The Blue Bakery

Purple wasn’t moving an inch, no matter what he did. He pulled her with her collar and gave her a
slight nudge. She stumbled a few steps ahead but then quickly regained her composure. Rubbing his
forehead by his finger, Major Vashishta banged his foot against the door that rocked back and forth.

“Come on now.” He dragged her out of the house and shut the door lock. He then looked at Purple
who was moaning.

He sucked in a breath full of fresh air and sat down on his feet, looking into her eyes, so that she
would really listen.

“I know you understand this. I know you understand me. Now I need you to leave because no one is
coming back to feed you in the evening. I am leaving, gone, forever. You understand?”

He held her chin and squeezed it gently. She tried to lick his fingers and wagged her tail. He gave her
a hug and confessed.

“I love you but I need to leave. Don’t wait for me. Go find a new home. There are so many people
who love you. Someone will take you in. Go to that boy who plays with you and your eyes brighten
up when you see him. Or that girl whom you follow religiously to the store every day. Don’t expect
me to come back. Because, no matter what, I am not coming back.”

He started to walk away when he heard her moan again.

He turned around and looked at her. She sat back relaxed on the firm ground, as if retaliating.

He mumbled under his breath as he walked to the street, “Only a miracle can save me today.”

He was actually going to save himself from a life full of embarrassment and disgrace. In all these
years of his struggle and failures and constant conflicts with his desires against destiny, he only
understood this morning, with first break of sunlight that is, what his fate really entailed for him.

A comrade on border once told him, “It all fits perfectly in the end.” Vashishta now wondered if that
was true in his case too.

The end.

He chortled.

It may very well be if things went the way he planned.

The Blue Bakery stood right in front of him, as if mocking him, his benign presence. The memories of
joy and laughter, the morning smiles his mother showered on him, rose a confused moment inside
him. His heart split in two, one bleeding with misery and feelings of abandonment while the other,
rejoicing.

He forced his foot to step inside the cafe to drink his last cup of coffee and nibble on his favourite
fruit cake before he ended everything that stood between life and death.
“Good morning, Major saab,” Mr. D’Souza said.

The man who rarely smiled and the same man her mother referred to as Mr. Sour pants, the man
who eventually learned to admire him as a man, was smiling today and waved his hands in the air, as
if saluting him.

What was all this worth? Did things get undone by just a five letter prefix, even as significant as
Major or even a hand gesture? Would it change the feelings of the heart that came from years of
burden that wanted him to take one last life before he could end this dreadful journey of his?

His smart brain couldn’t come up with an answer for this one. Maybe he’d ask a wiser he’d met on a
train to Rajdhani once. This guy wrongly stepped inside the military cabin, maybe not wrong per se.
He went to get coffee for his wife when the train suddenly started. He ran, holding the coffee in his
hands, and got inside this compartment that turned out to be exclusively for military personnel.
Major Vashishta ended up sharing the coffee with this guy and also learned some great things about
life and happiness. How he wished he could meet that guy again. But wishes didn’t matter, not
anymore.

“Coffee and cake, sir?” Babu, the illiterate orphan fifteen year old smiled and asked, wiping away
forehead sweat by his shirt sleeve.

Go to school, make something of yourself, he would have said any other day. Today, he nodded.

The boy left smiling. He looked content with his little life. Education, grades, promotion, money,
ironed spotless clothes, even medals weren’t capable of giving him that. What was happiness? He
was never really able to define it.

A man can’t imagine what he hasn’t seen.

The coffee and cake was on his table. He never realized when Babu kept it and left.

Vashishta looked at the empty chair in front of him. One where his mother would sit and smile. “I’ll
see you soon,” he whispered and reached out to grab a piece of the cake.

As the cake neared to his lips, he felt a shudder, as is the earth beneath him moved. Vashishta
looked up. Like an angel stepping out from the heavens, the figure standing at the doorway of the
Blue Bakery shadowed the light behind him. Everything happened in slow motion. He moved his
hand up and his 55 calibre gun shot the owner, Mr. D’Souza who fell down like a bird falling from the
sky, dead instantly. Shrieks followed, glasses broke and sounds of metal clashing, rocked the
thousand square of space.

