It was a midnight of someday, two/three
years back!
We were just in our dreamland;
Midnight muse was about to caress us to take to her fantasy world.
Suddenly, there were big bangs in our
neighborhood! Some sounds of explosion. We jumped up from the bed, and ran to
the balcony to see what was happening….thought the ways how to save our lives.
… Luckily…it was nothing, but just the
crackers…..! But, it was continuous….with hazardous sound effects…continued
till half an hour. Cottons also could not save my ears….There was no place to
fly away also. Thank God, that time I did not have my baby, neither was I
pregnant!
Everyone in the colony got up,
gathered. My hubby dear went downstairs to know what was the occasion. I was
too very much anxious and kept counting the waves of seconds to know the
details.
It was the Birthday of one of our
neighbors - a Punjabi man of almost 60 years. His son who was studying in
Australia had come home that day. Obviously then ….it was an occasion to
celebrate. Why should one care for the neighbor’s dreams, health, or for the
environment, if somebody has enough money to waste and reasons to celebrate? Next day morning, it was a topic of the discussion among the neighbors. The oldee is a so called politician for no good, belongs to no political group. Always, we get to see him in white clean Safari suit. From his look and health, anyone can guess that he must be a diabetic patient. Hardly, he goes out from home. He has three/four vehicles, probably, two SUVs and two Sedans. And he ensures that his sellas including two drivers, two body-guards also wear white shirts and pants with white shoes.
Since morning, the sellas keep roaming
on the road in front of his flat. They pass their time gossiping, looking at
the girls, ladies and putting their effort to fight with the fruitwalas,
vegetablewalas etc. In the evening, they change their dresses and sit in their
room to play cards or drink.
I got to know from one of my neighbors that couple of years back, the oldee’s son was involved in doing crimes, like beating innocent people, eve-teasing girls who used to take tuitions in our colony and lots others. Looking at that, his father sent him to Australia to continue his school studies and then the college too. So, after his graduation, he was back to India. All were hopeful that he got some maturity now.
Couple of weeks later, I was parking my car. I saw the oldee’s son driving an SUV, which was just behind my car. He was also looking for a parking space. As almost all parking spaces were full, he parked his car in front of the closed back-gate –of our nearby hospital, where the ‘No Parking’ banner was already hanging. This gate is used whenever there are some specific requirements from the Hospital’s store and hostel which are inside our colony. Unfortunately, just after few minutes, even when he was in the car, one old person from Admistration of the hospital wanted to open the gate from inside. While the gate was not opening, he peeped through the gate and saw the vehicle. He asked the guy to remove the car from there. The old man asked if the boy had not seen the ‘No Parking’ board. That was not in a very decent language, though it was not so much abusing tone J ! But, the guy replied so badly, that I felt so ashamed that I had to run away from that place. I heard the guy using ….Maa ki, Behen ki…..all those all-time favourite gaalis of Delhities; Threatened the old man of shooting him.
Fight went for long….I could see a
gathering of people, few on-lookers taking masti of the incident. Ultimately,
the vehicle was removed from there. A meeting was called for next day to manage
the parking area inside the colony. Through the incident, the oldee’s son was
also able to show his presence and power by using filthy language in loud
voice, indirectly trying to strengthen his father’s ‘no good’ political power.
