Bards of the Blogosphere: Chapter 4 (Week 3) - The Perfect Crime? #CelebrateBlogging

Note: This is the fourth chapter in the "Game of Blogs" by BlogAdda for the team "Bards of the Blogosphere" 

Read the previous part here.

***

He was always just out of reach…. the happiness he radiated brushing against her fingers but skipping away just before she could catch hold of it. Finally, she catches up and stands by him, she holds out her hand and takes his but that is when he collapses, her horror-stricken eyes reflecting the growing pool of blood by his side and the last breath leaving his body in a whoosh before she could even start reacting… She stood there, helpless, not understanding how her world had fallen apart when it had only just come together… 

Jenny awoke with a start. She was drenched in sweat and the dregs of the same damn nightmare were clouding her senses. She ran a careless hand through her hair and shook her head clear of the cobwebs, which was when she heard the creak of a key in the front door – she immediately knew that it wasn’t her nightmare which had woken her up.

PC: Here

Considering the circumstances and being the person she was, she didn’t wait for an excuse to dismiss the strange sound – she slipped out of her bed like a cat on prowl and tiptoed to her door. She made her way into the dimly lit passageway, cautiously, and peeked out into the sitting room. All her senses on red alert, she became very aware of another set of shallow breaths which were not her own.

She almost jumped out of her skin when a hand clutched hers tightly! It was only habit that kept her from screaming out loud but her heart was still in her mouth when Shekar’s familiar form came up by her side; the expression on her face prevented Shekar from asking her what was up but he’d heard the creak too. Little more than a sliver of dim light at the Duttas’ bedroom door, which was opposite hers, showed Tara’s face framed against it - half worried, half scared and fully alert. Apparently, Jen wasn’t the only light sleeper in the house.

Jen’s eyes got accustomed to the dark by then and a slight rustle of cloth against metal drew her attention. For the second time that night, her heart made its way to her mouth - a creeping figure was making its way upstairs towards Roohi’s room, this was no regular break-in for the intruder seemed to know exactly what he wanted and where he could find it. The figure had just turned the pillar and was getting to the stairs.

PC: Here

 Her body went to autopilot: fear and training lent wings to her actions and the adrenaline start pumping through her veins. She, swiftly but quietly, strode to her room with Shekar following at her heels, without a clue as to what was going on. Seeing them both go into Jen’s room, Tara slunk in as well, just in time to see Jen retrieving her Glock. The Dattas’ eyes widened in shock – Jen had hardly seemed to come across as the gun-toting type. They opened their mouths to give voice to the million questions that were turning their brains to mush but a steely glance and the sense of purpose on her face stopped them. The seriousness of the matter hadn’t made itself apparent to them yet.

Jen went back out into the hallway and crept up to her previous vantage point, the intruder was making his way up the stairs and the dim light on the side of the top step cast a weak beam of light across his face.

Him!!!

The adrenaline made her feet fly - she half-ran, half-sprinted towards him. Her movement caused him to turn but before he could find out what was causing the flurry, Roohi opened her bedroom door, walked out groggily and called out to Tara.

Perfect, thought Ahuja, and leveled his gun at the child, he had fitted the silencer beforehand.

Put that thing down before you do something that you’ll regret for the rest of your life, Jen’s voice rang through the house from the bottom of the stairs. The tone of her voice made Roohi snap out of her groggy state and she looked up to the see the murderer pointing a gun at her.

It was a standoff, one that didn’t look like it would have anything even remotely close to a happy ending.

PC: Here

 ***

• Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.

Read the next chapter here.

The team Bards of the Blogosphere comprises of Divsi, PRB, PeeVee, Arpita, Datta, Neeraj, Nupur, Sulekha, Maria and Roshan.

Bards of the Blogosphere: Chapter 5 (Week 2) - The Calm Before the Storm #CelebrateBlogging

Note: This is the fifth chapter in the "Game of Blogs" by BlogAdda for the team "Bards of the Blogosphere" 

Read the previous part here.

