Tick Tock

The room was filled with a continuous tick tock sound. His father was a collector of all kinds of clocks and the room was full of them. Hundreds on walls and may be a thousand on the tables all around the room. Tick tock they went relentlessly as if they were all on an unending journey. Their hands moved unstoppably.

The seven year old boy cowered in a corner under a sheet. Sometimes he pulled down the sheet to look at the fan rotating on its axis keeping time with the tick tock. His mind lulled to the constant humming of the clocks and fell into a kind of a lazy slumber. By the end of the hour when his body was about to be engulfed in sleep the simultaneous chimes of the clocks would jolt him back to sleeplessness and the process would start again. The night outside the clock covered walls remained silent.

Twenty five years later he would spend the first few weeks after his marriage smashing all the clocks and watches he got as gift.

Shoot to Kill

The climax in the end of the story has a music piece embeded from the movie Shaitan. The climax is best read with the music. I am sure it's equally enjoyable without the music as well. Take your pick.

The open ground in the middle of Seth Dhanji chawl in Chembur was full of people. In spite of the slight drizzle that had started half an hour ago the crowd had continued to increase. A thick nylon rope tied from one building to the other was decorated with marigold garlands and at the centre of it hung a colored earthen pot. It was decorated with garlands and mango leaves. The rope had slackened where the pot hung due to the weight. Men in t-shirt and shorts of all colors had already started forming human pyramids under the pot in order to break it. But none of the groups had succeeded yet.

Rani stood at the door of her kholi watching the proceedings from over the balcony. Her thin lips were painted red her shoulder length hair had just been washed, and stuck on the dusky skin on the back of her neck. There was a mole under her left eye which shook as she chewed a chewing gum. Her thin hands rested on her slim waist which showed between her petticoat and her blouse, as her black eyes swept across the sea of humans below the building.

“Mausi, how is everything?”

Rani heard a gruff voice at the end of the corridor. She turned around to see Pintya talking to Mausi.

“Is your team going to win this year?” Mausi asked Pintya. She was wearing her best red saaree with blue border for the occasion.

“Of course! We are kings of Dhanji-chi Gyarah Lakh-chi dahi haandi! There is no doubt about it.” Pintya said. He raised both his hands and swayed his pot belly to the tune of the loudspeaker which was belting out remixed Bollywood numbers. He wore a blue short and white t-shirt which declared Jai Jawan Krida Mandal in blue.

“If you win the haandi send all your boys here to enjoy tonight, even we need some business. The month has been tough.” Mausi said spitting a red fountain of paan on the wall of the corridor.

“Yes, why not? But do keep my share aside.” Pintya said as he moved along the corridor, poking another girl in her ribs, pinching a girl’s butt.

“Hatt melya!” Rani heard someone curse him. Even though her ears were listening to the conversation her eyes were fixed on the crowd below. She hated the site of him.

“Kya Rani? Looking great? Be prepared, you seem to be in high demand today.” Pintya grinned showing his paan stained teeth and pinching Rani’s waist. Rani slapped his hand off.

“And go and give some advice to your little sister. If she behaves today, she will get a big customer tonight. She should start earning now. For how long will we keep her locked inside and feed her?” Pintya said. Rani clenched her teeth to say something but she couldn’t. She looked away towards the clouded sky in disgust.

Pintya turned around and went towards the stairs. Rani gave him a look mixed with anger and helplessness but couldn’t say anything.

She remembered the day, when she had first met him in her village Ajara, near Kolhapur. She had just completed her 10^th exams but was unable to join a college as her father, a poor farmer, couldn’t afford to send her to one. Pintya had come with a promise to take her away from all the poverty. He convinced Rani that he would help her in finding a job in Mumbai. He had returned to Mumbai alone. During that time he had called Rani every day.

Pintya returned after a couple of months to Ajara. He told Rani’s father that he had got a job for her as a babysitter in a posh society in Mumbai and that she would earn well. Her father didn’t agree. He didn’t want her to work. No female in their family had ever worked to earn a living. Rani however was struck with the dreams of making it big in Mumbai. She fought with her parents and finally one day left the village with Pintya, leaving a note behind.

