There he was, doing it again. Brash, pompous, with little or no acting skills, this young muscular henchman of a hero was once again straining his larynx to its loudest to get the message across and the heroine (clad in a skimpy costume) drooled over his each dialogue, though they have been used in at least a million movies.

Saptarishi yawned. He must find out other cheaper alternative sources of entertainment than wasting his time watching badly dubbed movies like this one ‘Sinbad and the Mummy’- that also in a theatre like Rajshri. Inspite of this being a Sunday, the theatre was mostly empty. The guys who did throng this theatre were mostly loners, like him. Divorcees, mentally disturbed, men who were frustrated and looking for soft porn, cash-strapped college students and otherly disturbed (well, that was a newly developed category that included mostly himself).

That’s a Minotaur, asshole!! Why the hell is it taking you so much time to figure it out, Big Brains?

He laughed. He like, totally believed that a motley bunch of super crackpots had made this movie. Neither did the Minotaur look hideous- those guys did a shit job at animation. This one looked straight out of ‘Jaani Dushman’- the movie in which a freak went on killing frenzy getting rid of all the brides on the night of their wedding (the directors went ahead and made a three and half hour long, boring and treacherous movie).

But then when he realized, his gut chilled below absolute zero. It was the ‘Other Worldly Voice’ speaking inside his mind.

Not again!!!

Color drained out of his face. This has of course happened before and indeed with drastic results. He clenched his fist.

I am not insane. He pleaded with his own subconscious.

The movie was reaching its climax- a massive horn penetrated the chest of the protagonist’s friend- the prospects, of the movie ending in a super bloody ogre were promising. But he lost his appetite. His condition was getting worse. Not even the hardly dressed heroine grabbed his eyeballs. He walked out of the theatre, cold sweat breaking down his forehead.

His hands had started to shake. He kept repeating to himself that he was not mad.

Shit, not here!! Of all the places, not here.

But the telling signs were there. He felt the world drift below his feet, his eyes were getting blurry and the world was starting to smell funny.

He held the grill firmly. People were starting to look at him curiously.

Not here!!

He bit his lip sharply till it bled- but to no avail. His legs started to shiver, violently. The crowd was gathering around, basking in warmth of the sun, ready to have some prime-time entertainment.

She laughed. Yup, that’s what she always did- laughing at his sorry plight.

And that’s when he suddenly blacked out.

He was in a maze.

‘Saptarishi,’ she laughed, her voice echoing a thousand times over.

But he could not place the source.

‘Saptarishi…’

Bloody hell, she had learnt to speak like the girl in the movie.

‘Here.’

He suddenly jerked his head towards right.

She laughed. ‘Not there,’ she said in that lyrical voice.

‘Here.’

He turned his attention towards left, and started racing down the cave like maze in that direction.

‘Saptarishi……..’

I must bring an end to this. Today I surely will catch her.

‘Would you?’ She teased him. ‘Catch me if you can.’

It frustrated him to no end that he was not allowed to speak, he never was. As if someone had shut down the programme of his vocal cords. His mouth was brimming with foul pent up curses he wanted to unleash on her. But of course, his voice was deliberately muted.

He saw the path branch ahead into three ways.

‘I am here…’

He heard the voice from the path treading down towards left. But he was in a quandary as to whether it was another of her world famous traps.

‘You afraid, Saptarishi?’ She taunted.

He seethed with anger. Stomping his feet, he broke into a full-fledged sprint down that path.

The cave was hideously dark; it did suit her fancy- this meant that she wanted to play. They always had to play by her rules- and he could not stop searching for her. If he did, she would raise hell for him.

He stopped. Once again, the path diverged into several directions. If this was her idea of fun, he was not at all enjoying. He wanted to get out of here- but it was not voluntary.

She completely dominated him in his own mind.

For a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of deep red moving down one of the path. He clenched his fist and ran down in that direction.

‘You are a fat, old, squishy snail,’ she yelled, gaily.

By now, he was breathing heavily, but he did not as much as got a glance of her.

