Mango Chutney: An Anthology of Tasteful Short Fiction. (6 page)

The night was pitch-black and I could dark clouds looming. As I was
about to get into my car, the Sarpanch arrived and asked me not to leave
since the roads were not deemed safe at night.

“Arey Sarpanch Ji! I am a doctor who drives a defunct fiat returning from
a free check-up camp. Who would bother robbing me?” I chuckled. He
wasn’t amused.

“They are not there to rob your money, doctor sa’ab, they are looking for
something ...else. There have been ‘sightings’ on the road…need I tell u
more?”

“I’ll drive non-stop and I shall reach Bhopal by 5 in the morning.”Sarpanch
Ji could only grumble.

As I walked to get into my car I saw a strange symbol painted on the bon
-
net of my car with the familiar ‘red paint’. My heart sank. I looked at the
Sarpanch. I wanted to ask him “Is this the reason you want me to stay in
this hell of a place for the night?”

He maintained a stiff face. I quickly got into the car without saying a
word. I turned on the ignition and after a few hitches the engine growled.
After bidding a hasty good bye to the Sarpanch and Guptaji and a few
other helpful villagers, I set forth at a good speed. Half way, it began to
drizzle. I toggled the switch of the wipers, which had to be turned to
their maximum speed to counter the heavy showers. It was difficult to
make out what was looming ahead. There was thick forest cover on either
side of the road; the trees seemed to twist, twirl and bend over the road
with the gale, as if furious with the car’s headlights.

My rickety fiat was pushed to its limits. Even after two hours the storm
showed no signs of settling. However, in a short span of five minutes,
everything became quiet. The wind ceased to blow, the rain stopped, and
even the trees seemed dead. I could only hear the engine’s roar.
I opened my windows. On the roadside, a child, probably in his early
teens was sitting on the 37th milestone wearing his school uniform. He
was wailing loud enough for me to hear. I slowed my car. A boy in his
school uniform in the middle of nowhere at 1 ‘o clock in the night was
not normal There were no inhabited areas within miles from that place. I
brought the car to a complete halt; the engine was still on. The boy stood
up upon and started walking towards me. I watched his every move with
one foot on the accelerator and through the windows that wereshut.

Peeping inside the rolled up window glass, he said, “Uncle please! Mujhe
bachaa lo mujhe yahaa se le chalo uncle! Mujhe ghar jaana hai!” (Uncle,
please save me! I want to go home.)

I sat motionless. I couldn’t decide what to do. I was not able to see his
face clearly. The boy repeated the same words mechanically and started
banging the window glass with his little hands.

An abrupt lightning bolt struck, with thunder, illuminating his face.
Christ! He was the same boy I had treated a few hours ago in the village.
How could he have reached here? My blood ran cold. I stepped on the
accelerator as hard as I could. The car lurched ahead. With my eyes halfclosed, I sped away at full throttle. I was running for my life. The boy
tried to chase me, failing which he let out a blood-curdling yell.

My heart didn’t stop pounding for the next three hours until I reached
Bhopal at about 4 in the morning. I parked the car in my garage and
rushed to the main door. My wife, Sarita, was rubbing her eyes as she
opened it. She’d woken up after hearing the car come in. I jumped and
hugged her tight, startling her.

Before she could ask me anything, I told Sarita not to wake me up in the
morning as I was too tired. Phew! I slept like a log soaked in alcohol.
***

It was three ‘o clock in the afternoon, when I woke up. I had a slight
headache. After freshening up I eased myself on a chair in the porch. The
evening daily was kept on the center table. I casually picked it up. .

Tragic End to the Anubhav Aggarwal Kidnapping Case
Bhopal. In a tragic turn of events, Anubhav Aggrawal, son of the famous builder

Ravi Aggarwal, who was kidnapped last Wednesday while he was returning from
school, was run over by a truck this morning around 5’ o clock. As per our sources say,
the boy escaped from the captivity of the kidnappers late night. Eyewitness accounts
confirm that he was asking for help to the people who passed by the Jhabua-Bhopal
bypass. But nobody helped him out. The boy was probably attempting stop a truck for
help which ran over him. The truck driver fled the scene leaving his vehicle behind. A
shaken Mr. Ravi Aggarwal blamed the police for its incapability to nab the kidnappers on time. Anubhav’s body will be handed over to his family after the post-mortem
confirms the cause of death.

I couldn’t read further. My whole body had become numb. How could
I have been so stupid? So indifferent? I could have easily saved the child
had I been a little more rational. I am expected to save people’s lives,
but in this case, due to my very own stupidity and superstition, a life was
lost.

