It was that time of the year when many of Bombay’s citizens were on a holiday to the cooler climes of nearby hill-stations like Matheran, Mahableshwar, etc. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Paresh, the rickshaw driver from Bandra (a suburb of Bombay), sat in his vehicle, awaiting customers outside Santacruz railway station. Paresh had purchased this rickshaw from the second-hand market, having come to know that the previous owner had died. His wife Asha had loaned him half the amount of 30,000 rupees needed to make the purchase. It was a measure of her devotion to her husband that she had actually pawned some of her own jewellery to cover her share, and Paresh, knowing this fact well, had thanked her profusely for it, and made a vow to himself to not only return the amount she had given him, but to also get back her jewellery from the pawn-broker.

Thinking about his wife brought an imperceptible smile to his lips. His wait lasted exactly 10 minutes. A middle-aged, stylish woman boarded the rickshaw. She appeared to be in an awful hurry. As soon as she had boarded the rickshaw, she settled into the passenger seat, and ordered Paresh to move forward.

“Where to, madam?” asked Paresh.

“Goregaon,” said the woman.

Paresh digested this. A trip to Goregaon meant a fare of at least 100 rupees, a not inconsiderable sum in these troubled days. He pulled the hand lever, and put the rickshaw into first gear. Signaling with the other hand, he pulled away from the kerb and set off for his destination.

As he sped ahead, he glanced into the rear view mirror at his passenger. The woman was dressed in a red embroidered top and blue denim jeans. She had on a heavy, garish make-up, and was wearing obviously expensive jewellery. A leather handbag was slung from her right shoulder, and it was from within this that the woman now withdrew a red diary, which she opened, searching for some information. A moment later, she removed a mobile phone (a Nokia, obviously, thought the street-savvy Paresh), and began punching in a number.

“Hello,” she spoke into the phone. Paresh thought it uncivil to listen in on a conversation between someone else and his passenger, and tried to concentrate on his driving, but as the traffic was thin, he didn’t have to look ahead real hard, and he couldn’t but help listening to the woman’s talk over the phone.

“Oh, yes, I am on my way. Has Babu arrived with the box?”

She seemed pleased with the reply, and said, “Let me see,” and here she glanced at Paresh and asked him,

“What’s the time, bhai?”

He turned around and said, “5.27 p.m., miss”.

“Haan, thank you,” said she to him, and then spoke again into the mobile, “I will be there by 6.30 or so, okay?”

She listened for a while, and then said, “No, no, I am coming as soon as possible, fine?”

So saying, she removed the mobile from her ear, and switched off the line.

Then, she turned to Paresh and told him,“I must reach Goregaon by 6.30, so please drive fast, bhai.”

Paresh nodded, and continued driving.

As the rickshaw approached Goregaon, Paresh turned around and asked, “Er... miss, where in Goregaon do you wish to go? East or West?”

“West... take me to the Badrinarayan Hotel there,” muttered the woman.

Paresh continued to drive.

As they reached the traffic signal just before the temple, he thought to himself,” With today’s fare, maybe I shall buy a nose-ring for Asha, and if money is left over, perhaps a small bottle of country liquor.” Smiling, he reached for the small statuette of Lord Ganesha which was planted on the dashboard and touched it with reverence, and uttered a silent prayer of thanks to the God.

The traffic lights were red, and his rickshaw shuddered to a stop.

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, as it were, two burly, menacing chaps surrounded his vehicle.

One of them was brandishing a chopper.

The woman in the back screamed in terror.

Before Paresh could react, the man with the chopper grabbed hold of the woman’s dress, and as she came forward, he drove the chopper into the woman’s rib cage. His other hand clamped her mouth.

Her scream was suppressed, but a gurgling sound escaped her lips.

Paresh had to think fast.

One, his own life was in danger, as he had witnessed the cold-blooded attack on his passenger, an unarmed woman. Two, he could possibly try saving her life, if he just managed to start his rickshaw and speed it away from these goons and take it to the nearest hospital (he knew of a private hospital for trauma victims a mere hundred metres ahead). And three, the other goon was, at this moment, looking away from him. This was the chance he would not get again.

He put his vehicle into first gear and started moving..

The goons realised what had happened and tried to catch up with him, but he was an expert driver, and he was soon weaving in and out of traffic.

