A FADE OF THE DARK........

“Byeeeeeeeee anni.....see you tomorrow”,yelled akash, one of anni’s classmates. “Yeah, tata....bring my classwork tomorrowwwww.....”, anni shouted back, waving his hand. It was an ideal Thursday afternoon when you are kind of relieved that the next day would be your last working day in the week. Anni, had come back from school and it was around 3 p.m. He was in his 3^rd grade. Anni’s house had been shifted to yelahanka, a satellite town to Bangalore. The locality was perfect for someone like him, wide roads to cycle around, huge empty sites to play cricket, funny friends to play with etcetc. There were two college going sisters next to anni’s place, whom he thought were going to make it big in badminton as he saw them do nothing other than play shuttle badminton. They had decided to goto a newly constructed Ganesha temple in that locality. As usual, anni had nothing to do with his studies until his father or brother came back. “Hi....do u mind if i joined you girls to the temple?.....even i have a bicycle....i ride it really fast...”, anni thought he impressed them with his bicycle thing. “Okay....kid...you can, but you have to stay with us....we are going to our friend’s house first and then to the temple...we might be late when we return”, said one of them. “AAhh....its fine im a big boy and im used to being late”, anni said with absolute cool. The sisters giggled at his over acting and said,”Okay boss...you can come, but inform your mom that u’ll be back at 7p.m”. Anni felt a little discomfort at those words, 7p.m was too late for him and he knew that. Still, he thought going to a temple wouldn’t make his parents mad at him even if he was that “late”. “Maa...im going to ganesha temple with those badminton champs next door, and ill be back in an hour”, anni yelled out checking the chains of his bicycle. “Okay, but be back soon, please don’t get scoldings from dad even today”, anni’s mom said. So, the three of them started to the temple.

It seemed that, the badminton sisters ‘ main motto was to goto their friend’s place and chat like mad. Their friend’s house was really far from anni’s place and he knew he shouldn’t have joined them. They went through narrow cross roads, wide deserted roads, really crowded streets etc and finally they had arrived at the ‘friend’s’ place. Their friend was really weird according to anni, the chat was taking place outside the house, none were invited into the house. The discussion was mainly based on some supposedly supercool incident where a guy from their class had invited them to his birthday party. Anni, was cycling little rounds infront of their house. He was extremely tensed at the thought of time. It was 6p.m already. Finally, the discussion got over with indecisive conclusions about what present should be given to that boy of their class. Their next heading was the temple.

The temple was in middle of nowhere according to anni, as he had no clue about the routes he was taken through. They reached the temple and it was 6:30 p.m. As soon as they entered the temple it started raining moderately, and the badminton sisters decided to leave immediately. Anni was relieved, as it was already tooooooooo late for him. The sisters resorted to some shortcut they knew to reach home quickly, and the route was through a slum area. They were peddling real fast, and anni was in no way upto them. Anni thought that first thing he would do after going home was to practice cycling, invite the badminton sisters for a race and beat them by some margin. The rain got heavier and heavier with every few seconds. The moment came which anni dreaded the most,when suddenly he lost sight of the sisters. This was a disastrous development, as he had no clue of the route back to home. He kept on cycling and in reality he had been cycling in a direction which would in no way take him home. Anni, felt a mixture of emotions when he realised how late he was. Tears started rolling down his face. He cycled for 30minutes and reached some dark deserted wide road.The scene was pitch black, there were no buildings, no sign of any traffic, it was like some abandoned highway. There were tall grasses on both the sides of the road. The rain was hitting him like bullets, as he paced his way through. All kinds of unwanted thoughts were occurring to anni. He thought of himself being driven over by some vehicle, or someone kidnapping him and torturing him to death etcetc. The fear of being late to home was by no doubt replaced by fear of being alone in that area. He cursed the badminton sisters as much as he could. When he had lost all hopes, someone called, “oooooyyyyeee”, from behind him. Anni was so relieved that someone other than him was there at that place.

