Sunday, September 8, 2013

Aazaad Chronicles: Prologue

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

Her name was Meera. Meera Richards if you wanted to check out her details. Short, fair, and slim with an English officer for a husband, mentioned the school principal. She was the dance teacher, in a school for Indian children. In ordinary circumstances I would have asked for more details, but now was as extraordinary as it could be. She was the one inside the college auditorium used for dance practise, along with twelve more children. And of course the Caped Crusader, Aazaad. He was known to be on time with calculated moves and meticulous plans; all worked out to last details with alternate plan B’s and C’s to spare. But this time he seemed a little too early on the would-be crime scene. His arch-nemesis, The Trap had given him a 24-hour deadline to show up and enter his live-trap, a public school for Indian children. And he had turned up within three hours. It would seem a little off putting to ask, but would he have turned up so soon if this was a school for English children? Oh yes, he would have. Children are children, whatever be their skin’s color.

More than four hours had passed. It was time for the police to go in. We all prayed that it would turn out fine and Aazaad would save everyone, but deep down I knew something serious had happened. “Rajiv!” yelled Buttonface Mike, “Call in the boys. I want two teams, one going with us and the other coming in from top” he said. I nodded and crackled the same on the walkie. We went by the main entrance, past the laboratories and the library to the further back of the school where the auditorium was situated. The school had already been emptied of the children and other personnel.  Padded though our boots were, there was a thudding echo following us as we went rushing in. If he had tapped in the security feed, he would be able to see us coming, the Principal had told us. “Then let him”, Mike had grunted back. Bracing ourselves on the sidewalls, we signaled the boys. Smash went the ram and in three powerful knocks the gates were cracked open apart. Mike signaled me to follow and went in first. I counted till three, strained hearing hard that there were no cries or gunshots, and followed. At first it looked like a network or huge tubes, mechanical contraptions filling almost half of the auditorium and spiraling to an end at the stage situated at the center of the auditorium. This was one of those rare auditoriums that followed the old stage design having the stage in centre. Mike let the boys in first in the metal tubes, as a precaution if there were still any live-traps left. Chains, levers, switches, gears, motors, shafts and what not were carefully fitted at regular intervals, and almost all hidden from normal view. I had seen their pictures from case files and even watched movies made on them while growing up. Here it was all of it. Thankfully Aazaad had cleared them for us; though we were still very cautious while making our way across to reach the center stage. I wonder what this Caped Crusader had done now that he hadn't in past ten years to bring The Trap from his retirement. If this was the real Trap, he would be over seventy years now. Maybe all his bounty money for killing the second Aazaad been over, and he was after the five million pounds on this one’s head. As soon as we came out, a sharp smashing sound of the ventilation shafts announced that the second team had joined us in too. They would have to come through the tubes though, so much for the surprise alternate route. I quickly joined Mike who was standing near the base of the stage staring upwards, mouth gaped. A huge contraption resembling a beam balance stood towering over, a huge cage with spikes all around at one end and an equally huge metal box at the other end, tightly closed shut. And there lay Meera at the base of the balance, on the stage, all bloodied and unconscious.  

Days later Meera would wake up in a hospital, vaguely remembering what had brought her in such state and then getting terrified at the thought of it, filling her ward with shrieks and cries. After much consoling, she would go on to tell us how she was teaching ballet to a class to the grade fifth students, how she was just done finishing her second rhythm when a strange smoke started emerging from the exhaust vent just below the stage enveloping her and her students. She had then woken up to find herself strapped to a huge metal shaft, some forty feet off the ground, missing the ceiling by a few feet. She was taken by panic, to find her entire class mouth gagged, stuffed inside a huge metal cage that had spikes jutting out all around. Her panic would be multiplied seeing a known figure on the other end, Aazaad with his limbs pinned down by metal hooks, bleeding badly from a deep cut to the right of his stomach and a metal shard jutting out his neck. Before she would start to think about her own condition, a voice in the speakerphone would start telling her of what she was about to do, or should do next. She belonged to one of those rich Indian families, who prospered trading well with the British and bribing them enough to be well protected as well. Those who are only born in India, but keep their first steps out in London, knowing not the plights their fellow countrymen have suffered for centuries at the hand of British. She might not have heard of the first Aazaad’ – the more humane one, but of course of the second, who had a habit of continually making it to international headlines by his acts of barbaric violence. If not for both of them, she must have known the third, well who didn't these days in India. The voice in the speaker phone had told her that she had a choice - to either save the lives of her students or of the Caped Crusader and she had sixty seconds to make that choice.  Also whichever choice she makes, she would end up falling from forty feet as she had to dislodge a metal piece from above her and fix on one of the side of the balance, the one she wanted to save. She could even have saved herself, by not making a choice. After telling her why she had been chosen for this task, the voice went silent and the countdown began. At first she didn't do anything, for the first fifteen seconds she was too shocked to act. Then she dislodged the metal piece and almost dropped it once. Looking apologetically towards the unconscious Aazaad she placed the metal piece in a groove on the side of the children in the cage. She then covered her face with hot tears rushing down her cheeks. In the last moment she peeked and saw the Caped Crusader turning a bit, and in a moment of extreme grief thought of changing her decision. Then it happened, the timer ran off and the thick metal panel to which Aazaad was pinned started folding, smashing his bones and flesh to pulp with blood gushing out from everywhere possible. And then she fell down too.

She had taken to roller skating at a very early age while studying in London. But then she had been called back home as one of her brothers had been suspected of participating in an underground anti-British movement. Her family had been blacklisted and their trading license suspended indefinitely. Her life had been a downward journey since, except for her husband. Though an Englishman, he had little family fortune, but being an officer was able to maintain a fairly well living standard. She had a lifelong dream to see the world, go backpacking across Europe, on cruises to islands across the oceans and to lie on Californian beaches. Maybe because of that she had taken up teaching dancing that was one other thing she learnt other than skating. And that was what had made all the difference, putting her in the decisive role, of deciding not only the fate of a Super Hero or a masked vigilante, but a nation. It was year 2004 when the third Aazaad, the Caped Vigilante who represented fluttering flame of freedom India yearned for since centuries, died. Did our dream to be independent from the British rule died with him too? Or will there be another savior, another Aazaad? How many more Aazaad will it be till we are really aazaad?


 Rajiv Nehru, Senior Detective, Allahabad Police Department, Jan 11th 2004.

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