The Vendetta

His arm, still in the convalescent stage, hurt badly but it was not his muscles that were driving him at that fateful instant. He knew what he was doing was utterly blind but the rage he had cultivated over months was now taking the better of his judgment. He kicked for the third time clumsily on the bike’s kick-starter and the vehicle squealed meekly on the busy intersection he was standing at. He adjusted his jacket, momentarily feeling the barrel of the gun he carried in his inner pockets. He still remembered that face…

He just had the finest talk with his fiancé on phone and he couldn’t help but smile like an idiot sitting in his car. The car zoomed past the hoard of the urban jungle to a gamut of street-light lit highway and he accelerated at a comfortable pace towards the next dip.

He looked in his rear view mirror and saw a truck and its two high beams speeding in his direction. Switching on the turn indicator he steadily swerved his car to the right lane and all of a sudden felt a gentle jerk. Seconds later he saw a bike dragging past his car, totaled and acrobatic in its stance – desperately waiting for a halt. The bike driver, abstractly covered in crimson blood hit the edge of the highway right infront of him as he pulled on his brakes frantically.

He pulled up in shock still in disbelief, trying to belie what just happened. As he sat shook up, a mob started building up on the road, stalling the heavy Delhi traffic but hardly bothered. The next thing he remembered was his car surrounded by a dozen men who pulled him out of the window and dragged him on the road. He didn’t quite remember how he took it but he was thrown in the center and anyone who could reach him, hit him black and blue with every ounce of frustration they carried. Righteousness disheveled by a bunch of self-righteous onlooker…

The ambulance carried two from the spot…

Among a score of clenched fists and gritting teeth, he remembered a face distinctly as he lay on the hospital bed. He remembered the man with that face running towards him from the roadside kirana shop on that highway dip. He remembered that man’s forceful kick on his already dislocated chin, stench of his foot overpowering the enormous pain for a split second. He remembered the sadist smirk that lit that face up while he covered with his hands in the air, cringed at the corner and pleaded frantically to deaf ears.

Under the helmet he wore, his eyes had dried up – both of them, deep red and fighting the exertion the bike ride had given him. His loaded revolver now felt heavy on him. Unable to control the bike with his feeble arm, he veered sharply on the highway – a car overtaking him from left honked and turned away in nick of time but still made a contact with his bike. At the speed he was at, that touch was enough to leave the bike in a frenzy whirlpool of elaborate spins crashing him towards his death. He hit another car, got dragged under its wheels for around hundred meters and just lay there when the car stopped, still conscious but not moving.

A mob started building up…
A shot was heard…
The ambulance still carried two…one of them dead this time.

The Bad Day

He looked by his side for a longing few seconds. The day wasn’t so bad after all…

His mom, holding the lunchbox in her hands, called out after him as he made a run for his school bus honking incessantly at the society’s gate. He got on the bus thinking he just escaped the inevitable doom his mom’s experimental sandwich would dawn upon him, but it was too early for the celebrations. The (stupid?) driver, out of courtesy (?) held the bus for his (hot?) mom to reach and hand over the dreadful bite, served with a generous topping of scorn.

Then the nightmare started and everything wore a shade of gray around him – ruining the day beyond his imagination.

He forgot his Math’s homework at home and was asked to write it four times for the next class. He tipped over a desk and fell on the floor infront of the girl he was madly in love with. He could hear her laugh and was so embarrassed that he stayed on the floor hiding his face for so long that everyone in the class was around him – concerned and enquiring. He could have had stayed on the floor all day and could have waited for everyone to leave after school if it was not for the English teacher who walked in with a sadist smile and an artillery of surprise test in hands.

Hoping to gain an ounce of satisfaction out of it, he decided to cheat in the test. But the book he skillfully managed to open with feline stealth got stuck against the gum sticking to his desk. And when he tried yanking it off – it gave up and ripples of treacherous sound reached his teacher. She stood over him, surprisingly, liking his gauche antics. Her lips curled in a tortuous vortex of momentary insanity. He shuddered…

While everyone was in the playground downstairs, his childhood was getting trampled at the hands of a vixen, a poor excuse for teacher. His argument of “atleast getting the text book” was thwarted by her self-righteous idiosyncrasy, at a peak now when the absolution bell was just round the corner.

He managed to reach the playground right before the day-off bell stopped ringing. Furiously panting, he requested the last kick from his classmates. And when he got one, the bloody ball landed right in the no man’s land which was separated from their playground by a wall.

