“Sahukar, open the door, please are you listening?” Sheela cried worriedly.
“Mr. Sharma, are you alright, please respond, are you okay?” Chintan, the neighbour asked as he rapped at the door.
“I think we have to break open the door.” Mr. Patel suggested.
Sheela nodded worriedly. She prayed to God that nothing bad happened to him. The strongest neighbours in the group came forward.
“On the count of three, 1…2…3.”
They collided with the door at the same time. It did not give way.
“Let’s try, once again. 1…2…3.”
They struck at the door once more. It jittered under the impact.
“Kick it open.” Someone remarked from behind.
They began the process of kicking the door; at last it began to give way.
“Someone please hold the door from the top, we don’t want Mr. Sharma to get hurt.” Mr. Patel told the gathering. A sturdy rope was tied on the handle of the door on one side, and one of the youths held the rope firmly.
“Don’t kick to impact fully.” Sheela mumbled.
The two men nodded in affirmation. They gave a firm but less impulsive kick, and the door completely gave way. The youth held the rope tightly, and one of the neighbour held the other end of the door before it fell down. The door was large, so the vision was obstructed. They slowly and carefully whisked off the door.
Everyone gaped inside. Sheela shouted in terror.
***********************
“Where the hell am I?” Sahukar shouted.
“You are safe and sound, and that’s what we care about.” Some one grunted from his behind.
“Who are you and why the hell is my vision blacked out?”
“Everything in time, but first of all have some refreshment, we have a business deal to discuss.”
“Last time I remembered, I was reading newspaper in my toilet, and then….”
“… You were suddenly shoved down one level, and as a result we are bound to welcome you in Patala, the nether world.”
“What?”
“Patala is grossly misinterpreted. It is not so un-cool place to hang out. You are not dead; don’t consider that Patala is a place every criminal dies. Of course, Patala is a place where every criminal is reborn, then if you perform good deeds you get to be some sort of animal on earth, and then you ultimately take birth as human being, if you perform still greater tasks you get to be placed in that blasted Swarga.”
“So am I … Am I…”
“Didn’t I tell you buddy, Patala is not a place of dead, it is….”
“But…”
“Oh, I see it. You are not terribly interested in my philosophy. No, you are not dead, if you were, you would first have to face the Yamraj, lord of dead.”
“So why am I here?”
“Relax mate, enjoy every moment of your life. Didn’t a movie named ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ release quite a time ago.”
“I don’t find the situation worth relaxing.”
“Okay then, let’s cut the slack, we have a mission for you.”
*****************
The toilet was completely empty, with some un-flushed particulates sticking out. The door was closed from inside but the man in the toilet seemed to have vanished in thin air.
*****************
It was another of those rather boring mornings where nothing worth happening, happened. That mundane daily black and white news overflowed the newspapers with its usually overwhelming propensity. Nothing strange, nothing that so peculiar can be obtained from those raucous mouthed news reporter as they went through the usual gross ghost or portal to hell content. Vismay was tired yellow marking something which he thought was peculiar, but there was nothing so peculiar in that unpeculiar papyrus except the fact that he was overflowing the newspaper with the trinkets of Drake’s equation. Vishwam was too bored to show his boorish face in the vision of description.
They were bored because of the unavailability of activity which rest of the human kind found it in excess. Vishwam once again searched their site to see if there were indeed no distress calls on that electronic gibberish called internet.
Vishwam turned to look at his brother who chose the moment to dig his fingers into the moist nose in digging out the treasure within, applying stress on the solid snot and checking its yield point. Vishwam found it fascinating to have a first hand view of a modern homo sapien who was carrying out a tradition whose origin lay thousands of years ago with the frenzied primates.
Someone rapped the door. Vismay smiled instantly, sticking the snot under the table, he brushed his hand on his brown coat; he smiled and walked forward to open the door.
Out there stood the fat, old lady who happened to be landowner of the house.
“So Mrs. Patel, is it some lonesome human being who is looking for some unfound unsearched for answer?” Vismay asked sunnily.
“No.”
“So is there any unsolved grotesque murder that has no explanation that is humanely possible?” Vishwam ventured, as he came up with his elder brother at the door.
“No.”
“Some damsel in distress, who wants to tell something important to either of us?”
“No.”
“Some world ending prophecy heard by those excellent eared neighbours of yours?”
“No.”
“Something jaw dropping done by your cuddy little puppy?”
“No.”
“Then what is the problem that is ailing the world?” Vishwam asked angrily.
“That two healthy young guys in the prime of their lives tend to find it difficult to hold a decent job and pay their landowners on time!”
“Oh.” Vismay remarked.
“Oh.” Vishwam remarked.
Vismay closed the door on her face, and went inside the room.
Vishwam could already be seen pacing down the hall. He looked up at his elder brother.
“We have to do something to pay that squat fat lady.”
“Yah.”
“But what?”
“You remember that case when the otipusss robbed the bank by becoming liquid jellies so that they could easily pass through the bank doors and no one was able to solve the case, and it was we who pointed to them the hand of aliens in robbing the bank.”
“Yah. Everyone laughed at our faces, when we told them, so?”
“Hell, we are not that flexible as otipusss to transform our body into liquid phases.” Vismay ejaculated angrily in air.
Tring. Tring.
“It’s the phone, its ringing.” They both cried happily.
Vismay rushed forward, placed it on speaker mode, and said in an anticipatory manner.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Pray sir who are you calling?”
“Is this ALIEN Corp. run by Vismay and Vishwam Harani, having a tag line-
We help you fight your aliens within and without?”
“Yes.” Vishwam cried happily.
“We will have to meet fellas.”
“Where and when?”
“In the nearest McDonald’s and what about now?”
“No problem. How do we know that its you?”
“It would be somewhat easy to find me as you guys happen to be astute alien watchers.”
“You are an alien, sir?”
“By Jove, yes.”
“Are you planning invasion of earth?”
“No, kiddo. No such high bang thing.”
“So what are you planning?”
“We will talk about that over a Mac aloo tikki, my treat.”
“Sure, sir. We have no inhibition talking with the other side.”
“Okay then, see you fellas.”
“By the way sir, by what name are you called?”
“Narad.”
“Narad what?”
“Narad muni, son. Narad muni.”
Alienman 