by Arnab Ray
He was wrong.
There were ten huge chests full of gold and diamonds and ancient treasures, and they had buried the stash where the Raja had asked them to. As Bangali found out later, the Raja’s ancestors had been dacoit kings and all the gold in the trunks was stolen loot, handed down the ages. Moving the treasure away may have secured its safety but could not save the Raja. One day, for no reason, he ‘fell’ from the third floor balcony.
And now, with Emergency in place, the son of the Raja had gotten in touch with RP to retrieve his inheritance. Yes, thought Arjun, that is how it would have happened. He paused to consider his options and came to the realization that he had none.
He bowed his head humbly, ‘Yes, I know where it is buried.’
‘Good,’ RP said, a smile of contentment creeping over his face. ‘Dubey will call you tomorrow. You will tell him where the treasure is buried. Then you will go with him and dig it out. If you try to act uppity, Dubey will bury you. Or I will.’
Arjun nodded. He was overpowered. There was nothing he could do. The conversation continued for some time. Or rather RP spoke, and Arjun listened. From now on, whenever he wanted to do business with anyone, he would have to give Dubey all the details. If RP wanted to do the deal, he would take it. If RP felt like it, he would give Arjun a baksheesh, as he put it, else nothing. If RP had his hands full with business, Arjun could do the job but whatever he made, fifty per cent would go to RP. ‘Consider it jiziya, this being Aurangzeb Road,’ he had said with a slight smile and a gentle shake of his head, as if satisfied with having come up with the observation.
Arjun bowed and nodded. Inside though, he burned with helpless rage. This man was razing to the ground his little kingdom.
‘Yes, I understand, RP sir,’ Arjun said, bottling it up inside, putting the emphasis on sir.
RP recognized the effort and laughed viciously. Pointing to a giant portrait of his father, he said, ‘He had this saying. If a dog acts too much like his master, neuter it.’ He made a little snipping action with his fingers. ‘Now that I have done the job on you, you have started giving me respect. See. You are learning. Next time you might even be sitting on the ground when I come in.’ He banged the paperweight on the tabletop, made an imperious gesture of dismissal and Arjun walked slowly out.
8
Over the years, their lovemaking had settled into the rhythm of comforting familiarity. Not that the lushness of Nayantara’s body ever ceased to amaze Arjun and he was sure she had become even more beautiful as time had passed, but the violence and abruptness of their initial frenzied couplings had been replaced by an intimate harmony, the knowledge of when to play what note and in what scale. They talked a lot, and Arjun remembered their walks in the parks, going to the cinema together and having jhalmuri on the streets afterwards with more fondness than the sex, even though he still looked forward to their overnight sojourns at the Grand Hotel with the same urgency.
But this time it had been different. He had not talked much during dinner, even though Nayantara tried several times to initiate conversation, instead choosing to play idly with the fork and knife, making circles in his plate of food. After that, he had taken Nayantara into the bedroom where he had pinned her to the bed with his arm, divested her of her sari in one fluid but violent motion, popped her expensive blouse hooks down the back, making them fly in every direction, before yanking her bra off with nothing that could be called gentleness. Then he pulled off the pins securing the bun on her head and, holding her hair, he turned her head and kissed her, but with none of the understanding softness that she had become used to. He then proceeded to have her every way, ploughing into her with controlled violence, and today there was no banter, no pause, no interruption, only guttaral commands like ‘kneel’ or ‘spread them’ or ‘turn around’ and Nayantara doing all that he asked, without protest or question. When he was spent, he let Nayantara lie on the bed alone and sat on the couch, looking up aimlessly at the ceiling.
‘Did that get it out of your system?’ she asked.
He sat silently for a while and she began picking up her clothes or whatever was left of them, when he suddenly said, ‘Thank you. I needed this.’
‘You want to talk about it?’
He hesitated but then started to vent.
