The next morning, Mishti showed up at the library as promised. Arnab walked with her to the Cafe for a coffee as she told him about how much she was dreading going back to work.
'I would have thought you would take a break, since your arm isn't fully recovered', said Arnab.
'You don't know my boss. A total workaholic.'
'I never did ask you, which company do you work for?'
'Woodpecker Industries. Heard of them?'
'Who hasn't' said Arnab. Mishti's employer was one of the biggest corporations in India. The fact that she worked for such a large firm made him realize once more just how out of his league she was. Mishti caught him completely off-guard with her next question.
'Arnab, do you have a girlfriend?'
Arnab almost choked on his coffee as he responded after a pause.
'No, I don't.'
He saw Mishti's expression and thought she was asking why. Without thinking too much, he blurted out what was according to him, the truthful answer.
'I don't think too many girls would be interested in me.'
Mishti put her cup down, and looked at Arnab with a smile.
'And what kind of guys do you think girls like?'
'You know, well-built, good-looking, rich, sophisticated. Certainly not an Associate Librarian from Uttarpara.'
He hadn't meant to come out sounding as bitter as he did, but he was shocked when Mishti reached out and touched his hand.
'Arnab, not all girls judge a man by his bank balance or his looks. There's a whole lot more than that, things you have in spades. Like honesty, like a good heart, like just being a decent human being.'
'How do you know I'm decent?'
'Because you haven't tried to hit on me yet. Most men would have flirted or made a pass by now', she replied with a mischievous grin.
'I guess I don't know how to flirt.'
Mishti laughed out loud, showing the smile that Arnab had decided he could never tire of seeing.
'And that, Arnab Bannerjee, is what makes you so irresistible.'
Arnab had no idea what to say to that, and was grateful when Mishti looked away at her watch and got up with a start,
'Shit! I'm going to miss my flight if I just sit and chat here. Arnab, I've never been one for long goodbyes, and am going to be back in town real soon. So take care and tata.'
To Arnab's delight and horror, she leaned over and gave a quick peck on his cheek before she left. As Mishti walked away, Arnab felt somehow that his life may return to some degree of normalcy. After all, the whole episode in Gurgaon had to do with her, didn't it? Now that she was gone, he could try and forget what had happened and get his life back on track. The TV channels had found other news to occupy themselves with and coverage of his adventure was slowly but surely disappearing from the airwaves. Soon enough, nobody would remember anything, and he could get back to his work at hand. That included starting to study for the upcoming exams, not clearing which would condemn him to at least one more year of being Jayantada's assistant. Just then, he noticed a large group of students gathered around a laptop. As they chattered excitedly, more and more students joined until there was a veritable mob gathered around the table, jostling to get a glimpse of the screen.
'Holy shit, did you see that?'
'Man, its for real!'
'Play it again.'
Curious as to what was going on, Arnab walked over to one of the students he knew.
'Ram, what's happening here?'
The boy looked at him, eyes wide with excitement.
'Man, this is amazing. This guy really rocks.'
Arnab was totally confused.
'Who rocks? Who are you talking about?'
'The Gurgaon superhero. Someone taped him and put it up on Youtube. He moves as fast as a rocket. I've never seen anything like it!'
Arnab literally stopped breathing. Trying to act as nonplussed as possible, he got out of the Cafe, and then rushed to the library. He booted up the PC there and went to Youtube. He didn't have to search too much. Just typing 'Gurgaon' produced a video titled 'The real Gurgaon superhero'. Its description read.
'He's for real folks! Took this on my mobile. Check it out! Just watch him move like a rocket!'
With shaking fingers, he clicked on the video. It was grainy, and opened on the side of the road where Arnab had been sitting near the Sumo. The camera was pointed at a young girl. A male voice, presumably that of the person recording the video was speaking.
'Come on, sweetheart, say something.'
'What do I say, yaar?'
