Kabandh

This story first appeared in ALPHABET AND YOU Issue 2.

Ever since he was assigned this new account with the huge corporate client from Gurgaon, life had become difficult for Vrijesh. The executives handling the advertising account from their side would tell him that their one-eyed new boss was a hard task master and he insisted that all meetings and presentations should happen at their office and not at Vrijesh’s ad agency.
He gathered from office discussions that he was a single man, whose work was his life. He had lost an eye and most of his original face in some childhood accident so along with his behavior his looks were intimidating too. Vrijesh was reminded of a demon named Kabandh with no head or neck with one large eye on the breast, whose story his grandmother would often narrate to him in childhood.
Today this Mr.Kher had not called him but Vrijesh wanted to see him because after he and his team had spent almost 8 weeks of hard work on this account, he was informed that their work was not good enough and they were no longer interested in hiring them for their campaign. This was a huge economic as well as moral blow to a small office like Vrijesh’s.
So today he had taken it upon himself to go meet this Kabandh Kher and put across their case. This man was ugly with all the scars on his face and despite Vrijesh’s half an hour long impressive soliloquy just kept staring at him and then quietly handed him back the files.
In the corridor Vrijesh furiously thrashed the heap of papers at the wall, there it was an old newspaper clipping marked in red.

Indore, 9th May, 1995,
In a stray accident in a local park at Mahavir Nagar today a 6 years old was crushed under a large iron slide. He was discovered by the gardener hours later in a critical condition. Residents had earlier also complained of older boys from neighboring colonies harassing the younger children and destructing the park property.
A nearby washerwoman says she had seen three older boys swinging and jumping on the slide a few minutes before the accident most probably occurred. The three boys are yet to be identified. The injured boy Kabir Kher, studies in Shishu Niketan and lives nearby.

“Kabir Kher” – Vrijesh instantly remembered that afternoon vividly, he, Raju and Mohan were there.