He cursed the world in an anguished monotone with every possible swear word his limited vocabulary would allow. As he slipped off the edge of the concrete wall towards the assumed-to-be-wild side, he noticed the mommy dog’s red eye glaring towards him. Chucking the idea of collecting the football he hung over the edge with mommy dog not wasting a second to jump up and make the idea of suicide much more welcome to him.

Mustering every ounce of effort in whatever was left of him – he heard the buses leaving the school premises and when he finally managed reaching the civilized side (?), adorned with the whiff of unwanted adventure he got in, he was standing there alone.

Walking lazily towards home, he mused yet again for the awful day it had been. As he was on the verge of giving up his desire to live – he heard the sweetest voice in the whole universe. He turned around to see the cutest girl he ever laid eyes on, running towards him –

“Hey, are you heading to MontVert apartments? I have seen you there. Can we walk along? That cruel English teacher made me write ‘I will behave in class.’ hundred times for a simple prank. Can you even believe it?”

“Err…well…yeah!”

“Great. You look terrible by the way. Do you have anything to eat? All that writing has got me tired.”

“Umm…I guess I have some sandwiches left with me.”

He took out the sandwiches his mom packed him for lunch and shared one with the prettiest girl he knew. He was short of words, of breaths and of moments he wanted to spend with her. They both walked very slowly to their apartments and all he could manage was listening intently with awe to whatever she said.

The sandwich tasted just fine…

The Bow

With a gush of ominous wind, her hair swarmed gracefully in streamline curls off her beautiful face. Standing on a cliff, she faced her nemesis with a proud demeanor that could have even undermined the most powerful god. A furry of arrows, gathering a death-wish every second, zoomed towards her through the gloomy air saturated with mist. Unperturbed and with eyes closed, she kissed her ruby blade, still dripping the crimson blood of her foes, and assumed her warrior stance. The inevitable collision happened…

He couldn’t hold himself anymore. The overpowering scent of cheese hath him by his palate and his wits and he had to give in to the temptation, even if it meant falling in the trap set for him. Scurrying around the dingy basement, loaded with enough props to construct a real castle, the mouse found his way to the mouse-trap loaded with cottage cheese and unforgiving fangs. With a smart angle, he cornered it and with as much elegance as he could muster, dived for it…

At the end of the attack, her only discomfort was the bug she swallowed during the fight. She had trampled the whole army over, leaving the ground a lot redder than it was before. She now stood in front of the lava river which oozed out steam fissures…breathing painful lifelessness into those who were foolish enough to try crossing it. She ran a few fine yards and then threw herself right at the middle of the river, her arms and legs hinging upon the boulders that survived. The pivot she was standing on surged upwards and her feline curves, angled awry, accelerated towards her death…

The monster got the mouse. His poor tail was injured in the attempt to garner the treacherous cheese. He licked it for sometime, the hair on his face now smeared with his own blood. Rattled and saddened, he limped towards the corner to find a way out of this maze. He climbed the table, still hobbling, and travelled to the other end trying to pave his way through. He stumbled upon the rear edge and ended up on a steamy surface pelting hot vapors. In terrible pain, the mouse darted towards an escape route and suddenly the surface he held started rising…

She had surpassed every impediment that had come her way. The molten lava river noxiously stood behind her, still cracking and challenging the dare she managed. Her vision softened as the mist lifted and the elixir rose from beneath the surface…

The hair on his body had burnt in an absolutely painful fashion. He dipped his body in the water bowl he found on the platform he clung to. The platform rose in an amphitheater but the mouse was oblivious to anything other than the pain he still was bearing…

She faced the elixir and her countenance rushed emotions from pride to that of fear. She yelled out the loudest shriek which reverberated in the darkness. There was an ugly, burnt but alive mouse in the bowl with patches of blood all over its body. As it moved, she slipped backwards and crashed over the props on the stage. She pulled on the thick rope her hands could find and the entire setup somehow gave up. Among falling furniture and the commotion was the curtain which swiveled and covered the arena.

The yell shook him up. He ran with all the might he could muster. There was a roar of laughter and incessant clapping in the crowd that sat in the theater. Taking a moment out of his escape, he ran towards the center of the stage as the curtain fell in the background. Reflecting a royal pride, he adjusted his bruised body and faced the gathering – and then the mouse bent a little and took the bow. The thrashing continued in the background as he left the podium to conquer another.

“Pretense doesn’t define a hero.”

The Telepathist

“Let’s play a game. Shall we?”
“Sure. But it’s not going to be pretty!!”

He woke up with a weird sense of perception. It could have had something to do with the neat vodka he gulped last night. But strangely so, the extra-sensory powers usually tend to wear down with time while in this case it was just the opposite. He climbed out of his bed after half an hour effort to slide open the curtains with his brain waves.

