“Iqbal bhai,” he said. “You were on our radar for some time now. I know everything about you – including your business activities and your business partners – inside and outside.“ The man leaned closer. “I even know how much stash you have. And it’s impressive to have achieved that in just in two short years.”
Iqbal’s features hardened. He was either an undercover policeman or a local gang member. Both kinds were dangerous for him.
“What do you want, Mr. Yasin?” Iqbal asked.
“Now we are talking,” visitor said, pleasingly. “You see Iqbal bhai, I run a business where I need an intelligent and resourceful guy... someone like you... for an important work.”
“What kind of work?”
“Well, I can’t tell you the exact nature of the work right now. We’ve just met, haven’t we. But I consider myself to be Allah’s servant and it’s in his service.”
“So, it’s like social work?”
“Well, I call it that, but some people disagree. Infidels,” he said. “I can help you find your way. And help you get everything you’ve ever dreamt of. I am here to give you an opportunity to right all the wrongs.”
Iqbal considered the offer.
“Tell me more," he said.
###
Location: ISI Headquarters, Karachi, Pakistan
“Close the door behind you,” said General Khan.
Yasin knew the drill. He closed the door and set up the jammer next to the table. He seated himself on one of the three chairs and waited patiently. General was sunk deep in reports.
He looked around the lavishly decorated room. Every ISI director had the fetish of extravagant power displays especially to intimidate their political rivals. Several framed photos showed General Khan receiving medals and honours from prominent people. There was a large painting of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah with a backdrop of Pakistani flag. A Markhor head hung on the opposite wall with its long twirly horns protruding out as if about to make charge. Its eyes were kept open and they stared directly at the guests, perhaps deliberately so.
“Don’t worry, he won’t bite you.” he said, raising his head from the pile of papers. “Killed it myself near Afghanistan border.” He picked up the phone and snarled, “Hold off all my calls for next half an hour.”
Yasin wondered if anyone dared contest his claims. “That’s impressive, sir.”
A Pakistani table-flag waved from air blasting from the air-conditioner. Yasin felt cold.
“Well, not as impressive as getting to where I am now. Anyway, I digress. How is it going?”
“The training is going well, sir,” he said. “They should be ready in another six months.” He tried to gauge General’s response from his facial expressions, but it remained impassive as ever. “Sir, I was wondering if we should put some of our boys to the training.”
“Don’t give stupid ideas if that’s all you have,” General hollered, his face showing some emotion for the first time since Yasin arrived. “We need complete deniability if they are caught and that is only possible if we use their boys. We still get the heat for Kasab fiasco even though the mission was successful. So, how many have you got this time?”
“Sir, I recruited twenty this time but only twelve made it to the camp.” Yasin swallowed before adding to his defence. “They have tightened security along the border.”
“I am paying you by the truckloads to manage the security,” General said dismissively. “Twelve or twenty are not going to cut it. Our enemy needs to bleed by thousand cuts, and I need a thousand men to make these cuts.”
“I will do better next time sir.”
“Keep me informed. And get your numbers up. Otherwise, I’ll have to find some other use for you.”
Yasin gulped hard. He knew the real meaning of that innocuous phrase. He nodded vigorously.
General leaned closer to Yasin. His large face filled most of Yasin’s vision. “Did you do that special task I assigned you?” General asked.
“Of course, sir. I met that boy as you had asked. Here is my report—“ He handed over a file that said ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ in big bold red letters and tied with a thread on top. “—the boy is good, sir, but I’m not sure why you specifically want him? I mean, we’ll have to go through additional trouble to get him and he is still in a correction facility— “
“Just do whatever you are told,” General bellowed. “This boy is more valuable than what your small brain can process. Once he is out of there, RAW will keep a close eye on him, and then it’ll be even more difficult to get hold of him.”
After a moment of silence, he leaned back in his chair. “Yasin you’ve done a good job. But this one is the most important you’ve had till now. So, do whatever you need to do, but I want this boy here. Don’t worry about the money. I’ll get the funds,” he said wrapping up the conversation.
