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Around the World

With the help of map they located the airport and the route to reach there. Hoping over the walls and riding on the top of bus and local train they managed to reach the Indira Gandhi International Airport. There is no fun in traveling on the roof when the scorching sun is taking the mercury to forty five degree and hot winds blowing on top of it. All three were completely tired when they reached to the airport. The journey of twenty kilometers took more than five hours to cover.

After reaching to airport, all three collapsed on one of the tree. They were very tired. When they woke up, it was already night. The airport looked magnificent in the flood of lights. Planes taking off and planes landing down. They were so near to the planes that they felt if they will jump, they can touch them. The three climbed on the roof of the main building from where they got a nice view of the runway and the hanger. From the top they enjoyed the beauty of the flying machines. It’s one thing to hear about Tajmahal and another thing to see it with your own eyes.

“These planes are the effort of Right brothers. Starting with hot air balloons to gliders, man has really mastered the art of flyin.“ Dhinna’s technical urge made him to speak “Look that is 707.” He pointed to one of the plane. The image that he saw back in Pantnagar became livid.

The other two took little notice of Dhinna’s words. With no food from the whole day, Tira was least interested in such technicalities. He never was. Kridha took interest in understanding the whole functioning of airport. He tried to figure out how the planes are taking and landing off and most important from where people are entering into them.

“707 is actually the cosine of angle forty five degrees, the angle at which the plane wings were made.” Dhinna continued without getting bothered with the lack of interest in the other two.

Tira yawned. The hunger started becoming unbearable. Kridha noticed that any plane when lands off is taken to a platform. A tunnel is attached to the plane door. Probably inside that tunnel people go out.

“The aero plane industry is right now ruled by Boeing and Airbus. “
Dhinna continued.

Whenever the plane is ready to take off again a tunnel is attached to it. After detaching it, the plane moves to the open ground and than to a strip of road. On that strip planes attains very high speed, faster than a tiger and lifts itself in the air.

Tira intently looked at the samosas being eaten by a group of people in the canteen.
Kridha interrupted Dhinna’s monologue.

“Look the planes take off from there. What we have to find is which plane goes to Washington. I am sure one of these does but they do not write any number on the front, even a board on which destination is written would have been good. How these people know which plane is going where?

“What to do than? We can go and ask the driver” Tira saw the samosa’s getting disappeared from the plates. The emptiness of his stomach started acting on this mind.

“We will go around and have a look” Kridha ignored Tira’s reply.
“Ok let’s go.” Dhinna immediately supported.
“Ok.” Tira doesnot wanted to hear again that he only thinks of food and eating and nothing else.
“Let’s eat something first.” Kridha noticed the panic in Tira’s voice. The words melted like honey in the Tira’s ear.

They managed to get some fruits from one of the fruit vendor. Tira tried to enter into the canteen to get a samosa but the crowd there chased him back. A sympathetic watcher threw a piece from his pie. Tira relished the piece very much.

After satisfying their hunger, the business resumed. They moved all around the building. There were huge electronic displays on which different arrivals and departures were displayed. However they could nowhere spot the flights to Washington. There were flights to all over the world but not to Washington. Tired they went to sleep hoping that the flight to Washington may be going in the day time .The next day also there was no mention of any flight to Washington, in the plan.

“We can go to harbour and try there. May be some ship might be going.” Tira said.
“For that we have to go to Mumbai.” Dhinna replied and the look in his face gave the message to Tira to not to stretch this subject. Tired they collapsed on the top of the roof of the building and slept.

In the evening, all three silently tried to figure a solution.

“Time has come.” Kridha murmured.
“Which plane is going to Washington?” Dhinna, thinking that Kridha has figured out the plane going to Washington, tried to spot it the hanger
“No, no plane. I mean we will have to talk to a human about how to reach to America.” It made other two scared. The interaction with humans has not turned out to be a good experience till now.
“How about getting a book on “How to reach America” and try to figure out of it.”
“We can try one but it looks to me that it will not have the details that we are looking for. At the moment we are looking for a route or the plane which can take us to America.”
“Than what we should do” Tira with a confused look, asked.
“We have to enquire now.” Kridha replied, without lifting his eyes from a plane landing. He had noticed that the wheels only come out when the plane is landing or taking off.
“You mean to say that we will go to enquiry counter and ask, Sir Can you help us? We monkeys want to go to United States of America. Half of them will faint and the security guards will not mind putting bullets into us.“ Dhinna quipped. “And next day we will have our photographs in some local newspaper. Our two minutes of fame.

