A Coat Above the Rest
“What was he holding in his hand when they burst in?” I ask.
“He was holding his…” the Colonel starts replying, a morsel of spicy mutton biryani halfway up to his mouth.
Then several things happen very quickly. There is the sound of glass breaking.
Then someone screams. Then several people are screaming.
Colonel sahib’s face is turned to the side, the spoon containing his morsel still frozen halfway to his face. The world itself seems frozen, time standing still.
There is a booming sound, and something whooshes past his head—a very small something, moving at lightning speed. A moment of silence, then someone screams. This time, it’s a prolonged scream of pain.
My dinner companion gets up, almost upending the table in his rush. He dashes over to me and pulls me by the hand.
The world starts moving again—sort of.
He is saying something, but his words don’t reach me. I feel like I’m underwater, but this water is a thick, viscous fluid, and I can’t move forward, can’t breathe. I just get pulled along with him, at his directions. He grabs my overnight bag, and pulls me in the direction opposite that of the door. I see a large signboard with the word kitchen embossed on it in bold silver letters.
There is another booming sound, and again something whooshes past the Colonel, making him tilt his head to the left. The object goes and embeds itself in the signboard indicating the kitchen.
Colonel sahib stops in his tracks, and I stop too, on instinct. He utters a cuss word, his face contorting into a mask of rage, puts his hand behind him, and out comes—and I am not kidding about this—a Glock 17. A weapon I recognize only because I’ve seen it in countless Hollywood movies. And some videos of arms training at Army ranges, shared with me by fauji friends.
The Colonel positions himself, ready to attack, and fires. Two loud reports follow. More screams.
Then, before I have a chance to ask what the devil is going on, he pulls me towards the kitchen again.
The last thing I remember is seeing that small object—which I later realized was a bullet—embedded between the I and the T.
A few hours earlier
“Crap! Crap! Craaapppp!” I intone under my breath, as if the repeating of scatological cuss words will somehow undo the fact that I’ve upset a whole bottle of nail polish remover on my desk, the transparent liquid spreading across the table, touching books, notebooks, and pieces of paper, the pungent smell of acetone renting the air, assailing my nostrils. I quickly retrieve a wet tissue and wipe as much of the remover as possible.
My phone pings.
I am reaching in 15.
“Crap! Come on!” I intone again, discarding the acetone-smelling wet wipe into the trash.
I hurriedly put on lipstick, coloring outside the lines, then retrieving another wet tissue and wiping off the spillage to not look like a maniac who doesn’t know how to apply lipstick. Dab perfume all over my clothes. Check that my bag is packed with essentials. Pull on pantyhose stockings, then black pumps. To go with my black shirt dress.
My phone pings again.
Reaching in 5.
Intonations won’t work. I open my wardrobe and take out a cherry-red long coat, put it on. Then the gloves. Check myself in the mirror one last time.
Perfect.
As if on auto pilot, I grab my keys, rush out the front door, lock it.
My phone pings.
I am here.
I press the button for the elevator, and see it coming to my floor on the LED indicator next to the car.
Coming downstairs, Colonel sahib.
The elevator arrives, the doors open, and I get in, pressing the button for the lobby.
Okay, waiting for you 😊
My heart flutters in anticipation. I am going out tonight with one of the sexiest older men I have dated.
Lieutenant Colonel Shashwat Sen. With his wide forehead, patrician nose, full lips, prominent cheekbones, strong jaw, and the strong personality with the slight hint of danger that all Army men seem to have, he makes me go moist in places where my bathing suit goes.
The elevator stops. I step out and walk towards the portico, my heels clacking on the floor. The guard at the reception nods at me, smiling, and I reply in kind, spotting his red Swift idling right outside my apartment complex.
I slow down my gait, so as to hide my eagerness.
Which is when I feel like the skin on my arms, shoulders, and front is crawling, then an itchy sensation in these very areas, following by a sensation of mild burning.
My brain makes the connection.
It’s the beginning of March.
Holy crap shoot.
This is Chandigarh. Winter is now transitioning, albeit slowly, into early summer.
Which means that the season of butt-freezing, bone-chilling winter is changing into a scorching summer that makes you sweat like you are a melting ice-cream.
And my mind is still stuck in winter. Yeah, that’s how traumatizing winter is. Especially if your entire childhood was spent in a tropical urban jungle called Bombay.
He rolls down the window, and I bend down to glance at his chiseled face. He’s dressed in a black polo shirt, chinos, and has glasses on. My heart skips a beat. No one has the right to be that ravishing.
“Hi!” we say in unison. He unlocks the back door so I can put my bag in, then opens the door of the front passenger seat.
