“Yes Madam! What can I get for you?” Soma lifts her head from the phone (startled by the concoted accent from the man behind the Starbucks register).
“Yep, 1 Venti Nonfat Latte please”-
Still intrigued Soma kept looking sneakily at the barista who took her request. “The face looks very familiar- umm where did I see him ? He looks quite an odd man out in this ensemble! Umm”
“Roy- 1 Nonfat Latte- yes for you mam.”
Soma took the coffee, about to step out of the store, a thought pulled her back.She decided to push back her shopping plans & sat in the corner lounge chair.
A queasy unknown feeling gripped over her, while she tried to rack her brain desperately over her cuppa,to find the clue of the hint of familiarity in the barista’s face. As Soma was busy musing to herself, a couple in the other corner of the sitting lounge of Starbucks caught her attention!
They were talking between the two uninterrupted & very intensively,so as it seemed.
Now , wait a minute! The couple too looked very familiar to Soma . She was now very intrigued and thought that it could not have been a simply mere coincidence or DeJa-vu that most of the faces seemed so known to her!!
And!! BAM!! Soma just seemed to have recognized the barista behind the register !
“Oh God! THANK YOU! For helping me! Ugh Why couldn’t I figure this out before?! I know . I know this guy – The barista is .. is.. yes indeed he is PARAMBIR SINGH!
Oh Yes !! I am positive. Parambir had bleached his LONG hair to a blond hue! with tattoo on his arms. And the mustache shaved off!!!” Yes!!!! I DID IT!!
“Excuse me Ms, are you leaving?”
Soma looked up irritated,to have her investigative creative trail of thought to be so abruptly interrupted and got up to leave. She turned before leaving, but the couple in the corner were gone by now.
Out of the store , with the latte in one hand , while adjusting the airpods,still a little hazed with her own thoughts , planning the next course of action i.e. call up. the main hotline number of Republic to give them the first hand news , Soma suddenly stopped . She kind of FROZE. Downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, 10,000 miles away from own country,Soma stood still at the sidewalk.
“Oh Goodness!”- she said aloud in her mind! Arnab Goswami ? Yeah that’s him-Soma’s much revered hero figure in the Louis Vuitton black shirt and Levis Blue Jeans!with dark blue Oakley shades!Wow! Just when she was about to rush and get an autograph & hopefully a selfie with her hero, she held herself back. The couple inside Starbucks who had caught Soma’s attention were now heading very fast towards Arnab .Finally they caught up with him and the three started talking in very hurried tones.
Soma stood there startled and right then she remembered! The couple were non other than the two most prominent figures in Republic’s SIT team – Ms Alisha Nair and.. yes non other than The NO NONSENSE – Mr. Shawan Sen!!
Aah !!! The murky picture started to clear up gradually. So the SIT team as expected had cracked down the exact whereabouts of the disgraced,absconding ex commissioner of police -Parambir Singh. Thus the entire team along with the big boss of Republic Media Network- Mr Arnab Ranjan Goswami, had gathered around the Starbucks in Downtown Charlotte!Soma felt a pang of disappointment within her realizing that she couldn’t crack this faster than the super efficient – SIT. She gathered her courage and coyly approached the Republic trio, introduced herself and relayed her assumption on the identity of the barista.
A couple of loud police sirens engulfed the area and soon a barrage of cops gathered encircling the building and all entry and exit points were immediately closed. Customers were safely evacuated from the store. The cops then barged inside the Starbucks store ; pindrop silence.
Soma stood still ; the latte had totally gone cold; but her heart was filled with excitement and immensely contentted today.
It was early fall. Soma was in downtown Charlotte and bore the testimony to the great SIT operation by Team Republic in the most successful track down of the most disgraced , rogue, extortionist ex Mumbai Commissioner – Param Bir Singh! Wow! What adrenaline rush!
And the moment came! The tall man posing as the barista was finally brought out , handcuffed, and guarded by the American cops from all sides.
Ignoring the crowd,huge police presence, the network’s crew – Soma cheered jubilantly and loudly –
“Three Cheers for Arnab. Hip Hip Hurrah!
Three Cheers for Team Republic . Hip Hip Hurrah! Arnab and Republic FINALLY WON!
Arnab and Republic STAND TALL & VINDICATED !” ✅✅✅
She continued to cheer until a tickle in her throat stopped her & she began coughing vociferously! The cough grew so fierce that she started tossing, turning , as if trying hard to find something 😳 Soma tried to drink the latte .and another toss. Boom! Her hand was now in the clasp of her husband,Papa, who was simply trying to comfort her.
“Wait a minute!!”- she looked around. Much to her chagrin, Soma realized that she was not in any exciting “PBS Tracking-SIT expedition” & that was just a wild dream! Alas!!!
Indeed, fact is stranger than fiction. Soma was very disheartened and how much she yearned for her dream to come true.
Parambir Singh – this name had etched a deep rooted scar in the millions of hearts of those Indians who still reveled to belong to the land which they believed to be a land of justice, a land where no one was essentially above the Law.
