JOHNNY GONE DOWN Read Online Free PDF Page A

harassed by the healthy ghosts of my parents pottering about the house, dropping me off to school, waiting for me when I returned. The sudden loss of everything I had taken for granted almost crippled me, and had it not been for Sam, I would probably never havesummoned up the will to apply for undergraduate studies in the US. He was my best friend in school, a hostel mate in Delhi who, I half suspected, changed his IIT plans to MIT, sensing my need to escape from India.
    I looked at him affectionately. His clumsy optimism had pulled me through, first in high school and then in MIT.
    ‘All my life I dreamt of this, you know,’ Sam said suddenly. ‘Not Cambodia, I mean - just this absolute freedom to take a trip from nowhere to nowhere. That’s why I wanted to get out of Bhatinda. Everyone around me had already planned the rest of my life without even asking me.’
    I felt a sudden stab of regret at what I would never have. ‘Like a Greek tragedy, one realizes the value of what one has only when one loses it,’ I said softly.
    ‘I guess that’s why there aren’t too many Greek heroes in Bhatinda’s poultry farms,’ said Sam with a grin. ‘Nothing much to lose there.’ He let out a gigantic yawn. ‘Should we get some sleep, you think? So many empty seats, we have more room to sleep here than in the dorm.’

    ‘Get up,’ said Sam, shaking me violently. ‘We’re about to land. Just look outside, will you? Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?’
    I opened one sleepy eye and looked blearily out the window to see a bunch of trees, some scrubs, a body of water, some buildings.
    ‘It looks like any other place,’ I mumbled.
    ‘Your irrepressible enthusiasm after sixteen hours of sleep is very uplifting,’ he said. ‘I’m going to score here, you wait and see. You just see,’ he repeated as the plane touched down bumpily.
    I felt a surge of excitement as the plane skidded to a halt on the sparse runway. Phnom Penh, Siam Reap, Angkor Vat; all remote names from primary school history lessons that were suddenly becoming a reality. To top it all, we had no hotel reservations, no travel bookings, no maps and no fixed plans -the best way to travel. I felt myself sharing Sam’s enthusiasm as we jumped up to take our backpacks from the overhead luggage compartment.
    ‘You should try and get back on the next flight,’ someone said.
    Sam and I turned in surprise. One of the military dudes had walked up behind us.
    ‘The civilian government was overthrown by the communist rebel army, the Khmer Rouge, in a coup yesterday,’ he said. ‘Things will get ugly very soon.’
    Now what’s all this, I thought. We were on a vacation. Where did coups, civilian governments and rebel armies fit in?
    ‘Isn’t the Khmer Rouge the people’s army?’ Samasked. ‘Won’t it be more peaceful now that they have replaced the unpopular government?’
    The tall, middle-aged marine ran a hand through his, crew-cut blonde hair and shrugged. ‘I don’t know all that. This isn’t a history lecture, son. Coups mean trouble, no matter who replaces whom.’
    ‘When will things settle down?’ I asked.
    The marine laughed. ‘A few decades, maybe; this is South Asia.’ He began to walk away. ‘I would go back if I were you.’
    Backpacks in hand, Sam and I looked at each other.
    ‘I thought nothing ever happened in Cambodia,’ I said.
    ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to listen to him. You know how paranoid Americans are,’ he replied. ‘Where we come from, there is a coup every day.’
    ‘I don’t know. This sounds serious. It’s not worth getting shot at just to see a bunch of temples.’
    The Cambodian air hostess looked at us expectantly.
    ‘Anyway, we need to get out of the plane, I guess,’ I said.
    We began to move towards the exit.
    ‘I think we should take the next flight back,’ I told Sam as we walked towards the terminal.
    ‘Maybe he was just a racist fucker getting off from scaring two brown curry boys,’