November

...and so, he decided to kill her. McDonalds was an odd place to make this decision. But then, so much had happened over the last year and a half that, in retrospect, his mind had always been Vesuvius, simmering below the surface, waiting to erupt. He looked around. It appeared that ‘McD’ was now truly Indian. Youth, eager to rebel and conform at the same time; lower-middle class uncles and aunties who wouldn’t know the difference between a McAloo Tikki and a vada pav; the foreigner who seemed quite confused on seeing the disparity between the menu here and the one at the McDonalds back home; the woman gorging on her wedges, pausing only to give a loud burp of gluttonous ecstasy, the buttons of her blouse straining to conceal her bosom; the man with bulging biceps in a t-shirt that was easily three sizes too small, walking with a swagger that could convince the meek that he owned the city; he realized that at any given point of time during the day, a McDonalds outlet in this city would be like a microscopic snapshot of India.

Mopping up the last drops of ketchup on his tray with a fry, he popped it into his mouth, savouring the tangy, oily delight of the golden brown fried potato finger coated with tomato sauce. He decided to leave his tray on the table, justifying it by all the times he deposited the trash and the tray at their designated spots. For him, today was a day unlike any other, and he intended to treat it that way. After all, today he was going to kill her.

He stepped from the air-conditioned comfort inside to the sweltering heat and humidity outside. Andheri station was just a stone’s throw away, but he turned in the opposite direction. He had no intention of traveling by local today. Even though he had the privilege of relative comfort by virtue of his quarterly First Class pass, he hated local train travel. It signified everything that was Mumbai, and he hated Mumbai from the deepest recesses of his soul, detesting everything about the city – the humid weather, the stink of garbage along the streets, the jostle for the space and the right to stand straight, the vomit-inducing taste of the water, the deteriorating infrastructure, the eternal sons-of-the-soil versus migrants conflict. But even more than these external signs of a crumbling metropolis, he hated what Mumbai had come to stand for – the stench of human aspiration being content with mediocrity, the largest congregation of incomplete dreams in the world, the hard truth that the inconsequentiality of one’s existence was ignored only because of the sheer pace of life in this damned place. Nothing in the world evoked more anger in him than the fact that he had spent two years of his life in what he believed to be the manifestation of hell on earth – and all for her. His blood boiled further. He thought of his last days in Delhi. The intensity of the Jessica Lal murder case was at its peak then. Ram Jethmalani was twisting the case further, rejecting eyewitness evidence and inventing fictional characters. The capital’s political class was abuzz with talks of the US Senate approving the Indo-US nuclear deal. Amidst all of this, the all-guns-blazing, glamour-on-Prozac feel of the city was in tact. And he was leaving it behind, he felt, for love and greener pastures in India’s financial capital, the city of dreams. Now, just a little over two years to the day, he was going to erase all that had transpired in the last two years permanently. He told himself that it would all end tonight.

He decided to take a cab. Even though taking one all the way to Colaba would cost him more than he was willing to pay for a commute on a normal day, he did not mind it today. He decided that he would do everything in style – or at least, in as much style as he could afford. As he walked on, however, he noticed that the traffic was excessive, even by Mumbai’s standards. He couldn’t spot a cab, and even if he managed to find one, it appeared that he would be stuck for hours. Reluctantly, he trudged back towards Andheri station. He wanted to be done quickly, so that he could make a quick getaway to what he guessed would be oblivion.

He boarded a local to CST from the Harbour Line platform, staying silent throughout the journey. He was contemplating his course of action. His mind was a raging maelstrom, his thoughts not letting him be for one solitary moment, so much so that he did not even realize when he reached CST. As he got off, he let himself smile once. CST was the only place in Mumbai that he liked. He believed from the bottom of his heart that Mumbai did not deserve a structure of such magnificence. Functionally elegant on the inside, gargantuan in scale and architecture on the outside, the building always sent shivers up his spine.

As he slowly began walking towards the exit, he tried to shut off the voices inside his head. They were loud, screaming out conflicting thoughts to him in such rapid succession, that eventually all he could hear was chaos. And the chaos kept getting louder until it reached such a point where he felt that the whole world could hear it. It seemed to come from outside of him now, from all around him. Suddenly, he stopped and looked around. The chaos was all around him. People were running in all possible directions. He couldn’t, for the life of him, understand what was going on, until he heard loud, rapid booms coming from different directions. It couldn’t be what he thought they were. He searched for the source of the sound, but he couldn’t tell. Then, time froze. He saw a young boy dressed in cargos and a t-shirt, surely in just his teens, raising that unmistakable machine of death, pointing it somewhere in his direction. Suddenly, all the sounds were shut out. The last thing that he saw was a flash, which was followed a second and a half later by the last sound that he heard – a boom.

