Heroes R Us

Arnab once again protested that there was no one else involved and that the two boys be arrested for what they had done with the girl.

'For that, my friend, she needs to file a complaint.'

Arnab had exchanged no words with the girl after the incident, and she was sitting on a bench nearby, having the cut on her lips tended to by a female constable. She had overheard the conversation and by the time Arnab walked up to her, she stood up and said,

'Thank you for what you did, but I have to go.'

Arnab looked at her uncomprehendingly.

'How can you go? File a complaint and send them to jail.'

She looked at him and sighed as she smiled sadly,

'You don't understand. They'll be out in a day, and I need to take the bus every day to college. There won't be someone to save me each and every day. Plus, my parents are ordinary middle-class folks; I don't want to drag them into any hassles.'

With those words, she left the station, leaving Arnab to face an increasingly amused Inspector Mediratta.

'Look my friend, there is no eve teasing case here; it's a simple case of assault. Either someone else did it, in which case tell me who it was; or if it was you, then you could be in trouble.'

The two boys had now been revived, and while the one with the broken teeth wasn't able to say much, the second boy made a series of phone calls, and sat there looking at Arnab with a smug expression, holding an ice pack against the back of his head. Arnab realized why when within minutes, Inspector Mediratta received a phone call. Arnab didn't know who had called but from the Inspector's words could guess the gist of the conversation.

'Yes, Sir. Mediratta here.'

'Yes, Sir. I didn't know that.'

'No problems, Sir. I'll let them go.'

'Yes, Sir.'

Arnab watched in disbelief as the Inspector walked up to the two men, shook their hands and asked his constables to escort them out. As soon as Mediratta reached his desk, Arnab waded into him with a series of questions.

'How could you let them go? What were you thinking?'

Mediratta stopped him with a raised hand, all the amusement in his eyes replaced by a cold, ruthless look.

'Look here-nothing happened today. So just count yourself lucky that there are no charges against you. Just remind yourself that nothing happened and walk away.'

Shaking with anger, Arnab got out of the station, passing an elderly constable who was shaking his head sadly. Arnab asked him what had just happened.

'Son, those two goons are on the payroll of one of the political parties, and one of them is a leading member of its Youth Wing. With Elections around the corner, nobody wants to create trouble with them.'

Arnab seethed in anger all the way home, furious at how difficult it was for those without power or money to get any form of justice. Then a new thought hit him.

What the hell had just happened on the bus?

THREE

Arnab spent a lot of the evening thinking of what had happened earlier in the day on the bus, and finally decided that he would drive himself crazy if he kept fretting about it. Figuring that some fresh air might do him some good, he stepped out for a walk, stopping to grab some food at the nearby South Indian restaurant by way of dinner, and was back home by 10. By then, he had already rationalized in his mind what had happened.

He decided that the goons' reflexes had been slowed by the alcohol, and in his panic he must have imagined that they were moving in slow motion. As for his sudden display of strength, he decided that being pushed into a corner and literally fighting for his survival must have allowed him to get a couple of lucky blows in. Also, the last thing the goons would have expected was for him to have fought back. That element of surprise, more than anything else, must have been the factor that ensured he got out in one piece. There must have been nothing more to it. There could not possibly be.

He soon fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, and did not stir till the morning, when his alarm woke him up. The first thought on Arnab's mind was that he had forgotten to turn his alarm off on a Saturday, and wanted to do nothing more than to sleep for a few hours more. With his eyes still closed, he reached out for the alarm clock on his bedside table, and inadvertently sent it careening towards the ground.

Then something truly astonishing happened.

Arnab opened his eyes to see the clock moving towards the ground, except that in apparent defiance of the laws of gravity, it seemed to be falling no faster than a feather floating down to earth. He reached out with his right hand and grabbed it in mid-air before it had completed even half its journey to the ground. He sat up with a jolt, looking at the clock in his hand with a mixture of horror and amazement.

What was happening to him?

What was clear was the fact that whatever had happened on the bus had been no fluke. Arnab rushed to the bathroom mirror to examine himself. There seemed to be no apparent physical changes he could discern, but somehow his reflexes and strength had changed beyond recognition. He decided to put the latter to test once more, and picked up an iron bar that had been lying in a corner of his bathroom, having been left over after some repairs that had been done in the apartment a few months ago. He had kept it to swipe at the occasional rat or lizard that seemed to be his permanent non rent-paying housemates. Arnab picked up the thick rod, which must have been at least two inches in diameter. He grabbed the bar at both ends and flexed his hands, watching in open-mouthed amazement as the thick bar bent as if it were made of rubber. He dropped it and stepped back, horrified at what he had just done.

Next, he walked to the far corner of the room, and plunged his right fist into the brick wall, recoiling in fright as his fist seemed to drill through half the wall, leaving a gaping hole where previously there had been brick and mortar. A kick aimed at another corner of the same wall had even more devastating results as it produced a clean hole in the wall through which a thin beam of sunlight streamed into the room.

Arnab sat down on his bed, struggling to comprehend what was happening to him. He decided that he must be losing his mind, and rushed out of his room, bolting up the stairs two at a time as he made for the roof. He was halfway up when his panic gave way to a feeling of exhilaration. Here he was, Arnab Bannerjee, perennial weakling, the favourite whipping boy of schoolyard bullies, always too slow or too weak to excel at any sport in school- bounding up four floors without breaking a sweat. As he reached the roof, he decided that whatever had happened to him, it perhaps was a wonderful gift. All his life, he had wished he were better looking, more athletic and stronger. While it may have been impossible to do much about the first two, he was now fitter and stronger than he had ever imagined possible. He spied a couple of heavy barbells that some of the neighbouring boys used for exercise lying in a corner. On a whim, he picked up the weights and began juggling them as if they were tennis balls. He was soon laughing out loud as he tossed around the heavy barbells that just a day ago, he would have had needed most of his strength to lift up even once.

He was so lost in his delighting in his newfound strength that he never noticed his landlady's six year-old son, Chintu, walk up behind him.

'Uncle, can nothing hurt you as well?'

Arnab whirled around to see Chintu looking up at him with awe in his eyes. As he quickly put the barbells down, he asked Chintu what he was talking about, trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

'You're as strong as him, so can you also not be hurt like him?'

'As strong as whom?'

'Superman!' was the answer as Chintu held up the comic book he held in his hand. Arnab tried to play down