Six Suspects (15 page)

'It is the winter of our discontent,' says Varshney.

Over the next two days, Babloo's behaviour becomes increasingly
bizarre. He gets agitated over small things, complains
frequently of nausea and blurred vision and has bouts of uncontrollable
shaking. Out of the blue he starts suspecting Varshney of
being an informer and warns him to keep his distance. He stops
eating completely, and refuses to leave the cell. At night he curls
himself up and rolls back and forth on the stone floor like a man
in terrible pain.

Tirumurti is quick to diagnose the ailment. 'Babloo is having
withdrawal symptoms, now that he cannot get his cocaine any
longer. We must try and somehow get him his fix, otherwise he
will die.'

'I don't agree,' Mohan says firmly. 'A doctor who panders to
the vice of his patient degrades himself and his patient. Babloo
doesn't need drugs. He needs kindness and companionship.'

'Love in the time of cholera,' opines Varshney.

Mohan's arrival at the prayer meeting the next day causes
considerable commotion. He delivers a long and impressive
monologue on the dangers of drug addiction, the importance of faith
and the benefits of celibacy. He asks for a personal introduction from
each prisoner, questioning them in detail about their personal
histories and periods of detention. He seems unusually solicitous of
people's health, offering several home remedies to a prisoner who
has complained of colic pain. He appears to be fascinated by the
library, checks out the PA system to determine whether it plays any
bhajans
, and at lunchtime asks the cook for goat's milk.

He starts sleeping on the floor, insists on cleaning the toilet
himself and is happy to clean the toilets of others as well. He
begins to keep a silent fast once a week, claiming that abstaining
from speaking brings him inner peace.

A prison is fertile ground for the emergence of leaders. It contains
the dregs of society, willing to cling to any hope to help endure the
rigours of prison life. Gandhi Baba quickly attracts a large fan base,
his chief disciple being Babloo Tiwari, who is almost cured of his
addiction.

'Do you know what is the hardest thing in the world, Gandhi
Baba?' he asks Mohan one evening.

'To kill a mockingbird?' Varshney offers hopefully.

'No. To awaken faith in a man who has forsaken religion. I am
eternally grateful to you, Gandhi Baba, for opening my eyes to the
benevolence of God.'

'So will you sing
Vaishnav Janato
with me at tomorrow's
prayer meeting?' Mohan asks with a twinkle in his eye.

'Not only that, I am going to shave off my hair and become a
vegetarian.'

'That is wonderful. Now if you would only stop your criminal
activities as well . . .'

'Consider it done, Gandhi Baba. Babloo Tiwari the gangster
is dead.'

'A farewell to arms,' Varshney quips.

Several other inmates follow Babloo's example and become vegetarian,
causing prison officials to revamp the meal plan. Mohan
encourages the prisoners to paint and has their paintings sold
through a website set up by Tirumurti's brother-in-law. Invited to
the women's prison block to deliver a talk, he persuades the
women inmates to start producing snacks and savouries which are
then marketed under the brand name 'Bapu's Choice'.

Newspapers write editorials on Mohan's reforms. Two British
drug-pushers, Mark and Alan, become his disciples and begin
collaborating on his biography. Chennai University passes a
unanimous resolution recommending Mohan for the Nobel Peace
Prize.

As 15 February approaches, there is only one topic of conversation
in the jail – the judgment in the Vicky Rai case. The day before the
verdict, Mohan is unable to sleep. He paces up and down the cell
while the others snore peacefully.

The next day, just before lunch, he leads a procession of
inmates to the warden's office.

'What is all this? What are you people doing in my office?' the
warden demands.

'We have come to see the circus,' Tirumurti informs him.

'What circus?'

'The trial,' says Varshney.

'Oh, so you people want to see the verdict in Vicky Rai's case?
Not a problem. I was going to watch it myself.' The warden presses
a button on the remote and a decrepit-looking TV sitting atop
a bookcase flickers into life.

Virtually every channel is running live feeds from the courtroom
in Delhi. The warden tunes to ITN and Barkha Das fills the
screen, dressed in a blue
salwar kameez
with an olive-green
photographer's vest on top.

'This will be a landmark day in the history of justice in India,'
she says. 'Just as America waited with bated breath for the verdict
in the O. J. Simpson case, India is waiting for the verdict in the
Vicky Rai case. The courtroom behind me is packed to the rafters,
but we have ITN's Shubhranshu Gupta inside, who will give us
the latest. Shubhranshu, has the judge delivered his judgment?'

