While there was a virtual stampede at the exit, Mrs Chandler was feeling quite safe in her sanctuary behind FATSy, till of course Nast-y-Can came there, and there she slept huddled overcome by fatigue. Readers may recall that Nast-y-Can had his thoughts fixed that somebody was out there to destroy his life work and he was determined to find the culprit. ‘When,’ he mused ‘when I find him …’ his anger was too pronounced to find words to describe. When, however, he looked at the FATSy he was surprised and puzzled. It was still there, standing erect and proud, just as it was on the very first day of installation. Confused, he started wondering that if FATSy was not the target, then what else could it be. However, on his brief tour around FATSy, he came across Mrs Chandler, or rather stumbled upon her. As he tripped and fell flat on his face, his coherent thoughts were ‘FATSy is not the target, but I am!’ and then he blissfully got lost into oblivion.

Half-an-hour later - or was it even longer - he slowly became aware of a cool and soft hand administering what it presumed to be “first-aid”. Nast-y-Can, at first didn’t want to believe his eyes. He thought FATSy had become a real person and had now come to the rescue of its creator. Then, as his eyes became to focus he saw a person - ‘clearly not a demon? Next stage, he knew, would be the boiling pot of oil. Oh, my God! What did I do to deserve a punishment in hell?’ Then, the angel answered ‘poor baby, you are not in hell. You are very much on earth and safely in the mother’s hand.’

That was enough. As a new wave of panic swept through him, Nast-y-Can suffered another black-out, but this was of a shorter duration. And when he emerged from his black spell, he was stronger and the memories cam flooding back to him. He now knew the identity of his enemy - his and that of his beloved FATSy. With one powerful thrust he swept off Mrs Chandler, pinned her down to the ground and said, rather screamed, over her face ‘you, murdering bitch, you trying to kill me! I’ll show you who I am!’

All sense of delusion left Mrs Chandler. At first when the intruder stepped on her legs and went spread-eagled, her first thoughts were to find a new shelter, for she was convinced that either the doctor or her husband had sent this agent to find her and perhaps to silence her. But when the agent did not get up, her maternal instincts took over. ‘Enemy or no enemy, the poor fellow needs help’ she thought and promptly went to help him as best as she could. She started beating his chest, massaging slowly his heart and then with renewed vigour. Still the enemy did not get up. She sat on his chest trying to open his mouth (she had seen somewhere, when a heavy person sat on the chest of a prone man, the poor fellow opened his mouth - partly to cry of pain and partly to get as much air as possible into his lungs, only to expel the same in a renewed and stronger cry of pain - yes she got it - she had watched it in a WWF contest). But, now she repented her mistake. She should not have helped the dark agent. After all, he was the enemy. As she struggled hard to push away Nast-y-Can, but in vain, she started crying.

Whatever you can say of Nast-y-Can, he was not a hard-boiled egg. He was always fond of women, especially a helpless crying women, and had a soft corner to them. And, this big woman, presented a rather pathetic sight. Like Mrs Chandler, he too decided “enemy or not, slight punishment was enough.’ ‘Please, ma’am, stop crying; now you’re all right.’ Instead of stopping, the words provoked Mrs Chandler to wail even louder. This, of course, was too much for Nast-y-Can. ‘Oh, my darling, I can’t stand the sight of a woman crying,” thus saying he too started crying, although not loudly.

Again, the wonderful nature of a female took over. Well, generally women-folk cry to achieve what they want and once they achieve the desired result - oh! What a change! They will sweep their opponent off their feet. Here too, the feminine gender asserted itself. Embracing warmly and holding Nast-y-Can to her ample bosom, Mrs Chandler crooned, ‘oh, baby, everything is fine. You’re absolutely safe with me.’ Nast-y-Can had never in his life been addressed in this fashion (may be, he was as a baby in arms - otherwise as he started growing he was really a naughty boy and perhaps his name “Nasty” itself was derived from it). He looked at her wondrously and whispered ‘sure … are you sure you are not my enemy?’. Thus, the ice broke and two craving minds fused together. She explained to him how her husband thought she was Mrs Loo Ni and what happened afterwards. On his part, he explained to her what he did and pointing to the greatest invention on earth he said, ‘this is FATSy or FAMOTS operating on the principle of FART.’ He could have stopped with that, but already his first attempt to explaining to an outsider was aborted and this time he did not want to miss the opportunity. So he carried on. Mrs Chandler, however, clearly did not understand what he was saying, nor she cared. All her thoughts were, ‘at last I am safe and with a caring person.’ But having been encouraged by her stance - rather mistaking it for an encouraging sign, Nast-y-can continued uninterruptedly.

