The greatest risk is not taking one

The phone rang. Another unknown number, but M knew who that would be. “Your food has arrived, please open door,” the service representative said. 

The waimai was all drenched. “Nihao,” he said, handing him a paper bag that was stapled to keep the food packets inside from falling off.

“Nihao.”

This was the first time he had ordered from Hulu, so they sent him a complimentary bottle of wine and two cookies along with the pasta he had ordered. He swallowed a cookie right away. It was nice and delicious until the cookie crumbled. As it took a tumble in the insides of his mouth, he could feel a strip of paper getting stuck to his upper palate before, using his finger, he pulled it out, half meaning to call Hulu and complain until something written on the paper caught his eye. “The greatest risk is not taking one.”

So this was what the representative from Hulu had meant when he called and made pleasant conversation and told him they would be sending two fortune cookies and a surprise gift along with the food.

He was careful with the second cookie, cracking it open and taking out the paper first. He then opened the parchment to read what fortune held in store now.

“18511588XXX”. 

That looked like a telephone number. He scanned the rest of the paper bag for clues but found none. Could this be a number he had to call to claim some gift? Brands these days were always coming up with such schemes to popularize products. 

Hesitating at first, he called the number. The phone rang incessantly but remained unanswered. Maybe someone printed a number by mistake, instead of some interesting phrase. He forgot all about it as he attacked the Spaghetti Bolognese. 

But once he had had his food he got an idea. Maybe if he saved the number on his phone he could check if the user was there on WeChat. Maybe it would be someone who comes up with phrases to lock inside nice cookies. He had nothing to lose. So he went to the dialed numbers on his phone and saved the last dialed number as, what should he call it, he wondered. FC, he thought, for fortune cookie. And then as an afterthought he added an asterisk after each letter. F*C*.

He then opened the WeChat app and thumbed his way to first Contacts and then New Friends, and there it was on top of Mobile Contacts, the number. But it had no profile picture.

He hesitated for a while before sending the enigma a friend’s request. The request was accepted right away. 

“Hello M!”

 

“Hello! How do you know my name? Who are you??”

 

“Mmm. You sure like to know, innit? Check out my profile”

 

And suddenly the profile which had no photograph until then sprang to life. It was M’s very own photograph. 

“WHO IS THIS?” he typed in all caps.

“And how did you get my photograph? I’ll report you to the police. This is illegal. Did you hack my phone? 

 

“Cool down M! There is no reason to get hyper. I look like you because I am your fortune teller, one you discovered on cracking a fortune cookie. Now do as I tell you if you want to know what your future holds. As you must have figured out by now, the two of us have a cosmic connection about which I shall tell you more when we meet. But today is the only day when I can meet you. I will go back to my deep sleep tomorrow and won’t be bothered about people’s fortunes until the next time there is a lunar eclipse in the month of November. As you know November is a very fortunate month for you. If you don’t know why I will tell you when we meet. For that, you should cycle your way to the Drum Tower today at exactly 4pm. Wear your scarf, the white and black one, the one you have stowed away in your almirah. I know all about it. Once you are at the Drum Tower just ping me once and wait till I come and meet you. The road ahead of you is very crucial and only I can tell you what you should and what you should not do. Are you ready to hear what your future holds?”

Like M had a choice. 

“Yes, yes, please guide me,” he wrote back, keying in the words frantically, while also shuddering at the thought of meeting a stranger who seemed to know all about him and even had his profile photograph. 

“It’s 3 pm already. You seem drowsy after your meal. You must wake up now and start getting ready if you are to be on time. You won’t get to meet me if you are a minute late. Get up and get ready, fast.”

 

M stood up hurriedly. He looked for the time but was disturbed by loud thumping on the door. He wondered if he should open it. Walking to the door and looking at the peephole he could make out there was some commotion there. Looking into it he was confronted by an eye looking back at him. 

“M, it’s me Kemal, open the door.”

That was his neighbor. 

“You alright?”

“Yes!”

“What took you so long to open the door? I’ve been here for some time now. Did you order some food from Hulu? They left it at my door. I don’t blame them. Look at this label here. The 403 looks like 408. It’s been raining cats and dogs and I was almost struck by lightning as I sauntered to check with the lady at 408 in the adjoining building. She denied she had ordered it and looked at the label carefully to point out the anomaly. I really shouldn’t have bothered stepping out in this storm, but then as they say, the greatest risk is not taking one.”

