Mumbai, India. A seventeen-year-old boy stands alone with both hands in his trouser pockets watching the countless trains passing through the platform at Grant Road Station. Suddenly, he pulls out a pistol from his pocket and starts firing at random. Nobody is killed, but five men and one child are seriously injured. Miraculously, the boy manages to escape!_____
Grant Road Police Station. A police constable wipes the sweat off his forehead with an old rag of a handkerchief. It is a sultry May afternoon and the electricity at the station is down due to some repair work.
“What motive could he possibly have?” a senior inspector demands of the overweight constable.
“God knows. Must have been mentally disturbed or must have failed his SSC exams,” the constable replies unwittingly. “Should we question the juice vendors at the station one more time?”
“Get out! You’re rubbish! Bloody useless! Don’t bother me now I have to talk to Chief sahib about a new AC for this godforsaken office!”
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Colaba Causeway. A Portuguese tourist is handing over a five-hundred-rupee note to a shopkeeper having just purchased a set of Buddha statues for four-hundred rupees. It is a typical summer afternoon and sweat pours down his tanned skin and causes his thick braided hair to stick to his skin. As he reaches out to collect his change of a hundred rupees, a bullet hits his right arm and he falls to the floor with a shriek of pain. The boy strikes again. This time, he had a target in mind.
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I hate to be rude, but I would kill you too if you disrespected my parents. My father worked at Grant Road station as a ticket-collector and he was mugged by a group of unruly travelers. Not only did they steal his wallet and cell phone but they also physically assaulted him leaving him visually impaired. My mother was killed in Goa by a drunken Portuguese tourist who stabbed her after he was ‘dissatisfied’ by the massage she gave him at the five-star-deluxe hotel where she worked. I know those travelers who I shot at weren’t the same ones who attacked Papa nor was that Portuguese tourist with long braided hair the same one who assaulted Mamma but to be honest, I don’t care. These people ruined my family forever! My father cannot work anymore and my little sister lives in a permanent state of shock and fear and is unable to leave our miniature apartment. What did we do to deserve this? Nothing. Thank God for Chote Vijay who managed to steal his uncle’s pistol for my Cause. I’m glad I did what I did. Nothing and nobody can help me get over this pain, this suffering. I am going to jump into the Arabian Sea now with no regrets. Maybe the fish will devour me? Maybe they'll find me too bitter from pain, who knows? Life, to me, is now meaningless! I lost everything. But revenge really is, so sweet. Goodbye friends.
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Although the air-conditioner has been successfully installed, the Police Station is as sultry as ever due to poor power supply. Senior Inspector Raakesh Kumar Savant angrily kills a mosquito with the folded set of newspapers he holds in his right hand before opening up the bundle and frowning at the front page. ‘Mentally Disturbed Boy Jumps Into Arabian Sea; Onlookers Shocked.’ The news article further went on to explain that the recovered body matched the description of the elusive ‘Boy Criminal’ who had caused havoc at Grant Road Station and Colaba Causeway. The journalist went on to speculate that the unidentified youth could have possibly failed the SSC exams, the results of which had been declared a week earlier. The Senior Inspector felt sick.
“tsk tsk tsk tsk......kya hoga es desh ka?” he wonders aloud. What will become of this godforsaken country?
His sour mood is dampened further by the arrival of that overweight constable, Anand Singh, whose face is notably glowing with pride beneath a layer of perspiration.
“What did I suspect, sahib?” he says, nodding his pudgy head towards the newspaper in the Senior Inspector’s hand. “Failure tha ya paagal tha! Saala!” He was either a failure or a gone case, I knew it! That scumbag!
“Get out!” the red-faced Inspector hollered. “And tell that fool Raju to send in my tea! Extra sugar!”
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Isn't it strange how quickly the world jumps to conclusions? Most of us believe everything we read and hear in the print and visual media as if God Himself is sending down revelation through His angels. Have you ever stopped and questioned, "Hey, wait. Maybe there's another side to this story! Maybe the guy who they make out to be the 'bad guy' actually isn't so bad?" I'm not necessarily talking about the little story above, the kid's a lunatic for doing what he did, I'm questioning in a more general sense- There Are Two Sides To Evey Coin and the same can be said of world affairs. Just maybe, we're the ones being brainwashed by our television sets? Think about it. Leave a comment below with your opinion.
