by Ranjit Lal
‘So how was breakfast with Megha and your friend – what’s his name – Gaurav?’ Vijaya asked Shroom about a fortnight after she had started her morning-walk routine with Gaurav.
‘His name is Taklu,’ Shroom corrected her. ‘Breakfast was fine! Megha aunty made delicious bhurji today. I had two helpings. Nani, am I getting fat?’ She looked at herself critically.
‘Well, maybe you have put on a little weight, but only a bit of what you’d lost. So no, you’re not fat.’
‘Special agents can’t be fat, you know. They’ll lose their jobs if they’re fat.’
‘Whose turn is it to come today? Miss Monica’s or Miss Raveena’s?’
‘Miss Raveena.’
‘Then, you’d better go up and tidy your room. It’s quite a mess as usual.’
‘But nani, I know where everything is in my head.’
The phone suddenly rang and they both jumped; the phone did not usually ring at the house in the morning, or at any time for that matter. Vijaya answered it.
‘Yes?’ She frowned. ‘Okay, I’ll hold. Hello… how are you? Yes, everything’s fine here. Rukmini is doing very well… You won’t believe how well she’s looking, touch wood. What? Oh, she’ll be so excited. Yes, she’s here…’
Shroom’s eyes were nearly popping out – she’d guessed who was on the line and was hopping about from one leg to another.
‘Bade-mama,’ Vijaya told her in a laconic tone. ‘Apparently you sent him a communiqué marked For Your Eyes Only…’
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Special Agent Shroom?’
‘Roger, copy that. And you are Bravo, Alpha…’
‘Roger. I received your communiqué, Agent.’
‘Okay.’
‘I have told your grandmother that I shall be visiting soon. I have to discuss and settle this matter personally with you.’
‘Oh!’ she squeaked, nearly dropping the receiver.
‘My backup team will inform her of my schedule as soon as we firm it up.’
‘Right.’
‘Is there anything you want from Delhi?’
‘No… no, thank you.’
‘Roger, copy cat.’
‘Bade-mama! It’s not copy cat – it’s copy that!’
‘Sorry. Now give the phone to your nani.’
Vijaya spoke briefly and then put down the receiver. It was such a mixed blessing when he came. While it was always nice to see her brother and it was good for Rukmini too, her whole life and house – and the village – would be turned upside down for several days. His teams would descend like an invading army and simply take over, while she would watch disapprovingly and wonder if it really had to be like this.
‘Nani,’ Shroom interrupted her thoughts. ‘I have to go to Shroom’s Perch in the afternoon. I have an important assignment.’
‘Why don’t you call, err, Taklu here?’
Vijaya had never approved of Shroom’s trips to that precarious ridge. One of the symptoms of her illness had been her lack of balance and a tendency to trip. She had started falling down regularly, something that had virtually never happened since she had learnt to walk. But recently Rukmini had responded to her objections in her typical way.
‘Look,’ she had said, drawing a line in chalk across the floor. ‘I can walk on this perfectly, like on a tightrope.’ And to Vijaya’s astonishment, she had done so again and again. ‘I’m absolutely fine now, nani.’ She had then drawn a zigzag line and followed that without putting a foot wrong even once. ‘See? I can even do handstands on them. Shall I show you?’
At first Savita and Gudiya had hovered close on either side of her, much to her annoyance. But they soon realized that, if anything, it was safer to let the little girl be. She seemed to know exactly where to put her feet when, for example, she crossed the stream over the boulders. Even her serious illness had not been able to wipe out her natural instincts and exceptional sense of balance. She stuck her tongue out, frowned in concentration and hopped across the most difficult terrain with the timing and confidence of a champion gymnast.
And yet, Vijaya was afraid: all it took was one fall, one tiny spark of the symptom at the wrong moment… It was a fear she had to live with. After all, it could just as well happen at home.
‘It’s no fun here. From there we can see the whole kingdom,’ Shroom said. And also wait for the absconding leopard.
The front door – always ajar – creaked open and Raveena was ushered in by one of the guards.
