The Jugni

by Gagan Saini

  One of them had a big blade. A couple of them held him tight and the one with the blade approached to stab him. He swung the blade in full force. The blade was centimeters away from Zahid’s abdomen when an arrow came from nowhere and pierced his hand holding the blade.

  Everybody including Zahid were shocked. They looked here and there to find out where the arrow came from. Before they could figure it out, two more arrows came and hit in the chest of the men holding Zahid. At the same time, a few more arrows finished some of the men.

  One man quickly ran behind Zahid and placed his gun on his head and said, “Whoever this is, come out… otherwise, I will kill this policeman.”

  No one came outside. This man fired a bullet in the air. “I am not joking, I will kill him.”

  Jugni came out of the place she was hiding in. She held a bow and an arrow stretched on it, pointed towards the man with a gun. As she was coming out, Zahid and the other men were trying to figure out who she was. Zahid gave her a mystified look.

  “My God, she looks like Simar. Is she Simar? No, she can’t be Simar. If she was alive I would know it. But who is she?” Zahid spoke to himself inside his head as she walked towards them. She did not give any special attention to Zahid, or she might have but he did not notice because of the sunglasses.

  Her Superhero kind of outfit, bow, and arrows, flying, wearing sunglasses in the dark, patrolling the city at night and suddenly showing up to the rescue, all factors were making him befuddled even more.

  The man said, “Drop that bow and arrow. Who are you? Are you with police?”

  “My name is Jugni and I am a nightmare for people like you,” she replied with the arrow still pointed at him.

  The man laughed and said, “You are just a girl.”

  She smiled and said, “Look around, just a girl killed how many of your men.”

  “Enough talk girl, throw your bow on the ground otherwise I will shoot this policeman.”

  The girl relaxed her arm with the arrow and dropped it with the bow. She put her hands up.

  “Now you don’t have bow and arrow, now tell me what are you going to do?” he said and laughed, so did his fellow men.

  She started laughing as well. Zahid looked at her with confusion. When the man noticed her laughing as well, he stopped laughing.

  “Why are you laughing, girl.”

  She continued to laugh again and said, “Actually, I don’t need any weapon to kill vermin like you.”

  Nobody in that room understood what she meant.

  She was holding her hands up; from that position, she made a gun out of her both hands, by having her thumb up, the index and middle fingers joined together in a pointing position and folding the rest of two fingers. She pointed those handguns towards that man behind Zahid. Zahid looked at everything, he was waiting for a moment when she gives him a look, but she did not.

  The man laughed again and said, “You are a funny girl.” She pointed her hands gun at him and pretended to shoot. She jerked her hand as if she was firing and a real bullet hit that man in the middle of his forehead. She did not waste any time. She pointed her hands to all of them one by one. It happened so quickly, none of them had time to react or even understand what was going on. Before anybody could do anything, all the men were on the ground. It was only her and Zahid now.

  “Are you Simar?” Zahid could not wait to ask.

  She did not answer and picked up her bow and arrow. At the same time, a police team arrived in a big van from the other side. Zahid turned to see them and turned back again to ask the same question to Jugni, but she wasn’t there anymore. The other policemen came and they saw Zahid in the middle of the mess. One senior asked, “Did you do this all by yourself?” Zahid was lost in his thoughts and could not answer that question. His eyes were looking around in the godown for answers.

  Police secured the premises. Some policemen checked the bodies of men and others checked the stuff they found in the godown. Zahid went home without speaking to anyone.

  Next day when he entered the police station in the morning, everybody gave him a round of applause. All his co-workers came one by one to congratulate him on the last night’s success. He thanked them half-heartedly. The whole police department was happy that such a big quantity of drugs was found. It was a great blow to the drug mafia. He asked one of the police officers where are the bodies of those who died last night. The police officer replied, “Sir, nobody died last night.”

  “What!”

  “Sir, they all were unconscious until this morning in the hospital, now they all are in our custody and are under interrogation. Sir, you are asking as if you don’t know anything, you are the one who did this.”

  Then the person got busy with something else. Zahid gave him a fake smile and started to think again. He went to the section where all evidence was kept. He found the bullets. Those bullets were half the size of normal bullets. Not only that, the tip of the bullets was metallic, and the base was transparent. Zahid put one bullet in his pocket and left. He went straight to the police department laboratory. He asked one of the technicians to study what kind of bullet it was. The technician took the bullet from him and said, “Sir, it will take time to give the report as it looks a bit unusual.”

  “No problem. Here is my number, call me straight away when you find something.” Zahid gave him his card and left.

  Zahid went home and fell on the bed; he was tired of thinking. He fell asleep.

  On the other side, the name Jugni was spreading like wildfire. People already knew that some girl patrols at night but now they knew her name. Those boys who were fighting last night told their friends and they told theirs, soon it became a word of mouth. Media interviewed them asking for a description of Jugni.

