“You are alright. Thank God, you are alright. Oh God,” I babbled as huge relief washed over me. I didn’t know how many times I repeated that before I stopped making a fool out of myself.
“What happened to me?” She looked about embarrassingly. A few boys from her school looked over their shoulders. But I didn’t care one bit. Shazia was well and that’s all what mattered. I wanted to tell her how I saw her consumed by the raging fire. In that moment in my dream, I was filled with a dreadful feeling so deep that even its memory now pained me beyond measure. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than her to live, and I was ready to die to save her. In that moment, I realized that... I loved her.
“Nothing. I just had a bad dream.” That’s all I managed to say, trying to fight my tears.
“Well then this will cheer you up.” She extended a wrapped parcel towards me.
I looked at the parcel as if it was a live snake.
“Is... is it that a storybook about an orphan boy who finds out he is a wizard? Did your dad give it to you on your birthday?”
“How did you know that?” she asked with surprise.
My euphoria at seeing her alive vanished at the thought of what was perhaps imminent. My bad dream was not over yet, my life still stuck in that nightmare. I bit myself hard. Maybe I would wake-up again. Nothing. I wasn’t dreaming.
“I saw it in my dream,” I mumbled. “Shazia... can you please skip your school today. I have a bad feeling about this. Stay at home... please… just for today.”
“What? Why?” Her face became a mosaic of emotions. Boys from her school were trying to get closer to us to listen to our conversation. She noticed them, and her cheeks turned red with the unexpected attention.
“Is he bothering you, Shazia?” A large boy asked loudly. Many eyes turned in our direction.
“It’s fine,” she said, hesitatingly. “My bicycle is having so many problems these days – can you look down there – yes – check that front brake…”
I crouched down and pretended to adjust some knobs.
“Your dream... you saw something bad happening to me in your dream?” she asked in a whisper.
I nodded.
“Then don’t worry… it was just a dream then… nothing will happen to me.” she said. With some hesitation she added, “I didn’t know that you—”
“You piece of shit,” screamed Yusuf bhai from inside the shop, “how long does it take for you to pump air into two bicycles?”
“You should go now,” she said, with much more concern than what I remembered from the dream. And then, she turned away and left.
Dumbfounded, I trudged back to my stool as my memories played again in front of my eyes... it was like re-watching a movie. Cars honked, Ramdhari showed sarees to women, the bespectacled man stuffed his hands in heaps of vegetables. Every single person played their scripted roles from my memory. I tested myself—a crying kid, a spilling tea, dripping ice-cream, a screeching crow on the rail, it was all there. Everything. At a distance, I saw the motorist with the apple box, who crashed in the exact pot-hole spilling apples all over.
There was no denying it anymore. It seemed quite implausible but that was the only explanation – whatever I remember from my dream was turning into reality. Perhaps it was a precognition trying to warn me of future events, or a vision summoned through me by a seer, but whatever it was it gave me a power of foresight. And for a reason.
I’ve got this one chance to save Shazia... and save everyone, and I won’t blow it. This means that at 1 o’ clock today, a bomb will go off in Delhi and riots will ensue… and Shazia… she will... no. I will not let it happen this time. I have less than 3 hours to stop this. And I have a plan.
###
“Yusuf bhai,” I said. “Isn’t the business little slow today? I should put some of those to good use.” I pointed at the box of nails.
“You are learning, kid,” Yusuf bhai said, suspiciously. “But come back soon else you go home on crutches today.”
Once off the hook, I sprinted towards Rahim chacha’s shop. As expected, there was a crowd surrounding a large screen television set outside.
“...that will race away for four. Pakistani fans are on their feet. It was a short ball by Pathan and Misbah punished it over the square leg boundary. That also brings 47th fifty for Misbah-ul-haq and it couldn’t have come at a better time for his side. He is raising his bet now. Pakistan 237 for four at the end of thirty-two overs...”
I was panting by the time I reached his shop. “Chacha, I need your help.”