Realizing he was already late, he quickly got ready to pick his daughter up from his x-wife’s place. In their divorce settlement she got the kid, the house, a brand new boyfriend, the alimony and he got a weekend every month to spend with his daughter. He also got his much wanted freedom, the dog he later named after his x-wife’s new boyfriend and oodles of loneliness.

He was just feeding his poodle when he heard a *woof woof*. It was definitely his dog but he didn’t see it bark. He looked around and saw nothing, covered his ears with his hands but still heard the *woof woof* loud and clear reverberating in his head. He was visibly flustered but he still had a grip on himself. He was not demented, not yet.

He locked his house and hurried towards the garage. His neighbor, who was mowing his lawn, noticed him. “Hey, how are you?” the neighbor said. Before he could reply, he heard him saying, “…and how is that hot wife of yours?” Shocked, he stared at the neighbor, who evidently didn’t say the offensive part of the conversation. That’s when it hit him; maybe he was hearing other’s thoughts. To take a shot at it he plainly replied – “I am doing good…and my x-wife is doing fantastic.” He saw embarrassment in his eyes as his neighbor turned away in awe without saying another word.

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he excitedly took his car out to exercise his newfound power. He drove slowly down the road, taking his time hearing thoughts of other people and feeling swell about the might he had been blessed with.

It didn’t quite work out the way he expected it to. He painfully sensed the rage, the frustration, the lewdness and the displeasure emanating from every human being. The hostility he could hear in almost every thought made him feel vulnerable and naked. He tried hard to shut them out but couldn’t. Soon he felt as if he was at the mercy of his so assumed power.

He reached his x’s home, mentally worn out and frightened to face any more veraciousness of human character. He knocked at the door, found it unlocked and entered the home to be greeted by all his friends, colleagues and family for his surprise birthday party. Even before the wishes began pouring in, the thoughts did…

“So what exactly did you do? Was truth that uncomfortable for him?”
“It wasn’t the truth he was hearing, just his deepest paranoia, only loud and clear this time.”

He sat in the psychotic ward with his arms hugging himself tightly. A nurse approached him with the daily medication. He could hear her saying – “If he isn’t mad yet, I will make sure he becomes one.”

“Loneliness is a bi*ch.”

Why so Impersonal?

Way back in glorious years of late 20^th century, my notorious friend and I were riding high on the unicorns of creativity. It was a bumpy ride. Glum dissatisfaction crept in even when we shook the fundamentally overrated principals of discipline and sincerity of our alma mater.

We needed to vent it out in an elaborately constructive way which meant more than just eating pretty girls’ lunch and pushing our competent teachers to the brink of absolute hopelessness in life. So, it was unanimously concurred that we will pen down a poem which will be the definitive exposé of our classmates.

We titled that fateful poem as – ‘Our Loser Classmates’ with a little subscript ‘see how much they suck’.

Probably, we should have considered consulting a publicist before picking up such a candid title but we already had well spent our pocket money on buying chewing gum to complete our ultimate collection of tiny comic strips. I now believe that 50 bucks would have got us a pretty lame publicist anyway.

That innocuous but bold poem remains our best masterpiece till date. The awesomest thing about that literary breakthrough was – it rhymed. Not once, nor twice, it rhymed after every few random lines (Hah, this line rhymed too). I decoded its rhyming scheme to be abcddcadfb…followed by lots of random alphabets.

A few verse that I could distinctly remember from that legendary work of art™ -

This guy in my class, his name is Raman Salooja,
He never tells but he secretly ogles at Pooja.

She is chirpy, she is awesome, she is Preeti, the Ms. wise,
Did she ever tell you that she has repeated class III^rd twice.

The fighter, Rahul the ram, the one with high held head,
I overheard his mom talking once, he still wets his bed.

Once the poem was publicly published and read out loud in activity class it created waves, drew criticism, upset many and brought ear to ear smile on two glowing faces for nothing less than a month. Long live our constitutional right of freedom of expression.

Upon severe accusations and condemnation we thought of screening the poem a bit, but this idea was later discarded for the following verse doesn’t sound as cool as the lines above, does it™?

Jitesh is the best in class but totally out of luck,
*All his friends call him a shameless stupid %$^&

We finally had to bury this ingenious piece of creativity once the commotion reached vice principal’s office. So much for the right of freedom.

I vowed that all my creations henceforth will have anonymous characters even if it makes my narration too abstract and filled with sad pronouns.

Hence so impersonal.

*The rhyming word was ‘buck’, a shameless stupid buck, in case you are still wondering.