  One newspaper printed her sketch based on the description by boys. It was sure that it had some connection with Punjab because the word Jugni is a Punjabi language word, which means female firefly. However, Jugni is an imaginary character in the Punjabi culture which represents a young girl. Many poets had made poems on Jugni. Numerous singers had sung songs on Jugni in the past and still did. She was a character of a very beautiful girl, a very attractive one, a source of inspiration for songs and poems.

  This Jugni was of a different kind. She was beautiful and attractive for sure but not as soft as in the poems and songs.

  The question people asked each other was whether she was really a person or a ghost because whoever had seen her, they saw her flying. Many old ladies were heard saying that she was an evil spirit. But the mystery continued.

  Zahid woke up with the bell of his phone.

  “Hello, Zahid speaking.”

  Sir, “I am a technician from the laboratory; I rang you regarding that bullet.”

  “What did you find?”

  “This is a special bullet. It is not meant to kill a person but to make him unconscious. It has two chambers - the head is metallic which helps to penetrate, and the tail has a toxin which gets released when it comes into contact with human tissues.”

  “What toxin is that?”

  “Sir, the toxin in the bullet is LD50. It is one of the most poisonous chemicals to humans but one in the bullet has some changes in its chemical composition.”

  “What kind of changes?”

  “The changes in its chemical structure made this toxin very less lethal but very fast acting.”

  “It means a person who gets in contact with it will not die but will get unconscious straight away?”

  “Yes, precisely,” the technician replied.

  “Do you know where I can find it”, Zahid asked. He said, “I don’t know where to buy this, but it’s used in the beauty industry mainly in Botox treatments.” Zahid thanked him for his help and hung up the phone. Zahid rang the police station and talked to one of his officers. He asked him to immediately find the suppliers of LD50 in th
e city and inform him.

  Soon Zahid got the details of the suppliers and went to them one by one. He got the details of the customers of LD50 in the city from them. He went through the list in detail. He wore his jeans and a white T-shirt to avoid any unnecessary attraction of attention. Most of them did not ring any bell in his mind. A few were suspicious so he went to them one by one, but he did not find anything significant.

  As there were not many places to go, he was almost finished by the evening. There was only one place left and so, he went there. This was a bit surprising because this was a private tuition center. When he walked in, he saw a lady teaching a few students.

  He said, “I am looking for Mr. Siddarth.” The lady pointed him towards the other direction and continued with the teaching. Zahid moved to the cabin and knocked at the door.

  Siddarth said, “Please come in. You are the police officer, right?”

  “Yes, I am Zahid and it was your baby that Simar saved in the metro?”

  “Yes, my daughter is alive because of her. We miss Simar a lot. She was such a nice soul.” Siddarth showed some sad expressions but recovered soon.

  “Please have a seat, how can I help you?”

  “Thanks a lot. We all miss Simar a lot, always. Anyways, I came here to ask you about a toxin. I have been investigating something, as a part of which I have to ask everyone who uses LD50.”

  “I got fired from my job as a scientist and I started this tuition center to survive. I have got a little laboratory where I try new things. That chemical is used for experimentation purposes and we kept it under a lock because it’s very dangerous.”

  “If you don’t mind, can I have a look at your laboratory?”

  “Yes, of course, officer.”

  He showed him his setup. It was a very small and basic lab. It had some beakers on the tables, some test tubes with colorful liquids and a few electronic devices. He led Zahid to a cupboard and opened the lock and took a small container out. “This is the chemical you are talking about.”

  “What do you use it for?”

  “I am experimenting on the cure of AIDS.”

  “That’s awesome; society needs more people like you. I guess I got all the answers I wanted. Sorry to bother you. I will see you some other time.”

  “No problem officer, you can bother me anytime, you are a friend of Simar.”

  Zahid left the tuition center. As he left the building, the lady teaching the students looked at Siddarth and he smiled and went to his cabin again.

  The toxin led Zahid nowhere. The mystery regarding Jugni was still unsolved. Zahid did the same thing he did before. He went on the streets at night. This time he did not find anything. He went again the next night. This time he got lucky. He found the flying lady patrolling one of the streets. She flew while standing straight in her stance. The weird thing about her flying was that she used to fly on roads only; if she was really flying she could fly anywhere. Well, this was not the only question Zahid had in his mind, he had hell lot of other questions.

  He followed her again from a distance. He was very determined to find out the truth. Luckily, nothing major happened in the city that night.

  It was almost the time for dawn, she turned into one street. By the time Zahid reached the turning point, he lost her. He could not find her anywhere. He got very frustrated. It was early morning time, and no one was on the streets in that particular area. He looked everywhere but could not find anything.

  Suddenly, he felt something. That area looked familiar to him but he wasn’t sure how. He kept on going to find out something, but in vain. A thought came to his mind and he recognized the area. This was the same area he came for the investigation regarding the poison. This was the area where Dr. Siddarth had his tuition center. He did not have anything in mind, but he headed towards the center anyway. He reached the tuition center. There was nothing unusual from the outside. It was very quiet there. He stopped his bike there and hopped off.