‘You know FART is First Access Random Transmission,’ there he paused giving the air a dramatic effect, ‘meaning, the incoming calls get the first access to a free line and then the call gets transmitted to the first internal line on a random basis. Can you imagine how clever I am, which no doubt, you will agree, eliminate the need for a telephone operator. Because, the moment an incoming call gets connected to an internal phone, the person in that seat answers it and connects it to the person the caller wants.’

Of course, what Nast-y-Can failed to explain to Mrs Chandler was, the infernal phone calls kept everyone on their toes, not knowing when a call would come through. Thus everyone - which included doctors, nurses, technicians, attendants, hospital administrator and miscellany of staff - acted as a telephone operator. Everyone? Sorry, not everyone - because the one exception was Nast-y-Can himself. When confronted, he brushed it aside saying ‘I am too busy to be bothered and what, I’m not a bloody telephone operator!’ The hospital management did not accept objections from the doctors (mainly, ‘imagine when we are in the OT and a bloody phone rings, in the heat of the moment we stitch up a person with a scalpel or something inside’. The administration had an easy answer to that ‘that is what you people do most of the time whether a phone rings or not!’, perfectly justifying that the one man you don’t pay, is the money earned and thus a profit.

Well, all said and done, there was virtually chaos, especially in the beginning, with wrong persons getting connected all the while with doctors getting interrupted at awkward moments - that is, when they were about to hit it off with nurses - etc. ‘The bloody Nasty and his wretched FATSy’ was all they could say. He had just concluded his explanation of FART and fell into silence. Both were contented and sat happily ensconced, not knowing what was going on outside. For once, Nast-y-Can was very happy - he had met his soul-mate.

The Inspector General of Police was a very hard working man. However, he had only one grouse - against his parents - for the name they had given him. They named him “Catfish”. How this name occurred to them, nobody knew. But according to one version, the day Catfish was born, his father caught a fish - his first fish after ten hard years of effort - and their family cat also delivered kittens. Perhaps, this combination was responsible. Catfish resented this name and gave vent to his feelings on others (he was shit-scared of his father. His father had always threatened him when he was a boy, to hang him by the fish rod). According to Catfish, his parents sinned by giving him such a name. And, in general he believed all sinners must be punished. And punished he did, by hanging them on a fish-rod, leaving them to dry out. When the treatment was complete, even a perfectly innocent man who wouldn’t dare hurt a fly, would admit to ghastly murders and crimes. Naturally, the amount of cases he solved and guilties booked (while the real criminals went away happily, innocents were sent to prison) did not go unnoticed. His career was assured and he was on the fast track on the ladder of growth, culminating in his appointment as IGP.

When the news of a terrorist attack at the Down Down hospital came, he knew that it was his day. He called his aide and gave instructions of the counter attack strategy. And, in particular he advised on total secrecy, knowing pretty well that anything secret would soon be a world-wide news. But what happened was even beyond his imagination. A whole posse of news reporters, press photographers, various television news teams all were on the road leading to Down Down even before his team could get ready for departure.

When Catfish arrived at the Down Down hospital, the situation was well under control. The news reporters and the photographers had occupied all the vantage positions - read namely, the exit points, and were quite ready to pounce on anyone who had attempted an exit. Since nobody was allowed to come out of the hospital building, the task of Catfish was made easy. To his silly query, ‘anybody out?’, pat came the reply ‘of course - but we couldn’t interview the two birds and a swarm of mosquitoes which came out of this door!’.

‘Thank God! The terrorists are still holed up inside! And, what a man they’re going to meet!’ said Catfish to himself. He then ordered his troop to encircle the hospital compound and asked them to await his order. He called his aide and gave specific instructions, ‘tell the trigger-happy buggers to hold fire till I say!’ Even though Catfish was sure of his position and his authority, he was particularly suspicious of a single person - his deputy Bangaru. Catfish often used to wonder that his name should have been “bang bang” and not Bangaru, for the notorious criminals killed by him in various encounters fell short of the record of innocent persons Catfish himself prosecuted.

