Hi Folks, I have started my next novel. Following is the first chapter, a very rough first draft, really. Please please please let me know how it sounds (I know grammar needs to be fixed, and I will do it in my second draft. Promise!!):
High level single-sentence synopsis:
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When Sameer Sathe, a small bookshop owner and a self confessed escapist, is told by an astrologer that the reason he has an accident every year is a curse which can only be lifted by a woman he fell for, he begins his frantic quest to trace every single woman he some point in life considered his soul-mate, and Sameer has just one year to do so, because his next accident could well be the last.
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Chapter 1
I don’t remember the accident. The doctor said it’s not very unusual. Many times our brain blocks out the memories of unpleasant events. Calling my accident an unpleasant event is like calling WWII a skirmish. Sample this: my ankle was broken in three pieces, although I have no clue how that can happen. An ankle is perhaps one of the smallest of bones. My kneecaps, yes both of them, were busted. The right hip was dislocated slightly and the left shoulder was unhinged mightily. There were many accounted and unaccounted bruises. Some of them were dressed by a very stern looking nurse who smelled like a coconut oil gantry.
Many people visited me in the hospital and asked the only question I had no answer to: How did it happen? First few times I tried to explain that I didn’t remember. But after a while I just shrugged, which was even more painful as I am a left-shoulder-shrugger.
I am sure we all have such accidents. What makes my case unique is that I have had an accident every year. It doesn’t happen on the same day every year, but if you add the number of years I have spent on this planet, which is twenty nine, and divide it by the number of accidents I have had, you will have a fraction which is very close to one. My mother tells me the story of how she had dropped me when I was just two years old. She was trying to do the seemingly impossible act of balancing a baby while riding pillion on my father’s Vespa scooter, the 1978 model with its rear seat inclined at a treacherous forty-degree angle. It didn’t help that my father suddenly had a devilish urge to rev up the engine of the spanking new scooter to a speed of sixty, and my mother’s sari fell off her shoulder. Like any ultra conscious Indian woman who can never let that happen, she promptly clutched my father’s shoulder and adjusted her sari.
My mother laughs every time she tells this story. Especially when she describes how I had wailed and how long she had cried. Well, I couldn’t be faulted for bawling after bouncing on the rocky road like a damned human tennis ball. She says it’s a miracle that I even survived, and guffaws with her lips forming a perfect O. It’s a painful story, and it becomes even more when she tells it every year on the Diwali to her four sisters. They all laugh and then reminisce about the number of hours she had cried after letting me slip from her hands.
Since then it has happened every year. I remember everything before and after the accident. It’s just those few minutes that are blank. People do fill in later, but is not the same. It’s like you missed the most intense scene of a movie. Like missing Lauren Bacall saying ‘Sam you know how to whistle, don’t you?’
#
“This is the twenty-fifth, right?” Jai asked.
I said nothing. Counting the accidents gives me the creeps, but Jai Deshmukh, who claims, and rightfully so, to be my best friend, has a fetish for it. He has all the information stored in his accountant’s brain about the mishaps. When they happened, what all I broke, what was the reason, how long it took me to recover. There is one line that he always says after the count and I looked at him expectantly.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said with a little reassuring smile.
That’s what I love him for.
I closed my eyes.
“Oh, please, don’t get into the crybaby mode!”
For a best friend, Jai is quite crappy at reading my thoughts.
“My head is spinning. I stopped crying after the tenth.”
“Like hell you did. I still remember the ruckus you had created on the thirteenth. The whole hospital had visited you for three days just to see the kid who could scream like that.”
Bloody accountants.
“Can we talk about some pleasant memories?”
“Sure we can,” he said and adjusted his owlish glasses, “What happened between you and Maya?”
“I said pleasant, Jai.”
“What can be more pleasant than Maya? More so when she wears that little pink dress.”
“Excuse me, but last I remember, you used to call her bhabhi. And that pink dress isn’t little. It’s a full blown salwar kameez for God’s sake.”
“Oh, come off it. Beautiful women aren’t anybody’s bhabhis.”
I shut up.
After a long silence, Jai patted my hand.
“I think there is something seriously wrong,” he said in a tone I had never heard him use.
I opened my eyes and looked at him just to ascertain if he had said those words in that gravelly tone.
“You know, I have been thinking since your latest,” he said flapping his hand as though my body was some inanimate object that was beyond his comprehension, “I think you need to see someone.”
“Someone?”
“Yes. There is this man who people say is the re-incarnation of Nostradamus.”
“What?”
“Nostradamus. The man who saw tomorrow, remember that movie…”
“Jai, I know who Nostradamus was.”
“Yeah, okay. So this man is said to be the modern day N. He has predicted so many terrible events that actually happened. Like the Tsunami, 9/11, Iraq war, President Obama’s election.”
“How is Obama’s election terrible?”
“It must be for some people. Focus, Sam, focus. The point is he is one hell of a soothsayer.”
“And the point being?”
Raising his hands in theatrical exasperation, Jai said “He can predict your next accident! He can tell you when and how it’s going to happen. You just avoid stepping out of your house on that day. Heck, you avoid stepping out of your bed that bloody day. Simple.”
“What if he tells me that the fan is going to slip of the ceiling and fall on me?”
“That never happens. How many times have you heard that happening…are you mocking me?”
“No.”
“That sounded like mocking with a capital M.”
I said nothing.
“Fine. You take care,” he patted my hand again and stood up to leave.
It has been an unwritten pact between us. He has visited me every time I have had an accident. He lived thousands of kilometers away, but never missed being beside me whenever he got the news. Perhaps this sudden upsurge of emotion for a friend, that I regretted later, was the reason I stopped him.
“Wait. Tell me how can we contact this man?” I said unconvincingly.
Brightening up, Jai chirped, “Oh, don’t you worry! It’s all been arranged. He is visiting you tomorrow. I have already paid his fees.”
“Fees?”
“You thought predictions come for free?”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“No worries, dear friend. I used your credit card.”
Shit!
“Jai! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I care for you,” he said and squeezed my hand, “See you tomorrow. I will come with babaji at eleven.”
I seethed for a while and then laughed. Something I have repented.
#
When Jai had said babaji I had the image of a man with an unruly beard, a blood red tilak on his forehead and wearing bright saffron colored clothes. But the babaji who sat next to my bed was a young man, perhaps not older than me, who wore a natty tie and a shirt. The only thing red on his face was the color of his lips that were suspiciously glossy. He had an enigmatic smile on his face.
Steepling his fingers and rubbing his thumbs, he sighed.
“I have seen your kundli, Sameer.”
I was spellbound by his voice. It was the voice of someone far older. The man had some unnerving aura around him.
“Your accident happened because you dropped your pen while boarding the train, didn’t you?”
I was speechless. Although I don’t remember anything about the accident, I remember that my Parker pen, that was gifted to me on my twenty-ninth birthday by Maya when we were madly in love, had slipped out of my pocket. I had tried to catch it like a novice juggler, but it had bounced off my hands on the filthy Mumbai railway platform. Maya’s disappointed face had flashed in front of my eyes – her bee strung lips twisted downwards on one side, like a broken rose petal. I vaguely remember the train had assumed significant speed by then. Everything was dark after that.
Jai looked at me with pity.
“The Parker?” he said.
“Yes,” I croaked.
“And I thought someone pushed you off the train. I gave a mouthful to so many people from this city. I guess I owe them an apology.” Context was never Jai’s forte.
I must’ve had my mouth agape, because babaji’s smile deepened. Perhaps he was used to agape mouths.
“How…?”
“You have no memories of your accidents, do you?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I know how each of your accidents happened,” he said leaning back on the chair and proceeded to tell me about each one of those, including the Vespa scooter one.
I couldn’t move for a long time. There have been very few moments in my entire - some would say entirely inconsequential life - when I have felt completely awestruck. In fact just two. The first was when me and Maya became an item, as in we both were totally sure that we were made for each other and were going to spend the rest of our lives in the ‘happily ever after’ mode. The second was this.
“Babaji, how can we get Sam, I mean Sameer out of this accident-a-year routine? Is there a curse on my friend? Did someone cast a spell on him?”
Babaji leaned forward and looked at me with the graveness that made my body burst with a avalanche of sweat.
“There is a curse on this young man.”
I almost wanted to tell him that there wasn’t much difference between us age-wise.
“It can be lifted only by a woman,” he said and nodded his head as though agreeing with himself.
“Okay. Which woman?” Jai was doing all the talking on both of our behalf.
Babaji closed his eyes and spoke nothing for several minutes.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
“You don’t know?”
“I have tried to see it. But there is something that is blocking me. This young man will have to find that woman himself.”
“But can you give us some kind of direction? I mean she could be anyone in this whole world. Also, while we find her, can you tell us when his next accident is due, so that we are prepared?”
Babaji steepled his fingers and said, “There will be a next accident. It will be on 23rd of June 2010.”
That date was approximately thirteen months away.
“See! I had told you,” Jai looked at me triumphantly, “now you need not step out of the house on that day.”
