Hemant R. Joshi's Blog, page 14

Not just another fight

The stakes were very high. It was going to be the grandest game of the year considering the intensity with which this tournament was coming to an end. Everyone in the class had arrived early this morning, to look at the two competing teams practice separately and redefine the tournament’s new standards.

The previous tournaments had been good as well, but the bar had already been raised with this year’s participants. The rigorous preparation, the meticulous strategies, the scrupulous plans and the hours spent determining the right equipment were all coming to a culmination with the competition down to two teams. It was only after a hefty competition that the teams had even managed to reach this stage.

As the students came back from the daily prayers in the school ground, the day of determining the champion began.

The organizer of the fight – Mangesh, had a paper in his hand that detailed the timetable of the 8th class for the day. A period of Science, followed by one of Maths, then of English and finally Social Science had to pass before Mangesh could even think of commencing the match. For it was only after the Social Science period that Mangesh knew the teacher would give a free period.

Free periods in school meant the students were allowed to work on their homework, but they were expected to maintain silence if the teacher went away from the class. Of course, the students had to agree to the demands. Usually, the teachers sat in the class doing their personal work, but this particular teacher that Mangesh was targeting never came to class during free periods. Thus, he was willing to pick the risk, despite being aware of the noise and the excitement that would spread in the air during this time.

As the first period began in the morning, the teams – Team Rockers and Team PentaBoys had already taken the last two rows of benches in the class. The teachers noticed this, and a few even complained, but with enough pleading, the teams were able to find their way and continue.

Their notebooks were out on the desks, but hardly did they pay any attention to what was being taught. The teachers always focused on the students in the front seats, so they didn’t bother any of the contestants. As the periods went by, the teams were already busy with taking a rigorous look at their equipment, making sure that they were at their mental best, exercising their right hand and left hand fingers to their best abilities and grazing their hands on the desk surfaces to assess the quality of surfaces.

Team Rockers had a reputation of being extremely offensive when it came to the games. In the six knockout rounds they had won before this, they had actually gone on to make their opponents cry for even a few points. Most of their matches had ended within minutes, which went on to make them the more confident contenders for the final match.

Team PentaBoys, on the other hand, had developed a different kind of reputation. They had barely managed to win the first round, considering the fact that their match went on for more than 20 minutes. In the second, third and fourth round they played extremely defensively. Their opponents were attacking them for the most part of the game and they played a catch-up game, but managed to win towards the end somehow. In the fifth and sixth rounds, they had still defended, but managed to defend their position confidently, letting the opponents commit their mistakes. All this had led them to a lot of bad publicity among the crowd, who deemed them as lucky winners.

As the Social Science period ended, it was finally time for both the teams to prove their mettle.

“Okay, everyone in the class, please be prepared,” Mangesh announced, as he latched the classroom door from inside. The periods lasted 35 minutes, so he had to hurry to ensure that the results were out towards the end of the grueling game.

As everyone gathered around the two desks in the last row, Mangesh rushed through the crowd, twisting his way through the narrow space between the wooden desks.

“On my left we have Team Rockers, and on my right we have team PentaBoys. Both the teams have played to the best of their abilities to reach here, and it is now time to decide this year’s champion. I won’t take much time, but just tell you the rules to be clear.” He paused, looking at each player’s face once. “You have to knock down your opponent without letting any of your equipment fall down. There’ll be 5 rounds, each round having one face-to-face match between two opponents. Every team member has to go in at least one round, so 5 team members for 5 rounds.” He looked around towards the crowd, corroborating that everyone understood the rules.

When the two teams agreed to the rules, Mangesh took a look at his wrist watch-30 minutes to go before the period ended. He was particularly about time because there was no time limit to a round. In the knock-offs, the team matches had lasted almost 20 minutes at times.

One player from Team Rockers and one from Team PentaBoys took their place on the bench which had a capacity of 2. At once, the stationery pouches of both of them were out, and two pens swiftly came out of them. Once the referee, Mangesh, inspected the pens, the match was about to start.

Pen Fight- a game which had reached echelons of every school in the city, was taken to the next level by Mangesh and his team. A game which was played by almost everyone in schools because of its simplicity, this school had taken it a level further. With immaculate planning and a long-lasting structure for the game, Mangesh was confident of the game’s popularity only going upwards.

