Guilt and Conscience...

Yes, I killed... It was me... Kya kar loge... kuthe ke aulaton...
I'm telling, it is me... Come kill me... take revenge...
Main bol raha huna.. Yes, It was me.... Fu** you all.... you dogs...

He was tied, and was being taken away by four attendees...
No marks for guessing.... A Mental Hospital...

Chutkoo... he was my friend... well, till then he was my friend.. and remained so only for another two n a half hrs.
The thin, lean and short ... he was the chutkoo in our C-52 gang...

He had a lot to prove to others...
that he is strong, glamorous, he is brave.. and stylish.
Now I think he had some sort of complex..
Not that any one else in c-52 had any of those qualities.. but we never cared..
we never thought of wanting to prove....

But our chutkoo had to...
and we never noticed... never even bothered to notice...

Apart from the fact that he was afraid of dogs... Even a small puppy could bring the hell out of him...
He would not get out of house in the night if he hears a dog moaning a good half a km away...
But then he was our chutkoo.. He was well protected...

I think it was just out of this fear of dogs, he bought a brand new Pulsar. And it did help, the bike did instil some sort of confidence in him... Now he used to go out alone in the night..
Roam around all night and come back early mornings..

Our late nights started to become just the start of the day for him... and when he comes back he used to ring the bell some 10 times until all of us are awaken.....
uth jaa saalon......
But again.. we never bothered.. It was chutkoo.. woh toh pehle se hi pagal hai.. ??

Until one night.. I should say morning, when he ringed (surprisingly my phone..and not the bell )from outside the house and asked me to open the house... There was panic in his voice. And he asked not to awake any one else... and so I did go silentlly and open the door.

A December night and he was all sweating... and I noticed the blood stains.. in the front tyre of the bike.

Yaar ek accident hogaya...
Ek kutha ... main nabbe pe tha... woh.. woh.. beech main...

Half asleep, I said..

Its ok yaar...
Its just a dog... Relax.. Tumhe toh kuch hua nahi na...

Nothing had happened to him.. except for a scratch in the forearm...

I dont want this bike any more..
I want to sell it now.. I'm damn afraid...

Chutkoo.. tu tension mat lena...
ek kutha hi toh hai...kya hogaya tujhe....

I am damn afraid yaar.. Seriously.. You know na how much I'm afraid of dogs..
Now all of em would kill me... I am afraid yaar...
I want to sell this bike.. Please help me...

we washed the stains.. cleaned.. gave for a service.. and sold the bike the third day...

After 2 months he, chutkoo, shifted house to a new place.. and the meetings became rare...

It was after 8 months I was going to see him..

As he always feared... He was attacked by a few street dogs....
And he was admitted to a hospital..
But as he showed mental instability and streaks of violence, he was moved to a mental hospital near by..

Yes, you fu**ing bitches.. Come, kill me... I'll kill you all...
You.. you.. ... you.... yo.... and he was falling unconcsious....

I got to see him after 2 hrs...
He was normal..
Hi yaar...
and almost cried ... When I asked ...
Kya hua tumhe chutkoo.... ye kya halat bana ke rakha hai...

Yaar.. I had told you.. these dogs..."
They are taking revenge.. you remember the accident..

Revenge.. bull shit.. Tum pagal hogaya kya...
he stared at me.. and he asked...

What do you think I have become...

Can I trust you...
I want to tell you something
I have to tell this....

Areh chutkoo batana.. you very well know you can trust me...

You remember the accident....
That night, that night... It was not a dog....

then....

It was not a dog... It was a small kid... some street child...
Her dog had come in the way.. and she jumped in front of my bike trying to save it...

What the Fuck...

Main bola thana.. main nabbe pe tha.. I couldn't stop...

and you didn't stop..?? You .. you didnt try to save her..

I tried..da... I tried... But the moment I stopped... her dog.. it started barking at me.. and attacked me..
He showed the scratch...
God.. I have seen that before..

It was attacking me da.. I had to save my self. I reached for a brick and killed it.. smashed its head... smashed it... dim.. dead.. bloody dogs..
ha ha ha ha...
ha ha ha ha......

Oh My God... I looked at my hands... Those stains... I washed... blood... a small girl's..