When she came to Mumbai, Pintya brought her to Dhanji chawl. Rani didn’t like the atmosphere. At first she couldn’t comprehend where she had come, or who Mausi actually was. Rani wasn’t allowed to go anywhere and most of her days were spent inside her kholi. Slowly she became aware of what this place was. One night Pintya and Mausi came into her kholi with a man.

“Be nice to him, he has paid a lot of money for you.” Mausi told Rani.

“No I don’t want to do this.” Rani shouted in protest and tried to run out of the room. Pintya, stopped her and pushed her inside the room. Two more men entered the room.

Loud drums broke Rani’s train of thoughts. She saw a new group had assembled under the haandi, people were dancing to the beat of drums as a human pyramid was slowly taking shape. It was still drizzling. Rani wiped her eyes.

“Mausi please let us go out, we will come back in some time. After all we have to work a lot tonight.” Rani heard Anita talking and giggling with Mausi. Two more girls had joined her and they were all pleading to go out to watch the Govindas break the haandi. After some arguing Mausi agreed reluctantly, but gave strict instructions to them to return in an hour and to stick together.

Rani thought of her younger sister Jyoti. Pintya had lured her and brought her to Mumbai as well. She had been locked in one of the kholis. Rani was shocked to learn about it the previous night. Mausi had asked Rani to go and speak to Jyoti as a customer had agreed to pay a fat amount for her.

Jyoti broke down and started to cry when she saw Rani.

“Pintya came to us one day, gave baba twenty thousand Rupees and told him that you had given the money and that you wanted me to join you as well as a babysitter.” Jyoti told Rani in between sobs.

She also told Rani that she had been locked up in the room for the past fifteen days and they had already tried to force a man upon her but her crying and screaming had saved her. Rani seethed in rage but couldn’t do anything. She came back crying and couldn’t sleep all night.

Upon seeing Pintya and all the celebrations of dahi haandi, she had started boiling with rage. She wanted to get her sister out of this hell, no matter what happened to her own self after that. She went into her room and closed the door. From under the bed she pulled her iron trunk out. She opened it and lifted some clothes; underneath she saw the pistol.

On the first night when she was forced to sleep with her first customer, he turned out to be the corporator of the area. He became her regular customer. He would visit her every fortnight. One night after having sex with him, Rani was lying in his arms, he had, had a couple of drinks when he pulled out the pistol from his jacket hanging on the wall and showed it to her.

“It’s a German made 9mm Mauser gun.” He told Rani. Then he showed her how to load the magazine into the gun and pull the trigger. He gave the gun to Rani for safekeeping as he was sure that this brothel would never be raided. Rani had felt a sense of power rush through her body the moment she had held the gun.

Rani closed the trunk shut with a clang and went out of the room. The girls outside were already excited about going out to see the local Jai Jawan Krida Mandal Govindas breaking the dahi handi. Rani went up to Mausi.

“Mausi, can I go too?” Rani asked.  

Mausi nodded and said, “But come back in an hour, okay?”

“Can I take Jyoti along with me? You see she has never seen Mumbai’s dahi handi. Her mood might change if she goes out and then maybe I will be able to convince her for tonight.” Rani said expectantly. She was not sure whether Mausi would agree to it but this was her only chance.

Mausi looked at Rani from head to toe and said, “Okay, take her along. But make sure she is ready for tonight. I have already accepted the advance. Tell her not to make things difficult for me.”

“I will.” Rani said and went inside her room. She changed in to a salwar suit, took the gun out and hid it in her leather handbag along with some money that she had got as tips from her clients and had hid them in her trunk. She went to Mausi, took the keys of the kholi where Jyoti had been locked, and went there. She opened the kholi. Jyoti was lying on her cot, half asleep and sobbing intermittently. Her food was lying untouched on the floor near her cot. Rani shook her to wake her up.

“Get dressed, quick!” Rani told her.

“Where are we going?” Jyoti asked getting up and wiping her face.

“We are getting out of here. Don’t waste time and get ready.” Rani said.