The first round began. As the player from Team Rockers lodged his pen with a starting move, the player from Team PentaBoys counter attacked with a stronger force, making sure the pens thrusted each other towards the centre of the table. While Team Rockers had an offensive, heavy pen, the other team chose a lighter pen which had a firm grip. This kind of a pen allowed for a firm hit and ensured the pen didn’t slip off the table unless it was hit very hard.

The crowd was excited and chanted the teams’ names time and again to encourage them. The referee allowed the team members their time to decide on the angles at which the pens should hit each other, else they would fall. As such, the team members were taking their time to find the exact spot where the pens would hit each other.

With the flick of their fingers, the opponents continued hitting each other hard. It was only after 20 shots from the two sides that the Team Rockers’ pen was on the top-left corner of the rectangular bench. But now, the problem was that the PentaBoys’ pen would risk falling off if the speed with which it hit the other pen was high.

But unlike their reputation, however, the PentaBoys member decided to attack rather than letting go off the opportunity. With a flick, his pen rotated around itself while moving towards the other pen. Its writing end the middle of the opponent’s pen. As a result, the grip held on the bench, silently looking at the opponent’s pen fall off the table. PentaBoys had won the first round.

Score: 1-0

The lead was exciting, but the player from the PentaBoys that went second had lost all his rounds till date in the tournament. The efforts from others had offset his performance. Now was the time to step up for the team. This time, he chose the lightest and the quickest pen of all the pens that were in the pouch, while his opponent chose a heavier pen with an excellent grip. As a result, there was a high chance that the PentaBoys’ pen would fall off if it was hit on its thin abdomen even one time.

The PentaBoys’ pen, however, had a powerful hand flicking it, which empowered it to go and hit the heavier opponent’s non-writing edge and it slid away from the desk because of the impact. The way they had played the first two rounds were starkly in contrast with their reputation of playing a catch-up game. They were hitting their opponents hard right away.

Score: 2-0

This was the best opportunity that PentaBoys had to finish the game. The crowd had cheered against them throughout the tournament, but because of their superb performance in the last two rounds, some of them had already started swinging over. The tournament’s end was in sight. Added to this, their captain, the best defensive player in the class had come to the bench now to try and finish the game right away.

As Mangesh clicked his whistle, the crowd went into a complete silence from just a moment ago when the school’s corridors were filled with voices of the boys and girls of Class 8th. Mangesh’s efforts to calm down the crowd had been put to waste earlier in the tournament, so he no longer bothered to even try. As a result, the crowd was much livelier and louder.

The third round began. The Rockers, who had decided to leave their best to the last, decided to go all in. Their best attacker was on the bench facing the PentaBoys’ defensive captain.

With only the first stroke of the Rockers’ mid-weight pen, the PentaBoys’ pen was out on the lower-right corner of the table, a sweet spot for winning. The next hit could take away at least this point from the PentaBoys’, in case their pen remained in the area.

But the captain tactically brought his pen back into the centre with his next move, not allowing the Rockers to take the point so easily. The rockers continued with their attacking strategy, as they decided to go once again with all the thrust they could provide to their pen. The pen almost flew off from the table as it hit the other one, but somehow held its grip. The opponent’s pen was again in the corner, but the captain was adept at bringing his pen out of risky situations. This time, he flicked his pen back towards the upper end of the center.

Most of the crowd was constantly rooting for the aggressive game that they were seeing from the Team Rockers. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time that the Team Rockers would win the point. And looking at their next two contestants, the team was still in solid shape to win the match despite the loss of two points earlier in the game.

Someone had already unlatched the door, and more people were pouring into the class, but the excitement didn’t subside. This was the kids’ first experience of playing in front of the crowd, a crowd which was much closer and much more intense than some of the cricket games they had seen on television.

It was only after thirty shots that the Rockers had brought the PentaBoys’ pen on the lowermost left corner and were looking to kill the opponent in the next move. In fact, the captain of PentaBoys’ faltered as he tried to get his pen back to the centre, as he put a lot of torque on the pen which rotated in place but didn’t displace any far. As a result, it was still on the lower-left side of the table, and people knew this was it.

