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Published: November 23rd 2010
The following piece is pure fiction. Sorry, I’m too lazy to open a separate blog just for fiction writing. If you find yourself relating to any of my characters in this piece or any articles written under the title of ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Pedal’ on this blog-site, you need to see a psychiatrist.
This is the last slope. You’re almost to the top. It’s home free after this. Come on, please. You can finish this. No more after this I promise. Darling Huckleberry Pedal experienced this very thought and feeling every morning of his strange life…until he raised the seat.
He didn't understand it exactly, but wisely accepted it as fact, that as he raised the seat of his bicycle – half an inch a week – his pedaling up slopes eased in direct relation. Today he just seemed to roll effortlessly across the smooth tarmac that led straight to his front gate.
It was even by his standards, a large house. One which even his lady cousins visiting from the ‘mainland’ always complained of losing their bearings in. So then he’d engage in explaining the geography and the topography of the 13-room villa but just could not fathom why these silly creatures continued to lose their way despite the lesson.
They probably just get a kick out of being escorted everywhere they go, he reasoned to himself.
The mansion, daunting as it may be for a boy as young as Hucki to be running, was left to him by his father – a grand man, if I may.
Capt Pedal was indeed a man to reckon with. He was what the world described as “a self-made man.” Through his hard work and sleepless life he had bought for himself what every man could only dream of ever owning – and dumped it onto the sagging shoulders of his spotlight-shy son.
One of these assets was this beautiful villa atop a hillock from where he'd watch the sea and all the brightly lit ships about it. Its terrace for barbecue dinners and tea parties during the peak of his life in the Andamans, morphed into his retirement lounge which he enjoyed solely in the charming and calming company of his cigarettes and tea. Ah, but it was also his workshop for star-gazing. He would get so lost in the world of stars and their twinklings and colours, that when he did return his sight to earth he found that things had changed a remarkable amount but whyever so.
This was a man who would correct compasses from the position of the sun and the moon; who would lead his ship to shore from the position of the stars and would predict the forthcoming weather through the patterns of light in the sky during dawn and dusk. “A red sky at night,” he’d tell little Hucki, “is a sailor’s delight. But a red sky in the morning is a sailor’s warning.”
And those were precisely the words that rang in little Hucki’s head the morning he fell out of that truck. Somehow, his performance was just never the same since. But that was nearly a year ago.
There was a competition coming up in two months’ time.
Twenty one weeks. A voice deep inside him murmured. But Hucki believed it took him twenty-one weeks at a stretch of daily, dedicated practice for his performance to tap 90%!o(MISSING)f his deliverable potential.
“So then why didn’t you start sooner?” asked Italian Vinx, and rightly so.
“Because I’m an idiot,” was Hucki’s response.
Italian Vinx had moved to the Islands with his beautiful wife whose heart sat beside her numbed into silence – ignored and humiliated, as he sat, insensible to it all. Although he was not regular with his poetry, when he did recite some, it was magnetic.
Vinx rode his bicycle for the Gold, and deep within him there was a little engine-room in which burned a fire, fuelled by the strain of each muscle, for every time he slowed his pace, the fire would dim a little, and every time he picked up pace, the fire would roar him into the power of his existence. So consumed in fanning the flames within him, Vinx remained oblivious to her beauty, and sometimes, even her presence. Although Hucki saw this it was not his place to judge what wasn’t his to judge.
But the days were moving slower now, and it was driving Hucki mad.
Hucki had a theory about time, he did. That time itself was a wedding band, suspended vertically in space, and we each stood in our own wedding bands of time, turning it at the pace we each choose. So if one ran as fast as he could the ring would spin to his tune, and the faster he ran, the faster time went by. But if he suddenly stopped the ring would continue till it eventually slowed and stopped. So even if you wanted to stop dead after the sprint through a brief phase in time, you couldn’t; because the spinning of time that you had created won’t let you. But once you’ve managed to slow it down, nearly to a stand-still, it’s such a mammoth task to re-start the spinning – it’s too much.
Maybe I’m getting too old for this you tell yourself. But in actuality, once you do manage to re-start the spinning, it sets the pace for you and you just have to keep up with it, then.
He had realized this little truth of time’s secret identity when a former girlfriend – Nikita – had stood gaping at him four years after shoving his crouching figure away from her as she yelled at Hucki to let her go loud enough to silence the restaurant for three entire ear-shattering seconds.