Within moments Jyoti changed her clothes, wiped her face and was ready to leave.

“Explain her well. It is for her good only. What is the use of getting hurt at such a tender age?” Mausi shouted as they came out of the room and passed her in the corridor.

Rani smiled and nodded. Then she tugged at Jyoti’s hands who kept her eyes on her toes. They came out of the building. The atmosphere was charged. The DJ was now playing an English song and the beats were making the walls of the buildings vibrate. The crowd was jumping up and down to the rhythm of the beats with their hands raised.

“Let’s go.” This time it was Jyoti who tugged at Rani’s hand and began to run.

“Wait, I have something to finish before we go.” Rani shouted over the noise and pulled her back. Rani began looking around frantically.

“Who are you looking for?” Jyoti shouted.

“For the man, who ruined our lives.” Rani screamed in reply.

They weaved their way through the crowd. Many of the faces knew Rani. They jeered at her. Rani ignored their catcalls. She moved quickly, continuously looking around and tugging at Jyoti’s hands. Jyoti was finding it hard to keep pace with her.

At last Rani saw him. At the end of an empty alley, away from all the crowd and noise, she saw Pintya, peeing against a wall. The drizzle had become a moderate shower now. Pintya was soaked and was looking skyward.

“Hide between that auto rickshaw and the wall and don’t come out until I come back.” Rani instructed Jyoti.

Jyoti didn’t say a word and followed her sister’s instruction. Rani looked around and moved swiftly into the alley. She could hear the music faintly in the background. The windows looking into the alley were vibrating with the music. The walls were dirty and rain soaked and the alley reeked of garbage rotting in rain.

From behind the wall around the corner Jyoti saw that Rani opened the zip of her bag and pulled out a gun. Pintya was still looking towards the cloudy sky. Rani walked towards him, holding the gun with both her hands and pointing it towards him.

“Pintya!” Rani shouted when she was within a few feet of him. Pintya turned around and gave a start upon seeing the gun in her hands.

“What are you doing with the gun Rani?” Pintya asked in a soft voice.

Before Rani could answer him, he pounced on her and tried to snatch the gun. Rani didn’t let go of the gun. The trigger pressed. Everything went silent. The DJ changed the music.

A shot broke the silence of the alley. Jyoti saw Rani’s body collapse on the ground and beside her fell the gun.

Pintya stared at the dead body in horror. He stumbled and fell on his back. He scrambled and got up on his feet and began running like a crazy man out of the alley. He kept looking back to see if Rani came back on her feet. He passed Jyoti as he ran, without noticing her. Some of Pintya’s friends met him on the street near the alley and pulled him into the crowd of dancing men.

Jyoti looked around. Pintya had disappeared into the crowd. No one had noticed her. She crawled out of her hiding place and started to walk down the stinking alley where her sister lay dead in a pool of blood mixed with rain water, garbage and mud. Jyoti looked at Rani and started to cry. She looked at the gun still in Rani’s hands. Smoke was still coming out of the barrel. She picked up the gun and hid it in her duppatta.

She came out of the alley and started to walk through the crowd in the direction in which she had seen Pintya disappear. He was dancing with a group of men. She decided to make her move and ran pushing the men aside. The music was unbearably loud. The crowd kept pushing and jostling against her. Someone grabbed her butt, she ignored. Before she could reach Pintya, the crowd began forming a human pyramid. Pintya joined the group and started climbing the shoulders of a man.

It was becoming very difficult for Jyoti to move. She crouched down on the ground and began to move between the legs of the men. The stink of sweat mixed with rain, the constant pushing and the music almost made her vomit. She somehow managed to control herself and weaved in between the legs. The pyramid was getting taller by the second.

She managed to finally reach the bottom inside the pyramid and looked up. She could see Pintya directly above her. The sight of the man reminded her of her dead sister, the stinking alley and how he had sold her own body to someone. She raised the pistol in both her hands. As if Pintya got a sign he crouched a bit under the load of another man climbing on his shoulder and looked down. He looked directly into Jyoti’s eyes. At the very moment music stopped. The silence due to the gap in the music was broken by a report of a gun fire. The music started playing again. Pintya’s lifeless body fell beside Jyoti. Someone’s feet landed directly on her stomach, and the human pyramid started to crumble. Jyoti felt a huge weight as men after men fell on her. She blacked out.

