English Literature – Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-9 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆

Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury

Brief Introduction

• Birth – January 18, 1955
• Education – MBBS (IMS/BHU)
• Publications – 4 books (2 in Hindi, 1 each in English and Bengali) and two are yet to come.
• Translations – Books and articles are translated in English, Odiya, Marathi and Gujarati.
• Awards – CBT awarded stories and novel, “Kamaleshwar Smriti Katha Award (2013, 2017 and 2019)” by Kathabimb.
• Honour – “Hindi Sevi Samman” by Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Wardha (December 2016). 

☆ Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-9 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆

A Bicycle Thief

Generally in the morning the small iron gate of the university stadium remained open for the public. Only one at a time could go inside or come out through it.      

That day after the free style front crawl, that is swimming while lying flat with front portion of the body downwards touching the water, Kumaran asked Gayatri to practice kicks. Sometimes he would tie a rope around her legs and ask her to flap her feet like a fish. Again someday she would lie on the ground, with hands raised over shoulders and keeping her legs straight, she would continuously move her feet from ankle joint. All these to learn the art of using the feet like a propeller.

Once her work out and all that was over Gayatri was hurrying to reach the gate. The moment she went out she saw it and she shrieked in alarm, ‘Look out there, he is stealing my appupan’s bike!’             

Narayanan had left his cycle locked just outside the stadium boundary wall. A man with a dirty shirt on was trying to break his bicycle lock. The moment Gayatri yelled at him he jumped like a startled rabbit and yanked the lock open. Within no time he rode the cycle and darted away like a gust of wind.

‘There, there, a thief! Stealing away our cycle. Help. Somebody help!’ Gayatri was shouting herself hoarse.

By then Narayanan too came out through that small iron gate. The moment he realized what had happened he looked back and cried out, ‘Kumaran, quick. A thief has disappeared with my cycle.’

After completing his training schedule Kumaran too was coming just behind them. He rushed to the spot, ‘What happened, sir?’

Narayanan was perplexed and disturbed both. He shouted, ‘My cycle is gone! Look there, that man is on my cycle.’ His immediate thought was, ‘What’ll happen tomorrow? How can I bring Gayatri here for her training?’

‘Sir, just don’t worry. I’m going after the man.’ Kumaran kick started his scooter and ran after that man.

Gayatri was running in the same direction, ‘There he goes. Oh, catch him.’

Narayanan, exhausted and breathless, was running too along the road.

And the people on both sides of the road were happy to find themselves witnessing this free for all circus. Their attitude was, ‘Let the old man’s cycle be gone. Who cares? Oh, here we can see a drama free of cost.’

A few started taking the video of the incident instead of giving a helping hand, as is the culture these days.

Screech …… Kumaran’s scooter came to a halt covering that man trying to fly away with the cycle. But that man couldn’t immediately stop the cycle and he fell on the Kumaran’s scooter. Kumaran got down from the scooter and pulling the collar of his shirt whacked the man hard, ‘You thief, how dare you?’

Now the man was trying to fly the spot somehow. Probably it was in his mind that it was better to leave the cycle behind and run away as fast as he could.

But the public, who were the mute spectators till then, wouldn’t let it happen. They came running and surrounded the unfortunate man. A few of the men working in the stadium arrived at the spot too. And above all, from nowhere a policeman appeared with a baton in his hand. He was riding a cycle too. But he didn’t bother himself to do anything. They were showering blows mercilessly on the helpless victim. Practically speaking it was a totally one sided fisti-cuffs.

‘Leave him alone. What the hell you people are doing?’ Within no time Narayanan had reached the place and he shouted hoarsely at them, ‘Stop, stop all this.’

The general tendency of the people under such circumstances is that they want to get a massage of their hands without spending a single paisa for that. And so they were a bit heart broken when Narayanan declared, ‘It’s my cycle. I’m the owner of it. Why are you people beating the hapless fellow?’

The police man was puffing a cigarette. He didn’t say a word. He was making a mental calculation how to milk the situation.

Gayatri became mad at the man. She thought, ‘Just see the fun. If he would’ve taken the cycle then how appupan could bring me here for the practice?’

