“Ammi thinks we should go to a place where there are more of us.” Faiz scratches his scar. “More Muslims. Then the Hindu Samaj can’t threaten us like they keep doing here.”
* * *
When our house is empty, and it is dark outside, Ma serves Papa and me the roti and aloo Shanti-Chachi’s husband made for us. We pretend to eat, moving food from one side of the plate to another. I no longer feel hungry, but I chew a piece of roti so that my stomach won’t hurt at night like it has been hurting the past few nights.
Shanti-Chachi comes running to our door and asks Papa to switch on the TV news. Then she puts her hand around Ma’s shoulder, as if preparing her for something terrible. A newsreader wearing a black jacket, her hair pulled back tight from her forehead, says that chilling details have just emerged in the Slumdog Kidnapping case.
“Varun Kumar has confessed that he lured victims with drug-laden sweets or rendered them unconscious with sedative injections, bottles of which were recovered from the flat where he was a caretaker. His wife, who cleaned and occasionally worked as a cook at the same flat, is thought to have been his accomplice. More shockingly, police sources say Varun Kumar has confessed to killing and dismembering the children he abducted. He carried their body parts in plastic bags tied to his bicycle and dumped them in rubbish grounds, drains around malls and the metro stations on the Purple Line. These abductions were not limited to the slum where he lived. He is thought to have preyed on street children too. The exact number of those missing is still unclear. Is it seven or seventy, we simply do not know. The police hope that the souvenirs he collected will help them identify his victims.”
A policeman’s face fills the screen, an assistant commissioner maybe. Mikes are held up toward his mouth by invisible hands.
“We have launched an extensive search for the recovery of the children’s remains,” he says.
I don’t understand. Are they talking about Runu-Didi and Bahadur?
The newsreader returns. “It’s learned that following complaints of negligence by the local police, the case is likely to be transferred to the CBI, which will look into the possibility that Varun Kumar was part of a wider trafficking ring that indulged in child pornography or organ trade.”
Ma snatches the remote from Papa’s hand.
“The posh penthouse flat costing eight crores is thought to have been the site of these brutal murders. The role of the owner of the flat, Yamini Mehra, a socialite often spotted at parties alongside politicians and top policemen”—the TV screen shows photos where the boss-lady is standing next to politicians and policemen dressed in a commissioner’s or a DCP’s or an ACP’s uniform—“is as yet unclear.”
“My child isn’t dead,” Ma says.
“Of course she isn’t,” Shanti-Chachi says.
Ma switches off the TV and throws the remote against the wall.
* * *
JCBs return to the rubbish ground the next day. They are looking for remains. I don’t understand why the police think Varun killed the children he snatched. Even if he said so, he must be lying. He isn’t a djinn to cut them up or eat them; if he were really a djinn, he would have disappeared instead of staying in jail.
Papa and I watch the machines. Papa convinced Ma to go to work, telling her she’ll have a heart attack if she has to witness every plastic bag in the rubbish ground being opened. “Our daughter isn’t here,” he promises Ma. He calls her every half hour, or she calls him. “Nothing,” he says each time. “I told you Runu isn’t here.”
The police have formed cordons around the sections of the rubbish ground that the JCBs are plowing. They don’t let anyone in, not even the scavenger children and the people who want to do No. 1 and No. 2.
“If there were bodies in the rubbish, one of my children would have seen them by now,” Bottle-Badshah tells anyone who will listen.
Aanchal’s papa turns up to taunt the policemen. “You said my daughter ran off with a boy, haan, and see what’s happened. Are you happy now?” he asks.
“Thumper-Baba didn’t bring your daughter back,” I tell him. “You thought he would.” I don’t care if it makes him angrier.
“I won’t let that fake baba set foot in our basti again,” he says. “I should have never listened to him or the pradhan.”
Papa asks a cop we have never seen before if what we heard on TV is true. “They said he hid the children in drains, but the stench itself, people would have noticed?”
The policeman says they have already located a bag behind a mall that has a 4D cinema on the top floor, but it’s too early to tell whose remains it holds. The bag was found in the exact place where Varun Kumar told them it was, which means he’s speaking the truth.
