Thursday, April 23, 2015

T is for Trapped!

Ok, I know I'm giving away a lot with the title, but you'll know what happened once you read this anyway. This is part 5 of the escapade series. You can find the rest of the series here.


The girls woke up and realised that they were on the train and would reach Bangalore soon. They freshened up and got ready to get down . They considered alighting at the Cantonment station, (which is a stop before the main Bangalore city station), just in case somebody was there looking for Vee. But they soon decided not to, as it was difficult to get to where they wanted to go, to Mee's friend's place. They alighted at the Bangalore city station and soon made their way to the cloak room. On their way, Mee tried calling her friend, but did not get an answer. Not sure where to go, they thought they would figure it out slowly. In their naiveté, they thought that they were now safe as they were out of their town. Little did they know that the people who had met Soo and Mee had alerted relatives in Bangalore and they were looking for the girls at the Bangalore city train station.

As they were walking to the cloak room, Vee saw a familiar face. For a moment, she forgot that she was supposed to hide. Before anybody realized what was happening, she went straight to this person and shook hands with him. Only then, did Vee realize what a blunder she had just committed. This man, Uncle V, had a sheet of paper in his hands. Slowly he looked at each of the girls and read,

'Tall and fair...You must be Soo' he winked,

'Tomboyish with short hair....you must be Mee', he winked again,

'Short and pretty, you must be Shee', he identified each one of the girls.

'Hello, girls', he said with an evil grin. 'I'm sorry but you have no choice, please come with me now!', he said as he winked again.

The girls realised that they had no choice but to follow the man. If this was anybody else, this scene would have been grave. But because it was Uncle V,  it was hilarious. The girls didn't know whether to laugh at him or to take him seriously. With great difficulty, they kept straight faces.

If you thought Uncle Chot was a character, Uncle V a.k.a the winker was totally something else. Each of his sentences were punctuated with winks and his mannerisms were extremely funny. He would chew tobacco as he spoke and spit every now and then. He would scratch himself randomly and his movements were vey jerky. He was a meek man and was terribly scared of his wife. His wife, Aunty V, was another character. She was huge and towered over her husband. She was loud, spoke her mind and never forgot to tell the winker how useless he was. In another time, the girls might have actually liked her but for now, she was the enemy.

The winker immediately made some calls to say that the girls had been located and that he was now bringing them home with him. Although, there was a situation now. He had come to the station alone on his scooter and obviously he could not take all the girls with him. Instead he stopped an auto-rickshaw (a three-wheeled vehicle, in India), made the girls sit inside and then told the driver to follow him. He now sat on his scooter and merrily rode away, convinced that the auto would follow him. In the auto, the girls guffawed away. They couldn't believe how stupid the winker was. All they had to do was bribe the auto driver and tell him to take a different route and they were pretty sure he would do it. But since they had no place to stay yet and they were hungry and tired, they decided to go with him. They figured that with someone this stupid, they could give him the slip anytime they chose to.

In about half an hour, they reached the winker's home. It was a nice little house with a big garden. Aunty V waited for them near the door. She gave Vee a hug once she saw her and nodded at the rest of them. Aunty V, was way smarter than her husband. Once the girls were inside, she made them put all their money on the table. This was her way of making sure the girls wouldn't escape again. Mee however was smarter. She always kept most of her money in a secret pocket. She made a show of emptying all her pockets while still leaving some money behind. Aunty V took all this money and hid it away. She then made breakfast for the girls and locked them up in the guest room. She told them that more people would come to meet them soon. Vee thought her parents would come and get her but it turned out that her parents were now actually in Hyderabad and doing something important. This meant that Vee would not get to see her parents anytime soon.

.....to be continued.

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