The Curious Case of Chakraborty Babu

Disclaimer: Contains gore and brief dark material

Laguna Beach, 2005

Chakraborty Babu has been driving for Laidlaw about 20 years. His grandpa came to the states in 1956 as the first wave of immigration hit New York. Ajantha, his father, was only two years old when he was orphaned as his father lost his leg in a steamboat accident and became paraplegic. So it was upto Ajantha's business acumen to live the American dream and build an empire of laundromat from ground up. Of course, the first time he sold his smoke shop franchise in 1973 to a Long Beach institution after a lease violation, he actually made a profit of $700,000 - all of it which Ajantha Babu downed in a new booming laundromat business.

What Charkaborty Babu remembers being born here in Orange County, that his upbringing was strangely desi if not Indian. In fact, due to the constant locution of strong-accented Hindi at house, he even developed a subtle twang which many Americans can detect mistakenly thinking the gentleman was born in India.

Why would a son of a laundromat marquis end up as a bus driver? Because after Ajantha Babu passed away - his divorced wife almost took half of the share and burnt the business to ground. And as for Chakraborty Babu, at 12, he knew he has to get in line for the soup so he started busting his butt out at a local telemarketing company to support Kamala Devi, his stepmom. And to this date, he rues he didn't cash in on the boom. Soon, one day right after his 23rd birthday on a month of Libra, he stumbled upon a Pennysaver Ad that young bloods are being hired for a school bus driver position.

No Experience Necessary

Will Train

$25/hr

It was that last part that caught his attention minus the filigrees of the footnote of social service benefits, dental, and 401k. That was actually a lucrative wage and almost rivaled the would be Moghuls of Silicon Valley boom raking in at 50k a year starting salary.

It took him 5 years to fully get a hold of his job. But he started loving it. He was 28 at the time, still young and Van Gogh, about to fully blossom into a maestro short-circuiting the 10,000 hour rules. By now, he knew there would always be some who would never stop at the Stop Sign with Red Flashing Lights when kids are being loaded. He knew the rowdy kids would often harass him throwing teddy bears in his face and he cannot let his anger get better of it for no matter how minor a hiccup as it would result in instant death.

There was this kid called Sanju. Also desi. But parents were born outside. They were both doctor and engineer. As in a doctor and a engineer. He wryly noted the combined IQ would burn up the Scoville Index itself. And Chakraborty still dressed like a "desi uncle" as his niece Kavita would point out in "typical Indian fashion".

"Uncle, what superpower would you like to have?" Naggingly like a nag asked the boy askance in media res of his drive around a circuitous winding road right after Redondo Beach.

"What? Kya...?"

"What is your superpower?!!" Shouted the boy.

Well as if to fulfil his Quiixote-slash-Walter-Mittesque, the man replied: "Strength!"

And yes. He wasn't lying. He loved the wrestlers. The palaons, the Gamas of India, the massive body builders who would workout with cudgels all oiled up. He loved the boxers. The Olympic fencers. But he always loved strength. He dreamt of moving mountains with thought or simply with power of brainwaves like the spiritual monk Adiyta, the comic books he once found as guests arrived from India along with Mandrake and Betaal of Indrajal comics.

Yes, he secretly visualized building mountains just by a conductor conducting an orchestra... as if a strange alien who can workaround the blueprint just by pointing moving massive bricks or ton of slabs of blocks....

Was he taking any medication? Yes, both for diabetic and for...

Rod Sterling: Yes folks, so what have we here? An Indian man, born in America, still clinging to his traditional and cultural roots decided to camoflage his upbringing. In fact, so much so that he even developed his native accent. Was his fantasy, a mere figment of imagiation, a mere decoy or a cry of help to outside world borne wholly out of desperation, and loneliness?

He finished his own thought with the Twilight Zone theme playing like an earworm as he hummed the tune driving past San Joaquim Parkway right after Alton and Jamboree. Was he slowly losing it? He often wondered. And wondered he did.

"Why do you want that uncle?"

Does he know? What will he tell Sanju? That the reason he secretly craves this is because he is actually capable of moving mountains? Or would he be a laughing stock of the bus along with immediate firing and severance pay with recommendation to a psychiatrist? Is he in danger..or rather a danger to others and himself? Or was it a safe overactive imagination and an therapeutic outlet for his intense loneliness of unable to connect.

"Great!" He looked at the memo on Saturday. A field trip at Laguna Niguel. Not only the manual transmission - yes the city is shifting towards automatic by 2007- was a massive headache when going uphill but also the narrow winding road up PCH near Cliffs St. was a nightmare.

And then the bicyclists. The dreaded bicyclists whom we all loved to hate. He thought. However, the maestro knew he will manage it, just like he became proficient at refilling gasoline, doing cursory mechanical trouble shooting, and even reporting a crime once about vandalism!

After he picked up the kids from Arlington Elementary in San Juan Capistrano he knew due to freeway closure that was the only route. Plus the soccer field is exactly by Crystal Cove and there was no other way but to slug his way by the quiet winding road.

He was humming tune of Dil Chahta Hai song as Sanju came to his ear. Again pestering. "Uncle uncle do you like Indian movies?"

"Arrey yaar, beta, drive karne do..." (Let me drive...)