Vashishta was on field again. As if transported back to where he used the heavy artillery to rip off
bodies, bleed out lives and pile up carcasses.

He jumped out of his natural instinct and leapt to the other end of the room. One that was hidden
behind the table covered in blood and a partial wall that divided the room in two.

Was he hallucinating again? Guns, bullets, blood, bodies. Was he in Indochina war again? No, he was
in the Blue Bakery and it was 2013.
He shook his head to bring himself back from the heights of Chip Chap valley to this unknown, small
little place called Blue Bakery where death was standing within few meters from him and mind was
thinking of strategies to defeat him.

He was on a suicide mission today and yet, his mind was trying to save him.

He took a small peek to look at the man with the gun. He stood near the entrance, no remorse, no
pain, no guilt in his eyes.

Did he look like this when he shed blood in countless litres?

“Come in,” he heard a sweet whisper.

Vashishta turned around and looked behind them. There was a small room with a door that was
partially open and two big eyes looking at him. “Fast.”

Vashishta crawled towards the room and she quickly closed the door behind him.

It was dark in there but he could still measure the depth of her dark brown eyes, and notice how her
earrings dangled and her hair swivelled by her ears. He could smell her sweat mixed with a unique
fragrance that pulled him towards her.

She placed her hand over his right shoulder and looked into his eyes, moving very close to him, “Are
you okay?”

He didn’t know. He was numbed to his feet. He looked at her and never felt the way he did right
now. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her lips, they were inviting him.

“Hey,” she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes but when he didn’t reply, she said, “You must be
shaken, I understand but listen, you’ve got to get a grip on yourself. We have to think clearly if we
have to make it out of here, alive.”

He wanted to laugh. She thought it was the gunman that made him freeze. If anything, it only made
him alive again. The blood, the bullets, the sounds were the only parts of his life that made sense.
The poison of staleness in his life was gone. If only he could tell her that he was a trained
professional and was perfectly capable of handling such situation.

Instead, he said, “I am okay.”

“Quick, give me your phone.” She tried to peep out of the tiny little key hole, as if she could see the
world through it.

“I don’t have one.”

“You don’t have a cell phone? What are you? Living in the stone age?”

He didn’t know what to say. He never had the need of one.

She fiddled through her bag in and out and finally took out her own cell phone. She pressed some
buttons and voila, there was light.
She flashed the light on his face and giggled.

“Sorry.” She took the light off him and started to press some buttons again.

“What are you doing?” he whispered in his coarse voice.

“I’m calling for help.”

“He might hear you and shoot us here right away. He hasn’t hesitated even for a second. It’s a bad
idea.”

“What do you suggest I do, Mr. Flintstones?”

“Send a message.”

“I don’t think 100 takes messages.”

He smiled. She was a funny lady. “Send a message to someone you know, and ask them to send help
here, in Blue Bakery.”

“Ohh, right.” She quickly typed something. Only she knew how she managed to type in such low
light.

“Ouch,” she said, in between.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” She giggled again. It’s the baby kicking.

Baby? She was pregnant.

“How many months?”

“Six.”

“And you?”

What did she mean by that? Was she asking how many months he was pregnant?

“What?”

“Tell me something about you.”

Now what could he tell her? About his life?

“I am sixty and my wife left me a month ago and I am the laughing stock in my whole
neighbourhood.”

“Why is that your fault?”

“Because people warned me about her. Said she was only beauty, no brains, no honour.”

“Aah. The pain of a broken heart. I get it.”

“How do you get it, Mrs...?”

He waited for her to reply and give him a name.

“Alia,” she said, clearing her throat very slowly, “Just Alia.” This time she sounded even softer. He
was sure it wasn’t the fear of the man outside. She was choking on her emotions, just like him.

