by Anil Menon
What’s the difference, I asked. Why are people who regain their belief dangerous?
Reasons, says Vyas. People who regain their belief in something usually have reasons for it. They have stories actually, but they call these stories reasons. These reasons can make them dangerous because reasons must always be defended. I felt we weren’t discussing Bilkis or her beliefs or Lichtenberg. I felt we were discussing us. And I was right, because he says quietly, Chakli, I’ve never lost faith in love.
Something in me snapped. He put his faith in love? Why, had I died? I put on my most neutral Likert expression: sir, do you strongly disagree, disagree, neither disagree nor agree, agree, or strongly agree that you’re a chutiya?
I let him have it. What’s all this crap about Bilkis being a future terrorist? Today you’re suspicious of her, what if tomorrow it’s me? Is there anyone you trust, no holds barred? What do you believe in, Vyas? Have you become dangerous? Is that why you won’t talk about your job? Or is it because you’re trying to protect me from your sins? Will I get a call some day, find out that you’ve been killed and then be forced to accept that the world’s a better place for it? If I died tomorrow would it make any difference in your love for me? Or would you be just a teensy-weensy bit relieved that you don’t have to deal with the real me anymore? I know you love me and would do anything for me, but does that help you justify doing things that you normally wouldn’t. If you have to think such thoughts about Bilkis to protect the country, then who protects the country from your thoughts? Why can’t we be like other couples?
I was in full Durga mode. I didn’t have a trishul, but I had a fork in my hand. (Laughs.)
(Tanaz takes another call. She retreats to a corner of the store. The call takes a full ten minutes before she returns.)
It was Shabari, who else? More software issues. She edited the makefile and now it won’t compile properly. All she had to do was check out the prior version from ClearCase. Who told her to go around editing makefiles?
Programming is about taking a situation and removing all uncertainty from it. Everything is step by step. You can go terribly wrong but at least there’s no uncertainty in what you’re doing at each step. Life isn’t like that. More and more it seems to me now that life is just the opposite. I had just taken a huge step. I had no idea whether I still had a husband or not. Or whether I wanted one anymore.
It was a bright golden morning, blazing with light, as if the sun had dropped his shield and unsheathed his sword. Vyas was sitting facing the window, his face turned towards the sun, and it appeared as though he were on fire. I waited. I was willing to wait as long it took. I could lose all. I was willing to lose everything.
Then Vyas turned to me and said: Chakli, this is the best gift you’ve ever given me, to our relationship. His eyes were sparkling with tears. Tears! Salt water from stone! In all my time with him, I’d never seen him get this emotional. I wanted to rush over, hug him, return things to being fake normal. But no. I waited.
He said he’d written a long letter in Odissa about the very questions I’d raised. Typewritten, of course. The letter had been misplaced, so he had re-typed it. Before I made up my mind about anything, would I first read the letter?
At first I was going to say, no, I don’t want to read any chutiya letter. If you can’t explain face to face, then we really have nothing to talk about. Then I saw his eager, hopeful expression and I felt something I’d never felt before for Vyas: pity. It’s true, isn’t it, that our greatest gifts are also our greatest weaknesses? This is who he is. Superman uses his X-ray vision when he’s in trouble. Batman uses his bat-brains. Thor takes out his stupid hammer. My husband reaches for a pen. It’s no use wondering, why didn’t he just reach for me? If I’d wanted ordinary, I could have picked any monkey. I’d picked Vyas, so why was I now looking for ordinary behaviour?
I told him I would read the letter. It made him very happy.
(Tanaz gets a call. The conversation is charged, but brief. Customers turn to stare.)
Oh God, what do I do with Shabari? I’ll have to go in. The admins set up her account without the right permissions, and she says she can’t make fresh installs. I’m sure Rajiv set her up correctly. Yesterday she was all in a panic because she thought she’d erased a disk partition. It was just an unrefreshed screen. She wants me to take over, do her job, but I won’t. She’ll learn, even if it kills her, damn it. I don’t want to be a bitch but I need to meet my deadlines. Managing people is much harder than I thought it would be. I don’t know if I’m any good at it. It’s tough to delegate. I see now what Surpriya-ji meant when she said ‘manage’ was an adjective, not a verb. My job is to help others do their job better.
