Krishna

NOTE: This story is based on the Author's fiction. It does not apply to any real-life incidents or historical references. Initially I titlted this story as Chameleon and it's story was different from this version. However, due to the old-fashioned storyline of Chameleon, I revived it and retitled this story as Krishna.

AGE LIMIT: Parental Guidance necessary due to the violence and gore.

28 JULY 2017

KANCHIPURAM, CHENNAI

Three years after the mysterious death of gangster Sridhar Dhanapal in Cambodia, the vacuum he left behind has resulted in an escalating gang war in Kancheepuram district that has sucked in school and college students. Three weeks after 60 youngsters were summoned to the office of the Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police and warned by SP Samuel Joseph, express met some of them to understand how they got drawn into a vertex of violence.

Once known as the Dawood Ibrahim of South India, Sridhar Dhanapal’s death in 2017 split his gang into two factions, each vying to take his place. One faction is led by Dinesh, who was Sridhar’s personal driver, and his partner Thyagarajan alias Thyagu. The other is led by Sridhar’s brother-in-law Thanikachalam.

The violence started just a month after Sridhar’s death with Thanika’s men hurling country bombs at Dinesh’s car in November 2017. In recent months, the gang war is no longer confined to Kancheepuram district. Thanika’s men brutally murdered Dinesh’s aide M. Satheeshkumar on a moving bus in Cheyyar in Tiruvannamalai district after the latter attempted to murder Thanika’s advocate Siva. To avenge Satheesh’s death, Dinesh’s men hacked Thanika’s cousin Karunakaran to death in Kancheepuram. 

Police said: "There have been more killings, often staged as accidents. Even cops are leery of looking too closely at the deaths lest the war escalates." However, Dinesh and Thyagu are now in prison and detained under the Goondas Act. Thanikachalam is absconding and police are struggling to trace the tech-savvy gangster.

KANCHIPURAM POLICE HEADQUARTERS

The next day, Samuel Joseph holds a meeting with his police officers in Kancheepuram, where he tells the police officers to evade gangsters in the district and further asks them to handle this unofficially and let this be unknown to the gang of Thanika and Dinesh. They agree to eliminate the mafia, without any gang wars.

FEW MONTHS LATER 

30 JULY 2017

SEVILIMEDU, KANCHIPURAM

8.30 PM

In Sevilimedu, Krishna is grieving the death of his wife Rukmini, who had arranged for him to receive an 8-year-old girl Rithanya to help cope with his loss.

FEW DAYS LATER

A few days later, Thanikachalam's henchmen, led by his younger brother Raghava, accost Krishna at a gas station and fail to intimidate him into selling them his Maruti Suzuki car. That night, they break into Krishna's home and assault him. After assaulting him, Raghava sneaks inside the room of Ridhanya.

Hearing the sounds of his entry, Ridhanya shouted in fear. Closing her mouth, Raghava tied her up to a bed and made her nude. After making her naked, he brutally raped Rithanya and kills her. Now, his gang steals Krishna's Maruti car. Upon seeing Ridhanya in a horrible condition, Krishna is heartbroken. He cried aloud in agony and frustration.

Raghava took the Suzuki car to a chop shop to remove its identifying details. But the shop owner, Adhithya recognizes it and refuses service. He informs Krishna that "Raghava is the son of Thanikachalam, the boss of Kanchipuram mafia, who's absconding now."

SOUTH MADRAS

JULY 31, 2017

9.30 PM

Meanwhile, Tanika gets furious that, Dinesh is getting released sooner and plans to finish him off in the prison itself. He plans to bring the bunch of Bihar gangsters for this. At that time, Raghava and his gang come to meet him.

There, Tanika's henchman Rajan tells him that Raghava harmed Krishna and raped his adopted daughter Ridhnaya. Hearing this, Tanika hits his son brutally.

"Why are you beating me, Dad? What did I do?"

"You fucked up da." When Raghava asked him: "Whether Adhithya informed him about the stealing of the car." Thanika beats his son even more. As Rajan says: "I am going." Thanika orders him to stop.

"I just raped a girl and stole a car, right?"

Looking at him, Tanika drank alcohol and said: "The person whom you touched is not an ordinary guy. He is Krishna."

"Sridhar Danapal ah?"

"Before this, he did so many jobs for us. People compared him to Yemen. He is a notorious murderer. Even for killing Danapal, we sent Krishna. He killed three people in a Tasmac bar using a petrol bomb. And one man was killed with Krishna's chakra. When it was going like this, he wished to lead a normal life away from this gangster life for the sake of his love interest Rukmini. So I made a deal with him. I asked for a big help from him. I promise and tell. No one can do such a job. As he finished that job, now we are the boss of the Kanchipuram mafia."

After explaining about Krishna to Raghava, Thanika berates Raghava for incurring his wrath. After killing Sridhar Dhanapal, Krishna recovers a concealed stash from his former career that includes weapons and gold coins. 

