack for fast cars and back then it was believed that it was the fastest car ever made for the Indian roads. I even remember he customized the car to the extent that he had it driven in an Asian rally circuit and won the second runner up position.
She told me to get into the car and put the seat belt on. As she started the car, it let a loud booming noise and suddenly as she applied the accelerator of the car, the booming noise softened. She reversed the car at such speed that had I not put the belts on, I would have hit the windows and fell off the car.
Within 10 minutes, we were at the hospital. I have never seen mom drive a car in her life before, but today when I saw her drive, I promised myself that I would never dare sit with her when she is driving.
As we reached the hospital, I saw Koushik was sitting outside Geeta’s room. As we entered the room we saw Mr. Banerjee was sitting there.
“Hello Mr. Banerjee. You remember me?” Mom asked.
“What a surprise, Mrs. Christopher. What are you doing here?” asked Mr. Banerjee.
Suddenly my mom caught hold of my ear and pulled it and said “Nothing, I just came looking for this idiot son of mine. For the last 2 days he has not been home, I called all his friends and no one seem to know where he is, so I thought, he might be here, taking care of his friend, and to my surprise, I was in luck. He seems to have forgotten that he has a home.”
I looked around and saw Geeta looking at my mom and as she was about to say something I started to shake my head slowly indicating her not to say a word at the moment. All of a sudden, mom changed her tone and said to Mr. Banerjee
“You both look sleepy, why don’t you too go to the cafeteria and have some tea, in the meantime, I will wait here.”
Mr. Banerjee was hesitant for a moment but decided to go and get some tea with me. We returned back after 15 minutes.
As we came back, mom took leave from Mr. Banerjee and Geeta and left. On the way out she saw Koushik and replied: “Koushik, your Mom had come over to our place for lunch, why don’t you have your food at our place and then you can come back here.”
I was at a loss for words, what is mom up-to, and what did she discuss with Geeta. As far as I know, Koushik’s mom is in London with his sister who is expecting a child. I didn’t utter a single word and followed mom as she stepped out of the hospital.
As we were going towards our car, Koushik pointed his finger towards our car and said: “Is that….”
Before he could complete the sentence mom replied: “Yes… that is. Now get into the car, we need to talk.”
As I was strapping on the seat belt, I looked at Koushik and his reaction was as if he has just witnessed a ghost.
I asked him what is wrong with him, and his reply was “I don’t believe it, I have never thought in my life I would get to sit on the Asian Hornet.”
“What Asian Hornet, what are you talking about?” I asked in a shocked tone.
Koushik told me to lift the box which was placed on the dashboard of our car and look into it, there should be a name inscribed into it “ASIAN HORNET”
He replied “Asian Hornet was the fastest Rally car ever to take part in La Festa Primavera and is a 3 time winner. But after 1995 ASIAN HORNET was never seen again.”
We were back home after about 25 minutes, Mom had to make a quick stop to get the journal pages xeroxed.
As we entered our porch, I saw everyone was waiting for us in the hall. There were Vikash, Joy, Sonjoy, Master Daa, Miss Sengupta, 2 elderly gentleman whom I didn’t know. Dr. Pramatha Sen who was looking after Geeta, my father and finally Capt. Sagar.
Mom asked everyone to sit down and gave them the xeroxed notes of Abhinu’s diary and asked everyone to read it. There was pin drop silence for the next 30 minutes and all we could hear was the sound of continuous flipping of pages.
Capt. Sagar was the first to react “Ma’am, what nonsense is this.”
My mom replied in an even tone, “It is not nonsense. This is true. I went to meet the child to confirm everything. Tell me one thing, when you went to meet the child the other day, who do you think the child was.”
“It was Ahinu Banerjee. Lt. Col. Banerjee’s son,” he replied.
“Are you absolutely sure that he was Lt. Col. Banerjee’s son and no one else,” Mom asked.
“Of course!!! how can I forget him? I trained him in basketball…” he replied.
“Did you happen to see his long hair and the punctured mark on his left nostril? A boy might have long hair but would he wear a nose ring? Besides his hair looked too good and maintained to be a boys hair.”
Capt. Sagar was lost for words and didn’t say another word.
Dr. Sen interrupted, “That explains why traces of TESTOPEL were found on his body during our examination.”
Now, this was the 5th time in the past 3 weeks I have heard this word. What exactly is this TESTOPEL.
I turned towards Dr. Sen and asked her, “Can you tell me what a TESTOPEL is, please?”