“He will have to step out of the house that day. But there won’t be another accident after that.”
“Great! You mean this would be his last?”
“I mean it would be the last. This is the day he is going to die.”
#
Babaji had left three hours ago, but neither I nor Jai had spoken a word. It was raining sleets. The sound of thunder was making me jump in the bed every time. It wasn’t even evening, but there was a pall of gloom, which coupled with the hospital environment and the last few sentences spoken by Babaji made it morbid. How was I supposed to react when someone who practically knew every single thing of my past had predicted that I would be dead in a little over a year? I am a very level-headed man, although Maya would disagree, but I couldn’t make any sense out of what Babaji had said. This is what he said: ‘You need to find every single woman you had fallen in love with. The woman who can rid you of this curse you is one of them. And you need to do it before 23rd June 2010.’
“I am sorry, Sam. I don’t know what to say. This was all a very bad idea, wasn’t it?” His words were drowned by the growling thunder, but I knew what he had said. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. I said nothing.
“Do you even remember who all you fell in love with?” Jai asked.
“Let’s hope that I do,” I said.
“Why don’t you make a list and I will start catching each one of them?
“Babaji said I need to do that myself.”
“Yeah…but it will take you at least three months to get in shape. I can do the leg-work during that time. I mean I can get their addresses and stuff. Make it easier for you.”
“I don’t think that will work, Jai. I have been thinking about it for the last few hours since he left. I think I need to make this journey…this quest myself.”
“You are sounding scary,” Jai said, his voice quavering with desperation. I knew he wanted to undo some of the damage that he thought he had caused.
“I know. I will need your help. Let me get out of this damned hospital bed. Let’s meet after three months and we will try to save my life, what say?”
“That’s a deal.”
We were quiet for a long time after that.
“Are you going to tell Maya about this?”
I nodded a no.
“That’s the right thing to do, I guess,” Jai said and sighed deeply, “We will save you, my friend. We will find this woman. It will be a breeze. You wait and see!”
The way it turned out, he couldn’t be farther from the truth.
#
It took me three months to recover. The twenty-fifth was the worst, as if something evil was celebrating its silver jubilee. I did the following things during those months:
1. Cried for the first time in my life for more than 5 minutes. Call me a wimp, but it is difficult to control your tear ducts when someone has just foreseen your death within a year. I had that crying spell after Ms. Coconut Oil, the nurse, had cleaned up my wounds. The futility of it all struck me as poignant. Perhaps she would be participating in my autopsy a year later.
2. Fretted for approximately twenty three hours every day over whether to tell Maya about it or not. She was the only person in the whole world, apart from my parents, who knew my most intimate secrets. My parents claimed they knew my secrets, but she was the only one whom I had told everything about myself. After the first month, I had decided to tell her. Jai, who called me every single day, persuaded me not to. In the second month, I decided not to tell her. Jai had a change of heart and tried to persuade me to tell her. In the third month we both agreed that we shouldn’t tell her.
3. Made a list of all the females I had fallen for.
Although there was a limp in my left feet, my shoulder cried for a pain-killer every few hours and a couple of bruises were taking longer than expected to heal, I was largely mobile. I visited the local Ganesh temple and sat on the cold marble floor for a while. It is said that you should start any quest with lord Ganesh’s blessings. I needed Him on my side.
I started my journey. The first one on the list was Madhuri Joshi. The first girl whom I had promised to marry. We both were seven then. I had no idea how I was going to find her, but the logical place to start was my school in Akola, a small sleepy town right in the middle of the country.
###
This is an attempt at writing what is derogatively called as 'Penny Dreadful'. Please be absolutely brutal in your feedback!
The Damned Shoe Box
It is just an old shoe box, Ajay Nair thought. And old shoe boxes contain nothing but discarded shoes or rusted trinkets when they are found while cleaning the garage. So how do I explain the plastic bag with bundles of money in it, he wondered. He picked up a bundle with the notes held by a big copper staple pin. He flipped through the bundle and saw that they were all thousand rupee notes.
He put the shoe box on the bonnet of the car with shaky hands. He delved into the box picking up bundle after bundle till both his hands could not hold any more. There was a folded piece of paper in the middle of the bundles.
THIS MONEY ISN’T YOURS YET, ASSHOLE
He thought he was hallucinating when he read those letters on the paper. He put the bundles on the bonnet and picked up the page.
If you have discovered this shoe box, don’t fucking jump with joy. Or walk out of the garage and start spending the money inside it. This is my money! And if you are reading this letter it means either I am dead or you have stolen it.
He wiped the sweat that was pouring in his eyes from his forehead.
If you have stolen it, you do not have more than sixty minutes to live. So say your goodbyes to everyone. If I am dead, then you have a bigger problem.
“Ajay!” he heard Anu, his wife.
“Huh…”, he dropped the shoebox and the bundles fell out of it. He heard her footsteps on the little gravel path and hurriedly put the money and the letter back in the box. He shoved the box deep into the little attic of the garage where he had found it.
“What did you drop?” she asked.
“Nothing”, he said wiping the sweat with his sleeve.
“Why are you sweating?”
“What is this? An interrogation? You asked me to clean the garage, remember?”
She stood in the garage door with one hand on her beautiful ass and leaning on one leg. He tried to win the staring down match for a millionth time and lost.
“Okay, it was just the wrench”, he said.
“I don’t see a wrench here”, she said leaning on the other leg.
“That’s because I put it back”
He wished she would just walk away from the garage. But she stood there with her eyebrows scrunched up, drumming her fingers on her ass. He walked out of the garage.
He closed his eyes and lay still on the bed till he could hear the soft insect buzz like snoring of his wife. He snapped his middle finger and thumb a few inches from her face, but she did not stir. He soundlessly got up from the bed and tip-toed out of the house.
He opened the little attic in the garage and hauled out the shoe box. He opened the letter and put it under the little pencil torch.
…bigger problem. Because you are going to avenge my death. If you are reading this letter before March 2009, then I was murdered. And my murderer is my younger brother Suren Malik. He has killed me to take control of our empire. Yes, I am talking about the same Suren Malik, the gangster.
Ajay thought he would vomit out the churning anxiety in his stomach. He felt something vile rise up his throat, bitter and hot. He switched off the pencil torch and breathed in deeply. After a few long moments, he switched on the torch.
I had cancer. The doctors told me that I will not live for more than a year. But with the money that I have, I know I will live for four more. I did not tell this to my bastard brother. He would have killed me the moment he knew that. In the next six months, I got busy with my expensive treatments in secrecy. Everyone thought I was loosing control over my business. Perhaps I was. And then I came to know that Suren is planning my murder. That greedy fucker always wanted to have everything I ever had. I know he might succeed.
So, if you are not a thief, then this is what I want you to do: Kill Suren Malik. And consider the twenty five lacs in this box as a little token of thanks. If you decide not to, you have till March 2009 to live. On 31st of March, a letter will be dispatched to my brother. That letter will have complete details of this little plan I have made. If he gets that letter, you can guess what he will do. You and your family will die the most horrible deaths possible. He is a sadist, my little brother. I could not stand some of his torture methods.
I have ensured that this property is leased to someone who has a family. My brother will not bother checking which tenant in the property got this letter. He will kill all the families who stayed here since my death.
After my death, nobody will care about me. I did not give my enemies a chance when I was alive. So I will not do it after my death. So it has to be you.
I will make it easy for you. My brother has a transsexual keep. He has hidden it from everyone except me. He spends every Thursday night with that hideous creature. There is nobody with him. He goes there alone and in a disguise.
There was the address of Suren Malik’s transsexual keep below that.
You really have no choice.
Viren Malik
He bit hard on the back of his palm to stop himself from crying out. He sat on the dusty garage floor for a long time.
He walked into the house and splashed water on his face. He cried a violent burst of tears holding the bathroom basin. He walked back into the bedroom and sat on the reclining chair on Anu’s side.
The sound of birds jolted him out of the chair. He was stunned to know that he had slept for the last two hours. He ran to the window and looked outside hiding his body behind the curtain. Outside, the dawn of 29th March 2009 was breaking.
He opened his laptop and typed Viren Malik in the search engine. The search engine returned with thousands of hits. He read the first web page which was a news item.
‘GANGSTER FELLED BY ASSASSIN’S BULLET’
He remembered the details. Viren Malik was killed by a single bullet on the dockyards. Suren Malik had infamously announced on a television news channel that he will hunt down the killer of his brother. His tone was very matter of fact, as though he was talking about some everyday mundane possibility. A fierce shiver ran through Ajay’s spine as he remembered the large bloodshot eyes of the gangster.
“You woke up early today?” she said in her waking up husky voice that always aroused him. He felt tears in his eyes and rubbed them with his thumbs.
“I love you Anu”, he said. His voice like cracking glass.
“I love you too…what happened?” she said and walked up to him. She was naked and the intoxicating smell of her early morning languid body made him sob.
“Hey…you alright?” she said, her voice quivering.
