Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  'Is Rana a boy or a girl?' Rumi asked next, squinting down at the drawings.

  I bit my lip.

  'We couldn't decide,' I said. 'So we kept it kind of vague.'

  I'd wanted Rana to be a girl, of course, but Zain said that would be unrealistic. He said Rana had to be a guy to do all the cool stunts he'd put into the stories. We finally agreed to leave it to the reader to decide.

  We started the series one sultry summer afternoon when I'd been gushing on about how Bruce Wayne aka Batman and Don Diego de la Vega aka Zorro didn't really have any superpowers - they were just regular guys battling a bunch of crazy villains in a corrupt city with nothing but intellect, gadgets and physical prowess. And large sums of money, Zain pointed out, which, I had to admit, was true. I'd been telling him how Batman had been co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger when he had said suddenly, 'Big deal, I bet we could make a comic book series, too. You draw and I'll write.'

  'Where'd you find these?' I asked Rumi, a little shaken by the memory.

  'I told you,' he said. 'In the old desk.'

  Of course. I used to study at that desk. For my boards. Amma must've had it moved out of my room and into the guest room at some point.

  'What were you poking and prying about in the desk for?' I demanded crossly.

  'There's no need to yell,' he replied sulkily, rolling his eyes. 'You've just dumped me in your guest room and you never have any time for me. I have to do something to pass the time!'

  'Rumi, I'm fighting a Lok Sabha election? I said in exasperation. 'I hardly have time to hang out with you! I thought you wanted to help? To take pictures?'

  'You leave too early' he muttered. 'I never get up before eleven...'

  Nulwallah, who had been poring over the comics, suddenly said, 'What an idealistic pair of kids you must've been! Why didn't you just watch TNT and Cartoon Network like regular kids?'

  'Power cuts,' I said shortly. 'You have no idea.' He whistled.

  'Well, these are great, Pandeji! How many did you guys do?' 'Eight.'

  They'd taken ages to do - and it was especially hard on me because I had to painstakingly draw every single frame by hand. Zain used to lie around on the floor and watch me as I worked, reading, scribbling, constandtly eating. We had a couple of huge fights, when he would go over everything I'd done really carefully, and then insist the storyline needed changing and expect me to redraw everything. I'd thrown all the papers at him and stormed out, fuming, any number of times.

  And now here they were.

  Enforcer 49 and the Dam of Death

  Enforcer 49 and the Fertilizer Farmer Suicides

  Enforcer 49 and the Midday Meal Scheme

  Enforcer 49 and the Paved Road to Nowhere

  Enforcer 49 and the Inter-caste Love Story

  Enforcer 49 and the Nuclear Deal

  Enforcer 49 and the Rural Employment Guarantee Programme

  Enforcer 49 and the Universal Immunization Drive

  'Must've been great fun doing them?' Nauzer the newshound asked in a carefully casual manner I didn't like at all.

  'Umm, yes,' I said awkwardly. 'Actually, it wasn't--'

  Thankfully, Amma sailed in just then, talking nineteen to the dozen. 'Sarojini, where ij Ponky? Still not back? We are telling you that that no-good boy ij taking him to mate with all kinds of unsuitable, mixed pedigree, low-quality bitches for pocket money. He'll get dog-AIDS, wait and see.'

  We all blinked at her blankly.

  Realizing I had company, she acknowledged Nauzer, who'd leapt to his feet, with a resigned sniff, but smiled benignly at Rumi, who had become quite her favourite.

  'Hello hello,' she said with vague bonhomie. 'Must be talking all Bombay things, hain? Where ij aawar dog, but?'

  Rumi instantly lunged forward to smear her with holy ash from his little tin box and just then, an extremely chirpy looking Rajul walked in, with Ponky bounding along behind him, a happy lolling grin on his face. He fell upon Amma happily, while Rajul looked up at me, and asked, all chubby, ingratiating charm, 'Didi, can I be absent from evening class today?'

  'Why?' I asked perfunctorily, thrilled that I wouldn't have to tutor the little git.

  He raised his angelic hazel eyes to mine.

  'I want to see the panchayat meeting in Ahri village,' he said eagerly. 'Everyone is saying there will be a stoning... maybe even a hanging!'

  'What!' Rumi, Nulwallah and I exclaimed all at once.

