Heroes R Us

by Mainak Dhar

  The girl sensed what was coming and screamed at the driver to stop the bus. But as she got up to try and leave, two things happened in quick succession. The boy who had just been referred to as Rajesh rushed over to the driver and snapped out a small knife, telling him not to stop if he wanted to live; and the other boy grabbed the girl from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth. As he dragged her towards the back of the bus, he came within touching distance of Arnab, who was now terrified out of his mind. He brought his face within a few inches of Arnab's and growled,

  'Get the fuck out of this bus or I'll tear you apart.'

  Arnab recoiled from the stench of alcohol on the boy's breath. He was frozen in place with fear when the boy shouted at him again to get lost. In almost a reflex action, Arnab got up and began picking up his bag, when his eyes caught those of the girl. Her mouth was covered by the boy's large and callused hand, but her eyes were wide with terror. As Arnab began to walk past them, she managed to prise the hand off her mouth and shouted after him,

  'For God's sake, please don't leave me here with them!'

  Arnab didn't know quite what to do, but he gathered the courage to turn around and face the boy.

  'Please let her go. Please.'

  He was ashamed when he realized just how plaintive his tone had been, and even more so when the boy laughed in his face saying, 'Are you deaf or what? Get off this bus now.'

  Arnab wished he could have marched up to the boy and smashed his face in, like one of his fictional idols, but reminded himself that he was but a weak and scared man, and no match for these goons. As he asked the driver to stop the bus, he began formulating a plan in his mind. As soon as he got off, he would call the police from his cellphone, giving the bus number and details of the incident, and hope that they got there in time. But before he could do so, things went horribly wrong.

  The girl mustered up all the strength she could and kicked out at the boy's shin. Surprised, he let his grip on her loosen and she bolted for the door, and ran straight into Arnab. The boy caught up with her a split second later, and pushed her hard into a seat, screaming at her to not try anything stupid. He then faced Arnab, his eyes bloodshot from the alcohol and anger.

  'Get out, unless you want to join in and enjoy what's left of her when we're finished.'

  Arnab wasn't looking at him; his eyes were locked on the girl. As he saw her lying there, bleeding from the lip where she had struck the seat, his anger boiled over. Without realizing it, he felt himself crying. He was angry with himself for being such a coward, and for being so weak. He looked at the book in his left hand and realized what a hypocrite he was, for reading about great men and their courage, while his courage had been limited to intellectual debates as he sat in evening chat sessions with his college mates in Calcutta. He was all talk, but even he had limits, and he realized today he had reached his breaking point. As he looked at the girl, he realized he could not live with himself if he left her here to be raped while he escaped to the cocooned and make-believe world of his middle-class respectability. He knew he didn't stand a chance, but today for a change, Arnab Bannerjee was not going to look the other way and walk away.

  As he turned towards the boy and looked him in the eye, the boy laughed out loud, spitting in his face. As Arnab instinctively turned his face away, the boy lunged at him, shooting out his right fist, aiming at Arnab's head.

  That was when things became very strange.

  Arnab looked up to see the boy's fist coming at him, but the strange thing was that it seemed to be moving in excruciatingly slow motion. For a second, Arnab watched in fascination as the fist arched in towards his face, and then realized that if he just stood there, he was going to be knocked out cold. While he didn't understand why the boy was moving so slowly, he ducked out of the way and moved a foot to his right.

  The boy never saw Arnab weave away, and continued through with the momentum of his punch, losing his balance, and falling onto a seat. He looked up at Arnab with fury and disbelief. His friend was about to move towards Arnab when he stopped him.

  'Are you crazy Rajesh? I can rip his head off with one hand.'

  He took one more swing at Arnab, who again seemed to move out of the way with unnatural speed. Arnab still didn't understand what was going on, but realized that hoping that the boy's slow motion punches continued and that he could dodge them all was not a smart strategy to survive this fight. He couldn't even remember the last time he had been in a fight and had little idea of where to hit or how, but he balled his hands into fists and waited for the boy to strike again. The boy lunged a third time, and this time once again Arnab stepped out of the way of his blow. However, instead of just moving away, he shot his right hand out in an ungainly punch that he was sure would miss the boy completely.