A house for Billoo

 Dust and sand abound, all the time here. And if anything on four wheels screeches to a halt, there is no saying what more it could kick up, before some of it settles down gradually, on the pavement in front, before these creatures on two feet kick them up again; fine particles up in the air again before settling, finally, on my, whiskers.

The particles are not a problem though. It’s the two-legged ones I must keep an eye, or both eyes, on. Some seem to deliberately step on my tail, which cannot for a moment rest easy. Even if I close my eyes, the tail needs to wander, to the left, to the right, kicking up dust, rising and flickering like a flame, to warn those on two feet against stepping on it.

The menace that the two-legged ones can be can never be overestimated. From throwing water, hot or cold, at me, to hitting me with sticks, tying crackers to my tail and lighting them up, they have done it all in the little time I have spent on this pavement, for as long as I can remember. There are stupid dogs that bark at me for no reason at all, but I can always shut them up with a defiant showing of my paw, all claws extended. There are squirrels and lizards that brush against me sometimes, waking me up from slumber, but I bear them no grudges, for it is never wise to doze off with so many two-legged ones on the move in the vicinity.

Why, it was only yesterday that I was having a siesta after lunching on a rat when a breeze, the kind that blows just before it rains, made me dream I was flying. I opened my eyes to see I was a few feet above the ground. Just as I was beginning to enjoy the feeling, it hit me, that I was being held by a two-legged one, while his little one egged him on. “Yes Papa, let’s take it home,” the little menace seemed to be saying.

I would have bit his hand, but desisted, as I was able to wriggle out and run away just in time. They came after me, but then it began pouring and they stopped and turned around, running in the opposite direction now, to where they possibly lived, taking out that thing they hold to shield themselves from the rain, the only thing that’s good about them.

I had run quite some distance away. While trudging back, I spied another four-legged sister, behind an iron-grilled gate, keeping an eye on the road.

“Hello there!”

“Hello, hello!”

“Are you a hostage of the two-legged ones?”

“Who? Me, a hostage?” it asked before laughing so hysterically it nearly lost its balance and fell down. “I am a pet here, born with a silver spoon. The two-legged ones worship me here. You can take a bow. This is my shrine,” it said, before laughing again. It controlled itself just when I was beginning to lose my cool.

“What tricks did you play on them to get them to worship you?”

“Tricks? What tricks? It has always been like this. They worship my mom too. She has just been taken to the vet for losing her balance lately. They doted on my siblings too. They live across this wall with our neighbors and will be coming down to play anytime now.”

It struck me right then that the glass is half empty or half full for us two-legged ones depending on which side of that gate we live on.

I suddenly wanted to cross over to the other side, just to see what it’s really like. At least I may not have to wait till I sniff a rat before hunting it down or look for lizards and roaches.

 

So this day I lay in wait. Maybe if the two-legged one and the little one wished, I would go with them and see how it goes. I was sure I could flee from them should they harass me.

Just then I saw a van come to a halt on the road in front of me. The little one got off and came near me. I got up, as if to flee, but he made no move to pick me up. He just looked at me once and then here and there. Without the bigger two-legged one close by, it dared not even touch me. Sizing him up I thought that, surely, I could get the better of this one should he act smart. As the little one waited for the other two-legged one, I got up, bent forward and stretched myself a bit and then parked myself a little in front of the little one. I assumed I was able to communicate to him that I was willing to take the risk and go with them. But seeing me move, the little one moved away from there, until seeing the bigger one arrive in the distance, he ran towards him. The bigger one never saw me. They soon began leaving.

This was my chance. I had to go after them. Walking briskly I nearly made it to where they were, but just then they crossed the street. I’d have followed too, but for a loud horn that made me jump on my tracks. It was one of those huge things on four wheels carrying any number of two-legged ones packed to capacity. One of them hanging out of the door looked at me menacingly.

By the time I crossed the road, the two two-legged ones had turned the corner.

I ran faster than I had run away from them the day before and was able to see them further ahead after a while.

I was huffing and puffing by the time I caught up with them, but just then I saw them enter a building. Fortunately the gap under the gate was big enough for me to enter. I could hear their voices on the staircase. But by the time I reached their floor, they had gone inside. I decided to park myself there. From under the door I could still hear the little one talk to the others inside. There seemed to be three people inside.

Sometime later someone came and stood by the door, indifferent to my existence. He pressed something on the wall, sounding a musical note inside. The door opened soon after. It was the little one. He collected some food the new two-legged one had got and was about to close the door again when his eyes fell on me. He screamed. “Papaaa! Come see. Mummyy! Come see.”