As the Rockers’ pen, which was right in the center of the table thrusted forward because of the powerful flick, it managed to reach the PentaBoys’ pen within a split of a second. Its writing side hit the non-writing side of the other pen which moved the pen towards the right side of the table along the longer edge. But because of the immense power put into the shot, the Rockers’ pen continued on its journey and flew from the table, while the PentaBoys’ pen actually moved towards the right side of the table.

PentaBoys had won, and how? The crowd, apart from the five people supporting PentaBoys went silent, but later a few more started cheering for the winners. It was a historic feat that the team had achieved, one that would be remembered by everyone for the rest of their lives! The defensive team had its best attacking strategy put to work in the final game, right when it was needed. As the livid crowd realized the importance of the win, more and more started cheering for the winners. In fact, when Mangesh tried to announce the winners, his voice couldn’t even reach 10 people, so he decided to cut the formality short.

But amidst the commotion, a wooden stick smacked hard on the table which was the battleground. This was the exact slick sound that no student in the class liked to hear, especially when they were in the middle of a celebration.

“To my office, all of you! Mangesh, you as well!” the class teacher summoned the red-faced jubilant boys. She had waited for the end of the match just by the crowd, making sure no one noticed her waiting patiently. While she was happy from the inside to see the kids celebrate joyously at one of the smaller pleasures of life, she also wanted to discipline them at the right time.

She was, after all, answerable to the higher management at school.

The only constant

Around 3.30 am near the Santacruz railway station, amidst the faint sounds of a few auto rickshaws carrying late-night passengers or finishing up their final journeys for the day, a pale coloured truck arrived. The brightness of the lights was enough to blind the person with a tire-shaped belly and a look condescending enough to put to shame any of his workers.

‘Shantibhai,’ as he was called around in the area, began his day. The truck was delayed today considering a delay in getting the consignment at the source. The freshly printed newspapers that the truck brought were still warm enough to Shantibhai’s hands, affirming that the newspapers were perfect for delivery in a few hours’ time. Shantibhai had a responsibility on his shoulders – he had to satisfy the demands of his customers who wanted the newspapers delivered anywhere between 5.00 am to 9.00 am.

It was his twentieth year in the newspaper distribution business, having started by distributing newspapers for his uncle. It took his uncle about five years to be convinced that he could retire from the business and let Shantibhai take over.

And the young man had not disappointed either, having made sure that the business got his primary attention. In the initial years after his uncle’s retirement, the business had grown from serving fifty households to serving a majority of the Santacruz West housing societies, with many people trusting his network of newspaper-boys to deliver the newspapers on time. The business didn’t need ’30-minute delivery guarantee or free’ type deals, as the boys made sure that the newspapers were delivered on time every day.

Apart from delivery to houses, Shantibhai had also bought two stalls at the Santacruz railway station which held newspapers and magazines from all the famous publishers across the city. In the last few years, he had also started to look at opening an academic bookstore; and had started asking lenders for capital. The bookstore business would help him make profits much higher than what he made currently, considering the number of schools in the vicinity.

He turned his eyes to the three delivery boys who had arrived half asleep and were waiting for the truck in the godown. The boys were quick in climbing into the trunk of the truck and began picking out the piles of newspapers waiting to reach the several houses they had to reach. The piles lay in the front half of the truck, as Shantibhai looked at them with a concern. The boys continued with their work, as Shantibhai had a chat with the truck-driver, seeking an explanation for the delayed delivery of the newspapers.

It took almost fifteen minutes for the newspaper bundles to be brought into the godown when Shantibhai nodded the driver to leave. As the sound of the truck’s engine faded away, the owner of the business had clear instructions to the three boys aged between 13 and 18.

“Aaj 30 ghar kam hain,” he announced; and handed a list to one of them. The list contained the houses where newspapers were not to go today. The boys prepared for their deliveries, as they were delayed already.

The sorting of newspapers according to the houses had to be immaculate; the work had to be reduced to just throwing newspapers on the doors of the houses when they went out for deliveries. Many houses got more than one newspapers, in more than one language, so it was to be made sure that the newspapers were aligned together to make sure that all the houses got newspapers of the languages asked for. After all, all the ‘sahabs’ and ‘madams’ were particular of the newspapers they read while sipping their morning teas. A single complaint to Shantibhai would mean making a trip to that house with the correct newspaper in case a wrong newspaper was distributed.

