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Word Count : 4300

Song : Hoor | Hindi Medium |

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34 | An Application For Urination

"Where are we going?" He heard her questioning him, her voice cutting through the confines of his helmet, against the blustering winds the Harley was raging past.

They were traversing through the metropolitan sparkles for the last twenty-five minutes.

"Relax; you will know in some time." He asserted.

Even though he had not turned his head around to witness her reaction, he was aware that she was most probably nodding her head.

He chuckled, maneuvering the Harley through a long road surrounded by dense green vegetation on both sides after taking a left turn.

The roads remained constantly wet, with a puddle or two every few meters away from each other, courtesy of the precipitation that had graced most parts of the country for the last few days. She inhaled the earthly, delicate fragrance of the petrichor wafting in the air. He felt the soft periodic motion of her torso, drawing in and out the air around her.

He smiled again. "That's right—breathe in, breathe out. Leave everything behind and look ahead. Alleviate yourself of all your thoughts. For the next one hour or two, live for yourself. Don't think about anything, neither your job nor the intent you have been striving for for so long, not Vijay bhai, not me, not the clothes that are resting in the washing machine, not that one vessel Geeta forgot to wash because she got busy talking with her son—not even Anirudh." The moment Anirudh's name left his lips, her arms around his waist tightened.

He guffawed. "Okay! Okay! Mother India, you can think about that brat! No one is stopping you."

The hold around his waist relaxed while his laughter ceased, but the curving up of his lips remained intact.

The next second, he felt her gingerly resting her head on his back, the helmet no longer on her head, probably resting on her lap.

Eyes wide, he sucked in a breath, his chest warm and his cheeks hot. "Put on the helmet, Inu."

"Please." He got the reply.

"It's not safe, Inu." He argued.

"Please."

He sighed, forcing the consternation down his throat. "Alright."

Roughly fifteen minutes down the line, he squeezed the brakes and put a halt on the movements of the Harley in front of what looked like a chain link fencing—large fencing of around seven to eight feet in height and immeasurable meters in length as per naked eyes. Right in front of the fence was a long gutter extending on the ground.

Hinduja looked around in confusion. Beyond the fencing was a mammoth-sized piece of unevenly curved yet green area akin to a golf course, with dense trees littered around at specific spots.

"A golf course?" She asked, getting off the Harley.

"Yes." He replied, and then, pointing at a spot two meters away from the motorcycle, he continued. "Stand there. Let me park this."

She nodded and passed her helmet to him.

Parking the Harley under a tree just outside the fence, he put on the handle lock, placed both their helmets on the seat, and walked in her direction.

"Come." Forwarding his hand in front of her, he whispered.

She glanced at him for a second and then moved her gaze to his fingers, her own fingers slowly placing themselves on his.

Firmly intertwining his rough, long, and thick fingers with her svelte ones, he started walking along the sides of the fencing, causing her to move along with him. After strolling alongside the fence for some fifty meters, he stopped right in front of another spot of the never-ending fence. But what caught her attention was the massive hole in the fence, extending three meters from the ground to the tip of the ground. And the hole on the fence was created in such a way that passersby won't be able to find it unless they come closer because of the hefty trunk of the tree right in front of the fence, growing up from the gutter way beneath.

"Come on." Saying so, he pointed his finger at the hole in the fence. "Cross the fence through the hole and go inside."

Her eyes widened. "What even?! Can't we go inside through the main gate, if at all this place has one?"

Mahadevan clicked his tongue. "It's almost ten thirty in the night, Inu, way past seven o'clock, and this golf course closes down at seven in the evening, so obviously the main gate would be closed now."

Hinduja sighed. "Why are we even here, Dogra Sahib? Out of all the places?"

Mahadevan shook his head. "I am telling you, it's a good place. Go, enter the golf course through that hole. I'll follow behind."

Exhaling in indignation, she finally obliged. "Alright." Replying so, she released her fingers from his hold and walked towards the hole in the fence. Placing her right leg on the right side of the gutter, she put her left leg on the wet ground next to the hole which was on the left side. Then, squatting her body, she shifted her weight from her right leg to her left leg, placing it beside it.

Mahadevan looked on in amusement while trying to curb the chortles threatening to escape his lips.

