HIM

He groaned at the pain in his arms as he gingerly climbed over the barbed wire fence, careful to avoid getting pricked again. The last time he tried to climb it, one of the spikes had cut his thigh and made him bleed. The wound was still not completely healed. Of course, the last time, he had been drunk. This time he was sober, but was planning to get drunk.

He managed to cross the barbed wire fence and looked around, making sure there was no one around. Once a passing police constable had seen him trying to jump over the fence, and collared him. He had tried to reason with the cop. The building, if it could be called that, was abandoned anyway. It had no walls, just beams and columns. No one cared if anyone came or went there now. Except for piles of broken bricks, construction sand, and gravel, there was nothing of note in the building.

He wasn't sure why the building was a skeleton. It was in a relatively upscale neighbourhood in Wadala, not too far from the IMAX theater. There were posh looking buildings all around it inhabited by the upper middle class. If this building had been completed, its apartments would have brought in tens of millions of rupees. But it was abandoned. Maybe some property dispute. Maybe a government order. He didn't care and he didn't know. All he knew was that it was completely empty. So what was the problem with him sleeping there?

But that hadn't stopped the cop from thrashing him and dragging him to the police station. Cops in Bombay didn't show people like him any mercy or respect. He was just one of the many faceless daily wage workers who kept the city's wheels turning. He didn't have a fixed job. He'd wander around everyday until he found some work. He had worked on buildings like these before, breaking stones, carrying loads of bricks up the stairs, digging holes, or doing anything else the construction. He had worked for road construction teams. He had worked in filthy buffalo stables and fish markets. Whatever work he could get. All he cared about was a few currency notes that got him the next meal. And the next "pauvva", a small bottle of country liquor.

In his younger days when he came to Bombay from Bihar, things had been slightly better. He had a stable job and was able to afford sharing a tiny shack in the Kurla slums with three other guys. It was incredibly tiny, just enough for the four men to sleep at night. But it was home. As he grew older and weaker, work had been harder to come by. Hordes of young and able-bodied men still flooded the city looking for work and they were stronger and faster than him. They got the stable jobs. He tried to remember the last stable job he had. It was a complex of high rises in Worli. And the year....what was the year? He remembered it was just a few months before Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated. After that, it had been a very difficult existence. He had been unable to afford even the meager rent of that shack and had found himself sleeping on streets, railway platforms, highway underpasses, and occasionally if he got lucky, an abandoned building like this one.

"Saala bhenchod Bihari thief." the cop had kicked him in the shin and dragged him along in full view of passersby. He averted their gaze in shame. Living the life he had lived, there's not much that embarrassed him any more. But being dragged like a dog while being slapped around was still too much.

He had cried, pleaded, and begged for forgiveness. He had insisted he was only looking for a place to sleep. He even committed the mistake of saying he had been sleeping in the building for a couple of months now. That got the cop even more angry. A couple of blocks from the police station, he felt his pockets being searched by the cop. He saw 35 rupees, his earnings for the day, disappear into the cop's pockets. Then he felt another kick sending him crashing to the ground, and the cop left muttering stern warnings about not to trespass ever again.

But tonight he was lucky. He didn't cut himself on the barbed wire, and there were no cops around. There was no one around. Wadala got unusually quiet for a Bombay suburb at night. He made his was past the pile of bricks and climbed the concrete steps. He could have just slept on the first floor. His knees ached with every step he took. But he absolutely had to go all the way to the fourth floor. It was worth the pain in his joints.

By the time he reached the fourth floor, he was severely out of breath and his knees were throbbing. With a great deal of effort, he made his way towards the edge. There it was, the pile of sand that had been his bed in recent days. He untied his lungi and spread it on the sand. Then he sighed and lay down on it, wearing only his ragged dirty shirt and his stinking boxer shorts. Slowly he felt the partially healed wound caused by the barbed wire. It was still raw. It seemed to have some pus. When he was a regular worker, if he ever cut himself on the job, the supervisor would give him some money and send him to a nearby doctor for an injection. He wondered if he should save some money and get that injection himself. Tet-something it was called, if he remembered correctly.

