The Mystery of the Wrong Door

Based on a true story as told to the author by Kirti herself.

***

"He is a lucky man," said Shakti.

It was obvious to Anish just whom his friend was referring to. They were in the common room of the Government Engineering College in Bāliguri, West Bengal, and Shakti's eyes were focused across the room, looking between the tables of students eating their lunch to where two students were sitting, one a senior year student, the other a fresher. Anish had been looking too, though his eyes had focused rather more on young Kirti Pachpute than her companion.

"I wish..." Shakti went on.

"I know, but if you had wanted to get on with the girls you should not have chosen Civils, you should have taken Computer Science, teaching, medicine... become a nurse."

Shakti scowled at his friend. "Not manly," he said.

"Well, you do a manly course and you are with men."

"Why can't it be like Africa or Arabia here where all the boys are married by fifteen?"

"I don't think it's like that at all. What have you been reading, Shakti?"

"Or America where all the girls are just waiting to be..."

"You don't know that."

But the broad premise of Shakti's lament was true. There were seventy-five students each year at the college in engineering, and with four years to the courses that made some 300 students; the number of girls in each year varied but in his and Shakti's year it was five. In the freshers' year it was only three. Ananya, Yuvani and Kirti. Oh yes, he knew their names. Given the studious nature of girls, Shakti's rather unsubtle approach and the terrible ratio of 25:1 or, in his year, 14:1 the chances of taking a girl out were not good, and whilst all three - Ananya, Yuvani and Kirti - were more than worth taking out as they were pretty girls, the same could not be said for some of the girls in his year. That did, perhaps, knock the ratio to 25:1 or a one in twenty-five chance of taking a girl out. Not good. Unsurprisingly, and the friends were honest with each other, neither had so much as seen a girl naked let alone slept with her. Their sexual experience was rather limited to... well, they did each have two hands apiece...

It was, of course, an irritation seeing Kirti sitting and chatting with the young man Shakti had described as 'lucky,' they would have preferred it to be them! That could have led to quite a rift in the friendship when Kirti had to choose between them, though both had privately thought they could have gone along with taking her out together. Fifty percent of Kirti - or Ananya or Yuvani for that matter - would be better than nothing at all. In bed, and unsurprisingly both thought a lot about Kirti (and other girls) in bed, imagining what they might be like underneath their pretty saris or salwaar-kameez, both had separately considered what it might be like sharing rather more than just a date. One breast each, indeed! One lovely feminine buttock each... one soft thigh, one pretty arm but when it came to her mouth and what lay between her legs, that was rather a different matter. How might they share?

An interesting problem to consider and both had thought out multiple scenarios always ending most pleasantly and then with them dropping off to sleep feeling comfortably relaxed. The scenarios were very theoretical, they had not the experience to base them on fact.

The 'lucky' young man was a fourth year, senior to both of them and very senior to Kirti. Even Shakti had to admit to Anish he was good-looking with his blue-black curly hair, fine features and height. He had an easy going charm, though that had not stopped him making life less than easy for both Shakti and Anish when they had first joined the college. He had made fun of Shakti's size and Anish's thinness. 'Ah, the elephant and his rider,' he would say, or variations on the theme. The trouble was he ragged them with an almost accomplished ease, his easy and pleasing smile curling the edges of his mouth. He could charm the skin off a snake.

In their second year Shakti and Anish had had plentiful opportunity to rag the freshers in their turn, and by their third year had become rather good at it and, like locusts, had descended upon poor Kirti, Ananya and Yuvani. Of course it had been sexual. It was much more fun to rag girls than boys. Much more fun to be with girls than boys. Much more enjoyable when the girls were pretty, unsure and vulnerable. But, of course they had not been the only ones doing the ragging. There had been plenty of others.

"Do you think in our final year," asked Shakti, "we can be as lucky as Jibon?"