As if sensing his amusement at her expense, she turned her head around to look at him.

He immediately tried to display a poker face.

She, in turn, glared at him. "Laugh! Laugh as much as possible!"

Trying to look innocent, he cried out, "What?! You can vault over a concrete fence and trespass an abandoned villa along with your assistant, for god knows what kind of investigation of yours! But you can't trespass the premises of a golf course through such a small hole in the fence, for your husband!?"

Hinduja rolled her eyes and put her focus back on the task at hand.

Five minutes later, both of them stood side by side, hands on their waists, inside the golf course.

"How did you even come across that thing?" She probed, directing her index finger in the direction of the hole on the fence.

He slowly started strolling ahead, holding her hand. "Dad and Daman were both interested more in basketball than golf. Even Nirjhara used to play basketball back then. So naturally, all three of them would tag together on the basketball court behind the Dogra manor. Maa would go along with them too. Meanwhile, I had zero interest in basketball. I was more interested in football and golf while getting compelled to take up basketball numerous times by everyone around me because of my height, but I just never got the craze for that sport, nor did I get any interest in it, so I would follow Grandpa and Darshana Didaa to the golf course, which is this place." He reminisced the memories of the by gone days. "Darshana Didaa was born very late. She was sixteen years dad's junior, and grandpa's favorite."

Hinduja tried to recollect the facial features of the late Darshana Giriraj Dogra from her memories, the former heir and face of the Dogra automobiles and textiles—a woman of wit, wisdom, and might—the only daughter of Giriraj Dogra. She glanced at her husband's visage. His expression was unfathomable, his eyes gazing at something in the distant nothingness.

"Due to the age gap between dad and her, she was only ten years my senior. So we were less like an aunt and nephew pair and more like buddies. Until she graduated from high school, all three of us—Daman, me, and Ira—used to go to school with her, but she was the closest to me." He chuckled. "You remember the nickname Daman addressed me with, on the evening of that get-together?" He looked at her and asked.

"Devi." She smiled.

"Exactly. Devi; that's what Darshana Didaa used to call me." He tee-heeded, his earthy brown swirls shining brightly under the lighting of the golf course. "Every time she would come back from her college in Dehradun, she would get these local Lychee candies. Those candies have been my favorite of all types of sweetmeats to date. When I entered college, she left for the US for some years to handle our business there. Calling each other on the phone was not that easy at that time due to the difference in time zones and also due to our busy schedules, so both of us would stick to emails."

And then silence prevailed, with him lost in his thoughts and her standing by his side in the quiet night, giving him the time to collect his thoughts.

"Anyways," she heard him say, "both she and I would tag along with Grandpa to this place. Consequently, Joseph, Tapan, and Aryan would arrive with Manisha and Suzanne too. We would observe the elders playing the game for some time and then get bored. All seven of us youngsters would then hunt for ways to leave the game. Eventually, in a similar kind of situation, one fine day, Didaa and I discovered that hole in the fence. It was quite small at that time, so we broke it to make it bigger. And then it became our passageway to escape the boring conversations of the world of adults." He smiled.

She nodded her head in understanding.

"Come, let's sit there. That was our hangout spot." He said, pointing at a faraway spot under a huge Peepal tree in the middle of the golf course. She agreed, walking along with him to that spot.

Supporting their backs against the thick bark of the tree, both of them sat down on the dewy grass, beside each other.

"After Didaa left us, none of us visited this place ever again. This is the first time in years that I am coming to this spot."

She took in the expression shrounding his visage---a mien engulfed in the darkest shades of melancholia.

On the other hand, his lips faintly curled up. "You know, there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. People who are alone might not just exist but live as well. Lonely people, on the other hand, simply exist with no reason or aim to live. And with time, as it turns out, loneliness doesn't exist in me anymore." He trailed, slowly laying his head on her left shoulder. "I live now; I simply don't exist anymore."

She inhaled, placing her head on his in turn.

They sat there, under the tree, gazing at the heavenly dark vault on top, listening to the rhythms of each other's breathing patterns. The crickets chirped in the background. Her gaze fell on their intertwined hands on his lap. "How long are you going to hold my hand like this?"

"Always."

The backdrop submerged itself in a blanket of placid quietude as the spouses stayed like that for the next half an hour.

