Mini saw the grin on Abhilash’s face and immediately said, ‘don’t spend the whole weekend playing. Try and study a bit. You have an exam next week.’ She resume powdering Abhilash’s face and when she was finished, she patted his shirt to remove the few specks of talcum powder that had flown down from his face and landed on the light blue fabric of his shirt.
‘But the test is only next Thursday! Why should I start studying now? And it’s only a class test.’
‘Because you must. Because I said so. Just do it, or you may fail the test.’
Mini gave Abhilash’s belt a tug so that the buckle would be positioned perfectly in the centre. However, she must have tugged a mite too hard since the belt moved too much to the right and had to be moved back.
‘Ouch! No, I won’t. I know most of Chapter Three anyway.’
‘Don’t you have both Chapter Three and Chapter Four?’
‘Yes, but Chapter Four is very small and ..’
‘Revise them both once. At least once. Okay? Make your Daddy sit with you when you revise.’
‘But Daddy says we should only have fun when I am with him.’
‘Don’t you have fun when you are with me?’
‘Yes, I do Mummy!’ Abhilash gave his mother a hug, which Mini grudgingly accepted.
Mini was about to say, ‘but you like your Daddy better, but she stopped herself just in time.
‘Mummy, if I get full marks in the test, will you buy me a mobile?
‘No, you are only ten. Ten year olds don’t need mobiles.’
‘What if I get the third rank in the half-yearly exam?’
‘No. If you come first, I’ll buy you one.’
‘But I won’t get first rank!’ Abhilash wailed. There’s Renju who is so clever and there’s Jincy P. Kuruvila and …’
Mini’s mother breezed into the room, ‘Is Abhilash ready yet? He might as well leave before it gets dark.’
‘Is Jobin here yet?’
‘Yes, he got back ages ago.’
‘Normally he doesn’t get back from the market so quickly.’
‘Yes, but today he wants to go for a movie with his family after he drops off Abhilash.’
Mini grunted to show her displeasure.
‘Abhilash, tell your Daddy to cut down on the liquor.’
‘But Daddy has stopped drinking.’ Abhilash looked at his grandmother’s face to see if she believed him. ‘Yes, since last Christmas, he hasn’t touched a drop.’
‘That’s what he tells you. Won’t I know better? That man won’t change.’
‘Mama, drop it,’ Mini admonished her mother.
Abhilash picked up the small suitcase that he was to carry with him.
‘See, he is raring to go,’ Mini told her mother. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry,’ she added to Abhilash.
‘Ammachi said I should get there before dark. That’s why I was in a hurry.’ Abhilash put the suitcase down and waited for the two adults to make up their minds.
Ammachi took a deep breath and Mini clenched her teeth, though Abhilash’s monthly trips to Panampally Nagar to visit his father had been going on for almost a year.
‘He might as well go,’ Mini said. ‘It will get dark pretty soon.’ She added.
Mini’s mother was less forgiving. ‘I hope they give him dinner when he gets there. ‘Are you feeling hungry?’ she asked Abhilash.
‘No. Not at all,’ Abhilash replied, trying to hide his anxiety.’
‘Is mon ready?’ Jobin’s booming voice could be heard from the courtyard. Jobin was almost fifty and only Mini’s father had the guts to reproach him.
In the absence of any injunction from his mother or grandmother, Abhilash picked up his suitcase which was propped against the light green wall. ‘Mummy, I will come back before it gets dark on Sunday,’ he told his mother and walked out, trying hard not to put a spring in his step.
He would be at VeegaLand tomorrow!
Forty minutes later, he was knocking on the door of his father’s bungalow at Panampally Nagar.
Forty one minutes later, he was enclosed in a bear hug, his father smelling of something nice, something he would definitely drink when he was older.
‘Moné, you look so very thin,’ his father’s mother said. ‘Don’t they give you enough to eat?’
‘They do Ammachi.’ Abhilash turned around whilst still inside his father’s bear hug so that he could meet his grandmother’s eyes.
‘Why did you bring that suitcase? Don’t you have enough clothes here?’
‘Daddy your paunch is even bigger.’ Abhilash got out of the hug and wrapped his arms around his father’s tummy, which couldn’t be encompassed with his two hands.
‘Yes, it is,’ his Daddy cheerfully admitted.
‘You are going to stay here forever, aren’t you?’ his grandmother asked.
Abhilash smiled back at her.
‘Give him something to eat,’ Abhilash’s Daddy commanded his grandmother.’
‘Yes, let me do that. Here give me your suitcase.’
‘Where is Hannah?’
‘Where else? She is in front of the TV.’
Abhilash’s father put him down and Abhilash ran upstairs to the second drawing room where the TV was always on. Unlike the TV at his own place, which he could switch on only after he finished a certain amount of homework, depending on the mood swings of his mother.
As expected, Hannah was watching TV, some boring girlie cartoon that Abhilash would never watch if the remote control were in his power.
‘Ammae,’ Hannah called out and almost left the room, overcome by a sudden bout of shyness. Abhilash wished she would relinquish the remote, but she didn’t. If anything, her fingers tightened her hold on the remote. There was another TV in his father’s bedroom, but it was rather small and he sensed that his father didn’t really want him watching it, even if he never said anything when he occasionally did.
The next day his Daddy took Hannah and him to VeegaLand as promised during his last visit. They had to make the most of Saturday, since Sunday would be a washout. They would have to go to church in the morning and that would take up the best part of the day. He was expected to get back to his Mummy before sunset, though the court order said nothing of that sort, he knew for sure.
For some reason, Hannah’s parents, Jeboy uncle and Vimala Auntie decided to tag along when they went to Veegaland.
He had been to Veegaland before many times and he knew every ride and every nook and corner very well. May be he ought to have demanded something else, he felt. May be he should have asked that he be taken to that resort at Boulgatti. Never mind, there would be other weekends with his father, he consoled himself.
Vimala Auntie was someone who knew a lot about medicines, though she was not a doctor or anything. She had a chest full of medicines, which she happily dispensed to all and sundry along with a volley of advice, if they cared to listen.
Abhilash made the mistake of sneezing once when standing close to Vimala Auntie. They were about to get into a ride, one which ended with a splash in a pool of water.
‘There, he has got a cold,’ she told Abhilash’s father. ‘I don’t think he should take any of the water rides.’
‘Nonsense, my son doesn’t have a cold. He just sneezed once.’
‘Oh, let him be,’ Jeboy uncle also chipped in. ‘A single sneeze never hurt anybody.’
That almost settled the matter and they got into the queue for the ride. But then, Abhilash sneezed again.
‘There, I told you,’ Vimala Auntie said. ‘Please let’s not take this ride,’ she beseeched Jeboy uncle and Abhilash’s father. ‘I have a strip of Coldarin with me. I’ll give one to Abhilash right away.’
‘May be we shouldn’t,’ Abhilash’s father agreed. ‘Abhilash’s let’s not do this ride. Let’s find something else to do.’
But Abhilash loved the water so much and didn’t want to give in so easily. ‘But Daddy, Mummy always lets me play in the rain. Last week it rained and I went out and played for an hour! Mummy thinks it makes me stronger. And if I catch a cold, she doesn’t give me any medicines!’ The last bit was addressed to Vimala Auntie.
Abhilash’s father was silent for a few seconds. Jeboy uncle looked down, as if he were embarrassed. Vimala Auntie looked angry. But Abhilash didn’t care.
‘Please Daddy, I won’t be back here for a long time,’ Abhilash pressed home his advantage.
‘Fine,’ his father relented. ‘In any event, you can come back here next month as well.’
Abhilash wasn’t sure if he wanted to come here when he had his next visit, but he didn’t reject the promise out of hand. He might feel like visiting Veegaland next month, who knew.
‘Take a Coldarin before you go. At least, the cold won’t get worse.’
Abhilash accepted the Coldarin and swallowed it with some water from the bottle his father had in his backpack.
That evening, they had dinner at Morsels. When they got home, his Daddy said, ‘I have a surprise for you. Guess what?’
‘A cricket set.’
‘No.’
Abhilash now knew that it had to be either a mobile or the model aeroplane. These were the only pending items that deserved the dignity of a ‘surprise’. He looked at his father. Generally he could make out what was coming from the gleam in his eyes. His father was really excited. It had to be the mobile.
‘The model aeroplane?’ Abhilash asked tentatively.
‘No,’ his father sang out and waited for Abhilash to make another guess.
‘A pair of jeans?’ There was a stretch of four months when everything time Abhilash turned up, he got a pair of jeans. It had taken him a while to gently move his father from his jeans fixation to something else.
‘No, not a pair of jeans.’ His father’s eyes never lost their gleam, until they did actually stop gleaming. ‘You do have enough clothes don’t you?’ The intense dark eyes were now full of concern.
‘Yes Daddy I do. Lots of clothes.’ It was a fact. He had a dozen uncles and aunts on each side of the family and they all made it a point to buy his clothes, as if worried that he might be naked on account of his parents’ divorce.
‘I’ve got you a Nokia mobile phone!’ his father intoned. Abhilash jumped with joy that was almost entirely genuine. A few months of lobbying and subtle hinting had finally paid off.
Abhilash paid close attention as his father showed him how his mobile worked. Of course, he had a pretty good idea, having paid close attention to the phone used by his mother, which was a Motorola.
‘Let me save your number Daddy,’ Abhilash said as soon as he managed to prise the phone from his father.
Abhilash knew his father’s mobile number by heart. ‘94471… Now I can call you from school everyday,’ he confirmed to his father.
‘Don’t get into trouble calling me,’ he father cautioned him.
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Do any of your friends have a mobile phone?’ his father asked.
Abhilash hid his irritation at being asked the same question again. ‘Geojit does, but it’s not a new phone. Preetha also has a used phone.’
‘So you will be the first one in your class to have a brand new mobile phone?’
‘Yes Daddy. Abhilash gave his father another hug.’
Sunday was a washout as Abhilash knew it would be. He took a short nap after lunch and woke up at around four. He was to leave at five so that he would be at his mother’s home before six.
His grandmother sat glumly on a rocking chair, rocking herself slowly. On the other hand, his father was a bundle of nervous energy, which he tried to dissipate by walking up and down. Every few minutes, he would ask Abhilash some inane question, which Abhilash tried to answer as best as he could.
‘Do you want to take guitar classes?’
‘I do.’
‘Why won’t your Mummy let you do that?’
‘She says I will not study if I go for guitar classes twice a week.’
‘Why can’t you take those lessons when you are with me?’
‘Because I must take those lessons at least once a week. Else, there is no point.’
‘So why can’t you… Okay, okay.. Shall I speak to your mother? No, I won’t… there’s no point. Why don’t you ask her yourself?’
‘I did.’
‘And what did she say?’
Abhilash wanted to scream at his father. Instead, he mustered together the last vestiges of his patience and said, ‘she said No. She thinks I will neglect my studies if I go for those classes.’
‘I can give you the fees for those classes. No, that won’t help.’
Finally his Jeboy uncle and Vimala Auntie came into the drawing room (they had been keeping away till then) and took charge.
‘He grows taller each time we see him. Soon he will be taller than his father.’
His father and grandmother were silent since agreement would mean that he was being fed properly by his mother.
‘Do you need anything?’ Vimala Auntie asked him.
Nothing! Abhilash shrugged his shoulders. Departure was always a touchy issue and there was little he could do to make it easier for anybody. If only the adults could be pragmatic about things like this instead of lugging so much excess baggage around!