He took out his pauvva, lovingly admired its rich color, opened it and took a long swig. The orange flavored moonshine scorched his throat like always. But he looked forward to it numbing the pain he felt in his arms and thighs after a day spent breaking stones. The nightly pauvva was his only friend, his only companion, the only one who gave him any lease.

No that was not true. There was another friend he had, if the word "friend" fit the bill. The reason he willed his weak knees to climb all the way up to the fourth floor. He took another long swig from his first friend and then looked at the windows of the fourth floor apartment in the building across the narrow two-lane street to see if his second friend was around.

Dark! Completely dark, he noted with disappointment. Where was she? It was close to midnight but she didn't sleep this early. Usually he saw her sitting in front of the television with a laptop until 2 am or so. He estimated. Not that he could afford a watch. Often she'd be on her cellphone at the same time. He thought she looked especially cute when she held the cellphone between her ear and shoulder as she typed something on the laptop.

A couple of years ago, he'd found a cellphone on the street. He'd seen people use those wonderful little things and had always wished he could afford one. He felt its smooth gray display screen. Pressed the numbers. But he had no idea how to make a call. He played with it as much as he could for the next couple of days, enjoying the beeping sound the keys made when he pressed them. On the third day, it stopped working. He didn't know enough about cellphones to surmise that it had run out of charge. Now it was just a dead device to him. He had kept it in his pocket for a month. And then during a police raid clearing out those sleeping on the railway station, a cop had found it on him and taken it away. He almost felt like someone had snatched his baby away from him. He winced at the memory, then wanly looked at the dark windows again.

Maybe she was out with friends. He had noticed a flurry of activity in her apartment for the last few days. Lots of friends dropping by. Many of them male, he noted with a stab of misplaced jealousy. But they all left without spending the night. In the two or so months that he had been watching her, he had never seen a guy spend the night. In fact he'd never seen a guy so much as touch her, except for friendly hello and goodbye hugs. She was a virtuous young woman, he told himself. Not one of these modern sluts flouting the conventions of our culture. She was a perfect angel. Suddenly he felt guilty spying on her like this. But he wasn't doing anything immoral or illegal. Was he, he asked himself the same question as every night.

He stretched his arms and took another swig. Soon the bottle would be empty. He checked his pockets. Only ten rupees. Should he go get another bottle? He knew a late night country liquor shack nearby. But then what would he eat tomorrow before work? He'd just have to savor the remaining booze. As it is, he had spent his dinner money on this bottle. He needed at least some food if he had to do heavy work again.

That's when the window lit up. Ah, she was back, he noted with delight. He sat up, made sure he was hidden behind the half completed wall, and squinted his eyes to see better.

Through the window, he saw her walk in, carrying what seemed like several sheets of cardboard. She was wearing a snug black top. It was one of his favorites because it made her boobs stand out. She didn't seem to have really big boobs as far as he could tell. They were maybe slightly bigger than his late wife's. He felt a stab of pain in his heart at the memory of his dead wife. He tried to push those thoughts out of his head and focused on the current woman in his life.

Her hair wasn't tied up in a ponytail like it usually was, he noticed as she put the cardboard down and walked into the kitchen. Oh how he loathed the kitchen! Whenever she went in there, he couldn't see her. The kitchen window facing him was a tiny one and it was an older wooden one with just two tiny dirty panes of glass. She always kept it closed. Only once had she opened the window, when cooking something, which she rarely did.

Ah, he smiled as she walked back into the living room. That was his favorite room because it had wide glass windows, and she usually kept the curtains open. The couch was also in a great position so he could watch her to his heart's content. She walked to the couch, and he noticed that she was wearing a red skirt beneath her black top. He feasted his eyes on her milky white calves that peaked out from under the skirt. And admired the outline of her perfect little behind. Yes, the amazing shape of her butt was more discernible when she wore trousers or jeans.