Silence was their thing, after all. They thrived in it.

Some time later, she felt him moving impatiently in his place, and that was enough of an excuse to break the chain of stillness in the milieu.

"What happened?" She questioned.

He peeked at her, a sheepish grin emerging on his face. "I want to pee."

A deep red blush took over her face and ears. "Who is stopping you then? Go to the washroom."

"Exactly the problem here." He stared at the ground. "There are no washrooms here. The nearest one is in the rest room on the other side of the golf course, and that too must be locked right now."

"What?!" Her eyes widened exponentially as she stood up, absolutely flabbergasted. "What are you going to do then?"

He too stood up in one go, towering over her by many degrees. Scratching the crown of his head, he looked around as if he were searching for a suitable spot for some precious work to be carried out.

The wheels in her brain turned in realization: "Don't tell me!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "What do you expect me to do then? Go to the hospital with a bursted urinary bladder."

She scrunched her face, imagining that scenario. "Oh, shucks!"

And then, she too, started to roam her gaze around, looking for a suitable spot. At the end, her gaze finally fell upon a trail of bushes a few meters away from the Peepal tree they were standing under.

"There!" She cried out in triumph, pointing her forefinger at the bushes. "You can do your business there."

Mahadevan turned his gaze around to check the spot his wife was pointing at. "It seems like a good location. The bushes there might as well get some water too." His lips upturned unevenly to form a lopsided smile.

Hinduja grimaced once again, "Go now!"

Nodding his head, he started walking ahead. She stayed put. He walked a few steps, but then, sensing that she was not following behind him, he about-faced. "What are you doing there? Come with me!"

The expression on her face turned into a look of absolute horror. "Are you mad? What will I do there? Go, do your business, and then come back." She huffed.

Mahadevan sighed and lifted his left arm up to show her the time on his watch. "It's eleven-ten p.m. now, Inu. A fleet of security guards might reach for the next round of patrolling anytime now. I need you to keep an eye around for the security guards while I relieve myself."

"No sh*t, Sherlock!" She bellowed out.

"Yes, sh*t, Sherlock." He grinned. "Now come with me and keep an eye."

Sighing heavily, she finally followed him to the bushes.

He went behind the bushes while she stayed put around four meters away from the bushes. Turning her back to him, she roamed her eyes around, her sensory faculty hyperactively alert.

On the periphery, she could hear the faint sounds of the zip going down. And then she heard a sound akin to someone whistling through close lips.

"Stay alert." The whistling ceased for a second and then continued again.

"I know!" She shouted back.

The whistling didn't stop, though.

A few minutes later, out of nowhere, her gaze fell on a series of flashlights moving towards them from a distant region of the golf course. Aghast, she quickly took a turn and rushed towards him.

"Run! The security guards are here." She whisper-yelled.

"What? I haven't even finished yet!" He bellowed.

"How much are you going to urinate, my lord!? A whole damn ocean?!"

"But—"

She cut him off in between. "I don't care; zip the damn pants up and run! Now! Do you get me?!"

Quickly zipping up his pants and closing the buttons of his jeans, he rushed behind her. "But I haven't even washed my hands."

"What do you want me to do then, Dogra Sahib? Bring the holy waters from the heavens to get your hands washed. That too, now?"

"Why are you getting angry?" He looked at her in confusion.

"Hehehehehehehehe! Obviously, why should I get angry now? I should giggle, right? I should giggle my innards out!" She mock giggled.

"Hey! Hey! You two!" A loud call echoed from behind them, somewhere in the distance.

Both of them turned around to glance at each other in sync. "Oh shit!"

"Run!" He yelped.

"As if I was not doing it already!" She rolled her eyes while both of them sprinted towards the fencing.

"We can't go towards that hole on the fencing as they are coming from that direction only." He hurriedly voiced out. "You vaulted over the concrete fencing of the Purohit Villa that day, and I take that you can vault over this metal fencing as well?"

She gulped. "Yes!"

Their lower limbs rapidly paced towards the fence on the other side of the golf course.

When the fence finally came within five meters of their range, Mahadevan yelled, "On the count of three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Go!"

"Stop! You two! Sahib, the thieves are trying to vault over the fence!" They heard the security guard crying out angrily.