He flopped down, dead tired. Suddenly a flashy sign appeared

‘BY THE ORDER 312 OF ALPHA-BETA-GAMMA, YOU ARE REQUESTED TO GET RID OF YOUR STINKY SHIRT.’

Pervert, not at all. He stood up. Ignoring the sign, he continued on the path. If that meant countering her fickle mood, then be it.

Alarms began to hoot. A computerized voice spoke, ‘YOU DON’T PASS GO AND COLLECT 300 RUPEES.’

He heard a deafening roar, shaking the very foundation of the cave.

Oh- oh, he had heard that one before. He was dead sure that something hideously huge was just behind him.

He had irked her, now she would vent her fury on him.

He turned. Yup, there it was, bulldozer of a Minotaur, charging at him, its teeth super sharp aimed right at him.

Shit!

He immediately got rid of his shirt.

‘SORRY, THIS OFFER NO LONGER APPLIES.’ Once again, the computerized voice spoke.

But she did take away his shirt anyway.

He did the next best thing- he ran, ran as fast as he could. Back there, the badly animated rhinoceros was churning stones into dust, shaking the whole setup to cave in on Saptarishi.

No doubt he won’t die in the real world, if the Minotaur did manage to kill him- but it would undoubtedly cause him extreme pain- after all it’s all in the mind.

And if you don’t know about that, watch Inception.

As all his attention was riveted on that sorry excuse of a Minotaur, he did not watch out the well-hole dead ahead.

By the time he saw, it was impossible to arrest his momentum; as a result he tumbled down that dingy tunnel- his ass turning on fire due to enormous friction with the uneven ground surface. His eyes were closing, he was already feeling tired.

At last, it was coming to an end.

Good, he had to be completely famished and bogged out, only then would he be allowed to leave.

Though his ass might have developed blisters in this virtual world, he did manage to smile- she never wanted him to go. She always wanted to play.

But she surprised him. The last thing that he heard before waking was of course, ‘Saptarishi, you are so cute.’

 

The sunlight hit his eyes like stinging bee bites. His throat was parched.

And he indeed was surrounded by multitude of people.

He must have broken into a fitful jig which would have involved all the major dance forms ranging from Bharat-Natyam to Salsa of Seizure.

He could see few mobile phones flashing out- video recording his performance, later to be uploaded on Youtube.

He stood up. They had him encircled. And they were still gaping at him.

He tore down the circle, not liking the lime light one bit. The crowd gave him way easily. The people actually backed out while he was passing.

They don’t want to touch me. They think that I am cursed.

The mobile phones followed him. He tried to shield his face from them- as if he had committed some crime and was caught red-handed.

He could hardly stop himself from breaking down into tears.

He clenched his fist tight shut, and without once glancing around, strode purposefully to the Parking Lot.

It was bloody embarrassing. For quite some time now, he had been giving such performances for the whole world to see. She never had believed in privacy- she always wanted to dramatize it and dish it out ‘live’ for the whole universe.

Though he knew that it was just a symptom of his mental illness, he always has believed that she was not his mind’s imagery. She indeed was an ‘Other Worldly Presence’. But the shrinks was not ready to believe that, though of course they occasionally humored him. He repeatedly told them, or rather asked, why could he perform the regular tasks assigned to him by the society very well, while still be mentally sick. But they countered him by giving numerous examples that many mad hatters did behave like him. They said that it was quite normal for him to be abnormal. While they prepared him for such shit, they would secretly make a call, and he could swear that they firmly believed that he must be kept behind the bars with other Loony Toons. As the shrinks couldn’t cure him of his disease, they always tactfully brought up the subject of ‘Enclosure under Surveillance’. But even before the words formed on any psychologist’s lips, he was gone.

But he firmly believed that he was not mad.

Every mentally disturbed guy said so, he thought sarcastically.

It was then but obvious that he was always on a run. He rented one house after another, shuffled from one job to other. As soon as some employee or a neighbor heard as much as a rumor about him, he bolted.

He pushed the helmet down his head and climbed on his Activa. He could feel people snatching glances at him. I am the freak.

He pushed the starter, the bike hummed to life.