I had encountered him at 1’o clock. The poor little soul would have been
begging for help for another four hours.

Sarita arrived with a cup of tea and a newspaper in the other hand. The
lines of her head were discernible. I had rarely seen her as worried. Be-
fore I could quiz her, she said, “Why are you reading yesterday’s news-
paper?”

“What!?” I checked the date; it was indeed yesterday’s. This time I was
paralyzed.

 

“Here have a look at today’s headline,” she said, nearly weeping. It took
me two reads to comprehend:

 

Minivan Collides With A Tree

 

6 killed including 4 doctors near the 37th milestone on the Jhabua-Bhopal bypass.
***
7.
Valentine Lost
Sidhharth

“Doesn’t she look like Aishwarya Rai?” I asked my best friend Rajan.
Raising his eyebrows, he signaled me to stay quiet while he looked at her
through the maze of students between her and us.

It was an unremarkable April morning. The sun had just begun to emerge
from its wintry retreat. I hated summers for two reasons in particular.
First, I couldn’t eat properly and would end up losing a good five or six
kilos that I had gained during thewinters. Second, I would sweat like a pig
and wet the pages of my notebooks while writing assignments. But, still,
summer marked the beginning of the new session at school. We would
get new books to dirty, new notebooks to draw really bad portraits of our
teachers, new classrooms that generously provided fresh faces to ogle at
during a boring class.

The summer of 1996 was no different. It was the first day of ninth stan
-
dard. The teacher was helping the new ones introduce themselves. Anan-
ya was one of them.

I couldn’t help myself from staring at her. The colour of her eyes was the
perfect blend of green and blue, like corals in a tropical ocean. Her hair –
long with chinks of brown; her skin, white as a lone cloud in the summer
sky; her lips, the colour of cherries; and her chin, tiny like a table tennis
ball. Eager to know all about her, I tried to find ways to initiate conversa-
tion. But before that I had to know her name, and she had to know mine.
I waited for her turn to introduce herself to the class; in the meanwhile, I
took to preparing a mental list of questions that I would ask her the mo-
ment I got a chance. The teacher helped me in my endeavor although she
remained unaware of it; I gleaned knowledge of her address, her parents
and others in her family.

“Hello everyone, my name is Ananya,” she spoke in a soft, nervous tone
and sat down on her seat before she could finish, probably to avoid more
questions from the teacher. As soon as the first period ended, I exchanged
seats with a classmate seated right behind her. The next teacher arrived
and started taking attendance.

“Hi!” I whispered.
She didn’t reply, did not even turn her head.
“Ananya, right? Hi!” I said again, louder this time.
“Hi,” she replied, pivoting her head ever so slightly to the right.

She was wearing shiny yellow earrings, which actually looked gawdy and
a tad too grown-up. I hadn’t seen any girl wear such earrings in school
before. For a moment, I thought of asking her if they were made of
real gold, but I thought showing more interest in her earrings than her
was not the prudent thing to do. She didn’t participate as much as I’d
expected, which made me want to prod her more. I began to think of
something, something crazy that would grab her attention.

I made a fist of my right hand and started blowing air in it. The boy sit
-
ting next to me asked me to stop shaking my legs. I wasn’t aware that my
movements were making the entire desk tremble, making it difficult for
him to copy whatever nonsense the teacher was scribbling on the black-
board. I gestured to punch him in his face. Scared, he pulled his head
out of the direction of my punch, dropping his pencil on the ground. I
smiled at him and spared his face. For he had shown the way forward for
me. I took out a five-rupee note, my allowance to buy lunch, and dropped
it near her school bag.

“Hey, look there is a five rupee note near your bag. Is it yours?” I asked
her.

She looked down, picked up the note and said, “No, it isn’t mine but we
should give it to the teacher. Shouldn’t we?” The next moment, before
I could respond, she was at the teacher’s table, telling her that she had
found a five-rupee note near her bag. I wondered if she really was that
dumb or was trying hard to be one. It was going to be a long and hungry
day for me at school.

“Were you in a girl’s school or what? You don’t talk to boys at all?” I asked
her abruptly, while poking her back with the tip of my sharpened pencil.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed.
“What’s happening over there?” the teacher asked.

“I broke my pencil’s tip ma’am,” she said. Everyone laughed. Thankfully,
the teacher went back to her chores.

“Thanks!” I said.
“Why are you bothering me?”
“Because I want to get to know you.”
“Idiot.”
“Thanks.”
“Stupid.”
“Thanks, again.”
I heard her giggling, before she said, “Mental case.”