The Intersection: Revelations

(This is the concluding part of a 2 episode series. For the first part – click here)

The night crawled upon the murky neighborhood. She picked up her MP3 player and pulled out her lab-coat gearing up for the fifteen minute walk to her home from her hospital. Life as an intern at the newly build medical wing was trying, including the unfriendly locality she had to cross on the way back.

Out she came, adjusting her pullovers to the cold empty night she was walking into. It was dead silent apart from her MP3 player tuned to her favorite FM channel playing in her ears. As she walked towards the main crossing she pulled her overcoat’s hood on her head, wrapped her arms around herself.

The fog portentously covered the area, made it feel like more than just another night-walk to home. With nothing in sight she walked straight ahead on the road and continued briskly towards the gap in the median. Suddenly her FM faltered and the momentous silence almost screamed in her ears.

She noticed a car zooming straight ahead towards her on the road. Suddenly, the car slowed down and her heart almost leaped out of her chest. Unable to make up her mind she baffled between the sidewalk and the divider. All the commotion gave an elaborate motion to her gauche escape from the predator in the car, now speeding insanely towards her as if determined not to let her escape.

As the car sped past her, she hurried towards the divider. Before she could even cross the road, the car stopped just meters ahead of their rendezvous point. Her blood froze…

She was panting when she finally managed to hide behind the metro pillar on the divider. It was then she realized that her beloved MP3 player was lying in the middle of the road. The car still roared at a distance waiting for her to come out of her ambush. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and made a run for it.

Luckily, her nemesis gave up the pursuit and the car finally moved.

A narrow escape. She didn’t dare to look back; fled the scene with her remaining few guts and a sleepless night afterwards.

(As interpreted by me after listening to my friend Sumit’s harrowing experience)

The Intersection

Disclaimer: The characters, places and events mentioned in this story are inspired from a real incident, well, actually, inspired from a claimed-to-be-real incident.

The deserted stretch, deep in a slumber, unassumingly betrayed the bustling city that trampled it frantically in the day. A car approached the intersection at a cautious speed the thick fog cover of a chilly winter night of Delhi would allow.

As it advanced towards the crossing, the driver faintly noticed a female figure amidst the mist walking ominously towards him in the middle of the road. Her hooded posture was upright and stance was frigid. The white aura she wore while she almost floated made a chill run down the spine of the driver. He slowed his car down, not sure if he did that to avoid running over her or to just delay the inevitable rendezvous he was inching towards. The car’s FM chocked at the very instant.

The figure, as if under a demonic possession, sprung in sudden motion. Moving menacingly right in the middle of the road doing a dance of mortality, it leaped and quivered towards the divider and the sidewalk. Flustered with fear the driver accelerated in desperation and managed to just drive past it speedily. His leap of faith just seemed to have paid off as the FM somehow regained consciousness.

Still trying to accelerate while keeping an eye in the rear view mirror, he wiped the beads of perspiration off his forehead. The car suddenly hiccupped and stopped. He checked his ignition switch, looked in the rear view mirror and saw nothing. His blood froze…

Frenzied, he turned his keys in a series of anxious coercive attempts. Painful seconds ticked by as he kept noticing his car’s reluctance to start and glimpses of that scary white shadow in his now-covered-by-heavy-breathing-mist rear mirror.

Finally the ignition gave in under his persistence.

A narrow escape. The driver didn’t dare to look into the mirror; fled the scene with his remaining few guts and a sleepless night afterwards.

(As narrated by my friend Sumit after one of the days on which he had to take off late in the night.)

(This is the first part of a 2 episode series. For the concluding part click here)

Does anybody know Mohammad Aslam?

Physical appearances can be deceiving, (and mostly because I don’t know how he looks) that’s why my nationwide search for Mohammad Aslam is based upon certain circumstantial evidences. Here goes:

#1 Mohammad Aslam has defaulted on the loan he raised from Citibank.
#2 He owns a “Hero Honda” bike and has skipped his last 3 months installments.
#3 He is a self employed entrepreneur, working as a “Chudiwala” (a bangle salesman).
#4 He has a hyper irritating and pretty persistent sister and a nephew.
#5 He gives my mobile number EVERYWHERE as his direct contact number.

I would have never bothered with this wild goose chase with some random dots to join, if things would not have turned so purple from the last few days.

The worst part, whenever I pick any call for Mohammad Aslam, I am treated as a conduit, a collaborator in the defaulting Mr. Aslam has managed to pull off. Rightly assumed, it sucks royally, especially when it happens in middle of my sleepy mornings.

So do let me know if you know a person fitting the bill. A sigh of relief will be hard to come by without his disappearance from my life.