The Wall

Metropolitan Level Two. The only one in the country. Amit stared three hundred and sixty degrees - around him, above him and below him - soaking in the civil engineering marvel that the city around and underneath him was. He pressed a button on the side of his WristCGM, then looked at the display. The GPS system said he was ‘112.3 metres south of the S. Ganguly Megatower’. He couldn’t contain a smile. Even in this day and age, technology just couldn’t explain some things the way the human mind could. From where he was standing, SGM was the first thing that anyone with eyes could see. It wasn’t the tallest structure in the country for nothing. Today, however, it wasn’t the heights of this city he was interested in. It was its depths. Far in the distance, about a kilometer in front of him and two hundred metres below him, he could spot what his GPS system referred to as ‘Vidyasagar Setu’. He imagined how it would have looked at eye level, back in the days when his great-grandfather was alive. Though not from this city, Amit was sure that his great-grandfather had visited it a number of times. He felt a surge of emotion. His quest was coming to an end. All those months of traveling the country – starting from his home city, to Gulbarga, Madurai, Jabalpur, Delhi, Majuli and Berhampur – had led him, inexorably, here. He could feel it. The century-old object of his exhausting quest was nearby.

Vijay waited patiently. He did not once look up to see his mother and brother. He couldn’t, for the life of him, fathom why they climbed those same steps day after day, before starting every day. But he wasn’t one to interfere with someone else’s life. He just knew what he wanted to do with his own. It seemed a long way away, but he knew he could do it. He knew that one day this city would be his. His thoughts were interrupted by his brother. As the two of them took their mother’s blessings and walked away, Vijay wished his brother luck with his job search, and then began to take a detour off the road. His brother asked him where he was headed. Vijay told him that he knew a shorter route to his workplace. Then, as Vijay embarked upon the shortcut, the two brothers parted ways for the rest of the day.

As Amit took the Capsule down, he crossed Metropolitan Level One. This too had been the first in the country when it was built. Today Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and, of course, his home city, all of them had a ‘Metropolitan Level One’. This one though, was still the largest in the country. He still could not believe how man had even conceived of a city above a city. And two cities above a city? All of this was possible because of what, in his opinion, was at the pinnacle of man’s technological prowess – Obduronium. Nothing in the world was stronger, and once Dr. Yogesh Joshi had developed a method of mass-producing it, life for mankind had seen a super-cerebral shift, the kind never witnessed before. Then as he descended to the lowest level, all that he was thinking was driven out of his mind. The Capsule’s voice system said out loud “Level Zero Touch Point 19 – Mother Teresa Sarani”, but it didn’t register at all. As the glass barrier hissed and opened, he pushed on it, even though he knew he couldn’t get out until it opened fully. As soon as he could, he rushed out, nearly missing the Exit Retina Check. But he didn’t care. He broke into a run, bursting out of the Capsule Station and into the old city. Finally, he was here. As he walked ahead, he saw a pair of metallic lines right in the middle of the road. They were covered with dust, unused for more than half a century, but they were there, stretching serpentine into the distance. Though he knew they wouldn’t, Amit hoped against hope that they would lead straight to what he so determinedly sought.

Vijay looked at the scratches on his body. They were minor, compared to the damage he had inflicted. He knew that what he had done today would put him on the radar. He would be a marked man now, with people looking to either reward him or kill him. He welcomed both. He had reached the end of his tether. No more would he and his family live in poverty. Today he had taken the first step towards the obtaining wealth that he knew his family, his mother, deserved. He promised himself that he would repay every single drop of sweat and blood that she shed for them during her days of manual labour. He promised himself that his brother would not have to face the ignominy of being turned away from a job at every door that knocked. He promised himself that one day, every single human being who had ever caused him or his family any trouble at all would pay for it. He looked at his hand. He stared at it, willing it to be clean, unblemished and un-inscribed again. If only he could find the man who did it. If only. And then, a car stopped before him and a door opened, beckoning him in.

With the sense of history washing all over him, came the sinking realisation that he was now alone. Apart from a few famous landmarks and the twenty Capsule Touch Points, Amit’s GPS System appeared to have precious little information to offer about the old city. He couldn’t blame it, since very few people still lived here. Unimaginable, considering it used to be one of India’s densest cities. The population density had increased further, except that most of it had shifted to the levels above. Signboards now called this ‘KOL Metropolitan Level Zero’, a name that he suddenly realized he detested; a pointless corruption of such a beautiful name. It was the first time he was visiting this city, but he felt a connection that he could not explain. But then, how could he not feel a connection to something that was connected to Satyajit Ray and R. D. Burman? His thoughts were interrupted by a vibration on his wrist. He looked at his WristCGM. The display read “GeospatioMeter Battery Low. Switching To ChronoMeter Mode.” Suddenly, his WristCGM was just a, rather large, digital wristwatch. He looked at the time. 17:23, 31/12/74. He smiled. He had waited this long, he could wait another few hours. He decided to get some sleep. If he completed his quest the next day, and he was sure he would, the date would be highly symbolic. He stopped and looked around. He could see Fairlawn Hotel up ahead. It seemed good enough, and was one of the few that seemed open. Slowly, he trudged towards it.