“And the state of our drains?” the policeman says. “All of them stink of death. Ever seen anybody clean one? Look at how our roads flood when there’s even a single shower.”
“Why would a man like Varun confess to the snatchings?” Papa asks.
“The investigating officers must have used truth serum on him,” the policeman says. “One injection and you can’t lie for hours. Two injections, and he won’t be able to shut up until he tells us where every child is buried.”
I saw something about that injection on the news or maybe it was on Live Crime, but I didn’t think it was real.
“Is it true,” Aanchal’s papa asks now, “that the Mehra woman brought strange men into her flat late at night? I heard there are eighty flats in that building. Nobody in those eighty flats saw or heard anything?”
“The police need time to question all the residents and find out what they saw and what they didn’t,” the constable says. “Not just residents, but also maids, gardeners, sweepers, watchmen. Trust me, we’re doing everything we can. We’re checking their mobile-phone records, finding out who the madam and her manservant talked to.”
“But what the TV is saying about Mehra’s male friends, that they were surgeons brought in to harvest the children’s kidneys, that just can’t be true, can it?” Aanchal’s papa persists.
“Who knows,” the policeman says. “The rich think they can buy anything, even us.”
“The problem,” Aanchal’s papa says, “is that policemen like you are suspicious of maids and carpenters and plumbers, but when you see a hi-fi madam or sir, you bow your head, you jump out of the way.”
The policeman laughs but it’s a bitter laugh.
“If you bring sniffer dogs,” I tell him, “you can find the missing children faster.”
He shakes his head as if he has had enough of us and starts to walk away. But then he stops. “The top brass believes this is a clear-cut case,” he says. “There’s enough evidence to prosecute those who have been arrested. Besides, a dog won’t be able to track a single smell in a dump like this.”
Nothing of note is found in the rubbish except for scraps of school uniform and cut-up children’s shoes. The police seal these for testing in case they belong to the missing children; I wonder if Samosa brought me here because he knew what was buried in the trash. Maybe he can do things that police sniffer dogs can’t.
In the evening, when the JCBs go quiet, Papa takes me home and asks Shanti-Chachi to watch me. He says he’ll be back soon.
Chachi sits right next to me, as if to make sure I won’t go anywhere.
Where will I go now? I’m not a detective. If I had been one, I wouldn’t have let anybody snatch Runu-Didi.
“Your didi is fine. I know it. I feel it,” chachi tells me.
I know nothing. I feel nothing. Sometimes, like right now, everything inside me goes numb, even my brain.
* * *
Ma gets home early. Shanti-Chachi tells her she doesn’t know where Papa is, and Ma says, “He called me.” She has brought fresh vegetables and eggs from Bhoot Bazaar. Runu-Didi used to ask Ma for eggs when she first started training, but Ma told her we we
ren’t crorepatis like the Ambanis to eat what we wanted. Now Didi isn’t here but we have eggs. It makes me angry, but I don’t say anything.
Without the TV that Ma won’t let me watch, the silence in our house is too-loud. I rustle the pages of a textbook, I wonder why Pari and Faiz haven’t come to see me. Pari’s ma has told her she can only walk around the basti if she has a grown-up with her. Maybe Pari didn’t find a grown-up today. Faiz must be working still. Ma’s knife goes chop-chop-chop. Oil sizzles, cumin seeds sputter, onions turn brown. Our house smells like it did when Runu-Didi cooked.
I lie on my tummy, on the bed, not reading my book. I smell Drunkard Laloo and look up. It’s Papa. He stumbles to the bed and sits down, almost on my hand. I pull it away in time. He asks me to move so that he can lie down.
“Look, I made all of Runu’s favorites,” Ma says. She hasn’t even noticed that Papa is drunk. “Anda-bhurji, baingan-bharta and roti.”
Ma gets up and stands at the door as if she expects Runu-Didi to run into the lane at any moment. I wait with Ma.
Papa falls asleep. The food goes cold.
