The Case of the Love Commandos (16 page)

“My name’s Padma,” she said, and offered him a hand.

He studied it before giving it the briefest and limpest of shakes.

“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” she asked.

“It’s Deep.”

“Deep,” she repeated. “That means ‘light.’ ”

“You don’t look like a schoolteacher,” he said.

“What do schoolteachers generally look like?”

“The last one was fat and ugly.”

She stood up. “Will you walk with me? I’m afraid of the dark.”

He hesitated. “Why?”

“Don’t you ever ask any other question?”

Deep sat down to take off the wooden blocks and slip on his chappals.

“That bike’s too big for you,” she observed as he pushed it along.

“It belonged to my father.”

“Belonged?”

“He died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Deep.”

“It doesn’t matter. I live with my uncle.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“She died as well—when I was born.”

They walked on in silence. A sickle moon hung in the sky like a fishhook waiting to entice the mother of all carp.

“What are you doing here?” he asked suddenly.

“Why?” she asked.

He snorted and said in a mocking tone, “Don’t you ever ask any other question?”

Facecream grinned. “I told you, I’m a teacher.”

“Then why are you carrying a knife?” he asked.

Her grin widened. Deep didn’t miss much. “For protection,” she answered.

“Can I see it?”

She reached under her shirt, pulled out her khukuri and unsheathed it. The metal glinted in the moonlight.

“Do you always carry it?” he asked.

“Not always. But most of the time.”

“Have you ever used it?” he asked.

She pushed it back into the scabbard. “Do the Yadav boys bully you a lot?”

“I usually avoid them.”

“Will they be waiting for you tonight?”

“Probably. They’re after money.”

“You could always stay with me if you like. Just for tonight. You could have a wash. The water’s clean. And I’m going to cook a chicken.”

“Chicken?” he repeated lightly with an undertone of pure innocence.

At nine P.M., Puri and the journalist, Vijay, arrived at a large white tent pitched on a dusty field just outside Lucknow. Inside, an audience of Brahmins five hundred strong was engrossed by a performance. Three bare-chested pandits sat on a stage. With saffron scarves draped over their shoulders and white tilaks on their foreheads, the priests blew conch shells and chanted Vedic hymns dating back some 3,500 years.

Nothing spoke more of Brahmin exclusivity than this spectacle, Puri reflected with disdain. As a member of the Kshatriya warrior caste, he took umbrage with the representation of the mythical warrior-saint Parasurama, celebrated by Brahmins for slaughtering Kshatriyas with his silver axe.

Feeling suddenly like a spy in enemy territory, he stomached it nonetheless—even suffering the cries of “Jai Parasurama!” (“Hail Parasurama!”) that greeted the Brahmin politician Dr. Bal Pandey as he took to the stage.

In a long white kurta and collarless waistcoat, the bald, bespectacled, pharisaic politician saluted the audience with a pious namaste. A welcoming committee of overeager local bigwigs then decked him with preposterously large marigold garlands. A frenzy of camera flashes lit up their grins. Dr. Pandey was also presented with a silver axe, which he held aloft to the delight of the audience before taking his place on a replica throne in the middle of the stage.

A warm-up speaker approached the microphone and began the long, laborious process of welcoming Dr. Pandey and various other Brahmin dignitaries, waxing lyrical about their positions and achievements.

Puri did his best to filter out the crawling speech while he appraised Dr. Pandey. The man’s gaze and his manner were calculating. The detective sensed he was a man who could rationalize anything to further himself and his cause. This perception was validated when Pandey eventually took to the podium and spoke. A capable orator, his speech was peppered with eloquent phrases and the odd line of classical scripture.

But the rhetoric was poisonous. The Brahmins were the marginalized of society, he thundered. Affirmative action had robbed them of jobs and education. For once, though, his ire wasn’t directed at Chief Minister Baba Dhobi. Instead, he railed against the Yadav community—the ex-laborers now prospering and upsetting the traditional order. Terming them a “menace” and a “scourge,” Dr. Pandey singled them out as a threat to the security and well-being of Uttar Pradesh’s Brahmins.

