The Last Chapter: Khudha-Hafiz

Prakash walked down the Hayyan Street. He had a canvas bag in his right hand, it was packed with currency. He faintly remembered the locality where Mufid lived along with his family. Prakash was tempted to ask for directions, but he choose not to. He felt it was better to go un-noticed. It took him nearly thirty minutes to exactly locate the house. It was located in a narrow un-paved lane which was parallel to Hayyan Street. Mufid’s home had a door opening directly into the street. There were children playing in the lane. There was a black curtain hanging from inside. He knocked on the open door. The response seemed to be instantaneous. “Who???” a female voice responded. He had to make a conscious effort to make his Arabic sound as good as he could. “Salaam-Alekkum..” he greeted and an oval shaped faced half masked in traditional attire slipped out through the side of the curtain which was on to the side of the door hinge. It was Fahimah, Mufid’s wife. He remembered the face from the Photograph which Mufid had shown him once. He could see that she was pressing the curtain against the door frame under her chin with her hand, and it occurred to Prakash that she was taking extra care not to reveal anything below her chin. He guessed that being at home she was not wearing a Burqa and hence used the curtain for covering herself up. Her eyes were long and pretty, typical Middle-Eastern. Prakash couldn’t look into her eyes for long. He knew he was looking at the Mufid’s widow. Guilt and sadness engulfed him and he stood frozen. “Who are you?, What do you want?”. She sounded irritated at seeing the stranger. Prakash cleared his throat and said “I am a friend of your husband. Please accept my condolences”. He talked looking at the door-step. The woman felt it was out of respect that he was looking down; little did she know that it was out of guilt. He took a couple of steps forward and left the canvas bag on the door step and moved back again. After a sigh Prakash continued “I am not sure if Mufid told you this, he used to work for a tourist few weeks ago before he died. He happens to be my Boss and he was there at the funeral, but, he had to go back to Saudi Arabia urgently after that. My Boss had actually promised your husband a good job in Saudi, but unfortunately….”. He stopped let go of another sigh and continued pointing at the bag with his open hand “He has sent this for you and the children. He liked your husband very much and wants to help his family. Please accept this”. She stared at Prakash in suspicion. Prakash didn’t want to spend any time there, he was sure that Fahimah would have questions for him, which he would never be able to answer. He bowed to her and turned around and retraced his steps back to Hayyan Street.

Prakash walked past the kids playing football in the lane. He guessed that some of them could be Mufid’s children. There were either or nice of them, as he walked by he tried to see if there were any with facial resemblance of Mufid. He couldn’t find any, may be they are not among them he assumed. On reaching Hayyan street he hailed a Taxi. The driver seemed to be a Pakistani; the car had the stench of cigarette smoke. He instructed the driver to take him to the Hisham Jibran Complex. The beach was just a couple of Kilometers from the complex. He felt getting dropped at the complex would help him blend into the crowd. Later he could leisurely walk down to the beach. The complex was a huge mall filled with tourists and local residents. It had two entrances, one in front and the other on the side. The driver dropped him promptly at the front entrance as it was considered to be the main entrance and the Taxi drivers preferred it for some reason. He walked in slowly took the escalator to the first floor. He walked by the huge glass-paned show cases displaying designer watches. Cartier, Rolex and more. He stopped for a moment, smiled and looked at his cheap Quartz watch with a compass on the strap. Prakash checked the time and decided it’s for him to move, he headed towards the escalator which would take him back to the ground floor. On reaching the ground floor he walked a little more as if window shopping and then slipped out of the complex through the side entrance. He strolled down the footpath and headed west to the beach. It would be a decent thirty minute walk to the peer from the Complex. There were families walking by and children were everywhere with balloons and bubble throwers.