Just then, there was movement behind her. The camera moved to show three men rush into the Sumo and drive off at high speed, leaving a cloud of dust and smoke in their wake. Then Arnab could see himself standing there. His face was obscured by the hood but it was nevertheless a shock to see himself on video, exposed to the whole world. In the video, he stood still for a second or two, and then began running, suddenly accelerating till he was little more than a blur. The camera tried to follow him down the road, but in the blink of an eye, he had disappeared.
'Holy shit! Did you get that?' the girl's voice was heard saying.
Arnab sat in stunned silence for several minutes, not knowing what to do. The video had been uploaded that morning and had already been viewed 5000 times. By the time Arnab got home in the evening and checked on his computer, that number had climbed to over 100,000. If he had thought his adventure would be forgotten soon, he was very wrong. All night, there was a veritable feeding frenzy in the media on the video clip. Channels would freeze on frame after frame, zoom in to try and see more details and linger on the point where he seemed to accelerate like a rocket and run after the car. Arnab woke up the next morning and walked to the nearby newspaper vendor to see what the papers had to say. What he saw astounded him. Every paper carried the story as its lead item on the front page, and while there was little by way of any more information than had been available the previous day, there was a lot of speculation. Arnab bought about a dozen papers and spent the rest of the day doing little more than reading what they had to say.
'Is he some genetically modified experiment?' speculated one paper.
'Do we have our own real life superhero?' screamed another.
As he read story after story, he found himself getting obsessed with what they had written about him, and some of their wild speculations and theories made him laugh out loud, since he was the only person who knew the whole truth. In the evening, he turned on the TV to see the Minister he had met, Balwant Singh, on a news programme.
'Mr Singh, as the Law Minister, what is your take on this superhero story in Delhi?' asked the anchor.
Balwant Singh seemed to be chewing tobacco once again, and was wearing a khadi kurta-pyjama and a cap that made him look just a little bit comical. What he had to say was however not something Arnab found funny at all.
'You see, nowadays with technology you can do anything. You can make a man fly, run fast, or take a bribe.'
He smiled broadly at the studio audience, many of whom cheered. As the camera panned over the audience, Arnab could recognize PC Sharma, the Minister's flunkie and wondered how many in the audience were plants as they had been in the college Press Conference.
'Mr Singh, I presume you're referring to the cash for votes scam, where your colleagues were caught on camera taking money, but you continue to insist those are doctored photos.'
'You see, the Opposition..'
The Minister looked visibly upset when the anchor cut him in mid-sentence and tried to steer the discussion back.
'To come back to the Gurgaon video, are you saying this is a fake?'
'All I know is that this superhero talk is bogus. Someone helped that woman out, which is a good thing. But I request your audience not to conclude that taking the law into your own hands is always good, and also not to sensationalize this with wild rumours. Now coming back to the Opposition, you see..'
Arnab switched the TV off in disgust. He sat there, wondering why he was feeling so agitated. He had not wanted nor asked for any recognition or reward for what he had done, but to have what he had done, what he was, dismissed as a hoax and a publicity stunt made him feel angry. He realized that this was the first time in his life when he really felt proud of who he was and what he had done, and to have that undermined and ridiculed really got under his skin.
What made things worse was that on Monday, the media got a new favourite story-a Krishna idol that had suddenly started playing the flute in a Mysore temple. They dumped Arnab's story like a hot potato and descended on this new sensation, where thousands of devotees were lining up outside the temple, to get a glimpse of this miracle and to seek blessings with offerings of cash and valuables. Two days later, the whole episode was revealed to be a hoax by the temple priest, who had placed a small wireless speaker under the idol. To Arnab's dismay, a lot of the media began linking the story to his video, talking about how scamsters can use technology to mislead people.
That Wednesday, while sitting in the college Cafe for lunch, he overheard two students talking at the neighbouring table.
'Man, you can't believe anything nowadays. The whole Gurgaon superhero thing was a scam, and I thought it may have been real.'
'Come on, dude, there are no heroes in our country-just keep your head down and survive, that's all. Bloody scamsters, all of them.'