Soon all the inhabitants of the house came out to look at me, as if I had stolen something. I stood up, unsure whether to stay there or flee.

“It’s the cat. She is back. She wants to stay with us. Let us take her inside,” the little one said, moving forward and bending to try and touch me.

“Stay away,” the other member of the family, the one I had not seen before, said aloud. “Stay away from that cat. It might be infectious.”

Infectious? Me? I thought to myself. Have they even noticed how many hours we spend licking our bodies to rid ourselves of dirt?

“You’d promised me a pet,” the little one was almost crying now. “I want this cat. Come in Billoo, come in.”

The taller one just stood, like frozen. He made no effort to either invite me in or shoo me away.

“We will get another pet. From a pet shop I have seen. This one’s a stray cat. Your mom is right. It might be diseased too. Let it go,” he finally mustered. Saying that, he dragged the little one inside and shut the door. I stood there for a while, listening to their voices from inside.

I could sense my anger rising. Just a day ago they wanted to just take me away against my wish. And now that I myself wished to enter their house, they show me the door! The audacity. How could they? Just how? I could feel my claws raring to draw blood.

Just then someone from the neighboring house opened the door and, on seeing me, came after me. He had no inkling the anger that had been building within me till then. He came over and was about to kick me when I pounced on his feet and bit his heel so hard, blood came gushing out. He screamed in agony, triggering frantic movements in every house in the building. I took the opportunity to flee the building. I heard the little one open the door. “I told you, it was not a good cat,” someone said, but I had left the building and moved out of that space.

When Shylock winced

Every time I resisted being Samaritan by lending money, it happened under duress. I was always keen to help the needy, as indicated in the moral science books. I had no money of my own so would have had to borrow it from my parents. But, it seemed, they encouraged a charitable disposition only in theory. For when I tapped them when someone asked me for money, their answer was “No”. I died of shame but the noble soul put me at ease.

Some days later he vanished, with the money he had borrowed from many others. Decency demands that I offer no hints but he also took away a photograph of me with my favourite singer, Jagjit Singh. I used to flaunt it before all. He said he would show it to his wife. He had not said when he would return it. He did not.

Okay, not everybody else is like that. Yes, a classmate did once pocket the change the bus conductor returned after I paid the fare for both, but, maybe, he was just unmindful.

Then there was the colleague who was not at his desk when the food he had ordered arrived. We all pooled in and paid. He returned later and devoured the food, never asking who paid. But, people do forget things after a hearty meal.

A friend who borrowed money had said he would return it in a month’s time. After the month, he was kind enough to say he would return it whenever I needed it.

Now, I have not mustered the courage to ask him yet. Money is not talked openly where I come from. I possibly know why. I spied on it in a magazine my father treasures. It says under a photo in which the famous Kennedy family members are dining that they engaged in varied dinner conversation, but one subject never discussed was money.

So, after the loss of the priceless Jagjit photograph — though I still have a copy — and other damages, I decided to think twice before lending money again.

Next, it was the turn of a student of my teacher, my junior, who was moving from Assam to Calcutta to intern at The Statesman. My teacher had asked me to help him out.

I played the guardian part well, until he called up one day to ask for help. Luckily he could not see my expression as I mumbled, incoherently, that I would love to help. He said his folks were sending him some money, but he did not have an account of his own. He asked for my bank account, saying around Rs 10,000 would be transferred there. And then, he dropped the bombshell. He asked if I could lend him Rs 1,000 for his immediate needs. He would return it from the amount his folks would send. I told him I would discuss this with my folks first. All the alarm bells in my mind were chiming in unison already.

I agreed. He collected the money from my office. I recollect he seemed touched. I saw him pocket the money and wondered if it would ever come back. I can still picture him that day. He wore these old-style spectacles from another era. My elder uncle used to wear similar ones years ago. He also wore ill-fitting trousers and his shirt was just as forgettable, though I have not forgotten it because money, my money, was involved. He had a funny-looking round face and smiled a lot, for no obvious reason.

Some days later he called again, to check if the money had arrived. It had, I confirmed a day or two later. We fixed a day on which he would come over to my place to collect the cash.

The day arrived. I was ready with the money. One thought kept eating my blood, though. He always talked of coming to collect the money, not a word about the money he borrowed from me. What if he just pocketed the Rs 10,000 and left?