Finally, Kochamma the maid who had been with the household for over thirty years announced that tea was served.
‘I don’t want any tea,’ Ammachi announced wiping away a tear.
Abhilash was embarrassed. He always felt that way when any grown-up cried. It was the same with his maternal Ammachi who broke into tears every now and then when discussing her daughter’s predicament.
Never mind Ammae, let’s all have tea,’ Jeboy uncle declared.
They trooped into the dining room and took their places. There were mutton puffs, banana chips, pancakes, avalose undas, shortbreads and a big bunch of small yellow plantains.
Abhilash was hungry and he dug in with vigour. His father, Jeboy uncle and Vimala Auntie sat around nibbling.
‘Where’s Hannah?’ Abhilash asked, in between mouthfuls.
‘She’s still sleeping.’ Vimala Auntie told him. Abhilash was irritated. Why couldn’t Hannah have the grace to wake up and say goodbye?
‘Wake her up!’ he told Vimala Auntie.
‘She fell asleep at three thirty. Let her sleep for some more time,’ Jeboy uncle replied good humouredly.
Abhilash stopped eating. He was almost full, but if Hannah had been brought down to say good bye, he would have eaten a bit more.
‘Have you had enough?’
‘Yes,’ he said sulkily.
‘What’s the matter?’ his father.
‘I don’t want to go back Daddy!’ Abhilash burst into tears at that. He felt a bit guilty for a very brief while. No, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Admitting that he was bugged with Hannah for not being awake would have sounded very childish.
His father hugged him, put his down and walked out of the room for a few minutes. Abhilash knew he was crying and felt very bad. Vimala Auntie wiped away a tear. Even Kochamma who was standing in a corner started to sob. Jeboy uncle was the only dry-eyed person in that room.
‘Ten minutes to five. You might as well say goodbye to everyone,’ Jeboy uncle told him.
Abhilash washed his hands in the washbasin that stood in a corner and went to the drawing room where Ammachi was still rocking herself on the rocking chair.
‘Ammachi, I am leaving.’
‘Moné, take care of yourself. Study well. Don’t …’ The rest of Ammachi’s advice was lost in a sudden outbreak of tears.
Abhilash turned on his heels and went back to the dining room. Thankfully Jeboy uncle made the rest of the good byes easier.
‘Give your Daddy a hug. Yes, there, now a kiss for Vimala Auntie. Good. A hug for me.’
Abhilash did particularly want to hug Jeboy uncle since he didn’t seem to be as much affected by his departure as the others were. Nevertheless he hugged Jeboy uncle and he was done.
As expected, his Dad pressed a wad of notes into his pocket. Yes, he knew his father paid his mother a fixed amount of money every month for his upkeep, but this pocket money was strictly a deal between them.
Finally Abhilash was in the car. As the car started moving, he quickly waved goodbye to his father and the others and settled down. They turned a corner and he could no longer see his Daddy’s house. He took out the wad of notes from his pocket and counted them. The usual one thousand rupees in hundred rupee notes. He put five hundred rupees back into his shirt’s pocket and the rest into his trousers’ pocket. His mother expected him to be given some pocket money and she would ask him what he got and take it from him. He would part with the money in his shirt’s pocket. The balance would be added to the pile he hid in the cavity he had dug out in the Rabbit.
Abhilash took out his new mobile phone. His father had assured him that he needn’t worry about the bill, which would be sent to his father. The SIM was in his father’s name anyway.
He dialled Shibu’s home number and got a message that suggested that he had the wrong number. He dialled again and got the same result. Ah! He had to add Kochi’s STD code before dialling the number, didn’t he? 0484… he dialled and soon Shibu’s mother answered the phone.
‘Is Shibu at home?’
‘Shibu? Do you know how I am calling you?’
By the time he hung up, Abhilash had made Shibu very jealous. He then dialled Junaid. Unfortunately Junaid was not at home, Junaid’s mother informed him.
‘Are you acting in the play as well?’ Junaid’s mother asked him.
Oh yes, he was.
Junaid’s mother knew all about the play. She was so much looking forward to seeing the play when it was staged in around six week’s time.
Should he invite his father to come and watch his play? If he did, his mother would be mighty bugged. If he didn’t, his father would be very sad. Not angry, but sad. Later year, he had wanted to invite his father to his school for Sports Day, but his mother had thrown such a big tantrum that he hadn’t.
Sports Day was no big deal. He was not particularly good at any sport and he hadn’t won any prizes. He knew he wouldn’t. But the play was different. He had the second most important role and he had never acted in a play before. His father would be thrilled to bits if only he knew. He almost broke down as he imagined how hurt his father would be if he ever came to knew. But he resisted the tears. His father was no saint. Didn’t he hit his mother so often when they all lived together? Of course, his mother had once flung a dish full of curry at his father. And his father’s mother used to crib every time his mother went out. His mother had once called his father a bastard. Some of the memories were a bit vague, but Abhilash had no doubt that they were all a bunch of nasty idiots who deserved no better.
He fished the mobile out of his pocket and dialled Sanjiv’s number.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
The Roma’s Indian Origins
I have blogged about the Roma in the past. The BBC has this very interesting report on the Indian origins of the Roma.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Book Review - The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi
I have just finished reading The Wish Maker and the sights, sounds and smells of upper-middle class Pakistan are still with me. Though I am nowhere near Pakistan, I can still see around me the crowded thoroughfares of Lahore. If twenty-four year old Ali Sethi’s main objective was to convey to his readers an idea of what life is like for Pakistanis of his class and ilk, he has succeeded admirably.
Having spent all his life in Pakistan, except for a brief holiday to Spain, Sethi’s protagonist Zaki Shirazi goes to the US for his higher studies. The novel starts with Zaki’s return to Lahore from the US for his cousin Samar Api’s wedding. Actually Samar Api is not his cousin, she’s his father’s first cousin and consequently his aunt. However, Samar is generous enough to treat him as a cousin most of the time, though occasionally she reminds him otherwise.
Zaki’s father was an airforce pilot who died in an accident when Samar was ‘minus two months old’. Zaki is brought up by his mother Zakia who is a journalist and a political activist. Surrounded by women, his mother, his paternal grandmother – Daadi, the domestic help Naseem and Samar Api, Zaki has an unusual childhood. For example, he gets to accompany his mother to a political protest and they end up spending the night in police custody. Zaki is sent to a posh school where he makes some friends and even tries to get picked (by his teachers) as a class monitor. There is a surprising amount of politicking, buttering up and back stabbing involved in getting picked as the class monitor. School politics almost mirrors the politics played by adults in the big, bad world outside. Zaki gets into trouble once in a while. What child doesn’t? Sethi does a very good job describing Zaki’s school life. I’ll leave it to you to read the book and find out more for yourself.
Zaki’s cousin Samar Api is an Amitabh Bachchan fan and when she has an affair, she is looking for her Amitabh. When Zaki returns to Pakistan for Samar’s wedding, he knows that the London educated lawyer she’s marrying is her Amitabh.
By way of flashbacks and otherwise, Sethi tells us the story of three generations of Pakistanis. We are shown Papu and Mabi, his maternal grandparents. Papu migrated to Pakistan from his ancestral home in India and he ends up as the General Manager of a posh hotel. Mabi is the hostess of a Chinese restaurant inside the hotel. We get to know how Zaki’s parents met. We are shown the (decadent?) lifestyles of some of Zaki’s cousins. As I have mentioned earlier, one gets to smell the real Pakistan, albeit from an upper class balcony.
Political events in Pakistan form the backdrop to this story. One gets bits of commentary on everything from the Partition, the various coups that took place in Pakistan, Zulfikar Bhutto’s execution, Benazir Bhutto’s election etc.
Sethi’s language is pretty straight forward and matter of fact, except when he makes a conscious effort to use poetic language. This happens only in a few paragraphs and they stand out. No, I’m not saying they don’t gel with the rest of the book, but they do stand out.
All in all, I would definitely recommend this book, though I am sure that Sethi’s best is yet to come.
SPOILERS AHEAD – DON’T SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO BUY THE BOOK BASED ON WHAT YOU HAVE READ SO FAR
I have a few grumbles about the book. My main crib is that Zaki’s relationship with Samar Api is not covered as well as it ought to be. After Zaki lands in Lahore for Samar Api’s wedding, he doesn’t go and meet her and the reader doesn’t meet her either, except when the wedding actually takes place. You are told that Zaki and Samar are very close, but you see Zaki going around town with his other cousins, and Samar doesn’t make an appearance for a while. In fact, the only time Zaki and Samar are shown to be close and talking and exchanging secrets is when they are both very young and they have a few mutual friends. After Zaki is moved to a posh school, Samar Api sort of disappears. Samar Api doesn’t have a presence in a large swathe of the book.
My only other point of dispute with Sethi, and I am nitpicking here, is the scene which takes place in the days just after the US started to help the Mujahideen fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Zaki’s mother, the political activist, is shown telling a retired Brigadier that the US and Pakistan were making a mistake by helping the Afghan fighters. Just before she does that, a visiting American intellectual and a friend of Zakia, declares that the blowback (from helping the Mujahideen) would be costly. If Sethi didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, I doubt if he could have written anything of this sort. Just after the Soviet invasion, I don’t think there were any Americans or Pakistanis worrying about the “blowback” from helping the Mujahideen. In those days, the only serious dangers the world faced came with a capital C – Capitalism and Communism, depending on whose side you were on. Religious fundamentalism was not a major problem. Many Arab nations such as Egypt were going through a phase of Arab nationalism and socialism.
I’m sure we’ll get to read a lot more of Sethi in the days to come.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Short Story: Vertical Limit at the Murmuring Oasis
Phalgun stood with his back to the vegetable cart, both his hands gripping the rim of the cart from behind with such force that a vein in his forehead almost popped out. Salil stood beside him, tapping his fingers and occasionally his feet, to relieve the tension. There was no sign of the film producer who ought to have driven through the gates of the multi-storey apartment complex at least thirty minutes ago. Salil was growing more and more impatient and he increased the tempo of his tapping. Phalgun turned around and stared at Salil for a full two seconds to convey his irritation at Salil’s impatience. If they weren’t disguised as vegetable vendors with Phalgun’s pistol hidden under a pile of tomatoes, Salil might have had the opportunity to experience Phalgun’s anger in a more corporal manner, but at that moment, there was no way Phalgun could afford to slap Salil or give him a good kick.
The two pot bellied guards in blue uniforms were caged in the tiny booth, which adjoined the entrance gate. Phalgun and Salil could see them through the bars of the small square window as they lolled in their chairs, their only weapons a whistle each and a log book in which every visitor to the building was required to enter his name and address. Phalgun found it very hilarious. How on earth could those two guards with their whistles and log book provide any sort of security from a toughie like him?
A car drove up to the gate and Phalgun’s pulse quickened. But no, this was not their target’s car. Big Boss had given them the registration number of the film producer’s car. A middle-aged woman who was walking past, stopped, looked at the vegetable cart and came up to them. This was so irritating!
‘How much does the cabbage cost?’ she asked Phalgun.
‘Five rupees a kilogram,’ Phalgun told the woman who then decided to inspect all the vegetables in the cart. Phalgun was tempted to picked up a cabbage and smash it against the woman’s face. Why on earth did she have to shop at eight in the night?