'Guess you're right. Would be nice if there were someone like that around, though-someone who could make a difference. I guess it's that way only in the comics, right?'
That was the last straw. Arnab could feel his blood boiling. He was no scamster, and certainly no comic book character. He felt it a real perversion of justice that someone who had done nothing more than help another person was being ridiculed. He would prove them all wrong, and they would know he was only too real, and that someone could actually make a difference.
***
This time however, Arnab didn't act rashly. He had learnt his lessons from his first adventure and as tempted as he was to rush into another one, he decided to prepare thoroughly. He realized that the hooded sweatshirt had served him well in helping conceal his identity and he would continue wearing it. He also decided to operate only at night, since revealing his powers in broad daylight was just too risky. Also, he realized that at night, his power of vision gave him two added advantages. First, he would be able to see clearly when any likely adversary would not, and secondly he would not be encumbered with managing his bulky glasses. Years of reading detective novels and comics gave him another idea-he brought a pair of gloves. Not only would they help keep his hands warm in the winter nights, but also ensure that he would not leave behind any fingerprints.
All of this took the better part of a week, a time during when Arnab did precious little studying, appeared even more absent minded at work and earned a few more sarcastic comments from Jayantada. He decided he would go out again on Friday night, and with three days to go, he also decided that next time he encountered trouble; he wouldn't be just evading blows and wondering what the hell to do. A trip to the nearby video rental shop yielded a hoard of old Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, which he watched late into the night, hoping to learn some moves. When he tried to emulate a kick and lost his balance and landed on his face, he realized that he would need a bit more help. Looking at the DVDs suddenly gave him an idea.
A wiry old man known to everyone around as Khan chacha, Hindi slang for Khan Uncle, ran the video parlour. It was rumoured he had once been a famous boxer, but nobody really knew the full story. As Arnab reached the shop to return the DVDs, he waited for the other customers to leave so he could have some time alone with Khan.
'Khan chacha, I wanted to ask you something.'
'Go on.' Khan replied in his usual gruff voice, as he sorted the discs that had just been returned.
'Can you teach me a few boxing moves.'
Khan looked up, startled.
'What are you talking about?'
Arnab decided to persist. 'They say you were once a famous boxer. You surely could teach me something.'
The man didn't even deign to reply, and got up saying he had to close the shop for the night. Arnab pleaded with him to wait.
'Why do you want to learn? I don't teach youngsters so they can get into silly fights to impress girls.'
Arnab told him about the incident on the bus, leaving out how he had thrashed the two goons, and saying that he felt so helpless in situations like that and if he knew some moves he could at least try and help in future. It was a lie, but Arnab figured it was all for a good cause, and it seemed to work as the old man's features softened a bit.
'Come upstairs with me.'
He took Arnab to a small room above the shop. In a corner wall hung several photographs of a younger Khan, many featuring him in the boxing ring. Beside the photos was a frame displaying several medals. Arnab was speechless.
Khan pointed to the medals, speaking with a bitter tone. 'National Championship Gold, Silver in the Asian Games.' He saw the unspoken question in Arnab's eyes, questions he had been asked a thousand times earlier. Questions he tried to avoid by keeping his past a closely guarded secret.
'Arnab, all I got for my efforts were photos with some political bigwigs and a few photos in the papers. I was an ordinary infantryman in the Army, and with three mouths to feed, I earned barely enough to get by on, let alone cover the cost of training and equipment. Those days, there were no corporate sponsors, no lucrative ad deals and we were at the mercy of the bureaucrats. The Army was supportive, but to really compete at a world-class level, I needed equipment and training that nobody had the money for. I loved boxing, but I had to choose-struggle through it or raise my family. I made my choice.'
Arnab didn't know what to say, so Khan walked up to him and said, 'Yes, I'll teach you. Come here every evening.'
And thus Arnab's training began. He met Khan the next evening after dinner when the old man had closed his shop.
