The Whispering Wall

Arindam nearly missed it. His inbox, impersonating a government office, brimmed with forms, convoluted requests, unread minutes, and memos on punctuality as moral virtue. But tucked in the clutter was an email from Dr. V.P. Rao, who, as Acting Head of Department, never wrote without purpose — or plausible deniability.

The subject: Internal Consultation — 4 PM, Faculty Room B. Bland as curd rice without salt. No context. No attachments. Just a single line beneath Rao’s name, dressed in the garb of civility:

We trust you’ll bring your usual discretion and sound judgment. Unanimity of intent sustains the trust we’ve worked hard to build.

Ah. That phrase. Arindam leaned back and stared at the screen. Unanimity of intent — always the harbinger of something already decided. He’d heard it before, in the rooms where meanings hovered unsaid, where grave nods sealed things best left unrecorded. He’d heard it years ago, when Meenal Dahiya filed her complaint.

At the time, accusations of plagiarism in academia — especially those that alleged caste privilege — were spoken of only in whispers. Arindam had remained silent. Not explicitly — he hadn’t defended Meenal or Chatterjee. He’d simply let the meeting end without offering what he knew.

Two weeks later, his tenure-track appointment came through. Clean, efficient. Rao hadn’t mentioned it. He didn’t need to.

He closed the laptop and turned to the window. The amaltas were in bloom — heavy yellow blossoms hanging like lamps, too vivid for the dry, tired light of early summer.

He already knew what the meeting was about. Everyone did, though no one would say so. Meenal Dahiya. Her name haunted the margins again — not in emails, but in whispers, in leaflets taped to the cafeteria glass, in scraps torn down and put up again by hands that remembered.

They said she’d published. Said her work had reached a journal in London, or maybe Toronto. Said she was writing under another name — the kind that let her be read before being dismissed.

And now here was Rao. Calling the old guard back to the table. They didn’t wear robes or leave records — this cabal. A glance across a meeting room, a pause in the minutes, a name that stopped appearing on notices. That was enough. Their loyalty: wordless, binding — like ivy hiding and deepening the cracks in a crumbling wall.

Arindam rose, slower than he once might have, and shrugged on the linen jacket he’d left on the chair since last week. The university had settled into its afternoon stupor: no voices, only heat that clung to the skin and made even stone feel tired. He walked toward the faculty block, past the old seminar hall — and past the wall.

No sign, no plaque. Just cracked plaster students called The Whispering Wall. One had once said — half serious, half hoping to be corrected — that if you listened closely, the wall whispered the names they’d tried to erase. The disappeared.

“It remembers the ones they tried to bury,” she’d said, too earnest to laugh at. He hadn’t believed it then, but his steps slowed now. The air felt… altered. Not colder. Not warmer. Just heeding.

He turned slightly, catching the angle of the wall in the corner of his eye. A soft gust stirred the blossoms. The cracks looked, for a moment, like writing. A name, maybe. Or guilt rendered in geometry.

Then a sound. Barely a breath.

“Arindam…”

He froze.

Nothing behind him. Nothing ahead. Only a corridor grown quiet in its age, and a fan somewhere turning without urgency.

He didn’t stop long. He didn’t turn fully.

But he did not forget.

*

The flat was still warm when Arindam returned. He didn’t bother with the overhead light — only switched on the old desk lamp. It was a ritual, focusing the day’s final thoughts on whatever he wanted to quiet before sleep. The lamp torchlit the centre of the desk, softening the clutter of papers and curled Post-it notes around it. The fan hummed above, stirring the summer air without conviction.

For a while he simply sat. Then he opened the file.

He handled it as though it might disintegrate. Inside, his old marginalia ran along the pages: pencil lines under words that had caught his attention, faint exclamation marks, and a few sentences that now sounded embarrassingly earnest.

“Sharp insight — follow this.”

“Expand. Don’t hedge.”

“Your voice is strongest here.”

And once, on a page where she’d written something unflinchingly brave:

“Don’t hold back.”

He had meant it. Or thought he had. But the memory surfaced not cleanly, not as pride — only unease.

The complaint hadn’t made a noise. Meenal had submitted it through the proper channels, formal and composed. She named no one, but the implication was clear: that Dr. Chatterjee’s recent article had duplicated, without acknowledgment, the phrasing and theoretical framing she’d presented in an earlier seminar. She’d included a carefully marked comparison. Her tone was measured:

“I believe my intellectual contributions were appropriated without proper credit.”

They understood what she was saying.

And what she was pointing to wasn’t just misconduct. It was a breach in the architecture of patronage that had held the department together for decades. If taken seriously, it wouldn’t have stopped at Chatterjee. It would have forced questions too many had reason to avoid. She hadn’t merely disputed a citation — she’d disturbed the sediment, the long-settled silt of years of mutual indulgence.