There had to be a safeguard. I sat down to think and never stopped till I came up with a foolproof plan.

At the appointed hour, he rang the bell, on the 14th floor of the building I lived in then. I opened the door. He still had that warm smile. Little did he know what I was upto. I shut the door, putting the latch in place. After the usual courtesies it was time. I fished out the money from my drawer, taking a look inside to ensure something I had kept aside was there. I extended him the cash, and readied for my next move, to follow the moment he finished counting.

But, he made no move to count. He just took out two five-hundred-rupee leaves from the wad and handed them to me saying: “Let me return your money with a big thank you. You have no idea how much you have helped me.” He then just pocketed the rest.

My heart sank. I did not know whether to thank him or to die of shame. I watched transfixed, wishing I were elsewhere, wondering why I had never predicted such a scenario.

That a smile could hide an embarrassment was a first for me. I returned him the Rs 1,000 and told him it was not required. He looked confused and wondered if something was amiss. I get the feeling of sinking into quicksand every time I think of that moment.

With great shame, I told him I had taken my Rs 1,000 before handing him the money. He showed a lot of grace in only smiling and saying I had made it easier for him.

The Guests

That night at Haroon’s home, the hysterical lobbing back and forth of bitterness, mistrust and abuse was drowned only by the sound of Kasab and his heavily armed men emptying their guns on multitudes. After that there was complete silence, no words were spoken, neither in his house, nor in the city.

He had moved to Mumbai to escape what his life had become in Kolkata. Everything had been wonderful in the City of Joy. It had moved at a pace that had suited him. It made no demands on him. It let him be. And then things changed: he got married and it felt like the ground had been pulled from under his feet. After a difficult year he took a flight, as if to escape, and found himself in Mumbai, in the hope that relocating to the City of Dreams could rescue his marriage. From an easy life in Kolkata, he suddenly discovered he had it in him to brave the challenges in Mumbai — living as a paying guest, savouring dabbawala food, travelling by BEST buses and local trains — all done with the intention of saving enough to take a 1BHK on rent before his wife and kid could join him. Within a week of their arrival, however, the old problems resurfaced. Regular raising of voices, banging of doors, breaking of crockery, often amusing for the toddler who had no way of telling apart entertainment from violence.

The silence since their last fight had been broken by the arrival, three months later, of his senior and friend from school and his wife who came in from New Delhi. Chandan worked in the world of corporate communication. He wasn’t exactly coming to Mumbai on vacation. His wife had to sit for an exam for a correspondence course she was doing. The college had arranged for accommodation during the exam period. Chandan would arrive after the exam, take his wife to Lonavala and then stay a day or two in Mumbai before returning. “Could you please suggest a hotel that’s close to your place so that we could meet and discover Mumbai with you? Haroon, it would be great if you could take leave through that period…” his friend Chandan had written to him in a mail a month ago.

Shaken by the timing of the arrival, Haroon had had to break the silence to tell his wife that some guests were expected. She stood by the window, staring outside at nothing in particular and snapped: “When are they coming? How long will they be here?”

As he called up Chandan to say “Of course, you’ll stay at our place… No, no, I will have none of it”, he overheard Jemima calling up her mother, like she usually did after a fight. Her parents had said, after Haroon and Jemima’s last fight, “Enough is enough. We will come and take our daughter away.” Ever since an uneasy calm had descended on the house. He had no clue if they meant to carry out the threat but the silence at home only left the door ajar for speculation of all kind.

Chandan and Chitra turned out to be a vivacious couple — they got along like a house on fire, highlighting to him what was missing in his own married life. They let go of no opportunity to hold hands, to hug and loved Haroon and Jemima’s son like he was their own, indications that happily ever after too existed in some marriages. Haroon tried his best to brush his fractured relationship under the carpet, smiling whenever the situation warranted, cracking a joke with Jemima, even though she mostly didn’t respond. Jemima joked with Chandan though, like one would with a husband’s brother. Haroon was more reserved and yet courteous with his “Bhabhi”.

Once the bedroom doors closed at night, their son, Aeshan, came between them on the bed, as much a partition as a glue. But when they entered the living room in the morning, the façade of warmth returned for the guests’ eyes.

Mumbai brought out the child in Chandan. On the local to Bandra, he had screamed, much to other passenger’s glee, “Mumbai ka don kaun (Who’s the don of Mumbai)” while pointing to himself, as his wife nudged him with an indulgent smile.

