Life will be life and so the world

by Nikky Jain

 He is looking for a girl, who does not know he exists, or the story that has brought him here. He has no reasons to be discreet but still he has to be careful. He is standing near the doorway and surveying the golden banquet hall, which is filled with refined bodies in saris and jackets, and beautiful young women with straight hair who never make facial expressions. But they will, soon. Any moment now. 

 He looks for her here and there and everywhere but she is nowhere to be seen. For a moment he thought that might be he came at wrong place. But that could not be possible, he was strictly following the black Audi that brought him here. He turns back to go to the parking lot to confirm. He stopped with a thud to see the girl in simple suit is being dragged by two aunties. He already knew it, she didn’t want to be there, she was getting forced. 

 The place comes to life when that girl find herself pinned to the sofa chair in center. The boy is getting more and more nervous, the program is about to start. 

 The man with everything big as big belly, big moustache and alike pointed at that girl with a bitter cruel smile and said ‘15 Lakh’. One of the aunties laughed a greedy smile and said, ‘do you really think you can put a price tag on something so precious?’. The aunt touches her so visibly vulgarly that it seems like a lesbian rape, almost. The girl shrugged and lost her balance on the chair, she didn’t fall, the aunt pulled her hand to get her back on the seat. 

The boy is continuously looking at the face of worried girl but she hadn’t noticed him yet. He is just waiting for one eye-contact. 

Other men started howling and fighting to claim the suit girl with as much price as demanded. On the stage, other girls make faces at the seated girl, all of them thinking the same point, ‘why is she getting so much attention, just because she is youngest of us all?’ One of those women said, “Look at her face, no lipstick, no blush, no make-up, no designer clothes and still she looks beautiful and Thank God that she isn’t smiling otherwise we would have lost our business today.” 

The boy shifts his glance to her hand and notice that she is holding a pen, a tick-tock pen. His brain races fast and now he has a plan. 

He desperately needs her to look in his eyes, for once. 

The aunties try to handle their uncontrollable customers by saying, “We can hold this program with peace too. For every girl, whosoever will pay the highest price will get the particular girl”. Noises drained a bit but the place didn’t overcome its chaotic curiosity. 

Another man pointed his finger to the seated girl, the pierce is so hard that the girl got hurt. He stated, ‘21 Lakh’. When a young man said, ‘25 Lakh’, the boy couldn’t help realizing that he is his school friend who won the lottery, invested it in resorts, clubs and alike properties and he actually got lucky. The boy found himself avoiding him, his passion pained him to see his childhood friend like that. 

He thought to himself, “Good people never get anything instead bad people get everything so they can do even more bad.” “Ridiculous.” 

Finally, he came to a side and as he looked at the stage, the girl seems to be looking at him but her eyes are full of tears, anger, frustration and defeat, its not sure. The boy confirms an eye-contact after a minute or two. Girl recognizes him, he is the one who had visited her school for the guest lecture on ‘Advancement in principles of physics’. 

She thought to herself, “what is he doing here? Is he too? 

As he is about to lose the eye-contact, he quickly sign her to use the pen to hit the aunt on his right and come down to him, fast, very fast. 

She takes a considerable amount of time to understand his portraits and looks at her both sides. The two boss aunties are standing on her either side, the one on left is busy with the customer, explaining the qualities of the product (girls) and the one on right is busy with other women, explaining them the dos and don’ts to make their customers happy. The girl is facing partially her back side so she stabs the pen right between where the threads of her blouse are tied. She shouts after a pause. 

The girl quickly jumps from the stage, the boy motion her that she could have used stairs. She throws her hand to him and the boy catches it tight and together they start running. They kept running to get out of the banquet hall, then to get away from the banquet hall. 

They turn into a shopping complex and the boy lost his certainty on remembering that his car is parked at the parking space of banquet hall. He immediately decides that this information is not important for the girl. 

Suddenly, he comes back to the plan and takes her hand to get her out of the mall, they take a taxi and the boy ask the driver to take them to the airport. The driver suspiciously watches over his passengers. Suddenly, something cocky gets into his mind and he asks them if they both are adult. The boy and the girl look at each other and say ‘yes’ with confidence. The driver said that he would charge 500 extra. 

