Raining Sideways

Raining Sideways

by Alvin Puranam

"Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it" - Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Chapter 1 of 12

Locked in a British jail cell without so much as a stitch of clothing to hide my shame, I reflected how and why I ever got mixed up with such a woman.

Life is a journey, they say - sometimes the road is our only companion, our only true friend. And much of human happiness is illusory at best. This is what I found myself repeating silently, like a trite mantra, until passing out yet again.

My commute from Milan to London is anything if not routine.

Take the Milan city bus to the Villa San Giovanni train station, ride the M1 train to the Milano Porta Venezia Station, change lines to the S1 suburban railway service, take that all the way to Malpensa Airport, board the flight to Heathrow - then take the Tube to Green Park, change lines for the Jubilee northbound line, try not to miss the stop at St John's Wood, then walk two blocks to the hotel. With no delays, total travel time is eight hours.

Done it fifty times.

I recognize many of the ticket takers, lower-level staff, and food service personnel at the various legs of these business trips. They are all in their places. Like myself, do they concede that life, for its brevity, offers us select moments amongst meaningless repetition?

Endless processions of determined feet noisily shuffle down echoey corridors, troddling along, stepping in and out of trains and aeroplanes, to methodically await the next stage of their pilgrimage. Blank faces atop luggage-toting bodies, their suitcases stuffed with so many worldly possessions - enough to last a week or so. Perhaps my fellow travellers likewise retreat into the realm of private thought, to find a sense of home.

Occasionally I remember passengers from previous globetrotting jaunts. Women, almost always, for they draw in my attention. Or sometimes an older gentleman, if he has a distinguished air about him and his clothing is attractive. Funny how three countries and a thousand kilometres away I can identify people I've spotted previously, but don't really know.

On this trek, the Porta Venezia Station in Milan offers the finest selection of tea. Never imbibed quite at 'the elevenses' but who am I to stand on formalities? Moreover, I always know where I am along in my passage from Milan to London by the clothes the majority of people are wearing, as it predictably descends from elegant to scruffy, the closer I get to Britain - a cold island populated by cold people, surrounded by a cold sea, and formerly called an empire.

But history is neither for excuses, nor for revenge, despite the sardonic joke by a fellow Indian nationalist that the sun never set on the British empire because even God couldn't trust the Englishman in the dark.

For the record, I was born and raised in Bengaluru, or as more commonly known to Westerners, Bangalore - the Silicon Valley of India, the nation's third most populous city. My current residence, however, is Milano, in northern Italy. I made the transition about the time that Gordon Brown with his big clunking fist had thankfully just left office, and David Cameron was still finding his way at Number 10. Business trips these days take me abroad two weeks every month, usually to London, the headquarters of the firm where I serve as the Financial Adjuster.

This specific excursion will also include attendance at a wedding in Birmingham of a distant family member which I am obligated to attend, and possibly a pair of Wednesday evening cricket matches: the WANKERS and the HOLES.

So I expected something more this time.

Resting my eyes on uniformed schoolgirls always brings about a shameful uneasiness; is anyone else aware of this mortifying attraction that possesses me? And when they arrive, they arrive in packs. Their short skirts swing so freely - carelessly making a mockery of my underserved libido; strappy shoes over delicately stitched white socks easily whet my palate, as their soft-skin legs amidst a chorus of chirpy voices thoughtlessly prattle onward. Of diminutive stature and wispy frames, I am beholden to the youthful expressions of their neotenous countenances, which effortlessly beckon my lascivious gaze.

Fortunately, the eye-captivating appearance of the underage in uniforms doesn't cross my path too terribly often. Then the flight attendants sashayed by and here we are, all over again - except with painted faces, longer legs, and the clickety-clack of a resolute gait, whilst in heels they proudly paraded on newly polished floors through the check-in and waiting areas at Heathrow, then down the jetway.

They also travel in packs.

Summarily, it is down the escalators I myself go and across the yellow safety line, to find myself on the Tube - the London Underground, just a mere two hours away from the Danubius Hotel Regents Park and a freshly made bed to complete today's weary sojourn.

Advertised as a four-star central London hotel located proximate to three iconic landmarks: Lord's Cricket Ground, Regent's Park, and the renowned Wellington Hospital, it is quite pleasant, but like so many other lodgings.

A hotel can only provide a modicum of grounding, for home is where I find myself presently; the irretrievable past is always with me and the inescapable, but uncertain future, is forever before me. Out of my grasp.

Once settled into the Tube I realize that I am long overdue for a nap, and my mind wanders.

"Sir, are you remaining on this line or changing course?"

The Carriage Supervisor startled me, as I must have fallen asleep. Either way, subscribing to the adage there is not a thing as the wrong place, or the wrong time - we are where we are at the only time we have, and perhaps it's where we're meant to be, the metro continued plodding along. It briefly slid out of its subterranean cavern and tried to bask - however momentarily, under a late summer sun of London.

But this was not to be the case, for 'A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England,' to quote Kipling.

Looking about my carriage, I picked out a new passenger - a buxom late-20s woman with a very pleasant face, whom I distinctly recollect that I spotted previously riding on this same line perhaps six months prior. Her breasts jiggle quite noticeably to the rhythmic rocking of the train, and in vain I try not to stare - not to let her see the recesses of my eyes. Do ladies realize the arousing effect their womanly qualities have on men, perfect strangers, whilst on public transport?

But she and I are not complete strangers. I saw her several months back, and only now my memory is returning of that eye-catching experience. She wore long black trousers, with sharp creases, her footwear fully obscured from my view.

But my jiggly temptress didn't notice my piercing gaze then, nor today; she is eagerly enthralled with reading material of some sort. A softcover book so it seems. Pulp reading, tabloids and 'pop culture' - will the Brits ever be fully satiated with the escapades of their beloved Royals? Or is it a cookbook? The woman's inattention to her surroundings suggests to me an air of self-confidence and I discover my level of arousal rising, though I fight to keep my eyes open given the fatigue I am concurrently experiencing.

Shifting my weight to redirect my perspective, I spy the madam's legs and feet. Her choice of moderately high-heeled slip-on black shoes taunt me so - firmly planted on the carriage floor, covering the unquestionable sexiness of wickedly mischievous, finely pedicured feet. Delicately contoured ankles taper upward gracefully to shapely calves - tightly wrapped under clingy black hosiery, the shimmery radiance from its silkiness only eclipsed by the pin-point shine that emanates from the charms that playfully jingle-jangle on a solitary gold-chain ankle bracelet.

Her bosomy qualities aside, my seductress' body is neither thin nor excessive. The woman's face possesses brightly delineated facial features betraying a Latina heritage, high cheekbones, and her skin bears both a softness and a crispness to it, not unlike a new sheet on a freshly made bed, though this is a silly comparison.

The carriage was clearly absent her presence prior to my entry. Dressed in a white button-down blouse with what appear to be epaulettes, guardedly tucked under her overcoat, but only barely perceptible, and a dark mid-length skirt, dark tights, and dark shoes, I hypothesize that this constitutes a uniform.

Her feet, like the crooked finger of a consort inviting a virile man to lie with her, irresistibly coax me onward, and I - quite helplessly, must succumb to their charms. Lord Shiva himself could not fight such a thing.

My imagination wanders and I speculate how she smells - what is her scent, and my thoughts hearken to memories of Radha, an attractive but very cruel adult woman I knew and for whom I was helplessly sexually aroused, on many occasions, both in her presence as well as in the presence of other females, when I was just a boy.

The train click-clicks along, and regrettably, I must close my eyes.

In my dreams I am greeted by this same woman of mystery from the train - and indeed her scent is as alluring as her appearance. But this time she is dressed neck to ankles in a form-fitting shiny black costume, paired with equally shiny ten-centimetre high stiletto heels, and I understand her to be a dominatrix. The type that the West so readily produces.

Her shoes slip off and her feet are every bit as enticing as I envisioned.

In mirthful delight, Madam's words to me suggest that she and I are about to initiate a session - with her stockinged feet to meander where they will. I notice that my shirt is removed, and my trousers and underwear are dropped down to the floor, and that I am bound hand and foot. My face is fully-covered - other than for two cut-out eyeholes to observe her beauty and to witness her sexual cruelty upon my naked body, and specifically, my fully erect manhood, yet I fear that the headcover might slip off, or likewise should be removed by my tormentress.

The teasing commences - relentless touching of the woman's satiny smooth feet upon my 'shame-shame,' with carefully selected language, doled out sadistically through cherry-red lips that seductively evert and invert - words intended to further provoke me to sexual arousal, but without any possibility of release. I am driven to madness, the woman is now suddenly gone, and in my vision a bevy of mehndi-clad women's feet and ankles, undoubtedly Indian and bedecked in tinkling silver anklets and delicately crafted toe-rings, have taken her place.

"Sir, are you remaining on this line or changing course?"

Chapter 2 of 12

In the office adjoining the boardroom, designated for visitors like myself - and irreverently called the Bullocks Room, I set up my computer and continue the tasks awaiting me this visit.

The cramped and cluttered workspace is three metres square, sports a 1980s veneer-covered pressboard desk and three equally old, creaky chairs - a seating arrangement that not only dashes all plans to invite over a trio of mates for a four-man game of rummy, but also an unpleasant spot for anyone with a predilection for tidiness and order, exactly the sort of person who might be called upon to look over the financial books of this banking firm. Moreover, the upright back support of the primary chair - the one facing the desk, has its back to the window, which is unfortunate if whilst working, one might on occasion enjoy looking up to catch an elevated view of downtown Westminster.

This space is sometimes shared by three, but for today anyway, I have the room all to myself.

Upon the desk lies a small but serviceable lamp, a pen jar - which in three years I have never seen contain a single pen, scads of note-taking paper and an odd assortment of office accessories, including a mountain of miniature voltage converters, and a wind-up alarm clock.

Opening the desk, one finds a disaster of odd collectibles, but several replacement bulbs for the desk lamp - so venturing therein is not in its entirety a lost cause. On the walls rest a black and white photograph of the much-revered Mr. Bolyard, the founder of the firm, for whom the room is named - well, properly anyway, and several photos of the Chelsea Football Club, all in dusty frames.

In one corner of the room is an accumulation of mismatched filing cabinets, on top of which are a menacing large sloping pile of unsorted manila folders - filled with back-up paper documents of: receipts, departmental budgets, and financial statements, all requiring my attention. Next to the filing cabinets is lodged an outdated but functional copy machine - purported to double as a printer, and a waste bin that only seems to be emptied just prior to board meetings. In another corner sits a lonely coat stand, which by its appearance dates to the days of Sir Robert Walpole.

