Poo Suttral -- The Leap
Folks, I've written a new one. Nothing dramatically new in terms of scenarios but I've tried to capture ACD's and Priya's emotions. It's a little long, so I have just provided a teaser, after which I've given a weblink where the rest of the story may be read. Enjoy.
Durai was in the midst of discussion with Inspector Gani when his cellphone rang. As he listened to Gani's briefing on a pre-dawn raid he glanced sideways to check the caller ID. The call was from Priya. Durai abruptly cut off Gani mid-sentence to grab the phone.
"Priya? Hello, Priya?" Gani smiled, walked away to the corner of the room and pretended to study the city map on the wall.
"Durai here, Priya? Priya?" There was no response from Priya. But there were indistinct background noises. He could not tell whether it was traffic or the sound of waves gathering at the beach. Then he heard what sounded like the roar of a motor-bike and the screeching of brakes. Then voices … male voices. Then some muffled sounds. Then a shrill shriek. Was it Priya? He called out to her again. But there was still no response. Durai cut off the line and tried to call back but couldn't get through.
He began to sense something was amiss and shared his concerns with Gani. The two men scrambled to make a few phone calls to track down Priya's whereabouts. Some 10 minutes later, they received a lead and Durai quickly activated the nearest police patrol to fan out in that direction. Excusing himself from Gani he jumped into his jeep and made his way to Lingam Salai.
Within minutes the jeep wobbled to a halt. "Oh, darn! Don't you idiots check your tires daily!" Durai was ballistic as he got out of the jeep and slammed the door. He could hear himself swearing under his breath as he faced the rush-hour traffic and frantically tried to flag down a taxi.
Finally, he managed to settle into a taxi but it was moving at a snail's pace, or so he thought. The air-conditioning in the antiquated Padmini wasn't working. He was perspiring and his heart was thumping wildly, as if he was heading for a heart seizure. "Faster, please. Can you cut through this lane." The taxi driver was irritated and replied irreverentially, "Sir, you may be a policeman and know your job well. But this is my job. I know the streets well and I know how to drive. Can you just relax and let me do my job." Durai apologized and sat glumly.
Soon, the taxi driver turned into Lingam Salai. A police jeep was parked some 300 metres up the street. Next to it was an ambulance. Barely waiting for the taxi to stop, Durai thrust a 500 Rupee bill to the driver and jumped out, almost tripping over the pavement. Just then the ambulance roared away, revealing Priya's scooter, which had turned turtle. Durai was shocked. He shouted and ran after the ambulance but his legs were no match for the powerful machine. He rushed back frantically to where Priya's scooter lay. Two constables were standing around it and trying to control the crowd that had gathered to catch a piece of the action.
The constables informed him that Priya had been "molested" and thrown off her scooter. She was in shock but wasn't badly hurt, they said, only a few grazes on her hands, legs and face. They handed over to Durai a cracked cellphone found next to the scooter.
Noticing that Durai was extremely flustered, the constables offered to drive him to the hospital in their jeep but he declined as they had their accident investigation report to file and crowd control duties to do. Instead, he ran to the junction of the road to get to the main thoroughfare and there managed to hail another taxi to take him to the hospital.
To read the rest of the story, go to the following link:
http://encounter-ac.com/Premier/leap.htm
Edited by Bonheur - 18 years ago
Marathi TV