"Maybe," but Anish did not think it at all likely. Perhaps when they left college there would be more opportunity. He watched Kirti laughing at something Jibon had said. She did have such lovely dark hair, thick and lustrous worn in a long plait down her back. Many times he had thought of burying his face in it (after he had untied her hair and let it spill over the pillow) all beautifully black with just a hint of red. It was not good to be thinking like that just then. He was not in a dhoti, which would have obviated the problem, but that was, of course, not at all what he wore and his trousers were tight enough to show what he might be thinking. Displaying that would not be good.

He watched Jibon stand and was more than interested to see Kirti get up as well. That was always worth seeing - Kirti standing or Kirti doing just about anything. He enjoyed seeing her smooth down her long kameez. So good seeing her hand touch her body even through her clothing. He watched the two of them making their way down the long common room seemingly not heading for the exit. His forehead creased into a frown as he watched them walk past the main door and exit a door nearly at the end. He knew it led to a room sometimes used for quiet study but he did not think they were going there to study. Anish looked around the room. No one else seemed to have noticed or be watching them and that door with a puzzled expression. Anish was intrigued. He looked up at Shakti.

"Where do you think they've gone and why?"

Shakti shrugged his big shoulders.

"Shall we find out?" Anish asked.

"Why?"

"Wrong door. There has to be a reason. Let's be detectives. The mystery of the wrong door."

They placed their lunch trays tidily away and walked nonchalantly down the common room following the path of Kirti and Jibon.

There was no one in the study room. It was quite empty.

"That's odd," said Anish, "the mystery thickens."

"Does it?"

Another door stood closed across the room. Anish did not know where it led. He had never been through it, had barely been in the study room and had certainly not ventured beyond it. "Where's that lead?" he asked.

Shakti shrugged his shoulders once again, "back to the classrooms I suppose. Shouldn't we..."

"I just want to find out. Quietly though, I have a sort of hunch."

It was the sort of hunch to cause a tightening in his trousers. Slowly Anish opened the mystery door, trying not to make a sound, and peered around. What he saw was, indeed, the sort of sight to cause movement in his trousers - and it did.

Kirti Pachpute hopped from her bicycle and wheeled it through the front gate of the college. She had met Ananya and Yuvani the day before but not yet Anish or big Shakti or Jibon, but she was about to meet the latter for the very first time; that meeting was less than a minute away. It was the second day of her new engineering course at the college, the second day of her new life as a student, not at school but at a real college. She felt rather grown up, after all she was now eighteen.

So much to remember, not just where classrooms and everything else were but the names of people, teachers and students, and all the new rules that go with starting at a new place. Rules and traditions - after all the college dated back to 1908, not that most of the painted concrete buildings dated from that time. She already knew as a fresher she was not allowed to ride her bicycle on the campus, knew she had to dress properly. Kirti had worn a sari the first day as she thought that respectful, but now she was dressed in salwaar-kameez, blue for the kameez, yellow for the salwaar.

"You're meant to carry the bicycle this month."

Kirti had seen the student walking towards her, had guessed he was not a fresher; he looked both too old and had a certain confidence in his walk and manner unlikely in a first year student. In reality, Jibon had had that confidence right from his first day; had confused the then second, third and final year students by it and rather got the better of anyone seeking to rag him.

'Ragging' is one of those traditions that have stuck. Innocuous fun and initiation rites are common throughout the world in places like colleges. At best they help to create a sense of belonging and comradeship, at worst they can and do result in trauma and suicide. Kirti knew all about 'ragging,' she had lived within the orbit of colleges because friends of her parents had taught at a number and she had heard talk of ragging when she had sat quietly in the corner listening as a girl. She knew something of the humiliation or harassment of new entrants by senior students. She knew too it sometimes involved physical torture though she rather thought that was for the boys. The University Grants Commission of India had, a few years before in 2009, imposed regulations to try and curb ragging. There was even a toll-free 'anti-ragging' helpline.

To Jibon the sight of the new student, and a pretty girl at that, was fair game. Kirti frowned but dare not contradict the tall, rather handsome, young man. Did his slight smile mean it was just a joke? She dare not ask.

"Yes, yes sir." She knew the code required her to address the young man as her senior formally. She picked up the bicycle.

"What is your name, sundara mulagī?" 'Pretty one' indeed! But what could Kirti say but her name?