The office has just one window with which to see the world and is not at all the type of room one would suspect as being the place of hatching a sophisticated international money laundering operation, if in fact that allegation could ever be proven.

Sure, it was India that first invented and used the decimal place value system, expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols - each symbol having a place value and an absolute value. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated, until one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of antiquity: Archimedes and Apollonius, and has been used across the globe in every business transaction for the past thousand years, and I am a proud heir of that.

Perhaps my impeccable grooming and penchant for wearing Italian designer clothing and the requisite accoutrements of high-end watches and twenty-carat gold cufflinks - as well as donning a bowler hat, is all that sets me apart from any other Coolie, but even the lowest graduate from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore is referred to as 'Sir' - and has access to scads of confidential financial data from the world's largest banking institutions. Either way, the world is very lovely, and it's also horrible - and it doesn't care about my life or anyone else's.

I should place a call to Natalia. Despite any words on my part protesting that nothing is amiss - but rather, because of such an unnecessary statement, Natalia would be correct to surmise that any word coming from me midway through my visit as sufficient reason for alarm, for a woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty. I have become quite cross and feel ashamed that my emotions have got the best of me. I don't normally get my nose so out of joint, but as a point of consolation, however, I conjecture that everyone is mad on one point, but bloody hell, why can't this office have a pen?

Westminster provides a panoramic view of a nicer metropolitan experience, proud buildings amongst so many trees - it is all so beautiful and clean, large Victorian homes and a concentration of visitor attractions, and historic London landmarks: Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral.

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies, I suppose, and who amongst us ever understands how fortunate we are in our current circumstances?

Sitting down to resume my inquiry of dodgy financial transactions, thoughts of the mysterious British woman I spotted a week ago fill my mind, as they have since my arrival. Shall I ever see her again, and what to do with Natalia?

Perhaps I am one who loves not wisely, but too well.

It is not an antagonistic relationship that I experience with the London office either, but it is hardly all saffron and lotus petals. Lower-level workers are the most helpful, as well as a fellow Indian, a Bengali, who sees me as a role-model or benefactor of sorts. The much-repeated joke that one Bengali is a poet, two Bengalis makes an argument, and three Bengalis constitutes a political party is far from erroneous.

Nikhalas is also the Captain of our office cricket club, so despite my advanced age to the other members of our club, if I want to place in the middle of the order and not be stuck at Long stop, I would be well-served to reciprocate his respect. Nikhalas is also engaged, and heaven grant us patience with a man in love. Looking ahead, I purchased two wedding gifts this trip, to get a jump on things.

The Regional Office Manager, Roland, who displays good posture as only a public-school boy can, has asked me for a word, prior to me taking the mid-day meal. Likely this will transpire with Charles present, who is clever in his own way, but not someone with whom I converse too often.

Family members of all stripes comment that I am too small-waisted for a wealthy man, and I wonder if they know how poorly my marriage is going. I shall see some of them this weekend, for the wedding in Birmingham. At one-seventy-three I stand taller than most of my compatriots; clean-shaven and with facial features typical of a Bangalorean from south-central India, I have what Anglos call 'tree-trunk' hair, which I interpret to mean that it doesn't fly about with the slightest breeze, as does theirs.

The next four hours I spent reviewing suspect receipts and questionable ledger entries, the back-up paper documents - as well as the computer files and electronic bank transfers. Does it also extend to Frankfurt and Milan? When asked of my current tasks, I told curious passer-by office workers that despite the appearance of this omnishambles where I sit knee-deep in a cesspool of morbid boring financial reports, everything is as right as rain; I am just performing auditing formalities to tidy up the paperwork in the event that the U. K. Financial Reporting Council gets its knickers in a twist and sends the Goon Squad to do their worst. I know the ESFS standards better than they do, after all, and somebody needs to send those gormless curtain twitchers back to whatever bunghole they crawled out of.

I hoped that the hallway gestapo would be satisfied with my show of bravado, and not sense the hundreds of unauthorized data transfers I conducted, to a virtual computer - leaving no online fingerprints, nor see the rabble of personal notes I scribbled down in interspersed Tamil and Kannada letters, then folded up and coolly slid into my exotic caiman crocodile tassel split-toe loafers, as if I were conducting Cold War espionage at Checkpoint Charlie, or heisting the crown jewels.

The established break time arrived so I sauntered down the hallway to the other blokes, who were, as always, chit-chatting about sports. "How is Italy?" means the weather, but also football. Only Matthew and Nikhalas ever ask about my family, which is just as well under the circumstances.

In a hushed tone, as is his wont when talking to senior staff, Nikhalas confirmed the time and place for tonight's cricket match, against the HOLES, from Bowles, and made a special point of telling me, that just like last week, I shall be placed midway in the line-up.

"Sir, we're not expecting to suffer a collapse with you in there, but another chap is likely to be the wicketkeeper for tonight's match - unless his wife has other plans for him."

"Who is it?"

"Nathan."

"I'll be happy to stump so many HOLES."

Nikhalas said the same thing to me last Wednesday, and I ended up at wicketkeeper anyway. At my age I must try that much harder to keep up with the younger set. His fiancé will be there, as well as several others in her family. Always nice seeing fellow ex-pats whilst abroad.

Is friendship also an illusion, I wonder, like love - though not reaching the same mad heights, for people brought together by force of circumstances?

Matthew, Nikhalas and I take our mid-day meal together at a nearby Indian restaurant that they know I like, owned by a man from Kerala who doesn't believe that anyone should ever leave his establishment hungry. More than half of my meal always becomes take-away; I suspect that Matthew and Nikhalas put off going there until I was in country to join them. Over lunch, our discussion runs from Baroque compositions - Bach and Handle, to memories of local festivals back in India, and everything in between.

Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet; of all the stuff and nonsense.

As always, the ever-smiling Keralite proprietor himself brings the check to our table, and whilst the lads are still scratching about for their billfolds, I pick up the tab, to their predictable and courteous protestations.

"You think I can't adequately cook the books for an expenditure this miniscule?"

After a laugh, Matthew looks me straight into my eyes, hesitates a moment, then in what came across to be well-practised words, refers to me as a brick, that is, a fine and trustworthy fellow.

Back at the office I gaze out the window again, before sitting down for another six hours of work. It is all so beautiful. The irony of being a hero is that he who faces no calamity gains no courage - so what the devil made this Coolie in the crocodile loafers a hero in the first place?

I think about the wedding in Birmingham, the schedule, and notably the mehndi henna tattoos pre-marital ceremony, which I shall politely decline. Somewhere out there, well beyond the horizon, is that softcover-reading British woman, and a thousand kilometres further, is Natalia, possibly reading the same dribble.

That all my sorrows were joys.

Chapter 3 of 12

Out of the blue I received a call from my sister, Latika, four years my junior, that the Sagar movie theatre in Bengaluru that we both knew as children, had just been demolished. Frequently selected as the first theatre in the entire Indian state of Karnataka to screen what would later become box-office wonders, as well as a fair share of magnificently awful films, the property of that grand 900-capacity single screen theatre is now slated to make way for a shopping mall and a multiplex of 200-person theatres. So many happy times she and I spent there, often after a family outing down KG Road to and from nearby Cubban Park.

As is common for girls in India, Latika didn't move out of our childhood family home until marrying, and afterward, dutifully looked in on our parents and visited them frequently. In their declining years, she invited Father and Mum to live with her and her husband in their modest two-bedroom flat. Latika never expressed any ambition to venture out of India but is content to live and die mere kilometres from where she was born.

Conversely, I moved across the city to the tony suburb of Banashankari, or BSK, after landing a job with an investment bank, and took on many overseas assignments, principally to the U. K.

Believing that our call was pretty much wrapped up, I arose from the glass-top cherry wood desk at my Milan office, still mulling over tomorrow's presentation to be made at the weekly board meeting, whose members routinely display a blustery show of surprise and outrage in the face of unpleasantries.

"Mr. Puranam, your figures put us in a tight spot" - as if I were responsible for declining bond yields world-wide, a contracting international market, competition from other firms or the poor investment choices The Board themselves made, over the previous quarters.

Matters of regulatory compliance, forward looking projections, credit worthiness of potential takeovers: these are just rival opinions - and who do you think you are to contradict my assertions, is frequently the underlying tone when interfacing with The Board. A forum in which a body of rational minds is presented with facts relevant to prudent decision-making, then freely exchanges their ideas - of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis in order to tease out the ideal scheme going forward, comes naturally to very few.

It is disconcerting that board meetings, even in the banking industry, are a process of first counting noses to see who will support which side of the major agenda items - provided internally two days prior, then the requisite formalities of the meeting itself, followed by private post-meeting alliance-building.

But mathematics is a stubborn thing, and a nicely fashioned pie chart or line graph to visually communicate what mere words, that is, facts, somehow cannot, leaves the boys unable to say boo to a goose, and finally, more objective heads prevail.

It was fifteen past the ten o'clock hour when Latika's call came in.

Latika possesses a gentle, endearing spirit, and even as a young girl exhibited an uncharacteristically witty nature. Discreet and very private, Latika always had an affection for braided hair, which of course I - being ever rambunctious, pulled on multiple occasions. "Dear brother, this action is not a good look for you, and at your age I should expect something less juvenile," remains indelibly etched in my mind.

Latika was not through with our call, however, and went on to inform me that after a brief and seemingly mild illness, our father is dead. Two years previously she dispatched a similarly distressing call, when our mother died.

Immediately, Natalia and I made plans to fly to Bengaluru, to honour his legacy.

What do you say when your father dies, and how do you prepare for this? It is as though a generational layer of protection is broken and one is now left helplessly exposed to the vicissitudes that life brings our way.

Father held a series of government jobs; he was a paragon of virtue, but a man to whom I could never complain, as he himself never complained, no matter where he was assigned. On a disconcertingly regular basis he was away at work, or at home on a project. We were all to keep very quiet when father was at home working, or merely at home for that matter - because one way or another he was always working. Father built a distinguished career for himself, and we his family were quite obviously the beneficiaries of his sacrifices.

The news hit me, on a random Tuesday morning, at fifteen past the ten o'clock hour.

I had been away from my homeland for so very long and a visit to Bengaluru brought back many memories and associated emotions. Latika graciously put together an itinerary for the family gatherings, bore the burden and played the role of the genial and selfless hostess, wearing the mask that she often does that no one ever need be perturbed by anything.