The boys had been trained for high accuracy, and the number of complaints Shantibhai got was about 1-2 per month on an average. A pretty high accuracy for a high-volume, completely human-handled business. Still, the workload was high, as two of their peer had not come for the last three days,  resulting in more workload on these three. But the boys had not dared to complain in front of their shrewd seth-ji who ignored their complaints heedlessly.

Per their training, the boys finished sorting the newspapers according to the housing societies within the next thirty-five minutes. One of them, who was the oldest among the three, took the lead and announced to the boss that they were ready to leave. The boss handed over a few receipts to two of them and explained where they had to reach. He maintained a complete nonchalance as he saw the boys leave for the day’s delivery.

His desk hosted a few papers and a desk phone he had. He came to the desk and picked up a flyer and cello-tape lying and turned back towards the entrance. On the wall by the godown entrance that faced the market, Shantibhai was quick in pasting the flyer using a minimal length of cello-tape. In big letters, it read ‘WANTED delivery boys’ written in English, Hindi and Marathi.

He came back to his desk with a suddenly different-looking fretful face. From a staff of 11 delivery boys just a month ago, the number had dwindled to just 4 now. The fourth one would be here in the afternoon and would go to deliver the mid-day editions preferred by some readers. Shantibhai sat worried, wondering of ways to incentivize the boys to stay. As he was doing this, this morning’s truck’s trunk flashed in front of his eyes. The trunk was less than half full, he clearly remembered. It took his helpless brain no time to go back to the memories when the number of newspapers was high; when the truck used to arrive with its trunk completely full and the driver was always in high spirits; when the sleeping households were eager to get their daily dose of news delivered to their doors.

The deliveries were smaller now and as a result, he didn’t make enough to keep the adequate number of boys employed because of the costs. From the 650 houses and the 120 offices he delivered to earlier, he was now just delivering to about 300 houses and 30 offices. Of course, doing away with newspapers was a way of ‘saving paper’ for the offices.

According to his estimate, he would need at least six boys to fulfill all the deliveries in an organized manner. But he had only four at his disposal, who were handling the load among themselves. He was sure that the number of complaints would rise sooner or later. The boys didn’t utter a word, but he knew that they were already searching for other jobs and would leave as soon as they got better-paying jobs. Even vada pav stalls by the streets would pay more than what he did, which meant they would leave.

At the same time, it was not that the other business was doing great. Newspaper stalls at the railway stations required high costs to be paid to the Railways, which were hardly recovered in the recent months, considering the increase in the mobile apps which delivered news right at the touch of a few buttons. The ‘tailored-for-you’ news that these were delivering was far better than the ‘one-paper-all-news’ delivered by Shantibhai’s papers.

The mobile generation preferred to get everything on their phones, and software developers had made sure that everything was available at a few touches’ distance. As a result, the number of newspaper readers on the local trains had reduced drastically, as more and more people chose to stare at their phone screens, not allowing anyone else to peep into what they were reading.

The book stall now looked like a distant dream. He turned to his calculator to check how much cash flow was expected this month. Devoid of fancy charts, his analysis was calculated with a simple calculator, a pen in his right hand and a notebook in front of him. Rs 13,000 lump sum- the income he would be left with once he was done taking care of all the costs. He would never get to accumulate the initial operational costs for the bookstore if this continued, even after getting a loan. He continued exploiting his brain’s capabilities, thinking of ways to keep the business intact. Within a few minutes, he was assured that investing in a bookstore was a smaller priority, saving the business was more important.

The boys returned to the bookstore at around 9.40 am, having completed all the deliveries as expected. Shantibhai checked with everyone to see if there were any delays or complaints from the customers reported to them. The boys, oddly, mentioned that there were none. But Shantibhai knew very well that another day with no complaints didn’t mean that all was well.