The boy makes a face at him and asks him to drive fast. 

The car starts moving and girl feel somewhat relaxed, she asks, “why are you doing this for me?” The boy knows the answer to this question but he catches driver’s doubtful glances and sign her to shut up. 

At airport, he asks at the counter about any flight that is available in an hour or so. He takes two tickets for Kolkata. 

He returns to see that the girl is covering her face with the dupatta. He tells her that in less than an hour, she would be out of this mess and also she would be free to start anew. She studies him for a while and says,”what will I do there?”To that he responds, “Anything, you can do anything there. I will get you an admission in government school and rest you can work at restaurants or malls and like.” The girl reply with a lost ‘okay’. 

The boy buys food and water. They eat in silence. 

After eating a lot, she says, “What will you do? They might know your face?” The boy replies, “I will see Kolkata for few days and then I will go to Mumbai. They are after all criminals, I don’t think they are gonna find me, I can expose them”. “With what proof”, girl snaps. The boy frowns. 

The girl changes the topic and fires another question, “Do they teach in government schools? I have heard that private schools are costly but are better. I was studying in private school and it was pretty good? The boy replies, “If you want to be educated, you can get yourself educated. Schools don’t matter,will power of studying is needed. And yeah, don’t worry about your Mom, I will see to her once I get you safe.” The girl says coldly that she doesn’t worry about her mother. 

The boy left the topic for other time and escorts her to the plane. After few minutes, the plane starts moving and then flying, the girl is looking completely out of the world and the boy is looking like an alien. 

They both closes their eyes. 

The plane lands at Kolkata airport. Both of them are tired. The boy takes her hand and get her out of the airport vicinity. They take a taxi and the boy saw that his wallet will be absolutely empty after paying to the driver. 

The taxi driver is listening ‘goo goo dolls’ by Iris. The boy ponders on the dilemma that whether he should know the girl’s name or not. Now, the taxi driver is listening to the ‘scientist’ by Coldplay. 

The taxi driver is literate cool dude 

The boy asks him to stop at the ATM. He chucks out to withdraw some cash. The girl waits inside. She shuffles her suit pocket to find her mobile phone. She has got many messages from many people on whatsapp. She calculates wisely and chose to read the boss aunt message first. Its a video, she opens it and cries out silently to see that its a video in which the women and men are harassing her mother, openly embarassing her and also brutally raping her. She reads the message below, “Come back or else, this video will be the breaking news.” 

She shuts down her phone. She starts thinking to draw a valid conclusion. She pictures herself going back to get raped, used. She pictures the video being seen by everyone, everyone will know that its her mother, sooner or later. 

The boy jerks in the car and smells that the girl is sweating. He asks in tension, “What happened”. She replies, “Nothing, I have decided that I will find some work first and then I will buy books or go to libraries. I need education and not certificates. And yeah, thank you very much for helping me”. 

The boy smiles and the girl smiles back. 

In a few days, the girl gets work in homes as a maid and in a small restaurant as a waitress and dishwasher. She sells her phone after throwing away a sim card and deleting her accounts on whatsapp and facebook. 

One months passed, she witnesses some hungry eyes towards her but slowly and steadily they evaporate. With her first salary, she gets a haircut, to look different, to start differently in a different life. 

She finds a library and starts visiting there. One day, at a home, when she is moping, the owner says, ‘You know, you can earn a lot more, if you will fulfill some of my needs?’ 

In some posh place in Mumbai, the boy is talking to some monk, he is saying, ‘Baba, as you had said, I rescued a girl and send her to a better life. Now, my wife will get pregnant, right? Baba smiles patiently and responds, ‘Of course, my child, you had to help the almighty in a divine work, you probably succeeded, so your wishes will come true for sure.’ 

The boy is going back to his home thinking that if he had not listened children abusing that girl, saying her ‘prostitute’ and if I had not followed that Audi in which she was been dragged after school, I would have never got the chance. 







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