The Night It Rained in Mumbai 2

I looked around the room. The window.....I thought suddenly...crossing the room in two strides. I pressed my forehead on the cool glass to peer outside and winced immediately. The gash. At that moment I wondered where else could I have been bruised up by these bastards. Now that I thought of it my entire body felt sore.....weak.....as if I had been gymming for hours the previous day. Also it seemed I had a slight fever....well that was not odd....My body tend to go into a hibernate mode every time I became too nervous or anxious. I shook my head to clear the negative thoughts off my mind. I tried to make out the dark shadows that enveloped the area outside this goddamn place. A sudden bolt of lightning made me cringe but also realize that whatever I was thinking was futile. There was an easy part and...well....a ‘difficult’ part to the ‘escape from the window’ plan. The easy part was sliding the window open. The 'difficult' part would involve somehow sawing off the iron grill with my bare hands, finding a ledge that would balance my body and then climbing down 10 storeys without losing my consciousness again and dying by fear of death or simply by landing smack on the asphalt below. After all that was the entire idea here wasn't it? To not die??

It was hopeless....I would never escape.....A sense of foreboding came over me.....complimented by helplessness...A deep desire to just give in to fate...I felt the first tear roll down my cheek. I brushed it off with my shoulder and suddenly felt so vulnerable.....so childish. I closed my eyes and pictured myself lying on my mother's lap.....telling her of all the things that had happened to me in school while Dad annoyingly commented on my long hair and disheveled appearance....Inwardly I felt myself smiling....where had those days gone....It had been so long since I had just sat and talked to my parents....to my family. Last I remembered I had again come in late from college....a tad bit drunk...and slightly stinking of smoke......I had rushed into my room without even so much as nodding to my parents...for fear that they would come to know....but somehow I guessed they always knew......I sighed. The what in my head was now replaced with a why....a crystal clear evidence that my practical state of mind had been brutally murdered and I was now clinging on to a desperate attempt to empathize with myself and somehow invoke a sense of pity from the fate that had got me here....

It seemed fate was waiting for that.....because no sooner had I resented myself to it that I heard a scuffling outside the door.....as if somebody was struggling with some keys. I stood upright staring fixedly at the door....frozen to the spot as if I had magically grown roots......It took a fraction of a second for me to realize that someone was going to come in through that door.......another fraction to realize that I had to do something...it was now or never.....But despite all this...I stood still.....paralyzed.....I think that I had involuntarily stopped breathing for two seconds at that moment.....Then the doorknob turned....This was it.......I thought to myself......If you don't move now....you will be reliving this dreadful moment every second for the rest of your life (however short that may be) cursing yourself for not moving.....MOVE!!!!

With that I somersaulted over the bed, ignoring the angry vibes that my body emitted in retaliation to this sudden burst of action, and pressed myself on the opposite wall now standing stealthily right beside the door. No sooner had I let out a feeble oomph after the small but taxing calisthenics that the door opened slightly....
At that moment I heard myself in my mind....."Whatever comes through that door....You will not step back....This is your only chance to escape....." A silhouetted figure stepped in.... He had his back to me.....I swallowed hard......This guy was huge......His back had covered almost the entire breadth of the door......I could not take this guy down alone...especially not in the condition I was.....I had to use a weapon.....The guy took a few steps ahead....My shivering hands suddenly found solace in a vase beside the door......The guy slowly started turning around......With a heave I swung the vase and hit him squarely on the head....A sickening thunk.....and I suddenly felt a sadistic and victorious pleasure as the figure collapsed with a loud thud on the floor right in front of me.......

I stood there for a few seconds blinking stupidly at the lump before me......I almost bent down to turn him around and take a look at the bastard's face....It was again the lightning that brought me back to my senses.....Not just yet.....There may be others....waiting outside the door......I took a deep breath.....Relax.... You made it.....At least the door's opened.....I convinced myself. I cautiously peered outside the door....There was a hallway....again dimly lit and stinking of God Knows what....I grimaced....Clenching the vase like my life depended on it (well in one way it did), I tip-toed down the hallway trying to make sense of my surroundings.....There was a single door along the length of the hall....a door to the right...which I figured must be the bathroom....As I passed the bathroom the stink became worse....it almost made me retch.....I hurried ahead.....towards a slightly brighter source of light at the end of the hall.....

After what seemed like an eternity I reached it. I held up the vase ready to strike at anyone that was standing around the corner...but there was nobody....The room was deserted.....or at least I thought it was....It seemed like the front room of an apartment......Yes...that was where I was being held....An apartment....in the middle of where? That was the next question I was going to get an answer to.....My wandering eyes caught sight of a table in the middle of the room that had about a million tools on it....by the looks it seemed like those that belonged to a carpenter...a hacksaw....a drill.....I stopped short.....What the hell was wrong with me? These were no carpenters....and I doubt these tools were being used on wood or walls......!!

Again I shook myself back to reality....Luckily for me there seemed to be only one guy....It seemed as if I was being a victim to a serial killer....the 'saw' kind. I remembered sarcastically......The room was empty other than the table......there was a cot to the left and to the right a door....a silent triumphant whoop escaped my mouth.....it was the main door......Just a few steps and I would be outside.....where I would run like the devil himself was behind me....alert anybody on the road and make this nightmare come to an end.....get back to my home....my family.... I suddenly realized that I did not care to know what had happened to me as long as it would be over soon......The curiosity that I had been wrestling with fifteen minutes ago was gone.....All I wanted to do was live....be free......