Throwing his newspaper aside, Rahim chacha jumped in alarm. “What’s the matter, Iqbal? Is everything okay? Did that wretched Yusuf trouble you again? Here... have some water.”
“Thank you, chacha,” I said, sipping water from the metal glass. “What I am going to tell you will sound ridiculous, but you’ll have to trust me on this.”
He said sympathetically, “Don’t worry, son. Tell me whatever you have in your mind.”
I proceeded to tell him everything – about my precognition and how I can foresee everything that was happening today. I told him about the bomb and the curfew and the riots, skipping the part about Shazia. His eyes broadened as he listened to the entire story. He remained silent for minutes after I had finished.
Finally, he said, “I… Iqbal… son, you need some rest,” emphatically putting his wrinkled hand over my hands.
“I don’t need rest, chacha,” I cried. “I need your help. We can still stop this.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Stop what, Iqbal? Look around you. Everything is fine. Whatever you are calling this... this precognition… is simply your imagination,” he said, avoiding my eye.
“It’s not my imagination, chacha. I wish it was. All right, let me prove it to you,” I said, anxiously. My eyes searched for the lunch box behind his chair. “There – today you have laddoos in your lunch box and you were planning to save one for me. Isn’t it? You want more proof? The last jumma you met Yusuf bhai and you tried to talk to him, but he didn’t listen... and... and... Pakistan will score exactly three hundred and sixty runs and Misbah will score a century. Explain me how I know all this?”
TV blared in the background: “That’s another four for Misbah. Eighteen overs to go and Pakistan is poised to go beyond the psychological mark of 300 runs...”
He shot a look at his lunch box and his face tensed. “Iqbal, I don’t know how are doing this. You are like a son to me and I trust you, but I can’t help you with… with whatever is this dream or precognition or whatever... “
“Fine, chacha,” I said in exasperation. “I won’t ask you to get involved, but could you give me your phone? I just need one phone call. Can you at least do this one favour to me?”
He stared at me for some time, trying to decide, before pushing his corded phone towards me. I picked up the receiver, and for the first time in my life, I dialled one zero zero.
The call was picked under two rings. A calm female voice echoed in my ear. “This is Emergency. I have you at JC Road. How can I help you?”
“Ma’am, my name is Iqbal. This is very urgent. I want to give you some information about a nuclear attack on Delhi.” There was a silence at the other end. There were a few things that were unusual even for emergency services.
“Did you say a nuclear attack?” she asked gravely.
“Yes, at 1 PM, in Delhi, there will be a bomb blast… and it’ll be a devastating one. Please do something… it can still be stopped. If you can find the bomb it can be diffused… maybe with a bomb squad… I don’t know. But you need to inform people and the police—”
“And how do you know about it, Mr. Iqbal?” she asked with a hint of cynicism.
I was taken aback at the sudden question. “I… I had a dream,” I replied.
“Sorry I missed that, did you say you had a dream?” she said, munching every syllable of the last word.
“Yes. Dammit – I am not lying.” I shouted in the phone. “
There is a bomb in Delhi and I know it. People are going to die,” I blurted. “Unless you do your job.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Iqbal. Thanks for informing us.” She hung up.
“What in Allah’s name was that?” Rahim chacha snatched the receiver from my hand. His face had turned from worried to gloomy during the call.
“Everything is okay, chacha. This call just saved millions of lives. And when they find that bomb, they’d know whom to thank for the information. You’ll see chacha, you’ll see.”
He shook his head. “You are so naïve, Iqbal. For your sake, I hope you are right.”
The next few minutes were tense. I wondered if I was able to warn the police on time; after all, Delhi was huge, and I didn’t know the first thing about bombs. I sat there twiddling my thumbs looking expectantly at the television and the clock that now had hour hand pointing halfway between ‘X’ and ‘XI’. Rahim chacha nervously pretended to read the newspaper that I caught him holding upside down.
