Kisse Jindagi Ke : Episode 3

The owner of the shanty had just walked out to the road and realized that the driver of the car, a white creta was about to start his vehicle. Alarmed that he would lose an opportunity, he resorted to the first action that came to his mind. He took the rod in his hand and rammed it into the right headlight of the vehicle, which completely shocked the driver, and before he could react, the next blow had struck the driver's window, shattering it into pieces. The driver started bleeding from the head and the arm, where the glass had cut him and was pleading some gibberish, completely clueless of what was happening around him,

Pam was absolutely confounded as to what had just happened. Things had moved so fast, he didn't get any time to react. The man who had attacked the vehicle was now wailing on the side of the road, crying himself hoarse "Maar diya, mere murge ko maarr diya, meri rozi roti khatam ho gayi, ab main kya karunga" and the other shanty dwellers were all gathering around. 

The owner of the shanty, while crying his heart out, noticed his cousin out of the corner of his eye, and singalled at him to move towards the driver. The cousin immediately started moving towards the car's broken window, as though this was a well practiced routine. In a minute, he was next to the driver.

Pam was trying to make some sense of the situation, when he realized a man was standing right next to the car. He looked at the man pleadingly, his expression saying that somehow, someone needs to tell him what exactly was happening.

The cousin obliged.

He told Pam, " Sahab, aapne to us aadmi ki rozi roti hi cheen li. Wo ek chota sa poultry ka bizness karta hai. Uske paas ek murga tha, jisse wo apni saari murgiyon ke saath rakhta tha, aur un  murgiyon ke ande bech ke apni jindagi chala raha tha. Ab uska murga to aapki gaadi ke neeche aa gaya, saath main uska bizness bhi thap ho gaya. Ye sab bakheda usiliye ho raha hai."

Pam started processing the information that he was getting, but it didn't make much sense to him. In the midst of it all, the cousin told him ,"aap to gaye ab sahab, ye log ab aapko nahi chodenge. Iske gaon walen hain sab, aur kafi gusse main lag rahe hain". There was a certain menace in his voice which made Pam shudder.

Right on cue, as though they had practiced this as clockwork, the guy who was crying suddenly got up and started howling to the others around, gathering them around the car.

Pam, sensing what was about to happen, requested the man standing next to him "Please mujhe bacha lo, wo murga achanak se beech main aa gaya, main kya karta, meri galti nahi hai, please please"

The cousin replied,"are sahab, ab aapko koi nahi bacha sakta, ab to jo hona hai hoga", and started looking at Pam with almost an expression of pity. After a few seconds that felt like years to Pam, he continued "Chalo, try karte hain". Pam heaved a sigh of relief, with the hope that atleast there was someone on his side, and the man seeing this, smiled at him though Pam felt that he may have turned that into a smirk before he headed towards the group that was assembling in front of his car.

Pam was looking on with extreme apprehension on the proceedings in front of him, his hands were holding the steering tight and his face was palpitating.

The cousin walked up to the man crying, and said "Jaane do bhaiya, ab kya kar sakte hain, aapka murga bhi to achanak se sadak pe aa gaya"

At this, the other man started wailing even louder, "kya matlab jaane do, aap bade log ka kya jaata hai, hamari jindagi kharab ho gayi aur aap bolte ho jaane do, aur kya matlab murga aage aaya, ye hamara ghar hai, yahi rehte hain hum, itni si jagah naseeb hai humein. Is sheher ne itna hi diya hai hume Inhe kya jaroorat hai itni tez gaadi chalane ki yahan, araam se chalane mein kya jaata hai inka""

A few sobs, then he pushed Pam's crusader back with force, almost throwing him down and said "Aapko ab maloom padega ki gareeb ka dukh gusse mein kaise badalta hai".

Pam almost wet his pants this time, but his mind finally came back a little to his senses, may be because of the sudden shock. He started looking for ways to get out of there. He decided his car was his last safety net and happily realized that it was still switched on. he looked back but thought he could never back into the turn without hitting something. Ahead of him, there was the entire group of people and there was no other way. His hope was again filtering out, and he started paying attention to the commotion ahead.

While the man was still shouting, the crowd ahead had thinned now, but there were still enough people left to scare him not to do anything.