‘Are you two fellows planning to spend the entire night in front of this building?’ one of the security guards called out to them, sounding as though he owned the entire apartment complex. Phalgun did not bother to reply. He saw that Salil had lifted up his shoulders and inhaled deeply, a prelude to an obscenity. So he quickly said, ‘Saheb, can we please stay for another hour? People from your building may want to buy our vegetables. If it is okay with you Sahebs …..’
Salil pursed his lips in irritation. Phalgun knew that Salil would love to kill the guards after they had killed the film producer, but it just wouldn’t do to kill anyone unnecessarily. Each additional dead body increased the pressure on the police to find the murderers, even if it was the body of a lowly security guard. That meant Big Boss would have to pay a bigger bribe. Youngsters like Salil had no discipline whatsoever. Things came to them so easily. They never experienced much hardship, never underwent any suffering. Phalgun on the other hand had done every menial job under the sun, including vending vegetables in a push cart like the one he was using now, before Big Boss hired him.
The woman finally decided to buy some cabbage, but she just wanted just half a kilogram of it. Phalgun expertly chopped a cabbage into two, weighed it and wrapped it in a piece of newspaper.
Just then, the car they were waiting for, drove up. The woman was fumbling with the change. One of the two security guards came out of the booth and opened the gate. For good measure, he saluted the corpulent man inside the car. Phalgun waved away the change which the woman proffered him and dug out his pistol from under the pile of tomatoes. He fired a shot into the rear window of the car and saw the bulky man inside slump forward. For good measure, he fired two more shots. Salil had pushed the cringing woman to the ground to make sure that she did not get in Phalgun’s way. The security guard who had come outside had his mouth wide open. Hs colleague inside the booth was dialling furiously.
Phalgun was tempted to kill the man making the phone call, but he desisted. A phone call to the police station would make little or no difference to their getaway.
Salil was dancing in front of the security guard who had opened the gate.
‘Sahib, can we please stay for another hour? Please Sahib,’ he mocked the guard and waited for Phalgun to finish him off, grinning like a demon from ear to ear.
Phalgun walked away, tucking his pistol under his threadbare shirt. Salil looked stunned for a second, then he quickly followed Phalgun like a dog.
Phalgun’s heart was thumping and he walked as though he were mounted on a set of springs. It took him an enormous effort to not to jump and shout with joy and exhilaration. He had not let the Big Boss down. This was his tenth big job and there would be many more to come. As they left the secluded cul-de-sac and reached the busy main road, they saw that the battered ambassador car waiting to take them away had its engines running. The driver must have heard the shots being fired.
‘All well?’ the driver asked as he put the car into gear.
Phalgun took a deep breath and said, ‘yes, it went off well.’ ‘The bastard looked like a circus clown when he fell forward,’ he added with a chuckle.
Once the car started to move, Phalgun gave Salil a pat on the back and said, ‘you idiot, you nearly messed up things.’ He gave another chuckle so that Salil did not get too upset. This was the first time he had worked with Salil. Most probably, this was Salil’s first kill, though he had earlier claimed to have gone with another senior hit man on a hit.
‘You could have killed that guard as well,’ Salil told Phalgun in an accusing voice, sounding like a kid deprived of candy
‘Listen, you wet-behind-the-ears-baby, you keep that big mouth of yours shut and watch and listen and you may make something out of yourself. That is, if you don’t get killed first.’
The driver broke into a loud guffaw on hearing that.
Three days later, refreshed and relaxed, Phalgun presented himself at Big Boss’s bungalow. The bungalow was a dream in white and the room where Phalgun waited to meet Big Boss actually had air conditioning. The only other person in the room was a bodyguard nicknamed the Viper, one of the dozen or so of bodyguards who surrounded Big Boss at all times.
Viper was bursting with gossip and Phalgun was not uninterested.
‘It was I who went and fetched Baburam for Big Boss,’ he informed Phalgun grimly.
‘Just you? No one else?’ I don’t believe it!’ Phalgun waited for Viper’s clarification.
‘Hafiz came with me.’
‘And did he make a fuss?’
‘Fuss? No way. We knocked on his door, told him that Big Boss wanted to talk to him and he just came. As meek as a puppy.’
‘Why didn’t he try to run away?’ Phalgun wondered aloud.
‘Or even try to kill us first?’ the Viper asked. I was quite scared to go and ask him. When Big Boss told me to bring Baburam, I actually thought of running off to my village and not come back at all.’ They both laughed at that.
‘You say that he just came along meekly?’
‘Yes, he did. And he was such a big guy!’
‘Was it Big Boss who fired the shot?’
‘Oh yes! That’s how it’s for traitors, isn’t it? Big Boss would not have it any other way.’
‘Did you see his body?’
‘Yes, I did. It was Charles who carried it to the sea.’
‘I wished I had been there. It must have been some sight to see Baburam go so quietly.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Phalgun asked, ‘Is Big Boss still angry with Charles?’
Viper sighed. ‘I don’t really know. There are times when Big Boss summons Charles and shouts at him. And then there are times when he sounds as if he is …
There was no opportunity for Viper to finish his discourse. Big Boss walked into the room and sat down, an affable old man who would not look out of place in a group of respectable senior citizens on a group tour to the Prince of Wales museum, the planetarium and the aquarium. Phalgun jumped up immediately.
‘Son, I’m very proud of you,’ he told Phalgun and patted him on his back before sitting down.
Phalgun stood tongue-tied in front of Big Boss who at times had an eerie resemblance to his grandfather.
Big Boss looked at Viper who left the room immediately.
‘How are things with you?’
‘With your blessings and by God’s grace, I’m doing well Big Boss.’
‘Ha! Ha! You don’t need my blessings if you have God’s grace.’
‘But Big Boss, you are God.’
‘I’m not God, Phalgun. I’m not.’ Big Boss sounded tired and exhausted.
‘How’s your wife? How’s your son? Vinayak? Isn’t that his name?’
‘Yes Big Boss. He is. Vinayak. That’s his name.’ Phalgun found himself floundering over simple sentences.
‘Vinayak must be, how old is Vinayak? Ten years old? Am I right?’ Big Boss scratched his head as he searched his legendary memory.
‘Yes Big Boss. He is ten. Almost eleven now.’
‘When’s his birthday?’
‘Oh, it was last month. He’s eleven now.’
‘Ah, is he? How time flies!’
Big Boss sat there in thoughtful silence and Phalgun stood politely in front of him. After a lengthy stretch of silence, Big Boss asked Phalgun, ‘son, are you ready for another job?’
‘Big Boss, I shall do anything you ask me to do.’
‘I know Phalgun, but are you ready to do it? To do it successfully?’
‘Yes, Big Boss, I am.’
Big Boss sighed once more. ‘There’s this builder called Hinal Mehta who has switched allegiance to that bastard from Vikhroli. He has stopped paying me money. Altogether.’
Phalgun kept quiet. He knew that Big Boss liked people to listen to him when he spoke.
‘He needs to be taught a lesson,’ Big Boss added.
‘I shall kill this Hinal Mehta. Definitely. Who is he and where does he live?’ Phalgun demanded Big Boss. ‘You only have to say the word.’
Big Boss gave Phalgun a sad smile. His next few words confirmed his disappointment in Phalgun. ‘If you kill him, how will he pay me?’
‘If you kill him, how will he pay me Phalgun?’ Big Boss repeated, drawing out the last syllable of Phalgun’s name in a manner that showed his irritation.
‘I’m so sorry Big Boss. I’m so very sorry Big Boss. Please forgive me.’
‘We will have to kill someone else, so that this man pays me. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Big Boss. Someone else. Of course.’
Phalgun bit his tongue and waited for Big Boss to tell him who that someone was.
‘Hinal Mehta, he cannot be killed. But one of his friends can be.’
‘Yes Big Boss. That’ll make Hinal Mehta pay up. It will.’
Big Boss drew a sharp breath and said, ‘Now listen carefully. Every Saturday, Hinal Mehta likes to have a drink. With his friends. Three or four of them. I want you to kill one of Hinal Mehta’s friends when he does that. In front of Hinal Mehta. Can you do that?’
‘Yes Big Boss. I can do that. Easily! Of course, I can do that.’
‘And how will you do that?’
Phalgun gulped. He was another catch. What should he do now? ‘Whatever way you ask me to do Big Boss,’ he said.
Big Boss was pleased. ‘Listen carefully,’ he said once more. Phalgun clasped his hands behind his back, bent his head slightly and almost stood on tip toe so that his body was inclined towards Big Boss as he sat on the brown leather sofa.
‘Right now, Hinal Mehta is putting up a huge building at Kandivali. A fifty storey luxury apartment complex. The building is almost complete. All fifty storeys have been erected. The plastering is done. A set of lifts have been installed. There is some painting work left. A garden has been planted with a water fountain in its centre. Soon, people will start moving into this building.’
‘Yes Big Boss.’
‘The fountain. Ever since the fountain was installed three weeks ago, that’s where Hinal Mehta has his weekend drinks. Most probably, he’ll do the same this Saturday as well.’
Phalgun grinned. It would be good fun to kill one of Hinal Mehta’s friends near the fountain.
‘I want you storm into that compound with four men, beat up Hinal Mehta and kill one of his friends in a special way. So that Hinal Mehta is scared. Really scared.’
Not a problem Big Boss. I can make the waters of the fountain run red. Have you decided which friend is to be killed?’
‘Patience Phalgun, I’ll come to that in a minute. I want to frighten this Hinal Mehta. Scare the daylights out of him. Convince him that the Vikhroli gang cannot protect him. How do we do that?’
‘I could beat up Hinal Mehta and all of his friends properly. Their mothers wouldn’t recognise them after I am through!’
‘Phalgun, use your brains. They will be right next to a fifty storey building. Would do you think we should so?’
Phalgun had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He caught his breath. He knew what was coming. His legs started to tremble. His worst nightmare was coming true.
‘I want you to nab them when they are drinking near that fountain, beat them up well and good, threaten to kill them all, make them beg and cringe, take them up the lift to the fiftieth storey, make them climb up the ladder to the terrace, stand them near the parapet with their backs to you and then, when they are all shitting in their trousers, push one of the friends over the parapet. Just one! That ought to scare Hinal Mehta. So there! Can you do it?’
Phalgun’s mind was in a whirl. If he had any sense he would admit to Big Boss that this job was beyond him. But No! He could never say No to Big Boss who had picked him from the crowd and made him what he was. ‘Yes Big Boss. I will do it,’ he firmly, trying to shut out a vision of the fifty storey building.
‘Can you do all this with just four men?’ Big Boss asked him thoughtfully.
‘I think so Big Boss,’ Phalgun reply, trying to sound confident. ‘That’ll be five people including me.’
Big Boss was silent. Then he asked Phalgun. ‘Would you do it, Phalgun? If you are cornered by a hit man who you think is definitely going to kill you and asked to climb a parapet, would you do so?’
‘No Big Boss, I would not.’
‘I know. You’ll need three men to pick up one of Hinal Mehta’s friends and throw him over the parapet.’
‘It can be done Big Boss. Two of us can keep the rest of them quiet when the other three throw one of the bastards over. It will be easier if we could kill the man before pushing him over.’
‘No, no, no. I want him to scream as he falls down.’
‘Or at least hit him on the head…’
‘I don’t care where you hit him as long as he screams when he falls down’
‘The tough bit will be to get the bastards to climb the ladder from the fiftieth storey to the terrace.’
‘They will do what you ask them to do if they are frightened properly.’