Suddenly, a police jeep screeched to a halt and a few constables jumped out in a quick succession before it had come to a full stop. A police officer alighted in a hurry from the front seat as the constables flanked him. Clean shaven and well dressed, he walked with an air of authority about him. He was the youngest man I had ever seen in police uniform with four stars on his shoulders. A matte-black nameplate on his chest read ‘T N Rao (Sub-Inspector)’. He took long strides in the direction of the crowd that watched the cricket match at Rahim chacha’s shop.
“Does anyone know any Iqbal around here? Where can I find him?” he asked in a loud voice. A few heads turned, and some bodies shuffled uncomfortably, but no answer came.
“Sir, I am Iqbal,” I raised my hand and stepped out. People slid away from me as if I was radioactive. Fools. Tomorrow they’d be looking at my picture in the newspapers and gloat about how ‘they were there’.
He looked at me from top to bottom; his eyes twitched. “Did you make that call to Emergency Services?”
“Yes sir, that’s me,” I said. “Did you find the bomb already?”
There were murmurs in the crowd. Words like “bomb”, “prank-call”, and “arrest” carried above the whispers. Constables brandished their batons to maintain quiet.
Sub-Inspector ignored my question.
“You’ll have to come with me for questioning.”
I gritted my teeth. This wasn’t how I expected my call to go and now they were wasting crucial time.
“Is he under arrest, sahib,” Rahim chacha asked with a measured humbleness. The crowd had now formed a circle around us.
“Who are you? You know this guy?”
“Sahib, he works at my shop,” Rahim chacha said, with folded hands.
“And I suppose you don’t know anything about his other activities then?” The Sub-inspector’s voice boomed louder than the cricket commentary.
(“...that’s good running between the wickets... Pakistan two hundred and ninety-five at the end of thirty-seven overs...”)
It took a while for my idiot half-brain to process it, but Rahim chacha was right all along. The police either thought that I was a prankster or part of some gang. How foolish of me to think that everyone will take the word of a lowly bicycle mechanic? My mind was racing. I was the only one who knew that a disaster was coming… and if they took me away, then Shazia would die. I had to save Shazia on my own… whatever it takes. I can’t waste my time going with police now.
“Sir, I will come with you but if you don’t mind can I talk to him for 5-minutes?” I requested. “The old man is senile and forgetful. I need to tell him about some customer orders… I wonder what he would do without me.”
Sub-Inspector Rao stood at the centre of the swelling crowd. He was in complete control and he seemed to like it. “Yes, but make it quick.” He turned to the onlookers. “And all of you, what are you looking at? This is not a street play but serious government work. Go back to your work.”
I signalled Rahim chacha to come inside the shop; two constables stood guard outside. While in earshot, I said loudly, “Chacha, there are three orders to be delivered today... one is for this 42-inch television... this other is for – Chacha, listen to me very carefully. Don’t speak. You have to save yourself and your family... there is going to be a curfew and a riot on the street... go home now and save yourself...”
He gave me a blank stare. I continued, “Now, I am going to push you to the ground. It’ll not hurt much but scream loudly... tell them that I assaulted you...”
“What do you mean by tha—”
I grabbed him by the shoulders and with pushed him with a thrust. He landed on his back with a loud thud.
“Sorry chacha, but I’ve got to save Shazia.”
It took Rahim Chacha a second to register whatever I had told him. And then his scream followed. “HELP ME! Someone... help me... he ran away... HEEEELP!” I wasn’t sure if Rahim chacha believed me or not, but one thing was certain – he was a fine actor. So much so that I hesitated for a moment before realizing that it was an act.
I knew that there was a back-door that opened in the alleyway. As I dashed towards it, I heard the sub-inspector yelling, “Catch him you fool… and pick-up that old man.”
Once out from the door, I latched it from the outside. Those policemen will have a hard time breaking that, I thought. The door opened into a narrow alley that was surrounded by back walls of shops and houses. It was used as a dump as large heaps of garbage pitted every inch of space. It smelled terrible and I covered my nose. Behind me, the constables were already banging on the door, trying to break it open. Avoiding the stray pigs, who were merrily rolling in the filth, I turned left and started running towards the end of the alley where it merged with the main road.
