Arul
couldn’t quite understand what he was feeling. It was 12 am in the night. He felt so light. Relieved,
rather. All the sorrows and embarrassments and disappointments and hopelessness
that were weighing him down seemed to have been plucked away from his soul like
a miracle.
He felt all
the agony that had wrecked havoc in his life for the past 6 months, since the
news of Vidya's impending marriage, was wiped away like a clean slate. It was
as if he had obtained a new perspective on the all consuming sorrow and
melodrama of a love failure. He mentally winced at the memory of how he had
humiliated his family by bursting into Vidya's home and demanding her to marry
her -for he had loved his distant cousin dearly for the past 5 years. She had
no clue of his affections and was joyously getting ready to marry the guy her
parents had chosen for her.
Now, looking
back at his actions that have caused his mild clinical depression, he felt
sorry that he had thrown away so much of his time and energy on a silly crush.
Sigh! You live and you learn. It was now time to put it all behind him and
think of fresh beginnings. Arul, unsure of how to deal with all this relief
drifted to the window and stared at the winking stars. His lips spread into a
small smile. "How befitting to start over right at the stroke of
midnight" he mused.
As he
wandered to the balcony he saw his friend Kumar below, sitting on his bike and
smoking. He was surprised to see Kumar Anna at this midnight hour. Kumar and
Arul met every weekend. They played cricket for the same team. Kumar stays
close to Arul's house and is 7 years his senior. He often comes and picks up
Kumar when they go for match as Arul, a college student, does not own a bike
yet. Like now, Kumar will wait beneath Arul's balcony and wordlessly, Arul will
climb onto Kumar's pillion.
As he sat
behind Kumar Anna in the thumping bullet, he felt so happy that to be with Anna
- a familiar figure with whom he can share his new found happiness. The
midnight has lulled all the souls of the street into sleep. The roads were
empty and the streetlights – at least, those that were not bust, cast eerie
golden pools of shadow. Even the dogs and cats, that usually dart here and there
were curled cozily into their own warmth and dozed. This would be Arul’s first
visit to Kumar Anna’s place, even though they knew each other for more than a
year now. He felt a little odd that his first visit is at this ungodly hour.
But since Kumar had no issues about it, Arul rode wordlessly with him and they
arrived at the gates of Kumar’s residence.
As Arul was
about to get down from the bike, two dogs pounced at them out of the blue. With
their teeth bared and a low menacing growl rumbling from their throat, the guys
felt as if were dropped right in the middle of a scary movie. The ferocious
black dog was looking at Kumar and barking furiously. Its barks echoed eerily
in the cold deserted night air. In the ghostly moonlight, Arul could feel the
shock and fear that was coursing through him reverberate in Kumar. They did not
know how to tackle this beast and escape with all their flesh intact on their
legs. To make matters worse, the black beast latched its paws onto Kumar's leg.
Scared out of his pants, Kumar tried to scare the dog away by revving up his
engine. This made the other dog to leap in front of the bullet. With its front
legs planted solidly on the wheel, the second dog started barking angrily -not
budging even an inch when Kumar tried to move his bike forward.
Arul could see that they
were literally trapped between two crazed, frantically barking monster dogs.
Arul, who is already scared of dogs, was at his wit's end. The barking
continued unabated and the black dog, which was clinging on to the trembling
legs of Kumar, turned towards Arul and started snapping at him. Arul could
handle it no more. He jumped out of his seat and took off -running like a
madman down the street.
To
his great horror, the dogs ditched Kumar and started chasing him.
To
his great relief, Kumar watched the two crazy dogs take off like rocket and
disappear round the corner of his street. He was perplexed and still shaky from
his midnight adventure with the dogs. “I have come home numerous times at this
hour, sometimes even later. What made these dogs –that too the familiar street
dogs that I see everyday - behave as if they were possessed?” wondered Kumar.
