Fiction & Nonfiction

The Escape

The bus moved by 5 sharp in the morning. Anju admired the punctuality maintained by the state’s Road Transport Corporation (RTC). She traveled by the state buses many times and felt that she should set her watch by their departure from the depot.

As she lowered herself into a seat by the window in the second row, Anju glanced briefly around. It was a motley crowd. The scruffy looking teenage girls in the first two seats giggled continuously while they listened to a small portable transistor. There was an elderly couple in the next row. The woman complained about the climate, which was just getting humid and clammy. The man browsing through the newspaper nodded to her in a token gesture of agreement.

The young family in the long seat behind Anju spread themselves spaciously. The baby girl and the mother sat in one corner and the man with the five-year-old boy occupied the rest of the space. They were either eating from the large bamboo basket they packed with goodies or chitchatting or pacifying the kids when they fretted.

There was a couple in a parallel row by Anju’s seat. The aisle ran in between. The woman wore a black shroud like garment that covered her from head to foot. There was a square piece of net in fine thread, sewn in front of her face through which she could see and breathe. Obviously it was a religious tenet, which ruled, that women should not expose in public. The man had a short black beard and appeared to be in late thirties. They were silent most of the time.
The bus stopped intermittently to let in or to let out commuters.

The early morning breeze felt cool and soothing to Anju. It was not daylight yet. The semi dark made her think of her family living in the town that she would reach within two hours. She took out a packet of cashew nuts and started munching. The roasted nuts felt good on her tongue as she enjoyed their sweet and spicy taste. They were delicious with the tea she sipped from her thermos.
The others were calm, lost in their own world, daydreaming or dozing or simply looking out at the passing trees, fields or woods.

Out of nowhere appeared a barricade of felled trees on the highway. The driver had to brake suddenly and those inside startled and screamed as they grabbed the supporting rods. The bus screeched to a grinding halt. Three masked men got into the bus and one of them pulled the driver out of his seat.

The driver struggled to get out of the masked man’s vicious grip.
‘Who are you? Why are you doing this? I’ll report you to the police.’ 
‘You son of a double-crossing mother! You think you’ll see the police? There! Take it and go straight to Hell,’ said the mocking voice simultaneously pulling the trigger off a small pistol.
The driver of the bus lurched side ways, his breath stifled in mid sentence, his mouth agape. The blood from the wound in his chest quickly started forming a puddle on the serrated steel floor of the bus.

‘Ya Allah! (Oh Lord!) He’ll kill us too. What am I to do? Koi Bachao (somebody save!} cried the woman in burkha. (The cloak)
‘Shut up there you ugly face!’ said the second of the masked villains. But the screaming woman was unstoppable.
‘There is only one way to hush you up’ said the man and shot her. The shock made her fall unconscious, and her body slid down the seat. Blood started dripping down on to the seat and then on to the floor.
‘Is she dead or alive?’ wondered Anju agonizingly.

In the wake of screams and shouts and a lot of sobbing that followed the cold-blooded shootings, Anju was able to listen to the announcer’s low voice on the teenagers’ radio.

‘Here is a flash. The communal riots that flared up yesterday enter the second day today. A number of fundamentalists were arrested. The mayor and city police commissioner issued a warning to the public to stay off the roads in view of the rampage by the anti- communal elements.’

Anju guessed that the masked men belonged to the fundamentalist group. They were demented enough to kill and loot those whom they suspected belonging to the other religion. They also looted and killed anyone indiscriminately. She thought furiously, how she should act in these moments of extreme and unexpected danger to innocent lives.
She inched forward in her seat and nudged the teen girls and made a sign to switch the radio off. They complied promptly. Both sat huddled and frightened out of their wits. Anju assured them with her eyes and gestured to keep quiet and watch.

Anju knew that the family at the back would not be touched because they were of the same religion. She looked at the man in the adjacent seat whose wife was shot at. He was looking around in a crazed way. She pulled his shirt and when he looked at her, she urgently gestured to him to move to the vacant seat by her side.

The bus started moving towards the jungle down the roadside. One of the culprits drove it rashly into the thick bush. It went up and down on the rough and bumpy terrain. The elderly couple started pleading with the gun wielding men to have mercy.
‘Your sultans (rulers) and badshahs (emperors) never showed any mercy to our ancestors. They took away our wealth and religion. Why should we show mercy to you?’ asked a mask.
‘For the sake of God, please leave us son!’ said the old Muslim.
‘Shut up. I am no son of yours, you idiot!’ replied the tallest of the three assaulters, his eyes filled with hatred.

