A FEW HOURS AGO

I woke up at 4am while sweating bullets. Today was the day I had to meet Arshad and his boss. On any other day there would have been a remote possibility for me to fold under pressure to avoid trouble, but now I was not an ordinary person anymore. I had the ability to spontaneously ignite anything that I desired and I planned to use it to my vantage. While freshening up, I was planning for my next steps. As of now I had deduced two things.

Firstly, Arshad's muddy tires had some dried seaweed stuck on it. This means he was driving that car to some place close to my work place, and that place was near some salt water body where the mud was soft. Secondly, the man who was on the other end of the phone was close to hundreds of ducks quacking and grunting which could be heard in the background. There was only one place in the entire city where such sounds can be heard during this season.

I got dressed and left early in the morning as I didn't think of gangsters to be the early bird kind. I wore my hoodie and covered up well, went towards the back of my building and jumped the wall into the neighbouring compound. Then I got out from the far end of that compound to avoid being seen. I was just paranoid about them having me on watch, since I had their money and contraband.

Walking briskly for about 15 minutes, I reached close to Dadar station. I took a platform ticket and went inside. On one of the benches on the platform, I sat down and waited patiently while doodling randomly on my cell phone. At about 8am, I left from the station and went outside. The street side vendors were just beginning to set up shop.

On spotting what I was looking for in one of the shops, I went up to him and bought it. It was a binocular, not the military grade ones but the cheaper touristy kind with the red non-reflective lens. It was not powerful, but enough to suffice my plans. Then I walked towards the post office at Dadar.

Outside the post office there were many stalls which sold stationary, took photocopies, sent couriers etc., but that was not what I went there for. There were numerous shops which made rubber stamps. I went to one of them and asked the shopkeeper to make a stamp of the symbols on the pin. All but the last symbol. Then to another shop and asked him to make a stamp of the last character.

With that taken care of, I took a bus for Sewri and got down at the last stop. I went across the station to the east side. Again I put my hoodie on to be inconspicuous and walked for a long time till I reached the Sewri fort. In the past it must have been a majestic sight to behold but as of now it was pretty much dilapidated. It overlooked the Sewri creek and was the tallest structure near the brook.

When I reached to the top of the fort I heard the sounds that I was expecting to hear. My deduction of the background sound on the phone call was right. On looking at the creek from the fort I could see a carpet of pink; moving, hopping, hunting, dancing. The queen of the winter skies, the flamingo. There must have been at least a few thousands of them, all in a constant frenzy.

The sound of the flamingo to my ears sounded similar to a duck. I looked about and saw the entire flamingo bay of Mumbai from there. The mud flats covered completely by these migratory birds. Just ahead of the mud flats were the mangroves. I looked towards the mangroves but couldn't see anything unusual at first but on closer observation I saw some signs of manmade construction. A square area cleared out amongst the mangroves with a narrow zigzagging pathway leading towards it.

I took the binoculars out and looked at the same spot carefully. With the binoculars I could make out the shape of a wood cabin made on top of a platform. The platform was supported by three thick columns of wood and I could see the edge of a metal barrel. Bingo! I thought to myself. It was the perfect hide out near the mangroves which will be completely invisible from the ground level and even from this height it was hidden to the naked eye. The early afternoon heat was slowly roasting my skin but I sat there motionless to case that location.

Every few hours I saw the same boat going through the pathway, sometimes carrying people and sometimes carrying boxes. After the first few trips, one person on the platform poured a transparent blue liquid in a big plastic can from the barrel and carried it down to the boat. Then poured it into the fuel tank. It was kerosene I assumed.

At around 3pm I saw the boat leave with three people, one of them was Arshad I could make out from the binoculars. About half an hour later the boat returned with four people. The fourth was sitting down with his face covered in a gunny bag.

The fourth person was unmasked and lead up the platform and taken to the cabin while the remaining three followed him inside. Within 5 minutes the four came out. The fourth person was being pushed around, they forced him down the platform while he was desperately trying to resist.

The other two went back inside the cabin and Arshad took this man with him in the boat, but this time in the opposite direction. The boat turned towards my side and went towards a cove which I could only partially see. The boat stopped there and the person got off and ran inwards.