“You haven’t aged a day! Just standing here looking at you after all those years feels like I’ve stepped through a time machine!”
But Hucki wasn't thinking of time, then, he was thinking of her beautiful face, and what time had cruelly carved of it.
Four years Niki. Four years was a long time for Hucki to spend with anybody. He had never before, nor since her, spent more than two months with a girl or a job. In truth, he couldn’t even spend two months at a stretch with his father.
As far as he was concerned, they were married. But that, was until that horrifying morning in the restaurant that revealed to Hucki, that, like death, some decisions are final. Thus was her's to move on without him.
Ironically enough, Hucki’s father had never liked the girl. “Your decision to get married, son, makes me proud. But if you marry that girl, I will not be present at the wedding…or in your life thereafter,” he had coldly informed the boy, six months before she left him.
“Dad,” Hucki calmly reasoned, to no avail, “there can be no wedding without you.” How could a man who had so sparsely featured in his life desert him all over again? Hucki’s heart hardened.
Either he will have to learn to accept her, or just remain as he has been for all my life – Absent. But that was not to be.
What was it about the morning? Who did this? Who turned the sea to glass? Who turned the sky into a painting? Who turned the scraggly shoreline trees with the tall white birds on them into a postcard? Who makes the sound of crashing waves against the shore pull me toward it, into it? How did you do it? Huckleberry Pedal was in wonder of this ordinary beauty he’d lived with and amongst all his life, woken up to it every morning, but somehow, never seen it like today. Was it like this everyday? Why?
“This orphan child has returned.” Yelled the watchman into the phone. “He won’t go away until he dies I’m telling you! I will not take responsibility if something happens to him, but you will I’m warning you!” he shoved the phone toward Hucki saying the director wanted to speak with him.
“Son, what time is it?”
“Four a.m. sir.”
“What in hell’s name are you doing by the water’s edge at four in the morning may I ask?” demanded a very upset and groggy director of the watersports club. “Son, there are crocodiles in that water. You cannot go in there without the presence of a coach and a lifeguard…none of which ever come there at four in the morning.”
“But sir I need more time for practice.”
“Please go home and stop bothering everyone around you.” SLAM went the phone.
“He said it’s okay, I can practice for one hour before the coach gets here,” lied Hucki, handing the phone back to the watchman.
“I’m going to write a complaint. If that crocodile eats you I will sit and watch…I will clap! Do you understand?”
“Yes, he’s my friend, don’t worry, he won’t eat me,” Hucki already had his boat on his shoulders running toward the water.
“Ten minutes…not one hour! Finish your practice in ten minutes! I need to go have my morning tea.”
How do you cure an addiction? How do you control the intake of intoxication? He wanted it all, to be consumed entirely by it.
Ten minutes had gone too quickly, he wasn’t going to stop and the watchman wasn’t going to get into the water to come after him.
I can’t stop; I need this.
His addiction to the sport was so intense that he would wake every morning before the alarm rang, before even the sun awoke, because he couldn’t wait to touch the water.
Sometimes he’d salute the big bright moon making faces at him from the patch of sky behind his house as he closed the gate before he mounted his bicycle.
The first fibre hull to touch the water’s surface, parting the glass beneath it as he sliced forward, startling a school of tiny fish enough to leap across his canoe.
Once one fish actually hit him and fell nearly unconscious into his canoe, flapping hysterically gasping for air. The incident was so sudden and so distracting that Hucki lost his balance, capsizing his own canoe!
On recovering from the silly fall into the warm sea, he noticed a girl sitting on the edge of the shore watching him with the strangest expression he’d ever seen a girl watching him wear. “What’s the matter?” he squinted at her through the salt in his eyes.
“Just that, well, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you laugh; you never laugh.” Oh, she had his undivided attention now.
The stout, far from pretty, and terribly young daughter of the watersports coach was nothing more than a spoilt brat and her most recent comment was not about to melt his heart.
“Stupid fish,” he grunted under the weight of his canoe now filled with water.
Hucki believed that he was mad, and anybody who’d accept his madness had to be madder still. There was something about dancing on the top of a table that Hucki could not stop himself from doing every time he drank too much alcohol. Once he was even thrown out of a lovely pub into which he walked most suavely, and lightly flirted with the bartender – a lovely tall, slim, blonde toughie who did seem quite charmed by his manners. In his defense, she was still smiling at him while the big bald bouncers carried him off and threw him out telling him in no uncertain terms that he was NOT to return there EVER. He just walked right in the next week. She wasn’t there. And he hadn’t even got her name.