The man went on, pushing a child into the arms of 'Pam's advocate', "ye mera ladka hai, ab iska kya karenge hum, kaise kharcha nikalunga main iski padhai ka, kaise kuch banega ye"

To which Pam's advocate replied, "are to sahab de denge ne uska paisa, aap bas jaane do unko" and looked at Pam.

Pam nodded his head with eagerness, and the advocate continued "Bolo kitna paisa dena hai".

The other man said, "gareeb ki jindagi ki kamayi hai ye murga sahab, kam se kam lakh rupaye ka kharcha aayega dhang ka naya murga dhundh ke dobara kaam chalu karne mein, sahab ko bolo jana hai to wo de den".

The advocate looked at Pam and saw the shock on Pam's face. He was starting to move towards Pam when the child who had been pushed into his arms asked him "Are par chacha, baba kyun ro rahe, hain, wo to murgi thi, murga nahi"

Pam heard this.

The cousin looked at Pam, then the child's father and then they both nodded, and started rushing towards the car.

Pam put his car in first gear and pressed the accelerator to the full.

In the split second, both the men jumped to the side of the road, the others standing in front also ran for their lives and Pam was free.

The two men who had fallen on the road, got up and looked at the child angrily " Bewakoof, maloom hai kitna bada nuksaan kara diya aaj"

He drove away as fast as he could, and didn't slow down till he was back on the western expressway, and then instinctively took a U Turn on the Avalon hotel wala signal, screeching to a halt just as he saw Lovleen.

A half an hour later, Pam & Lovleen were back at the house, Kunal had gotten out the first aid kit and was patching up Pam, while the others were first understanding & then wondering what had just happened in the past two days, with both Rohan & Pam. The cricket match was forgotten.

A while later, they had all calmed down, thanked God that everyone was still safe, and decided to retire for the night, giving everyone time to move on from what had happened.

Kunal did say though, "Wish there was something we could do about all this", on which the others sighed in an expression suggesting they would if they could.

Rohan had just reached his home, and was getting into his building's gate. He suddenly felt a man behind him, shouting "Rohan Sahab, Rohan Sahab" . He turned around to see Shukla ji limping towards him, bleeding from his nose and ears, shouting again, "Sahab, sahab", almost in sobs.


Hope you are liking how this is going. 
Here are the links to the earlier two episodes:
Episode 1 : kisse-jindagi-ke-episode-1
Episode 2 : kisse-jindagi-ke-episode-2

Keep watching this space to see what happens next!!

Kisse Jindagi Ke : Episode 2

Rohan woke up late next morning, around 11, and still felt tired. The maid had come, made Anda Bhurji for breakfast, cleaned the house & utensils and left. He found some bread in the fridge, and toasted it. The spiciness of the Bhurji was what really brought him up from his slumber and he though to himself while relishing it, 'Aah, small pleasures in life'. 

He had a long shower after the breakfast, it seemed to help the aches in multiple places. The moment he got out, he took the report form, finished it off and sent it out. 

He felt like going out so quickly set about getting ready. By the time he was ready, it was almost 1. He was just trying to figure out where he would head when he remembered that Parmeet had mentioned last night that they were planning to get together at their place today to watch the Match today and he was welcome to join.

He felt inclined to call, not so much because of the match, but because of that little inkling at the back of his mind that Riya would be there, which suddenly became a fact of immense importance. He wasn't sure thought that Pam ( He winked internally at that) really meant for him to come or was just being polite. His confusion though was then relieved when he saw's his phone ringing. It was Pam.

Half an hour later, he was at Pam's and Kunal's place. He quickly fluctuated between disappointment when he realized that Riya was out, and sudden joy when Pam said she would be there in an hour though. He wasn't sure if Pam had realized this or not though. 

The match was about to start, so they got about arranging for food & beer and were all set right before the toss. 

Unfortunately, as is wont to happen to matches in India at this time of the year, it started raining at the match, and the play was delayed. Harsha Bhogle, in his ever positive tone was still informing them though that the showers should stop soon as per the weather forecast  and we should have a full match. Rohan said that Harsha was probably the only one in the country who still followed the weather forecasts and Pam & Kunal chuckled in agreement through their beers. 

