1. Have an Interesting Snippet to Share : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Maggar Singh, My Saviour

Discussion in 'Stories (Fiction)' started by GeetaKashyap, Jan 8, 2018.

  1. GeetaKashyap

    GeetaKashyap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    3,921
    Likes Received:
    9,220
    Trophy Points:
    460
    Gender:
    Female
    Maggar Singh, My Saviour. Part 1 Of 6


    [​IMG]


    It was a mundane day at the dilapidated office of the Mumbai’s mid-day daily “Megacity News”. In sync with the national agenda of promoting ‘Girlchild’, raising voice on ‘Crime against women’ and ‘Empowerment of women’, our newspaper editor came up with an idea of running a serialised women-centric story in our newspaper. His aim was to tap women readers and increase the sales of our newspaper. His logic was that women loved gossipy serials on TV and they would love our newspaper too if a serialised gossipy story was published by us. Once his idea got a green signal from the owner of our newspaper, our editor called out to me and said, “Mr.Satyanand Divekar, immediately start writing a long women-centric story in a serial format, to be printed in our newspaper from the first of next month i.e., one week from now. Just make sure that it brings out all the currently relevant women’s issues and has enough gossip with unexpected twists and turns.” I nodded enthusiastically.


    I was a budding reporter and a writer, contributing some sensationalised news items or writing small imagined news items from time to time, to raise sales of our newspaper. This offer by my editor was extraordinary! This meant non-stop income for one or two years! I felt proud of myself for having received some recognition and a big assignment so early in my career. The same evening after reaching home and having dinner I sat to write. I flipped through the newspapers to see what Mr Modi and our other leaders had announced. I had to know the current affairs to build my semi-fictional story.


    I started my story with some romance, resistance from families etc. As I began typing, words flew effortlessly. I covered dowry, marriage, pregnancy, prenatal testing, family reservations and finally the birth of an unwanted girl child! Men and women in my story were regressive, loud and full of vile. I knew that’s what our TV characters were like and that would sell. I let my imagination run wild in describing their attires and makeup. My word power was awesome and I knew I was heading the right way. Finally, when I stopped typing, I realised I had worked for continuous six hours and I had enough material to stretch it further to take care of nearly a month’s need or even more! As I stretched my aching joints, I calculated my income and dreamt of turning my story into a never-ending serial on some popular TV channel. Two days later, I made a fair copy of my script and laid the pen drive in front of our editor. Since he was familiar with my flair for sensationalising, he was very confident about my work. He quickly glanced through the content at random and gave a satisfied smile. Without further ado, he decided to run advertisements about our new serialised story/novel to be published from that following Monday. I was grinning ear to ear and was on cloud nine!


    **************************************************************


    On Monday, the first day of that month, the first part of my story‘Mother India’s miserable daughter’was published. I was told to hold on my further work till readers’ reactions came. Even after three weeks, readers’ response was just lukewarm and our newspaper sales showed just marginal improvements. I decided that it was time to introduce some tension and suspense into the story to attract readers. With editor’s nod, I restarted my work. I began the next round of story writing with the following lines-

    [​IMG]

    “It was past ten at night. Reena had missed her bus as her tuition class had ended a bit later than usual. As unit tests were to begin two days later, her tuition teacher at the tutorial had extended his lecture by thirty minutes and this had made her miss the regular bus. Having missed the regular bus she had to wait for over twenty minutes for the next bus to arrive. As she got on the bus she noticed that there were hardly five men on the bus apart from the driver and the conductor. Not a single woman! Reena’s heart started pounding fast and loud. She sat in the front seat right near the front exit door of the bus which was reserved for the handicapped. She thought she would be safer next to the driver. Reena remembered that she had strict instructions from her parents to make a call in case of any delay and in her tension she had forgotten to call her parents. Quickly she pulled out the mobile phone from her bag and dialled her dad’s number. It was engaged; perhaps he was trying to phone her! She waited for a minute and phoned her mother; even her number was engaged. Now Reena knew what to expect upon reaching home, how her parents would yell at her! Beads of perspiration started forming on her forehead and the upper lip. Her eyes welled up.


    Just then hearing the loud cackle of two men behind her she got very scared. She clutched her bag close to her bosom. She was too scared to turn back and look at those men. She looked slowly at the driver. He looked nonchalant and was totally focused on the traffic ahead. Reena looked at her watch; it was 10:45 pm. The bus was now almost near her stop. Clutching her bag tightly, she got up and steadied herself. As the bus neared the stop she rushed towards the steps. The driver shouted loudly at her, “Why can’t you wait till the bus stops? Have you come here to die?” Some guys on the bus laughed aloud in response. Putting her head down in embarrassment, Reena focused on alighting safely.


