The Black Magic Bully

Where is Your Daddy

I waited the 4 days for Raghav's dad, he was still busy. The next week, he still hadn't come. Nor the week after that.

I felt that too much time in between this all and Raghav's father coming would make it hard for us to convince him he was wrong about believing his son. I felt that I had to tell one of our many mutual friends about this so he could help us out. I had several mutual people I knew between us, as Raghav usually hung out in this big group of several of his batchmates, and I would see them all at the same time at dinner time. I wanted someone really smart and ruthless on our side, despite Aditya Shukla's blanket warning. I thought of who I should tell about the whole thing, and there was one guy that came to mind, Divyanshu Jaln. Our university had recently hosted a national level moot court contest for the law students off all major law students in the country, including all the most reputed ones, the intense contest was five rounds long, and lasted 3 whole days. The final of the 5 rounds had centered on a fictional gang rape case based off the world famous Nirbhaya rape case, except simplified and with some of the details changed. And among all the best Law colleges in the country, ours had won. One could say we had the home team advantage, and that in this case being the prosecuting side that argued to hang the rapists was also an advantage, but the contest couldn't have been too easy, right. Also, this fresher law student I knew named Divyanshu had played a principle role in our colleges victory, or so he and a couple of his friends had told me.

I found Divyanshu sitting alone in the mess hall, and told him the whole thing, getting to the point about the confrontation with Raghav and the recording.

"I will listen to the whole thing when I get time", he told me. I didn't bother to get his number; he already knew which room he needed to go to see me. I knew that he could be of help.

That evening Raghav called me to a place next to the hostel basketball courts. He seemed frustrated and repeatedly called me to come every minute. I would come, I had promised myself that I was no longer scared of Raghav or any of his dumb threats. But I wanted to be prepared. I had also promised myself that I would secretly voice record every conversation I had with Raghav from that point on, to catch literally any phrases or words of his that even remotely hinted at him being bad or guilty and use them against him, not to mention the fact that Raghav was one of those guys that would think nothing of modifying my statements against me, or even lying that I had said vicious immoral and criminal things to his face, even if I hadn't, and try to justify that I was criminally insane when he was the one that needed to be checked.

The prep was simple. I had 2 devices with me that could record the conversation. Two Samsung J2 phones, the model had a surprisingly good recording feature. The first one was the phone I had originally got to the university. A month earlier I had shattered its screen on the ground in a temper tantrum. And unknown to Raghav, I had replaced the screen, the old phone was near fully functional. The one that I mostly used that Raghav knew about, was the new one my dad had sent to me, the exact same model, after I had shattered the screen on the old one. This was the one Raghav knew about. I put the old phone in my left pocket and wrapped my jacket around my waist so that it covered the bulge of the phone perfectly. And carried my right phone in my hand as I walked the way. When Raghav was still far out of site (I knew he couldn't possibly see me because he had told me exactly where he was), I turned on the recording feature of both phones.

I knew Raghav would expect me to record him, so this is why I carried my newer phone, the one Raghav Knew I had, out openly in my right hand. I expected him to ask me to stop recording when he had gotten uncomfortable, and I had to satisfy this, while still tricking him into getting a recording. Otherwise he would easily guess he was being wiretapped.

I got to the bench where Raghav, and Divyanshu to my dismay, were sitting together. I thought for a second till I realized that Divyanshu had no choice but to side with Raghav. Despite that Raghav was not really that credible in general. It was because they were friends. I respected and resented Divyanshu's decision to side with Raghav, he was fooled into supporting Raghav by Raghav himself, but didn't blame him, I myself had been friends with Raghav not long ago and been fooled by his statements. Divyanshu was a lot smarter than Raghav, and I needed care to argue with him.

Raghav immediately started asking me why I was falsely incriminating him, when I stubbornly told him repeatedly that it was because he was guilty, telling me I had zero image in the university, and that he had a great reputation. He had told me that he had told his dad the whole story of how bad a guy I was and what really happened with my laptop. And that his dad was ready to talk to my dad. I refused this as I myself hadn't told my own father the whole thing because of embarrassment, and I didn't know how he would handle it. He told me to stop recording him. I agreed, not wanting to start a confrontation with the 200-pound fat guy and the nerd.

Raghav ten tried to tell me that he wouldn't possibly need any money from me because he was super rich, and he could source whatever sum of money I had accused him of stealing.

"Your recording will get deleted", said Divyanshu.

"Oh really", I replied.

The conversation went on. Raghav went on for a bit about how he could easily obtain 30000 rupees to pay me off, borrow from his many friends and the like. I refused, it wasn't about money, there was no way Raghav could bribe me from my own case before I had met his father, face to face.

"Which shop did you sell my laptop at?", I asked Raghav. "You have its contact".

"I don't actually have the contact saved", said Raghav. "Other shops of which I do have the contact saved have told me about them. "And the call is too far back in my phone", he made the excuse.

Raghav simply went back to how frustrated he and his friends were at me stubbornly falsely accusing him. He told me that they were very close to beating me up. "Lot's of Btech and Bsc people want to beat you!", I told Raghav.

"Who wants to beat me!?", responded Raghav in a panicked confused sounding voice that was almost funny in the hindsight.

"Are you kidding me, we have this guy named Maninder, and he listened to every word I said, and every word you said, and he told everything his parents, they said that you shouldn't be alive!"

This statement made even Raghav lean back. The guy who seemed to take thrill in bullying others in risky ways was finally scared of the possible consequences.

I went away from the hostel basketball court. Satisfied that I had tricked Raghav into having his conversation with me recorded, though he didn't say anything satisfying, I would still use the recording in case Raghav ever said something made up or badly contrary, which seemed pretty likely.