‘Hmm…A Harley Davidson! Cool bike but lousy rider’ he
thought. They had come real close to his car and he hoped they had not dented his ‘baby’. He
braked to a halt for a closer inspection of his shining black sedan.
“Marega Sala” he
cursed as he touched the spot that had been scrapped off showing an ugly mark
in its place.
He got back into his car still cussing under his breath,
fretting about the dent. He had driven a couple of miles, when he saw a huge
crowd blocking almost the entire road. He peeped out calling for someone from
the crowd.
‘Hello bhaiyaji…..Is there a problem? Why the traffic jam?”
“Accident sir, two bikers just crashed into a slow moving
truck carrying heavy iron rods. Both were dead on the spot.”
Beads of perspiration started to form on Ankit’s forehead as
he got down from his car and walked to the place of the accident. He couldn’t
look on beyond a minute. The mangled remains of the Harley Davidson and the
bloodbath around it revealed a gory story. Two lifeless bodies lay nearby
awaiting the police and ambulance to transport them.
He reached home looking quite disturbed. Neha, who was
tending to her garden, saw him and ran to the driveway.
“You look like you just saw a ghost. Why so pale and dull,
love? Anything happened?”
He recounted the happenings of the day narrating how guilty
he felt for having cursed them. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. They were not driving carefully. Maybe they would have met with the
accident even if you had not cursed them. Stop feeling so guilty.”
“or maybe not…” he said eyes closed in thought.
Neha cuddled his head, giving him a hug, as he stood begrudging
himself.
“It’s ok baby…it’s not your fault.”
“It’s not a one off incident Neha, this has started becoming
eerily repetitive!” he threw his jacket on sofa and slumped into it, staring
blankly at the wall.
“You are only imagining things, Ankit. You cannot just say
something for it to happen.”
“Oh really? Well, you remember the article I wrote about
Vikram and his struggle with cancer? About how brave he was being, how he was
an inspiration to everyone...blah …blah..? And what happened? He passed away
couple of days after that article got published. How do you explain that? Maybe
I have a cursed tongue or something.”
“He was struggling.
He was dying anyway. We both know that. That article was a co-incidence.”
“Would you call Neelima didi’s bus accident a co-incidence?
The bus had its entire right side ripped off. All eighteen people on the right
side suffered grievous injuries. You know why? All because of this,” he said
pointing to his tongue, “this damned cursed thing.”
“Ankit, my love, you did
not cause that accident. You merely told didi to sit on the left side of
the bus.”
“I told her, 'didi sit on the left hand side; even if there’s
an accident, the impact is lesser there'. Am I a freak? Why did I have to say
such things?”
“But that saved her life, didn’t it?”
“That is not the point. I kind of find that freaky. I cannot
explain why I said what I did.”
“Well, well…let’s prove that all this is a co-incidence, ok?
So say something just like that, umm…say that something will happen to me”, she
tried to make him see reason.
“Are you trying to make fun of me? It doesn’t work like that
girl. I don’t think about what I say. I just say it. Ok?”
“Say this roof is going to collapse on my head”, she
suggested gesturing to the ceiling and smiling.
“Neha….”
“Neha, don’t…..”
Without waiting for him to finish, she continued, “am I
going to get electrocuted? or perhaps
fall down and break my leg?”
“yea, woman, go break your leg! Enough Neha, you are unbelievable.”
He sighed and walked to his room.
“I am only trying to tell you that you are worrying
unnecessarily”, he heard her voice trail off as he shut the door of his room.
“Ahhh…..ouch….Ankit…” he heard Neha’s blood curdling scream
and the sound of something falling down with a thud. He rushed out to see what
happened.
He saw Neha sprawled on the floor. Apparently with her leg
broken, having slipped over, he wondered over what!
image courtesy :google