“Yeah…just couldn’t sleep last night”, he said.
“That can happen in a new house. You like the house?” she said rubbing the back of his neck.
He nodded a yes. He gazed around the bedroom and wondered how could God play this cruel game with him? How could he end up with such terrible luck? He closed his eyes and imagined burning down the house.
It was her dream house. He remembered she pulled him out of the bed one night after intense lovemaking.
“What’s the hurry?” he said, pulling his jeans on his belly.
“Come on, I want to show you something”, she said kissing him on his cheek.
“What did you see in me?” he asked her as he drove on the highway towards the outskirts of the city in the dark of the night.
“I have told you a million times! I love you”, she said, “Why is it so difficult for you to understand?”
It was difficult for him to understand. Why would the most beautiful woman he had ever seen want to marry him? Even if he was the owner of a fast rising trading company. There were many men far richer and far handsomer than he was. He felt an exhilarating sensation and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“Yes, love is a big enough reason”, he said.
“This is the house I have always dreamt of owning”, she showed him the sprawling property. It was a beautiful house, the kind that is on a property magazine’s cover. He looked at her as she gazed at the house. It was as though it was plucked right out of her dreams. He loved watching her dream with her eyes open. And vowed to get the house.
He waited for six more months but could not buy it. The owner was represented by a lawyer and told him that it was available only for lease. He argued with the lawyer. Offered twenty percent more than the price. Then upped it to hundred. But the fucking lawyer kept nodding a no and finally told him that the current tenants were vacating and it was available for lease.
“Okay, we will lease it”, she said.
He was stunned to hear that.
“It’s alright honey. We can call it our own even if we lease it, can’t we?” she said.
He nodded a yes.
That was three weeks ago. They had moved in and redecorated the house the way she had wanted it. Then made love in every room, even in the kitchen.
How could he tell her what he had found in the garage? He could not imagine watching her dream turn into a nightmare.
He had no choice.
He knocked on the door of the penthouse suite of the hotel. It was opened by a woman who wore loud make-up on her face. She looked at the gun in his hand and opened her mouth to scream.
“Don’t scream”, he said. He wondered if the unstoppable shaking of his hand would cause the gun to fire.
“Move inside slowly. Don’t run”
She backed away. He entered the suite and closed the door. He knew there was no going back from that little step he had taken.
“Move into the bedroom”
He walked a few steps behind the woman to the bedroom.
He knew the woman was on the verge of a full blown panic. He had to silence her before she did something he did not want her to. He raised the gun to the back of her head.
“Please don’t kill him”, the hoarse voice belied that she was a woman.
“You are a transsexual”, he said nodding his head.
“I am his worst secret” she said. He heard a tiny sob escape her throat. He put his finger on the trigger. He closed his eyes and decided to shoot her at the count of three.
One…He heard her whimper like an animal.
Two…He wondered if he would ever look at himself in the mirror.
Three…He pulled the trigger.
There was a knock on the door. Tap tap tap. A small pause. Tap tap tap.
He silently opened the door and hid behind it.
“Maya?” he remembered the gravelly voice of Suren Malik.
He held the gun with both hands and waited for Malik to enter.
He heard the drops of water falling on the bathroom floor. The sound was deafening.
Suddenly the door was banged on him. The door hit him on his temple and for a few moments he felt intense pain that made everything invisible. When he could see, he saw a gun pointed at him and the red eyes of Suren Malik he so vividly remembered.
He shot him between those two eyes.
I gave him a third bloody eye, he thought.
That was his last lucid thought.
He clutched his heart where Malik had shot him and collapsed.
He saw her face. She smiled at him. The smile he fell in love with. And then, there was darkness.
YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR SHOOTS THE DREADED DON SUREN MALIK. POLICE CLUELESS ABOUT THE MOTIVE.
Ajay Nair, the founder of a fast rising trading company is alleged to have killed the dreaded gangster Suren Malik. According to the occupant of the penthouse suite (Witness’s name withheld) Ajay Nair entered the suite in the garb of hotel staff. He held the witness at gun-point. He shot at the witness, but strangely, the witness says he missed it from a point blank range. He proceeded to tie the witness’s mouth and limbs and dumped the witness into the bathroom. He then waited for…
Anu read the remaining story and folded the newspaper. The last three days went in a blur. She had spent every single minute surrounded by her lawyer and the police. The police had questioned her for a long time. She told them she knew nothing, was grieving for her dead husband and was sure that he had nothing to do with gangster. The reporters were like buzzing wasps around her but she looked down and ignored them. They spread their paraphernalia outside the house for three days and then left that night.
It was two in the night and there was absolute silence around the house. She stepped out of the house and heard only the rhythmic sounds made by the myriad of insects. She switched on the torch and reached the garage. She lifted the lid of the little attic. She picked up the shoe box. And cried for a long time, till her tears drenched the box cover. The shoe box had devoured her tears three years back too when she had discovered it the first time. She heard her mobile phone ring and picked it up.
“It is over, my love. We are free now. I am coming back to you”, she said and switched off the phone.
“I know you will never forgive me, Ajay”, she said as though Ajay’s spirit haunted the garage, “but I had to do it”
She put the box in the car and drove away.
The End
“Huh…”, he dropped the shoebox and the bundles fell out of it. He heard her footsteps on the little gravel path and hurriedly put the money and the letter back in the box. He shoved the box deep into the little attic of the garage where he had found it.
“What did you drop?” she asked.
“Nothing”, he said wiping the sweat with his sleeve.
“Why are you sweating?”
“What is this? An interrogation? You asked me to clean the garage, remember?”
She stood in the garage door with one hand on her beautiful ass and leaning on one leg. He tried to win the staring down match for a millionth time and lost.
“Okay, it was just the wrench”, he said.
“I don’t see a wrench here”, she said leaning on the other leg.
“That’s because I put it back”
He wished she would just walk away from the garage. But she stood there with her eyebrows scrunched up, drumming her fingers on her ass. He walked out of the garage.
He closed his eyes and lay still on the bed till he could hear the soft insect buzz like snoring of his wife. He snapped his middle finger and thumb a few inches from her face, but she did not stir. He soundlessly got up from the bed and tip-toed out of the house.
He opened the little attic in the garage and hauled out the shoe box. He opened the letter and put it under the little pencil torch.
…bigger problem. Because you are going to avenge my death. If you are reading this letter before March 2009, then I was murdered. And my murderer is my younger brother Suren Malik. He has killed me to take control of our empire. Yes, I am talking about the same Suren Malik, the gangster.
Ajay thought he would vomit out the churning anxiety in his stomach. He felt something vile rise up his throat, bitter and hot. He switched off the pencil torch and breathed in deeply. After a few long moments, he switched on the torch.
I had cancer. The doctors told me that I will not live for more than a year. But with the money that I have, I know I will live for four more. I did not tell this to my bastard brother. He would have killed me the moment he knew that. In the next six months, I got busy with my expensive treatments in secrecy. Everyone thought I was loosing control over my business. Perhaps I was. And then I came to know that Suren is planning my murder. That greedy fucker always wanted to have everything I ever had. I know he might succeed.
So, if you are not a thief, then this is what I want you to do: Kill Suren Malik. And consider the twenty five lacs in this box as a little token of thanks. If you decide not to, you have till March 2009 to live. On 31st of March, a letter will be dispatched to my brother. That letter will have complete details of this little plan I have made. If he gets that letter, you can guess what he will do. You and your family will die the most horrible deaths possible. He is a sadist, my little brother. I could not stand some of his torture methods.
I have ensured that this property is leased to someone who has a family. My brother will not bother checking which tenant in the property got this letter. He will kill all the families who stayed here since my death.
After my death, nobody will care about me. I did not give my enemies a chance when I was alive. So I will not do it after my death. So it has to be you.
I will make it easy for you. My brother has a transsexual keep. He has hidden it from everyone except me. He spends every Thursday night with that hideous creature. There is nobody with him. He goes there alone and in a disguise.
There was the address of Suren Malik’s transsexual keep below that.
You really have no choice.
Viren Malik
He bit hard on the back of his palm to stop himself from crying out. He sat on the dusty garage floor for a long time.
He walked into the house and splashed water on his face. He cried a violent burst of tears holding the bathroom basin. He walked back into the bedroom and sat on the reclining chair on Anu’s side.
The sound of birds jolted him out of the chair. He was stunned to know that he had slept for the last two hours. He ran to the window and looked outside hiding his body behind the curtain. Outside, the dawn of 29th March 2009 was breaking.
He opened his laptop and typed Viren Malik in the search engine. The search engine returned with thousands of hits. He read the first web page which was a news item.
‘GANGSTER FELLED BY ASSASSIN’S BULLET’
He remembered the details. Viren Malik was killed by a single bullet on the dockyards. Suren Malik had infamously announced on a television news channel that he will hunt down the killer of his brother. His tone was very matter of fact, as though he was talking about some everyday mundane possibility. A fierce shiver ran through Ajay’s spine as he remembered the large bloodshot eyes of the gangster.