To what degree can Latika's spirit rub off on Natalia? And what of my own spirit?

I am a Hindu because through the accident of my birth I was born one, but what does it mean to be a Hindu? There is no founder or prophet, no compulsory beliefs or acts of worship, no single sacred book, no obligatory credo. There are no binding requirements to be a Hindu - not even a belief in God although we have thirty thousand to choose from.

The tendentious, soul-searching question confronting me is what shall I do with my life. Who do you think you are? So whilst on this trip to Bengaluru, I made an appointment to visit a shrine and more pressingly, engage a spiritual master for a session of guided meditation.

After what seemed like an eternity waiting - and I feared that my maharishi had let me down, I was led to a musty room with an uncomfortably low ceiling, and greeted by a yogi regarded as an expert in tantric wisdom, and elaborate visualizations.

Each of us has a specialty, after all.

"I want enlightenment."

In measured cadence I was told that it takes a lifetime of dedication and careful reflection to achieve such a thing - but I was pressed for time, being on an impromptu holiday and all. For a nominal monetary offering, however, I could begin the journey to challenge this thing I suffer from called limitation, uncover the real truth over which I've projected a false identity, free myself of incompleteness and discover the nature of my true self, or Moksha.

Somewhere along the line I would access the universe's cosmic forces, Rita, or something, as well as smoke a hookah, and successfully be taken over by Samadhi, that is, pure awareness.

I would be carried away in a vision, and though it might be frightening, I need not be afraid. The spirits will protect me. A brief and somewhat comical ceremony ensued of lightly beating my shoulders and torso with sacred leaves that had first passed through the smoke of a particularly pungent and equally sacred votive incense, its stenchy variety specifically designated for this sort of thing. I then assumed the lotus position, or tried - anyway, and sat upon a veritable mountain of cushy pillows, soon finding myself deeply enveloped in their pillowy clutches.

Words are powerful drugs and the scent of the incense was strong also, but only Krishna knows what was in that hookah.

My mind wandered to British Raj rulership and my recitation of self-awareness commences:

I am commissioned at an outpost of the British East India Company and serve as the highest-ranking Indian amongst the entire subcontinent.

I am a Sepoy, a high caste Hindu soldier - otherwise known as a Raj. Of proper caste and of sufficient physical size, I have taken an oath of fealty, a shared honour with my ethnicity and my extended family.

I am a highly regarded overseer of my people - a veritable Gaon Bura, a troop commander in a well-drilled, and disciplined soldiery, directing my paltan, or platoon, providing necessary leadership and direction over the Gentoos, the native inhabitants of British India.

I am outfitted in a distinguished crimson neck to thighs tunic, held by a wide, loosely pleated sash, over a white high-collar shirt - made of the finest silk, atop rugged light-coloured calf-length breeches, and military boots.

I am donning an elaborate pagri, or turban - fastened in place with a dazzling jewel-studded sarpech - an ornament of no less prestige than those from the very courts of the Moghuls.

I am armed with a musket and a dagger, function as an infantryman, confidently riding upon an indominable war elephant.

Dismounting the pachyderm, I enter an exquisite tent filled with elaborate rugs, tassels, and tapestries. But then I am told to tidy up and I realize that I am suddenly transmogrified into an Anglo British Officer. I see myself among the other uniformed Brits in India with the accoutrements they so readily enjoy and smoking a hookah.

Suddenly all becomes a mish-mash of: broad white India pattern sun helmets affixed with brass emblems, oft draped with puggaree - thin muslin scarfs worn for neck shade, bullion badges of appointment, crossed Union flags and chevrons, gilding brass collar badges and shoulder titles, scarlet frocks and military medals proudly pinned over the left breast, epaulettes flanked in braided gold-work, ceremonial shoulder cords, piping adorning cuffed forearms, bold metal buttons, pleated breast pockets, scarlet worsted sashes, polished boots, kits and equipment.

In full military uniforms, we are seated before a dancing Indian woman. The recessed sound of flutes and an equally subtle, yet repetitive Indian rhythm is playing, and we are captivated by the grace of the woman's motions, for her beauty is entrancing.

Arrayed in splendour, she is fully clothed, wearing a lehenga choli - a hip hugging, flared floor-length skirt and matching fitted blouse ensemble, with an equally stylish chunri - a long brightly coloured cloth, bordered in lace, wrapped over her shoulders and trailing down her back. The garments display intricate and exquisite embroidery - and are lavishly inlaid with rose cut diamonds and other precious stones, in patterns of symmetry, repetition and orderly progression. In their design and colour, they aspire to fully embrace the aesthetic ideal, reaching perfection in both form and substance.

It is an outfit that so beautifully outlines a woman's shape, elegantly balancing the twin feminine urges to conceal and reveal, augmented by splendid bangles, bracelets, armlets, waist ornaments and garlands of strung pearls. She wears a jewelled headband, a light catching sarpech, keenly prominent on her forehead. The elaborate jewellery that she displays incorporates an abundance of precious stones and carved sandalwood - chiefly fashioned in serpentine designs and flower motifs.

The woman's hips are adorned with a series of delicately crafted intertwining golden chains, that gracefully move with her - delicately gliding over her body as she slowly sways before us. The woman is lovely: a vision of perfect, sublime beauty.

Awaking from my stupor, I clearly understand the meaning of the vision: the roles of the Indian Sepoy and the British Officer that I subsumed, represent British rule over the Indian subcontinent during the colonial period of the British Raj. The woman, of course, is India herself.

Chapter 4 of 12

In the 12th century, David of Oxford divorced his barren wife to marry a widow, only to himself die months later. A third of his fortune was exacted toward the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, as he didn't leave any heirs, which all things considered, was quite decent of him.

It's always been the prerogative of the wealthy to govern everything but their passions.

Emerging from the London Underground at Westminster Station in my bowler hat - past an orderly row of book shoppes, pubs and eateries - pedestrian filled sidewalks wash over with the ebb and flow of the smartly dressed, the dishevelled, and everybody in between. Rucksacks, fanny packs - more properly called waist purses, and rolling luggage with their handles fully extended, traverse down meticulously clean pavements. Clearly labelled waste and recycle bins dot the way, as do iconic old-fashioned red phone booths, although unnecessary in this heralded section of London's cityscape, or anywhere else in the modern world.

Streetlamps aflutter with decorative banners pass my attentive gaze overhead - fast walkers and the leisurely navigate through one another, the barrage of humanity; shoppers tightly carry their purchases - a plethora of people on the move. Where could they all be going?

Bright red double-deck busses chortle by. A multitude of people and yet a solitude.

I charge forward - briefcase in hand, crossing by bus signs, brilliantly planted trees, metre-high metal guard-posts to protect pedestrians from errant drivers, double sandwich-board sidewalk advertisements, rows of parked bicycles, and the ubiquitous map-in-hand tourists who ask directions - and God only knows what language or accent will come out of their foreign mouths.

Buildings, one after another effortlessly rise six stories high, with an occasional ten story building here and there. In the near distance, twenty-story luxury flats unavoidably exert their commanding presence.

And then there is Westminster Abbey herself, a beacon of beauty, far away yet ever near.

Finally, standing before a grand brick and stone building - its sliding pane windows gleaming under an atypically bright November sky, and when the sunrays hit it right, an equally sharp glare emits from a luxurious rooftop atrium atop the building's four stories, I've reached my destination.

Two months have gone by since my last visit to London. Frankfurt needed me, Milan needed me, and London couldn't wait any longer. Oh those jokes about 'banker's hours' - does anyone seriously think that actuarial tables take a respite, or that on a whim bonds suspend their expiration time-periods? Sooner would the Tower Clock in London - or Big Ben, as foreigners so familiarly reference it, cease ticking before the financial industry would dare to stop dead in its tracks, if even for just a moment.

I explained to my sister Latika that a generous inheritance will be evenly split between the two of us, in six-month's time, or once the matter passes through the lethargic Indian bureaucracy.

Much of father's money was invested under my personal management, following a more conservative asset allocation model than my own, but its return is still noteworthy. In response to Latika's subsequent inquiry, I suggest a more aggressive investment strategy for her funds than that of Father's - as she has an extended time horizon before her, and therefore, a higher risk calculation.

For the past two years Latika's husband has openly expressed his ambitions to purchase a boat, but I suppose that no one's father ever died at a particularly convenient time.

Not a large boat, just a little something to get away.

Who could object to a man sailing away on a boat, to escape his problems? Ironically, the time and tide wait for no man - but we all await the time and tide.

When we were little children, and Latika was well into that age when she could retain childhood memories, Father took us for a boat trip on Nagawara Lake. Following his two-year job assignment to a faraway city, we returned for a sunset cruise as a celebratory commemoration of sorts, moving back to elevated Bengaluru, back into our former house, and back to our former lives.

The lake adjoins a park - a serene landscape of statues, shrubs and flowers, fountains and greenery, dedicated to that thoughtful renegade Lord Buddha. We cruised back and forth upon the lake, so many times, back and forth, until the park closed, and we were asked to leave.

Once the financial settlement of father's estate is distributed, I can easily retire. Latika and her husband, with less accumulated wealth and greater ongoing expenditures that comes with raising four children, will still have to work, boat or no boat.

Leisure and inheritances invariably seem to go together like a house on fire, and I have Lago Maggiore in Milano for my fanciful nirvana of sailboat bliss, should I decide to retire from all responsibilities and commitments, resign myself to restful repose, far from the workaday routine of: hotel living, public transport, and the interminable conflicts of chasing down fiscal discrepancies and mismanagement at three banking offices strewn across Western Europe.

My forensic deep-diving into the firm's financial records has turned up an unusual number of modifications to their quarterly statements - unsupported journal voucher adjustments, largely unreported off-sheet fund transfers of debt instruments, which portends of either impending financial insolvency, or potentially a money laundering scheme.

People only follow their inclinations, and sooner or later, find their reward or retribution. That's the natural law of life.

I estimate that the corruption could be as high as one-hundred million Euros, which if true and although criminal, is a clever operation in its own way. A wry smile crosses my face. If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

Regardless, in six-month's time, when the inheritance transfer is made, I can walk away, because after all, who needs this? If the gormless curtain twitchers at the FRC didn't discover the scheme, why is it incumbent on me to blow the whistle on things? But keeping my options open, as well as perhaps in order to prove my non-culpability should an investigation ever be launched, I've copiously documented all that I've unearthed.

