Step 1: The need to do something
Amit wasn’t looking for anything, he was in fact, hoping to manage, JFA, Just Falling Asleep, something that had become harder and harder since 3 years ago. That night hadn’t been his fault, but he had been there, and watched helplessly as flames rose in the building, and he had that helpless feeling, watching the hungry orange and yellow tongues, with bursts of brilliant blue and green, climb up the sides of the building, while the top floors bellowed smoke, in deep angry coughs, first, and then in an endless stream, as the windows kept bursting. The Nikhil tower, like most buildings of its generation was virtually airtight, and it took an immense amount of air pressure to burst its windows, but somehow, it happened, with the smoke and flames, and as more windows shattered onto the streets below, the fire gained new strength, from the updraft.
It had been suffocated earlier, when the building was still sealed, but now, it was growing joyously devouring everything, melting steal, crumbling brick, shattering glass, and turning the tower into an impregnable fortress of fire and death. And He stood across the street, watching it burn, getting his own little preview of Narka (hell). The length of the building had already been charred on the outside, before the windows starting bursting. The bright Neon blue and yellow facade now looked a sick black, with red brick showing in places. And in places where the flames started to grow, the brick crumbled, falling in small clumps to the streets below, soon to be joined by shattered glass.
And he had been there, the whole time, watching the flames grasp their first faltering handholds on the 4th floor, still contained inside the building, inside one apartment; then he’d seen the people in the apartment wake up; and they screamed, he couldn't hear them scream, but he saw them, and he saw them panic. They ran out on the street, the youngest girl crying for Boski. Who was Boski? A Dog? Something was still moving in the apartment, frantically, trying to jump over something, and he could make out shadowy things falling over, or catching fire.
On the street, the father was holding his daughters tight, while their teen age son and his wife were holding hands, watching their home and lives go up in smoke. The father was doing some calculations in his head already, and the mother was saying a silent prayer, that the insurance come through. It usually never did, there always was something in the fine print you didn’t do, which was grounds enough to deny you your money... always!
And Amit, he was there, watching the fire start, and grow. Suddenly he saw the dog, come into view. It was scared, and cowed, with its tail between its legs, it was submitting, in its most humble mode to someone. But there was just the fire, unfeeling fire, that didn’t realise, it has mastered the dog, and now, it if it stopped, would have a useful servant in him, no the fire, just continued to grow, and started feeding on the curtains of the window... the flames grew around it, first in two tall columns, and then as the bracket caught fire too, he was boxed in. In desperation he put his paws against he glass of the windows, but they didn't yield, reality rarely does. Amit could make out his mouth, barking or yelping, confused. He wondered why the girls weren't doing anything, why he wasn't either, actually, he wondered, why he didn't feel anything, but that was only slightly, and strangely disquieting, after all, what was he supposed to do?
Ironically, it wasn’t the fire that killed the dog. The heat melted the plastic fittings of the curtain rod on one side, it fell, in a great scything arc, and the motor mechanism for drawing the curtains, caught the dog on the temple, and knocked him over, he never got up again. But you couldn't say for sure, if he’d died then, or later, from the smoke. To Amit, he’d died right then, and in being witness to his death, he’d felt strangely complicit, in the fire’s destruction, as though by virtue of being there, he shared the blame.
And it was this feeling of complicity that created in Amit the need to do something, though, of course, he wasn’t quite aware of his situation yet, in fact, he was more aware of the other effects of watching the fire and that was insomnia. Probably the disorder of the century, taking over from ADD, and representing the shift in cultural programming, from approaching problems with genius to simply throwing man power at them, sleepless nights equated effort, equated results, even if the results were negative, there always was the weekend, where a team could work 48 hours straight, or several teams for that matter. And so there were no more great inventors, just great corporations, that strived and strived to assemble the perfect team to create new devices and ideas... and there was no intrinsic worth of a mind, or brilliance, all that mattered was how many times you were willing to throw yourself at a problem... And if you wouldn’t adapt to this brute force approach, there was no place for you, if you wanted to sit back and think about the problem, you weren’t fit to fix it. There was no more genius, you just worked, and worked it out. Human beings, had first created, and then adopted, and now were in the process of perfecting the process of running a program. And just like those machines that first responded to the ‘run’ command, human beings were losing taste for sleep.
And Amit, had completely. He was on prescription ‘knock outs,’ as they were called, immediate sleep drugs. He sold half of which on the black market, to dealers, in exchange for the little pleasures he couldn’t otherwise afford, things like real coffee and cheese. He was married, but preferred to live alone. He’d go and meet his family every week end, but during the week, seeing them would have completely distracted him from his work. And he couldn’t risk that. His wife, however, thought it was because he had a mistress, which wasn’t unusual, but it would be embarrassing to find out.