After that incident, every time he ran into the stout brat he'd wiggle his way out of wherever he was as soon as he could. Once he walked into a motorcycle showroom and to his horror there she was, along with her father negotiating the price of a new scootie for herself. All he wanted was a helmet. And he was clear on which one too. "How much is that helmet for," he asked the store manager after saying his hellos to them both.
"Sir if you buy a bike you'll get a helmet free with it!" exclaimed the store manager.
"I have a bike; I just want a helmet to go with it."
"Then why don't you buy a second bike, we could throw in a good diwali discount for you!" Clearly marketing was a new concept and attacked with a vengeance by this charlie.
"Dude, I don't have the money for a new bike, okay? I just have enough for a new helmet. Now how much is that one for?"
"Did you know that you could pay the same amount as the price of that helmet in installments for the next eleven months and become the proud owner of not only that helmet but a brand new bike with it?!!!"
"When's your lunch break?"
"One pm."
"Thanks" said Hucki and left.
At ten minutes past one he walked out of the shop a proud owner of just the helmet.
It was just past 06:00 pm. Dusk was spreading. And she knew it would take at least an hour at full speed for her to reach her destination, in complete darkness.
“Trees have this uncanny ability to look so beautiful and refreshing in daylight and so daunting and terrifying at night.”
So she yanked her cap out from her back pocket, tucked her ponytail into it, and pulled it low over her eyebrows. That was Patricia. The cap was gone, her ponytail now soiled and disheveled, her forehead bruised and bleeding, the sight tore at something deep within the lady who owned the house.
She then untied her windcheater jacket from around her waist and wore it, turning up the collar. Hung her shopping bag off the shaft of her left hand and stuffed both palms into her pockets…so no one would know she was a girl. “How did they find out?”
The grace of a girl is just…the grace of a girl, I guess, thought Vinay, one of Tamil Nadu's most famous mechanics.
“I tried everything!” she wailed at Vinay, “Gouge his eyes out, Throw sand into his eyes, Kick him between the legs, Go for his throat… he attacked me from behind! How was I to reach his eyes? I was on a tar-road where could I possibly find sand from? Kick him between the legs? He was on top of me! Go for his throat? With what? My hands were nailed by my own bodyweight between the ground and me!”
Vinay had gone visiting a friend’s place, a lovely veterinary doctor lady who dedicated her entire life to fighting for the rights of animals. And she had invited Patricia, Vinay’s girlfriend. After all, they had both met first at this very house – ironic that it proved to be the grounds of their parting as well.
“I couldn’t even see my shopping bag through the thickness of dark around me,” she continued through tears, while Vinay sat holding her delicate, now bleeding palm in his hands, and Dr Janaki cleaned the gash across her elbow and shoulder.
“At first I thought my own footsteps were echoing against the hill – it was so quiet, but then the rhythm changed. It wasn’t me! That’s when I realized someone was following me. It was so dark how did they even see me?”
When a car drew near enough I turned just to understand if he was a stalker or just someone on the same road at the same time. And within that flash of a second in which I sized him up, I realized he’d used that same moment to size me up.
“The car was gone, pitch darkness returned. I knew I had to make a run for it. I just turned to take off and he was already on top of me!” She was shaking, stammering, her eyes wild, “He just clamped his arms around me and lifted me effortlessly off the ground!
All I could hear from that moment on was this high-pitched, deafening sound resounding off the hills until it stopped, replaced by a choking sound as I felt his finger nails pushing their way down my throat, and realized it was me screaming.”
Dr Janaki cursed, “You see my missing front teeth? Know how I lost them? I was attacked on my way home!”
“You should go to the police,” insisted Vinay.
“Police? What would I tell them? That I don’t know what he looked like; I don’t know how tall he was; or if he was fat or thin; I don’t even know what clothes he was wearing! You think I had all that in mind while fighting for my life?”
“Janaki talk some sense into her,” balked Vinay, donning his fancy leather jacket – he never forgot his fancy leather jacket.
“I did, actually, go to the police the morning after I was attacked. And believe me when I tell you the man who attacked me was the man writing my FIR. After I’d finished, he told me if I’d just mind my own business, bad things would stop happening to me. I had shut his brother’s business down for mistreating animals.”
“But I don’t look anything like you. Why would he attack me?”