As I settle in, trying to tame my galloping heart in my rib cage, he gives me the once over, his lips first curving into an approving smile, then an amused grin.
“I thought you would say it’s getting hot in here,” he deadpanned.
I put my head in my hands.
“I didn’t realize it’s getting hot.”
“How hard have you been working?” Colonel sahib says, grinning, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Too hard, perhaps. I’ve been losing my observational skills,” I reply, unbuttoning my coat and throwing it onto the backseat. My arms and chest feel liberated. Phew.
The Colonel is appraising me from head to toe, in a way that sends a thrill up my spine—in a good way.
The shirt dress is sleeveless and falls halfway down my thighs.
“You look good,” he says.
“So do you,” I say, appraising him—he is dressed in a black polo shirt, brown cargo pants, and black shoes.
“Thanks! Let’s go to dinner!” he says, and we drive away.
A medley of American and English pop and rock plays on the stereo as Colonel sahib drives us across Chandigarh, the wide, tree-lined roads leading towards Zirakpur crowded on this sultry Saturday evening. Neither of us mind the traffic as we gossip like old wives on any and all topics under the sun, the Colonel making me laugh with his witty punches or his hilarious tales of life in the fauj.
“You know, Colonel sahib, if you feel like retiring in the next few years, you can always consider a career in standup comedy.”
“Thank you, thank you, Perry. But the audience should be as attentive and appreciative as you,” he replies, laughing.
“Where are we going for dinner, anyway?” I ask.
“There is this really good restaurant serving Kashmiri food in Panchkula. They have the best mutton dishes. Since we are both mutton lovers, I thought to take you there.”
“That’s lovely! I would love to sample some juicy mutton tonight!” I exclaim, clapping my hands in glee.
“I knew you would like it,” he replies, smiling.
“What is the restaurant’s name?”
“It’s called Daawat.”
A few hours later, in the parking lot of Daawat
“What the hell happened in there?” I ask, once I recover my sang froid.
“I’ll explain everything later, just get in the car, please,” Colonel sahib says, unlocking the doors with his keys.
I get in the car and lock the passenger-side door, shutting out the noise of the pandemonium outside. People are screaming, running to their cars, and driving away at Godspeed, several of them couples like us.
I put my head in between my legs and breathe in, taking in huge puffs of air, then exhaling, trying to steady my rate of respiration. I can feel the adrenaline still coursing through my limbs, making me want to open the car door and take off running far, far away.
“Are you okay?” I hear his baritone beside me.
I mutter something like ‘uh huh’.
“There’s water in my bag. Hold on, I’ll get some of it for you.”
I hear him reach into the back seat, retrieving something, then unzipping it.
“Here, drink up. It’ll help.”
“What I need is booze,” I reply, straightening in my seat and taking the transparent bottle from him.
“That too, I promise, once we reach the homestay. I need some booze in me too,” he replies. For someone who narrowly escaped two bullets and shot two from his own gun minutes ago, he seems very calm. He is still tense though—as evidenced by his hunched shoulders and ramrod straight posture, as well as his furrowed brow and pursed lips. His eyes are alive with an emotion I haven’t seen before.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says, putting his keys in the ignition. We drive away from the restaurant in silence.
“What was that, anyway? Who fired those bullets?” I ask, once I’ve gulped down a few mouthfuls of water. I realize I never saw the assailants.
“I’ll explain once we get to the homestay, I promise,” he replies, his eyes on the road. I realize another thing—I never asked him to drop me back home, which is far behind. For some reason, I don’t want to go back, not tonight. I want to be with the Colonel—it feels he is the only one keeping me safe tonight, and asking him to drive all the way back is a bad idea.
There is silence in the car as we drive though the nearly deserted roads of Panchkula, then get on the highway leading to Ambala.
Suddenly, the Colonel reaches behind him and pulls out the Glock. The very sight of it sends shivers down my spine. One bullet, and a life can end. He puts the bullet atop the cup holder in between the driver and passenger seat.
My face must have shown my panic, because he says, “I’m sorry. Please don’t panic. You know I won’t hurt you. This is just in case.”
“Just in case? What do you mean, Colonel sahib? In case they come after us again?” I ask.
“Yup,” he replies.
“If that happens,” he continues, as I put my face in my hand, “you must do exactly as I say, okay? Protecting you is my responsibility, and I will not let anything happen to you. Understood?”
I reply with silence.
“Please, say something.”
“Yes, understood, sir,” I reply, sitting straighter in my seat.
His words prove too timely, because I hear him cuss a blue streak. He is looking in the rearview mirror, his eyes wide with alarm.
