Abduction

23 November, 2014

5:47 p.m.

Five days have passed but I do not think I am still okay. I still shiver when I recall the four nozzles that were jutted on the four sides of my torso. I haven’t yet come out of the trauma completely. The fear that is always haunting you when you’re aware that one wrong word, or a single wrong move, can cost you your life. I still need some time!

25 November, 2014

11:53 p.m.

I visited a psychiatrist today. I wanted professional help to come out of the shock. I have been advised by the doctor to recall every single detail of that evening and write it down, as it happened and how it made me feel, to deal with my mental stress.

“It was around 4:15 p.m. in the evening when I decided to visit the construction site of our new hotel. The date was 19 November, 2014, Wednesday and I was supposed to collect some papers from the labour contractor. I parked my car outside the boundary wall and got down from the car. I had almost reached the gates when suddenly two people from behind the wall in front of me, and two people from the rear surrounded me and touched the mouth of their four guns on all my four sides. I was shocked and I felt my heart-beat rising instantly. My mouth dried up and as I thought about raising an alarm, the man in front of me guided his finger to his lips signaling me to keep quiet. He had a look in his eyes which gave out a clear message that he will not hesitate before silencing me for life. I gulped back the scream still in my throat and raised both my arms, offering my surrender. 

The four people grabbed my shirt and dragged me around the corner of the street. Some five-six of their gang-members were waiting there making sure the whole act of hijacking me was not visible to anyone else. They joined us and formed a second layer of bodies around me. I could hardly see the turning and twisting lanes in front of me. Left, left, right, straight under a tin-shed and through some holes in a few broken walls and then as I tried to peep in front of me from above their heads, the man on my left punched me on the face. I do not remember what turns we took after that. The sudden blow had dazed me. I had never been hit that hard before, that too on the side of my head. My head was still ringing when they pushed me down on a rocky wooden chair and stood there staring at me. 

That was the time I realised how scared all of them were. They all looked younger than me; no more than eighteen, any one of them. One kid, who was unarmed, could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. They were confused and constantly arguing amongst themselves whether to gag me or leave me as I was. Looking at my scared and timid demeanour, they decided to let me be and called someone through their cellphone. The man who made the phone call was wearing a red-sleeveless jacket with a hood over a white full sleeve shirt and pair of navy-blue denim. I was taking mental notes of their appearances and tried to look at their faces but the winter evenings had caused the sun to set too early; their facial features were hardly visible in the dark corridor where I was being held captive. The man ended the phone call after receiving further instructions, probably from his boss, and came running towards me and asked me to empty my pockets. I took out my iPhone, my wallet, my handkerchief and a packet of cigarettes which someone snatched away from my hand immediately. I knew I needed to be calm and cooperate with them in everything they asked me to do. The man who had made the phone call snatched my wallet and started emptying it. He took my phone and kept it in his back-pocket. One man who was standing behind me grabbed my shoulder and pushed me down on the chair again; and asked me for my wrist watch. I complied politely and immediately. 

The man with the red hooded jacket made another phone call and received further instructions about how to proceed. It was a long conversation and no matter how hard I tried to listen to it, nothing was comprehensible; he was standing too far and talking in a strange dialect. After he disconnected the call, he approached me again and took out my phone from his back-pocket and asked for my father’s mobile number. I spoke out the numbers with shivering and stammering voice. Every breath of air which was coming out of my mouth was an effort and my throat felt dry and itchy. The call connected and he handed over the phone to me. “Hello, papa!” I said as he snatched back the phone and turned around to talk to my father. 

“Your son is with us,” he said, “we mean no harm to come to him or your family. We only want a percent of profit that you are minting from working in our country.”

There was a long silence; at least it felt really long to me. I cannot be sure whether it was a pause of four seconds or four minutes. My mind was rushing back to the ICU ward of the hospital in which my father was admitted not more than a year back. He had suffered a mild heart-attack and was under special care for almost a week. This news could be fatal for his health. I was scared out of my wits. I just wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to tell him that I was not scared. I wanted to tell him not to be scared. Just to comply with all their demands and bring me back to the safety of his house. 

