I left my family 3 years ago and moved away from the suburbs of Mumbai to the much more urbanised streets of Andheri in Mumbai. Born to Benjamin Koshy and Susanna Koshy, I, Reuben Koshy am someone who lives in the future rather than the present. So for me a shift from the suburbs of Dombivli to Andheri was something really big. This place had always fascinated me for its sheer sense of urbanised medium and above all its entire aura. But since the last 3 months I feel that I have committed one of the biggest mistakes in my life by moving over here. My 2 room pad was bustling with echoes of the sirens of nearby cop cars that have been suddenly on the run since last 3 months or so when they got news that smuggling lord Raghavan Sinha and his legendary granddad Romanov Voltar are back in Mumbai. These so called cops had spent almost 30 million rupees on special task force agents from Russia in order to catch Raghavan. But no one knows where those guys went and then no one heard anything from them until after 2 months of their departure, the cops got a gift on Christmas, some seven severed Russian heads, with maggots all over them. That was the power that The Romanovs held over Mumbai. And well that was the indirect reason why since the last three days I have been unable to decide an ending to my much anticipated (only by me actually) superhero comic, entitled ‘SHADOW NOVA’.
Well this was no where going to get solved up, as the government was the same old corrupted one since decades and they…were never going to change, if anything had to change then it had to be just nothing…simply nothing because even though it was year 2050 and India was the most powerful nation in the world, there was total shallowness deep inside this motherland. Everyone right from the smallest petty waged worker to the highest earning business people, everyone survived some or the other way on corruption, even me too!!! As my house owner owns 3 buildings across Andheri which never had any kind of license and I was staying in one of them. My house owner, Sarjeet Bhatia, an ex- military officer, who lost everything when he lost his right leg during some battle somewhere near Kashmir. Well, that never stopped this never die guy, who brought up these three, 3-storeyed buildings with the entire greenies he ever earned in his life. And what today you see is, instead of a rifle he holds a needle and thread instead of a grenade as he now owns a small tailor shop in his Blue Star building, which is just 4 blocks away from my…well the building in which I reside. As my mother said, “All is well and good if u make out the time to pray”, I left aside my problems and started praying and before I could say Amen, the door bell rang…I said Amen and opened the door to find dear Anne standing there right in front of me all drenched because it was raining too good. Anne, the girl living on the floor above my pad was too sweet to become a hooker. She told me long back that she became a hooker just for the reason that she always got kicked off by love. Love was the only thing in her life that poisoned her life completely, be it her sadistic experiences with her step-father or the encounter with a boyfriend who gang raped her along with his friends and that too for a whole two days. Or was it the law who brushed off her innocence by proclaiming that she was a hooker by profession just like her mother…Something that always haunts her, that, her mother left for the heavenly abode long back during her childhood days. There was total darkness in her life after that decision by the law and then she fought with life throughout without a break, but still fate never let her go off that tag, the tag of a raped girl. It was 2050, it was India Poised, yet innocence was just a pity piece of cloth that got washed off in the gutters of Mumbai…
Sitting next to me, she strokes a puff of smoke on my face, the cigar in her hands, the skimpy clothes and the knife on her belt, all show me a new Anne. She came today actually to give me my mp3 micro chip. One of her DJ friends had asked for some new tracks sung by the ultimate desi rock band, ‘Drive-shot Alley’. She gave them to me, asked me that whether I had dinner, because whatever she was, she was always caring towards me. Many days when I slept without having food, then she would cook food for me and then has it along with me. After giving that mp3 stuff, she pecked me on my cheek as usual, bid me goodbye and slammed the door behind me…as usual.
Next day, even though yesterday night was a mess I had to get up by 7.00a.m. because I had to earn my bread and butter and that could only be done by working at ‘Pandits’ Paradise’…actually Mr. Pandits’ visual effects studio (Octoden). He called it heaven because there he would never find his ever nagging wife. And luckily even she never used to come over here as she was a lazy…well pig. And Pandit…he would love anything without his wife…even if it was ‘Bajrang’, the local Bihari babus’ stinking ‘vada pavs’. Life at Octoden was good, with good amount of work, a moderate pay and beyond all, some good curvaceous show-off by the ladies. So today it was as usual, except that today at afternoon, we witnessed some real gruesome stuff by Romanovs’ mob party. Right in front of the traffic signal near our office building, they bumped off two guys, who later came to be identified as the contract killers who some months back, decided to play dirty with Raghavan. That was Raghavan, silent yet dominating. I was always fascinated by this guy for the sheer reason that how he turned this city into his own playground, pawns working for him without a concern for their own lives and weapons went on just like toys for him. And with the blood being washed off the streets into the gutters even that day dimmed itself into the fading nightlife of Mumbai. And like a damsel wrapped in black, the night started off with music, YO!!!