He had reached a decision: the hospital a hundred metres ahead was not the right place for two obvious reasons: firstly, the goons were just behind him, and they would follow him within the hospital, and catch up with the victim and him; and secondly, the hospital might just refuse to treat a victim of a murder attempt as no one wanted to get involved in Police cases.

Blessing his parents, who had taught him to think rationally in panic situations, Paresh went onward, past two right turns, and one left turn, and finally stopped in front of the casualty of the Goregaon Municipal Hospital.

To his horror, he saw that the woman had bled profusely, and was in her death throes.

He addressed her, “Can you talk, miss?”

The woman nodded, no, but silently supplicated to him to help her.

Paresh needed no further prodding. He alighted from his rickshaw, went around to the passenger seat, and bodily lifted the woman onto his chest, and brought her out of his vehicle.

He looked out for the hospital orderlies, and seeing one, shouted to him to come forth with a stretcher.

The woman was transferred to the stretcher.

Paresh had time to lock his rickshaw, and retrieve his cash wallet, and the woman’s bag before being summoned into the hospital and made to stand before the Casualty Medical Officer.

The police came in and took his statement, while the doctor attended to the patient.

The woman was shifted to an Emergency Admission Bed in the ICU, and immediately put on oxygen, intravenous fluids and the like.

As he answered a barrage of questions regarding the incident he had been a part of, Paresh realized that he would reach home very, very late indeed, and it might be a better idea if he called up Asha and told her of his plight. Accordingly, he proceeded to the nearest telephone booth and dialed her home number.

The phone rang and rang, but was not picked up at the other end.

Paresh tried the home number again, and again there was no response.

He then called up Shashtribhau, his neighbor.

“I cannot say much,” he informed Shashtribhau, “except that I am at the Goregaon Municipal Hospital, and will be late returning home. Asha is probably not at home, but would you please be kind enough to tell her this, and to not worry on my account?”

Shashtribhau was piqued. He asked why Paresh was at the hospital. “Are you alright?” he inquired.

“I am fine, bhau,” said Paresh, silently muttering a prayer to God to give him the strength to remain calm for the next few minutes, as Shashtribhau tried to extract every ounce of information from him. Paresh told him the facts in a nutshell, gave the old man the hospital numbers, and then disconnected the phone.

When he returned to the casualty, he was asked to sit in the Waiting area.

Presently, a police detective came up to him to seek details of the incident. The questions were annoying, as Paresh had to recount the gory details once again, having already described them earlier to the casualty medical officer.

Paresh knew that this interview would be just exploratory, and many more would follow in the space of the next few days.

It was about 9 o’clock now, and he was getting tired of it all. Once the detective went away, he decided to look in on the woman. The EMS was a bit quiet now, and the resident surgeon was just finishing the dressing on the woman when he entered. He asked permission to approach the Nursing Station.

“How is she doing?” he asked of the rather young student nurse who sat at the table.

“Who do you mean?” she retorted.

“Er... the rickshaw murder attempt victim,” replied Paresh, pointing to the figure in the bed nearest the nurse.

“Oh, you mean, Mrs. Sujata Dikshit?”

“Yes.”

“She is improving now, what with the blood transfusion and the works!”

“I see.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, ” said Paresh, “can I speak with her?”

The nurse went up to the surgeon to relay the request, and said something to the latter in a soft voice. The surgeon looked at Paresh and gently nodded for him to approach the bed. Paresh went closer.

Sujata lay sleeping. Her midriff appeared swollen perhaps because of the bandages applied to the wound.

“Er... Mr. ...” began the surgeon.

“Call me Paresh,” interjected Paresh.

“Er, yes, Mr. Paresh,” replied the doctor, “Mrs. Dikshit is asleep, so I am afraid your little tete-a tete will have to wait.”

Thanking the doctor, Paresh went back outside to wait. He sat down on one of the plastic chairs kept outside for relatives. He was in two minds about whether to wait or to go home to his wife. This reminded him to check if Asha had returned from wherever she had gone. He got up and went up to a public telephone and dialled his home number. Fully expecting to hear a tirade from her as to why he had been delayed a full two hours beyond his usual home-coming time frame, he was quite surprised to hear the bell ringing for a full minute without a response.