Even as Catfish was giving instructions to his force, the Down Down mayor was arguing rather forcibly with the security guards at the entrance, ‘do you know who I am?’ began the mayor, only to be cut short by the guard who just raised his gun, pointed at the mayor and said ‘my instructions are quite clear. No one out!’ When the mayor started protesting, the guard was rather quick, ‘oh! Come on, next you will say you are the prime minister!’ Not content with his reply, he cruelly said, “Look mister, if you do not move in immediately, I’m going to shoot you, is that clear?’ Our mayor, courageous as he was, when giving instructions to his subordinates to attack to maim his enemies, was not involved in any street fighting since he was a boy. And when confronted with a gun, he became tame, to say the least, and he quietly withdrew from the scene.

However, the guard had very little time to react when Dr. Loo Ni and Chandler came out. When the protesting guard tried to prevent them from going out, he was simply brushed aside. For them capturing Mrs Chandler was paramount and without wasting time, they began to run not knowing where exactly to go. By then, the guard steadied himself and shot. Two things were to follow the gun shot. For one, the guard had never used the gun before and had only used it to threaten others - it was always like that he was to protest later. And with his wonderful aim and the recoil, he managed to bring down two unfortunate crows from a nearby tree. The second was a more dangerous reaction. This was the kind of action Catfish wanted. He immediately gave the signal to strike. ‘Shoot to kill the bastards and no prisoners except for the wounded’ was his instruction. And his men obeyed him willingly and gleefully.

Bangaru resented his nickname, Bang Bang, and today he decided he would prove his cleverness. After many hours of rehearsal and analysis earlier, he had decided gorillas came close to mankind and accordingly he proceeded to disguise himself as a gorilla. Having dressed up as a gorilla, he also climbed up a tree to hide himself. ‘Today,’ he thought, ‘would tell the world what a clever man he is and what he is capable of!’ Unfortunately for him, the tree he was in was the same tree from where the crows were shot down. He reasoned immediately that the enemy had spotted him. In the initial burst he caught (although not due to careful aim or anything even reasonably close to that) four guards in various parts of their body, injuring them severely but not killing them - which could have been more merciful for them. Other guards were taken by surprise initially, but got over it soon. Their return fire was equally wild but spirited and they were able to immobilise many policemen.

While the fighting erupted and continued, the duo - Dr. Loo Ni and Chandler - continued their search for the missing Mrs Chandler. They, for a change immediately reached an agreement. They decided to cut off all escape routes at first and then seek Mrs Chandler at leisure. Having decided on this, they first went to the canteen. The canteen was situated outside of the main hospital campus, but within a reasonable walking distance of say about half a kilometre. Of course, despite numerous objections from the staff, the patients and their attendants to situate the canteen within the hospital or at least close to it, the authorities simply ignored the same. Dr. Loo Ni directed Chandler ‘you go take the kitchen and service door; close that and come here. Meanwhile, I shall take over the front door.’ Without even waiting to see Chandler go, he proceeded to the main door, locked it firmly and leaned on it awaiting the return of Chandler. Presently Chandler joined the doctor and both went about securing all the doors in the adjoining diesel generator room, the stores, out-patient departments and all the utilities preventing escape of Mrs Chandler. Having done what they thought was best, they returned to the canteen. At the time they reached the canteen there were about fifty or sixty people inside besides the canteen staff numbering about thirty and none of them had even an inkling why all the doors were closed. They started pounding the doors with collective fury. Meantime, the doctor and Chandler went about their task of trying to see whether Mrs Chandler was present in the canteen by looking through the windows. While they could not spot Mrs Chandler in the crowd that had gathered near the exit doors, one among the crowd spotted the duo. Immediately he yelled, ‘open up the @#$% door, man!’ and without waiting for their response hurled a glass at the window. This prompted an immediate evasive action from our friends. They ducked and went racing away from the canteen. Chandler said, ‘I am sure my loony wife is there. I shall take care of her when things calm down.’ However, their immediate concern was to reach a place of hiding and safety because of the raging gun-fight that was going on a little distance away from them.