'Khan chacha, I really want to learn the best way to hit someone.'
Khan chuckled at that, 'Boxing isn't just about hitting, it is as much about balance, conditioning and learning to block.'
Arnab couldn't tell Khan what his real agenda and needs were, and that with his speed, blocking wasn't much of a concern, so he asked Khan to at least start teaching him the basic stances and punches.
Khan said that before he learnt to throw a single punch, he would need to learn how to face one. Confident of his speed, Arnab agreed, and began watching the old man's hands, trying to see where the punch would come from. Khan's right hand twitched and Arnab began moving to his left, thinking he would dodge the punch with ease. Just then, the old man's left hand shot out with surprising speed. Arnab was facing the wrong way, still waiting for the right hand that never came, and when he did see the left fist streak out at his chest, he tried turning the other way. Speed was not his undoing, since despite the speed at which the old boxer had shot his fist out Arnab's reflexes would have allowed him to dodge it with ease. What did him in was his lack of balance, as he tripped over his own foot and stumbled onto his back, falling in an ungainly mess to the ground.
Khan held out his hand to help Arnab up.
'You can't guess where a punch is coming from by watching the hands. You need to watch the eyes and the shoulders.'
Suitably chastened, Arnab agreed to learn the way Khan would teach him, and his training began that night. The training session went on late into the night, the old man relishing a return to an art he had once loved and Arnab soaking up his teacher's encyclopaedic experience. He promised to come every night and learn more from the old man.
That Friday, Arnab set out on his next mission, carrying his sweatshirt and gloves in a plastic bag. Soon enough he realized that in a city as vast as Delhi, just setting out randomly in search of crime or people in need of assistance was a stupid strategy. After loitering about for an hour or so, he realized it was pointless, and his enthusiasm deflated, returned home. The lessons with Khan continued every evening, and that Sunday, Arnab met Chintu on the stairwell.
'Hi Chintu, tell me, how do your superheroes know when people need their help.'
Chintu looked up at him as if he were retarded.
'Superman has super-hearing. He flies over the world and hears people. Didn't you know that?'
He didn't, but he did know that possessing neither the power of flight nor super-hearing that was a strategy he couldn't afford to try. Monday morning and he was back in college, and as he entered the library, Jayantada called him over.
'Arnab, is everything all right?'
Arnab didn't know how to react so just nodded in response, but Jayantada wasn't about to let him off the hook so easily.
'You come late to work almost every day, look sleepy and tired all day-I worry about you, my boy. Tell me if I can help in any way.'
Arnab realized that he had been so caught up in his night-time activities that he had totally neglected the rest of his life. He may not have loved his job, but certainly couldn't afford to lose it, so he tried to do some damage control.
'Jayantada, I've been preparing for my exams. I'm sorry; I won't let you down again.'
Jayantada shrugged it off and got back to his newspaper.
'You know, Arnab, this city is going to the dogs. So much crime every single day. There's this new 'Stoneman' they're all writing about. Six people killed in a month and nothing yet, because the dead are all poor pavement dwellers.'
Arnab suddenly got an idea and asked Jayantada for the newspaper. Why hadn't he thought of this earlier? Sitting in the library, newspapers and books surrounded him, and all he had to do to find high-profile cases was to scan the crime pages. He decided to take on the case Jayantada had mentioned. As he looked through the day's papers and scanned old copies, the basics were clear. Someone had been killing pavement dwellers in the Mathura Road area by smashing their heads in with large stones. All the attacks had been late at night, and there had been no progress in the case so far. It was just the kind of opportunity Arnab had been looking for.
That night, Arnab set out to look for this elusive 'Stoneman'.
