Anamika Part Two Written by: Amrevis

Her eyes overcome by an acute sense of anticipation had ceased to blink and in a frozen stupor she gazed at the faint outline of the landmass that had started becoming discernible at the edge of the horizon. With peninsular India only few minutes away, the twelve-hour sea voyage was at its concluding leg. As the vista concretized, and the faint specks transmogrified into trees, rocks, buildings, vehicles, people, the usual bric-a-brac of society, she looked on with a benumbing ecstasy. Could the sights unfolding before her somehow reinvigorate her memory? Would she now learn who she was? ‘In another minute we will be in Cochin,’ said the captain of the steamer. She nodded quietly. ‘You have relatives in Cochin.’

Having no idea if she did or not, she said tersely, ‘I guess so.’

‘Since you boarded this steamer, you have kept to yourself. I mean you have avoided getting drawn into conversation with anyone. Forgive me if I sound as if I am prying,’ said the captain, his eyes brimming with curiosity.

‘I guess I am not the talkative type,’ she smiled. ‘But it was a pleasure sailing in your boat.’

 ‘The pleasure was mine as well.’

Inside her cabin she picked up the small airbag that contained all her luggage and in few minutes she was disembarked from the vessel. The dense throng at the harbor- passengers, tourists, laborers, hawkers, ship workers, fishermen, officials, et al- made her feel perplexed. Porters rushing hither thither with heavy luggage balanced precariously on their head were, by themselves, a cause for bewilderment.

Could there be someone in this crowd who knew her? How desperate she was to hear someone to call her by name. She was consumed by the feeling that the sound of her name was all that was needed to wake up her comatose memory. If only some would call her. If only she could discover on any face a glimmer of recognition.

She walked without any sense of where she was going. A porter wanted to help her carry her airbag, a hawker wanted to sell her some greasy sweets, another pestered her to buy a coconut. She noticed that men turned to look at her as she walked. It was a pleasant feeling- that she was attractive enough to make heads turn.

In few minutes she was out of the harbor area. A long winding road with some restaurants and shops on both sides ran towards the center of the city. A taxi stopped beside her. ‘Can I take you anywhere Miss,’ said the cabby.

She was tempted to hop into the taxi, but she still expected to find someone who may recognize her. She waved the taxi off. Further ahead was a roadside dhaba jerrybuilt from logs of wood and tin sheets, and its tarpaulin canopy extending right up to the pavement, had few chairs and tables made out of bamboo sticks arranged under it. The relishing aroma of food being fried was emanating from the pots and pans laid out on the two hefty charcoal burners of the dhaba.

Suddenly she realized that she was hungry. She had hardly eaten anything during the long voyage. She took a place on one bamboo chair.

A tousled looking young boy wiped her table with a greasy napkin and asked for her order. She didn’t waste time pondering what she wanted to have, the name of the dish came to her automatically. ‘Kottucurry,’ she blurted.

She knew kottucurry was a dish made from cubed potatoes, onions and green chilies cooked in coconut milk with plenty of red chili. She knew what kottucurry tasted like. She was also sure that she had relished kottucurry many times in the past, but when? Where? The boy returned with her order and she started eating. The dish was exactly what she had expected it to be.

*

Barely a few morsels had gone into her mouth when she was struck by a shockwave of danger lurking nearby. Her senses catapulted to full alert. From the corner of her eye she saw four men marching menacingly towards her. She could make out the contours of weapons in their clothes. Two of them were hiding revolvers in their trousers, the other two had knifes.

But it was not their weapons that drove her to the edge; it was the eerie feeling that these men knew who she was. Was she about to have her identity revealed? Or was she about to be killed by these men? She kept the pretence of normality and went on eating from the bowl. The four men stood around her, two on either side, one in the front and one at the back. She lifted her head, looking into the eyes of the one in front of her, said, ‘do you know who I am?’

The muscles on his shoulders and neck bulged like that of a pit bull and his hand was lurking dangerously close to vicinity of his trouser pocket, where a revolver lay concealed. ‘You are still alive, I don’t believe it,’ he snarled through clenched teeth.

‘If you tell me who I am, I will let you live,’ she said, without rising from the seat, her voice surprisingly moderate. Her body slouched forward was like a tense spring ready to snap back at a moment’s notice.

The man standing behind her pulled out his knife, but she was watching his reflection on a steel spoon in her hand. She dived straight up in the air. Her legs described a scissor like movement, the right leg smashing into the face of the man in front of her, while the left leg connected the one lunging at her with the knife. Both fell down, she landed on the table.

Two other killers had whipped out their weapons, a gun and a knife. The one with gun was about to shoot. A spoon was all she had. She used it as a throwing knife. The narrow end of the spoon sank into his eye and got buried to the hilt. He was dead before he touched the ground. His gun fell innocuously beside him.

A knife flashed through the air. In the nick of time she drew back from its range. The knife flashed again, she fell off the table, and throwing the chair at him scrambled to her feet again. He brushed the chair away and rushed at her. Soaring over two or three tables she landed behind the two massive charcoal burning stoves at the other end of the dhaba.

There was utter pandemonium; terrified customers had retreated to a safe distance, as had the few employees. The traffic on the road had gone haywire as some motorists slowed down to gape at the fracas, while others drove fast in an attempt to flee the danger zone.

