Shining Hero (22 page)

‘Let me go, let me go,’ Karna yelled and sank his teeth into the man’s hand. The goondas were so ugly and wicked that they could not get women so stole kigalis and fucked them instead. Several boys had already been taken in this way and not one had returned.

People watched as the goonda rushed on, clutching the shrieking squirming Karna. A woman asked. ‘What are you doing with that child?’

‘He’s stealing me,’ Karna tried to shout, but halfway through the sentence Raki slapped his hand across Karna’s mouth and said, ‘He’s my son and I’m taking him home.’ The woman hovered, doubtful. Then shrugging as though not entirely reassured, turned away.

Helmed Arjun, crowned Karna,
met at last by will of fate
.
Life long was their mutual anger,
deathless was their mutual hate
.

Shivarani liked to arrive in a village when the men were absent, for otherwise the women became shy and would not speak but allowed their husbands to answer questions. Even when Shivarani asked a woman, ‘Are you happy?’ the husband, if he was there, would answer for her, ‘Yes of course she is happy.’

She would go straight to the pond where, in the middle of the morning, the women would be washing their pots, bathing their children and exchanging gossip. They would look up, interested and curious, as she approached, but then wince with surprise when she suddenly shouted, ‘When the government counted how many people there were in our country, they found that thirty-eight million women were missing.’ Her words always made the listening women look worried and gaze around them as though expecting to see sisters, aunts, mothers vanish in a smoke puff.

‘Where are these women?’ Shivarani would demand and the women’s expressions would turn from anxiety to guilt as though she was accusing them of carelessness. ‘What has happened to them?’ Women would look at one another, puzzled.

‘They have been killed at birth because they were not boys,’ Shivarani would tell them. ‘But women, too, have a right to life.’ A terrible shifting here. There were several mothers listening who
had paid the midwife a little extra to snuff out the life of the newborn, unwanted female child. ‘They have died in childhood because their mothers gave most of the food to the sons so that when illness comes, girl children are too weak to survive.’ Another shiver of guilt here among the assembled mothers. ‘They have been killed by husbands who have beaten them or in-laws who have not been paid the agreed dowry. Women, you have a right to stay alive and unharmed no matter how much dowry has been paid. When the men and boys become ill they are taken to the doctor but women and girls have to be nearly dead before that happens. Or they die without treatment at all. Women, you have a right to as much medical care as the men and boys. You have a right to education and only when you women are educated and properly respected can the standard of living in our country rise. It is up to women to take on the responsibility for health, hygiene and education of the family.’

‘It is true,’ the women would murmur. ‘But what should we do?’

‘Vote for the Communist Naxalite Party when the election comes. Vote for me, Shivarani Gupta. ‘And stand together to claim your rights.’

When she got back to the Hatibari, Gadhari was upset. ‘Something must be done about Arjuna, he is asking all kinds of questions, and I don’t know what to say,’ she told Shivarani, looking aggrieved and at the same time a little triumphant.

‘What is the problem?’ Shivarani asked Arjuna.

‘Parvathi said that the Sun God put a baby inside my mother before she got married but I know it isn’t true,’ Arjuna told his aunt.

Parvathi was the maid who Gadhari had employed to look after Arjuna while Boodi Ayah had a holiday. She was a scrawny twelve-year-old with oiled hair tied back with a piece of coconut string and a length of dirty glass beads round her neck.

‘This is the moment to tell him,’ thought Shivarani. ‘He is old
enough to know,’ and said, ‘It is true, Arjuna, and it is possible that the baby was Karna.’

‘You’re a liar,’ screamed Arjuna.

‘It was the man’s fault. He tricked your mother.’

Arjuna leapt up, sobbing. ‘I hate my mother, I hate you, and I hate Karna and I’m glad you can’t find him and I hope he’s dead by now and I wish he’d drowned when my mother threw him away.’

The goonda’s name was Raki. He was an undersized young man with a scarred face and a bad limp but these little physical defects were entirely outweighed by the splendour of his jewellery. He wore a gold bangle, gold earrings and round his neck a gold chain that was almost as thick as Karna’s. On his fingers were rings in which were set precious stones and when he opened his mouth so much gold flashed out that you could hardly see any white teeth. Or perhaps Raki had no white teeth left. Goondas are ruffians who originate from the time of the East India Company when its moguls employed armed thugs, called paiks or lathials, to protect their huge fortunes. When the mutiny was over, the Company disbanded the dismissed paiks and lathials who continued to bully and rob on their own account. They evolved into the present-day goondas who are usually ill-educated young men of between twenty and twenty-five, living in the bustee, seldom homeless or dwelling on pavements, and often have started out as kigalis. Their favourite weapon is a dagger, though pistols are also used, as are bombs, the most simple being a bottle of soda water vigorously shaken before being thrown.

