by Sakiv Koch
The man looked about the same age as Runa — around eighteen. He was quite tall. Lean, well-toned muscle rippled in his chest, shoulders, and arms at his slightest motion. A week-old stubble lived on his cheeks and throat. His black hair glistened wetly in the strengthening sunlight, which lit up the amber in his eyes.
“Thanks,” he said once again. “I give you my word to return your life-saving chunris as soon as possible.”
Runa blinked slowly, like someone dazed. What had been so valuable to her half a moment ago had suddenly lost its meaning in her eyes. What had been utterly meaningless to her half a moment ago had somehow acquired a strange, puzzling value. She no longer cared about the prospect of losing a thing she had splurged half a month’s salary on, although she would wait intently for him to bring her belonging back to her.
“Happened what to you?” Lalita enquired, directly addressing the shy, blushing young man, surprising Runa some more — Lalita rarely talked to strangers or even acquaintances.
“My name is Ravi,” the man said. “I am an escape artist, or I shall be one soon. My - er- assistant and I were training here about an hour back. He had just chained me and I was about to step into my box, which he would have pushed into the water, when along came a group of sages. They were badly disguised bandits belonging to the Baali gang. The thugs, all of whom looked drunk or stoned, were beside themselves with rage at their leader’s death. They were cursing the young hangman, what’s-his-name, who strung the fearsome Baali up just when he was on the verge of escaping —”
“Shyam his name,” Lalita interjected. “He our friend very strong we very proud. Go on happened what then to you?”
“My cowardly assistant took to his heels as soon as he made out that the people coming toward us weren’t harmless yogis. He didn’t even stop to unbind me. I was wearing only my —,” Ravi substituted a delicate cough for the next word. “No one comes this way so early and it is good to keep one’s clothes dry for immediate reuse after emerging from the canal. I began to loosen my chains, but the bandits came running at me, yelling, waving their rifles and their hatchets, before I could free myself completely.
“There was a woman among them, perhaps Baali’s wife or lover. She was a wounded lioness. Clearly intoxicated, clearly heartbroken, but her grief evidently didn’t reintroduce her to her more humane instincts. She commanded Baali’s men not to attack me. They obeyed her. She then asked me whether I wanted to live. I told her I wanted to. She said fear helped people live longer, but I wasn’t showing enough terror. She told me I was standing in front of her like a manly man. She said I seemed the type of rare fighter who stands up to and defeats the Baalis of this world. She wanted to see me cower and cringe. ‘Go down on your knees and beg me for your life.’ I thought of doing it, but I couldn’t, not even to save my life. She laughed. ‘I know your kind. But there’s another way you can continue to live,’ she said and then, and then…”
Ravi’s cheeks burnt brighter. He gulped. Runa didn’t want to hear the next part. Lalita did.
“And then what?” she demanded, her big eyes rounded to their fullest extent.
“And then she drew out a slim blade from somewhere,” Ravi said. “She held up a finger to warn me not to resist. Four or five rifle barrels lined up and pointed at my head. Three or four knife points pricked my back. And then… she slit open the only… article of clothing I was wearing. She held it up like a trophy. All of them laughed so hard at my expense, their eyes almost popped out of their brute heads. The woman did and said a couple of things I could never speak about, but she kept her word about not shooting, stabbing, or hacking me to death. Most of my worldly possessions — my box, my tools and picks, my chains and ropes, my watch, all my clothes, my wallet — were there by the canal bank. Easy loot. They even took the chains and locks that were still fettering me. You two came down the road not five minutes after they moved away. We should get going now. Those bandits or the others of their headless gang might still be in this area. I’ll escort you as near your homes as I can go in this state.”
The young ladies didn’t demur. If anything, they appeared too eager to accept Ravi’s offer. Although the boy was clothed too skimpily and clownishly to venture into any public areas, Runa and Lalita, too, were culturally semi-nude without their dupattas. Runa would have to endure a lot many weird looks and answer several awkward questions upon reaching home. But at least Ravi would get to see where she lived in order for him to drop by later… an inexplicable, incongruent shock of thrill jolted her at the possibility of seeing him again.