This man who headed the “once most lauded “ police department of Mumbai as the Police Commissioner from Feb2020 was disdainfully expunged from the coveted position due to the laundry list of all things which could be put under the banner of “UNACCEPTABLE”,”HIDEOUS”,”IMMORAL”and in plain vanilla-“WRONG” in March of 2021.
The “never ending list “of all the despicable actions for which this once commissioner was demoted was actually “as long as the river Nile”.
The list of the evildoings was endless,leaving no corner of peccancies unturned. It ranged from extorting astronomical amount from businessmen in exchange of immoral favor to to being the mastermind in the murder case of a person called Mansukh Hiren to influencing a cyber expert in purportedly naming a terrorist organization in the Antilla Bomb Scare Case with the motive to divert the center of focus from the main duo involved i.e. Sachin Vaze and Parambir himself.
Thus in a nutshell this tainted police ex commissioner was involved in everything for which police were entitled to save the commoners from.
Soma wanted to take a pause and seize the opportunity to remind her readers one more time the correlation of this Parambir and her idol whom she looked up to.- Arnab Goswami.
The alarm went off interrupting Soma’s trail of thoughts. As she stopped the annoying alarm, she automatically noticed the date on the calendar-10-8-21!!
Aah! So that was it ! No wonder, Soma thought to herself about the reason of such a weird dream. Every thing fell into its place.
Yes ,as stated earlier , Soma just wanted to make sure that her readers knew exactly the extent of the iniquity the disgraced cop was accountable for and the relevance the calendar date had with the Goswami-Cop saga!
The turn of events as unfolded had seen 8th Oct of the previous year 2020 take an unprecedented turn. This same cop in power at that time as the Former Police Commissioner had colluded with the rest of the Media houses in India. Their sole mission was :OPERATION ARNAB.. SNUB ,FALSIFY,HOUND this ever resilient Goswami and demolish him forever. Afterall Arnab being the independent journalist who reached the zenith surpassing each and every one – this success story was quite overbearing for the rest to endure. Hence the optimal solution which worked out for all was to carry out this demonic operation after all. The operation was carefully executed by Parambir on this day that year!
The day when the infamous press conference was held by the disdained the then Police Commissioner accusing Republic Media Network to be the prime accused in the TRP RIGGING CASE .
What followed thereafter was not unknown to any readers. Arrests, torture, endless hours of interrogation, FIR on the entire editorial team, naming &shaming Arnab at every pretext and finally the horrific unlawful arrest of the Editor in Chief – Arnab Goswami , his alleged assault by Sachin Vaze all at the behest of this celebrated commissioner- Parambir would remain rooted in every Indian’s mind.
Hence with the Manush Hiren Case and Antilla Bomb Case unraveling – Sachin Vaze being arrested, FIR issued against Former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and the entire truth on Parambir flung out with such glaring nudity,the population who had firm trust and deep faith on Team Arnab and republic’s integrity and honesty, reveled in glory and the feeling of being vindicated.
And finally on 17th September 2021 with Vaze’s confession that the TRP case was a fabricated one at the behest of the then home minister Anil Deshmukh’s order , there was an absolute celebration all across.
But Parambir inspite of five FIRS hurled at him was still absconding , much to the chagrin of millions of commoners like Soma.
Finally on the 1st of Oct 2021, it came into public light that this Police Ex Commissoner with all serious charges filed against him had fled to an unknown destination probably using a forged passport. The day was marked as a BLACK DAY IN THE HISTORY OF INDIA’s POLITICO JUDICIAL STATURE in front of the entire world.
A once protector of law turned into the perpetrator,committed every possible crime and yet mocked the basic judicial and all the governing systems of the nation- and yet there was absolutely no accountability neither from the state nor the central government on such a breach of the basic governance and rules.
Arnab fumed. He questioned all the authorities. He along with others, debated. Along with him, the entire nation fumed. They were outraged.
So did Soma. Not only because PBS was allowed to leave the country for obvious political benefits, but for the precedence this set for all things wrong.
They allowed for the “Truth to perish. And Evil to Triumph”.
So Soma dreamt . She dreamt a wild dream on behalf of the nation;
On behalf of millions of perched souls to see the wrongs finally being righted.To see the evil being perished in the hands of the truth in this time of Navaratri .
“Ya devi sarva bhuteshu, shanti rupena sangsthita.
Ya devi sarva bhuteshu, shakti rupena sangsthita
Ya devi sarva bhuteshu, matri rupena sangsthita
Yaa devi sarva bhuteshu, buddhi rupena sangsthita
Namastasyai, namastasyai, namastasyai, namo namaha”
“Ripavah sankshayam yaanti kalyaanam chop padyate | Nandate cha kulam punsaam maahaatmyam mam srinu yaanmam ||”
(This powerful mantra provide protection against all negativeness, enemies and adversaries. Regular chanting of mantra has power to destroy enemies. It also brings prosperity, bliss and peace in one’s life.)
{Credit:https:// rtsin.com}
Super one. But was the dream in the wee hrs . If it was you never know it might come true sooner than later, may be not in downtown Charlotte but downtown mumbai.
As the saying goes
” It’s never over till the fat lady sings”