“Seth-ji,” the senior-most boy uttered, disturbing Shantibhai’s thoughts. “Main kal se kaam pe nahi aaunga,” he was quick in uttering the words. Shantibhai didn’t bother to listen to the explanation the boy gave to him. The other two boys looked happily at the senior-most, as if he was freed from a jail after a couple of years of work. Shantibhai realized this without waiting for long but didn’t speak a word.

Once the boys had left, he summoned the two newspaper-stall managers who managed his stalls. The two were prompt in coming to the store. But before talking to them, Shantibhai went for a stroll along the street, assuring the men that he would be back within ten minutes.

As he walked by the street, he was making decisions about what to do. If he gave away one of the stalls for a price, he would be saving roughly Rs 10000 in costs, thus resulting in additional cash flows. If he gave away the lease of the other one as well, he would be saving double the amount. But acquiring a stall on a railway station was a rarity as the demand for these stalls was always high. There would be no coming back to these stalls if he went ahead with this thought.

At the same time, this was not solving the problem, which was that the business was dwindling. The number of customers was going down in any case. To increase customers, he would have to do diversify his business to another area. Which meant he would need more people to take care of his business.

For the first time in his career as a newspaper distributor was he facing a challenge of not knowing what to do.

He passed a school in the vicinity wondering when the books from his bookstore would serve this school. Next, there were several shops that had an assorted range of products and an even better range of customers available to shop. Several mobile phone shops had also bloomed in the area considering the huge demand and the ever-increasing number of products being pushed into the market. The number of people at the eateries he passed was ever-increasing and the number of garment sellers was also increasing. It was a good time to be selling anything except newspapers, Shantibhai was convinced.

“Shantibhai,” one of the customers proceeding towards his godown called. “Kal se paper band karwa dena, sirf raddi ke kaam aata hai, koi padhta toh hai nahin,” the stout lady urged. Shantibhai listened to her and offered her a cheaper deal with a few newspapers, but she was not interested. He finally had to oblige, but this time didn’t look dejected at all.

With a heavy heart, he returned to his godown, having lost another customer. The two managers were still there, staring at their mobile phones. Although Shantibhai was a bit more energetic in his gait as he came back, the two men didn’t feel any excitement blooming in the man.

Thinking about his decision made while on the return journey of the walk, he appeared in front of the two. “Koi dukaan band nahi karenge,” he began his authoritarian talk. He directed the two to reduce the stock of newspapers in the stalls to make way for school books and stationery that would aid the students in the schools nearby.

The distant dream was not so distant always, it was right there. He didn’t have to own a bookstore anywhere. The stalls on railway stations would serve the purpose. In fact, they would serve the purpose better than any bookstore. Kids who took the train would invariably come to his store for books related to their academics.

The two managers left after getting their explanations, thinking that the decision that their boss had announced stoically was a calculated business move he had been thinking for days.

However, he had no intentions of shutting down the newspaper distribution yet, as he wanted to keep satisfied the newspaper loyalists, the dadajis and dadijis who still had the newspaper crosswords as a part of their afternoon routine.

The businessman had just taken a stroll and adapted himself to the change he saw in his surroundings. The Darwinian theory based on which he had moulded himself was reflected very well in several soon-to-be-sold books in his book stalls.

 

Riding on an asymmetric wheel

It was a bright sunny day. The queue at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport’s taxi stand was big. Not the passenger queue, but the taxis. The scorching heat was enough for others to sweat, but the drivers of the hundred-odd kali-peelis that stood through the queue were unfazed. The sun to them was like an acquaintance on a social media website, one who constantly makes his presence felt, so much so that it stops bothering anymore.

One such driver, Sartaj, was busy with his phone, hitting the keys of his Nokia, which was almost five years old now. The phone was a loyalist too, who had stayed true to its Rs 2300 price tag. Five years for a phone? Really? The calculator of the phone still worked, and this was one app which he used frequently, apart from the phone’s innate features. The keys kept beeping, as he observed there were still five cabs ahead of his, refusing to move ahead. Unlike usual days, when he would not mind waiting for long, he was desperate today.

The other drivers were not in the mood for work today, and neither were the cabs. It was like a long-awaited holiday season. Everything had come to a halt, and as a result, the queue of taxis in the vast parking lots was huge. The passengers were advised by the booths at the airport about the ongoing taxi strike, that they should rather take the private taxis or arrange their own transport. None of the kali-peelis would drive today. The reason – surge pricing by the private taxi aggregators hurting the small taxi drivers. The union had just decided to go on a strike, hoping that this would force the government to make swift decisions against the online taxi aggregators.