She bends her head and listens to the message being relayed to
her ear phone, then looks up and grimaces. 'We've just received
word from inside the courtroom. Vicky Rai has been acquitted for
the murder of Ruby Gill.'

A hush falls over the gathering. The warden turns off the TV.
'Heard the judgment? Satisfied?' he says gruffly. '
Chalo
, back to
your cells now.'

Babloo Tiwari winks at Tirumurti. 'What did I tell you?'

'If he is out, why the hell are we rotting here?' Tirumurti
scowls.

'That's because your father is not the Home Minister of Uttar
Pradesh,' says Babloo. 'What do you think, Varshney?'

'Things fall apart,' the professor says morosely. 'Cry, the
beloved country.'

Mohan feels the ground beneath him shake. He has to grip
Babloo's arm to steady himself.

'What do you have to say, Gandhi Baba?' several prisoners ask
him at once. He remains silent.

For three days Mohan refuses to eat, refuses to speak, refuses to go
out of his cell. He lies in bed all day, staring vacantly at the ceiling.

'Eat something, Gandhi Baba. Ruby Gill will not be avenged
by your fasting,' Babloo implores.

'Now there is only one way to avenge Ruby Gill,' he murmurs
finally.

'And what is that?'

'Vicky Rai must die,' he says softly.

Babloo inserts a finger in his ear to clear it, thinking something
must be wrong with his hearing.

'Vicky Rai must die,' Mohan repeats.

'I find it very strange, hearing this from your lips, Gandhi
Baba,' Babloo says.

'But I have always maintained that where there is only a
choice between cowardice and violence, I prefer violence. Far
better to kill a murderer than allow him to kill again. A
person who suffers injustice willingly is as guilty as the person
who perpetrates the injustice. So will you do one last job for
me?'

'For you I am ready to lay down my life, Gandhi Baba. Just tell
me.'

'I want you to kill Vicky Rai.'

'Kill Vicky Rai?' Babloo Tiwari shakes his head slowly. 'There
are many causes I am prepared to die for, but none I am prepared
to kill for, Gandhi Baba.'

'Don't repeat my own line to me, Babloo.'

'It is not a line. I really believe in it. You have changed me,
Bapu.'

'If you can't do it, I will have to do it myself.'

'You cannot be serious.'

'I am deadly serious. Can you teach me how to use a gun?'

'Not a problem. I'll not only teach you, I'll also get you a good
gun when you finish your term and get out of Tihar. But won't
your anger cool in two months' time?'

'I have no intention of remaining in Tihar till then.'

'What? Don't tell me you are planning to escape. Have you
been digging a tunnel at night?'

'No. I don't need tunnels to escape. I will go out through the
main gate.'

'So what's your plan, Gandhi Baba?'

'You will see, Babloo, you will see. But first I need you to
convene a meeting for me with all the inmates.'

*

Seven days later, a massive non-cooperation movement starts in
Tihar. The inmates refuse to cook, to clean, to bathe, demanding
better prison conditions, just treatment and an end to extortion by
jail officials.

The warden is not amused. 'What is this you have started, Mr
Kumar?' he asks Mohan.

'Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State
becomes lawless or corrupt,' Mohan answers.

The warden tries strong-arm tactics but the prisoners refuse to
be cowed. The strike enters its tenth day. The garden begins to wilt
and the bathrooms stink. Dirt gathers in the courtyard and dust
gathers in the classrooms.

Urgent consultations are held between the jail authorities and
their superiors. A week later, Mohan Kumar is released from Tihar
prematurely. Shanti is waiting for him outside the jail with
hundreds of supporters chanting 'Long Live Gandhi Baba!' He is
escorted home by a joyous convoy of cars, buses and bicycles,
horns blaring, bells tinkling. On reaching his house he delivers a
long monologue on the imperative of fighting injustice.

A few days later, a one-eyed man comes to meet him, bearing
a parcel. 'Babloo Tiwari has sent me. Can we talk in private?' the
stranger asks Mohan.

They go into the garden. The one-eyed man opens the packet
and takes out a gleaming pistol. 'It is a Walther PPK .32, top of the
line, brand new. Same gun that James Bond uses.'

'How much?'

'Babloo Bhai said I cannot charge you for this. It is a gift from
him.'

