A Son Of The Circus (10 page)

Quietly, but in accentless English, Inspector Dhar spoke to his excited companion. ‘Which rumor about me are we encouraging today? Should I shout at you in Hindi? Or is this a good day for English as a second language?’

Dhar’s sardonic tone and expression hurt Dr Daruwalla, notwithstanding that these mannerisms were trademarks of the fictional character Dr Daruwalla had created and that all of Bombay had come to loathe. Although the secret screenwriter had grown morally uncertain of his creation, this doubt was not discernible in the unreserved fondness that the doctor felt for the younger man; in public or in private, it was Dr Daruwalla’s love for Dhar that showed.

The taunting quality of Dhar’s remarks, not to mention the sting of Dhar’s delivery, wounded Dr Daruwalla; even so, he regarded the slightly spoiled handsomeness of the actor with great tenderness. Dhar allowed his sneer to soften into a smile. With an affection that alarmed the nearest and ever-observant waiter – the same poor fellow whose daily course had coincided with the shitting crow and with the troublesome tureen and ladle – the doctor reached out and clasped the younger man’s hand.

In plain English, Dr Daruwalla whispered, ‘I’m really just so sorry — I mean, I feel so sorry for you, my dear boy,’ he said.

‘Don’t,’ Inspector Dhar whispered back. His smile faded and his sneer returned; he freed his hand from the elder man’s grip.

Tell him now! Dr Daruwalla told himself, but he didn’t dare – he didn’t know where to begin.

They were sitting quietly with their tea and some sweets when the
real
policeman approached their table. They’d already been interrogated by the duty officer from the Tardeo Police Station, an Inspector Somebody – not very impressive. The inspector had arrived with a team of subinspectors and constables in two Jeeps – hardly necessary for a golfing death, Dr Daruwalla had felt. The Tardeo inspector had been unctuous but condescending to Inspector Dhar and servile to Farrokh.

‘I am hoping you are excusing me, Doctor,’ the duty officer had begun; his English was a strain. ‘I am being most sorry I am taking your time, saar,’ the inspector added to Inspector Dhar. Dhar responded in Hindi.

‘You are not examining the body, Doctor?’ the policeman asked; he persisted with his English.

‘Certainly not,’ Dr Daruwalla replied.

‘You are never touching the body, saar?’ the duty officer asked the famous actor.

‘I are never touching it,’ Dhar answered in English –in a flawless imitation of the policeman’s Hindi accent.

Upon departing, the duty officer’s heavy brogues had scraped a little too loudly on the stone floor of the Duckworth Club’s dining room; thus had the policeman’s exit drawn Mr Sethna’s predictable disapproval. Doubtless the old steward had also disapproved of the condition of the duty officer’s uniform; his khaki shirt was soiled by the thali the inspector must have encountered for lunch – a generous portion of dhal was slopped on his breast pocket, and a brightly colored stain (the obvious orange-yellow of turmeric) lit up the messy policeman’s drab collar.

But the second policeman, who now approached their table in the Ladies’ Garden, was no mere inspector; this man was of a higher rank – and of a noticeably elevated neatness. At the very least, he looked like a deputy commissioner. From Farrokh’s research – for the Inspector Dhar screenplays were scrupulously researched, if not aesthetically pleasing –the screenwriter was certain that they were about to be confronted by a deputy commissioner from Crime Branch Headquarters at Crawford Market.

‘All this for
golf?’
whispered Inspector Dhar, but not so loudly that the approaching detective could hear him.

As the most recent Inspector Dhar movie had pointed out, the official salary of a Bombay police inspector is only 2,500 to 3,000 rupees a month – roughly 100 dollars. In order to secure a more lucrative posting, in an area of heavy crime, an inspector would need to bribe an administrative officer. For a payment in the vicinity of 75,000 to 200,000 rupees (but generally for less than 7,000 dollars), an inspector might secure a posting that would earn him from 300,000 to 400,000 rupees a year (usually not more than 15,000 dollars). One issue posed by the new Inspector Dhar movie concerned just
how
an inspector making only 3,000 rupees a month could get his hands on the 100,000 rupees that were necessary for the bribe. In the movie, an especially hypocritical and corrupt police inspector accomplishes this by doubling as a pimp and a landlord for a eunuch-transvestite brothel on Falkland Road.