“No, we will not do enquiry at the counter.” Kridha still kept looking at the plane, replied. The plane is about to touch the ground and it has opened up its wheel.

“Come with me” He started climbing down through one of the pipes. The two followed him religiously. Though Dhinna was upset for not knowing why they were going down. He never liked in participating in a plan without knowing the details of it.

Reaching to the window of the top floor, Kridha jumped over the roof of the window and hanged upside down to have a better look inside. There were lots of people sitting inside and chatting. Few of them were doing the work, punching vigorously on keyboards. A lady was knitting a jumper. There were round of laughter now and then. At one end, a person sitting on a chair was cleaning his ear with a ear bud.

“Same old government office, only computers have replaced typewriters but the culture is not replaced.” He murmured. He remembered a lot of articles on the inefficiency of the government offices.

“Come. Let’s go” Kridha said to Dhinna, who meanwhile joined Kridha in hanging upside down.

The woman knitting the jumper noticed the monkey and screamed. Everyone left their work and made a big crowd near the window. The monkeys by now moved ahead.

They moved from one window to another, looking inside and trying to judge the situation. Some were empty rooms. In some two or three people were sitting and chatting. On the corner of the building they found a comparatively bigger room and well furnished with official décor. Facing opposite to the window, towards the door, a man was busy doing his work. Kridha saw the silver locks from behind.

“He can help us.” Kridha slipped inside the room. The other two followed.

All three after entering into the room and without making any noise took the vacant chairs in the front of the person. He was still busy writing in a file. On the table, a wooden wedge with brass letters was shining “Mrityunjay Kumar Jha Executive Engineer”. Looking at the word engineer, Dhinna’s eyes flashed. Mrityunjay is a middle aged medium build guy. Lot of hairs on his ear caught the eyes of Kridha. His nose is unusually long and curving towards his lips. It’s so prominent that it stands out from his whole face.

“Hello Sir.” Kridha said as gently as he can manage.
“Hello” Mrityunjay continued to be in his file. Might be an office boy.

“Hello Sir” Dhinna’s spoke a little louder.

“Hello” Mrityunjay replied again and lifted his head, saw all three of them and went back to his file.

For a moment there was a silence. Mrityunjay lifted his head again, this time in a rather jerky fashion, slid his palms under the file and in one action threw the file towards them. With a big scream he got up and gave a backward jerk to his chair. The chair fell down with a loud noise and he ran towards the door and screamed.

“Monkeys ….”

The three were not ready for this. It came too fast and unexpected. A lot of foot steps appeared on the corridor. The three quickly slipped out of the room and took rest only after reaching to the other end of the building.

Back in the room, a crowd assembled. Few of them tried to console Mrityunjay, who was trying to keep control of himself in front of his juniors. His legs were still trembling with fear. He was made to sit on a chair. Someone brought a glass of water for him.

After some time, Vasant Thukral, chief executive engineer entered the room.
“What happened” He looked at Mrityunjay, who’s face was still red.
“Sir, there were three monkeys sitting on the chairs, these chairs.” He pointed to the chairs in front of his table.

He saw to everybody and with a trembling voice said
“And they were speaking.” He judged the mood of the crowd whether they believe on him. “They said Hello to me”

“Mrityunjay…You are dreaming too much now a days. So much work is not good for health. I agree that there could be monkeys…but…” The chief engineer did not want to repeat also that monkeys can speak.

“Yes sir we also saw few of them sometimes back.” Few staff members simultaneously said, raising there voice to the level that they can be heard by the boss and not crossing the limit of indiscipline.

“But monkeys can speak..”Vasnat continued after a pause “It is outrageous. You better take a week holiday and go to some hill station with your family. This heat makes everyone mad.”

