by Rahul Raina
I felt myself pass into a cooler climate, then through a door into a room. I was thrown down, against cold, dusty marble. A minute or two later I felt a mattress next to me explode with air and hiss as Rudi was thrown onto it.
“Stay here. Shut up,” said the low rattle of the driver’s voice, right by my ear. “Or I’ll turn your andas into a fucking omelette and there’ll be no kids for you.” I felt his hands move onto mine and there was a slight loosening of the tape at my wrists. I took it off quickly, and then the pieces around my mouth, shuddering as the skin on my lips was peeled off. I could not face doing my eyes.
There was no fan. Sweat stained my clothes, made them heavy with its stink.
I groped around. There was a glass-fronted wardrobe on one wall, and some intricately carved wooden doors leading outside. Expensive. Solid when you thunked them. A farmhouse? Some goonda’s country lair?
Sometimes I amaze even myself with my powers of deduction.
I felt someone kick me. “What the fuck?”
“Yaar? Man? Dude? Dude?”
“Stop fucking saying dude, Rudraksh.”
He kept kicking.
“Jesus, fuck, Rudi, stop,” I said. “There’s only us here, boss.”
I steeled myself. I slowly removed the tape around my head, almost ripping half my hair off, grimaced at the sting of my skin being subjected to a low-tech exfoliation treatment, did lots of swearing, cried unbidden tears and all that stuff, then did Rudi’s, who yelped at my every move. I fucking breathed and he yelped. Maybe I was a little rougher than I could have been. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I looked around. A dirty marble floor, a high barred window, all sorts of junk scattered around the edges of the room, old clothes, cardboard boxes, carpets. The smell of mothballs in my nostrils.
“It’s okay, boss,” I soothed him. “Not as if you’ve been kidnapped, is it? Ha ha.”
I shouldn’t have done that. The dam broke.
He half talked, half wept. He went on and on about the perils of money, how we should have hired a better bodyguard, my uncountable faults, how we should emigrate to America, my rudeness, the Indian education system, the perils of a rice-based diet, how the British should never have left. In his mind, a great chain of historical fuck-ups had led to this moment. He kept running his hands through his hair, movie star hair, five thousand Gandhis a cut, not the greasy mane he’d once had, the one he’d shared with every moped courier and two-bit tailor from here to Haridwar.
His face was a little bruised around the nose, his skin was pale, either through fright or sleeplessness or drugs, but in volume at least he was unchanged.
“I wish I had never become rich,” he cried, and my God, what a phrase for an Indian to say. Even beating couldn’t get rid of an attitude like that.
All I had for company was his voice and gora face in the half-darkness, the wardrobe, which I saw was full of textbooks and novels, the mattresses, and the various odds and ends. Imprisonment in a glorified janitor’s closet.
I felt around my face for any lasting damage. Nothing but soreness and the taste of blood in my mouth.
“At least Oberoi will be fucked,” Rudi said when he had calmed down. “Prick.”
“Yes, but Priya—” I said without thinking.
“Priya? All you do is think of her. Whenever I need you, you’re thinking of her. Forget her. She’s out of your . . . everything,” he hissed.
“Don’t you think I fucking know?” I shouted. I’d give the kid that. He knew exactly how to hurt me best.
Rudi’s eyes grew large. I had never lost my temper so openly, so violently in front of him. Normally I sniped under my breath. He gulped and shut up.
“Keep quiet in there!” came the driver’s growl through the door. Rudi nearly jumped out of his skin. There was no mistaking that voice, not after having listened to it swear through traffic for so many hours. “Or I start cutting off things that cannot be uncut!”
I waited a few minutes. I cursed myself. No more shouting from me. I had been so good at avoiding attention for most of my life. Just a little bit more of that, Ramesh.