And then just as suddenly he experienced the very first taste of malice in his life. A freckled obese kid threw at teddy bear right on his face. He would have shrugged it off except for not what was repeated: "Hey why do you Indians don't go back to your country old man? Take that kid with you too if you like him so much."

The whole bus erupted as if Arsonio Hall himself dropped the mic. The man - the driver ... Chakraborty Babu turned around. Steely face. He coldly and slowly in strong American accent uttered: "What did you just say young man?"

As he craned his neck glaringly a van from the opposing lane veered straight into his face. He wasn't sure if the other car was at fault, or was the one one who lost control. The bus instantly lost balance and tumbled off edge, like a giant juggernaut rolling down the hill reluctantly, as if Ravana himself lost balance.

The whole engine was on smoke. Before he could grasp what was happening, just as suddenly the entire ordeal was over. There was loud thud upon the very first impact followed by a series of thwacks and thuds of brutalist architecture being enmeshed with the stoic unforgiving rough disposition of the crags themselves.

Chakraborty Babu desperately held on first to the steering then the rails. The kids were shaken like beans in an aluminum can - and sardine packed they weren't- as they were violently yanked helter-skelter hither-thither as some loose ones were even violently defenstrated outside by Lord Shiva's wrath and temper. The bus itself was tilted as it finally creaked under pressure and collapsed unto its side. And then he heard the blood-curdling scream. The utter ululation of desperation. Charkaborty Babu without sparing a single dime of a thought instantly attempted to rush outside and fell three times. He looked around at the utter horror. The massacre. The Vietnam he created. Or did he? Smokes, kids crying, some lying senseless, bruised, a behemoth steel beast on its side, he didn't know what to do. THIS IS WHAT WARZONE MUST FEEL LIKE. Ah yes. Absolute groundzero of battle ground it was.

The kids kept crying...and for the firs time Chakraborty Babu realized that when he attempted to rush he was actually walking on the WALL of the bus. He was thoroughly disoriented. He didn't know who to do triage to as his head spun like a madman dervish or a circus clown. The cosmic joke was brutally laughing and laughing it was brutally mocking him getting under his skin - he felt. He felt sick to his stomach. He restrained his urge to vomit as he clambered outside the bus somehow. He spied up with hand covering his face and saw tiny dots. HE wasn't sure if 911 or paramedics were called. They had to be! This is Southern California for f....s sakes. He thought.

And then he saw. Two white tiny toothpicks sticking out from under the steampunk slaughterbus which just went flying off hill until impaling the two kids. And somehow miraculously unbruished and unscathed was the...Jeremy. The kid who taunted him and started this all. He was standing a bit far having survived and quietly watching the whole saga unfold. But Chakraborty Babu didn't even process any of this into equation. The kids were still trapped inside the bus but as God as the witness of the bully, and as strange and utterly bizarre-of-an-event he will ever see in his entire life, he just went to witness a monsterous statistical anomaly that even a black swan cannot rival.

The man gave out an ashuric, primal scream and channeled the vigor of Vim himself as he leveraged his feet planted in front of a rock for lever and used his two hands completely erect like a vise or rather a lever to attempt to prop the bus up.

Urrghhhhhh...

Once. Nothing.

Jeremy was scared. He was still 10 and a kid. He was more scared about the guttural cry that the Indian man was giving all bruised up in tatterdemalion himself.

Urgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

He gave out another Munchian scream. The guttural death-cry of a kid losing his mother.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Jeremy looked upward. Upward unto the sky for help. The two dots were haphazard like Ezra Pound apparitions. All a blur if not sharp pixels. And as he glanced back, he couldn't believe his eyes.

A 98 lb man of 5'6" frame with one arm erect literally single-handedly slammed the behemoth carnival with a singular push. This was absolutely, utterly unbelievably, illusorily jawdropping single most thing he could ever witness. Can a single person possess such strenght of 100 gorillas and alligators? Jeremy wondered. A childlike curiosity completely hijacked his sense of bias and prejudice soaked up at home like a human sponge.

Chakraborty Babu gave out an ashuric cry and invoking God Vim himself pushed the bus to its upright position. It all happened under less than 10 seconds. Was Jeremy hallucinating?

Was Chakraborty Babu himself concocting this whole scene up? Did he always lie about his own abilities and gaslight himself into thinking he was a superhero that he wasn't? He simple didn't have time to think himself as the Florence in him rushed to their immediate attention and triage. And just like that his angelic persona and soul evaporated as men in heavy yellow firefighter gears rappeled down...

"Hurry, hurry!" He curtly gave order in annoyance.

--

Four months passed by and soon people forgot about the incident. No one bothered to dig up the litigation or insurance battle or who was responsible or whose fault it was. Streets had it that Chakraborty Babu retired in disgrace. No. There was no heros medal for him. Chakraborty Babu himself didn't care much for such medals.

And then one day a small kid saw the man. He saw the man enter an ATM and come out. The demon is out. The freckled obese kid thought. The healing he experienced was just too much for him. The saccharine distaste of kindness was nothing but hubris of a demonic enterprise. The camera had a blindspot. And no one was looking and no one would know.

Jeremy unsheathed the knife and without giving the man any chance to react in three successive motion put an end to his life as blood sprayed out all over the vestibule like a ruptured balloon filled with punch. The man immediately collapsed.

'The deed has been done', thought Jeremy as his father nodded in his parked car in St Sebastian Shopping Center Plaza.