“There’s a new lady doctor expected to team up with me. I think he mistook you for her. I’m sorry child.” She left to cook the dog’s dinner.
The shaking had stopped. The crying had stopped, the stammering and panic was over. Now she only had questions.
“I can understand, that a girl must be careful of a wolf around every corner, but what I cannot understand is why people are so afraid to help! I was standing in the middle of the road, with my hands joined in prayer, bleeding and begging for the bike to stop and help me, and he just skillfully maneuvered around me and left. Why would someone do that?
That’s when I just turned and ran. I don’t think an Olympic medalist could have overtaken nor even kept pace with me that stretch. What’s wrong with people?”
And it was his very next sentenced that turned a light off somewhere within Patricia: “I would have done the same thing," Vinay instinctively blurted out, "It’s quite normal to see scary disheveled women begging on the street. I definitely wouldn’t have stopped either.”
“Do these beggars wear denim jeans and windcheater jackets?” She just never could get herself to feel the same way about him again. No matter how much she rationalized it with herself, once the switch went off, she didn’t know how to turn it back on.
The look on her face, the straightness of her spine, the flinch to his touch, told him their relationship was in deep trouble, "Come on, don't these things happen in the Andamans?"
"No," her bruised, swollen, face turned to him, "someone would stop." There was nothing further to discuss.
One day she just packed her bags, said her goodbyes - to his big old-fashioned home, his angelic parents, his garage-smelling shirts - and walked away.
Life was different for her in the Andamans. She enjoyed living in her tree-house. It wasn’t about saving the world or anything self-righteous like that. It was about not requiring to depend on anything…not electricity, not the municipal supply of water, not public transport, nor fuel or gas…but yes, she did depend. She depending on her trustworthy farm-workers. She depended on her trustworthy farm manager. And she depended on herself to make her life exactly to her liking.
A light drizzle had begun. Tiny water droplets were pinching the surface of her bath water, she hadn’t yet felt them fall across her wet face, while her body soaked in the tub. Monsoon was always a pleasant time for Pat because she didn’t need to waste precious desalinated water for her baths – she just collected it from the rain in her big cast-iron tub.
And the first splat she did feel on her face made her jump out like electricity had gone through the water.
The Cinnamon!!! She had to rush back to put the cinnamon drying on her balcony back inside or the dampness would lead to fungus.
And in the rush of the moment she forgot to be careful of the thorns from touch-me-nots growing around her tub. Although she was constantly removing them, this time, she swore she’d first turn the soil upside down, get the roots out, and then re-plant her marigolds that acted as a screening while she bathed.
I don’t know if what I did was right or wrong. But my intensions were good. She was happy.
Hucki, during his brief stint with the police force was once stationed to guard against ruthless poachers the unchartered waters that surrounded the fabled “Cannibal Island”; the inhabitants of which were reputed to shoot at sight and seek answers to their questions through their taste buds, fingertips and suspicious eyes.
It is believed that during a violent storm the master found it impossible to keep the vessel anchored so close to the reef and decided instead to sail further out before dropping anchor. They started engines, lifted anchor, and realized something was caught in their starboard propeller.
Hucki, famous for his broad shoulders and fathomless lungs was rushed down to investigate along with three others who had worked their lives away on and under ships of this size. Ropes were fastened to each of their waists and lowered. The incessant pelting of rain against the swelling sea made visibility close to the surface almost impossible.
Hucki, a careful lad, was an ace swimmer in school and had only given up the sport due to the politics that came with it. He dived under, along with the leader of the group and the two Burmese boys with him.
Once under, it was clearly no more than a tattered fishing net that had draped itself around the blades. A simple enough operation, except that one end of the net had snagged onto a part of the reef that was lurking dangerously close to the boat’s stern. Time was ticking.
While Dennis - one of the Burmese seamen, dived lower to slice the net free, Rakesh the red-eyed leader of the group and Hucki tackled the propeller blades. And as Thomas – the other Burmese lad - prepared to go under to help Dennis he watched in utmost horror the entire of Dennis’ safety rope hurl itself into the sea, and it suddenly struck him that they’d both forgotten to fasten the ends of their harness to the bollards of the ship.