“You woke up early today?” she said in her waking up husky voice that always aroused him. He felt tears in his eyes and rubbed them with his thumbs.
“I love you Anu”, he said. His voice like cracking glass.
“I love you too…what happened?” she said and walked up to him. She was naked and the intoxicating smell of her early morning languid body made him sob.
“Hey…you alright?” she said, her voice quivering.
“Yeah…just couldn’t sleep last night”, he said.
“That can happen in a new house. You like the house?” she said rubbing the back of his neck.
He nodded a yes. He gazed around the bedroom and wondered how could God play this cruel game with him? How could he end up with such terrible luck? He closed his eyes and imagined burning down the house.
It was her dream house. He remembered she pulled him out of the bed one night after intense lovemaking.
“What’s the hurry?” he said, pulling his jeans on his belly.
“Come on, I want to show you something”, she said kissing him on his cheek.
“What did you see in me?” he asked her as he drove on the highway towards the outskirts of the city in the dark of the night.
“I have told you a million times! I love you”, she said, “Why is it so difficult for you to understand?”
It was difficult for him to understand. Why would the most beautiful woman he had ever seen want to marry him? Even if he was the owner of a fast rising trading company. There were many men far richer and far handsomer than he was. He felt an exhilarating sensation and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“Yes, love is a big enough reason”, he said.
“This is the house I have always dreamt of owning”, she showed him the sprawling property. It was a beautiful house, the kind that is on a property magazine’s cover. He looked at her as she gazed at the house. It was as though it was plucked right out of her dreams. He loved watching her dream with her eyes open. And vowed to get the house.
He waited for six more months but could not buy it. The owner was represented by a lawyer and told him that it was available only for lease. He argued with the lawyer. Offered twenty percent more than the price. Then upped it to hundred. But the fucking lawyer kept nodding a no and finally told him that the current tenants were vacating and it was available for lease.
“Okay, we will lease it”, she said.
He was stunned to hear that.
“It’s alright honey. We can call it our own even if we lease it, can’t we?” she said.
He nodded a yes.
That was three weeks ago. They had moved in and redecorated the house the way she had wanted it. Then made love in every room, even in the kitchen.
How could he tell her what he had found in the garage? He could not imagine watching her dream turn into a nightmare.
He had no choice.
He knocked on the door of the penthouse suite of the hotel. It was opened by a woman who wore loud make-up on her face. She looked at the gun in his hand and opened her mouth to scream.
“Don’t scream”, he said. He wondered if the unstoppable shaking of his hand would cause the gun to fire.
“Move inside slowly. Don’t run”
She backed away. He entered the suite and closed the door. He knew there was no going back from that little step he had taken.
“Move into the bedroom”
He walked a few steps behind the woman to the bedroom.
He knew the woman was on the verge of a full blown panic. He had to silence her before she did something he did not want her to. He raised the gun to the back of her head.
“Please don’t kill him”, the hoarse voice belied that she was a woman.
“You are a transsexual”, he said nodding his head.
“I am his worst secret” she said. He heard a tiny sob escape her throat. He put his finger on the trigger. He closed his eyes and decided to shoot her at the count of three.
One…He heard her whimper like an animal.
Two…He wondered if he would ever look at himself in the mirror.
Three…He pulled the trigger.
There was a knock on the door. Tap tap tap. A small pause. Tap tap tap.
He silently opened the door and hid behind it.
“Maya?” he remembered the gravelly voice of Suren Malik.
He held the gun with both hands and waited for Malik to enter.
He heard the drops of water falling on the bathroom floor. The sound was deafening.
Suddenly the door was banged on him. The door hit him on his temple and for a few moments he felt intense pain that made everything invisible. When he could see, he saw a gun pointed at him and the red eyes of Suren Malik he so vividly remembered.
He shot him between those two eyes.
I gave him a third bloody eye, he thought.
That was his last lucid thought.
He clutched his heart where Malik had shot him and collapsed.
He saw her face. She smiled at him. The smile he fell in love with. And then, there was darkness.
YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR SHOOTS THE DREADED DON SUREN MALIK. POLICE CLUELESS ABOUT THE MOTIVE.
Ajay Nair, the founder of a fast rising trading company is alleged to have killed the dreaded gangster Suren Malik. According to the occupant of the penthouse suite (Witness’s name withheld) Ajay Nair entered the suite in the garb of hotel staff. He held the witness at gun-point. He shot at the witness, but strangely, the witness says he missed it from a point blank range. He proceeded to tie the witness’s mouth and limbs and dumped the witness into the bathroom. He then waited for…
Anu read the remaining story and folded the newspaper. The last three days went in a blur. She had spent every single minute surrounded by her lawyer and the police. The police had questioned her for a long time. She told them she knew nothing, was grieving for her dead husband and was sure that he had nothing to do with gangster. The reporters were like buzzing wasps around her but she looked down and ignored them. They spread their paraphernalia outside the house for three days and then left that night.
It was two in the night and there was absolute silence around the house. She stepped out of the house and heard only the rhythmic sounds made by the myriad of insects. She switched on the torch and reached the garage. She lifted the lid of the little attic. She picked up the shoe box. And cried for a long time, till her tears drenched the box cover. The shoe box had devoured her tears three years back too when she had discovered it the first time. She heard her mobile phone ring and picked it up.
“It is over, my love. We are free now. I am coming back to you”, she said and switched off the phone.
“I know you will never forgive me, Ajay”, she said as though Ajay’s spirit haunted the garage, “but I had to do it”
She put the box in the car and drove away.
The End
Labels: fiction, short story
Dear Friends,
I know, you would be very happy to know that I have finsihed the first draft of my Novel.
I hope to write the next 100 drafts soon so that it becomes something that you would be happy to read.
Cheers!!
Every passage that I partake…O mortal man
I espy thy moral wan
I see the debris of thy dreams
Buried under the awning of anguished screams
Through the eyes of the almighty
I take plight on the vestiges of the mighty
It's not the folly of the ancient teachings
And it is not the fleck of messiah's preachings
I call upon thee O anointed one to rise
Save the mortals and angels and heed their cries
Lo and Behold! The Savior speaketh
He shalt steer thee through the valley of death
Spread thy love and secret thy hatred
Thus spake the master, words those are sacred
O man, I know thy art the eternal sinner
Deem these words or thy vista is grimmer
I espy thy moral wan
I see the debris of thy dreams
Buried under the awning of anguished screams
Through the eyes of the almighty
I take plight on the vestiges of the mighty
It's not the folly of the ancient teachings
And it is not the fleck of messiah's preachings
I call upon thee O anointed one to rise
Save the mortals and angels and heed their cries
Lo and Behold! The Savior speaketh
He shalt steer thee through the valley of death
Spread thy love and secret thy hatred
Thus spake the master, words those are sacred
O man, I know thy art the eternal sinner
Deem these words or thy vista is grimmer
You wonder if something at the start of the day should have told you not to go out. Maybe the rising sun. Maybe the cacophonous birds. Maybe your wife who woke up with her make-up smeared across her face like a birthday cake. Maybe your two raucous kids who never forgot to tell you about the little boogers in their noses. Somebody. Something…
He wanted to scream. But he had screamed for the past four hours and lost his voice. You would scream too if you were sitting on top of your oversized SUV stuck in the middle of the road with muddy water hurtling down like a river.
The incredulity of the situation made him dizzy. I mean this is a fucking Bombay road. How could it become a dangerous river? He looked down at the water once again. It was still there. Every few seconds a wave would make a desperate attempt to gobble them up like a monstrous snake attacking a bunch of toads. He knew nobody would later believe about the bloody waves. Or about the road river. Or about the rain that made everything invisible.
The kids and wife were stuck to him like leaches. They were clawing him all over. They were crying non-stop. He felt like shaking all over like a wet frightened dog. But he found himself clutching them back
He looked at the silent bystanders atop the roofs of the buildings along the road. They were looking with stunned fascination. He had cried for help till he lost his voice. Every single man and woman avoided looking into his eyes. Many were crying themselves.
After three hours of howling for help, one man jumped into the road river, but was swiftly wolfed down by the water. It was so sudden that he was stunned into silence for many minutes. The man had sat atop a house with his head down all the while listening to their cries. He suddenly stood up. He waved at them, to assure that he was coming. And in a flash he was gone. Nobody dared to do that after him.
He looked at his wife who clung to his right shoulder. He could not remember the last time they had spent any amount of time so close to each other.
“You are good for nothing!”, said the wife three years back, “Mrs. Malhotra’s husband is already a general manager in your company. Do you know he is two years younger to you?”
“I can’t do what he does”
“And what is it?”
“Ass licking”, he said with clenched teeth.
“And what is wrong with it? You and your lousy values. Think about our kids”, she always got the kids involved.
“They are not starving”
“So you agree that all you do is feed them, right?”
He could never win an argument with her. He stopped himself from asking her to cry out for Mr. Malhotra. He looked at his kids. Their red eyes were scorching holes in his heart. It was not their fault that they did not respect him. Why should they, if all they saw was their mother ridiculing and humiliating him relentlessly?