Rohan & Pam had lamented Kunal enough on how could he think Rohit Sharma was the most important player in the squad. They agreed that since this was in India, he could do well but Virat was playing and of-course, he was the key to this game. Kunal was about to make his argument when Riya the keys clicked in the door. Rohan looked at Kunal wondering who could this be and he informed him while walking towards the door that it must be Riya as he had given her his keys. 

Pam had felt the last time that he noticed something in Rohan's face when they were talking about Riya and it was confirmed when he saw his face lit up at this. He smirked to himself thinking that this could turn out to be an interesting turn of events, though  kept quiet about it, knowing Kunal's protectiveness about his sister and not wanting to spoil the evening.

Riya walked in super happy, with another girl who neither of them knew. She introduced Tanu to everyone as one of her friends from engineering who she had invited to join them. 

They welcomed here, and informed the girls that the match was delayed, when Riya said, "That's fine, Rohan can tell us about the 'lambi kahani' he was talking about last night in the meanwhile" and sat down on a bean bag taking two bears from the fridge and handing one to Tanu.

Rohan was stumped, on two counts. He hadn't expected Riya to ask for his story like this, and further, he didn't know what and how much to tell them.

However, men will be men, and since Riya was the one who had asked, Rohan really had no choice but to recant everything. He did feel like adding some bravado in some places to impress Riya, but the horror of it all came back to him and he just said like it was. He was surprised that it took all of 15 minutes to go through all the events as he felt so much had happened. 

All the others in the room were stunned by the time Rohan had finished telling them and Kunal was the first one to break the silence. " Dude, tu sure hai tu theek hai, you should get yourself checked man", to which Rohan murmured he was fine. Pam seemed to have transitioned to anger by this time from bewilderment and said "We should all go back to that agent of yours, find these guys and beat the shit out of them" to which Riya reacted, "Idiot hai kya, we should go to the cops. This is serious".

Rohan was amazed at these people who were arguing about all this even though they had just met him last night and wondered why was this when Tanu said " Why can't we just let it be, he is fine now, that's whats important?"

Rohan latched onto this and told them he had decided to let it be and had already filed a report of a 'normal claim' and sent it out. This was met with vehement discord, but he somehow found his voice and cut them short "Kya kar lenge boss apan, hum long gunde nahi hai, police bhi kisse mili hai, kaun kaun mila hai main nahi janta, I am a simple working guy and don't need to get into any further mess. I am sure they would have by now found out about my report and would let it be hopefully" with his anguish clearly reflecting in his voice. For some reason, the others understood what he was going through and quieted down. 

His cause was helped by Harsha again coming back on the screen and announcing that the match was back on. The match progressed and Rohan's cause by furthered a surprise spell by 'Sir Jadeja', who took two wickets in his second over and became the topic of conversation taking away the spotlight.

It was almost 35 overs and the proteas had only got to 180, which seemed to keep all of them interested. Pam suddenly looked at his phone had said, "Oh Teri!!, lag gayi aaj to. Lovleen ki flight 20 minute main land hone wali hai. Kunal chabi de bhai, time pe lene nahi pahuncha to mera breakup ho jaega" Everyone laughed, Kunal threw him the keys and he ran out. The others got back to the match.

A little while later, Pam had just crossed the 'The Maratha' and was wondering if he would be there in time, when he remembered the last time he had gone to the airport in a hurry , the auto wala had taken him through a shortcut which took a left just before the Sula Hotel. Although the road was bad and went from the middle of small slum dwellings, it would definitely save time as opposed to the western express and he decided to take that route.

He was feeling comfortable about the time he had made up on the shortcut, but was still driving fast when he suddenly saw a hen or cock, he didn't realize which, run in front of the car and though he tried to break, he ended up running it over. He was dumbfounded as to what to do now for a minute. He thought about getting out and then decided against it. 

In the meanwhile, the kids from the corner shanty where the hen had rushed out from ran back in. One of the kids told their father, "Baba, 200 ka nuksaan ho gaya, apne subah ke truck main ek murgi kam jaeygi. Wo gaadi ke neeche aa gayi" The father suddenly stood up, picked up a rod lying nearby and smirked at the kid. " Beta, nuksaan nahi fayda hua hai, tujhe suna nahi?, zinda murga khak ka, mare to pyare laakh ka." and started walking out, shouting for the other shanty owners in the area to come out and his kids followed.

