A to Z Challenge: Undercover

Links to Previous Parts:
Rising
Soliloquy
Trip

Riya stepped into the cool air conditioned cafe after finding a secure parking space for her car. A million questions were buzzing through her mind. Why had he diverted her so close to their destination. Why had he insisted on coming into this cafe? What was he trying to do? Was he some kind of detective? She walked upto the table that he had acquired for them. He held out a menu to her and said "Order." "I'll just have a black coffee please", Riya said bending over the menu wondering if she could afford lunch at this place. She did go out on weekends, but she tried to keep away from the fancier spots.

"Smile," he demanded. "Really", she hissed in an undertone. " Now you will issue orders to me?" "Well it's not funny business. Isn't that what you asked me for? This is important. It's a matter of life and death." "Then tell me what it's about? Maybe I can help." "But it 's a confidential matter. Something I am investigating as a matter of fact. You cannot help me. Nobody can." "Just try me." "No, this is where we will wait. Until I can think of what I must do next."

He stepped away to go to the washroom, she assumed. She opened her purse and drew out her phone. There were three missed calls. She dialed hoping to get the conversation over with before he came back. She should tell them that this was interfering with her day job. She couldn't afford it anymore. They would have to do better on her payments if they wanted her to continue. But she found herself at the end of a 5 minute phone call, the recipient of a photograph and a contract the result of not being able to say no.

A to Z Challenge: Trip

Links to Previous Parts:
Rising
Soliloquy

Riya drove slowly past the new Starbucks that had opened on the Link Road. "Does this work?" she said, slightly tilting her head towards the back of the car. He gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head. She drew up alongside the kerb and pressed the End Trip button. Her wallet refreshed and she unlocked his door to allow him to disembark. 

"You are coming with me," he exclaimed. " What about my trips? I have to make my required number," Riya retorted angrily. " How about I pay you for the whole day?" He shot back. " What's the catch?" She said narrowing her eyes at him. This wasn't the first time she had had to fend off the unwanted attentions of a customer. But he did not seem to be that sort of chap.

"There is no catch," he sighed. " If you want, we can get this cup of coffee. Then you can drive me around all you want! There is somewhere I have to be. That is also somewhere I don't want to be. I am willing to make it worth your while." "Ok, I will try it for an hour, but I am warning you .. No funny business."

A to Z Challenge: Soliloquy

Rising

A man got into her cab at the airport. Riya was already disgruntled, this guy didn't bother stowing his suitcase in the open trunk. She has had to get out of her idling car and set it to rights, all the while hoping that the airport cop did not give her a ticket. She opened the separating door with more than  usual force and asked the customer in a clipped tone, "Where would you like to go today?" Nick jerked out of his reverie as if slapped and said, "Powai". "Why do I get all the weird ones?", thought Riya to herself as she banged the opening shut again." In my cab and life, both."

Nick was trying to call her. She wasn't picking up. But then she never did pick up when he dialed her at this time. He hadn't asked her what she was up to.  He wasn't sure if he wanted to know. What he did not know could not hurt him.  But with every inch that he was getting closer to discovering the truth. Why was he doing this to himself? Trying to surprise her, startle her almost into a confession, by landing up at her door unannounced. This wasn't how he envisioned it all coming to an end.

"Let's not go to Powai", he boomed suddenly. "Stop at the next coffee shop you see." Riya started. She wondered what was with him. She felt like she was suddenly stuck in a parallel universe where she was in a spy movie or something. She stole a glance carefully in the rear view mirror. He was still stuck deep in thought, his eyebrows were furrowed and he was frowning at his phone. She did not where this day was taking her and she wasn't sure she liked it very much.

A to Z Challenge: Rising

A loud noise on the television woke her up. She had fallen asleep on the plastic chairs she was resting on with her feet up. It was almost morning- what poets wax eloquent about- the magical hour before dawn, when the blue of the sky is a brilliant blue, when the yellow of the sun soothes before burning. For Riya, it wasn't very magical. It meant she had woken up way too early before the start of the day. She rubbed her eyes trying to rid them of any residual sleep. This was beginning to happen way too often for her liking.