It was a low hum at first. He had a sudden memory of an avalanche that he had seen in New Zealand. He looked behind and saw the brown frothy wave. It sounded like that avalanche. And then the wave rose like a giant canvas. Raised high for everyone to marvel at the landscape painted on it. He thought he saw a cow, a donkey and a bicycle rising along with the wave. As though they were showpieces hung on a wall. Perhaps the wave was just showing them what all it could gobble up. Only thing missing were the humans.
“Hold on to the carrier!” he shouted. He saw his family holding the carrier. He was a big man. Big enough to hold them all inside a ring formed by his hands and the metal carrier. The wave crashed on the SUV. For the most frightening moments of his life he thought he was buried inside a wall. The wave hitting him like a giant hammer, almost breaking his arms. And then it was gone. He opened his eyes but could not see anything. He felt a sudden panic as though he was dead and his soul was blind.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” he heard his son bawling. He was soon joined by his daughter. There was no sound from his wife. For the briefest of moment he thought the wave had carried her. He felt a sudden shiver run through his body and knew that it was not of fear. Perhaps it was of pure joy. The kind he had never experienced for the last fifteen years.
“Are you all right?” he heard her voice.
He opened his eyes and saw his family in the same position that he had left them before the wave. They were clinging to him ever harder.
“You saved us daddy!” his daughter said.
“Yes! Daddy is a superman”, his son said.
Their muddy faces were like little earthen pots with smiles drawn on them. He looked at his wife and she was smiling too. He thought it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. Her eyes were shining the way when they saw Shahrukh Khan on the TV. He smiled back. Perhaps for the first time in the last ten years they were smiling together.
That was when he saw a man frantically waving at him. The man held a knotty long rope in his hand. He felt like jumping with joy. Soon two other men joined the man with the rope. The man said something. But he could hardly hear. The man mimed ‘Throwing rope. Tie around the waist. Shoulders. We will pull’. He nodded rapidly that he understood.
The man threw the rope with a rock attached to its end. It clanged on the top of the SUV. He thought it was the most wonderful sound he had heard in his life. He held the end of the rope and looked at his wife. Her eyes darted between his face and the rope. The fear in them had transcended the fear of the water. Her lips parted in a silent scream, asking him a terrible question. Would he abandon them?
The rope felt like a living thing in his hand, egging him to tie it around his own waist and free himself. Not just from the all destroying water. He had dreamt of killing them all, hadn’t he? The impotent rage that felt when they ganged up to humiliate him. He closed his eyes and saw his two children when they were born. A miracle that he had witnessed twice. His mouth was flooded with the same foulness he tasted every time he thought like that. He spat violently. The foulness was unbearable this time. He opened his eyes and without looking at his wife tied the rope around his daughter’s waist till she cried out in pain.
“You trust your daddy, don’t you beta?” he said to his daughter.
She began to cry silent tears.
“Look at me. Those men there are going to pull you. This will be over in no time, alright?” he said and kissed her frantically. She said a mute yes. His wife embraced her.
“You look at your daddy all the time when you are being pulled, okay?” she said.
He thought he was going to cry. He blinked his eyes to soak the tears. Never again, that foul taste.
He raised his thumb at the man. He slowly lowered his daughter into the river. She was whimpering like a scared animal. She was suddenly pulled in an arc by the water. But the three men held tight. He shouted her name over the fury caused by the water. Slowly she was pulled by the three men. He looked at them and joined his hands in a ‘namaskar. Praying to them as if they were the Gods descended to help him. The men pulled. They were encouraged when she moved in their direction. Within minutes they had pulled her up the wall. Those minutes ebbing away like an eternity for him. His son clapped and cried her name. The men raised their thumbs. He realized his wife had held his hand all the while. He did not look at her.
They threw the rope again. It was repeated with his son.
That was when the rain increased in intensity as though the elements were angered by the audacity of man in snatching its prey. In moments it became so strong that he could hardly see the roof where his Gods with rope and his two kids were. But he could see the rope that pierced the rain and landed on the SUV. He looked down and thought the water level was increasing rapidly. It was just a few inches from the top of the SUV.
He looked at his wife and saw a kaleidoscope of thirteen years of marriage riddled with countless humiliations, accusations and insults. Sometimes his manhood. Sometimes his ability. Sometimes his character. Sometimes his lineage.
“Raise your hands”, he said to her.
She did so like a robot. He did not remember the last time she did something that he had wanted her to. He tied the rope around her waist. Then pulled it over her shoulders and fastened it. He thought of telling her not to cry. If she wanted to cry for the past, the tears would raise the water levels enough to wash them away.
He tugged at the rope to let the men know that he had tied a human form at the other end. He lowered her in the water.
“You know, you are a greater hero than Shahrukh Khan”, she said interspersed with sobs. He smiled and traced her cheek with his finger. The way he used to. He remembered her lovely face. Before the years of make up washed away her natural beauty. Before the drudgery of marriage wiped away the laugh lines. Before her lips were pulled down in a permanent frown.
“Thanks babe”, he said. The men pulled her. In a fraction of a second he could not see her. Then her head bobbed up. Inch by painful inch she was pulled to the safety of the roof. He whooped in joy. He heard the cheering and wild clapping from all the people sitting on the roofs. He knew it was almost over. Just a matter of the men throwing the rope at him. He ties it and they pull it. Simple. It was over! He wanted to dance.
That was when he heard the hum again. He looked behind and saw the froth. And then the little mound of the wave. Like the lips of a man tensed with determination before he shouted loudest. The wave rose. The canvas was empty this time.
The rain suddenly dropped as though it had focused all its energy in that one giant wave. He looked at his family huddled together on top of the roof. They were crying. He smiled and waved at them and looked at the wave. He wondered if it was a good time to go. Would he ever see all of them happy again? Would his kids respect him?
But those words, they would never be repeated again. That he was a hero greater than Shahrukh Khan. So maybe this was the right time to go. A time when the only promise that the future held was of disappointment. He closed his eyes and saw the smiles on their faces. And felt the curve of his wife’s cheek on the tip of his finger. And then the wave crashed on the SUV.
The End
Author’s note: Close to a thousand people died in the rains of 2005 in Mumbai. I cannot comprehend the horror they must have experienced before the water swept them away. I don’t know if anyone died the way I have portrayed above. But I like to think that he or she experienced the greatest joy of seeing the loved ones rescued.
Also, the waves that I have described were not there during the floods. I hope those waves are confined to fiction. But then, whatever that really happened was more unbelievable and tragic than any fiction can conjure.
He wanted to scream. But he had screamed for the past four hours and lost his voice. You would scream too if you were sitting on top of your oversized SUV stuck in the middle of the road with muddy water hurtling down like a river.
The incredulity of the situation made him dizzy. I mean this is a fucking Bombay road. How could it become a dangerous river? He looked down at the water once again. It was still there. Every few seconds a wave would make a desperate attempt to gobble them up like a monstrous snake attacking a bunch of toads. He knew nobody would later believe about the bloody waves. Or about the road river. Or about the rain that made everything invisible.
The kids and wife were stuck to him like leaches. They were clawing him all over. They were crying non-stop. He felt like shaking all over like a wet frightened dog. But he found himself clutching them back
He looked at the silent bystanders atop the roofs of the buildings along the road. They were looking with stunned fascination. He had cried for help till he lost his voice. Every single man and woman avoided looking into his eyes. Many were crying themselves.
After three hours of howling for help, one man jumped into the road river, but was swiftly wolfed down by the water. It was so sudden that he was stunned into silence for many minutes. The man had sat atop a house with his head down all the while listening to their cries. He suddenly stood up. He waved at them, to assure that he was coming. And in a flash he was gone. Nobody dared to do that after him.
He looked at his wife who clung to his right shoulder. He could not remember the last time they had spent any amount of time so close to each other.
“You are good for nothing!”, said the wife three years back, “Mrs. Malhotra’s husband is already a general manager in your company. Do you know he is two years younger to you?”
“I can’t do what he does”
“And what is it?”
“Ass licking”, he said with clenched teeth.
“And what is wrong with it? You and your lousy values. Think about our kids”, she always got the kids involved.
“They are not starving”
“So you agree that all you do is feed them, right?”
He could never win an argument with her. He stopped himself from asking her to cry out for Mr. Malhotra. He looked at his kids. Their red eyes were scorching holes in his heart. It was not their fault that they did not respect him. Why should they, if all they saw was their mother ridiculing and humiliating him relentlessly?
It was a low hum at first. He had a sudden memory of an avalanche that he had seen in New Zealand. He looked behind and saw the brown frothy wave. It sounded like that avalanche. And then the wave rose like a giant canvas. Raised high for everyone to marvel at the landscape painted on it. He thought he saw a cow, a donkey and a bicycle rising along with the wave. As though they were showpieces hung on a wall. Perhaps the wave was just showing them what all it could gobble up. Only thing missing were the humans.
