Loco, the gangster

Loco leaned against a telephone pole and quietly observed the movement in the shop across the street, while his brain played out a familiar scene.

He was closing shop, when they came in, two men, both heftily built and mean looking. One of them pushed him backwards, while the other pulled down the shutter. They were the local don’s henchmen, and he hadn’t paid protection money.

It was a small laundry, and the owner, whose name was Shibu, stayed in the back with his wife and son. The son, a little boy of 10, had been dragged inside the shop by a sweetmeats seller 5 minutes ago. The sweetmeats guy had left two minutes ago, and if Loco was right, the kid was being shouted at for stealing a sweetmeat.

Inside Loco’s head, the flashback continued.

They were quiet, and quick. One of them turned him around and pinned his arms behind his back. The other slipped on a set of brass knuckles on his right hand.

“Don’t…” he begged.

The goon swung. Once, twice, thrice. His teeth broke, he could taste blood.

Shaking his head, Loco straightened and crossed the street. Going into an adjoining alley, he pushed open the side door and entered.

Shibu had his son by the arm, and was hitting him on the rear with a cane. He looked up when Loco entered. Fear replaced anger on the launderer’s face.

The goon continued to pound his face, until it was all bloody. Then the one pinning his arms flung him to the ground. Kicking him in the ribs, they walked out.

“Why’re you beating that kid, Shibu?” Loco asked calmly.

“He…he’s been a bad boy,” Shibu answered defiantly.

“Well, you’ve been a bad boy too, Shibu,” Loco said, almost sadly. For some reason, after 10 years of being a gangster, he suddenly didn’t want to do this.

“I…I…well…” Shibu stammered.

“You haven’t paid your taxes for two months now. We gave you enough time. The boss is really angry, you know,” Loco cut in.

Shibu had released the boy and was slowly backing away. His wife came out of the small inner room, shivering with fear. Loco turned to her.

“Take the boy outside,” he told her. “Neither of you need to see this.”

“Please…please spare him…” the woman began.

“Can’t, sorry. If I spare the rod, I’ll spoil this sod.”

“One chance…”

“Go. Now.”

She quietly picked up her son and exited the shop.

Shibu came forward.

“Look, this is extortion…”

Loco swung hard, and his fist connected with Shibu’s face. The launderer stumbled backwards. Loco kicked him in the chest, then in the stomach.

“No offense, Shibu. But I’m gonna have to teach you a lesson,” Loco said, pulling out a bicycle chain from the pocket of his cargoes.

“Please…” Shibu begged, as Loco coiled the chain around his palm. Three punches would be enough to smash his face.

Years of tolerance finally cracked. In a week, he had killed both goons, stabbing them till their guts spilled out. A month later, he was recruited by a rival gang. Ten years later, Loco’s name alone was enough to strike fear in people’s hearts. He now headed the protection money racket.

Loco kicked the man thric more, making him curl into a fetal position. Kneeling down, he clutched a handful of the man’s hair.

“48 hours,” Loco said. “And next time, I’ll mean business.”

Turning, Loco uncoiled the chain from around his palm, slipped it inside his pocket, and walked out.

‘The last thing this city needs is another one like me,’ he thought.

How I celebrated Valentine's Day

Picture this. it’s valentine’s. the entire city is immersed in gifts, romantic dinners, and stolen (or bought) moments of privacy. And I am on my way to the vile parle police station to get details about some two idiots who fired a gun into the door of a congress corporator.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, it gave me a big kick to be thinking about a shootout rather than what I would have given my girlfriend, if I had one.

So I go to the police station, speak to the police, to the corporator who’s come there to give a statement, and to her political opponent, who she has named as a suspect. And while me and some other reporters are joking about outside the police station, in comes a tip off that the senior inspector, santacruz has beaten up a woman officer so bad that she is in the hospital.

Instant chaos.

We all rush to the santacruz police station, while frantically trying to get some confirmation, dialing every number we know. We finally get to the police station, only to be told that there is no woman officer there. The senior inspector’s orderly tells us the saheb is out for patrolling. I suspect he was sleeping inside his cabin.

We then meet some other cops there, then come back to office.

The end? Don’t bet on it.

It was a crazy day, really. Tip off after tip off came coming through, and I had to scramble to file a story on every one of them.

Some guy killed himself outside the MMRDA office in BKC, and blamed an offical in the suicide note.

A wall collapsed in navi Mumbai, and killed two people.

A bride turned all “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” after her would-be in-laws tried to stall the marriage for dowry and went to the police.

Some idiot stabbed a woman, and rumours flew that it was the moral police punishing her for celebrating V Day.

Some college girl ran off with her Romeo, and her father filed a kidnapping complaint against him.