Blissfully unaware of the chaos they were creating, the police force and the security guards continued their shooting. Practically nobody aimed at nobody. Their idea was to shoot and with luck catch someone with that shot. Of course, everything had to end and this too ended shortly after it started. But that was not due to any peace meeting or anything of that sort. What really speeded up the ending of the fight was very simple. Both the sides soon spent all the ammunitions they had. When instead of the “boom” or “bang” they were till then hearing, they now heard “pop” of the pistols or just the “click” of the rifles and realised they had reached the end. Soon there was uneasy calm as both sides waited for the others to begin. After an interminably long wait, Catfish emerged from his hastily dug-out trench and surveyed the scene. There were one or two men lying down on the ground writhing and crying out in agony. Apart from that there was no one else in plain sight.

In the meantime, Dr. Loo Ni and Chandler decided that the only place they would feel safe was a nearby tree and went there to climb and hide. Unfortunately for them, this was the tree where Bangaru was holed up. Having spotted them climbing up, he waited for them to come closer before he took a shot. By now he was pretty sure that these two were terrorists trying to escape.

Chandler was a big man with long hands and he could reach up the higher branches quite easily with the agile of a monkey. However, Dr. Loo Ni was not. He was a small man by stature and was fumbling with remarkable efficiency. When he could not succeed in holding on to even one branch he cried out for Chandler, ‘hey, you! Come and help me.’ At first Chandler was not inclined but he gave in to the doctor’s pleas. He caught hold of him and pushed him up the tree. Both of them, then, proceeded to climb up higher and higher.

Chandler was the first to spot the gorilla. He was too shocked and afraid to move. But what really shocked him most was the fact that the gorilla was now holding a gun in its hand and it was pointing at him. On seeing a gorilla quite unexpectedly Chandler almost fainted and would have fallen down but for the timely intervention of the doctor, albeit accidentally. What actually prevented Chandler from falling down was the fact that the doctor was in the middle of a brilliant balancing act of which a trained gymnast would be proud of. His two hands were holding two different branches and his legs were caught in the among the branches lower down. He was a perfect picture of man acting as a net, what with his round and overweight body giving ample space for somebody to land. With a great effort the doctor then reached for the nearest branch. But unfortunately for him it was not a branch, but it was the gorilla’s leg. Till then, Chandler had blocked the doctor’s upward vision. But the moment the doctor caught Bangaru’s leg there erupted a long loud ‘grrrr... greeech’. Bangaru was not prepared for such a frontal attack upon him. He had never come across a man behaving in this manner when facing a gun. While he admired the brave man, he had lost his gripon his gun. Anyway, the gun would have been of no use to him except to threaten an unwary person, as like his colleagues elsewhere he too had spent all the bullets.

Continuing to emit long growls, he struggled to free himself from the doctor’s clutches. The doctor did not expect a branch to shake so vigorously and so he turned upwards to see what was going on. He too would have fainted and fallen down, but luckily he managed to hold on. After failing to shake himself free, Bangaru decided to use his hands and lost his precious hold. The result was, he was dragged down by the doctor who was still clutching Bangaru’s leg and all the three of them came crashing down.

The first to recover from the fall was Bangaru. He was more fortunate, as the full impact of the fall was borne by Chandler. On top of him was the doctor and Bangaru was right on top with no bruises or broken bones. Naturally he ws the first to recover from the shock and he leap-marched the doctor and half-carried half-dragged the poor Chandler and proceeded to the hospital entrance where Catfish had already assembled all the security guards.

Having brought out all the guards together Catfish ordered his men to search them. Immediately they went ahead with action and stripped all the guards of their uniform and asked them to cover with bedsheets and towels or whatever bits and pieces of cloth provided by the hospital staff. Of course, none of the guards took this lying down and everybody was protesting loudly and none made any sense. Just as Catfish was trying his best to bring a semblance of order, Bangaru reached him.

Raising his hands awkwardly in salute he managed to say “goo moinnggg shaaah!”

Catfish had not spotted the gorilla till then but having heard an almost inhuman sound, he turned to look at the strange figure. “What .. Who the shit are you?”

