Short Fiction: Money Madness

Subhash Chandra

Subhash Chandra

It was a vicious jam --bumper-kissing-bumper type. Between the gaps and crevices were wedged freight carrier tempos, three-wheeler autos, scooters and motorcycles, rickshaws, and bicycles.    

Impatience throbbed in the revving engines. Tempers were on the boil. A cacophony of needless honking frayed the nerves. Now and then, there would be a slight forward movement and the vehicles aggressively pushed their snouts in front of each other, further messing up the jam.  

Suddenly, a burly, pot-bellied man -- a thick gold chain dangling around his neck -- got out of the glistening Jaguar F-Pace and began to abuse and pound with his fist a skinny rickshaw puller. Every time the Jaguar man hit the poor fellow, he tried to duck but failed. He did not retaliate. He could not. Poverty instills forbearance.

I was privy to the scene as I was close behind the Jaguar man who was like a flaming furnace. When I could not take it anymore, I got out of my car and stood in front of the rickshaw puller. I was young and well-built, with an exercised body.  Blinded by fury, the man raised his hand again, but I held it midair.

“Stop it. And get a hold on yourself, please.”

He made an abortive attempt to push me aside to lunge at the rickshaw puller. He was trembling in rage, and the poor fellow was quaking in fear.  

“You don’t know what he has done?”

“I do. I have seen it all.” 

“I am on my way home straight from the showroom,” he rasped.

The dent and the scratch looked ugly, no doubt.

“But you were equally at fault.”

“What shit are you talking about?” he bawled, getting redder in the face.  

 “When the traffic moved a little, you pressed forward and so did everyone else,” I said in an even voice. I have a phlegmatic disposition and don’t get ruffled up easily.

“Both of you got too close to each other. The axle, protruding from the rickshaw’s left wheel, scraped your car.”

“I will not take this bullshit from you,” he barked. 

In fact, my intervention incensed him further. He glared venomously at the half-dead rickshaw puller and shouted over my shoulder, “Bastard … you wait, I am going to kill you.” 

He again tried to shove me aside but failed.  He was drenched in sweat in the chilly December.

This time a scuffle ensued between us. But it was inconclusive as he was up against an equal. Anyway, the scuffle was short-lasting because the traffic started creeping forward. I saw in the rearview mirror that he had grabbed the poor man by the neck and was raining brutal blows on him.   

Then I heard a collective plaintive shout but could not see what had happened, as I had turned into a lane. I thought the brute had succeeded in felling the poor man.    

I read in the next day’s newspaper, ‘Assailant Dies in Road Rage.’ The ‘story’ (called as such in journalistic vocabulary) went on to report how the victim -- a rickshaw puller -- took him to a nearby hospital, but he was declared ‘brought dead!’

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Setu, August 2024