I was late, again. It was 10:15, and not a single auto in the stand. Asked a riksha if he'd go, was replied with a curt "Rasta bondho". I could have sworn I heard "Rashtro" the first time he said it. There was some accident on the way ahead. While deciding to walk back, caught an 8 year old declare with utmost seriousness, "Ekdom spotdead". Shit.
It was 10:20 now, and winter nights were not meant to have so many people around at this time. As I walked, the crowd increased. Hazy halogen could not hide the excitement in the faces. I also saw some police.
The bus started to enter the scenery, like a red sun, towed to a police truck. And I was stopped by a rough "Pichhu hoto, pichhu hoto".
Ar koto pichhu hotbo, dada? Ar kotota pichhole dewal'er sporsho pith'e ter pabo, bolte paren?
There was the crowd. The dark skinned, oily haired, young guys, the bashindas of the nearby half-slums. Maybe they were militants. But before their militancy could be expressed, the police, 4-5 guys with helmets and latthis charged towards us.
The whole crowd moved back. I moved back with the rest of them. The police had sealed off the road.
The ones who charged moved back to their posts. The crowd moved forward. Curiosity, plain curiosity, I thought.
"Sala banchod'er dol, era bhebechhe'ta ki? Bara, amader chheleder'kei marbe, amader maa-bon'der kei thele shorabe, ar amra khali pichhu hotbo? Sala pulish."
The speaker of these words must have been 2-3 years older than me. And his education must have been 4-5 years younger than mine.
"Ei, ei, ki bolchis tui? Cho amar ssathe, sala bollam mukh bondo rakte, kichutei ssunbe na."
A man, must have been his older brother, familial or maybe paratuto, came and pushed him out of the crowds, took him away.
I was wrong. Curiosity was not the case. Not the only one, definitely.
I stood there, and tried to listen to what people were saying. I couldn't decipher anything. They were way too angry, it seemed.
Finally, they towed away the bus. Shattered windows, an absent windshield, bent frames, a scratched body.
"An innocent bus was brutalised by an angry mob", I heard the headline in my head. Innocent, is what I'd highlight, I decided.
The crowd started to close in now, only to be driven back again to their old positions. "Pichhu hoto!" As if that's easy.
10:40, now I HAD to go back home.
"Dada, bari phirte hobe ashole, ta shamne ki jawa jabe?" I asked a policeman. A man who must've been in his late 20s. Can a policeman be recognised as 'pulish' without that uniform? That helmet, and that cane. I guess not. Your offense and your defense are not meant to be displayed in the open, unless, you are the 'pulish'.
"Jabe? Ta jao, tobe shamle." Shamle, dekhe, pash katiye, aral khunjei to din katachhi, dada, ar koto shamlabo?
I started walking, and noticed how I'm the only one who was around now, without a helmet. Even plain dressed men were wearing helmets, and had that sick yellow coloured cane in their hands. Must've been hundreds of them.
"Didi, dekhun, ekhane ekta tension'er situation apatoto, apni please ektu bhetor'e jan" I saw one of the constables urging a wailing woman to go back into her home. I recognised her, she owned the nearby cigarette shop, my daily stop during the conveyance-less nights.
"Tension tomader? Amader chheleta more gelo, ar tension tomader? Tomra, tomrai dayi, eshob tomader jonnei!"
"Ei, onake bhetor'e niye jao." A man, an officer, slowly, and surely, commanded the constable.
That tone, it sounded familiar. I remembered Sumanta Mukhopadhyay from Atanka. "Mastermoshai, apni kichhu dekhenni." Sumanta was a goon and had committed a murder in the film, right before he threw this dialogue at the accidental bystander, Soumitra Chatterjee.
"Move forward". I saw a wet spot on the road, and some darker fluid inside the pool of water and shattered glass. And behind all this, there was bunch of them, the 'pulish'. I suddenly started feeling a fear. What if they wouldn't let me pass? What if they decided I was a lawbreaker? What if they just wanted to taste the power of their cane?
They let me pass. And I remembered I still had a long way to walk back. I tried to light a cigarette. On the third try, I could. My hands were shaking. It took me 20 minutes to cover a distance of 50 metres. I needed to cover the rest faster. Hopefully, I would, I expected no one else to stop me. Atleast, no one with his offense and defense pasted to him.
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I later found out that while moving his bus in reverse gear, a drunk driver had mashed down an 11 year boy in that wet spot on the road. About a 100 people came out of nowhere and after being unable to capture the driver, beat up the bus, and tried to set it on fire. The number of policemen I saw was approximately 100. The ratio was 1:1.
Someone, somewhere, should be really scared.
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