Raki summoned a rickshaw and held the kicking struggling Karna tightly as they got in. For the whole half hour of the journey Karna tried to fight himself free but Raki was much too strong for him.

‘Why don’t you want to come with me?’ asked Raki, truly perplexed. Any other boy, he thought, would have felt it a step up to be taken by a goonda.

‘You don’t understand,’ gasped Karna. ‘I am not just a kigali. Go
and get another boy.’ He gave a surge and nearly broke free but the goonda needed a boy with fight and was more pleased than ever with his choice.

‘Keep still, you worm,’ Raki said. ‘And if you bite me once again I’ll whip your arse off. From now on I am your father and you must obey me in all things.’

‘You are not my fucking father,’ screamed Karna, his words muffled by Raki’s gripping hand. ‘My father is a zamindar and you are a stinking little fucker of your sister.’

‘Ha, ha,’ cried Raki, apparently amused and delighted. ‘A zamindar, is he?’

The rickshaw took them to the heart of the bustee and when it stopped Raki hauled out the writhing Karna.

‘Please do not pay me anything, sahib,’ said the rickshaw wallah, who recognised the influential goonda.

All the way up the four flights of winding stairs Karna continued to fight for freedom though, exhausted, his struggles were only token ones now.

The goonda, with Karna under his arm, unlocked the padlock, opened the wooden door and plonked Karna in the middle of a barren room. ‘Here we are,’ said Raki. ‘This is your home from now on.’

Karna gazed around him, at the tiny barred window and the walls that were stained and darkened from where oiled bodies had leant against them. The only furniture was a coat rack on which hung several pairs of men’s outdoor pyjama and one solar topee. Against the wall were rolled some sleeping mats of straw. In one corner of the room were piled several cardboard boxes which apparently contained radios and television sets judging from the labels. And on top of these lay a heap of women’s clothes and make-up. Karna felt a little reassured at these, for it meant a woman lived here and women, he knew, were kind to children.

When Karna had got his breath back, he leapt up and made a dash for the door. Raki got there first, and stood smiling, wagging an admonishing finger. ‘Naughty boy. Do as Papa says.’

‘I’ll kill you,’ screamed Karna. ‘You just wait. I’ll slit open your throat and cut off your head.’

‘Oh, brave are you?’ The goonda pulled out his knife, a razor-sharp Nepali kukri, and handed it to Karna. ‘Go on, then. Let’s see.’ Snatching the knife Karna dashed at Raki. Laughing, the goonda dodged him. As though they were playing a children’s game, Karna rushed this way and that, stabbing and chopping. Raki danced, hobbled and dodged, his lame leg not affecting his agility. Then Raki grabbed at Karna’s ancient shirt, the last thing his mother had ever dressed him in and the fragile, filthy cloth shattered into shredded fragments and before Karna could put up his hands to hide it, the goonda had seen the gold medal and snatched at it. Wild with determination, Karna let fly, slashing at the goonda’s hand but the man was too quick and in a moment had the blade tip between his fingers where it could do no harm. ‘I want to look. I’m not going to take it from you. See these?’ He gestured at his throat, his ears, his fingers and his wrists. He wore gold everywhere. The chains round his neck were thicker than Karna’s and there were three of them. He stretched his lips and opened his mouth. Among the betel-red and black-stained teeth shone a dozen gold crowns. ‘I have so much gold already, why should I want more?’

‘Everybody says that first, then tries to grab it,’ Karna said. ‘The rich people chase me all over the town trying to get it.’

‘Well, I won’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we are partners. I don’t steal from my partner.’

‘I’m not your partner. I don’t want to be here at all,’ said Karna. ‘I want to go back to my friends. I want to be free. My mother said goondas were bad men.’

‘Even if you don’t like it, we are, and partners don’t have secrets from each other, so come on, show me that thing.’ Firmly Raki pulled the disc out and stared at it. After a while he asked, ‘What is written here? Can you read it?’

