ICSE Class 10 Answered

It was a hot day in October and I was riding pillion behind a two-wheeler motorbike on the streets of Goa. Two-wheeler taxis are a common thing in Goa, and I, being a native always relied on them.  

I was visiting my paternal grandmother this time, a year after grandfather passed away. I had got a call from the neighbours that grandmother wasn’t doing so well and so I was in town to pursue her to move to my home in another city.

10 minutes into the ride, the driver began to ask me questions about my business there. This was a usual habit of the locals, getting to know the customers, and finding new business. Just as I was talking to the driver, I started hearing sirens behind me. I ignored at first, thinking it must be some drill or some VIP convoy. However, my driver suddenly swerved the bike on an unknown route and told me that it was a shortcut and we would reach before the VIP convoy blocking the roads. I was quite convinced until I heard the police sirens wailing behind me again. 

This time, my driver was visibly shaken and trying his best to dodge the cops. I asked him to stop speeding but he wouldn’t listen. At last, a police van approached ahead of us and he hit the brakes so hard that I fell off the bike into a nearby sandpit. 

The police officers arrested the driver after quickly offering me first aid. As I came to my senses, I saw my uncle approaching towards me. What he told me completely took me by shock. The driver was my grandfather’s stepson who had been eliminated from the family inheritance because of his alcoholism and gambling habits. So the man had decided to kidnap me and ask my grandmother for a part of the inheritance as a ransom. My uncle told me that she had never been unwell. It was this stepson who had found my number and plotted the whole thing. 

What a day it was! Thank God for the timely intervention of the cops, or I would have been lying gagged somewhere for the rest of my life.