‘Yes Big Boss. I guess Hinal Mehta will have a bodyguard with him all the time?’
‘Two of them actually,’ Big Boss smiled. ‘And they are not ordinary guards. Apparently they are specially trained in martial arts and cost Hinal Mehta fifty thousand rupees each every month.’
‘They won’t be so special when we are through with them.’
Big Boss smiled. ‘Take Salil, Ramesh, Charles and Abdul with you. I know you can handle Hinal Mehta’s bodyguards, but don’t be overconfident.’
‘Big Boss, I can kill Hinal Mehta’s friend wherever you like. I can do it the way you just described. But if you like, I can also kill his friend in front of his family. Maybe in front of his wife and children. Whatever you like Big Boss.’
‘Phalgun, I don’t want to scare his wife and children. I want to scare Hinal Mehta.’
Phalgun’s shoulders slumped, but he tried not to let his fear show on his face.
‘I am going to rely on you Phalgun,’ Big Boss said, his attitude that of a grandfather entrusting his business empire to his grandson. ‘I want this to be done this Saturday itself. That gives you just four days.’
Later that evening, Phalgun took a taxi to Khandivali and stood in front of the Murmuring Oasis. It gave him the shivers just to look at it. Fifty storeys tall and the joker of an architect had encased the entire front façade in glass. Phalgun tried to imagine living on the fiftieth floor and shuddered.
He never had a head for heights, as far as he could remember. If he had his way, he would level to the ground all tall buildings in the world. His earlier memory of a tryst with vertigo was when his family visited the sacred temple at Saptasring Gad. His father had insisted on the entire family climbing the innumerable steps that led to the temple, which was on top of a hill. Phalgun had managed a dozen steps and then sat down dizzy with fear. His father had carried him to the top, only to have Phalgun cringing in fear during the entire visit.
Charles was responsible for fixing a security guard at the Murmuring Oasis who could get them access to the building prior to the raid. He had promised to get it done in a day’s time. Once it was done, he would be able to make as many trips as he wanted to in order to familiarise himself with the building. ‘We’ll never go there as a group,’ he had told Charles and the others. Charles was actually much more experienced than he was, but since he had got into some trouble or the other, he had been demoted. If not, it would be Charles who would be leading the team for this piece of action. Thank God for small mercies, Phalgun thought.
When Phalgun was in his teens he had a friend who lived on the fourth floor of a block of flats. Every time Phalgun visited his friend, he used to be terrified as he walked up the stairs. Climbing down was even worse. But after a few trips, his fear had been brought down to manageable limits. Could he do the same thing with this building? Phalgun doubted it. Big Boss had made his intentions clear. He wanted all four victims to be taken to the terrace of the building. The climb to the terrace from the fiftieth storey would be through the service ladder. No, there was no way Phalgun could climb a ladder from the fiftieth storey. He might have managed it if it had been an enclosed stairway. Maybe! Maybe not! And then there was that action planned for the terrace. Big Boss was very clear. He did not want them to kill or even stun the friend before throwing him down. He wanted Hinal Mehta’s friend to scream as he fell. The mere thought of doing all that made Phalgun tremble.
Maybe he ought to go to Big Boss and confess. Tell him the truth. After all, it was a genuine problem, wasn’t it? But no! Big Boss had this habit of not relying on a person who he thought had let him down. He would be instantly demoted and would soon be running minor errands and accompanying senior hit men, just as Salil accompanied him on his last hit. It seemed to be a no-win situation.
Two days later Phalgun made a visit to the Murmuring Oasis. The crooked guard had given them three passes, each of which when struck to a paint splattered shirt, allowed the wearer to ramble around the building, provided he had a paint brush in hand.
The moment Phalgun came out of the lift on the fiftieth storey, he was hit by vertigo. His feet trembled under him as he looked out through the sheet of glass in front of him. Fifty storeys of sheer madness dangled not less than ten feet from where he was. He quickly got back into the lift and hastily went down. Once on the ground floor, he lit a beedi and inhaled deeply. His heart was beating as if it was trying to break free from his body.
‘Shhhh, there’s a supervisor coming along,’ a workman told him as he walked past.
Phalgun gawked at the workman, who had a friendly look.
‘You idiot, you aren’t allowed to smoke in this building,’ the man told him and disappeared.
Phalgun put out his beedi. He got back into the lift and pressed the button for the fiftieth floor. He would make multiple trips and get rid of his fear. Ten trips to the fiftieth floor and he would be able to walk around, wouldn’t he? Tomorrow he would come again and practice climbing the ladder to the terrace. Of course he would do it. He, Phalgun Patil, had done so many things in life that other men only dreamed of doing. And he could bloody well climb up to the terrace if he put his mind to it.
He got out of the lift and took bold a step forward. Fifty storeys below, the cars and buses were tiny and ant-like. His breath hissed out of him and his legs buckled. No, this was impossible. He had absolutely no control of his body. If someone pulled a gun on him when he was in this state, he would be helpless. Phalgun slowly sat on the floor, his whole body trembling with fear. Thankfully there was no one nearby. He crawled back to the lift, keeping his eyes to the floor so that he did not have to look out through the glass.
The next day Phalgun went to the Siddhi Vinayak temple at Prabha Devi and prayed. Please, please God. Please take away this irrational fear, he pleaded again and again. On his way out, he gave away two thousand and two rupees to the various beggars who surrounded the place. For good measure, he also went to the Sai Baba Mandir at Borivali and repeated his prayers, sacrificing a large marigold garland this time. There was nothing more that a man in his position could do. It was all in the hands of God.
The day of the raid dawned bright and clear. Big Boss had expressed his fear that if it turned out to be a rainy day, Hinal Mehta might decide to go elsewhere for his drinks. Phalgun had prayed for rain desperately. But no, the rain gods let him down despite his fervent requests. If only it had rained and Hinal Mehta had gone to a good restaurant with his friends, Phalgun would have been the happiest man in the world.
Salil, Ramesh, Charles and Abdul were excited with the idea of throwing a man down fifty storeys while Phalgun tried to avoid thinking about it. He failed miserably. Time and again his brain conjured up images of the terrace, fifty storeys above the ground. If only his legs made it up the ladder, he could ask three of the others to throw one of Hinal Mehta’s friends down the building. To fall down fifty storeys! The very thought gave him the jitters. If it weren’t for Big Boss, he wouldn’t do this to his biggest enemy.
The van they used to take them to the building had been stolen that morning from the company which maintained the fountain. To be doubly safe, the guard supposed to be in charge of the entrance gate that day had been bribed. Charles had wanted to try and to fix one of the personal bodyguards as well, but Big Boss overruled him. The man who ran Top Shot, the agency which supplied the bodyguards, was unlikely to play along and if they tried and failed, word would get to Hinal Mehta.
They rolled into the compound at half past six when the workmen had left for the day and dusk had set in. The yellow lamps which dotted the garden had been switched on. Phalgun avoided looking at the building which looked very beautiful in the setting yellow sun.
Hinal Mehta and two of his friends had just finished a round of drinks when Phalgun and his team got out of the van, dressed as workmen. The two specially trained bodyguards didn’t have a chance against the five men. Even before they could suspect anything and draw their pistols, they were shot dead in cold blood. Hinal Mehta, a short pudgy man in his early fifties, and his friends cowered in front of Phalgun’s men.
Phalgun made sure that his back was to the building so that he was not reminded of the climb that awaited him.
Salil walked up to Hinal and kicked him in his groin. ‘You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you? he asked Hinal.
‘Why are there only three of them and not four?’ Abdul whispered to Phalgun.
‘Who cares? We just need to kill Wilfred. And he is here.’ Big Boss had decided on Wilfred the previous day, since he was closer to Hinal than any of the other drinking buddies. Wilfred was a tall thin man with a straggly French beard. He ran a health club at Napean Sea road which was frequented by the most happening people in Mumbai.
Phalgun nodded at Charles who dragged the third friend forward, pushed him down and kicked him in the face. Blood oozed out of his mouth. Ramesh and Salil joined him. They worked systematically on the three men, punching and kicking them all over their bodies, but taking care to avoid their vital organs. Phalgun stood back and watched, one eye at the entrance gate for any gate crashers. The crooked guard had been tied up in his chair so that he wouldn’t get into any trouble over his inaction.
The third friend whose name they didn’t know was the stoutest of the three men and he started breathing heavily. Phalgun signalled to the men to stop. They all did, except for Salil, who had to be prised away from Hinal.
‘Don’t you want him to climb up to the terrace?’ Phalgun chided him.
‘Noo. Please don’t kill us. We’ll pay you,’ Hinal started to beg. ‘I can ask my wife to deposit fifty lakhs in your bank account right away,’ Hinal pleaded. ‘Let me just make one phone call.’
Phalgun slapped them him. ‘Aren’t you shameless? You could have paid fifty lakhs to Big Boss and avoided all this. You disrespected Big Boss and now you must pay for it.
‘Why don’t you search them to see if they are carrying any weapons? he ordered the men who looked at him in surprise. This was not part of the agreed agenda.
‘Go on,’ Phalgun said and set an example by standing Wilfred up and patting him down. Salil quickly searched Hinal and Charles shook down the third friend.
‘Now walk,’ Phalgun said and pointed in the direction of the building block which was being painted in navy blue. As he looked at the building for the first that evening, dizziness hit him in waves. He would soon have to be on top of that miserable structure!
Wilfred turned around and started to plead. ‘I have a family. I have three daughters. I need to…’
‘We’ll take care of your daughters,’ Salil told him to the accompaniment of loud laughter.
‘Listen, I know you are going to kill me. So, why should I do what you ask me to do?’ Hinal asked them, his eyes flaring. ‘If you want to make a deal with me, let’s talk, otherwise, you can do what you ….’
Before Hinal could complete his sentence, Phalgun went up to him, grabbed him by the back of his belt and punched him in his solar plexus. Hinal gasped for breath and went down like a bag of rotting onions.
‘If you don’t walk, I’ll beat you to a pulp and then make you walk anyway,’ Phalgun said. He was breathing hard and sweating. Hinal believed him and tried to stand up, but couldn’t.
Abdul prodded Wilfred and the other friend with his pistol, none too gently from behind, and they started to walk forward.
Phalgun had another idea. ‘Let’s make them take off their trousers and walk in their underwear. It’ll make things easier for them.’
The men liked the idea. They formed a circle and Hinal and his friends were forced to stand in the centre.
‘Go on, take off your trousers. I want to see the colour of your underwear,’ Phalgun told them. They hesitated.
‘The last one with his trousers on will have a pistol shoved up his arse,’ Phalgun announced. Wilfred and the third friend did not waste much time in unbuttoning their trousers and taking them off. Hinal was still panting from the blow to his solar plexus and fumbled with his buttons as the men watched in amusement. When he finally managed to drop his trousers, a small black Berretta ultra-compact fell down from the inside of his trousers. Phalgun and the men looked at the pistol, transfixed. Hinal himself seemed to be puzzled and he stared at the pistol, which was so small that it could fit snugly in a man’s palm.
Wilfred, who stood near Hinal, moved first. He took two steps and picked up the pistol before anyone else could move. ‘Don’t anyone dare come near me,’ he stammered, his eyes darting about wildly and his pistol hand jerking up and down.
But Phalgun acted courageously and fast. He whipped out his pistol and shot Wilfred between his eyes. As he was shot, Wilfred pressed the trigger, but no one got hit. They didn’t even know which direction the bullet went. The pistol fell out of Wilfred’s hands near Hinal’s feet. Hinal dropped to his knees with the intention of picking up the pistol, but Charles shot him in his thigh and he collapsed forward.