He told her about the meeting with RP. How he had met with
Dubey the next day and then a week later he had accompanied him and his men to Pratapgarh. Dubey had put him to work along with the hired hands, and Arjun knew RP had asked for that, to show him his place. Nearing forty, he was still reasonably fit, but he was not used to labour any more, and certainly not the heavy shovelling kind. He sweated and panted, wiping the sweat from his brow, but soldiered on in the sun, determined not to show any weakness.
On the way back, Dubey had said, between the periodic rolling down of the car window and spitting out of betel juice on to the country road, ‘Before I became RP sahib’s right hand, I used to be a pimp. All of my best girls went to his father. He was the kind of man who liked to live like a king – wanted new girls for his harem every Friday, and fond of good music and art too. Anyway, there was this old saying I would tell the girls, and they used it in that new film, whose name I can’t remember now. The saying was, “As long as your feet move, you stay alive.” Of course in their case it was more like as long as your legs spread, you stay alive.’
He had cackled in delight. ‘You seem like a good man so my advice to you would be one thing. Be useful to RP sahib. Make money for him. Make more money for him. The moment you stop doing that, he will come for your money, your house, and whatever else you have stuffed in your pockets. RP sahib is very ruthless and he has no mercy. His father was more a romantic, you see, Urdu poetry and pretty women. RP sahib reads only James Hadley Chase and lacks that, what do you call it, old-world large-heartedness. You have not given him respect, and he’s going to take you for it. So my advice, keep your ass lubed up and warm, cause if you don’t give him a happy time, he is going to kill you, dry you up and then shove his lund into your eye sockets. You are not a man to him. You are just a hole.’
Over the next two months, Arjun had had to surrender all his important clients to RP, leaving him with almost nothing. Staying in business made no sense. Almost everything he made would be taken away by RP but stay he had to, lest he no longer remained useful. Whether he accepted it or not, Dubey was right. His only way of staying out of jail was by making money for RP like a whore does for her pimp. He felt emasculated, as if his cock had been snipped from between his legs, and today taking Nayantara in the way he did, made him feel like a man again, at least within the confines of an expensive hotel room.
‘I am worried for you. I have never seen you look like this.’ Arjun had never seen himself look like this either. Ever since
RP had taken away his business, he had had a lot of time on his hands. The boys had been packed off to boarding school, Riti stayed surrounded by ayahs, and Preeti was either going to a kitty party or returning from one. Arjun would retreat to his room upstairs and lock the door. Never more than an occasional drinker, he had taken to drinking quite regularly. The evenings when he was not at the office trying to make money for RP would be spent in a daze of drink, trying to drown the sensation of impotence, but it never really went away. He had gained weight, he knew that, and the fact that his eyes had puffed up and that he had an ugly stubble made him look every bit the wreck that he was.
He had told Nayantara everything. Not just what had happened with RP but how he felt, how he had spent the last few months. He felt naked as he was opening up to her. She listened patiently, with very little interruption, staying on the far side of the bed, not asking him to join her as she would have done on other days, allowing him the comfort of his own space. When he had finished, she asked, ‘So you will give up? Just like that?’
He did not reply.
‘You came to this country with nothing. Do you remember?’ ‘Of course I do.’
; ‘And you did this. All of this. You didn’t give up, did you, not
ever. So why now?’
Arjun slapped his palm on the handle of the couch. ‘You don’t understand, Nayantara. I can’t kill him. I can’t do anything to him, he has me in a chokehold, thanks to this Emergency.’
‘So you are giving up.’
‘I am not. I just don’t know what to do. I never saw this coming, and that makes me mad. I…I don’t know how I could not have…’
‘What’s this obsession with “I never saw this coming”? You may be smart, but you are no parrot pulling cards. The big things in life blindside us, whether it be love or death, and there is no use later shaking your hands and saying, oh no, I didn’t see it coming.’
Arjun held his head in his hands and sat quietly.
Nayantara continued, ‘He is no God. He is just a kid with a big daddy. He’s done nothing in life except live off his father. And you…you have fought all your life, yourself, with your own hands.’
