STOLEN HEARTS

CHAPTER 1 - THE MORNING EXERCISE

The early morning sun was at its post doing its duty religiously. It was sweating it out at work, shining brightly, making those who came under its glare sweat out too.

It shone upon the Colonel's mansion and the large lawn that was spread out in front of it. It shone upon the leafy trees. It shone upon the rose bushes. And it shone upon the Colonel's bald head and the bushy moustache under his large nose.

It lit up everything it touched with a warm glow, but it could not light up the faces of those assembled in the lawn of the mansion, for they were not happy to be out there when they could have been comfortably tucked in their beds.

Shamsher Pratap Singh was a retired Colonel from the Indian Army and one of the top industrialists in the country (everyone called him Colonel). He was a well-known personality and was amongst the who's who of the city. His mansion was a grand structure that 'could house an entire battalion', as the Colonel himself put it so often when proudly showing his guests around the place. He had plenty of hair but unfortunately it grew not on his shiny head but as a large bushy moustache.

Currently the mansion lay vacant as almost all its residents were outside doing what they had to do to keep their jobs.

They were huffing and puffing away, working in the humid morning heat. But no they weren't trimming the lawn or sowing seeds or doing anything related to gardening. In fact, they weren't quite working at all. They were instead, working out. No, they were not working out a mathematics problem or a puzzle but, to be more precise, they were exercising. The cook, the butler, the housekeeping staff, the driver, all of them exercising in the lawn on this sunny morning.

Leading the exercise session was the Colonel's Secretary-cum-family-member-cum-friend Chaman Prasad Chaurasia, or simply, Secretary. He was stretching as he shouted in a loud booming voice, "1, 2, 3, 4... 1, 2, 3, 4..." while he bent down to touch his toes, straighten up again, raise his arms parallel to the ground, bent sideways, straighten up... well, anyway, getting on with the story, everyone was huffing, puffing and panting, and, though clumsily, doing the exercises. There was no synchronisation, no passion, it was just something one had to do every morning if they wished to work for the Colonel.

Shatru Bhaiya, the 28 year-old milkman cycled up the driveway. He was crouching and trying to be as quiet as a church mouse, obviously trying to avoid the Colonel. He put his bicycle on the stand. But just as he thought he had escaped, the Colonel's keen, penetrating, hawk eyes fell on him like a ton of bricks falling on a poor labourer. Shatru stopped in his tracks as the Colonel shouted at him, "Milkman, come here at once!"

Even when the Colonel spoke softly, people in the vicinity felt that he was shouting, so one could only imagine what his shouts actually sounded like.

Shatru hesitated for only a moment, considering the option of getting on his bicycle again and making a run for it, but then he gave up the idea. Who knew, maybe the Colonel was carrying his gun with him...no point in taking a risk, so he ran to the Colonel and the exercising bunch.

"Late again?" asked the Colonel twirling his moustache that looked like something the gardener had lovingly grown on his face with the use of a lot of fertilizer.

"But just five-ten minutes," protested Shatru, in his nasal voice, like a sheep bleating before the butcher.

"You know what can happen in five-ten minutes? Wars can be won in that time. The world can come to an end! Thousands of people are born in that time and thousands die! What if there was a milk emergency? What if someone's life and death depended on the milk you brought? What if that person died because you reached a little late?"