Abdul ran forward and picked up the pistol and gave it to Phalgun who slid out the magazine. ‘It’s unloaded,’ he announced with a chuckle.
‘What a fool!’ Abdul said as he looked at a bleeding Hinal Mehta with disgust. ‘Carrying an unloaded pistol in his trousers and …’
‘I thought you had searched the bastard,’ Phalgun told Salil, making no effort to hide his sneer.
‘I did. I just don’t know ….’
‘What do we do now?’ Abdul asked.
‘I guess our job’s done,’ Phalgun declared. ‘Let’s go. Someone’s bound to have heard the shot.’
Phalgun led the way. As they got into the van and drove away, Charles told Salil, ‘if I were you, I’d do back to my village and stay there.’
‘Don’t you have a pistol exactly like the one which Hinal had? The one you got from that Pedder Road job?’ Charles asked Phalgun.
‘Oh that! No, I didn’t keep it. I never do. I had got rid of it immediately. It was tainted you know. It’s always dangerous to keep a pistol from a job,’ Phalgun said.
‘Are you going to get rid of this one as well?’ Salil asked him. ‘In that case, can I keep it?’
‘You stupid idiot! How many mistakes do you want to make in a single day?’ Phalgun shouted at him. He avoided looking out of the window until Murmuring Oasis disappeared from sight.
The two pot bellied guards in blue uniforms were caged in the tiny booth, which adjoined the entrance gate. Phalgun and Salil could see them through the bars of the small square window as they lolled in their chairs, their only weapons a whistle each and a log book in which every visitor to the building was required to enter his name and address. Phalgun found it very hilarious. How on earth could those two guards with their whistles and log book provide any sort of security from a toughie like him?
A car drove up to the gate and Phalgun’s pulse quickened. But no, this was not their target’s car. Big Boss had given them the registration number of the film producer’s car. A middle-aged woman who was walking past, stopped, looked at the vegetable cart and came up to them. This was so irritating!
‘How much does the cabbage cost?’ she asked Phalgun.
‘Five rupees a kilogram,’ Phalgun told the woman who then decided to inspect all the vegetables in the cart. Phalgun was tempted to picked up a cabbage and smash it against the woman’s face. Why on earth did she have to shop at eight in the night?
‘Are you two fellows planning to spend the entire night in front of this building?’ one of the security guards called out to them, sounding as though he owned the entire apartment complex. Phalgun did not bother to reply. He saw that Salil had lifted up his shoulders and inhaled deeply, a prelude to an obscenity. So he quickly said, ‘Saheb, can we please stay for another hour? People from your building may want to buy our vegetables. If it is okay with you Sahebs …..’
Salil pursed his lips in irritation. Phalgun knew that Salil would love to kill the guards after they had killed the film producer, but it just wouldn’t do to kill anyone unnecessarily. Each additional dead body increased the pressure on the police to find the murderers, even if it was the body of a lowly security guard. That meant Big Boss would have to pay a bigger bribe. Youngsters like Salil had no discipline whatsoever. Things came to them so easily. They never experienced much hardship, never underwent any suffering. Phalgun on the other hand had done every menial job under the sun, including vending vegetables in a push cart like the one he was using now, before Big Boss hired him.
The woman finally decided to buy some cabbage, but she just wanted just half a kilogram of it. Phalgun expertly chopped a cabbage into two, weighed it and wrapped it in a piece of newspaper.
Just then, the car they were waiting for, drove up. The woman was fumbling with the change. One of the two security guards came out of the booth and opened the gate. For good measure, he saluted the corpulent man inside the car. Phalgun waved away the change which the woman proffered him and dug out his pistol from under the pile of tomatoes. He fired a shot into the rear window of the car and saw the bulky man inside slump forward. For good measure, he fired two more shots. Salil had pushed the cringing woman to the ground to make sure that she did not get in Phalgun’s way. The security guard who had come outside had his mouth wide open. Hs colleague inside the booth was dialling furiously.
Phalgun was tempted to kill the man making the phone call, but he desisted. A phone call to the police station would make little or no difference to their getaway.
Salil was dancing in front of the security guard who had opened the gate.
‘Sahib, can we please stay for another hour? Please Sahib,’ he mocked the guard and waited for Phalgun to finish him off, grinning like a demon from ear to ear.
Phalgun walked away, tucking his pistol under his threadbare shirt. Salil looked stunned for a second, then he quickly followed Phalgun like a dog.
Phalgun’s heart was thumping and he walked as though he were mounted on a set of springs. It took him an enormous effort to not to jump and shout with joy and exhilaration. He had not let the Big Boss down. This was his tenth big job and there would be many more to come. As they left the secluded cul-de-sac and reached the busy main road, they saw that the battered ambassador car waiting to take them away had its engines running. The driver must have heard the shots being fired.
‘All well?’ the driver asked as he put the car into gear.
Phalgun took a deep breath and said, ‘yes, it went off well.’ ‘The bastard looked like a circus clown when he fell forward,’ he added with a chuckle.
Once the car started to move, Phalgun gave Salil a pat on the back and said, ‘you idiot, you nearly messed up things.’ He gave another chuckle so that Salil did not get too upset. This was the first time he had worked with Salil. Most probably, this was Salil’s first kill, though he had earlier claimed to have gone with another senior hit man on a hit.
‘You could have killed that guard as well,’ Salil told Phalgun in an accusing voice, sounding like a kid deprived of candy
‘Listen, you wet-behind-the-ears-baby, you keep that big mouth of yours shut and watch and listen and you may make something out of yourself. That is, if you don’t get killed first.’
The driver broke into a loud guffaw on hearing that.
Three days later, refreshed and relaxed, Phalgun presented himself at Big Boss’s bungalow. The bungalow was a dream in white and the room where Phalgun waited to meet Big Boss actually had air conditioning. The only other person in the room was a bodyguard nicknamed the Viper, one of the dozen or so of bodyguards who surrounded Big Boss at all times.
Viper was bursting with gossip and Phalgun was not uninterested.
‘It was I who went and fetched Baburam for Big Boss,’ he informed Phalgun grimly.
‘Just you? No one else?’ I don’t believe it!’ Phalgun waited for Viper’s clarification.
‘Hafiz came with me.’
‘And did he make a fuss?’
‘Fuss? No way. We knocked on his door, told him that Big Boss wanted to talk to him and he just came. As meek as a puppy.’
‘Why didn’t he try to run away?’ Phalgun wondered aloud.
‘Or even try to kill us first?’ the Viper asked. I was quite scared to go and ask him. When Big Boss told me to bring Baburam, I actually thought of running off to my village and not come back at all.’ They both laughed at that.
‘You say that he just came along meekly?’
‘Yes, he did. And he was such a big guy!’
‘Was it Big Boss who fired the shot?’
‘Oh yes! That’s how it’s for traitors, isn’t it? Big Boss would not have it any other way.’
‘Did you see his body?’
‘Yes, I did. It was Charles who carried it to the sea.’
‘I wished I had been there. It must have been some sight to see Baburam go so quietly.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Phalgun asked, ‘Is Big Boss still angry with Charles?’
Viper sighed. ‘I don’t really know. There are times when Big Boss summons Charles and shouts at him. And then there are times when he sounds as if he is …
There was no opportunity for Viper to finish his discourse. Big Boss walked into the room and sat down, an affable old man who would not look out of place in a group of respectable senior citizens on a group tour to the Prince of Wales museum, the planetarium and the aquarium. Phalgun jumped up immediately.
‘Son, I’m very proud of you,’ he told Phalgun and patted him on his back before sitting down.
Phalgun stood tongue-tied in front of Big Boss who at times had an eerie resemblance to his grandfather.
Big Boss looked at Viper who left the room immediately.
‘How are things with you?’
‘With your blessings and by God’s grace, I’m doing well Big Boss.’
‘Ha! Ha! You don’t need my blessings if you have God’s grace.’
‘But Big Boss, you are God.’
‘I’m not God, Phalgun. I’m not.’ Big Boss sounded tired and exhausted.
‘How’s your wife? How’s your son? Vinayak? Isn’t that his name?’
‘Yes Big Boss. He is. Vinayak. That’s his name.’ Phalgun found himself floundering over simple sentences.
‘Vinayak must be, how old is Vinayak? Ten years old? Am I right?’ Big Boss scratched his head as he searched his legendary memory.
‘Yes Big Boss. He is ten. Almost eleven now.’
‘When’s his birthday?’
‘Oh, it was last month. He’s eleven now.’
‘Ah, is he? How time flies!’
Big Boss sat there in thoughtful silence and Phalgun stood politely in front of him. After a lengthy stretch of silence, Big Boss asked Phalgun, ‘son, are you ready for another job?’
‘Big Boss, I shall do anything you ask me to do.’
‘I know Phalgun, but are you ready to do it? To do it successfully?’
‘Yes, Big Boss, I am.’
Big Boss sighed once more. ‘There’s this builder called Hinal Mehta who has switched allegiance to that bastard from Vikhroli. He has stopped paying me money. Altogether.’
Phalgun kept quiet. He knew that Big Boss liked people to listen to him when he spoke.
‘He needs to be taught a lesson,’ Big Boss added.
‘I shall kill this Hinal Mehta. Definitely. Who is he and where does he live?’ Phalgun demanded Big Boss. ‘You only have to say the word.’
Big Boss gave Phalgun a sad smile. His next few words confirmed his disappointment in Phalgun. ‘If you kill him, how will he pay me?’
‘If you kill him, how will he pay me Phalgun?’ Big Boss repeated, drawing out the last syllable of Phalgun’s name in a manner that showed his irritation.
‘I’m so sorry Big Boss. I’m so very sorry Big Boss. Please forgive me.’
‘We will have to kill someone else, so that this man pays me. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Big Boss. Someone else. Of course.’
Phalgun bit his tongue and waited for Big Boss to tell him who that someone was.
‘Hinal Mehta, he cannot be killed. But one of his friends can be.’
‘Yes Big Boss. That’ll make Hinal Mehta pay up. It will.’
Big Boss drew a sharp breath and said, ‘Now listen carefully. Every Saturday, Hinal Mehta likes to have a drink. With his friends. Three or four of them. I want you to kill one of Hinal Mehta’s friends when he does that. In front of Hinal Mehta. Can you do that?’
‘Yes Big Boss. I can do that. Easily! Of course, I can do that.’
‘And how will you do that?’
Phalgun gulped. He was another catch. What should he do now? ‘Whatever way you ask me to do Big Boss,’ he said.
Big Boss was pleased. ‘Listen carefully,’ he said once more. Phalgun clasped his hands behind his back, bent his head slightly and almost stood on tip toe so that his body was inclined towards Big Boss as he sat on the brown leather sofa.
‘Right now, Hinal Mehta is putting up a huge building at Kandivali. A fifty storey luxury apartment complex. The building is almost complete. All fifty storeys have been erected. The plastering is done. A set of lifts have been installed. There is some painting work left. A garden has been planted with a water fountain in its centre. Soon, people will start moving into this building.’
‘Yes Big Boss.’
‘The fountain. Ever since the fountain was installed three weeks ago, that’s where Hinal Mehta has his weekend drinks. Most probably, he’ll do the same this Saturday as well.’
Phalgun grinned. It would be good fun to kill one of Hinal Mehta’s friends near the fountain.
