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Loansome Night

"Ouch! What the ..." And just as Ram Sah was about to hurl the best tirade of the worstobscenities at the object that his foot had struck and caused him to scream so, he saw

what the object was and nearly hurled another stanza from the handbook of every young

man's vulgar ranting. They use it when they are angry, sad, happy, surprised: all the time.But wisely, he kept his trap shut, lest others come and snatch his prize from him

He remembered something his Pahadi schoolmaster had said long ago. "Not so long ago,"he mused. "In search of rock, discover a God."

Only five minutes earlier he had been devising the best way to die. It would have to be

quick and painless like a bullet to the head, but it could hurt, at least for an instant, orslow and blissful like that one time when an elder he knew had taken a couple of shots up

his vein for a short sigh seeing trip to Paradise Lane and had ended up taking permanent

residence there. "I wonder if I'll meet him up there. No, I won't. I mustn't. He was a bad

man, that Sanju. What if I too am sent down there instead? I'll have to see him there andhe is sure to ask me to pay back the 100 rupees I took from his pocket when his eyes

rolled for the last time." And ruefully analyzing his life and not having a very highopinion of it, he had failed to see what his left toe had painfully made him.

It was a gun. Not the kind he'd seen Rambro carrying in the barber's shop but a crude

home made kind. It looked menacing enough and that was all that mattered.

The thought of blowing up his own head had long left him and he was already seeing a

way out of his predicament. His father had taken a loan of fifty thousand to get seeds,fertilizers and the like for this paddy season. But Koshi had had other plans and Rakesh

dada's goons were knocking on his door everyday. When you defaulted a loan fromRakesh dada, you did not end up in the newspaper, you ended up on the funeral pyre witthe rest of your male relations, the females lighting the pyres and what else afterwards?

He shuddered at the thought. He had not wanted to live to see that chain reaction start.

But none of that would befall his family now. He had a gun.

Of course, he wasn't foolish enough to even contemplate going after Rakesh dada and his

goons alone, like they said Rambro did. He was Ram Sah and not Rambo or Rambro and

with two bullets there wasn't much that he'd be able to accomplish even if he was.

So what was Ram Sah's panacea? This gentle soul with only familial duty and the welfare

of his sisters in mind was planning on robbing a couple of buses. he wouldn't fire or killanyone. He would be just this Ram Sah, like that ancient one whose descendents had

been anything but. And if the passengers did not obey? "I'll give them a nice lump with

the butt." He laughed at the sleazy twist his serous declaration had taken. He hid the gunin the bush and went off to convince a couple of his friends to help him pull off the job.

He did not once wonder where the gun had landed there from but only five kilometers

into the jungle, a soldier of the Teria Vipers was being interrogated not so gently about

the lost weapon.

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His friends Ranjit and Satish had nothing better to do that night, just like most of their

nights. With the number of night buses plying the highway decreasing because of thatdamned river, they had had less target practice with the rocks. So they were bored and

they agreed.

"What's the plan yo?" Ranjit asked.

"We'll put rocks across the road and when the bus stops, we'll hold them up."

"Are you gonna shoot anyone?""No, dumbass. This is just for show. I'll cover them from the door while the two of you

frisk the passengers and take anything valuable."

"Yes Rambo."

The three of them created their roadblock with large rocks and armed with a gun and a

couple of lathis they waited in the bushes for their golden geese to flock to them. After a

very long half an hour, they saw headlights heading their way from the east. It was a

moonless night and they couldn't quite make out what it was. A part of them had beenpraying that no vehicle would pass and that they would be spared this dangerous ordeal.

Throwing rocks at moving vehicles was fun and harmless, at least for them. Theoccasional head injury or broken windows? They couldn't be any less bothered. But this.

This was a very different league, one for which they were not yet ready.

The vehicle had stopped at the roadblock. It was a semi-pickup, eerily similar to the onesused by the cops. Ram Sah and his friends with their courage stretched to the limits

almost fled the scene. But a regular appearing man wearing regular clothes got out and

started cursing whoever had laid the damned rocks.

"Rich people going to Kathmandu, eh. They won't mind partaking some of their dough,"

Ram Sah thought and spurred by the sudden desire to hold bundles of cash, he charged atthe vehicle. His friends followed suit. The three of them were a sight to behold. Had they

been on horseback even the knights of yore would have cheered them in earnest.

Shouting obscenities and their weapons leveled, they would have frightened any ordinaryman.

The one bending down at the rocks heard them and was taken aback a bit. But he was not

an ordinary man. He was a battle hardened cop who had had his fare share of encountersagainst bandits and those who ought not to be mentioned here, for they are in power. The

rocks had pretty much told him what to expect but he hadn't been expecting the dacoits to

charge with guns. Fortunately for him, even in his haste, he'd managed to carry his gunand he thanked God for that. He and his team had been responding to a tip from a spy

from a nearby village. Rakesh dada was going to execute a family for failing to pay a

loan and he was intent on stopping it or at least catching Rakesh dada in the act. "It willprobably be too late now," he muttered.

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And without thinking or hesitation, he took out his pistol and fired two rounds at the very

man whose family he had originally set out to save. He heard two more rounds and saw

two of the attackers fall, dead in all probability.

The third froze and was about to bold. Ram had seen the police emblem on the semi-

pickup too late and before he could react, his friends had fallen. And his mind dazed, abrilliant flash of red light blinded him. "It didn't hurt," was the last thought that came to

his mind just as his brains were scattered by the bullets from his savior's third bullet.