Prakash walked towards the peer casually. It was Thursday evening. The dock was deserted barely a soul around. There were a handful of fishermen packing up the nets. All were getting ready for Friday, the weekly holiday and day of Prayer. There was smell of fish in the Air. The wind seemed to be pleasant. His shirt fluttered in the wind. Khader was waiting as instructed. Prakash felt relieved on seeing him. Khader smiled on seeing Prakash approach. “You are alone?” he questioned. “I thought you might be having some friends along with you. It’s usually the bachelor boys who get such crazy ideas” Prakash responded with a smile. Khader had his feet on a box with his elbow resting on his knees and looked very relaxed. “So are you planning to go fishing alone?” He asked with a little sarcasm. Prakash felt at home with Khader, his Malabari accent while speaking in Malayalam felt so soothing for him. He looked at his watch and said “Khader-ka lets go”. The smile suddenly disappeared from Khader’s face. He sensed that there was something not right about the trip. He reluctantly untied the boat. By then Prakash was already in the boat. Khader turned the ignition and the diesel engine roared to life. He carefully steered the boat out of the dock ensuring not to hit any of the other boats docked and headed to the open sea. Prakash walked to the front of the boat, held the mast tilted his head back and took a deep breath. He felt so content inhaling the cool air. The smell of fish seemed sweet to him at the moment. For a moment the scenes from the Shanku-mugam beach of Trivandrum flashed in front of his closed eyes. He woke up from his thoughts and he looked at the compass on his watch. The direction the boat was cruising didn’t seem to be appropriate. He walked towards Khader at the wheel and said “Khader-ka… we need to go a little towards the right”. Khader looked at him, his suspicion deepened and said “... oh, is that where you are going to do the fishing?” He snorted. He was still feeling uncomfortable of the trip. The lone boat cruised into the sea. The sea was calm. The lights of the Dubai city were getting smaller and smaller. Prakash looked away into the sea. As time went by Khader was feeling restless. He didn’t know what to say or do. Prakash had offered him a good sum which he couldn’t resist to. It would take him 3 years to earn that kind of money. A few hours of driving in the sea for that sum was irresistible. He wondered why he took this up. “Aloooo…did the shark tell you his address….where you can fish it?” Khader’s irritation was slowly transforming into anger. Prakash looked at him, tilting his head a bit and smiled. Khader was getting even more un-easy. Something was not right. Something was just not right. It’s been four hours since they started. Enough is enough. He screamed “Sight seeing trip to the middle of the see at mid night ends now” he announced and was about to turn the steering when Prakash almost jumped at Khader, “Please Khader-ka its just another 20 minutes away” he said. “What is 20 minutes away? What is 20 minutes away? Will you be kind enough to tell me that?” Khader questioned, for which Prakash gave his silent smile again. The boat went on into the dark sea. All that was visible now were the lights of Al-Burj. Another ten minutes even that was out of sight.

Khader shut down the engine, and it came to a grinding halt as if it was waiting for a break. “Ok Ok” he declared “we have reached the point you wanted, you have five minutes to do all the sight-seeing that you want to do, count the waves, do some fishing with your fingers, what ever!... and we are off”. Khader sounded to be in his worst of moods. He wished he was in his dormitory with his friends watching Indian reality music shows. He woke up from his thoughts and said “Ok, here we go” and he reached for the ignition. Prakash almost pleaded “Just five minutes more”. Khader looked away and lit a Cigarette. Prakash looked at his watch and then struggled to look at the compass. The compass needle was almost invisible in the darkness and the moon was not that bright. “Are you gone nuts too? Why are you looking at the strap of your watch to check the time?” Khader yelled this time. “Well..” Prakash replied “I am checking the compass actually”. Khader was confused, “All sort of nut cases they pack off from India for working in Gulf” he said to himself blowing out the smoke violently.

