Killing Time!

The odds were all against her. Sangeeta was holding the revolver in her hand. She did not have license to it. They had trained her on how to use it. The deal was simple. She would kill. And if she got away with it good for her. If she did not, bad for her. But if she did not do it at all! too bad for her. Because they were holding her hostage.

Did you hear it right? She was being held hostage and she was the one with the gun! Well it did not add up, did it? That was the trick in this game too. If it did not make sense no one would get to the bottom of it.

In politics it happens everyday. And they always get away with it. Everyone needs proof of allegiance and this meant making yourself vulnerable. And in politics they say this is the most reliable way to make yourself vulnerable. Commit a crime and don't get caught. That clue goes in the file of the party high command and stays there. In that moment you became eligible to grow in the ranks. Simple, isn't it? There is no allegiance bigger than the allegiance of crime! She was told that it was for a good cause. All her dreams to serve her country were held hostage. "What is one crime?" She reasoned "One teeny-weeny crime, as long as you get away." This was not a siege, they explained, pushing towards her, pictures of the Parliament Bomb Blast and 26/11 siege; these are unpardonable. Killing someone.!.. that depended who you killed! Simple.

"Why the revolver?" She queried. "Why not the poison. Or maybe suffocating the target to death. How about gassing the target."

"No, No and No," they said, their hollow laughter sending a chill into her. It was important that the high command had evidence, strong enough to hold her accountable. Usually some smart alecks get away with the crime and leave no evidence, this creates a passe, they can neither deny the person nor offer a decent post in the party. "It is now a policy," they explained... "for the candidate to have an unlicensed gun. Even if you do not leave enough evidence at least the party will have something on you. If nothing we can ruin your career!"

She could feel the sweat building up on her temple. Her palms getting sweaty as she rubbed them on her jacket. She had worn one with an inside pocket. This was suggested to her so she could carry a small revolver without being noticed.

She had driven alone for the meeting, just to be extra careful. Her driver a Middle aged fatherly man, often her confidante, asked too many questions. She liked it because ever since she joined politics, she had spent weeks at a stretch cooped up in her car for long hours, traveling constituency to constituency, helping candidates campaign. It helped to have someone to talk to, generally.

She now needed a target. Her life had always been about success and now that she was so close to being offered some serious action in the party, she would not let it go for one meaningless life, she reasoned. Not everyone in this planet has the same right to live. For example her school teacher! The one who sexually abused the teens to give them the question papers! And that warden of the orphanage where she grew up... He had no business beating them up like animals for smallest of mistakes. That was the time she had decided to do something for people. She still remembered that she chose to fail rather than be abused sexually. That was the day she understood that she had a higher calling.

But here was the challenge. "You cannot kill someone with whom you have known enmity." There goes her school teacher and the warden. "You cannot kill a stranger, very difficult to prove if needed..." There goes millions of people who can very well be let go of, because she just didn't know them and therefore didn't worry whether they lived or died. "You have to kill someone you know and are in reasonably good terms with." So that it is not easy for police to prove your involvement but it will be easy to prove if needed. "And lastly you cannot kill a family member... blood is thicker than water, we have seen members lose their composure after killing their family."

Did they have a written manual or they had just memorised it all, Sangeeta wondered. Now with the revolver in her possession, she was informed that someone would be following her, She would never know who but her every action would be watched. "We have party members even amongst the beggars," they warned. "So don't try to dodge, and certainly don't outsource. We will know. And in that case we may take drastic measures"

She knew only a handful of people who she was close to. She had no family and she did not have many close friends. She did have many friends, but they were mostly transactional, nothing personal. She had a spotless life till then. Likeable, reliable and goal oriented. That was the reason she had come to the notice of the party high command.

She had no idea where she would find her victim. She made a mental list of people she could target. Her house help, her driver, her boy friend... boyfriend would become ugly. Her business associate? Too obvious. And then she remembered... her driver was into gambling. Every week he needed advance of some kind to go and gamble. His weakness. He was a perfect target. But he was also her true confidante.

She decided she will not to waste time thinking. She would just get done with it. Consider him a soldier. The nation needs me and I need him to lose his life for the nation.

