It Is Mine

A short story

“Oye, make it quick, the customers are going to start coming,” shouted Muniyappa to 15 year old boy Ranga. Ranga quickly closed his book in which he was pasting the new pictures of airplanes and flights that he had found in an old tattered book lying near the garbage dump.

Ranga got up and took the soiled damp cloth from Muniyappa and started straining the first batch of morning tea to pour it into flasks. The sun was peeping shyly from the horizon, spreading its orangish yellow rays when Muniyappa went to open the door of his small tea shop that over-looked the prestigious Hotel Blitz.

Muniyappa’s tea shop was reasonably priced and served hot and sweet tea mostly to weary and sweaty joggers. Even the affluent customers who took shelter in Blitz came to Muniyappa for the occasional tea.

When Muniyappa was arranging the regular six glasses of sugarless tea for the elders sitting in the park, he saw that a commotion had broken between a gentleman and a lady in front of the hotel. Muniyappa could well perceive that the lady was angry, her face looked flushed and she kept thrusting a shiny brown briefcase into the man’s hands all the while pointing to a small girl who was crying and trying to unclench her wrist from the man, supposedly the father. He was wearing a rich suit and her saree did seem exorbitant, such brouhahas among the elite were quite common to Muniyappa’s old and experienced eyes, nodding his head in despair he went on with his work as usual.

When the sun was blazing at its high, the same gentleman who had created quite the ruckus in the morning came sulking to the tea shop. Muniyappa never lost an opportunity of offering his top-most service to customers whose wrists seemed sculpted for Rolex watches.

“Bad day sir,” Muniyappa queried.

“Yes, money cannot buy you everything,” the man said, looking like someone who had just lost a long hard battle.

“Sir, don’t bother to come down, I will send your tea to the room whenever you need it,” Muniyappa humbly said.

The man smiled, got up, paid for his tea and left a tip which was close to Muniyappa’s half days’ worth of earnings.

The following morning, the bell boy from Hotel Blitz informed Muniyappa that a particular gentleman wanted 2 teas to be sent to Room No. 302. Muniyappa quickly made a fresh batch and sent Ranga to deliver the tea.

As Ranga approached the room, he strained his ears to overhear the conversation coming from the room.

“How much more alimony do you need,” shouted the man.

“I do not want your money, I want my daughter back,” she retorted.

As the man pranced around the room ruffling his already scruffy hair, he saw Ranga waiting outside and asked him to come in and place the tea cups on the table. The lady was sniffling on a white hanky looking out of the window with her back to Ranga. The man went inside the bedroom to get the money while Ranga engaged their 6 year old girl with his monkey antics, after some time he came out and paid a generous tip to Ranga for his service.

As dusk cast it dark menacing shadows on the city’s buildings, the gentleman from Room No.302 drove out of Hotel in hot pursuit. Muniyappa eyed Ranga, and it was time to make the move. Ranga casually entered Hotel Blitz and using the duplicate room card that he had flicked when he had gone to deliver the tea, he effortlessly entered Room No.302. Ranga was out in 10 mins, a sly smile playing on his lips. Crossing the busy streets in a jiffy, Ranga took out the brown briefcase from under his over-sized t-shirt and placed it in Muniyappa’s avaricious arms.

After this, things had to happen quickly, a missed call was given to Mr.Patel, the hotel manager. The call always meant filling up stacks of fresh crisp notes in Mr.Patel’s safe vault. At that moment, Mr.Patel was busy attending to a woman who had swooned right in the middle of the lobby.

Earlier in the day, she was seen fighting with the gentleman of Room No.302 according to the tittle-tattle of the daily gossip mongers in Blitz. After making her drink some water and ensuring that she was safely seated in a taxi, Mr.Patel made his way to back door of the hotel to meet the tea stall owner. Hands exchanged and Muniyappa left the place counting his pre-negotiated commission.

The rapacious Mr.Patel was grinning from ear-to-ear with colorful pictures of luxurious holidays muddling his brain. He walked into his deluxe suite where he had hidden his personal safe vault behind the picture frame of his favorite god Bajrang Bali.

He placed the briefcase on the table and it took only a second for his body to go limp, his sweaty fat fingers refused to believe that the keys to the safe vault were no more in the pocket of his kurta. He sprinted towards the vault and hurriedly removed the picture, clutching his chest he slumped on to the floor. As the empty dark inside of the vault gawked blankly back at him, Mr. Patel’s mind slowly did the math, images of the lady swooning and grabbing on to his kurta for support colorfully danced in front his eyes. Swindling was not new to him, it was an art, even without looking, Mr.Patel was assured that the contents in the briefcase would be just as fake.

Far away from Blitz, they stood laughing in the lounge of Hotel Pearl where the wife had booked her accommodation. The duo had triumphed in tricking the trickster, the planning and execution had taken more time than expected but with fruitful results in the end. They had to move out of the city as early as possible now, with everything packed; the wife called out to her child, but in turn received the coo of the pigeon sitting on the window sill. The girl was missing.

The couple was distraught; they searched high and low for her and finally decided to check with the hotel management for any sign of their daughter. A waiter informed them that he had seen a small child with a young boy in the play area of the restaurant.

By the time, the parents found the girl happily on a swing; a young boy was seen calling out for a cab to go to the airport in front of Hotel Pearl. The wind caught the room card of Hotel Pearl as it was hurled out of the cab window. The boy had smoothly taken the card from the lady’s purse while stealing the duplicate card of Room No.302. Running his fingers on the pictures of airplanes and clutching a bag full of crunchy papers bearing the image of the Father of our Nation, Ranga was all set to board the first flight of his life.

Author's Note

Please read and let me know your views.