A middle aged person came up, slightly drunk, and asked anni, “What on earth are you doing here kid”. “I don’t know, i got lost when i was on my way back home, please can you help me?”, anni pleaded. Anni didn’t know that, the person whom he was talking to was a well known antisocial element of Bangalore. The bad guy grinned at anni and said, “ofcourse ill help you if you do what i say”, “yesyes, ill do whatever you say”, said anni. They walked together in silence for about 30minutes. Anni still had his bicycle. Anni felt his insides doing somersault when he realised that people at home would be nerve crackingly tensed. They came to a partly constructed apartment, where anni could see a fire lit.The sight of fire made him realise how cold he felt, he was shivering like mad. They went in and the warmth anni expected, from both fire and the people inside, never showed up. The people inside were totally drunk and playing cards. “AAAYYYEEE.....bring me some beer....”, ordered one of them to anni. Anni was shocked to hear that. He went inside a room which was stuffed with alcoholic products. “Lets, keep this kid with us”,”nonono, lets get rid of this kid...ihavent killed anyone till now, let me do this”,”the kid looks good lets keep him, might come handy for begging purposes”........Anni heard these when he was searching for the beer bottles. He was dumbstruck. He felt his body go numb. He knew he couldn’t afford to cry out loud. Tears were rolling out of his eyes at fast rate, he felt his face shudder with fear, his head was searing with pain. Very slowly and very carefully, anni started slipping out of the building. It was easy as the building was hollowish kind of. One of the bad guys spotted anni and shouted, “oooooyyyyeeee....im gonna kill uuuuuuuu.....”. They started chasing him, but this time he was quicker as he had his bicycle with him. The drunkards fell back(as they were drunk). Anni was peddling with all his might.He heard someone else panting hard other than him. He noticed that, the bad guys had sent a dog after him as their substitute. The dog looked as though it had been starving for food from a week and anni was a perfect prey.If it had not been for anni’s constant cycling practice evry evening, he would have surely fainted. The strain on his legs were enormous, both his body and mind were tired beyond all measures. The supposedly pleasant Thursday evening had turned into a nightmare.

Back at anni’s place, the tension in his family was at its peak. His mom was sobbing for having permitting him to go to the temple. The badminton sisters were being reprimanded massively by their parents. Anni’s father and brother had gone for rounds to search thrice and had found no clue about anni’s whereabouts. It was already 9:30 p.m. The rain didn’t even seem to calm down, on the contrary it was building up slowly. One of the other neighbours had come over to give anni’s mother some moral support. The atmosphere was gray and electric at the same time.

The hungry dog, never ceased to reduce its pace. As the road was wide, anni could peddle with some unknown confidence which every driver experiences. He remembered every great personality he could and about their hardwork and peddled still quicker. The dog started falling back slowly, like a Honda f1 in a straight sector against Mclaren Mercedes. When anni thought every thing was back to square one of the original problem of being lost, the cycle chain slipped on the gear and it gave away. Anni hit his knee to the front bar so hard that, for an instant he thought his leg had broken apart into two pieces. He fell on the road scratching his arms and legs. His skin tore away instantly as he was exposed to water for so long. The dog caught up within seconds. Anni could barely open his eyes but could feel a bright light some distance away, and within 2 or 3 seconds, he heard an ear shattering crash and the dog screaming. The dog’s scream died down. Anni, felt it with his eyes closed. The dog had died. A speeding truck had run over both his bicycle and the dog.

Anni opened his eyes very slowly with a searing pain in his knees. He saw the dog squashed, in the dark. He felt sorry for the dog had to die so unceremoniously. His bicycle was in no way recognisable. The rain had calmed down. Now his main aim was to get back. The newly found relief gave anni an enormous amount of will power and confidence. He walked limping, in a direction which his intuition had chosen to. The time was about 10:15 p.m. It really didn’t bother him. He had been through situations where none of school going kids could even dream of. He imagined he would be in newspapers the next morning with title, ‘Bravery comes in small sizes also’ or something like that. As he was walking, he saw a cow which he instantly recognised. It used to be at corner of the street where he lived. He instantly knew that, he could get beck home if he stayed with it.

So, he started going along with the cow in the dark. The rain had almost stopped. Anni felt a great sense of achievement. The cow would stop for grazing very often, but that didn’t bother anni. After about half an hour, he was about 1000 yards from his house and he found his brother coming searching for him. Anni ran with all his might towards his brother and started crying out loud. It was all safe at last. When he returned home, he narrated everything, how he lost the badminton sisters, how he ran into a drunkard, the truck accident and everything else. He was praised for his bravery specially by his mom. He was like a hero of the night.

The happiest moment occurred to anni when his dad promised him a new bicycle and he was advised to skip his school the next day, which meant three days of holidays. As regarding the race with the badminton sisters, it didn’t take place. But till anni got a new bicycle, he was allowed to use any of their two bicycles.....