She planned it meticulously. She would give him a leave for a week, maybe make a trip to someplace.  She would get a rundown car from some garage in the other town. Drive back in the car to the town, kill, and drive back to the resort. The police would call her, once they discovered about the death. The plan was so simple and fool proof that she was literally convinced she would get away with it.

And so she did, a one week trip to a nearby resort. Taking a brake before the upcoming elections. She found the car in the village in a garage. The guy practically gave it to her for free. He said, "The engine is perfect, but drive it very very slow." The body may have been in the junkyard rusting for centuries.

It was the slowest 100 km drive back to her city. She was happy the drive was slow, because she wanted the time to unravel. Kamal's house it was a little too silent. She peeped from a window. He was sitting on the bed, hands held up, to her disbelief!

She had thought, he did not know she was even in the town. For him to wait hands-up was a little too much to grapple. Just then she noticed the other man, his back was facing the window. He was pointing a gun at Kamal. She had the aim at the man. Now she wondered who to shoot? Kamal? or the Assailant? As she tried to solve this abnormal puzzle she heard a gunshot. The driver was still on the bed, sitting straight, he had not been shot, it was only a threatening shot. And then the roof crumbled. The house fell like a sand castle, not repaired for long, the vibration of the gunshot and the bullet hitting the ceiling did the job. In the scuffle, she realised she had hit a bullet too. She had no time to find out who she hit. She ran to her car, it was easy because everyone was rushing to the scene of disturbance, they did not know it was also a scene of crime.

She jumped on to the driver's seat, but it was great to have a slow onward journey, but she needed a faster locomotive now. She dumped the car in a garbage yard, walked to the nearest bus stop and boarded one to get back. Covering her head with her scarf so she would not be recognised. She reached back to the resort, only to be told that there were several calls for her. She had switched off her mobile to avoid being tracked. She realised she had no alibi. If anything, there were enough evidence to prove she was nowhere close to the resort when the incident took place. A whole busload of people. And then she got the worst shock of her life. She had stashed the revolver in the glove compartment of her rundown car. With her fingerprints all over it. She did not ask who had called. She dialled back the number that was left by the caller. The person at the other end said, Madam, Kamal, your driver, has passed away.

She did not know why the person sounded familiar. She chose to ignore that. She guessed maybe all men in Kamal's neighbourhood sounded the same. She booked a coach to get back home, to mourn Kamal's death. And lo and behold, her ramshackle car stood right at the porch. She only barely managed to get into the house when a heavily bearded man came out to greet her. He took her suitcase and motioned her in. Once in the drawing room, Kamal said, Madam, I hope you will understand why I am faking my death... I am in debt. The other day a man came to kill me and got crushed under my roof by accident. I managed to run out of the place. And then by chance I found this car in a junk yard and a revolver too. I took it and left the place. I am going back to the village. It has been great working for you madam, but the time has come for me to go... there is only one thing left to do... Kamal picked up the gun and Sangeeta lost a beat.

Kamal said, "Madam, I don't know what to do with this revolver. I don't want to be caught with it. Please keep it and give it to the police. Make up some story and just get rid of it."

Holding the revolver, Sangeeta aimed it towards Kamal as he walked out of the house... She wondered if this constituted qualification for some action in the party. 

Parent of Teens Can Be Really Unreliable!

"I am not here to tell you what you are doing is wrong or right. I just want to tell you that you be aware of what you are doing." Dad said to Anuj. He had been hiding in his bathroom for long and dad knew why! Wonder who else knows!

Anuj often hid himself in the bathroom. That was the only place in the world where he was alone. All other places in the house seemed to have spies following in his track. He hated to admit it, but there he was day after day, sitting in the bathroom. Sometimes flipping through erotic magazines, sometimes masturbating and sometimes just reading a good novel, once he even did his math homework in the bathroom.

Dad may have been firm but he also sounded understanding! Next time when he went to the bathroom he checked the whole place for hidden cameras. You cannot trust the parent of teens, they can be really unreliable, Anuj thought.

No... no cameras. Satisfied that he was alone in the bathroom he relaxed. His parents had changed of late. They did not treat him the way they did before! Anuj missed their love and blind trust, which was always bestowed on him. What had changed now? Why were they acting weird of late? What did they fear?

