[ Zakariya ]

To have a merry sleep, one should keep their mobile phone on silent and let me comply that I am a blind devotee of this principle. I don't freaking care if the prime minister of this country calls an emergency for a war, nobody gets to disturb my sleep, not when I've been a night owl for three freaking days for a stupid assignment that will eventually serve as a plate for bhelpuri.

But today my groggy eyes, nearer to becoming blind forgot to cling to that concept and switch the phone on vibration instead of silent.

The constant vibration of stupid device hurdles under the stack of folded clothes irritated the hell out of me.

With a groan, I stretched my leg to grasp the device with the help of my toe and other fingers working under the ministry of toe. But these stupid fingers decide to be human today that couldn't do a single task without creating a problem, they push the device farther ahead. I sighed and rolled myself in the blanket. And like the handsome Swiss roll, I am. I reached the foot of my bed and yanked the phone out of the mount of clothes.

Still in the haze of sleep, I didn't look at the contact name and slid the answer button.

"Brother from another mother, my only dewar, Mere Arjun ke Karan-"

"Cut with the crap, Alizay, I don't want to die young," I twisted my little finger into my ear, just to make sure that my ears haven't bled with this utter sudden sweetness.

"umm, Harris hasn't come from school yet." She said, and with the background noise, I could bet on ibn-e-safi's character's mortality that she hadn't noticed the time while gardening.

"In short, you forgot to pick him up from school. Yaar, mujhe nahi jaana, aap aur bhai ne toh mujhe unpaid driver aur caretaker samjha hai apne do nalayak baccho ke." I sighed and rolled out of my bed.

" What other work do you have, rather than writing some romantic crappy shit in your pretty 90's journal." came the voice of her along with a little drizzling sound of water.

"Now, now, bhabhi, good night!" I rolled my eyes at her imaginary image and was about to press the decline option when she trailed the words of apologies. Phass gayi

"Yeh kaafi nahi hai, tumhe iske badle ek shart manni padegi," I smirked and wore my wrinkled shirt, already figuring out the reply she would throw.

"Tumhari hazaaro shart qubool, ab jaao, waise bhi late hogya hai."

" Make some excuses for today's dinner for me, by the way, "With that, I slid my mobile into the back pocket of my jeans and dashed out of the room with a smug grin.

Being the youngest child among my siblings has its pros and cons. The pros are hard to mention because there are none, besides, the cons are reaching the height of infinity, one of them is this impromptu pick-and-drop service that I favoured my family members with.

But right now, I wasn't fancying this fact, what pissed me off is this watchman saying that the kindergarten had already called it off and Haris had gone with some 'friendly-looking-lady-clad in simple white salwar and kameez' ??! Are you fucking kidding me about the security of children in this school?

There was no use in lashing out at the man who was doing his job poorly, I was fucking pissed at Alizay and my so-called brother who dare to call me half an hour later to pick Harris up after the dismissal of his classes. God!!! The lack of irresponsibility is such an embarrassment for these adults.

I mentally prepared a speech to call them out for such implausible behaviour while putting my helmet on. A single kick to my bike and it roared to life and without thinking about a particular location, I drove off to the hustling and bustling roads of Mumbai in search of my nephew.

After fifteen minutes of roaming willy-nilly, I hindered my ride. A cold sweat glided down my throat while thinking about the worst situations.

I should've dialled the police already, heck I should've posted his missing story on social media.

Nah, That won't work. What am I even thinking? social media is a fucking brain rot, a world full of insensitive ass, I can't let Harris's life in danger, I can't. God!! Why the hell does he have such irresponsible parents? Right now, the idea of adopting him from his parents sounds fascinating to me, but before that, I need to find him. Argh! He doesn't even know the address to his home, heck, how could I expect him to remember such details, he's just five... He's just a child who thinks that the world is full of fairytales and the people here are tooth fairies, but he doesn't know the evil intentions that lie beneath the masks of sweet smiles. Man, I can't lose him. I can't.

Nahi, Zakariya beta, acchi-acchi baatein socho, accha hoga.

I threw my helmet off, and suddenly the cool breeze of summer seemed too heavy to inhale, the tension in the veins of my temples was ticking off to burst at any moment and like a missing pair in the frame, my fingers found a way to the roots of my hairs to untangle the knots.

I sighed and was about to pull out my mobile to call Alizay when my eyes recognised the familiar shade of brown hair. In a whimsical of moments, I raced my bike towards him as if the image was a mirage that my life depended on, like a hallucination that'd be dusted into the air in a matter of few.

When I reached the side of the road, Harris's lone figure was standing against the stall of candyfloss, his back facing me while I walked to him in pure bliss.

A Ginnie - I didn't even know where she came from - dressed in simple straight pants with a strip of red borders at the bottom; copy-pasting the same design on her plain kameez reaching till her knees. A long Kashmiri shawl draped around her shoulders that was finely tucked on her head making a terrible attempt to keep her fine jet-black locks concealed beneath the shawl.

