by Kota Neelima
‘Don’t talk about things you don’t know, Mira,’ he warned her, tersely. ‘What can you know about being a nobody? To be someone so small that you are almost invisible. That was until I made the first cut.’ He paused with satisfaction. ‘Then when it hurt them, they registered that I too existed in this world. That’s how I learnt my politics, on the streets and by winning prize fights!’
Mira heard him in silence, his words were beginning to hurt her now and, somehow, so were his wounds.
‘I struggle because I hate being owned, unlike other politicians! And I succeed because I’m unscrupulous!’ He surveyed her with conceit. ‘If that’s not good enough for you, it’s fine by me!’
Nalan picked up her bag from where it had fallen and strode back to his car. Furious, Mira stayed in the rain as his words echoed in her mind. Then her own words returned to question her. Wasn’t she against Nalan only because he was ranged against Sikander? Mira was undecided for a moment and observed the car that waited impatiently. Then she walked to it.
He drove them out of the lane in silence, his thoughts still simmering.
Mira glanced at him. ‘So once again, why were you here?’
‘To save you from the thugs I hired!’ he told her bitterly.
Mira waited and his anger melted as he thought of her.
‘I came round to your office earlier to meet you after work,’ he explained finally. ‘But you were about to drive away. So I followed and thought I’ll catch up when you got home. Instead, you drove up here.’
‘Then why didn’t you join me in the café?’ she wondered.
‘I thought you might have come to meet someone,’ he hesitated, ‘like a date or something. I didn’t want to get in the way. I was about to leave but had a few calls to return. That’s what I was doing in my car in the parking when I saw those men attack you.’
He didn’t ask but she still told him. ‘I wanted to be around people tonight,’ she confessed. ‘Didn’t want to go home yet, didn’t want to be alone.’
Nalan spoke after a moment. ‘Those are the worst mistakes, the ones we make to escape from ourselves.’
Mira was intrigued. She could detect his doubt and disbelief about his own feelings for her. But that didn’t explain his vehement restraint not to let her know his thoughts; his determination was almost as strong as her caution. He didn’t speak again throughout the drive and neither did she. When they reached her home, Nalan took her car keys and said his driver would bring it from the lane in the morning. Then he bid her a brief good night, forcing her to do the same, and drove away.
Fourteen
There was something about that Saturday morning that reminded Mira of Sikander. It was almost as if she missed the experience of watching him. The encounter the night before proved that she would have to make a choice very soon. She would have to either give him up or face the consequences for herself and her life. But before that, she had one last thing to do in that lane, she had to find the rest of the tapes. She had to ascertain if Sikander had the tapes with himself or he had a collaborator in this game. If he had the tapes, Sikander wouldn’t risk keeping them on his person, and so she had to search his room. Mira finished the apple for breakfast and anxiously observed the jeep on the street from her living room window. Fernandes had claimed that the PCB recorded her every move. There were just two watchers that day, and they were new men, as if to ensure that she couldn’t identify them from the attack last night. One of them went away to get a coffee, and the other man in a crisp blue shirt stayed behind the wheel. It was just 7.30 a.m. and far too early to go to office, but she had no choice. The jeep followed her closely all the way, she could even see the dark, cold eyes of the driver. At the office, the unprepared guard unlocked the newsroom and remarked worriedly that she had arrived one hour earlier than the day before. Mira explained that she would work in her cabin and requested that the cleaning crew not disturb her. When he was gone, Mira took the stairs to the basement and left the building through a side exit that opened into a narrow lane. The air was still thick with the residue of rain and a ten-minute walk got her to the nearest metro station.
