Bull's Eye!

“See anything, Bolivar?” the spotter softly spoke to the sniper.




He shook his head in negative.



The scorching sun was making both of them uncomfortable, but none of them moved. They were trained not to; trained to stay still for hours together.



The whole setting was as arid as you can imagine. Afghanistan at this time of the year was boiling. Camouflaged between two rocks, their sights were fixed at the broken highway. The distance must have been 950 yards from where they were. To be exact, it was 962 yards.



They kept on surveying the highway looking for the movement they waited for.



Their local contact had informed the Intelligence guys that a top-ranked Taliban Cleric known as “Mr. W” would be using that road to visit a village few miles from there any time in those three days. The news was important. Top-level classified. Absolutely at the last moment, the duo of Bolivar and Hector was dropped at the location. Operation Green Turban was on. 3 Days it was!



“I doubt if he would arrive”, Hector murmured. “The frigging son of a gun must have been tipped off”.



He did not react. The wait had been long, and he hoped that it would end soon. At the same time he knew that time was a dimension which did not apply to their line of work. What mattered was “timing”. He patiently waited. He took a sip from a small pipe which made its way to a bottle of glucose water in his backpack.



His eyes were on the road. The landscape was barren yet beautiful. For miles, they could not see anybody. Their only point of contact was with the mobile command post some Fifty miles away. A company of Marines had spread around the place to take care of an ambush if required.



The orders given to Sergeant David Koffler (Code name Bolivar) were very clear- “Take out the cleric and extract”. Shoot and scoot.



They waited.



******



“My baby sister is having a baby”, Hector announced. His non-stop blabbering had disturbed David during their initial years as a team, but slowly he adjusted to it. Now he “filtered” his words. Hector was extremely good with his eyes and that is what mattered to “Bolivar”.



Somehow, there was nothing in sight today. For hours they lay waiting. The sun was getting ready to set. The chill in the breeze increased.



“39 Hours”, Hector announced. Bolivar just nodded back.





******



His M40 A3 Rifle was his best friend. A complex amalgamation of fiberglass and gunmetal, she was put into his hand the moment he reported for duty after clearing “Sniper School”. Yes! She was beautiful.



He treated “her” like a woman. It’s funny, but he had named her “Lady Di. “She” had killer curves that slid into his arms, her head comfortably resting on his shoulder. Once his eyes met hers and his finger lingering over her lips-like trigger, they became together a deadly combination.



There were a lot of thoughts on his mind. Primarily he thought about the mortgage payments on the small house in Calabasas that he and his wife Linda had decided upon before he left for Afghanistan.



“Will we be able to afford it, David?



“It’s steep, but we should be able to get it”.



They looked at their three children who were growing up with time. David’s mind argued with the incoming financial burden. The house might have a price but the happiness of his family was priceless.



******



They took turns to nap. It was a normal routine that David and Hector followed.



David thought about the day before the operation started. They were summoned to the Commanding Officer’s office with one word- This is Top Secret.











“Guys, Operation Green Turban- this is important and this is classified- top level” Colonel Brad Haskins informed them.



They were to be dropped into wilderness two hundred miles into enemy territory for a “strategic elimination”. The target was top priority.



“You do not get to know who it is, you do not get to know where he is till the last moment. Lt. Miller will be Fifty miles away at a mobile command post relaying orders and helping you if need be.”



“Roger, Sir”, their voices echoed.



“This is important. Your success can bring a lot of stability to the regime here, and force the suckers in Pentagon to let a lot of us go back home. Remember, Snipers do not read history, they write it”.



******



Mr. W was recognizable from his trademark green turban. The information that came to them was that Mr. W always came out wearing a green turban and dark sunglasses. As soon as the green turban was visible after stepping out of the car, Hector murmured.



“Wolf in range”



“962 Yards distance, wind at 13.50 miles an hour, target locked”



Bolivar took aim. “Lady Di” was ready to breathe fire. His index finger tightened on the trigger. And then what happened was not imagined by them even in their wildest dreams.



Another man wearing a green turban and dark sunglasses stepped out of the car.



“Stop, we got a bogey”, Hector murmured. Bolivar loosened his grip on the trigger.



Then another man wearing the same attire stepped out. In total there were three people in the entourage who could be Mr. W- or could it be none of them?



******

Mr. W did not enter the village. He waited for someone.



Bolivar meanwhile was studying all the three men that could probably be Mr. W. They were similar. They stood in three different directions thereby reducing the probability of the correct man being shot to one-third. None of them moved. The end of the green turban fluttered softly in the breeze.

Some people were walking towards the entourage. Bolivar waited. He knew they would approach the correct Mr. W and then he could take his shot.



Each person was searched thoroughly by the guards of Mr. W at a safe distance. One by one they were cleared.



“I think it’s the left one”



Bolivar negated Hector’s view. He knew there was a catch here. He couldn’t take the shot. If he missed, a gun battle would ensue dimming his chances of eliminating his target.



He found it. He knew who and where the real Mr. W was.



“Wolf inside the horse. Horse wearing Kevlar”



“What?” Hector exclaimed.



Yes, there he was! Mr. W was sitting inside the bulletproof SUV.



“Lady Di” breathed fire.



The round went and hit the tire puncturing it. The hissing sound brought a few people closer to the car. Bolivar shot again puncturing the tire of the second car. They were lucky. Mr. W came with a small entourage which had minimum security. He probably did not want to draw attention. This was boon for the marines and a bane for him.



The Afghans started firing volleys towards him. But he was far. They shouted into a radio asking for reinforcements.



Hector spoke into the radio, “Pack of wolves retreating. Heavy growling. Send in the flying cats”.



David was strategically eliminating every target he could find. Each round after the other went deep into human flesh taking away a life with it. He looked in every direction but could not find the target he was looking for. Mr. W was nowhere to be seen.



He found what he was looking for. Somebody opened the door to the SUV and the real Mr. W came out.



David took the shot. The ammunition round left the barrel of his rifle and went in the direction aimed. When it hit the target, every nerve in David’s body breathed a sigh of relief.



******



He did not know where it came from. He did not know what hit him. All David Koffler remembered was that he felt was something hitting him hard followed by immense pain in his shoulder.



The next he remembered was waking up in the Base Hospital. CIA meanwhile had confirmed that Zardar Azgari, the second most influential cleric of the Taliban regime was confirmed killed.



******



The formal investiture ceremony was held at the White House. Staff Sergeant David Koffler was among the 7 men honored by the President of the United States for their uncommon valor in the face of the enemy. Their acts were considered beyond the call of duty, and the first citizen led the nation in expressing their gratitude to these selfless men.



“Staff Sergeant David Koffler, United States Marine Corps”.

The voice cited David’s act of bravery, which ended as, “….Staff Sargeant Koffler’s uncommon valor in the face of enemy gave the Marines an added advantage to fight the adversaries of democratic rule in Afghanistan. His steadfast devotion and unwavering courage to fight even when heavily outnumbered upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service”

The awardee walked up to the dais and saluted the Commander of the Armed Forces. The salute was crisp. The “Medal of Honor” was pinned to his chest. After shaking hands with the President, he saluted again”.



This time the President noticed something different.



The Marine did not have an index Finger on his right hand. It was later that the President was informed that an Afghan Militia sniper had shot Sgt Koffler. The bullet passed nicked his shoulder but hit his hand before doing so. His index finger was damaged beyond any repair.



Staff Sergeant David Koffler will never hit the bull’s eye again.



P.S. The plot and the characters are all figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to any place or event or person-dead or alive is purely coincidental.

The Imperfect Date!

The events of this piece of writing unfold over an evening. No! They stretch into the night. At the outset, I apologize to the young couple. I am genuinely sorry.



Yes! I was eavesdropping on their conversation. I had gone to the café after a tiff with my wife. Actually, I wanted to go to a pub and get drunk. Then I changed the “poison” to caffeine, and the place to a café after it struck my mind that my drinking and driving might not go down well with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).



The café was called, “Insomniac’s Den”. It came as a relief for me. I parked my car on the street and stepped into the dimly lit hall. The place was jam-packed. The hall comprised of a huge coffee bar behind which stood a matronly lady in her sixties. She gave me a stoic look and then went back to her vocation.



I looked around. About two dozen people were seated in the room. The seating was somewhere in between ”cozy”, and “cramped”. The walls needed a coat of fresh paint and were adorned by oil paintings which had lost its glaze. Forget it. The whole décor could have made an old-timer nostalgic.



I took a seat on small bench in the corner from where I could watch the street through the glass. It creaked. The question on my mind was whether it had the ability and the capability of sustaining the 170 pounds of mass that I was composed of. Very soon the bench made it clear that it would support my posterior in spite of the fact that it was on its way to its grave.



I kept the keys to the car on the table along with my tablet and surveyed the patrons. Most were students. They either had books or laptop computers opened in front of them. The most peculiar thing about the place was that everybody had a different mug. Maybe this café was oblivious to a historical event called “Industrial Revolution” which brought the concept of “Homogeneous Product” to this world.



Another peculiar line that caught my attention was- “Please do not embarrass us by asking for the Wi-Fi password, if your invoice is less than $ 5”. So, this was the catch.



My eyes stopped at a young man to my left. He must have been about a decade younger than me. He was trying to ward off the chilly weather by rubbing his hands together or wrapping them around the mug of coffee in front of him. His eyes were on the door, indicating that he was awaiting somebody’s arrival. His impatience was evident from the fact that he looked at his watch every few seconds and then his gaze would go back to the front door.



Bingo! This was my “subject” for this evening. I forgot to mention that my favorite pastime was “observing people”.



“This should be fun”, I told myself. I got up to order my cup of coffee. Since I had no use of Wi-Fi, I decided that a $ 2.80 cup of cappuccino would suffice. The matronly owner gave me another of her stoic expressions, as she filled up a white porcelain cup with the caffeine-laced brew and creamed it.



“Is this a cappuccino?” I asked her.



“Yes”, she exclaimed as if she felt I was questioning her brewing abilities. She reiterated it by making a sound while putting the cup on the counter. The “thud” scared me. I convinced my mind that this indeed was “cappuccino”.



******



She walked in soon. She scanned the environment inside the café. She looked at each of us, and making calculations in her mind.



“Oh my God! This was a blind date”.



The eternal optimist in me hoped that she would come and ask me if I was “He”. Unfortunately, this happens only in movies where both the drop-dead gorgeous actors of opposite genders bump into each other by coincidence.



I looked the other way. I did not want to portray myself as a middle-aged pervert (Which I indeed was not).



Then her eyes met his. They both smiled. She waded her way through the seating which was somewhere in between “cozy”, and “cramped”. They hugged.