  Rajul nodded virtuously. 'A Brahmin girl was caught with an achhoot boy. Naturally, her family beat her and beat her and beat her. She screamed all night - just like a peacock. Keeeaaayon! Keeaaayon! But she's gone quiet now. Today, her father is going to kill the boy. Behind the threshing field. At least,' he added conscientiously, 'that is what he is saying. But my mother says he doesn't have the gurrrts.'

  Rumi just stared at Rajul, hypnotized, like he had never seen anything like him in his whole pampered south Mumbai existence. And he probably hadn't.

  But Nauzer leapt to his feet. 'Is he for real?' he exclaimed. 'Is this happening?'

  Amma spread out her hands, not looking too perturbed. 'We don't know, might be true, might be a rumour,' she said. 'These girls are getting completely out of hand nowadays, they watch too many TV serials...'

  'I have never seen anybody hang,' Rajul continued excitedly. 'I want to shoot a video of it - will you give me your cell-phone? They say the tongue sticks out and the face goes black...'

  I gave him a shove. 'That's enough, Rajul!' I hissed. 'Don't talk about things you don't understand! Go home now, and stay home. No running into Ahri, okay?'

  'But everybody is saying it's the boy's fault,' he said mutinously. 'They're saying his whole community needs to be taught a lesson! Bloody low caste! He should've stayed within his aukaat.'

  The blood rushed to my head.

  I lunged for him.

  'Jinni!' Rumi cried out. 'He's just a kid. He's only repeating what he's heard his elders say.'

  I shook my head.

  'Go. Home. Now,' I thundered at Rajul.

  He slunk away, looking sulky, and I turned to Amma. 'What do we do now?' I asked. 'Go there and tangle with the Aukaat police of Ahri?'

  She sniffed. 'And lose the Brahmin vote? As it is, everybody thinks you are nympho. You want them to think ki you are mad also?'

  I stamped my foot. 'Didn't you hear? They're hanging him now. Tonight!'

  'Sarojini, it could just be a rumour,' Amma said, looking completely exasperated. 'But we will phone the district magistrate and the police! Pleaj understand, Ahri is in the heart of Begumbagh! We are not going to rush in there like a crajy person and read out the Equality of Status and Opportunity clauj from the Indian Constitution to a mob of Ahri duffers! This is not Aap ki Kachheri. It would be most foolis!'

  I glared at her.

  She glowered at me.

  Nulwallah and Rumi shifted awkwardly on their moodhas.

  'Fine.' I shrugged, backing down. 'Don't. You're right, that boy does have a lurid imagination...'

  'Good,' she said, turning to leave. She stopped near the door, her gaze sweeping over the two figures cowering on the moodhas. 'And get some sleep. We have sixteen public meetings tomorrow'

  'Okay, okay,' I said, yawning. 'Goodnight, Amma, sleep well.'

  I stretched in my moodha sleepily. And the moment she cleared the corridor, I lunged for the stack of Enforcer 49s on the table.

  I fumbled through them, flipping pages until I found the one I wanted. I stared at it, my palms sweating, the hair at the back at of my neck standing on end, singing the 'Jana Gana Mana'.

  Enforcer 49 and the Inter-caste Love Story.

  No way was it a coincidence that it had showed up here tonight.

  'Rumi,' I said, turning to him. 'You go in there and chat with Amma. About her youth. Her cleansing-toning-moisturizing routine. The Avatar porn flick. Anything. Just keep her distracted. Nauzer, c'mon, if we hurry we can still catch Rajul and scoop him into the Sumo to
show us the way to Ahri...'

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, a drowsy, over-excited child was seated between Nulwallah and me, snivelling loudly because we hadn't let him bring along his mother's cell-phone.

  'It has enough memory for three pictures,' Rajul fretted. 'I would have had to delete the pictures of papa and Durga mata and me, but it doesn't matter, I would've been the most popular boy in my class, even though I've failed in English!'

  'Chill, kiddo, chill,' said Nauzer, waving Rumi's huge Canon camera at Rajul. We'll get it all on this, it's got a big flash, we'll need it in the dark - and then I'll give you copies of the photos.'

  'Don't encourage him,' I snapped. 'We're going to stop the hanging, not film it. And Rajul, stop making such a racket or they'll see you and know it was you who raised the alarm! Now tell me, do I go straight here or do I take a right?'

  'Ruh... rrrrighhht!' wailed Rajul. And I'm going to tell EVERYBODY that you're EVIL! That you TORTURE me! And I want to VOMIT!'