Meanwhile, Krishna refuses Thanika's attempt to make amends for his son Raghava's actions. Then, he kills the hit squad subsequently sent to his home. Thanika puts a ₹2 crore bounty on Krishna and enlists his former mentor, Balaram, to kill him. Krishna lodges at a luxurious hotel that serves as neutral ground for the underworld and where conducting criminal business is forbidden. Vasudevan, the hotel's owner and Krishna's old friend informs him that Raghava is at a nightclub.

Krishna infiltrates the nightclub and confronts Raghava, but he is attacked by Thanika's henchman Paneer and forced to retreat to the lodge for medical attention. At the same time, Thanika teams up with Dinesh and Thyagarajan.

"Dinesh. I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse" said Thanika.

Thiyagarajan replied: "What offer?"

"Do you know one thing Thiyagu? The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room" said Thanika. Dinesh asked him to keep quiet.

Now Thanika makes a deal with them to kill Krishna. He says to them, "If you kill them, this whole Kanchipuram will is yours."

The guys agreed to this deal and the duo sneaks into his room. Now, Krishna escaped from them to the dilapidated building near South Kanchi with the assistance of Vasudevan.

While fighting with Dinesh and Thiyagu, Krishna takes a nearby Iron rod and hits the henchmen of Dinesh and Thiyagu. After hitting him, he took their M134 Mimi machine gun.

Using the gun, Krishna brutally kills the henchman of Dinesh and Thiyagu. As this plan fails, Thanika hires hitwoman Harshini. She sneaks into Krishna's room.

Vashdevan sees Harshini from an adjacent building and fires a warning shot to alert Krishna, who wakes up and subdues her. Harshini reveals Thanika has doubled the bounty for her to kill him in the hotel and has concealed a high-value stash in a temple. 

Krishna hires another hitman, Aravinth, to secure Harshini. But she kills Aravinth and escapes. 

At Kanchipuram temple, Krishna destroys Thanika's cache of cash and extensive blackmail material. When Thanika arrives to assess the damage, Krishna assaults him and his men but is hit by Rajan's car and captured. 

Thanikachalam now told Krishna: "Krishna. Experience cold or heat, pleasure or pain. These experiences are fleeting; they come and go. Bear them patiently."

For this, he replied: "Thanika. I will not stop until Raghava is dead. Because Ridhanya gave me hope and a chance to not be alone in my grief for Rukmini. But your son raped her and killed without even considering her as a child."

Wiping his blood from his mouth, Krishna added: "I read Bhagavad Gita a few days back. In that it was said, that Sri Krishna makes the point that helping others produces success in life. If one cannot give one's life, then give wealth, if not wealth, then intelligence and if not intelligence, then words. One should use one's life to serve others."

At this point in time, Vasudevan again intervenes to save Krishna. He kills Rajan and threatens Thanika into revealing Raghav's location in a safe house. 

AUGUST 14, 2017

Krishna sneaks inside the safehouse on Janmashtami. Inside the safehouse, he kills Raghav's henchman using M16 A2 rifle guns. In the ensuing gun battle with Raghav's henchman, Krishna wins.

After killing Raghava's henchman, Krishna recalled the way he raped and killed Ridhanya. Now, Vasudeva gave him a sword. 

With that sword, Krishna chopped the right hands of Raghava and waited for thirty minutes. After that, he chops the left hand, right leg and left leg of Raghava. Now, the blood from Raghava's body flowed like a river in that safe house. 

As Raghava screams in pain, Krishna stares at him and says: "Raghava. Children are considered pure. They are divine. They don’t want anything. They are satisfied in life, and their smile is above anything. I am not telling this. Bhagavad Gita says this." 

Since Raghava doesn't repent of his mistakes, Krishna decapitates him. Now, Vasudevan encourages Krishna to return to his everyday life. Harshini witnesses this and reveals Vasudevan's duplicity to Thanika, who has him tortured and killed. Thanika calls Krishna to taunt him with the details, drawing him back to the city.

Balaram has Harshini executed for breaking the lodge's rules, then informs Krishna that Thanika is preparing to leave Kanchipuram by helicopter. 

Krishna races to Kanchipuram Harbor. With the machine gun he bought from Balaram he kills Thanika's henchman and mortally wounds Thanika. 

With a bloody face, Krishna looked at Thanika. 

"Thanika. You know? Whatever we might consider our ‘life purpose’ to be, there’s one purpose we all have: to live life fully, to explore all there is to explore within and without ourselves. Life may sometimes seem like a battlefield. But it’s also referred to as a ‘drama’ in many of the texts. When we look at it this way we can ask ourselves, am I playing my part fully? Are we giving ourselves to our life and our world and living purposefully? The Bhagavad Gita encourages us to live life with purity, strength, discipline, honesty, kindness and integrity. In this way, we can find our purpose and live it fully. Just as Krishna urges Arjuna to cast aside all doubts and trust in his highest Self, we too can use the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita to meet our own difficulties and decisions with fearlessness and honesty, and learn to live life authentically and fully." 

Krishna, resigned to dying from his injuries, watches on his phone a video of Rukmini telling him they need to go home. He breaks into a nearby animal clinic, treats his wounds, and adopts a pit bull puppy scheduled to be euthanized before beginning to walk home. While walking home, Krishna sees a reflection of Ridhanya smiling at him.