REASON

 

Shamsher Singh lay buckled up beside the shoeshine box. The brass haft of the knife poked out from between his fourth and fifth rib. The blade could not be seen as it had penetrated the anterior chest wall and gone deep into the heart on the left side of the victim.

Blood gushed and the red stream gurgling from the wound flowed into the road. Flies had already started buzzing around the corpse. 

There was a reason for the body being there.

A reason that had a back story.

Do you wish to know the reason?

Let me narrate the story for you.

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Thump Thump Thump Thump the sound of the thumping filled the air as Bhiku went about his routine around the corner of the street. 

He was banging his brush on the shoebox to catch the passerby's attention and remind them that their shoes needed polishing.

The standalone Galaxy Restaurant in Walkeshwar was located on a busy Bombay street. It did not have a driveway or porch. Guests had to park in the busy road itself.  

Bhiku had set shop close by a week back and was well settled. He was kept busy. He was a street cobbler and had his mobile shoe repair cum polish box service in full swing. 

Consisting of a wooden backdrop that doubled as his display rack he sat on the road with his toolbox, anvil and shoe polish box. Strutted against a wall the backdrop had pigeon holes that housed a limited stock of new footwear which were for sale. He also repaired shoes and slippers. He was not in competition with anyone. People did not object to this vendor and he went about trying to earn his livelihood.

In a very small, weathered leather, doctors type bag which had a curved leather central handle, sharp hand tools like a cutter, curved needles, different lengths of straight needles were kept. This bag also had an assortment of awls. Each one, according to its need, was different from the other. Scratch awl (needed to make holes for stitching), sole stitching awls, welting awl, inseaming awl (needed to sew the uppers and lining to the insole), sole stitching awls (used to do the outsole stitch) all lay jumbled in. Along with the awls was a 10-inch knife.

A hinged wooden workbox held the tools for his repair trade. There were hole punches for brouging, scissors, pliers, nails, hammers, among other tools. Odd pieces of spare leather sat beside a pencil, an erasing rubber, a measuring tape, an assortment of, threads and a block of wax. In between each time an awl is used to penetrate leather, 100% bee’s wax was used to ‘dip’ the awls in, This lubricated the awl and made life easier. 

There was also a granite skiving board.

More than the footwear sale or repair, his main bread and butter was the shoeshine service.

Many guests from the restaurant and neighbouring offices stopped here to get their shoes polished.

Curly-haired, thick bearded Bhiku kept his eyes and ears opened but his mouth shut. As customers stood chatting with friends Bhiku went about his job. Bits of conversation floated to his ears

A few months back, a news snippet in town was the rape of a young girl in Dadar. All fingers pointed to a wealthy businessman but due to lack of evidence, he had been released by the police. He had used all his money power and his legal team had managed to wriggle him out of the charge. Purchased alibi vouched for the businessman's presence in the nearby Galaxy Restaurant at the time of the alleged rape.

The father of the victim, a middle-class white-collared call centre worker, was trying to garner public support but he was not successful. 

Who would listen to a poor man?  

The short-haired, clean-shaven father was seen on TV channels for a few weeks but when things fizzled out no one gave him air time. Realising that he would not get justice, he along with his family had migrated back to their village in Bihar to start life afresh. They almost disappeared from the media radar as well with just an occasional mention here and there about the incident on inner pages of newspapers. Busy Bombay did not have a reason to stop. Life here had moved on.

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Shamsher Singh parked and got out of his car. He started walking towards Galaxy, his favourite restaurant. He was to meet his client for a lunch meeting.

As he walked he heard the thump-thump of this curly-haired bearded man banging his brush on the shoebox to catch the passerby's attention. He got lured. He was early for his meeting. He had time for a shoeshine. He stopped, put his right foot on the shoe box, pulled out a folded newspaper from under his arm, unfolded the pages and started reading.

Bhiku opened the flat round tin boxes of two types of solid polishes and shoe cream and kept his two brushes and a strip of cloth within arms reach. 

He folded up the hem of the customer's trousers to a level above the shoes.

Untying the laces he pushed in small pieces of leather between the shoe and socks to prevent smearing of the polish on the garments. Meticulously he started by cleaning off the dust and dirt from the shoe with a shoe brush. Next, using his index and middle finger he scooped up some black shoe polish from the tin box and smeared it around on the black shoe. Digging out a little more he carefully applied it on the welt. Now he started the buffing. The hand brush with wrist and palm movements brilliantly worked on the leather getting a sheen and a shine. 

Using a toothbrush with polish, he now concentrated on the borders and other areas to shine them. Next smearing a whitish cream on the shoe he got down to bring out the sparkle. 

Holding taut the silk cloth strip with both hands, Bhiku started buffing the leather with swiping motions of the cloth on different parts of the shoe.

Satisfied at his handiwork he pulled out the leather smear guards and unfolded the hems. He now tied the laces in a neat knot. 

Using his wooden brush he thumped twice on the box to indicate to the customer to switch his leg.

Shamsher Singh folded his paper and looked down at the shine emanating from his right shoe. Satisfied he switched legs on the shoe box and continued reading his paper. He started flicking over his pages as Bhiku started work on his left shoe. 

Unaware of what was happening at this level Shamsher Singh got engrossed in a small mention of the rape case on page ten. It mentioned that the family of the raped girl from Dadar had migrated to their village in Bihar. A creepy smile spread on his face. 

’This is not news, this is stale news. I knew this a month back,’ he thought to himself, ‘Anyway, it's good riddance of bad rubbish.’

He continued reading. ’Bhirender Kumar the father claimed that a businessman Shamsher Singh was responsible for the rape. He was dissatisfied with the legal system and indicated that the police and courts were not helpful. In a TV interview, about a month back before leaving for his hometown, he had expressed that if the law does not help victims and their families to get justice, law-abiding citizens would be forced to take the law into their hands. It would lead to a rise in vigilantism. 

A police spokesman when asked to comment had waived this off as empty threats coming from a frustrated parent. They claimed that an investigation was on to find the rapist.

It was at that moment that Shamsher Singh felt the sharp pain in his left side. Clutching his chest he collapsed. The sharp knife had done its beckoning.

Bhiku had pulled out the brass handled 10-inch knife from the leather doctors type bag, sprung up from his seated position and thrust it deep into his daughter’s rapists heart. He had struck on the left side with the knife angled such that the tip was pointing to the mans right. It was the surest way to kill him. 

Throwing off his wig and false beard into an open gutter he had blended into the busy Walkeshwar crowd.

Unknown to his family and the police,  he had returned to Mumbai a month back and had started secretly following and shadowing Shamsher Singh to study his daily movements. Realising that the businessman dined out regularly at Galaxy he decided to set up a cobbler cum shoe shine box close by to carry out his revenge attack. 

He transformed himself into Bhiku. 

His original plan was to jump on him on one of his visits and kill him as he returned from the restaurant and walked to his parked car. Providence however had brought Shamsher Singh directly to Bhirender Kumar aka Bhiku’s box for a shoeshine. 

A desperate father had then avenged his daughter by knifing her rapist. Before passerby’s realised what had happened he was, ’pooooooof’ -- gone.

This was the reason for the corpse to lay buckled up beside the shoeshine box.