Zombies in Shanti Nagar - part 2

When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade

On the way back home my auto driver noticed the disappointment in my face.

“Love failurah?” he asked.
“Huh? Airport Road”, I hadn’t heard him properly at first.

His not so restrained chuckles made me feel uneasy. I was reminded of my own doings with the hot shot at Sea Shells. I realized that we are all the same, that we just had different ways of doing things. Couldn’t we all just get along? An idea was budding in my mind. I thought about my melting ice and lemons analogy and about the doppelganger. Ideas were piling up in my mind. I knew I was about to hit orbit and that a grand theory was taking shape, sort of like a unified theory of life. The rush of the exhilarating cerebral activity was awesome and it made me high. The fact that I was already high helped.

I had found my story. Only it was so profound that its ramifications would be felt for centuries to come. I was feeling very light and free. “May be this is what enlightenment feels like. This auto is to me like the tree was to Buddha.” I placed a hand on the auto driver’s shoulder and told him that he was very lucky. It was his turn to feel uneasy.

In the end, dear friend, it is always between us and God *

Zombies were coming down the stairs in my grandma's house. Few of my relatives where screaming with terror while others were whimpering and groveling on the floor. This new reality, where zombies invade homes, was beyond their comprehension. There was only one who could maintain his composure, me (did u doubt that?). They say that circumstances make heroes; well this was when I turned into one. I knew we had to fight them and as the bravest of the lot the responsibility fell on me. Orders were given and executed. Barricades were made to block the staircase, but I knew it wouldn't hold them back forever **. I would have to fight the zombies and protect those innocent relatives of mine (under normal circumstances we are mortal enemies, but when confronted by creatures from the nether world I realized that blood is thicker than .......eh whatever ooze flows through zombie's veins).

The barricades were interspersed with items from the pooja room, in the hope that the holy objects would repel the zombies. This kept the monsters at bay for a short while but then their numbers were too high. The barricades were breached. It was time for confrontation. The elite corps chosen by me was already in formation at the battle front waiting for my command.

“Go back to hell you creatures from ......eh........... hell. GO TO HELL I SAY. THEY MIGHT TAKE OUR LIVES BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR....... our...........take us?”, I almost sounded like Mel Gibson when I said that.

Then I signaled the elite corps, comprised of my aunts and uncles, to begin their battle maneuvers. And one by one, all at different times, they started singing “Krishna ne beganne baro...” The raging cacophony horrified the zombies. Their pathetic screams goaded us on and we sang the bhajan with more conviction.

“Religion is the reason......” that was me. I only knew the words from the colonial cousin's song. Everyone stopped singing. Then all as one pointed fingers at me and laughed like there was no tomorrow. Even the zombies had stopped their howling to guffaw at me. But a very loud rumbling was masking all the other sounds. It was overwhelming and demanded immediate attention. Who or what was making that noise? And then I woke up.

The rumbling was from my tummy, massive hangover you see. When I had got home the previous night I was too tired to write anything. So I had decided to have a good night's sleep and write down my unified theory of life in the morning after getting fresh. But then while sitting on the toilet trying to recollect the previous nights events I could not remember the theory at all. I could remember everything else but the theory seemed to have vanished from my mind.

“My chance for success ruined.... It was just a dream anyway”, and then it came back to me - the dream, the zombie nightmare. I thought that it was actually an interesting story and that with sufficient embellishments it could be turned into an unputdownable thriller. And so I started with my first novel “Zombies in Shanti Nagar.”

* - Statistics show that .... er......I think that most readers prefer stories with a twist at the end. Get ready for a very twisted ending

** - No matter how strong the barricades are the zombies will always break in somehow................ as has been proved through the dime a dozen zombie movies.