***

“Leaders on the dais and my dear countrymen, a very good morning to all of you!”
 
The crowd roared its approval, with a fanaticism for a political figure that is second nature to Indians alone. The Minister basked in the approval; he sometimes couldn’t decide what he had stepped into politics for – the power or the popularity – while the former gave him the control he craved for, the latter was what went straight to his head like a glass of fine, heady wine.   
 
“I stand before you to ask you, my brothers and sisters, for help…”
 
The crowd quietened down, eager to know how they could help their great leader. 

PC: Here

“…help in grabbing an appalling problem that is weakening the very fabric of our society and removing it right from the roots!”
 
The crowd went ballistic. The Minister smiled and waited for more than a minute before raising his hand. But the moment he did, people stopped clapping abruptly and quietened down.
 
The Minister’s aide sat on one side of the podium, thinking about how he had the crowd eating out of his hands. I don’t have to worry about the next elections, if we keep going this way, he thought wiping spittle off the side of his pan-stained mouth.
 
“Kidnapping the budding youngsters of India and selling them off to the highest bidder for flesh trade, drug peddling, cheap labour, organ transplant, begging and child pornography – there are criminals in the country who are becoming richer than the Tatas and Birlas by doing such nefarious, utterly condemnable activities. One minute the child is safe, ensconced in the love and care of her family and the next, she is stuck forever in the grubby corner of some brothel, lands away from everything she calls home and forced to service men twice her age and do other unimaginable acts. Is this what the world has come to? IS THIS HOW WE TREAT THE LAKSHMIS OF OUR HOMES?!!”
 
The crowd was lapping it all up, he made sure of that. He was a powerful story-teller; his words had moved stones, in the past.
 
“As a son of the soil, as a citizen of this great nation of Bharat, I feel ashamed of myself. Ashamed that I’m not able to protect my daughters, my sisters…. The fact that these men exist, in itself, is a black mark on my face, on my reputation. And I refuse to stand by and watch anymore. I simply refuse.”
 
Cy sat at the podium, waiting to see where this is going. He wondered if something good could actually come out of it – on any other day, he would eat his hat rather than believe an Indian politician but today, today was different. He had an audience with the Minister later and he hoped against hope that that would be a step towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
“Let me tell you something….1779 children were kidnapped from their homes and trafficked in 2013 alone. One THOUSAND seven HUNDRED and seventy nine. Does that sound like a statistic to you? A mere number? Let me put a face to that number then, let me enlighten you on what that number means. The “mere” statistic means that, last year, close to two thousand families lost a child – parents losing the apple of their eyes, the one who they gave birth to, nurtured, cared for; siblings losing their playmate, the one who they sat down for dinner with, shared chocolates with, fought with…. All reduced to just a number to us. 

PC: Here

We don’t care, do we? We sit in our houses and say ‘that will never happen to us’ and continue with our lives, not bothered that for every number in the statistic, there is a family ripped to shreds, a life lost to a baseless, animalistic need, need for money, for physical pleasure, for cheap thrills…. An innocent, beautiful, full-of-life child sent to hell to rot for the rest of her life.”
 
The crowd had gone deathly quiet. The purport of his words was sinking in. Jen thought, this, right here, is a lesson in influencing people… Dale Carnegie would be proud. 
 
“I have a request, my dear brothers and sisters, a favor to ask of you loving people. The Government, the ruling party can do only so much to prevent such grave crimes. We do not have eyes and ears everywhere, nor do we have the manpower to combat and put a stop to human trafficking in a country that is home to more than a billion people. 

So I ask YOU to be our eyes and ears, YOU to be our manpower, to co-operate with the authorities to ensure that the action plan we forge is implemented successfully. Report suspicious activities, alert authorities where necessary, stand up for what is right without fearing anyone or anything and put the country’s needs before your own. I ask you to help us save little girls from becoming just another number in yet another statistic. Will you do that for me?”
 
