The finger

I did not turn my head around! Through the rear-view mirror I kept looking at the black jeep which had stopped a few feet behind my car. As the driver stepped out, my pulse started racing. The guy was about six-feet tall, bald and with muscles bulging out of his tight, black t-shirt. With a contemptuous look on his face, he started walking towards my car. I double-checked the locks of the door and quickly rolled up the window. Clueless about what I could do to save myself, I sat there like a rock with a prayer on my lips…

Today was definitely not my day! Suchi had planned tonight’s dinner a month ago with a stern warning thrown at me, “You better not let me down this time, Aadi! My parents will be in town only for an evening before they fly off to the USA for a year.” Instantly I had blocked the calendar on my mobile phone and I had also emailed my leave request to the boss. But as fate would have it, today was the day my company’s key client, whose account I was responsible for, chose to visit us and negotiate the next contract.

“Trust me! I will be back by evening, sweetheart.” But this assurance wasn't enough to calm down Suchi. I am sure she felt that I was deliberately avoiding the meeting with her parents as I never had high regards for them. And why would I? I was never respected by them just because Suchi and I had eloped two years ago, shattering their dreams of acquiring an NRI son-in-law. But this time I had no intentions of shying away from meeting them. In fact I had prepared myself to face them, half-heartedly though, just because I did not want to hurt Suchi’s feelings.

The client’s flight landed late owing to the notorious Delhi fog. And thanks to that delay, I was here sitting in a meeting with them till eight o'clock in the evening.

“Aadi… can you at least return home by ten o'clock, so that we can go to see off my parents at the airport?” Suchi had called up during my meeting, and her tone clearly reflected that she was trying her best to not shout at me and maintain decorum, perhaps because her parents were sitting at an audible distance from her. At nine o'clock when I asked my boss to excuse me from the dinner-meeting with the client, he did not take it too well. “What can I say? …it’s your decision. But I am sure you know that opportunities like these seldom knock at the doors of junior executives like you! And such obliviousness from your part might also affect your appraisal,” he said looking away.

No amount of scoffs or invectives could hold back me at this hour. If this is what I get in return of putting in my long hours, weekends and sweat for this company, I was better off being in my boss’s bad books than sacrificing any more hours from my personal life.

It being a Friday night, the streets were packed with an ironical combination of people (like me) leaving from work late, the BPO executives heading to work and the ones who had set out to party for the weekend. To add to the traffic woes, the City Municipality had decided to dig up one side of the road near my office to repair a pipeline. Precariously maneuvering through the infuriated cars, I managed to cover barely five kilometers in an hour. Sharp at ten o'clock my phone rang…

“Do you have any idea what the time is, Aadi?”

“I am on my way… the traffic is really bad today.”

“You always have an excuse ready at your fingertips! I am not even sure if I should trust you. If you didn't want to meet them, you could have simply told me!”

The auto rickshaw in front of my car refused to budge, and the black jeep behind my car kept blaring its horn at me.

“Suchi… you are putting unfair blame on me now! I did not refuse to meet your parents… but I can’t set aside my job for them!”

“Of course you can’t… you are always prompt in dodging all social contacts with my family in pretext of your job!”

 “Suchi! I am sure the flights would be delayed because of the fog, and we can make it in time to drop your parents at the airport. Now, if you let me drive peacefully I will try to reach home in half-an-hour,” saying this I disconnected the call.

I tried to swerve my car to overtake the broken-down auto rickshaw, but the incessant honking by the jeep behind my car didn't stop. Clubbed with the just-concluded argument with my wife, this behavior by the driver of the jeep was enough to tick me off! I rolled down my car’s window, put my arm out and gave him the finger before zipping out of my lane.

In an attempt to reach home quicker and pacify my wife’s temper, I decided to take the albeit longer, but lesser used route. The street lights were quite dim here, and the only human beings you could spot were an occasional group of rickshaw drivers huddling around a bonfire. Since I wasn't too familiar with this route, I strived to keep track of the directions. As I slowed down to ensure that I did not miss the next turn, my eyes fell on the rear-view mirror and I realized that a vehicle had been following me ever since I had diverted from the main road. On a closer look I realized that it was the same black jeep which was honking behind me, and the driver of which I had abused indicatively.

Was the jeep driver following me? Perhaps I was overreacting. To check if he was really on my trail, I accelerated up my car and took a few impromptu turns. But to my horror, wherever I went, the black jeep followed. Now I could feel my heart thumping against my chest and a trickle of sweat flowing down my forehead. Oh no! Had I ruffled the wrong feathers? Looking at the make of the vehicle, the owner certainly seemed to be an influential or powerful person or possibly both. That was it… I had to lose him from my tail or hit the main road again where there would be other people to save me. With my foot pressed hard on the accelerator, I just sped through the unknown lanes without paying heed to directions at all, till I hit a dead-end.

I did not turn my head around! Through the rear-view mirror I kept looking at the black jeep which had stopped a few feet behind my car. As the driver stepped out, my pulse started racing. The guy was about six-feet tall, bald and with muscles bulging out of his tight, black t-shirt. With a contemptuous look on his face, he started walking towards my car. I double-checked the locks of the door and quickly rolled up the window. Clueless about what I could do to save myself, I sat there like a rock with a prayer on my lips.

The knock on my car window shook me up, but I gathered some courage to look towards his face with a fake but dramatic ‘I-am-not-scared’ expression. With an evil grin on his face, the bald man gave me the finger, walked back to his jeep and drove away!

As I was trying to come to terms with what just happened, the notification tone of my mobile phone made me rake for it in the darkness. ‘1 message from Suchi’.

“I called a cab for Ma and Pa and they have left. Please don’t bother to leave your WORK behind for such trivial occurrences of my life!”

The mobile phone clock showed eleven o’clock and I was stranded at an unknown spot in the middle of nowhere. The only picture remaining in front of my eyes was that of the bald man giving me the finger.