“Open the damn door!!” I heard someone
shouting at the door.
“Now, who the hell is this??’ I cursed the
person and slowly got up from the bed. I looked for my slippers but it was so
dark inside the room that it felt as if I was sitting inside a black hole.
“Life at a slum would have been much
better, atleast I didn’t had to pay 25K for this small box hanging 20 floors
above the ground.” I cursed myself for taking the exorbitant flat on rent in
the so called Green Paradise.
“We provide the best of the facilities and
besides that we have the best in class security systems” I wished to kill that
agent for landing us up in this hell.
“Open the goddamn door, you sleeping
bastard” the person shouted again.
The sottish voice clearly reflected that
the person knocking at the door was drunk. And really pissed off, even more
frustrated than me.
“Now, this is the best in class security
systems, you find drunk people knocking your door at the middle of the night.
I’d kill that agent tomorrow morning.” I
thought
“Coming !! Coming!!” I shouted back and
started moving barefoot.
By the time I could find my way through the
darkness to the door, he started banging the door loudly.
“You bang it one more time and I’ll cut
that hand. I swear.” I was really pissed off.
“Then open the door and let me in” now the
voice softened. The voice was familiar, so I hurried up till the door.
I was surprised to see the figure leaning
against the wall next to the door. He was Chetan, a colleague of mine and one
of my best pals at Gurgaon.
“Whats up man?? You look terrible” I said
and helped him to get inside.
“Its all fucked up man.” He said and
stumbled against the couch.
“What happened?? You were on a date, didn’t
you?? So how was it??”
“Don’t wanna talk about it. Can I spend the
night here??” I tried to help but he denied and after a lot of struggle managed
to sit on the couch.
“Do you have an alternative??” I mocked at
him. “Ofcourse you can. Make yourself comfortable. Though, you chose a wrong
time. Can’t help with the electricity.”
“No, its fine. “ He lied down and closed
his eyes, still breathing heavily. Something was definitely wrong.
I knew there was no point in probing more
so I decided to leave, but just at that moment suddenly the electricity came.
It took me some time to adjust to the sudden illumination, but when I finally
regained my vision I couldn’t believe the sight. Chetan was lying like a dead
man on the couch. His face was full of fresh scars. Left hand was bleeding and
there was a trail of blood drops right
from the door to the couch. His clothes were torn and that beautiful gold
bracelet embedded with precious emerald was also missing.
“What happened to you chetan??” Bewildered
I went closer and took a closer look of his hand.
There was no reply. I shook him and suddenly
his body fell down on the floor.
“Chetan. Chetan” I tried to help him to get
up. But to my utmost surprise, he didn’t even try.
I rolled him over. His eyes still closed. I
leaned closer to his face and my heartbeats almost stopped when I realized that
he was not breathing anymore. I quickly ran to the kitchen to fetch a bottle. There was no response to the splash of water
as well. Scared I leaned further and tried to listen for his heartbeats.
Skeptical of my left eardrum, I tried with the right one. I could feel the Goosebumps, sweat rolled
over my face and my hands started shivering out of fear. He was dead.
Completely baffled by the scene, I stood
still for at least 5 mins, staring at the corpse. Nothing came to my mind. I wanted to run away
but then it was my flat. I thought to call police, but then the scenes of those
old bollywood movies, where a innocent hero gets charged for a murder of his
friend, just because he happened to be there at the crime scene and tried to
help the wounded by taking out the dagger from his chest. And just like the hero, I also lacked the
evidences.
“Why would they believe me??” I asked
myself.
And as they say, even your shadow leaves
you in wrong times. My brain stopped working. I tried so hard to find a way but
there was no response. I cursed my brain, but then it felt as if just like
Microsoft Windows, when I needed it the most. It went down by simply popping an
error “Memory Access Violation. Please contact the technical support team for
more details.” Damn!
Just when I was wondering for the exit from
this labyrinth, I heard a song. “Lets make a night 2 remember…January 2
December..” I had heard this wonderful song by Bryan Adams so many times during
college days. But I’d never fathomed that the first line could end up in this
way. It kept going.
“Now, who the hell wanna make a night at
this hour??” I cursed.
The song kept going. The lyrics which one
day used to leave a wide smile and a wonderful dream in my eyes, were a real
pain in the ass today. I concentrated to find the source where it was being
played. But then I heard a constant buzzing sound. It was Chetan’s cell phone.