Surpriya-ji is leaving; she sent out the announcement a week ago. I’m going to really miss her. She’s a wonderful boss. I wish she’d given me more gyaan about managing people. My team’s not going to wait till I get my MBA degree from IIM.
I wonder who will take Supriya-ji’s place? Not me, for sure. Why would they promote me? I mean, I could do her job, it’s not that— hmm, who knows, there’s no harm in asking Supriya-ji if I even have a shot. I should take my own advice and just ask her.
I have to leave for Hapur. The cappuccino and the letter will have to wait. In a way, I’m glad. This bookstore has made me even more restless. I’m surrounded by the stories of people with interesting lives. But what have I done with my life? I’m tired of being a voyeur. I must make some changes. My memoir should also be worth reading.
#
I was dreaming of being in the middle of a quarrel with Tanaz when the cellphone rang, and its ringing must have been incorporated into my dream, because Tanaz cried: stop using the Cloud!
It was only then I became aware of the cell’s ring. I didn’t know or care whether it was the ringing of an actual cellphone or a dream sound generated by the dream cell. But I am quite sure that I’d been unaware of any ringing before Tanaz’s irritated shout.
But how had the dream-Tanaz known of the cell’s ring? I’d awoken with the aftertaste of an intense quarrel, though I’d already forgotten what we’d been quarrelling about. Certainly, it wasn’t about using ‘the Cloud’. I’d already cracked that part of the dream. Tanaz—the actual Tanaz—had moved from gentle hinting to outright demand that I replace my trusty Godrej Prima typewriter with a laptop and scan all my existing hardcopy material into ‘the Cloud’. The dream-Tanaz had been merely mouthing my resistance to the idea. Classic Freudian transference. Trivial.
I was puzzled about a deeper problem. If ‘I’ hadn’t known about a ringing cellphone, then dream-Tanaz also couldn’t have known, because she is in my head after all. I can think of only one explanation. My dream-Tanaz, in the curiously permeable fiction-world of dreams, must have been temporarily interrupted by a part of my mind that has no need of either sleep or dreams. This sleepless fellow must have saved my skin through many centuries of evolution. This chap had heard the ringing, just as it once had heard the coughs of jaguars or the demented laugh of hyenas, and alerted the most responsible self it could locate in my dreaming head, namely, Tanaz.
‘Curiously permeable fiction-world of dreams.’ The phrase hid more than it explained. What happened while my dream-Tanaz was being informed of the call? Did the dream-Vyas, the dream-quarrel, and the dream-scene—did it all just freeze as if someone had hit the pause button? Indeed, this story-making business in our heads makes no sense whatsoever. We can’t tickle ourselves, so how can we tell stories to ourselves? How can we be surprised by our dreams? Yet I have often woken Tanaz with my dream-laughter. How can I entertain myself with stories each night, when I cannot do so during the day?
It must be that either dreams aren’t like fictions or this sense of an ‘I’ is fiction.
And just like that, I remember what my quarrel with my dream-Tanaz had been about. Her insistence that—how did she put it? ‘You have to choose between that bitch Shahzadi and me.’ Of course, dream-Tanaz said no such thing. I said thos
e words to myself, either believing or pretending I was someone else. Why on earth must we humans suffer these nightly bouts of insanity?
Then I wonder. In the Gothic catalogue of neurological disorders, there is a family of syndromes that have to do with misrecognition. In some cases, the sufferer cannot recognize their own faces. Other wretches mistake the people around them for extraterrestials. In one variety, the afflicted misrecognize their spouses for strangers. The memories of these poor souls are intact. It is their ability to recognize that is affected.
What if there’s a syndrome wherein we cannot recognize that there is nothing to recognize? Perhaps its Ayurvedic cure is the dream, that bittersweet spoonful of nightshade Mother Nature forces down our throats. If the ‘I’ is a fiction, and there is nothing for me to recognize, then the dream—a fiction seeking to remind us of this fact—could be a cure.