'And the bullets?'

'The magazine is fully loaded.'

Mohan takes the gun in his right hand and feels its weight.
'Can I try?'

The man looks around. 'Here, in the garden?' he asks doubtfully.

'Why not?' Mohan removes the safety catch and aims at an
empty Coke bottle standing on the wooden railing of the gazebo.
He presses the trigger and with a deafening blast the glass bottle
shatters and disintegrates. He nods his head approvingly, blows at
the smoking barrel, and tucks the gun inside his
kurta
pyjamas.

Shanti races screaming into the garden. 'What happened? I
heard a gunshot. I thought someone had—'

'Shanti, you imagine too much,' Mohan says calmly. 'Death is
blessed at any time, but it is twice blessed for a warrior who dies
for his cause – that is, truth.'

That same evening a gilt-edged card arrives bearing a
commissioned artwork by M. F. Husain on the cover. '
Vicky Rai
invites you to a celebratory dinner on 23 March at Number Six
' it
says inside in cursive black letters.

He reads it and his lips curve into a cunning smile.

THERE ARE only three ways of becoming instantly rich –
inheriting a family fortune, robbing a bank or receiving an
unexpected windfall. Some receive it in the form of a winning
lottery ticket, some as an unbeatable card combination at a poker
game. I found mine two days ago in a dustbin.

After retrieving the briefcase from the rubbish bin I caught a
bus and headed home to the temple. Mother was in the kitchen
and Champi was listening to the TV. I entered my room and tried
to find a suitable hiding place for the briefcase. But a small
kholi
does not afford too many locations for concealment. Eventually I
had to push the briefcase underneath the mattress, where it
formed a rather bulky outcrop.

Later that night, after Mother and Champi had gone to sleep, I
took out the briefcase and began counting the money with the help
of a torch held between my legs. There were twenty wads of notes
in denominations of one thousand and five hundred. The notes were
brand new, fresh from a bank. I opened the first wad and began
adding up. One thousand . . . two thousand . . . ten thousand . . .
fifteen thousand . . . fifty thousand. My head started spinning with
all the zeroes I had never used. By the time I reached the twelfth
wad, my fingers had begun to ache, the saliva in my mouth had run
dry and my eyes were losing focus. To put it crudely, there was more
money inside the briefcase than I could count.

A wave of happiness swept over my body, providing me with
a more exhilarating rush than high-grade smack. I had more
money in my possession than seven generations of my family
would have seen. But even as I was rejoicing at my good fortune,
the first doubts crept into my mind. What if someone had seen me
take the briefcase and reported it to the police? What if a robber
came into our hut and stole the briefcase? Desperate men know
no bounds. The adjoining Sanjay Gandhi slum has plenty of hired
killers willing to slit a man's throat for just five grand. To get their
grubby hands on my briefcase, they would stop at nothing. The
rich can sleep easy because they have money in the bank and
round-the-clock guards and alarms in the house. But how can a
poor man protect his stash of cash? I fretted, I sweated, I stayed
up all night.

This is the strange thing about money – too much of it can be
as problematic as too little.

When I was studying in the government school, we had a teacher
called Hari Prasad Saini who liked to play mind games with the
students. Once he asked us, 'What would you do if you suddenly
got a hundred thousand rupees each?' I remember Lallan said he
would buy an entire toyshop. Another boy said he would spend it
all on chocolates. I said that I would give the money to my mother.
But now, when I actually have much more than a hundred
thousand rupees, the last thing I am going to do is tell Mother. She
is quite capable of dragging me to a police station and making a
public announcement: 'Inspector Sahib, please find out where my
son has stolen all this money from!'

I had intended to keep the news of my fortune even from
Champi, but within two days I knew that was impossible. I never
keep secrets from her, and I have to tell someone. So when Mother
goes to the temple for her daily chores, I call Champi to my side
of the room.

'I have got money for your operation,' I tell her.

'How much?'

'Much more than we need to pay the doctor.'

'I don't want any operation,' Champi says. 'I am happy as
I am.'

I know she is lying. She wouldn't mind the operation, if not for
her sake then for Mother, who worries constantly about her
marriage. 'Who will marry my Champi, the way she looks?' she
frets all the time.

