When Strangers Meet (50000 ebooks sold): 3 in 1 Box Set

by K. Hari Kumar

  ‘The bus depot is an hour away from here!’

  ‘If you are on foot!’ The policemen commented sarcastically.

  ‘Yes Sir, I am!’ Hussain replied incessantly. Hussain didn’t notice the sarcasm in the Security officer’s words.

  Hussain turned around and started walking away towards the exit.

  The policeman called him from behind, ‘Sir, if you are going back, you must return the token at the counter and avail your fare, since you haven’t used the token.’

  Hussain looked at the blue token that he was holding in his right hand, then glanced at the policeman and smiled gratefully. It was worth twenty eight rupees.

  Twenty eight rupees meant a lot to him. He wasn’t a millionaire yet.

  He turned around and went back to the policeman. The man on duty awaited the Pathan’s question.

  ‘How long do you think will it take for the service to restart?’ Hussain enquired.

  The policeman gave a little thought, and then picked up the walkie-talkie and there were some exchange of words. He returned to Hussain who was waiting for an answer expectantly, ‘around 2 hours, they say, the lines will be re-opened by 8 am.’

  ‘Shukriya, Sahib’ Hussain thanked and started walking away from the policeman.

  He looked at the round token. He decided not to return it. And instead of doing so, he would wait at the Resting area.

  As he started walking towards the RESTING AREA, anxious thoughts began flooding in his mind.

  What if I won’t be able to make it today?

  What if I reach, but late?

  What if they decide to hand out the money to the next winning number?

  What will I tell my wife, to Arshad?

  Maybe it’s another test of His, Ya Allah! He inferred.

  He pushed the token into a small pocket on the left side of his Kurta near the chest. The Resting Area was right in front of him, just a door that separated him from the small extension of the metro building. He pulled the door open. The chamber was empty. A score of seats waited for tired asses to occupy them. It was as if the seats were calling out to Hussain, ‘Hey! Bring your ass on me, I have got the most polished surface, you can see your face, style that unsettled strip of hair on your grumpy head, if want to!’

  Hussain sat on the very first seat that he saw.

  The other seats seemed to exclaim in envy ‘Man! The first one always gets to seat the first ass!’

  Eleven

  May 22 2011

  Iffco Chowk Metro Station, Gurgaon

  06:01 am

  Jai had commenced his journey to the metro station ten minutes ago. He had spent the night at the basement of MGS Plaza. The MGS Plaza was one of those safe houses where handful of hooligans usually settled down at nights during their drug transactions. The place also acted as their shelter on nights when police dogs were running after the stink on their ass. Jai had once contacted one of the hooligans, Pappu Rao, for some desi stuff. The relationship with the dealer was short lived as Tania had found out about his inadvertent habits, and she insisted Jai on quitting weed for good and smoking for better. But he could never let go his urge to chunk high once in a while. He still was a heavy smoker.

  It always worked- lady love’s blackmail! But not in Jay’s case.

  Jai had slipped in three hundred rupee notes into Pappu’s pocket for a few hours’ hassle-free stay at the place till sunrise.

  Now, as the sun was shining on his thick white face, he took out the sunglasses from his bag pack and wore it. He looked at the sun, which was placing itself firmly on the northern sky, through the brown glasses that he was wearing now. The glare was not as harsh as it had been a moment ago.

  From the road, he stepped onto the concrete staircase of the metro station. He ascended the stairs and set motion towards the ticket counter.

  The station was already well crowded, after waiting for 15 minutes in the queue; it was finally Jay’s turn at the counter.

  He peeped into the counter and requested a ticket for Rajeev Chowk.

  ‘The Yellow Line has been closed down for two hours. Sorry for the inconvenience.’ The lady at the counter offered.

  ‘I just saw you handing tickets to the previous person.’ he asked in a rude tone.

  ‘Trains are up and running up till Ghittorni though.’