In the pinched smile of the second policeman who approached Dr Daruwalla and Inspector Dhar at their table, there could be discerned the unanimous outrage of the Bombay police force. The prostitute community was no less offended; the prostitutes had greater cause for anger. The most recent movie,
Inspector Dhar and the Cage-Girl Killer
, seemed to be responsible for putting the lowliest of Bombay’s prostitutes – the so-called cage girls – in particular peril. Because of the movie, about a serial killer who murders cage girls and draws an inappropriately mirthful elephant on their naked bellies, a
real
murderer appeared to have stolen the idea. Now
real
prostitutes were being killed and decorated in this cartoonish fashion; the actual murders were unsolved. In the red-light district, on Falkland Road and Grant Road – and throughout the multitude of brothels in the many lanes of Kamathipura – the hardworking whores had expressed a
real
desire to kill Inspector Dhar.

The feeling for vengeance toward Dhar was especially strong among the eunuch-transvestite prostitutes. In the movie, a eunuch-transvestite prostitute turns out to be the serial cartoonist and killer. This was offensive to eunuch-transvestites, for by no means were all of them prostitutes – nor were they ever known to be serial killers. They are an accepted third gender in India; they are called ‘hijras’ – an Urdu word of masculine gender meaning ‘hermaphrodite.’ But hijras are not born hermaphrodites; they are emasculated – hence ‘eunuch’ is the truer word for them. They are also a cult; devotees of the Mother Goddess Bahuchara Mata, they achieve their powers – either to bless or to curse –by being neither male nor female. Traditionally, hijras earn their living by begging; they also perform songs and dances at weddings and festivals – most of all, they give their blessings at births (of male infants, especially). And hijras dress as women – hence the term ‘eunuch-transvestite’ comes closest to what they are.

The mannerisms of hijras are ultra-feminine but coarse; they flirt outrageously, and they display themselves with sexually overt gestures – inappropriate for women in India. Beyond their castration and their female dress, they do little to otherwise feminize themselves; most hijras eschew the use of estrogens, and some of them pluck their facial hair so indifferently, it’s not uncommon to see them with several days’ growth of beard. Should hijras find themselves abused or harassed, or should they encounter those Indians who’ve been seduced by Western values and who therefore don’t believe in the hijras’ ‘sacred’ powers to bless and curse, hijras will be so bold as to lift their dresses and rudely expose their mutilated genitals.

Dr Daruwalla, in creating his screenplay for
Inspector Dhar and the Cage-Girl Killer
, never intended to offend the hijras – there are more than 5,000 in Bombay alone. But, as a surgeon, Farrokh found their method of emasculation truly barbarous. Both castration and sex-change operations are illegal in India, but a hijra’s ‘operation’ – they use the English word –is performed by other hijras. The patient stares at a portrait of the Mother Goddess Bahuchara Mata; he is advised to bite his own hair, for there’s no anesthetic, although the patient is sedated with alcohol or opium. The surgeon (who is not a surgeon) ties a string around the penis and the testicles in order to get a clean cut –for it is with one cut that both the testicles and the penis are removed. The patient is allowed to bleed freely; it’s believed that maleness is a kind of poison, purged by bleeding. No stitches are made; the large, raw area is cauterized with hot oil. As the wound begins to heal, the urethra is kept open by repeated probing. The resultant puckered scar resembles a vagina.

Hijras are no mere cross-dressers; their contempt for simple transvestites (whose male parts are intact) is profound. These fake hijras are called ‘zenanas.’ Every world has its hierarchy. Within the prostitute community, hijras command a higher price than real women, but it was unclear to Dr Daruwalla why this was so. There was considerable debate as to whether hijra prostitutes were homosexuals, although it was certain that many of their male customers used them in that way; and among hijra teenagers, even before their emasculation, studies indicated frequent homosexual activity. But Farrokh suspected that many Indian men favored the hijra prostitutes because the hijras were more like women than women; they were certainly bolder than any Indian woman – and with their almost-a-vagina, who knew what they could imitate?

If hijras themselves were homosexually oriented, why would they emasculate themselves? It seemed probable to the doctor that, although there were many customers in the hijra brothels who were homosexuals, not every customer went there for anal intercourse. Whatever one thought or said about hijras, they
were
a third gender — they were simply (or not so simply) another sex. What was also true was that, in Bombay, fewer and fewer hijras were able to support themselves by conferring blessings or by begging; more and more of them were becoming prostitutes.