They had met in Rao’s office — Rao, Chatterjee, Malik, and himself. Rao read the complaint slowly, with the theatrical deliberateness of someone buying time. Chatterjee had already assumed the air of the falsely accused — scarf folded just so, expression arranged in weary disappointment.

“She’s a student,” he’d said. “These things happen. There’s overlap.”

Rao hadn’t disagreed. Malik said nothing. And then they looked to Arindam.

He hadn’t confirmed what he knew. He hadn’t denied it. He offered something bureaucratic — a comment on “citation practices.” The meeting ended without vote, without dissent.

Nothing more was said.

Now, at his desk, the folder open before him, he let his hand rest on the paper. The pages were too light for what they carried.

He turned to his laptop. The university server showed nothing. But an old email surfaced in his personal inbox, still unread.

Subject: Thank you.

No attachment. Just a few lines:

You were the first person who said I had a voice worth listening to.

You told me I wasn’t invisible.

I believed you.

I hope I wasn’t wrong.

It had arrived days after the meeting. He hadn’t replied. Hadn’t even opened it.

He leaned back. Through the open window, the campus looked ghostly in the streetlight — all angles and hush. Just behind the faculty block, barely visible through the dark, was the wall. He hadn’t meant to notice it. And yet there it was: pale, fractured, catching the light like old bone.

A breeze passed through the room. It lifted the corner of the thesis, stirred a page, and settled. Then a sound — not quite a voice, not quite the wind. But shaped, unmistakably, into language.

“You taught me to write. Not to disappear.”

He did not rise. He did not turn. But he listened — and remembered.

*

The tea stall behind the humanities block had changed only in details. A new awning. Brighter plastic chairs. But the rhythms remained: the clang of ladles against metal, the sweet boil of over brewed tea in a wide pan, the hum of half-finished arguments. Students came and went. Faculty lingered.

Arindam sat alone with his second cup. The sun was lower now, the heat more forgiving. In another hour, the breeze would rise.

“Professor.”

He looked up. Dr. Rekha Gupta stood at the edge of the table, her face calm, eyes unreadable.

“May I?”

He gestured. “Of course.”

She sat. They let the quiet stretch for a beat.

“I assume Rao’s sent around the draft,” she said at last.

He gave a slight nod.

“I haven’t seen it,” she said. “But I know how these drafts go. Appropriate platforms, reaffirming values — the kind of phrases that sound like action but mean don’t rock the boat.”

He looked toward the tea stall but said nothing.

“You’ve read it. And you’ll nod along, won’t you? Not because you agree — just to keep the peace. That’s always been your gift.”

“I haven’t made up my mind,” he said.

“That’s a choice too.”

She reached for the salt shaker and turned it absently. “She’s published,” she said. “Not an anonymous post. Not a pamphlet. A full essay — testimonial, personal, sourced.”

“I know,” he said. “The Indian Review of Literary Studies. Special issue on authorship and erasure. It’s being shared abroad.”

“She knew what she was doing,” Rekha said. “That journal has reach. And voice. Her words carry now — and they implicate.”

She shifted in her seat, thumb brushing the table’s edge.

“She came to me once,” she added quietly. “Back then. Wanted to know if she was being paranoid.”

Arindam turned. “You never mentioned that.”

Rekha’s eyes didn’t meet his. “I told her to keep her head down. Said it wasn’t worth the fallout.”

She gave a small, humorless laugh. “I thought I was protecting her. Maybe I was just protecting the system I knew how to survive in.”

She looked at him, steady now. “We all made choices.”

The tea man called out an order. Someone laughed behind them. The sounds of the university moved on, untouched.

“I didn’t lie,” Arindam said.

“You didn’t speak.”

“I wasn’t the only one.”

“No,” Rekha said. “But you were the one she trusted.”

He looked away. “That was a long time ago.”

Rekha studied him. “She didn’t write that piece just to tell her story. She wrote it so others could see their own.”

He gave no reply.

She stood, brushing dust from her palms. “They’ll vote soon. Rao will pretend it’s procedural. Malik will pretend it’s unanimous. And you…”

He looked at her, tired. “And me?”

“You’ll still be hoping no one remembers what you didn’t do.”

She started to leave, then turned back.

“The wall doesn’t whisper, Professor. That’s just your voice — coming back to you when it’s too late.”

She walked away, disappearing into the angle of light.

*

Faculty Room B had always struck Arindam as a space too self-aware to be neutral. The teak table ran its full length, flanked by chairs that creaked faintly in protest whenever someone shifted, as though discouraging unnecessary movement. The curtains had once been maroon but had long since faded into a colour somewhere between rust and resignation. Outside, the late afternoon light pressed against the glass — filtered, not softened.

Rao was already seated — not at the head, but slightly off-centre, where power could be exercised without declaration. A few sheets lay before him, aligned with the kind of casual care that signified intention. Dr. Malik sat a few chairs down, thumbing through a printed document with the practiced detachment of someone fluent in the rituals of complicity.