And, as was expected, the effects of the strike on the customers were huge. The drivers looked rather happy to sit in small groups of four or five and have discussions surrounding the strike. One such driver, dressed in neatly ironed white clothes, had taken the role of a leader and was calling his fellows to take up the issue much more vigorously in the coming days. Of course, Sartaj was not one who would get politically involved in such matters, but many others were ready to blindly follow their supremo. As such, they were prepared to stay off the streets for the weeks to come, if required.

Once he was done fiddling with the keys of his phone, he twisted and turned the steering of the old Kali Peeli with all his brawn. Finally, after a few minutes’ worth of effort, the cab was driving forward, bypassing all the other cars in the queue on its left. And he was in luck. One of the several people who walked out of the terminal came straight towards him, realizing there was no other cab that would be willing to have its meter down. The rickety sound of the taxi’s windows and the faded yellow colour on its top and sides didn’t bother him. He just needed to get to his destination.

“Borivali?” he asked.

Sartaj didn’t speak anything but swiftly opened the rear door, bending over the poorly managed velvet seat in the front. The passenger didn’t have much luggage, which helped Sartaj shift up the gear as soon as he was sitting in the rear seat. Unlike usual times, Sartaj almost jerked his leg off the clutch, thus thrusting the car forward with a higher force. The passenger in the rear seat couldn’t understand, but Sartaj certainly looked in hurry to get somewhere.

“What’s the matter? Kya hua bhai?” The passenger asked at once. Sartaj didn’t respond, choosing to just nod his head sideways. The car was soon put in the fourth gear, as it cruised past the beautiful driveway of the swanky Terminal-2 of the airport. There was practically no traffic on the streets. Without a taxi or a rickshaw, streets in Mumbai were much like a honeycomb without any honey. The honey had all been taken out, and there was no reason for the queen bee to be here anymore.

The passenger couldn’t stay silent, what with the sudden turns and the constant bumping of the car’s suspension. “Thoda dheere chalaenge?” he was quick in asking, as he felt his heartbeat rise through the palpitations felt in his chest. “O bhai, sun rahe ho?” he called out to Sartaj once again. The driver had ignored him for long, but it was time to slow down.

The speed dropped to a paltry 50 kmph, as the car reached the Western Express Highway. “Sahab, aaj wo strike hai na. Toh main raste pe aapko leke jaa nahi sakta.” He was quick in explaining.

“Jo bhi hai, thoda dheere chalo. Taxi kharaab ho jaaegi!” He uttered without waiting at all. “Waise, aap kyun chala rahe ho aaj? Aapko kyun hero banna hai?”

Sartaj, although scared of the union members, had chosen to drive the taxi. The calculator on his phone, using which he had been calculating his balance sheet every day, indicated that he just needed five thousand rupees more for his dream to come true. His own taxi. Not a decrepit Fiat, but a brand new Hyundai Santro, which would run swiftly on any kind of road. The taxi would be much more comfortable, allowing for newer seats and the suspensions would make for much smoother rides. A dream he had since he started driving a cab in the city five years ago.

“Khudki gaadi khareedni hai sahab. Paise jod rahe hain.” Sartaj was reminded of the constant taunts by his bank officials, who kept declining his loan requests stating the lack of guarantee against a loan.

“Hmm, kab khareed rahe ho?” The passenger was quick in asking. To the passenger, the five years of having such a dream and coming so close to achieve it was completely abstracted. Sartaj wanted to speak about all the things that he had faced while waiting for his dream to come true. He wanted to speak about why saving money was never enough. Family had been a good thing for life, but not for his dream. Time and again, when he had saved even five thousand rupees, the money went into buying a new saree for his wife or a new frock for his daughter. Thankfully, her school fees, her uniform and her mid-day meal were all paid by the government. It was a lovely family he had, but the duties of the family had made this dream wait for a long, long time.