***
Superman swooped down from the skies faster than a speeding bullet, Batman rode into action in his armoured Batmobile and Spiderman swung down from the nearest building spinning his web. Our superhero rode into battle in a battered old Delhi Transport Corporation bus. He had carried his sweatshirt and gloves in a plastic bag and was still wearing his glasses, as it was still quite bright outside and as far as he had ascertained, his night vision kicked in only when he took off his glasses in darkness. As he sat on the bus, he replayed in his mind all that he knew about the case. The papers had said that all the attacks had happened under flyovers. All the killings had been committed with blocks of stone located near the crime scene, usually left over from construction work. As Arnab reached the area, he walked around looking for a spot where pavement dwellers had gathered. He spotted two groups, about a kilometre apart, one of which seemed to have heavy construction work nearby. He put on his sweatshirt and waited patiently near that group, hiding behind a bus stand. It was a gamble, but he couldn't be in two places at once. As the darkness of night intensified, Arnab took off his glasses, and instantly, he could see everything around him clearly, once again tinged with the shades of green he had started to get accustomed to. With no more than one functioning streetlight within view, he hoped it would give him an edge over whoever this Stoneman might turn out to be. At about midnight, when all the pavement dwellers were fast asleep, he spotted some movement out of the corner of his eye. He watched with bated breath as a small man walked towards the group. He moved quietly in the dark and was largely covered in a dark shawl. To any observer, he could have seemed like just another one of the pavement dwellers. For all Arnab knew, that's what he was, but he decided to watch and wait. As the man neared the group, something totally unexpected happened. He signalled to someone across the road, and two police constables appeared, carrying a large bag. As Arnab watched in horror, they took out a dead body from the bag and placed it on the pavement. The man in the shawl picked up a large stone and brought it down on the corpse's face. Arnab gasped out loud and then realized the men had heard him. One of the constables shouted out, 'Who is there?' Not comprehending what was going on, and not knowing what to do, Arnab raced from the scene at top speed.
The next morning, Arnab picked up the paper to read that the 'Stoneman' had claimed yet another victim. He was perplexed at what was going on, and also frustrated by the fact that his mission had been a failure. He resolved to get to the bottom of the 'Stoneman' mystery, but for that night, he had an idea of someone who could guide him to some action closer to home. Khan had lived in the area for at least two decades, and there was little he didn't know about what was happening in the locality. That evening when he met Khan for his training, Khan told him they would spar to see what he had learnt. As the two of them circled each other and threw punches at each other, Arnab consciously tried to hold back, but even then when his gloved fist connected with Khan's shoulder, the old man winced and laughed.
'You are much stronger than you look, my friend, and you are learning fast.'
Over hot cups of tea, Arnab asked him what was happening in the neighbourhood.
'Times are bad. Ordinary folk have to struggle to just get by, and then you have the crime. Take Chilla village for example. A gang of thugs has been terrorizing people there, attacking shops at night, extorting money and robbing people. The police do nothing because they say the group is led by someone with political connections.'
Arnab considered whether he really wanted to get involved. Part of him told him that it was the right thing to do, and if he could help some people with his newfound powers, he should. There was also a part of him that told him to get involved to demonstrate to the media and others that he was no scam.
That night, he made his way to the neighbouring Chilla village, and waited in a sweet shop in the main market, waiting for the action to begin. Sure enough, at about ten at night, a jeep roared into the market, carrying five men armed with rods and hockey sticks. The crowd in the market scattered and some shopkeepers started lowering their shutters and turning off their lights, but it was too late. As the men began their rampage, assaulting the nearest shopkeeper and asking him to pay up, Arnab made his move. He slipped behind the shop and put on his sweatshirt and then emerged from the shadows. In the darkness, nobody saw him coming.
Three of the goons were inside the shop and two were standing by the jeep. Arnab ran towards the jeep at speed, and flicked his arms out at the two men as he passed them. Travelling at speed, he didn't really connect with anything more than a glancing blow with the palms of his hands, but it was enough. Both men flew several feet, landing in a heap. As Arnab stopped and turned to face the remaining three men, a palpable silence descended on the market. People gathered around to witness the showdown, but all Arnab was focusing on were his adversaries. All three were carrying hockey sticks and one ran towards Arnab, the stick raised over his head. He had barely brought his stick down, when Arnab's right fist connected with his jaw in an upper cut that would have done Khan proud. The man collapsed to the ground and didn't get up. The other two men rushed him at once. Before they could even come close to hitting him, Arnab struck one with a straight jab to the face and the other with a left hook to the side of the head. His balance was still far from perfect, and his punches tended to be off centre, usually connecting with the edge of his hand, but with his speed and strength, technical perfection was not really necessary.