‘But you don’t understand…’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand your accepting defeat like this…but then I have never claimed to be smart.’
‘It’s the Emergency, it’s MISA. It’s…’
‘Yes, I know. You told me. But the Emergency is not going to last. Neither will those who brought it in. There is a lot this country will put up with, but it won’t put up with their tongues being nailed to the top of their mouths. Sure, trains run on time, rice is cheap in the market because the black marketers have been put out of business, but then there are rumours of the government doing things to people, cutting off their cocks.’
‘They don’t cut off their cocks. It’s called sterilization and doctors do it.’
‘Whatever. Same thing. You can’t do that. You can’t have people looking over their shoulders, you can’t have brother rat out brother. This can’t last. And when the system goes belly-up, you have to be ready. That’s when your RP will be at his weakest.’
Arjun laughed. ‘Hah. I have to be ready. Easy to say that.’
Nayantara pursed her lips into a straight line. ‘You say you feel as if he has made you become less of a man. I don’t think he has. You have done this to yourself. Being a man isn’t to walk around with guns or knock someone’s teeth out or do a randi in thegaand.’
‘I am sorry if…’
Nayantara did not stop for the interruption. ‘I know that’s what people think being a man is. But being a man is something else. It’s to take whatever God throws at you, dust yourself up and keep walking. He will strike you down again, and you will get up again. And the last one standing – he has won.’
‘That’s all very fine but real life doesn’t work like that.’
‘I am not saying what you have to do is easy. It is not supposed to be. You want to rule India and yet you expect it to be simple. How can it be?’ She was making her hair back into a bun, the sari now thrown in one fold over her breasts. ‘God gave you something he hasn’t given other people. Brains. Now I know it’s not the kind of brains my husband had. His was the college professor kind of head. That’s why he is dead.’
Arjun was going to say something but stopped.
‘You will figure it out. I know you will.’ She walked up to him, one round of cloth draped around her naked body, and bent down, holding his hands in hers. ‘As a matter of fact, I think you already know what is to be done. You are just afraid of taking that first step, because the path is so long and difficult.’
He looked up at her and Nayantara realized this was the most vulnerable she had ever seen Arjun.
‘I am afraid.’
‘You have never been afraid before.’
‘I know.’
‘But then why now? Why now after all these years?’
‘That time you are talking about, I was young. I was reckless. I was arrogant. Was I brave? I suppose I was. Not because I had courage but because there was nothing to be afraid of. What did I have to lose? My life? It was worthless anyway.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I have a family. I have things I value. Things that it would hurt me to lose. And most important…’ Arjun tapped his head with his index finger. ‘I think more. I worry more. I hesitate. I know I can make mistakes. I know that there are bigger fish in the pond. I know luck won’t be with me all the way. I am forty and I have become soft.’ He paused and collected his words. ‘You are right. I am afraid of taking that first step. I fear the path. I fear the pain of walking it. I fear I will fall and I will die but before that I will see everything I love wither away and that terrifies me so much that I can’t move.’
‘If what you told me about RP is right, you have no choice. Move or he will cut you down as you stand.’
Arjun turned away, looking up at the ceiling. Nayantara gave him a while to be alone with his thoughts. Bathed and refreshed and in a new set of clothes that clung to her body the way she knew Arjun liked it, she sat on the armrest of his couch.
‘Now you listen to me, Mr Arjun Bhatia.’ She leaned forward and hugged him close. ‘Call your travel agent right now and cancel tomorrow’s flight back to Delhi. Then you will go to a barber and get a shave. Then you will bring your bags to my place.’ Arjun started to say something but she put a finger to his lips. ‘I don’t want to hear a word. And no more drinking. Not a drop. This week is the last seven days you are going to have to feel sorry for yourself or afraid or lazy or whatever it is that is keeping you from bringing this man down. Tell yourself that. Then after seven days are over, you leave for Delhi and you will go to war and you will take back from RP what belongs to you. Are we clear?’