But today, things had turned for him. It was almost time to buy the long-awaited possession. He would no more have to go to the car owner’s residence and tell him about the daily collections. No need to worry about delivering the car late by a few minutes. No need to listen to any of the owner’s numerous complaints.

He was already on the runway, and his bird was gaining velocity with every one of his new customers to leap into flight.

“Bas, ab kuch dinon mein khareed loonga,” he replied after a prolonged silence. Thoughts and emotions kept coming at him from all angles. The passenger indicated tacitly that he was happy for the taxi driver. Without speaking, he even thanked the brown-bearded taxi driver for driving him to his destination on a day when no one would help him.

He had a different chain of thoughts going on in his mind. A job interview waited for him at his destination. Coming from a small town, he had always been awed by the sound of Mumbai. Having visited the city only once in his lifetime, and that too for a small duration, he didn’t have an idea of how the buses or the trains in the city worked. Frankly, he was intimidated by the speed of the local trains and the numbers of the buses. A taxi or a rickshaw was a logical choice, and he didn’t mind spending extra money, as long as he reached in time for the interview.

The interview had been long awaited. He had finished his engineering almost seven months ago, but due to the lack of good grades, his job application was rejected even before it reached human eyes. This was the first one he had had, and for the last month, he had skimmed through all that he had read in the four years of engineering.

The taxi driver sped up after a few slowdowns, and looked good to reach Borivali within fifteen more minutes. “Touching distance,” he uttered to himself, running through his minds the series of calculations for ‘How much more do I have to earn to go get my own taxi?’ He would need around Rs 5000 more for having enough in his savings bank account. A cab without a loan on his head! Now that was a dream. There was no need to deal with cumbersome bank processes, cyclical bribing involvements or getting embroiled in the web of new bank schemes.

The car reached Goregaon, when the driver decided to ask the precise location, hoping it would be somewhere near the highway or at least easily accessible from the highway. Sartaj decided it was time to switch gears and turned the car to the fast lane. However, constant honking from an SUV behind his tail forced him back into the middle lane. He took on another flyover, which took the taxi across Goregaon within a minute.

“Where in Borivali?” he asked the passenger, who was swift in rolling over his phone which had the address. “Here.”

Thankfully, the address was right by the highway, saving the kaali-peeli from burning more fuel. Having not bothered to replace the engine oil, deciding to save the money for the new car, Sartaj had taken the cab to its limits.

He sped up the engine once again, hoping to reach the destination within ten more minutes. For a moment he looked up towards the sky and turned back to the road. But right at this moment, a stone pierced the left rear window, shattering the glass. Shocked, Sartaj turned his head around, to look at his passenger. Another stone hit the window soon, and it was this one that pierced the glass, whose splinters didn’t leave the passenger time to duck down. One of the hundreds of splinters managed to touch his eye, thus forcing him to touch his eyelids together, in an involuntary attempt to prevent himself from damage.

But, that was not to effect. Sartaj pressed hard enough on the brakes to bring the cab to a halt, but this turned out to be a mistake, as he discovered. A mob had already started walking towards his car, and didn’t hesitate in showing  off the ghastly hockey sticks in their hands. His fellow companions at other times, the taxi drivers were here to avenge Sartaj’s betrayal of the trust they put in him.

As he tried to step his leg back on the accelerator pedal, the windscreen was shattered, which was followed by several other blows on the car. The headlamps and the windshield were broken, the tires punctured, tens of dents made all around the car, the exhaust pipe bent in its place and the side windows were left all shattered. All this within a span of a minute.

Although the mob had no intention of physically hurting the two men, they had effectively managed to leave a mark on their lives. Sartaj’s numbness went away only when the passenger screamed through the roof, as the splinter in his eye managed to tear apart the eyeball and a multi-colored fluid seeped from the corner of his eye. A few good people in the mob realized what had happened, and were quick in carrying the passenger away in their arms towards a nearby hospital.

The mob cleared as two cops swung in towards the cab. Sartaj still sat in the car with no senses active. His brain was dead; dead after coming so close to reaching a mountain that he had been climbing for several years and falling from here right into the valley. The passenger, on the other hand, had acute pain in his eye even as he tried to shed tears. He was not even allowed to weep.

The wheels that they were riding on had circled back to touch the bottom once again.