‘I want you storm into that compound with four men, beat up Hinal Mehta and kill one of his friends in a special way. So that Hinal Mehta is scared. Really scared.’
Not a problem Big Boss. I can make the waters of the fountain run red. Have you decided which friend is to be killed?’
‘Patience Phalgun, I’ll come to that in a minute. I want to frighten this Hinal Mehta. Scare the daylights out of him. Convince him that the Vikhroli gang cannot protect him. How do we do that?’
‘I could beat up Hinal Mehta and all of his friends properly. Their mothers wouldn’t recognise them after I am through!’
‘Phalgun, use your brains. They will be right next to a fifty storey building. Would do you think we should so?’
Phalgun had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He caught his breath. He knew what was coming. His legs started to tremble. His worst nightmare was coming true.
‘I want you to nab them when they are drinking near that fountain, beat them up well and good, threaten to kill them all, make them beg and cringe, take them up the lift to the fiftieth storey, make them climb up the ladder to the terrace, stand them near the parapet with their backs to you and then, when they are all shitting in their trousers, push one of the friends over the parapet. Just one! That ought to scare Hinal Mehta. So there! Can you do it?’
Phalgun’s mind was in a whirl. If he had any sense he would admit to Big Boss that this job was beyond him. But No! He could never say No to Big Boss who had picked him from the crowd and made him what he was. ‘Yes Big Boss. I will do it,’ he firmly, trying to shut out a vision of the fifty storey building.
‘Can you do all this with just four men?’ Big Boss asked him thoughtfully.
‘I think so Big Boss,’ Phalgun reply, trying to sound confident. ‘That’ll be five people including me.’
Big Boss was silent. Then he asked Phalgun. ‘Would you do it, Phalgun? If you are cornered by a hit man who you think is definitely going to kill you and asked to climb a parapet, would you do so?’
‘No Big Boss, I would not.’
‘I know. You’ll need three men to pick up one of Hinal Mehta’s friends and throw him over the parapet.’
‘It can be done Big Boss. Two of us can keep the rest of them quiet when the other three throw one of the bastards over. It will be easier if we could kill the man before pushing him over.’
‘No, no, no. I want him to scream as he falls down.’
‘Or at least hit him on the head…’
‘I don’t care where you hit him as long as he screams when he falls down’
‘The tough bit will be to get the bastards to climb the ladder from the fiftieth storey to the terrace.’
‘They will do what you ask them to do if they are frightened properly.’
‘Yes Big Boss. I guess Hinal Mehta will have a bodyguard with him all the time?’
‘Two of them actually,’ Big Boss smiled. ‘And they are not ordinary guards. Apparently they are specially trained in martial arts and cost Hinal Mehta fifty thousand rupees each every month.’
‘They won’t be so special when we are through with them.’
Big Boss smiled. ‘Take Salil, Ramesh, Charles and Abdul with you. I know you can handle Hinal Mehta’s bodyguards, but don’t be overconfident.’
‘Big Boss, I can kill Hinal Mehta’s friend wherever you like. I can do it the way you just described. But if you like, I can also kill his friend in front of his family. Maybe in front of his wife and children. Whatever you like Big Boss.’
‘Phalgun, I don’t want to scare his wife and children. I want to scare Hinal Mehta.’
Phalgun’s shoulders slumped, but he tried not to let his fear show on his face.
‘I am going to rely on you Phalgun,’ Big Boss said, his attitude that of a grandfather entrusting his business empire to his grandson. ‘I want this to be done this Saturday itself. That gives you just four days.’
Later that evening, Phalgun took a taxi to Khandivali and stood in front of the Murmuring Oasis. It gave him the shivers just to look at it. Fifty storeys tall and the joker of an architect had encased the entire front façade in glass. Phalgun tried to imagine living on the fiftieth floor and shuddered.
He never had a head for heights, as far as he could remember. If he had his way, he would level to the ground all tall buildings in the world. His earlier memory of a tryst with vertigo was when his family visited the sacred temple at Saptasring Gad. His father had insisted on the entire family climbing the innumerable steps that led to the temple, which was on top of a hill. Phalgun had managed a dozen steps and then sat down dizzy with fear. His father had carried him to the top, only to have Phalgun cringing in fear during the entire visit.
Charles was responsible for fixing a security guard at the Murmuring Oasis who could get them access to the building prior to the raid. He had promised to get it done in a day’s time. Once it was done, he would be able to make as many trips as he wanted to in order to familiarise himself with the building. ‘We’ll never go there as a group,’ he had told Charles and the others. Charles was actually much more experienced than he was, but since he had got into some trouble or the other, he had been demoted. If not, it would be Charles who would be leading the team for this piece of action. Thank God for small mercies, Phalgun thought.
When Phalgun was in his teens he had a friend who lived on the fourth floor of a block of flats. Every time Phalgun visited his friend, he used to be terrified as he walked up the stairs. Climbing down was even worse. But after a few trips, his fear had been brought down to manageable limits. Could he do the same thing with this building? Phalgun doubted it. Big Boss had made his intentions clear. He wanted all four victims to be taken to the terrace of the building. The climb to the terrace from the fiftieth storey would be through the service ladder. No, there was no way Phalgun could climb a ladder from the fiftieth storey. He might have managed it if it had been an enclosed stairway. Maybe! Maybe not! And then there was that action planned for the terrace. Big Boss was very clear. He did not want them to kill or even stun the friend before throwing him down. He wanted Hinal Mehta’s friend to scream as he fell. The mere thought of doing all that made Phalgun tremble.
Maybe he ought to go to Big Boss and confess. Tell him the truth. After all, it was a genuine problem, wasn’t it? But no! Big Boss had this habit of not relying on a person who he thought had let him down. He would be instantly demoted and would soon be running minor errands and accompanying senior hit men, just as Salil accompanied him on his last hit. It seemed to be a no-win situation.
Two days later Phalgun made a visit to the Murmuring Oasis. The crooked guard had given them three passes, each of which when struck to a paint splattered shirt, allowed the wearer to ramble around the building, provided he had a paint brush in hand.
The moment Phalgun came out of the lift on the fiftieth storey, he was hit by vertigo. His feet trembled under him as he looked out through the sheet of glass in front of him. Fifty storeys of sheer madness dangled not less than ten feet from where he was. He quickly got back into the lift and hastily went down. Once on the ground floor, he lit a beedi and inhaled deeply. His heart was beating as if it was trying to break free from his body.
‘Shhhh, there’s a supervisor coming along,’ a workman told him as he walked past.
Phalgun gawked at the workman, who had a friendly look.
‘You idiot, you aren’t allowed to smoke in this building,’ the man told him and disappeared.
Phalgun put out his beedi. He got back into the lift and pressed the button for the fiftieth floor. He would make multiple trips and get rid of his fear. Ten trips to the fiftieth floor and he would be able to walk around, wouldn’t he? Tomorrow he would come again and practice climbing the ladder to the terrace. Of course he would do it. He, Phalgun Patil, had done so many things in life that other men only dreamed of doing. And he could bloody well climb up to the terrace if he put his mind to it.
He got out of the lift and took bold a step forward. Fifty storeys below, the cars and buses were tiny and ant-like. His breath hissed out of him and his legs buckled. No, this was impossible. He had absolutely no control of his body. If someone pulled a gun on him when he was in this state, he would be helpless. Phalgun slowly sat on the floor, his whole body trembling with fear. Thankfully there was no one nearby. He crawled back to the lift, keeping his eyes to the floor so that he did not have to look out through the glass.
The next day Phalgun went to the Siddhi Vinayak temple at Prabha Devi and prayed. Please, please God. Please take away this irrational fear, he pleaded again and again. On his way out, he gave away two thousand and two rupees to the various beggars who surrounded the place. For good measure, he also went to the Sai Baba Mandir at Borivali and repeated his prayers, sacrificing a large marigold garland this time. There was nothing more that a man in his position could do. It was all in the hands of God.
The day of the raid dawned bright and clear. Big Boss had expressed his fear that if it turned out to be a rainy day, Hinal Mehta might decide to go elsewhere for his drinks. Phalgun had prayed for rain desperately. But no, the rain gods let him down despite his fervent requests. If only it had rained and Hinal Mehta had gone to a good restaurant with his friends, Phalgun would have been the happiest man in the world.
Salil, Ramesh, Charles and Abdul were excited with the idea of throwing a man down fifty storeys while Phalgun tried to avoid thinking about it. He failed miserably. Time and again his brain conjured up images of the terrace, fifty storeys above the ground. If only his legs made it up the ladder, he could ask three of the others to throw one of Hinal Mehta’s friends down the building. To fall down fifty storeys! The very thought gave him the jitters. If it weren’t for Big Boss, he wouldn’t do this to his biggest enemy.
The van they used to take them to the building had been stolen that morning from the company which maintained the fountain. To be doubly safe, the guard supposed to be in charge of the entrance gate that day had been bribed. Charles had wanted to try and to fix one of the personal bodyguards as well, but Big Boss overruled him. The man who ran Top Shot, the agency which supplied the bodyguards, was unlikely to play along and if they tried and failed, word would get to Hinal Mehta.
They rolled into the compound at half past six when the workmen had left for the day and dusk had set in. The yellow lamps which dotted the garden had been switched on. Phalgun avoided looking at the building which looked very beautiful in the setting yellow sun.
Hinal Mehta and two of his friends had just finished a round of drinks when Phalgun and his team got out of the van, dressed as workmen. The two specially trained bodyguards didn’t have a chance against the five men. Even before they could suspect anything and draw their pistols, they were shot dead in cold blood. Hinal Mehta, a short pudgy man in his early fifties, and his friends cowered in front of Phalgun’s men.
Phalgun made sure that his back was to the building so that he was not reminded of the climb that awaited him.
Salil walked up to Hinal and kicked him in his groin. ‘You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you? he asked Hinal.
‘Why are there only three of them and not four?’ Abdul whispered to Phalgun.
‘Who cares? We just need to kill Wilfred. And he is here.’ Big Boss had decided on Wilfred the previous day, since he was closer to Hinal than any of the other drinking buddies. Wilfred was a tall thin man with a straggly French beard. He ran a health club at Napean Sea road which was frequented by the most happening people in Mumbai.
Phalgun nodded at Charles who dragged the third friend forward, pushed him down and kicked him in the face. Blood oozed out of his mouth. Ramesh and Salil joined him. They worked systematically on the three men, punching and kicking them all over their bodies, but taking care to avoid their vital organs. Phalgun stood back and watched, one eye at the entrance gate for any gate crashers. The crooked guard had been tied up in his chair so that he wouldn’t get into any trouble over his inaction.
The third friend whose name they didn’t know was the stoutest of the three men and he started breathing heavily. Phalgun signalled to the men to stop. They all did, except for Salil, who had to be prised away from Hinal.
‘Don’t you want him to climb up to the terrace?’ Phalgun chided him.
‘Noo. Please don’t kill us. We’ll pay you,’ Hinal started to beg. ‘I can ask my wife to deposit fifty lakhs in your bank account right away,’ Hinal pleaded. ‘Let me just make one phone call.’
Phalgun slapped them him. ‘Aren’t you shameless? You could have paid fifty lakhs to Big Boss and avoided all this. You disrespected Big Boss and now you must pay for it.
‘Why don’t you search them to see if they are carrying any weapons? he ordered the men who looked at him in surprise. This was not part of the agreed agenda.
