The Log

The Sweat Summer Teaboy

No one knows why they called it that way, but I guess it was just meant to be called anyway.

The Moon Rock Apartments, an old three -storied millennial structure, which had housed countless bachelors (most notoriously known for Sam Valappil John for weed consumption), had seen several Indian summers come and pass by.

But this time it was different.

That day, I woke up at 8 am (unusual on a weekend) to the sound of sirens from police jeeps. I couldn’t believe that I had left my door open the entire night.

I do not own a fortune in my baggage but I have my laptop and an iPhone, which was as priceless as Gold for most bachelors, who earn a sort of living hardly enough to buy only a cutting glass of tea and Bun Maska from Raju’s tea shop in front of the apartment. The tea shop was much older than I had initially thought. Raju opened it in the 90s, and he owns three more shops in Bangalore’s old neighborhoods.

I’m not Raju’s first customer most days, but, I consume a lot of tea on the weekends.

‘Some say the man also worked as a sales attendant and had been driving in the sun with his helmet without a sip of water. But don’t know why he’d removed his helmet to get a bump on his head. He might have fallen down hard on the concrete floor,’ Raju said.

The death (or murder, which the police would want to consider) of Vageesh, the delivery boy, was under mysterious circumstances.

No one knew how it happened. The police arrested Venkat Rao on suspicion, who happened to stammer upon questioning. But, he was released a few days later when a second death was reported at the Moon Rock. This time it was a delivery boy, Aravind.

The college student received the delivery call from Aravind, and there was a delay for the boy to deliver the package (Moon Rock was in a new neighborhood and it was not easy to reach there). When the students, who took the delay easy, came out for a smoke, they saw a delivery scooter with no rider. One of the boys tried calling Aravind, and all they saw was a trail of blood near the bushes, where the mobile had fallen.

Aravind’s throat was slit and the case was considered investigating as the police could not find any link with the death of Vageesh.

I was still sleeping when I heard the sirens again. When I woke up, I saw my door open. I might have been tired again. I rushed outside knowing for sure that there could have been a dangerous mishap, when a goggle-eyed boy cried out that the Sweat Summer Teaboy had struck.

What?

Some occupants at the Moon Rock panicked. Some believed in a supernatural existence and some (who were more open-minded) looked the faces of each other for clues. There was too much doubt in the air in an otherwise calm building.

Many had vacated the Moon Rock, and I was at Raju’s stall drinking my tea, when he said, ‘My business here is at a loss and I might not be available for sometime. The boys there don’t take the delivery, and people might doubt me as I’m the only shop available in this vicinity. My reputation is at stake.’

I looked at Raju and was questioning myself if he were the culprit (was he the teaboy?), but did not have the mind to agree.

The summer gave way to the scent of earth when the monsoon returned with full glory. The panic at the Moon Rock seemed to vanish with the rain, as if it was just a veil of doubt with which anyone can forget.

The sweat summer teaboy  was gone.

God only knows why they had been calling the unknown entity by that name, but, there were no murders any more.

Until the sweaty summer returned, a delivery boy was killed again, with a screw driver dug into his temples. The Sweat Summer Teaboy has returned at the quiet neighborhood.

For the first time I was scared. I was married and was thinking of bringing my wife to Bangalore.

I had developed a deficiency of Ferratin (Iron) by this constant tea-drinking habit especially during the summer season. I was surprisingly stressed last summer because I took tea parcels late nights and drank from the Moon Rock terrace. My room was the penthouse on the terrace.

When my wife called me and was worried. ‘Have you started drinking tea again this summer? You don’t know to make one’, she’d asked.

‘I have it delivered’.