Do i know you

Do I know you?

I was in a slumber, slowly opened my eyes, it was dark and my bed was cramped. I tried to move my hands sideways, could not do. There was a lingering headache. I thought that it must be a dream, so continued my sleep. But I was wrong as I was awake and I was in some kind of confined area. Is it a coffin, am I dead? These questions were racing through my mind. How did I come here? I tried to recollect the sequence of events, my mind was not working, and the headache was still there. I tentatively raised my hand to lift the lid of the coffin. To my surprise I found that it was unlatched. I slowly raised my self from the lying down position and came out of the coffin. I was in an antique shop, the lights were off inside, it was evening time. I could see the street light through the windows.

I sat down on a chair and tried to orient my self. My mind was getting cleared slowly.

The above piece of conversation was taking place in my drawing room with Nemai.It was evening time when I was having my regular cup of coffee then suddenly I found my friend Nemai barging in my house without ringing the calling bell. I was not surprised as that was his style, but this time he was looking haggard and appeared as though he had not slept the previous night. He plunked himself in one of the sofas and looked at me and said, “I am ruined.”

“You look run down, cool down, take a cup of coffee and let me hear the details,” saying this I brought a cup of coffee for him.

He started his narration from the time when he found himself in a coffin in an antique shop in Park Street.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning.Ok, you found yourself in a coffin but how did you go to that place from your office at Elgin Road?”

Nemai's patented style was giving the shocker first and then rest of the story. I was getting impatient but he was trapped in his old habit of building up the story.

“Ok; let me start from the beginning,” after a sip of coffee he said.

Nemai started his narration.

About three months back one day as usual I went to my office in Elgin Road. After settling down I logged to internet to see whether any e mail had come. There was an e mail from one A.K.Sinha.I opened that and found that it was from Ashok whom I knew at Barauni when I was with FCI.He had come to know about my starting the present business at Kolkata from one of our mutual friends. That letter made me nostalgic. In reply I wrote about so many incidences at Barauni which occurred with our friends at various occasions. I literary poured my heart out.Ashok in reply informed me that things were not same as it was at Barauni. Like that our e mail correspondence started.Ashok informed me that his son would be visiting me.

One day when I was in my office then I got a visitor from a certain company. He presented his card to me. His name was Bikash Sinha.He was a young man of about thirty, wearing thick rimmed glasses, French beard and longish hair. He introduced himself to be the son of Ashok.I knew that Ashok had only one son and I had seen him when he was in class ten. The visit of Bikash once again sparked my nostalgia. I found Bikash to be very polite and good natured. He requested me to introduce him with some prospective companies with whom he could establish business dealings. I obliged him by ringing up my friends in some of the companies located in Kolkata.After that day he was a regular visitor to my office. He would just drop in and we would talk for hours on various subjects under the sun. I found that he was fond of reading and he also liked reading John Grisham’s books like I did. I found that in many areas his interests converged with mine. I liked visiting book stores and he would accompany me. We would browse through various books and discuss about those books in the adjoining coffee shop.

One day he asked me whether I was interested in antiques. As a matter of fact I had never thought about that subject. He promised me that he would take me to some antique dealers and would show me precious artifacts which belonged to Sirajddaula period, Gaur period, Sen period etc.

In a week he would drop in to my office about two to three days. I started looking forward to his visit.

I was in my office yesterday when he came to my office.

“Kaku; let us go to the antique dealer he had got some fresh stock.”

I had nothing much to do in my office, it was about 11 o clock .I took my brief case and went with him to the antique shop at Park Street. There was an old fellow there who appeared to know Bikash very well.

He said, “Let us take some cold drink first then I will show you the antiques.”

We sat in front of his desk and cold drink was served in glasses. I took two to three sips then started feeling sleepy and after that I woke up in that coffin which was one of the antiques.

I found that my brief case was open but the cheque book was missing. My money bag with my ATM card was missing. I broke open the window and came out. I reported the matter to the police. The police accompanied me to the shop. We found the owner was gagged in his store room.

Today I went to my bank to report the theft of my cheque book and ATM card and found that most of my money had been withdrawn. The blasted fellow had used my ATM card first. I also like a fool kept the password number written on a paper along with the card. Through that transaction he could know the balance amount, and then he went to the bank and presented a self cheque and withdrew the major amount.

I stopped Nemai at this part of his story and asked him, “How could he know your signature?”

Nemai informed me that he had watched him signing the cheque and also Bikash had seen that he used the same signature for filling up Income Tax form. As a matter of fact Bikash volunteered to deposit the Income Tax form.

Next day we went to that antique shop in Park Street. The old fellow was badly shaken.

“How did you know that fellow Bikash? I asked.

“He had been visiting me since last three months. To me he appeared to be a nice knowledgeable Youngman. At this old age I too look forward for some one to talk. He would drop in twice or thrice every week. I will show him around and then discuss history. He helped me in computerizing my inventories. I never imagined that he would turn out to be such a swindler,” he said remorsefully.

We went back to Nemai's office and asked him to locate Ashok in Barauni.After one hour of telephoning he could locate him in Patna.Ashok took time to place Nemai and then was surprised about e mail. He informed Nemai that he had no idea about internet ,as a matter of fact he did not know how to use a computer, and also his son was in USA.

I asked Nemai,”How many people know about your Barauni connection?”

“Practically everyone in my office knows it. I have also talked about my Barauni friends with my office colleagues,” he said naively.

I had some techie friend in software companies. I gave a ring to one of my friends to find out the origin of the e mail which was coming from Ashok.He asked us to forward that e mail to him.

After a few hours my friend informed me that it was coming from computers in Calcutta, this he had found out by using the e mail address of Ashok and tracing it up to the root. I did not ask him to check any further as I could deduce the rest, that Bikash had been using numerous cyber cafes to send the e mail.

I reconstructed the whole event for Nemai.It was a classic case of phishing. This fellow Bikash had kept Nemai under surveillance; he had gathered all the information’s about Nemai from his office only. After gathering those information he started sending the e mails.Nemai being a simpleton fell for those e mails and poured his heart out, thus Bikash could get more dope on Nemai.Ultimately when he introduced himself then he was fully armed with information about Nemai.He knew that Nemai was fond of books, also he knew that John Grisham was Nemai's favourite author.Bikash had parallely developed friendship with the antique dealer. He allowed sometime to pass so that he could get closer to Nemai and gain his confidence.Nemai confided in him so much that he gave his Income Tax form to Bikash for submission. Now it was matter of choosing the right time for Bikash to make the kill. He had chosen the morning time when the antique shop was least visited and also he had rest of the day to carry on with his job of polishing off Nemai's bank account. He must have laced those cold drinks with some drug. Putting Nemai in the coffin was his way of dramatizing the end. Bikash must had been his assumed name and he was computer savvy, intelligent and knowledgeable to influence educated people.Bikash or what ever his name might be must have changed his appearance after that event and would be on the prowl for his next victim..