“We want a sum of 1 million before midnight and in return we guarantee the safety and wellbeing of your son. He will be delivered once we receive the cash. Call back on his number when the sum is ready.”

Again silence followed as my father was talking to him. I knew it was impossible to arrange that amount of sum in such little time; that too after the working hours had ended. The banks would already be closed for the day and we never kept any cash money above the sum of a few thousands at home. The hooded man disconnected the phone and kept it in his pocket again. He made another phone call, this time through his own cellphone and was describing what events had taken place to his boss. I looked around myself and saw how absorbed everyone was listening to the phone call.

That is when I realised, looking at them, that they were all high. All those kids around me had used drugs. Their eyes were bloodshot red, wide open and their lips were patched and dry. They were high on ‘Yaba’, the local drug which was ruining the country, the youth. Yaba, which is a mixture of meth and caffeine, makes you fearless and energetic for as long as the high lasts, which can be anything between four hours to twenty-four hours depending upon the dosage. This is when I really started to panic; I knew that their mind would not be functioning normally right now. A single wrong move from my side, or anything which ticked them off could be fatal for me. They wouldn’t even think twice before emptying the magazines of their semi-automatic pistols on me. They were young kids, so addicted to the drug that they had gone down to the limit of kidnapping someone to get money to buy some more of that life-threatening drug. 

My phone rang and the hooded man put the phone on loudspeaker for me to hear the conversation.

“Hello… Hello… Are you there?” my father shouted from the other side of the phone. His voice was full of panic and fear. 

“Is the money ready?” answered my kidnapper. “Do you want to look at your son again?”

“All the banks are already closed but I know the manager well. He has promised to help me. I have a cash-credit limit and he can arrange for some money in half an hour. But one million is not possible right now. Try and understand! It is not easy to arrange for such a large sum in such a short time. You have to consider my difficulty. Please take half a million now and release my son. I will pay you more later.” I could hear the trembling voice of my father and almost see the tears rolling down his cheeks. 

“We have to buy four guns. To buy four guns, we need one million. If you pay half a million, we will be able to buy only two.” the hooded man shouted back. He was visibly tensed. Even he knew that one million could not be arranged so fast, but he knew he could not say this to his boss. He shuffled around the dark lane, thinking and measuring his options, and finally said yes to my father’s counter offer of half a million. “OK. Pay me half now. Come near the construction site and call me.”

He disconnected the call and kept the phone back in his pocket. He was furious at himself for accepting the offer with such ease. He came rushing towards me and slammed his hands hard against my chest. It was so sudden and so strong a blow that my chair toppled and I stumbled on the floor, face-first. No one laughed, and neither did anyone try to pick me up when I did not stand up on my own. I thought it was better to keep lying on the floor than to stand up and face the brunt of his drug infused anger. My mind was almost numb after the sudden attack; so was everyone else’s around me. Only the hooded man seemed to be in control of his thoughts and actions. The rest were walking zombies who had no idea what they were doing. They were numb and expressionless. I guess this angered the hooded man all the more because he could not even ask for advice from any of them. After holding my direct stare for a few seconds he went around the corner into the darkness of the alley. 

I stood back up after a few minutes and picked the chair to sit on it. There was restlessness in the air. They had not anticipated that it will take so long. They were getting impatient and most of them were walking around in circles trying to curb their anxiety. The hooded man came back shouting orders and grabbed the collar of my shirt and asked me to follow him out. After sitting there for so long, my knees were jammed. I stumbled when I was picked up all of a sudden and the hooded man kicked me at the back of the knee asking me to walk faster. They half-dragged, half-kicked me out of the maze of alleys and I was standing right outside the premises of our construction site. My father’s car was parked right behind my car. He got down from the backseat of the car with a bag. The driver also got down from the side of the driving wheel with a bag in his hand. Both of them approached us cautiously, my father never taking his eyes off me; scanning my body for any injury marks. The hooded man took one step ahead, grabbed the bag from my father and flung it to one of the boys. He took the other bag from the driver and walked past me, sneering at me with discontent. “Go!” he said, and disappeared in the alley we had all come from. 