Sikander seemed to have already left for work by the time she reached the lane, and the single window of his room was shut. From her balcony, Mira scrutinised the door; it looked so much like her room door that she wondered if it had the same kind of lock. It wouldn’t be surprising, considering the same landlord owned both the buildings and might have used the same locks. She waited for the courage to check and then, finally at 11 a.m., walked across the lane to Sikander’s house. It felt the entire world watched her in silence, and at any moment, would point to her and start screaming thief! The sky was gloomy, the light was subdued, and she hoped she merged well in her grey khadi shirt and black trousers. It might all end up as a joke, she told herself just to stop her hands from trembling as she took out her room key and fixed it in the lock. The key might not even fit, she chuckled nervously. This was a stupid idea and she would be back in her balcony in no time. There was a click as she turned the key, and Mira held her breath, shocked. The door to Sikander’s room was open.
Glancing hurriedly around the lane, she quickly stepped into the incomplete darkness and shut the door. Recalling Sikander reach for the light on the right side, she found the switch for a bulb hanging in the middle of the room. It was like any low-rent room with a single electrical point and no water. The walls were mouldy, the floor was cracked, the wood rotted and the taps were unused; there was a bucket of stored water in the corner. And yet, the room was neat; a few clothes were folded on a broken shelf, the table was set, and the bed was made.
Mira couldn’t help recall Sikander’s other home, the one where birds sang for him. It had also been neat, as if he was far too arrogant for such insignificant indiscipline. A travel bag in the corner was empty, and the backpack in the chair held just a pen, a notepad and a dozen brown envelopes for posting the tapes to her. But where did he keep the recordings? She desperately looked around. Even though she was sure Sikander would return only in the evening, she felt being chased and out of time.
Driven by panic, Mira once again rapidly assessed the room for chinks in its correctness, but found nothing. She took a moment to think; everyone needed things that reminded them who they really were. Not expensive acquisitions or prestigious trophies, but ordinary things that were available easily and possessed the power to orient life. Like, for instance, a brand of toothpaste, a kind of pen or a type of shirt—things that are portable identity of a person. And unlike the grand landmarks of life, these didn’t have to be chased, protected or sacrificed for. Sikander had found such a thing in her home—the picture on her wall. It was nothing special, just one of the many common prints. Perhaps even her uncle hadn’t thought much of it when he gifted it to her. But it was now her Bhagavadgita.
Mira calmed her mind to be able to focus, and after a moment, returned to the backpack. It was old, and its green canvas was faded to almost grey. The buckles were dull and the zippers were overworked. Mira smiled; she had found Sikander’s portable identity. He would buy another one if this failed him, but there would always be a backpack in his life. She carefully went through it once again. It was empty except for the pen that was attached to the notepad, and the brown envelopes. She knew he wouldn’t carry the tapes on his person; that would be too risky. Besides, he would leave the tapes for her to find, just as he had left the address. That was his contingency plan. Mira thoughtfully turned the empty pages of the notepad and examined the pen again. It was just an ordinary white pen made of plastic with a cap. She unscrewed the cap and discovered it was a normal ball point that wrote blue. Disappointed, she reached for the cap to cover the pen again, and then froze. Hidden inside the cap was a slim memory chip, lodged perfectly at the very back. It shone dully in the light of the bulb, and could be shaken lose with a few taps. Mira was still, as she held the cap in the palm of her hand. These were the rest of the tapes, she told herself, invaluable eviden
ce of wrongdoings behind the closed doors of Parliament that had already plunged the political world into turmoil. Who knew what these new tapes contained? Or how it would all end? The fate of political leaders, the government and even the coming elections depended on these tapes.
Mira felt a surge of determination run through her, as she considered walking out of that dingy room with the tapes. She closed her fist over the cap; she could control the tapes herself, and write about them. She could prove wrong the allegations of collusion against her. Her fist tightened over the cap; these tapes would be free of Sikander’s political motives. They would just be the truth, just a good story. Mira paused and tensely weighed the consequences. If it were known she had the tapes, her life would be in danger. She recalled the thoughts of the assailant from the night before; they would stop at nothing to get the tapes. As for writing about the tapes, she couldn’t even be sure that Munshi would publish them. She opened her fist worried and helplessly studied the cap. She wouldn’t be able to part with the tapes, protect them or publish them. It explained why Sikander lived in that seedy room in disguise and distanced himself even from his father. The cap felt heavy in her palm, heavy and hot, like a bullet. Making a decision, she returned the cap to the pen and clipped it to the notebook exactly as before. Then she replaced it in the same pocket of the backpack and kept it on the chair precisely as it was. Her sweaty fingers slipped as she locked the door and hurried back to her balcony. There she waited for Sikander to return and to see if he would find out that someone had been in his room.