“Hold on to the carrier!” he shouted. He saw his family holding the carrier. He was a big man. Big enough to hold them all inside a ring formed by his hands and the metal carrier. The wave crashed on the SUV. For the most frightening moments of his life he thought he was buried inside a wall. The wave hitting him like a giant hammer, almost breaking his arms. And then it was gone. He opened his eyes but could not see anything. He felt a sudden panic as though he was dead and his soul was blind.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” he heard his son bawling. He was soon joined by his daughter. There was no sound from his wife. For the briefest of moment he thought the wave had carried her. He felt a sudden shiver run through his body and knew that it was not of fear. Perhaps it was of pure joy. The kind he had never experienced for the last fifteen years.
“Are you all right?” he heard her voice.
He opened his eyes and saw his family in the same position that he had left them before the wave. They were clinging to him ever harder.
“You saved us daddy!” his daughter said.
“Yes! Daddy is a superman”, his son said.
Their muddy faces were like little earthen pots with smiles drawn on them. He looked at his wife and she was smiling too. He thought it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. Her eyes were shining the way when they saw Shahrukh Khan on the TV. He smiled back. Perhaps for the first time in the last ten years they were smiling together.
That was when he saw a man frantically waving at him. The man held a knotty long rope in his hand. He felt like jumping with joy. Soon two other men joined the man with the rope. The man said something. But he could hardly hear. The man mimed ‘Throwing rope. Tie around the waist. Shoulders. We will pull’. He nodded rapidly that he understood.
The man threw the rope with a rock attached to its end. It clanged on the top of the SUV. He thought it was the most wonderful sound he had heard in his life. He held the end of the rope and looked at his wife. Her eyes darted between his face and the rope. The fear in them had transcended the fear of the water. Her lips parted in a silent scream, asking him a terrible question. Would he abandon them?
The rope felt like a living thing in his hand, egging him to tie it around his own waist and free himself. Not just from the all destroying water. He had dreamt of killing them all, hadn’t he? The impotent rage that felt when they ganged up to humiliate him. He closed his eyes and saw his two children when they were born. A miracle that he had witnessed twice. His mouth was flooded with the same foulness he tasted every time he thought like that. He spat violently. The foulness was unbearable this time. He opened his eyes and without looking at his wife tied the rope around his daughter’s waist till she cried out in pain.
“You trust your daddy, don’t you beta?” he said to his daughter.
She began to cry silent tears.
“Look at me. Those men there are going to pull you. This will be over in no time, alright?” he said and kissed her frantically. She said a mute yes. His wife embraced her.
“You look at your daddy all the time when you are being pulled, okay?” she said.
He thought he was going to cry. He blinked his eyes to soak the tears. Never again, that foul taste.
He raised his thumb at the man. He slowly lowered his daughter into the river. She was whimpering like a scared animal. She was suddenly pulled in an arc by the water. But the three men held tight. He shouted her name over the fury caused by the water. Slowly she was pulled by the three men. He looked at them and joined his hands in a ‘namaskar. Praying to them as if they were the Gods descended to help him. The men pulled. They were encouraged when she moved in their direction. Within minutes they had pulled her up the wall. Those minutes ebbing away like an eternity for him. His son clapped and cried her name. The men raised their thumbs. He realized his wife had held his hand all the while. He did not look at her.
They threw the rope again. It was repeated with his son.
That was when the rain increased in intensity as though the elements were angered by the audacity of man in snatching its prey. In moments it became so strong that he could hardly see the roof where his Gods with rope and his two kids were. But he could see the rope that pierced the rain and landed on the SUV. He looked down and thought the water level was increasing rapidly. It was just a few inches from the top of the SUV.
He looked at his wife and saw a kaleidoscope of thirteen years of marriage riddled with countless humiliations, accusations and insults. Sometimes his manhood. Sometimes his ability. Sometimes his character. Sometimes his lineage.
“Raise your hands”, he said to her.
She did so like a robot. He did not remember the last time she did something that he had wanted her to. He tied the rope around her waist. Then pulled it over her shoulders and fastened it. He thought of telling her not to cry. If she wanted to cry for the past, the tears would raise the water levels enough to wash them away.
He tugged at the rope to let the men know that he had tied a human form at the other end. He lowered her in the water.
“You know, you are a greater hero than Shahrukh Khan”, she said interspersed with sobs. He smiled and traced her cheek with his finger. The way he used to. He remembered her lovely face. Before the years of make up washed away her natural beauty. Before the drudgery of marriage wiped away the laugh lines. Before her lips were pulled down in a permanent frown.
“Thanks babe”, he said. The men pulled her. In a fraction of a second he could not see her. Then her head bobbed up. Inch by painful inch she was pulled to the safety of the roof. He whooped in joy. He heard the cheering and wild clapping from all the people sitting on the roofs. He knew it was almost over. Just a matter of the men throwing the rope at him. He ties it and they pull it. Simple. It was over! He wanted to dance.
That was when he heard the hum again. He looked behind and saw the froth. And then the little mound of the wave. Like the lips of a man tensed with determination before he shouted loudest. The wave rose. The canvas was empty this time.
The rain suddenly dropped as though it had focused all its energy in that one giant wave. He looked at his family huddled together on top of the roof. They were crying. He smiled and waved at them and looked at the wave. He wondered if it was a good time to go. Would he ever see all of them happy again? Would his kids respect him?
But those words, they would never be repeated again. That he was a hero greater than Shahrukh Khan. So maybe this was the right time to go. A time when the only promise that the future held was of disappointment. He closed his eyes and saw the smiles on their faces. And felt the curve of his wife’s cheek on the tip of his finger. And then the wave crashed on the SUV.
The End
Author’s note: Close to a thousand people died in the rains of 2005 in Mumbai. I cannot comprehend the horror they must have experienced before the water swept them away. I don’t know if anyone died the way I have portrayed above. But I like to think that he or she experienced the greatest joy of seeing the loved ones rescued.
Also, the waves that I have described were not there during the floods. I hope those waves are confined to fiction. But then, whatever that really happened was more unbelievable and tragic than any fiction can conjure.
Labels: fiction, short story
[Short Story] The Memory Eater - Caferati and Livejournal Flash Fiction Contest Entry
on Wednesday, November 26, 2008My short story missed out on the top ten prize by a mere point :-/
Here is the link for the scores of my story: http://livejournal.caferati.com/contests/scores/?contest=qt&action=show_entry&entry=684
The contest: http://livejournal.caferati.com/
The theme for the contest was 'journal'
And following is the story:
THE MEMORY EATER
The journal survived. Like a pearl inside a shelled mollusk. Everything else destroyed by the roiling, angry sea. He raged when he saw the dry crisp pages of the journal. Seventy three people on the ocean liner. Seventy two dead. One survivor on the desolate island. And his journal. The endless horizon, as though God’s smile, mocking him. The sound of waves His laughter. He laughed too. It sounded like a hideous cry.
He opened a random page.
1st January : ‘Kissed her for the first time!’
He smiled. She was beautiful, his wife. She was dead. He tore and ate the page. A memory good enough to eat. He ate all the pages with her name on it. Almost fifty. He retched the whole night.
He buried twenty two bodies. Then gave up. The island was a giant grave. The pile of dead flesh. Marinated by the salty sea water. Good enough to eat? He pressed his fists on his eyes and cried for hours.
29th September: ‘Got a promotion today. Party planned!’
He read the menu of the party. ‘Chicken biryani’, ‘Mutton Roganjosh’. ‘Paneer Hyderabadi’ ‘Casatta ice-cream’. He licked the ink for a long time. A tasty meal. He found all the pages with the mention of parties. He ate them all. He did not throw up.
He looked at the bodies. Lined up like a buffet. His mouth drooling like a hungry dog. He wondered if he was a dog. Whether all the things that happened before were a dog’s dream? A dog can eat any flesh. He clutched the journal to his chest. The touch of the paper to his chafed skin was soothing. There were many pages left in the journal. He was yet to become a dog.
5th December: “Our new house!” Did he own a house? He closed his eyes and saw a corner. A corner adorned by his guitar. His favorite corner. He searched for it in the journal entry. He cried for a long time when he saw it. It was his house. He tore the page and ate it.
Days (Months? Years?) later only a few pages remained. The sad memories. Entries where he wrote about his father’s death. His lament about not writing a novel. His depression after being ignored for the position of the Vice President. He wondered what would taste worse. The days (months? years?) old human flesh or ancient uncertain sad memories? He ate the pages after a long time. He would not become a dog. Those memories in the journal were that of a man. He would die a man.
The rescue boat found him. A brown skeleton. Barely breathing. A tattered journal cover wedged between his hands and chest. The rescuers saw the rotting carcasses on the sand and understood.
They fed him.
“How did you survive?” they asked, fearing the answer.
“On my memories”, he said.