I took the cell phone out from his
trouser’s pocket. God knows what happened to me; my hands started shivering,
when I checked the screen. It said “Mustafa Bhai calling”. The cell kept
ringing but I couldn’t gather the guts to answer the call. After sometime it
ended.
I had never heard about the person from
Chetan and had no idea about him. But my super imaginative brain fed on heavy
doses of criminal movies and fiction stories, had already projected an image of
the person infront of me. A collage of Daud Ibrahim, Osama Bin Laden and the
sorts of Chota Chetan, Pappu pager etc. An image so scary, that just one
glimpse at it and you would spend your entire life, sleepless.
Then again it started ringing. I remembered
the names of all the gods and goddesses I’d heard off and finally picked the
call.
“Where the hell are you??” came the voice
from the other end. The harsh tone clearly reflected the agitated state of the
person. I stood speechless.
“You’ve betrayed the group; you’ve a last
chance to save your life. Hand over the packet to us or my men will cut you
down into pieces and leave them infront of your parent’s house. You
bastard.” The man was so agitated and
was shouting at the peak of his voice.
“Hello…sir…sir….” I couldn’t gather the
guts to speak.
“Who is this?? Where is that pig??”
“Sir…..this is Anish…Chetan’s friend..” I
fumbled.
“What the hell are you doing with his
phone, you moron?? Hand it over to chetan.”
“Sir….sir…he has gone to the washroom…”
“Stop telling lies, you dumb ass. Tell him,
if he doesn’t gets on phone within a minute, I swear, he will not be able to
stand for taking a leak for his entire life.”
I didn’t knew how to handle this mad man.
It was apparent that he would not listen to whatever I’d to tell. Also, I was
not sure that whether I should tell him about chetan’s death or not. I
disconnected the call and rushed to my bedroom to pick my own cell.
I couldn’t think of anyone to whom I should
inform about this first. Nobody would believe me. But I needed someone to know,
before it gets too late. Just while I was scrolling up and down the contacts
list, my eyes got stuck at one name. I thought for a second and dialed the
number. I knew, she directly would not
be able to help me out. Tanusha, a common friend of chetan and mine, pursuing
her Masters in Law from DU. I was unaware about her prowess in legal matters,
as for that matter I was skepticall about all the girls who manage to secure a
seat in a coveted university, just because they were girls. But at that moment, she was the only one who
could give me some advice.
“Atleast, she might have contacts with some
of the good lawyers and may be they would be able to help me out.” I thought,
waiting for her to pick the call.
“C’mon, wake up from your dreams” I was
getting restless.
“Hh..hello…” came the soft voice from the
other end.
“Hello Tanusha..”
“Yeah, who is this??” she sounded as if
still half asleep.
“Hey, this is Anish. Wanna talk to you.”
“Anish. Man, don’t you think its quite
early in the morning to talk about anything. “her voice told me, she was really
pissed off.
“I’m really sorry yaar. But its really
urgent. Trust me.” I almost begged.
“What is so urgent dude?? You killed
someone or wat??” she mocked.
“I didn’t kill anybody, but someone is
dead.” I knew there was no point in beating around the bush.
“What???” she shouted
“Yes. Chetan…chetan is dead.”
“Are you nuts?? Look dude, this ain’t
funny. I’ll kick your ass like anything.” She said out of bewilderment.
“No, I’m damn serious tanu. He is dead. I
don’t what happened to him. Who did it and why?? But the worst part is he is in
my house. I need your help yaar.” I couldn’t control myself. I knew I was gonna
pay a heavy price for asking her help, but that was not the point of slightest
consideration at this moment.
“What are you saying?? If he is dead then
what is he doing at your house?”
I quickly rushed her with the whole story.
And just like any girl, she also couldn’t think of anything logical to be done
at that moment. All these so called convent
educated, sophisticated super achiever girls were like foxes under the skin of
a tigress. They would keep boasting about their achievements, but when it comes
to real matters in practical life, they simply say-“ Sorry boss, No idea.” I
just hated them. I cursed my destiny for landing me in such a situation where I
was at the mercy of such a girl.
“You girls, can you be of any help to
anyone at any point of time??” I almost shouted at her.
“That’s not one of the best ways to ask for
help dude” I knew I had hit the wrong nerve.