I had hardly covered a hundred feet, for running in the slushy garbage was tricky, when I heard the door bust open. The two constables, who were quicker than I thought, emerged from the door. I increased my pace. Another fifty feet and I’d be out in the chowk. And then I could just get lost in the crowd.
Thirty feet. I could even see the traffic on the main road... almost there. But just when I thought I’d make it, bad luck struck again – from nowhere, a third constable appeared on the other end of the street. Dammit! Now I was surrounded by cops from two sides and with nowhere to go. I quickly glanced around and spotted an open window on the first floor of a house. I didn’t have time to think, as the constables were close now and that window my only chance to escape.
I gathered my pace and leaped towards the window from a particularly large pile of garbage and barely caught the window sill with the edge of my fingers.
By the time I pulled myself up, the three cops had reached the spot below me. One of them jumped in a desperate attempt and ended up face down, in the squishy garbage. “You son of a bitch, I’ll make you pay for this,” he said as pigs moved about him, trying to lick off garbage off his face. I shrugged at his threat and entered the first-storey room through the window.
It was a scarce room with a single bed and television. A rotating table fan whirred clumsily near the bed, where an old woman stared at me through her glasses, her eyes magnified comically by thick lenses.
“Don’t get alarmed, I am just trying to find my way out.”
She lifted her thin, bony hand and pointed nonchalantly at the door.
“Thank you.”
I climbed down the flight of stairs and then out of the house from the front door when I bumped into someone.
“Hi, Iqbal,” said sub-Inspector Rao, “you motherfucker.”
###
Time: 12 PM (1 hour to the blast)
Date: 20th June 2020
Location: JC Road Police Station
“Who is this joker, Rao saahib?” said Inspector Shiva Murthy while putting his feet on the table. His thick caterpillar moustache seemed to extend to his lower lip when he closed his mouth. He twisted a toothpick between his teeth to drill out his lunch remnants and then
triumphantly spit out a large chunk. His face’s contours relaxed a bit. He picked another toothpick from the box and looked at it like a knight examining his sword.
“Sir, I picked him up from JC market. He made an emergency call to give a bomb threat. But when I went to question him, he tried to run away.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the constable twisted his end of the rope to which I was handcuffed. A sharp pain shot through my hands. I guessed he still blamed me for his dumpster diving session this morning.
“Hu hu hu.” Inspector giggled without moving an inch. “Why do you waste your time with these ass-holes Rao saahib? We have better things to do than dealing with these slum thugs. You are new, and I like your passion,” he yawned, “but we get these kinds of calls dozen times a week.”
He turned to an aged constable, sitting at another table for acknowledgment. “Suresh babu, do you remember that bomb threat last year for a Delhi flight? What a mess that was.” Suresh babu stopped his paperwork and let out a hybrid grunting-burping sound that roughly sounded like agreement.
“See,” said Inspector Murthy, with an added weight of Suresh babu’s approval.
Sub-inspector Rao looked visibly offended, “But Sir, he was running from us—”
“Rao saahib, I have been here for the last 20 years. These slum boys are just like street dogs... they bark and run behind police jeeps for fun. Why bother much? You’ve to just give them a beating right there and settle the matters.”
The Sub-Inspector seemed unconvinced. “Sir, at least let’s interrogate him first and record his statement.”
“Ok, ok... if that makes you happy,” Inspector Murthy said. He removed his feet from the table reluctantly.
“Bring him here,” he said with an effort. “And constable... get me some tea”.
Sub-Inspector Rao pushed me to one of two wooden chairs. I sat awkwardly, trying to adjust my cuffed hands behind my back. Inspector Murthy sifted through a pile of registers on his table and pulled one at the lower end of the stack, nearly toppling everything else. He picked up a pen from the pen-holder and licked the nib before jotting down something on the pale paper.
123 Tomorrows Page 3