‘Go on,’ Phalgun said and set an example by standing Wilfred up and patting him down. Salil quickly searched Hinal and Charles shook down the third friend.
‘Now walk,’ Phalgun said and pointed in the direction of the building block which was being painted in navy blue. As he looked at the building for the first that evening, dizziness hit him in waves. He would soon have to be on top of that miserable structure!
Wilfred turned around and started to plead. ‘I have a family. I have three daughters. I need to…’
‘We’ll take care of your daughters,’ Salil told him to the accompaniment of loud laughter.
‘Listen, I know you are going to kill me. So, why should I do what you ask me to do?’ Hinal asked them, his eyes flaring. ‘If you want to make a deal with me, let’s talk, otherwise, you can do what you ….’
Before Hinal could complete his sentence, Phalgun went up to him, grabbed him by the back of his belt and punched him in his solar plexus. Hinal gasped for breath and went down like a bag of rotting onions.
‘If you don’t walk, I’ll beat you to a pulp and then make you walk anyway,’ Phalgun said. He was breathing hard and sweating. Hinal believed him and tried to stand up, but couldn’t.
Abdul prodded Wilfred and the other friend with his pistol, none too gently from behind, and they started to walk forward.
Phalgun had another idea. ‘Let’s make them take off their trousers and walk in their underwear. It’ll make things easier for them.’
The men liked the idea. They formed a circle and Hinal and his friends were forced to stand in the centre.
‘Go on, take off your trousers. I want to see the colour of your underwear,’ Phalgun told them. They hesitated.
‘The last one with his trousers on will have a pistol shoved up his arse,’ Phalgun announced. Wilfred and the third friend did not waste much time in unbuttoning their trousers and taking them off. Hinal was still panting from the blow to his solar plexus and fumbled with his buttons as the men watched in amusement. When he finally managed to drop his trousers, a small black Berretta ultra-compact fell down from the inside of his trousers. Phalgun and the men looked at the pistol, transfixed. Hinal himself seemed to be puzzled and he stared at the pistol, which was so small that it could fit snugly in a man’s palm.
Wilfred, who stood near Hinal, moved first. He took two steps and picked up the pistol before anyone else could move. ‘Don’t anyone dare come near me,’ he stammered, his eyes darting about wildly and his pistol hand jerking up and down.
But Phalgun acted courageously and fast. He whipped out his pistol and shot Wilfred between his eyes. As he was shot, Wilfred pressed the trigger, but no one got hit. They didn’t even know which direction the bullet went. The pistol fell out of Wilfred’s hands near Hinal’s feet. Hinal dropped to his knees with the intention of picking up the pistol, but Charles shot him in his thigh and he collapsed forward.
Abdul ran forward and picked up the pistol and gave it to Phalgun who slid out the magazine. ‘It’s unloaded,’ he announced with a chuckle.
‘What a fool!’ Abdul said as he looked at a bleeding Hinal Mehta with disgust. ‘Carrying an unloaded pistol in his trousers and …’
‘I thought you had searched the bastard,’ Phalgun told Salil, making no effort to hide his sneer.
‘I did. I just don’t know ….’
‘What do we do now?’ Abdul asked.
‘I guess our job’s done,’ Phalgun declared. ‘Let’s go. Someone’s bound to have heard the shot.’
Phalgun led the way. As they got into the van and drove away, Charles told Salil, ‘if I were you, I’d do back to my village and stay there.’
‘Don’t you have a pistol exactly like the one which Hinal had? The one you got from that Pedder Road job?’ Charles asked Phalgun.
‘Oh that! No, I didn’t keep it. I never do. I had got rid of it immediately. It was tainted you know. It’s always dangerous to keep a pistol from a job,’ Phalgun said.
‘Are you going to get rid of this one as well?’ Salil asked him. ‘In that case, can I keep it?’
‘You stupid idiot! How many mistakes do you want to make in a single day?’ Phalgun shouted at him. He avoided looking out of the window until Murmuring Oasis disappeared from sight.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Short Story: The Telephone Preference Service
‘I wish I could take a day off and take you somewhere, but ……….’ Adwait gave Nimisha a rueful grin.’
‘No, that’s fine. I’m absolutely alright. There are so many things to do here.’
‘It’s because I took two days off for the house hunting, then I was in India for 3 weeks…’
‘Two weeks and three days. You rejoined work on a Thursday, didn’t you?’
‘I did. But Ralph manages to make it sound as if I’ve been away for four weeks.’
‘I’m telling you, I really don’t like the sound of him.’
‘No, he isn’t nasty. Almost all audit partners are like him. They are workhorses. They work hard and they want their assistants to work just as hard. If not harder.’
‘You will kill yourself at this rate. You’ve worked on all weekends ever since we came back.’
‘Just a few hours each day. That’s nothing. There have been times when I’ve had to work ten or twelve hours each on Saturdays and Sundays.’ Adwait couldn’t help but sound like a martyr.
Nimisha glanced at the clock and said, ‘You’ll miss your Tube.’
Adwait drew Nimisha close to him and said, ‘so what? There’ll be another.’
Nimisha giggled.
Later that afternoon, Adwait called Nimisha from office and said, ‘I don’t know when I will get to leave this evening. It could be pretty late.’
‘That’s okay. I went for a walk after lunch.’
‘How was it?’
‘Did you know there’s a park just ten minutes away?’
‘No, I didn’t. Actually wait. I think the letting agent did mention something like that.’
‘And you didn’t bother to verify it.’ Adwait could see Nimisha’s smile at the other end of the line. Thank God she was not one of those typical Indian women who couldn’t take care of themselves when in a foreign land.
‘Listen, I’ve got to go.’ Someone was standing behind him. Was it Ralph? Adwait hung up without waiting for Nimisha’s response.
No, it was not Ralph. It was Darren, a fellow flunkey like him.
‘Checking if your missus is okay, are you?’
‘Just a quick call.’
‘I just can’t believe you married a girl you met only three times before.’
‘It isn’t as bad as it sounds.’ Wearily Adwait launched into a hesitant explanation of how ‘modern’ arranged marriages were these days.
‘There is no pressure to get married. My elder brother saw fifteen different girls before he agreed to marry one. And the one he married, they sort of went out four or five times before they decided to tie the knot.’
‘But you didn’t get to take out your wife before you married her, did you?’
‘That’s because I am here and she’s …’ Adwait knew that his response sounded very un-English, which made him angry. No one had the right to judge him.
‘It’s worked out well for me. Touchwood.’ Tap, tap, his knuckles rapped his desk.
‘That’s all that matters mate.’ Darren tried to sound sincere.
‘Aren’t we going for that seminar tomorrow?’
‘Yes, at four. It should get over by six. Six thirty, if a few idiots decide to ask questions at the end to show everyone how smart they are.’
‘There’ll always be at least one person who will have a question. Then someone else who was planning to be quiet until then will ask the second question, then a timid, balding man in the front row will overcome his inhibitions and ….’
Darren laughed at Adwait’s joke. ‘Ralph’s balding,’ he reminded Adwait. They both turned around guiltily to make sure Ralph wasn’t around.
‘Listen, the lads are planning to go out for a drink after that seminar. You game for it?’
‘Yes of course,’ Adwait replied with a sinking heart.
It was almost nine thirty as he got off the Tube and started to walk home. Wearily he dialled the home number. As soon as Nimisha said hello, he said, ‘I hope you’ve had dinner.’
‘No, I didn’t. But if you were late by another ten minutes, I would have.’
‘Atta girl, that’s the way to go!’ Adwait’s spirits rose. It would have been dreadful if Nimisha had turned out to be some one who couldn’t cope and sat around moping.
Later that night, he confessed to Nimisha. ‘I’m going to be very late tomorrow.’
‘Didn’t you say you would be home early because you were going to a seminar and you would come home straight after that?’
‘Yes, but we are supposed to go out for drinks after that. I just can’t get out of that. Most probably we’ll end up at Rhimjhim. That’s the curry house we always go to.’
‘So, you’ll have fun.’ Adwait anxiously searched Nimisha’s face for any signs of anger or sadness. There was none, thankfully.
‘I thought that everyone went out only on Fridays.’
‘These days they prefer to have office evenings on Thursdays. On Fridays, people tend to go home straight after work.’
‘So, will you come home straight after work on Friday?’
‘Yes, I will.’ The earnestness in Adwait’s voice made Nimisha smile.
‘By what time?’
‘Ahhhh! I just don’t know.’
The next evening, after the seminar, the reception after a seminar and a visit to a pub, they did end up eating dinner at Rhimjhim, as Adwait had predicted.
‘Ad-Wait Chop-Raa! How are you?’ Adwait couldn’t place the middle-aged man sitting opposite him, who addressed him by his full name, as he took the Metropolitan Line home.
‘Don’t you remember me Ad-Wait? Don’t you work for Stetson?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Adwait conceded. Was this one of their clients? Some one he had met during one of the audits.
‘All well with you?’
‘Yes. And how are you?’ Adwait was forced to ask.
‘Pretty good. Out with the guys?’
‘Well yes.’
‘How’s Chris doing?’
‘Chris?’ Adwait thought for a few seconds before he asked, ‘Which Chris?’
‘Chris Lambert of course.’
Adwait pursed his lips and thought hard. Finally he conceded, ‘I’m really sorry. I don’t know any Chris.’
‘Neither do I,’ his companion said gently as Adwait tried to shake off the effects of the two bottles of Cobra beer he had during dinner, the two pints of Carlings he had at the pub and the small glass of red wine he had at the reception after the seminar.
Adwait started at the man.
‘You know me, don’t you?’ he was asked.
‘Yes, I do.’ Adwait wanted to put his head between his legs and sleep.
The Tube pulled into Finchley Road Station. Another ten minutes and he would be home.
‘I’m getting off here Ad-Wait,’ the man said as he got up. ‘If I were you, I’d take that badge off.’ He gave the nametag pinned to Adwait’s suit a tap with his forefinger and walked off.
Adwait almost ripped off the plastic in his shame. After a furious minute, he started to laugh. He was just overwrought. Nimisha was coping well, much better than he had ever expected she would. They would soon settle into a routine. He would get used to life as a married man with a hectic workload.
He put the tag which said ‘Adwait Chopra, Audit Services, Stetson,’ into a pocket.
It was almost eleven thirty when he got home. Feeling very tired, he walked in on tiptoe and took off his shoes before peeping into the bedroom. Thankfully Nimisha had gone to sleep.
‘Please wake me up when you see this,’ the yellow post-it on the fridge said. Like hell, he would. Adwait quietly brushed his teeth and stealthily crept into bed. He must have been a bit clumsy after all that liquor since Nimisha woke up almost immediately. Adwait touched her face, more to reassure him, and said, ‘I’m back.’
The next day he was really busy in a series of meetings and didn’t have the time to even call Nimisha until eight that evening, when he was ready to leave for home.
‘I’ll see you in an hour. And I am not going to do any work over the weekend!’
After they finished dinner, Nimisha told Adwait, ‘I got a phone call today. Two calls actually.’
Adwait’s eyes furrowed in concentration. ‘Someone called you on this number?’
‘Guess?’ Nimisha teased him.
‘I don’t know.’ Adwait picked up the plates and took them to the kitchen to wash up.
‘You don’t have to,’ Nimisha said, but didn’t really stop Adwait from washing the plates.
As he rinsed the bone china, he said, ‘Was it Papa?’