“I know you like putting me down. I know it makes you feel better. I know you feel alone. I know you’re hurt and depressed and alone. I get it, okay?” I whispered, giving him as much psychobabble as I could muster, about communication and mindfulness and all the other stuff I had picked up from daytime TV. “No more getting angry. We need to work together to get out of this alive. Okay?”
He paused for a moment.
“O-bloody-kay,” he said finally.
I could have sold him a blender or a knife set. I had picked those skills up too.
Look at us, classes and castes and colors coming together under dire circumstances, like one of those films about the ’71 war, you know the ones, where the noble Sikh and the wiry Dalit die in each other’s arms, having blown up a Pakistani tank squadron using little more than a rifle, some pungent daal, and the even more pungent memory of their mothers’ undying love.
After we’d made our grand declaration of unity, we realized there was nothing we could not do together.
We talked shit, moved on to the usual tea stall conversation topic, actresses from the nineties. Rudi had a thing for Madhuri Dixit. Me? I was a Manisha Koirala guy.
We did not sleep a wink. Jesus, Rudi could talk, like a little kid sleeping in his parents’ bed. “Are we going to be okay?” “What’s this going to do for our careers?” “I need a whisky.” “What about that Bhatnagar lady?” On and on, like he was on one of those US talk shows where you got randomly picked from the audience and you had a minute to be interesting or you’d never be famous and get to use your Instagram to sell multi-level-marketed massage oils.
And always that word, “dude.” When I was half awake, “Dude . . .”; when I was asleep, “Dude . . .” I was having this great dream, me and guess who, running toward each other through Swiss meadows, twirling, when I heard “Dude . . . Dude . . . Dude . . .” Stretched out, whining, when I didn’t answer. I didn’t know where he’d picked it up from. Maybe it had happened when he’d started the drugs. Another reason to hope he’d get off them.
“I’m not talking to you until you call me Ramesh,” I said.
“Is this really the time, yaar?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re under great pressure. This is when relationships change and become stronger, when people realize what they truly mean to one another, when they stop calling each other dude. Think that through. I’m going to sleep, okay?”
Rudi continued to talk. Every time I nearly fell asleep, there he was, groaning away. Nothing to distract him, no phone, no Instagram, no WhatsApp. I’d open my eyes and watch him shivering, sweating, the drugs and the social media moving out of his system. But the noise! My God. It was a blessed relief when, the next morning, the door slammed open.
“Out!” shouted the driver, grasping me by the waist and pulling me up.
As I was pushed out of the room, I willed my morning erection to wilt. They always cut off the conspicuous parts, I thought, these people.
For the first time, I saw where we had been brought. I found myself in a courtyard, green with potted plants, white marble floor, red tile roof, burbling central fountain of naked nymphs in light sandstone. The air was cool and moist. Paradise. A farmhouse, a rich man’s place. I had been right.
We were led around the colonnade into a large, beautiful lounge. Dark wooden furniture, soft white sofas, a large flat-screen, like a classier version of Rudi’s parents’ place. The walls were strung with electric lights for Diwali, and a large framed painting of Lord Ram with movie star muscles jutted out from under recessed lighting.
“Our guests,” said one of two men on the sofa. “Namkeen, quickly,” and the man next to him, a boy really, clearly his son, got up and left. He gave Rudi a venomous look as he walked away.
Oh shit.
I knew that face. I knew that kid.
It was Abhi, the one we’d
humiliated, broken on national television.
The man, Abhi’s father, bid us sit. He was as prosperous-looking as the room, with a beautiful sultan’s moustache, shining with wax, white chinos and open-necked shirt, a cummerbund girding a fat waistline. He radiated wealth.
He reminded me of the maharaja, the mascot of Air India, our beloved joke of a national airline. Fat and wise and mirthful, though the airline itself was short of money, short of staff, always bottom of the international league tables, another one of our great national shames, like the ’62 war and female illiteracy.
“Sit them down,” he said to our captor. The driver took a position behind him, eyes scanning the room for potential threats. He gave off a little smile, the smile of a man who has singlehandedly kidnapped you and made you look ineffectual and weak and MBA-having.