“Hi”, she said.



“Hello Ashley”, he replied. So her name was Ashley. I made a note in the small notebook which I always carried with myself. I called it the “human log”. This notebook which had been with me for a couple of months was clear evidence of my proximity to “mid-life” crisis.



Small talk started. I started keeping a track of their words.



His name was Paul Dalton (I did not know his name then. I learnt it later), and he was an Investment Banker! What? An Investment Banker? So am I buddy, I wanted to tell him. But at this point of time, Mr. Dalton was more interested in chit-chatting with the lady about weather and punk rock than talking about complex derivatives with another “Investment Banker”.



I thoroughly understood his state of mind. There are indeed far more interesting things in this world than Derivatives.

******

“What made you interested in my post”, she asked him.



Oh! These guys met at some dating site. “Not bad”, I told myself.



He was generic when he replied- “I liked your honesty. Your wit was attractive and your choice of words was exact. Overall I liked your personality”. She blushed. He smiled.



“What are you looking for?” he questioned.



“I told you. I was looking for a SWM for an LTR”. What she meant by that, I wondered. It was a little bit too much for my pea-sized Brain. It was my wife who later enlightened me. SWM meant a single white male and LTR meant a long term relationship. Phew!



I overheard her telling him that she ran a pet-care business and had modeled for a few commercials. Paul’s eyes widened. He was impressed.



Her cellphone rang. She excused herself and went out to talk.



He took out his cellphone and called somebody.



“Al, hey buddy, how are you? It’s going good. Yeah, I met her. She’s cool. Yeah! She’s hot too”



“No, you don’t come here. No, you don’t meet her now. Maybe later. No, am not sleeping with her. No!!! I just met her, you pervert”



“Spare me Al. I kind of like her. She is cute, and peppy, and bubbly, and sweet, and sexy.” Paul went on and on.



“She probably walks dogs? What? Stop being judgmental you nitwit. Get lost you jerk”.



******



She returned with a smile. They sipped the coffee and stared into each other’s eyes. What eyes? They were staring at all over each other.



I missed my wife. I sent her a text saying, “Miss you Darling”.



She replied instantly, “Get some eggs on your way abck. Make sure they are neither too big nor to small”. How Romantic! I wondered.



******



After a while he excused himself to go to the men’s room. When he was out of sight, she fished out her cellphone and dialed a number. Her nervousness was portrayed by the fact that she looked in the direction of the restroom to ensure that he was nowhere in audio or visual distance.



“Mary, yeah! Hi, it’s Ash. Hi. How is it going?”



“Oh yes, he is cute and seems quite nice. Plus he is kind of loaded. He told me he drives a Lexus and lives in Park La Brea”.



“Loaded”, I smiled to myself. What a use of the word.



She continued. “Mmm Hmmm. He is sensitive and his eyes are just so expressive. I mean, he is impressive. But he fumbles with his fork. Plus he lacks a sense of fashion. That can be worked upon” She justified her choice to her friend.



I tried to visualize Paul in fashionable attire with her by his side. They would look cute, I concluded.



“Anyways, I am going to call you back. He fits in. bingo!” she cut the call and blushed to herself.



******

They got up.



“Let’s take a walk”, he said. I wanted to let them know that it was chilly outside, and this chill was not good for a spectator like me. But neither did I have any reason to tell them nor did they have any reason to accede to my demands.



They walked out into the street. I followed.



Oh it was chilly.



In some time they held hands. They were unaware that I was apparently going “mid-life” crisis, and had to buy eggs on my way home. And yes, mind you, the eggs are neither to be too big nor too small.



His hand was on her waist. Hers was on his shoulder. They were unaware that I was having a tiff with my wife, some idiots were fighting in Syria, Europe was going through a debt crisis and Obama administration wanted men to take pregnancy insurance.

They kissed. Oh yes! The defining moment finally arrived. They looked passionate.



They broke from the embrace after a while. “You had your tongue half-way down my throat, and I do not even know what your last name is”, she charged him. I could not help but laugh. I was standing at the bus stop where these two potential “lovebirds” smooched to glory.

He smiled and said, “Dalton, Paul Dalton”. I wonder if it would have made a difference if the chaps name was “Osama Bin Laden or George Herbert Walker Bush”. He would still have had his tongue halfway down her throat.



“Ashley Roberts”, she said. They held hands and walked to the parking lot. He opened the door to her car and let her in. After a while, she drove off.



******



“Hey Pal”, said somebody. I was walking merrily to my car. I never thought it was for me. “Hey Pal”, the voice repeated. I looked back. It was Dalton, Paul Dalton.



“Hello there”, I said.



He looked at me with mixed emotions. “You were prying on us, you realize that?”



“Yes Sir, probably I was”



“Probably? No! You certainly were”, he emphasized.



“I apologize if it affected you”, I told him and added, “I am a writer. So, could not let go of such a beautiful plot to write about”.



Mr. Dalton looked impressed. He flexed his muscles and said, “You saved yourself, buddy”. Make sure I don’t see you around.



We smiled to each other and parted ways.



******



P.S. The plot and the characters are all figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to any place or event or person-dead or alive is purely coincidental.

Parking Ticket

Katherine Hudson (That was the Anglicized version of her Indian name)! Her Indian name could be of consequence here, but let’s call her Kay. Like the character- Kay Adams in “The Godfather”.
 
Nothing special about the name, isn’t it? True! There was nothing special about her. Neither she had the looks to be called a “beauty”, nor did she possess wealth to be called an heiress.

There was one thing different about Kay. She was bright, she was smart and she was extremely intelligent. Her academic inclination blossomed as she stepped into her teens. For some reason, she hated being beaten by anybody in academics. Her ambition of playing with numbers took a definite shape when she got into a bachelors course in Economics. Her ability to question, and question with conviction impressed one and many. She did not aspire to go places. She thirsted for knowledge.

She was an obedient child. When she turned twenty-one, her conservative parents found a good match in Kumar and got her married. Kumar’s credentials were impressive- He lived in the United States, had a green card, earned a decent salary and above all came from the same caste as hers. Kumar was a good husband. Although he made no efforts for them to become soul mates, he was a good provider, protector and everything else, which was expected of a decent Indian husband.

For the next nineteen years, they lived a life which ranged from being mundane to being exciting. Kumar encouraged her to study further and find professional success.

She started working for the local library initially and took classes in the community college. Then she became a teller in a Bank and in a few years saved enough to get into the Business School of a State University. When she graduated, she was hired by a Stockbroking firm. After a while, she shifted to Investment Banking and very soon the Bank realized that she was a banker with a “Midas touch”.

One fine day her world came crashing down.

Kumar had just come back from work. She found him sitting on the sofa when she entered the house. He looked at her and said, “I need a Divorce”.

“What?”

“Yes, I need a divorce”, he repeated.  She did not react. Maybe she was dreaming.

It then went through the usual way.

He started explaining things. She was in no mood to listen any of that. She did not even want to hear the name of the “woman” whose compatibility quotient in a few months was much more than theirs in those nineteen years that she and Kumar had spent together.

She just said, “Will you handle the legalities”.

The normal reaction expected of her would have been tears and drama. But Kay mind and soul were made of a different alloy. She was calm all throughout the ordeal. Even in these rough times, Kumar was considerate. Or maybe, he felt guilty for what he was doing. He sold the house and divided the proceeds equally between them. They did not have any children, so the complications were lesser.

Kay was financially well-off, but an emotional wreck. She took a leave of absence stayed home for two months. Her moments of introspection yielded nothing but stronger will to succeed.

 
She called up her Bank and resigned. When the head of HR asked her the reason for resigning, she said that she wanted to relocate.

“Perfect”, he said. “Then you are not resigning. You are moving to Los Angeles”.

Kay made the move westward. The times weren’t angelic, but she was moving to the “City of Angels”.

******

The offices of White Tusker Bank were located in Downtown Los Angeles.

The move had not been easy for Kay. Banking in the West Coast was an altogether different ball game. Moreover, she was moving from hardcore “Investment Banking to sophisticated “Private Banking”.

Los Angeles welcomed Kay with all warmth. She found a spacious apartment in the historic “Miracle Mile” district. Los Angeles had amazing weather and its cosmopolitan confluence put Kay at ease.


Life needed a new start, and she was giving it a second chance.

******

She quietly eased her car into the basement parking lot. She had a busy day and needed to park as fast as possible. As she stopped her car, a gloved hand opened the door for her. She did not even look at the face.

She said a quick, “thank you”, grabbed the ticket and walked briskly to the lobby. In exactly fifteen minutes, she had a meeting with an important investor. She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button that would take her to the desired floor. Before the door closed, a gloved hand got between the doors.

“You could have cut your hand into two parts” she told the fellow. He smiled and stood there. In his other hand was her mobile phone. He raised his hand to give it to her.


“Thank you”, she said. He smiled again.


Next morning she saw him again. He spoke nothing but kept smiling. He must have been in his twenties, maybe approaching thirty. Not a day more.


“Hi!” She said. She wanted him to speak and confirm that he could speak. He nodded his head and smiled. It was weird.


Initially, he would be there every morning.   He was polite and acted as gentlemanly as a valet could be. There was always a warm smile on his face, and a gloved hand would open the door every time she stopped her car to be parked. She liked this start to her day.


A few weeks later she observed that he would be the one who took her car every morning and brought it every evening. She calculated. She arrived at eight every morning and left at six every evening. There was no reason he should be having a ten-hour shift.  Gosh! Was he trying to hit on her? She decided to ignore.


From the next day onwards she stopped smiling. She did not want him to have a wrong impression that she was reciprocating.


It became obvious one day. When he opened the door to her, he had a bunch of flowers in the other hand. Another valet stood along with him. “His name Santiago. He not speak good English” his friend told her. He continued smiling. “He bring you flowers for Valentine’s Day”.


Kay did not know how to react.


She dismissed his playful enthusiasm as a “passing phase” – it was clichéd in this world for a young man to be attracted to an older woman. She decided to ignore. She took the bunch of flowers, smiled at both of them and walked into the lobby.


The bunch of flowers ended up in the first trash can she saw. Although she did not want to hurt his feelings, she did not wish to be seen carrying flowers. And at forty one, she did not wish to believe that a younger man wanted more than a romp in bed with her.


In the evening, Santi had the same bunch with him. It was neatly wrapped in a plastic sheet. He said nothing but pointed to the bunch of flowers on the rear seat of her car.


She was furious. She wanted to walk to his supervisor’s office and lodge a complaint. But then she stopped. Her anger would only get him fired.  She called the other Valet and asked him, “Do you speak his language?”


He Nodded.