“Sorry, sorry. Its just that I’m so
confused. I don’t know what to do. “
“Calm down. Calm down. I’ll think of
something. But lets get you out of here first.”
“What??”
“You never know, how powerful this guy
Mustafa is?? He might be reaching to your place in some time now.”
“Shouldn’t we call the cops??” I asked.
“Yes, but not like a layman. We will go
from the top.”
“Meaning?”
“You leave it on me. Do one thing, just get
of that place. Just remember don’t touch anything. I’ll pick you up from the
Central Park.”
“Ok. But why central park? I can drive down
to your place.”
“You should leave un-noticed you fool.
Nobody should get to know that at what time you left your place.”
“Then why don’t you to come here?”
“Because, I don’t want to accompany you to
jail, if at all you get caught by the cops before we could think of something.”
“But how will I reach Central Park then??”
“Start running..” she said and ended the
call. I quickly went back to the room, picked my wallet and rushed of out of my
flat. Just when I had reached the main entrance gate, I heard the screeching
sounds of more than one car stopping just near the building. I glanced from the
gate and could spot two black Endeavors with all the glasses completely black.
I quickly ran to the back gate of the building and to my utmost disgust, found
it locked. Without hesitating a moment I climbed the gate and just as I jumped
on to the floor, I saw an Endeavor taking a turn around the corner and its
headlights fell directly on me.
“Catch him.” Shouted, someone.
And as if I had seen a ghost, I started
running towards the central park. The car started following me. Just when I was
at the end of the road, my eyes fell on a small dark alley on to my right. I
quickly went into it and kept running. I knew, it was a shortcut to reach the
main road, a 10 mins, dash and I would be at Central Park.
“Reach on time, Tanusha” I prayed and kept
running.
Just as I hit the main road, I saw another
car coming in my direction. I recognized the noise of the engine. It was
Tanusha. And just like the Charlie’s Angels, she applied brakes, made the car
to halt just infront of me and in a flash opened the door for me.
Just as I sat inside the car, I spotted the
large headlights of Endeavor cruising towards us. She also spotted the demon
from the rear-view mirror and pressed the accelerator of her car with full
force. The car plunged forward and soon we were heading towards her NH-8. An
old 84 model Maruti-800 driving at its top speed towards NH-8 with a Endeavor
almost kissing its tail was a sight so horrible, that I was uncertain that
whether they will catch me first or I’ll die out of fear of being caught. But just at the start of the flyover, she
took a sharp turn towards the left and sped her car into the empty land full of
bushes.
I was highly impressed by her smart move.
The big demon couldn’t get through the heavy bushes and trees for long and got
stuck in the middle. While, we comfortably negotiated the mini-forest and were
again running on the road. After 5 mins. we were standing at the parking of her house.
“Lets hide here for some time.” She said
and we both ran towards the lift of her building.
I felt terrible for having completely
mistaken about her. She was very smart as compared to the image I carried of
the girls. The way she had easily maneuvered out by leaving behind those
monsters was some really appreciable stuff. I’d only seen such things in
Hollywood movies.
Finally we reached her flat. She unlocked
the door and signaled me to move in. then after a quick glance to the left and
to the right, she came in. Just as she closed the door, I heard a faint sound.
Slowly the sound got louder and I was surprised when I realized the tune. It
said: “Happy Birthday to you…Happy Birthday to you…” and then I heard balloons
being bursted, people clapping and suddenly there came out from different
rooms, Raman, Nisha, Hitesh, Sania. They all were laughing like mad persons and
pointing at me. And then my eyes fell on Chetan emerging from the kitchen,
carrying the big chocolate cake. I knew it was too late. They all knew it from
the beginning. I took several deep breathes and lied down on the couch.
“My goodness, You guys almost killed me.
You know that??” I was really pissed off.
But then before I could speak anything.
Everyone pointed towards Tanusha. Fuming out of anger I stared at her.
“And you said, we girls cant do anything.
Wat do u say now??” she said with such a sweet smile on her face that all my
anger vaporized and I also bursted into laughter.
“You win, you win….But please don’t do it
again. I almost got a heart attack.”
Everyone gathered around the cake. Just as
I blow the candles off. Chetan’s cell phone started ringing.
“Lets make a night to remember….January to
December..”
A smile came on my face. This was indeed, a
night to remember………