I ran across to my father and hugged him tight. He kissed me on the forehead, on the cheek, on the chin and asked the driver to take me to the car. He then took out his cell phone and made a phone call. Within the next ten seconds, the place was abuzz with sirens and tyre-screeches. Some twenty-odd police vehicles surrounded the place and there were dozens of policemen sprinting inside the alleys. Two police officers approached my father and whispered something in his ears. He smiled a sad smile and looked over his shoulder to meet my gaze. 

Bang! Bang! Bang! I heard three shots which were followed by a long silence. A policeman came running from the alley with the two bags at his sides. My father took one bag and kept it inside the car and he gave the other bag to the police officers who were still standing beside him. All three men shook their hands and we bid goodbye.”

Big City Life

The child’s face was radiating with happiness. His cheerful eyes were wide open- scanning the world around him, trying to capture every minute detail, soaking in every colour and shape he was surrounded with. It was a rare opportunity for kids like him; kids from the small towns and villages, to come to a metropolitan city in such a young age. He knew that this voyage was not his alone, but of all those kids he had left behind in the village, who would be waiting eagerly with palms joined and ears erect to listen to all the stories and experiences he would bring back with him. They would feast upon his memories and share it with hundreds of people. He would no longer be addressed as “Hey, kid” in his hometown; everyone would know his name, from the village headman to the old temple priest; from the school headmaster to the old man who just sat in his courtyard smoking his tobacco pipe, looking at his mango trees. 

He had started this journey with his maternal uncle two days back as a kid, knowing well that he would return as a man, catching a bus which took him to the nearest railway station seventy-six kilometers away from his village; where they boarded the train and had to accommodate themselves on the floor for another thirty-seven hours. They did not have reserved tickets; neither did they need it to get to their destination. Only a bribe of fifty rupees per person was enough to see them through. He was to start working at the street-side restaurant as a serving-boy where his uncle worked as a cook. All the world’s riches could not have given him the happiness that this employment news had brought. 

His uncle grabbed his hand and started dragging him from the overcrowded platform towards the exit, to the bus stop. There was confusion and chaos all around him and he could not understand where so many people were going, all at the same time. Village life was different from this; people did their work in their own sweet time, leisurely. The city looked like a time bomb was about to go off and everyone was in a hurry to leave the vicinity. Incoming trains kept bringing hordes and hordes of men, women and cargo. When he was leaving his village, all his friends had come to see him off to the bus stop. Here, no one seemed to be interested in him or his uncle. Nobody gave them a second look. The welcome he received was far colder than the one he had anticipated. 

His uncle tucked at his shirt and asked him to stay close and board the bus. The kid took the last-row window-seat and as the bus rolled out of the railway complex, he was astounded to see the first glimpse of the big city-life. The wide, concrete roads; the beautiful, green dividers; the tall, reflective buildings; the shiny, bright cars; the descriptive, colourful hoardings; the pungent, dirty city air. It was all too overwhelming. He just looked at his uncle beside him and smiled a big, toothy smile. The bus wheezed past other vehicles, stopping only for a few seconds at every station and traffic signals. But then the bus screeched to a sudden halt. He could hear a commotion from ahead. Something was blocking the road and its traffic. He saw as the conductor jump out and walk ahead. 

There was a familiar smell in the air, the smell of evening meals and morning prayers. There was stillness all around, stiffness, a calmness which precedes a storm. And then there was thunder. While everyone was busy scouting the roads ahead, trying to clear the traffic. A mob carrying torches and axes, swords and lead pipes approached from behind. They were shouting something together, calling out someone’s name, asking for justice, accusing someone else. It was all so sudden. He could hardly understand what was happening. He saw a few men rush past his window, clearly ignoring the bus and its passengers. Everyone had crowded the left side of the bus, taking a peek from the window, trying to figure out what was happening. And then out of the blue, someone started washing the right side of the bus from outside. A group of people started throwing drums of water on the bus’s exterior. 

