THE MOMENT I SAW YOU CRY
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A story by PRANAY TIWARI ------------------------------------------------------

Chapter-1
Place – Mumbai
Time – The Present

A tear trickled down Arpita’s face. Her hands were trembling holding that letter. Minutes ago, Mr. Gupta had told her something that shook everything that she had come to believe all this while. An intense emotion of hatred stirred within her. All that she wanted to forget, all the painful memories had been dragged to the forefront from the depths of oblivion. She did not want to open the letter.

Place – Kolkata
Time- The intermediate ( 23 years from the present)
Screech…………… The metallic red SUV came to an abrupt halt as if reluctant to do so. The front window of the car rolled down partially. The man looked around through it. He located the building he was looking for. Rangmahal, that’s what his friend had said . Everything had already been arranged . The dilapidated and moss eaten two storey thing would not have been called a ‘building’ had it not been for the roof . Just near the portico of this grand structure, stood a group of women looking at the car and making assumptions about the owner’s worth. Alongside , near the pavement ,was a scantily clad , blonde girl flaunting her half exposed breasts to a passerby . “These are for real , you know “, she shouted . In one of the rooms that could be seen from the streets, a man was putting back his pants after the ‘ritual’ . On the opposite side of the pavement was a tea shop where few hoodlums were seriously discussing whether contraceptive pills really work. Near them stood a youngster making indecent gestures to a girl on the balcony of the building . Adjacent to the tea shop stood a kiosk selling old Playboy magazines. Everywhere there was a hush , as if nobody wanted to be recognized , no body wanted to be chastised for the acts they would be performing here . Yes, this was the red light area of Sonargachi.
As a child Ashok never imagined he would ever land in a brothel for sexual gratification. But then as a child we don’t see the darker side of life . Three days ago , Ashok had seen her wife having sex with a boy who was ten years younger to her. Nita , his wife had been frank, almost blatantly so. “I have my needs too ,Ashok”, she said. But her perfidious conduct did not surprise Ashok. He knew it would come down to this . Five years ago, their five year old daughter Chitra had been killed in a car accident. Since then Ashok had become oblivious to anybody around him . Today ,he thought was the day of revenge .Revenge? Against whom? How could having sex with a prostitute be a form of revenge .And against whom? It was all so unclear to him.
Someone knocked on the front window . Ashok rolled it down completely. Munnibai craned her neck inside, giving her practiced fake smile.
“ Arrey Ashok Babu . Yes , yes , she is ready .” She opened the back door and forced a girl inside .
She again gave her fake smile .
“Ashok Babu , she is fresh . Came yesterday .”
Ashok did not for once look at the girl . He started his engine and was about to press on the accelerator when the lady opened her spittle redden mouth yet again, this time for the girl .
“Arrey sun, sahib ko khush kar dena .”
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Ashok still had no intention of looking at the girl who was sitting behind. He could hear faint sobs from the back but that too did not make him respond. Why was she crying ? Was not this her profession?Then a thought struck him . She was fresh, may be she was not used to all this .He felt more ashamed of himself . As the traffic light at the Central Avenue turned red , Ashok killed the engine and stared at his reflection on the glass . Why did it have to come down to this ? The question was almost rhetorical because he knew the answer . It was his past . He had to pay for his past.

Place – Mumbai
Time – The Past (10 years from The Intermediate and 33 years from The Present )
Ashok stood at the balcony and looked down . A shabbily dressed woman brisked away angrily from their bunglow . Holding her hand was a young girl ,who was finding it difficult to keep pace with the woman . In the other hand the girl was clutching a tattered doll . The girl was crying as she was being dragged across the streets by the angry woman .
“ Where is father , ma ?” she asked . It had been a long time and her father had not returned .
The woman did not care to respond . She wiped her face and kept walking.
“Ma , where is father ?” the girl repeated her question and this time she willfully slackened her pace .
The woman could not take it any more . She dropped the girl’s hand forcefully and screamed .
“ Your father is dead . You hear me Arpita , they have killed him and he is never going to come back .”
The girl looked confused . She did not know what ‘dead’ meant.
Ashok saw the girl’s face . She was just about five years old .He felt a twinge in his heart .
Last night Ashok and his friends were returning from the discotheque . He had been drinking and so he did not realize when he rammed his car into a man . The doctor at the Lilavati emergency ward had declared the man dead as soon as he felt the man’s pulse.
Moments ago the dead man’s wife had been called at his residence . A sum of fifty thousand was offered to forget the case .
“In any case you can prove nothing . And one more thing , your husband was drinking that night , so basically koi case hi nahi banta hai .” said the police commissioner who had arranged for a meeting at the Bajaj residence itself . He knew that the man had not drunk but he also knew money could prove a lot of right things wrong .
Now as Ashok stood at the balcony , he guessed the woman had not accepted the offer.
Next day Ashok found himself at his ancestral home in Kolkata . He was asked to stay there till the matter cooled down.
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Six months later Ashok Bajaj was married to Nita Mahajan , the daughter of a Kolkata millionaire . Ashok did not want to marry but he said nothing . He had lost his conscience as well as his will to protest six months ago. He was twenty seven years old then.