Swiftly jumping on the criss-cross-patterned metal barricade, both of them climbed up the fencing.

"Ram Singh, be quick! The kid is half way up the fence, while the giant one among them is already sitting on the fence! Kids these days, I tell you! Stealing all sorts of weird things! And instead of stopping the child, the parent is actually accompanying the kid for the theft!? What a shame!"

The moment she got up on the capping rail of the fence, where he was sitting with his long, sturdy limbs dangling down the fencing, both of them jumped from the railing in one go.

"Ram Singh! You idiot! The thieves are gone!"

In a split second, when their respective shoe-clad feet landed in the gutter, a deafening howl reverberated in the surroundings, followed by a head-splitting bark—of a dog.

Mahadevan looked down at the gutters, feeling something uneven under his right foot.

And there it was, under his right biker boot-clad foot, the tail of an Indie stray dog. The owner of the tail glowered at him as if he were to bite his derriere off at any given moment.

Mahadevan grinned sheepishly.

Turning his head, he looked at the feminine figure beside him on her feet in the gutter. Without much doubt, he knew that she was aware of the problem they had landed themselves in. Sweat trickled down both of their foreheads.

"Three." She whispered.

"Two." He murmured.

"One."

"Run!" They shrieked together.

Jumping out of the gutter, the husband-wife duo dashed in the direction of the Harley. The poor stray dog licked its equally poor tail for a few seconds and then rushed behind its perpetrators while barking and howling its guts out in the process.

The Harley Davidson, to their eyes, appeared some twenty meters away from their location. Increasing the speed, both of them hightailed towards it with full vigor.

"What the f***!" Mahadevan shrieked!

"What happened now?!" She shouted back.

Without ceasing their running spree, he glanced down to survey his running feet. "I stepped on cow dung!"

"Perks of peeing on the premises of a closed golf course, forty-five minutes away from your home in the middle of the night, Dogra Sahib! Bravo! Enjoy the experience!" Her sarcastic voice echoed in his ears.

Neither did the dog cease its barking and galloping behind them, nor did they stop their running spree in the direction of the Harley Davidson, now just a meter away from them.

"Hop on!" Mahadevan got on the Harley at full tilt, taking the motorcycle off the center stand.

She expeditiously followed his instructions.

Putting on the helmets, both of them looked behind them for one last time. Lifting his left arm up, Mahadevan extended his hand and flashed his middle finger at the stray dog rushing towards them.

"Take that, you dog!"

Scrunching her eyebrows together, Hinduja scanned the 'ding-dong' dangling between the dog's hind legs. "Tsk. Tsk! It's already a dog, Dogra Sahib, preferably a stud- a male dog to be specific, with, if I am not mistaken, thirty-eight pairs of chromosomes, each pair containing an X and a Y chromosome."

"The damned chromosomes!" Howling out so, Mahadevan brought the engine to life and roared the Harley Davidson through the main road. "Who cares about them!?"

"Apparently, genetics does."

Taking a left turn around the next corner, he trailed. "Now that I think about it, why did we even run from the security guards? You could have just talked with them and explained our situation."

She frowned underneath the helmet. "Yeah, yeah! And what do you think I should have said? Perhaps I should have given them a written application. Respected security officials, with all due respect and humble submission, I, Hinduja Rao, the supposed sub-divisional magistrate of this area, would like to state the following few lines for your kind consideration. My husband, Mr. Mahadevan Dogra, who also happens to be the presiding chairperson and president of the Dogra Empire, got a sudden urge to urinate on the clean and green premises of your esteemed golf course. So, here is a kind request from my side to you: let my husband empty his bladder out behind the bushes. Thanking you, yours' sincerely, Hinduja Rao!" She gave utterance to an entire application, not stopping in for even a single intake of breath. "That's what I should have done!?"

"It doesn't sound like a bad idea, though—it seems feasible." He muttered under his breath.

"Dogra Sahib!" She yelled in disbelief.

Mahadevan's body shook uncontrollably with laughter.

***

13 May 2023

Even before the first rays of the sun could touch the earth the following day, Hinduja got up from the bed. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she determined the time.

It was four in the morning.

She then volt-faced to check up on the sleeping form of her husband, her dupatta tightly clutched in his hands.