“Strange,” he thought to himself.

He was about to call Shashtribhau when someone tapped on his shoulder. He turned around to see the ICU nurse. She had a smile on her face.

“Sir,” she said, “Mrs. Dikshit is awake now and has asked for you.”

“Oh... thanks, Sister,” replied Paresh. He accompanied the nurse to the ICU.

His passenger lay in her bed with a wan expression. To her credit, she actually tried to smile, but the pain in her wounds made her grimace forcefully before she could more than split her mouth open for the smile.

“Hello, madam,” said Paresh by way of an exploratory introduction.

Sujata Dikshit returned his greetings in a gruff voice, quite unlike the mellifluous tinkle he had heard some hours earlier as she had spoken to him during the fateful ride.

“I must thank you for all that you did, much unlike how Bombay’s ‘normal’ citizens’ behaviour of completely ignoring a person in distress, and fleeing the scene of any incident where police is necessarily involved.”

“It’s alright, madam,” returned a solemn Paresh.

He explained that he had her purse and mobile phone with him.

Sujata looked relieved. Paresh asked her if there was anything else she wanted to talk to him about.

“Yes, there is,” answered Sujata.

“I may as well tell you why I was attacked,” she began.

“I am a beautician and own a salon at Ridge road at Bandra. I have been happily married for over seven years, and would have remained so, but for the fact that I discovered that my husband was cheating behind my back. After I discovered this, and mind you, it was by sheer chance that I did, I decided to gather evidence about his infidelity. I hired some private detectives. The trail led to a small tenement in Bandra itself! The woman was of very modest means, and I still have not fathomed why my husband fell for her. Anyway, the detectives finally got hold of a box that the woman used to keep the letters and small trinkets that Raj, my husband gave her from time to time.”

Paresh listened to Sujata with interest; Sujata spoke slowly, enunciating the difficult words carefully off her tongue. Her hands gesticulated wildly, and her eyes spoke her anguish all too clearly, as she led him down the story lane. In between, she paused to catch her breath, and once, she stretched out her hand to pick up a glass of water that lay on the side-table. She drank this in small sips, as if savouring the taste of water. On his part, Paresh listened attentively. He nodded understanding once or twice. He even half got up to give her the glass of water, but she indicated a “no“ with a shake of her head and helped herself.

Sujata went on.

“Today was the big day. Babu and his assistant, Dinesh, were to arrive in the lobby of the Badrinarayan Hotel with the incriminating box at 7 p.m. I was planning to confront my husband with the evidence, but it appears that he found me out and devised this plan to kill me and get me out of the way forever. Only yesterday he flew to Brussels on a business trip... what careful planning he must have done, to create an alibi, so that no one would suspect him.”

Sujata’s eyes were moist as she relived every moment of the treachery planned by her husband.

“I cannot imagine he would have paid killers to do the job,” she added with a twisted smile. Then she looked at Paresh and added with a smirk, “but he botched up, didn’t he?”

Paresh agreed wholeheartedly and replied, “Yes madam.”

He took back the empty glass of water from Sujata, and put it on the side-table. He continued, ”I am curious to know how he met a lowly woman.”

Sujata seemed to weigh the question in her mind; she said, “She used to work as a cook at our place a year ago, and he must have abused the privilege then.”

Suddenly Paresh recoiled. “What ...what was her name?” he asked, fearing the worst.

Sujata looked at her quizzically, and said, “Asha, I think. Why?”

The ground fell from under Paresh’s feet. He got up in a daze, mumbled a good-bye and ran out of the ICU.

Trotting out of the hospital at a brisk pace, he went to the parking lot, and went to his rickshaw. As he put the vehicle in motion, a thousand thoughts besieged his tormented mind. Asha did work as a cook, going to many residences in the course of a morning. But she had left that around a year ago.

A year ago?

Oh my God, everything fits!

He drove like a possessed man. He travelled from Goregaon to Bandra in just 35 minutes. Reaching his residence quarters, he quickly ascended the stairs to the 2^nd floor. His house was locked.

He frantically opened the lock with his own set of keys, and rushed in to see a single sheet of paper on the bed.

The following was scribbled on it:

         Goodbye, Paresh. I am going to Europe forever.

              - Asha.