The End
Labels: fiction, flash fiction, short story
The Great Poet
The great poet died on the seat next to mine. He exhaled his last breath on my right shoulder. It was like a deep sigh, as though his soul left him in that final exhalation relieved of his forty kilograms overweight body. A kilogram of that must have been the liquor. Perhaps it was the alcohol that made him tell me things that he had hidden from his four ex-wives and many mistresses.
I leaned back in the flight. I decided not to tell the crew about his death. There was nothing they would have done apart from causing a lot of discomfort to my fellow passengers. I closed my eyes and wondered if I should tie a cloth around my nose. The fumes of alcohol made my stomach churn. I wondered if any of his ex-wives or the mistresses would turn up for his funeral. I think he was a man who was never alone when alive but would be very lonely on his pyre.
This is what happened an hour back.
I could smell this fat man from four seats back and as luck would have it, my seat was next to him. He was lumped on his seat with dried wax-like saliva caked on his chin, throat and kurta. He looked like a sack full of big potatoes.
“Can I get another seat, please?” I whispered in the airhostess’s ear. She refused, the flight was full. I cursed loud enough to make her flinch. She turned back and never returned near my seat, which, in the light of the great poet’s death, was not such as bad thing. I opened the overhead compartment, flung my sales kit inside and banged it close. A few passengers looked at me as though I was going to make their journey miserable. I sat on my seat with a loud thump. The man had not even stirred.
When the flight had achieved an altitude which gives the kids and first time fliers a view of the backside of the clouds, I thought he said something. I looked at him and that was when I really knew who was sitting next to me. I became excited and looked all around. I thought of shouting and telling people that I had found the great poet Shantanu Vakil sprawled on the seat next to me but I chose not to. Sometimes you take small decisions in life. But they kick you out of your path. Sometimes you land up on a road to heaven and sometimes on a road to hell. That was the small decision that kicked me.
I don’t think there was a single poem of Vakil that I didn’t know by heart. I had recited so many of them in school, in college, in sales conferences of my company. I wanted to call that air-hostess and kiss her. And kiss all the passengers for occupying all the seats except the one next to him.
He mumbled something and woke up with a start as though a dream had shunted him out of his slumber.
“What…where the hell am I?” he said rubbing his face as the dried saliva flaked on his kurta.
“Ajay!” he shouted. I knew Ajay Chaudhuri was his long time assistant. I looked around in the plane and did not seem him anywhere.
“I can’t see him, sir”, I said.
He nodded his head in a slow arc, as though I had said something very profound.
“How can he be, when he is dead?” he said.
I thought that explained his alcohol overdose. I knew he was a heavy drinker. There were nine books on his life with at least three chapters in each dedicated to his drinking. But the man seating next to me had drunk much more than any description in those chapters. Perhaps that had made me not recognize him.
“He was a friend. A good friend. And a great lover too”, he said.
I knew I had stopped breathing. The only thing I heard was the low hum emanating from the bowels of the plane and those five words. And a great lover too.
I looked at him as he started crying large silent tears that washed away all residual saliva from his face. I had no clue what to do. Should I pat him? Should I offer him a tissue? He cried for a few minutes. He looked at me as though he suddenly discovered that I was sitting next to him.
“I am one of your greatest fans, sir!” I said thinking that would distract him. If there is one thing that can distract an artiste, it is flattery, I knew.
“Who are you?” he said completely ignoring my words.
“Uh…I am…my name is Sameer, sir. I am the senior area sales manger with Jet Flowmeters, sir”, I said.
“You must be a complete loser to be my greatest fan, Sameer”, he said.
I have spent countless number of nights soaking up this man’s poems so that I could recite them in school functions. I have bunked so many college lectures to cram his poems so that I could impress the girls. Numerous sales conferences I have started and ended with his couplets to get a thundering applause from my colleagues. And this man called me a complete loser. Many words formed in my mouth as a retort but none came out.
“Oh, don’t look so hurt”, he said, “I have just stated an obvious fact”
“You just heard a secret of mine, didn’t you?” he said looking at me as though I were some halfwit who did not understand what he meant when he called Ajay a great lover. I wondered how they had managed not to get outed for all these years. Decades, perhaps.
“So are you going to jump off this plane and talk to the reporters, you fucking loser?” he asked, blowing fumes of expensive alcohol at me. I looked around to ascertain nobody was overhearing our conversation. His voice was garbled and low. Just the words stung.
“No…no sir. Your personal life is your right, sir. I just loved your poetry”, I said.
“My poetry, you say”, he said in a singsong tone. It was becoming a surreal experience for me.
“What did you love about my poetry, Mr. Loser?” he said. The tears were streaming down his face. The top of his kurta was drenched.
I said nothing.
“Answer me!”, he barked. The vain bastard wanted to hear flattery even in the death of his lover.
“The innocence in them, sir. Your poems take me back to the happy days of my childhood”
“It is as if, it’s written by a child, isn’t it?” he said in a practiced way, as though he had said it a million times before.
“Yes”, I said.
“What did you do with my poetry, Sameer?” he asked as though his poetry was some living thing and I had violated it in some way.
“I recited it in many places”, I said. All that abuse was becoming unbearable.
“All the women must have fawned on you, didn’t they?”
I recoiled at the way he said it. It was as though he spat those words at me.
“And you must have got a lot of applause?” he said.
I mumbled a yes.
“That’s my applause, you bastard! You stole my applause”, he said.
“Are you in love?”
I shrugged.
“Did you propose her with my poetry?”
“Yes”, I said.
I wondered if he was the same man that I had read about in those biographies.
He let out a low growl like laughter that made me shiver.
“Will you do something for me, Mr. Loser?” he said.
I nodded.
“You are the best man to do it, Sameer”, he said. His voice was suddenly very sad, as though repenting all the things that he had called me.
“I can do anything for you sir”, I said. I owed him some very happy moments in my life. His poems were my greatest friends. Perhaps the only friends.
“When we reach Mumbai, will you give the news of my death to someone?”
I was in the act of nodding an enthusiastic yes when the words hit me.
“Don’t look at me as though you are watching a ghost, my greatest fan”, he said and laughed. Bubbles of alcohol laden saliva formed around his lips. I thought those bubbles had a reddish tinge to them He coughed for a few moments in his hands after that. His hands were sprayed with blood.
“I don’t have much time, Sameer”, he said, “Say yes or no. Will you fulfill the wish of a great poet?”
“Sir…I think you need help!” I said. I felt like vomiting as a big glob of snot and blood jumped out of his mouth and landed on the front seat.
“No, I need a promise”, he said.
“I will do it, sir”, I said and tried to stand up to call the air-hostess. He grabbed my arm in his big fleshy hand and pulled me down with such force that I let out a little yelp.
“Go to my house. Meet Ajay’s son. Tell him I am sorry”, he said.
“Okay”, I said, trying to free my arm from his hand.
“He is the great poet”, he said.
“What?” I said.
“Yes. He is the one. I am just a reciter, like you”, he said.
“You mean…”
And that was when he let out the last sigh. The sigh that made my right shoulder burn for a long time.
“He was a great poet, wasn’t he?” the doctor said to me.
I agreed.
“May I meet Ajay Chaudhuri’s son now?” I asked.
“Yes”, the doctor said and asked me to follow.
It was the costliest room in the most expensive hospital of the city.
There was a cadaverous form on the bed. Ajay Chaudhuri’s son.
“Shantanu Vakil paid for all this. What a terrible thing. I know you must have gone through a bad experience”, he said nodding with his head tilted.
I was already a mini celebrity, with my photograph appearing prominently in all the newspapers. Although, I don’t like to remember those photographs. You cannot be proud of publicity at the expense of your photograph with a dead body. Did you know he was dead? What were his last words? Did he die with a poem on his lips? Bloody stupid questions the reporters asked me.
“It was twenty five years back. I don’t think Vakil was a great poet back then”, the doctor said.
I knew he was not. He was not even a poet back then. He was just the only son of a billionaire. But he was definitely Ajay Chaudhuri’s lover. They were school friends who became more than that in their teens. But Ajay’s parents married him off and that broke Vakil’s heart. He married four times after that. They came back together twelve years later. When Ajay Chaudhuri’s wife died and his son became a case of young onset motor neuron disease. The treatment was expensive and Chaudhuri had nothing but the boy’s poetry to sell.
It may not have happened that way. None of it was in his biographies. But it should be very close. How do I know all this? Well, they say in sales, you just need to know one big secret of your customer. Rest all you can guess. It is something similar to that.
“I wonder who will pay for his continued existence now?” the doctor said raising his hands towards the sky.
“I will”, I said.
“Thank you very much”, I said into the microphone. The applause did not stop for five minutes. I gave away a million photographs and autographs. They just did not seem to have enough of me. I said goodbye to all of them and got into my Mercedes. It was that time of the week when I sat next to Akshay, Ajay Chaudhuri’s son with a dictaphone as he tells me all those poems that I recite. In a way, nothing has
The great poet died on the seat next to mine. He exhaled his last breath on my right shoulder. It was like a deep sigh, as though his soul left him in that final exhalation relieved of his forty kilograms overweight body. A kilogram of that must have been the liquor. Perhaps it was the alcohol that made him tell me things that he had hidden from his four ex-wives and many mistresses.