The cook, confused about what was going on, was throwing up his hand and protesting in a shrill peevish tone. ‘Get down,’ she shouted at him, and when he didn’t pay heed, she kicked him on his sheen making him drop down. At the same moment two shots rang out. Had the cook been standing, his chest would have stopped the bullets.

One killer with a knife came yelling from one side. She allowed him to get close and just as he was about to stab, she threw a pot simmering on one stove at his face. She gave him only a moment to reel under the effect of boiling oil, before pulling him forward and smashing his head on the red-hot charcoal fire in the stove. The nauseating smell of burning flesh rose into the air as his face fried into a black crust.

She found herself looking into the muzzle of a gun. She ducked and missed the first bullet. The second would have got her surely, but she quickly hauled the killer away from the stove and used him as a shield. He hardly felt the bullet that struck him on his throat for he was already dead from the treatment she had given him on the stove.

Only two of the killers were alive now, one was shooting at her from the front and the second coming at her with a knife. Still holding the man with the burned face as a shield against bullets, she used her legs to kick one of the stoves in the path of man trying to get her with the knife. With a murderous yell he fell down on the glowing embers, his clothes caught fire, then his hair, followed by rest of his body.

The tongues of fire darted in her direction, but she saved herself by a quick backward somersault. A face was thrust at her; it was crowned with matted hair that fell in locks over bloodshot eyes. The parted lips emitted angry guttural sounds. A gun was leveled directly at her head. ‘Now you are going to die,’ the man with the gun said.

There was a degree of desperateness in her voice as she said, ‘tell me who I am, and I won’t kill you.’

‘Hey,’ the man shouted, ‘it’s me who has this gun pointed at your head.’

‘Tell me what my name is…’

‘Is this some kind of joke, some clever ploy for stopping me from shooting you?’

‘Why do you want to kill me? Who are you?’

‘Who am I? You want me to believe that you don’t even know me.’

‘I really don’t know who you are.’

‘Abu wants you dead.’

The name Abu rang a chord with her. She was consumed by the feeling that she was somehow very close to Abu. But how! What was her relationship with Abu? Why did Abu want her dead? ‘Who is Abu?’ she panted.

‘Die woman,’ the man snarled.

‘Don’t do it,’ she cried, but her ears discerned the distinctive click of a gun being cocked.

She fell on her back and with both legs kicked the second stove that was still standing. He shot at her, the bullets were quick, but she was quicker still in dodging them. The stove crashed on the ground and embers were all around him. Even as he tried to escape the red-hot coals, she picked up a bottle of kerosene lying among the bric-a-brac of the dhaba and flung it. The bottle struck him on his head and shattered into many pieces; his body drenched with kerosene became the grist for the fire’s mill.

Maddened by the flames lustily dancing around his body, he ran wildly into the center of the road only to be crushed under the wheels of a coming truck. All four killers were dead. It had taken her barely two or three minutes to kill four armed men.

*

She rose to her feet and shook the dust from her clothes. How did I learn to fight like this? It was time for this deafening conundrum to pop up in her mind.

‘I have never seen anyone fight like this,’ the dhaba cook was looking at her disbelievingly, ‘who taught you to fight?’

‘That is what I want to know,’ she said simply and picked up her airbag that was now lying on the ground. ‘By the way do you know who Abu is?’ she turned towards the cook.

‘I never heard of him.’

‘Never mind, I didn’t expect you to know.’

‘What is your name?’ inquisitively asked the cook.

‘Call me Anamika.’ She took out a fifty-rupee note from her pocket and placing it on one table, which was still standing, she said, ‘I guess this should cover for the price of a plate of kottucurry I had ordered.’

A piercing siren filled the air. ‘Gosh, police is here at last,’ she thought, feeling somewhat relived at the sound of the sirens. She thought that the cops might be able to help her find out who she was and why these people were trying to kill her. But the moment of relief didn’t last beyond the first few moments.

After all how could she be sure that she was on the right side of the law? She knew nothing about herself. What if she was someone wanted by the police? Struck by the benumbing fear that she could be arrested, she decided to avoid the cops until her memory was back.

She ran off in direction opposite to the one from which the sound of sirens was drawing ever closer. Having witnessed her fighting prowess, the bystanders were too terrified to do anything to hinder her escape. In a few moments she had turned the corner, where she hailed a taxi.

‘Take me to Hotel Fiona,’ she snapped at the driver. ‘I am in a rush, drive fast.’

The cabby started the taxi. Maybe at Hotel Fiona someone would have the answers that she pined for. Who was she? Who was this mysterious Abu who wanted her dead? The men who attacked her at the dhaba were they Abu’s henchmen. Was she up against some sort of a gang? Her head ached under the spate of questions.

She didn’t even know when she fell asleep on the cab’s backseat, but realized that she had slept when the driver woke her up saying that the cab was at Hotel Fiona. She looked out of the cab’s window and saw the glittering façade of a five-star hotel. Instinctively she knew that she had been to this hotel before. But when! Did she come here alone or with someone! Had Abu accompanied her to this hotel in any previous visit?

Continue to Part Three

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