Lovleen's flight had landed on time and since she had no check in luggage, she had started to walk out. She tried calling Pam but that Idiot was not picking her calls. She thought to herself "Agar ye idiot match dekhte dekhte mujhe lene aana bhool gaya to aaj iski khair nahi hai " and started walking on. She called Kunal after Pam didn't pick up for the nth time, who told him Pam had left and should be reaching soon. She felt happy that he had remembered and thought may be he was driving in traffic and hence didn't pick her calls. She texted him to not come inside the airport, and that since she was already here, she would walk out and see him in front of the Avalon hotel gate, as that would save time. She was sure he would check his message before getting into the airport as they had done this often in the past also.

She had now been standing at the avalon hotel for 15 minutes and was now getting perturbed. She was thinking 'weekend ko itna traffic to nahi ho sakta, kahan rah gaya ye. Airport ke andar bhi gaya hota to ab tak to call karta, and he is still not picking my calls'. From what Kunal had told her, he should araam se have been here by now. She was about to call Kunal again to tell him that she was getting worried and he should do something, when she suddenly saw a car, with one light struck out, screech out from under the flyover and stop right in front of her. She was aghast to see Pam sitting in the driver seat, bleeding from the head and right arm, the driver window was also broken and rushed straight to him.

What happened with Pam ? Catch episode 3 to find out :)

Link for Episode 1: http://siddjay.blogspot.in/2016/04/kisse-jindagi-ke-episode-1.html

Kisse Jindagi Ke : Episode 1

It was dark, but the white markings on the road were shining. A green sedan, cruising along, was the only thing visible on the road, apart from the still, gloomy, sparse trees. If one looked closely, one would notice that there weren't many leaves on the trees.

The man, standing behind one of these trees, had just figured out where he was, recognizing a closed shanty nearby from earlier that day.  It was the first sane thought that had come to him in a while.

He was wearing a grey hooded jacket, and a jeans, which he had found in a cottage he had just broken into.

He felt exhilarated and sad at the same time. Exhilarated to be back to the world as he had once known it, but sad because he would never forget what he had done to be here.

He stepped out of the trees and hailed at the green sedan for a lift. He knew it was unlikely that the driver would stop for a stranger at this hour and on this road, but what choice did he have than to take his chances. 

The car of-course just zoomed past him. Ahh, such is life!. He gathered himself and started walking towards the north. It was almost 11, and soon the entrance to this route will be blocked till the morning. He needed to find himself a spot for the night.

He was still wandering on the road, when he felt the sound of a car coming from the back. He turned just in time to see a white Creta come to a halt behind him. The window came down on the passenger side, and a man, about the same age as him, visibly drunk asked him," Buddy, do you know how to get out of this place on the Powai side"

Minutes later, he was in the car with them, finally heading home. The man that had spoken to him had turned out to be Parmeet, a cut surd who lived in Powai with his roommate who was driving the car, Kunal. They both worked in the financial analysis division of a big firm. At the backseat was Kunal's cousin Riya, who had just moved to Mumbai and was joining a software firm next week. They were returning from a party in Goregaon and had gotten lost in Aarey, looking for the Powai exit when they spotted Rohan.

He was now seated in Parmeet's seat who asked him from the back: " Dude tu yahan kar kya raha tha iti raat ko" . It took a while for Rohan to figure out how to respond. He just ended up saying " lambi kahani hai Parmeet, fir kabhi sunaunga" 

" Abe kya Parmeet Parmeet laga rakha hai, kitna old fashioned hai. Parmeet Singh Ahluwalia. I prefer Pam." Said Pam. Both Kunal & Riya burst out laughing. Rohan also smiled. 

They dropped him at his 1 BHK 25 minutes later, they exchanged numbers promising to catch up soon enough. Rohan was now back in his room, looking at the ceiling, wondering what had just happened and what was he going to do about it.

It all started on Wednesday evening.  Rohan worked as an insurance inspector and on Wednesday he had taken in a call of an accident where a truck had fallen off the road somewhere outside of Mumbai in the Western Ghats. Since this was a long weekend coming, with Gudi Padwa(Thursday) and Good Friday falling just around the corner, most of his team members were on leave. Somebody had to go do the recce of the location on Thursday and with his darn luck, it turned out to be him. Rohan felt his weekend was in jeopardy, just how much jeopardy he had no idea yet.