She walked into the tiny balcony which extended out from her living room. There wasn't enough space even to swing a cat in. That phrase had always fascinated her. Why would anyone want to swing a cat in a room. It was sure something to think about. Her room mates would be up soon. Before the flat was filled with the bustling noise of thumping footsteps, she savored the last quiet few moments of solitude. It was impossible to be alone in Mumbai. Wherever you went, you felt like you were being carried along by a sea of humans.

Her morning tasks done, she headed down 15 floors to start her work day. If walking in Mumbai was being carried along by a sea of humans, driving was like following a trail of ants walking in a line. It was exhausting and mind numbing to say the least. There used to be a time when she had enjoyed driving in Mumbai. Now it was just part of the job. She swung the cab door open and stepped in. Switching on the Uber app on her phone, she accepted the first ride of the day and drove into the packed road.

A to Z Challenge: Questions

Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

Keeper
Labour

Mystery
News
Ominous
Punishment

Rini sank onto the pillared courtyard of the village school. Her movements had woken up Aryan who now joined her. One look at her ashen face was enough to tell him that she had found out something unpleasant. He made her sit down and recount what happened. His first reaction the next morning was to limit her interaction with the villages. He took up the maximum of the field work she had to do. He had watched her enough number of times now to do the heavy lifting. He hoped to reduce the chances of anyone recognizing her.

The second thing Aryan did was book them onto an earlier flight. He wanted to get her out of the village and away as soon as possible. Three days of very very hard work on Aryan's part, a million anxious calls from her mother and a lot of irritation from her side, she found herself on the dusty road to the nearest railway station. They paid off their driver and headed to the burning hot platform for their interminable wait for their sloth like passenger train.

Aryan headed off in the pursuit of sweet milky tea and Rini collapsed, wilting in the sun, on the nearest bench, Suddenly, a huge platoon of people dismounted from a local train. It seemed to be the entourage of a politician. She craned her neck to get a better view of the main guy so to speak. A shiver passed through her. This was the same face that flashed before her every single day in her nightmares.

A to Z Challenge: Punishment

Links to previous parts:

Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

Keeper
Labour

Mystery
News
Ominous

Things came to a head one day when Sunita woke up from an evening nap to a scratching at her door. She had been trying to power nap before starting another shift at the village clinic. Ranjan was visiting one of the nearby villages and she was alone at home. She cautiously inched her way to the back door and opened it a crack. She knelt down and pulled the terrified Radha into her arms. The child wasn't crying or making a single sound. She was in shock and deeply traumatized by something she had seen. Sunita could hear a loud commotion in the distance. Some instinct made her want to hide Radha. Her gut was telling her Radha was not safe. She concealed the child in a closet covering her with a bunch of blankets. 

She stepped outside to see what was going on after securely locking her main and back doors. There seemed to be fighting and violence of some sort in the distance. Looking closely, she found that it was issuing from Tara's home. She quickened her steps to see a large crowd gathered there. There seemed to be two large mobs fighting outside the house. The village had gathered to watch the madness. Were these the warring families that Tara had told her about? She elbowed her way into the house and no one stopped her. She was not prepared for the sight that met her. Tara lay lifeless in her living room. She had been murdered. She inched back out and escaping the notice of the mobs, she slipped away. She did not know what to do. She should inform the police, find Dhruv. What was she to do? Ranjan wasn't around to help either.

Ranjan came home to find his wife huddled in a corner of the house. All the lights were switched off and Radha lay asleep in her arms. She had been crying. "Tara is dead. They killed her. I tried to find Dhruv.  They.. they.. the tree.. that tree.. behind the village lake.. They made it the hanging tree. They were trying to find Radha. I tried to hide her. We need to leave." It took him a long time to get a coherent story out of her. When he did, he acted quickly. There were three of them on the flight back to New York and that is when Radha became Rini.