Hearing the rousing words, goose bumps rose on people’s skin. Every last able-bodied man and woman in the crowd swore to be a better citizen and Jen was appreciative of the Minister’s efforts to create awareness, despite being supremely skeptical of the ilk of politicians.   
 
After a few more words on the same lines, the Minister bid adieu and went back to his seat on the podium for a few minutes to a standing ovation, much to his aide’s delight. When the next speaker started his speech, he, quiet as a mouse, walked off the stage and asked to be taken back to his room. 

Almost no one noticed… except Cy. And Jen.
 
Together, but far apart, they thought, “So this is it. In some time, we shall know if the efforts will bear fruit.”
 
And Jen sent up a small prayer towards heaven, “Please keep him safe, Lord. Please.”
 
***

• Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.

Read the next chapter here.

The team Bards of the Blogosphere comprises of Divsi, PRB, PeeVee, Arpita, Datta, Neeraj, Nupur, Sulekha, Maria and Roshan.

Bards of the Blogosphere: Chapter 4 - The Phone Call #CelebrateBlogging

Note: This is the fourth chapter in the "Game of Blogs" by BlogAdda for the team "Bards of the Blogosphere" 

Read the first part here, second part here and the third part here.

***

Her denim cut-offs drew a few glances as Jennifer made her way through the mass of humanity that was spilling over into this lane from Kinari Bazar. But her eyes were scanning the crowd for a hint of red. By the time she spotted the burkha-clad lady who had called her earlier, her tee was sticking to her back and she had started feeling the weight of the camera slung on her side.

PC: here

The black lace burkha prevented Jen from seeing any part of her contact but her eyes, but the eyes said it all, didn’t they? There were eyes that spoke of the kindness of the soul, some of depravity, some spilled over from carrying the burden of existence for too long while others did little to hide the malice that was mingled in the blood, definite and inseparable. The woman turned around and their eyes met over the milling crowd, Jen knew that she had found the right person.
 
But she knew better than to approach the woman. She maintained eye contact but poked around casually in the box of chudis in the stall next to the woman, her army of colourful bracelets giving her the perfect cover. After just a while, the mysterious woman started off at a swift pace, not looking over to see if Jen was following. By the time Jen noticed that she was on the move, the woman had almost been swallowed up by the crowd. But not quite.
 
Jen dropped the tinkling accessory and took off on the trail of the contact who was to lead her to her destination. The woman turned a corner. Jen turned the same corner a few seconds later but to her dismay, the woman had vanished! Her eyes darted from one person to another, she was just about to give up when she saw a wisp of red disappearing into a doorway on the far left.
 
Wiping a drop of perspiration off her forehead before it could cloud her vision, Jen strode towards the doorway, with a premonition that her destination was very close. She entered the darkness that shrouded the doorway with faith that comes with having walked a hard path in a life riddled with pain and suffering – there is a point in space and time in one’s life when implicit, innocent trust changes to deep mistrust of everyone and everything, which further mutates to a kind of strength that helps one cut through everything that stands in their way between them and their goal – that is true faith, however negative the connotation.
 
The darkness engulfed her but just until her eyes got used to it; Jen spied a small table on the reception desk – the place looked like a run-down hotel that lost its charm and its customers at the turn of the century. She walked to the table, the soft tiptap of her boots unsettling what looked like at least a decade’s worth of dust – only the swishing trail of her burkha-clad friend that started at the door and ended at the back door, off to the left, told Jen that she was in the right place. 

She spied a single key on the table and picked it up, wondering what it opened. Closer examination revealed a room number, 14. She looked around quickly and made her way to the right where she had spotted room number one. The passageway got darker as the dank smell of disuse filled her senses, she finally came to stop in front of one door, slid the key in and opened it. The door swung open quite noiselessly, surprising for a place like this, one would think. She stepped in and flipped a light switch, hoping against hope. She was rewarded when a single zero-watt bulb switched on right in the middle of the room, illuminating a Nokia 1100 placed precisely at the centre of a table.  