Suddenly Khader felt it! He was not sure what it was, but he was sure that he did feel it. Was it a hum? Was it some kind of vibration? He held the steering wheel tight. Yes, there is indeed some kind of vibration. And now the noise was becoming even audible and it seemed to be coming from under the sea. He looked at Prakash. There he stood without any expression staring at him. Didn’t he hear it and feel it? The heavy hum was becoming louder and stronger by the second. Then it struck him, yes! it’s a Tsunami coming up and he screamed “It’s a Tsunami.!...jump for you life.” He wondered if Prakash really heard him. His voice was barely audible in the heavy booming hum. Khader tightened his lungi quickly and was preparing to jump. Prakash grasped his arm and Khader could see a frightening calm in Prakash’s eyes. “Don’t do anything, this is what we came here for” he yelled into Khader’s ear. Suddenly Khader saw something emerging from the water and it looked like a rod. The moon didn’t seem to help. The noise was even louder and then suddenly there was a huge object emerging from under the rod. “ Allah!” he exclaimed “ what in the world is that thing?” The thing seemed to be growing taller and taller and suddenly it seemed to have stopped, all of a sudden it became a very long thick object coming out and then he could see faintly the emblem of the Indian Navy on the Conning tower of a Submarine which was emerging in front of him. “Almighty God!” He exclaimed again. “Isn’t that a submarine? How did you know that this thing was coming here?”. Water was rushing down the sides of the submarine making a lot of noise. Prakash walked towards Khader, held him by his shoulders and said “Thank you. I will never forget this ... what you have done for me. Here is the money that I had promised you” As he spoke there was a creaking sound and both of them looked at the submarine, the hatch was opening slowly.” He continued “I want one more small favor from you. Please don’t ever tell anyone what you experienced tonight. You can cook up some story about a crazy tourist…. to tell your friends back on the land. This is a favor to your homeland that you will be doing.” Khader was slowly coming out of the shock. He looked tired and drained. He whimpered “Who are you?”. It sounded more like pleading to Prakash for which he replied “All I can tell you is that…I work for the government of our country, and I am not in a situation where in I can fly out of Dubai. Hence I have to take this route out of Dubai”. Khader looked confused. It was took much to digest for the poor fisherman who didn’t understand international politics. Prakash gave Khader a warm hug and looked into his eyes and said “Khudha-Hafiz” and without waiting any further he walked to edge of the boat and jumped into the warm water of the Arabian Sea and swam towards the submarine. He climbed up steel ladder to the hatch and slipped in on to the inner ladder. He stood there for a moment and looked back at the fishing boat. Khader was there looking at him. He waved out to Khader and went down the steel ladder.

Khader stood on the edge of his boat watching in amazement. The hatch on top of the Conning Tower slowly closed shut. There was a long wishing noise, it was the guzzling of the water into the submarines inner chambers and the it slowly started its descent. Khader watched in amazement as the submarine slid down under the water leaving a whirlpool behind. In a few moments everything was over, the sea was calm and looked as if nothing had happened. Khader felt a little dizzy, he quickly walked to the driver’s cabin grabbed the Pepsi bottle filled with water and gulped down as much as he could. The he steered the boat around and started driving back to the city. He gripped the wheel tight in horror. He had a solid four and half hour journey in front of him. He was thinking about what had happened in the last few minutes over and over again in his mind. He had million un-answered questions in his head? Who was this guy? What in this world did he do to run out of the country in a submarine? Was he really a person working for the country? If so why couldn’t he take a plane like anyone else if he was really working for the Government? Then his attention went to package of currency which Prakash had handed over to him. He thought of his eldest daughter Ishrath. She had reached marriageable age and already proposals were coming in. With this money he could have a grand Nikah for his daughter. He felt it’s to his best interest that nobody knew what had happened, especially the cops. If they do he is going to be in deep trouble one way or the other, which also meant parting with the money. He decided not to discuss what had happened to anyone back on the mainland. He felt that the strange tourist had done some mischief in the City, due to which he is running away in order to avoid the consequences. But he still couldn’t figure out why a submarine would come and pick up a criminal. He looked at the money which Prakash and given him for his service and sighed. “To hell with him” he thought “ as long as I keep my mouth shut I should be ok, anyways I will have some extra money when I go home next”.

As Prakash reached the bottom of the ladder there was a man in uniform waiting for him. “Welcome aboard Prakash” he said. “I would like to brief you before you merge into my staff here” and guided him into a tiny room which he felt could be a mini meeting room. “OK here is the deal” he started “your identity has not been revealed to the sailors here. They have been told that you are coming here as part of the pilot-auditing, before we have the major one for the operational preparedness. So till we drop, you need to behave like a good auditor.” He said with a smile “Ok?”. “Yes Sir, of course” he replied and said “Sir I have a question, which is this sub, I couldn’t find a name on the tower”. The Admiral smiled and paused before he replied. “Good observation, this is Scorpene Alpha”. Prakash twisted his brows and said “but….the first Scorpene is scheduled to be rolled out in Mid of 2012, right? So how is this…is this really?”. The Captain looked very impressed and he replied “yes you are right, but this is an early edition. We decided to move ahead of the under-estimating Allies. By the time they announce the official roll-out we will be having a dozen of these babies deployed, fully-loaded!” he said with a wink, he stood up continued to smile and walked out of the room.