And Narayanan tried to put a full stop to this ugly show, ‘I say stop. Enough is enough. This fellow will die if you continue to beat him like this.’

A gentle man made an uncalled-for comment, ‘All petty thieves. They all do this to buy drugs, you know?’

‘Now we must hand over him to the police.’ Kumaran too was anxious to end all this.

‘No Kumaran, I want no more complications, please.’ Narayan tried to shove off the idea by the movement of his hand, ‘He already have had enough of punishment.’

Hearing this the man jumped and prostrated himself dramatically on Narayanan’s feet, ‘Let me go, achchan. I’ve three kids at home. And my wife and my old mother. They all depend upon me only. Please, for god’s sake.’                      

Gayatri stood there with a heavy heart. As far as she was concerned, she too didn’t want to pursue the matter further.

The crowd thinned out. Only a few were left at a distance. Kumaran picked up the cycle and handed it to Narayanan, ‘Oh sir, what an unnecessary complication! Who could expect such a thing?’

As Gayatri was going to ride the crossbar of the cycle she saw the police man, standing until now on the opposite side of the road, came quickly over the place. He caught the thief by his hand, ‘Where can you go, man? Didn’t you remember about your old mother and the kids when you did this mischief? Well, come with me to the local police station.’

Gayatri’s eyes were moistened, ‘See appupan, he will beat him again. Oh, spare him please.’

Kumaran was much more practical in these worldly affairs. He whispered to Narayanan, ‘What else to expect? He can’t miss the chance to milk the situation. He will threaten and extract some money from the poor fellow and only then he’ll let him go. No doubt, that man is in the soup today.’

‘But it’s totally uncalled for. A thorough and thorough injustice.’ Narayanan turned to the police and requested him, ‘Brother, please let the matter end here. I have no complaint against him. Because of his poverty only he did this. Kindly let him go, please.’

Kumaran got alarmed. He came quickly to his teacher, ‘Sir, please don’t get involved in this. Now we must go home. And now it’s in his domain. He can do whatever he likes.’

But the police man didn’t quite welcome this gentleman’s attitude. He frowned and his brows were raised in disgust, ‘And sir, may I ask you, why you didn’t report this to us? After all our country has some law-and-order mechanism. Want to ignore that altogether?’

Now it was the turn of Kumaran. Angrily he faced the cop, ‘Excuse me, do you know with whom you are talking? He is the former headmaster of Haripadam High School. Everybody respects him. Is it the way to talk with such a respected person?’

‘I’ve seen enough of them. If I take him too to the police station, then only he will realize what’s what.’ The way he was speaking it was very difficult to say whether the man in the uniform was talking or his uniform was doing it.

Again a movie show. And again the public assembled. A snigger hovering on their lips.

Gayatri was mad with rage. A tear rolled down her face. She wiped it. ‘Oh, how does he dare to insult my appupan?’

But Kumaran was clever enough to take the advantage of the situation. He looked around and shouted at full pitch of his voice, ‘Till now this policeman was just eyeing everything. As if a circus show was running. Neither did a thing. Many a times they cannot catch even a petty thief. But now he’s showing us the power of his post.’ He pointed to Narayanan and said to the people around him, ‘This gentleman is probably elder than his father even, but see, how he is talking to him.’

Again someone from the onlookers made a comment, ‘The saviour is the hunter!’

‘God only knows what will become of this country!’

‘Shut up you all.’ The policeman yelled at them. He found himself in an awkward situation. It was as clear as day light to him that he could no more reap a harvest from this barren field. Out of frustration and disgust he slapped across the face of the thief and shouted hoarsely. ‘You thief, what are you doing here now? Just run away immediately otherwise you won’t be fit enough to reach your home.’

After all this, is it necessary to write in detail what followed that morning? Mr. Thief probably had grown wings on his legs. So he made a bolt for his home. Leaving no trace of him behind.

Contd…      

© Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury

C0ntact: Care Dr. Alok Kumar Mukherjee, 104/93, Vijay Path, Mansarovar, Jaipur, Rajasthan 302020