    Once at the bus-stop, she glanced around quickly. There was hardly anyone around. Just a couple of parked auto-rickshaws were there. Almost all the shops in that area were shut. She started walking really fast. Many things were on her mind. Fear was clouding her thoughts. Her home was on a lonely by-lane off the main road. From the main road, it used to take a good six to eight minutes for her to reach home. She silently chanted God’s name. She wished to see her mom, dad or some familiar face along the road. Generally, her father used to pick her from the bus stop. Today he was not there. Perhaps granny must have fallen sick, she tried to reason. As she walked suddenly she felt as if someone was right behind her. She panicked and started running. Now the sound of the footsteps from behind too got louder and closer as if that person was chasing her. Reena was running out of breath with fear. She knew that even if she screamed nobody would hear her as the area she was passing through had some industrial sheds which were always closed at night. She turned her head and with a quick glance looked at the person behind her. He was a man in his late twenties; he was of a medium height and built, with a mop of curly hair and beard. Reena was reminded of a rakshas from the mythological stories that her granny used to tell. She surmised that he could be a thief or a drug addict. She ran faster.”


    [​IMG]

    (All images have been taken from the internet for representational purposes only.)

    ***************************************************************************
     
    Arunarc, Rihana, AnooSA and 8 others like this.
    Loading...

  2. Frangipani

    Frangipani Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    128
    Trophy Points:
    83
    Gender:
    Female
    @GeetaKashyap

    Uff! You created so much tension!:yikes:I could feel my pulse racing. When is the next part coming up?
     
    GeetaKashyap likes this.
  3. GeetaKashyap

    GeetaKashyap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    3,921
    Likes Received:
    9,220
    Trophy Points:
    460
    Gender:
    Female
    @Frangipani,

    Thanks for the first and nice comment. I am glad I could increase your adrenaline level. Everyday I will be posting a part. Please read all and comment. Every comment and opinion matters to me.:)
     
  4. Sunburst

    Sunburst Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    499
    Likes Received:
    2,128
    Trophy Points:
    270
    Gender:
    Female
    Nice write up @GeetaKashyap . I was lucky that I had the option of local trains which are jam packed till midnight in Mumbai but it’s the journey from the train station to home which was always nerve wracking . I have been through similar situation during my college days . Late night buses , auto rickshaws , weird strangers looking at you , walking home alone with the fear of something may happen to me . I could so related to this.

    Waiting with bated breath for the next part .
     
    Archanaanchan and GeetaKashyap like this.
  5. GeetaKashyap

    GeetaKashyap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    3,921
    Likes Received:
    9,220
    Trophy Points:
    460
    Gender:
    Female
    @Sunburst

    Glad you could relate to the emotions I have penned. Any day Mumbai is safer than other cities. I guess every woman in India would relate to this, our growing years were stunted in a way because of these fears.

    Please read all the episodes and give me your honest feedback.
     
    Arunarc, Archanaanchan and Sunburst like this.
  6. creativemumma

    creativemumma Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    645
    Likes Received:
    523
    Trophy Points:
    195
    Gender:
    Female
  7. VaniVyas

    VaniVyas Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,609
    Likes Received:
    1,963
    Trophy Points:
    283
    Gender:
    Female
    WOW... Superb narration and style.

    Eagerly waiting for the next part.
     
    Archanaanchan and GeetaKashyap like this.
  8. nandinimithun

    nandinimithun IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    1,533
    Likes Received:
    5,074
    Trophy Points:
    435
    Gender:
    Female
    Geets,
    Waiting to know what happened to reena....
    Felt as if i was part of the story
     
    Archanaanchan and GeetaKashyap like this.
  9. GeetaKashyap

    GeetaKashyap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    3,921
    Likes Received:
    9,220
    Trophy Points:
    460
    Gender:
    Female
    @creativemumma

    Thanks. Please read all the other parts too.
     
  10. GeetaKashyap

    GeetaKashyap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    3,921
    Likes Received:
    9,220
    Trophy Points:
    460
    Gender:
    Female
    @VaniVyas

    Thanks for the appreciation. I have tried something different here, I hope you will be with me for the next five parts and tell me how it turned out. :)
     
    VaniVyas likes this.

Share This Page