  The boy never saw it coming. Arnab's fist shot out in a blur of movement and hit him on his jaw, producing a cracking noise as several teeth broke. From the front of the bus, his friend watched in horror as he went down to the ground in a heap. Even more horrified was Arnab, who looked uncomprehendingly at the boy lying at his feet. He looked dumbly at his hands, as if seeking an explanation for what had just happened. The second boy was onto him in a flash, swinging his knife wildly from side to side. As had happened with his friend, Arnab watched in fascination as the boy seemed to move towards him in slow motion, and he simply stepped out of the way to avoid the first two knife thrusts. Frustrated and angry, the boy stabbed at Arnab's throat, but Arnab sidestepped him, bringing his left hand around in an arc and completed the turn by smacking the boy on the back of his head with the book he had been holding in his left hand. The combination of the momentum of his knife thrust and the force of Arnab's blow sent the boy flying some ten feet towards the back of the bus, where he landed with a thud, and didn't get up.

  With both the boys out cold, Arnab came back to his senses and took stock of what was going on. The girl was looking at him goggle-eyed, and the driver had stopped the bus, saying, 'I've brought us to a Police Station.'

  Within minutes, constables had boarded the bus and hauled both unconscious boys away and Arnab found himself sitting before a fat, paan-chewing Inspector, whose badge read 'Samit Mediratta'.

  'So what happened on the bus? Was there a fight between two gangs?' he demanded.

  'Actually, sir, they were bothering this girl, and I guess I fought them.'

  'You?' The Inspector's voice was filled with disbelief.

  'Look, if you're trying to cover up for some friends who did this, tell me.'

  Arnab once again protested that there was no one else involved and that the two boys be arrested for what they had done with the girl.

  'For that, my friend, she needs to file a complaint.'

  Arnab had exchanged no words with the girl after the incident, and she was sitting on a bench nearby, having the cut on her lips tended to by a female constable. She had overheard the conversation and by the time Arnab walked up to her, she stood up and said,

  'Thank you for what you did, but I have to go.'

  Arnab looked at her uncomprehendingly.

  'How can you go? File a complaint and send them to jail.'

  She looked at him and sighed as she smiled sadly,

  'You don't understand. They'll be out in a day, and I need to take the bus every day to college. There won't be someone to save me each and every day. Plus, my parents are ordinary middle-class folks; I don't want to drag them into any hassles.'

  With those words, she left the station, leaving Arnab to face an increasingly amused Inspector Mediratta.

  'Look my friend, there is no eve teasing case here; it's a simple case of assault. Either someone else did it, in which case tell me who it was; or if it was you, then you could be in trouble.'

  The two boys had now been revived, and while the one with the broken teeth wasn't able to say much, the second boy made a series of phone calls, and sat there looking at Arnab with a smug expression, holding an ice pack against the back of his head. Arnab r
ealized why when within minutes, Inspector Mediratta received a phone call. Arnab didn't know who had called but from the Inspector's words could guess the gist of the conversation.

  'Yes, Sir. Mediratta here.'

  'Yes, Sir. I didn't know that.'

  'No problems, Sir. I'll let them go.'

  'Yes, Sir.'

  Arnab watched in disbelief as the Inspector walked up to the two men, shook their hands and asked his constables to escort them out. As soon as Mediratta reached his desk, Arnab waded into him with a series of questions.

  'How could you let them go? What were you thinking?'

  Mediratta stopped him with a raised hand, all the amusement in his eyes replaced by a cold, ruthless look.

  'Look here-nothing happened today. So just count yourself lucky that there are no charges against you. Just remind yourself that nothing happened and walk away.'

  Shaking with anger, Arnab got out of the station, passing an elderly constable who was shaking his head sadly. Arnab asked him what had just happened.