Vasant instructed the security staff to be more alert. He left the room and so everyone.
The incident frightened the monkeys also. They were avoiding any undue attention, but everything happened the wrong way.

“Should we try someone else?” Dhinna asked.
“But if the same thing happens again, then..” Kridha replied quietly.

They decided for the night to set before making any further move. As the night progressed the top floor started getting empty. Around seven apart from Mrityunjay’s cabin and a few others the floor was deserted. The three decided to try with Mrityunjay again.

They climbed down again from the roof and hoping over the windows reached to the cabin of the Executive Engineer. Dhinna preferred to call him with executive engineer, rather than Mritunjay. The three slipped into the room and this time only Dhinna went ahead. He stepped on top of the table and sat front of Mritunjay. Mrityunjay lifted his head and in a moment his face twitched with nose lifting upwards and mouth opened but the scream did not come. Dhinna put the finger in his lips and in a hushed tone said

“Shut up.”

The voice was low but harsh and authoritative enough. The face of the poor engineer became dry. He remained bolted to his seat with a scare look.

“We will not harm you” Dhinna tried to calm him
No reply.
“We just want some information from you”
Again no reply.

Kridha and Tira also came in the front. Seeing two more monkeys the face of Mrityunjay became white.

“You are safe with us” Tira told him with a smile. The set of canines flashed.

The engineer looked to all three one by one. He tried to calm himself. Might be some imposters in the cloth of monkeys. This idea relaxed him a little. At least he is not sitting in front of wild savage beasts.

“Who are you, what you wan?” The word finally came out of executive engineer.

A conversation between a monkey and a human, after million of years, when one of the brother decided to leave the trees and hunt on the ground. This time it happened on the ground.

“We are monkeys and we want some information” Kridha replied.
“What kind of information” Mrityunjay asked. Conversations made him a little less nervous.

“You have to tell us how we can go to Washington.” Tira asked
“We mean which flight goes to Washington.” Kridha added.

“Washington..Washington” No human will make so much effort of putting monkey cloths and coming from the window to ask such a question. Anyone can just walk in to an enquiry counter and ask it.

“You can ask in the enquiry” He suggested them the same thing.
.
“If we go there than looking at monkeys they will surely faint off. Therefore we chose to ask from you and I am sure you know also.” Dhinna replied making sure that Mritunjay get a good glimpse of canines.

“Yes Washington, where the President of America live.” Tira quipped and immediately was interrupted by a hard glance from Kridha. No part of the plans should ever be discussed in open.

“But why do you want to know, How to go to Washington?” Mrityunjay became normal and composed by now. He started enjoying it a little bit.

“This is none of your business to know” Kridha spoke a bit harshly.

“You just tell us how to go to Washington”

“There is no direct flight” Mrityunjay did not wanted to offend his unwanted guests. The repercussions can be dangerous.
“Than.” Dhinna asked.

“You will have to go to Frankfurt. It’s in Germany.”
“From Frankfurt” Kridha asked
“From there you will get a Direct flight to Washington”
“And how to go to Frankfurt.”
“The flight by Lufthansa will take you there.”
“Lufthansa means German Airlines” Dhinna asked.
“Yes”
“When”
“In the night, 2:30 pm”
“What’s time now” Kridha asked
“It’s 8 pm “Tira replied looking at the table clock.
“We have almost six and a half hours” Dhinna quickly calculated
“What more one needs to go to Washington.” Kridha asked
“A pass port and a valid visa”
“The monkeys do not need this.” Dhinna replied.
“Will they serve inside the plane, or one has to carry their own food.“ Tira’s basic doubt
“The food is served for the passenger’s in the plane. Noone has to carry any eatables unless you have strict diet requirements.” Mrityunajy was a little perplexed now.

Kridha’s look made Tira scared and he promised himself not to open his mouth again. Kridha and Dhinna made further enquiries about the time of reaching and the way passengers board the plane. The engineer was never been to Frankfurt so he could not give any information about the flights from Frankfurt. Looking at the ignorance of the three he wished he had told them to go to Jhumri Tailaya or to Antartica. The three slipped back out of the window.