My dream-Vyas resembles the real-life Vyas. My dream-Tanaz resembles the real-life Tanaz. The resemblances are good enough. When these substitutes appear, I’m able to recognize them for who they claim to be. But soon ‘my’ representations of Tanaz and Vyas acquire personalities of their own, cease to be mere representations. They have their own relationship, one to which ‘I’ am merely a spectator. Perhaps not even that. I have lost control over their story. As I watch the dream-people quarrel, what I feel is bafflement that it is their love for each other that separates them. Look, Tanaz has two new worry lines on her forehead; my wife, my beloved wife, I cannot bear to see distress twisting her face so. Can’t the insensitive asshole see how much his wife loves him? All she wants is for him to be present, gift a little more of himself. My hands and legs struggle to protest, to interfere; I must do something. I cannot be a mere voyeur, I must alert him, yes. And Tanaz shouts: stop using the Cloud!
I sat up, fumbled for my cell. It’s a little past midnight.
‘Yes?’
‘Mister Vyas? Is this Mister Vyas, CID?’
It’s a child’s voice. I recognized the voice but couldn’t recall the speaker. Only very few people had my personal number and I hadn’t given it to any children. ‘Yes, I’m Vyas. Who’s speaking?’
‘This is Sudhir speaking.’
‘Sudhir?’ Then I remembered. Of course. Shabari’s kid. I sat up. ‘What is the matter, Sudhir?’
‘Sudhir speaking. You told my mother to call you if she needed help. You gave her your business card. She needs help.’
‘Where is your mother?’
Silence.
‘Sudhir?’
‘I think she’s with Dodda Gowda. He forces her to go to the Dream Factory. He’s a bad man. He hurts my mother because she needs money because I’m sick always. She doesn’t want to go but he forces her. Please don’t hurt her.’
‘Why would I hurt her? I want to help.’
‘No one wants to help.’ He began to cry. ‘Please don’t hurt her.’
‘Sudhir—Sudhir, listen to me. Don’t cry. I promise I will help, okay? You did the right thing to call me. I’ll make sure she’s back home as soon as possible. Are you alone in the house? Who takes care of you when your mother’s not home?’
‘I do. I can manage. Please help my mother.’
‘I will. Now, it’s very late, so go to bed. I promise your mother won’t have to go out at night again.’
‘I feel feverish every time she goes.’
‘Then take rest, Sudhir. You’re a brave boy, aren’t you Sudhir? Look how you were smart enough to call me? Now close your eyes, go to sleep and by the time it’s morning, your mother will be home, okay?’
As soon as I was done, I called Rathod, told him to pick me up. He sounded relieved, like he badly needed to get out of the house.
He turned up in a Scorpio, the vehicle he always preferred to use when making arrests. I told him we were following a lead on Gowda, that there could be some resistance. Rathod didn’t care.
‘Sir-ji, to be perfectly frank, Gowda should be the one worried. A drink is all I care about now. Even if Yama himself stands in the way, I’ll take him down.’
He looked stressed. The night’s mantle softened Rathod’s brutal visage or perhaps it was his litany of parental woes. His eldest and only son, currently in Mount Mary’s ninth standard, was in the middle of exam week. Rathod had been helping him prepare for his history exam. Which was tomorrow. His kid was lazy. His kid forgot today what he’d learned yesterday. His kid didn’t like history. The kid had no interest in Tatya Tope.
‘Sir-ji, can you recommend some good children’s books with Indian history?’
‘Amar Chitra Katha?’
‘That is all real history, sir-ji. These days the kids need Harry Potter, Spiderman, vampires. Tatya Tope isn’t a vampire.’
‘Indian history with vampires. There’s an idea.’
The lack of good educational material that was also entertaining had to be a common parental complaint. Perhaps the Lokshakti’s Swantantra division could help.
We spent the rest of the journey in silence. There was no space for parking outside the Dream Factory, but there was space enough for illegal parking. Legality was where the Lokshakti was, so we not only found a spot to park the Scorpio but also made some new law while we were at it.
‘The chamelis here are all clean,’ confided Rathod as we walked in.
