Utopia! How did someone even imagine this term? Even if it did exist by mistake, then would we have just one religion or no religion at all? People of different color, men and women were treated equally or the people wouldn’t even know what the difference is? Well, the questions are never ending but none of them can be answered precisely. Our world revolves around money, sex, lies, and deceit. It starts right from home to business to social gatherings and nobody is quite honest with anyone. Lies begin from childhood for simple things like a kid blabbering when caught for stealing a chocolate or a Popsicle from fridge and grows within ourselves the moment we realize how easy it is to escape from lying. One leads to the other, and we will reach a point where we will be in a fort of lies and deceit that is so strong that we have forgotten peace and serenity. That’s when we start fighting our own demons in hopes of finding non-existent peace. Some succeed at least partially, some don’t and others put up a show, as if they have always been in a perfect world. Where does Love fit in? Is it just a metaphor, a person uses to hide his demons from others or is it another entity that has lost its significance and now struggling to compete in order to find its place? This is the perfect world we know of, our Utopia!

Prologue

It was around 11:30pm on a Friday night and few people had gathered around Kaveri’s house. It had just stopped raining and police had sealed the place and no one could go beyond the fence. Monsoon had just begun and evening rain was very common in Bangalore. Kaveri drove her car slowly and was surprised to see the crowd nearby her house fence. She parked her car on the road and walked towards the police constable who was guarding the fence and enquired him “What is going on here?”
“Are you Mrs. Kaveri Pawar?” was his instant response. Constable had already heard from the crowd mentioning that the house belonged to her.
“Yes! Is everything all right?” Kaveri thought of every possible event for the cops’ presence in her house. “Did someone break into my house?”
“Mrs. Pawar why don’t you walk inside?” Police inspector who was standing nearby called her and the constable let her inside.
As Kaveri walked towards her house, she found that it wasn’t her house that the cops were interested in but her guesthouse. Guesthouse was right next to her house situated at the rear corner of the site. Her eyes were searching for her husband Sameer Pawar, but he was not to be seen anywhere. “Inspector where is my husband? What is happening in my guesthouse?”
Inspector ignored her questions and showed her the way into her house. “Why don’t you come inside? We need to talk”
She was slightly irked but obeyed him and walked into the house. She looked around the house and there was still no sign of her husband. A police constable had his gloves on and was going through every single thing in the living. Inspector stopped near the main entrance and was talking to someone in his radio. Kaveri didn’t know what to do and the inspector signaled Kaveri to sit down. Kaveri sat down nervously and she was feeling like an alien in her own house. After a short conversation inspector walked in and sat in the adjacent sofa.
“Ma’am can you tell me where were you all this time?” Inspector was looking right into her eyes, as if he could reach her brain and read what was inside her mind.
“My husband and I had been to my friend’s wedding reception in a farm house in national highway four, which is around 20 kilometers from here. We reached the party around 6:40pm. My husband left shortly after an hour and even I left soon after he left. I got into a freak accident in NH4 on my way back home. A bunch of drunken teenagers hit my car from behind. We had to wait for the police, and by the time we finished all the formalities it was eleven at night. I didn’t have my cell phone with me today and I couldn’t inform anyone where I was held up. You can call the police control room if you want to verify yourself”
Inspector went out and called the police control room from his radio and verified it. She was actually telling the truth.
“Where was your husband at that time?” Inspector hadn’t finished with her yet.
Kaveri was contemplating on whether or not tell the truth and finally replied, “My husband got a call from his friend Chandan_____ Chandan Bose. Chandan stayed in our outhouse from past fifteen days and he called my husband to say that he was leaving today. So he left early and I offered to give a ride, but he said he would take care of it. I somehow felt that even I should have gone to send Chandan off and followed my husband shortly after he left. Inspector, please tell me what is happening here. I can’t hold this suspense anymore”
“Why don’t you take a look yourself? Don’t touch anything there” Inspector directed her towards the guesthouse.
Kaveri was so scared and as she walked closer to the guesthouse, she saw bloodstains outside the main door. Most of the blood was washed in rain, and with whatever was left it felt like someone had been dragged outside the house. Inspector opened the door and let her in. Someone had indeed been dragged from the bedroom to the living and outside. She went inside and walked towards the bedroom and every step she took was getting heavier out of fear and curiosity. Kaveri peeked into the bedroom and the whole bedroom was flooded with blood. Even the walls had blood flown down, and it gave an impression that someone had bled until the last drop was out. Kaveri felt nauseated and ran out of the building to throw up. She took a few minutes to clear her mind and asked inspector, “Where is my husband? What happened here? Whose blood_____” She couldn’t finish and broke down.
“Well, we got an anonymous call around 9:45pm that you and your husband Sameer was seen dragging a body out of your guesthouse. He also said that he heard someone screaming painfully in your guesthouse sometime around 9:30pm. We got here at 10pm and found your husband in the guesthouse trying to wipe off the evidence. His footsteps were everywhere along with the second set of footprints that probably belongs to a woman. We even found a purse and your cell phone inside it. I am guessing that the person who has been murdered is Chandan as we are not able to find his whereabouts up to the present moment. Your husband Sameer Pawar has been taken to police custody based on suspicion around fifteen minutes ago, and we will be producing him before the court on Monday. There was no way we could reach you without your cell phone and thought that you may have fled already. So now that you were not here at the time when the crime happened, you are not under suspicion anymore. Can you please come to the police station in the morning? We need to take your statement”
Kaveri froze and her mouth went dry. “This is not true. My husband wouldn’t hurt anyone”

To be continued!