Before I can ask why, a black Bolero pulls up beside us. I am watching the front window go down when the Colonel looks at me, danger written on his face.
“Perry, I need you to go down.”
“Sorry?”
“Just squeeze your body in the footwell, please. Stay down, and, till I ask you to come back up, stay down there. Understood?”
“Yes but…”
I am cut off mid-sentence as I see something rush towards me through the driver-side window. I feel a weight on my chest as the Colonel pushes me backward, making me sink in my seat, as the object—another bullet—pierces the driver-side window, whooshes past both of us, and exits through the passenger-side window.
It pulled off a perfect Rajinikanth, I think, before I hurriedly slink off my seat into the footwell.
The last thing I see before putting my hands above my head and cowering in my hiding place is the Colonel picking up the Glock, smashing the window, which has already developed spiderweb-like cracks starting from the bullet hole, and stretching the hand holding the gun outside the window, while still driving with his other hand.
Even with my hands above my head, I cannot shield myself from the sounds—loud reports from guns being fired, the popping sounds of bullets ricocheting off metallic surfaces, shrieks of the filthiest cuss words, and screams of pain. I can feel the trajectory of the car veer towards both sides occasionally, but otherwise, it seems to be not headed for a violent crash. Quite the miracle, I think, followed by, I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be stuck in a fudging South Indian action thriller.
No, no, no, this is a dream. A South Indian gangster film of a dream.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and flinch.
“It’s alright. You can come up. It’s over,” a voice pierces my state of shocked trance.
Slowly removing my hands from my head, I dare to look up. The Colonel is looking at me, worry etched on his face.
“Are you okay?” he asks, bringing the car to a halt.
“Nuh…no! I mean, I’ll…be…but…” I start replying, then my vision gets clouded. I feel strong arms pulling me up, settling me in my seat, engulfing me in their warm embrace.
“I’m so sorry, Perry. There’s something I haven’t told you.” His voice, low and velvety, is in my ears as I quietly cry, letting my shock out.
“What…what in the…heck…was all that? Who…who were these people? Why were they chasing you? Are there more gunmen coming for you? Am I in danger?” I blurt out.
“I think I should tell you, given that you’ve been subjected to this twice in one evening.”
“Plea…please.”
“I told you about my wife, or, more appropriately, my hopefully-soon-to-be ex-wife. We didn’t separate on the best of terms, and she hates me, more than anything. It’s hard to explain, but just understand, she hates me with every cell in her body. I thought divorce would end her unhappiness—and mine—and liberate us both from this fiasco. But she…”
“But she…”
“She thinks it would end with my death. That woman thinks that the way to end her suffering, which, as per her, I have inflicted on her, is to wipe me off the face of this Earth.”
“See…seriously?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t even have known that she was planning to have me killed—because, apparently, she doesn’t have the guts to do it herself—if my brother-in-law hadn’t called me and told me that plans to have me killed were afoot. And he himself came to know because he overheard his wife, my wife’s sister, talking to her on the phone. She was planning to engage some local goons to do the job. She took out a—what they call it in Mumbai, a supari— on me. I thought my wife was fantasizing—she is a very angry, spiteful woman—and I wasn’t scared, not really.”
“Why?”
“Because I can more than handle this situation, as you know. I’ve gunned down battalions of militants in Kashmir and the North East—these small-time hitmen are a cakewalk. And, like I said, I wasn’t expecting my wife was actually conspiring to have me killed. But then, for the last few days, I felt I was being followed everywhere. I didn’t see anyone, so I didn’t have any proof. I thought I was being paranoid, but I still carried my gun around and was always careful, using all the counter-surveillance tactics learnt in my training.”
“Yeah, well,” I reply, wiping my tears off and finally looking at the Colonel, at the soft, concerned expression on his face, “it paid off, because your wife is a real stitch.”
He laughs, replying, “Yes, she is.”
Now that I’m somewhat calm and my vision is mostly clear, I start noticing other things. Like how part of the Colonel’s shirt has turned red.
“Holy crap shoot, you’re bleeding! You’ve been shot!” I shriek.
“I know, but it’s fine, really.”
“How is it fine?”
“I’ve been shot before, Perry.”
I am done with his bravado.
“Hospital, now!”
“Perry…”
“That wound needs tending to!”
“There will be too many questions if we go to a regular hospital.”
“Seriously? You’re bleeding out, and that’s what you are worried about?”
“You don’t understand…I’m a senior Army officer…if the police or media comes to know…we aren’t supposed to…okay, I’ll drive us to the military hospital. Whatever happens, at least it will stay within the military and not leak out. Besides, I know a few doctors who might apply some discretion.”