On seeing Chandan hold Chitra’s arms from behind, recreating the famed scene from Titanic, while standing near the rocky sea at the Bandra Bandstand, Haroon remarked to Jemima: “See, how much she loves him?” She gave no reply.

The guests were loving every bit of Bandstand, wetting their feet briefly and running away before a wave did greater damage. Just then a jet took off from the nearby domestic airport and the playful couple looked up in synchrony, their hands going to their mouths, as they together mimicked the aircraft’s sonic boom. To the onlooker, the guests, though older than their hosts, would have appeared like a newly married couple. Haroon and Jemima, in contrast, came across as too old for such frivolity. That something was missing in the relationship stood out because of the exuberance the other couple displayed.

But even if the guests had noticed this, they made no mention of it. Instead, over dinner, they invited their hosts to stay with them in New Delhi and visit nearby places. “You must come down, please make a plan soon or just tell us your dates. We’ll chalk out your entire vacation,” said Chandan, as he began attacking the mutton dhansak and keema beri pulao at the crowded Parsi eatery Britannia and Company.

The next day they had pita bread, hummus and chicken shawarma for lunch at a mall before Haroon took them to his favourite address in town, Landmark, a book shop. And there, Chandan bought a city nightlife guide that he gifted to Haroon, saying: “You can’t be living in the city that never sleeps and not look up places to take Jemima out to.”

To complete the Mumbai experience, they took a bus ride home from Landmark. Haroon and Jemima sat quietly while Chandan and Chitra, who sat in the row behind them, sang “Ae dil hai mushkil...” all through the trip.

The next day the guests left. Haroon dropped them at Mumbai Central. On his way back home, he thought how the arrival of the guests had brought a sea change in their lives. How it looked like nothing had ever gone wrong in their married life. He began hoping the warmth of the past three days would still be in evidence when he reached home, but the warm house he had left just a while ago was back to being frigid.

But there was Aeshan, who pounced on him and later wondered why his father again went back to sleeping on the sofa-cum-bed in the living room. He would normally play with him till his mother dragged him back to the bedroom. That night Jemima let Aeshan sleep with his father. Haroon held on to his son like he had never held him before and whispered, “Just for you, I will do all it takes to make this relationship work.”

The next day the mother and child left. “We would have gone a week earlier. But I had to reschedule my tickets because of your guests,” Jemima said, as she handed him a paper saying she was authorising him to order LPG refills which were in her name.

This was worse than the worst he had ever feared. He had assumed there would be a visit from her parents, a mild rebuke and yet another attempt at brokering peace. But not this.

Haroon returned to walls where the little one had doodled with an untrained hand, toys – soft or hard, chewed or otherwise – crying for attention, outgrown clothes and voices that reverberated from the room, piercing screams and a child’s meaningless yet welcome laughter.

The emptiness at home made him run away from the place whenever he could. He dreaded returning, dreaded being asked how his family was, especially about the little one. Weekdays were still manageable; he had his office. But Sunday was the most painful. He had to just find a way to evade home. And again, he fell back on Landmark, where books and movies became his balm. He sometimes looked for his child amongst the many kids there, imagining it was just another Sunday and just another visit.

All communication channels had broken. It had been two months since he had any news of Jemima or Aeshan. He had joined Facebook after they left, so she was not on his friends’ list. He longed to see his son, what he looked like now, what he thought of him, if he missed him at all. He looked at all the photographs he had of Aeshan. But soon he tired from looking at the same pictures all the time and longed for new ones. There was no way of getting new snaps, until, he remembered... He could ask Chandan to send him the ones that he had clicked during their visit. Talking would mean giving many a difficult explanation; answers to how was the family doing, how was the little one, why are Jemima and Aeshan in Kolkata, when are they returning? No, he didn’t want to give those explanations. So, instead, he wrote an email.

Some days went by without any reply. He put it down to how busy one gets in a big city. He hoped for a reply by the weekend, and when none arrived, he looked ahead at the next weekend. When there was no response in over a month, he called up Chandan. But the calls now went unanswered. He had more than one number but there was just no reply. He wondered what was amiss, until he finally got an email from him. 

“You’re like a brother,” Chandan wrote. “You must be wondering why I haven’t written to you all these days, but I cannot tell you what I am going through. My marriage is falling apart… I have been at the receiving end of inexplicable, terrible temper tantrums and spent many a dreaded weekend at home. My life is broken. Mumbai was the last time we were civil, things worsened once we were back. I will talk to you in detail later, please forgive me for my long spell of silence. Only I know what I am going through. You will never be able to imagine it.”

