Mumbai, India

Summer had finally come. The streets of the metropolis, a city people said never slept, were thronged by people of all kinds, their skins wet with dripping sweat. He was no exception. The heat was terrible to bear. After a mild winter, a harsh summer had attacked; he did not like it. His white kerchief lay clutched in his fist, its ends dirtied with the dust that blew with the warm breeze. Cars zipped past and bikes raced as if following a serpentine path. On the footpaths, the street vendors sold their wares. The hawkers prepared dishes of various kinds, ones that he knew were the specialty of Mumbai.

Mumbai. His city. His hometown. Unfortunately, many years ago when he was but a child, he had had to leave it and go with his parents to Bangalore, a calm hill-station at that time, which now had become a bustling place full of people who aspired to be a part of the IT crowd.

Right now, his vacation was coming to an end and the need to return to the silicon valley weighed heavy on him.

His mouth watered at the smell of the delicious-looking vada pavs that were being sold on the nearby footpath. A lady was making more of those round, oily potato vadas behind the stall. Tempted, he moved towards it. He wasn’t going to have them in Bangalore where the same cost him twice as it did here and tasted half as less as those he savored in this city of dreams.

‘Ek jumbo dena (Give me one jumbo),’ he spoke to the vendor.

The man selling the delicacy smiled and took a hot vada from a steel plate and sandwiched it in between a pav, another food item that was a specialty of the city. Placing the vada pav on another round plate, the vendor handed it over to him.

He chomped on it as soon as it came into his hands. It would seem as if he were hungry, but more than hunger, he felt a growing thirst. His throat was parched and he wondered when he would find a shop that sold those cold plastic bottles of mineral water or even a stall that sold juice. But there was nobody nearby. The road stretched as far as his eyes could see and there were very little shops on it. Corporate offices dotted on either side, its gates guarded by brusque-looking people wearing uniforms. He grunted. His house was still four blocks away -- that was where the residential zone would start. Shops run by traders were much more concentrated there as they found more business on the residential side than the industrial. Having finished his vada pav, he paid the vendor with a ten-rupee bill and walked on the footpath, his paces brisk, wanting to get home before the mid-noon sun burned his scalp.

A purring sound came from somewhere nearby. His ears pricked up at the noise and looked at the grassier plot of land enclosed by a huge ring of bricks with a slanting entrance that faced the main road. Cat, he thought. He loved cats. They were adorable, he always spoke, much to the annoyance of his friends who found the presence of felines to be frustrating. More often than not they were scared of the four-leggers. He moved towards the compound, something moments later he would wish he had never done so.

He pushed open the gate. It opened with a creak loud enough to have a few passers-by look at him curiously. It was as if their eyes were pointing him towards the rusty old signboard that read ‘Trespassers not allowed. Any that are found to be doing so shall be fined Rs. 2000/-. As Per Court Orders.’ He raised his brows but carried on nonetheless. The purring sounded as if the cat needed some attention. Perhaps it was stuck in a bush. Perhaps it was hurt. He couldn’t bear the thought alone.

The noise grew louder. He quickened his pace and moved in the direction of the voice. He was almost at the center of the forbidden land when he stood perplexed. A frown had encroached on his forehead. For one thing, he was sure that he had heard the cat cry, and the next, he was confident that the voice had come from where he stood now. Had the cat run away? No. He shook his head. If it had, he would have seen some movement.

Had he been a boy of quick reflexes, he would have seen a shadowy figure crop up behind him and place a kerchief that reeked of chloroform. But he was not. Darkness took him and he quickly fell to the ground in a swoon.

‘Good to meet you, Viraj,’ voiced the attacker, a joker-like smile on his face.

Bangalore, India

Radhika burped out loud in a restaurant much to her own embarrassment. Trying desperate to hide her face behind a raised up menu card, she looked hither and about, wondering what people around thought of her. She was very people-conscious. She had always cared about what opinions others had of her. Sometimes, it was a plus, but most times, she felt hurt. If truth be told, people did not seem to think highly of her. They considered her weird and at most times stayed away.  No matter what she did, she couldn’t get the positive impression she so desired.

The burp did not seem to have rattled anybody to her fortune. Radhika heaved a deep sigh and lowered the menu card to gaze at her only friend, Pooja, who stared back at her with a curious smile. She grinned back and blinked her eyelids twice in succession. Pooja did not seem to think that weird. It seemed that Radhika had the habit whenever she felt nervous.

‘Coffee, Radhika?’ asked Pooja.

‘No, thank you. Stomach full of donuts.’

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‘And that too chocolate,’ laughed her friend. ‘Chocolates are heavy food, you know?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but saying no to chocolates? That’s an insult.’

Pooja laughed again. ‘You and your chocolates!’ After a sigh, she continued, ‘I shall have a cappuccino though. I am a caffeine addict and I need my cuppa.’

‘Be my guest,’ said Radhika, shrugging her shoulders. No sooner had she said that, her phone started buzzing. Annoyed at the name that had popped up on the mobile screen, she hesitated to pick up. It was Aman, her ex-boyfriend. The ringing stopped after a while. She heaved a sigh of relief. Her fortune was, however, short-lived as the phone started to hum its tone again. ‘Pick up the phone already,’ complained Pooja, giving her a burning stare. She grunted and punched the green button on her phone’s keypad.