“Ask him what he wants? Tell him I am not interested in him or do I want flowers”. This was followed by a conversation which meant gibberish to Kay.


“Santi says he likes you. He wanted to give you flowers. He knew you couldn’t keep them with you, so you threw them into the trash can. He picked it up, rewrapped it and put it on the rear seat of your car so that you could take it back home.


At that moment, Santi spoke some more gibberish. The other guy translated, “Santi says he would not trouble you again. He apologizes”.


Kay gestured for her car to be brought back.


True to his word, he did not see her again. This made her comfortable. She saw him in the elevator after a few days. When she greeted him, he said a quiet hello and smiled.


Next day when she asked the valet attendant, “Where is the guy who does not speak English?” It was a strange way to describe Santi, but Kay could not think of anything better.


“Are you talking about Santi”, he said.


“Oh Yes! Santi”


“He is at the Self-parking area”.


She nodded and walked towards the self-parking area. There he was, giving directions and helping people to park. He saw her, and slowly started walking towards her.


“Hi”, she said.


“Hi”, he replied.


“I don’t see you in the Valet Parking area nowadays. Everything ok?” she asked.


He probably understood her. In broken English he said, “I self-parking area”.


Kay couldn’t help but smile. She felt bad for the poor chap. She was responsible for that shift. Suddenly she said, “Would you like to have coffee with me? It’s a strictly friendly cup of coffee”.


He nodded and said, “Coffee”. He repeated “coffee”.

“Would Six-thirty in the evening suit you? There is a Starbucks round the corner”. He nodded again.


She bought him a cup of coffee in the evening. She felt a bit uncomfortable. There was she in strictly official attire- black pants, white shirt and a black jacket while he was in his valet’s uniform. He though was at ease. Even after being in the United States for more than two decades, Kay hadn’t yet become American in totality.

******

In time Kay started liking Santi. Was it love? No way! She was too old for him, plus she did not have the nerve to be in a relationship. Although she looked forward to let his gloved hand open the door for her, she never talked to him. They just smiled to each other.

One day she found that the collar of his shirt had frayed. Next day when his gloved hand opened the car door, Kay put a crisp white shirt into his hand.


Next day his collar was no more frayed.

******

After a few days she found a small box in the rear seat of the car. The box contained some ethnic jewelry- a bracelet and a picture. In later days Kay learnt that the piece of jewelry was a replica of jewelry worn by Aztec women.

******

She did not see him one day. Then the next day. Then the next day again. She tried his cell phone. It rang for a while before the recorded message told her than “The voicemail for the number dialed has not yet been set up”.


In the evening she asked the Valet, “Where is Santi?”


“I don’t know Ma’m. I haven’t seen him for the last couple of days”, he replied.


“Can you tell him that I was looking for him”, she said and drove off.

******

She had come out of a meeting when Meg, the receptionist at the office buzzed, “Kay, someone is here to see you. He is from the Valet Parking”.

Kay rushed out of the office expecting Santi. However, it was not him. It was one of the other guys. His name was Julio.


“Can we talk for a moment”, he said.


She gestured him to walk into her office.


“Santi is dead. He was killed by the bad guys”.


“The bad guys? Who? Why? Was he running drugs? Was he into any kind of trouble?”


“I don’t know. They say he took a $ 1000 loan from them and did not pay them on the due date”


“What? Why did he take a loan”, she asked. He could have asked her for the loan. $ 1000 wasn’t that big a sum. Why did he have to get into trouble for such a sum?


She had a million questions. But she had no answers.


Julio left.


Kay was sad. She felt grief. But life had to go on. She missed seeing Santi in the valet parking. Sometimes she thought that gloved hand was his when the door was opened. In time she adapted to his absence. She accepted that Santi was no more.

*****

“Your bracelet is beautiful”, the host said.

“Thank you Elizabeth” Kay replied.  She was attending a Sunday luncheon hosted by the Johnsons. It was a casual day and Kay wanted to spend it lazily in a pair of jeans. Finding nothing else to match her lazy looks, he casually picked up the bracelet given to her by Santi and put it on.


As the party ended, she bid the customary goodbyes to her hosts and walked to the door.


“Excuse me”, said a man behind her. He had a mug of beer in his hand. It suited him. He was bald, had a beer belly, and had the looks of a professor.


“Yes”, she replied.


“Hello, I am Professor Delgado. I teach South American History at the University of La Paz”.


“That’s impressive. How can I help you?” Kay smiled to the bald man.


“I was wondering where you got the bracelet”. His eyes were on her hand.


“A friend gave it to me”. How else could she describe Santiago.


“I just want you to know that it may be one of the last ones that survived the Aztecs. There are very few of those around the world. If you notice, it has been restored. I hope you know it is genuine”


When he saw the surprised look on her face, he remarked, “Didn’t you now that? Don’t tell me you did not? Oh God! You might not be interested, but these list on the market for nearly a hundred thousand dollars”.


Kay wanted to tell him that the value made no difference to her.


Then he said the words she never expected, “One of them- a very similar one, disappeared from the National Museum in Panama City. That’s where I had seen it last. Since a very few people in the world have the remaining ones, hold on to it”.


Kay found the man irritating. But his words remained in her mind.


She went home and called the museum. The curator of the museum, a certain Senor Vazquez gave her the description. With every word, Kay’s greatest fears came true. When the man finished talking, Kay collapsed on the ground.

******

A week later, the bracelet was returned to the museum. It came through a personal courier who said that the sender wished to remain anonymous.

Senor Vazquez knew who sent it, but he did not wish to pursue the matter further.

******

Kay died in the winter of 2012. For the record, she died in Santiago, Chile.

P.S. The plot and the characters are all figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to any place or event or person-dead or alive is purely coincidental.

Profit & Loss

Winters in America could be extreme. Especially, in the central and the eastern parts of the country where at this time of the year, it would be snowing like anything. Ram Kumar felt lucky that his proximity to the Pacific Ocean saved him from such an extremity. He rubbed his hands together to ward off the chill.

At the age of sixty, he wasn’t getting any younger, and his ability to stand the winters wasn’t getting any better.

“They say it’s the toughest time since the Great Depression, but I say it’s ‘mint time’”- said somebody who called himself an analyst and was blabbering away to glory on the local Radio Station.

“How much can these idiots blabber”, he wondered. Ram Kumar wanted to change the station, but he gave up the idea when it came to his mind that each one was worse than the other.

He didn’t care!

As long as his books balanced at the end of the year, and his venture gave out a profit, what happened in the world was not his business. He liked his life, he loved his family and he was happy.

He got busy lining up some groceries on the shelves as he ward off these thoughts. A black Chevy Suburban arrived and parked in front of the shop. Through the security system installed in the shop, Ram Kumar saw the arrival of two uniformed officers. It wasn’t abnormal for Ram Kumar to see men from the army coming to him. For nearly thirty years, his small shop “Wings of Indus” catered to the soldiers at the nearby army base. The shop was part of the small town called Jerryburg. The shop sold every product that man could call “basic necessity” and also a lot of products which could not be classified as the same. All these years, the shop would open at six in the morning and would be in business till eight in the evening. The same routine was followed since the day Ram Kumar opened shop in the area.

It was different today. He was used to the visits by soldiers to his shop, but there was a difference this time. The officers approaching the door were people he hadn’t seen earlier. This wasn’t the oddity that struck him. What was different in them was the fact that both of them had no expressions on their faces. They looked quite similar in their formal uniforms with peak caps and dark sunglasses.

As they opened the door to the shop, Ram Kumar took his eyes off the camera and faced them with a smile. “Good Morning Gentlemen! Can I help you?”

“We are looking for a Mr. Kumar, K-U-M-A-R”, the younger of them said. He turned his eyes towards the street as he said this. Perhaps he was skeptical of somebody else’s presence as he uttered those words. “I am Kumar”, he said as he adjusted his spectacles to have a clearer look at both the men who knew his name and were looking for him.

Both the officers looked at one another. The silence was killing. It was one of those moments when the silence around you has the ability to stop everything in your mind. Ram Kumar could never anticipate that this was one of those moments. He knew what was coming. He slowly sat down on the chair behind the cash counter.

One of the officers started saying what was required by protocol, “Sir, I am Lieutenant Ian Richter and this is my senior officer Major Peter Arche. We are from the Casualty Notification Service and we wish to inform you of the death of your son, Lieutenant William Kumar. We are deeply sorry for your loss. Please remember that your son died serving the people of the United States of America and keeping up the highest traditions of United States Army”.

The silence that followed was broken only by occasional cars whizzing past on the road in front of the shop. Every part of his body went numb as the news spread into his mind. “Sir, are you all right?” Major Arche asked him. Kumar did not reply. He slowly sat down on the chair behind the counter.

******

Ram Kumar still remembered the day he landed in the United States of America.

He came to this country as an immigrant; and he was proud of this identity of his. Although he accepted everything about the country he came to, he could never forget where he came from. A part of him still belonged to that “part” of the world. He landed up in United States of America by chance. A perpetually drunk diplomat by the name of Colonel Gordon Scott was leaving India at the end of his posting as Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy. Ram Kumar was his butler. Drunk on one and half bottles of Tennessee whisky, Col. Scott asked Ram Kumar if he would come to America with him. The thought of going to “Aameyreeeka” was something no Indian in those days could refuse.

 It was the land of opportunities, a land where everything was in abundance and where everybody was apparently equal. Ram Kumar flew into United States of America. Colonel Scott came from a family of Soldiers in a small town called Jerryburg. They owned enough land to cultivate oranges, almonds and strawberries, rear cattle and live in affluence. Till the day Colonel Scott died, Ram Kumar was his man Friday. They became more of friends as Colonel Scott aged and drank more and more of Tennessee Whisky. He taught him how to read and write English and to count and calculate. He even gave Ram Kumar a small piece of land to build a house and open a small shop in Jerryburg. At the end of the first year, his revenues were more than his expenses. When the difference showed a plus sign, Ram Kumar was ecstatic.

******

William Kumar was born after Ram Kumar and Helen were married for six years. Helen was an immigrant from India too. She was born as Heer, but her father changed her name to Helen in order to save her from the confusion of having a name which nobody in the neighborhood had or had heard. This was something Ram Kumar agreed to. He knew that if he wished to be accepted, he would have to make efforts to assimilate into the society. The name was the foremost.

They had given up hopes for a child when one day Helen gave her husband the good news that she had conceived. They decided to call him William. William was followed by Joanne and Gerard in a span of four years, before Ram Kumar decided to go to a surgeon and medically curtail his ability to contribute to childbearing. He knew that his duty as a father required him to give a good quality of life to all his children- something which he was alien to till he came under the tutelage of Col. Scott.

