A Cobbler's tale

A busy, crowded street on a very hot evening. Or should I call it a very busy market?

"Hawkers and other encroachments have made this once upon a time peaceful promenade a very busy place. In fact, it is only a shopping destination these days for all these youth who don't know what to do on weekends. Only a handful of us choose to have our evening walk here, that too purely out of habit. I've been walking here for the past 23 years. This street has lost its charm, I tell you! ...", the septuagenarian I met a few days ago lamented on with his almost practised speech. 

I was seated at the Barista overseeing the street, with the day's daily in hand. There were several articles that day praising the economic growth this country was heading for... how we'd beat Germany in consumer spending soon and how we'd beat USA and China in X and Y etc. There was very little about scams, thankfully. This was before the outbreak of the 2G or wi-max diaries.

There was also this article about the government order to evacuate encroachments from some roads, to manage traffic better. This specific road was in that list of roads and there were also these views of local residents agreeing with it, which reminded me of the 70 year old thatha's statement. Ha ha, the road isn't going to be the paradise for walking and jogging, people - it is being cleared to ensure better traffic management, at the behest of the showrooms and other shops.

I looked at those hawker shops carefully for the first time, wondering if they knew what was coming, with questions like "Would they protest? Would they go in silence? Would they be silenced?" running through my mind. I saw a family of three - a man, his wife and a little girl - with huge purchases coming out of a showroom, all smiling. The girl was dragging one of her feet, and her mom told her something (of course, I couldn't hear that from that far, not even taking into account all that noise from the traffic). The girl then flung her slippers from her feet and got into a car parked nearby.

I'd never noticed before, but there was a cobbler's place nearby, almost hidden (like the leaky cauldron?) by the huge mall behind him and the jazzy, glittering side of roadside vendors selling rolex watches (yea, right) at 100 bucks a piece. As soon as the car merged with the rest of the traffic, the very old cobbler slowly walked to the platform, his struggle to walk without any support very visible. He took the slippers and went back to his place at the same pace, and started working on it happily. I smiled at the cobbler's 'fortune' and went back to reading the newspaper.

.
.
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A while later, I was walking along the street to reach the bus stop at the end of it. That was when I saw a 5 year old girl begging in the middle of the street, amidst all the traffic. An auto almost hit her and the auto driver shouted at her to go out of the road. The girl cried, probably out of shock, leaning on the signpost at one end of the street. Just then, the cobbler cried out to her. The girl stared at him for a couple of seconds, wondering why, and then walked up to him. He handed out the pair of slippers he had just stitched and asked her to put them on instead of walking on bare feet in that heat. The child got very excited, put them on and happily jumped all her way along the platform, leaving the cobbler grinning from ear to ear.

I realized then, that the street, that had lost its 'charm' long ago, was also going to lose its heart soon.

Lights, Kung Fu, Action...

There he was, standing in front of me...the greatest living kung fu master. I did have a gun with me and started fitting the silencer to it hurriedly, but I knew he was better than that.

I had walked halfway back across a long pathway lit by a continuous tube-light embedded in the centre of the ceiling...  I expected to find my way to the target at the end of this corridor...but there was nothing at the other end of this tunnel - a simple trap. I ran back but realised halfway back that Kao Peng was waiting for me near the entrance.

"Welcome to my humble abode", he said with a smile on his near-plastic face. His coolers were somewhat bigger than normal and like all masters from movies around the world, he was dressed in white. I knew I was done for. I had to avoid him today to have any chances of seeing tomorrow. But how?

He continued with a smile, "Do you know that if I walk out of this room and press that green button on the outside, you will be locked in for ever? No alarms, No signals, No essscape", with a hiss and a stress on the last word, "but of course, I want to talk to you."

Sometimes, I hate this job.

I had to talk to extend my duration of staying alive. "What do you want from me?"

He smiled as if it was a joke. "Do you, by any chance, know Kung Fu?"

I knew what he was thinking. "No. But why would you want to harm me? I just got lost."

"You got lost? Do you mean to say you are not T439?"

