Burglar of Time: Episode 1

1941

World War II had begun and many countries were finding it difficult to answer the rebels with peace. For the warriors of death, peace was not a considerable solution. However, somewhere in a tiny village of India, a lover was born. His name was Amar. His father was a truck driver in Berlin and frequently travelled to India to spend time with his family. Amar’s mother was a scientist and suffered from chronophobia; the fear of time; and this characteristic was flamboyantly adapted by Amar who further became a master of Time Control.

Amar was a born lover. He inherited romantic skills from his mother and the looks of his father. While the world was at war; little Amar fell in love with flowing stream; the blowing wind and the glowing sunshine. Gokarna, which means cow’s ears in Kannada, was a small village on the coastal Karnataka, where Amar lived his dreams and took pleasure in savouring the nature’s beauty. He never read books because he was illiterate; he never made friends because he was too busy admiring the solace in being alone. And most of all, Amar was a gifted child. He never realized until this day.

1972

Amar wakes up from his bed and finds himself in prison. The cell is filled with water and there is nobody around.

“Anobody there?” he screams. “HELP”

No answer from anyone.

He looks at his reflection in the stagnant water around him. His hair grown shaggy, his clothes all torn and rugged and he was a fully grown adult.

“WHERE AM I” He shrieked, trying to unsettle the prison bars with his wounded hands.

He receives a welcoming whip from a silent skinny policeman.

Amar takes a while, to comprehend the new surroundings. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He tries to imagine being back in his home with his mother eating rice and curry together. He opens his eyes, but nothing changed. He is still in prison and the flies started gathering in the gutter cell.

After an hour, the prison cells open and the water is drained out. Amar quickly rushes towards the prison bars. He is still unable to read the name of the location and manages to ask one of the silent skinny policemen regarding his whereabouts. The policeman yet again whips him with a wooden cane and aligns him in the queue for meals.

Amar stood clueless and kept wondering how he arrived here and what wrong he might have possibly done. He quickly finished his meal and rushes towards the wash basin. While he washed his hands, he began weeping and that was when he remembered his mother.

“Where are you Ma? I want to see you” and he splashes a handful of water on his face.

1945

When he opens his eyes again, he zoomed back in Gokarna where he sat by the tiny stream washing his hands. He was 10 again and there was a cat beside him that bathed in a mud puddle and was coated with dirt. He called it Sandhya irrespective of its gender, because he’d found it in twilight hours orphaned on the street. For a moment, Amar was flabbergasted thinking of the fact that he was in a prison few minutes ago. And now he’s back in his village playing with his girlfriend (the cat, of course).

“Come darling! Let’s go” he said and carried Sandhya in his arms on the way back home.

That night, he held on tightly to his mother and his cat and didn’t let anyone off his embrace. Amar laid scared and cold on the floor mat, sleeping in fear of what he experienced. He didn’t know to explain this matter to his mother, nor Sandhya could help anyways. He prayed hard and slept with a thought that his father would know better.