"Kirti Pachpute, sir."

He had walked with her as she had carried her bicycle. She had made every effort not to appear to be struggling. She did not give him that pleasure, but she did think he was being less than a gentleman not to offer to carry it for her or wheel it - presumably he could do that. She carried it carefully; she did not want to get grease from the bicycle chain on her salwaar-kameez. The black would not look good.

His questions came thick and fast; they were intrusive. It was when, having complimented her on her salwaar-kameez, that he asked the colour of her panties that Kirti called a halt. 'None of your business, sir' she had said with as much dignity as she could muster. She knew she was meant to answer any question put to her by a senior but there were limits! "And I can't remember." Which was true.

The young man laughed and walked away, he turned, "my name is Jibon."

"Yes, Jibon, sir."

The college could have been better but Kirti recognised the quality of the teaching. The buildings were old and, whilst well painted, betrayed their age and were less than ideal. Air conditioning would have been nice, as would modern equipment and smaller classes. But she liked the airy balconies and the feeling of space within the buildings. They were anything but cramped. And the fees were low which helped.

She liked it all from day one. Jibon was not the only senior boy who proved a nuisance and not just to her but Ananya and Yuvani as well. The girls took to going around as a group, safety in numbers indeed but, in a way that brought more ragging. 'Did they sleep together,' 'were they really GOOD friends,' 'did they shower together,' 'did they visit the Ladies as one'?

Unsurprisingly the senior boys grew a little tired of trying to upset or embarrass the 'Gang of Three' and took to the more usual male activity of trying to 'chat up' the girls. There were no shortage of boys and Kirti relished the attention (whilst not at all neglecting her studies. That would not have been her). Ananya and Yuvani purported to have 'no interest.' Kirti rather doubted that, but that is what they said, quite vociferously. She, for her part, turned down flat any request to be asked out but was more than happy to sit and talk with boys. And, of course, talk she did.

Progressing through the years at the college, students gained new privileges. One of these, certainly, was to be able to ride a bicycle through the campus and another to be called 'sir' or 'ma'am' by juniors, but one which was in theory open to all years was the college common room. It was more a place of terror to freshers than comfort. Students could go there, enjoy the canteen facilities and even play carrom and ping pong. But freshers would not dare venture there without being summoned, they would not physically but certainly mentally be set upon by their seniors should they have dared to venture in. Invited by a senior was quite another matter and whilst Ananya and Yuvani were most certainly invited, they did not go. Kirti on the other hand was happy to drink tea, have lunch and sit and chat particularly when under the protection of Jibon. It was he rather than other boys who most tended to ask her. No one was going to chance trying anything with Kirti when he was around; not with him being a fourth year and being Jibon, moreover. He of the cool charm and ready wit.

A room so much longer than it was wide, generous in space and full of tables. It was on a floor little used in one of the buildings, perhaps the students' common room was put there to avoid the expected noise of 300 students talking, with the likely steady rise in volume as one group competed to be heard above another. In reality 300 students were never there.

Kirti had first come there with another senior student - male, of course - and had had what was clearly a joke played upon her, made the better for having been played on freshers hundreds of times before. It was a joke hallowed by time. She and the student, Kinjal, had sat drinking tea and he had been engaging and very pleasant to talk to. Unfortunately, despite the enjoyable conversation, she soon had to leave to attend a class but he had prevailed upon her to stay until it was dangerously close to the class' start. Seemingly to help her he had casually mentioned there was a short cut if she went through the door in the end wall, through the next room, down the corridor and then turned right at the end.

Kirti had hurried off, thanking him for the tea, straight down the middle of the common room and, in her hurry, had not noticed the sudden dying away of conversation and that, as she went down the room, all eyes swivelled to follow her.

The sound of cheering and laughter as she stood totally perplexed with the door open in her hand staring at a blank wall brought it instantly home to her that she had been 'had.' There was indeed a fully working door in the end wall: only at some time a wall had been built right across the opening on the other side. It had even been plastered and painted. A door to nowhere.