Mrityunjay immediately rang to his boss and few others in security. Not to cut a sorry figure he replaced the monkeys from the story with humans imposing in monkey attire. He told them about their enquiry of flight to Washington and the mention of President of America.

That night the passengers faced a lot of security checks. People were caught for taking Photostat copies of books violating the copyright acts. The most troubled were the Luftahansa passengers. Everyone has to go through the rigorous security drills. Each bag was opened and checked thoroughly. This exercise will continue for few more days to come. The news was mailed to intelligence agencies in USA. The intelligence agencies did not give much attention to it. The news did not come from their agents whom they pay so much money. And they never regarded the third world intelligence to be of par. The news just cannot be true. Harry Stringer the boss of the organization saw the mail in his inbox.

“Ridiculous, now they think the president’s life is in danger because of monkeys.” He murmured and moved the mail to trash. The future is going to prove him wrong.

Back in India, the Lufthansa plane to Frankfurt came to the boarding platform. The tunnel was connected to it for the passengers to board. Checks went on till the last moment. Especially shorter people faced more trouble. Few of them never felt so much guilty for carrying the editions of National Geography. The boarding ceremony got over. The tunnel moved away and the plane moved in the open area.

“Ladies and Gentleman, I am your Captain Weiekel wolfgang and welcome on board. The flight to Frankfurt will take five hours and thirty minutes. Your flight attendant Miss Natalie will tell you about emergency measures.“ He repeated the same in German.

The plane took off, two hours late from the schedule. Next morning the cleaner would find lot of bananas peeled near the tires of Lufthansa flight to frankfurt. He will curse the staff there for not maintaining the cleanliness.

The plane took speed on the running strip. Never in there life the monkeys traveled at such a fast speed. Dhinna‘s dream of traveling in a plane came true, though not the way he wanted. At such speed the three felt dizziness on looking to the ground. They shut their eyes and clutched the suspension frame. The noise of engine made them deaf. After gaining sufficient speed the plane left the ground. To their relief it retracted the wheels inside and closed the base. The whole incident made them so much frightened that they did not open the eyes and after some time they dozed off.

With a sudden jerk they woke up. They felt as if they are falling freely. Their heand hit the top. All three clutched them with the suspension frame.
“The plane must be landing down” Dhinna said.
“So we have reached to Frankfurt” Tira asked.
“Yeah..if noone has hijacked this plane” Kridha said.
The bottom panel opened and they had a glimpse of Frankfurt. The high rise buildings and surrounding big grasslands. Houses were looking like matchboxes. The cars moving on the road as if they are toys. The plane lost some more height. Then it made a long circle and approached the runway.
“Clutch whatever you can tightly. We will hit the ground very soon.” Dhinna told other two.

Just before the plane touched the ground, the three closed their eyes tightly. The plane slowed down. In fifteen minutes they were near the boarding platform.

It was quite cold there. Dhinna looked at his watch. It showed 12, but here it felt like morning. Kridha hanged from the wheels upside down to have a look out side. A lot of activities were happening around. Dozens of planes standing in a row. Trucks and trolleys moving around.

“It is difficult to get out without being noticed” He said to other two.

A truck came and stood on the side of plane parallel to it to unload the luggage from the plane. It gave a hideout for the three. Slowly they climbed down and came to the side where truck was standing. A slider has been put from the plane to the trolley from which the cargo was being unloaded.

The three slipped inside the truck between the bundles of luggage. The truck after unloading the luggage came to the cargo area and dumped it at a designated place. The monkeys remained inside the truck. They hid themselves by remaining close to the corner. The exercise of loading and dumping the luggage was taken some ten times before the people went fro a break. The truck was parked in the parking area and the staff left.

Slowly Kridha took his head outside to get a feeling of the environment. There were similar trucks standing outside in a row. No movement of humans was noticed. The three came out and went to the rear end of the truck. In the rear there was a wall which was climbed in no time, the core competency of a monkey. On the other side of the wall was a huge building.
“Might be, this is the main building” Tira said. His stomach had already started complaining, “We can get some food there.”