‘Aman, I don’t wanna speak to you,’ she spoke into the phone, rather loudly. ‘Please don’t waste your time calling me.’  She put the phone down, having ended the call. Her mouth twitched and became queasy as she felt her friend surveying her intensely. ‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Nothing,’ replied Pooja, her tone as if in retreat.

Radhika hummed. She knew her friend well enough to know she would snap back at her. It was only a moment of time before she would be flooded with her questions. And this time it would all be about Aman. Why had they broken up when their relationship was going so well? What problems had surfaced? Couldn’t they have worked it out? Wasn’t she going to...ever...forgive him for whatever he did? She had no mind to answer them now.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, rather surprisingly. She stood up. ‘I need to leave now. Work calls.’

Pooja frowned. ‘But you...you’re on a holiday.’

‘No, I am checking back in to work. Holidays makes me want to kill myself. Work will keep my productive, help keep my troubles away.’

Waving goodbye to her friend, she walked briskly towards the door and as she left the restaurant, she cried an ouch as she felt a sharp prick on her hands. She clenched her fists, trying to drive the pain away, but all it did was to enhance the sensation. Her body turned red and her head began to ache. Swaying, she fell down to the ground with a thud. With the last glimpses her vision brought her of the outside world, she saw a tall man hovering above her, smiling like a joker. ‘Two down, two to go,’ he chuckled.

Hyderabad, India

The engine honked like there was no tomorrow. Only then did he remember that his head was out of the platform looking in the other direction. He jerked back in the nick of time. A minute or two more and he would have been dead. Beheaded like the criminals of old. Phew! He sighed.

Looking around, he found people ogling at him as if he was suicidal. He couldn’t blame them. He had been careless a few moments before.

The train halted and the coach in which his ticket had been reserved was right in front of him. Second AC. Dragging his heavy trolley-suitcase, he reached the door, checked whether the reservation list had his name on it, and then hoisted his paraphernalia into the compartment. He climbed soon himself, eager to find his seat before a throng of people ushered in and made it hard to walk the narrow passageway that ran from one end of the coach to the other.

Even as he moved to open the door that stood as a barrier to his need of getting inside, he heard a tap on the door of the adjacent toilet. The sound came in quick succession. Tap. Tap. He wondered whether anybody was stuck in the toilet. He checked the lock. As usual, the lock stayed on. If someone was locked from the inside, the lock outside wouldn’t have rested on the thick bolt. He shrugged it off as a figment of his own imagination. After all, he had had little sleep last night. His mind was playing tricks, he told himself.

He turned and then, a step or two forward, he stopped. There it was again. The incessant tapping. An invisible ruckus. He eyed the toilet again and frowned. Impulsively, he unlocked the door and looked inside. There was nobody.  He cursed and made to go back when he saw a tall man wearing a Joker mask come at him with a thick rod. The last thing he remembered as he fell on the ground were the words, ‘Gautam. Well, too easy,’ that came out like the croaking noise the frogs made on the muddy banks of ponds.

Pune, India

She was a night-owl. Noon had finally come, the hot beams of sunlight pouring in through the open windows, the curtains behind which were shifted to the side by her mother who glared at her angrily. ‘Manasi, uth laukar. Barah wajle ithe (Manasi, wake up. It is twelve already),’ she scolded.

Manasi yawned as she woke up. ‘Ago, Aai, zhopu de na (Mumma, please, let me sleep),’ she whined, her voice lazy.

She could see her mother fume. ‘Kai zhopaycha ved laagle tula? Aaj naahi zhopaycha. Dada yetoch aaj. (What sleep addiction has got into you? No, you are not sleeping today. Your brother is coming home).’

Nodding, she got off her king-sized bed and hurried off towards the washroom. Once inside, she splashed a handful of cold water on her face, the chilliness driving away the drowsiness that was in her. She had not gotten enough sleep the night before, her mind rendered turbulent by the horrific dreams that had assaulted her. Visions of bloodied earth and ravens feeding on carcasses had terrified her all through the night. She could not wish them away and had only been able to sleep once the dawn began to slowly creep up in the east. Her head still felt heavy, her eyes still feeling as if they would close anytime. She splashed her face once more and let out a loud gasp, water dripping from her lips. Taking a brush, she applied a white paste on it and brushed her teeth like lightning. Though she felt like taking a nap again, she could not help but feel excited about her brother coming. She had not seen Karan for months now.

Her phone began to ring. ‘Damn!’ she cursed and ran outside. Her phone lay on the wooden table; it was vibrating. Its screen highlighted the caller’s name in green; however, in this case, it was just a ten digit number, unknown to her. A frown encroached on her forehead. Whose number was it? Regardless of the answer, she bent and picked up the phone. Holding it to her right ear, she asked, ‘Who is this?’

An incessant buzzing, like that of a bee, rang through the phone. Its frequency kept on increasing and her eardrums felt like bursting. The phone vibrated intensely in her hands. She dropped the phone on the ground and closed her ears with her hands, driving away the strands of black hair to the back of her head. Her eyes opened wide as she felt a warm wetness near the bottom of her earlobes. She brought one of her hands in front of her eyes, sharp and green, and balked at the sight of crimson that was her blood. She fell down in a swoon on the ground. She hated blood.

Above her unconscious figure, a tall man bent, dressed in black, and smiled. His face was covered by a Joker mask. ‘Manasi, Manasi, Manasi, you must be careful picking up a stranger’s number, no?’ he chortled. ‘It’s time now.’