  And he did. Never having sat in a moving vehicle in his life, he puked his guts out, sticking his head out the window so he wouldn't 'spoil the sofas'. I tried to tell him I'd rather he stain the seats than die by banging his head into a passing tractor but he wouldn't listen, and I ended up feeling like a total monster as I patted his little hiccupping back and asked him for directions to Ahri.

  It was pitch dark by the time we drove into Ahri. We passed all the standard village spots: the buffalo pond, the big peepul tree, the school, the temple. They were all deserted. The main 'road' (if you could call it that: it was basically a dirt track with a series of front doors and a drain running along either side) died out after a while, and still Rajul kept telling me to go straight.

  Soon, there were fields on both sides - flanked by the tall, straw-covered cowdung stacks that give Bittora its name. There was a clearing up ahead, where we could spot the flickering flames of torches. I stalled the engine and sat for a moment, considering my options, when Rajul gave my jeans a sudden, urgent tug and pointed wordlessly in front of us.

  'Go run and hide, Rajul,' I whispered as I peered, heart thumping, palms sweating, into the dark heart of the clearing. I could make out a circle of people, all men, I think, in white dhoti-kurtas and turbans, facing inwards, in a rustic travesty of a cricket huddle. They had very solid looking, iron-topped lathis in their hands and they were talking animatedly. I could hear voices, garbled grunts and exclamations but I couldn't make out what they were saying. There was a tree in the middle of the clearing. A neem tree. And from there hung - my stomach lurched at the sight - a long white rope, as yet unknotted.

  Fuck, I thought, my heart in my mouth. It really is the Aukaat Police.

  'Um... Pandeji,' whispered Nulwallah next to me. 'Honoured as I am to be assisting you on this guerilla expedition, I must ask: Do you, like, have a Plaan?'

  As I could hardly tell him I had a plaan right out of a comic book written by a fourteen year old, I just nodded confidently, and continued to look at the daunting, inverted circle of shadowy dirty-white backs. The dudes didn't look like they were in the mood to listen. I could hear wails from the heart of the huddle now, high-pitched, animal-like wails, and they were making my hair - such as it was - stand on end.

  'Yes, yes, Nulwallah,' I whispered back. 'I have a Plaan. Just lemme think it through?

  And wow, was my brain thinking. It was in think overdrive.

  C'mon, you drove all the way here, my brain thought at me. That's more than anyone else would have done! It's a big crowd, they all have lathis, it's clearly impossible to stop this atrocity now... just get Nulwallah to click some pictures, then phone the police, give them the location and slip away home. No point in trying to pull that stunt from Enforcer 49. It'll never work in real life, anyway...

  I sat there, frozen, for hours or seconds, I don't know which. And then the circle parted, and I could see the cringing, bloody, blanket-covered bundle on the ground.

  One of the men brought a lathi down on it, hard.

  Beside me, I heard the camera whir to life and start clicking.

  Okay. This had to be my cue. I had so not come here just to click pictures.

  I raised my chin, squared my shoulders and put the Sumo into gear. Then I drove the vehicle right into the heart of the clearing. The mob parted, shouting aggressively. I realized that Nauzer and I were shouting too.

  I stopped with a dramatic squealing of brakes, churning mud. Then I leapt out, walked straight up to the writhing blanket, yanked it off, pulled the boy up by the filthy tattered scarf around his neck and spat in his face.

  'Filth!' I shouted. 'Scum! How dare you look at a Brahmin girl, you dirty, untouchable, toilet-cleaning vermin?'

  The boy couldn't have been over sixteen. Practically a child. His eyes were glazed over and puffy, his face black with bruises, his lips so dry and cracked that they seemed made of tree bark. He didn't even blink in reaction to all my shouting. A thin stream of my spit dribbled down his totally blank face. I felt my stomach heave.

  'Yaaah, filth!' Nulwallah shouted suddenly from behind me, making me jump. I spun around, saw his frantic eyes telegraphing Are you fucking nuts? at me, and noticed that he'd found time to hide Rumi's huge camera somehow. Good scene, at least Enforcer 49 was working with a capable sidekick tonight.

  I nodded approvingly at Nulwallah, thrust out my chest and faced the crowd aggressively. Most of them probably had no idea who I was, but I recognized one turbaned, leathery-looking man with a single earring and a cleft lip. I'd had tea in his house and asked for his keemti vote not two days ago. He looked a little stunned to see me here.