The police came with an ambulance. The bodies were recovered. The evening newspaper said, one of the bodies was of a prostitute, recovered from an alley, she was shot dead. A man shot dead, in the centre of the dahi handi celebrations and another prostitute who had died because of injuries received when men had fallen on her.

As the police stopped the dahi handi and cleared the crowd away, Mausi’s brothel didn’t do any business that night.

Snatched

The first time he saw her she was sitting in a Barista outlet sipping coffee. Her hair had green streaks and with her head bent, she was reading a book. Michael Crichton’s Timline, he had noticed.

“Are you a Sci-fi fan”, he asked walking up to her table.

She shook her head looking up at his face. “Ok”, he said and turned around to leave.

“But I am liking this book”, she said, as if trying to stop him from leaving. There was something about that smile of his and the way his brown eyes had looked at her that made her stop him and start a conversation.

“I am Kinichi” she said, extending her hand.

“Kinichi, that’s an interesting name. I am Anwar”, he said. They ended up sitting at the café for almost three hours talking about books over several cups of coffee.

The next day he found her sitting on the same table munching on some green vegetable with her coffee.

“What is that”, he asked.

“Carrot”, Kinichi replied casually.

“Green carrots”, he asked incredulously. She shrugged in reply.

Anwar worked in a publishing house and was an aspiring writer. His office building was near the café. Each evening after office hours he would come to the café to find Kinichi sitting with a cup of coffee and a book. Some days she would be munching green carrots.

****

That night around eight Anwar and Kinichi went for a walk on the pavement just outside the café. They walked slowly side by side.

“How wonderful would it be if, one day I woke up and realized that I was actually someone from another planet and had superpowers”, Kinichi said turning to Anwar.

“Yeah, superpowers like walking through a wall or flying or something”, Anwar said with a laugh.

“No, like a Queen with superpowers to disappear at will and bullets would bounce off my body.”

Thy both laughed heartily.

Anwar looked into her laughing eyes, took her hand and told her that he had fallen in love with her. She looked at him and smiled her eyes glowing faint green.

“But you don’t know much about me”, she said.

“I have nothing to do with your past, all I want is your present and your future”, Anwar replied.

“It’s not my past, it’s a life that I can’t escape.”

“What does it mean?”

Suddenly there was a flash of light on the other side of the street and almost instantly a man in black suit, white shirt and black tie appeared. He was a tall man with a strong build and wore dark glasses at night. Anwar stared at the man in disbelief. Before he could react Kinichi grabbed Anwar by his arms spun around and began to run towards the café. From the corner of his eyes Anwar saw several flashes of light all around them as men in black suits appeared.

They were still a good fifty yards away from the café when Kinichi saw the man who had first appeared running towards them pulling out a weird looking gun and pointing at them. Before Kinichi could react a car came speeding and crashed into the man throwing him in the air. The man fell on the street with a thud and immediately disappeared leaving behind some smoke.

There were others who were now running quickly towards Anwar and Kinichi. There was a brilliant flash in front of them and a black suit appeared right in front of them. They were now running straight in to the man who seemed as if he was being projected on a screen which was flickering due to fluctuating voltage.

A shower of pellets which looked green glow worms flew towards them from across the street. Kinichi covered Anwar. The glow worms bounced off her back. The man in front of them pulled out the weird gun from his back as Kinichi and Anwar tried to steer away from him.

The man’s finger pressed on the trigger and a green glow worm flew towards Kinichi. Anwar in a flash pushed Kinichi aside, the glow worm hit Anwar on the chest just above his lungs. Anwar felt as if melted iron has been inserted into his chest. He collapsed writhing in pain, unable to breath or move. Kinichi dropped over him shielding his body. As a fresh spray of green glow worms bounced off her, she pulled out a small white ceramic cylinder and pressed a pinhead sized button on it. There was flash of light and she disappeared along with Anwar leaving a plume of green smoke behind.