Even Kirti, a strong-willed enough person, found it difficult, or rather impossible, to walk without colouring up, all the way back up the common room to the door she had come in by. Everyone but her seemed to find it the funniest thing. It cannot be said Kirti did.

One lunchtime, Jibon seemed even pleasanter and jollier than usual, Kirti wondered if there something up with him. "Sundara mulagī, he said in his teasing way, "would you like to know what is beyond that wall?" He indicated the end wall of the common room away from the canteen, the wall with a door that led to nowhere. To some students it might have been a puzzle what lay beyond the common room in the building, but not to Kirti, she had taken the trouble to find out. Had explored the floor from the other end and found herself the other side of the wall in a room as big as the common room but merely used for the storage of old furniture. She had wondered why the college had kept so many old tables, with broken legs, and cabinets, clearly not to be used again,

Kirti had smiled at Jibon, "Why do you think I would want to know that?" In fact, she had a pretty shrewd idea. Why would a boy want to show a girl a room full of old furniture, all quiet and with nobody else there? Kirti was not as naïve as perhaps Jibon imagined.

"You know, Kirti, you can't go through the end door, I was there when Kinjal..."

Kirti laughed, "That was not good. I did not like that, but I was straightaway sure I was not the first."

Jibon stood, "Not the first nor the last. Come."

To Kirti it seemed the joke was now on Jibon, as she already knew what was behind the wall. She too stood, smoothing down her kameez. It amused her to go, to see what Jibon really intended. Together they walked down the common room but not to the end, instead to another door.

"This room is used for study," said Jibon over his shoulder, as they came into the room. He closed the door behind them.

Kirti smiled. She knew that and knew where the next door led. "Really. And does that door lead to behind the wall?"

Jibon turned and nodded. His face had lost its usual smile, it was as if he was suddenly nervous about something. It was unexpected. His usual confidence seemed to have suddenly eluded him. He reached for the door handle, opened it and waved for Kirti to go through.

"Well, this is exciting," she said, with emphasis on the 'is,' standing in the room behind the canteen, looking at the wall separating the room from the canteen. "I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so exciting." Upon the wall a large blackboard still with chalk drawings of mechanical apparatus upon it. Seemingly the purpose of the wall had been to hang a blackboard upon it when the room had been a classroom rather than simply hang it across a doorway. It seemed a lot of bother, but perhaps forty years before a principal of the college had thought it worthwhile. "Jibon, do you think..."

But Kirti got no further, with a whispered croak of 'Kirti,' Jibon's lips were upon her own and his arm around her. It was all rather as she had expected, and she let him kiss her. The sudden thrusting of his tongue was, though, a surprise. It was clumsily done. For all his charm and ease amongst men and women it came to Kirti that Jibon had never kissed a girl before. In the female desert of the college it was probably like that for most of the young men, even those as attractive as Jibon.

Jibon broke away, his eyes a little wild. He was breathing heavily. "I'm sorry," he said, "I..."

Kirti looked down at the floor, a pretence at shyness before looking up with wide eyes and a smile. With a small movement of her hands she motioned him to come back; her tongue passing over her already wet lips. Once again, Jibon pressed his soft lips against hers, this time a little more gently, tenderly even and brought his hands around her and pulled her close. It was Kirti who now used her tongue, not madly thrusting with it, but just a slight caress, running it along his upper lip.

Already the two of them had gone rather further than would be normal in a small Indian town. They had, after all, not even been out on a date. Kirti was experienced enough to know it was important to be aware of what young men did with their hands and she was very aware of Jibon's hands separating, moving from where they had been at her waist, one coming up her back, which was to be expected, the other sliding down over her left buttock, which was not. It was no accident she was sure that it was Jibon's right hand to her buttock. He was right handed, after all.

With his left he pulled her closer, maybe a gesture of tenderness but perhaps also to feel the swell of her breasts against his chest. With the feel of his chest against hers, the touch of a man's hand to her bottom, the closeness of Jibon and the touch of his lips and tongue; to say nothing of the hardness she could just about discern against her thigh, though he was seeming to be careful not to press that part of him against her; it was no surprise to Kirti to feel a familiar and pleasant warmth, and spreading wetness, between her legs.