Six Suspects (21 page)

I bar her way. 'You will do nothing of the sort. If Vicky Rai
finds out about our plan he will kill Ritu and then he will kill me.
Do you want us both dead?'

Mother glares at me for a while and then bursts into tears.

*

An uneasy calm prevails in the house. None of us has dinner that
night. Mother sulks in her corner and is comforted by Champi. I
lie down in bed and try not to think of anything. Sleep comes
much later, and is invaded by multiple dreams. I dream of Father
lying in a pool of blood and Vicky Rai grinning over his dead body.
I dream of Ritu lying inert on a cold marble floor wrapped in a
white shroud. I dream of Lallan being whipped in a police lockup.
I dream of someone pulling my hair, making me scream in
pain. I open my eyes and find three men inside the room,
surrounding me. I don't know how they managed to raise the latch
and enter my room, but I know that this is not a dream.

'Wake up, you bastard,' I hear a voice say as one of the men
pulls my hair again with rough hands. I sit up, and someone flicks
the light on, dazzling my eyes. I can now take a good look at the
three intruders. The first is a bald man with a bulging neck dressed
in tight jeans and a white Reebok T-shirt. The second is a very
short man in a shimmering cream shirt, and the third man is tall
and wiry with curly hair and a square jaw, wearing black trousers
and shirt. There is an air of danger about them.

'Is your name Munna Mobile?' the bald man addresses me. He
was the one pulling my hair.

'Why do you ask?' I counter-question.

The baldy turns to the tall, wiry man. 'Tell him, Brijesh.'

'You stole the mobile phone from my car.' Brijesh looks at me
accusingly and recognition dawns on me slowly. He is indeed the
guy from whose Maruti Esteem I took the Nokia. The past has
caught up with me again.

The bald man smiles menacingly. 'You have something which
belongs to us.'

I try to bluff my way through. 'You are mistaken. What could
a poor man like me have?'

The bald man snaps his fingers and his two assistants begin
scouring the room. They take in the posters on the wall, the metal
torch on the small wooden desk, and their eyes come to rest on
the mattress. The little bump where the briefcase lies is plainly
visible. 'Get up,' the short man orders. I stand up; he catches the
mattress by a corner and lifts it in one movement. The briefcase is
revealed, looking like a black island in a sea of dust.

'What do we have here?' the bald man whistles. He reaches
down and picks up the briefcase. A pistol appears magically in
Brijesh's hand.

At that very moment Mother enters through the wooden
partition in her faded yellow sari and maroon blouse.

'Who are you people? What are you doing in my house?' she
demands.

In response the bald man shoves her rudely aside. 'Don't ask
questions,
budhiya
.'

Mother is not one to give up easily. 'I will teach you ruffians a
lesson,' she snaps. She picks up the torch from my desk and
whacks the bald man on his buttocks with it, knocking the briefcase
out of his hands. Despite his bulk, the man whirls around on
the balls of his feet, quick as a cat. In one seamless motion he
snatches the torch from Mother's hand and swings his fist at her
face, sending her sprawling on the floor. Mother raises her head
and whimpers. I can see that she is bleeding from her mouth. She
tries to stand up and that is when Brijesh clubs her on the head
with the butt of the pistol. I cry out in horror as Mother crashes
down, knocked senseless, which is just as well because she
wouldn't have been able to bear what happened subsequently.

The bald man regains the briefcase and clicks open the two
latches. He raises the lid and examines the contents. 'Hmmm . . .
It looks like most of the cash is still here. Only a couple of wads
are missing. This might just have saved your life, Munna Mobile.
But you will still have to pay the price of stealing from us.'

'What . . . what do you intend to do?' I ask, backing into the
wall, my voice sounding hoarse and unnatural.

'Something that will ensure you never steal another mobile
phone.' The bald man grins and snaps his fingers again.

Brijesh hands the pistol to the bald man and suddenly grips
both my arms. I squirm, try to break free, but he is too strong. The
short man raises his hand to hit me when a mobile phone rings in
the room. The three ruffians look at one another quizzically
before the bald man takes out a Motorola from the pocket of his
jeans and checks the display. 'Yes boss?' he says, putting the
mobile against his ear and moving off towards the door. I hear
snatches of his conversation. 'We found the briefcase . . . looks to
be reasonably intact . . . Right now? . . . OK, OK . . . I will leave
Brijesh and Natu behind . . . Wait for me. I am coming.'

