The 3 Mistakes of My Life Read online

  Ish put Ali in the safe. He gave him a few pillows. Ali switched on the phone light. Ish shut the door and locked it. He kept the keys inside his sock.

  ‘You ok?’ Ish screamed.

  ‘It’s dark,’ Ali said.

  ‘Hold on ok?’ Ish said.

  ‘Ok, we have to cook one more dish in the kitchen. Come fast,’ Ish said.

  We left Ali in the vault and ran to the kitchen. The jabs at the main door continued. I estimated we had five more minutes before the door gave away.

  Ish unplugged the LPG cylinder. ‘Carry this to the main door,’ Ish said.

  Omi and I carried the LPG cylinder. We kept it under the sofa blocking the main door.

  ‘Omi where do we keep the fireworks?’ Ish said.

  ‘Top shelf,’ Omi said.

  Ish came back with boxes of leftover Diwali crackers. We usually burst them when India won a match. Ish emptied a box of bombs on the cylinder.

  He took two bombs and opened the fuse to make it last longer. The crowd banged at the door. One main door bolt became loose.

  ‘I open, you light and all run up. Clear?’ Ish said to Omi.

  Omi nodded. Ish climbed on the sofa and tried to get hold of the bolt. It vibrated under the impact of the mob’s jabs.

  Omi lit a matchstick and took it to the fuse. As the fuse tip turned orange, Ish opened the bolt. The sofa would keep the door in place for a few more seconds, the time we had to save our lives.

  ‘Run,’ Ish said as he jumped off the sofa.

  We ran up the stairs. I was four steps away from the top when the door came loose.

  ‘Mother fuckers we won’t leave you. Killing your own people,’ the mini-leader I had tried to bribe opened the door. Him and three more men entered the room.

  ‘Hey stop,’ they shouted at me as I continued to climb. I looked behind, eight men had entered the bank.

  I was one step from the top when my ears hurt. The explosion rocked the cupboards on the ground floor as the main door blew away. I think the mini-leader took the worst hit from the cylinder. The other eight men couldn’t have been much better off.

  I didn’t know what we were doing. Preventing someone from taking revenge by attacking them ourselves. I had never seen body parts fly in the air. I didn’t know if any of the rioters remained. I used the two way switch at the top to switch on the ground floor tubelight. Smoke and bits of paper from the old files filled the room. Ish and Omi came behind me.

  ‘All gone?’ Ish said.

  The smoke cleared in thirty seconds. A few men lay around the room. I could not tell if they were injured or dead. The erstwhile main door was now an empty gap. Mama entered the room with five other people. Maybe he was lucky, or maybe he had the foresight to send others to open the door first. The five people ran to the injured in the room. Mama looked up. His eyes met us.

  Twenty one

  ‘Traitors, you bastards,’ Mama screamed. I noticed his left hand. It bled and the kerosene had burnt part of his kurta’s left sleeve.

  ‘Catch them,’ Mama shouted. He and five other men ran up the stairs. Ish, Omi and I ran into the branch manager’s office and shut the door.

  ‘Hold these,’ Ish said. His hands trembled as he shuffled through the cricket equipment we kept in the manager’s office. Ish picked up a bat. Mama and his group had reached the branch manager’s office door.

  ‘Open or we will break it,’ Mama said, even though they didn’t bang the door. They continued to threaten us but didn’t act. Perhaps they were afraid of what we would blow up this time.

  My heartbeat sounded almost as loud as their screams.

  ‘I don’t have my phone. Give me yours, I’ll call the police,’ Ish said to me.

  ‘We will not leave,’ Mama’s voice reverberated through the door.

  I passed my phone to Ish. He dialled the police number.

  ‘Fuck, no one is picking up,’ Ish said and tried again. Nobody answered.

  Ish hung up the phone and shook it in frustration.

  Beep Beep, my phone said as a message arrived.

  ‘It’s an SMS,’ Ish said as he opened it.

  Hey, stay safe tonight.

  By the way, just got my period!! Yippee!!

  Relieved no? C U soon my hot teacher. Love – me.

  The message came from supplier Vidyanath. Ish gave me a puzzled look. I shrugged my shoulders and reached to take my phone. Ish moved the phone away from me. He looked at me in shock. He turned to the message and went into details. He saw the number. He dialled it.

  I came close to a cardiac arrest.

  ‘Hey, cool no? I never thought I’d be celebrating a period,’ Vidya rattled off on the other side as she saw my number. I could hear her cheerful voice even though Ish held the phone.

  ‘Vidya?’ Ish said as his brows became tense.

  ‘Ish bhaiya?’ she said.

  Ish looked at me. He cut the line and kept the phone in his pocket.

  For a moment we forgot that we had murderers at our door. Ish stepped forward towards me as I backtracked until I reached the wall.

  ‘Ish I can explain…,’ I said even though I couldn’t.

  Ish dropped the bat on the ground. He lifted his hand and then – slap! slap! He deposited two of them on my face. Then he made his hand into a fist and punched me hard in the stomach.

  I fell on the ground. I felt intense pain, but I felt I had lost the right to say anything, including screaming in agony. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. I deserved this. I had to pay for the second mistake of my life.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Omi said even though he understood the situation well.

  ‘Nothing, selfish bastard. He is a snake. He’ll sell us if he could. Fucking businessman,’ Ish said and kicked me in the shins.

  ‘Hey Ish, you want to get killed?’ Omi said.

  ‘Fuck you Mama, come in if you have the guts,’ Ish shouted and walked up to the door.

  Omi lent me a hand. I stood up and leaned on him. I wondered if my intestines had burst.

  ‘I told you. Protocol,’ Omi said.

  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ I said. I don’t know why I said that. I had unprotected sex with a barely legal student and my best friend’s sister. It must be up there in the top ten morally wrong things one could possibly do.

  Mama’s patience ran out after five minutes. He ordered his minions to break the door. They pressed their trishuls against the door, but kept their distance.

  ‘Right now, aim is to survive, not to settle scores,’ Omi said.

  Omi handed Ish the bat again. I held my wicket tight. We monitored the door. A few more jabs and it would open.

  ‘I’ll let them in anyway,’ Omi said and released the bolt.

  ‘You want to kill me? Mama, go on, kill me. Why wait,’ Omi said and opened the door.

  ‘Move aside Omi. Just tell me, where is the boy,’ Mama said.

  ‘You won’t get any boy here,’ Ish growled.

  Mama’s five men held up their trishuls. We lifted our cricket weapons. One man attacked Ish. Ish blocked him with his bat. Ish struck the bat on the man’s arm, leg, thigh and groin. The man fell on the floor.

  My hands shivered as I tackled another fat man. My wicket got stuck in his trishul’s blades. Our conjoined weapons hurled in the air as we tried to extract them apart. He kicked me in my right knee and I lost my balance. He came forward and pinned me to the wall.

  The third man hit Ish on the neck with the blunt end of the trishul. Ish fell forward. The man took Ish captive and pushed him against the wall.

  Omi had crushed the toes of the fourth man with the bat. The man winced as he fell on the floor. Omi kicked his stomach but the fifth man punched hard on Omi’s back. The man grabbed Omi from behind.

  ‘Buffalo, you can’t get free now,’ the man said.

  ‘Tch, tch. Stupid bastards. Like playing with fire eh?’ Mama said as he sat on the branch manager’s table. The three of us were pinned to the wall