Thursday morning, Rohan left his house grudgingly, dreading the long day ahead. The journey from his flat to this village near the old Mumbai Pune highway near Khopoli was quite uneventful. He had his breakfast at the Midway but along with it, it was normal fare.

He reached the site and saw the regular police cars, the boundaries put up to cordon off the area and the truck lying in the pit right next to the road.

Rohan's job here was simple. His firm had an insurance contract with the transport company that owned the truck. Whenever any such accident happens, the assigned auditor would go and verify the extent of the claim liable to be paid by the firm, and basis the assessment and police confirmations, the transporter would be paid up.

The accident had been a lucky one as no one has been hurt. Before he could go observe the truck, he was just taking a download from the police man in charge. He was told that the driver and his helper had climbed down on the corner of the road to take a leak and left the truck on hand brake. Somehow the brake had failed and the truck slid around the bend and fell in the valley. The entire cargo of food products was destroyed along with the fall as it had fallen into the valley and most probably contaminated. While they were now not going to look for it, the cargo was also insured and hence Rohan had to sign off it's value as well. He looked at the documents and they all seemed to be in place and the value of the cargo was closed to 8 lakhs, apart from the residual value of the truck, which was minimal as the truck was very old. It was the cargo that would hit his department's P&L.

After noting all the details, Rohan moved to have a look at the wreckage. He looked at the truck below and it was in shambles. Good that the driver and helper weren't in it or they wouldn't have survived. 

Somehow though, he felt something was not right here. The truck seemed to have fallen from a position perpendicular to the road , which is unlikely if they had parked it like they had said.

He tried to ask the cops but they told him he was mistaken and the truck may have changed the orientation while falling which was confusing him. Looking to get back home soon, he was about to accept their explanation and close the case, when he spotted one of the food packets on the floor. It apparently had dropped off the truck while it fell.

The packet was still sealed but felt unusually light to him. He opened it and saw that the pack was actually empty. His suspicions arose again. This time though, he thought better than to ask these cops. He told them he had everything he needed and will send the report to his superiors on Monday, and left.

On his way back, as soon as the car was some distance away, he opened his laptop to do some research. The transporter had filed 11 claims on his trucks in the last two years, all of them cases where the trucks were very old, and all of them carrying cargo of 3 times or more the residual value of the truck. Luckily, nobody had been injured in any of the accidents and all the claims had been settled. 

Rohan was now almost sure that there was something fishy going on.

All these claims were filed in different locations, so nobody would connect two incidents. 

He decided to investigate further. He found out the name of the agent who had done the insurance contract, a Shukla ji, based in Goregaon. He also owned a kirana store, and ran the insurance business from the same place. He told his driver to take him to the kirana store.

It was almost 6 when he reached the location. Shukla ji told him to wait for 5 minutes, as he was just attending some customers in his outlet. Once the customers left after some persistent haggling over prices of dal, Shukla ji asked his helper to take care of the outlet, and he will be back in sometime. 

He met Rohan outside a tea stall, and ordered two cutting for both of them. He said, " kahiye Rohan sahab, aaj chutti ke din aap head office wale yahan kis khushi main pahunch gaye."

Rohan: " are kuch nahi Shukla ji, thodi jankaari chahiye thi to socha aapse mil ke hi pooch lun, thoda ghumna bhi ho jaega aur fir aap chai bhi to pila rahe ho!"

Shukla ji smiled at this warm fellow from the HO, and said " boliye sahab, kya kar sakte hain aapke liye".

Rohan showed him the file of the transport company and started inquiring about the owner.

Through his conversations he realised that the owner had been a small time guy when he signed him up, and had two trucks only. But the business had been very good for him lately and he had increased his fleet to 25 trucks in the last five years and was one of his most respected clients in the area.. He had kept in touch with Shukla ji throughout and was the nicest of guys according to him. He often brought sweets for his kids when he came to see him. Shukla ji also remembered that he actually lived nearby, somewhere in Aarey colony. 

Rohan thanked Shukla ji and headed back to his cab, thinking about his course of action.

