School calling

It’s 3am and the traffic on the main road has finally decreased to a trickle. The city of Hyderabad seems to finally take a short nap. On one of the offshoots from the main road lies the school. Its pompously large white building and faux gold gate make it look grand. Arjun looks at it. He’s not deceived by the façade. He graduated from it more than a decade ago. Even though the school has been renovated multiple times, Arjun knows the insides like the back of his hand. The offices, the labs, the computer rooms, the tiny excuse that the students call a ‘library’, the playground or lack thereof. Arjun often walks down this road, seldom alone. On those few nights when he does go past it surrounded by only his thoughts, he looks up at the building, and wonders about the irony of Love and Life. But tonight, isn’t one of those nights. He stands in front of the gate, a candy cigarette between his teeth. His hands in the pockets of his long trousers. His orange hoodie matching the streetlight under which he stands. He’s impatient. His partner for tonight is late.

3:15am and finally Arjun sees a slight hooded figure walking down the road towards him. The person is hunched over and walking briskly, throwing nervous glances around. Arjun sighs. People tend not to believe him when he says that the area is ‘safe’. Arjun leans his back on the pale wall. He’s only barely conscious of the cheap plaster rubbing off on his hoodie.

The figure finally approaches Arjun. The hood comes off and a woman’s eyes regard Arjun, judging his stance, his clothes, and his curious choice of sweetmeat. “I’m here”, she announced in a low voice. Arjun regards her with little more than indifference. “My time is precious, unlike yours. I’d rather not it be wasted, Vicky” he replies coldly. Vicky is taken aback by the sudden verbal assault. She feels a spark of anger rise, but she quickly quells it. She’s not here to argue. The faster the deed is done, the sooner she can go back home. “I’m sorry”, she mumbles. “Spare me your condescension,” Arjun replies, “you know why you’re here. Where is the money?”.

Vicky looks around her nervously. This was quite possibly the first “shady deal” of her life. She had heard stories about them, and even watched them in movies. She half expected a police van to turn the corner, arrest her, and do God knows what to the person she stood talking to. In perfect honesty, she didn’t really care what happened to him. So long as she got to go home to her normal life and forget this night, she didn’t really care what happened. After being satisfied that there were no cops nearby, she shakingly pulls out a wad of notes, tightly wound with a string. “Here,” she says, handing Arjun the money, “as requested, 50 notes of 100, tied with a string”.

Arjun ruffles through the notes absent mindedly. He doesn’t care if people cheat him by paying less. His profit margin is too high to bother about such trivialities. Strict government regulations made people like him very wealthy. “Around the corner, behind the bushes” he says, looking straight into Vicky’s eyes.

Vicky gulps and nervously walks towards the corner. She can hear Arjun following her, but senses that he’s not following too closely. She turns the corner and bends down on her knees. She fumbles on the ground for a bit and finally finds a small package wrapped in paper. She grasps it and stands up only to find Arjun standing right in front of her. His eyes menacing. He spits out the candy and with a voice as icy as a blizzard says,” Run, sheep”. Vicky panics and lets out a scared yelp. She turns and sprints away for dear life. Arjun watches her run away. A naughty smile playing on his lips. He smacks the wall of the school and walks away in the opposite direction. “What people won’t spend for a pinch of grass” he says. “Shut up! Let me sleep”, says the guard, huddled behind the wall.