“Thank you, Sir,” Yasin rose up from his chair convinced that he had managed to salvage the situation.
Once Yasin left, General Khan opened the report on Iqbal. As he went through it, he felt jubilation in his heart. He was indeed the one and if he could get him, it could be the most potent weapon in his hands.
For a long time, he was preparing for this and now all the pieces were coming together. For the last seventy years his country was a matter of joke and India was responsible for it. He personally suffered a humiliating defeat at Kargil which he could never forget. It was time to prove their superiority to the world. It was time to do something big. He had the perfect terrorist and he had the perfect spy – both would be needed to be used to achieve what his predecessors couldn’t – the complete annihilation of their arch enemy. Next few years would be difficult – he had a lot of work to do.
###
2
“Thank you, sir,” said Iqbal with closed eyes after hearing the clink of a coin. He had come to realize that people derived an unusual pleasure from the sound of coins striking a beggar’s bowl. Perhaps it was an audible approval of their karma that they sought by dropping the coin from above, or maybe it was merely too unpleasant for them to get close to the beggar who was barely covered in tatters and smelled like the garbage he was sitting in. Whatever was the case, for Iqbal, each clink brought him closer to a meal in the evening.
Whistle of the arriving train on Platform Number 4 signalled the last business for him of the day. After that, passengers were too sleepy to search their pockets and usually chose to simply ignore the beggars. All the others sitting around him followed the same schedule and prepared for one final bout of rehearsed pleading. Iqbal looked at his neighbour, a blind boy who was about ten years old. A truly seasoned beggar, his pleas generated immediate sympathy while Iqbal had to compensate for being whole with additional pleading, crying and coaxing.
Thirty minutes later, he rolled his mat that was nothing more than a piece of jute sack and moved towards his shelter of the night. Every night, the vendors would park their carts on the platform and that served as the roof for the beggars and the homeless. Sitting under one such cart, dipping a bread bun in a glass of tea, he watched the late-night activity of Bangalore railway station. Some coolies bargained with a passenger who seemed to be regretting his decision to travel with lots of bags, a cargo train shuddered on the opposite platform as its engine shunted, and some laborers tried to sleep on the benches by covering themselves in shawls with chappals as their pillows.
In the faint light of tube-lights near the reservation chart, Iqbal spotted a tall man staring towards him. His eyes gleamed as he looked in Iqbal’s direction and his facial contours relaxed.
He sprinted towards Iqbal and said in an utterly relieved voice, “Hi Iqbal, I was looking for you. Don’t worry, I can help you. My name is Yusuf.”
###
Present Day
“It... It’s not possible,” I stuttered.
“Just look at you. You’ll not shit in your pants, will you?” He laughed maniacally, and the circular walls of the tunnel echoed.
Though the face was weathered, and a long scar stretched on the right cheek, it was undoubtedly my own. A locket hung from his neck just like mine. It was like looking into a mirror... except that there was none.
“You know, I’ve traveled far. I traveled here—” he spread his hands out—“and I’ve travelled there. I’ve encountered multiple realities. There were so many futures intertwined with one another that one would go crazy. Time is a strange beast, Iqbal. The more I tried to understand it, the more it presented me with something stranger. And just when I thought I had seen everything... when I had achieved what others thought impossible… you arrived. For all the strange things I have seen through multiple realities, you the strangest thing to happen yet.” He looked at me as if still wondering whether I was real.
“When I saw you at the stadium, I couldn’t believe it. I first thought that you were some sort of a trick, but I needed to know. You don’t know how far and how many times I had to travel to find out more about you. It took me lot of effort to track you down and then I spent months following you to know for sure. But I am sure now… you are me, all right. Although a weak and pitiful version but deep down... you are me.”
“I am not you,” I said, forcefully. “I would never kill all those innocent people.”