And she had the security cameras set up in his house, the one he used over the week. She had told him, it was so that she could watch over him, and the house, while he was working his crazy hours, but he always knew, it was more about watching him, than the house. Till now, though she’d seen no sign of an affair. That’s not to say, Amit was completely celibate. He did his duty to his wife, and kept her satisfied, sometimes fucking her for hours on the weekend. She’d always tell him she expected this, by sending the kids to her parents’ house, so they could be alone.
So he’d come home, she’d say hello, touch his feet, and unzip his pants, and start forcing his tired body erect, and then she’d lift her saree, spread her legs, and they would start. Over the next 12 hours they’d come to be completely naked, lying in some part of the house, and he’d be completely spent, and she satisfied... slowly, after half an hour or something, he’d leave her side, and go watch TV. It was much more comforting. She would wake up much later, and carry on about her work, until bed time. He couldn’t say no, because, then that would lead to a fight and accusations of infidelity, which were quelled only, under the sheets... so he just did it when she wanted him to. Sometimes, he wondered, whether she had a mistress, or whatever the equivalent was, after all, it took a lot to quench her.
However, he never asked. He did occasionally have sex he enjoyed, all across town, in various hotels, under various aliases, he’d check in and call up a hooker, and she’d come over. He always took the hour rate, never the whole night. He’d return home, an hour or so later, haggard, and his wife assumed it was because of work, or he thought she did. She never stopped looking for his mistress, though, she never stopped to think, how it mattered. She wouldn’t want him to come and live with her; it would spoil things with Mark. Not that they were having sex, and she probably wouldn’t until, she caught her husband cheating, but it was fun to make him stare at her cleavage, or her erect nipples when she walked around without a bra. Since her husband was never home, she could always call him over to help around the house, and he was single. And she’d enjoy watching him try to conceal his erections, or try to get a look up her skirt, when she bent over. She didn’t want that to end.
Step 2: Find Something
However, on the night of our story, it seemed to Amit, it might end. Because, he found something, lying in the back seat of his car, when he came down from his apartment at 9 that night, he found a woman.
A woman in the back of his car, parked outside his apartment, with a cctv camera panning over her every minute, was just asking for trouble, his wife might spot her, if she hadn’t already, and then that would be it. He’d either have to go and live with her, or she’d divorce him, and marry Mark, not that he had a problem with Mark, or her sleeping with him, which she must, he thought, he just wished, he didn’t have to deal with any of it. So he decided to get her out of his car, but first, out of his drive way.
Step 3: It should be Important.
As he stood there, debating what the best way to get her away was, a large part of the town was being mobilised to get her back.
He could tell, she obviously wasn’t from the neighbourhood. You could see her belly button, which no respectable girl would show, and she had coloured panties, something which was socially completely taboo. This really didn’t look good, the only people within the city who dressed like that were the sharifs, and how one of them found their way all the over on this side of town, in his car, obviously he couldn’t explain, but it smelt funny.
The Sharifs or respectable ones were what the underlevel was called. They were a mix up of people, from what had once been the higher, greyer levels of the underworld. They had been flushed out of the city in one big drag net of police activity, and finally were forced to set up bastis in the out skirts of town, running similar, but less profitable enterprises, while the real underworld continued to flourish in its nexus with politics. They were called the sharifs because of a sher composed by one of the many poets that frequented their circles in search of inspiration,
Shairifo ko sharafat se beghar, karte hai
Gundo ka kya kare? unse darte hai!
So the sharifs were a grey area, of people, position and market. No one knew if what they said was true, or what was false, they gave their word easily, guaranteeing quality, durability, flexibility, experience, or its lack, even assuring stability, but no one really knew when to depend on them, and when not to. But, there are somethings that didn’t change, and those are the same in the black, white or grey areas of our lives, things like love, perhaps, but definitely family.
When a father loses his daughter, there are few things more devastating. Ashraf had indeed lost his daughter. He was a shekh, a headman of sorts to the sharifs, a leader perhaps, or a gang boss. His prestige was equated with the prestige of his kabila, and with the prestige of the Sharifs, and now someone had run off with his daughter, whether against, or with her consent was immaterial, the stain on his name would be the same, no matter what. But she had to be brought home, and the sooner, the less damage would be done. Also, she might be in danger.
Ashraf, wasn’t exactly, what you would call a gangster, ruling more out of consent of his people, than his own will. He patronised some people, who in turn recognised his position, and they would defend him, in order to defend their patronage. He could, through these clients of his, coerce others to join his crew, thereby expanding his influence, but ultimately, his influence depended on people accepting it, he had no way of enforcing it, basically, he was a man without teeth to his bite, but in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, and he did have pretty strong jaws, so...
