1985. The City of dreams. Red double decker buses, khali-peeli taxis, radios, Doordarshan, video cassettes and rotary dial phones.
DCP Amarnath arrives in Bombay with a mission, straight and clear: To tackle the notorious Crime Syndicates.
As the c...
Amarnath has just bolted down his Vada pav. The waiter arrives with a small steel plate filled with sugar-coated jeera and a hand-written bill. Amar places a two rupee note on it. The waiter picks it up and comes back; the plate now holds a couple of coins and the bill. Amar picks the piece of paper up and turns it around.
It is filled with about fifty alphabets, forming meaningless words; a message coded in the Chinese grid cypher. He takes a quick look at it, pockets it and walks out of the crowded Bombay High Court canteen. It's not only criminals who can do this; exchanging messages in crowded areas. The police can do the same thing too. And the high court is the least suspicious place of all.
The Bombay High Court is a majestic English Gothic building of the late 19th century. It has pointed spires and huge Corinthian stone columns supporting the Gothic arched corridors.
And Amarnath comes face-to-face with Gauri, her black coat clinging on her arm and her saree pallu swinging lightly in the air.
For a minute, all he does is openly stare. He takes a tasteful look at her deep scarlet sari neatly pleated and placed over her shoulder; hair tied into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. The tips of his ears turn red as she stands crossing her arms and eyeing him scrutinizingly.
'Hello,' he says.
'Hello, Sir.'
Why does she call me 'Sir', Amarnath thinks with a pang. He misses the way she called him 'Amar'. 'Sir' makes them feel more apart, somehow. And he's realized how ever hard ever he strives to forget her, the more she occupies his thoughts. So it's best to accept defeat.
He now waits for her to say more. She doesn't.
'I had some work here,' he says. 'I'm leaving now ... '
Gauri nods, manoeuvres around him and walks away.
Amarnath turns around to look at her disappearing figure. She should have said so many things by now, he thinks desperately. Why didn't she say anything? He instinctively runs up to her.
'Ji, your clients have a hearing today?' he asks.
Gauri nods, still walking.
'Your senior hasn't come?'
She shakes her head.
Amarnath is surprised by the amount of discomfort that has erupted in his heart at her silence.
'Are you not well?' he musters up the courage to ask. He can face a hundred AK47s with relative ease than talking to this girl.
Gauri shakes her head soberly.
'Ki hua Ji? Did you go to a doctaar? Are you taking medicines? Is it viral fever?'
She stops to look at him, tilting her head with what Amarnath regards as a death stare. He squirms.
'O-Only if you want to tell ... ' he says.
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