Haroon switched to YouTube and listened to Ek Akela is Sheher Mein (A loner in a city) and, for a change, he was smiling.

Night of might

A lesson learnt would be to not fear taking the road less taken even if it be at the dead of night. For, the night holds so many secrets which the sun to the multitude of the day denies. Trudging from Park Circus to Gariahat, through Ballygunje Circular Road, did not seem enough, so I turned towards Kalighat and wondered how much life had changed in these six years. In my earlier stint in Kolkata, I would get off at Kalighat metro, walk on Rash Behari Avenue till Gariahat and turn right towards Golpark. From there I would walk back to Gariahat, then back to Kalighat to catch the metro back home. But now, my present address enabled me to enter Rash Behari Avenue from the Gariahat end. Maybe like in the good old days, I thought, I should walk down Rash Behari, something I have always loved doing.

On reaching Sarat Bose Road, however, I decide not to go any further. It was already past 10 pm when I was on Ballygunje Circular, there would be no metro to catch at Kalighat. I turned right, onto Sarat Bose Road. Those toy shops had shut for the day, only a few people could be seen. Those still standing were on their way home, those immobile were trying to sleep, on the pavements. It was cold, I pull up my jacket zipper. Well, no, it had been cold all along, but now the streets were more deserted. And, just two days after losing my phone in a bus, I didn’t want to take any chances. Not that I was carrying much. But it was more like an aunt's greater fear of the mosquitoes' buzz than of their sting.

I walked on. This road ran parallel to Ballygunje Circular. At some point, I am not sure when, it becomes Lansdowne and meets AJC Bose Road. I decide it was becoming too tiring already. Maybe, if I turned right and kept going I would return to Ballygunje Circular, closer home. My sense of direction was not always trustworthy, but I drew a map many times in my mind's eye and everytime it told me going right meant reaching Ballygunje Circular. So, turned right I did. This was the road less travelled, Hazra Road. But it was one of those nights I wanted to get lost, to walk on the fringes of sanity, maybe cross it.

After walking for ages the road still did not end. There were fewer cabs now, some people gathered around a sweet shop, one easing sweet curd into his mouth from an earthen bowl. For a while I thought of asking them if I was on the right track but then abandoned the idea. I wondered what would happen at this hour if the road went on like that, reaching nowhere, like Alice’s unending fall. I knew very soon there would dogs barking at me at every turning.
Hazra Road it was where I had first got lost in Kolkata, and that time, too, it was my mistake. The cab was rightfully turning left towards AJC Bose Road, coming from Howrah, but I had seen Rabindra Sadan to my left and assumed going straight would take me to AJC Bose and had forced the helpless cabbie to do so. On reaching Hazra Road, on that earlier occasion in 1998, I had blamed it on the cabbie, even drawing the sympathies of passersby I approached for directions. They admonished him saying he had taken the wrong route, his pleas about me having forced him to do so drowned in the aam aadmi’s sympathy for the ‘wronged’ passenger.

Today must have been that cabbie’s payback time as Hazra Road just would not end. I wondered if one of the cabs retired for the night on that stretch belonged to that cabbie of years ago.

Just when I had half a mind to turn back, I saw ights and a major road crossing Hazra Road ahead. The closer I got, the more it looked like Ballygunje Circular Road. Soon, I could identify the familiar petrol pump. Home was not far.

The long journey was coming to a close.

I must have walked for hours. But the watch on my now borrowed mobile told me it had just been an hour. It was just 5 past 11. Late for Kolkata, you might say, but the night was still young for some.

C-c-c-r-r-a-a-s-s-s-h-h-h-h.

What was that? That was loud. Sounded like an accident, but where. What use was my staying out for so long if I could not even witness this from close? I hurried ahead. Could see a car had stopped. Some people got off it and began looking to the right, across the road divider to the other one-way. There a Maruti Swift had hit an auto. A crowd has gathered. I tried to cross over to the other side to take a closer look, pausing briefly to let a speeding car go. By the time I crossed over, the car and the auto had moved to a nearby lane so as not to block the road, not to stop other cars, not to draw the cops' attention. Meanwhile, speeding vehicles ran over broken parts of the car, perhaps its radiator grill, on the main road.