  'Son, those two goons are on the payroll of one of the political parties, and one of them is a leading member of its Youth Wing. With Elections around the corner, nobody wants to create trouble with them.'

  Arnab seethed in anger all the way home, furious at how difficult it was for those without power or money to get any form of justice. Then a new thought hit him.

  What the hell had just happened on the bus?

  THREE

  Arnab spent a lot of the evening thinking of what had happened earlier in the day on the bus, and finally decided that he would drive himself crazy if he kept fretting about it. Figuring that some fresh air might do him some good, he stepped out for a walk, stopping to grab some food at the nearby South Indian restaurant by way of dinner, and was back home by 10. By then, he had already rationalized in his mind what had happened.

  He decided that the goons' reflexes had been slowed by the alcohol, and in his panic he must have imagined that they were moving in slow motion. As for his sudden display of strength, he decided that being pushed into a corner and literally fighting for his survival must have allowed him to get a couple of lucky blows in. Also, the last thing the goons would have expected was for him to have fought back. That element of surprise, more than anything else, must have been the factor that ensured he got out in one piece. There must have been nothing more to it. There could not possibly be.

  He soon fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, and did not stir till the morning, when his alarm woke him up. The first thought on Arnab's mind was that he had forgotten to turn his alarm off on a Saturday, and wanted to do nothing more than to sleep for a few hours more. With his eyes still closed, he reached out for the alarm clock on his bedside table, and inadvertently sent it careening towards the ground.

  Then something truly astonishing happened.

  Arnab opened his eyes to see the clock moving towards the ground, except that in apparent defiance of the laws of gravity, it seemed to be falling no faster than a feather floating down to earth. He reached out with his right hand and grabbed it in mid-air before it had completed even half its journey to the ground. He sat up with a jolt, looking at the clock in his hand with a mixture of horror and amazement.

  What was happening to him?

  What was clear was the fact that whatever had happened on the bus had been no fluke. Arnab rushed to the bathroom mirror to examine himself. There seemed to be no apparent physical changes he could discern, but somehow his reflexes and strength had changed beyond recognition. He decided to put the latter to test once more, and picked up an iron bar that had been lying in a corner of his bathroom, having been left over after some repairs that had been done in the apartment a few months ago. He had kept it to swipe at the occasional rat or lizard that seemed to be his permanent non rent-paying housemates. Arnab picked up the thick rod, which must have been at least two inches in diameter. He grabbed the bar at both ends and flexed his hands, watching in open-mouthed amazement as the thick bar bent as if it were made of rubber. He dropped it and stepped back, horrified at what he had just done.

  Next, he walked to the far corner of the room, and plunged his right fist into the brick wall, recoiling in fright as his fist seemed to drill through half the wall, leaving a gaping hole where previously there had been brick and mortar. A kick aimed at another corner of the same wall had even more devastating results as it produced a clean hole in the wall through which a thin beam of sunlight streamed into the room.

  Arnab sat down on his bed, struggling to comprehend what was happening to him. He decided that he must be losing his mind, and rushed out of his room, bolting up the stairs two at a time as he made for the roof. He was halfway up when his panic gave way to a feeling of exhilaration. Here he was, Arnab Bannerjee, perennial weakling, the favourite whipping boy of schoolyard bullies, always too slow or too weak to excel at any sport in school-bounding up four floors without breaking a sweat. As he reached the roof, he decided that whatever had happened to him, it perhaps was a wonderful gift. All his life, he had wished he were better looking, more athletic and stronger. While it may have been impossible to do much about the first two, he was now fitter and stronger than he had ever imagined possible. He spied a couple of heavy barbells that some of the neighbouring boys used for exercise lying in a corner. On a whim, he picked up the weights and began juggling them as if they were tennis balls. He was soon laughing out loud as he tossed around the heavy barbells that just a day ago, he would have had needed most of his strength to lift up even once.

  He was so lost in his delighting in his newfound strength that he never noticed his landlady's six year-old son, Chintu, walk up behind him.

  'Uncle, can nothing hurt you as well?'

