Final act!!


"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.". – (Hamlet Act II, Scene II)

Act 3:And The Curtain Falls

Scene 1:

Unknown time

Ramgopal found himself in a room. The room was small but decorated intensely as if it’s inhabitants chose to live happily with what little they had and this room bore witness both to their financial turmoil and their strength. A little girl was sleeping on a small bed in the center of the room. She had a doll clutched to her side. She did not move.She did not cry. She was asleep or far worse. Ramgopal tore his eyes off the girl to look at the room. The walls were coated in a childish shade of light pink, but there on the wall was a number written in bright red-31. There was a lamp on the bedside table which was still on and a picture of Winnie The Pooh beside it. Ramgopal was reminded of his own daughter. He went towards the bed and felt the child’s pulse. There was no pulse. She was dead. He hastily removed his hand from the body. Where was he?Who was this girl? He ran out of the room.

He found himself in another room now, slightly larger than the first but still small. This was apparently the living room. A woman was on the couch,watching television. But there was no transmission. All that could be seen was the usual patch of shifting black and white lines indicating transmission loss. The walls of the room were coated with light blue paint.But amidst the blue, a pair of scarlet figures stood out like a fire on water-22. Ramgopal took a good,hard look at the woman.Something was wrong with her. He looked closely. There was a deep gash in her bosom. Her clothes were covered in blood. She had been stabbed to death.

The composed doctor felt an irresistible urge to vomit. He couldn’t stand the sights before him. He rushed frantically to the adjoining room. It was a bedroom but he did not even see who sat on the bed or the paint or anything. He flung himself into the attached bathroom and vomited in the sink. He was panting. He was exhausted.He lifted his eyes and looked at the mirror.On the mirror,once more etched in red were a pair of numbers- 23. He stumbled out of the bathroom. He needed to run. He needed to hide.But where?
Then his eyes fell upon the bloke on the bed and the numbers painted on the lavender walls-12. This man was alive.A welcome relief.He had buried his face in his hands and was crying incessantly. “Who..who are you?Where am I?” Ramgopal managed to let so much out of his mouth. The man raised his head and laughed a cold, laugh-a laugh like the girl in his chamber.

Ramgopal stared at the man who stood in front of his eyes. But he could not believe whom he saw. He recognized all the features-the graying hair, the slight paunch, the black eyes, and the bludgeoning nose. But he still could not believe that he was looking at himself.


Scene 2:


13th June 2006:


8:45 am

Ramgopal woke with a jerk.He was in his lovely home.He wasn’t in his chamber or at that derelict building. There were no bodies or scarlet numbers on the walls. He got to his feet and edged towards the bathroom. He saw himself in the mirror. His face was lined.He looked distraught and haggard.The bags under his eyes had grown deeper and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. “It was just a dream..just a dream” Ramgopal whispered to himself as he splashed the cold water on his face.


Scene 3:

13th June 2006:


8:45 am


Prakash Singh cast a disgruntled look across his room. The small light bulb was still oscillating above his head. The copy of “Shakespeare” was still missing from his book shelf. His bruises still had not healed. The head of security and 3 guards had beaten him for his “unruly” behaviour. He tried to move his arms but the restraining jacket did not allow an inch of movement.

Singh recollected his conversation with the doctor. “Aah yes the brute stabbed me with that accursed needle,didn’t he now? But what happened to my book..my Shakespeare..my precious Shakespeare..where art thou?” But there was no one there to answer him,only the dirty walls,the small cot, the bulb and the book shelf with it’s missing volume.

Singh shook his head. The daily dose of valium had begun to take its toll. His vision was blurred and his senses dim. In the shadows that flitted across the walls,he saw them-his wife’s blood trenched corpse,his daughter’s doll and her teary face, his career, the director cursing him for forgetting his lines,his humiliation,his arrest,the trial and lastly the face of the doctor who was treating him.

“No,no,no..leave me alone. LEAVE ME ALONE.GOD DAMN YOU ALL.” Singh cried his lungs out. He screamed till his voice broke down but still the phantoms of his past and the vision of the doctor remained-as silent as the blood stained walls of the room in Singh’s memories.



Scene 4:

19th June, 2006

5:19 PM

“Shakespeare” lay open on the wooden table. Singh was staring avidly at the book. He kept trying to free his hands from the restraining jacket around him but to no avail. Ramgopal looked at Singh patiently like a predator waiting for its prey to make a false move. There was a little blood and what seemed like a remnant of a feather on the corner of Singh’s mouth. Ramgopal was filled with disgust from top to toe. “I believe you have had your breakfast,my friend?” Singh raised his brow,as if awoken from a dream, “Oh yes yes delicious indeed” and with a swift lick he cleaned the edges of his lips.

“Why did you kill them Mr.Singh?Why would you kill your wife and daughter?” “So you are aware doctor? I did not realize that you would comprehend that much this quickly!” “Answer me..why?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Singh laughed hysterically. Ramgopal leapt towards Singh and grabbing his restrained arms screamed out, “DON’T YOU DARE MOCK ME YOU MONSTER!!”

This little insinuation had no effect on the “monster” .In fact Singh looked amused as if he had been challenged to a game of chess.

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?".

