Chain of Custody (2 page)

5 M
ARCH
, T
HURSDAY

T
he smell. Grime, sweat and the unwashed reek of a body dressed in soiled clothes that were threadbare in patches and unravelling at the ends. The pong of desperation.

It was a smell I recognized. For I had lived with it.

In the crowded general compartment of the 18463 Prashanthi Express, scheduled to reach Bangalore City station at 12.05 p.m., desperation hung like a low cloud. The collective breath of the creatures who occupied every seat and aisle.

I looked around. It was a mixed group as always. About ninety people packed into a compartment meant to hold seventy-two. There was barely room to move.

They sat leaning against each other. Three scrawny boys dressed in t-shirts and track pants. Their skin was the colour of clay; their flat noses with flared nostrils and rather prominent brows told me they were from one of the tribal villages of Odisha. Each had a thread around his neck with a little silver charm. One of them touched his charm and rubbed his finger on it. He was frightened of what lay ahead and was willing himself to be brave.

The boys clutched a plastic bag each. It probably held all their possessions: a few worn-out clothes and worthless gewgaws that each would fight viciously to keep. Their feet were bare and only
a little dirtier than their faces. But there was something resolute about their expressions that drew me to them.

I knew it all. For I was them, once.

I was six years old when my father sold me to a man for a thousand rupees. That was to be my price for the season. ‘You can plant the fields with half the money and the rest will keep you and your family going till the crops are ready to be sold. I'll bring him back once the season is up,' the man told my mother.

My father called the man sardar and I was told to call him the same. The man had five families with him, including my uncle's, and they had offered to include me as part of their group. Men and women like my parents, children like me, two old women, an old man and two babies. My head reeled with all the new names and sensations.

We took a train. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't care. Wherever it was, it would be better than home, I knew. I had never been on a train before or seen running water that came when I opened the tap. Every few hours, the man gave me something to eat. I clung to the window bars of the train and felt the hot wind tattoo my face. I wanted to sing. It felt like my horizon was arced with rainbows. Thousands of them.

We were asked to get off the train at a station called Kazipet, and he took us to a place that made bricks. ‘You like playing in the mud, don't you?' my uncle said with a strange sounding laugh.

I nodded as I looked around. At first I thought I couldn't breathe. The heat pressed down upon me and the air hurt my throat and eyes.

‘Stop gaping and help me,' my uncle said. We had to build our own little room where all of us would sleep. My uncle, my aunt, his mother-in-law and their two children younger than me. We had been given some straw and a blue sheet. That would be our roof – thatch and plastic. But we would need to build the walls. All of us worked quietly and quickly. That night I lay on the ground outside the unfinished room, staring at the skies. It didn't matter, I told myself. There are others here as well. Somehow that made me feel better.

The days were relentless. At first I was given lumps of coal to beat against each other so they turned into bits that would feed the furnace. Then I was asked to carry small loads of freshly moulded bricks to the kilns. I had to do what I was asked to do. That was what the other children did as well.

I worked through the day. In return, I was given some food, and several beatings. My uncle beat me, my aunt beat me, my aunt's mother beat me, the older boys and girls beat me, the kiln owner's supervisor beat me … After a while I stopped wondering what I was getting beaten for. All I knew was that there was a furnace with a gaping mouth in my belly. It felt hollow and hot. I didn't know if it was hunger or fear.

I forgot my name. Everyone called me Pathuria. Everyone else was also Pathuria.

The train sped into the day. Soon the ticket collector would make a cursory visit. He seldom went beyond the door. The stench from the bathrooms and from the clogged pores of these vacant-eyed, hollow-cheeked creatures would deter even the bravest man. Once in a while, though, he would pounce on a hapless face and demand, ‘Tickets! Tickets!'

Sometimes a tiny runnel of luck would slip into the cloud of desperation, and even if that person didn't have one, the man sitting alongside or someone else from across the aisle would pass him a ticket. And such would be the impact of that jet of luck that the ticket checker would not ask the good samaritan for
his
ticket. Such happenstances occured in the general compartment.

Sometimes though, a face would give itself away. A shifty look, beads of sweat on the upper lip, a tightening of the jaw. The ticket checker was not an idiot. He would see the owner of that face for what he was. Class: Vermin. Category: Vagrant. With the glee of a dog sniffing out a nest of baby rats, he would
pounce on him. Ready to toss him out onto the next platform with a growl and a threat. ‘Do you want me to call the railway police?'

It was then I would appear. I would have a sheaf of tickets in my pocket. I would wedge my way through the heaving mass of perspiration and fear till I reached the group that I knew was certain to be ticketless and with no knowledge of what to do next.

I leaned against one of the seats now. The boys avoided looking at me as I knew they would. They stared out of the window or at the floor. Look at me, I wanted to tell them. Meet my gaze, let's make this easier for you and me.

You are Krishna, I told myself, thinking of how the thekedar had grasped my shoulders, looked into my eyes and named me. I repeated in my head the words the thekedar had said to me the first time and many times thereafter: Those who come to me go beyond the world of shadows.

I boarded at Chipurupalle station in Andhra Pradesh at 10.58 a.m. It was an hour when no one noticed anything. Sleep weighed heavy on the eyelids and turned all thoughts into a slow, murky stream. At 11.30 a.m. we would be at Vizinagaram with the possibility of the ticket checker turning up any moment. I had a few minutes left to make the boys my own.

They had two bottles of water between them. One of the boys raised a bottle to his lips. His eyes met mine.