The tirade left the press pack, Vijay included, baffled. Dr. Pandey had fought the last election as part of an alliance with the Yadavs. Where did that now place him and the Brahmin vote?

Vijay and his colleagues fell over one another trying to put those questions to Dr. Pandey as he left the stage. But he refused to comment, making only a cryptic remark about “adapting to the times, the circumstances and political realities.”

Just one question caught his attention. It came as he reached his sedan and the door opened for him.

“Sir, what all were your whereabouts night before last?”

Dr. Pandey turned to identify the source and his gaze met Puri’s. A flicker of recognition showed on his face. And then he was gone amidst a cavalcade of police vehicles, sirens and flashing blue emergency lights.

The detective stood watching the motorcade vanish into the night and became aware of a man standing to his right. The scent of his aftershave betrayed his identity.

“Good evening, Hari,” he said.

“Mr. Vish Puri saar. You enjoyed the entertainment?”

“Not especially. You?”

“These Brahmins take themselves so seriously. Give me Baba Dhobi any day. At least the man knows a good joke or two.”

“He is equally divisive.”

“No more so than any of the others.”

Hari started toward the parking area. “How is that investigation coming along, by the way?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Couldn’t be better,” said Puri. “World-class, in fact.”

Facecream and Deep reached the school to find two more Dalit women waiting outside the gates. Like the others who’d visited in the afternoon, they wanted help with fundamental problems in their lives. One also had bruising on her arm, like the other woman earlier, and wanted “the medicine.”

Facecream inspected the brown and yellow discoloration. It wasn’t serious, but she fetched her tube of antiseptic cream nonetheless. As she applied a little, she asked the woman why she’d been injected.

“They took blood,” she said.

“Who did?”

“Some outsiders.”

The vagueness of the statement sparked Facecream’s curiosity. “What outsiders?” she asked.

The woman could only tell her that they’d spoken “city” Hindi and given every Dalit who’d donated blood one hundred rupees.

Facecream asked Deep whether he knew anything more about it.

“Sure. They said they were doing tests for disease,” he replied.

“Did you give them blood?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “I got a hundred rupees, too!”

“Did they tell you what they wanted with it?”

No one had an answer. But then Deep had a brainwave.

“A few days before they came, a notice was nailed to the trunk of the banyan tree, the one next to the shop in the middle of the village,” he said. “I think it’s still there.”

“Show me,” said Facecream.

“I can’t—the Yadav boys.”

“Fine, we’ll go later, after they’ve passed out.”

Mummy went to bed knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to keep an eye on Pranap Dughal any longer. He was taking a helicopter and would cover the distance up to the top of the Trikuta mountain in a matter of minutes, while she was committed to doing the pilgrimage the “proper” way: on foot.

That left her with one option: to inform Inspector Malhotra of the Jammu police of her suspicions. If he didn’t take the matter seriously and act to stop Dughal from murdering his wife, then it would be on his conscience and not hers.

When she woke the following morning at five o’clock and saw that it was still dark, however, Mummy decided it was far too early to call him.

She did the decent thing and waited half an hour.

“Inspector sahib, I woke you?” she said when he answered his mobile phone with a croak.

“Who is this?”

“I’m Vish Puri’s Mummy-ji this side,” she said without a trace of apology. “Something urgent is there.”

“What … what time is it?”

“Morning time, naturally. Now kindly listen. That
Pranap Dughal—the motu on the train, you remember? Just he’s planning to murder his wife. She’s abusing him and making his life totally miserable. Under such circumstance, any one of us might do consideration of the same. But murder is murder, na? It is not right at all. Thus we cannot simply stand by and do nothing. Now, what I want to tell you—”

Malhotra cleared his throat again. “Madam, let me understand one thing,” he said, still sounding drowsy. “You’re referring to the same individual whom you falsely accused of stealing your son’s wallet?”

“Not falsely in fact, Inspector, if you please. Just he returned the wallet in the wee hours. He’s a cunning one. That is why my suspicions were first getting aroused. So I did surveillance in Jammu and witnessed him buying so many of sleeping tablets.”

“Surveillance?”

“Correct. Just he intends to do intoxication of his wife and deposit her over the mountain edge.”