PC: here

From this point, the routine was familiar to her – two strides to the table, she picked up the mobile and switched it on. Her foot tapped impatiently making a click-clack against the wooden floorboard. The instant the light came on, she clicked once on the green call button and then again. The call went through, the urgency of the matter highlighted by the immediacy of reception – less than half a ring later, Jen spoke into the phone, “Is everything ready, has the school perimeter been secured?” After affirmation, she enquired, “When is it going down?” She paused for a long minute, patiently listening to the answer – her general impatience quelled by the gravity of the issue, she took matters of life and death very seriously.
 
“You realize what the consequences of bungling this up will be, right?”
 
One minute later, the call disconnected and she set the phone back on the table where she found it. Instinctively, she slid her hand under the table and Jennifer’s fingers came into contact with hard metal. One hard yank later, the Glock came away in her hand and a note slipped down to the floor. She retrieved the note, taking care not to leave marks in the dust – leave photograph with key, it said. She checked the barrel of the gun, it had a full clip left in it.
 
Everything wrapped up to satisfaction, Jen placed the note on the phone, retrieved a bottle of Absolut from her backpack and doused the phone and the table top with it. Then she held the lighter to the side of the flimsy wooden table till the flames caught on. After making sure that nothing else would burn down, she was very meticulous that way, she backed out of the room, out into the passageway and to the reception once again. 

PC: here

A handkerchief came out of backpack, the key was wiped clean and placed exactly where it had been found. A happy, carefree Roohi smiled at her from the photograph, she was drawn to the childlike innocence, a quality that Jen herself had lost a long time ago – she forced herself to place the photo, face down, next to the key.
 
Jennifer stepped out the doorway, into the blazing summer sun of Delhi, for once actually she was actually glad for it. A few steps towards the Bazar, she hailed a cab asking to be taken to the airport.
 
It was 12.47 p.m and it was like she had never been there.   

***

• “Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.”

Chapter five is available here.

The team Bards of the Blogosphere comprises of Divsi, PRB, PeeVee, Arpita, Datta, Neeraj, Nupur, Sulekha, Maria and Roshan.

Lack of Lustre

I washed the clothes. I did the dishes. I scrubbed the kitchen floor to a shine.

And I picked up the groceries.
Then I sat down and riffled through the stack of congratulatory cards on the side table,
All of them wishing us a very happy married life.
 

The shine had faded from our eyes, but the cards hadn't seemed to notice.

Hamartia*

He was a mild-mannered analyst - unconventionally good-looking with a smile that would make you break into one yourself. He had this innate ability to make the people around him hoot with laughter if he so chose but on the whole, his masterful personality commanded respect and admiration, from peers as well as superiors. 

She was masterful too, the words she wrote could make images jump off the pages right into the heart of the readers. She had a loud laugh that covered up most of her insecurities and her heart was bigger than her ego. She constantly spell-checked everyone but the ones who loved her knew that she was not being annoying, it was just the way she was.

And they fell in love.

A simple wedding under the watchful eyes of two sets of parents and a handful of friends was the beginning of their happily-ever-after – neither of them had any illusions about love being perfect but they had understood that as long as they looked forward to snuggling at the end of the day and waking up next to each other at every sunrise, there was nothing much else that they needed.

One day, his mother came to stay with them. While daughter-in-law loved mother-in-law to bits, she couldn’t bear to share her life’s love, her husband, with anyone. And considering he cared about his mother more than everything else, she had not a choice but to deal with the constant ache that possessiveness brought with it.

The rational part of her told her to shut up and deal with it, that she was his  mother and that she was just being a bitch. But that part which governed her love for him raged and ranted every time he gobbled down something that his mother had made for him with relish and she cried herself to sleep every time he fell asleep on his mother’s lap. She had to be nice to her in front of him to remain in his good books and she couldn’t complain to him because one, she knew him enough to know that he would not understand this kind of possessiveness and two, the mother really was a sweet, old lady who was trying to accept that her son had fallen in love with a wildling.