  Jai thought for a moment. He had to make a choice. Either he could get out of the bustling station, catch a bus and thus go to New Delhi Railway Station or he could go to Ghittorni, get out and wait for the line to re-open, and then travel hitherto.

  Getting out of the Station at this moment was unsafe, as his parents must have woken up by now and would be on all fours tracking their runaway son.

  ‘Ghittorni’ he commanded into the box.

  ‘That would be…’

  ‘I do not care, keep the change and give me the ticket. Quick!’ He said as he placed a 50 rupee note on her table.

  ‘You seem to be in a hurry! Did you rob a bank?’ she said while handing over the token.

  ‘No, There’s a bomb waiting to explode,’ he looked into her brown eyes and plunged the next three words like a rocket from Antarctica, ‘in my ass!’

  Jai propelled himself out of the area, briskly passed through the security and gushed upstairs towards the platform.

  He boarded the first train that arrived at the platform and 15 minutes later, he was at Ghittorni.

  He got out at Ghittorni.

  He descended the stairs and moved out through the exit.

  The weather outside had changed; he was surprised to notice cloud cover. Fifteen minutes ago, the sun was shining on him and now, he couldn’t find the big ball of fire anywhere.

  He waited at the bus stop that was less than a mile from the station. He looked around, there were shops selling furniture and interior decoration items all around. Ghittorni was the center of such things. It was very early in the morning, the shops were tightly shut.

  Twenty minutes passed. There was no sign of any bus or even an auto rickshaw. There was hardly any movement on the road. It was as if the entire region had been evacuated and no man lived there anymore. The feeling of zombie movies crept back again.

  His phone rang; he wasn’t shocked to see the number on the screen.

  It was his father’s!

  He disconnected the incoming call. He dismantled the phone and removed the sim-card from the sim holder. In a swish of a second he broke the sim card into two pieces and threw them away.

  ‘You can still track me with this shit!’ He told himself as he looked at his Nokia handset, ‘I do not need you either!’ He threw away the handset too. He saw the mobile phone bounce off the green grassy ground where it landed and then hit a rock.

  ‘How will you track me down now?’ he smiled wickedly.

  The phone was a gift from his father on his 17th birthday. It had happened just a year ago and it never felt any longer before. There was no remorse or any signs of grief, not even of minutest significance, on his glowing white face. He had lost nothing in the nothingness that he thought he had been living in.

  The nothingness of that place had started to disgust him. He was tired of looking at the closed shops. Besides, he knew that he wasn’t safe at that spot anymore since the police could track his position with that one last call. So, he decided to return to the station and wait there until the routes were cleared. The Police couldn’t be quicker.

  He started walking back to the metro station. It took him another fifteen minutes and finally embarked upon the station entrance.

  Back inside the station he noted that besides him, there were only 3 security personnel and a yawning woman at the ticket counter inside the station. The security guy standing outside the corner room saw the young teenager, he conveyed, ‘No trains till 9!’, and then stepped aside to reveal the board hanging on the door behind him, ‘You may wait here till then.’

  RESTING AREA

  He walked towards the room. It was time to rest.

&
nbsp; Twelve

  May 22 2011

  Prakash Bhawan, Gurgaon

  07:00 am

  ‘I am sick of this rat!’ the angry mathematics professor shouted, ‘What does he think of himself? Huh? He leaves me a note?’ He showed a piece of paper to his wife.

  Mrs. Sharma took the paper from her husband and piped through its contents. It was a letter from their son, Jai. In it, he had written that he was running away from home to chase his dreams. She crumpled the piece of paper, held it in her fist, and started weeping. She alleged helplessly, ‘Oh my God! What do we do now? I should call the police now!’ She jumped towards the telephone and started dialing a number.

  Her husband reflexively pressed his index finger on the disconnect button of the phone. He snatched the receiver from his wife and placed it back on the console.

  ‘Why should we call the police?’ He asked.