I could make out there was a lady at the wheels. She was not daring to lower the windows, not a wise to thing to do at this hour anyway. A man, walking with a limp now, threatened the car-wallahs with his fist. The auto driver was blocking the car's way, not letting them go. I could not make out if there was anybody with the girl or if she was all alone. I decided to stay on. Soon, I could make out one or two people outside were from the car and were trying to negotiate with the man with the limp, the autowallah and any number of people who had gathered, all of whom seem to be siding with the autowallah. The girl inside was constantly on her phone, texting or calling up someone. The people on the other side of the argument had been busy with the Prophet’s birthday all day, it was apparent from their garb.

“Let her go, let us negotiate,” said one man. “Nobody is going. You have to pay that man who is injured, and the auto driver, too,” said another. The girl should come to no harm, I decided. The other fear at the back of my mind was that this should not assume any communal colour in these fragile times.

I tried to connect with a guy who seemed to be from the car. He was almost bald, a V-shaped growth under his lower lip reminding me of someone on TV. I asked him in Hindi, “Aap is gaadi me the? (Were you in this car?)” He ignored me, making some movement of his head which sounded like a ‘No’.

Earlier that day I had bumped into an ex-coll ieague at the British Council. I didn’t know what the provocation was but he was telling me: “Wherever I go, people talk to me in Bengali. They assume I cannot speak English.”

I heard the other side calling someone on the phone, “Accident hua hai yehaan, sab ko bhejo. (There has been an accident here, send all the guys). God, were they preparing to fight it out, I wondered. I tried again, “Wouldn’t it be better if we called the police before things went out of hand?” I ask the balding man again. This time he looked at me. But before he could say anything, I heard both sides saying, “No police, let us settle this among ourselves. Police means we would have to keep going to court.”

That sounded sensible. They were willing to negotiate. Maybe I could go now. But, no, there was a girl in the car. Maybe I should stay to ensure she is safe.
Her friend told the others that they should leave the girl alone. The other side reacted. “What @#@$, if we had to do something we would have done it by now. It is only because it is a girl that we have not raised our hand or voice.” I reach for my phone, it is still not clear if things would go out of hand. But why wait till then. I search for my editor’s number. I have my thumb on his name and wonder if I should or should not call him. I instantly remember what he had told me a day ago -- “You must have your finger on the button. Else, the system will collapse.”

Some more people, friends of the carwallahs, have arrived. One of them is wearing a white Panjabi and jeans. “He is the right man, I called him. He will settle it for us,” the carwallah tells his friends inside the car. I suddenly notice there is another man beside the girl at the wheel, I had all along thought there was only one guy negotiating on her behalf. I still don’t know which side the bald man is on or where he came from. Their envoy says the girl could go, the others would settle it. “Yes, we never stopped her, let her go. The rest of you come with us and let us settle it. You have to pay up.”

A negotiation is coming through. Just then the police land. Two cops on a bike. “What happened? What’s going on?”

He was asking the girl in the car, who is still on her phone. I could not hear what the girl said, but suddenly all hell broke loose.

“There will be no settlement. The girl told the cops we are harassing her. We had almost reached a settlement but she is now complaining against us.”

A guy fishes out his mobile and tries to photograph the car’s licence plate. But just then his phone starts ringing and he attends to the call. The cops too start taking down the numbers of the car and the auto.Suddenly everybody is around the car and despite the sudden display of anger, one of the guys begins humming: "Aunty police bulayegi, aunty police bulayegi... (A song in a Hindi movie which goes 'Aunty will call the police, aunty will call the police..)"
But soon the two sides are back at the negotiating table. Another guy arrives. He asks them to let the girl go. The other side says they never objected to her going away. But the rest should accompany them for more talks. The new guy says the girl’s brother is arriving soon for negotiations. But I had heard at the very beginning that her dad was on his way. At one point I thought a tall baldish guy walking towards the commotion was her dad, but he turned out to be another curious passerby.

The cops are begin talking among themselves. “They are negotiating, there is nothing we can do.”

One of them turns to me, “And you? Why are you here?”

I told him I was taking an evening, err night, walk. Saw the accident and commotion and decided to stop by. I told them how I had asked the carwallash if they would want a cop to arrive at the scene, but they were more keen on negotiating.

“It would be easier if they went to the police station.” The vehicle is damaged (I assume he means the car), their case is stronger. They are doing the wrong thing. But we can’t step in as of now.”

I urge them not to go away just yet.

Asked if they were patrol police, they said yes. I wanted to know how one called the police, they told me one needed to just call any police station and give the location where the commotion was taking place. I told them I didn’t know any police station’s number. “Isn’t there an easy-to-remember number?” One of them said no, before adding: “One could dial 100 and specify location”.