It was almost eight and he decided he had done enough of sleuthing. He would mark the case suspicious with all his observations and let the firm take it from there. He asked his cabbie to call it a day, and he decided to drop into his friend's place in Malad, where he was sure some sort of weekend celebration was definitely on.

In the meanwhile, Shukla ji had made a call to the transport company owner asking about whether all was fine, as he had seen in Rohan's file that one of his trucks had met an accident. He was assured that all was fine and there was nothing to worry about.

Rohan called his friends but they were all in Kashid, enjoying the long weekend. Dreading his darn luck, he started walking towards the nearest auto stand. As he was looking for an auto, one just came and stopped next to him and the driver asked him, " kahan jaenge".

"Powai"

" aarey se jaunga, chalega? Jvlr pe bahut jaam hai"

"Chalega"

And off they went. This journey however wasn't that uneventful. After moving into aarey for a while, the auto stopped and before he could say something, the auto wala turned and hit him on the head with a bat. 

He woke up in a chawl, his hands tied behind his back, dried blood around his head. He looked up and saw the autodriver along with two other brutes.

One of them had Rohan's wallet in his hand. He looked inside and took out his license. 

"Rohan ji, aap bade aadmi ho, achi life jeete ho, kyun doosron ke mamlon main taang adate ho"

"Kya jaroorat thi itni chaan been karne ki. Araam se report likhte aur ghar jate. Ho gaya na ab locha"

Rohan was by now scared witless, understanding that he had gotten himself into a mess.

The other brute had come close up to him but then and was looking at him intently.

Rohan looked at him and muttered " sorry....mujhse galti ho gayi, mujhe jaane do, please, aap jo kahoge likh dunga report main"

The other brute just punched him in the face.

" are re re.maro mat use. Kah to raha hai jo kahoge likh dega "

" par ise sab samajh aa gaya hai. Agar chod diya aur bahar jake isne kisi ko bata diya to"

" kyun Rohan sahab, ab samajh gaye hamari scheme?  Purana truck khareedo, thode din chalao, fir nakli maal bhar ke khai main gira do

Truck aur maal ki Kimat aap log de dete ho, aur asli maal jiska consignment tha, use bazaar main bech ke naye truck main laga do. Genius hai na?"

Rohan could have figured this out, he had almost suspected something like this, but right now, he was busy trying to free his hands, as that punch had loosened the grip a little.

He just replied muttering "ji"...

Suddenly, a large crashing sound was heard from outside, as though some accident had happened nearby. The brutes looked at each other, then at the auto wala who had been sitting in a corner all this while and said." Iska dhyan rakh, hum 10 minute main aate hain."

And walked out. The auto wala just nodded meekly and sat close to the door, looking at Rohan. 

Rohan's hands just came free at that moment but he did not know what to do next. 

He asked the auto wala to please get him water, in order to distract him and try to run away.

The auto wala hesitated for a moment, but then stepped out of the room. Rohan quickly tip toed to the door, looking to get out behind him and wanting to just run.

Just about as he was reaching the door, the auto wala came back in. They both saw each other, he dropped the glass of water and rushed at Rohan. Rohan spotted the bat he had been hit with just in time, picked it up and banged it straight into the autowala's head as he ran in. He fell down and Rohan hit him again and again, forgetting everything else till the auto wala was lying unconscious and bloody. 

Rohan came back to his senses, realised what he had just done and ran out of the chawl. Luckily, none if the two brutes were back yet, but he still kept running relentlessly. After about 15 minutes of running, he saw an open cottage with no one inside. He ran in, changed, washed his face and head and ran out again. Threw his blooded clothes in a secluded garbage dump and went on running.

He was tired and hailed behind a tree, and then realised he had come back to the main aarey road, where the auto wala had stopped, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Rohan had lain in his house all night, thinking about the day he had had.

There was one thing he needed to decide on. Should he tell people what had happened ? He was back in his home safe,but scared of the people he had angered. And he had no idea what happened to the autowala. But what if something like this happened again, or they kept on cheating the insurance firm? But if he reported, would they not find him again? He kept wondering all this for a long while.

He finally reached a decision, and then sleep took over.

Wait for episode 2 to find out what did he do:)

Update: Link for episode 2 : http://siddjay.blogspot.in/2016/06/kisse-jindagi-ke-episode-2.html