The three of them walked together in a thick-but-companionable silence as the late summer morning matured and bathed them in a golden light. Little songbirds with streaks and patches of mesmerizing colors in their plumages filled the air with sweet music. Sunflowers standing in roadside fields nodded knowingly at Runa, making her blush.
They saw no one, not even a single peasant, farmer, washerwoman, fisherman, milkman, or shepherd for a long time. Runa felt as though people had conferred and planned beforehand to grant the three of them a measure of much-needed privacy.
Runa stopped at a juncture where three roads met. She gave Ravi clear directions to her home, which was just about a hundred meters from that point. They were parting, turning away from each other with certain unsaid things peeping out from their eyes, when a small procession of young men from the neighborhood appeared suddenly from around a bend in the road leading to Runa’s settlement.
Ravi fled. A sharp-eyed youth called out for him to stop. Ravi increased his pace. A number of young men surged after him, raising an alarm, pouring out a stream of abuse and threats. Runa shouted for them to stop. A burly young man ran past her and hurtled a stick into Ravi’s pumping, bare legs.
“Stop, Shyam!” Runa cried, grabbing Shyam’s arm to prevent him from reaching Ravi, who had plummeted to the ground with Shyam’s stick-missile hitting its target accurately. But she might as well have tried to catch and pull back a hurricane. Shyam dashed toward Ravi, who, Runa saw with an ice-cold jab of fear, must look like a pervert, a stalker, a molester, a rapist, a snatcher of women’s clothing to every casual onlooker.
Runa somehow maintained her grasp on Shyam’s arm, getting dragged along, asking the furious man to stop and listen to her.
Lalita ran after them. “Harm not him innocent,” she shouted, but like Runa’s pleas, her orderless words were also lost in the din that Shyam’s friends made in their angry excitement — their hero, who had shot to sudden stardom on the previous night, was once again going to create history, and all his companions would be immortalized by being a part of it.
What would the strongman-hangman, who had made mincemeat of a legendary, indestructible giant like Baali, do to the slim, delicate-looking boy sprawled out on the road? Ravi lay face down, moving, but not getting up. Runa saw a little blood on the road beneath his forehead.
“Listen to me, Shyam!” she cried with all her might, shaking the unshakable, rock-like limb she held in both her hands. He paid no heed to her. His eyes flashed. He gnashed his teeth. He swayed on his feet. He’s drunk, she realized with new stabs of shock and horror. Drunk not just on his victory, but also off liquor.
Runa had grown up with Shyam, seeing him, living with him, since her babyhood. She knew him to be a teetotaler. She next realized that all the men following him were intoxicated. They had been out dancing and singing and apparently drinking all night long. Runa released his arm and slapped Shyam’s face. He snorted and pushed her away gently, sending her reeling several feet back.
“You picked on the wrong women, you bastard,” Shyam spat out through clenched teeth. “Die now!” He raised the tree-trunk that was his right leg to mash down the melon that was the head of the animal lying in the dust at his feet.
A streak of colors moving incredibly fast flashed on the road. Shyam’s rapidly descending boot slammed into a palm instead of a skull. History was created in the following half-a-minute, but not the kind th
at the hangman’s followers had been expecting or desiring.
Several pairs of widened, incredulous eyes saw Shyam struggle to extract his foot from the all-but-naked boy’s inexorable grip. And then, in a perversion of the natural order of things, the invincible hangman fell flat on his back and the pervert sprang upright on his bare feet.
Shyam’s stick was in the boy’s right hand. Runa and Lalita’s skewed, torn dupattas still miraculously skirted his slender, almost-girlish waist. He grinned impishly, said something that contained the word escape, turned around, and walked away.
None of the brave young men who had witnessed that unbelievable turning of tables (or men) dared to follow.
To Be Continued!
Thanking a Superstar
That would be you, dear Reader! I am immensely grateful to you for coming this far along on Neel’s journey While I chronicle the next stage of his adventures, kindly check out my completed trilogy, Little Lantern, Deep Darkness. You may also like The Rathole, a short story (the only one to have come from my pen so far).
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