Cutting himself free of his own death-trap he dived in to set Dennis free of his. And although the rest of the operation went off smooth, they had lost reasonable time. “Start the engines!” Yelled Rakesh, barely audible, “She’s drifting astern!” They’d heard him alright, the engines had started. “Pull us up!” he yelled to an empty deck while he removed his harness and placed it around Thomas. Someone had obviously heard him because he was already being lifted up while Rakesh most firmly warned Hucki against any acts of heroism to attempt removing his own harness to place it around Dennis. And before Hucki could protest, in an instant the motion of the propeller sucked the unsuspecting leader beneath the hull and toward it.
Hucki left Dennis to the re-lowering of the safety rope and dived after his leader, who, through his presence of mind had managed to cling to the barnacles stuck to the keel of the boat, just a few feet away from the churning propeller blades.
Hucki locked himself from behind Rakesh onto the mountain of Barnacles that fatefully rescued them as they inched their way slowly out and behind the big boat. And just in time Rakesh sliced Hucki free of his safety rope, before they watched it rip through the propeller into shreds.
“We stick together!” Hucki screamed through gasps. Their toes nearly touching the top of the reef, it was dangerous to stay here much longer for the thrashing of the waves would flatten them against the rocks soon. They turned to face their predicament – North Sentinel Island, the land from where no man has ever retuned.
Rakesh was a survivor and the look in his eyes assured Hucki that they were going to make it. They found a turtle shell close to the shore and decided it would suffice for Hucki to use as cover, while Rakesh would bury himself in the marsh within the mangroves. “As the tide rises go into it, drop the shell and swim out. I’ll find you,” were his final instructions to Hucki, “I’m taking a piss before I bury myself tight. Don’t come out.”
Although his thighs and calves cramped painfully from his crouching position inside the shell, he didn’t dare move. As the tide began to seep beneath his shell, he knew what needed to be done; Slowly, steadily, he made his way into deeper, clearer water till he couldn’t hold his breath anymore.
And when he surfaced, expecting to be spotted and shot instantly, he found himself in the middle of nowhere, with the ship and island on opposite ends of the horizon and the sun sitting directly overhead. Rakesh was nowhere in sight. With renewed vigour and steam he convinced his muscles to get him across to the ship in the distance and to his luck, found the ship was headed straight for him. Although they hadn’t yet spotted him, they were approaching shallower waters for their anchor to hold ground.
Once united, Hucki found that Rakesh wasn’t onboard. A search and rescue helicopter was radioed in from Port Blair. As it lowered to the spot Hucki described as Rakesh’s hide-out, arrows came shooting out from the depth of the trees beneath them, “Take her up! Turn back! I’ve got them!” yelled the military clad officer with the camera, nodding a “No” to the on-call doctor, who resembled a sweating statue frozen grey with horror. “Look!” he showed the doctor his digital photographs of what appeared to be an open grave, “anything could have happened; crocodiles, cannibals, the current, who knows!” He leaned forward to the pilot, “radio the ship to turn around and head back, it’s not safe, come back later.”
Patricia had to complete her thesis on Mangroves and their rejuvenation since the tsunami. And since no one except Hucki had been close enough to the mangroves around North Sentinel Island she thought his inputs would be a valuable addition to her research paper. But Hucki was having a terrible day.
A canoeing competition was due the following day, and so was a storm by the looks of it. Along with the rest of the team, Hucki was having a difficult time staying right-side-up in his blue race canoe.
So, drenched to the bone, he hauled himself out of the water and accompanied Patricia Guillot to the coffee table. And through it all he came out feeling genuinely sorry for not having taken a better look at those mangroves to help this poor flustered damsel before him, so unimpressed with his near-death experience.
He wanted to touch her, to place her hair behind her ears so it would stop annoying her every time she bent forward. She watched him occasionally, through the top of her glasses trying to understand what a rich boy like him was doing eyes glittering, drenched in salt water, toying with little plastic boats.
“How are you going home?” he suddenly asked, cutting her off mid-sentence.
“The same way I came – in an auto.”
“Good, because my bicycle doesn’t have, umm, a second seat,” he shrugged.
She simply frowned.
The following are two letters I hereby submit before this court, written to me during the time I was in mourning due to the sudden demise of my mother. What you have previously read has been gathered from many of the letters she has written to me.
Dated 12/03/’06.
Dearest Trisha,
I write this letter to you from the dancing light of my lamp as the government is yet to grant me the permission and money for an electricity connection to my island. The spices have blossomed well this year, but we are doubtful of the ever-so-sweet langra mangoes as they are a sensitive species and climate change is the earth’s latest fad.
