we see the shadow of a man walk deliriously through the night in side-alleys of Bombay… His shirt is sprayed with blood… Visibly addled, his hands brush past a bloodstained knife tucked in his pants and he freezes as his fingers glide over it… He sees again their faces, anguished and pained, but in all of theirs he vividly remembered hers... Calm, unflinching and staring... till the very end...
The man continues stumbling through the streets when just as easily, his knees give way and he falls on all fours… Filled with the strange detachment that fills you once you’ve suffered inhuman ordeals, he doesn’t bother moving... his body continues wilting under his gaze, he gives up and takes another deep breath... again he makes the mistake of shutting his eyes, again he sees her blank eyes... the subsequent horror consumes him and he starts retching…
Feeling relatively clear-headed, he sees the blood stains on his clothes and tears out of the shirt… fumbling through his pockets he finally finds a match and sets it on fire... praying in silent hope that the images burn away with it... Strange fumes begin to rise, he allows it to sting his eyes, strange retribution...
He stops near an abandoned water container and after trying to wash his limbs he finally gives up and pushes himself into it… Now drenched, the man shudders again and curses to himself as he continues drifting through the by lanes aimlessly…
Finally the fatigue catches up to him and he finds a deserted bench nearby and sits down… Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he rests his head on his hands and tries sleeping but can’t find any peace as his thoughts are still haunted by prior events… We hear tortured screams and pleas for mercy muffled with sobs and the man shakes himself awake… As his eyes regain focus he sees a man dressed in white standing before him, he looks on quizzically until the man repeats himself.
“Cigarette hain?” the man searches his pockets and tells him he doesn’t have any… The man in white smiles back and removes a pack from his own pockets and offers one to the man… The man hesitates but eventually takes one… The man in white tenderly chooses one for himself and as he lights both their cigarettes, he sits down besides the man…
The man in white begins talking about night-life in the city… He talks matter-of-factly about how the many multitudes live in cramped spaces each chasing a carrot-stick dream, each ignorant of the many others that share the dream and of these, the few that even come close enough to get a whiff off it… The man in white looks towards the man and notices that he isn’t really listening to him but continues just the same… He takes another drag and reflects on how things were when he had started out himself… ‘Not very different from the many masses that still flock about’, in fact he’s sure that if he looks close enough he might recognize some of the faces from the crowd… But there was one big difference between him and them… Nothing spectacular, just a fundamental dissimilarity…’ He looks again and asks the man if he knows what that is... The man shrugs disinterestedly, the man in white smiles warmly again and replies… ‘Rules... Not even rules really, a basic set of guidelines that ensure that the divine balance is maintained... Everybody gets ample opportunities to tide over all their troubles, the problem lies with people not realizing that once they’ve tipped the scales in their favour, they have to preserve the balance... Like animals they generally prefer overlooking the consequences...’ The man in white looks towards the man again and is somewhat satisfied to find him listening now... He continues, ‘take yourself for instance... You kept begging to meet me every time my men asked you for my money... They tried reasoning with you like civilized men but you were obsessed... You wouldn’t listen and finally they had to resort to force... But you still didn’t listen did you... Irony is that you finally got what you wanted, an audience with me, but as suspected, you wasted that too... I don’t really know why I waste my time with the likes of you...
The man looks on stunned as the man in white gets up and readies to leave... He tries saying something but the surge of emotion catches up... He sees the faces of his family again as they tried resisting his onslaught, helpless, confused, dying... Breaking down again he can only manage a gurgle for words... The man in white bends down and instantly his face morphs into a gentle smile... ‘However, being the fair man that I am, I'll exemplify what I’ve have been ranting about all along...’ He takes the last deep drag out of his cigarette and pointing towards it says, ‘did you know this supposedly cuts 7minutes out of your life... I figured that every time I take a life, I’ll balance it out...
The man starts shuddering but still can’t get himself to react vocally... The man in white continues, ‘I know you’ll probably say that it doesn’t balance but then again you’ll never know what all I could’ve achieved in the last 7minutes... Saying so, the man in white pulls out a syringe from his pocket and sticks it into the man’s neck... The drug reacts and he looses control over his muscles...
The man in white straightens himself as a car pulls up and sits into it while his minions deal with the limp man...
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