There is always that one person who likes to push people towards the edge most will never cross and thus this person gets away with it. Mr Mehta had one in his neighbourhood. While everyone disliked the presence of Mr Rohatgi, Mr Mehta was affected by him the most.
The neighbourhood Mr Mehta lived in, had a society gate system; each gate had its time period of opening. Mr Mehta lived near one of the gates, his gate remained closed from 10 pm onwards and throughout the night. But Mr Rohatgi, who came late almost every night and was mostly intoxicated, would keep blowing the horn of his car on this gate till the watchman came and opened it for him.
Once when Mr Mehta tried to object to the sound, Mr Rohatgi hurled a string of unpleasant words at the top of his voice and when more people of the society came out, Mr Rohatgi drove off angrily. Things stopped for a day or two but then it began again, Mrs Mehta pleaded with her husband to not interact with the mentally deranged man.
The matter was discussed in the society meeting that Mr Rohatgi didn’t attend, he had long exited from the society’s group on a messaging application so he couldn’t be contacted there either. They tried calling him, he didn’t pick up twice and the third time he screamed about not disturbing him.
While Mr Mehta pondered over whether he should go to the police, the disturbance at night stopped one day. People said Mr Rohatgi had changed somehow, then one who had spotted it in the news mentioned a car accident with the driver being in an intoxicated state. The news article didn’t mention the person’s name but the picture of the crashed car at the police station was recognisable from the custom decals on the body.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 