He was lucky that all his children turned out bright and obedient. They respected their parents, never answered back and took education seriously. Ram Kumar was very happy when William got a scholarship to study History at the University of Great Lakes. Though it was far away from home, Ram Kumar and Helen happily sent him away to face the world on his own.

******
When the telephone rang, Helen was in the Kitchen. She hurriedly wiped her hands on the hand towel and stretched her hand to pick up the instrument. “Hello”, she said with a smile on her face. She knew who it was!

“Hey Mom, how are you doing”, the voice on the other side said. It was William from his base in Afghanistan. “Maa, I am coming back at the end of next month”, he said. Helen knew her son was smiling. She smiled too. She could hear sounds in the background which she tried to ignore. She just wanted to forget that her eldest born was in war-torn Afghanistan fighting a war for reasons known only a few people in power and to some religious fanatics who were hell-bent on antagonizing the world.

He called her up, every day, religiously at the same time. Every day she would listen to his voice-full of optimism and composure. The voices in the background were also always the same- explosions and chaos. She wished he came back home at the earliest.

She still couldn’t understand why William, with a Master’s Degree in History, decided to join the US Army. Perhaps, her husband knew the answer to this.

******

William broke the news to his parents after he came back home from University. Ram Kumar was speechless when his son told him that he had been selected to join the “Officer Candidate School”.

“I am not going back to start work on my Ph. D. I am joining the US Army”, he announced.

  Like a close-knit family they were eating their dinner together. Gerard and Joanne who were also on vacation from their colleges were present. “But Why?” is all he could say to his son. Deep inside he had many questions. He knew that he could never put them in front of his young son.

******

“Omega Company under heavy fire…Enemy still holding ground with heavy machine gun and mortar firing”, the wireless transmitter echoed. “Requesting for support from Artillery Gunships”.

Inside a tent, which served as the Forward Base Communications Outpost, a Corporal wrote these words on a slip and sent it to his superior officer.

When he got the answers, he softly said into the radio, “Wolf’s Lair to Omega, Gunship support negative”

******

“William, we are immigrants”, Ram Kumar was trying to reason with his son. “We live in this society, we give what we have to offer, and we take back something in return. We don’t meddle into their affairs.”

Back of his mind, Ram Kumar thought of all these years in Jerryburg. So many soldiers, whom he had met, were never to be seen again. They talked of some place called Vietnam when he had arrived in America. The war had taken the life of a lot of Americans.

There was a lull for some time before they went to war again in a place ruled by some despotic Dictator. War did not scare him. The thought of his son going to war scared him.

William was quietly listening to his father. He somehow was not in agreement with his “old man”. He was born in this country. Ram Kumar might have been an immigrant, but he –William Kumar was not. He was an American. He was born an American, he grew up an American. He had never even been to the piece of earth his parents had at one point of time called “home”. He decided to keep quiet and just listen to his father. Arguments, in an emotional state like this, he knew never worked with one’s parents. It makes the whole scene ugly, but doesn’t yield any results. He decided to wait till his father came back to his normal state.

He walked out of the shop. He needed some fresh air. Ram Kumar went back to balancing his books. He hoped that the boy would come back to his senses and not join the Army. As he balanced his books, saw that the revenues were more than the expenses. There was a profit. He smiled to himself. The momentary euphoria of having made the profit, made him forget that a few moments ago he was apprehensive of his son joining the army.

******

Bullets were flying everywhere. The enemy was at a far superior position as they had the advantage of elevation. William was trying to shield the volley using a huge rock as cover. The occasional mortar exploded in the vicinity making a deafening sound and sending everybody into cover.

“Hit the left flank”, he shouted at his machine gunner. “We need to break the flank, and get the time to strike them”. The gunner tried, but his rounds weren’t finding the target. The news of not being supported by artillery Gunships was already a problem.

Suddenly, an idea struck him. “Nunez, pass me the Bazooka”, he asked his Corporal. He whispered something into the ears of the Corporal and aimed the rocket in the direction of enemy.

******

The day before William was to leave for the “Officer Candidate School”, Ram Kumar tried to talk to his son again. But destiny had something else in store for them.

“Why are you trying to stop me from going?” William asked his father. “Give me one logical reason not to go, and I will go back for my Ph. D.”

When Ram Kumar spoke, both he and William knew that he spoke nonsense. William sensed the apprehension in his father’s mind. He put his arms around the old man’s shoulder and tried to comfort him. As a father, Ram Kumar had every right in this world to be concerned about his offspring, even if the concern bordered on being selfish.

When William spoke, he was straight and to the point, “Dad, your anxiety springs up from the fact that I as a soldier will go to war one day. It has nothing to do with whom I am fighting for or whom I am fighting against.”

When Ram Kumar tried to interrupt, his son raised his hand and continued. He talked of someone called Simon Bolivar and some things about him which Ram Kumar did not understand. After all, he had never read a book in his life and it made no difference to him that someone named Simon Bolivar was responsible for liberating a few South American nations.

Ram Kumar just had three agendas for his life- success and safety of his family, prosperity of his children and profits in his books of accounts. About the rest of the things in the world, he did not care much. And William’s joining the army did not remotely count in any of these agendas.

******

The rocket went and hit the exact spot where it was aimed at. It hit the base of a huge rock which toppled as a result of the explosion. A chaos resulted. As soon as the guerillas were off guard for a moment, William charged at them with his men in tow.

“Hit the left flank, Nunez. The left flank”, William shouted to his corporal. The machine gunners turned their guns to the direction. William and few of his men were nearly three hundred yards from the guerillas, when they took cover behind some rocks.

He called for his sniper and instructed him, “Jeremy, you need to take out the chaps with rocket launchers”. The young man, who was barely twenty years old, nodded to his Commanding Officer. Rockets and rounds from the enemy crisscrossed in all directions. William knew this was the time to remain calm.

William then raised his voice and told his men, “Nunez and Hustler shoot a rocket each at these jerks, Jeremy takes out the rocket launchers, and then we charge. Remember guys, time is short. Shoot a volley, use grenades and take cover. I don’t want anybody hurt. Am I clear guys?

Two dozen men affirmed in unison.

The final charge was violent. Grenades were hurled from both sides. Hustler’s rocket hit the bull’s eye but Nunez missed it. As a result, the left flank was not completely paralyzed. The charge was partially successful and they were able to gain some ground. As soon as they gained equal elevation, the machine gunners set up their guns. Jeremy and his scout took cover behind some rocks and started their job of “Strategic elimination”.

The fight went on for a while, before they could hear the whirring of helicopters over them. Now the guerrillas were hit from the air as well as the ground. The radio crackled and Colonel Brad Haskins, the Commanding officer came on line, “Wolf’s lair to Omega. Bolivar, you have Gunships to support you now. Finish the job and come back”. William assured him of an early end, the conversation ended with “over & out”.

The attack pulverized the guerillas. When it all ended; the smell of gunpowder, the splatters of blood and sounds made by the wounded was all that was left behind. William arranged for his wounded soldiers to be evacuated. He looked at Corporal Salazar Nunez who was bleeding from a bullet wound on his shoulder but was grinning with his mouth wide open. William hugged him and said in Broken Spanish, “Amigo, Es hora ir de casa”, meaning, it was time to go home now”.

******

“Bolivar down, Bolivar down. We need MEDEVAC”, the Radio operator repeatedly screamed into the radio. The message was of no consequence. A bullet had passed through William’s head, splitting his skull. He fell on the ground immediately.

His men fired in the direction of the bullet’s origin, but they had already lost their commander. The guerrillas had retreated, but one of their final rounds took William away. His men surrounded him and pointed their guns on all sides ready to take on the enemy. “Bolivar down, KIA”, the radio operator slowly said into the radio. His lifeless body and his rifle lay side by side.

******

William’s funeral was attended by very few people. But these few people mattered to William, and he mattered to them. Ram, Helen, Joanne and Gerard stuck to each other through the memorial service. Before the body was cremated, the attendees paid their last respects to the fallen soldier. Colonel Brad Haskins led the US Army in paying their respects to the fallen soldier. His moist eyes and choked voice was evidence of his sorrow. He was barely audible when he presented the flag draped around William’s coffin to his mother and said, “On behalf of the President of the United States”.

******

Ram opened a letter addressed to him a few days after the funeral. It was from someone in the Army, a Salazar Nunez, whom he did not know. The contents of the letter gave him some clarity.

Dear Mr. Kumar,

I was one of the few men who had the privilege to fight along with your son, and my superior officer, Lt. William Kumar. My words can never compensate your loss, but I feel it is my profound duty to write to you and express what I felt about him.

He was not only an exemplary leader, but also a true soldier. He knew that, as always in human history, good is no match for evil without the power to physically defend itself.

My parents were also immigrants like you. And I like your son took this country to be “home” and fought for its sovereignty and its people. The future generations of this nation are indebted to the sacrifice made by Lt. Kumar.

Please convey my condolences to your family.

Regards

Corporal Salazar Nunez

Ram was close to tears. He thought that balancing his books would be the distraction he wanted. He started making the calculations. He finished the calculations and wrote down the numbers at the end. Then he put a small mark ahead of those numbers. It was a “minus” sign. His venture had made a loss.

But this wasn’t a loss which could offset his biggest loss! The figures in the books dissolved into his tears as Ram cried uncontrollably.

P.S. The characters portrayed are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to any person dead or alive is purely coincidental.

Remorse

“……, do swear in the name of God, that I shall bear true faith and allegiance to….” repeated a thinly built man along with the Governor of the Central Provinces. The interim cabinet was being sworn in after Independence had become a reality for the citizens of the Central Provinces.

The small crowd sitting in the lawns of the Governor’s house applauded as the thinly built man completed speaking. Slowly he climbed down the steps from the dais with folded hands towards the audience and took his seat among them.

“It is of great honour that a revolutionary of Madholal’s stature has come into mainstream politics”, commented one of the audience. The other nodded in approval.

******

“The rain-gods do not seem to be kind on us this year”, Madholal muttered to himself as he looked at the sky with hope.

It was devoid of any clouds. The sun was grinning at him with its full intensity making him all the more miserable. The season to sow the seeds was fast approaching and there were no clouds to be seen. Not that seeds were aplenty. His small piece of land was parched and hopes for Madholal were dwindling day by day.

“Any hopes of the rain-gods showering some mercy?” asked Birju as he approached Madholal. Birju owned the lands adjacent to his and was a childhood friend. When Madholal gave out a negative gesture, Birju also could not hide his disappointment.