There was silence on the other line, prompting Mummy to say, “Hello? Hello? Inspector? You’re awake?”

“Yes, madam, believe me, I am very much awake.”

“You’ll give the matter top priority?” Her request sounded more like an order.

“Rest assured, madam, your call has been duly noted.”

“Very good, Inspector. Thank you, na, and God bless. Such a weight it has been on my mind I can’t tell you.” She paused for breath and then continued. “One thing, also. Dughal is taking one heli—”

Malhotra interrupted with the words, “Good night, madam,” and the line went dead.

Mummy scowled at the phone as if the instrument itself had somehow failed her and returned the receiver to the
cradle. She couldn’t help but wonder if Inspector Malhotra hadn’t been “tulli” the night before.

“Sounded totally out of it,” she said with a disapproving tut.

For once, all the Puris were ready on time. Mummy, Rumpi, Chetan and the other family members gathered at six in the hotel lobby, eager to begin their ascent. They found the shops and eateries along the town’s main drag shuttered. Sweepers armed with jharus were tidying away the detritus from the night before. Crows perched on overhead wires, ever vigilant for tidbits of edible refuse. Street dogs who’d battled over territory all night turned tail at the approach of the more dominant species.

Mummy relished the thrill that comes from being up before everyone else, of seeing the world as it is before the great director in the sky yells, “Action!” Yet upon entering the town square, this sense of privilege quickly gave way to one of fraternity. Hundreds of pilgrims, or yatris, who’d slept in the open overnight, were rolling up sleeping bags and bedrolls in a flurry of excitement. Many wore red and gold bandanas, and as they set off for the entrance to the mountain—youngsters raised aloft on shoulders, elderly uncles and aunties striding forth with walking sticks—euphoric cries of “Maan aap bulandi!” (“The Mother herself calls!”) echoed along the narrow street leading to the mountain pathway.

Mummy was heartened to see that the pilgrimage remained predominantly a family affair. The Puris were one of hundreds of families three or four generations strong, many of them singing and joking and helping one another along. She spotted honeymooning couples, the brides wearing henna designs on their hands, bunches of red, white and gold bangles on their wrists, and fresh daubs of sindoor in
the parting of their hair. In spite of all the talk about the Westernization of Indian culture, countless young Hindus dressed in jeans and T-shirts, who appeared as caught up in the ritualism as the most pious sanyassis, thronged the way. There was even a group of widows from a village near Bhopal in central India who’d pooled their resources, hired a bus and traveled more than a thousand miles to be here.

It came as a relief, too, to find that the mountain path was paved. And for those unable to manage the climb of their own volition (this included numerous aunties with bad hips who wobbled), there were small horses, decked in bright, multicolored bridles and saddles, available, with a keeper leading them on.

It was also possible to be carried up in a sedan chair—although Mummy found something repugnant in the sight of people, some of them obese, being borne upon the shoulders of porters who were being paid at most a few hundred rupees a day.

Thirty minutes into the climb, however, and with the scale of the challenge now dawning on him, the idea of being carried suddenly struck Chetan as an extremely appealing proposition.

“I want to go in one!”

The answer from Rumpi was an emphatic no.

“But I’m paining!”

“So are we—from all your whining! Now, we’re walking and that’s that.”

“Pleeeeeease!” begged Chetan, who began to drag his feet.

At this point, Mummy intervened. “Such a nautanki! Always stuffing your face with sweeties and some such,” she scolded him.

Chetan was indeed halfway through a packet of chips. A masala moustache had formed on his upper lip.

“Gaad, what a pain, yaar!” he complained. “What’s the big deal about walking, anyway? Why do we have to suffer?”

Mummy, who very rarely lost her temper, turned on him. “That is daal in your brains or what?” she cried. “Call this suffering? During partition time, Om Chander Puri did walking for three weeks total across all Punjab and Haryana. Thousands were slaughtered along the way itself. Only thanks to the God he escaped in one piece with his life and reached Dilli. That is proper suffering!”

Chetan’s face turned ashen. He looked on the verge of tears, but Mummy didn’t soften.

“I am seventy plus,” she continued. “See me doing sweating or complaining? Just I’m walking double your speed. Now come. Don’t do feet dragging.”