“You won’t mind if I don’t tell you my name,” said Abhi’s father.
“You’ll pay for this,” said Rudi, aping some film again, then deflated into silence. The maharaja twiddled his thumbs until his boy came back with a plate of salty treats that he laid in front of us.
“Good work, Abhi,” said his father. “Sit down.”
The kid looked a combination of deeply embarrassed and deeply, deeply angry. He didn’t hold eye contact with anyone. He reached for masala peanuts every few minutes. He had the same prominent nose as his father, the same soft brown eyes, but without the confidence and command. His leg shook. I remembered the last time I’d seen him, looking broken and small, surrounded by hundreds of people laughing at his failure.
So his father had gone to the trouble of kidnapping us just to avenge his son. I wished I had a father who’d done that for me.
“So, gentlemen, down to business,” said the maharaja. “You know exactly why you’re here. You humiliated my son. So I shall destroy your show. Do you like my plan?” He stretched out to the table and started assembling a plate of biscuits.
“We’ll never play along,” said Rudi immediately.
“You will. You will. Won’t they, Pratap?”
The driver behind him grunted, looking at me with hatred in his eyes. Not Rudi. Just me. Why am I so hated? What have I done, apart from commit many crimes that would shame me in the eyes of the gods?
“And if you don’t play along,” Abhi’s father continued, turning to me, “I will simply tell the world what you did, Mr. Kumar.”
“Heh?” I said, braying like abused donkeys do in those charity videos. It was not his knowing my secret that caused the reaction. I was more surprised to be directly addressed. Nobody seemed to do that apart from Priya.
“Ramesh Kumar, Educational Consultant. You didn’t even change your name. Fool. You cannot hide from me.” The maharaja wagged a golden-ringed finger. He had two rings on each hand, a signet on each pinkie, no wedding band, I noticed.
Oh shit.
I looked at Rudi, and his face made me feel worse, so I stopped.
Was I perturbed? Was I put out? Was I terrified of exposure? Did I flinch from life, for even one moment?
Yes.
My wits couldn’t save me now. I couldn’t lie or insult my way out. I had no contacts, no schemes, no information. I had been made stupid. I had been made powerless. All I could do was sit and watch, and hope I came out the other side whole.
“It will go like this,” the maharaja carried on. “We make a video and put it on the YouTube. You stay here until the money comes through. You go home. Just business. Yes?” His eyes grew darker. “Normally, nobody insults my name, my family, my son and lives. Consider yourselves lucky. Consider it my good deed for Diwali.” He took a bite of biscuit and began to smile again.
He looked so very pleased with himself. Tasteful furnishings, tasteful life. Only two things spoiled the impression. The first was the man behind him, eyes burning with hatred. The other was his son, who looked like an old cinema poster in some two-goat town, washed out, pale, but shaking with anger.
“Anything to add, son?” said the maharaja. He even consulted his son. He was real father-of-the-year material, this man.
“I don’t care if they live or die,” Abhi said.
“Capital, capital.” His father beamed, and slapped him on the back. “See, this is what I was saying. This is the first step on your road to success. You will look back on this one day when you are famous and thank me.” He looked at us. “Well then, your people have two days to get back to us. After that . . . Pratap, what happens after that?”
“Bad things,” growled Pratap. A real drama queen.
The kid bit his fingernails and ate some more peanuts.
“Would anyone like any Lagavulin?” asked Abhi’s father, clapping his hands.
Nobody did.
We were thrown back into our garret.
A few hours later, the door opened again and we were hauled back to the living room. A camera had been set up on a tripod, and two chairs stood in front of a large white collapsible screen.
“Sit,” said the father. “Abhi.” He beckoned to his son.
