The Cleaners

Tring.. Tring..

“Hello! It’s Sin Scene Sanitizers, How may I help you?”

“Ma’am, we need your services.”

“What is it about?”

“Serious accident, bus crushed a girl and body is in bad shape.” 

“Oh, ok please tell me the address and your identity; we will reach there soon.”

 

Beep Beep

Text Massage: [Assign No. 10502, Road Accident, Female 28, MG Road, near Dhaula Kuan flyover, towards Gurgaon. GPS Parameters ###############.]

Hey Ajay, we have an assignment. Let’s Go!

Hi, I am sure by now you must be having an impression of we being some ambulance services, but this was the mistake that I also did while applying for this job. Let me give you a quick intro: I am Rishi Srivastava, Executive (Sanitizer and Bio-Hazards Mover), S3 Pvt. Ltd. As my designation suggest I am in cleaning business, cleaning and moving of dead remains of human being from crime and accident scenes. Seems easy? Think again; we work for Police, NGO’s and individuals who had some tragic accident cases (suicide, road & rail accident, murder) in their family and the bio-remains of deceased relative is in such a bad outline that even Police is shying away to touch it. Our work is to sanitize this scene by removing all the bio-remains, cleaning the blood stains, sterilizing the place against pathogens of body fluids, helping police in searching evidences, and at times counseling the victim’s family too. And yes, we charge heavily and claim our bills from Insurance companies, NGOs, Hospitals, Police department and individuals. So, you can say that we are called when there is no use of calling an ambulance.

 

While we are on our way for today’s assignment let me tell what it takes to be a S3 sanitizer. Practically speaking a very strong stomach (you can’t throw-up, no matter how odious the scene is) and emotionally very strong mind set, for everything else you will be given training. Right then, we are now riding our 220 cc bike in our bio-hazard suits with two heavy bags (not like our company can afford only this for our conveyance, but it’s convenient to reach the sites in Delhi traffic). Ajay is driving and I am on pillion, just ignoring the gazing eyes of passers as if we are some aliens from other planet (I hate my suit). By the way, my partner is Ajay Powar, a cool dude, putting up in a PG, final year correspondence student, working just for pocket money, with “work hard and party harder” motto of life; anybody would like to live like him only if his current profession is excluded.

“Ajay, I think we should take this right it’s a shortcut” I said almost shouting as it’s difficult to hear in helmets. No, the traffic would be heavy this way- he replied and pulled accelerator furiously. I tightened my grip and asked “Isn’t Pooja’s office near to our site?” he turned his head and smiled, though I could hardly see it coz of the helmet. So, what have you decided finally? - My next question. He kept mum and increased the speed further more. Actually, Pooja and Ajay are in a relationship for almost two years now but ever since she came to know about his job she is rigorously asking him to switch, which is a common peer pressure on people in this profession, as relatives find this job a taboo.“Why don’t you speak to her?” I asked just to kill the time. “I need money, can’t quit right now and I asked her for six months time, we’ll be fine” he replied more to convince himself than me.

 

Meanwhile, we reached the venue. While, he parked the bike, I tried to acclimatize with the trauma on the faces of the people gathered around and rushed to the center of human circle. There was blood and human flesh all over the road. I could easily distinguish the culprit bus as this white line bus was parked in middle of road with no driver around, while putting a caution line separating the public and blood stained road. “Are you from S3?” one of the two constables who were trying to control the public and traffic asked as I put my bag down and opened to put my globs on. “Yes, I replied and sprayed anti-pathogen on blood pool on road. “I called up, she died on the spot and the body is moved to Safdarjung seconds before” he informed me. I understood where we have to send our bills.

 

I noticed something glittering near the divider rails. I moved and picked, it was a bracelet half stained in blood and something written on it but very difficult to read because of dried blood patch, also found a money purse between the rails. It was easy to make out whom these belong to. I stretched my hand without looking at Ajay and forwarded items towards him to put them in a bag so that can be handed over to the victim’s kin. He did so and hurried to pick up all pieces of flesh and internal body parts from the pool of blood on road in a vacuum poly bag. I finished spay work all around and started mopping the road from the place Ajay has finished his anthology work. The mob has reduced and traffic started crawling by now as we continued.