Oddly, I should probably thank cruel Radha for this, my Tuitions Teacher, what Westerners would call a Tutor - for instilling in me an unwavering drive for perfection, despite the severe methods she employed to achieve this, and the sexual humiliation I was forced to endure under her stern and lascivious watch.

But time marches on.

Cricket season ended; we are now in football season, and tonight following work, the London office is once again pitted against the barristers from Bowles. Designed as good-natured competition to develop personal relationships with professionals in a disparate line of work, the main conclusion I have drawn about those in the legal profession is that, other than Jacob Chesterfield - who possesses all of the vices I admire and none of the virtues I dislike, barristers are largely all mouth and no trousers.

The first quality needed is audacity, and when you must kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. Herein, Jake the Snake - as he is openly called, serves as an inspiration to us all, for if there were no HOLES, who would invest with the WANKERS?

Don't be afraid, Alvin - we won't make a Barrister out of you, not whilst there's an honest trade yet to be learnt.

Chapter 5 of 12

At that veritable hornet's nest of public conveyance known as Victoria Station, whilst en route to the Danubius hotel, quite unexpectedly, I finally met my mysterious, satin-soled, big-breasted British woman.

How much my life has changed since the last time I laid eyes upon her. I have been to Bengaluru, Frankfort, Milan, and now back to London. Why does she vex me so and what secrets does she possess? With boldness as my friend and following the well-worn saying that they do not love that do not show their love, I resolved to approach my Desdemona straightaway, and speak to her plainly, momentarily clinging to the conceit that it is not the stars that hold our destiny, but rather, it is in ourselves.

Purposefully stiffening my neck such as not to excessively bounce my head, as I am told that Indian men frequently do, when animated, and believing that no legacy is so rich as honesty, I dove in.

"How do you do? Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Alvin and I've spotted you several times on public transport, and for the longest time I've wanted to meet your acquaintance."

"My name is Sandra."

Donned in apparel consisting of a charcoal-coloured cold-weather overcoat that largely obscured the features of her bosomy figure, madam's choice of outer clothing does not entirely keep my eager eyes from catching glimpses of a crisp white button-down blouse - the points of its starched collar confidently jutting outward.

Don't we all wear a uniform, of one type or another?

Balancing the twin feminine urges to conceal and reveal, Sandra's navy-blue knee-length skirt gives way to matching tights, over shapely legs, down to delectably contoured ankles, and finally to smart black newly polished shoes with just a high enough heel to leave me slightly salivating and place a twitch in my trousers.

There's a good girl, I thought, yet here I am with an evil heart.

Sandra's handshake is gentle, and her voice and accent are posh, cold, and arrogant - but with a melodic, sonorous quality. It is a pretty voice, but as expected, is inextricably saddled to a pretentious air of presumed superiority. After all, she's British.

My family informs me that my Indian accent is waning. Moreover, whilst in London I make it a point to respect the Brit's desire for greater personal space than is common for Indians, and I routinely add a second helping of soap and shampoo to rid my body of excessive curry smells, as is said is the case for men from my part of the world. It permeates the clothing and seeps into every pore and thread. I regard myself as am ambassador of India, and the first condition of understanding any people is to smell them.

We walk through the station together to her line, and unable to control my curiosity, I obliquely ask Sandra about her employment, and she is purposefully vague - as only a Brit can be. I am careful not to be too intrusive, as only an Indian can be, and do not remark on her epaulettes or the uniform nature of her clothing, albeit the top of which is almost entirely covered as if it were something shameful.

Beauty is a cruel attribute, and how prodding would it be to comment on a woman's clothing that she has tucked away under her overcoat, that a gentleman wasn't meant to see? The better part of valour is discretion, but like a nosey bugger, I surreptitiously account Sandra as twenty-nine years of age, based upon her offhand statement that she was readying herself for her twenty-first birthday party on the day of the 7/7 London bombing, in 2005.

My mind wanders, as it frequently does, and I fantasize leaving Natalia and raising a family with Sandra; she is young enough to give me children and strikes me as anything but frigid, nor is she one of those unprepossessing horse-faced women that England so frequently turns out.

Sandra stood upright; her heels planted with strict pertinacity.

I am a schoolboy, unclothed and kneeling before my Tuitions Teacher, who with mehndi-clad feet and ankles now towers over me. Completely stripped before a dominating adult woman, her hemline at eye level, my resolve is to dismiss a budding erection that mischievously rises upward - far larger and harder than I thought imaginable, betraying my uncontrollable sexual attraction to a woman twice my age.

You have an evil eye, Alvin, and a very dark soul.

Radha's house was a fifteen-minute walk for Suresh and me, obligating us to cross the government's girls' school yard, to study the Tamil language after our regular classes were over for the day. The home was quite small with only basic furniture spattered upon a mosaic floor. A medium-sized living room with an undersized table and half a dozen foldable chairs served as the girls' study area; Suresh and I received our instruction in the master bedroom, sitting before a dressing table beset with talcum powder, a mirror, and a comb.

Father's two-year stint, an assignment to a faraway city - at a much lower elevation, a little drier but a whole lot hotter than Bengaluru, compelled the family to move across the Indian sub-continent. Consequently, I was thrust into learning Tamil - one of twenty-two official languages of India - a curly script with no bearing to my native Kannada language.

Once Suresh's father was transferred elsewhere, I was the lone boy at Radha's house. Do some professions select their personnel? Does punishment select its subjects? Moreover, do children choose their parents and some potential parents are so evil that they never get chosen?

Either way, one-on-one learning is demanding, and Radha liked it.

In her late twenties, Radha's beautifully vainglorious face was framed by sculpted mid-length dark hair, their ends playfully dragging across her sizeable chest, purposefully mocking me, her young naked male captive. Resolute lips, eyes piercing and unflinching - highly pencilled eyebrows, all accentuated Radha's tightly authoritarian nature, juxtaposing a flippant and careless, capricious demeanour.

A single error on a page-long essay yielded a red mark on the paper, a multitude of painful red marks across my bare buttocks, and a cruel, harshly placed insult.

"Assume the bendex pose, vinainar. You know you deserve it."

Radha's appearance bordered on glamourous, but there are also books of which the back and covers are by far the best parts. As a boy just entering the sadistic clutches of puberty, I had no idea about sex or sexual attraction, but naively believed that girls were just a different species from boys. Furthermore, I was born in the twelfth month of the eligible period for class ages, making me the very youngest of my class - then I was advanced one year in my studies. Consequently, my maturity was substantially below that of my peers.

Some have commented that India's present concept of morality isn't really Hindu at all; it is a legacy both of Muslim invasion and of the superimposition of Victorian prudery on a people already puritanized by purdah, and this is currently meted out in rural Indian communities by murga, or other humiliating punishments, occasionally performed in private, but most often carried out for public viewing.

Radha's undeniable beauty was augmented with an unmistakeable streak of cruelty, which to my adolescent eyes scared me to death. Sometimes I thought that following her daily shift of teaching at the girls' government school, when Radha returned home to be a Tuition's Teacher, she changed her outfit into something sultry, just for me, particularly after - through my carelessness, the phonograph and radio were stolen from her home.

Following that incident, my lunch money was appropriated, and I was summarily stripped naked by Radha every afternoon, because someone had to be punished, notably within the territorial context of house-as-classroom, and what better way to see if a boy has an evil heart or is looking up a woman's dress, as well as to validate a woman's own sexual appeal, than to strip the boy naked and watch his budding manhood helplessly bounce up and down whilst towering over him, high heels planted with strict pertinacity.

Some images remain imprinted in a memory forever.

Jolted back to the present by the rush of a train - her train, in her mellifluous voice, Sandra asks in which part of London do I live.

St John Woods, work as a banker in Westminster. But her train is already here, and with no time for contact information to be exchanged, we each hurriedly state that it was a pleasant conversation, look forward to another, then just before charging off on different lines, in different directions, Sandra impetuously kissed me on the cheek.

"Good-bye, love."

It was the first physical act of affection I had received from a woman in nearly twenty years.

Is it a mistake to look too far ahead - only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time, and when shall I ever see this woman again? But fate toys with all of us, past and present, and should Sandra and I someday have a child together it would be beautiful and have tree-trunk hair, and if a boy, would most certainly play cricket.

Perhaps then the English team could finally win a World Cup.

Chapter 6 of 12

Two days past, the London weather turned nasty - a barrage of wind and rain, but now, the precipitation has cleared and I find it one of those days when sun shines hot and wind blows cold, when it is Summer in the light, and Winter in the shade.

This is my travel day back to Milan; Heathrow seems quiet today or perhaps it's just my melancholy raising its ugly head over an unrequited desire for the mysterious Sandra - an angelic apparition who regularly haunts my waking dreams. The very thought of her stirs up my passions and befuddles my otherwise rational nature. But alas, I return to a loveless, lifeless frigid woman who entertains the idea of sex about as readily as lawyers like the idea of working pro bono, she won't discuss it, and she won't discuss why it is that she won't discuss it.

One can refute assertions, but who can refute silence?

Of the European cities where I am assigned to serve as the Financial Adjuster and oversee the banking operations between the firm's three branch offices: London is the coldest and rainiest, Frankfurt more temperate, and Milan - the finest of all, Natalia's disposition notwithstanding. What can be said about a creature who goes to his doom with such a free heart? Shall I ever speak to Sandra again, and if so, where shall our relationship take us?

But everything has now gone wonky.

Through several months of secretive cloak and dagger investigation of the firm's financial records, surreptitiously gathered - primarily at the London office, I have resolved that illicit bank transfers have been purposefully conducted, between fifty or sixty off-sheet funds, resulting in 100 million Euros gone missing. I am quite sure of it, and suddenly, I feel emboldened to be a whistle blower. I doubt that anyone at the firm suspects that I am on to their 'banking irregularities' - as they are so delicately referenced in polite society; better not tip off the FRC until I get all my ducks in a row, lest I be sacked - or worse, made the guilty party for cocking a snook at the whole damn corrupt system without sufficient backup data.

And is tipping off the FRC the best scheme? An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. And what awaits me?

India was not led to independence by a saint with his head in the clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet firmly on the ground. And to badly misallocate a well-known quote from Gandhi - it's Do or Die. For when one is seized with a passion for change, one must leave behind all normal life and habitual modes of thought, because of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.

Today's run through Heathrow includes no impromptu parades of giggly schoolgirls to tantalize me with shades from my past - short pleated skirts thoughtlessly fluttering over sweet-smelling, soft white cotton panties, but my mind is still prone to wander where it will.