I imitated her giggles and thanked her again. I enjoyed every morsel of at
-
tention that I got from her, troubling her all day long by the end of which
she got used to my constant need to get noticed. I looked at her during
lunch break from a distance, while scavenging food from my friends.
She was sitting amongst a bunch of girls, gabbing over their open lunch
boxes, gobbling food from each other’s. She didn’t look at me even once
during the break. Lost in thought and scheming to get her attention, I did
not register any of Rajan’s supremely dull tales that he felt I was obligated
to listen to since I was foraging for food from his lunchbox.

The canteen was searing hot. She broke into a sweat as soon as she en
-
tered, beads of sweat on her forehead resembling carefully set pearls in a
necklace. Every now and then, one would break free and travel down her
face before being mopped into a starched handkerchief that never seemed
to leave her left hand. She raised her eyebrows and breathed heavily be-
fore and after every mouthful, as if she were climbing stairs. She was
quite the talkative one, just not with boys. She would use both her hands
to make all the girls around her understand her point. She looked more
mature. And beautiful, too, unlike the rest of my female classmates. Like
Aishwarya Rai. I, on the other hand, behaved like the creep who stalks
her from a distance. I did not dare tell her that she resembled Aishwarya
Rai. I wanted to. I decided to wait for the right moment.

***

Over the next few weeks, we became close friends, thanks to all my taunt
-
ing, done with careful deliberation and an astute knowledge of the con-
sequences. Eventually, I told her that it was I who had put the five-rupee
note near her bag on the first day of the school to seek her attention. She
was surprised; I didn’t think she would be.

As if retaliating, she took me to task ever since I revealed my primal act
of desperation. She deemed it her responsibility to improve my illegible
handwriting. One could never tell the difference between the way I wrote
‘l’, ‘p’ and ‘f’; they all looked the same,: fate could be pate or late, nobody
knew but myself. Sometimes even I didn’t.

She surprised me when, asked to sing her favorite song in Music class,
she chose to sing “O Mere Sona Re Sona Re Sona Re”. Nadeem-Shravan
used to rule the music charts back then – you either sang Yaara O Yaara
Milna Hamaara or Tu Shaayar Hai, yet she picked a thirty-year-old song.
I wondered who made her listen to such music.

She surprised me when she gifted me a set of six differently-coloured
pens before the semester exams so that I could write my answers neatly,
and differentiate between the questions and the answers. She cared for
minute details that I never would care about, like underlining a definition
or marking the heading in all-capitals. She told me that I should put a
colon after every ‘Q’ and ‘A’. She wanted me to be perfect, like she was.

She surprised me when after the winter vacations she told me that she
had missed me. The year was about to end. We had known each other
for nine months. I still hadn’t told her that she looked like Aishwarya Rai.
We were inseparable those days, and I figured that I’d tell her when the
right time came.

Three years passed and we continued to remain inseparable.
***

Time is a master craftsman of a completely different league. It had been
only thirty-six months since we first met, and a lot had changed. She had
had her nose pierced and wore a black nose ring in sharp contrast to her
complexion. The length of the skirts of my other female classmates was
getting shorter every year, whereas Ananya had started to wear full-length
salwar-kameez. She wore her dupatta, properly pinned at the shoulders,
hanging down on her uniform like a drape. The way she walked had
changed as well. She had begun to walk slowly, as if she weren’t walking,
but floating an inch above the ground with a womanly elegance, an aura
that one could perceive. Her presence turned a lot of heads and I became
progressively protective of her. I walked her home every day after school,
even though it was a rather long detour for me. She would hold my arm
with both her hands while walking. I assured her many times, “I am not
going to disappear and leave you alone. You can let go of my arm for a
change!” to which she always had an innovative reply, some funny, some
endearing and the rest, downright ridiculous. “Are you planning an escape
mister?”, “The princess doesn’t want to let go!”, “I would let go if you
let me hold on to the other one!”, “Why don’t you simply tell me that my
nails are hurting you?”, “What, now you want me to hold your legs?”, “I
thought we had a contract that I am allowed to hold your arm as long
you are allowed to walk me home every day!”, “The day I don’t feel like,
I won’t! But today, I want to”, “Why do you have a problem when your
arm doesn’t?” and “It’s the best feeling to have you by my side, annoyed!”
Little did she know I enjoyed it too, that I was just putting on a show, as
if I was the macho guy who didn’t like being touched. In reality, I was far,
far from what I pretended to be. Perhaps she knew that.