“We need to stanch the bleeding till we get to the hospital.”
I see the cherry red long coat in the back seat. Reaching out and grabbing it, I wave it in the Colonel’s face.
“Why don’t you recline the seat and sit back while I cover your injury?”
He obeys me, reclining his seat and flattening himself, while I straddle him, trying not to let my head hit the roof. I tie the arms of the coat like a torniquet around the bullet hole in his right upper arm, and, within minutes, the ooze slows down to a trickle.
“Thanks. Do you know how to drive?” he asks.
“No, but I can help you,” I offer, suppressing a laugh. A man who can shoot at his assailants with one hand while keeping the car from veering off course with the other needs no help.
“Great.”
A few hours, at a homestay in Ambala
“How are you feeling now?” I ask, squeezing a lime into the Colonel’s rum-and-Coke before offering it to him. His shirt is off, his arm is bandaged, and the Colonel, apart from his injury and slight blood loss, seems unruffled.
“I am great, as I have already told you. Thanks,” he replies, taking the glass from me.
“You’re used to bloodshed, I’m not. I have every right to be concerned.”
“I’m not denying that, and I appreciate your concern. I really do, Perry,” he replies.
“I believe you,” I reply, squeezing another lime into my own glass of rum-and-Coke.
We clink glasses and drink in silence. The events of the previous night have made us ravenous, so we ordered biryani, mutton kofta, and two types of chicken starters from an all-night restaurant.
“Can I ask you something?” I reply, after some time, when we are on our second peg.
“Sure.”
“What happened to those hired hitmen?”
“Well, if you must know, I killed all of them. Right in that jeep of theirs, whose tires I shot out so, even if one happened to be alive accidentally, it’s not easy to come after us.”
I simply nod, chasing the image out of my head. It’s too horrifying to think about. I can’t even manage to kill a fly.
“I have another question. I know you’re tired and all, but may I ask?”
“You can ask me all the questions you want, Perry, not just because of what you’ve been through because of me, but also because I spoilt your coat.”
“Don’t worry about the coat,” I reply. It was lying in a toxic-waste trash bin in the military hospital where Colonel sahib had his wound tended to. I had got it on sale from Marks and Spencer. God, I loved that coat.
“It looked expensive. I owe you the answers to any questions you have, Perry.”
“We’ve known each other for a while now, and we get along like a house on fire, partly because we are on the same page, mentally. You know you can tell me anything—anything—and you have shared a lot of really crazy stuff with me, including the state of your marriage.”
He nods.
“Then why didn’t you tell me about this hit job out on you? What made you think you couldn’t tell me about it?”
“Well, for one, I wasn’t sure about it, as I told you. I thought I was being too paranoid. I didn’t want to freak you out.”
“But you should have told me.”
“I know, and I am sorry I didn’t. I just…I didn’t want this to stop me from living my life, from enjoying my time with you. You know you’re one of the few people I really like being with, and I really want to make the most of our time together. I didn’t want this thing, that I wasn’t even sure of, dangling over us like the sword of Damocles. I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you and put you in danger. I didn’t want you to stop meeting me because my marriage is in shambles, and my wife is a frucking stitch.”
At first, I don’t say anything.
“Well, you now know I don’t run away from bad situations. I like you too, and I love the time we spend together. And I’m not letting that stitch take that from me, and you—from both of us. Whatever this is that we have—partnership, situationship, whatever ship—I want to see it through till I possibly can. I may be afraid of guns and bullets and blood, but I’m not afraid to be there for someone who needs me, and really values me.”
The Colonel looks at me, his eyes wide. Then he puts his glass down.
“I wish I could hug you, my dear Perry, but my arm hurts too much.”
Putting my glass down, I get up, walk over to the Colonel, and, bending over him, envelop him in a one-armed hug. He smells of cologne, blood, and disinfectant. I plant a kiss on his forehead, and he pulls me down to plant one each on my forehead and nose.
“What are you going to do about your wife?” I ask, sitting back in my seat and picking my glass up.
“I have contacts in the local police. I will lodge a case and ask them to investigate. She’s not getting away with this. As they say, I will reply to this brick with a missile.”
“No one says that, but you should do it. She deserves it.”
“Well, thank you. There’s something else I’d like to say.”
“Shoot. Another peg?”
“Yes, please, thank you. You know, what you said about being afraid of guns and bullets. After what I have seen tonight, and the fact that you’re not yelling at me or running away, I think you underestimate yourself.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, handing him his third peg before making one for myself.
“You are braver than you give yourself credit for, Perry. And, with the right training, you won’t be afraid of guns and bullets anymore. You are, as they say, or rather, as I say, a coat above the rest.”
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