'That was the boss,' the bald man informs his lieutenants. 'He
wants me to come with the briefcase right now. You two finish
what you have to. We will meet tomorrow.' He cocks the pistol at
me and fires an imaginary bullet, opens the door and steps outside.
A little while later I hear a motorcycle being gunned into life.
Brijesh still has me pinioned in a vice-like grip. But it is Natu,
the short one, who fills me with dread. 'Have you seen the film
Sholay
?' he asks me, bringing his face close to mine. I can feel his
fetid breath on the skin of my neck.

'Yes.'

'Do you remember the scene when Gabbar asks Thakur to
give him his hands? Thakur refuses and Gabbar chops off both his
hands. I am not going to ask you for your hands, but I will ask for
your fingers. All ten of them. Will you give them to me?' He grins,
showing uneven teeth stained with betel juice.

I shiver as a chill runs down my back, which by now is completely
soaked in sweat. Natu takes hold of my left arm from
Brijesh. Then, grabbing my wrist, he lifts up my forefinger and
begins arching it backwards. Brijesh hurriedly stuffs a handkerchief
into my mouth, smothering my scream. Flesh and bone
are stretched to breaking point till the joint pops, accompanied by
a sound like that of a hole bursting in a sheet of bubble wrap, and
my left index finger droops down. Natu grins and begins to work
on my middle finger.

The only good thing about pain is that it empties your mind of
everything else. It fills your brain so completely that all feelings
of love and hate, envy and jealousy are bleached from it and you
are left simply with an excruciating agony filling each and every
pore of your body, till even the agony disappears, to be replaced
by a dull ache. By the time Natu breaks my left thumb, I have
surpassed pain. But that is when the terror begins. Champi
wanders into the room, wearing a light-green
salwar kameez
with
no
chunni
. 'What is happening, Munna?' she asks in a sleepy voice.

Brijesh looks at Champi and averts his face. I can see that he is
revolted by her ugliness. But Natu seems entranced by her. 'Oh
ho! Who do we have here?' he whistles wolfishly as Champi tries
to feel her way towards me through the altered geography of the
room.

'Who is she? Is she your sister?' Brijesh barks at me, pulling the
handkerchief out of my mouth.

'Yes. You leave her alone. Your business is with me, not her,' I
speak quickly, taking in mouthfuls of air. 'Moreover, she is blind.'

'Blind?' Natu peers at Champi's eyes. 'She doesn't look blind
to me.'

'She is, I am telling you,' I say, trying to hide the desperation
in my voice.

'OK, let me test,' says Natu and taps her left breast. Champi
whimpers in protest and moves her head from side to side, trying
to determine the location of her tormentor. Natu claps his hands.
'This is fun. She has solid tits. What do you say, Brijesh, do I have
your permission to enjoy a little?'

'Don't you dare touch my sister.' I glare at Natu and strain
against Brijesh like a dog on a leash. 'If you touch her I will kill
you, motherfucker.'

Natu slaps me across the face with his open palm and Brijesh
stuffs the handkerchief back into my mouth. This is all the
encouragement the short man needs. He grabs Champi and
clamps his hairy palm over her mouth. With his free hand he
begins lifting up her shirt as she flails against him like a goat about
to be butchered.

Terror, like toothache, cannot be described. It can only be
experienced. I stand in Brijesh's grip like a quivering lump of flesh
and watch Champi about to be raped.

I wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole,
because I know I am directly responsible for the scene unfolding
before me. And I have a good inkling of what will happen to
Champi after Natu is through with her. She is already blind, now
she will become deaf and dumb as well. The whole day she will
just sit outside, fanning herself slowly, with a demented look on
her face. At night, she will suddenly scream in her sleep.
Nightmares will plague her all her life. It is a fate I would not wish
on my worst enemy.

For twenty-one years I have lived without faith in God, but at
this moment I become a believer. I start praying – to all the gods
I know and even those that I don't – making just one appeal, to
please, please save my little Champi. I remember all those films in
which God responds to prayer and works his magic. But I don't
hear the pealing of temple bells; I don't see the floor shake.

