Shadow Play by Rajorshi Chakraborti Page B

crossed – there were still a few cars in either direction. Though I was going much faster and we were far away already from where we’d started, the midget – for now I was sure that’s what he was, their most deceptive yet tenacious tactic – never for a minute let the distance increase between us. I was running out of options. There were no empty cabs I could hail, and turning around to face him had become an alternative I wouldn’t even consider.
    Nearly killing myself by not noticing a car, I crossed over to what seemed a huge open space to our right. There ran a row of street lamps in the middle but surely the darkness all around offered an opportunity for me to disappear. At first I kept to the lamps, trying to fathom where I was and to gain an impression of what the darkness concealed. It was a dirt road I was crunching on, and the spaces on both sides were immense. It seemed to be a road-widening programme but then I could discern the ruins of buildings; the rubble formed small hills going up and down in the darkness. The entire area was being redeveloped as far as I could tell, except for a complex of lights straight ahead. But there was no other horizon: there was no point except the street behind us where the city appeared to resume itself. I had no wish to continue further or even to stray from the middle, but when I looked around, there he was, a steady dot still no nearer or further away than before.
    A curious déjà vu now stole over me. I had never seen, imagined or heard of such an area existing within walking distance of my home, where everything had been torn down sothoroughly, but suddenly the landscape felt familiar. Another twenty yards and I recalled where I had seen it – from the top of a high building with a spaceship towering overhead, standing alone in the middle of an already destroyed city. Without any further reflection I swerved off into the darkness, making for the lights ahead. From that point onwards I could not turn around again, and anyway, the further I went, the further the road was lost to me. Now all I cared for were the lights: I lost count of how many holes my feet fell through, how many times I scraped or knocked myself going over those hills of wreckage, how often I was on all fours.
    It seemed an entire hour before I finally reached close enough to make out what the lights were. It was a huge plant of some sort – with pipes, chimneys, tanks and platforms, like an abandoned oil rig or a nuclear city. The fence around it had been torn down; I climbed over and headed for some steps. When I reached the first level, I found a space under a tank and squeezed in, and only then did I look behind me. Nothing was visible in the darkness, and nothing seemed to be moving in the lighted area beneath. I could feel myself bleeding in several places, yet I lay there vigilant because I had no doubt it would only be a few minutes before I heard him cross the fence and arrive at the bottom of the stairway. Then – I knew – I would have no idea what to try next. But when I awoke at daybreak, there was no one around, only the darkest grey of a smothered morning. By the time I’d stumbled over the ruins and started walking in the direction of the main road, a fine rain had begun to spray me.

The Writer of Rare Fictions

    Â 
Early Errors
(Calcutta, January 1962)
    Lifting one recollection out of obscurity invariably reveals another. Why was I in a car with my father as we drove to pick up a friend of his one night when I was nine? I had finished my dinner and was reading
The Ring O’ Bells Mystery
by Enid Blyton when he asked if I wanted to go on a drive. Of course Ma was against it and said so in loudly hushed tones (‘What do you think you’re doing, have you gone completely crazy?’), but by then she was against most things my father suggested, big or little. ‘It’ll be fine, ’ Baba insisted, ‘don’t worry.