The Souvenir (Part 1)

April 10, 1 PM, Agra (India):

“God, I hate these dusty April winds”, cried the vendor for the umpteenth time in the day, as he passed the cursory sweep of his long tailed bushy haired broom over the trinkets. “You whine more than you sell”, beamed the voice of the neighborhood fruit vendor. “At this rate, you’ll go hoarse before your cart empties itself off its worthless contents”, the sarcastic overtone continued. The vendor was unfazed, years of proximity with Gogi, the fruit vendor had taught him two lessons – his words were as bitter as his fruits were sweet. But the proud owner of “Agra Souvenir Shop” was not pleased with the way destiny had panned out for him over the past few weeks.

“Kabir bhai, chai?”, bellowed the orphaned tea-boy as he wheezed past the sniffing Gogi’s cart with so much as a hateful sideways glance, and handed over a tumbler of hot tea to the souvenir cart owner. As the noon sun began to shower all its mercy (or the lack of it) on the hapless cart owners, Kabir pulled open his tattered umbrella. The shade offered him two comforts – escape from the solar munificence and escape from the neighborhood banter. As he sipped the ember liquid, he began recounting his poor fortune over the past few weeks. All he had sold in this period were 3 reincarnations of the Taj Mahal, the glorious monument besides which he parked his cart, cast in marble and encapsulated in glass. The piece was beautiful, nevertheless, it wasn’t his big-ticket product. He clearly remembered the 3 customers due to the few and far in between sales.

April 10, 2 AM, Connecticut (USA):

“Simon, Simon, wake up. Someone’s in the living room”, whispered Celia into her husband’s ears. Simon woke up with a start. “What? What happened?”, he cried. “Sshhh, I think there’s someone in our living room. I heard voices downstairs”. Simon strained his ear for the semblance of a sound but there was none to catch. “Go to sleep Ceiliaaaaaaaaaaawn… You are hallucinat…”, he was caught in the middle of his drowsy sentence by a loud sound of glass breaking on the ground floor. “Quick, Celia, climb out of the house through the fire escape. I’ll handle these cons”. “But…”, Celia cried. “Just go, I’ll be safe. You have to save yourself and my baby”, he placed his hand on his pregnant wife’s lips. Celia climbed out of the window onto the terrace as Simon jumped from his bed, caught hold of his grandfather’s musket that had been hanging over the bed since some decades and set off to duel the intruders. He stepped onto the staircase, pointed the muzzle into the obscure darkness of the living room below and shouted,” Who’s there? Freeze or I’ll fire.” Two silhouettes emerged from the dark abyss below, holding their hands up in the air. One of them cried,” Please don’t fire. We’re just thieves. We surrender.” Simon turned his gaze towards the other silhouette. It had only one arm. “Poor little thing, handicapped and thieving”, he thought to himself. Or was it one arm up in the air while the arm was groping in the dark for something. Before Simon could comprehend, he saw a semicircular object approaching him with lightning speed. “Boom”, went the gunshot. There was a momentary silence followed by a hollow thud on the floor.

(To be continued…)