****

Anwar slowly opened his eyes to realize that he was lying on the floor. His head was propped on Kinichi’s lap. He looked around to see that it was the interior of a metro train. His chest felt as if a huge block of iron was kept on it, making it very difficult for him to breathe. There was a couple sitting at the end of carriage looking at them wide eyed in disbelief. A thin film of green smoke hung over his eyes as Kinichi’s sobbing face came into his vision. Tears were rolling down her chin and falling on Anwar’s face.

“Why did you have to do that”, Kinichi screamed at Anwar as he tried to adjust his vision.

“What happened? What are you? Who were those people” Anwar’s volley of questions ended in a bout of cough. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth. The metal floor below already had a small pool of red liquid forming.

Kinichi wiped the tears off her face preparing to answer.

“I am from distant planet as you Earthlings call it VSRB13 revolving around a pulsar PSR 1257+12, 700 Earth light years away. The planet’s inhabitants are actually Earthlings from what you call the ancient Mesoamerican civilization or Maya civilization. Five powerful Mayan Queens flew to VSRB13 some 2000 years ago. Mayan’s started living there and there was continuous traffic from Earth to VSRB13 as people flew to and back. Families settled there as a whole civilization began to flourish. The five Queens divided the planet into five kingdoms and began to rule them. They had special powers and so did their descendants. Soon the descendants of the Queens became power hungry and corrupt and started to fight amongst themselves. The commoners took advantage of this and took over the reins of the planet. The five kingdoms of the planet are now ruled by Kings who don’t have any special powers and are normal human beings. I am the only surviving descendant of the five queens left.” Kinichi sobbed as she finished.

“You mean to say you are an alien, with superpowers?”

“Well you can say that.”

Anwar lay on the floor looking at Kinichi trying to comprehend the situation.

“Who were those people in black suits?” Anwar asked trying to grasp the whole story.

“They are Proboids -C, half robot, half living cells, who are built to have almost similar capabilities like the queens had. But only a few Proboids –A have the full powers others are just subordinates.”

“And why were they trying to kill us?”

“They weren’t trying to kill us. They were there to capture me. The King of Zapotec in the eastern hemisphere of VSRB13 is trying to capture me so that he can fornicate with me as a result our kids will have the same superpowers as I do. The greenlets were fired at me to slow me down, they were harmless for me but for a human being like you they are worse than a bullet. Only a Proboid -A can capture me.”

Anwar smiled at her, his eyes glowed with the recollection of the past.

With every passing moment he was finding it hard to breathe. At the other end of the carriage behind Kinichi there was a flash of light and a black suit appeared, his image flickering in the air. Then there was another flash and then another. A shower of greenlets fell on Kinichi. She felt week, but tried to shield Anwar as much as she could.

A few greenlets hit Anwar. He couldn’t keep his eyes opened. Tears streamed from Anwar’s eyes as Kinichi held him close to herself, her sobbing became more violent. She pulled herself up as she saw a bright flash of light in front of her. A tall, heavily built man wearing a white suit and pointed white shoes appeared. Kinichi looked at the man as he pulled out his gun which looked like a bow attached to his right arm. The arrow was a thin long greenlet. The black suits fell back.

Kinichi looked up at the ceiling of the train gave out a howl and began to cry. The man in the white suit pulled the trigger. The greenlet flew like a rope coming out of the man’s wrist, towards Kinichi who was holding Anwar by his head against her chest and crying. The greenlet wrapped around Kinichi’s body. The black suits began to disappear one by one leaving behind a trail of green smoke all around.

When the greenlet had wrapped around Kinichi’s body a few times, the cord remained attached to the man’s wrist, the man disappeared in a puff, pulling the cord along.

“So I fell in love with the Queen with superpowers”, Anwar said smiling weekly and touched her face with his bloodied hand. A wailing Kinichi started to get sucked into the green puff of smoke atom by atom. Anwar’s lifeless body fell on the ground with a thud as Kinichi disappeared leaving behind a green smoke behind.