Around fifty minutes later, she steered her black Mahindra Scorpio through the narrow and malodorous passageway of Tulika Bazaar—the largest flee market selling goods in black—in the entirety of the National Capital Region.

Pulling the breaks of the Scorpio right in front of a small store, with the paint chipping off its walls, she got out of her automobile and locked the driver side door behind herself.

The shutter of the store was open already. Ducking her head down under the small cemented passageway, she entered inside.

The interiors of the store were dimly lit with an old, yellow incandescent bulb. Right behind the counter, on the chair, sat a man snoring heavily, with his pot belly jutting out and almost touching the counter. He was dressed in a pair of faded floral Bermudas and an Indian-style 'ganji'.

Knocking on the counter thrice, she called out, "Shera."

Shera, on the other hand, kept snoring in his sleep with his mouth wide open.

"Shera," she called out once again.

His snores greeted her back once again.

Sighing heavily, she fished out her phone from the pocket on the left side of the white saree draped modestly around her body.

Switching it on, she clicked on the music app and played an audio file—the loud ringing of police sirens.

Shera Daaruwala finally jumped straight out of the chair he was dozing off on, his mind still hazy. "Dolly, hide the new stock! The damned police dogs are here again!" He cried out in desperation while fixing his floral Bermudas.

"Good morning, Shera." Hinduja greeted him with a smile.

With his breath stuck in his throat, the man shrieked in fear, "Mummy!"

"Not your mummy; I am Hinduja Rao. You know me already." She exhaled calmly. "The police is not here. It was just a piece of audio."

Rubbing his eyes vigorously, Shera nodded. "Sorry Madam! Good morning, Madam!"

"Morning."

Glancing at the wall clock, he trailed, "You are here at this hour, madam?"

"I have a task for you."

Shera gulped. "Bakhtawar Sahib has already given me the order for those thirty-eight trackers, madam. Don't worry, I will deliver them to him on time." He anxiously blabbered.

The woman before him was not good news after all.

"I know," she said. "I am here for something else."

Peeking outside the gate of his store for one last time, he replied, "Alright, madam, please come up."

Saying so, he got out of the counter and climbed up the stairs at the end of the dingy little store, while she followed behind him.

Once they were on the first floor, Shera escorted her towards the seating arrangement in what looked like the living room, with three arm chairs in the middle, a center table, and a small LED television mounted on the wall to the front.

"What would you like to have, madam?" He asked her with a faint smile.

"You know me well enough, Shera." She placidly settled down on one of the arm chairs with refined grace.

Chills ran down his spine in a matter of seconds. Scratching his bald head in discomfiture, he answered, "Yes, madam."

He then yelled out, "Dolly, bring two cups of hot ginger tea!"

"Yes, boss!" A voice from somewhere inside the shabby-looking place, home to all sorts of broken mechanical and digital devices, computers, and ancient cell phones, yelled back.

He then sat on the arm chair right opposite to hers.

"Yes madam?" He swallowed.

She passed on a faint smile.

Half an hour down the line, swallowing the last sip of the now-lukewarm and sweet concoction down her throat, she placed the cup back on the center table.

Getting up on her feet from the armchair, she clasped her hands behind her back while squaring her shoulders. "Alright, Shera, I shall take my leave now."

The man sitting on the stool right in front of her stood up almost immediately as well, his dropped shoulders—a sign of submission. "Yes, madam, let me escort you out."

"But," She provided him with just one word for a soft yet firm whisper.

Shera's ears quirked up again, in absolute attention. The feminine figure in pristine white khadi saree with gray borders standing before him was no joke after all. If she had made the move to personally visit him in his store without her guards sitting on his throat, that too at this hour, whatever they talked about must most definitely be something really crucial to her interests. Hinduja Rao was no shaggy-dog story, and most history-sheeters were aware of this. "Yes, madam ji?" He swiftly replied.

"Whatever was discussed today between me and you within these four walls shall remain within these four walls—not a word out. Unless and until the right time and right people knock at your door, yeah?" Taking a step forward, she faintly smiled.

And it was not a simple smile; he was well aware of this fact.

"Yes, madam ji." Nodding his head, he whipped off the sweat dripping down his forehead while escorting her towards the exit. 

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