‘No, it wasn’t him.’ Nimisha’s father had called them once so far, just to make sure Nimisha was doing okay. It couldn’t be Daddy and Mummy, no, his parents would never call.
‘Was it that woman? The one met at that Indian shop last Sunday. We gave her our number, didn’t we?’
‘And she gave us hers. I think she wants us to call her. No, it was not her. The calls were for you actually. The first call was a ‘He’. I told him that you weren’t here and later his colleague, a ‘She’, called back at seven hoping you’d be back. I had a long chat with the second caller.’
‘Shit! They were marketing calls!’
‘Yes. They wanted to sell us an insurance policy. They were very persistent. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
‘You ought to have slammed the phone down.’
‘I was irritated a bit. Especially with the woman who called second. She seemed to think I was a fool who would believe everything she said.’
‘Why didn’t you cut her off?
‘I should have,’ Nimisha said ruefully, but I just couldn’t be rude.’
‘For God’s sake, why can’t you be rude? I’m going to place our number on the TPS right away.’ Adwait went to the laptop and pulled up a chair.
‘Do you know what the TPS is?’ he asked Nimisha
‘No. What’s it?’
‘The Telephone Preference Service. You go to the TPS website, enter your telephone number, email and house address and they will send you an email.’ Adwait’s stocky fingers quickly keyed the information in.
‘I had done this when I was at my Ealing studio flat. Not a single bastard could trouble me then.’
Adwait went to his Yahoo mailbox and a new email had arrived. ‘It’s pretty simple. I just need to click on this link and……Done! But it’ll take twenty eight days before it becomes effective.’
‘What happens now?’ Nimisha asked. ‘What’s it for?’
‘Those marketing bastards can’t make any unsolicited calls to this number once this becomes effective. They won’t pester you at all.’ Adwait took a deep satisfied breath and he turned around to look at Nimisha.
Nimisha’s face had turned red. Her eyes were welling up.
‘Hey! What’s the matter?’
Nimisha burst into tears. ‘Oh! You shouldn’t have blocked those calls. They are the only ones I spoke with all day today,’ she sobbed.
‘No, that’s fine. I’m absolutely alright. There are so many things to do here.’
‘It’s because I took two days off for the house hunting, then I was in India for 3 weeks…’
‘Two weeks and three days. You rejoined work on a Thursday, didn’t you?’
‘I did. But Ralph manages to make it sound as if I’ve been away for four weeks.’
‘I’m telling you, I really don’t like the sound of him.’
‘No, he isn’t nasty. Almost all audit partners are like him. They are workhorses. They work hard and they want their assistants to work just as hard. If not harder.’
‘You will kill yourself at this rate. You’ve worked on all weekends ever since we came back.’
‘Just a few hours each day. That’s nothing. There have been times when I’ve had to work ten or twelve hours each on Saturdays and Sundays.’ Adwait couldn’t help but sound like a martyr.
Nimisha glanced at the clock and said, ‘You’ll miss your Tube.’
Adwait drew Nimisha close to him and said, ‘so what? There’ll be another.’
Nimisha giggled.
Later that afternoon, Adwait called Nimisha from office and said, ‘I don’t know when I will get to leave this evening. It could be pretty late.’
‘That’s okay. I went for a walk after lunch.’
‘How was it?’
‘Did you know there’s a park just ten minutes away?’
‘No, I didn’t. Actually wait. I think the letting agent did mention something like that.’
‘And you didn’t bother to verify it.’ Adwait could see Nimisha’s smile at the other end of the line. Thank God she was not one of those typical Indian women who couldn’t take care of themselves when in a foreign land.
‘Listen, I’ve got to go.’ Someone was standing behind him. Was it Ralph? Adwait hung up without waiting for Nimisha’s response.
No, it was not Ralph. It was Darren, a fellow flunkey like him.
‘Checking if your missus is okay, are you?’
‘Just a quick call.’
‘I just can’t believe you married a girl you met only three times before.’
‘It isn’t as bad as it sounds.’ Wearily Adwait launched into a hesitant explanation of how ‘modern’ arranged marriages were these days.
‘There is no pressure to get married. My elder brother saw fifteen different girls before he agreed to marry one. And the one he married, they sort of went out four or five times before they decided to tie the knot.’
‘But you didn’t get to take out your wife before you married her, did you?’
‘That’s because I am here and she’s …’ Adwait knew that his response sounded very un-English, which made him angry. No one had the right to judge him.
‘It’s worked out well for me. Touchwood.’ Tap, tap, his knuckles rapped his desk.
‘That’s all that matters mate.’ Darren tried to sound sincere.
‘Aren’t we going for that seminar tomorrow?’
‘Yes, at four. It should get over by six. Six thirty, if a few idiots decide to ask questions at the end to show everyone how smart they are.’
‘There’ll always be at least one person who will have a question. Then someone else who was planning to be quiet until then will ask the second question, then a timid, balding man in the front row will overcome his inhibitions and ….’
Darren laughed at Adwait’s joke. ‘Ralph’s balding,’ he reminded Adwait. They both turned around guiltily to make sure Ralph wasn’t around.
‘Listen, the lads are planning to go out for a drink after that seminar. You game for it?’
‘Yes of course,’ Adwait replied with a sinking heart.
It was almost nine thirty as he got off the Tube and started to walk home. Wearily he dialled the home number. As soon as Nimisha said hello, he said, ‘I hope you’ve had dinner.’
‘No, I didn’t. But if you were late by another ten minutes, I would have.’
‘Atta girl, that’s the way to go!’ Adwait’s spirits rose. It would have been dreadful if Nimisha had turned out to be some one who couldn’t cope and sat around moping.
Later that night, he confessed to Nimisha. ‘I’m going to be very late tomorrow.’
‘Didn’t you say you would be home early because you were going to a seminar and you would come home straight after that?’
‘Yes, but we are supposed to go out for drinks after that. I just can’t get out of that. Most probably we’ll end up at Rhimjhim. That’s the curry house we always go to.’
‘So, you’ll have fun.’ Adwait anxiously searched Nimisha’s face for any signs of anger or sadness. There was none, thankfully.
‘I thought that everyone went out only on Fridays.’
‘These days they prefer to have office evenings on Thursdays. On Fridays, people tend to go home straight after work.’
‘So, will you come home straight after work on Friday?’
‘Yes, I will.’ The earnestness in Adwait’s voice made Nimisha smile.
‘By what time?’
‘Ahhhh! I just don’t know.’
The next evening, after the seminar, the reception after a seminar and a visit to a pub, they did end up eating dinner at Rhimjhim, as Adwait had predicted.
‘Ad-Wait Chop-Raa! How are you?’ Adwait couldn’t place the middle-aged man sitting opposite him, who addressed him by his full name, as he took the Metropolitan Line home.
‘Don’t you remember me Ad-Wait? Don’t you work for Stetson?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Adwait conceded. Was this one of their clients? Some one he had met during one of the audits.
‘All well with you?’
‘Yes. And how are you?’ Adwait was forced to ask.
‘Pretty good. Out with the guys?’
‘Well yes.’
‘How’s Chris doing?’
‘Chris?’ Adwait thought for a few seconds before he asked, ‘Which Chris?’
‘Chris Lambert of course.’
Adwait pursed his lips and thought hard. Finally he conceded, ‘I’m really sorry. I don’t know any Chris.’
‘Neither do I,’ his companion said gently as Adwait tried to shake off the effects of the two bottles of Cobra beer he had during dinner, the two pints of Carlings he had at the pub and the small glass of red wine he had at the reception after the seminar.
Adwait started at the man.
‘You know me, don’t you?’ he was asked.
‘Yes, I do.’ Adwait wanted to put his head between his legs and sleep.
The Tube pulled into Finchley Road Station. Another ten minutes and he would be home.
‘I’m getting off here Ad-Wait,’ the man said as he got up. ‘If I were you, I’d take that badge off.’ He gave the nametag pinned to Adwait’s suit a tap with his forefinger and walked off.
Adwait almost ripped off the plastic in his shame. After a furious minute, he started to laugh. He was just overwrought. Nimisha was coping well, much better than he had ever expected she would. They would soon settle into a routine. He would get used to life as a married man with a hectic workload.
He put the tag which said ‘Adwait Chopra, Audit Services, Stetson,’ into a pocket.
It was almost eleven thirty when he got home. Feeling very tired, he walked in on tiptoe and took off his shoes before peeping into the bedroom. Thankfully Nimisha had gone to sleep.
‘Please wake me up when you see this,’ the yellow post-it on the fridge said. Like hell, he would. Adwait quietly brushed his teeth and stealthily crept into bed. He must have been a bit clumsy after all that liquor since Nimisha woke up almost immediately. Adwait touched her face, more to reassure him, and said, ‘I’m back.’
The next day he was really busy in a series of meetings and didn’t have the time to even call Nimisha until eight that evening, when he was ready to leave for home.
‘I’ll see you in an hour. And I am not going to do any work over the weekend!’
After they finished dinner, Nimisha told Adwait, ‘I got a phone call today. Two calls actually.’
Adwait’s eyes furrowed in concentration. ‘Someone called you on this number?’
‘Guess?’ Nimisha teased him.
‘I don’t know.’ Adwait picked up the plates and took them to the kitchen to wash up.
‘You don’t have to,’ Nimisha said, but didn’t really stop Adwait from washing the plates.
As he rinsed the bone china, he said, ‘Was it Papa?’
‘No, it wasn’t him.’ Nimisha’s father had called them once so far, just to make sure Nimisha was doing okay. It couldn’t be Daddy and Mummy, no, his parents would never call.
‘Was it that woman? The one met at that Indian shop last Sunday. We gave her our number, didn’t we?’
‘And she gave us hers. I think she wants us to call her. No, it was not her. The calls were for you actually. The first call was a ‘He’. I told him that you weren’t here and later his colleague, a ‘She’, called back at seven hoping you’d be back. I had a long chat with the second caller.’
‘Shit! They were marketing calls!’
‘Yes. They wanted to sell us an insurance policy. They were very persistent. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
‘You ought to have slammed the phone down.’
‘I was irritated a bit. Especially with the woman who called second. She seemed to think I was a fool who would believe everything she said.’
‘Why didn’t you cut her off?
‘I should have,’ Nimisha said ruefully, but I just couldn’t be rude.’
‘For God’s sake, why can’t you be rude? I’m going to place our number on the TPS right away.’ Adwait went to the laptop and pulled up a chair.
‘Do you know what the TPS is?’ he asked Nimisha
‘No. What’s it?’
‘The Telephone Preference Service. You go to the TPS website, enter your telephone number, email and house address and they will send you an email.’ Adwait’s stocky fingers quickly keyed the information in.
‘I had done this when I was at my Ealing studio flat. Not a single bastard could trouble me then.’
Adwait went to his Yahoo mailbox and a new email had arrived. ‘It’s pretty simple. I just need to click on this link and……Done! But it’ll take twenty eight days before it becomes effective.’
‘What happens now?’ Nimisha asked. ‘What’s it for?’
‘Those marketing bastards can’t make any unsolicited calls to this number once this becomes effective. They won’t pester you at all.’ Adwait took a deep satisfied breath and he turned around to look at Nimisha.
Nimisha’s face had turned red. Her eyes were welling up.
‘Hey! What’s the matter?’
Nimisha burst into tears. ‘Oh! You shouldn’t have blocked those calls. They are the only ones I spoke with all day today,’ she sobbed.
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