It rained.
It wasn't the kind of rain you could enjoy. Not the kind of rain under which lovers would share a corn cob, protected by an umbrella. It wasn't the kind of rain under which children would run around in the mud playing football and cricket. It wasn't the kind of rain you didn't mind getting drenched in even though you were running for shelter.
No, this rain was hard. It came down like bullets with an intent to, if not kill, maim. As a result, there was no one on the streets.
Except for him.
His name is Abhay Chaudhary. He paints a desolate figure in the scene, a solitary man partly enveloped by a black raincoat. From the distance we are observing him, we can't make out his face but we don't need to see his face to know that he is a hard man.
Let's move in closer, shall we?
Abhay is trying to drag on a pathetic, drenched, bent cigarette. There is the hint of an ember but that dies out as swiftly as hope during a war. He coughs a little and throws the cigarette into the rain. It is swept away immediately by one of the innumerable tiny torrents that are raging through the mud.
Abhay is standing under a large tree, that is somewhat successful in protecting him from the brunt of the rain. Yet periodically he can feel the heavy thump of water at the back of his neck, even through the raincoat. It feels like a mallet.
Abhay's face shows that he is not the kind of man you would remember even if you ran across him a couple of times on the street. His face is coarse, lined and it belongs on a man at least 15 years farther along in life. Like many other things in his life, Abhay has learnt to make do with it. He isn't short but his wiry frame makes him look taller than he actually is. His eyes are an unremarkable dark brown and as a gust of wind blows the hood off his head, we see that he has had his hair cut painfully short. In one instant, we realise what Abhay reminds us of. He looks like a monk or a pilgrim unaware of everything else around him apart from whatever stubborn goal he has set for himself.
Abhay coughs once more and then pats the bulge at his chest, reassuring himself that his camera is actually there. Abhay's eyes are focused on a grey building down the road. Apart from a bicycle and a red car parked in front of it, the building looks friendless and alone. Abhay looks at his watch and the digital numbers tell him that he has far exceeded whatever time he had expected this wait to get over by. He thinks about smoking another cigarette, anything to kill the time, but as if in response, the downpour gets fiercer. He puts the idea aside.
He has waited here for the past hour. He can afford to wait a little more.
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Twenty minutes later, the rain had become a drizzle. Traffic and humanity had begun to rear their heads and now there was a gentle stream of vehicles and pedestrians in his view.
Abhay thought about it a bit and then pulled out his camera from under the raincoat. The thing had cost him a lot and it was supposed to be weatherproof, so guessed he could risk it. He looked through the camera's viewfinder, and adjusted the zoom lens. He couldn't see a sign of the girl or the man she was meeting and her car was still parked in front of the hotel. Maybe she's dead, he thought but that was just wishful thinking. Six minutes later, his target stepped out of the hotel smoothing her skirt and her hair. She walked to her car and then before getting in, looked around. For a moment, Abhay was convinced that her sight had lingered a tad too long at the spot he was standing in, but that couldn't be, could it? After all, she had no idea he was watching her and she was just a college girl more concerned about her designer clothes and designer drugs and which guy to fuck. He was just being paranoid.