Famines had struck Haripur. Haripur- the small hamlet inhabited by Madholal, Birju and other families was under severe drought conditions. Actually, the whole of the Central Provinces was affected. British India was under effect of both natural and human uprising. On one hand, nature was unleashing its fury, and on the other hand, Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement was keeping the colonial masters awake. Combined, both of them were giving a tough time to the British administration in India.

The summer was at its prime and with no rains in the past, crops had failed. There was hardly anything to sow, or even to eat.

“Hurry up, you retards, Makhan Singh is dead, “shouted Karamchand to both of them as he ran towards the village. Makhan Singh was the wrestler of the village. The famine had initially sucked out his youth from him, and now it was his life which had taken a flight. Makhan Singh had lost his greatest fight- his life.

“This drought has taken away half the village”, Madholal commented, as they both started walking towards the village. In between they would turn around with the hope that the clouds would be visible to them, but destiny had willed otherwise. Clouds remained a distant possibility. They kept walking, and turning, and walking.

The corpse was resting on the ground covered with a white sheet. A few of the village elders sat around the body with the village priest chanting prayers. Madholal joined the gathering silently.

******

“It did not rain even this year”, Madhoal cribbed to his wife Bhanumati. His voice had an element of despair in it. She silently looked at him not knowing what to do or what to say. "Mother Nature had been so cruel", he thought.

He had waited weeks for the rains to fall on his parched piece of land, but the drops of rain never fell.

There was nothing to eat in the house. Even the children had gone hungry for the last two days. Water was also scarce. The village pond had dried up. She heard her husband muttering something. She made no efforts to hear what he said. Soon she was asleep-her body ached with fatigue and hunger, but she did not have the will to complain. After all she was taught to be tolerant.

“Let us go to the city”. These were the first words that came out of Madholal’s mouth the next day. Bhanumati thought he was under some delirium and decided to ignore him. She has household chores to attend to, most important being fetching water from the small hole in the pond which had dried up. She picked up the earthen pot and with her sleepy daughter in tow, started walking.

“Where are you going?” he asked her.

“To fetch water”, she calmly replied knowing that any other reaction would flare him up. She knew his anger and frustration was rising and thus decided not to confront him in any way. Solitude would calm him down. She quietly left.
When she came back he was still lying on the floor.

“When do you want us to leave? And what are we going to do there? And what about our land?” The volley of questions disturbed the trance that he was in.

He kept on staring at her. He said nothing, but his facial expression gave her the answer. Although she would not agree with him on a normal day, but today was different. Survival was in question. The drought was making it difficult to survive with every passing day. She decided that she would start packing her meagre belongings once she came back from fetching water. Let their life be given a new lease. They deserved it.

******

On a hot summer day, Madholal reached the “Estate”. It was a huge bungalow surrounded by huge walls on all sides. The Servant’s entrance was on the back side of the estate. A narrow kutcha road led to the entrance. The “entrance” was actually a hole in the brick lined wall surrounding the estate.

“Madho”, shouted a man from inside. A sense of relief came up on Madholal’s face as a short stocky man dressed in a loincloth and a vest approached them.

Babulal was his second cousin, who worked as a gardener at the “estate”. After initial pleasantries, Madholal and his family were taken to Babulal’s hutment. Babulal got him employed at “Sahib’s house” as a gardener. He was told to follow one golden rule- his existence should never be known to the “Sahib” in any form. Only his labour in the form of a beautiful kitchen garden should be visible.

“And what if the Sahib comes in front of me?” he asked Babulal, confused how to react in such a situation.

“Pray to almighty that such a day doesn’t come”, Babulal said and continued showing him the kitchen garden. The summers had taken a toll on it and he prayed that the situation improved before Sahib noticed it.

******

Leonard Johnson’s constitution scared Madholal. “Johnson Sahib” was nearly six and a half feet tall, built like the stump of a banyan tree and screamed like a trumpet. Every time his lips moved, an army of orderlies lined up in front of him. In short his overbearing presence kept everybody on their toes all the time.

All Madholal could understand was that “Johnson Sahib” was very important. He travelled in a big car. Men in uniform gave him a crisp salute while others stood in front of him till he gestured them to sit down. Only once had he seen “Sahib” bow in front of another firangi. He later learnt that the man was a “Bada Sahib” who had come from Delhi.

Madholal took instructions from Peter, the Sahib’s butler. Peter’s lineage was the much discussed topic amongst the servants of the household. Although Peter was nowhere close to being a native with his fair skin, his distance from being a British was equally established as he was born to an Indian mother. This propounded many theories among the servants. The most widely circulated theory was that some firangi had sown his “seeds” into Peter’s mother. Whatever the theory may have been or whatever Peter’s lineage, his importance in the household could not have been undermined by anybody.

Peter was always well dressed in a starched white uniform. When not serving the Sahib or Memsahib he ordered the servants around. He carried a cane which did the talking for him. The servants knew his will by the way the cane was used. It was used to point, and to punish.
******

“Carnage at Central Provinces Residency; Lt. Governor perishes”, read the headlines of the Northern Gazetteer.

The detailed news read that Colonel Leonard Fitzpatrick Johnson, the Lt. Governor of Central Provinces died in a fire that razed his bungalow. Also presumed dead were his wife Rosemary Johnson, and his Butler. The cause of the fire was not yet known. Casualties could have been higher but it was late at night and none of the servants except the butler were present in the house. The fire and the subsequent commotion woke up the servants who tried to douse the fire but the inferno was too large to handle. The choicest willow frames and teak furniture collected by Lady Johnson hastened their departure to their tombs.

The report also said that although there were no suspects, but a few servants had seen an unidentified man leaving the estate.

******

“The British are leaving India. The firangis will no longer rule us”, exclaimed Ram Kumar as he entered the small dimly lit room. Huddled in the small room were about twenty men.

The members of Central Provinces Revolutionary Party were hiding in a barn a midst the sugarcane fields of Haripur. Their heroics had shaken the comfortable existence of British administration in the Central Provinces in the recent past. Their guerilla tactics were giving sleepless nights to the whole law and order machinery. Kaka Khan, their leader had executed a daring raid on the treasury at Gamalpur while Madholal had made them famous by single-handedly assassinating, Lt. Governor Johnson.

Ram Kumar brought out a tattered newspaper. The headlines on thefront page of Northern Gazetteer read, “ British rule in India set to end. London agrees to withdraw”.

A celebration broke out in the room. People hugged and congratulated each other. But there was one man who breathed a sigh of relief. Madholal quietly got up and let himself out of the room. The fresh breeze blew past his face calming down his stressed body. For the others independence meant a free country but for Madholal it meant a free life.

He would get to see his children again. It had been almost 5 years since he had seen them. Destiny has turned him into something that he was not. Nobody except for him knew the truth. The reality was his identity as a farmer who tilled his land and reaped a honest harvest which was a result of his sweat and blood. Today he was a revolutionary. For the people he was a revolutionary- a daredevil who had put his life in peril for the cause of Mother India. For the British, he was no more than a belligerent. He was for them a fugitive who was on the run, an outlaw.

“Are independence and self-rule the real reasons why I am here?” he asked himself. He knew the answer. He could not lie to himself. But all of this would end. He would go back to become Madholal- the farmer. Life would take the normal course, he assured himself.

He turned to go back into the room. As he took the first step, an explosion deafened him. The impact of the explosion threw him on the ground. The explosion was followed by a hail of bullets. A firangi voice ordered the rounds that came in his direction. He crawled into the neighbouring fields. The sugarcane fields gave him the cover as he ran into the opposite direction. He knew they had come for him.

He ran for his life, his survival, his children. He could make no assessment of how much distance he covered. He kept on running till his legs tired out. By then he had entered the jungles of Terai. He climbed up a tree and looked at the sky. He could see no lights anywhere. He was thankful that it was a dark night. He just needed to stay put. His thoughts wandered into various directions as he waited for a new day.

*****

“You bloody thief, how did you have the courage to steal memsahib’s clothes”, Peter shouted at Bhanumati. Only curses in English and vernacular came out of his mouth. Then he stopped abusing and let his hands did the talking. He dragged her into the courtyard in front of the servant’s hutments and took out his cane. Every time the cane spoke, Bhanumati screamed. Madholal jumped to his wife’s rescue only to be caned harder by Peter. Every time the cane fell on their skin, it cut through the skin and drew blood. Peter’s actions personified sadism.

The couple pleaded innocence with folded hands, but to no avail.

“She threw it away”, Bhanumati said. “I picked it up from the garbage”. At this Peter brought down the cane on her with greater intensity. .

At this their child ran towards Peter clutching a piece of her clothing in her hand. Fear was visible on her face. She raised her hand and offered the piece of clothing to Peter. Her hopes were dashed when the piece of clothing was taken but the beating did not stop.

Both of them were on Peter’s feet, but to no avail. Both the cane and the hand got tired after a while. But the anger and hatred did not decrease. The hand rose and made a gesture. The rest of the servants were chased away into their hutments while the couple was dragged into a desolated corner of the estate.

Madholal and Bhanumati kept on wailing but the people did not stop.

Peter’s cane rose again. A burly fellow tied Madholal to a tree. His mouth was gagged with his own loincloth.

Then Peter did something which none of them anticipated. The others turned their faces away while a heinous crime was perpetrated. The gag on Madholal’s face stopped him from screaming while his body furiously tried to free itself from the rope which bound him to the tree. Bhanumati’s screams were loud enough to wake up the whole estate but no one came to save her from this ultimate humiliation. After Peter, the other four thugs subjected her to further humiliation while Peter’s sadistic laughter clearly showed the psychopath in him.

They left them after a while. Madholal saw a motionless Bhanumati sprawled on the ground with almost no clothing on her. The piece of clothing that she apparently stole was lying near her. The calm of the night was broken only by Madholal’s sobs and sounds made by insects.

******

Madholal quietly crept into the Bungalow. He had waited for four months before he found the right opportunity.

Bhanumati had died the next day after she was raped by Peter and his cronies. When the servants found them he was unconscious while she was dead. He left the estate with her body and his children. Every individual was just a silent spectator as a sobbing Madholal did not know whom to curse for his misery. But he knew one thing. He wanted to see the same look on somebody else’s face. He would come back.

The house was empty. The master and the mistress slept in the bedroom in the corner while Peter had a small room next to the pantry. He tiptoed towards the Pantry. It was hot summer night. The pankhawallah was asleep too. Before he could react, a piece of iron put him to sleep. Madholal just hoped the sleep was not permanent.

Peter was sleeping on the bed. Madholal’s anger rose. But he did not lose his nerve. He drew a piece of clothing from his waistband and put it on Peter’s face. As Peter looked at his attacker in the dark, a sickle slowly ran across his neck. The pain was unbearable but the attacker had gagged him. He could make no sounds. Madholal could see his eyes going red with pain. He turned him around and bound his hands with a rope.