I envision my Sandra dressed in something resembling a Governess' skirt - but so short that it's only purpose could be to provoke a boy to sexual arousal - and it is quite snug. As she traipses across the room, her round curvy bottom sashays back and forth with the intrepid confidence that comes with knowing that the display of her sultry self is sufficient to sexually charge any male anywhere, to an uncontrollable full erection, and subsequent ignominious self-induced ejaculation. Adorned in shimmery hosiery and atop inordinately elevated high heels that make her hips sway seductively, and cruelly, she jaunts forward toward me, her youthful prey.

"You know what you need to do, wanker boy."

The Sandra of my fantasies possesses a haughty, capricious look - harshly intoning such a humiliating directive, to a boy half her age, through artfully painted lips, as I am forced to do what my adolescent body so feverishly desires, but with nothing less than the deepest shame imaginable.

"You're going to do it, and I'm going to watch you."

My flight is now boarding.

How did my childhood experiences - the spectres from long ago, shape who I am today, and how did I get so emotionally mixed up with this woman? Quoting Shakespeare, as I often do when unable to form an original thought for myself, we know what we are, we know not what we may be.

Or on a more esoteric and pessimistic level, do we become what we detest, or detest what we are becoming?

There is also, quite discreet, news that the mercurial bride of my extended family in Birmingham is several months along in her pregnancy, so the wedding I recently attended in that foul, crime-ridden shit hole metropolis of central Britain - filled to the brim with Brummies: native-born underachievers, chavs, and hood rats, as well as every third-world slacker, could not have been delayed. After all, the second child takes nine months - the first child takes no time at all.

Dutifully, I sent my wedding gift ahead to their home, as is the Indian custom.

For those who are unaware, Indian wedding ceremonies typically last three days: the first day is the Ganesh Pooja - a private bridal party for immediate family; the second day is the Mehndi Ceremony, where intricate temporary henna tattoos, often in serpentine or floral patterns, are applied to the feet and hands of the bride and her close female friends; the third day is the Main Ceremony with its many components - the most festive is inarguably the Baraat, or mini-parade of the groom and his entourage. To the beat of a dhol - an Indian drum, the groom spectacularly arrives at the ceremony, riding in on a white horse.

I was only in attendance for the third day of festivities, which regrettably, did NOT include a white horse - but rather a white stretch limousine, and then, I sought to avert my prurient gaze from the delectable mehndi-clad feet of so many stunning women, all of which are positively begging to be inexorably kissed, licked and sucked till the cows come home.

To kneel before them, remove the kaalungura, or silver toe ring with my teeth, and graze upon the loveliness of such a bevy of henna-clad ankles and feet - particularly should they be adorned with paizeb, a chain link anklet with uncut diamonds set in equally shiny incrustations, sensually accessorized with miniature bells that provocatively tinkle with every step of high-arched bare feet, would be sheer bliss.

Ladies' feet are quite the fetish for me - whilst I was a boy, cruel Radha, and her equally malevolent seventeen-year-old niece Sheela instilled this disquieting predilection in the darkest recesses of my soul, perhaps discovering and cultivating a nascent weakness of mine, as an afterthought of murga punishments.

Radha and Sheela typically wore the Tamil dress known as a chudidar - a rigid and richly embroidered, calf-length dress, fashioned with a colour-coordinated knees-to-calves pattern of broad horizontal stripes. Fabricated with a satin finish - or silk for the wealthy, it is modestly worn over Lycra leggings or more commonly bunched-at-the-ankles ladies' trousers, and often accompanied with a dupatta, or head scarf.

However, neither of these two vile women employed such modesty, but shamelessly exposed their bare legs, ankles and feet to a boy they kept as a naked plaything - all over my negligence to lock a door at the first sight of a Chariot Festival - a festival replete with brightly coloured, fifteen-metre tall wooden floats pulled by hundreds of costumed devotees, in a city all so new, so strange, and so magical to me.

Through the trajectory of my life, growing up in India, I've drawn a conclusion that males worldwide perhaps also reach: every female possesses an irresistible sexual power over the male libido - an inborn female supremacy, facilitated through the sensuous display of her semi-revealed, ostentatiously adorned, yet interminably unavailable body.

Women want men to wear the pants because it's the women who control the man's zipper. Some women keenly relish the sexual authority they possess, imposing the stratagem quite cruelly. Get him worked up, desperate, and aching - suffering a little, then suffering a lot.

I've come to terms with who I am, and how I arrived where I currently find myself. It was not a pretty journey. Moreover, if a man believes in truth and cares enough to obtain it, he should be prepared for the suffering that comes with this realization, the depth of his personal failures and shortcomings, as well as the acknowledgement of his inalterable history, however degrading this epiphany can be.

The murga punishment is frequently subjected upon male schoolchildren by teachers and headmasters. Colloquially named as the chicken pose, and common throughout rural India, murga is a public form of humiliating punishment, effected by forcing the punished to bend as far forward in a squatting pose, wrap one's arms around each leg such as to grasp each ear, and hold that pose indefinitely.

Occasionally, the boy's trousers and underwear are dropped to the ankles - accentuating the shame with the added embarrassment of public nudity. Straps or switches are sometimes savagely applied to his uncovered thighs or bottom; other boys remain oddly indifferent, although passer-by girls greet the proceeding with contemptuous giggles.

As is the case in much of Indian society, there is never any talking back or refusal to figures of authority - compliance is always assumed.

I philosophize that although murga caught on as a public shaming to reduce the mischief of active schoolboys - due in part to an inordinately underfunded educational system, and oversized classrooms, in urban areas it became shunned, as India continued to modernize. For a quick historical reference to the unsatisfactory state of Indian education in 1930 - the vespers of British Raj, the New York City school system spent more on education than the whole of India, although India had thirty times their population.

Sometimes there is no one riding in on a white horse to save you.

I think about my identification as an ex-pat Indian, living and working in Europe. But who knows where the road leads, or how anyone of us could have come to anywhere other than where we are in our current situation? India birthed the Buddha, repelled Alexander the Great, developed mathematical script, invented chess, built the Taj Mahal, deeply enriched the British Empire, gave the world Gandhi, operates the world's largest filmmaking entity, and runs the world's largest democracy.

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

The India that the British East India Company conquered was no primitive or barren land, but the glittering jewel of the medieval world and was left financially decimated after British rule. Indians paid, in other words, for the privilege of being conquered by the British, and Britain would fight Germany for doing to Poland what Britain had been doing to India for nearly two hundred years.

The British public is woefully ignorant of the realities of the British Empire, and what it means to its subject peoples; for those who know only England, know not England. The British in India never comprised more than 0.05 per cent of the total population, but ruled nineteenth-century India with unshakeable self-confidence, buttressed by protocol, alcohol, and a lot of gall.

It doesn't seem quite fair that they had an empire and we only possess a sub-continent.

Moreover, I find it mildly amusing that England is yet to win a cricket World Cup, although its former colonies have, in some cases multiple times, and now there are stirrings from Prime Minister David Cameron of a possible referendum on Britain leaving the E. U.

Chester Zoo attracts more visitors than Windsor Castle, but I suppose that a people always end by resembling its shadow, or perhaps we are all just islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.

My rambling thoughts are even getting too much for me to bear - as if fighting for primacy amidst so much turbulence, and my aeroplane is now ready for push off.

After rising into the lower reaches of flat-bottomed stratocumulus clouds, mist envelops the aircraft's wings, briefly, till they emerge again, unscathed, above the puffy white formations that later obediently sit below, in quiet submission. Thinly streaked blue and white skies shine overhead; the cliffs of Dover boldly ascend from the coastline, the Channel beckons, and French farmland looks very much like the British.

Roads are clearly visible amidst a quirky hopscotch of partitioned green fields. The aircraft deftly navigates through a criss-cross of crisp angularity, the Swiss Alps, jagged peaks, and deep ravines - over the land of chocolate, until long waterways and a tree-rich environment of lush greenery signal the Italian border.

The descent is nearly complete. Back to driving on the right side of the road.

Chapter 7 of 12

Wet sidewalks, no longer iced over but still requiring mindful footing, extend before me past a tidy succession of eateries, pubs, and book shoppes in downtown Westminster. Images of Father Christmas, one after another, as well as curly garlands of plastic holly and unspecified red and gold décor abound in each merchant's window. Strings of miniature lights draped over miniature trees - twinkling ever so festively, further seek to lure in holiday shoppers.

Overhead water droplets freely fall off every tree and building as the wind strikes them; it is not raining formally, but informally. Christians will soon commemorate the birth of their Messiah, the official sunset now occurs before the nobility among us take their 4:00 PM Afternoon Tea, and every banker is quietly contemplating how sizeable his end-of-year bonus will be.

I am back in the only European nation where they still drive on the left side of the road.

Emerging from the London Underground at St. John Woods station I am immediately accosted by a squad of solemn police officers, who quickly surround me and take my brolly and briefcase; their leader summons me to come with us and don't stir up any trouble - wherever that may be, and what trouble might I hatch up, slick sidewalks, twinkly lights, my anticipated obscenely large end-of-year bonus and all?

I am taken to a waiting police motorcar, driven to their station, booked, and photographed. The Custody Sergeant, a tall man with steely blue eyes and sporting the thinnest of beards, assigns me to a chubby Indian woman - apparently relegated to clerical duties, but nevertheless carrying a pair of metal handcuffs on her belt, and an equally shiny metal whistle fastened to her uniform. The Indian woman, whose round face is bereft of jewellery, lipstick or any trace of emotion or evidence that she so much as possesses a soul, is to fingerprint and swab me.

As I am about to be led away, the Custody Sergeant remarks over-the-shoulder to a much younger bloke, "get his clothing."

Amid unnervingly long gaps of unbroken eye contact from an insipidly expressionless face, a pair of unattractive female hands mechanically proceed through the steps of grasping and fully extending each one of my fingers, and one by one, rolling their tips perfunctorily across a lighted scanning device.

No man who has been forced to submit sexually to a woman can ever look at a woman in authority, like a man who has not. Needlessly, it seems, the Indian female officer repeats the directive, given only moments earlier, by the Custody Sergeant to get my clothes for evidence, sardonically adding, "all of them."

Murga and bare-bottom punishments would be something quite familiar to her - spitefully striking the buttocks and thighs of young boys. She directs men, but maybe this Indian woman prefers her subjects inordinately young - forcing boys to drop their trousers to the floor - or confiscate them entirely, as might do a School Headmistress or Tuitions Teacher, then leave scores of red marks upon their bare buttocks, tittering merrily as the boys cried in pain.

