Mainak Dhar - Heroes R Us

That night, Arnab began a new chapter in his role as the so-called Guardian Angel. No longer would he scour areas hoping to bump into the criminals and no longer would his radius of action be limited by what he read in the papers or picked up by way of neighbourhood gossip. Now, anyone who needed his help could reach out to him. All they had to do was to send an SMS. Arnab knew that more than a half dozen fan communities had sprung up on Orkut and Facebook devoted to the Guardian Angel, so he logged in under a new id, and left a simple and terse message in the message boards of each of the communities. It read:

'If you live in Delhi and need my help, SMS me at the following number'. He left the number of the SIM card he had picked up, and simply signed off as 'GA'.

He then posted that same message on Youtube, where the video of his first mission in Gurgaon had by now attracted more than two million views. By the time Arnab woke up the next morning, he had already received 54 messages. Four of them were marriage proposals from women, and 8 were abusive messages, but the rest seemed to be genuine appeals for help, ranging from someone being harassed by a moneylender's thugs to someone whose daughter was being abused for not being able to meet her in-laws' demands for dowry and one young boy who was being forced to appear for Engineering entrance exams by his parents while he really wanted to study Fashion Designing. Arnab was stunned. He had not really thought through what he was unleashing, and he realized that people were looking to him to do more than fight robbers and thugs. They saw him as someone they could trust and turn to in times of need. It was a scary thought for him. Arnab had been barely able to manage his own life, and had been, by most conventional standards, an underachiever for most of his life. He found fighting criminals much easier than dealing with this new responsibility. He decided to focus on what he had set out to do, and spent the bus trip to college going through all the appeals for help and writing down in a diary what he would do and when.

The next couple of weeks went by in a blur. What made it easier for Arnab was a combination of three factors. First, the small party he threw for Jayantada on his birthday along with the gift from Mishti meant that the old man was in good spirits and turned a blind eye to Arnab's coming in a bit late to work every day. Second, with the onset of winter and the Delhi fog, Arnab could start his missions earlier, setting out as early as 7, and staying out till 2 or 3. Finally, with college about to close for a few days for the winter break, Arnab looked forward to catching up on some sleep during the day. He would notch up three or four missions each night, and not all of them were of the crime-fighting variety. He did pay a visit to the abusive in-laws, who shrieked in fright as they opened their front door at midnight to see a tall, hooded figure standing there, and promised never to touch their daughter in-law again, and he did exercise some gentle persuasion on a drunken husband who beat his wife every day. The man was drunk and abusive when Arnab confronted him and threatened Arnab with a knife, but when Arnab lifted him a meter off the ground with one hand, the man wept like a baby and begged forgiveness.

Other than leaving Arnab totally exhausted, this sudden spurt in his activities sparked a fresh media circus, including a claim by a woman that the 'Guardian Angel' visited her at night to make love to her. Arnab was mortified at the report and glad when it disappeared from the papers soon. The other peculiar aspect of his newfound celebrity status was how much of a female fan following he had picked up. The 'Guardian Angel' was voted the 'Sexiest Man alive' in a poll run by a national magazine, something that amused Arnab no end.

One Saturday, Arnab was looking forward to a day of sleep and rest, when he was reminded of the unfinished business he had. He inserted his own SIM card into his phone after days and saw to his surprise that there were 5 messages from Mishti. As he checked them one by one, he felt like kicking himself.

'Hi Arnab, just checking on how you are. Write soon.'

'Hey there, just got a promotion at work! Drinks on me when we meet. What's up with you?'

'Are you ok? Haven't heard anything for days. Take care.'

'Arnab Bannerjee, where are you?'

The final one read, 'You must be busy, I guess. Well, write when you get time. Bye.'

Arnab sat back, feeling quite miserable. Here was an attractive, smart woman who wanted to be friends with him, and here he was, ignoring her, as he had been so caught up in his frenzied new routine. As he thought about it, he realized that, truth be told; he was not as keen on talking to Mishti as he had once thought he was. He still found her amazingly attractive, and was flattered that someone like her would show any interest in him, but the fact was that he just couldn't share what was actually happening in his life, could not let her in on what was the most important thing to have ever happened to him. He considered replying to her, but realized that trading platitudes seemed so shallow when he could not reveal who he really was and what he was really doing every day.

His dilemma was resolved by the headline on a newspaper in front of him. The 'Stoneman' had struck again two times in the last week. As Arnab read the article, he decided that this was at least one piece of unfinished business he would attend to.

It was about time that he put an end to the mystery of the 'Stoneman.'

***

That night he waited in vain for the 'Stoneman' to strike, but the next night he was lucky. Like the previous occasion, a single shawl-draped man was followed by two uniformed policemen carrying a corpse. As the policemen lay the body down on the sidewalk and the shawl draped man picked up a rock to bring down on the body's head, Arnab spoke up.

'So is this what the Stoneman mystery is all about?'

The policemen whirled around, searching in the darkness for who had just spoken. Arnab realized that both of them seemed to be not carrying any guns, so he stepped out of the darkness and in front of the men. One of the policemen advanced towards Arnab, his hand hovering near a riot baton hanging from his waist.

'This is police business. Get lost or you'll be in deep shit.'

Arnab stood his ground, and when the policeman took out the baton and came closer, his colleague rushed over to stop him.

'Dubey, that's the guy from the newspapers!'

Dubey now saw who he was up against and decided wisely that in this case discretion was the better part of valour. He put the baton away but still asked Arnab to leave.

'Look mister, this is official business. Don't interfere and leave now.'

Arnab was not going to give up so easily. He glanced at the dead body on the sidewalk. It was that of a young man, and while Arnab was hardly an expert on the matter, the two holes on his bloodied shirt seemed to indicate that he had been shot.

'What kind of official business is this? You bring a dead body here and bash its head in and pass it off as the work of some serial killer. What exactly are you up to?'

'You may be a superhero or whatever you think you are, but you're in way over your head. Don't get involved here.'

The speaker was the shawl-draped man, who had now discarded his shawl and stood before Arnab, holding a revolver in his hand.

'I am Inspector Pandey of Special Branch, and this is a national security matter. Leave or I'll have to shoot.'

Arnab had never thought things would get this far, and he certainly had no intention of hurting policemen, but now there seemed to be no other way out. In one fluid motion he ran at top speed towards Pandey, and before the inspector could raise his gun and fire, Arnab had snatched it from his hands.