  'This... thing,' I gestured at the sagging figure, now being held up by two muscular dudes with holy threads slung across their shoulders, 'deserves to die, for his impudence! Kill the bastard!'

  'Kill the bastard!' echoed Nulwallah with gusto, looking wonderfully Brahminical with his holy ash tilak.

  'Kill the bastard!' shouted the leathery cleftie.

  'Kill the bastard!' roared the crowd and surged forward.

  I leapt up onto the bonnet of my jeep and held out one hand dramatically. 'But not by hanging!'

  'Why?' called out the cleftie pertinently.

  'Why?' echoed Nulwallah, missing his cue like an idiot.

  'Why? Why? Why?' demanded the crowd.

  Dhung Dhung Dhung.

  My heart seemed to have relocated between my ears. I could hear it thumping there, as loud as a military drum. Swallowing hard, I managed to produce a malignant sneer.

  'Hanging is too good for the likes of him!' I shouted. 'Bhagat Singh was hanged! Sukhdev was hanged!'

  The crowd looked at me, confused, suspicious, murmuring a little.

  Realizing I had to reassure them that I was on their side, I quickly spat on the boy again. It was much more contemptuous than a slap, and much less painful. God knows he needed to be spared the pain. Especially with what I had planned for him.

  Villainous sneer in place, I held up one dramatic finger. 'Let us have a bit of fun with him first! So his death can be a lesson to his whole wretched community. Let them know their place is there, with the dirt below our feet. Let us tie him to the bumper of my jeep and drag him around till he dies!'

  'Drag him till he dies!' shouted Nulwallah, finding the thread again.

  A roar of approval went up from the crowd. I quickly slid into the driving seat and commanded the muscular dudes: 'Tie him! Hard!'

  'Hard! Hard!' shouted Nulwallah, capering around madly.

  The crowd dragged the boy, who'd regained enough consciousness to buck and curse and struggle, and lashed him with ropes to the back of the Sumo.

  The cleftie, maybe suspecting something, made to climb into the front seat beside me, but Nulwallah was too quick for him. He leapt in, I quickly put the Sumo into gear and pressed the accelerator hard, spinning dirt into the eyes of the crowd.

  Then, with a mighty bloodcurdling yell, I drove the Sumo the hell out of there.
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  ***

  Thankfully, it was a dirt track, not a cemented road. I didn't dare stop too soon, in case they caught up with me. I went up the dusty track about two hundred metres, and then, fervently praying I hadn't killed the guy, I flipped off the headlights, and scrambled out, leaving the engine running, feeling about frantically for the ropes that bound him to the bumper.

  'Is he dead?' asked Nulwallah in panic.

  'Bhaisaab!' I whispered urgently. The rope felt long. Thank god. He could get into the back of the jeep without my having to untie the rope. 'Hello, bhaisaab! I can't put on the lights, or they'll see us! Are you okay? Can you walk?'

  The boy gave a low, unearthly groan that froze my blood solid. He's going to die, I thought in blind panic. I've killed him, oh god, and there were about fifty witnesses! I'm going to go to prison for life!

  Then I heard shouts and running footsteps coming down the dark path. Torch flames flickered. Someone shouted. And hang on, were those gun shots?

  'Nauzer, you fuck, come here and help me haul him in!' I shrieked.

  'No way,' he replied, his voice suddenly very calm. 'I'm getting some great pics here on the long lens. Of the whole, fucking, unbelievable crowd.'

  Cursing, I shook the motionless, prone figure hard and said urgently, 'Listen, loverboy, if you don't want the crowd to hang you tonight, find the strength to haul your ass into the back seat now. Understand?'

  As I watched tensely, my stomach balled up into a hard little knot, the boy moved and reached out with one hand. Almost weeping with relief, I gave him a shove, so that he managed to clamber into the back seat and collapse into it, moaning softly.

  'Well done!' I said as encouragingly as I could, and ran back to the driver's seat.

  As I switched on the headlights and the Sumo jumped ahead, the crowd, close behind us now, set up a loud, angry yell of thwarted bloodlust.

  'I've got ALL your faces on camera!' Nulwallah yelled out in broken Pavit Pradeshi as we sped away. 'So keep your mouths SHUT, okay?'

  'Oh, good thinking, Nauzer! Now they'll chase us till the day we die,' I muttered as I drove as fast as I could, praying fervently that I would remember the way back, when a small head reared up from under my legs and regarded me with reproachful hazel eyes. 'You spoilt all the fun!'