“Hey hey hey... don’t judge me. Listen to me... they are not people. They are just puppets; slaves of their pre-determined lives.” His fingers danced, pulling invisible threads. “They eat, they sleep, they shit, they fuck and then they die... living their crappy lives over and over and over again – they follow their script. You have seen it too, right? They are not creatures of ‘free will’ who have any choices; they are just dumbfucks who have this illuuusion of choice.
“But we... the two of us here... nononono,” he said shaking his head. “We are different from those morons. They are puppets and we are the puppetmasters. They are the pawns and we are the players. They are merely humans and we are the Gods.”
He was speaking almost to himself. “In fact, if you think about it, we are actually better than those stoney pretentious Gods who sit pretty in their temples and mosques and churches as others sing hymns for them. Nooo... we are far bigger and more potent gods than them. We can grant wishes and we can do miracles. For real. We can be the gods who they can see in the flesh. We can become the gods who truly existed.”
“...the gods who kill millions?” I said with disgust.
He looked at me without blinking. “Alright, alright. You are pissed off. That’s understandable. You’ve had a difficult life.” He talked to me like a parent trying to soothe her baby. “We can continue to treat each other with contempt and not move an inch in this argument. You think you have some sort of moral upper hand over me because I killed all those people, and I, well, know that that morality is just a shield for weaklings. Tell me something, didn’t you kill someone since you achieved this power?”
I gritted my teeth in anger.
“See? You wouldn’t even answer. You killed all those people for what you thought was your higher purpose and I am killing all these people for what I think is mine. Who is to say who is right?”
“I will find a better way.” I murmured.
“No, you won’t,” he replied. “But look, it need not be this way. I think we started on the wrong foot there. I care for you. A lot. Let me do something for you to prove that.”
And with that he vanished.
I stood there staring through the empty air where he had been just a second ago. Did he travel? Some other time, some other place? What was he up to?
And then he came back just as abruptly as he had gone.
It looked like a magician’s trick, he wore different clothes, he was panting, and his face showed weariness of a traveller who had come home after a long voyage.
“Check your memories,” he said between breaths.
He didn’t need to say it. I could feel a new memory coming to me... as if I was trying to remember a dream... but it was more vivid them a dream for it had actually happened to me… six months ago. A man had come to our shop. His face was covered but he seemed nice... he had taken me away from the shop that day. I remembered getting new clothes and eating and watching movies and sitting in a car. I remembered being ecstatic. That was the happiest day of my life.
I opened my eyes. “You can go back six months?”
“I can go back one year,” he boasted. “Or just a moment if I wanted. Stop asking stupid questions. Tell me now, how was it?” he asked, grinning.
I remained silent. That day couldn’t have been better. Whatever monster he was, I indeed owed a day’s happiness to him.
“Oh c’mon. You won’t even admit it. That was the best fucking thing that has ever happened in your life,” he said angrily. “But think about it... our entire lives can be like this,” he said, coming closer. He grasped my hands. “This power that we possess... this power is a gift, a gift to right all the wrongs that happened to us. This world is a fucked-up place where Yusuf bhais and Jaggu dadas run the lives of people like us. And we can sort it. Join me Iqbal. You owe this to yourself. Together... for ourselves.”
Could he be right? What has this world ever given me? Pain, suffering? Even my own mother had abandoned me. But he... he gave me the most precious memory of my life? Didn’t I owe myself some happiness?
“I... I need some time to think...” I muttered.
He sighed.
“Whatever works for you, Iqbal,” he said, going back to his bomb. “Once you have made your mind, you know where to find me. Let’s reset together so that we both remember this conversation. On my count… one… two…”
###
Tomorrow #121
Time: 8 AM
I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what time it was. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered now was me and him. I could have whatever I ever wanted. Luxury, riches, happiness. Like an addict searching for his next fix, I searched my mind for that precious memory and re-lived that one day in my life when I was truly content. If I wanted, my every day could be like that.
