PROTECTORS

An unusual story of a busy market place of Kolkata

The story began in a large market place of one of the extreme ends of South Kolkata; a place thickly crowded with chaotic street-side vendors, stinky fish markets, filthy meat shops, lively vegetable marts, munches of various kinds but never excluding those thousands of regular and flying buyers who flocked there from a vast catchment area of the City of Joy.

The market was also infested by dozens of stray dogs who lived on the scraps dumped here and there by the eateries and food corners. Time to time they got into fracas over the leftover food stuff; frequent barking, chasing and ferocious display of teeth and nails created panic across the market. The shopkeepers and buyers slowly got used to it though darting pebbles and striking with bamboo sticks didn’t lose popularity to keep the dogs away from the marketing premises.

Recently there emerged a competitor of the dogs in the market for the left-over food. A woman, supposed to be a complete nuts who moved around freely, keeping bare, minimum cloths on her body.

Nobody knew where from she had appeared or who had actually abandoned her here. Her blank, vacant face and dull, drab eyes didn't carry an iota of emotions or allegations of any kind against any one. Her eyes were roving around for food like the wriggling dogs. Initially the shop-owners gave her food out of compassion but soon, with the continuation of her chronic silent presence in the market place thwarted their interest and she had no choice but to compete with the dogs for filling her stomach.

The dogs did never like this odd-looking strange competitor in the beginning but refrained from snapping her probably due to her overt harmless and helpless nature. Time as usual inculcated the habit of tolerance and co-existence to them. The people of the market place often found the woman and the dogs sharing food near the shops at the end of the day or around late evening. They also in terms of habit stopped feeling bad for the insane woman. ‘She is not at least dying unfed here.’

The insane woman was never seen taking bath. Many caught her conducting the routine biological acts on the side of the main road of the market; some even tried to prevent her soiling the place not differently from the dogs by chasing her with their bamboo sticks. She ran away complete naked leaving her small piece of cloth on the road that she often wrapped around her waist.  She was seen again in the same place after some time completing her act without slightest of hesitation and then she left only after collecting her cloth and draping that across the lower portion of her  body.

The story might have continued like this to a hackneyed end till a bunch of local labours who used to carry goods to the shops from the local warehouses and central market eyed on her with a different intention.

Those labour class people mostly spent the night in the market, under the shades of the shops and worked from early morning till late night for loading and unloading tons of goods.

They wanted to enjoy some illicit, biological fun on the woman.

She was still in her youth with a nearly visible tight flat body, sharp breasts and round thighs that were enough to entice multiple lusty eyes and dirty minds.

They were four of them. They kept a close watch on her movements, with special focus over the place she usually slept at night. It was under the shade of a small shop, mostly remained dark and located at one of the corners of the market.

The four men were getting ready to strike their prey that night.

They planned the entire event like this. One will gag her mouth while sleeping; the other two will grasp her waist tight and spread the legs to open the inner thighs while the last one will carry out the main act. Then they will rotate their positions in turn.

At the dead end of the night they got up from their respective places and proceeded to their destination taking light, ghostly steps. They approached her like a bunch of starved, gluttonous wolves and almost jumped on her to accomplish their desired jobs.

But something occured in between.

The man sitting on her head side and about to seize her mouth suddenly felt deep piercing pain on his back. He fell down on the ground and rolled across with a shrill distressing sound to flummox his companions. They became speechless when they saw a four-legged, fierce animal firmly stuck to his back on its mouth. A combined, gnarring sound around them alerted them further and almost stopped their hearts.

The dogs!

They were already surrounded by a large number of them.

The woman was awake by that time. She smoothly sneaked between the dogs and took quick shelter under another shop on the other side of the road.

The lying man somehow freed himself from the dog that was so far leeched into his back and stood on his feet with the help of one of his mates. He felt he was bleeding from the back like hell. The bloody dog infringed an entire tooth through his skin.

The four hapless and half-dead men remained unmoved being completely cornered by the dog for countless minutes. Their inactiveness slowly cut loose their interest and they left the place one by one. Only two among the deadly dogs’ squad remained there for longer period emitting off and on the frightening gnarring sound from their mouths. The sparkle of their watchful eyes didn’t dim a bit. They left only after being sure that the four men have been totally inactivated and the woman is perfectly safe.

The four managed to push themselves out the place only after the departure of the dogs in frayed nerves; being completely devastated and drained their minds were occupied with intense, chilled fear of death.

The dogs could have torn them apart. They could have been severed to death by those acrimonious teeth for a carnal attempt on an innocent, insane woman. They were lucky that those were the dogs. Had it been humans they would have been lynched by this time. They shrinkingly thought.

The next morning were uneventful. The dogs barked and centred around the scraps as usual. The woman was abused and chased again by the riled shopkeepers while performing her biological act on the roadside. The market soon became busy and congested with uninterrupted movements of the customers.

But the four nasty men were not seen again over there.   

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A well-written story. You create dangerous situation and you create perfect ending. I did like the dogs. Your description was detailed and organized. A perfect ending to the tale. Thank you my friend for sharing the amazing story.
Coyote

[Leslie Philibert]

Enjoyed this, not just a load of finely described background, but a story of great moral weight. Read this !