  ‘What do you mean? He has never been alone his entire life! What if something terrible happens to him? He cannot survive such a harsh world alone, not yet!’

  ‘Exactly!’ Mr. Prakash expounded like an eager wolf man.

  ‘What? I… I do not understand’

  ‘He is a weakling at heart. He will not be able to survive. He will be back as soon as he runs out of money. He has no other option but to run away from tough life. Where can he go? He will come back here.’ he grinned at his thought.

  ‘You are impossible, Jay’s Papa!’ She convicted in the very north Indian slang she spoke. Most of the North Indian women would never call their husband by name. They would call them by suffixing the word father along with the name of the child. Thus, the lovely Mrs. Prakash addressed Mr. Prakash as Jay’s Papa. Although that culture is slowly disappearing as most of modern Indian wives have fancy petnames for their husbands.

  ‘He doesn’t have the courage to do…’ He defended himself.

  ‘Well, you pick up your mobile phone. You are dialing his number, now!’ She shouted.

  ‘Okay! Okay! Give me a second, will you?’

  Mr. Prakash quickly pulled out his mobile from his pajama’s pocket. He could roughly notice the characters on the screen since he was not wearing his spectacles.

  ‘Wasn’t he supposed to be on speed dial?’ The angry wife queried.

  ‘Oh yes!’ He quickly pressed down the button that read 3 for a few seconds and then the call was made. It was ringing and it kept ringing. After few seconds of ringing, there was an answer. The old man instinctively pressed the phone into his ears.

  ‘The number you have dialed is busy. Please try again later!’ the voice said.

  He redialed the number, but again the same answer popped up. This time it did not even bother to ring.

  ‘He switched it off, I think!’ He inferred.

  ‘Ram! Ram! Ye kya kardia tumne? This is your entire fault!’ She started pounding her fists on her breasts.

  ‘Shut Up! Stop doing that, nobody died! Our dear son has had an emotional outburst. That’s all. Once he finds that real life is much tougher and leaves you with very few choices, he will find his way back home. He does know the way back, doesn’t he?’

  ‘But we should inform the police, please!’

  ‘Let us wait till noon. If he does not return, I will call the police and seek their help. I promise you.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘He is my son, after all! Trust me, I know him. He will be back soon.’ The harsh toned professor assured in a surprisingly milder tone.

  She knew he was right; she had all the reasons to trust him. He had always been right. She wobbled towards him and he tightly wound her in his arms. She felt safer and prayed that everything will be all right soon.

  Thirteen

  May 22 2011

  The Resting Area, Ghittorni Metro Station

  07:15 am

  The air inside the Resting Area was quite damp owing to the weather outside, which he noted had changed suddenly from sunny to cloudy.

  He had been waiting inside for about half an hour now and his heart couldn’t beat any faster. But he tried to control it. He took in a deep breath, and then exhaled it out slowly, breathed in again. He tried to slow down his heart. The third time he inhaled, the lone door opened suddenly, the activity took him by surprise and his breath was left hanging in mid-air.

  A young boy, white and well-built had entered the room. He scanned the empty room for a seat, and then the boy saw Hussain. He stopped scanning and asked Hussain, ‘When will the train for Jahangirpuri arrive?’

  It did not take Hussain much thinking to answer such a simple question, for that’s what exactly he been told a few minutes ago, ‘In 2 hours.’

  ‘Oh! Thanks’, he nodded and moved on to the last seat of the second row.

  Although Hussain felt it very strange from the boy’s part to sit exact opposite corner of the room when all the other seats in the interim were vacant, but Hussain did not want to ponder much on the boy’s selection of seat. He had deduced from the boy’s appearance and dress that he belonged to an upper middle class family and his behavior towards a petty tea-stall owner was all but natural and in a weird and unpleasant way- acceptable.

  Hussain thought about his own son, little Arshad. He was just six years old and he’s taking care of their little business in the absence of Hussain, by the time he is the age of this teenager who had just popped into the room, Arshad would be married and still be watching over his tea kettles pumping out wet steam!

