Samsaara : Devadoot

Another One Bites the Dust

A FEW MINUTES AGO

The hysterical yelling of the lady running towards the bomber startled me slightly as she ran past me. The bomber panicked as she ran towards him. A response which showed that he was not a hardened criminal. Not someone who's trained for hostage situations and suicide bombing.

This was a bad thing as the person could go to any extreme when cornered. His hands clenched onto the detonator firmly and his thumb moved close to the switch. His outstretched hand was a threat to the mother of the baby, but she was in no state of mind to realise this and kept running towards him.

I had to take action and I had to do it quick, but there was not enough time. His thumb was already on the trigger and his hand was trembling, perhaps to build conviction to press the button and accept his death. There was no way I would reach, unhand and overthrow him in such a short time, unless time stopped in its tracks for my sake. That was when I realised what I had to do.

My hand reached for the pin and promptly I spoke, "Dwara- udghataya."

Time slowed down to a stop, and the door split open. The woman running towards the bomber stood still and the tears falling down from her cheeks stopped mid-air. The bombers thumb got petrified and his trembling stopped. He stood there with a baby in his hands motionless. Now I had all the time in the world to take action.

Casually, I walked towards the scene to see what I can do to stop the detonation from taking place. On close review, I saw that the detonator had a small compartment for the batteries. I pried the detonator out of his hands and opened the battery compartment. There were two pencil size batteries inside it, which I took out and placed in the opposite direction. Then I put the detonator back in his hands.

Now I had to find a way to make the bomber lose his footing so as to avoid him from striking the woman. So I crouched down and untied the bombers shoelaces. I knotted all the four ends of the shoelaces firmly to one another to cause him to trip on his first move. Then I went to the baby who was dangling from the bombers other hand. The baby was wrapped in a thick cloth for warmth, but during the struggle which took place; its hands came out of the cloth.

If the baby was to fall now, there was a possibility for it to get hurt. So I took the baby out of his hands and wrapped it completely in the blanket tightly such that the cloth would be sufficient padding to break the fall.

Now all that was left was to knock the person unconscious to avoid him from struggling. So I took a clay brick which lay on the side of the footpath and placed it directly behind him. I approximated his height and placed the brick at a distance of his height plus another few inches to account for his back step.

Even if the brick did not hit his head it would still end up hurting him on his back hard enough to stop him from fighting for the next crucial few seconds. Once I was done with this I simply walked back to the place where I was waiting before and pulled closed the door by putting the key back into the light and turning it the other way. Surprisingly that worked. The vertical eye shaped door slowly closed and time regained its normal pace. The lady continued to run towards the man and he shouted at her, "Not one step further--."