The Dream Factory stank of sweat, perfume and air-conditioning. It had been a huge bowling alley, then the space had been partitioned into a nest of interconnected rooms, and watching young old-people and old young-people crisscross from room to room my first impression of the place was that we had walked into an ant-heap. But I could hear the sounds of bowling pins getting knocked down; the Dream Factory hadn’t lost its soul.
Rathod stopped a waitress. ‘Where is the VIP Room?’
As we followed the waitress, Rathod shoved drunken college kids out of the way. It was a bit like following Moses through the Red Sea. The effort didn’t improve Moses’ humour. He hated to see college girls drinking and the dance club had many college girls who were doing just that.
The VIP Room, a sorry imitation of VIP rooms seen in porn videos, had been carved into a series of private booths. It wasn’t hard to locate Gowda.
Gowda made a half-hearted attempt to get up, but failed, because there was a woman sprawled over him, feeding him chicken wings. At first my stomach clutched: Saya! Then I recognized her as Shabari.
‘Dodda Gowda? I’m Vyas, Deputy Director-General of Cultural Affairs.’
Close up, it was obvious the good life had taken its toll on Gowda. The smiling face with the oil-smeared lips was that of a man wilfully unaware that he needed to hop on a gurney as soon as possible. He was corpulent in the Indian manner: a large belly attached to a relatively skinny frame. A pair of sleek sunglasses tossed carelessly on the sofa, expensive black threads, his enormous paunch gift-wrapped in a monogrammed red silk shirt, leather Italians, one splayed leg revealed a sock with a tassel—the ensemble suggested a form of sympathetic magic rather than a personal style. By dressing the way an Italian movie producer would dress, perhaps Gowda thought he could become one. It was a reasonable assumption. Didn’t I place much the same faith in my Nehru suit?
‘You’re under arrest, Dodda.’ I handed him the warrant.
People react in different ways to that piece of paper. Some seem to think the paper explains the arrest, whereas it actually only authorizes it. They read it with close attention, fingers trembling, their pupils fluttering as if in REM sleep. One can almost see the word-savvy neurons in their brains scrambling to drum up a comforting fiction for their frightened illiterate brethren. But most people set aside the piece of paper almost immediately. Some hold up their hands, as if expecting handcuffs; some collapse into their seats, their spines mirroring their internal surrender; some retreat to childhood, wailing for relatives, friends, even me. Then there are the innocent. They are the ones who look as if something fundamental has been altered, which indeed it has. They’ve forever lost full ownership over
their selves. One arrest in particular haunts me. At the very start of my career, I’d had to arrest an illiterate man who allegedly sold seditious figurines on railway platforms. The toy-seller had smiled through his blackened teeth, gestured to his rack of toy figures: my friend, if you recognize yourself, arrest me; otherwise, let me go.
‘See, bebby? Now I’m a criminal.’ Gowda handed the warrant to the woman, his tandoori-stained fingers leaving a bloody mark on the clean white sheet. As he wiped his fingers on an expensive-looking silk hanky, Shabari peered at the document anxiously. Gowda gestured for us to sit.
‘Call me Gowda. Please. Everyone does. No formalities. What will you gentlemen have? Hope I didn’t insult you by calling you gentlemen?’ A wheezy laugh. ‘Sit Vyas-ji, please sit. There’s no hurry, no? I’ve something to say, so let’s all relax. Had dinner? Some drinks maybe? Definitely a drink, the Volcanos are awesome here. Anything you want, just ask. Shabari, bebby, we have guests, be friendly.’
Shabari curled away in the manner expected of gangsters’ molls. Perhaps she too was perfecting a role. She wriggle-adjusted the upper edges of her bra-top romper, smoothed its skirt end, and crossed her legs in what she probably considered to be the height of style. I was surprised to see her calves were marked with little blemishes and old scars, possibly souvenirs from an active rural childhood. She met my inspection. Her jamun-black eyes, hard and spiteful, were of a woman at the end of her rope.
Shabari patted the empty seat beside her, gestured to Rathod coyly.
‘Today you’re shy? Come, sit here.’
Rathod glanced at me and at my nod, walked over and sat next to her. Placing a hand on his thigh, her hand disturbingly close to Rathod’s rather disturbing lump, she leaned to whisper something in his ear. Rathod permitted himself a smile.