Denial is the final refuge of the powerless. Even as Natu is
fumbling with the cord of Champi's
salwar
, there is a voice in my
head repeating like a stuck record, 'She is not my
sister
, She is
not
my
sister
,
she is not my sister
. . . She's a worthless Muslim whore.'

All of a sudden, an image flashes through my mind. It is of
Lallan strung upside-down in the police lock-up and being
tortured by the Butcher of Mehrauli. I had been unable to save
him either. But if he was closer than a brother to me, then Champi
is closer than a sister. Ties of the mind are stronger than ties of
blood.

Like a wounded soldier making his last stand, I muster every
ounce of my remaining strength and lash out with my right leg at
Natu, catching him at the knee. He is startled into releasing
Champi, who tumbles down with a piercing scream. Natu snarls
at me and takes out a bicycle chain from his trouser pocket, wraps
it around his fist and swings it hard at my face. I try to duck and
the metal crashes into the back of my skull. I imagine the door
bursting open before I sink into that deep oblivion which is black
and fathomless and very, very welcome.

When I come to my senses I find myself in a hospital room. My
left hand is in plaster and there is a throbbing pain in the back of
my head. I feel it gingerly, expecting to touch sticky blood. But my
fingers graze soft fabric. They must have bandaged it. I see Mother
lying in the bed next to me, being tended to by Champi, who is
wearing a black amulet around her neck.

'What . . . what happened?' I ask Champi groggily.

'A miracle,' she replies cryptically.

A doctor comes in and tells me that I am lucky to be alive.
'You have suffered severe concussion. All five fingers of your left
hand are broken. You will need to keep them immobilized in
plaster for at least six weeks before they can heal.'

'Is my mother OK?' I ask him.

'She will live,' he says and begins examining a chart attached
to the side of the bed.

'How long have I been in hospital?'

'Two days.'

'How much do I need to pay you?'

'Nothing,' he smiles. 'This is a charitable hospital where everything
is free, including the MRI scan, the X-rays and the
medicines.'

'Thank you,' I say. 'Can I go now?'

I walk back from the Dayawati Hospital to the temple, ignoring
the doctor's warnings and the searing pain in my head. My room
looks like it has been visited by a hurricane. Even the wooden desk
is in pieces. I take the two first-class train tickets from the pocket
of my Benetton jacket and proceed to the railway booking office
to cancel them. I am not going to Mumbai any longer. Like Delhi,
it too is a show-off city, flaunting its Mercedes and mansions. And
it belongs only to the rich. There is no place for the poor in our
metropolises. Doesn't matter how honestly you earn a living; you
can still get accused of thieving and thrown into a cell simply
because you are poor and powerless. As long as I had the briefcase
full of money I had power. I knew I could take care of Ritu, fulfil
my dreams. With the briefcase gone, so have my grand dreams.

Life suddenly seems brittle and pointless. Surprisingly, I don't
feel much anger towards my tormentors, the people who took
away the briefcase. It wasn't mine to start with. My rage is
directed instead at Vicky Rai. The man who dared to hurt Ritu.
The man who took my father's life. Love can make you blind, but
despair can make you reckless. I decide to buy a gun.

The biggest criminal gang in our area is the one run by Birju
Pehelwan. I know several gang members who swagger through the
Sanjay Gandhi slum, flaunting their revolvers like fashion
accessories. It is Pappu, a recent entrant to the gang, who directs
me to Girdhari, an illicit arms-dealer in Mangolpuri.

The arms-dealer does not display his wares in an airconditioned
showroom. I have to go to a smelly alley and climb
three flights of stairs to a dim and dingy cubicle, where he sits in
front of a massive steel safe. 'I need a cheap gun,' I tell him. He
nods and takes out a
desi katta
, a locally made improvised pistol
with just one round. 'This costs only eleven hundred rupees,' he
grins.

'I want something better,' I tell him.

'How much have you got?' he asks and I produce the 4,200
rupees returned to me by the railway clerk.

He opens the safe and takes out something wrapped in a white
cloth. He carefully opens the cloth to reveal a black gun inside.
'This is also a
katta
, but a very good one. Looks just like a Chinese
Black Star pistol, but costs only four thousand. Try it.' He hands
me the gun, butt first.