The bus stopped in the middle of wilderness. There was just a dark jungle around. No soul but for the ill-fated bus passengers alone could hear the screams of those who were dragged down the bus. The elderly couple was forcefully led into the thick undergrowth. The others in the bus were trembling under the eagle-eyed stare of the ruffian with a gun and counting seconds before they would die too. In a while they heard the distinct shot of a gun accompanied by the pained cries of ‘Ya Allah’ followed by grim silence.

Anju was trembling with fear and concern for the man by her side and a few others of his kind. One of the kids started crying to be taken out for a call of nature.
‘Come on, I ‘ll take you out’ said one of the three men addressed as Jagga by the other two.
‘No no Mommy, come on Papa’ said the little boy. There appeared an ugly gash on the boy’s leg. Jagga drew blood of the young innocent with his knife hidden on his booted leg. The boy fell to uncontrollable sobbing saying ‘I don’t want it.’
None could oppose the villain for fear of death by gunshot or the knife wound.
‘Then shut up and sit quietly’ sneered Jagga. The bus started moving again.

Anju realized they were on the road once more. The lead man Jagga came to her seat and asked the man by her side about his religion. Anju said trying not to sound nervous,
‘He is my cousin Prem. He came to my college to take me home for the weekend.’ She replied.
‘Hasn’t he got a tongue?’
‘He is unwell.’
‘Get up you goof! Let me see if you belong to us really’. Obviously he wanted to check him for the religious mark on his body.
Anju gave up hope. The man beside her suddenly smiled at her and said, ‘these boys are still new to the field. Our outfit is much more efficient’
The blackguard didn’t know how to respond.
‘What do you mean, your outfit?’

He was about to pull his gun when the bus braked so suddenly to avoid an ambling buffalo that its impact threw the gun wielding man out of the open door.  His accomplice who systematically started looting the passengers of their money and valuables saw the accident and cried out addressing the driver thus:
‘Are Samba! (Oh Samba) Oh no! Ruko Ruko’ (stop, stop)

The passengers, young and old saw their chance and pounced upon the looter quietly and overpowered him. They dragged him to the rear end of the bus and tied him up to the rod.  The driver couldn’t see that one of his accomplices went overboard and the other was tied up.

The bus continued going at a high speed. The inside scene was gory and tensed. The people sat in silence and watched the events. They could see that there was only on assaulter left. There was no need to panic.

Suddenly the driver sighted a police van stopped across the road, blocking the passage. Obviously the previous squad had messaged them about the miscreants hijacking the bus.

‘Hey Jagga! The police dogs are ahead. I am going full ahead. What say you?’
‘That’s right. Go at full speed. Don’t give those sons...of... a chance,’ replied his accomplice from the rear end. Promptly hit by a young commuter, he fell unconscious.

The police waved the bus to stop. But the large vehicle sped on a like a rogue elephant on rampage. The police followed it.

Silently and efficiently Anju and Karim, the man she tried to protect took over situation.
They calmed the passengers some of whom were still not able get the meaning of this sudden chaos. Then they slowly went over to the driver whose concentration was on the road. Anju crept up to his right and patted him on his shoulder. The driver startled and got the shock of his life.
‘What...how... Are Jagga, Arre Ranga! Kahan mar gaya re?’(Oh Jagga, Oh Ranga where have you died?)

Karim pulled out the culprit very much in the same way they pulled out the poor bus driver. Karim was holding the villain and others helped him in tying to seat near by.
They kicked him and battered him. They would have killed him and avenged the spilt blood of the driver and the woman. But Karim and Anju held them back saying that the police would finish the rest of the job.

Anju slid into the driver’s seat and started driving the bus, first gingerly experimenting and then with confidence. She went on a few yards and then killed the engine.

The police in the meantime hurried to the spot. They picked up the hijacker who was thrown out of the bus on their way. He suffered quite a few injuries.
An ambulance was called and those hurt in the unfortunate incident were carried away. The bus was driven to the nearest police station by a cop where the three criminals were taken into custody.

Anju and Karim made headlines in the next day’s newspapers. The media praised their courage and calmness under pressure and most of all they admired them for their exemplary fellow human feeling no matter which religion they belonged to.