You bloody basta....
I was squeezing the last breath out of him... when people came and removed me..

He was still shouting..

Come On you all.. Kill me... I know you want revenge...
Yes It was me...Yes, It was me.... Fu** you all ....
ha ha ha .... ha ha ha ...

Savere... Savere... Yaaron se milne...

Remember those days..?
When you used to run to school carrying 10 KG bags, your mom running behind you to keep the lunch box inside..
Remember the song.. ?
"savere savere...
yaron se milne..."

This an incident from those days of my life. and I warn you, it is a very filmy story.
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I still remember the look.
Those two eyes staring at me...
big round eyes... full of anger...
That was the very first meeting.
She was angry at me.. and she had every reason to be...
I was the reason, why, she had to change her school.
Incidentally, my Mom had told her mom, that the school in which I'm studying is good, the fee is very reasonable, and overall it is much better than where she was going now...

So..??? She was arguing with her mom.. toh kya...
so what...!!!? Her school was also good.
Everybody in her school loved her.
She was the topper, not just in her class, but in all the divisions. She was the one selected to speak during the prayers. She loved her school.
And all the more, who is this guy and his mom to decide which school should she go..????
But the fact was that she was studying in a Govt. Malayalam medium school, where there were hardly any teachers and even less teaching.

I was in 9th then and was studying in the Technical Higher Secondary School, again a Govt. school but which was much much better than where she was studying.
My Mom did convinced her mother.
She joined, in 7th, in our prestigious THSS.
and once again she had to come to my house, her mother had come to ask, whether I can take her to school with me.
Woooo..... The stare.... She was giving me the same stare.. full of anger... but this time I was laughing at her helplessness.
The school was some 6 km from he bus stop and bus stop 1km from our house, which meant a 2 km walk every day,.

Everyday I reach her house and shout..
"Aunty..."
and the girl would come out.. some times a small smile, more often a blank look. Then starts a march of two kids, not even looking at each other, we walked as if we lived in two parallel universes... Have you seen the ceremony at the wagah border ? We were pretty much like those Indian and Pakistani soldiers..., seeing each other daily..., staying so close..., but still hating each other.
The only relief I had was that more friends joined after half a km walk.

Life was going on like this for us soldiers,.. until one day,
when she fell unconscious in school. A peon came running to me and said the teacher is calling.
Her teacher had called for an auto and was asking me to take her back home. I was a bit hesitant, but looking at her awfully tired face...
She was looking really tired, and for no reason, or reasons unknown to me, she was crying.
I had to console her. but how..
I should speak something to her..
and I asked.. a genuine doubt I had...

"How do you feel, when you fall unconscious ?"

entho...!!! (what...!!!) (kya...!!!) and a smile, was her first reaction. It turned to a big laughter and a lot of many things. She said it feels very good...It is really fun to fall unconscious.. and many more things.. making fun of me.. making fun of the stupidity of the question. But I did not care. She was happy. I could cheer her up. At last we have become friends... and we don't have to march...

Next day I was expecting a happy smiling face.
But it was gloomy. and just after a few meters she said she needed to get a chart.
Can we go the other way today so that she can get the chart?
anytime ma'am...
Little did I know then that the other way was to remain the permanent way for us.. Away from those friends waiting half a km away, eating our other half a km away.

The first day, we went the other way, she was really happy and talking.. She talked a lot. She told me how she hated me for changing her school, how much she loved her older school, how much she hated this new school and a lot other things. When she starts talking it is like boarding a deccan flight. She starts a sentence which she does not know where to end or when..?
But as the days went by, I was supposed to understand whatever she was telling, however meaningless that was.
After all, I was the one who changed her school, and I was responsible for all her unhappiness. Any thing bad happens to her, she would stare at me, the same anger...
even if that is toppling over a stone.. she would look at me with the same anger...
I would laugh and tell.. areh yaar... maine toh kuch nahi kiya..

toh kya.. bacha toh sakte the...
(btw, toh kya was her favourite sentence, every time I try to make her understand some logic, .. this one sentence .. toh kya... failed me..)
Are pani khatam hogaya na.. kahase dedoo..
toh kya.. mujhe pyas lagi hai.. mujhe pani chahiye...

