Part 3 - Life in the fast lane

The waitress was collecting enough change by flirting with one man and pitting him against another man she had flirted with some minutes back. A real labour of love.

It was four in the afternoon but inside the bar, there was no sense of time. The holes in the wall that overlooked the street seemed to radiate the darkness outside.

Outside, the cobbler sat underneath the shade offered by the tarpaulin covering the paan-walah's 2 by 2. Business was slow today, and he slowly chewed on the betel-nut, focusing on the chewing and the spitting in an effort to forget the heat. The storm clouds had been teasing people, and the occasional shower whispered relief, only for the sun to return with a vengeance.

There were some rumbling noises coming from inside the bar; chairs being pushed behind only to be followed by some shouting and laughing and some educated shrieking.

The two policemen sitting outside drinking their half-cuppa tea cursed loudly in the direction of the bar. The shouting subsided, but the laughter continued. The rubber sheets covering the row of slum-houses reeked of the smell that rubber makes when unable to cope with heat. The stench, combined with the banging noises that came from the various mechanics' outlets led to a bad headache. Stripping licence plates was a good business.

The policemen proceeded to abuse, with the occasional slang questioning the validity of their origins and passing references to their mothers and sisters. On this street, life was as bad as it could get.

Which made it an unusual locale to discuss the previous night's suicide.

The cobbler's distant cousin was a hand at the apartment where the death took place. His cousin often referred to a violent life that the four walls of that apartment had played a mute witness to. Of strange looking pills that would be consumed with golden liquors in fine glasses, and the cigarette smoke often smelt very sweet.

The cobbler adjusted his dhoti and stretched his legs. He spat in the direction of a drain. This weather simply took no prisoners!

"These filmi people have more money and less brains", said the first policeman to noone in particular.
"Yes, so much blood", replied the second.
"And what of that fool, with his city ways? He was disturbing us at four in the morning!"
"But how did he know it was a suicide? It was less than twenty minutes when we came, and he was too drunk to walk"
"These filmi people are always like that", confirmed the first one.

The cobbler continued to overhear the conversation.
"She did some good work though ... on those TV serials", said the second one, rising to the defence of the defenseless dead."My sister always enjoyed her serials. She played the role of nurses, and forever spent free time in hospitals. She did some good......"
"Arrey, so what? Do you know how many men have been in her life? And my job is to help clean up the blood and collect evidence. For what? Her men should have been there cleaning up the blood. Why do I need the stress?"
"Ya, we should have called the drunk fool with us. Wonder where he went...we should have taken him for questioning."
"What for? He seemed another filmi types..fool. No use to us."

Thank God for stereotypes, it resolves the need for thought. This was the lesson for the day for the cobbler. He would learn another from his cousin.