He quickly
opened the gates and let himself inside. He felt too nervous to venture again
into the dark to lock the main gates behind him. He dashed into his home and
jumped into his bed, quickly discarding his clothes and changing into
comfortable shorts. As he lay, staring at the ceiling, he felt his heart rate
return to normalcy. “Thank God I escaped without any scratches or bites” he
murmured.
He then set
the alarm for 6 am and drifted off into a dreamless, uncomfortable sleep.
Even
before the alarm could irritatingly wake him up, Kumar got up - wide awake. The
mistress of sleep ditched him even without the final caress of the state
between sleep and wakefulness. The time was 5.30 am and he didn’t have the
usual urge to burrow into the bed and doze for another 30 minutes. Instead, he
started thinking about today’s match. They were playing against their rival
team –from the other end of the city. He started strategizing and plotting
about the 15 over match.
Brushed and dressed, Kumar slipped on his
shoes and pocketed his wallet. Swinging his bat on his shoulders, he snatched
the mobile from the table and checked for messages.
“Today’s
match cancelled. Reasons later” flashed the message from another team mate,
Sashi. Frustrated and irritated over waking up this early for a wasted cause,
Kumar called up Sashi.
“Dai, what
the F*&% da? We are playing our rivals. If we cancel the match now,
they will think we have chickened out!” Kumar shouted.
“Macha,
listen to me da…our Arul…he is no more.” Sashi said quietly.
The shock
blocked further words escaping from Kumar’s lips. Kumar remembered last night,
and he just could not believe that someone so young could just die.
“Macha?? You
there da? Am now at his home. They have taken the body for post mortem. Why
don’t you come over?”
“Sure…sure…I will be there soon. What is the
need of post mortem? Was he murdered? When will they release the body?” Kumar
couldn’t stop himself from shooting questions to Sashi.
“These
government procedures…I think we can count ourselves lucky if we get the body
in another 5 hours.”
“Okay da. Will see you at Arul’s place soon”
Kumar replied and kept the phone down.
Kumar sat
down heavily on his bed. Even last night he remembered taking his last fag
outside Arul’s place. Everything was as normal as they could be. How come he
died? That too so suddenly? Kumar’s thoughts kept circling round and round
Arul.
He then
dragged himself to the death house. His heart clutched at the sight of Arul’s
parents. Their grief –so intense and so apparent –felt like an icy blow to his
heart. The house was packed with friends and relatives. The crowed spilled on
to the street, where the mourners were gathered in clumps under the shade of
Shamiyana. Kumar managed to locate Sashi and his other cronies and walked
towards them.
“Sashi, what happened da? How did it die?
Even last night I was here and everything was normal. When did you get the news
of his death? Infact, today morning I was about to leave my home to pick him up
for our match. I was so shocked to see your message.” Words tumbled out of
Kumar.
Before Sashi
could answer, there was a commotion at the gate. Two policemen were escorting a
body bag, which was placed in the freeze box by two health workers. The police
handed over some documents to Arul’s father –who wordlessly passed it on to
Sashi. The police turned to us and said“Get these documents photocopied. They
are the post mortem report”
Sashi was
looking at the body bag in a stunned state and he was not responding to the
police. Arul's face was swollen and blue. The face barely held any resemblance
to the young and smiling Arul. When the police prompted Sashi again, Kumar
nodded to them and dragged Sashi out of the house to his bike. Sashi climbed
wordlessly and they went to the nearest“Xerox” shop. Kumar went to the shop and
ordered for 3 copies, collected it, paid and came back to his bike.
As he was
about to start the bike, Kumar glanced at the report.
Deceased Name: Arul Prakash
Deceased Age: 20 years
Date of death: 21st Aug
Cause of death: Choking due to intense pressure on the windpipe caused by self strangulation
Time of death: 00.00 to 00.15 hrs
PS:
Based on a true story. Credits for Prasanna for sharing this story with me and
planting the seeds of WASTED.