I don't know.. she was so sure .. she as so sure nothing would ever happen to her without my consent.
She was so sure she was mine...

Even in the school, when her friends see me and starts chidafying her..
"See here comes your hero.."
My face used to turn red.. (default color being black, the color change was not that much noticeable though.. )
But she never minded it..
Yes it was so. I was her hero.. and she was never afraid of proclaiming it.
She would make me do all those hero stuffs in front of her friends.. spinning books on fingers, moving my ears.. etc etc etc.. anything which I do to entertain her, I had to do it in front of her friends also.

I could never fail her. I was a hero, a hero, she owned.

But she hated this school. All this english... close but distant friends.. she used to remind me often that it was due to me that she had to change her school, and if it was not for me she would have gone mad in this new school.

But as long as she was with me she was happy...
and like this days went by... exams were over.. results out...
we went together to check our results.

I had topped my class, and she was shouting with happiness like anything. But when I said chalo... now lets see your results, she didn't want to. She didn't want to see her results, Some how I pushed her to the place where her results were published...

Five subjects in red.

"Yeh kya hain.. teacher lal painting kar rakha hai kya..??
ha ha ha ha ha ha...
ha ha ha ha ha ha..."

I don't know whether it was, she failing in the subjects, or the cruel face of mine, laughing at her state...,
she was running.., running back home, crying... both hands on her face...

The whole vacation she did not talk to me. Not even a stare...

and the next year she moved back to the school she belonged to, and we shifted to a new house.

I still remember the stare, full of anger, full of love, and I miss it badly.

Now sometimes, I wonder, how a stupid comment made her come the closest to my life, and another stupid one, drove her away from my life... for ever...?

While ( 1 ) dream

It was just another day at the office for the tiger. Just that the office was different, and the tiger was very weak due to under nutrition diets. Tiger was feeling pain all over his body. He was weak. But still he tried a hand at the tiger badminton tournament held at the office. Well, no one believes he is a tiger there. He was treated as a kitten in the badminton court. Well he'll see them all.. all in due time.
hehehe...

After the major assault on him at the badminton court, he was feeling even weaker, vulnerable. He had not had food for the whole day. His stomach has been in the bypass mode for the past two days. He was all dehydrated. By the end of this "just another day at office" the tiger was too tired. He was having fever too. So he went back to his den early.

Still a tiger is a tiger. isn't it..? He cannot ask for care or ask for love. He still has to move on as if nothing is wrong with him. So he didn't care to tell any one in the house that he was ill.

He lied down. and just like that, even faster than yuvi comes to the creese and goes back, he was sleeping.

He was feeling uncomfortable, He felt that some thing is nearing him. something dark, gripping, it made him very dizzy, was making him unconscious. It was frightening and he felt it is going to take him with it. He shouted

amme........ amme....... don't let me go. amme..... I dont want to go..

He kept on shouting, he wanted to be heard, at least once before he is gone, forever....

Suddenly he felt a cold hand on his fore head. He tried to open his eyes.
amma !!!!
Papa was near by too...
He was telling,

monu.... where u going, you can go no where, k... , not when we are here, nothing will ever happen to you when we are here, nearby you, k..?
turning to mom, he said,
I'm going to sleep here, with him.
Mom said, she would too....

He was with his parents, papa on his right and amma on is left, he felt an unusual sense of security. He knew nothing could ever snatch him from their tight grip. He was asleep again. But....

when he checked the right side of his bed, with his left hand, he felt that no one was there. He got panicked...., he checked his left side, his mom also not there. What..? How...?

Suddenly he woke up and saw that his parents were sleeping in their bedroom.
They had never heard his shouting..... well, when have they heard..?
All a dream....., eh...?

It was a phone call that woke him up in the morning.
"Home Calling..."
He picked it.

It was a panicked voice at the other end. His mom.. yelling

what happened da.. what happened ...?

Nothing amme..nothing, just had a bad dream yesterday.. but, how did, how did you know..?

Dad had snatched the fone..

monu... nothing will ever happen to you , k... we are here.. just pray before you sleep,..

amma snatched it back...

Monu, It has been one year now, since you went to US... When you coming home...?