‘Tame kouthu asicha?' I mumbled in Odiya, hiding a yawn behind my hand. I spoke five languages: Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Odiya and Bengali, and I had a smattering of Telugu and English. In my line of work, you are nothing if you cannot speak
the language of your customers, and mine came from different parts of the country.

His eyes widened and he mumbled something to the boy next to him. This one was the leader of the group. He frowned and then answered my query after a pause.

‘Satpada,' he said. ‘And you?'

‘Puri,' I said. That's my stock answer to anyone from Odisha. I could tell them the truth, that I was from Bolangir, but I don't remember anything about that part of my life. My family, home, or the place.

And if someone probed about Puri, I had another answer ready. My house was in one of the lanes by the temple. I imagined the lane. A dirty, smelly narrow strip of land crowded with people and animals, rickshaws and vendors. The thekedar said that was how it was. But no one ever asked me.

‘I have been to Lake Chilka,' I said. It was the truth.

Once, the thekedar and I drove through the villages of southern Odisha. I don't know what caught my breath: the landscape of water beds everywhere or the poverty that lined every face and filled every home.

I touched the thekedar's elbow then and asked, ‘What happened here? Why are they so poor?'

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? Floods, cyclones, the mining industry, no education, no leftist party … take your pick!' And then he smiled wolfishly. ‘Good for us though!'

I smiled back. It was reassuring to know the well would never run dry.

I saw a gleam in the boy's eye. Was it the relief of meeting someone who knew his village? ‘Do you have tickets?' I asked.

The boy's brow furrowed again. But he spoke firmly. ‘Yes, yes.' He was lying. How easily they gave themselves away. That little hesitation made all the difference.

‘Well then, that's fine. The ticket checker will come in at the next station and the ticketless rats as he calls them will be thrown out onto the platform where the railway police will drag them to jail. A black hole filled with real rats and thrashings thrice a day instead of food. But you don't have to worry. Since you have your tickets, just stay tight and watch the fun!' I winked at him.

I held on to the metal railing and let my face rest against the crook of my arm. I counted under my breath. I needed the security that numbers brought into my life. It probably began at the kiln with the making of bricks. If we made a thousand bricks a day, we were paid eighty rupees. Twenty were mine. And so I learnt to count as we moulded bricks.

At the count of seven, I heard his low voice. ‘Dada.'

I shifted my gaze to meet his. ‘Yes,' I said slowly. My voice took on the sonorous tone of the big brother, for he had anointed me thus.

‘We don't have tickets. What do we do?'

I frowned. ‘That's a problem and …'

Before I could finish, he blurted out, ‘Please help us.'

I scratched my head thoughtfully. ‘Three of my friends were to have joined me. But their boss didn't let them travel. So we'll just pretend that you three are the friends I bought the tickets for.'

I smiled at them. My best Krishna smile that the thekedar said could light a street, melt ice and open locks. These tribal boys from the middle of nowhere wouldn't be able to resist it.
The tightness around the boys' mouths dissolved. They would go with me to the end of the world, I knew.

‘There is something else you must be prepared for,' I told them. Their eyes widened.

I explained what lay ahead. The thekedar had taught me to do so. ‘You are Krishna. In the Mahabharata, he is the charioteer. It's your dharma to lead and guide so the others know what to expect.' It made sense then. It made sense now. The thekedar said I had an ancient soul.

‘How ancient?' I asked.

‘At least five thousand years old.' He smiled.

He said I knew instinctively what others spent a whole lifetime trying to understand.

‘You can call me dada, but for all other purposes, we have a thekedar we owe everything to.'

The boys stared uncomprehendingly. They didn't know the word and I couldn't remember the exact equivalent in Odiya for contractor. ‘Jamadar,' I said suddenly. ‘He is our boss … You must do as I say. I will be able to help only if I have your faith and obedience.' My voice was firm. The boys nodded. ‘Start with your names,' I told them. ‘And the names of your parents. Actually, it doesn't matter. The names of your parents will be what I tell you, and don't you forget a word of what I am going to tell you now.'

They made room for me and I huddled with them. Most of the other travellers were asleep, lulled by the rocking of the train and their fatigue. But my boys were wide awake.

They listened.

‘Bangalore is not the city you think it is …' I began. I saw the fear in their eyes, in their clenched fists, in the tautness of their
bodies. Fear was good. Fear allowed me to take control. Fear allowed me to rule.

Rekha couldn't decide what she was going to tell her parents. No parent believed in the myth of ‘combined study' any more. And it was not just her parents she needed to convince. Suraj, her brother, would be just as difficult. ‘Wat do I say @ home?' she texted Sid.

‘Try cmbnd study!' The phone lit up. Rekha glanced at it as she ran a kohl pencil along the edge of her upper eyelid.

On their first date, Sid had suggested that she keep her phone on silent mode at home. ‘You don't want your folks wondering who is texting you all the time,' he had said, turning to look at her with a slow embarrassed grin.

She had felt herself melt into him. How could anyone be so considerate? She had marvelled at it. He had placed his hand on the small of her back when they crossed the road. He had offered her his bandana to wrap around her neck when they set out on his bike. He had adjusted the rearview mirror so he could look at her as they spoke. He was hers, hers alone. Like she was his, his alone.

‘De won't buy it.' Her fingers raced over the touchscreen.

Her eyes sparkled seeing the reply. ‘Gender studies sem @ NLS.'

That would work. The National Law School was some distance away. She would say she was sleeping over at Priya's and slip away with Sid for a long cosy date. Priya would understand and her parents wouldn't mind either, as long as Sid dropped her back by about eleven. And the next morning, if Suraj picked her up from Priya's house, nobody would suspect a thing. She smiled at the thought.