But that was something only Arnab would ever know. The crowd saw just a blur of movement and the two men being flung off like rag dolls, landing at Arnab's feet. The fight had lasted all of ten seconds. As the astonished crowd looked on, Arnab ran off at high speed, virtually disappearing before their eyes. Once again, the enigmatic hero who emerged at night and moved with super speed had electrified the city.
The next morning, a Monday, Arnab reached college to see a state of virtual hysteria among all the students. Most were gathered around newspapers, and as Arnab looked at one paper, the headline screamed 'He's for real!' with a photograph that someone in the crowd must have taken in Chilla. Someone had taken it with a camera phone, and in the darkness, the resolution was quite poor. Yet what it revealed was dramatic. It showed two of his attackers being lifted off the ground-between them was a man-sized blur, with little discernible by way of features other than a mass of grey with the letters 'GA' in blue. That night, acting on another tip-off he received from Khan, Arnab reached another neighbouring village, this time encountering a group of thugs who were trying to evict the slum dwellers by force. There were four of them, armed with a motley arsenal of chains and iron rods. They had never expected any resistance, and when Arnab appeared in the darkness, they floundered around, trying to catch a glimpse of their unseen assailant. Arnab took full advantage of his speed and night vision-darting between the men, delivering blows when they were still trying to come to grips with the attacker darting in and out of the darkness to strike them down one by one. Once the melee began, a large crowd began to gather to watch the fight, which turned out to be a rout that lasted less than a minute. Once again Arnab sped away from the scene, leaving the thugs unconscious on the ground.
The rest of the week turned out to be a blur of nightly missions, and bleary-eyed days at work for Arnab. Conscious of Jayantada's earlier feedback, he made sure he got to work on time and did his work diligently. He managed this balancing act through a combination of catching up on sleep on the bus rides to and from work and by totally neglecting his exam preparations. That Friday evening Arnab sat down at home exhausted and looking forward to a well deserved rest, but before he slept he looked at the newspapers he had collected over the week. He had barely had time to read them through the week and had collected them to read them on the weekend. His nightly adventures had brought forth a hysterical reaction among the press, with every newspaper and news channel covering his exploits and speculating as to his identity. There was a groundswell of popular support and Arnab felt all the pain and effort was worth it when he read the testimonies of many of the people he had saved. The very fact that someone was standing up for those without money and power, those the police would usually ignore, was something that had fast captured the nation's imagination.
Most papers tried to guess who he was, with some claiming that perhaps he had come from another planet and some religious leaders claiming that perhaps he was the result of divine intervention. Arnab chuckled to himself as he read some of the wilder theories, till he came to an article that pointed out that one constant feature was the attire-the grey sweatshirt with the letters G and A on it. The reporter made that the thrust of the article, wondering what those letters could signify. The next day's paper featured an article by the same reporter titled 'Delhi's Guardian Angel strikes again'. The English language media jumped on the bandwagon and in the next day's edition, all the papers were using that name to describe him.
As Arnab lay down on his bed, he reflected on the week gone by. He felt like in those five or six days he had made more of a difference than he had in the rest of his life put together. The mere fact that he was able to use the skills he had picked up to help others made him feel less like a freak and more like someone who was making a positive difference. He had never imagined himself as being destined for anything bigger than eking out a salaried middle-class existence, but now for the first time, he began to dare to dream that perhaps he was destined for bigger things.
As he drifted off to sleep, he also realized that his alter ego was no longer anonymous. He had a name.