“Shakespeare again..don’t you ever get tired?” “Tired of literature?!Tired of SHAKESPEARE?!! DO NOT SPEAK SUCH BLASPHEMY BEFORE ME” ,Singh bellowed. “Hhmph..tell me..what did they mean to you,your wife,your child?”

Singh’s expression changed. It was a drastic transformation.His sharp,almost comic expressions were transmogrified into what resembled a most profound sorrow and thorough self pity.

“She..she betrayed me…10 years of marriage..and she ..and she had ..she committed adultery ! She paid the price for her sin! My daughter,my little girl..no..no she was not my daughter. SHE WAS THE DAUGHTER OF THAT TRECHEROUS WOMAN AND HER ROMEO. THEY WERE NOT MY FAMILY. THEY WERE TRAITORS. THEY DESERVED TO DIE.”

“AND SO YOU KILLED THEM?!YOU KILLED THEM BECAUSE YOU COULD NOT CONTROL YOURSELF!!YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A MONSTROSITY,YOU HEAR ME!! A DEPRAVED DEMON WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANGED WITHOUT A TRIAL!”

Singh did not scream. He did not say a word. He just smiled gleefully and then whispered, "A man can die but once".



Scene 5:

19th June, 2006

11:37 PM

“And so they lived happily ever after” Ramgopal had just finished reading “Snow White” to 5 year old Avantika. He enjoyed reading stories to daughter. It gave them a chance to come closer and spend some time together as Ramgopal barely had any other time to talk to her during the day. “That was so beautiful,daddy” the girl giggled and pecked her father on the cheek. “Yes,sweety it was.Now it’s time for bed” He tucked her under the blanket and switched off the light.

He lit his cigar and proceeded to his study. His wife wouldn’t be home that night. She had gone to her mother’s a day ago and wouldn’t be back before the end of the week. He pondered over her departure. A man had called to inform her that her father had had a stroke and had been admitted to the hospital. She said that man was Rakesh her cousin.But for some reason,he did not believe her. As he sat in his study, the spiders of suspicion began gnawing at his thought. Could she have been having an affair with another man? Was the story of her father’s stroke,just that, a story? Could there be a chance that Avantika was not his daughter..? Ramgopal shook his head. What was he thinking? This was rubbish.But at the same time the thoughts persisted..

He went back to Avantika’s room. What if she was not his daughter?What would he do? He touched her soft cheek. He felt immense affection for her but the prospect of her being another man’s child changed his love.It filled him with the poison of hatred. Would he kill her if she was not his child? His hands lingered around her throat.His thoughts wandered from that man’s call,to his wife,to his daughter and finally to Singh. He could hear Singh whispering in his ears “Do it..do it..she is not yours…do it …” “No,no,no I can’t..I can’t” Ramgopal tore himself from his daughter’s bedside and fled out of the room.

The night and his lack of sleep were playing tricks with his senses. All his doubts,his fears-they were all unfounded,all hallucinations. He kept murmuring to himself,reassuring himself as he pushed the plunger of the syringe into his vein. The valium took only 10 minutes to start its effect and soon Ramgopal found himself in Singh’s nightmares once more.


Scene 6:

24th June,2006

1:13 PM

“So let us resume our session Mr.Singh” Ramgopal said jovially as he took his seat. “Aren’t we in bright spirits today?!!” Singh answered. “Yes we are, I believe we are finally making progress ,my friend.” “Oh ,really?” Singh raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Yes,yes now tell me what did you see last night in your dreams?” Singh was flabbergasted by this question. Ramgopal had not asked this sort of question before.

“I saw what I see every night,my dear doctor” Singh peered his head forward and hissed, “the images of the dancing dead” “Aah I see” Ramgopal replied. He was happy today.He had decided that he had had enough of Singh’s Shakespeare, the images of a dead family he had never known, the sleepless nights and the broken needles.He would end it today.He would end it now.

“Tell me something,Mr.Singh what do you think of life?” “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall” –“that is what I believe life to be doctor” “Hmm” Ramgopal mused at his own thoughts. They bore a striking resemblance to Singh’s. The chain of similarity would be broken now.

He paced behind the chair and drew out his trusted fountain pen. He remembered the adage “The pen is mightier than the sword” and with a swift thrust he embedded the nib in Singh’s neck. Singh just turned and with a last gasp cried “Et tu Brute?” and fell to the floor, as lifeless as the family he had slain. Ramgopal bent over the body and extracted the pen and then he felt the urge to understand the contents of this man’s mind.He wanted to know what exactly worked in this corpse’s brain while it was still a man.He began bringing down the pen on the patient’s skull till the bone began giving away. He was so preoccupied with his “operation” that he missed the sound of the thudding footsteps down the hall..


Scene 7

6th June,2008

9:13 AM

“Let us begin Mr.Ramgopal” Nandy was behind his former mentor’s desk and the patient before him was the new patient-66. Ramgopal looked wearily at Nandy. His parched lips broke into a wicked grin and his eyes flashed scarlet as he leapt out of his seat crying,

“Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?”

Two guards pulled him back into his seat as Krishna administered the valium. “What a pity,Krishna” Nandy sighed. “Yes sir, a pity indeed.”