Or am I projecting, as I suspect that she does as well, with the appendages of adult males that she handles so brusquely.

Passed off to a male guard, I am escorted through a short corridor leading to the Male Custody Suite, then, once in my cell, I am relieved of my clothing, all of it. In reverie, I reflect to memories of Radha's home, a prison, as I sit in another - this one of my own making.

Life is a journey, they say - sometimes the road is our only companion, our only true friend. And much of human happiness is illusory at best.

I've compensated for my dark childhood memories by remaining well-dressed and turning a perfectionist, safeguarding the sexual subservience I deeply feel toward women. The fantasy of female sexual domination, like a recurring nightmare, floods my waking dreams - to be stripped, as if a boy again, before a mature woman who forces me to serve her with my most prized body part.

Her need for domination demands this, as does my need for submission.

Through lavish clothing, high-end watches, twenty-carat gold cufflinks, and the demanding workload that comes with a richly paid employment, I wear the mask of a new identity - always hiding, always covering up. We all wear a uniform, don't we? But should a woman slap a set of handcuffs on me...

My one-piece orange jumpsuit is not forthcoming - the guards are unapologetically short for their special guests, so to prevent me from 'destroying evidence,' I lie naked in my cell.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

A translucent window consisting of unbreakable square glass blocks, fitted within an equally thick grey-metal lattice work, high on the back wall, bordering the ceiling, provides the room's only light - a one-man cell walled in by drab faded-yellow tiles, recently hosed down - and still carrying a discernible scent of disinfectant bleach. The floor is dark green, not entirely dry; a lone knee-high bunk runs the meagre distance of the far wall - a blue plastic-covered mat and accompanying head-pad dispassionately lay on top.

In the corner, to the left of the heavy sliding door - solidly locked of course, sits a two-in-one stainless-steel sink and toilet.

Thankfully, I am isolated from the other inmates, and with deep breaths, wonder who will next come charging through that cell door: might it be my chubby handcuff-toting compatriot, and if so, what would she do to me, in my state of naked vulnerability, and what authority would she reign over me?

More terrifying than the truth is the unknown, for there is no greater darkness than ignorance.

I awake, realizing that I have passed out in this dark place - but for how long? Spontaneously sporting a prominent erection, one worthy of a sexually-charged adolescent boy, I conjecture that the synchronicity associated with being locked in a jail cell, without so much as a stitch of clothing to cover my shame, uncertain over the vicissitudes of my fate, and the indeterminant ambitions of a certain female guard, have drawn this out of me.

Life, for its brevity, offers us select moments amongst meaningless repetition.

Several soggy chicken-scratch folded paper notes fell from my shoes whilst I was stripped of my clothing - all of it; these were eagerly gathered up by the attendant guards, certain that they were now well on the trail of uncovering the crime of the century. I suspect that on some level, the authorities know enough about the information I've accumulated regarding the illicit bank transfers, that they want to pin this on me, if only they could come up with some tangible proof.

Scotland Yard might call in the espionage unit from MI5 to try deciphering my scribbly coded oscillating Kannada and Tamil language, but good luck with that. Is this how my findings will be revealed: off-sheet bank transfers across Western Europe, ostensibly to launder 100 million Euros, hide the issuance of an equal quantity of new debt, or both?

And is the corruption only limited to the firm where I work, or part of a larger, worldwide plan?

How did you uncover this international money laundering scheme, Constable?

Several soggy chicken-scratch paper notes fell out of the Italian designer shoes of a Coolie we picked up, getting off the Tube at St. John Woods.

On a master spreadsheet within a virtual computer tucked away in the never-never land of cyberspace, I copiously sorted the debt category by churn rate on term-of-debt, and the reissuance of debt composition. Why is only 22 million in acknowledged debt reported, versus nearly 150 million in floated debt?

Admittedly, as a plan, it is clever in its own way.

Am I arrested because I knew of these wire transfers but did nothing, did not report them? I didn't perform any of the bank transfers myself nor steal the funds, but neither did I become earnest with this personal cloak-and-dagger investigation until laying eyes on Sandra and suddenly felt so emboldened, so alive. How and why did I ever get mixed up with such a woman?

When fantasies eclipse reality and pleasure mixes with pain, perhaps only then we are liberated to cast off our false selves and discover who we truly are, denying the destiny of the stars, talking back to the authority figures in our own heads - to not be where I'm meant to be, if I have any choice in the matter.

I want enlightenment, but I need not be afraid, because thankfully, the spirits will protect me.

Torn between these two worlds - these two competing ideologies, my inclinations, I envision the mysterious Sandra, now standing atop bespoke high heels, towering over my subjugated naked boy-body, whilst wearing a shiny skin-tight dominatrix costume, raining down a cracking leather strap over my bare buttocks as I am ingloriously sprawled upon a mosaic floor.

Someone had to be punished.

She taunts me with the same canorous Gori accent that vexes me so. Does the fantasy of my idealized tormentress make life bearable, an opiate that placates me to the loveless life I currently endure with Natalia - or feeds a perverted craving long ago imprinted on my soul from cruel Radha? Conversely, might the humiliation associated with this compulsion serve to help break me free from my dreadful routine, that I would venture off in a new direction?

Is this my reward, or is this my punishment? Am I staying on this line or changing course?

I feel like a rat in a maze - a maze with neither an entrance nor an exit, as if conserving mental energy and unthinkingly, I am following a script. My fragile self - bereft of accolades or fanfare, now naked to the world, is regressed to the state of a child, not knowing where the past stops and the present begins, and past is no longer prologue. Must I constantly raise Radha forth, in yet another incarnation of a recurring nightmare, as if to exorcize a malignant spirit - or am I venerating one, forever paying homage to my tormentress?

Worse than having a nightmare of being in prison, however, is waking up from that dream, and finding it to be a reality - that the prison isn't a mere nightmare. How many of us never wake up, don't realize the personal prisons that confine us, and are better off for our ignorance?

Chapter 8 of 12

Moving through life as if it were a giant chessboard - my orderly, balanced world has been abruptly upended. As a man who bears more scars than wounds, and despite my many personal shortcomings, like everyone else in society, this awoken dreamer is to be pitied rather than condemned.

Informed by the Guard assigned to my cell that I could speak to a Solicitor - or would be provided one phone call, my analytical nature - blunt and decisive, elicited me to call Jake the Snake, who that evening turned up.

Ignominiously returned of my clothes, and shuffled back to the main lobby, standing shamefacedly with bowler hat in hand, in the distance I discerned that Jacob was making a speech of sorts - a repository of obfuscation and pithy jibes, whose words became gradually louder, with every step I took toward the intrepid, lanky barrister.

"Don't be curdle with me," the Supervising Officer retaliated.

An imposing figure, bold and grandiloquent, in his lofty accent, Jacob continued eviscerating the officers present, still extending his arms forward - as if curating an argument in the House of Lords, then suddenly, seeing me, exclaimed, "John Steed - is that you?"

"Get on with it."

"If this is how you treat the finest of her Majesty's subjects, I would imagine lawsuits for unlawful arrests must come your way quite frequently - and consider yourself removed from my firm's holiday list, as well: lumps of coal have become so frightfully costly these days."

At this, the Supervising Officer brooked no response.

"Days before Christmas, you arrest a man, hold him without charges: is that any way to treat someone who wears a bowler hat? And you lack the common courtesy to take my coat or even offer me a decent cup of tea - what kind of jail is this? No one with a shred of dignity would ever stay here, willingly anyway, but I'm not telling you something you haven't heard before."

Summarily, Jacob and I departed the jail - but not before he launched one more jab at the officers. "Make sure you look after those other Crusties, probably picked up for tearing off mattress tags."

When you must kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

Jacob verified that I am not the terrorist that they suspected I was. Other than Jacob's blustery bravado, my release was unceremonious, on account of the officers' collective blunder. "I sorted it out, Alvin, so try to see the funny side."

Jacob had a point, but I still wonder if this was all a ruse over a suspicion from those skivers that I am hot on the trail that 100 million Euros are missing, and they are utterly mad to have the goods on me. I took Jacob into my confidence, briefly explaining the case, and asked if he would represent me - or at least serve as co-council on my behalf. First, I need to gather up all relevant information to present my air clad case.

"When I received your call I was just preparing my impromptu remarks for a meeting tomorrow before the gobby Board of Directors to whom I report, and now I shall have to start all over again, so before next fortnight you owe me a drink, and yes, I'm also going to bill you for my time, as well as the taxi fare to and from this hellhole, but you can count on my discretion, mate."

How far I've wandered from Bengaluru.

Back at the Danubius hotel, I learnt that the newly married couple of my extended family in Birmingham is indecisive whether they will live in India, or the U. K. The head-strong daughter met a man from a lower socio-economic sphere, and through the entire process of courtship and getting betrothed, she neglected to ever mention her desire to continue living abroad - the repercussions of which will determine if she remains residing in the shithole of Birmingham, or moves back to a country where half of the population shamelessly discharges their bowels outdoor.

How much further I've wandered from Madurai.

Prescient ponderings of human waste aside, my ever-rambling thoughts turned to cruel Radha, the tuitions teacher of my youth, who with mocking glee, forced me to remove my trousers and underwear, and routinely paddled my bare bottom before the girls, leaving me with nightmarish boyhood memories forever associated with staring down a dressing table topped with a lone canister of talcum powder and a comb, as I took my punishment. Trifles are what make the sum of life, and to think that long-ago India loosened itself from the shackles of the caste system, yet here we are.

Radha Teacher ordered me to make my erection go away. I tried pushing it down hard. She accused me of looking up the girls' skirts - she was furious, and I did not understand what she was saying. She used to say that I was an evil boy with very wicked thoughts of the girls and used to cane me on my thighs and buttocks until the pain caused the erection to disappear.

Radha Teacher said that having an erection in front of girls is evil: it meant that I had shameful thoughts about them. She told me that I was very nasty and was looking at the girls with an evil eye and she would cut off my penis if this happened again. She told the girls to be careful and not permit me to see under their skirts and that if any of them saw me with a woken up penis, it was an indication that I had very bad thoughts about the girls and they should inform either her or Sheela Akka.

The girls made a game of it and were just looking out for catching me with my shame-shame. I was permitted to continue the tuitions only after demonstrating to them that it was soft.

That is the first time I realized that there was a connection between the penis with girls. I was also taught that the erect penis was an object of shame that responded to women under their skirt and somehow, if this shame is displayed, I should be punished. My innocent mind concluded that women were superior as they could control my erections.