Vijay was livid. Today, he had everything in the world. What he did not have, he could buy if he wanted. He looked out at the sea. The waves were calm. He was not; because he was angrier than he had ever been in his life. He looked at his suit. He looked at the porcelain vase Anita had gifted him. He thought of how everything in this magnificent city could be his at the snap of a finger. And the thought of all that he had angered him more and more. Because today his lowly, upright brother, had told him what he did not have. And it hurt, because no amount of money could buy the only thing in the world that he did not have.

Amit could see the flyover only in silhouette, because the sun was shining bright behind it. He was looking for a person named Ghoshmaulik, who lived somewhere on Camac Street. If what he had learnt was true, then Ghoshmaulik would have what Amit had dreamt of owning for the past eleven years, and had pursued ardently across India for the past seven months. If he had not been where he was, then he would have assumed that this would either be another dead end, or it would just yield another clue to yet another place. But somehow, considering where his search had led him, he was sure that this would be it. He spotted an old man in the distance. He asked him where Camac Street was. The old man muttered directions, which Amit dutifully followed. Once on Camac Street, Amit double checked to see if he still had the money he was carrying. He was sure he would be shelling out quite a lot of it for the treasure that he sought. For a moment, Amit felt like Indiana Jones. He suddenly realised how fast time flew. The last Indiana Jones film, The Treasure of Melujah, had released over two decades ago. Ethan Ford had done a good job, but when Amit saw ‘Raiders of the Last Ark’, he felt that Ethan wasn’t a patch on Grandpa Ford. He shook himself out of his thoughts. Now all he had to do was find Ghoshmaulik. Since he could hardly see anyone on the streets, he just decided to walk around. From what he had heard, Ghoshmaulik would be nearing a hundred. So he wasn’t likely to be taking a stroll right now. He decided that he would check every building, knock on every door on Camac Street if he had to. He checked his WristCGM. Surprisingly, he was getting quite a lot of data for Camac Street, now that he was here. He continued walking, and his WristCGM kept throwing back a lot of data at him. The GPS System on it was accurate to a centimetre, and every building, every lane that he saw was reflected on his GPS. Perhaps this was the last portion of the old city which was to be de-loaded from the Genavo GPS Server, the service provider for his system. And then, Amit suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He looked up at her eyes. He wanted them to be the last thing that he would see. He did not want to go. He wanted to lie where he was forever. It had been years since he lay like that in her lap, and he did not want that moment to end. There, on the very last leg of his great journey, Vijay realised what true wealth was. He had missed her for so long, and now she was with him. There was physical pain, yes, but it didn’t matter. If only he could go all the way back in time, and erase the portion where he took the shortcut, she could have been with him forever. But the moment had passed. He had made his choice. And he knew that he could take the consequences of his actions. Still, he just wished he could really tell her what he wanted to. Words, however, failed him. In the end, it really didn’t matter. There in his mother’s arms, at least Vijay knew that he couldn’t have died a better way. As her transparent tears mixed with his red blood, Vijay breathed his last.

The dusty lane that he was walking on did not show up on the GPS. Again, Amit did not know why. The buildings on either side showed up, and so did a large building that he spotted behind. But this lane was missing, which was what prompted him to take it. Right at the end of the lane, he came up to a brown door. It looked like it truly was out of an Indiana Jones movie. Amit felt a prickle up his spine. This was it. Inexplicably, after months of hard work, the end had come easily. He did not know what was going on, but he knew that behind this door was what he sought, the treasure, the object of his quest. As he pushed the door open, a ray of light went in before him. Amit didn’t mind, because from the look of it, it was clear that the ray had been trying to get in for many days now. In front of him sat a man who looked as old as time. He might have been Ghoshmaulik. Amit didn’t know, and he didn’t need to ask, because as soon as the old man saw Amit, he slowly pointed to his right. Amit followed his hand, and saw that it was pointed at a large chest. His pulse raced even faster than it already was. Amit knew that the moment was finally here. Everything he had done for the last seven months had brought him to this point. Amit walked up to the chest. It was unlocked. He opened it slowly. As it creaked, layer upon layer of dust which had finally been disturbed began to protest. Amit waited for the dust to clear. He couldn’t see the contents yet, and the suspense was now getting to him. Slowly but surely, as the dust cleared, Amit saw what was inside. The shine of the aluminum had long faded to a dull gray. But it was unmistakable. Finally, it was his. He knew that he could take it without a word. Because deep down, he knew that it belonged to him. As he took it into his hands, he saw something that made him smile a smile that could define smiles. On the aluminum canister was stuck a small photo of his great-grandfather, dressed in a coolie outfit. The sight brought a tear to Amit’s eye, because he had not expected it. Though it was true, he just couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that exactly a hundred years since its release, he had in his hand the last surviving film reel of Yash Chopra’s Deewaar.