TODAY IT’S EXACTLY A MONTH SINCE RUNU-DIDI—
—disappeared. Inside our house, Didi’s clothes are still waiting for her on footstools; I put out her pillow at night when I sleep; and I never roll over to her side of our mat. But outside our house, the world is changing. Fatima-ben and other Muslims have moved to another basti across the river, where only Muslims live. Some Hindus call that place Chhota-Pakistan.
Faiz and his family are also moving there. Today is his last day in our basti. Right now, Pari and I are helping Wajid-Bhai and Faiz pack up. We came here straight after school. Faiz’s ammi and his sister are already in Chhota-Pakistan with most of their stuff. Tariq-Bhai can’t help with the move because he’s still in jail. He’s supposed to be released soon, maybe this week even, but we can’t be sure. The police take ages to do anything.
By the time we are finished, Faiz’s house looks big because all the things and people in it are gone. It smells of cobwebs abandoned by spiders and dust left to thicken behind cupboards. Pari and I carry the last of their belongings outside in plastic bags. We wait for a cycle-rickshaw that Wajid-Bhai has arranged.
Some of the neighbor-chachas and chachis and children come out into the alley to watch Faiz and Wajid-Bhai leave. I take off my sweater and tie it around my waist. If Runu-Didi were to return today, she would be shocked to see that the smog is almost gone. It’s a lot warmer too, too warm for February.
Sometimes I forget Didi is gone. The police say that everyone missing is presumed dead, but Ma says Didi will come back tomorrow. She has been saying that for days. I don’t believe her.
“I never returned the money I took from you,” Pari tells Faiz. It sounds like she’s saying she’ll never see Faiz again.
“After you become a doctor, treat me for free,” Faiz says. His face and hands and even his white scar have turned dark from selling roses on the highway. “If you see me at a junction when you are driving around in your big car, slow down and buy all my flowers so that I can chutti-maro for the day.”
“You’re seriously not thinking of being a rose-seller your whole life, are you?” Pari says. “You should join a school near your new basti.”
I feel as if a hundred butterflies are fluttering inside my chest. What is a whole life? If you die when you’re still a child, is your life whole or half or zero?
“Chi, what are you doing?” Pari says, pushing Faiz away when he drops snot on her while trying to give her a hug.
I hug Faiz. Then he goes across the alley to say okay-tata-bye to his neighbors.
“Faiz is very sad to leave you two,” Wajid-Bhai says. “But it isn’t safe for us here. Someone was saying again at the toilet complex yesterday that we Muslims kidnapped Kabir and Khadifa and killed Buffalo-Baba to put the blame on the Hindu Samaj. It’s tough to listen to such things every day. Allah knows why they still blame us.”
“They’re mad,” Pari says.
“And Tariq-Bhai, once you have been in jail, that’s a stain that doesn’t wash off. He’ll have better luck finding a job among our people.”
Pari nods.
“You’ll be leaving soon too, right?” Wajid-Bhai asks her. “You’ll be a star at your new school. I heard every student gets to use a computer there.”
Pari looks at me because she knows I don’t like hearing about it. “I won’t be going anywhere until this school year is finished,” she says. “It might not even happen.”
The cycle-rickshaw arrives. Wajid-Bhai loads the last of the bags into it. The rickshaw-wallah’s feet are lined with deep cracks and ash-colored patches of dead skin. The back of his neck glistens silver with sweat.
Faiz sprints back to our side. “I’ll come to school one of these days,” he says. “When you’re having the midday meal. That way I’ll get lunch too.”
“They’re going to cut your name from the roll,” Pari says.
“They haven’t struck off Bahadur yet, and he has been gone for three months,” Faiz says. “It will be a year or two before they get to me.”
“Let us know when Tariq-Bhai is released,” Pari tells Wajid-Bhai. “You can call my ma. Faiz has her mobile number.”
“Inshallah it will happen soon,” Wajid-Bhai says.
“Tariq-Bhai won’t touch his mobile after the police release him,” Faiz tells Pari and me. “He’ll never want anything to do with a mobile again, so his mobile will become mine, and then I’ll call your ammi and”—his eyes shift from my face to Pari’s—“your ammi.”