  Arnab whirled around to see Chintu looking up at him with awe in his eyes. As he quickly put the barbells down, he asked Chintu what he was talking about, trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

  'You're as strong as him, so can you also not be hurt like him?'

  'As strong as whom?'

  'Superman!' was the answer as Chintu held up the comic book he held in his hand. Arnab tried to play down what the boy had seen, but Chintu kept pestering him to try out his powers. As preposterous as the notion sounded, Arnab decided that there was no harm in finding out what he could truly do now. He looked around, and saw a small nail lying on the ground. He picked it up and stabbed at his finger. To both his and Chintu's astonishment, it didn't even tear the skin.

  'You are Superman!' squealed Chintu in delight as Arnab looked on blankly at the nail and his finger.

  He decided to try again, and stabbed harder with most of his newfound strength, and pulled back as blood spurted from his finger. So he could certainly be hurt, though it seemed to require extraordinary strength to do so. This demonstration of his mortality didn't seem to have done much to dampen much of Chintu's enthusiasm. The boy was now pointing to the cover of the comic that showed Superman flying alongside a jet and was pointing to Arnab,

  'Uncle, please show me if you can fly like Superman!' Chintu was now bounding up and down with excitement and caught up in the madness of the moment, Arnab climbed up to the six-foot high water tank tower and accompanied by Chintu's excited squeals, launched himself into flight.

  And then he fell flat onto his face.

  As he sheepishly got up and brushed the dust off his clothes, Chintu's mother entered the roof.

  'Chintu, what are you doing here?'

  As Chintu mumbled something about Arnab having turned into Superman, she smiled at him and asked if he'd like to join them for lunch.

  'Don't mind Chintu. He always has his mind full of these comics.'

  Mrs Bagga lived just one floor above Arnab, and with her husband, an Army officer, posted in Kashmir, would often invite Arnab for meals. She enjoyed the company, and Arnab got a break from the greasy fast food that was his staple diet.

  As they sat around the table and Mrs Bagga passed around the food, Chintu leaned t
owards Arnab and whispered,

  'Superman also has X-ray vision, you know.'

  Despite himself, Arnab found himself looking at Mrs Bagga's ample bosom and discovered, a bit to his disappointment, that this was another area where he didn't quite match up to Superman.

  ***

  The rest of the afternoon was spent in front of his computer as Arnab tried to find out what could have happened to him. During lunch it had struck him that all this had started after the incident at the bank, and he kept wondering if the two were somehow linked. A few Google searches later, he still wasn't any wiser as to what exactly had happened to him, but was beginning to suspect that he wasn't the only person to have had such an experience. He browsed a handful of websites that claimed to document real life cases of ordinary people who had developed superhuman capabilities. A day ago, he would have dismissed such tales as nothing more than mere figments of someone's imagination. Now, he wasn't so sure any more. One of the themes he picked up on several sites was that the full power of the human brain was still largely unexplored, and extreme trauma and stress sometimes did unlock surprising capabilities, like the case of a woman who woke up from a year-long coma to surprise herself and everyone around her by speaking fluently in a foreign language she had never even heard before, or a cripple who had woken after a severe head injury to discover that he could walk normally.

  Arnab wondered if the beating to the head he had received in the bank had unlocked more than just a promotion to Associate Head Librarian.

  Arnab would have spent all day discovering what new capabilities he had suddenly picked up, had he not got a call on his mobile at about four in the evening. It was from an unfamiliar number, and he rarely got calls from anyone, so when he picked it up, he was surprised to hear a familiar voice at the other end.

  'Hi Arnab, Mishti here. Look, I got your number from Jayantada and was wondering if you'd like to meet up for dinner? Don't say no, I'm going back to Bangalore tomorrow night.'

  Before Arnab could think, he found himself saying yes and agreeing to meet Mishti at a TGIF at one of the malls on MG Road in Gurgaon. He was so excited about all that he had discovered over the morning that he wanted to tell her everything, but stopped himself, realizing just how crazy he would have sounded.