She replied “TESTOPEL stands for testosterone pellets. They are a form of hormone replacement therapy. They are about the size of a grain of rice, and a doctor will implant them under the skin. These pellets contain crystallized testosterone and deliver a steady, low dose of this hormone to the individual for up to 6 months at a time. These pellets are used during s.e.x reassignment surgery. Mostly when boys transition to girls.”
Monika suddenly shouted “He doesn’t want to be a girl. He wants to be ABHINU, they forcefully injected him with that medicine and another medicine called Estradiol every 6 months. They keep threatening him that if he doesn’t take the medicine, they are going to do the same thing they did to Aarohi.”
“Estradiol, that medicine leads to change in the human body. Anyone who takes that steroid, will start having feminine features like the enlarged chest and waist, and it stops the growth of body and facial hair, etc.” Replied Dr. Sen.
Miss Sengupta replied, “We should arrest that family.”
“No, right now, we really don’t know who is behind all of this, and I came to know from Monika that they had another child before, who was also raised up like a girl.”
“Joe tells me that you have been searching for this same child for 7 years but some very higher-ups got involved and they told you to forget about this case.”
“After all of this, do you really think there is nothing in the way preventing the family from being punished for the crime they had committed.” replied my mom.
Vikash interjected my mom and said “I am definitely sure, Aunty will be, after all, that’s what Mr. Banerjee said. Right now he is already angry with Aunty and he will definitely make sure of that.”
I saw my Mom and Miss Sengupta smirk. Miss Sengupta replied, “Do you think Mr. Banerjee is so dumb or naive. For 6 years his nephew is living with him in his house as a girl and he didn’t try to stop or say anything to Mrs. Banerjee to stop all this nonsense. I can bet that both Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee is involved in this.”
Suddenly one of the elderly men who was sitting on one of our single sitter sofas asked “Well Mrs. Christopher, what do you suggest. Do you have anything in mind?”
My mom replied “Before this meeting, I went to meet the child, to check a few details and confirm the reality and the truth about how he ended up in the hospital and I came to know from him that he jumped from the first floor of the house. However, due to the soft grasses on the back of the house, he didn’t have any fracture bones on the body.”
“And do you want to know why he jumped from the house? if you learn about the real reason behind it, you will hate this family more.” Mom looked at me and said “I know you have a rapport with the eldest daughter, but she is the actual reason behind all this.”
I looked at mom and replied “Mom, I know what they did to Geeta that night.”
Everyone looked at me except for Vikash who had also seen the video of the aftermath of the basketball match.
Mom looked at us in belief and yelled, “AND YOU DON’T HAVE THE GENERAL DECENCY TO TELL US ABOUT IT. YOU STUPID BOY.”
Alarmed at my mom’s rage, dad intervened and asked what exactly happened. Mom looked at us and said “If I am wrong or the story is different then the one you know please do tell.”
Mom started “After the match, the girls were angry at Abhinu because they thought he was the reason they lost the match. Their one shot at getting a recommendation with the Sports body was doomed.”
“So after the match, Mrs. Banerjee made him stand on his knees and made Garima tie him up, both hands and feet. Then she ordered the youngest one to put a collar with a chain on his neck and tie the other end to the window grill. He stood up to request aunty not to do such a thing to him, and your friend Aamaya punched him which made him fall to the ground. Darika put her foot on his face and told him that is where he belongs in that house. If that was not enough, what they did further was the most shameful of all.”
“They gave him a choice of task, either he should clean their shoes by licking them or each and every member of the family would whack him with a cane. Each member would whack him 3 times for each basket he scored. He decided to get whacked instead of the disgusting task. They stuffed a stocking into his mouth and started to hit him making sure he couldn’t shout at all.”
“Then they put a plate of food on the floor and told him to eat it when he gets hungry. But with the stuffed cloth in his mouth, he couldn’t eat. Once they were done all of them left except Aamaya. She was not happy with just the beating and made him lick the shoes too. Once after the beating and the second time at 4 am in the morning when her sleep was disturbed because of the alarm clock. She also made sure to tighten the collar on his neck making it hard for him to breathe properly”
After Mom completed her narration of the events which led Geeta to COMA, everyone was dead silent. Including me and Vikash. Mom repeated the same thing that I and Vikash saw at the recording. None of the people present in the room was able to say anything after what they have just heard. Deep down my mind kept saying, please make someone utter the words, we should rescue Geeta from this family.
TO BE CONTINUED….
