It happened one night!

Someone is always awake in the place I call home. We sleep at different times, at three in the morning someone gives in and begins doling out breakfast to little noisy balls of fur. Maybe its just someone typing away with a dog curled up at his/her feet, finishing a long pending dissertation chapter. That usually ends with an unexpected walk on the keyboard and hours of hard work getting converted into a curt summary of shutting down.

We don’t just restrict our nocturnal activities to our own house, it spills beyond the four walls. So, its not unusual for Baba or Ma to wake up and find one of their brilliantly stupid off-spring come strolling in at one in the night with a ‘Oh, we heard a cat-fight’ as an explanation which makes sense in very few people’s universe.

It makes perfect sense in ours. We play referee, umpire, God, god-mother all by turns. A high pitched wail usually means a cat fight is literally around the corner and will have us ‘investigating’.

So, my younger sister came in one night with a certain sense of urgency with a ‘I can hear a cat-fight’. this is usually followed by a ‘Wait, I am coming with you.’ So I got up lazily from the bed, I wasn’t even properly attired, just a long batik kurta of sorts, and Rhea and I stepped out, closing the door softly behind us.

Strangely the cat sounds died out the moment we hit the streets. With the scene of battle becoming increasingly more difficult to track down, I started losing both patience and speed. Rhea and I turned the corner and very soon I was trailing her by several feet.

By now, my eyes had trained in on a brightly lit house, obviously with the remnants of a marriage celebration, with blue and white lights still glowing. Both of us, though separated by a good distance now  (as we discovered later) were strangely riveted to the spectacle. Somewhere my brain was trying to wrap itself around the rather unusual scheme of colors when to my utter horror the whole set of lights just broke off from the side of the road and started crawling towards us. For a second I felt like Macbeth, ‘the Burnham woods are moving!’Except I was in no position to revise my Shakespeare at that point of time.

Though my sister turned back sharply and hissed ‘Tantai Didi run!!, I needed no such prompting innately clever as I am, and recognizing trouble (spelt with a capital T) when it comes in the form of a police jeep coming straight at us with me in a half dressed state. I bolted. My sister, whose initial reaction was to causally turn and walk away, knew the time for drama was up when we could hear the jeep pick up speed. Last thing I saw as I glanced back while racing around the bend was the jeep speeding towards us. And Rhea speeding towards me.

I have since often wondered what would have happened if our house was not the second one in the row. As it was, Rhea and I just made it past our gate and hid for a few breathless seconds behind the wall while the jeep sped past us and went down the road. That gave us the opportunity to run into the house and slam the door shut.

Rhea and I looked at each other in the darkness. We were both panting and our eyes were as big as saucers. ‘go lie down,’ I whispered, ‘don’t wake up anyone’.Rhea nodded and proceeded to head back to her room. I lay down in mine, overlooking the road outside, my ears straining to hear the sounds of unusual vehicles. Sure enough, within a minute, the jeep was back, and it parked right in front of our gate. Breathless with anxiety, I lay still while typing furiously on my cell, after changing it to silent mode.

Me: Change your clothes.

Rhea: Ok.

Thirty seconds later.

Rhea: Are they still there?

Me: Yes. Very much so. Hell, I cant find anything but batik prints in the cupboard!

Rhea: Why aren’t they leaving?

Me: I do not know. They are flashing torches into our garden.

Another thirty seconds later.

Rhea: I think we need to tell Baba-Ma.

Rhea did the rather difficult task of breaking the news to our parents, its tough to condense such a story into two sentences. Ma grunted something in her sleep and turned her side before entering into the second REM cycle for the night. And Baba gave us one look that meant, the interrogating would begin after the police left!

Meanwhile Scotland Yard was busy standing on our boundary wall, flashing torches right into our garden, and even into my bedroom. Like hell I was going to tick them off about decent rules of privacy but it was very creepy to see the light sweep the room every few minutes. Very creepy.

Enough racket was already being created, but the neighbours chose to lie low and our dogs kept on snoring. After another ten minutes of this, we started panicking. Why were they not leaving, when would they lose patience! We had lost ours ages back!! So Baba took charge. While his daughters stood in the dark and waited for the next episode, Baba went out. We heard a brief conversation and Baba came back and announced. ‘two young boys apparently, they are hiding in our garden. I am going to the terrace to check the back garden.’

So Baba headed to the terrace, with his own torch, and made a good show of flashing it on the banana plants and making as much noise as possible. I followed him up, I could see the polizia  still standing outside, the jeep lights flashing away, engine running. But from up there I felt brave. I even helped Baba search out the back garden. I heard Baba say ‘Ora hoyto gache chore pechoner bari theke paliyeche.’In short, escaped.

The jeep crawled away five minutes later. Strangely Baba did not reprimand us, like I said putting to rest cat-fights makes sense in our universe though we do not usually bring the police trailing in behind us. It was four. The cats got up started stretching themselves and mewing around our feet. Someone suggested tea. The biscuit tin was opened. And our dogs decided that this was the perfect time to wake up so all those who were dead to the world just a few minutes back were suddenly seated around us wagging their silly tails!

This incident was a landmark of sorts.
We are now compulsorily to inform at least one parent before stepping out after eleven in the night. Both Rhea and I voted for Baba to be that parent.

I have got a message pack done for my mobile. Its expensive to message whole conversations. And apparently it can be needed at any point of time.

Our dogs have written themselves into a new book of ‘How I let Down my Country that One Night.’

And oh, I no longer sleep half dressed. At least if my photograph comes out in the newspapers sometime, I need not have to cringe with embarrassment.