However, he did have the ability to mobilise support of some kind, and so created a series of search parties. Sent out with frantic instructions to bring back his daughter etc. Etc. He couldn’t really do more. But he did ultimately, he offered a price for the head of whoever had taken the daughter away, and also took out his old revolver, and loaded it, and put it on his belt.
Ashraf, now, wearing a safari suit, in which you could see the top of his belly, and a few stray strands of hair, sat, with his bulging stomach on the steps of his house. His waist was so tight; it was forcing his paunch out, almost like a push up bra would. And the bulge his revolver was making in the side, looked more like a lethal tumour, than a lethal weapon. He would rub his left hand with its 3 cheep, gold plated, brass rings, mounted with a turquoise, moon stone and red glass, he thought was a ruby, across his hairless pate, and down the side of his temples, where he still had some hair left... it was all every theatrical, and ironic.
However, the key to his problems, his daughter, as you may have guessed, was in fact lying in the back seat of Amit’s Car... and Amit had no idea, that half of the sharifs were out looking for her, and they were taking full advantage of this rare opportunity to act like the mafia they always wanted to be. So there were jeeps, and jeep loads of young men, holding hockey sticks, driving recklessly down empty streets, and screaming at every other old man they passed, thankfully they weren’t many old people about.
Had Amit known this, he may have acted with more prudence.
Step 4: Make a Stupid Decision
This is where step one comes in, if you go back and read it carefully, you’ll realise that it automatically leads to Amit, having a) a need to do something, which translates on his b) finding something which is c)important, into d)an opportunity to make a stupid decision.
Amit, ran back upstairs, and got his car keys, and then, waited for the sweep of the camera to take its eyes away from the car, and he jumped into his car, and started it up, and with a squeal of tires, he would never again achieve, despite trying desperately, he pulled out into the open street. Now that he was away from home, and the empty, post midnight road presented him with no immediate point of speculation; he turned to the conundrum on the back seat.
She was still there lying in the back seat of his car. She wasn’t wearing much, a halter neck top, and a pair of jeans, but the top was awry, and her bra was showing through it. The belt on her jeans was undone, and she seemed unconscious. He had no clue who she was, or how she got there, but one thing was clear, she couldn’t stay there. Now had she been any ordinary girl, he might have tried to wake her up, and talk to her, this thought obviously didn’t strike him. Instead, he felt it was unto him to get her to safety. He knew she was a sharif, and he knew, where he could find them, so he decided to go across town, to their basti. Then of course, he started thinking about the complication involved in having a grey, or semi legal girl in his back seat. He could be stopped by cops, or seen by anyone, and it would like she was a prostitute. Or even judging from the state her clothes were in, that she had been raped, or at least fiddled with, neither of which would reflect very well with the sharifs, or the police. How would he explain her being in his car? And more importantly, his being in the car with her. He couldn’t feign ignorance when he was still driving, had he been up in his apartment, it would seem more plausible if he said he didn’t know what she was doing in the car, and how she got there, or why his car was halfway across town, but since he was in the car, he’d actually be expected to know answers to at least 3 of those questions, and he knew none.
So began another debate, as he waited for one the 24x7 automated traffic lights which regulated the empty streets of his life, to change to green. He sat there, looking out over his bonnet, which was bathed in red light, and straight down to the white lines on the road, and then further ahead, to where they turned yellow in the light of the lamps, and finally disappeared, and the road was marked only by pin points of light from the street lights. He looked at the dark and sombre buildings around him. Where houses were darkened over, and from a window here or there, some light leaked, or shadow moved across a curtain, he wondered what was happening in those rooms, so late at night. Which made him think about sex, which made him think about his wife, and Mark.
Naturally, this wasn’t the most healthy chain of thought, but because of it, his earlier arguments were surmounted by his sudden need to be a man, and so he did d)make a stupid a decision, and decided he would find this girls family, and return her...
5: Easier said than done
While most people would have settled for calling the police, or dumping the girl around the curb, preferably in some one else’s car, which is probably how she got to be in his car, Amit, decided to do something, the right thing, in his estimation, without really thinking, where it left him. So he set out even more emboldened, if it was possible, to find the sharifs, and not just any sharifs, but the ones who she belonged to.
The roads were empty, and there was really nothing for him to do in his car, except look straight out, it was one of those boring monotonies when even something bad, like rainfall would have been welcomed. Of course nothing happened. So he looked in his mirror at the girl in the back seat, and started having this mini fantasy of touching her, and groping her, and her waking up to the sensation of his hands on her bare body… ‘hmmmm….,’ he moaned to himself, as the image of her arching her back, as he messaged her breasts became more and more vivid in his mind. Finally, he decided to look again, he checked in the mirror, and she was still there, exactly as she had been earlier. The bumps in the road had completely failed to dislodge her, and her arm was still stretched upwards, pressed against the roof of his car, almost as though it were dislocated from his shoulder.