A gust of wind swirled on the now almost empty road, prickling the minute particles of dust making their way into my eyes.

Bitch. That's what you get Zakariya for staring.

"If you're done being a Statue of Liberty, will you please step aside?" Almost punching the fist in my eyes, It took my numb brain to register the words that rolled out of the woman's mouth. And without thinking further, I shrink a bit to give her a way to walk away.

Until I saw the little boy swaying nonchalantly with his fingers wrapped around the woman's hand.

Are you fucking kidding me Zakariya?

"Excuse me, ma'am, hand me the child please," Wait, why do I sound like a police officer?

The woman in her early twenties stared at me with her dark eyes, a small frown resting between her voluminous thick brows complimenting her wheatish skin.

"And who are you?" Her lips puckered into a thin line of annoyance as her free hand that was resting at the side clutched the strap of her bag, tightly.

"I am his uncle." No cap.

" Apparently, this candy floss vendor is his uncle as well, that doesn't mean I'll hand this child to him, no?" she gave me her 'stop-with-your-bullshit' look and shifted her gaze to the vendor at the back.

Not again.

I ignored her previous statement and crotched down at the level of Harris, "Harris, tell this aunty, that you're my nephew."Harris's bored brown gaze dug the holes of obliviousness at me and....

Silence

THAT SON OF MY DUMB BROTHER WAS EYEING THE THREADS OF CANDYFLOSS AS IF THAT'S MORE FASCINATING THAN MY DIGNITY.

"Dekho Harris, I'll buy you anything, you wanted the same game set-up as Alina's? Right, I'll buy you that, I'll talk to your baba about a separate room for your toys, just tell this lady that you're my nephew." I almost begged the five-year-old as if my life depended on him. Man, I am sounding pathetically desperate.

"Yeh bacche chori karne ke sath sath stalk bhi karte ho kya, huh?"

What the fuck?

" Yeah, I mean. Look at you manipulating a child so that he can tag along with you happily," She tsked and took a step back holding the boy's hand protectively. " But I would be damned to be fooled by yours, now back off." She signalled me with her forefinger. "Back off, warna," an amicable pause to think about a logical reason "warna, main chillaugi ke tum bacche chori karte ho."

BHAI, THIS IS THE SECOND TIME IN A DAY, WHEN SOMEONE'S ACCUSING ME for such a heinous crime. I NEED plastic surgery at this point, or I should check the portal of police FIR.

"Ma'am you might've been mistaken," I tried to keep my voice as gentle as possible, "I am his guardian, he's Harris Farooque and he studies in the nursery at Jingle Bell Kindergarten and stays near the third lane, his parent's name is Aliza and Zafar Farooque also he has a twin sister named as Alina Farooque." I breathed out the information but then the realisation dawned upon me.

Shit!

" Wait," I slapped my hand on the forehead. How stupid I could be. " Shit, you're using reverse psychology," and for the first time in this entire interaction, I pulled out my threatening forefinger on her, " I should've thought about this before, you're the one who's a child thief." It came out as an assurance to myself more than an accusation but when her eyes dilated in shock or maybe in panic, a cold wave of relief washed over me. Good for her.

"Oh hello mister," she took a step towards me, clicking her forefinger and thumb together when she directly looked into my eyes. " Yeh meri lucknowi jutti aur tumhara sada hua munh, dono ek na ho toh mera naam bhi Aashna Akhtar nahi." she spat and backed off giving me a moment to regain the ability to respire.

Aashna, mhm, pretty name for a child thief, not gonna lie.

God, I need to be done with this drama, ASAP.

"Oh hello, misses, abhi hawaalaat me tumhri saari akad na nikle toh mera-"

" Thank god! Someone finally decided to call the police. Let me do you a favour by calling their number, they'll decide now who's a culprit over here," she glared at me while simultaneously searching the device in her bag.

"MUMMA" Oh my!! Did y'all hear what someone said or were my ears playing tricks with me? seems like our guy had salvaged his consciousness from his fifteen minutes of being verbally mute.

And there comes the person who won the award of 'irresponsible mom of the year' with an extremely tense face.

"Zee, what's the use of carrying your phone, when you don't seem to care about picking up the important calls, tumhe pata hai meri saanse kaise ruk gayi thi?" Haha, What a joke.

" And Miss Aashna" now, her attention shifted to the one and only gangsta.

"How irresponsible...." And here we go, with the non-existent irresponsibility lessons from our one and only contradictory speaker.

Aashna and I stood there awkwardly when she realised that I was her student's guardian while I fiddled with the sleeves when I got to know that she was a teacher of Harris.

Thank heavens no one is a child thief!

"Mumma, chachu took forever to pick me and now he's talking to the teacher for soooo long, I am tired."

Whoever coined the phrase "bacche man ke sacche," have a special place in hell.

***

And finallyyy my babiess met,
Word count: 2005.

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