Stories

Fiction

Warning: FOR ADULTS ONLY

The beggar pulled him out of the rail track just in time.  As he fell on the side of the track, the train stormed past his ears like a bomb blast he had just missed. He stood up, brushed off the pain from some parts of his body, and blurted out to the beggar, “Fucker!”

The beggar who had just picked up his one-string violin laughed as if he were Bhishma faced with Shikhandi.  Then he placed his violin on his shoulder and started playing a violent tune.  Almost like the Fiddler on the Roof.   

“Why did you fuck my death?” he asked the beggar ignoring the enticement of his one-string music.

The beggar grinned through the darkness of his mane and said, “It’s not your time, boss.  Give me the money for my next drink and wait for the next train.”  He stretched out his hand.

“Fuck off!” he said.

“Cliché,” said the beggar.  “Cliché.”

“What?”

“You are bored, aren’t you?  Bored of clichéd life?”

He spat out another Fuck off and was about to walk away when the beggar said, “Why don’t you start fucking the fuckers?”

He turned back like Lot’s wife.  Temptations.  Temptations allure.  Sodom allures.  Life is Sodom.  

“When I was young the fuckers fucked Hritik Roshan.  But he fucked them back and made his life.”  The beggar was almost singing it.

He listened.

“Hritik Roshan had just become a star.  Kaho Na Pyar Hai.  The fuckers demanded money.”

He remembered.  The Bombay underworld ruled the Bollywood industry.  If you don’t pay them, you die.  Metaphorically, at least.

“Hritik refused.  The fuckers have their ethics.  They advised him.  Then they warned him.  Hritik was too good.  Too good, you fool, for this world.”

“Hmm.”

“The fuckers made a story.  Stories rule the world.  Do you know that?”

He did not hmm.  He was not interested.

“Every success is a story.  Bharat Mata is a story.  Kingdom of Heaven is a story.  You are a story.”

He mumbled, “Tragic story.”

“You are a fool, boss.  Only fools have tragic stories.  Tragic stories are written about fools by the real heroes.”

“What was the story they made about Hritik?”  He asked.

“They made a story in Nepal that Hritik Roshan hated the Nepalis.  That Hritik Roshan wanted to fuck the Nepalis.  There were so many Nepali prostitutes in Bombay in those days.”

“Oh?”

“And the Nepalis burned the theatres where Hritik’s movies were played.  Or the underworld paid them to burn the theatres.  And Hritik Roshan buckled, boss.  He paid what the underworld demanded.  The underworld is the real hero, boss.  That’s the story, boss.  The underworld makes the real stories, boss.”

The beggar raised his one-string violin to his shoulder and played the theme of Fiddler on the Roof.  Mad man!

Mad men create stories.

“And stories rule the world,” he mumbled to himself as he walked away.