  Can’t we buy a shop in the ma...male?

  Hussain chuckled to himself. With the fifty lakh worth of money that he was about to receive little Arshad’s fate could be re-written. He could go to a school, a good one rather. Learn to read and write, get acquainted with numbers and Science. He would learn how our forefathers created this beautiful nation for us. He could find the answer to the question that he always used to ask, ‘Abbu! How does milk become tea?’

  But for that to happen, he must reach the lottery office by 10 pm. He feared missing out on the deadline. If he did, his dreams would come down shattering. And for that very reason, he hadn’t allowed himself to dream much more than what he had just thought. He had spent the night weaving his wife’s contours in his sleep, and thus saved himself from weaving a dream about all the things he’d do with the money. His wife, though poor, had the most beautiful body in the world.

  Perfectly shaped!

  He heard the door open again and seconds later there were some sounds. He didn’t bother to look up. He felt a cold air brushing aside him. For a moment, Hussain shivered. There were some kinds of movement from where the boy had seated himself. Hussain did not turn around, he tried to bring his stream of thoughts back to play mode. He heard him speak. It was the boy. Hussain turned around. He saw the boy who was speaking.

  Hussain locked his view on the boy.

  The boy noticed Hussain staring at him and he did not feel comfortable at all.

  The boy tried to ignore Hussain. He did it well and with ease.

  Hussain had to choose the same option; he turned around and tried to get involved back in his own thoughts.

  Fourteen

  May 22, 2011

  The Resting Area, Ghittorni Metro Station

  5 minutes ago

  Jai found the presence of another person in the same room uncomfortable. He wanted to be left alone for some time. So, he had chosen the corner-most seat to stay away from real people no matter even if it was just one odd looking person sitting quietly, lost in his world, in another corner of the room.

  He placed his bag on the seat next to his and opened the chain of its front section. He drew out a bottle of mineral water and started imbibing the liquid within.

  He was closing the bottle of water, when someone cited him.

  ‘Excuse me? Can I sit here’ asked the voice.

  Jai looked ahead; he saw a body, over-weight, average height with a tummy that could hold a dozen gallons of fat. Slowly he traversed to his face- it was round and dark, darker than his arms
. His forehead contained a vertical stroke of holy ash or Vibhuti. He was smiling broadly. The smile was powerful enough to shatter a glass made of diamond.

  Jai gestured to his right; all the other seats were empty. He wanted to tell the guy ‘Why do not you find yourself another seat, all of them are empty!’, but before he could say that, the fat man reasoned, ‘These seats are all dirty, it will spoil my Mundu’.

  Jai had not noticed it yet. The fat man had mentioned ‘Mundu’. The man was indeed wearing a Mundu. A drapery that South Indian men wound around their waists to cover their lower body. Here, in Delhi, they simply called it a dhoti or most ignorant people labeled it as lungi.

  Jai was not in a mood to argue, so he picked up his bag and placed it on the floor, near his feet.

  The fat man passed by Jai and then placed his huge ass on the adjacent seat that seemed too small to fit in something so huge.

  The strange Pathan had also started staring at Jai, which further irritated him.

  What are you looking at? Jai shouted at the Pathan in his mind.

  ‘My Name is Iyer, Krishnaprasad Iyer.’ The fat man introduced himself as he held out his thick brown hand for a shake.

  Jai took his eyes off the Pathan and looked at the fat man, he punched in irritatingly, ‘So? Shall I get your name printed on this seat?’

  Iyer chuckled at Jay’s anger, ‘Ayyayo,’ he sighed in a very South Indian tone. He had a slight Tamilian accent to his English.

  Jai noted that the Pathan who was staring at him was now startled to hear him talk to the stranger who called himself Iyer. Jai wanted to break Iyer’s huge arms and smash the Pathan’s head with that club of an arm! Pathan turned around.

  ‘What do you want? Do you know me?’