“Poor Tariq-Bhai,” Pari says. “If the police had tracked Aanchal’s mobile, the way Tariq-Bhai told you, that Varun-monster would have been caught before—”
She coughs, because she knows better than to complete that sentence.
“The good djinns at the djinn-palace are watching out for Tariq-Bhai,” Wajid-Bhai says. “Jai, tell your ma to pray there.”
“That place isn’t as scary as it looks from the outside,” Faiz says, clasping his amulet.
He and Wajid-Bhai get on the cycle-rickshaw. “You’ll go to the palace for sure?” Faiz asks me, leaning out of the passenger seat.
I wave goodbye.
The rickshaw-wallah presses the pedals but the rickshaw is heavy, and it takes him a while to get going. Pari and I and others in the alley watch the rickshaw barely move forward.
Someone says a Hindu family is going to buy Faiz’s house. A family with four children and a ma and a papa and a dadi too. I don’t think I’ll be friends with any of them. They probably don’t even know what Purple Lotus and Cream soap is.
* * *
I tell Pari I’m going to the rubbish ground. “Ma won’t be home for another two hours,” I say.
“I’ll go with you,” she says. Her ma isn’t home either.
We don’t stay out in the dark anymore. We don’t want our parents to worry. They have stopped following us around though. Maybe because no one else has been snatched since Varun, his wife and boss-lady were arrested.
“Do you think the boss-lady is innocent?” I ask Pari though we have talked about it many times before. “Her lawyer has applied for bail.”
“She won’t get it,” Pari says. “It’s such a big case, it’s going to come on Police Patrol.”
I’ll never watch Police Patrol again. When they act out real stories of people getting snatched or killed, it will feel as if someone is trying to strangle me, I just know it. A murder isn’t a story for me anymore; it’s not a mystery either.
“The basti-women who work in Golden Gate, they’re saying now that politicians and police commissioners went into the boss-lady’s flat at night,” I say. “Those VIPs will get her out.”
Many things about the case make no sense to me, which is why I have to keep asking Pari about it. Even the newsp
eople on the TV I’m not supposed to watch, but which I secretly watch before Ma gets home, are confused. The reporters say different things each day, and their guesses change like the price of the boss-lady’s flat, which was four crores one day and twelve crores the next day and costs next to nothing today after the shocking revelations that have caused property prices at Golden Gate to plummet.
According to the same reporters, the boss-lady and her manservant were part of a trafficking ring, a kidney racket, and a child pornography racket, which is a kind of racket that involves making films with children. They say the manservant is a psychopath who abused and killed children; the manservant and his wife went rogue and killed the children who were meant to be trafficked; the boss-lady is innocent; the boss-lady is a criminal mastermind who enjoyed the patronage of India’s top politicians.
The headlines on the TV news are horrible. Sometimes I see them when I’m trying to sleep, blinking under my eyelids like neon lights:
EXCLUSIVE! Inside the Penthouse of Horrors!
Slumdog Killer Reveals Gruesome Details of Murders
Owner of Luxury Flat Pleads Not Guilty
Behind a Golden Facade, a Shocking Story of a Kidney Racket
What Really Happened in Golden Gate. See it first here!
Confessions of the Man-Eater of Golden Gate!
“We might never find out what really happened in that flat because we have useless police,” Pari tells me. “The only reason Varun Kumar got caught, it’s because he’s too stupid. If he hadn’t snatched Kabir and Khadifa, the basti-people would have kept on blaming Muslims. There might have been riots also.”
“He mustn’t have realized they were Muslim,” I say. “Doesn’t Faiz look Hindu to you?”
“Why did that idiot have to move?” Pari says.
We reach the rubbish ground. The JCBs are long gone. A woman flings a bucket of vegetable peels and fish bones into the trash. We hear a shout. It’s Aanchal’s papa, who has been watching over the ground ever since the police found bits of Aanchal’s bag and the clothes she was wearing on the day she vanished—the yellow kurta that Pari noted in her report—in the rubbish.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line Page 29