I had to go to one Mr. Inder Shah, a comic book publishers’ nightclub to present him with my debut comic artwork. He asked me to come over here, though it was suspicious enough, I never hesitated because the night was calling me in. He was sitting in his private room with some…well…not that covered up girls, who were…just playing around, flashing there assets over his face. He asked me to sit besides him and then he…well…asked me to do something that made it clear that his intentions were never good. He was bloody gay and wanted me to play around with his pole. He was ready to publish my comic and even offered to pay me in advance, but I decided to pay him instead…with a kick on his filthy groin. And the next thing I could remember was me being bashed around the club by his bouncers…well gay bouncers maybe and then they threw me out just like a piece of crap right into the garbage dump. Probably I slept there for an hour or so, because they really played around me hard and it was paining bad and with all this around…it started raining. With the rain to accompany me I started walking slowly towards the nearby rail pod station, fortunately they didn’t take away my rail card along with my money. Well tonight everything went wrong all due to the reason that I was a nobody and nobody likes a nobody, everyone likes a somebody…no matter what…
Next day, even though yesterday night was a mess I had to get up by 7.00a.m. because I had to earn my bread and butter and that could only be done by working at ‘Pandits’ Paradise’…actually Mr. Pandits’ visual effects studio (Octoden). He called it heaven because there he would never find his ever nagging wife. And luckily even she never used to come over here as she was a lazy…well pig. And Pandit…he would love anything without his wife…even if it was ‘Bajrang’, the local Bihari babus’ stinking ‘vada pavs’. Life at Octoden was good, with good amount of work, a moderate pay and beyond all, some good curvaceous show-off by the ladies. So today it was as usual, except that today at afternoon, we witnessed some real gruesome stuff by Romanovs’ mob party. Right in front of the traffic signal near our office building, they bumped off two guys, who later came to be identified as the contract killers who some months back, decided to play dirty with Raghavan. That was Raghavan, silent yet dominating. I was always fascinated by this guy for the sheer reason that how he turned this city into his own playground, pawns working for him without a concern for their own lives and weapons went on just like toys for him. And with the blood being washed off the streets into the gutters even that day dimmed itself into the fading nightlife of Mumbai. And like a damsel wrapped in black, the night started off with music, YO!!!
I had to go to one Mr. Inder Shah, a comic book publishers’ nightclub to present him with my debut comic artwork. He asked me to come over here, though it was suspicious enough, I never hesitated because the night was calling me in. He was sitting in his private room with some…well…not that covered up girls, who were…just playing around, flashing there assets over his face. He asked me to sit besides him and then he…well…asked me to do something that made it clear that his intentions were never good. He was bloody gay and wanted me to play around with his pole. He was ready to publish my comic and even offered to pay me in advance, but I decided to pay him instead…with a kick on his filthy groin. And the next thing I could remember was me being bashed around the club by his bouncers…well gay bouncers maybe and then they threw me out just like a piece of crap right into the garbage dump. Probably I slept there for an hour or so, because they really played around me hard and it was paining bad and with all this around…it started raining. With the rain to accompany me I started walking slowly towards the nearby rail pod station, fortunately they didn’t take away my rail card along with my money. Well tonight everything went wrong all due to the reason that I was a nobody and nobody likes a nobody, everyone likes a somebody…no matter what…
I reached home late, there was a message on my door scrapper, it was from Anne, she was worried about me, as she tried calling me on my cell, but that wretched thing…I forgot to charge it yesterday, so she had scrapped me to meet her as soon as I return. But meeting her in this state would mean bashing no.2, so I decided to lay down myself so that I could let my pitiful soul take a break. It was Saturday next day and my body just wouldn’t let me go for job, so I just helped it in dozing off again. My door bell was ringing hot, and my ears were banging out, I knew it…it could have been none other than Anne. I opened the door and the next thing I got was well pure, crystal clear unholy sermon with a very good mixture of all those ‘F’ and ‘S’ words. But as soon as she saw my swollen lip and bruised arm, she felt bad and enquired about what really happened. After telling her what happened, she called up Pandit to tell him that I won’t make it up today and well Pandit he got his pant tight when she spoke to him because Anne was someone who always…well…seriously excited him to the core. She brought in some medicines, gave me a shot on my ass and then cooked some very good tomato soup for me. Later in the afternoon, after she left I noticed that, yesterday’s incident had damaged my artwork, which I took along with me to the nightclub. Some of its pages were stained with rain water and there were some pages that were purposely torn off…It took me 3 years to write them down and they ripped it off within 3 seconds. I had to do something, I went up at this guy’s office and shouted in front of everyone that what a big pile of shit he was and even kicked him once again on his sweet spot. Within hours I came across his reaction, I was being searched around by cops throughout Andheri and if it was not for Teepu, our sweeper boys’ information, they would have picked me up long back. This pig was quite influential, he had some very good contacts, he not only brought in a search warrant but also got Sarjeet arrested and they really had him go down on his knees. Even Anne felt the pain when they arrested her on the pretext of divulging information about my whereabouts, but tried to molest her in the jail instead, but by Gods’ very good grace, I came there at the right time and well…my just pitiful state got much more pitiful. Anne was released on the spot and I got kicked hard on the spot. Next day with the help of Afreed Biscuitwala, a 30 something criminal lawyer, one of Anne’s prestigious, yet helpful clients, I got out of that scum shell. The cops had messed up with almost every bone in my body and Inder with every emotion of mine. Sarjeet was good and recovering, Anne was all fine as, Afreed always takes good care of her. But my state was no less than that of a corpse. But that is where, really for the first time in my life that I felt that it was time I let my long hidden emotions come out and take some real good shape, some form that would really turn out to be a remedy for this city and I just knew where to look out for it…