“You mean the father of the child is not with you?”

“He left me.” She tossed the phone by her side and continued, “The day he found out I was
pregnant.”

“And you believe you should bring the child into this world, alone?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“For one, can’t you see what this world has become? People shoot at will, kill strangers and destroy
lives just for fun. Second, without a father, this child is going to suffer a lot. Ask me. I know it. I never
saw my father and even though my mother seemed happy, I won’t be lying if I told you that I am
twisted to my core. I have wanted to kill when someone asked me my last name. My wife spit on my
face and said I was unlovable. Why would you do this to a child? Why do you even want to do it?”

“Because I want to do it. I don’t want to kill my son. That is why? Isn’t that enough.”

“Of course it is not enough. I want to be a king of this world. Can I be that? No. You have to think
straight. Be logical. What is the point of bringing a new life when you know that you are going to give
it just pain and nothing else?”

“That is not true. There is happiness. There is goodness in this world.”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Prove to me that there is some goodness in this world.”

“I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“How can you be like this?”

“You are saying this because there is nothing else to say. What doesn’t exist cannot be shown.”

“You are wrong!”

“I hope so,” he chuckled and stretched his leg while just frowned.

Suddenly, a loud buzzing sound jolted the both of them from their seats.

“Stupid stupid stupid!” she grabbed the phone and pressed a button that killed the sound.

“What happened?” he asked back.

“I sent the message to my friend and she’s calling. I put phone on vibrate instead of silent.”

“He mustn’t have heard.”

Just then the door opened, and the man grunted as his gun moved in front of Vashishta’s eyes.

Vashishta slowly got up, while his feet stumbled. His hands fell cold, his heart almost stopped, his
stomach churned and head became light.

As if everything stopped for this one moment.

Memories flooded. Her mother’s smiles, his oath of honour, the war, the fear of incoming storm
standing on the hills of Ladhakh, the bullets, the blood, the gore, the bodies, his wife’s spit, and
Purple.

She would be sitting on the front porch waiting for him to come back and feed her eggs. He wanted
to go back for one moment and see if she was doing fine, just for one second.

He closed his eyes and tried to face everything life was bringing to him.

“No...”

He heard a loud noise and a gunshot.

Vashishta opened his eyes and looked around. The gunman was down, and Babu on top of him.
Babu’s body lay over the gunman, as if dead.

This madman moved Babu’s body around and got up, his eyes still burning for revenge. He pulled the
gun out of Babu’s hand and marched towards them. Vashishta looked by his side. Alia, the pregnant
woman who had hopes from her life, carrying a child in her womb, stood there, flabbergasted. This
man was going to kill him then her and end three lives in one go. Once this madcap got to him, he’d
have no problem shooting the girl.

He had to stop him.

In that one second Vashishta pulled the revolver from his pocket and fired all six bullets into his
head. He watched as his body fell down, lifeless.

Alia stumbled, rested her back on the wall and slowly sat down on the ground, her hands on her
head, her eyes wide as if seen a ghost.

Babu’s body moved.

“You’re alive,” Vashishta rushed to him and looked at him. The bullet hit his leg and other than some
tissue damage, the boy would be fine.

He didn’t know what to say to this brave boy who not only saved his life, but also three more.

“It was very brave of you,” the words hardly came out but he spilled it anyway.

“Mr. D’Souza told me how you saved our country. I did nothing. Even if i lose my leg today, I wont be
bothered. You are my idol sir. You are my ‘Hero’.”
Vashishta’s heart sank, his eyes filled with tears and his mind rushing with strange emotion he had
never felt.

He went and sat near Alia and stroked her hand gently. “It’s okay. We are fine.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

He laughed aloud. “Retired Major Vashishta Sharma at your service.”

She smiled and laid her head back. “Do I need to prove anything?” she asked.

He nodded and smiled again.

As he moved close to his front porch, he saw Purple run towards his, wagging her tail, trying to jump
on him.

He showed her the milk carton and said, “Milk and eggs for dinner.”