Monkeys roaming in India and monkeys roaming in Germany are two quite different things. If one sees a monkey in India, he or she will just try to avoid coming in their way. The kids will pelt a stone on them or will try to chase them. A few may buy some nuts and offer them. However in their wildest of imagination, the monkeys would not have thought, what is going to happen to them now. Monkey thought they can reach to the building and climb on it. Who cares about monkeys?

A cleaner spotted three weird creatures sitting on the wall of parking area. He started to scream to his fellow workers.

“Blick, was ist dort.”

The monkeys on hearing the scream looked at the cleaner and flashed their teethes with a growl. A crowd gathered around the cleaner. From the amusement in the faces of many of them, they realized that they have never seen a monkey. All is not well though no one pelted stone on them or tried to come forward. The monkeys did not realize that stray animals in Germany are national news. Even in jungle one may not find any wild animals.

Meanwhile the crowd started growing. Someone remarked that it looks like chimpanzee, the most famous among the apes. He found readily a lot of supporters in the crowd. Two yougsters put a bet on whether chimpanzee has a tail or not.

Sirens broke the noise. Monkeys smelled danger and dashed to the main building in front and climbed on the roof. Someone has called the police. A dozen police cabs came to a screeching halt in front of the crowd. A dozen policemen got out of the car with half a dozen German Shepard’s. The monkeys by then managed to reach to the rooftop and looked from a slit in such a way that they were not visible from down. On looking at the fierce dogs the trios’ heart sank.

Again the environment was filled with sirens and bells. Three fire brigade trucks arrived on the scene. Someone gave a call to them also. The firemen positioned themselves in front of the building armed with hammers and ladders.

Few minutes later, journalists arrived armed with big camera and mikes. A big van with big dish antennas also arrived to give the live telecast. A man took a big video camera and focused it one of the lady of his group. She combed her hair and spit the bubblegum and then started giving commentary about the situation. Few journalists tried to engage policemen and firemen also. However they did not get much attention from them. Whenever a journalist tried to approach a policeman, he will let loose his dog to the maximum and poor fellow has to make a hasty retreat. It was an opportunity for the crowd to come on TV and local newspaper. Everybody was trying hard to give his version of the story. The journalists were more interested in the most outrageous statements. The cleaner who first spotted was surrounded like an actor of the recent blockbuster.

“They are three in number and I saw them first sitting on that wall.” He rotated to point his finger to the parking wall and hit the lens of a cameraman. From every direction the questions were flooding. From how they look like to what they were eating. They assumed as if they are not talking to a cleaner but to an expert in the zoology.

From the top, the monkeys looked at the activities down below. The attention that they have drawn frightened them. Kridha realized that they are facing one of the most dangerous situation in their mission. The cameras flashing all around and the scary barks of the German shepherds. Even the wolves were not so dangerous. The three immediately went to the other end of the roof and climbed down from the open duct of the building and rested on the slab of a window. This place was not visible from anywhere.

Again the place was drowned with the noise of helicopters. There was a gap between the noise reaching and the helicopters finally arriving on the scene. The choppers started hovering above the building. The monkeys were lucky to escape in time. A policeman guided them to look on the top of the building for three creatures that are around seven to eight feet tall and look like chimpanzees and they are red in colour. He was not sure which shade of red. The man in helicopter was not sure how the chimpanzee’s looked like. The policeman told him to that they almost look like humans.

The drama lasted for an hour. After confirming that there is nothing on the roof, the helicopters went back. Fire brigade and police with an instruction to be called again if anything such is seen followed them. The journalists also packed off. The pictures are in their camera and they know how to make story out of it. The cleaner felt very lonely, after receiving so much publicity.

All the zoos, around the Frankfurt were checked to see whether there is any reduction in the population of chimpanzee or any apes. Soon all the local channels were flooded with the news story. Lot of wild life program was telecasted. The discussions were under taken on the nature of habitats of chimpanzee. The evening newspapers were full of the chimpanzee and gorillas. The crew of luftahansa heard the news but they did not find any relation between the monkey news in India and chimpanzee in Germany. The size is too different to matter. A strange coincident.

The monkeys remained there for the rest part of the day. Tira was the most restless among them. All three decided to remain there till its dark.