Mother is right. Who will marry Champi? She is a walking
disaster. The nicest girl in the world, she is also the ugliest. She has
a harelip which makes the lower half of her face a grotesque
caricature. Her left arm is completely wasted, and she has pockmarks
all over her cheeks. The good thing is she cannot see her
ugliness. She is as blind as a bat. Yet she is more famous than anyone
in our locality. They often put her picture in magazines and
newspapers and she has even been featured on CNN.

Champi is known all over the world as the Face of Bhopal.
There was a big industrial disaster in Bhopal more than twenty
years ago. Poisonous methyl isocyanate gas leaked out from the
Union Carbide plant and all those who inhaled it died, or went
blind or became mad. Champi's mother Fatima Bee was living in
Bhopal at the time. She too was affected by the gas, although she
didn't know it then. She gave birth to Champi five years later.
When the doctors saw the newborn baby, they told Fatima Bee
that the gas had caused the blindness and all the deformities. It
still intrigues me how the gas was locked up in Fatima Bee's body
for five years and did nothing to her, yet pounced on poor Champi
the moment she was born.

The people affected by the gas were promised some money by
the government, but it didn't cover people like Fatima Bee who
were affected later. So she joined an organization called Crusaders
for Bhopal which has been fighting for compensation. As happens
in our country, the case has been dragging on for over twenty years
with no resolution in sight. Every three months Fatima Bee would
come to Delhi, do the rounds of the Supreme Court, participate
in a couple of rallies, and go back to Bhopal. Ten years ago she
decided to move to Delhi permanently, along with her husband
Anwar Mian and Champi. They lived in the Sanjay Gandhi slum
in Mehrauli, which is full of Bangladeshi refugees. Anwar Mian
found work in a cement factory in Mahipalpur. I am told he was a
grim, taciturn man who drank like a fish, smoked twenty
beedis
a day and hardly ever spoke to anyone. One fine day, he went to
work as usual, returned home in the evening as usual, and
dropped dead during the night.
Bole toh
, heart failure.

It was a big blow to Fatima Bee, who now had to support
Champi all alone. She was forced to start sewing clothes for a
living. That is how she came into contact with Mother, who got a
couple of my shirts stitched by her. She was a superb tailor. The
shirts she made me fitted me more perfectly than anything I have
worn since. Unfortunately, Fatima Bee also fought a running battle
with illness. Three years ago she passed away of tuberculosis, leaving
Champi all alone. That is when the Crusaders for Bhopal
people came to the temple. They sought a volunteer family which
would be prepared to take care of Champi's upkeep in return for
three hundred rupees (subsequently increased to four hundred)
per month. There were no takers for their offer, till Mother
showed up. She is the queen of all do-gooders, ready to feed even
a sick snake. Mother took one look at Champi and embraced her
like her own daughter. There was some grumbling from the
temple management. The slimy priest, who makes a tidy profit
from the daily offerings, objected to a Muslim girl being given
refuge inside the precincts of a Hindu temple. But Mother had
made up her mind. 'What kind of priest are you? Does humanity
have a religion?' she rebuked him, silencing his protest. Since then
Champi has lived with Mother and me in our house at the back
of the temple. I suppose I could call her a sister of sorts. Crusaders
for Bhopal pay Mother the regular monthly stipend and take
Champi away for just one day each year – 3 December, which
they call Bhopal Action Day. They try to raise awareness of the
disaster by going on a huge rally, often with volunteers in outrageous
costumes. Last year they had people dressed as skeletons.
But the star of the show is always Champi, who doesn't need any
make-up to remind people of the horrors of Bhopal.

When Champi first came to live with us, Mother promised her
that we would get her face set right. We even showed her to a
plastic surgeon. He told us that the surgery would cost the astronomical
sum of three hundred thousand rupees. Since that reality
check we stopped having conversations about Champi's face. She
accepted our helplessness just as we accepted her grotesqueness.

Now I am trying to rekindle that old hope, but Champi
remains adamant.

'I don't want to benefit from gangsters' money,' she declares
after I recount the full saga of how I acquired the briefcase.

'How do you know it belongs to gangsters?' I counter.

'Who else would leave it in a dustbin? And what if they trace
it to you?'

'They won't. Now this money is mine. And I am bloody well
going to enjoy it.'

'Ill-gotten gains can never lead to enjoyment. You have to
think of the consequences.'

'Life is too short to worry about the future.'

'It may be for you, but not for me and Mother. She worries
about you all the time.'