He was no more a kid and he had hoped that this should go in his favour and make his parents to trust him even more. But for the first time in his life, he felt like a stranger in his own home. He either would be away at a friend's place, where there were other sets of eyes keeping watch on them... his friend and him. He felt suffocated... in school his teachers had changed their attitude towards the class. Suspicion seemed to be written on their faces. If students kept a promise,  the teachers acted as if they got lucky for once and if the students acted irresponsibly, the adults made it known that this is just what was expected and that they were right in doubting them.

Life in short sucked. Adults can be really complicated. Specially parents. You never know when they will change tracks. It seemed to Anuj that his parents had shifted allegiance. And now they were in conspiracy against him and his contemporaries, with all other parents and teachers.

Anuj was back in the bathroom. He just sat on the commode, not wanting to come out. Life as he knew it was falling apart. But the shining tiles of the bathroom somehow made him feel a little comfortable.

And then there was a knock at the door, not the main door, the bathroom door. Anuj gathered himself up and decided to come out. He had been there for way too long. Dad was right outside, something just gripped him and he hugged his dad and said, I love you dad!

And it seemed that day Anuj became a real adult. Home began to look like home again, was this all that was needed? Anuj wondered!

Family Tree

I had it right there, pasted on the wall, the family tree. All people, just people, like all other people in the world, what is the big deal about this family tree? They are long gone and mostly forgotten. What is the significance of them? I had the family tree there on the wall, just to help me find these answers. I was not sure how they mattered. Those people were responsible for bringing me in my present form... or were they? If my great-great-great-grand parents never married, wouldn't I have a shot at being born?

And then I came back to the same question. Did all this really matter? And there were blank spots in my family tree. Some forgotten uncle or aunt. They must have been in the crime or maybe they killed themselves over lost love, or they just ran away too tired of the family tree. And now they were free of the family, because no one counted them in the family! how did that add up?

If those uncles and aunts who are excluded from the family tree, had kids, were they also aware of their family tree? And how would I relate to them? Were they also important to me? I did not know for sure. But every morning, evening and night, the family tree stared back at me mockingly and teased me.

It is the blank spots that mattered the most. If they are so important and if they are my family, don't they also impact me? Or is it that by rubbing their names off from the family tree, their impact on the future generations was wiped out. Then there is a point in wiping their names and memories out. I realised I was looking forward to be forgotten rather than being the cause of someone else's misery many hundred years later, many generations down the line. And then there was a wicked thrill in knowing that I could influence posterity. Not everyone with this wisdom is capable of doing great things to make their future generations proud of them, most of them suffice with the wicked thrill of ruining unknown lives by living irresponsibly, it gives them a kick.

I was one of those less gifted kind. It had to be one way or the there for me, forgotten or uglifyingt the family tree. So I decided I would not waste my time trying to remain in the family tree. Who cares for it anyway. Once I was gone would I really care?

And yet every-time I looked at the family tree, I knew I was on to something. The other day I saw a fly sitting on the family tree and I swatted it right there, and now it is part of my family tree too. That was a moment of epiphany. I reasoned that, if rubbing off names from the tree took care of the bad deeds of those disagreeable family members, adding names just randomly, would make some other more agreeable people related to my family, just the same. Because who really goes back to check the lineage.

And so this is what I did, I painted up some of the less likeable names from the tree and put in likeable ones there, making sure of conforming to the era of the persons life. Not that even that mattered, but I wanted to be meticulous in this game. And so my grandpa's brother was replaced with Rock Hudson. My grandma got a distant cousin named Audrey Hepburn. My dad became distantly related to Amitabh Bachchan and I got Keanu Reaves as my far removed cousin. At the end of the exercise, I began to fantasize putting Einstein and Subhash Chandra Bose also in the lineage. And also why leave Sachin Tendulkar and of course Marie Curie? But at the moment I was glad I had implemented my idea into three generations of my family and I felt much happier now. I just removed the fly from there. It was bothering me to see it next to Audrey.

Now every time I look at the family tree I look at it with a smile. Family is one that brings a smile on your face. And this one really really does!