A favourite way for one of the girls to get me in trouble, when only both of us were in the room, was to sit in front of me and lift her knees. This invariably resulted in my penis rising to an erection in front of her - as I was always stripped naked by Teacher Radha, and the girl would call Sheela Akka, and then the punishment and humiliation would start all over again. I used to plead with her to stop exposing herself, but my protestations were futile, and in fact, part of the game.

Years of therapy and endless recitation hasn't lessened the memories of these 'events' - as clinicians obliquely call them, terrors that still reverberate about the echoey corridors of my restless head. These mental stirrings, these loquacious meanderings - will the stigma of my shameful thoughts from a haunted past be with me in perpetuity? Am I capable of a loving relationship with a woman, and can the effects of the systemic sexual abuse I suffered in my past ever be washed away?

Memories, like so many captured animals that repetitively pace the edges of their zoo enclosure, will never be set free. For a man is but the product of his thoughts, and am I so spiritually poisoned to be trapped by the mental machinations of my youth?

Set free from one prison, I still firmly reside in another, and I cannot see the funny side of it.

CHAPTER 9 of 12

Throughout the City on the Thames, after a watery vengeance fell from the heavens - a sopping retribution of cold libations, sufficient to permeate the clothing and seep into every pore and thread, or perhaps wash a man's soul clean of any impurities, the fog settled in, and with it, a horrific, frowsty metallic odour.

From the ghastly downpour this morning, to this afternoon's pea souper, water continues to gurgle in drainage systems unabated. The ensuing stench from so much flooding hovers over the city, lingering in waterlogged lethargy. But there is more to be got: the rain will be with us a few more days - or in my case, maybe the rest of my life.

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, but how to keep the flame from being extinguished? Amidst this wishy, washy watery world, I look in vain to spot my mysterious British woman.

Whilst in Angrez generally, even more so for Frankfurt than London, when the weather turns cold and wet, black shiny boots and accompanying fetish wear become standard apparel.

Drippy, slippery women whose visage, like watercolours, stains the memory and makes a marionette of my member - a mere puppet to their capricious female wiles; a bevy of rain-soaked female bodies constantly parade before me, each more palpably seductive than the last.

Enter my nightmare world of fantastical mental wanderings.

Shiny garments transform a woman's appearance, as well as irretrievably alter the relationship that men have with those shimmery bawdy sexpots who dress thusly. Taking on an esoteric quality of glossy iridescence, a mind game of tight and slinky textures to promote the sexual control she enjoys over men - with every woman a dominatrix of sorts, so much garish imagery clamours for male attention.

Like so many prostitutes but with no fixed prices, or specific services other than to whet a man's palette.

In India, women resort to henna foot tattoos; in the decadent West, following a downpour, otherwise statutory idols of female idleness are transmogrified into walking objects of worship, a resplendent shrine before the attentive eyes of so many male devotees - a masquerade party worthy of Marquis de Sade, with every woman's rainwear a domme's cape.

Teased by women at every turn - the full-bodied to the statuesque to every tawdry female in between, their new-found power leaves me crackers. Glistening goddesses tap these deviant fantasies of mine, and like provocative tongue gestures it's often just a matter of degree, and how can it be proven?

Descending so deep into my darkness - a slave to my intractable carnal nature, in horror, I momentarily imagine my own naked body on full display, in public view.

Revealing less than it portends to conceal, the imagery of women in shiny clothing, the shimmery encasement with a fetishistic wet look quality, draws my attention yet concurrently repels any possible sexual access I might have to their appealing, glistening bodies.

Even the creaky sound or plastic smell of PVC drives me to madness.

A man can't undress a woman with his eyes nor get past her protective clothing, like a second skin that functions as a surrogate female chastity device. And for a saucier look, randy women employ clear plastic raingear or brollies. High heels are integrated phallic imagery - symbolically trampled upon with every step.

Fight for that last breath, Alvin - don't give it away. I am but a cog in a huge and pitiless system - how do I atone?

Oh, just curse the rain!

CHAPTER 10 of 12

The criss-cross paths of determined walkers, so many blank faces ceaselessly striding ever-forward, mechanically bobbing along - as if all wearing blinders, palpitates through the grand transport hub known as Victoria Station. The apex of efficiency, the tidy automated British system functions to facilitate the safe transit of millions, who spill off train platforms and buses, and then are squeezed and funnelled to the next leg of their miserable journeys - to finally pop up in a bustling street scene, or elsewhere, always on the go, as they live out their empty lives.

Civilized humanity sleep-walks from one line to another, transferring effortlessly down what are often clearly marked corridors. A disembodied, impersonal sterile female voice providing banal public safety announcements and arrival times is occasionally drown out by the hissing, mechanized noises of an approaching train. An unpleasant smelly cross-draft accompanies the train's arrival, then off it goes, back into the void.

Contrary to the unabated propaganda of stock advertisements, just as in the case of airports and flying, the process of getting from one place to another by train is anything but luxurious. Amidst the ramblings of my ever-restless thoughts, like everyone else, I make the best of it. Mired in the ubiquitous rustlings of philosophic conjectures, I wonder if what is, necessarily is, for truly I am a vinainar - a hopeless boy-dreamer who never outgrew theoretical wanderings.

With gimlet eyes, I feverishly look for my Emma Peale.

In a world of grey, I imagine Sandra's soft light brown complexion, lovely facial features - clearly defined, eyes like saucers atop a sharply pressed blouse. Her creased and newly starched collar commands my attentive eyes to follow the womanly curvature of her frame. Her hair, chestnut and pulled back, would traipse past her shoulders if loosened. It is silly to say so, but I picture her face not unlike a new sheet on a crisp, freshly made bed.

Perhaps one day it will be the first thing I see when I waken.

I fancy her - there is no denying it. Her eyebrows, neither flat nor highly arched, display a measured roundness, a perfectly crafted component to the most beautiful face I've ever seen on public transport, or anywhere else. Who was the last man to kiss those lips, and did he grasp her in a full embrace whilst feasting on her?

Confidently, I can say that I'm in love with a woman; has Radha's curse finally been broken?

Quick-natured and spirited - Sandra's irrepressible spontaneity, bold and bright, is like a light in a darkened room. She carries a radiance about her, and in resolute symmetry, illuminates my soul. In my mind I behold her beauty, but shall I ever see her again, or remain miserable the whole of my life?

Christmas has past and we are now in the final few days of the year; I'll be back home before January arrives.

Then, like a flash, in the distance I spot my Sandra, en route to the train platforms - a side-glance of a bouncing head of chestnut hair that I would recognize anywhere, a luminous apparition amidst the backdrop of so much that I find so terribly desolate. How can love appear so suddenly, or is it always here?

Life, for its brevity, offers us select moments amongst meaningless repetition.

For a man to commit himself to a woman is but a small price to be paid for a legacy: that I was here and my life matters. And if I myself am but a cog in the larger scheme of things, doesn't this cog have a right to happiness? My steps hurriedly close the gap between the two of us, but in horror, I spy her sneak up on a man, throw her arms around him, and impetuously plant a kiss on his neck.

So just as quickly as love appeared, love has departed me, or died, or perhaps was never here in the first place.

Lost to another bloke wearing a bowler hat - if that doesn't take the biscuit. Two lone bowler hats amongst so many uncovered chaps and she chooses bowler hat number two. Is it asking too much to be loved in return for loving another? What's my two bobs worth, anyway? Will fatherhood escape me - have I failed the biological game and shall I never leave any progeny?

Moths and all sorts of ugly creatures hover about a lighted candle - but can the candle help it? Unable to bear watching for more than a split-second, I turn my back, and despondently, retreat to the station's main lobby.

Gazing upward out the long rows of transomed windows overhead, past the pitter-pat of watery streams, into the mottled grey of the London sky, I contemplate what tears can't remediate.

How can love appear then disappear, as if it were never there? Where does love go - how does love happen? Is there a reason that love should die? I used to believe that if you want something and you don't get it, there are only two reasons: you either really didn't want it, or you tried to bargain over the price. But within my all-too-public loneliness there's no hiding place, as if looking through a familiar window but not recognizing one's own home.

Without so much as someone to share four walls - a woman who loves me, rather than in an arranged, loveless marriage, my mind and soul are forsaken. But love is now extinguished and my prospects are dim, like a blind man, for I've lost my Sandra. I firmly believe that the indefatigable nature of man requires that he love and be loved, for a man's suffering is only endurable if it is ascribed to a larger meaning and purpose.

What greater purpose is there than love, and it doesn't require too much cogitation to recognize that love is the existential imperative of being human, not merely a disposable adjunct of life. Will my heart wither away - that tears will no longer spring from my eyes, whether publicly or in the privacy of a succession of sleepless nights, in some foreign hotel, now that my muse has departed me? No explanation is needed, or possible.

Sandra sneaks up behind a man wearing a dark grey bowler hat and navy-blue mac, hugs him from behind - kissing him on the neck. Without a backward glance I make a hasty retreat. "What does she think this is, Paris?"

I have lost her to another man wearing a bowler hat; I cannot see the funny side of it and now it's anyone's guess if I am remaining on this course or changing lines.

The New Year is upon me.

Chapter 11 of 12

Monday has arrived, a Leap Day, an additional day inserted into the calendar year - another chance to pick a man's pocket of his labour, and I trot off to work under charcoal skies, for a second week at the London office. Roland, as always, bears a long face, and Charles - who is clever in his own way, scarcely pokes his head out of his office.

Two weeks past, the banking-corruption information was clandestinely submitted to the FRC.

"The esteemed and venerable Mr. Chesterfield," Roland informs the staff at an impromptu meeting, "whom you unreformed rounders ignominiously reference as Jake the Snake, has me positively gobsmacked. He's petitioned our bank records, going back several years - has anyone the foggiest notion why?"

Without an answer, the meeting ends as abruptly as it commenced, and the blokes summarily begin their belated morning break. Nikhalas is settled into married life; the intramural football season will start soon - long pants days are still upon us. "Will you be able to join us, sir?"

Matthew asks about my wardrobe - and with eyes so perfectly transparent, comments that I am 'more British than the British,' citing that the UK draws in people from around the world, 'as if the colonies have now all come home.'

Normally I would be outraged by such a flippant remark, but coming from Matthew, I hold my tongue, following the adage, if you encounter a fence, rather than try to tear down the fence, ask why the fence is there. Perhaps Matthew's point is that I now admire my homeland from afar, see it equally as a civilization and an economic zone, and to misappropriate the words of Gandhi as I do more often than not, address my countrymen in a language that is foreign to me, culturally anyway.

