Sun Moon & Stars Volume II Call Of The Skull Men

CHAPTER 17

From transport to medical services, people went on strikes here more frequently than the change in fashion. Mini snorted overhearing a lazy morning discussion of the house helps. They thought probably the daily studio workers of Satyaki Films might go on a strike. With the increase in the number of box office hits the production house released back to back, it was natural they demanded a pay raise. 

In a few hours of stay at the Moitra's mansion, Mini could well guess that most topics, even for gossips, in the house was all about films. The staff could go without food for a day but might die if they were deprived of the latest gossips from the studio neighbourhood. Though that never affected carrying out household chores with perfection. 

Mini went inside the Moitra's grand library room with the research papers in hand. After a sumptuous breakfast, which they were ignoring for the last few days, Oishi got busy with her school task and Mini offered to help Shomak and Ragnik with the materials they had received from Boni.

"You have quite efficient and gossiping staff around!" Mini said following Ragnik and Shomak into the library. 

"Do see them around aunt Sudha, you might mistake they are all mute!" Ragnik chuckled. 

Shomak sighed and turned to Mini saying,  "Please do not think that my mother is a pedant, Mini, it is just Ragnik's idea of putting her into that pedestal!" 

"This is not me saying, it's the slap that still rings in my ears!" Ragnik made a gesture of looking miserable. 

"Well, you must have done something to get slapped by her. She doesn't look like a violent person to me!" Mini shrugged as Shomak suppressed his laugh. Ragnik narrowed his eyes at him muttering to dig into this later. 

"Woah!" Mini scanned her eyes on the huge bookshelves going up to the ceiling. "Don't show this room to Oishi or else she would not want to go back." Mini looked like she had entered into a trance upon stepping into the library. 

"She is a bookworm I am guessing?" Ragnik asked.

"Yes, we all are!" she said shaking her head. She coughed concentrating back on the work she had volunteered for. Throwing a last glance on the shelves of non-fiction and mentally reminded not to get distracted she opened a thin hardcover notebook, which she had pulled out from the parcel, in the hope of finding the meaning of all the symbols scribbled in the parchments.

Mini's knowledge was limited to navigation indications and map reading. Understanding ancient symbols were not her forte; she was equally clueless. They also tried searching the symbols on the Internet but nothing worked. Hence Shomak suggested first going through the drives.

"If all these contain files then that would take us at least three to four days to sort out!" Ragnik cursed counting the numbers of hard disks. 

"Then let's start, not necessary that it will all contain important data," Shomak said picking up one. They were lucky that the disks were all numbered and chronologically arranged. Connecting the first hard disk with the library computer Shomak searched through the files while Ragnik connected another one with his laptop.

The files mostly had shots of Contai and a few adjacent areas. There were clips of some surrounding villages and the natives. "Nothing suspicious here," Ragnik concluded after going through the disk. 

"Let's not lose hope. There's two more left," Mini said picking up the drives, one red in colour and the other white. "These are definitely old. I do not see the brand in the market recently," Ragnik said connecting the white one with his laptop. "There's a password protected folder here."

"Now how are we supposed to unlock that!" Shomak let out a frustrated sigh. 

"I think I have seen the password in the notebook," Mini informed fetching the hardcover notebook from the table; settling it back on her lap she scanned through the pages. Meanwhile, Ragnik checked the other folders in the drive that mostly had pictures of the cast and crew.