He turned to the side, tipped his head back such that their eyes met, and clutched her arm tightly to himself.
‘Uncle, are you all right?’ A small head peeked out from behind the frame of the wooden door, eyes sparkling, its owner wearing a white vest and blue shorts. He had been told not to disturb his uncle, but now that Nayantara had left for a while for the vegetable market and was not expected back for at least an hour, Arijit had tippy-toed to the guest room.
Arjun asked him to come in. ‘Why do you think I am not all right?’
Arijit walked towards the bed tentatively. ‘You have not asked me about the transistor even once. You haven’t even asked to see my magic tricks. So I was wondering…’
‘I just have a lot of things on my mind.’
‘What are they?’ Arijit sat at the farthest corner of the bed. ‘I shouldn’t be here. Ma will be angry.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell.’ Arjun smiled.
‘So what are you thinking?’
‘Oh, nothing special. Some things I have to do.’
Out of the blue, Arijit asked, ‘Do you miss my father?’
Arjun didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what Nayantara had told Arijit about Bangali. The little boy seemed to understand his hesitation.
‘It’s okay, you can tell me,’ he said almost conspiratorially. ‘I know he is dead. Ma tells me baba is missing. She is silly, she does not know that it hurts me more to believe that baba is alive and does not once come back to see me.’ He looked up and said, ‘Ma told me you were his best friend. Do you miss him?’
He didn’t need to lie. ‘Not a day goes by when I don’t.’
‘Ma cries at night sometimes, when you are not here. It must be worse for her than it is for me.’
‘Why must it be worse for her?’
‘Because I don’t have any memories of baba. She does. That’s what makes you sad, isn’t it? Memories. I feel sad for Kaloo because I remember him.’
‘Who is Kaloo?’
‘The stray dog that sometimes sneaked in through the gate downstairs.’ Arijit picked up a badminton racquet whose handle was sticking out from below the bed. ‘A bus ran over him.’ He banged the side of the racket on the floor with violence. ‘Just like that. He was dead.’
‘Your father loved you a lot,’ Arjun said, remembering Bangali’s las
t moments those years ago, knees in the dust, gun to his head, pleading to be let go. He had never heard him talk about his son before that, not at least with any kind of special fondness. Maybe he did not care. Maybe he did. He would never know the truth. But then again, the truth is never what really happens. The truth is what we choose to believe.
‘How will I know if he did? He is dead,’ Arijit said again and his lips trembled but his eyes remained as dry as before.
‘This might be a little too heavy…’
‘Like Rabindrasangeet?’
Arjun couldn’t help but smile. ‘Yes. But then seeing how smart a little boy you are, I think you will understand.’
Arjun reached out and held the small wrist. ‘We all die. Your father. Me. Kaloo. Everything that’s come into this world goes there.’ He pointed to the sky. ‘That’s why the time we get in between is all the more precious. If we lived forever, time would be cheap.’
Arijit nodded. ‘Right. Otherwise ma would never say, “Tubai, don’t waste my time.”’
‘Exactly. That’s why it’s important what we do in the time we have, the stories we write with our lives.’
Arijit lifted an eyebrow. ‘Stories? But you find them in books.’
‘Only some.’ Arjun wagged his finger. ‘The big stories, the exciting stories, they are what we write every day. Our own stories. You don’t read these stories from the pages of a book, you live them. That’s what makes them so amazing. I know your father’s story. And his story has you in it.’
Arijit’s face lit up. ‘Tell me some stories about baba.’
Arjun paused for a while. He was never much of a teller of stories. Fairy tales to Riti at bedtime he could manage, ghosts and goblins and princes and princesses, none of them made any sense anyway, he just started and then when her eyes closed, he would tuck her in and quietly sneak away. But reality, with the bad parts chopped out and then sprinkled with imagination and fitted with a halo for a little kid without a father, that was hard.