After recovering from the fall Bangaru’s only thoughts were to take the dreaded terrorists to Catfish and he forgot all about his gorilla’s getup. However, when Catfish barked his question, Bangaru realised he had to offer an explanation. He was certain that Catfish had a very poor memory and would forget his own wife if they wre separated for more than a day. And he did not realise that he was still in disguise. “Shaah, aa am Bangaavooo” and pointing out at the two men he was holding “they aaa theaasshht traaang thu eshcape.” (translating for readers’ benefit .. They are terrorists trying to escape)

Even though Catfish could not understand what the gorilla was saying, he was now sure that he had met his missing deputy. Muttering to himself “only this silly ass can think of something like this” he asked Bangaru “you egg-head, get out of the ridiculous dress you are wearing”. Realising that he was still in the gorilla’s outfit, Bangaru decided to obey his captain and he stripped his dress promptly dropping both the doctor and Chandler in the process. And fall he did, the poor Chandler like empty sack.

“Oh my God! What sort of a mad man I’m caught up with!” cried Chatfish and unable to do anything else he ordered his men to help revive Chandler. And they dutifully did it by kicking and prodding the prone Chandler in his ribs. After a bucketful of water was poured on him, he presently woke and stood up with two men supporting him.

Catfish was not a patient man and he was particularly unhappy with the slow progress of rounding up the terrorists. The moment Chandler got up he started his interrogation. “You,” jabbing his fingers at Chandler’s chest which made Chandler wince with pain “come out clean and tell what’s the game” he barked.

Chandler had had enough for one day. At first the doctor’s abuse, then their flight together, then the fall from the tree and now this. He decided to come clean and let guilty get the punishment they deserved. Pointing to the doctor he said “that man .. that man ..” and relapsed into silence having forgotten what he wanted to say. Of course, Catfish did not believe the diminutive doctor to be capable of anything, leave alone being the leader of a terrorist group. This time using a little more force he pushed his fingers deeply into Chandler’s chest he said “com’on man! out with the truth immediately or else I’ll hang you by the fish rod”. The use of force brought back Chandler’s memory and he suddenly remembered his wife. “Oh, my wife .. my wife .. she’s loony!” he cried. The doctor was too shaken to react until he heard the word ‘loony’. Immediately he turned to Chandler and said “I told you earlier Rash Handler, and I’m telling you now once again, the last time .. I’m Loo Ni and your wife is not my wife. How dare you bring back the subject again!”

Catfish was too astonished to see the course this was taking with the two terrorists shouting “I’m Loo Ni” and the other “no my wife is loony”. He decided to cut them short and declared “shut up. You both are loony and I shall treat you as such at the police headquarters.”

Meanwhile, the Mayor peered out cautiously and seeing the coast was clear came out slowly followed by his entourage. And seeing Catfish he stopped. “I presume this is your handiwork, you stupid loaf! I am holding you responsible for this outrage.”

Generally, Catfish would have hit anybody who spoke to him thus, but a mayor was a mayor and he had to control his temper. “Sir, there had been a terrorist attack on this hospital and I had to use everything possible to capture them. And if there had been any inconvenience caused ..” Catfish did not finish the sentence. The mayor cut him short and said “terrorists! what terrorists!” Upon which Catfish pointed out to the semi-naked group of men staring blankly and at their leader and his deputy.

The exasparated mayor controlled his urge to shout and said in as calm a voice as possible “them! Terrorists! They are the bloody security guards of this hospital.” Catfish was totally confused. When he received the call the hospital administrator was quite emphatic about a terrorist attack and he naturally presumed the guards to be terrorists when they started shooting. He feebly replied “if they are not the terrorists then who or where are they?”

It was now time for the truth. One of the presspersons accompanying the mayor intervened to clarify the facts. He had somehow made the link to their combined farting (and there was plenty of time to do that) which caused the unpleasant happenings, which was, of course, not liked by the mayor.

Anyway the news people had a breaking story and they sold out every copy they printed and all the television news channels had wonderful hits in the days to come. One newspaper gave a full page coverage with headline screaming “Shoot-out in the Down Down Hospital !! Mayor’s fart is the culprit?”

What had happened when the enquiry commission was formed and the matter came up to the court You will read about that and what happened to the pair of Nast-y-can and Mrs Chandler in the episodes to come.

****** End of Episode 1 ******

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