And after I leave the office, I learn that an airlines employee hung herself in her andheri residence.
Tiring? Well, yeah. But you know what? It was fun. Every minute of it. In spite of the headache, hunger, exhaustaion, I was enjoying my work.

Which is when I realised, my work is my Valentine, and I had one heck of a Valentine’s Day.

I'll Ruin You! Ruin You!!

Last night, I saw her again.

My downfall began the day she entered my life, and she has been haunting me ever since. The whole thing is so crazy I have stopped trying to make sense of it. and she still won’t leave me alone.

I first saw her years ago, perched atop the cupboard in my bedroom. This was long ago, when I was yet to reach the stage where I could afford a mahogany wardrobe. I had two cupboards in my bedroom back then. She was sitting on the one on the left.

I was reading the newspaper, having come home early. My parents and wife were in the living room. I wouldn’t even have noticed her, had she not spoken.

“What’re you doing, relaxing like that?” she asked me sternly, as if it was against the law.

I looked up, and there she was, sitting corss legged, wearing a grey saree of coarse material.

“You’re reading?” she said again?

“So what do I do?” I retorted sharply, not knowing what I was doing. It didn’t cross my mind to think how she got in the house, and how she managed to climb atop the cupboard without anyone knowing,

“Where’s my child?” she demanded.

“What the hell do I know where your child is?” I asked hotly.

My wife and parents came running into the bedroom and asked me what happened.

“This woman’s pestering me about her child. What do I know?” I said to them.

They turned to look where I pointed. I turned too.

She was gone.

*************************

“Do you have nightmares?” my wife asked me out of the blue.

I looked up from the novel I was reading.

“No, why?” I didn’t even dream that often.

“You push me away in your sleep,” she said accusingly.

“I … what?” I had to make sure she really said that.

“You push me away. Viciously. You did it last night as well,” she was on the verge of tears.

I didn’t know what to say.

*************************

It was past 2:00. my friend had dropped me off at the railway crossing some 10 minutes from home. We’d gone out for dinner, and the party ran till late.

Lately, I had fallen into the habit of dragging my friends along. Listening to them griping was better then running into her.

The railway crossing was closed for vehicles due to some maintenance work. So I left the taxi and set off on foot. My friend took the same taxi back home.

I crossed the tracks and was walking homwards when she stopped me. I was lost in thought and didn’t see her till she called out.

“Excuse me,” she said. “can you tell me where the railway crossing is?”

“Straight ahead,” I said, pointing behind me, not really looking at her.

“Could you walk with me till there?”

Like hell I was going to walk with her anywhere in the middle of the night. I had to go to work the next day.

“It’s really close, ma’m. I have to get home. I’m sorry,” I told her.

“No, please. Come with me,” she insisted.

“I can’t ma’m. I’m sorry,” I said, as politely as I could.

“Didn’t I say come with me?” she said raising her voice.

“And didn’t I say I can not?” I said, losing it myself. Women! I thought.

“Do you know why I’m telling you to come?”

“Why?” I couldn’t care less.

“Because I can’t see.”

I looked at her closely. Her face was covered with the ghoonghat of her saree. As I leaned forward, she raised her head slowly, till I could see her face under the saree.

Only there was no face.

Honest. There was just a wide, gaping chasm where the face should have been.

I stumbled backwards. She took a step towards me.

“Walk me till there,” she repeated. I said nothing, concentrating on getting the hell out of there.

“Come with me, or I’ll ruin you,” she said, louder now.

I turned and ran.

“I’ll ruin you! Ruin you!” she shouted after me.

I ran as hard as I could. Her screams followed me all the way home.

*************************
“Do you still see her?”

There was no reason why a total stranger should have asked me this question while I was on a pleasure trip with my wife miles away from home.

He had stopped me in the middle of the street and spoken to me. That alone was reason enough for my wife to get suspicious. That question did nothing to help the situation.

“see who?”

He only smiled.

“You know who I am talking about.”

It suddenly hit me like a shoe thrown in the face of a bad orator by a bored audience.

“Her?” I asked, praying that wasn’t who he was talking about. I hadn’t seen her in a long time.

No such luck.

“Her,” he said, with a fatalistic smile.

“No, not lately,” I said defiantly, as if it made everything all right.

He shook his head.

“She’s not going to leave you,” he said and walked away.

*************************

Two freak accidents have rendered one of my legs useless.

Five men I trusted have cheated me out of every penny I had. I have sold the three offices I owned, and my three cars, to clear my debts.

My wife has left me after the same men falsely implicated me in a scandal involving a small time model.

I have even tried killing myself, twice.

I am struggling every day just so that I can eat two meals every day.

And last night, as I was dropping off to sleep, I saw her again. She was standing near the bed, this time wearing a black chiffon saree, face covered as usual.

I immediately turned on the light. She was gone.

I sat up in bed the whole night, wondering what more she could want from me.