A to Z Challenge: Ominous

Links to previous parts:

Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

Keeper
Labour

Mystery
News

"Mom, I haven't spoken to anyone here yet. Don't worry. We just got here. But you can't leave me hanging like this, I need to know." Rini muttered as she paced up and down in the corridor of the village school which was their makeshift shelter for the night. She was trying to be as quiet as possible as Aryan slumbered at the end of it, chivalrously having given up the whole interior to her. " I really wish I didn't have to tell you this over the phone. But I guess, you will not listen to me until I explain my reasons. So you know you are adopted. But there is a story behind your adoption which your father and I had decided to protect you from. Now it is time to tell this story."

23 years ago, Ranjan and his wife Sunita had been volunteer doctors in Anjeer village. They had come down for a tour of service from America where they had met and gotten married. In this remote village, with minimum medical facilities, they were welcome with open arms by the community. They brought with them what seemed like salvation to this tiny village. They took shifts at the temporary clinic that they had set up and it was at this clinic that they met Dhruv and Tara. Dhruv was the school teacher in the small village school. He and Tara had brought their four year old Radha to Sunita. Sunita was thrilled to meet Tara and Radha. It was love at first sight for her with little Radha. Tara and Radha could be seen trailing behind Sunita on many of her innumerable house visits. They took long walks in the surrounding forests and hills and went exploring. The families spent a lot of time visiting each other and practically living in each other's houses.

On one of these visits, Sunita noticed that Tara always seemed on the verge of blurting out some sort of secret. Finally the day came when she finally spilled the beans. "Dhruv and I ran away from home to get married. There is a huge blood feud between our families. We met in college and wanted to marry each other. But our families wouldn't agree. So we eloped. We are still not sure that they aren't looking for us. It has been 6 years. The day they find us, they will try to kill us. That's the reason why we chose to live here. So nobody can find us. We are hiding right under their noses." Sunita shrugged off Tara's worries. It all sounded too Montague and Capulet to happen in real life. Surely, Tara was exaggerating.

A to Z Challenge: News

Links to previous parts:

Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

Keeper
Labour

Mystery

Rini woke up to see Aryan bending over her with a concerned look on his face. She was on an unfamiliar rope hammock in a small mud hut. An old lady held out a glass of water. She struggled up manfully and tried to fight the intense sense of deja vu overpowering her. It could not be happening. The tree, the village behind it, the muddy mountain, she had never seen pictures of Anjeer village.  It was such a remote hamlet that not many documents of anthropology were created on it. Every detail from her dream seemed to have come to life.

Sensitive to her feelings, Aryan did not press her for details. But she did not want him to think of her as a wilting daisy, so she explained that night by the side of their campfire. He asked her if she had been to Anjeer village before. She vaguely knew in the back of her mind that she had left India with her parents when she was 3 or 4 when they had adopted her. She didn't know if she had been to this village. She decided to stay up that night to call her mother and talk to her.

" Mom," she said when all the endearments and the small talk was out of the way. " Do you know if I have ever been to Anjeer village? It' s a new addition to our itinerary and for some reason it looks very very familiar." The line went silent at the other end, so silent that she repeated her question wondering if her mother had heard. After an ominous pause, her mother replied. " I didn't think you would remember, but now that you are there I need to tell ypu some things. But first things first, your life will be in danger if you reveal too much about yourself. I think you should get out of there as soon as possible."

