Short Story: The Balloon Report

Arun Kumar lived in a compact sea-facing flat in Bandra West, the kind of place where the salt air never quite left your clothes. Yesterday had been Holi—a holiday that, in Mumbai, often stretched into an excuse for day-long revelry. Arun had gone to a friend’s rooftop party in Khar, accepted one too many glasses of thandai laced with generous helpings of bhang, and by late evening had simply folded into the nearest sofa and disappeared from the world.

He woke up this morning—March 4, 2026—with a headache that felt like someone was tightening a metal band around his temples. The clock on his phone glared 9:07. He was already catastrophically late.

Arun was Chief Financial Officer at Apex Dynamics Ltd., a mid-sized infrastructure conglomerate whose quarterly board review was scheduled for 9:30 sharp. He showered in thirty seconds, pulled on the first clean shirt he could find, and opened the Uber app. Every driver in a five-kilometer radius appeared to be either offline or mysteriously “on a long trip.” It took seventeen agonizing minutes to finally secure a ride.

He reached the glass-and-steel tower in Lower Parel at 10:05. The boardroom door was already closed. When he slipped in, twenty-three pairs of eyes turned toward him in perfect, synchronized disapproval. His boss, Vikram Malhotra, merely raised one eyebrow and continued speaking about EBITDA margins as though Arun were invisible.

Arun’s answers during the Q&A were sluggish and imprecise. Numbers he knew by heart slipped away like wet soap. By the time the meeting ended, the air felt thick with unspoken reprimand.

As people filed out, Arun lingered near Vikram’s chair and tried to explain.

“Sir, you won’t believe what happened. I left home at 8:30 and someone threw a water balloon at me. Drenched me completely. It was smelly, filthy water—honestly disgusting. I had to go back, change, and… well, everything snowballed from there.”

Vikram’s expression hardened. Before Arun could retreat to his cabin, the older man called across the corridor.

“Sarah, please speak to HR right now. Tell them to file a police complaint immediately. This city is going to the dogs. My CFO gets assaulted with a water balloon one day after Holi and he’s late for a board meeting!”

“Sir, please,” Arun said quickly. “It’s really okay. Just a prank. Don’t bother.”

“It’s not okay,” Vikram replied, voice flat. “Not when it affects the company.”

Arun returned to his desk and stared at spreadsheets without seeing them. The throbbing in his head had moved behind his eyes.

That evening, as he was shutting down his laptop, the HR head—Neha Kapoor—walked up with her usual brisk efficiency.

“Arun, you need to go to the Khar police station to give your statement. Don’t worry, it won’t take long. My assistant Rhea Sharma and Sundar from Legal will accompany you.”

“Neha, can’t we just… drop this?”

“Now?” She gave a tight smile. “You should have told Vikram this morning that you didn’t want a complaint. I’ve already spent—well, invested—three hours on paperwork. Legal has too. Might as well finish it. It’s not a bad thing anyway; sets a precedent.”

The sub-inspector at the station was unexpectedly polite, almost cheerful. Five minutes, exactly.

“I left home around 8:30,” Arun recited. “I was waiting for my Uber when someone threw a water balloon. It drenched me. Smelly, filthy water. I went back upstairs, changed, took another cab, reached office 10:05.”

“Address, sir?”

Arun gave it.

“Any landmark nearby?”

“The Oxomoco.” The constable looked at him as if Arun were playing a prank on him. It’s a Mexican restaurant. Arun spelt it out slowly and it was noted down. Arun was out in under ten minutes.

That night his wife Priya continued her pointed silence. She had barely spoken since he’d stumbled home the previous evening reeking of bhang and thandai. He slept on the couch.

The next morning Arun reached the office at 8:15, determined to redeem himself. By noon he had cleared most of his inbox and finalized two critical reports. He was starting to feel human again when the head of Legal, Sanjay Rao, appeared at his door.

“Police called. They’ve obtained some CCTV footage from the building entrance and the lane outside. They’re reviewing it now.”

Arun’s stomach folded in on itself. He skipped lunch.

Late afternoon a young associate from Legal—barely two years out of law school—burst in without knocking.

“Sir, the sub-inspector says it’s urgent. They need you at the station immediately.”

Arun rubbed his temples. “I’ve wasted enough time on this balloon nonsense. Can’t you people handle it? I’m busy.”

The associate left. Arun stared at the screen for another thirty minutes, accomplishing nothing. Then he made up his mind. He would leave early, go home, pack a small bag, and perhaps drive to his parents’ place in Pune for a few days until the police lost interest in this absurd water-balloon sideshow. He powered down his laptop, grabbed his bag, and walked quickly toward the elevator.

Just as the doors were sliding open, he heard hurried footsteps and the young associate’s voice hollering down the corridor.

“Sir! The sub-inspector has sent a constable. He’s waiting downstairs to escort you.”

Arun felt heat crawl up his neck, prickling like tiny insects. He kept his face blank while his mind raced. He would confess that he had a mental health issue. He had imagined the water balloon, which hadn’t been thrown at him. He would get help, but please could they keep it quiet? He would call Rohan—Rohan who always knew people, who could make problems quietly vanish for the right fee. But there was no time.

The constable waiting in the lobby was a grizzled man in his late fifties, uniform starched but sleeves rolled up against the March heat.

“Sorry to trouble you, sir,” he said, voice gravelly but courteous. “We’ve already caught the fellow who threw it. We just need you to come and identify him. Won’t take more than a few minutes.”

Arun stared at the older man. The constable met his gaze without blinking. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to jump up and down in relief. He wanted to shout.

Arun controlled himself and nodded once, slowly.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.” Better some poor devil than me, he thought as he walked out of the building with dignity and pride, his head held high.