Dragging him he started walking towards the room where the sahib and the memsahib slept.

Although Leonard Johnson was a strong man, his strength was of no use once Madholal tied his hands. A cloth gagged him and the sickle again ran across another neck slitting the jugular vein. His wife watched in horror as Madholal threw Johnson on the ground with Peter. She was so terrified that she couldn’t even scream.

“Don’t hurt me”, she murmured, but Madholal was an animal now. He hit her with the piece of iron. Before she could scream, he gagged her as well. He looked towards the two men who lay bleeding on the floor. His eyes said something which sent a chill down their spines. He only thought of his dead wife while he did something which for him was unimaginable a few months back. And he made both Johnson and Peter watch as he did it. Deep inside him laughter broke out. Both were going through what he went through.

He carefully set the house on fire, choosing things which were easily inflammable. Then leaving the three people inside, he slipped out into the dark. He thought he had avenged Bhanumati’s death.

******

After India became independent, Madholal became a hero. His name was taken in the same league of revolutionaries as Kaka Khan, Ram Kumar and others. During the general elections, the party declared his candidature from Haripur. He did not know what to say. They took it to be h is acceptance. He won unopposed from Haripur. After all, if he could kill Leonard Fitzpatrick Johnson, his opponents felt, he could slaughter them as well. Maybe not literally, but yes, he could slaughter them.

******

“Sir, a firangi woman has come to meet you”, the orderly whispered into Madholal. He was sitting with inhabitants of a village in his constituency. As he was the irrigation minister of Central Provinces, they had approached him for a canal in their village which would solve the problem of water for their fields.

The orderly was gestured to let the visitor in. A petite lady entered the room with a uniformed British army officer. She introduced herself as Margaret Dexter. The uniformed officer said he was to be addressed as Major Dexter.

“I fail to understand the purpose of your coming down to meet me”, Madholal started the conversation. The guests looked at each other before they looked back at Madholal.

The lady cleared her throat with a glass of water and continued, “Actually, there was something that has been on my mind for the last ten years and I thought you could help me with it”. Madholal gave out a confused expression.

“I am Leonard Fitzpatrick Johnson’s daughter”, she said, her voice breaking as she pronounced each word with a pause. Madholal’s eyes widened as the sentence was completed.

“I would not ask you why you killed my parents, but I will ask you if they suffered before they died”, Margaret asked Madholal. She did not get an answer. She slowly rose from the chair, supported by her husband and walked out of the door.

******
Madholal did not rise from the chair in his office that evening. The Doctor’s report said that he had gone down to a massive Cardiac arrest. His death was mourned far and wide.

At his funeral, Kaka Khan told his son Chamanlal, “Your father was a pious man. We should be happy that he died in peace.” A huge crowd watched as a twenty one gun salute was given to the departed soul.

Madholal probably died with one question in his mind, “Why did he punish two people who were totally oblivious of the crime perpetrated on him and his family?” He did not have an answer to this. All he had in his mind was remorse!


P.S. The plot and the characters are figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to any person dead or alive is purely coincidental.

The Flute Story

The Saxe-Tuborg Chamber Orchestra had just finished its performance. The group was performing in Cairo. The performance for the evening had just ended. A euphoric crowd applauded their performance with a standing ovation. Now it was the turn of the press which waited for its moments of glory when they would get a chance to interact with the members of the orchestra.

The moment arrived!

The conference room at “The Pyramid Hilton” was full of curious members of the press, who had come to meet the group. As the members of the group entered the room and posed for a group photograph, the flashlights from cameras lit up the surroundings. Then they started the volley of questions addressed to the conductor as well as the members of the group.

The group, attracted so much attention because it was a complex mix of nationalities-Fyodor Medonsky, the Concertmaster who played the violin came from Moldovia while Saboto Masake, the principal Trombone came from Mali. The latest edition to the group was Arihant Iyer, the flautist from India. Along with Gunther Goldstein, they boosted the artistic eloquence of the woodwinds.

The press conference started.

“Mr. Medonsky, the Saxe-Tuborg Chamber Orchestra is performing in Egypt for the first time. How has the experience been?” asked a journalist. As Fyodor Medonsky got up to answer with the help of an interpreter, the whole room broke into a round of applause again.

The next question was addressed to Arihant Iyer, the Indian flautist. “Mr. Iyer, this is your first performance with the orchestra. You have kept a very stoic face unlike a newcomer. How would you describe your emotions?”

The microphone in front of Arihant crackled. He smiled as he spoke, “The first performance is always a mix of anxiety and fear. You are anxious to perform and you fear that the notes do not go wrong. I successfully managed to strike the right balance”.

For the next half an hour, journalists took turns to ask the various members questions about themselves, their experience with the orchestra and its coming performances. There were moments of subtle humour when the ruggedly handsome Guiseppe Caprigani dismissed being in a relationship with Hollywood actress Simone Potter by saying, “The closest I have been with Ms. Potter is when I stood under a poster of her latest blockbuster at Piccadilly Circus”. There were also tense moments when Saboto Masake left the conference after the press asked him if racism prevailed in the orchestra.

The last question was again addressed to Arihant. “Mr. Iyer, We saw you talking about anxiety and fear. What is the greatest fear in your life?”

Arihant’s face suddenly changed colour. The youngster’s calm and composed face suddenly looked drained. But after a glass of water, he regained his composure.

Clearing his throat he answered, “Not being able to play the flute, reading an e-mail which has been in my mailbox for the past 8 years and being alone in the dark”. He then got up from his seat to leave the room. The rest of the band followed.

The press conference ended. It was time for the artists to rest. Next day, they were leaving for Casablanca.

******

“Roll number 180, Arihant Iyer…” the Professor cried out at top of his voice. As he peered through his glasses into the crowd, a hand went up. The boy got up and gave out a bored expression as he said, “Yes Sir”. The crowd which was technically known as “B. Com first-year” at National College seemed to be a difficult group to assess. Some listened to the lecturer with rapt attention as he screamed names and roll numbers after one another. Some were busy chatting with peers while some looked around here and there with boredom on their faces. Arihant Iyer was one of them. He seemed lost. He could hardly wonder why he was here.

******

“Appa, I am not interested in studying Commerce. I want to become a flautist”, Arihant declared to his father on the breakfast table.

“What? A Flautist? Arihant, I am seriously asking you to consider a profession, not about pursuing a hobby” Vinayak Iyer voiced his opinion clearly to his son who had just passed his Higher Secondary exams. He somehow managed to hide his anger when his son gave thumbs down to a settled career and planned to become a musician.

The environment at home had been tense since the last few days. When Arihant talked of looking for a career in music, hell broke loose. Vinayak was utterly disappointed with such a choice. The friction between father and son could be sensed in the “silence” between them. The sense arose from the fact that both of them were very vocal of their love for each other. The cracks in their affectionate relationship due to the friction were clearly visible.

Finally, he dropped the “bomb”. “Appa, I have been accepted at the Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory with a scholarship. It is a one-year full time programme”, he quietly said.

Vinayak Iyer blew his top off. Unable to control his anger he screamed, “Who the hell allowed you to apply? I don’t want to see my only son to waste his life blowing a trumpet. Do I have to die with my law firm going to one of the whiz kids in the office rather than my son?”

Akshara Deshmukh was a mute spectator to this cold war between her husband and her son. She knew that both of them were correct in their own. Vinayak as a father had every right to be protective about his son’s career. Every father who dotes on his son would obviously try to guide his son towards a stable, secure and successful career option. He was only trying to help but his love towards his son was bordering on what today’s generation called, “interference”.

Arihant on the other hand was not wrong too. He was free to pursue a career as per his own volition. He was a good flautist. Although he was a bright student but his genuine interest lay in playing the flute. When he started playing the flute as a child, they encouraged him by sending him to a small music school. Soon the teacher found that he had nothing to teach him. Arihant played by himself, listened to masters on tapes and copied their notes. She has no idea that he had sent his tapes to the selection committee of Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory. She was also unaware that Carlo Manzini, one of the instructors at the conservatory had come to India to interview her son for a scholarship.

In any case, she was in no mood of either playing the mediator here or the judge. She suffered silently as time played its role to bring them to a consensus. Carlo Manzini arrived into the picture and offered a deal which neither the father nor the son could refuse.

Finally, Arihant and Vinayak signed the deal. For a degree in Commerce, Arihant would be allowed to go in the summers to the Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory. Peace was back into the Iyer Household.

******

Arihant stood on the balcony of his room at “The Pyramid Hilton”. He stared into the moonlit sky and thought of the question he had answered in the evening. His greatest fears were still inside him. Wherever they inhabited inside him, they disturbed him to the hilt. They would come out like demons and dislodge his composure and then go away, haunting him with their disappearance. It had been many years since he had been dealing with those fears. It was getting difficult day by day to deal with them.

“Do I have an option”, he asked himself?

He got inside the room and switched on the television. Using the remote control, he switched channels before he zeroed in on a channel. Concentration would refuse to be a part of him now. He flipped channels on the television, tried to sleep, rolled around on the bed, paced up and down the room- nothing helped. At last, he brought out his flute and started playing it. Music was the only way, the only thing which could pacify him, comfort him. After he had played a few notes, he decided to go down to the coffee shop.

“Sphinx”-read the signboard on the right side of the door leading to the 24-hour coffee shop. The letters were carved on a piece of stone and next to it stood a miniature brass replica of the sphinx.

Arihant walked into it and ordered a cup of coffee.

Only three tables were occupied. On one sat a group of men dressed in formal black suits and white shirts. They looked like a group of Oriental business executives- most probably Korean as the morning newspapers spoke of a power plant near Cairo being set up with Korean collaboration - who were catching up on a late dinner after the end of a hectic day. The other two tables were occupied by young couples.

The cup of coffee arrived. A steward in a crisp uniform poured it into a cup and said, “Freshly ground coffee from Ethiopia, Sir”. Arihant nodded. At Arihant’s instructions, he emptied two sachets of sugar into the cup. The aroma of the strong brew entered his nostrils as he carefully took a sip. His face gave out an expression of satisfaction. His eyes caught the steward looking at him and he raised the cup towards him and nodded in approval. The man smiled back.

******

“The concept of diminishing marginal utility can be ……”, the lecturer spoke while his hands fiddled with the blackboard using a piece of chalk. He drew a few graphs on it to explain the concept to the class.