When the night set, they climbed back on the roof with caution. From a comparatively darker side of the building they started climbing down. Midway they found a window from which they peeped. It was a big lounge with lot of people inside. There were signboards hanging all around displaying the flight times. Dhinna and Kridha simultaneously noticed the Flight to Washington from Gate2A of Air Canada. Tira was focused on the pizza being eaten by a fat round guy.

A little girl noticed the monkeys hanging on the window. She pulled her mother’s hand and screamed
“Mama …monkeys”
The mother was busy in noting down the flight details.
“Yeah ..Just a minute” She remained busy following the sign boards.
“Mama ..Mama monkeys” The little girl became little excited and pulled her hand rather violently.
“Where” She looked to the girl’s face, which has become red by now because of excitement.
“There” She pointed to the window.

There was nothing. Monkeys were sitting on the darker side of a building in the ground safely away from the eyes of everyone.

“We have to find Gate2A” Tira said. The agony in his voice can be easily attributed to his hunger.
“Gate2A is for humans. We have to look for plane to Washington”
“I am sure that this time also they are not going to put the destination board on the plane” Dhinna said rather sarcastically.
“yeah..we will have to search the whole area” Kridha added in a low tone.

All three moved cautiously in the hanger. They took all precautions of remaining unnoticed. Only dark corners were chosen to move ahead. They searched for more than an hour but in vain. There was not even a small clue that they were able to gather about the plane. In the night it was impossible to read even to which carrier the plane belongs. Tira was becoming more and more restless with time.

The mission of searching the plane was abandoned and all three took the refuge in a tree on the sides. They first munched the leaves to give a little relief to the stomach. It was more than twenty hours now that they took food.

The mission was resumed in an hour again. The search this time also ended with no result. The three again took the refuge in the same old tree. It was a huge airport compared to Delhi and the numbers of planes were many times more.

“It seems this way we will never be able to reach Washington” Dhinna broke the silence.
Kridha looked at him and said
“We will have to find a way”
“Do you think this way we will ever be able to reach inside” Tira asked.
“There is only one way now”
“What” The other two became little excited. The two always had a great respect for the ideas that the mind of Kridha can generate.

“We will have to enter from Gate2A.” Kridha replied.
“Are you crazy” was the instantaneous reaction.
“There was no other way”
“This is also not the way. Do you think it will be easy for us to go inside between the crowds of that many people? In the morning they came with dogs and helicopters only. This time they will come with tanks and fighter planes.”
“I have an idea, there is a slight risk, if it works its fine otherwise maximum they will put us in a zoo. And do not make any foolish move if they spot you. One bullet will be enough. If one of us gets caught then other two will also join him. It is the only way I can think of now. If all three of us land in zoo than we can try from there again. However I feel the idea is fairly fool proof.” It was not.

The idea was to reach to the outgoing luggage room and from there to spot a baggage which is bound to Washington. The three went to the window again and studied the procedure. A traveler will come to the check in counter of his airlines and submit his luggage there, which is put in an escalator. The escalator takes the luggage behind a wall.

“So there is a room behind those walls where we have to reach”
They spotted the checking counters of Air Canada also. It was fairly in the middle of the lounge with people moving all around.

“So we have to reach to that counter and slipped behind those walls. “ Dhinna said trying to figure out the possibilities of reaching there.

“How about if the lights go off for a moment” Dhinna came up with a solution.
“You mean the electricity”
“Yeah….”
“But they might have a back up”
“We will blow the main connection to this place.” The intensity of the mission was becoming so high that they stopped discussing risks. If it has to be done, it hast to be.

The three searched for the electricity room and found the one from where all the wires were going out to the main lounge. It was on one end of the building. Dhinna calculated that it will take for them one minutes after they cut the power and run to the main lounge and enter inside the luggage room of the plane bound to Washington.