Now, did I have cyanide? Simpler way to die, I tell you. He started walking towards me, increasing his stride and speed with every step. He had that evil sadistic grin on his face that added a whole new dimension to the word 'fear'. I kept my finger on the trigger just in case and was waiting for an opportunity that I knew was not coming.

Within seconds, it seemed like Kao Peng was flying towards me. Strange...He did not even take out his sword yet. Did he think I was so bad a fighter or was he really that strong?

I waited without moving till he was about twenty feet away.

'Thud'. I shot at the tube-lights above me. Not only did the lights go out for the whole room but there was also some form of a gas that started filling the room. I dropped to the ground and rolled to a corner. Kao Peng continued flying in his path with his head towards where I stood and his legs behind him in a straight line as if he was swimming through air. When he reached where I stood (a second later), he somersault-ed in mid air and hit the ground with one of his legs. The floor cracked under his strength.

I took this moment as my chance and shot at him. His reaction was faster than the speed of the bullet; he moved forward, put a hand on the ground, swirled in air, kicked the gun out of my hand with one foot and landed his other foot on my hip, enough to send me flying across the room...all this, I guess, before the bullet from my gun reached the place where he was initially standing. I landed, bounced, rolled, hit the wall at both sides once before I finally stopped myself from rolling with great effort. Kao Peng dusted his white shirt and said, "Impressive", as he started walking balk towards me. I was spitting blood already. It hit me when I saw the external orange lighting brightening the floor on which I was vomitting blood... I was near the door!

With all my strength, which wasn't much, I threw myself to my right, fell outside the door, pushed up as much as I could and pressed the green switch. The door closed and in an instant, Kao Peng made a dent on the steel door. This noise would get someone's notice sooner or later, and I didn't want the monster outside till I left this darn place.

'Thud'. I shot the switch into pieces and walked away, wondering why my head ached more than my hip.

Simple dialogue, Complex reactions

It was raining so hard that day. Nothing was visible beyond a metre or if you were Superman, two metres.

Arjun was seated in his desk wondering if he could close out the stall earlier today because of the rains. But then, he couldn't go home because of the rains, so there was no point doing it. He checked, cross-checked and checked the finances for the day again. Everything was perfect. Sales had been pathetic in the last few days, but he didn't really care. After all, he was seated at the dairy stall at the gate of the biggest dairy in the state and they couldn't care less about the revenue from their single most insignificant stall. Why? Because this was in the middle of nowhere, usually frequented only by people visiting the dairy for business or those school kids who are brought here in the name of an 'excursion'.

Today, thanks to centimetres of rain, he had nothing to do.

"Hello" A voice out of nowhere scared him to death. There was a man in a dark raincoat at the counter, nearly camouflaged by rain.

A customer? in these rains? Probably not.

"Yes? What do you want?"


"Milk, probably"


"..."

"Milk."

A customer, after all.

"How many litres?"

"How many do you have?"

He was stunned by this cross-question. He continued, though.

"Immediately, (pausing for a moment) I have around..."

"No, no...", sounded like he was laughing a little. "...I was asking about the entire dairy"


"..." Stunned was certainly the word.

"You don't know?"

"Tho.. Thousands of litres, sir."

The stranger continued calmly."How many of it can you load into one of your lorries in the next ten minutes?"

"I really don't understand. This is not where you discuss big orders. You can..."

(Interrupting) "No no. Look here, I'll give you 1000 bucks. Can you give me 1000 litres in 20 minutes?"

Arjun felt that there was a sarcastic tone, there. Definitely.

"No, Sir. Half a litre costs 12 bucks. For 1000 rupees, you will get only around 83 litres."

"Sigh", he paused. "I am trying to save you 1000 bucks here with this transaction. Never mind."

"..."

"...and I'd leave for home, even in these rains, within the next twenty five minutes if I were you." ...and the guy turned around and walked.

Arjun kept looking at him as he faded into the rains at a distance.

Today, in spite of centimetres of rain, Arjun had a lot of things to do.

-The End, literally?-

NOTE: Off the top of my head. took 10 minutes. Don't expect even the regular poor quality. This should have been at the top of the post, you say?