Except for the first-benchers, nobody was in a mood to listen. The guy sitting next to him murmured to him, “If I die today, my post-mortem would put boredom as my cause of death”. The teachers had made it clear the first day itself that attendance would be an issue and hence, one should be careful from the first day. Without the threat, the attendance could compete with the turnout of senior citizens at a hard rock concert.

Arihant rolled a pencil in his hand and stared in every direction except the lecturer’s. In between he looked at his watch which said that the class should be over in fifteen minutes. Boredom was setting in. He stared at the ceiling and then his classmates. There were blank looks everywhere. He smiled to himself. There were others misfits too.

One such misfit was this girl sitting in the row ahead of him. She was dressed in a track-suit which made him assume that she belonged to the “Sports quota”. She impatiently kept on moving her feet against the bench which sometimes struck the wood and made an irritating sound. The “thump” made people away from her wonder who were doing it. She too joined the crowd at looking for the “culprit” creating further confusion. What an outrageous behavior thought Arihant, as he stared at her.

“I caught you staring at me, in the class. Do I look like an alien”, she asked Arihant after the class.

“With this track suit and your pest like act, you surely were”, he replied.

“So, what am I expected to do. Dress up as if I am attending a wedding and behave like a Baroness”, she retorted back. Arihant caught the sarcasm in it. He decided to remain quiet. She caught his discomfort and said, “never mind, I am Radhika Nair. And you?”

“Arihant Iyer”.

They walked together towards the next class making small talk. Both of them did not envisage the fact that their lives were about to change. There are certain moments in everybody’s life which just change the course one had charted out. This was one of those moments.

******

He walked to his room after his cup of coffee. Although it was half past two in the morning, sleep still evaded him. He decided to take the stairs to his room on the seventh floor. A little bit of exercise could get him some sleep. Optimism! A slow run up the stairs followed.

A raven-haired girl was sitting on the corridor in front of his room. She looked very tired which was evident from her posture. She got up and hugged Arihant as he stood in front of her. He did not respond back, which surprisingly did not surprise her.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you. Could not think of being without you”, came her reply. Arihant did not react. He inserted the card into the slot which opened the door and they went in.

They sat on the bed where none of them spoke to each other. She put her head on his shoulder while his arm wrapped her in an embrace which gave out a confusing expression between “you are safe with me” and “what can I do now that you are here”. His fingers played with her hair while her nostrils slowly took in the fragrance of his after shave. Neither of them still spoke.

After a point of time, she broke away from the embrace. He walked up to the wall opposite him and switched off the lights. The moonlit sky gave them the necessary light as they took each other in their arms. Sounds followed which disturbed the Spanish couple in the next room.

After a shower, they got into the bed. She held him close and slept while he stared into the darkness.

At five in the morning he left the room. The reception was instructed not to disturb or charge anything to the lady. Charges, if any, were to be billed personally to Arihant Iyer. The clerk smiled. Arihant gave out no reactions as he boarded the bus taking them to the airport.

******

The Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory was located in the scenic European town of Tuborgen on the German-Austrian border. Distorted history speaks of its artistic eloquence in capital letters. It is said that when Friedrich Fimmler, the cruel head of German intelligence ordered the demolition of this institution, the orders were always failed to be carried out. Music mesmerized the officers who came to demolish it. At the end, Fimmler left the musicians in peace. The institution was constructed as a monastery for the monks during the renaissance. In later times, the inhabitants went on to become woodwinds. Today, the conservatory is a school for woodwinds - flutes, piccolos, oboes, English horns, clarinets, bass clarinets, bassoons, contrabassoons, bagpipes etc.

When Arihant arrived at the gates of the age-old conservatory, he was greeted by Carlo Manzini, his instructor. “Welcome to Tuborgen”, Carlo Said. An excited Arihant just kept smiling as he shook hands with the man who was to train him.

Carlo was an Italian by birth but became a German citizen after five decades of residence in Tuborgen, a German wife of Polish descent and a lifelong association with the conservatory. He played the Clarinet well, and although he was not the best exponent, his stature as a teacher was tall enough to be respected by the artist community. Teaching was his profession, his hobby, his favorite pastime, his religion- in short, it was his life.

Students stayed in dormitories. Bed number Sixteen, Hall Seven became his abode for the next ninety days. The day started early with a bell that could be equated to an alarm. The students then gathered for a mile long run followed by light exercises. Physical fitness was very important and the conservatory made no compromises on that. It was followed by breakfast and then the lessons started. Except for breaks for food, students played till late evening with their instructors. Weekends were off but time was to be spent with their instructors learning European history and culture.

Arihant worked hard like anything. His flute meant his world to him. Actually, it was one-third of his world. Another one-third lay in a framed photograph of a couple on his bed side table. The last one-third got an e-mail every day. Apart from this, all his time was spent learning and interacting with Carlo and playing the flute. His dedication and perseverance impressed the bearded instructor who silently prayed that maybe Arihant was the one which the Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory was looking for.

After ninety days, it was time to go back and resume studies. With promises to practice hard and see each other soon, Arihant left.

******

Indravadan Ghaatmal International Airport was busier than expected when Arihant landed in India. He walked past customs through the “Green Channel” – after all what else did he have to hide other than excitement and came out of the airport. His eyes darted across scores of people waiting outside. As a burly man in a taxi driver’s uniform tried to grab his luggage, somebody pushed the fellow. A girl- a girl it was- ran into his arms. Arihant grinned as Radhika hugged him tight in her arms.

Their love had blossomed in a very interesting way. They just kept meeting each other and making small talk. None of them ever spoke anything which distantly bordered on anything romantic. This actually perplexed them-none of them wanted to take the initiative, but waited for the other to say a thing. Phew!! It was not happening.

It happened one day. They had plans to watch a blockbuster in the evening. She saw him walking towards him and waved at him. He went up to her and said, “I am in love with you”. She casually looked at him, put her arms around him and kissed him. He had his answer. They watched the film with a group of curious onlookers who whispered words like “shameless and desperate” to each other.

******

When the Saxe-Tuborg Chamber Orchestra landed in Morocco, they got a welcome they never expected. Again, the ruggedly handsome Guiseppe Caprigani was the talk of the town. As he waved to the crowd outside the airport, women in the crowd broke the security cordon and ran towards him. The shy Italian ran into the bus to save himself from the crowd.

The group was performing in Casablanca in fusion with a Moroccan Chaabi band (Popular music band) known as “Magrib’s Martyrs”. The concert was the first of its sort for the orchestra. It was a part of its humanitarian effort of raising money for charities. Africa had experienced a series of famines and money was being raised by international organizations to contribute to the solution.

The concert was an astounding success. Nobody expected that such a fusion could work. On one hand were the nomadic Chaabis who enthralled the crowds with their rich ethnic flavor while on the other hand the orchestra used its sophistication and eloquence to win the hearts all over again.

“We did well”, Mendonsky commented. Smiles of relief followed.

In the evening, the King of Morocco hosted a dinner for the artists. The King was a noble man. He ruled the land as a benevolent ruler who used his demi-godly status coupled with his western Education and took the country on the road to development.

One by one the artists were introduced to the King. When he met Saboto Masake, the principal Trombone who came from Mali, the Monarch could not hide his excitement and hugged him. Masake kept smiling as the shutterbugs around him captured the moment again and again.

******

Arihant and Radhika had broken up. It wasn’t sudden. Like the slow pace at which their romance blossomed, the crash was also slow- and painful too. It started with an argument one day.

“You have never been serious about anything. All you can think of is your flute and that god forsaken Carlo”, Radhika shouted at him. Radhika was focused as far as her career was concerned. She knew that her aim was to be at the best management institute of the country. She wanted Arihant to take up a vocation which the society considered a career, but the flautist dreamt otherwise.

“Don’t talk about things which are alien to your understanding”. Arihant snapped back. “Being a flautist might not earn me a fortune, but it will give me the basic necessities”.

“Who wants basic necessities, I aspire for more. Can’t a girl dream of a good life with the man she loves. Is she under an obligation to be under an insecurity with respect to his finances and career”, She had tears in her eyes.

Arihant held her. The argument hadn’t reached a conclusion. They had just swept it under the carpet. It was a disaster which neither of them realized. Small arguments crept in from time to time. They too were comfortably swept under.

Distance took the biggest toll. The second time Arihant went to Tuborgen, he returned after five months. When he landed Radhika was not there to receive him. When he met her later, she was all quiet.

“What happened”?

“Nothing”, she replied. Now, when a girl says, “nothing”, one should know that there’s something and it is time for trouble.

“Who is Ingrid?” Radhika started.

“Nobody, just a friend”, he replied. Ingrid Klocheberg was a student of Psychiatry at University of Cologne who was at the Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory for a short period to research on therapeutic qualities of music. Arihant had interacted with her and they had become friends.

“I just saw the scraps on your Orkut account. Very flirtatious ones, I should rather say loaded scraps from Ingrid. That was not surprising. Surprising were your replies. They were equally loaded”, Radhika charged him.

“I did not write any such thing”, he said remembering no such thing.

“What? Arihant, you are lying on my face. I saw them with my own eyes”. Arihant had no replies to that. She was right. He had replied to Ingrid’s scraps. Without realizing what she wrote, he replied in the same genre. A blunder, not realizing what Radhika would think when she saw them.

“Arihant Iyer, you are nothing but a gasbag. You are the most horrible looking fellow I have ever known. You have nothing in you except the ability to play the flute which will yield nothing for you. I put my life at stake for you, but you never mend your ways. You claim to be in love with me, but you never assured me of a secure future. You are the most selfish, self-centred son of a ***** I have ever come across. On top of that you flirt with women behind my back. I am done with you and your lies”. She walked off. He tried to stop her but she jerked off his arm and went away. He stood on the street where a hundred eyes looked at him with curiosity.

The “mirror” had cracked.

He tried calling her up. Initially, she wouldn’t pick up the phone but when she did, all she did was scream at him. He tried to explain that he had nothing to do with Ingrid and it was she who he was in love with. But she would not listen. When he said that he had only flirted with her without anything in mind, she sharply rapped back, “flirting is cheating”. Then she hung up. Arihant’s world came crashing down.

He screamed and wailed, but the damage had already been done. Realizing that it was the question of his life, he called again.

This time she was more curt, “Arihant Iyer, there’s no point calling me to make amends. You did what you have to do. Now, it is my turn. I am not putting my life under any kind of insecurity. Just drill it into your head that every relationship has an expiry date, and WE have expired”. She banged the phone on him.

His tears had no effect on anybody. All he could do was curse-one and all. But that changed nothing. Only he was hurt, and only he bled.

******

The group was out touring the city of Casablanca. Arihant and Saboto Masake did not join in. Masake left for Mopti, a city in Mali where he hailed from while Arihant wanted to rest. He virtually slept the whole day.