They slipped inside the room and spotted the biggest lever. The three murmured silently, held the biggest lever in the room and pulled it down. The guard on hearing the noise turned back and saw the three inside the room. To the surprise to three, the lights of the room did not went off. It was powered from somewhere else. The guard screamed ferociously
“scheibe”

Lot of shrieks and screaming started coming from the lounge.
“Run” Kridha screamed
“Where” Tira was totally baffled.
Towards the lounge”

All three rushed towards the door screaming and growling which made the guard nervous and he also ran after them. In the history of Frankfurt it was unheard. Ladies and children were screaming and crying all around. The guard after running in the direction of lounge realized the situation. The animals had put off the electricity connection to airport. He ran back to the power room. Policeman started running all over flashing their searchlights and trying to calm people. Nobody noticed the three monkeys running between the legs of people. Having the habit of moving in the jungle in nights also they can easily move there. Kridha was counting . Forty-five second over and another fifteen seconds. Dhinna was moving ahead of him and now and then he will check for Tira following him. Sixty seconds and he jumped inside the luggage room. Dhinna was already there . They moved quickly to a big pile of the luggage and hid themselves. Tira did not still joined them.

Tira was looking for the fifth counter. The pizza still must be there. One, two three four five and he put his hand on the side of counter. There was no pizza. Did he make a mistake in counting? Is it the next one? He moved ahead to the next counter? Once he gets the pizza he can slip from any one.
He put his hand on the side of sixth counter. He felt the soft crust and the mushroom toppings on the pizza. “Yes.” He patted himself. The security guard pulled the lever up. Kridha calculated that it’s full fifteen seconds more and Tira is not still inside.

A crowd assembled around Tira . He could not move ahead also. The guy managing the luggage and the counter girl were so frightened that they did not moved out of the way so that he can go inside. The counter girls were screaming in fits.
Tira growled looking all around. The policemen came and from a safer distance took Tira into the focus of their muzzle. Tira knew any movement could mean death. If he had been a monkey he would have ran away by now. There is a good chance that with his agility he could have managed to skip behind the counters and enter inside the luggage room from some other counter. The knowledge of what a gun is instilled fear in it.

Kridha and Dhinna figured out what has happened inside.
“I think we should join Tira now” Dhinna said and tried to go ahead.
“No” Kridha replied coldly holding the hand of Dhinna and pulling him back
“But that is what we have promised to each other.” Dhinna was rather amazed
“I agree, but see what will happen if we go with him. We might never be able to go back. What about all our plans of fame and fortune. Here we have a golden opportunity to execute it” Kridha replied emotionless.
“But what about Tira, should we let him to die like this”
“No he is not going to die. They will put him zoo, where he will be happy. No need to search for the food and the safety is also there. In fact these humans will search a female for him also”
“Kridha, If the zoo life is so good than we can also join him. Why to take so much risk? We could have gone in a zoo in India itself. This much pain why you made us to take?”
“Because freedom is much better than zoo” Kridha replied after a while.
“And does it not apply to Tira. Is Tira’s freedom is of no importance” Dhinna was rather furious, but he kept his tone low enough to not to gain any attention.
“It applies to everybody. Look we are in more risk now compared to Tira” We may be dead in this venture and if we are successful we can always put the first demand as the release of Tira. Look in this way.”

Dhinna was not sure if there is a merit in Kridha’s argument. He was also not sure whether it’s a diplomatic statement to avoid going to Tira or Kridha really meant it.

Outside Tira started becoming more nervous with passing moments. He was expecting Kridha and Dhinna to come out. He never felt so lonely sitting in front of a gun. The pizza piece was still in his hand.

Tira sat there for half an hour like a statue at the same place. Meanwhile Kridha and Dhinna located the luggage bound to Washington. They were all piled at one corner. The two also hid them among that pile.

Outside police called the local zoo authorities. They came up with cages and nets and Tira preferred to go inside the cage with not much fuss. After entering into cage he preferred to eat the pizza rather than throwing it. The pizza, which put him into this trouble.

Meanwhile kridha and Dhinna managed to reach to the aeroplane and took their place near the wheels. The authorities in Frankfurt airport searched for two days for the two more missing monkeys.

The news came in the local newspapers next day in Frankfurt. The crew of Mumbai bound Frankfurt was by that time busy taking the flight back to India. Three days after the crew will assemble the distinct pieces of news in India and Frankfurt with the biggest piece of the story.


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