I leaned back in the flight. I decided not to tell the crew about his death. There was nothing they would have done apart from causing a lot of discomfort to my fellow passengers. I closed my eyes and wondered if I should tie a cloth around my nose. The fumes of alcohol made my stomach churn. I wondered if any of his ex-wives or the mistresses would turn up for his funeral. I think he was a man who was never alone when alive but would be very lonely on his pyre.
This is what happened an hour back.
I could smell this fat man from four seats back and as luck would have it, my seat was next to him. He was lumped on his seat with dried wax-like saliva caked on his chin, throat and kurta. He looked like a sack full of big potatoes.
“Can I get another seat, please?” I whispered in the airhostess’s ear. She refused, the flight was full. I cursed loud enough to make her flinch. She turned back and never returned near my seat, which, in the light of the great poet’s death, was not such as bad thing. I opened the overhead compartment, flung my sales kit inside and banged it close. A few passengers looked at me as though I was going to make their journey miserable. I sat on my seat with a loud thump. The man had not even stirred.
When the flight had achieved an altitude which gives the kids and first time fliers a view of the backside of the clouds, I thought he said something. I looked at him and that was when I really knew who was sitting next to me. I became excited and looked all around. I thought of shouting and telling people that I had found the great poet Shantanu Vakil sprawled on the seat next to me but I chose not to. Sometimes you take small decisions in life. But they kick you out of your path. Sometimes you land up on a road to heaven and sometimes on a road to hell. That was the small decision that kicked me.
I don’t think there was a single poem of Vakil that I didn’t know by heart. I had recited so many of them in school, in college, in sales conferences of my company. I wanted to call that air-hostess and kiss her. And kiss all the passengers for occupying all the seats except the one next to him.
He mumbled something and woke up with a start as though a dream had shunted him out of his slumber.
“What…where the hell am I?” he said rubbing his face as the dried saliva flaked on his kurta.
“Ajay!” he shouted. I knew Ajay Chaudhuri was his long time assistant. I looked around in the plane and did not seem him anywhere.
“I can’t see him, sir”, I said.
He nodded his head in a slow arc, as though I had said something very profound.
“How can he be, when he is dead?” he said.
I thought that explained his alcohol overdose. I knew he was a heavy drinker. There were nine books on his life with at least three chapters in each dedicated to his drinking. But the man seating next to me had drunk much more than any description in those chapters. Perhaps that had made me not recognize him.
“He was a friend. A good friend. And a great lover too”, he said.
I knew I had stopped breathing. The only thing I heard was the low hum emanating from the bowels of the plane and those five words. And a great lover too.
I looked at him as he started crying large silent tears that washed away all residual saliva from his face. I had no clue what to do. Should I pat him? Should I offer him a tissue? He cried for a few minutes. He looked at me as though he suddenly discovered that I was sitting next to him.
“I am one of your greatest fans, sir!” I said thinking that would distract him. If there is one thing that can distract an artiste, it is flattery, I knew.
“Who are you?” he said completely ignoring my words.
“Uh…I am…my name is Sameer, sir. I am the senior area sales manger with Jet Flowmeters, sir”, I said.
“You must be a complete loser to be my greatest fan, Sameer”, he said.
I have spent countless number of nights soaking up this man’s poems so that I could recite them in school functions. I have bunked so many college lectures to cram his poems so that I could impress the girls. Numerous sales conferences I have started and ended with his couplets to get a thundering applause from my colleagues. And this man called me a complete loser. Many words formed in my mouth as a retort but none came out.
“Oh, don’t look so hurt”, he said, “I have just stated an obvious fact”
“You just heard a secret of mine, didn’t you?” he said looking at me as though I were some halfwit who did not understand what he meant when he called Ajay a great lover. I wondered how they had managed not to get outed for all these years. Decades, perhaps.
“So are you going to jump off this plane and talk to the reporters, you fucking loser?” he asked, blowing fumes of expensive alcohol at me. I looked around to ascertain nobody was overhearing our conversation. His voice was garbled and low. Just the words stung.
“No…no sir. Your personal life is your right, sir. I just loved your poetry”, I said.
“My poetry, you say”, he said in a singsong tone. It was becoming a surreal experience for me.
“What did you love about my poetry, Mr. Loser?” he said. The tears were streaming down his face. The top of his kurta was drenched.
I said nothing.
“Answer me!”, he barked. The vain bastard wanted to hear flattery even in the death of his lover.
“The innocence in them, sir. Your poems take me back to the happy days of my childhood”
“It is as if, it’s written by a child, isn’t it?” he said in a practiced way, as though he had said it a million times before.
“Yes”, I said.
“What did you do with my poetry, Sameer?” he asked as though his poetry was some living thing and I had violated it in some way.
“I recited it in many places”, I said. All that abuse was becoming unbearable.
“All the women must have fawned on you, didn’t they?”
I recoiled at the way he said it. It was as though he spat those words at me.
“And you must have got a lot of applause?” he said.
I mumbled a yes.
“That’s my applause, you bastard! You stole my applause”, he said.
“Are you in love?”
I shrugged.
“Did you propose her with my poetry?”
“Yes”, I said.
I wondered if he was the same man that I had read about in those biographies.
He let out a low growl like laughter that made me shiver.
“Will you do something for me, Mr. Loser?” he said.
I nodded.
“You are the best man to do it, Sameer”, he said. His voice was suddenly very sad, as though repenting all the things that he had called me.
“I can do anything for you sir”, I said. I owed him some very happy moments in my life. His poems were my greatest friends. Perhaps the only friends.
“When we reach Mumbai, will you give the news of my death to someone?”
I was in the act of nodding an enthusiastic yes when the words hit me.
“Don’t look at me as though you are watching a ghost, my greatest fan”, he said and laughed. Bubbles of alcohol laden saliva formed around his lips. I thought those bubbles had a reddish tinge to them He coughed for a few moments in his hands after that. His hands were sprayed with blood.
“I don’t have much time, Sameer”, he said, “Say yes or no. Will you fulfill the wish of a great poet?”
“Sir…I think you need help!” I said. I felt like vomiting as a big glob of snot and blood jumped out of his mouth and landed on the front seat.
“No, I need a promise”, he said.
“I will do it, sir”, I said and tried to stand up to call the air-hostess. He grabbed my arm in his big fleshy hand and pulled me down with such force that I let out a little yelp.
“Go to my house. Meet Ajay’s son. Tell him I am sorry”, he said.
“Okay”, I said, trying to free my arm from his hand.
“He is the great poet”, he said.
“What?” I said.
“Yes. He is the one. I am just a reciter, like you”, he said.
“You mean…”
And that was when he let out the last sigh. The sigh that made my right shoulder burn for a long time.
“He was a great poet, wasn’t he?” the doctor said to me.
I agreed.
“May I meet Ajay Chaudhuri’s son now?” I asked.
“Yes”, the doctor said and asked me to follow.
It was the costliest room in the most expensive hospital of the city.
There was a cadaverous form on the bed. Ajay Chaudhuri’s son.
“Shantanu Vakil paid for all this. What a terrible thing. I know you must have gone through a bad experience”, he said nodding with his head tilted.
I was already a mini celebrity, with my photograph appearing prominently in all the newspapers. Although, I don’t like to remember those photographs. You cannot be proud of publicity at the expense of your photograph with a dead body. Did you know he was dead? What were his last words? Did he die with a poem on his lips? Bloody stupid questions the reporters asked me.
“It was twenty five years back. I don’t think Vakil was a great poet back then”, the doctor said.
I knew he was not. He was not even a poet back then. He was just the only son of a billionaire. But he was definitely Ajay Chaudhuri’s lover. They were school friends who became more than that in their teens. But Ajay’s parents married him off and that broke Vakil’s heart. He married four times after that. They came back together twelve years later. When Ajay Chaudhuri’s wife died and his son became a case of young onset motor neuron disease. The treatment was expensive and Chaudhuri had nothing but the boy’s poetry to sell.
It may not have happened that way. None of it was in his biographies. But it should be very close. How do I know all this? Well, they say in sales, you just need to know one big secret of your customer. Rest all you can guess. It is something similar to that.
“I wonder who will pay for his continued existence now?” the doctor said raising his hands towards the sky.
“I will”, I said.
“Thank you very much”, I said into the microphone. The applause did not stop for five minutes. I gave away a million photographs and autographs. They just did not seem to have enough of me. I said goodbye to all of them and got into my Mercedes. It was that time of the week when I sat next to Akshay, Ajay Chaudhuri’s son with a dictaphone as he tells me all those poems that I recite. In a way, nothing has
for Akshay. Only the reciter of his poems has. But I don’t think he is aware of that. What you don’t know, cannot hurt you.
And, oh, by the way, they all call me the great poet now.
And, oh, by the way, they all call me the great poet now.
The End
Labels: fiction, short story, writing
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