But why had Farrokh chosen a hijra to be the serial killer and cartoonist in the most recent Inspector Dhar movie? Now that a real killer was imitating the behavior of the fictional character – the police would say only that the real killer’s drawing was ‘an obvious variation on the movie theme’ – Dr Daruwalla had
really
gotten Inspector Dhar in trouble. This particular film had inspired something worse than hatred, for the hijra prostitutes not only approved of killing Dhar — they wanted to maim him first.

They want to cut off your cock and balls, dear boy,’ Farrokh had warned his favorite young man. ‘You must be careful how you get around town!’

With a sarcasm that was consistent with his famous role, Dhar had replied in his most deadpan manner: ‘You’re telling me.’ (It was something he said at least once in all his movies.)

In contrast to the lurid agitation caused by the most recent Inspector Dhar movie, the appearance of a real policeman among the proper Duckworthians seemed dull. Surely the hijra prostitutes hadn’t murdered Mr Lai! There’d been no indication that the body had been sexually mutilated, nor was there a possibility that even a demented hijra could have mistaken the old man for Inspector Dhar. Dhar never played golf.

Detective Patel, as Dr Daruwalla had guessed, was a deputy commissioner of police — D.C.P. Patel, officially. The detective was from Crime Branch Headquarters at Crawford Market –
not
from the nearby Tardeo Police Station, as Farrokh had also correctly surmised – because certain evidence, discovered during the examination of Mr Lai’s body, had elevated the old golfer’s death to a category of interest that was special to the deputy commissioner.

What such a category of interest could be wasn’t immediately clear to Dr Daruwalla or to Inspector Dhar, nor was Deputy Commissioner Patel inclined to clarify the matter promptly.

‘You must forgive me, Doctor — please do excuse me, Mr Dhar,’ the detective said; he was in his forties, a pleasant-looking man whose formerly delicate, sharp-boned face had slightly given way to his jowls. His alert eyes and the deliberate cadence of the deputy commissioner’s speech indicated that he was a careful man. ‘Which one of you was the very first to find the body?’ the detective asked.

Dr Daruwalla could rarely resist making a joke. ‘I believe the very first to find the body was a vulture,’ the doctor said.

‘Oh, quite so!’ said the deputy commissioner, smiling tolerantly. Then Detective Patel sat down, uninvited, at their table – in the chair nearer Inspector Dhar. ‘
After
the vultures,’ the policeman said to the actor, ‘I believe
you
were the next to find the body.’

‘I didn’t move it or even touch it,’ Dhar said, anticipating the question; it was a question
he
usually asked – in his movies.

‘Oh, very good, thank you,’ said D.C.P. Patel, turning –his attention to Dr Daruwalla. ‘And you, most naturally, examined the body, Doctor?’ he asked.

‘I most naturally did
not
examine it,’ Dr Daruwalla replied. ‘I’m an orthopedist, not a pathologist. I merely observed that Mr Lai was dead.’

‘Oh, quite so!’ Patel said. ‘But did you give any thought to the cause of death?’

‘Golf,’ said Dr Daruwalla; he’d never played the game but he detested it at a distance. Dhar smiled. ‘In Mr Lai’s case,’ the doctor continued, ‘I suppose you might say he was killed by an excessive desire to improve. He most probably had high blood pressure, too — a man his age shouldn’t repeatedly lose his temper in the hot sun.’

‘But our weather is really quite cool,’ the deputy commissioner said.

As if he’d been thinking about it for an extended time, Inspector Dhar said, ‘The body didn’t smell. The vultures stank, but not the body.’

Detective Patel appeared to be surprised and favorably impressed by this report, but all he said was, ‘Precisely.’

Dr Daruwalla spoke with impatience: ‘My dear Deputy Commissioner, why don’t you begin by telling us what you know?’

‘Oh, that’s absolutely not our way,’ the deputy commissioner cordially replied. ‘Is it?’ he asked Inspector Dhar.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Dhar agreed. ‘Just when do you estimate the time of death?’ he asked the detective.

‘Oh, what a very good question!’ Patel remarked. ‘We estimate this morning – not even two hours before you found the body!’

Dr Daruwalla considered this. While Mr Bannerjee had been searching the clubhouse for his opponent and old friend, Mr Lai had strolled to the ninth green and the bougainvillea beyond, once more to practice a good escape from his nemesis of the day before. Mr Lai had
not
been late for his appointed game; if anything, poor Mr Lai had been a little too early — at least, too eager.