‘It says that my mother was called Koonty and was a zamindar.’
Karna felt angry and offended that this unknown person should be making free with his precious secret.

Raki laughed. ‘So what are you doing in all these rags if your mother is rich? Why are you living in the park with the kigalis?’

‘Because I was thrown away.’

‘You should be glad that, even if your mother did not want you, as least I do,’ chuckled Raki.

‘What do you want me for?’ cried Karna, tucking the disc back in. ‘You won’t be able to keep me forever. I’ll get away in the end.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘I won’t bloody tell you.’

‘Then I will give you one.’ He was thoughtful for a while, looking at Karna with his head on this side then on that, as he made up his mind. At last he said, ‘I think your name is Kamala.’

‘Kamala is a girl’s name. I’m not a girl,’ shrieked Karna.

‘What would you like to be called, then?’ asked Raki. ‘You can be called anything you like.’

Karna just scowled.

‘Okay, you won’t tell me,’ said Raki. ‘Now, listen to me, Kamala, I am offering you a job.’

‘I’m not a girl and I wouldn’t work for you, you banchod, if you paid me a hundred rupees.’

‘You’ll get more that that, even though you are a filthy little thrown-away urchin.’

‘What job?’

‘I need someone to collect merchandise.’

‘I wouldn’t collect your whatever that was because you are a stinking salah.’ The toughness of his words were not echoed by his tone.

‘Can you run fast?’

‘You have seen,’ said Karna grandly.

‘And are you afraid of the police?’

‘I am not afraid of anybody,’ said Karna. ‘Once I even fought off dacoits on the train because they were trying to hurt my mother. My real mother. The one who found me after I got thrown away. I beat them.’

Raki said, ‘The other two who live here have been in the police station for three days. They might not come back but I need the stuff quickly. I will pay you to get it for me instead.’

‘How much?’ asked Karna.

‘Two hundred rupees,’ said Raki.

Karna stared at him, his eyes wide. He gave a little gasp, swallowed deeply, then said in a strangled voice, ‘Three hundred.’

‘Two hundred and fifty, then. Oh. You can keep the kukri. I have several other knives that are even sharper,’ and he pulled from his pocket a flashing blade.

It was a cinema poster that made Shivarani suddenly realise that Karna was her sister’s son. A poster advertising an old film version of the Mahabharata, with Dilip Baswani acting the part of the Sun God. She and Bhima were standing before it and Shivarani let out a gasp at the sight. ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake,’ she said. ‘That boy who wore Koonty’s chain looks exactly like this picture of Dilip Baswani. He must have been my lost nephew after all.’

‘Yes, now you say it I think you may well be right,’ agreed Bhima, examining the face in the picture carefully. ‘We will have to find that boy again.’

Financial rewards were offered to anyone who could locate the child. Shivarani called up the kigalis and promised them handsome sums if they could lead her to their one-time fellow. When the weeks went by and there was no sign of Karna, Shivarani began to wish she had not rejected the goondas’ help at the elections, for now, if she had friends among them, they might lead her to the boy she felt increasingly sure was her nephew. It was not only that he had the golden eyes of the Sun God, but she recognised the Pandava features in him, and even saw a likeness to her own father. But because she had rejected the goondas they not only would probably refuse to help but if they connected him with her, might do him harm to punish her. But in the end, she thought, she might have to allow them to
beat up her opponents’ voters, if it meant getting Karna back. Bhima accompanying her, she went round the bustees describing Karna, and asking if anyone had seen him. Although Bhima and Shivarani had put on their oldest clothes and hoped to be taken for locals, they were recognised at once. ‘Come and see the sahibs,’ went the shout along the lanes. ‘Here is a big black one who has brought a babu with her.’ People came running from every side and their already great enthusiasm increased more when Shivarani said, ‘We will pay for any information you may give us that will help us find the child.’ Instantly people appeared on every side who knew where Karna was. ‘We need to see him first before we start paying out,’ said Bhima. A moment later, twenty boys called ‘Karna’ pressed around them. ‘I am Karna.’ ‘No he is not but I am.’ People began to reach into the growing mob, pull boys out by their ears, drag them before Bhima and Shivarani, boys of every size and age and scruffiness. ‘This is the Karna you are looking for and these other fellows are not called Karna at all.’ Great scuffles broke out as the Karnas began to fight each other to shove each other away. ‘It is me, Memsahib. It is me, Babu. I am the Karna you are looking for.’