Arshad got off calmly with his hands concealed behind his back. He also went inside the cove to the parts which weren't visible from my point of view. The next few seconds I couldn't see anything. Then I heard a gunshot. The flock of flamingos got scared of the sound and took to the skies. The afternoon sky was dotted with pink while the cove was sprinkled with red, I imagined.

Arshad walked calmly towards the boat and siphoned some kerosene from a fuel tank into a plastic container. He then walked towards the cove again and returned to the boat within a matter of a few seconds. Plumes of smoke began to rise from the cove and he went away as if nothing had happened.

Chills ran down my spine as I thought about what happened but I had no time to waste. I left back from there and went back to Dadar to collect the stamps which I had them make for me. I also bought two ink pads for the stamps and bought a cheap pair of dark blue jeans.

On reaching home I began the preparations for my plan. I broke the metal covers of both the ink pads. Then I cautiously sliced the rubber characters there on the stamp pads from its handle. I super-glued the characters on the index finger of my left hand and the last character from the other stamp pad on the index finger on my right hand to avoid getting myself burnt to ashes. The purpose of the dark blue jeans was there to mask the ink from the ink pads which I kept inside my front pocketbooks. With the bag in my hand and my mind altogether prepared I said good bye to my mother before I left from home.

Carrying so much money was nerve wrecking but what lay ahead of me was all the more so. On reaching the ferry wharf I expected Arshad's goons to pick me up and take me. Never had I expected them to ambush me. They pounced on me and covered my head with a jute bag. In the struggle I banged my elbow in one of the men's stomach. Hearing Arshad's voice I calmed down.

They made me get on the boat and I saw through small holes in the jute that one of the men was glaring at me while holding his belly, I must have knocked him hard I assumed. I sat silently with my hands in my pocket pretending to shiver due to the cold, although in reality I was putting ink on the rubber stamps that I had stuck on my fingers.

They took my mask off at the same place which I had seen from the fort. I climbed up on the rope ladder I look around and saw the flamingos had settled down from their day long activity. I was careful not to touch the rope with my index fingers as I climbed up. Feigning loss of balance, I grabbed onto the back side of the wooden pillars and stamped it with the symbols.

I noticed fine lines of smoke emanating from the place I had marked with the symbols. When I climbed on top I put my hands back inside the pockets and wet my stamps with the ink. Then I looked around and searched for Sewri fort to regain orientation. Right before I entered inside the door, I pretended to trip on something and stamped one of the barrels of kerosene with the symbols.

While I was getting back up I stamped the other barrel as well. Now that my plan was set in motion, I did not have much time in there. If I took too long to get away from there, I would get burned by my own plans. I knew well that they would not shoot me on the platform as it would be impossible to carry a dead body down a thin rope ladder. Plus, it would be easier to dispose the body off in the mangroves where the smoke from the fire or a burial won't attract attention.

So I took my chances and insulted the boss by saying, "I have always imagined my work place to be an air-conditioned cabin with a great view of the city. Not a stinky cabin in the middle of the mangroves, surrounded by mosquitoes."

My plan seemed to have worked, the boss asked Arshad to get rid of me quickly.

As I went out, the two guys who had brought me here followed me out. The person, who I had unintentionally hit, took me by surprise and punched me hard with brass knuckles. I nearly fainted with the pain but somehow managed to stay conscious. I got down from the rope ladder as quickly as I could. Arshad took me to the same cove as I had seen in the afternoon. I had expected the barrels to heat up and explode within a few minutes' time but it took a lot longer than my expectations.

When I got down from the boat I saw remnants of some human bones on the cove. I thought that I was done for and my plan had failed but I still kept my hands in my pocket and waited for an opportunity. Surely it would have been my last day on Earth if he was just asked to kill me but the Don's orders were to make it painful for me. Arshad began to beat me up, this bought me precious few minutes. I took the beating silently, waiting for the explosion. Constantly trying get back up and trying to act cocky to get hit more and buy even more time.

Just as he was beginning to point his gun at me, I prepared the stamp for the last time and stood up bravely. At that moment the kerosene tanks exploded and Arshad turned around to look at it. Running towards him I grabbed onto his face from behind and covered his eyes with my index fingers and stamped his face with the symbols. With my knees I kicked him in his spine. The pain from the burning and the kick must have been intolerable as he dropped his gun and tried to pry my hands open. I had done what I wanted so I scrambled towards the gun and put Arshad out of his misery with three bullets. I held the gun with both hands to stamp it and threw it away.