Love, Trust and Other Luxuries

"You sure don't believe in love or trust?" Rhea's mom was sounding just a little on the edge.

"Well those things are luxury Naina, don't waste time in believing unreliable fantasies!" Rhea's dad said flippantly. She wondered what had made her parents to have this dated conversation so early on a beautiful Sunday morning.

"I can prove it to you," said Naina, argumentatively, "I married you because I loved you and I trusted you."

"And I was not a great catch? Haven't you seen my degrees? I was studying in the IIM when we first met." Anil countered, making a blunder he regretted immediately.

"And I? Was I doing home science? I was in IIM too. So you thought I was a good catch? Or you thought I joined the IIM to just find a good catch? Don't start your naive chauvinistic argument Amit, I know you find it hard to lose. But you are wrong today. There is love and there is trust and it is real. And please don't annoy me ever again with that 'Good catch' line. It is so typical and empty, you can't even convince yourself with it." Naina went on a tirade. She knew she was winning this argument and she wanted to clinch it and end it both at the same time.

Amit silently walked away. Rhea wondered what just happened. What was all this argument about and why did it end so abruptly? Rhea knew her parents picked up odd topics to argue over and fought each other like high school debaters, using lame examples to win the argument. It was rather cute. But usually it was about economy, politics or science. They were always in agreement over emotional subjects. They were both practical and diplomatic.

But today was different... What had changed since she slept last night? Had some meteorite stuck the neighbours and spared her home, she peeped out of the windows to check, but they were all where they were last night. Were they filing for divorce? No, that one she would know. Did they fight last night? Was one of them being unfaithful? No no no. Rhea knew her parents to be far more sensible.

A little later, Rhea's dad found her in her room. "Hey kid can I talk to you?" Of course he could, parents didn't need permission from their kids to speak to them. He was supposed to just knock her on her head gently, as he always did, and say what he had to say. Not ask for permission.

"Well, you see, I cannot understand why you would need me to meet this new friend of your's whats his name?" Rhea noticed a faint stammer in his voice.She ignored it.

"Ankit, for the nth time dad!" Rhea became irritated. She wondered why it was so important for her that her dad should remember Ankit's name! "what's up with you dad? You don't forget names! And why would you wonder about why I want him to meet you? I bring all my friends home! he is my friend too!" Rhea ended defiantly.

"This is different, I am not sure about it." Amit interjected! "I thought there were still a few years to go for this." He said a little hesitantly.

"Not again," Naina was standing at Rhea's door, hands on hips, "what is up with you Amit." Just let this be. Don't confuse Rhea.

Relieved at the timely intervention, Rhea shouted, "can you guys please excuse me, I have homework to do."

Amit reluctantly walked away, Naina walked in to hug and a kiss her daughter, way too big and warm a hug and way too gentle a kiss, and said, "remember what I have always said to you, love and trust are the most important things in life, just follow your heart and you will never regret your decisions."

Rhea turned to see her mother fade away from her room. All of a sudden she had grown up. She couldn't believe it, she had just had an adult conversation with her parents. It was a little awkward, but she could see that there was a large space created for her in her home that day, which she would learn to call her personal space. 

I Remained Silent

The birds chirped, louder and louder still. I could hear them but couldn't see them, I longed to go out of my cooped up room. The dogs barked and barked, I could hear them too. I longed to play with them. The street dogs were my favourite company, they bit when instigated, but they would not bite otherwise. I heard household sounds from my neighbour's, not just a distant muffled sound, but every word that they spoke. Not just one neighbour but a dozen of them. Our homes sharing just the thin walls which only barely separated us. 

In the night I could hear their yawns and moans and just quietly dosed off, without really noticing them. But today I heard them and I wanted to run away. They were just sounds for me till then, but today they were the only people I would see for days to come. I could not imagine myself seeing them face to face, I knew all their secrets and sorrows and fights and libidos, loud and clear, from within my house. 