A to Z Challenge: Mystery

Links to previous parts:

Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

Keeper
Labour

Rini woke up again in the early hours of the morning. This was a definite sign that she had had the nightmare again. Now she was getting a sense of foreboding more than anything else when she recollected the dream on waking up. She was surprised and startled to find Aryan sitting in a chair by her bed. He was clasping her hand in both of his and appeared to have fallen asleep trying to comfort her. She sat up urgently startling him awake in the process. " Oh Rini, you are awake, you seemed to be having a bad nightmare last night. I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't. I didn't want to leave you by yourself. So I stayed. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not!" She said more snappishly than she meant, secretly flattered that he cared so much about her. " I would like to thank you for staying but I am sure it was not necessary." Aryan narrowed his eyes at her and said, " Something is troubling you and you are going to tell me about it. I will make you. See you in sometime." It wasn't until they had packed and loaded up the jeep to head to Anjeer village that he took up the line of questioning again. They were swigging tea from a flask when he repeated, " You are my friend and my responsibility for the next few weeks. Please tell me what's troubling you."

Rini reluctantly confided the details of her dream between sips of fortifying tea. He asked her to describe the surroundings that she observed in her dream and agreed that it had to be set in India. Then to take her mind off these unpleasant things, he treated her to a meal at a roadside dhaba. The warm butter on the paranthas and the hot chole revived her and made her more like her usual cheerful self. It was late evening when they reached the outskirts of Anjeer village. Rini was in the middle of a sentence when she made a choking noise. Aryan turned around to find her open her mouth in a soundless scream and faint dead away.

A to Z Challenge: Labour

Links to previous parts:

Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

Keeper

The red sand blew into his eyes as he squinted into the camera. Rini stood at a distance, discussing seriously with one of the village women about how best to run the anti female foeticide campaign. She sure took her work seriously. In the two weeks that they had spent here, Rini had recruited him to build bathrooms for 4 houses, refurbish 3 village schools and coach innumerable number of soccer teams. This was in addition to his day long shooting videos and photographs and recording interviews. He didn't really mind. After a long time, he was finally feeling like he was making a difference.

"Aryan, watch out for your camera. The red sand can scratch and ruin the lens." she screamed across the plain. For such a small person, she sure had an imposing voice, Aryan thought to himself as he broke out of his reverie. She could be such a nag to. But it had to be acknowledged that she was always looking out for everybody else. She was willing to sacrifice anything, give up anything just so others could have a share of the happiness that always seemed to be her portion. No matter what hardship she faced, the challenges that were thrown at her, she faced life with a smile and struggled on. He was finding himself more and more attached to her. She inspired him, challenged him and made him crazy about her all at the same time. He knew now why she had won such loyalty and heroine worship among the village women wherever she went. She was the perfect subject for his documentary.

After a long day at work, Aryan twisted and turned on his narrow makeshift bed. Sleep wasn't coming easy to him this night. The wind whipped at his tent and howled through the gaps and crannies making horrific noises. Through all that he heard a high shrill scream rent the air. There was only Rini's tent next to him. They were at an isolated campsite and there was definitely no one else around. He scrambled out of bed and braving the wind dashed into her tent. Rini was convulsing in the throes of a nightmare. He patted her gently trying to awaken her but she did not cease, nor did she waken. He stroked her forehead and rubbed her hands. Finally she seemed to go back to peaceful sleep.

A to Z Challenge: Keeper

Links to previous parts:
Hanged

Insomnia
Jaded

A week later, Aryan found himself sitting in a cafe which by the looks of it was one which served those airy fairy green teas and vegan cup cakes. Oh my god! This social worker was already living up to every stereotype that he had imagined and he had not even met her yet. Why oh why did people have to drag their beliefs into everything including their food? This meeting was already heading towards a disaster. What a ruins of a Saturday!!

"Hello, Aryan I presume?" A pleasant female voice called out to him from the wicker gate of the cafe. " Would you mind stepping out?" Aryan got up and walked out irritably. Now what, she was already late by 15 min. She was a surprisingly tiny person, her elf like face framed by long dark hair. The smile on her face was making it difficult to stay angry with her. " I assumed you would wait outside. Aaron of the Journal lifestyle section should know better than to go in." she said cheekily. " The cafe I wanted to meet you at is just around the corner. I wasn't sure that you would know it."

Over pancakes and the yummiest truffles he had ever eaten, Rini outlined their plan. They would leave next week to India. Aaron would be filming and recording her work. They hadn't decided if it was only going to entail only print coverage or video show as well. They would evaluate that once they had a significant amount of material.