And what other real choice did I have? I couldn’t stop him even if I wanted to. He was far more powerful than me. I did everything in my power to complete the mission. I spent days perfecting little things... and in the end, he simply undid everything with just one reset. I was no match for him. Heck, he could go back a year and kill me at his whim, and I wouldn’t know a thing. I wondered how many runs it took him to plant the bomb. Hundreds? Thousands? And he was still going strong.
Was there any point in trying? Why should I be the one trying to stop a bomb? The world never was and never would be at peace. Even if I could stop him, people would simply find new ways to kill each other. Today it was him, tomorrow there might be someone else. And I might not be able to save everyone every time. Why shouldn’t I just look after myself?
And then, from somewhere inside, a voice reached out to me. Shazia called out from the same corner on the street where I had left her, calling out helplessly from behind a wall of fire. She needed me... and I was turning my back on her. She continued to scream but I walked away from her. The fire wanted to consume her and, in that fire, I saw my face... there was an evil grin on my face... the face that was mine... with a scar. I was him.
I came back to awareness with a start. My body was covered in sweat.
Shazia had saved me again. I can never be like him. But then, it means, I’ll have to kill him.
Time: 9 AM
Location: Chinnaswamy Stadium
I walked through the familiar tunnels again. Just like the previous run, he was hunched on his bomb fixing some wires. That was my chance, I trained my gun at his head.
“So, what have you dec –” he turned and his facial expressions changed as he laid his eyes on my gun. “I am disappointed in you, Iqbal,” he said, slowly. He looked like he was in mourning.
“I went through all that trouble to help you see the light and yet you don’t trust me. Really?
Anyway, let me show you something.” He took out a small yo-yo from his pocket. Both faces had clock dials painted on it; its hands marked 10’o clock. “It’s a modified Yo-Yo. I made it myself.“ He gave a tug to the spool. The minute hand of the clock on its face rotated quickly as the disk rolled down. It stopped rolling just a few centimetres from the ground while the clock hands on it had moved several hours. “...aaaand back.”
He pulled the spool with a jerk and the disk rolled upwards and the hands on the clock ran backward. When he caught it again, the clock was back in its 10’o clock configuration.
“Neat isn’t it? I like it a lot, I call it ‘playing with time’. And this is what we both are doing here. We are playing with time like a Yo-Yo. You have one and I have one,” he said. “If we fight with each other – then we are just trying to outdo each other with our tricks. But this fight is kinda pointless, isn’t it? Just like this yo-yo.
“See, you can play with it as long as you want. Maybe give a little tug here and little twist there, and it swings and spins a little differently. But once you are done, once it has unwrapped its thread completely, I can give it a shake and it will come back, undoing whatever you had achieved. We can continue this indefinitely – you can try to stop me but, in the end, I can undo it,” he snapped his fingers. “with a flick of my fingers.
“But then you’ve to question yourself. What are you fighting for? And who are you fighting with? You are fighting with yourself. Literally. We both want the same thing. We both want a just world - where every orphan has a just opportunity.”
“You call this a just world? Once you’ve set this bomb off, it will start a war. A war that will leave nothing but ruins on the grave of humanity.”
“Ah... but, you see, it’ll be the same ruin for everyone. You see ruins where I see equality. Every king will have the same chance as a slave. It will be a perfectly equal world. No one will be more privileged than the other. They now say that I am responsible for all this, who destroys everything, I am the one who is the devil. But I was not visible to them all these years, living my puny life, dragging and scrambling for my survival, following their rules, living like their doormat, while they had everything. After all these years now, they acknowledge me when I sought equality for myself. When I used my power to take theirs, they suddenly woke up and cried about injustice. Where were they when Jaggu dada was tormenting those little kids. I killed him, and justice was served. We are orphans, Iqbal, we never had anyone. All we ever had was ourselves. Imagine what can we do together. You and me, working with each other, not against, watching each other’s’ back, can conquer this world. What do you say?”
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