‘Good morning, ma’am.’
Vijaya smiled and nodded at her.
‘Hi, Shroom, good morning!’
‘Good morning, Miss Raveena.’
‘Shall we go upstairs and resume our battle with decoding fractions and decimals?’
‘If you insist.’
At Nandadevi Gram Pathshala, too, lessons were well under way. Simultaneously teaching children from ages five to sixteen was quite a challenge; you had to be constantly changing gear. But both Monica and Raveena enjoyed the company of the kids, who were eager to learn and refreshingly simple and direct in their approach. They were now scattered around the large single classroom that made up the whole school, on the floor or sprawled over tables, making charts of the flora and fauna of their villages and surroundings, while Monica sat at her table and flipped through a stack of grubby notebooks. A shadow fell across the doorway and she looked up as the buzz in the class suddenly hushed.
‘Hello, madam.’ Anantram stood in the doorway hesitantly, his Bugs Bunny teeth sticking out of a slightly paan-stained mouth. He was wearing an oversize pale-blue shirt and black trousers with sandals. ‘I hope I am not disturbing you?’
‘No, come on in.’ Monica smiled and stood up. Forty eager faces followed the newcomer. ‘Children, this is Shri Anantram.’
They stood up and greeted him in chorus.
‘Well, I’ve brought some recordings and pictures of the local birds,’ he said, opening up his canvas satchel and taking out a CD.
‘Oh, yes, thanks.’ Monica took the CD. ‘I don’t have the laptop here at the moment. I’ll bring it tomorrow, and we can have a slide show.’ She smiled at him. ‘How are the recordings of the owls coming along?’
‘Owls?’ he repeated, blankly. ‘Which owls?’ Monica stared at him, surprised. Then his face cleared. ‘Oh yes, the great horned owls…’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing much; the eggs haven’t hatched yet.’
‘Oh…’
‘Actually, it’s better not to go there at all – the birds might get disturbed and abandon their nest.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, let’s hope the eggs hatch.’ She glanced at the CD. ‘Umm, are the birds identified? We don’t know very much about them.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, we’ve mentioned the Hindi and English names. Some of the children might know their local names too.’
‘Miss, can we see the slide show now?’
It was Divya, looking up at her eagerly, surrounded by the others, who were nodding in agreement. ‘Yes, just now, please, miss! Not tomorrow!’
‘I haven’t brought the laptop today,’ Monica countered laughingly.
‘No problem; we’ll get it. Jai, you go to the rest-house and get it,’ Divya ordered.
It would take about fifteen minutes to fetch the laptop. Monica looked at Anantram. ‘Do you have some time? I can bring the laptop and you can tell us about the birds…’
He looked slightly taken aback and then nodded. ‘Okay, I am not doing anything much,’ he admitted, staring at her. ‘Dr Sham has gone to Anandpur to get supplies.’
‘Okay, children, I’ll get the laptop. Divya, you take charge here.’ Anantram was nervously twisting his hands together. ‘Would you like to come along?’ Monica smiled at him. He nodded, seeming relieved at not being left alone with the students.
They climbed up to the house. From time to time Monica flicked a glance behind her. Anantram was following her closely and once, when their eyes met, he smiled in his boyish buck-toothed wa
y. ‘How long have you been involved in this research?’ she asked.
‘Many years. We want to record bird species from all the different regions of the country.’
‘That’s quite a project. Who pays for it?’
‘Oh funding comes from various places…’
They had reached the house. ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ she asked.
‘Okay,’ he shrugged, and followed her into the kitchen.
‘Here.’ She smiled as she handed him the glass. In the gloom of the little kitchen, all she could see were the whites of his eyes, which were fixed on her, and his four front teeth.
He took the glass and drank. And then, on an impulse, she repeated something she had heard from Shroom: ‘Did you know there’s a legend here, that if you drink water from the stream at the waterfall you will fall in love?’ Monica didn’t realize she had put her foot in her mouth.
Anantram had reached around her to place the glass inside the sink, and really, Monica would think later, she only had herself to blame for what happened next.
‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely as he turned, suddenly snaking his arms around her and planting his mouth on hers, smelling of sweet paan and supari. He drew back after a moment, staring at her wide-eyed, and then tried to kiss her again.
‘Please… no!’ Monica protested, trying to push him away. ‘The children will be waiting…’
To her relief, Anantram sprang back, his hand in front of his mouth. ‘Sorry… sorry, if I… You are so beautiful…’ He was breathing in shallow gasps.
‘Come on,’ she said, exhaling. ‘Let’s get the laptop and go back down.’
They returned in silence.
Throughout the slide show, Anantram appeared distracted – he stuttered and hammed his way through the questions that were shot out by the kids. There even seemed to be errors in the labelling and identification. The children, who recognized the calls of several of the birds, corrected him thrice and mimicked the right calls.
‘I’ll take the CD back and make the corrections,’ he said at the end of the presentation. ‘I’ll bring it back tomorrow.’
Monica saw him off at the school gate. ‘Please,’ he said in a low voice, ‘don’t complain to Dr Sham. He’ll be very angry and will take me off the project. I’m sorry if I did something wrong…’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t – but it must never happen again.’
He seemed quite scared, and nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you, thank you – and forgive me.’
As she walked back to the school, Monica wondered if there was anything to forgive. She couldn’t really decide whether or not she liked him. No, he was not cute, but he was a simple guy with a quiet intensity. Today, though, something about him had made her uncomfortable.
It was a brilliantly sunny day, apt for the leopard to make an appearance. Shroom was sitting at the edge of her perch that afternoon, with her legs dangling, and looking back every few seconds. Taklu hadn’t shown up yet, and she was bursting to give him some news. She pulled him up when he finally arrived.
‘Special Agent Taklu, you are eleven-and-a-half minutes late! I hope you have a good reason.’
‘I had to babysit Mihi.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then. Sit down. I have some very important news – for your ears only.’
‘Okay, what is it?’
She glanced back at Savita and Gudiya. ‘I think we should check this place for bugs first,’ she suggested.
They looked around, scratched at some moss and lichen growing on the rocks, and pulled out some ferns from the crevices.
‘No bugs,’ Gaurav confirmed. ‘It’s safe to talk.’
Shroom put her mouth to his ear and whispered: ‘Bade-mama is going to come here sometime soon!’
Gaurav’s eyes widened. This was the last thing he had expected to hear.
‘Yes,’ Shroom said, nodding. ‘He’s coming.’ But at the moment she would not tell him why. Not until the matter had been sorted out completely. What a surprise it would be for him! ‘I can’t tell you any more!’ she added. ‘His SPG people will eliminate me if I do; just as your boss will kill you if you tell me who you’re here to kill. You understand?’
‘Yes… When is he coming?’
‘No one knows; he’ll just come. Look out for helicopters. I’ll send you a signal when he arrives. From tonight, be on watch for my signal every night at 2000 hours – that’s when I’m supposed to go to bed.’
‘I suppose his security people will be swarming all over the place?’ Disrupting everyone else’s lives, he thought bitterly, like they always did… shooting people’s dogs.
She nodded. ‘But don’t worry, we can still meet here. They won’t come here – they never come here. They stay around the house and the path;. they jump out at people from the bushes and behind trees, and stop them.’
‘Oh…’
‘The upper track is free,’ she went on. ‘They don’t go there at all; they just look up at it through their binoculars from the lower path. You can reach here by taking that path and no one will see you if you duck below the level of the rocks.’
‘How do you know all this?’
Shroom smirked. ‘I am a special agent, aren’t I? It is my job to know these things. But you must be careful! One guy guards the approach to the upper path from near the rest-house.’ She nodded confidently. ‘I’ve worked it all out. If you have to come here unseen from Megha aunty’s place, you will have to climb up from the lower track to the higher one, practically from the estate itself. You can’t take the path we normally do, because even that is guarded. But it shouldn’t be difficult.’ She waved her hand airily. ‘I used to climb up from wherever I wanted to before… Now they don’t allow me.’