With that thought I rushed to the door only to double back in dread.....The light of the room had failed to illuminate the dark skinned scar faced guy sitting right beside the door.....And worst yet he held a club almost the size of the man I had just dropped back in the room......I waited for the onslaught...for him to come rushing over and beat me back to sub-consciousness or death....but that never happened.....Then I heard him snore......'Fuck'......yep....that was the first word that came out of my mouth after I had woken up to this horror movie I called life......It was a whisper but it sounded like a gunshot to me......I could not help it....I was shaking with fear, excitement and relief.......It took me a few seconds to gather my wits after that.....but I realized that I could not linger any longer. So I tip-toed to the door.....keeping both my eyes and my ears peeled to any signs of movement in him and any variation in his monotonous drone.

Please...please do not make a creaking sound while opening....please...I prayed to the door....which already looked like it was going to give away the moment I touched it....Good for me to escape....bad for me cos the club guy would be on my face in no time..... I turned the knob only to realize that there was a latch fastened. I released it and clasped the knob as if it were my last bottle of beer.....Surprisingly it did not even whisper.....The door opened like it belonged to a plush software office.....For a moment I had this weird notion that the door was on my side......coaxing me to leave.....never look back.... And that is how I broke out of my prison...

Never have I known such a moment of exultation and triumph before......I had made it..!! I had escaped! I looked around... a corridor led to a flight of stairs...There seemed to be no other apartments other than this one on this floor.....that did not come as a surprise.....Screw all that!! it was time to get the hell out of here.....I ran towards the flight of stairs...down it.....my head throbbing....my arms aching.....my back groaning......but it did not matter...all that mattered was getting downstairs....
Eventually I reached the bottom.....I was in an underground parking lot.....A sign on the pillar in front of me said "EXIT".....and I could not help but grin at the irony.....I ran again.....towards the exit.....All the while I kept looking for any sign of human life....that did not carry any carpentry tools or for that matter anything remotely blunt....There was none....The entire building was abandoned....Its the weather and the time you idiot.....I reminded myself....Who would come out in this freaking rain at this time of the night? Time. I briefly wondered what time it was.......Involuntarily I glanced at my wrists....no watch...that’s a shock...I thought sarcastically. And suddenly I looked down at my t-shirt and jeans.....The t-shirt was stained with blood and my jeans looked torn at the knee.....but other than that I thought I looked pretty decent for a guy who had just escaped Hannibal Lecter and his roommates......

I paced to the front of the building and into the rain. As if in heroic climax one last time I looked back and up.... This place was huge....The building seemed old but majestic nonetheless...I briefly wondered how my attackers could afford such a place....Money power you idiot...Its what they do that pays off......And nobody complains cos everyone's scared of them......I counted the storeys to 10 and peered at the window which I supposed belonged to my 'gas chamber'... I turned back around to find headlight bobbing down the road towards me....
I wiped the rain off my face and peered at the approaching vehicle.....It was a rickshaw....It slowed down in front of me. The driver spit out the pan he was chewing and gave me the suspicious 'look-over'. I said nothing....just got in....and leaned back on the seat...suddenly feeling extremely tired and sore all over.....My headache multiplied by infinity.......All the action and the run had clearly taken whatever juice was left inside of me.....

The auto driver was still looking at me probably contemplating if I was a mass murderer or a ghost. Before rushing out of the apartment I had only one thing in my mind...to get to the nearest police station...but now it seemed hopeless...all I wanted to do was get back home......
"Koregaon Park..." I rasped. My throat was dry.
The driver still stared at me all the more curious now that I had spoken something reassuring him that the chances of me being a ghost were slim.
"Where??" He asked.
"Koregaon Park.." I repeated frustrated.....That’s my home you idiot I want to go home. I said in my mind.
"Where is that?" He questioned.
Just my luck....This guy did not know where my place was.....That was weird...Almost everyone knew my place....It was one of the most happening towns in the city....I flew off the handle...

"Who made you a rickshaw driver? Don't you know the most popular town in Pune?" I retorted.
The guy looked at me for a moment and then smiled as if amused.....
"Saab....What are you talking about? This is not Pune. You are in Mumbai."
The world around me crashed......It tore apart as if a Boeing 747 had been piloted through it.......My head was spinning...The rickshaw driver's face came too close for comfort....I was reeling...nauseous...What the fuck.....This is not Pune. You are in Mumbai....I have never been to Mumbai...How can I be in Mumbai....You are in Mumbai......Koregaon Park...most popular town.....He had to be lying.....One night....one night was all I had missed......I had brushed my teeth. shut my room door....dozed off......routine.....nothing abnormal......How could this be....How did I land up in Mumbai.....Again the same question overwhelmed me...this time with a more wretched feeling than before......What the fuck had happened last night?....

I felt sick and got out of the rickshaw....I threw up on the road...kneeling down...trying to stop my head from spinning.....I felt the auto driver clasp my shoulders and lift me up..."Are you ok....saab?saab?"...Leaning onto him I looked up at the towering building....Who were they? What did they want? How did they get me here? Amidst all these questions I saw something that got my heart stuck in my throat.....The 10th storey window lights suddenly turned on....They knew I had escaped.