The wildling’s artistic tendencies and wild imagination which had been the best part of her till now were the same things which magnified the possessiveness manifold inside her head and heart. And slowly, her soul was chipping away into nothingness and so was the love. 

She decided enough was enough.

She chose to go the sneaky route and spiked the old lady’s chai every morning. The chronic diabetic couldn’t really tell that all her Sweet ‘n Lows had been replaced with powdered sugar and the packets resealed – she was just happy that she and her bahu were spending some quality time together. The lengths the wildling was willing to go to.  

Eight months later, the old lady succumbed to undetected kidney failure induced by out-of-control blood sugar levels which nobody seemed to be capable of explaining – what happened to the controlled diet, the planned exercises and the insulin shots?  

He was distraught with grief and she was ecstatic with joy.

In brief moments of sanity, the wildling wondered if she was going insane. But then the euphoria of having gotten her own way set in and she climbed quietly into her husband’s lap and nuzzled against his scruffy jaw which dripped quietly with tears.

Until he found the last of his mother’s Sweet ‘n Lows in a dusty cupboard somewhere and painstakingly worked out what had happened.

He hadn’t believed her capable of it until he saw the barely veiled guilt in her eyes and the blind rage that set in was one that he, or for that matter she, had never ever felt before.

“How could you do this to her? All she wanted was to bond with you, find a daughter in you! How could you even think it?!!

“She was taking you away from me!”

But her sentences were garbled as the pressure at her throat was causing the edges of her vision to blur. The rage refused to relent. The pressure evened out only after her body went limp. The face he had loved and sworn to protect was lifeless all of a sudden and the horror that dawned within him was far more destructive than the rage.

The next morning, the newspapers carried a small article in one of the corners somewhere in the middle page “IT husband strangles wife and hangs himself. Suspected insanity.”

And thus, the green-eyed monster claimed three more victims.  

***

Most of the time we fail to realize how destructive jealousy and jealous rage can be and what dire consequences it can lead to in any relationship. Whatever else you do or don't do, never underestimate the power of jealousy. 

P.S: Inspired by a true story. 

P.P.S: Too much GoT obsession happening, forgive me. 

*Hamartia - what a beautiful word. I have been hooked to the word since I finished The Fault in Our Stars. It means "fatal flaw", for the uninitiated.

 

Z - Zenith

She stood in the sweeping balcony, her slender fingers wrapped with just the right amount of class around the flute of Dom Perignon White Gold – her Greek clients had assured her that it was one of the most exquisite elixirs in the world when they happily gifted her the bottle as a token of their appreciation. The Chanel-ed nails were a sparkling blue against the bubbly, they tapped absently at the rim of the glass as she recalled how truly lust-worthy those businessmen had been and the way she had them wrapped around her little finger made her perfectly pouty lips break into a smug smile. She shifted her weight to the other toned leg and the smooth silk that enwrapped her full figure slid to accommodate the movement. 

Her success was no surprise to anyone. Born with a golden spoon, she was bred in the best of private schools till she ended up in Harvard and graduated summa cum laude only to be lapped up with glee by the best firm in the country. After a few years when she had gained the necessary experience, she broke away from the firm, where she was pitted to be the next leader, with the desire to become a private practitioner. The banks were only too glad to give her loans, not that she needed them though. Her very first client was so pleased with her work, he offered to get her a table at the President’s Ball, the most influential party of the year. There was no looking back from then.... She was simply the best.

She turned her back to the stunning cityscape and her eyes took in the grandeur that she stood in – the lovely plush wall-to-wall handcrafted carpets from Persia that made her feel like she was walking on clouds, the walls painted a light crème that matched her furniture and decor, all of which had been done up personally by an award-winning interior decorator after a dozen consultations with her, the discreet door that led to her inner chamber that boasted of a queen-sized bed, her walk-in closet with a wardrobe that probably cost more than what the average man earned in a year, her shoe closet which had been featured in women’s magazines and a huge ceiling to floor ornate mirror that had been the gift of the French Minister she had sorted out some stuff for. She had it all. 