I remained under my roof within the dingy room, They had never really seen me, I was always either going somewhere or coming back from somewhere. Once in a while a neighbour would stop me to talk, but it was so unbearable to talk to them like just a stranger, that I always avoided being caught with them in a tete-a-tete. What if I said something like... 'Oh well are you okay now I heard you crying last night', or 'oh so you are that woman who moans every night, where do you get the energy to do it daily?' Or 'well I did not know you were not home, I heard a woman in your house the whole week' or 'Oh which of those men who visit you is your husband?' It would be really embarrassing. I could not afford a home just as yet. A struggling actress, I was saving money on accommodation. Because after all, I spent all my time struggling in the high streets of Mumbai. And some days I did not even come back home. There were casting couches and small roles here and there. But I was going to make it big.

Today was different, my expensive perfumes and clothes all bundled and packed in suitcases under my bed, were to remain there for some time to come. This was COVID19 running it's havoc. Everyone had to be indoors. I envied people with real concrete walls and real roofs on their head. I had seen homes, comfortable cozy homes, One of them would be mine soon if my recent tryst with that big producer had worked out. I was not sure, I'd have found out this evening. But the evening never came, because we were all asked to remain herded in our homes and in my case in the coop where I lived. In my neighbourhood COVID19 was a real threat. Because the flimsy walls that some 300 of those shared, were all just a sham. Whether we liked it or not, we were one single family of over 2000, all stuffed into tiny tenements. And that is the reason most neighbours were really worried sick. We did not know who had spent the night with someone who just returned from China or USA or Europe. Even the resident themselves would not know. You don't go asking for visa stamping in the passports, when you have these trysts.  

And then I remembered, the producer had just returned from a shooting abroad, I checked my phone for news about him. He had it already. If he had it, I had it. 14 days is all I had left. And life came floating in front of me. I had run away from home never hoping to see them again. I was messed up and now I would die messed up. 

Every time I believed this would be the last casting couch. And then when I was cheated, I would decide to find a job, but then I wanted to be a star real bad, it was the only thing for me. And since I was so headstrong about it, I played by their rules. I remained silent and just went about my business. I did not care for anything else in the world. I did not have a friend or a boyfriend either. I did not mind cunningly taking over the role offered to my closest friend and I did not bother to get too close to any guy. Boyfriends try to take all your decision and I didn't want that. I was alive, but only I knew that. For everyone else I was dead. But one day, that big screen would give me the name and recognition. 

I locked myself up, instead of looking for medical help. I did not care much now. I got a mild cough first and then it worsened. I heard my neighbour talking one day, one of them said, "I think she has the virus. Wonder where she got it! She looks classy, this virus is killing the classy kind. She has only imported stuff, now she is dying of imported disease." The other person said, "don't try to help her, we may get it. leave her." But from then on, some days I heard a soft knock and when I opened the door, there would be food. I silently took it. Not thanking for the food was the best way to thank. The coughing kept getting worse and then I heard others in the tenement coughing too. And then I saw the first corpse from a little hole in my window where the glass had broken off. No one followed the corpse, just the family. Everyone shut their doors as the corpse passed. It was catching up. More than 2000 people cooped up and corona was there. I kept getting weaker and I kept coughing louder and now I was getting the knock at my door every day and sometimes twice a day.  

The stench was unbearable. I saw myself on the bed. I was not totally looking right. I heard the knock at the door and ran to pick the food, the beggar from the street was picking up the food already. He had his nose covered to avoid the stench. And then they came, the police and the ambulance, my body was decomposing. No one dared come near me. I would never know who put the food on my door, I knew no one and I was leaving nothing behind. My body was wrapped up in layers of clothes, my lovely clothes from under my bed, they decided to cremate me without waiting for my family, because I was heavily infected. They had no time to call my family. they said they would send my belongings to them when they found their address. They would never find them... 

"Remember, you are dead for us! we will never come looking for you!" were the last words I had heard from them. Before I left, I had mixed the poison in their tea, very small quantity. It would take effect only slowly,  no one would ever know. They loved their tea with the newspaper. Were they still sipping tea as they read the newspaper?

Dear Readers: I have tried a fiction without a moral this time, just like the stream that life is, and the stream does not have a moral or a meaning. Pardon me if it is not to your liking. Its just an artistic expression. Thanks for reading and leaving your comments.