the storyteller

Early this morning, he was hanged. For five years, the whole country had been waiting for it.

Even last week, I thought of meeting him. To let him know what I thought of what he had done.

A month back, a mob in court had a chance to lynch him. They thought the courts would fail them.

Three months back, the media stopped printing his claims of innocence.

Social media had hounded out the bleeding hearts more than six months back. A few activists had to be charged.

She would have been twelve this year. On her birthday last November, there were candlelight vigils everywhere.

For five years, he was fed and cared for by the state. There were couple of attempts on his life.

I went near the court once, in the early trial stage. I thought he saw me. Maybe not.

He was raped in jail. The papers used to report everything then. Someone had tried to blind him with a shiv.

The country boiled with rage five years back. Everyone had a picture of that sweet seven year old.

How could he, a teacher, do it? Didn't he see her big eyes? Why was he so brutal? Everywhere there were questions.

He was always good with kids, good in luring them, like the Pied Piper, not with a tune, with stories.

Even when he was a kid, just a few years older than me. We used to sit around him listening to his tales.

My best friend chose his company instead of mine. I loved her. She laughed when I told her.

We are just kids, she told me with her very-adult voice.

Anyway, you can't tell stories like him, she teased me then with her childish voice.

Why haven't you grown up, she asked me recently.

I still remember how she laughed and cried and danced around him. He and his stories had that effect.

She left us. I never left him. I followed him and his tales. He had his crowd everywhere, kids, adults too.

Five years back, I lived in the apartment opposite his. I watched him day in and day out.

The kid and her family were his neighbours. They visited him often, listened to him, clapped their hands.

They used to leave the kid with him, for tuition, or when the mother had to go shopping, or when the parents went out. 

I saw them leave the kid with him that day.

I knew his phone number. I called him.

He was glad to hear my voice. I asked for money. Or did I say some medical emergency?

He told me he couldn't leave the kid. I told him it would take only a few minutes.

I had a copy of his front-door key too. It is not tough to get all that if you really want it.

I saw him leave his apartment. No one saw him leave.

No one saw me enter. It actually took only a few minutes.

I left the phone and SIM I had used at his place. It was in his name anyway. I left the key too.

He must have told the police about my call. They never bothered to ask me if I had called.