I asked them which police station they were from. When told, I said, “Why, I was there just two nights ago, to report the loss of my cell phone, pinched from my pocket on a bus.”

At that moment, the negotiators told the girl and the guy beside her to leave. She started the car, but the bumper in front had come off and was grazing the road. They broke it down and put it in the car’s hold. The girl stepped on the gas and zoomed away with a screech. “Saw that?” asked one of the guys from the aggrieved crowd to the cops.

“Was it a smart phone?” the cop asked me.

“Yes.”

“Did you provide the IEMI number in the missing diary?”

I said yes again. Then I might get it back, he tells me. “Just go to the headquarters and ask for the cyber crime cell. They can track your phone. The last time we had caught a mobile thief by locating him through the phone’s IEMI position,” he told me.

That’s music to my ears. But soon the other cop butted in to say, “Not any more. Nowadays they don’t sell the phone in one piece. They sell it in parts.”

O, then they might just get hold of a part of my phone if they tried to track it, I tell them. They burst out laughing. Everyone’s done for the night. We take one last look at the negotiations and head our own way.

Goodbye Mumbai, Hello Kolkata

When my phone got filled to capacity after the deluge of new numbers, of movers and packers, new schools in Kolkata I needed to check with for my son, new colleagues at my new office, new bosses, new HR managers, I decided it was time to delete a few numbers from my Mumbai days. I needed more space and in any case I wouldn’t be calling up some numbers in Mumbai ever again.

So I thumbed through them in alphabetical order, deciding which ones I could dispense with. The very first number, saved as A, was my very own in Mumbai, strategically saved to avoid calling another’s phone unwittingly. Every time I boarded that can of sardines called local train, I’d get crushed amid humans jostling for space and my phone would by default dial the first number saved under A. I’ll soon have to replace the A with my new number in Kolkata so, I thought, I could delete the Mumbai number. But it had become so much a part of my identity, my password when I went to surf the net at my neighbourhood cybercafé in Mumbai. Maybe it could be retained, there were so many sentiments attached.

Next came my landlord’s number in Mumbai, the retired cop from Bahrain who made it possible for me to live four of my five years there without involving any broker. We paid no commission to any broker, mutual trust was our interface. Often, I paid him the 11-months’ rent more than a week after we went together to renew our lease agreement. I would pay for the court papers and to the typist who put our arrangement in words, while he would bribe the cops to approve the same without the necessary formality of verification. When I left, he and his wife told me to tell him in advance should I ever return to Mumbai and they shall ready their house again, maybe ask their tenant to vacate, for us. There was no question of deleting his number.

Then came the mother of a patient who shared the room with us when my mom was admitted for a knee-replacement. She at first avoided us when she heard that my mother was a doctor. But, gradually, on realising that we were as shocked by the hospital staff’s curiosity to know if ours’ was an insurance case and when an expert insisted that my mom needed a pacemaker to weather the knee-replacement surgery, she befriended my mom. On learning that I worked for a newspaper, she asked me if I could solve a problem she faced at her office. When I realised I would not be able to do so, she understood, sharing with me an experience of hers, years ago, when she found a nail inside a cola bottle. She rushed to a newspaper office, the bottle in hand. She hoped to see its photograph in the next day’s papers but instead got a call from the cola company that evening, saying they wanted to compensate her for the unfortunate incident. It’s ironical I am naming neither the cola company nor the newspaper office she approached. I’m not in touch with her any more, but will retain her number, and maybe let her know my new one soon.

There were names of some editors of other publications, which I should retain, for I keep getting calls from friends looking for a new job, asking for such contact IDs in Mumbai.  Numbers of correspondents from an earlier organisation I worked for in Mumbai, who still remember me every Eid or Diwali.

 There were numbers of brokers I had saved prefixing ‘broker’. I had no need of them for the last four years in Mumbai, but they remind me of my early days of struggle, you need those numbers the moment you land in Mumbai with a new job.

 The number of the man who sent us home safely, after office every day at my last office in Mumbai. It’s difficult to forget his smile, even if he sometimes made us wait for an hour before there was a car-a-quorum in the direction of our home. The last time I took a drop home, he too boarded the car as he had to go some place beyond mine, like he often did. When I got off at my place, I told both him and the driver, ‘Phir milengey’ I know not why. And he too replied, ‘Phir milengey’.