  He moved to the door and was about to knock but for some reason, he did not. Then he moved to the window and tried to look inside but he could not see anything. By his moving around, he activated a sensor and some sort of security camera mounted on the roof which he did not notice. He kept going around the building. As the lights were off, he could not see anything inside. He had a feeling that Jugni disappearing in this area, finding poison, and Siddarth, all were somehow connected. To clarify this doubt, he decided to break in.

  He looked around and found one rod. With the help of that rod, he opened one window and jumped into the building. As it was dark inside and he did not want to switch the lights on, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned the flashlight on. He looked here and there. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He checked the rooms one by one and then the lab where Siddarth showed him the poison. He checked the cupboard, it was locked. Then he went to Siddharth’s office. He randomly flicked the papers in the drawers.

  He found the cutting of some newspaper which had Simar’s photo and news. This was about that incident happened in the Metro and how she saved Siddarth and his family’s life.

  This all felt like a matter of yesterday when Simar was still around. His thought process was interrupted by some noise as if someone else was in the building. He pulled his gun out and started looking around very carefully. As he moved out of the office, he could see a shadow of a person standing there, but could not see who that was. The light of his phone was not enough to see.

  “Hands up, otherwise I will shoot you!!” The person put hands up nicely without saying anything.

  Zahid looked around, he saw a fridge next to him. He opened the fridge. The light in the fridge made the room a little illuminated.

  He turned to the person, who was more visible now. He could not believe himself. It was the same girl he was following the whole night. The girl wore a tight black and blue dress with black being dominant. She wasn’t wearing any sunglasses and because of which, she looked exactly like Simar.

  “Simar?” Zahid asked with shock.

  “Yes, it’s me Zahid.” The voice was high in emotional content.

  Zahid strongly controlled his tears and put his gun away.

  “Simar, what is this all about? Are you the real Simar? If yes, how did you survive that blast? How are you flying?”

  “I know you have lots of questions, and I will answer them all.”

  She asked him to follow her and started walking in one direction. Zahid followed her.

  She led him to the lab. There was nothing unfamiliar to Zahid; he had been to this room twice already. Instead of opening that cupboard, she went to a shelf beside that cupboard. It had three containers of red, blue and green chemical on it. She changed the position of the containers in a sequence, all three were in the same line before but their position was changed. Then she walked to Zahid who was standing in front of the cupboard.

  “Now what?” Zahid asked impatiently. His expressions said that he wasn’t in the mood of some magic tricks, just wanted answers to his questions.

  She did not say anything, rather she looked at the cupboard. The cupboard slid sideways. There was a small room behind that cupboard. The walls were black, and it wasn’t a big room. She walked into it and looked at Zahid. He did not say anything and followed. She placed her palm on the wall. The wall became a digital screen and scanned her hand. Zahid’s eyes were left wide open. After that, she stood straight. The cupboard slid back to its original place and the room started to shake a little bit. It was a lift. The lift started to descend. After going a little downwards, the lift stopped and the door at their back opened.

  When the door opened, Zahid could not believe what he saw. As they stepped out of the lift, the motion sensors switched on the lights. It was a huge basement. It was a very sophisticated laboratory having all high-end equipment. In the center of the setup, there was a big table wh
ich was illuminated with white light coming from within. The right side of the table there was a workstation which had very unusual pieces of electronic equipment. The left side did not have any table but the whole wall had a TV and computer monitors.

  At the end of the basement, Zahid could see workout equipment, some boxing gloves and a glass cupboard having weapons. There was a black colored bike parked next to that cupboard.

  As they both moved on, the door behind them closed.

  “What is this place,” Zahid asked.

  “This is my new home.”

  “Before I ask you about this place, answer my questions. Start from the point when they took you to the prison, what happened after that.” Zahid did not want to beat around the bush.

  “I was on the bus which was supposed to take me to the jail. There were a few constables in the van. Two were female constables. On the way, one of the lady constables started crying. Another constable asked her why she was crying. She opened the zip of her jacket. She had lots of explosives tied around her body. Everybody in the bus panicked. One male constable asked her to remove it and throw it outside! She told if she tries to take it off, it will trigger the bomb. I asked her was that because of me? She said yes, and she was sorry. She told me that the same people who got me in this trouble wanted to make sure that I died. She said she did not want to do this, but they had her family in their custody.”

  Simar offered a glass of water to Zahid as her story progressed.

  “She said if she doesn’t do it, they will kill her family. I asked her to save her family and do whatever she was supposed to do. I said I was happy if my sacrifice could save her family.”

  “She said, ‘Madam you are a good person. Because of you, I started loving my job, you are a role model. You gave most of us self-respect in this department. You changed hundreds of lives. I don’t want to do this sin. If you die, the society and God will never forgive me’. I told her that I could talk to Zahid if he can help to save your family. But she said she didn’t know where they were and by the time Zahid Sir would find them, they will be dead already. I asked her what she wanted. She said she could save all of us, but she needs a promise that I will save her family and send them to a safe place.”