A to Z Challenge: Jaded

Links to previous parts:
Hanged

Insomnia

Aaron aka Aryan sat at his desk, staring intently into his screen. He couldn't focus on the article he was writing. It was three years since he had joined at the Journal and he was still writing about which fire escape had failed city codes with more than the allowed number of potted plants, which new loft restaurants were the best and which speakeasy was the one to be seen at. This was not the dream of journalistic ideals that had burned in his heart when he left NYU. " Dreaming of overseas war postings again?" Jim swatted his head from the neighboring desk. " That's asking for a bit much. I at least want to get off the lifestyle pages, " sighed Aryan. " Man, I don't understand you. If I got anything like the fan mail you get from those women, I would expire from joy." "I wish it had more to do with my writing than my byline picture." "Narcissistic much?" " Nothing but plainspeaking truth. I have had enough for the week. Leaving now."

As Aryan swept his belongings into his leather bag and swung it across his shoulder, he heard someone call out from behind him. It was Sean, his boss, mentor and now permanent bearer of bad news. He was the one who had informed him that thanks to his great skills on the lifestyle page, he would get a permanent byline and fixture. This week had been a long one as it was. He wondered what new news he would get and how it would affect him. Would this weekend give him reason to rejoice or mourn?

Aryan headed out of the office with a confused expression. "Hello, are you there, Aaron" Jim's cheerful tone went unnoticed. He did not know if one should be happy or sad with what he had heard just now.

A to Z Challenge: Insomnia

Link to previous part:

Hanged

"Close your eyes and think about a space that makes you feel safe. Go to the happy place in your mind and enjoy these moments that your mind is at peace." The instructor walked around the room whispering among her students in her mellifluous voice.  Rini fidgeted in her cross legged pose. She flicked her long dark hair away from her face and tried to refocus her attention on the task at hand. She could feel the instructor at her side, laying a restraining hand on her shoulder. " It was easier said than done, Rini thought to herself.

Later, when she lay awake in bed, she regretted not paying more attention in her meditation class. The teacher was only trying to help. If this continued any longer, she would have to consult a therapist. That wasn't something she wanted to do. It was the absolute last resort for her. As an international aid worker, neither than luxury of staying in one location for long nor the money to afford the therapy was available to her.

These were sudden episodes she has become prone to soon after her visit the  previous month to India. Her insomnia was making her less functional at work. Her boss Linda had stopped by her desk the previous day. "Rini, I am postponing your next trip back to India. You can go next month. I am not sure you can handle the stress again. You look like death boiled over." "I agree with her" Rini thought. "I am not sure why but India is getting into my bones. Probably I am taking all its problems too personally, After all its home in a way." 

A to Z Challenge: Hanged

Rini jerked upright and urgently scanned the room with searching eyes. She was still in bed. It was just before dawn. She leaned back on the headboard, gazing out of the glass pane of the window. The horizon was still a faint line in the distance with a golden tinge just peeping over it. The light was filtering in slowly through the pane covering Rini in iridescent dust. But the last thing on her mind this morning was the sunrise. Once again she had woken up with a wildly beating heart, covered in sweat, running in her dreams from dangers she could not recollect.

Today however there was a difference. She woke up remembering. She knew what she had dreamt was unlikely and  probably something she would never witness. But why did she wake up with such a sense of disturbance like it was real? The high beep of the alarm radio brought her back from her thoughts. It was time to kick start the day. She hoped it would be a good day. As good at least as it would get, with her disturbing dreams and distracted mind.

As she looked into the mirror, adjusting her make up, Rini had a Ring moment. You know the one in which appears in the mirror behind you. Her vision made her throat dry up and she choked on her scream. She turned back wildly and found only air.  She thought for a moment that her dream had come to life. The hanging tree and the man hanged from it had flashed behind her on the mirror. This day was going to be a long one.