******

Insomnia can be a very painful disorder. You go nights after nights without sleep. It ruins your health, disturbs your mind and totally eats up your happiness. Arihant was going crazy. The word peace had just disappeared from his life. He stared out of the window in his room. Except for the occasional cars which passed on the road, the night had pulled a veil of silence over the rest of the world.

“Did I deserve this”, he wondered. Maybe he did.

He looked at himself in the mirror. The image was of a broken man. He clenched his fists and started screaming. The screams receded into moans which reflected pain- more emotional than physical. He sat down on his bed and reached out for the small cupboard next to it. When his hand came out of it, a bottle of Vodka came out along with it. He brought it close to his lips and took a swig. It was actually a gulp. Gulps followed. After a while he passed out. The bottle fell on the carpeted floor spilling the few milliliters left inside the bottle. What a waste!

Drinking did not come suddenly to him. He initially drank socially. It was always a controlled quota which was never violated. But all a broken man looks for support. A fall, however small is inevitable before a rise. And there is nothing which eases your bleeding than alcohol. It makes you numb to everything-pain to be precise. Pegs became sips and then nips, pints and quarts. Arihant’s soul was in control of spirits.

Vinayak and Akshara became really worried after it became a daily routine. He would wander around the whole day and come back late into the evening. He would scream and shout inside the confines of his room and then wail and weep. When his body could no more take the intake of alcohol, he would pass out. They both could understand what their child was going through.

When they tried talking to him, all he said was, “Appa, Aai, you guys can’t understand what I am going through”. But, you can’t see your child’s life going down the drain.

They thought things would improve with time. They could not have been more wrong. When they found that Arihant was not writing his final year exams and that he was not going to Tuborgen for the third summer, they understood the gravity of the situation. They decided that since the situation was sensitive and that rebukes and arguments were not the solution- Arihant needed counseling.

“You are not going to Tuborgen?” Akshara asked him on the breakfast table. He did not respond. His eyes were red and swollen. He looked like Tom Hanks from “Cast Away” sans the malnourished constitution.

Similar instances followed. Both of them constantly tried to talk to him. But he somehow did not feel that they were his biggest benefactors. The word “counseling” made him behaves like a lunatic. Once, when the discussion went a bit overboard, Vinayak lost his cool and slapped him.

Arihant walked out.

******

“Is that Mr. Iyer”, the voice said on the telephone. On receipt of an approval it went further, “This is Sub-Inspector Rathi from the Police Station. A drunken youth was arrested last night. His driving licence says that he is your son”.

Vinayak secured his son’s release using his contacts. Sub-Inspector Rathi was more than cordial after his superior called him up and asked him to co-operate. Papers which proved that Arihant had broken some rule were destroyed.

A free Arihant returned home. The surprising thing was he showed no remorse.

Finding no other solution, Akshara dialed an overseas phone number.

******

A furious Carlo Manzini entered Arihant’s room. It was more of a garbage heap than anything. He did not say anything as he bolted the door. He turned and looked at Arihant with eyes that clearly displayed anger and despise.

“Carlo…”Arihant started, but before he could finish, Carlo slapped him hard across his face. He then opened the door and left the house.

Arihant fell down on the floor again.

It was dark when he woke up. Her jumped up and switched on the lights. Darkness always unsettled him.

He looked at himself in the mirror. The image was of a broken man. But there was a difference. This man had enough of breaking. He wiped his face and came out into the living room. It was past midnight. He softly knocked on the door of his parents’ bedroom. Finding no reactions, he entered the room. He flicked on the lights. Akshara and Vinayak woke up startled.

“Appa, Aai, I wanted to say sorry”, Arihant started, “I know I haven’t been the best child around. I have been stubborn, unreasonable and ungrateful. All my problems were self-created and when they went beyond control, I through my actions tried to put the blame on you. It was not correct on my part. I was about to become a deviant, but you saved me from that social stigma. You accepted me with all my faults”.

There were tears in Akshara’s eyes when her son spoke like this.

Arihant continued, “I failed to prioritize people. I hurt people who cared for me. I am sorry for hurting you guys. I love you”. He hugged his parents as mixed emotions of smiles and tears came alive in the room.

As the happy reunion ended, Arihant walked towards the door. Suddenly he turned and said with a chuckle, “Don’t you guys make out? Don’t tell me your life’s that boring”. He smiled and closed the door.

Arihant was a changed man the next morning. When Akshara went to him with a cup of coffee, his room was tidy as before. It was a different issue that the clutter would require a truck for disposal and the laundry would take days to be cleaned. But her happiness made her forget that. When they saw him at the breakfast table, his hair was neatly cut and combed. The beard was gone. The Iyer household had a happy breakfast after a long time.

“Aai, I am taking your car. I need it for a while”, he said as he rushed out of the house. The drive wasn’t long but it was full of fear and anxiety. He parked it in front of the building and went in. He knocked on the door. When the door was answered, Arihant spoke nothing.

Carlo Manzini did not waste time in hugging his favorite student. After a short talk and a few laughs, Arihant left.

Life probably was back on track again. Probably!

******

The next seven years were spent at the Saxe-Tuborg Woodwind Conservatory. Arihant lived his life like a monk.

Arihant had made three resolutions before he left India- one, he would sacrifice everything to become a flautist of repute in future; two, he would never hurt the people who cared for him; and three, he would never be emotional in life again. What happened between him and Radhika was painful, but passing on that pain to his dear ones was not correct. He knew he would never come out of that pain but keeping these three resolutions would give him a pain-killer. He planned to keep these resolutions whatever may come.

Carlo was a tough taskmaster. But he equally loved Arihant. They worked tirelessly together till one day when the offer came for which both were waiting for. Gunther Von Broffenberg, the scout for the Bremen Chamber Orchestra offered a place to Arihant. But before he could join, The Saxe-Tuborg Chamber Orchestra offered him a trial. Arihant chose the latter.

His trial performance with the orchestra was in the French Town of Lyons. In attendance were the three most important people in his life- Vinayak Iyer, Akshara Deshmukh and Carlo Manzini. As he finished his performance, they beamed with pride and had tears in their eyes. At the end of the performance Arihant was told what he wanted to hear- his first performance with the group would be in a week at Cairo.

“I should never had stopped you from becoming a flautist”, Vinayak later said.

“Yes, after all I never finished my bachelor’s degree”.

Akshara and Vinayak left for a tour of Europe the next day. The holiday was a gift from their only child. As they got into the car, Arihant whispered into his mother’s ear, “Aai, I love you”. He waved as they drove into the mist.

With two resolutions kept, it was time to keep the third. He would keep it too.

******

It was seven in the evening when he woke up. It was good that he had slept this long. Insomnia can be a very painful disorder. You go nights after nights without sleep. So, it was good if one could take care of this need of the body during the day. As he shaved and showered, the sun went down. From the window of his room he could see the moon was full and lit the sky in a colour which could make poets write stanzas on it. He dressed and went out.

The lounge was called “Rick’s”. Arihant smiled. Rick Blaine (Character played by Humphrey Bogart in the epic “Casblanca”) had still not left the soil of Casablanca. He walked into it. It was not very crowded. A jazz artist was performing who barely managed to grab anybody’s attention.

“A Cup of Coffee and some cream crackers please”, Arihant ordered.

The cup of coffee arrived. A steward in a crisp uniform poured it into a cup and said, “Freshly ground coffee from Ethiopia, Sir”. Arihant nodded. At Arihant’s instructions, he emptied two sachets of sugar into the cup. The aroma of the strong brew entered his nostrils as he carefully took a sip. His face gave out an expression of satisfaction. His eyes caught the steward looking at him and he raised the cup towards him and nodded in approval. The man smiled back.

“May I join you”, a voice said. Arihant looked up. Standing in front of him was a girl in her late twenties. Her accent was British but she looked more North African. Latifa came from Algeria but had spent most of her life in London.

“I know you”, she said, “I have seen you performing. It is just that the genre of music I follow is different”. Arihant smiled. They continued talking. Coffee was replaced with a bottle of wine (She did not drink anything else, and Arihant had given up drinking everything else!) and time flew. Guiseppe who entered the place with a familiar face winked at Arihant who winked back. Guiseppe was doing more than standing under the poster of Simone Potter at Piccadilly Circus in London.

Dinner was Couscous, Moroccan lamb with prunes and apricots and Green Tea with mint.
After dinner, she rose to leave. Arihant walked her to the door. Although he felt disappointed, but he hid it well with his smile. But she was smarter. “We Algerians are a bit slow”, she quipped. “Understandable”, Arihant replied.

He walked to his room. Although it was half past midnight, sleep still evaded him. He decided to take the stairs to his room on the seventh floor. A little bit of exercise could get him some sleep. Optimism! A slow run up the stairs followed.

Arihant stood on the balcony of his room at “The Casablanca Hilton”. He stared into the moonlit sky. His greatest fears were still inside him. Wherever they inhabited inside him, they disturbed him to the hilt. They would come out like demons and dislodge his composure and then go away, haunting him with their disappearance. It had been many years since he had been dealing with those fears. It was getting difficult day by day to deal with them.

He took off his shirt and hung it inside the wardrobe. The air outside was warm but the air-conditioner managed to cut the heat. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. He walked up to it lazily and turned the knob. What he saw outside was a pleasant surprise.

“It probably escaped your attention that my upbringing was British. Imperialists you see”, Latifa Said.

Arihant took her in his arms and whispered, “I am an Indian. Did you know that British ruled India?” His grip on her body tightened.

After a point of time, she broke away from the embrace. He walked up to the wall opposite him and switched off the lights. The moonlit sky gave them the necessary light as they took each other in their arms. They were wild. It was tiring for every part of both the bodies. It seemed the pleasure would go on till eternity. They reached a height where they cried out together in ecstasy. Tired and exhausted, they lay down on the bed next to each other. Everything in this world had to come to an end.

After a shower, they got into the bed. She held him close and slept while he stared into the darkness.

At four in the morning he left the room. The reception was instructed not to disturb or charge anything to the lady. Charges, if any, were to be billed personally to Arihant Iyer. The clerk smiled and asked, “What would be the tentative check out date?”

Arihant looked at his watch and replied, “19th April 2007”. This was followed by a smile.

Guiseppe found him smiling and asked in his thickly accented Italian, “Why are you laughing”?

Arihant gave out no reactions as he boarded the bus. When they were settled into the seat, he turned to Guiseppe and said, “I suddenly remembered that India became independent from British rule in 1947.” The poor Italian could make no sense.

P.S. The plot and the characters are figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to any person dead or alive is purely coincidental.