Just another Angel story

His father was the only martyr in the local factory lockout

The police-station said “Go back home, it’s politically sensitive. Too risky to even lodge a complaint.”

The workers’ party had organized for a ceremonial one evening. One speaker even shed tears on stage

The money that the local minster promised- never came in however.

The mother eventually started going to work somewhere-deep in the night

And every morning she would come back & cry for some odd reason.

One night it was raining heavy & some drunken men dragged her out of home

No one knows why she hasn't ever returned after that .It’s been more than a year now.

A 10 year old boy & an even younger sister at home – perennial hunger for company

Just when he was convinced that the world doesn't care, a messiah came knocking at the door.

It was early morning and he had brought rice with him ... some milk for the little sister

“There’s another world beyond the world you've seen” he said “Come. I will take you there “

These days, he goes for early morning classes: they've shown him videos & narrated incidences

Countless are suffering around the world. “And you will stand up for all of them”- the messiah said.

Next week, his training to be a suicide-bomber begins: he’d overheard. “What’s that?”- He asked

“We are training you to be an Angel. And then, you shall fly to the other world”

My maid and one bottle of water

In all the last few decades, it’s this year:they say is the heaviest drought in Maharashtra

My taps & my washbasins however have a lot of water

Some I brush my teeth with, twice a Day. With some I take bath with exotic shower gels

And the rest flows out, non-stop & free-flow: as I talk on phone or one of the other 100 reasons

Now, if I can afford, why do I care? Anyways ‘water day’ and environment are all mere tokenisms...

 

The maid who comes to my place lives in one of those slums that dot the entire city

And every day she fills a bottle of water that she’ll carry back home.

(Her slum does not have regular water supply & some such story she’d said once)

My maid, the old and fragile lady we lovingly call ‘Bai’, often says ‘Babu don’t waste so much water’

And I teasingly reply ‘Bai, don’t be jealous. Take back as much water you want’

She doesn’t reply , smiles slightly and proceeds to other household chores...

 

But that day she said something very scary.

Her son works as a ward-boy in a large city-hospital

An insignificant job-profile, a meagre salary but he is learning a lot on the job she says.

A very rich man was admitted to the hospital...

And as he was breathing his last one night, my old and fragile Bai’s son was the only one by his side.

‘Get me a little water’ ‘Get me a little water’: the rich man kept panting

The last voice he heard before death was cold and unaffected

‘Sorry Sir, today the hospital has run out of the last drop of water’

 

These days I wake up at midnight, thirsty, sweating- hangover of a nightmare

As I drink a glassful, I get up. Check my taps and washbasins again, seal them tighter

Don’t know the water that I’ve started saving now: where it goes and who stores it?

But all that I know is:

Soon I will be old & senile and I will be dying.

And I don’t want to go to the same hospital, that same ward: the same ‘insignificant’ ward-boy.