'You can tell her to stop worrying. From tomorrow she need
not even work. I have enough to feed all three of us for a hundred
years.'

'Don't let your head swell,' Champi cautions me. 'Better to lie
low for a while before making your grand plans.'

Her advice is sound. 'You are right, Champi,' I nod. 'No one
must know about this briefcase. I will not touch it for another
week. And if no one comes looking for it by then, we can breathe
easy, start spending some of the dough, get your operation done.'

'I don't want a penny of your loot,' Champi says firmly. 'But
before doing anything, won't you take the blessings of Lord Shiva?
Go and bow your head before your God at least today.'

'What did God have to do with that briefcase? I don't need to
offer Him any thanks.' I dismiss the suggestion with a wave of my
hand.

Champi sighs. 'I shall intercede for you with Allah, the
Forgiver of Sin, the Bestower of Favours.
La ilaha illa huwa
,
to Him is the final return,' she says with both hands raised to
her face.

I shake my head. Considering what has happened to her eyes
and face, Champi's faith in God is even more remarkable.

'Don't breathe a word about the briefcase to Mother,' I
instruct her and saunter out towards the main gate.

It is a Monday, Lord Shiva's day, and the temple is already filling
up with worshippers. By noon there will be a half-kilometrelong
queue for the
darshan
.

The Bhole Nath Temple of Mehrauli is a recent construction, no
more than twenty years old. It was probably built for the same
purpose that most temples in the city are built – to grab land. But
its fame spread quickly and it has now become a place of
pilgrimage. Devotees believe it has wish-fulfilling properties and
they can be seen thronging the massive marble hall at all times of
the day, sitting on the floor meditating or chanting. This is also
where Mother can be found in the mornings, diligently mopping
the floor, scrubbing the tiles, rinsing the side drains of any
obstruction.

Several useful activities can be conducted on the temple
premises, but the only one which interests me is girl-watching.
Because Shiva is considered to be the granter of good spouses,
there is a constant stream of unmarried maidens and young brides
entering the temple to pray for a suitable husband or a
harmonious family life. If only the chicks could be made to realize
that an excellent groom is lurking just round the corner, in Kholi
Number One!

The temple has been a part of my existence since I was six. I
have been a witness to its growth and expansion. I have seen the
garden bloom and trees populate the compound. I have grown up
watching the increasing prices of flowers and sweets and the
widening girths of sweet-makers and priests.

Some of the temple's luck has also rubbed off on us. Before
Mother started working here, we lived in the Sanjay Gandhi slum,
in a makeshift hut made with corrugated-metal sheets. We had no
electricity and no water. Mother cooked with cow-dung patties on
a mud hearth which used to fill the entire hut with smoke and
make my eyes water. Now we have a pukka one-and-a-half-room
house, with a paved brick fireplace, a ceiling fan and even cable
TV (which I have siphoned off the temple's connection). Of
course, it is still extremely cramped for three people. We have
divided the main room into two parts, separated by a wooden
partition. I have one side, with my mattress and a small
wooden table, and Mother and Champi have the other side. I have
decorated the walls on my side with posters of Salim Ilyasi and
Shabnam Saxena, though they are mostly obscured by my trousers
and shirts draped over the wall-mounted hanger. Mother has some
faded old calendars with gods and goddesses on her walls. She also
has an aluminium trunk containing some of her clothes. Its top
serves as a mantle for a framed black-and-white picture of Father,
garlanded with brittle roses. It is Mother's most prized possession.
She sees her husband in that photograph, but I see a martyr.

Mother never talks about it, but I have learnt that my father
was killed in a road accident. Even though I was only six years old
at the time, I still remember Father's dead body lying outside our
hut, wrapped in a white sheet, and Mother breaking her bangles
and bashing her head repeatedly against the wall. A week later a
heavy-set man wearing white
kurta
pyjamas came to meet Mother
with folded hands. He shed a few crocodile tears and gave
Mother twenty-five thousand rupees. He also got her the job in
the temple and this house. Father gave us in death what he
couldn't give us in life.

'It has been a month since you quit working for the Bhusiyas. Are
you going to look for another job or not?' Mother asks me the
moment she returns in the evening. It has become her constant
refrain. 'What is the use of all that university education if you are
going to remain idle?
Arrey
, if you don't think of your old mother
at least think of your sister Champi. How will I get her married if
you refuse to earn money? God, why did you make me give birth
to a wastrel?'