Washing the ink off from my hands in the water to avoid any accidents, I turned the boat around. One last look towards the cove showed me Arshad's body lying motionless with the upper half of his body burning brilliantly with a pools of blood around his chest and wrist. The gun also was glowing and the plastic grips on it had melted. I took the boat towards the escape route near Sewri fort, which I had planned in the afternoon.

The explosion would have killed all the men in the cabin, but if there was the slightest chance it did not. The explosion along with the log which was weakened by the fire would have dropped the broken cabin into the water and sunk it. Even if they did survive the explosion and the fall, without their boat, hypothermia from being in the water would embrace them in a cold death.

I came out, wet and weak from the boat and climbed up the fort. The feeling that I had just killed someone was overwhelming. But I knew it was for the sake of survival and to protect those who I loved.

Looking in the direction of the hide-out, all I could see was a huge inferno. The fire from the explosion had engulfed the entire mangrove and was burning everything to crisp. No mortal being could survive such carnage. Maybe it was from being mentally exhausted, but I felt pity for them losing their lives. If only they would have made the right decisions in life, they could have been able to live a long and happy life but fate doesn't favour everybody.

On reaching home I snuck into my room and scraped the rubber stamps off my skin with a blade. My clothes stunk of smoke and burning flesh, so I threw them out in the trash. My skin had bruises all over and I was bleeding from my forehead and lips. I showered under hot water to relax my tensed body and to cleanse my wounds. A little alum stopped my bleeding. I simply had no strength to dress myself up, so I just went to bed naked and fell asleep almost instantly. I didn't even realise when my mother came home and when she left the next day for work. The next evening, she told me that she heard me snore loudly through the door so she left me undisturbed.

Next daybreak, I woke up as usual and ambled to my temporary work-place. I lied to my boss that I met with an accident, and he gave me paid leave for a week to recuperate out of his kindness. It was nice to know he wasn't in cahoots with the drug peddlers.

On my way back, I stopped at my doctor's. My family doctor was upset when he saw me hurt. His trained eyes could understand my injuries originated from a brawl rather than an accident, as I said. He prescribed some medicine to assist in my healing and gave me large doses of bitter verbal advice to stay away from trouble. I took them both with my nose pinched tight. My mom, the angel that she is, believed in my lies easily and left me feeling guilty as usual. She took the day off to tend to me, and to help change the dressing on my lips and forehead.

Now I had an entire week to savour my solitude and so deciphering the symbols on the pin was the primary agenda. The problem was that Brahmi was an ancient script and only vague translations of it existed. I did some research on it and found out, the symbols which were used in it were somewhat different from Brahmi. Now, there was no way for me to find out precisely what was written on it unless I took it to a specialist or became a specialist on the subject myself.

The analgesics that I was on, made me drowsy. Although the regular sleep and rest did make me heal quickly. The bruising went away on the second day and the pain on the third. The injury on the edge on my lips also healed without a trace. Only the injury on my forehead was left. Apart from that injury, there were no signs of the incident at the mangroves. The hideout was destroyed along with all the people. The contraband along with the money had either sunk in the water or burned in the explosion. The mangroves that hid the hideout were cleared in the explosion, so there were no signs of the man-made clearing. Arshad's body would have been burnt to ashes, also the gun would have been melted to a pile of oxidised metal.

These people who lived in the fringes of society had no proof of existence. They must have destroyed all ties that they had with the world to go on living as they did. The media reported the incident as a failed attempt at a terrorist attack. The wooden debris was assumed to be remnants of a boat. The police and intelligence agencies readily took merit for taking them out and I didn't mind it for the slightest bit as I wanted to have nothing to do with the entire incident.

They reported finding bodies of all fifteen terrorists, which was right by my calculation, since Arshad's body was reduced to nothing. In the odd event that any of them would have survived, there would be no way to tie me to that incident as the explosion happened while I was far away from the hideout.

All that was left for me to do was get myself in working condition and carry on living my life as it was before. Little did I know that God had other plans for me.