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