 

“After finishing this you should go and meet Pooja, her office is very near” I said and started scrubbing dried blood from the divider rails, on which he nodded without even looking at me. Now, it can be horrifying scene for you but this is routine work for us, so we pretend to be calm and discuss other issues while working, it helps us reduce the trauma. Generally it is Ajay who does maximum talking but today as I know his last date was more of a suffering, so I took the challenge to divert our minds from heinous smell and vista. “I think this girl was beautiful” I murmured with a smile pointing towards a bunch of hairs struck in the divider railing with some skin also. He looked at me with some serious expressions and turned to give a final blow of mop. I thought it’s better to keep mum, realizing how bad my sense of humor is.

We finished the task, collected all our tools and packed rather silently as my partner is not in a good mood today. While moving towards our vehicle I thought to remind him once again to meet Pooja and said “Just remove your  bio-suit and you are all set for a date now.” He kept moving silently till we reached near our vehicle. While starting the bike he looked in to my eyes, which I could notice, were red as if he could not sleep at all last night, with a deep breath he opened his fist and said “I need not to quit now” and I could just saw the same bracelet, Ajay (heart) Pooja was clear to read on it now.

(It's entirly a work of fiction and resemblance to any live or dead is just a co-incidence)

A Daily Passenger's Dilemma

It’s rather a usual Monday morning with billions of humans using public transports and millions others in private vehicles on the road crawling towards the concrete cum glass jungles, the place they call their offices. Delhi is no exception from other metro cities in India; the only difference is that it has now got a special mode of transport called Metro Rail. But mind you, only the mode has changed here not the mentality of people who are habitual to the blue lines, earlier “life line of Delhi” (or end of life line of Delhi, LOL). It’s still the same rat race for seats and overcrowded to the extent that you can even smell what the person next to you has had in breakfast (or in dinner). 

I am lucky enough to get a seat today which was just next to the seat reserved for the elderly people. Now reservation in India is a common phenomenon these days, you can find reservation for maximum categories and those not having are fighting for it. They should now start calling it world’s largest reservation country instead of largest democracy. Ok, the reserved seat next to me was occupied by a good looking, and I suppose, college going girl (wow, I am really lucky today) with emotionless face.  I said good looking, coz a pair of blue jeans from Levis, a light yellow top “Guess” written on front side, a pair of shoes from Addidas and dark black goggles (oddly large for her face) can make anybody, good looking. (Sometimes I wonder why they don’t announce “jeans” as the national dress for girls in India, officially). Such was the charisma of this girl, I hardly noticed, a lady, probably in mid 40’s of age, extraordinarily glowing face for that age with a spring smile, sparkling eyes,  well dressed in blue sari and caring a black leather personal bag, boarded the Metro and came as close, to my seat, as she could. She didn’t ask the girl next to me for the seat as it was reserved for elderly people, perhaps she was shy to call herself elderly.

 Suddenly, I realized that the “good looking” next to me was gazing at me from behind her dark black goggles with very dirty looks as if ordering “can’t you see, a lady is standing?” “Vacant the seat”.  My heart started pounding “should I offer my seat to her?” but then I thought “why me?” being a daily commuter I know it’s really very difficult to get a seat in Metro and nobody would let it go easily. Also, she is seating on the seat reserved for elderly, she should vacant seat for her. I firmly decided not to leave my seat.

Meanwhile, the lady kept her glow and smile on her face intact and the crowd kept building up with each passing station. The auto announcement system in metro proclaimed “Next station is Rajiv Chauk, the doors will open on the right” and a current of electricity ran through, otherwise effigy like crowd. The “good looking” without raising her face whispered “is this Rajiv Chauk next?” as if asking to herself only. I replied “yes” loudly. The lady standing near to us moved a bit towards her and said “Yes, Beta! You want to get down here”. The girl nodded her head in reply.

To my surprise, the girl put one of her hands on to my thigh as if helping herself to stand up and with other hand started searching something on the other side. The lady lean forward at once and picked a white hollow stick with nodes, which was folded several times with the help a elastic band throw its hollow, and said “here it is” while handing it to her, my eyes spread wide.

The “good looking” unfolded the stick in one hand and kept the other hand in air in search of the exit door for Metro, now even my mouth wide open in shock, and the lady helped her to exit before taking the seat next to me. 

For next few moments I felt like frozen, (I think, skipped several heartbeats too) my brain stopped thinking and just kept watching her from glass pane of Metro. The lady, now sitting next to me, was still caring the same glow and smile on her face. 

Disclaimer: This short story has nothing to do with any alive or dead, it's just a work of my imagination.