Sikander was home at his usual time and Mira watched tensely as he entered the house. What would he do if he discovered that someone had gone through his things? After some time, he opened the window as he always did and had his dinner alone at the table. Then he settled for the night, switched off the lights and merged his room with the rest of the dark lane. Relieved, Mira slumped back on the floor of the balcony, exhausted. She would never ever do that again, Mira resolved, she simply didn’t have the nerve to break into people’s homes.
Not wanting to take further chances with her luck that evening, Mira headed directly home from office. The watchers, who had waited the entire day in the parking lot with her car, restively followed her now. To her surprise, the vigilance was scaled down the next day, a Sunday. There was just one watcher, a new man, and even he sauntered away often. She wasn’t even followed as she went shopping for groceries and collected the dry cleaning. They seemed to be losing interest in her; she seemed to have tired them out. It made her wonder if she could see Sikander once more, observe him in yet one more situation. Then it got too tempting to resist when she found the watcher sound asleep early the following morning. Taking the precaution to leave her cell phone at home, she slipped out of her house unnoticed in the pre-dawn darkness.
Mira reached the lane just as the sun rose above the sleepy outline of houses in the lane. It was a shining, outdoor kind of day; the rain clouds were in their corner, as if waiting for the umpire’s whistle. Sikander followed his Monday morning routine; he went to the corner shack for a cup of tea and read the newspapers sitting outside on the wooden benches next to the road. Then he returned to his room and got ready for the day. He appeared different in the mornings, she noticed; he had a resolved, rested look about him. Mira edged forward from her post at the back of the balcony and watched him as he locked the house. He walked to the mall in his typical, unhurried way, observing every little detail of what happened around him. He seemed interested in everything — the road, the people-as if he had a great big space within him, which he wanted to fill with new experiences. Mira wondered as she watched him from across the road if that’s what helped him merge into the background. One couldn’t describe him, except to say that he was ordinary. The sidewalk was filled with ordinary people, young men from distant places, who were slowly losing themselves to the city. They all walked to their places of work from neighbouring settlements to do jobs that didn’t pay them enough, that didn’t demand training, talent, mind, heart, soul, and that just required them to be alive. He would have never been found if she had not looked for him, Mira realized as he entered the guarded gates of the mall. Sikander didn’t have to go far to disappear, he just had to merge in the dust under the feet of Delhi.
That evening, Mira was already at the tea stall for dinner when Sikander walked in. She had chosen her table carefully. It was at the front, and she sat with her back to the rest of the room. Her face, now covered with a dull brown scarf, was in the shadows. The only vacant table was in the corner, which she expected Sikander to take. But people at the next table invited him, and he joined them. They were his colleagues from the mall and seemed to have known Sikander from before.
‘Nice to see you settling down, Gopi. Do you like this job better than the last one?’ one of them asked, his voice was soft and barely audible.
‘Yes,’ Sikander chuckled. ‘But it lacks the excitement of counting rotten cabbages at the day’s end in a grocery store.’
‘If you ask me, you were a fool to have left that job,’ said the other man, his voice heavy. ‘You got free groceries, man! What else do you need in life if the food is free?’
‘Food is never free,’ Sikander remarked. ‘You always pay for it, one way or the other.’
The soft voice agreed. ‘It’s well known that the grocer leaves only spoilt supplies for his workers. You probably can’t even eat the cabbages.’