And then it was frenzy, the occupants of the bus started kicking and punching their way to the single-door opening. The rickety bus had no emergency exit and the windows were barred. His uncle asked him to grab his backpack and run out of the bus. He couldn’t understand the reason behind the sudden urgency. Then he saw a big man, clad in white from head to toe, throw a burning piece of wood on the bus and the bus enveloped in flames. “The people were not throwing water, uncle, it was kerosene!” he shouted at the top of his voice, the fear in his eyes no more than in his uncle’s. His skinny arms and tiny legs could hardly break the crowd. He could feel the heat on his back, getting hotter with every breath. Instantly, the bus became a furnace and black, thick smoke covered everything inside. Nothing was visible but the smoke. Nothing was audible but the sound of his own cough and the raging heartbeat. He started sobbing, crying, screaming, calling out for his mother, for his uncle and started throwing his arms all around to grab someone. And then the smoke started consuming his lungs, entering with every gasp, but not coming out. He fell unconscious on the floor of the burning bus!

Inscrutable Love

(Read the prequel here: Candid Love)

I kept checking my watch every five minutes, believing somehow that the regular glances at the dial would, somehow, make the hands move faster and inch closer to Eight P.M.; when I was supposed to meet him at the street-corner delicatessen on the Capitoline Hill. I could hardly wait to see that handsome face again, look deep into those intense eyes, watch the fine lines which made his jaw move as he showered me with his magnificent stories and which always touched the right chord inside me; look at his ink-stained fingers drum the table restlessly; his hands dancing dramatically to the tunes of his own voice. Anyone would confuse him for an Italian, if they could just see him talk, not hear him. His hand movements, his broad shoulders, his ruffed-up hair, his immaculate dressing sense and his love-filled laughter; his eyes closed, his head falling back and his whole face lit up with the joy which made him laugh. There were no pretentions or checking of emotions. It was a laugh that only a man who has nothing to hide can laugh.

I took out my beige coloured, ankle-length frock and brown strapped sandals. I wanted to dress casually but elegantly. I chose a pair of pearl earrings and a white leather purse to go with it. I walked out to the balcony and instantly felt the hair on the back of my neck rising as the cold winds hit my naked arms and legs. It was a beautiful evening, winter was setting in, and the night was cloudless with the moon shining bright and the anticipation of love lingering in the air. I went back in, shivering, and decided to drape a stole as well. 

It was still seven-thirty and I looked in the mirror, blushing like a bride-to-be. I felt like a teenager, excited by the prospect of meeting her crush. I applied a sweet, fruity perfume at the base of my neck and wrists. I let my hair loose, keeping it to one side of my shoulder and decided to catch a cab to the deli. 

As I got down from the cab, I could feel the night air getting colder as I wrapped the stole a little tighter around my body, trying to shield myself from the penetrating gusts of wind. My eyes met his as he got up from the table to welcome me. He was dressed in a casual white shirt and blue denim. He was wearing a pair of dark red loafers and big black spectacles which made his face look even more intriguing. He greeted me with a bunch of flowers, saying “You look wonderful, tonight!” I resisted the urge to kiss him on the lips, then and there. I knew I had to progress cautiously if there was to be any future of our relationship. I needed to be sure if he felt the way I feel for him. I kept looking into his hazelnut eyes; at his black fuzzy beard; at his perfectly aligned teeth; and I had to bring myself back to the reality every time I sensed losing myself in him. 

Maybe I should have told him how I feel. Maybe I should have dropped a few hints. Maybe I should have brought up the topic of love and eternity. Maybe I should have said yes to his offer of dropping me home. I should have done at-least something before the night ended.


(Read the continuation here: Unfathomable Love)