No on, he was sure could have maintained that position for so long, without being dead, or damn near it. Maybe, she was dead? He turned his head back, and was pretending to look for distinctive marks, while he stared unabashedly at her body. She was hot. And maybe dead? That would make cold/hot. ??? Okay, he decided he needed to know if she was dead really, so he slowed down his car, and reached over his seat to touch her. Just then, a glare of light bathed the car, as an oncoming truck caught it in its high beam head lights. Amit blinked out the light, and could barely make out its source, beyond it being two really bright points. And he screamed, when the horn blared, bearing down on him. Too late he realized that his car was driving down the centre of the road, across the divider.
When he heard the sound, increasing in shrillness as it approached, he spun around, and turned the car away from danger, with another silver screen worthy screech, and skid he wished he could be proud of. The car careened towards the curb, and he desperately through his weight in the other direction, taking the steering wheel with him, and the car turned once more, taking him back towards the centre of the road, and the blaring horn, and the oncoming lights, and impending collisions, once more he swung the car the other way, but less than earlier, and it didn’t skid, but he had to swing it back again, this swerving action earned him a few abuses from the truck driver, and a derisory ‘kids these days’ as he watched the careening car in his rear view.
Amit for his part decided that the woman in his back seat was jinxed and the sooner he was rid of her better.
With renewed purpose, he applied himself to getting to the sharif basti. 5 minutes later, he was reliving the experience with the truck, in his head, with the same nostalgia veterans reserve for engagements in which they won badges and lost comrades. There wasn’t an analogy here. He just drove on, ultimately following the dreary pattern of white stripes alternating with nothing, down the middle of the road. Thinking very empty thoughts, as he thought was appropriate after a near death experience. And he drove on…
Finally, he was nearing the outskirts of town, traffic lights stopped working, and then disappeared, and the road became uneven. Even the white lines down the middle went. Away, leaving just an unadorned grey, the buildings tuned shabby, missing first paint, then outer plaster, showing brick facades, then doors and windows, and even door frames ultimately.
Now of course it struck Amit, he was in sharif territory, with a message of peace, but, well they didn’t know that. He was carting around a potentially dead member of possibly this kabila, and well? What did he think? This was all horribly wrong. It was stupid. He couldn’t go through with this! He’d be killed; they’d think it was him who did whatever had been done to her. No no no… why ever did he come here?
To return her to her family, he told himself, and that was the right thing to do, they’d not hurt him if he did that would they? No, of course not. But where was her family? What if he found someone who wasn’t her family? No they’re all family here; he told himself, quoting a recent newspaper feature about the kabila system that effectively knitted all the sharifs into one group.
Well, in that case, if he just found anybody out here, he’d be giving her back to her family, right? It sounded about right to him. He’d already slowed the car down, looking for people on the street, (there weren’t any) and in the silence, the sound of a dog barking in the distance only seemed to be arguing in favor of his logic. In fact, it caused him to ponder further that, in fact, if he put her into any of the houses, would be tantamount to putting her back in her home.
So he decided to do just that, and to prevent having to break into a house, he decided to leave in one, without doors.
Having decided on this course of action, he acted upon it, and then left.
The girl was duly found by someone, and perhaps even returned to her father, I don’t really know. But what is interesting is
6: Believing you did something great.
This is what truly makes people into heroes, and Amit too. As he drove back home, he felt truly accomplished, he’d taken a girl, from his house back to her own, and returned her to her family, he particularly emphasized this point to himself. He had in fact left her in the door way of her home. This made him feel rather proud, it was no mean feat to have accomplished, and to go into the territory of the Sharifs was one thing, but to actually find her house in there.
And news reports of the hooliganism during the search only doubled his daring, which like most things was retrospective. Armed with this new bravery, he did a lot in his life, he divorced his wife.
She was a little shaken by that, and even went through withdrawal, calling him up once, twice in the same day, which was more than she did in a month, asking him what happened, and why, and all those weird things. But that week end, when the divorce papers came home, instead of him, she signed them, quietly, confidently, and invited Mark over for an after party… she didn’t tell him it was that, she told him she needed help going through this difficult time.
They started sleeping together, and Amit therefore justified his divorce, she was cheating on him, retrospectively. The 'It was a just a matter of time,' argument. And he had left her, so he was obviously the one coming out on top, just as heroes do. Which is what he was, obviously!
And that’s it, that’s how you become a hero! (in less than 5 steps too)
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