“Yeah,” the kid replied, “if Rudi could just say that he’s been kidnapped and the ransom is fifty crore, okay?” Fifty crore? Six million dollars? For Rudraksh Saxena? Him? I didn’t care how much aspirational electrical equipment he sold. He had gone up in the world since he’d met me.
“You don’t ask anyone if it’s okay, you tell them,” said Abhi’s father. His voice grew louder and he pointed at Rudi. “Especially when you’re talking to this good-for-nothing, no-brain, haramzada duffer.”
Abhi dipped his head. He must have heard plenty of it growing up. At least it was directed at someone else now. “Ah, yep, okay, I mean, yes.” He started again, and this time the hate had returned to his eyes, and his words were steady. Who said that children never listened to their parents anymore? “You’re going to be saying you’ve been kidnapped and they have a day to deliver the money. Fifty crore. Get on with it.”
“Better,” said the maharaja, beaming with pride. “Pay them back for what they did to us.”
Rudi dutifully repeated the terms. They’d even bought a newspaper for him to hold up. He tried to look bored, as if nothing could affect him. Unfortunately the act was undone by the look on his face and the shaking of his knees every time he moved. Withdrawal. Better now than never.
Abhi and his father watched the footage on a laptop.
“Doesn’t look scared, does he, boy?” his father said. “Not the way he made you feel, no? And it needs some music and effects. It needs to look professional!”
“Music will not do that, Papa. It will look cheesy. I’m telling—”
“They had music and effects when they humiliated you, didn’t they, beta?” his father said, and the kid fell silent. “If you want to be a big person, beta, if you want to be a TV star, then that is the way you have to behave.”
Abhi looked down. His face, youthful, fresh, handsome, curled into hatred.
They made Rudi do it again, and this time he was totally over the top, lips quivering, nearly fainting with fright. Pratap did not look pleased.
“Want me to beat him?” he asked, but was waved away.
We were led back to our room again.
The next day was long and boring. We did nothing but mope. I tried forcing the door a few times, but I didn’t have the muscle for it.
I wondered what the headlines were like. What a story! A sensation. Rudi would always be someone now. Kidnapping is like that. You’re not someone until someone tries to kidnap you. What an honor! Better than the Padma Bhushan.
I let myself think about Priya. I had been trying not to, had been trying to keep her in the back of my mind, away from all this, something secret, something precious, just for me.
All I could think about was her face, sick with worry. I felt desolate. Can you imagine?
And of course, now someone knew my secret, and in this country if one person knows something, then everyone soon will.
What would she think when she found out? Th
en I would be no better than the rest. A liar seducing women with his ill-won wealth. I could not bear for her to think badly of me, and that was the first time I’d thought that about anyone in a long, long time.
Maybe I just wanted to look into someone’s eyes and see something other than a business transaction.
The kid, Abhi, brought us food, reeking of hatred. He was, well, pretty. Demure. Thin, with delicate hands and beautiful brown, almost amber eyes. No wonder his father thought he should be famous. No wonder they thought it was his birthright to be on TV. Pratap stood just beyond the open door and scowled.
“You guys are going to hell,” Abhi said. What a conversation starter. His accent lapsed into American at the ends of words. He spoke softly, too softly for the sentiments he expressed. “I hope you feel like shit. You should have been nothing, you cheater. I should have been you. I will be you. Once your show loses all its money.”
Was this part of the assertiveness training too?
“No, actually, I’m fucking amazing,” Rudi said. “Like I’ve just fucked Aishwarya Rai. You, Ramesh?”
“Er, like I’ve just become the cricket man who is best. You know, that guy, Australian,” I said. Sometimes there can be a distance between my thoughts and my words.
The kid looked down at what he was holding, two plastic plates of roti and sambar, and then dropped them on the floor with a little smile.
“Oh fucking wonderful,” said Rudi. “A real fucking drama queen! I tell you what, next time come and tell me about the hidden trauma of losing your mother, yeah?”
“Fuck you!” said the kid softly, and his face began to well up again.