She was at the peak of her life, the zenith that she was born to conquer.

Little did she expect that returning back to riches alone wouldn’t feel much like success. 

Y - You

You.

I picture you by my side, wrapped up in a blanket together so that your warmth keeps me cozy even as my nose is nipped by the chill of the night. I get comfortable on the bench and pass on the mug of hot chocolate after taking a sip. While you look at my face and laugh at the milk moustache I have given myself. I scowl at you, making you laugh harder. Sundarikutty, you say. And we unpause The Red Wedding and watch with rapt attention. Together.

I picture you pulling a T-shirt on to go fetch milk to make me some tea on a lazy Sunday morning. I slide onto the kitchen counter and cross my legs while you wash the vessels I used last night and potter around the stove to get the tea just right, just the way I like it. You entertain me with your constant chatter till it’s time to hand me my mug and then wait quietly for me to pronounce the verdict. When I don’t, you say chai kaise bani hai and I say bohot acchi hai in between slurps and then you start sipping your own between torrents of words that I’m only half-listening to.

I picture you standing at the altar, grinning from ear to ear with happiness, with your brother by your side and your parents at the pew. You turn around to look at me, your smile falters just a bit and your eyes widen just a bit. I take my place by your side and think if it is weird that I know everything that you want to say but are not saying it because Father is standing right in front of us. Especially the thoughts about the cut of my neckline. I’m just glad I’m the focus of your attention today.

I picture you sitting on the rocking chair with the child on your lap, your wrinkled hands tapping the screen impatiently as the child stops you and teaches you how to tap it right. You sigh with frustration and remember a time when I used to frustrate you with my know-it-all-ness – about how I have always been the one who’s good with the gadgets. When I walk in with your evening dose of medicines, you take it from me and give my hand a squeeze to let me know that you are thinking of me.

I picture you standing by my grave. I want to tell you not to waste money on the elaborate flowers you have brought for me and you suddenly smile through tears as if you can hear me. You stand by my side long after everyone else is gone, just like you always have.

You. My life.
Everything started with you. And everything ends in you. 

I dedicate this to K and her G, my wedding present :*

P.S: This is the kind of love I want for myself. Sigh.
P.P.S: I'm allowed to be sappy once in a while. I am. I AM. Hmph. 

X - Xyrophobia

As a child, I was terrified. Terrified that I would displease Father somehow and be punished for it. He wouldn’t yell or scream or take out his belt to flay my tender skin. 

My father had a special punishment for me.

He would go deathly quiet and sit at his table. He would ask me go and stand by the chair and ask me to hold out my hand. He would put his legs around mine and lock his feet behind my knees to prevent me from running away.

This went on for years.

Then he would take out the 7 o’ clock blade from under his stationary box and start running its edge on the side of my palm. One long slice, not enough to cause any serious damage but enough to drain a few fat drops of blood and leave a lasting mark. By the second slice, I would be hyperventilating, choking on my own tears and begging his mercy for eating that extra slice of bread from the fridge.

This went on for years.

And every time I would cry out for my mother amidst the pain that scarred my very soul. If only she were around. I never told anyone for fear that he will give me up – somehow I chose this over a life of being an orphan but my recurring scars had their own tale to tell.

This went on for years.

In the eyes of the world, we were the quiet, grieving widower and distraught son but in the security of the home we shared brought out the monster and the victim. I never had any friends, never made any for fear that my secret would be exposed and I would be ridiculed at – so I was always that weird child in the corner who nobody liked, not even the teachers.

This went on for years.

Till the day they found him dead in his bed, his body covered with deep cuts, his neck hacked at repeatedly and his wrists almost severed off. An empty pack was on the stool beside and bloody seven o’clock blades strewn all over the floor.

P.S: You’d be surprised at how many sadistic parents are out there. You’d be surprised at how many children suffer punishment in the most painful of forms and grow up believing it is their fault. You’d be surprised at the number of psychologically messed up men and women these children turn into.