Scene 1:
Punjabi Dhaba is jam packed at 7:30pm on a weekday
and around 20 people are standing outside the ‘restaurant’ to eat the famous
butter chicken and kulcha that was popularized by Shera Singh 10 years ago. A
frail boy walks to a table and places a plate of kulchas.
Customer: Aye boy! These kulchas are not hot. Get a
new set.
Boy: Sir I just now made them, it has to be hot.
Customer: So you are saying that I am lying? Oye
Shera paaji!
Shera Singh the owner of the dhaba came running to
the table.
Shera: What happened ji? Is everything all right?
Customer: What all right ji, this boy is calling me
liar. I told him to heat the kulchas and he said he won’t do it.
Boy: I never said I won’t do it I just said….
He felt a sharp pain on his left cheek before he
could complete the sentence.
Shera: I am sorry ji, I will heat these kulchas
myself and get them for you, in the meantime you enjoy your meal.
Shera pulls the boy to the kitchen.
Scene 2:
Shera slaps the boy once more.
Shera: Are you mad? One night I tell you to serve
the kulchas and you get into a fight with the customer!
Boy: I made the kulchas just now! How could it
become cold by the time it reached the table?
BAM!!! Another slap, another red cheek this time the
right one and a drop of tear rolling down the boy’s eye.
Shera: Now don’t start crying otherwise the kulchas
will become salty.
Shera leaves the kitchen.
Boy: I can do any work but I just hate making
kulchas, I always burn my hand.
Just then he sees a knife which was used to cut the
vegetables and an idea begins to form in his 10 year old mind. He picks up the
knife and cuts his palm slightly but hard enough to make it bleed. He starts
yelling at the top of voice to get some attention from the customers. Shera
Singh runs into the kitchen.
Shera: What happened?
Boy: My hand got cut accidently (in pain).
Shera: How could you cut it so deep accidently?
(Looking at the wound)
Boy: I don’t know when it happened, I just felt some
wetness in my palm and when I looked I saw this. (Taking his palm closer to
Shera)
Shera: Just keep your hand away from me and let me
make the kulchas, you go to your room and wait for me to come. Tonight you will
learn how to be careful in the kitchen.
The boy went to his room happily even though he knew
his joy will be short-lived.
Scene 3
After that night the boy cut his palm at the same
spot almost every day to keep his wound fresh.
After a few days
Shera: Why is your wound not healing? I have a
feeling that you are doing this to yourself so that you don’t have to work.
Boy: You know what! I am. I am doing this to myself
because I don’t like working here.
Shera: You don’t like working here? You break my
heart son. I wanted you to run this dhaba after me but I guess you have other
important things to do. Let me guess, you want to go to school?
Boy: Yes, I do.
Shera: You want to become a doctor?
Boy: No, I want to become a writer.
Shera: A writer! Yes, of course. I don’t know with
what I will have to hit you to set your mind straight, but I won’t give up on
you. I fed you, I gave you clothes, I gave you a new life and this is how you
repay me?
Shera removed his belt and proceeded towards the
boy.
Shera: Let’s see what you want to become after this
session is over.
Shera starts hitting him with the belt. The boy
starts wailing in pain as the belt rips his skin and he starts moving backwards,
he suddenly gets up and starts running towards the entrance of the dhaba and
collides with one of the customers.
Boy: Sorry sir.
Customer: What is happening beta? Is your father
hitting you?
Boy: He is not my father. I just work for him.
Customer: Beta I am a police officer, is there
something you want to tell me.
Boy: Sir, please rescue me. This man hits me every
day and makes me do all the work in the dhaba and doesn’t even pay me.
Shera: Sir, don’t mind what he says, he is just the
waiter. What would you like to have sir?
Customer: Nothing. I am going to make a call now.
Scene 4
A journalist is yelling into the camera
Journalist: A 10 year boy was being mercilessly
beaten up by the owner of this famous north Indian dhaba in Coimbatore. The boy
was also made to do all the work in the dhaba. The boy is now in the general
hospital and the owner Mr.Shera Singh is in police custody. With cameraman
Sudesh Gupta for NDTV this is Asha Mehra.
Scene 5
In the general hospital
Doctor: Move this patient to the operation theatre.
Nurse: Okay doctor.
Boy: What is happening doctor?
Doctor: Nothing beta, only a small operation.
Nurse: (Whispering) why don’t you tell him?
Doctor: (whispering) how can I tell him that I am
amputating his hand? He wants to become a writer, it will break his heart. If I
don’t do this he will die. We just have to hope that he can start going to
school and become whatever wants to become using his left arm.
Nurse: I don’t know how he got that wound on his
palm. The owner in his confession said that he never used a knife.
Doctor: It has to be him who else would do it. But I
don’t think even he knew that the knife was rusted.