Either way, I have been teaching the boys on the island the harmful effects of chemicals on the soil and plants and why they should avoid using plastic. Did you know that bubblegum is non-biodegradable? It takes a million years for chewing gum to disintegrate. Nor did I.
Silly Elei’s been up to mischief again. She’s been ruthlessly uprooting all the ripe banana plants and carelessly trampling over all the saplings that poor Mohanlal had worked so hard to plant.
He still lives in that square little beached up house-boat. Quite content he is too, except when Elei gets her itches! He was just telling me this morning that the entire house-boat not only shakes, but moves about ten meters toward the shoreline every time she uses one of his square corners to scratch her big backside against. I absolutely want to go down there one night with a video camera just to record her busy scrubbing her behind against the edge of his cabin! Mohanlal says her scratchy visits are getting more frequent lately. Do you know of any elephant gynecologists who’d be willing to make a visit to see her – I’m worried it might be some kind of infection that we’re ignoring.
She’s really started earning her keep now too. Ramadas swims her across to the forests to help the government saw mill with transporting their wood. They pay the two of them sufficient for their ration and upkeep.
I met Hucki again, his bicycle is at the mechanic’s. He’s always up to something exciting. Crazy, but exciting.
Just the day before, he was telling me about his encounter with a crocodile! He said not a ripple broke across the surface as the croc lowered his head into the water just 25 meters in front of him. He told me it was an early foggy morning when he and Chetan the country’s top canoeist were locked head-to-head in a mock race when they saw the croc cruising along between their boats, and then abruptly take off. “One flick of his tail would have had both of us upside down in the creek,” he told me.
I’m just so glad he’s okay; he’s probably the only male on this planet that I can actually have a conversation with. I do hope all is well with you. I miss you.
P.B.
Dated: 29/03/’06
Dear Trisha,
I’ve missed you. I would have invited you to come visit my island so that Elei and the marigolds would cheer you up; But Elei’s gone. She swam away; and took my heart with her. Even the marigolds miss her so.
I think it’s the position of the moon that affects our moods that controls our behaviour and of those around us. Even Hucki had a near-death experience today, just off the island. So now I’m buying him a whistle that he must carry around his neck for easy access next time.
He said while he was canoeing past the island this morning, parched due to the late morning sun, he lost his balance and collapsed into the water. His boat had a small hole in its buoyancy chamber and so he had to get across to shore before it filled up. He swam as hard as he could for nearly twenty minutes but just could not reach the island’s shore – even though he was only 50 meters away from it. “The currents were too strong, and they were pulling me away from the island. After 40-odd minutes, just as I was about to give up, two arms lifted me out by the scruff of my neck; but they could not save the boat. My blue race canoe sank there, and even though we all searched for it, has never been found since.”
I’ll keep a look out for his strange little blue boat for sure.
Come visit before I forget what you even look like.
Waiting.
P.B.
Your Honour, I was asked by this honourable court to present my report. This is it:
I have previously referred to Miss Patricia Beale as Patricia Guillot as that is how I know her. That is how she was introduced to me by the warden and is referred to by her fellow inmates – because she is the first and only woman in the country to be charged with the death penalty since the British regime.
As you have probably figured out by now, her “island” she keeps referring to is her cell. I even went so far as to ensure she has an entire cell to herself after seeing the gravity of her insanity.
She has converted the floor of her cell into a garden with soil and grass from the workfield. Elei is the mouse that used to reside with her.
Although she might appear to be perfectly sane to anyone around her, she does not live amongst us. And the question of whether this insanity only arose since after her imprisonment, does not arise as she has been referring to Mr Hans Adam Noble, her fiancé of six years now, as Hucki since nearly three years before the murders. The name was inspired from a character in a book.
To clear with the court, the fateful night of the near-rape incident did happen, but not by a man and not on a street after sunset, but by a woman-inmate while she was on her way to Vinaya a fellow-inmate’s cell. The on-duty guard refused to get involved or attempt to stop in the incident. She had to fight her own way out of it. The incident occurred at one in the afternoon, just before siesta hour. The cells are dark, corridors are darker still, due to bad electricity connection in these islands.
Mr Hans has, to my knowledge, allowed her to live, and played his own role, in her alternate world. So have I. She is clearly not equipped for the harshness of realities.
I sincerely believe Miss Patricia Beale truly mistook the D.D.T. powder for Cocoa powder before feeding it to 15 innocent guests at her restaurant.
Dr Trishna Tiwari,
On-call Psychiatric Consultant
Government of India.
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