The newly married couple of my extended family in Birmingham moved back to India - outside Bengaluru, rather than remain in the UK. Neither spouse is well-educated, and the groom's family is dirt-poor - but the two lovers are drawn together anyway.

Isn't it the case that we ourselves forge the chains we wear in life, and increasingly I feel as though I am on the outside, forever looking in the window at someone else's home, even when reviewing my own life and prospects.

There is news of two weddings in India - one distant cousin will marry a man who owns his own business, and her sister will marry a musician. India is the place beyond all others where one must not take things too seriously - the midday sun always excepted. The weddings will transpire in the same month, but it will NOT be a double wedding: each girl wants her own wedding, and one of the two men's families is substantially wealthier than the other.

Everything is recycled in India, even dreams.

The men are gentle, educated and kind; the musician both performs and teaches. Several women in this extended family are pregnant, and once these two weddings are consummated, even more children are inevitable. Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last, and who wouldn't welcome a baby into their home?

Latika's husband is still squawking about purchasing a boat, and regularly needling my dear sister - when will Alvin and Natalia return for a visit? Early that morning - awake much of the night by the rain incessantly pattering on the hotel window, from the Danubius, I telephoned dear Latika, telling her that I love her. This has never been my nature, but thoughtlessly, I just blurted it out. Latika fell silent, retreated from English to Kannada, speaking in what sounded to be equally unpractised words.

Lost in thought, staring out a rain-splattered window at a soggy city, storm clouds inimically creating a bleak, murky-textured sky, and amidst this darkness, my mental wanderings fill with images of an introverted little girl with braided tresses, who submissively accepts the world as it is.

"You've always loved me, my dear brother - just as I've always loved you. Our parents are gone, and now all we have are each other. Since my youngest days, your courage has been my inspiration, as it seems to see you through, and fulfil your dreams."

Is this the enlightenment that I signed up for?

Ready to leave the hotel, newfound tears finally departed from my eyes, and prepared to march onward like Alexander the Great charging toward the River Ganges, I bolted out the hotel door, brolly in hand, to the fate awaiting me.

But if you turn back now, there will remain many unconquered warlike powers.

The London weather is turned quite nasty, but public transport appears to be fully operational. Wind is swirling about, and misty sheets of water relentlessly hit me head on. Somewhat comically, employing my brolly as a shield and fancifully imagining that I am among the ranks of the Macedonian sovereign himself, and wishing no disturbance with the gods, I fight onward to my station.

It is raining sideways, but I need not be frightened, the spirits will protect me.

Pelted by blowing leaves and stepping over downed tree limbs, waves of water fly about, striking where they will - an angry after-the-fact retaliation of a soul that got away.

Emboldened with fortitude against enough greyness to saturate a man's soul, my tenacious journey proceeds through cross currents of foul, foggy, fetid drafts that have driven the precipitation horizontal, perfectly befitting a cold people on a cold island, surrounded by a cold sea, yet unironically, who are suitably up to the task.

Merrily reflecting on Latika's husband, this would be a good day to own that boat.

In two days, I return to Milan - or shall I perhaps relocate to London and put in a formal request to make this office my home base, that I should be so smug. It would upend things, but as it is, the wheel has come full circle and it should be nice to finally have a proper workspace whilst in London. How bold is that, working in the lion's den as the FRC's case rolls out to uncover 100 million missing Euros?

One would surmise that for all that theft, to say nothing about the centuries of looting and exploitation of India, they'd offer a heartier selection of teas at their headquarters.

But I am talking silly. I should stay in Milan until this banking theft has been rectified, courage notwithstanding, then move back to rain-soaked London as a conquering hero, riding in on a white horse. No reason to be a bugger about this, but history is written by the victors.

Regardless, however, finally departing the train at Westminster Station, the rain keeps coming down, or sideways, anyway.

Chapter 12 of 12

So fair and foul a day I had never seen.

Yesterday's beastly weather is now past, watery memories of a cathartic torrent of rain amidst windblown trees, surging rivers on pavement and fellow bundled-up, pedestrians equally inconvenienced - subjected to an epic, spontaneous city-wide inundation.

A cacophony that disrupted everything.

But today it is raining informally, and soaked streets abound. In the distance, visible through foggy windows and over piles of unresolved financial documents still awaiting my review, sits Westminster Abbey, intrepidly resolute as always.

How my mind wanders.

Reconciled to the fallout of Radha, the embodiment of vainglorious cruelty, darkness is retreated from my life, rendering that lascivious pattern dead. Since meeting Sandra, I'm off on a new direction - metaphorically anyway, having escaped victorious, conquering the soul-crushing authority that subjugated me for so many years. Like an interminably stubborn weed, it persistently reared its ugly head, but is now torn out at the root, and I say, no more.

Ignorance is illuminated and the unknown is known; habits get me through each day, not to disappear but to be recoded. History isn't destiny, and neither does childhood trauma define who I shall be. I love, and although not loved in return, Radha's spell is broken as I rise above the turbulence.

So many disconnected thoughts - oh Alvin, land the plane.

Other than privately disclosing to the estimable barrister, Mr. Jacob Chesterfield, under the strictest of confidentiality, the whole affair of information relevant to the missing 100 million Euros via illicit banking transfers, the matter has been surreptitiously submitted to the FRC. The money laundering scheme that took me months of research and sneaky manoeuvres was not what landed me in jail, which, it turned out, was purported to be an entirely different alleged crime - that of terrorism.

As Jake the Snake so eloquently vociferated regarding my false arrest, raising a pint at a high-end pub, "Alvin, it's over and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Pakistan, after they've cut off the wrong man's head."

Arguably, it's possibly merely one Euro gone missing one-hundred million times; accounting errors - either intentional or through incompetence, don't necessarily prove money laundering. But how can one Euro go missing one-hundred million times - that would be a statistical impossibility, but still arguably plausible, and for a formal review board to determine.

Regardless, I never would have done this had it not been for Sandra, the phantom woman who turned up in my life at just the right moment.

Shutting the door of the Bullock's room and hanging a sign on the knob: CONFERENCE CALL - DO NOT DISTURB, I rest my weary eyes. As if in a dream, a mishmash of dodgy ledger entries, questionable financial statements, and a sloping pile of menacing manila folders consume the rest of my day before I victoriously depart out the door of the London headquarters, looking as dapper as ever.

Such a pleasant day for a leisurely walk in downtown Westminster, traversing a succession of beautifully tree-lined avenues, I enter the mega transportation hub of the London Underground. Methodically, as if working at memory, the clickity-clack sounds of wheeled luggage roll over beige tile, past the brightly polished metal guard rail of mid-corridor, and I ascend box-like staircases anti-clockwise. The twin headlights on a red face, then the oscillating pattern of orange doors and a white carriage, and a train thrusts into the station.

Recessed colours - neither pastel nor terribly bright, but almost hypnotic, the motor whirs and the train plods forward, rattling through. Indiscreetly placed surveillance cameras - intended to see and be seen, and a tidy display of advertisements alongside an expanded map of the whole rail system, as well as overhead lighted yellow signs, indicating minutes until arrival, supplement the hub's automated schedule of creaky, squeaky precision.

Safety precautions and indeterminate announcements of the next arriving train echo from the sterile voice of an unseen but omnipresent British woman. Then a vacuous mechanical hiss when the doors close, and a ghastly hum - the Tube waits for no one. The carriage darts off again, just as dispassionately as it arrived, back into the mysterious void of time and space.

Hearkening through the greyness - that is, the desolate malaise associated with public transport, erupts the impertinent shout of a British woman.

"Alvin!"

Abruptly I turn my head to see the most beautiful face I've ever seen, running straight my way, her heels clickity-clacking on the polished floor whilst a curly head of chestnut hair trails behind.

Not in her place, not at my expected time of return, not in her uniform, not the Sandra of my previous dreams, and not at Victoria's station where I've spotted her on two prior occasions.

Tears fill her eyes; my Sandra holds her bosomy frame fast against me. "Is it really you? Am I really kissing the right one, this time?"

Early on we exchange contact information - "should we ever become separated again," she adds summarily, without affect. Sandra kisses me again, and then again, tells me of her neighbourhood, her local bus stop, and her cat. "I've gone positively bonkers chasing you down. Teach me, a daft girl not to confuse one bowler hat from another. Oh Alvin, it's really you."

What are the odds that in a city of nine million souls spread over 1,500 square kilometres, I should ever randomly see her again? Inverting the nightmare world, now love is returned.

"It's been monkeys out here; my brolly got quite the work-out." Then tears flooded Sandra's eyes once more, and her bosomy embrace intensified, both arms tightly flung around my neck. "I thought I'd lost you forever."

Sandra says so many things about herself - talking constantly, rambling in fact. I could scarcely ask a question. She doesn't inquire about my marital status, nor do I inquire about hers. She states that she works in law enforcement - human resources and records. "I'm just one silly lass who can't tell one bowler hat from another - I must have chased down every one of them throughout the whole of London."

Sandra asks where I purchase my clothes, citing details of every outfit I've ever worn in all my journeys to Britain. "You're quite the smart dresser, Alvin, but don't act the innocent - you've been looking for me as well."

What shall I do with Natalia? I don't have an answer. I told Sandra that I am presently heading off to Italy - on a banking assignment but would be back in a fortnight.

"You were an Indian Sepoy, but now you've transitioned to a Brit."

A motor whirs and an arriving train plods forward. Holding fast to both my hands, Sandra tugs me her way, firmly, to enter her carriage, but where would mine be if we are standing on the same platform? Another kiss - this one with an open mouth. "Come with me, Alvin - and damn the rain."

How a man's life can change so suddenly and profoundly, as if it were a random Tuesday at fifteen past the ten o'clock hour, or as if in a dream. The words of some statesman or other comes to mind, a man whose name I can't place but whose thoughts I've internalized, as if my own: "Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision."

The train then click-clicks along westward. Life is a journey, so they say, and much of human happiness is illusory at best.

Editor's Postscript

Since the presentation of this story in early 2016, Alvin chose to slip back into anonymity, but there are several updates since his last appearance (2020) that might be of interest to the reader:

Britain formally left the E. U. through a contentious movement called BrexitNobody was prosecuted for the off-sheet bank transfersBirmingham is still a shithole cityIn 2018, medicinal use of cannabis was legalized in the U. K., so a right mix of shisha in a hookah will award you and your under the weather mates a skunking good timeIn 2019, Britain finally won the Cricket World Cup, beating out New Zealand

Cheers!

THE END