The dormitory where Khader lived had three rows of two-tier steel cots lined up with walking space in between rows. The space under the bottom cot was used to stash the suitcases and other belongings of the occupants on the cots above. The dormitory had a mix of workers from India and the majority of them were from Kerala. Jamal the new seventeen year boy from Malappuram slept on the upper cot of the middle row and it was the fourth one from the door. He woke up hearing a knock at the door and was up on his elbow. He quickly dug out the mobile phone from under the pillow and squeezed his eyes and checked the time; it was thirteen minutes past four in the morning. He climbed down from his bed and was staggering while he walked towards the door, he struggled to keep his lungi in place and almost tripped on it, his banyan was messed up to his chest. Jamal struggled to keep his eyes open and rubbed them to get his vision right. He opened the door and it was Khader. “What happened Khader-ka? Where were you?” he exclaimed “all were worried about you. We tried your mobile and it was ringing in the bathroom” Khader had forgotten to carry his Mobile phone that evening since he was in a hurry. He took his towel which was tied around his head and wiped the sweat of his face and neck. He walked around the boy who was standing half asleep at the door and he replied “some crazy new guy who just arrived in Dubai. He wanted to see the Arabian Sea. I gave him a good taste of the sea. When he finally vomited at the sea and he begged me to take him back to the main-land”. Khader tried to put up a laugh as if he was amused by the episode he was narrating. He hoped Jamal would believe the story. He slowly walked in between the rows of cots and Jamal had closed the door and was walking in the other lane between the cots. “So who got eliminated today in the music competition today on TV?” he asked Jamal. “Well Khader-ka, we were watching Dubai reality show today on TV you know, for a change” Jamal replied with a smile as he started walking towards his cot. “It seems Arshad Ali has been found dead in a hotel room. They are still not sure if it’s a murder or a fire that killed him”. Khader steps froze for a moment his cot was still a few paces away and then he said “Ok Ok, let him rot in hell. You go and catch up with some sleep son”. Jamal climbed up on to his cot. Khader slowly walked into the adjacent room which was used as a kitchen and dining room. There were rugs on the floor where the inmates relaxed and watched TV. Jamal lay on his bed looking at the ceiling. Khader had switched on the TV and Jamal could hear it feebly. It was on low volume. He wondered as to what had come of the old man to watch TV at four in the morning. Jamal could make out from the audio that Khader was surfing channels. Finally it settled on an English news channel. Jamal smiled as he closed his eyes and listened. He wondered if the old fisherman in the adjoining room really understood English. He was slowly slipping into sleep, he still had the smile on this face and he could hear “Good evening I am Rebecca Celine and you are watching The Evening News. Reports are still coming from the Middle East on the death of the most wanted man in India, Arshad Ali. He was found dead in his Hotel room during the early hours of Friday. Arshad Ali was burnt beyond recognition and has been taken from the Hotel to the Al-Abdul hospital for forensic Tests. Dubai Police in a Press statement has declared this as a fire accident. A highly placed official of Dubai Intelligence has a different opinion; on condition of anonymity he stated that Arshad Ali was assassinated by Indian agents. The spokesman of the Indian Embassy in Dubai however has denied this. In an early morning Press release he also stated that the Indian Government has nothing to do with the death of Arshad Ali and that assassination is not a state Policy of the Indian Government. Mystery also surrounds the death of Arshad Ali’s body-guard. In an un-related incident, Indian special Forces stormed 5 terrorist hideouts across the country. A total of 27 terrorists were killed in the synchronized operation. According to Ministry of Defence, this was the culmination of a 2 year operation...” Jamal didn’t hear anything more, because he was fast asleep by then.