That night, Arnab was back at MG Road, wondering if this was all a colossal waste of time. There was no guarantee that the men would ever strike again, at least in this area. For all he knew, they were in another city altogether, while Arnab waited in the frosty November night, planning all manner of revenge, but achieving precious little other than to burn a deeper hole in his pocket with his daily trips to Gurgaon and wasting precious time that he should have been using to prepare for various upcoming exams. At least on the latter count, he had come prepared this night. As he sat sipping a Pepsi at a Pizza Hut located in front of the mall, he alternated between scanning the area for any sign of the men in their black Sumo and brushing up on the past 10 years' papers for the state banking services examination. At about ten o'clock, he began to get seriously bored and stepped out, deciding that this was indeed perhaps a waste of time. He began to ask himself what he was doing there in the first place. Mishti was nobody to him, and certainly he had no right to speak or act on her behalf. Perhaps it would be best if he just went home and got some sleep.
Then he looked up and stopped in his tracks.
Standing less than six feet away from him were three men. They would have looked unremarkable in the crowd of young people around them had it not been for three things. One, they were very obviously checking out women who passed them and exchanging comments between themselves. Two, they were clearly drunk, struggling to stand straight; and most importantly, the tallest and biggest of them was wearing a red bandana tied across his forehead. Arnab could hear his heart beating so loudly that he was barely able to hear much else around him. There was no way he could be sure that these were the men that had chased Mishti, but it all seemed to be too much of a coincidence. All his plans of vengeance dissipated in the confusion and fear he felt at that moment. He had no idea what he should do or say. He couldn't really launch into the men and attack them on a hunch that they were criminals outside a crowded mall, could he? At best, the police would cart him away, and at worst he would get seriously hurt if the police did intervene. While he was aware of all his newly found powers, he also remembered his lessons from the rooftop well enough-he was still mortal and could still be hurt.
In the midst of all this, a large crowd emerged from the mall, talking excitedly about the movie they had just seen in the multiplex upstairs. As they jostled for space in the narrow exit, Arnab lost sight of the men for a few seconds. When he tried looking for them again, he realized to his dismay that he couldn't see the men anywhere. He rushed to where they had been standing, and frantically searched for them, but in a few seconds he realized that his indecision had completely botched his plans.
The next day, Arnab was in a foul mood, and even Jayantada took notice of this sudden change in his otherwise reliably good-humoured assistant. At lunch, he asked Arnab if anything was wrong, and Arnab told him that he was worried about his preparations for the upcoming exams. It was only a partial lie, since Arnab knew only too well how badly his preparations had been hit by his misadventures of the last few days. That thought only served to make his mood even worse. He debated whether he should go again that night, and finally, realizing that he would drive himself crazy thinking about whether the men had come again that night, he decided to give it one more shot. If they didn't show up that night, then he would just give it up.
It was mid November, and the Delhi winter was beginning to make its presence felt. Now knowing how late he would probably be out, Arnab decided to wear something a bit warmer. He took out an old sweatshirt that had been gifted to him on his birthday several years ago by his friends in college. It had been a favourite of his, and one thing he liked about Delhi was that the winters gave him an opportunity to wear it more often. Years of wear and tear had taken its toll, and of the original 'GAP' brand logo displayed prominently on the front, only the 'GA' remained. He took the sweatshirt in his hand and set out once again, praying that the men would be there that night, and resolving that if they were there, he would not throw away the opportunity like he had done the previous night.
By about half past nine, Arnab was beginning to lose patience, and put on his sweatshirt, ready to start on the journey back to his home. As he stepped on the curb, he saw a black Sumo parked a few feet away to his right. He kept walking a few paces, and then stopped to turn around. There was no reason that this had to be the black Sumo Mishti had described being chased by, but he figured that there was nothing to be lost by waiting a few more minutes. So he sat down near the car and waited, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up around his head to keep out the cold wind that was now blowing at a brisk pace.
He couldn't believe his luck when a few minutes later, three men walked over to the car. They were the same men he had seen the previous night, and if he had any remaining doubts about their identities, their conversation was a sure giveaway.
'Which bitch did you guys fancy?' asked the big man with the bandana around his head.
'I liked the one in the jeans and the white top. The one with the long legs' responded one of his friends, a smaller man, who was holding a can of beer in his hand.
They all laughed and passed a few vulgar comments about the women they had seen in the mall that night, when the big man pointed to a woman walking towards them.
'While you've been lusting after everyone you see, I've been making a plan.'
When his friends asked, he said that the woman was alone, and her car, a Honda, was parked just a few feet away. He outlined a plan to follow her till the highway and then force her car off the road in a dark spot. Arnab was sitting just a few feet away from the men, and their conversation had made his blood run cold. It was one thing to think about these criminals in an abstract sense, but quite another thing to see them as flesh and blood people, calmly planning a rape as if they were planning a family picnic. He felt anger build up within him, and stood up to confront the men. Just as he stood, the woman the men had been discussing got in her car and drove away. The men rushed into the Sumo to follow her.
For a second or two, Arnab stayed rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do. Then, distraught that he would lose them again, and even worse, that his inaction would enable them to attack another victim, Arnab started running after the Sumo.
Arnab didn't think much of it at first, but after a few seconds, he realized what was happening. He was chasing a car on foot and keeping up! He had no idea what speed the Sumo was driving at, but by any stretch of the imagination, he was running faster than any man should. As he tried running faster, he realized that at full tilt he was actually travelling a bit faster than the Sumo and was steadily gaining on the car, which was now perhaps no more than a dozen feet ahead of him. Feeling the wind blow into his face at high speed was hardly comfortable, but the hood helped a bit, and the sheer adrenaline boost of the chase made him forget everything but catching these men. He stumbled on a rock and fell by the roadside, wincing in pain as his elbow hit the ground. His glasses were knocked off his face, and he cursed himself as he tried to find them, knowing that without his glasses, he would not be able to do much, no matter how fast he ran. That was when he noticed something that blew his mind. He could see clearly without his glasses! No, more than that, despite the near pitch darkness of the stretch of road leading to the highway, he could see everything as clear as daylight. All the objects he saw had a bit of a green tinge to them, of the sort he had once seen displayed on a Night Vision scope on some Discovery documentary, but he could see them crystal clear without needing his glasses. What sort of magic was this? The sound of the Sumo making a tight turn into the highway brought him back to his senses, and he put his glasses into his pocket, as he resumed his pursuit, determined not to let the men get away.