Arindam nodded — not deferentially, only as custom. He took his usual place: neither peripheral nor central. No greeting. No coffee. Only the dryness of institutional air and the faint whir of the ceiling fan.

Rao looked up at last.

“I’ll be direct,” he said. “This is not the kind of matter that benefits from extensive debate.”

He waited, letting the sentence stand like a gate that did not need to be opened.

“A piece has been published in The Indian Review of Literary Studies, which mischaracterises the department’s procedures and casts unsubstantiated aspersions on a senior colleague. By name.”

Malik didn’t respond, though his fingers paused on the page.

“We’re not in the business of chasing narratives,” Rao continued. “We don’t answer provocation with rhetoric. But silence, in the current climate, is too easily mistaken for assent.”

He slid the top sheet toward Arindam with flat courtesy. “We’ve prepared a clarification, and I’ve sent you a draft. Nothing inflammatory. We merely restate the facts.”

Arindam glanced down. The tone was familiar — measured, unassailable, and bloodless.

In light of recent discourse emerging outside institutional channels, we reaffirm our department’s longstanding commitment to transparency, collegial review, and academic integrity.

He read on.

While we do not seek to engage with personal narratives framed outside scholarly norms, we reject the implication that any procedural failure occurred in the handling of past concerns. The committee, composed of senior faculty across disciplines, found no grounds for further action.

It was the language of exoneration without names. Of memory shaped by proximity to power.

We acknowledge the complexities of authorship and voice in the contemporary academic landscape. Nonetheless, we reject the notion that our internal processes were anything less than diligent, fair, and professionally resolved.

Rao steepled his fingers. “You were in the room and your support meant you understood. I trust that understanding still holds.”

There was no bite in his tone — only something colder. The knowledge that loyalty is measured not in what is said, but what is withheld.

Arindam looked across the table. Malik didn’t encourage, but neither did he look away.

He turned back. “Has Chatterjee seen the piece?”

“He is aware,” Rao said. “As are several institutions abroad. These things circulate faster than they once did.”

“And Meenal?”

Rao paused. “She is no longer part of this institution. That is not simply a fact. It is a boundary.”

Arindam let the phrase echo. He thought of the folder on his desk, the comments in the margins. Of her voice — not in accusation, but assertion: You told me I wasn’t invisible. And Dr. Gupta’s parting shot: You just wanted to stay invited to the table.

“I’ve read the draft,” he said, “and I need to reflect on it before I decide.”

Rao inclined his head — just enough to suggest agreement, not consent. “Of course. I trust you do remember that unity protects more than reputation. And memory, Arindam, is best kept aligned.”

There was no threat in his voice. There didn’t need to be.

No minutes were taken. No action formally recorded. But as Arindam stepped into the corridor, he felt the need to look around — to keep a memory of the place, the meeting. The door behind him had closed — not on the meeting, but on the place that had once granted him privilege in quiet exchange for complicity.

*

The words from the draft lingered like leftover incense in a closed room: appropriate platforms… no grounds to pursue… reaffirm our commitment…

They had all mastered the language of non-admission — that delicate register where guilt became too impolite to name. Where truth, once filed, yellowed into quiet irrelevance.

Arindam crossed the quadrangle slowly. The sandstone glowed with the last light of day. A breeze moved dust and dry leaves, not enough to cool, only to remind. The buildings looked hollowed — façades drained of the things that once filled them.

He hadn’t planned to pass the wall. But the path curved, and his steps followed.

No plaque. No inscription. Just cracked plaster, re-painted and repainted, always splitting again.

He remembered what the student had said — that if you listened closely, the wall whispered the names they’d tried to erase.

He hadn’t believed her.

Now, he didn’t smile.

A few amaltas blossoms had fallen nearby, vivid against the stone. The wall stood still — not waiting, not watching, just present. And then:

“You told me I had a voice. That I wasn’t invisible.”

The sound came from nowhere. Not a whisper, not an echo. Simply there — as if the air had memory.

He did not turn.

It pressed below the ribs. Like something once said, returning sharper. A verse remembered too late.

“I wrote it because I couldn’t let silence be the only record.”

The cracks shimmered faintly — not with light, but with suggestion. A pattern just beneath language.

The voice did not accuse. It stated.

And that, he thought, was the more difficult thing.

He stood there until a group of students passed, chatting quietly, returning the world to its ordinary self. The moment didn’t vanish. It receded — folded back into the wall like breath into stillness.

He stepped back.

The corridor lamps flickered on.

He would read the statement again. He would decide what was owed — not to the institution, but to the silence he had once chosen.

And just as he turned — just as his shoulder angled away — he heard it.

Not wind. Not speech.

A breath.

“Arindam…”

No accusation. No plea.

Just a name, returned gently — like something long-buried refusing to be forgotten.

He did not turn.

But he did not walk quickly.

And he did not, for a long while after, stop hearing it.