Gaurav stared at Shroom, amazed. You had to hand it to her. She’d figured it all out, with an attention to detail way beyond her twelve years. ‘Thank you, Agent,’ he said, ‘that was an excellent briefing.’
She glowed with pleasure and looked down almost into her lap but couldn’t hide her ears, which were bright pink. ‘Now let’s hope that stupid leopard comes,’ she said. ‘I’m getting tired of waiting for him like he’s some maharaja…’
‘Monica, are you all right? You’ve been quiet all afternoon.’ Raveena glanced at her sister as they sat shelling peas and cleaning mushrooms in the verandah. They were having peas, baby potatoes, fresh corn, mushrooms and carrots tonight, with a rich meaty soup and rice that Ram-babu had already prepared.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Monica said quietly.
‘How was school?’
‘Great.’
‘Hmm…’
‘How was Shroom today?’
‘As hush-hush as ever. She’s very excited about something but, of course, it’s top secret… Mona, are you sure you’re okay? You look like something’s bothering you.’
‘Anantram tried to kiss me.’
‘What!’
‘I brought him here to help me fetch the laptop, and in the kitchen he just grabbed me and kissed me.’
‘My god! Was he being violent? Did he force…?’
‘Not exactly – I think it was just a spur – of-the-moment sort of thing… He kind of lost it for a bit.’
‘Were you scared? Did you scream?’
‘I did get a fright, but I wasn’t scared as such, you know…’
Raveena was horrified. ‘You… didn’t kiss him back, did you?’
‘No. But I think I led him on. Like a fool I mentioned the stream water and falling in love and all that.’
‘Are you?’
‘What?’
‘Falling in love?’
‘No. There’s something… I can’t put my finger on it, but his eyes… there’s no expression in them, and…’
‘What?’
‘Well he was a complete mess after that. Very contrite and apologetic, begged me not to mention the episode to Dr Sham – said he’d lose his job. And he made a complete hash of the presentation.’ She frowned. ‘But I don’
t get it. I asked him about the owls and he was blank. There were several errors in the slide show, which the kids pointed out. Come on, Rave, they’re meant to be researching birds; they should know them inside out.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘That maybe they’re not who they claim to be. Maybe they’re undercover agents or secret service or SPG or whatever – how Shroom would love this – keeping an eye on Vijaya and Shroom without their knowledge. Maybe there’s a threat to Shroom and Vijaya, which is why they’re here, posing as researchers. They have all that fancy eavesdropping equipment and cameras too.’
‘Hey, maybe you’re right. I met Gaurav again today and he told me he’d been in that cave we saw them go into that night, and there was nothing inside it. No owls, no mike, no camera.’
‘Oh, so you met Gaurav again, did you?’ Monica’s thin eyebrows arched momentarily. ‘But do you realize we’re beginning to think exactly like Shroom now? Everyone is a spy, or at least not who they claim to be. God, her secret agent mania is rubbing off on us. Forget it, maybe they’re just highly incompetent researchers who have managed to bag a giant grant.’
Raveena wagged a finger. ‘But I would seriously suggest you keep a healthy distance from Bugs Bunny…’
‘You know, something I saw in his eyes put me off today.’ Monica shuddered, thinking about the glowing whites of Anantram’s eyes in the dark kitchen. She shook her head vigorously and then smiled sweetly at Raveena. ‘Anyway, how was your date with Taklu?’
‘He’s getting better, I think. But he really needs to pick up the pieces and get on with his life. He keeps brooding over what happened.’
‘He’ll get over it soon. Don’t get worked up about it.’
Raveena sighed. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘He’s destroying himself. And he’s still upset about that girlfriend of his.’
‘You just said he was getting better…’
‘I know. It’s like, at times he’s so much better and then he just relapses. It’s almost as if he does it deliberately. He’ll forget for a bit and then suddenly remember and feel guilty that he allowed himself to forget. And then the venom is back with a vengeance, and he’ll draw something horrible or say something vile. He’s almost behaving schizo.’