‘Well, you definitely can’t eat the books,’ the heavy voice countered.
‘I am glad you think so, Ramesh,’ Sikander sounded relieved. ‘Now I can let you into the bookshop.’
‘That’s why you are alone, Gopi, you fool!’ Ramesh retaliated. ‘Forget the books and find yourself a woman.’
The soft voice was intrigued. ‘Never asked you before, but are you married, Gopi? Do you have a family somewhere?’
‘No Manoj,’ Sikander was patient. ‘I am not married. And how exactly did the conversation go from rotten cabbages to my life?’
‘But there must be someone you care for,’ Manoj pursued delicately. ‘There always is, even if she doesn’t know and even if she will never belong to you.’
‘No, no, there is really no one.’
‘Ah! You are lying,’ Ramesh smacked the table loudly. ‘I know that look, my friend. You are in love.’
‘What nonsense!’ Sikander dismissed him. ‘I don’t have time for love.’
‘Why not?’ Ramesh was offended. ‘You are young. You might even look good, but I can’t tell unless you clean up. You have a job, but for how long one doesn’t know. You have a house, for which the rent is due for only a month. I mean, you are practically irresistible!’ Ramesh declared. ‘But if you want to lie to us because we are not important enough,’ he paused theatrically, ‘that’s a different matter!’
‘This is extortion,’ Sikander laughed. ‘I will have to imagine a woman for you now, is it?’
‘Go ahead,’ Ramesh urged. ‘Imagination is the better part of love.’
‘That’s actually good, you moron.’
‘I know things you don’t, brother. I have been married twice.’
‘Tell us, Gopi,’ Manoj prompted politely. ‘Tell us about someone you admire. It will take our minds off our lives and its difficulties.’
‘And this chicken curry!’
‘All right,’ Sikander sighed. ‘I guess I’ll have to make up a little story to help you plod through dinner. I have never done this before, so you are both the first to know of my dream.’
‘Start talking,’ Ramesh instructed.
Sikander took a minute to organize his thoughts. ‘Everything about the girl of my dreams would be not just perfect, but also interesting,’ Sikander began. ‘She will be intelligent, attractive and passionate about some profession or the other, I don’t really care.’ Then his voice softened. ‘But there will be something special about her. She will have this unique gift, the gift to know people’s thoughts by just listening to the
m speak.’
Someone at the next table choked while eating and they turned to check, but the woman had her back turned to them.
They waited for her to stop coughing. Then Ramesh said to Sikander, ‘Now, who in his right mind would imagine something like that?’ He protested. ‘God forbid women were to know my thoughts!’
‘That’s not all,’ Sikander told him. ‘She will also be able to predict what you will do next.’
‘Come on. That’s hardly a gift! What, for instance, will any man do after dinner? Pick up a quarrel with the neighbour he doesn’t like over something he doesn’t want.’
‘You are an animal, Ramesh,’ Sikander informed him. ‘Anyway, just try and imagine a woman who can feel your thoughts. Someone who will never misunderstand you and always trust you, because she knows you.’
‘You are right,’ Ramesh concluded gravely. ‘This woman can only exist in your imagination.’
‘And so,’ Sikander continued, ‘it would be natural that such a woman would be desired by other men. They would want her to be part of their life and their story. And she should have the choice, I would never take it away from her.’
‘Forget about choice!’ Ramesh was restless. ‘Say some sweet things to her, gift her a few trinkets and get married, my boy, before someone else does.’
‘No Ramesh,’ Sikander reasoned soberly. ‘A woman like that would be difficult to win over. That’s part of her charm. Other men would have tried before, and she knows how to say no.’
‘She sounds too stuffy, man!’ Ramesh was troubled. ‘Is there no one else, someone easy?’
‘In my imagination,’ Sikander clarified, ‘it’s just her.’
‘Then damn your imagination!’ Ramesh recommended. ‘Can’t you imagine someone simpler?’
‘Haven’t tried.’