This has to stop. I can’t go on like this anymore.

But of course it wasn’t in his hands. He pulled the throttle and raced the bike out of the theatre past theKalaghoda Circle.

I would get you dear, one day I definitely will.

As if in reply, she chuckled and said, ‘I am waiting for you handsome.’

 

“We are closing this file.”

Saptarishi went numb. The fan creaked slowly above, blasting hot air on his head.

The guy across the table twirled his well curved moustache and said, “I mean, we have been on this case way too long.”

He wet his tongue and said blandly, “It’s a first degree murder. I want justice.”

“But it has also been two years- also we haven’t got any leads to follow. For all we know, the murderer might already be dead.”

“But you don’t know that.”

A boy in rags brought Fanta for him. He arched his eyebrows. Then he understood.

They have already closed the case. Now they were just trying to break in that piece of news to me as tactfully as they could.

“I don’t want it,” Saptarishi said. The boy looked befuddled. “You can have it though.”

The boy looked at the Inspector. He nodded. The boy readily gulped down the drink in a jiffy.

The cop shifted uncomfortably in his chair, “Look Mr. Pandey, we tried our best to nab him. But we just couldn’t find him. Haven’t we had held Nation-Wide drive to catch him? We had his posters out at every Railway Station in the country.”

“Is this about money?” Saptarishi asked, his voice rising.

“Now, now Mr. Pandey, this anger does not suit you. I have only said that we are closing this case, this does not mean that we won’t be on the lookout for that asshole,” the cop said, trying to placate him down.

But Saptarishi boiled with anger.

“So do you have any cash-back offer?”

The cop was caught off-guard. “What?”

“Well, it seems that inspite of the sweeteners and stipends, you have till now only half-heartedly tried to get him. So if you are closing the case, I want all the bribe-money back.”

That brought the cop on his guard. He furtively glanced in both the directions, after having ascertained that no one was overhearing he firmly said, “Look here Saptarishi. This is a police station. You don’t call the shots here. This is my home, and if I say that that the case is closed- it stays close.” He pounded his fist on the desk with a heavy thud. “For two years now, the ashes of your father have been pollutingGanga. Let the old geezer rest in peace. Forget the case,” he said, nonchalantly.

Anger got better of him. Saptarishi stood up, pushing the chair behind with a force. Getting around the desk, he held the inspector by his shirt’s lapels. “You never ever disgrace my father.”

He was about to place a tight slap across his chubby cheeks, when he was jerked off from the back by the other policeman, sitting across in the corner. The cop roughly pushed him on the ground.

Silence lay heavily in the room for a moment. The cop was still in a shock- no one ever had tried to attack him before.

But then he got control of himself. “I asked you to respectfully leave the station, didn’t I?” The piqued cop asked, straightening his shirt. “We are unable to find him- I said that in crystal clear words,” he hollered, rapping his stick against the leg of the table.

The other cop firmly gripped him from the neck. Saptarishi stayed down with fear, the gravity of his action sinking in. Of course he may now have to bear consequences.

The cop strode towards him with purposefully, “Do you know what punishment you get when you assault a Police Inspector?”

The last thing that he wanted was to be jailed.

“I am sorry, sir,” he mumbled.

The cop hunched down, “Of course you are sorry.”

With a loud crack, he brought out his right palm against Saptarishi’s face. Saptarishi stumbled across the floor, his ears ringing.

His nose started dripping blood.

The cop sneered. “See this girl, she has started to bleed. Someone please get her a hanky.”

The other one laughed, without of course offering his hanky to Saptarishi.

The cop flared at him. “Now get off my floor, you are staining it with your vile blood.”

Saptarishi stayed, crouched on the floor for a moment. Then what seemed like an eternity, he stood up.

“I am letting you off the hook this time,” the cop said. “Get lost before I change my decision.”

Saptarishi looked bogged down. He slumped his shoulders, defeated at last.

I cannot even afford to take revenge.

He walked out, dejected.

This was the last straw. He could not longer bear the burden of the world.

He no longer wanted to live.

This chapter would continue next Sunday…