The Third Squad

by V. Sanjay Kumar

  He is a fat man, shaped like a dome, bald with a shiny pate, with small eyes that look at you without malice and a soft voice that makes you feel like he’s telling the truth and that you should trust him. Trust is dear to Tiwari and he conveys this repeatedly to each and every one of his khabaris, dwelling as well on the catastrophic consequences of any breach. In his own office, whether in front of colleagues or in the interrogation room, he is a changed person, a man playing a video game, the arena a fantasy world where he hunts quarry and on a good day information appears like a vision would. His diffidence disappears and he seems confident, daring, manipulative, and masterly—a throwback to Machiavelli and Marquis de Sade.

  Outside his office Tiwari reverted to who he once was, a different person, one who he wasn’t in love with. His favorite food was sweet, and his constant nightmare was having to converse in English. He was much more comfortable with the broken Hindi that Mumbai had invented, a form of expression that was efficient rather than poetic. In his run-ins with Ranvir, Tiwari suffered. In Ranvir’s presence he was slow with his thoughts and those that formed took time to find expression. Ranvir had a quick tongue with acidic lace. It was no contest.

  “You are a metaphor for what is wrong with this new Mumbai,” Ranvir said to him.

  “Metaphor?” What could that be? It sounded like a pill he had taken some days ago. He was getting riled but he didn’t know how to retaliate.

  “You are a tradesman in the wrong profession,” Ranvir continued. “A common shopkeeper in the police force.”

  It was no secret that Tiwari had a bazaar mentality, a faith in barter, and a conviction that what could not be purchased actually had no value.

  “Mr. Ranvir, everything has a conversion rate,” replied Tiwari finally. Perhaps a decent Tiwari quote but not his best. “Everybody has secrets, even you. One day my information might find you.”

  * * *

  Tiwari suffered from domestic depression. In his household the language was culinary and the principal medium was clarified butter. Milk rose in the morning and curds set in the evening. The cow, Gomaatha Gai, was the family deity. She occupied the kitchen and presided over Peth Puja. Tiwari grew up visibly unfit, fat in his briefs, an object of self-loathing, with bulges and folds that tested his school uniform every year. In school he was prime material for ragging. The bullies sated their hormones with his puppy fat and squeezed his tits. He grew to dislike the full-length mirror at home and his self-worth reached a nadir in his teenage years. In private he exacted revenge on small animals. He was quick to catch the noisy pigeons that made gutur-gutur sounds, shed feathers, and dirtied his small balcony. He would twist them by the neck and toss them as far as he could. Many street dogs in the neighborhood bore marks where he threw stones or had used a stick on their legs. Their helpless sounds and cries did not disturb him.

  The neighbors complained at this sadism. “I am a vegetarian,” he replied. “You people slit the throats of animals, let them bleed to death, and then eat them, so don’t talk.”

  There were some worries in the department about his emotional stability, but there were never any untoward incidents. At work he trusted no one and he operated without a formal structure, a practice that made him indispensable. He had a flunky named Kamte who ran around and did odd jobs for him. Recently and against his wishes he had been asked to accommodate a lateral hire, a man in his thirties who was proficient in many Indian languages, a skill which would be useful in interrogations. He was fluent in English, which earned him respect from Tiwari. The recruit was named Pandey. Pandey deigned to do whatever he was told; clearly he was capable of more.

  This was in essence Tiwari’s immediate team. Most of what had to be remembered and retained was in Tiwari’s head, and to be fair he had a phenomenal memory for facts and faces. He was also a good judge of a certain kind of person, one who had something of value and could be bought. But he had no understanding of people like Ranvir who spouted values that were not monetary.

  * * *

  Tiwari adjusts the rearview mirror and picks his teeth. He spots a young girl in the mirror as she waits to cross the road. Her hips catch his eye and she tosses her hair and smiles at someone. He is startled. Blood courses to his unmentionables and he squirms.

  “Aurat jaat . . .” he says helplessly. “Women are such a mystery.”

  He sits awkwardly in his jeep, his feet apart, barely squeezing into his tight pants. He drives erratically. He has a meeting today that could change his life. He touches the plastic feet of the Kanhaiya on the dashboard and then spits out the window. He glares at every car that pulls alongside him.

  The temple provides sanctuary for his thoughts. There is a crowd and for a while he loses himself amid the din of the believers. He should hurry. Back in his office his boss Parthasarathy will be waiting for him to return. (He is in fact already sitting in Tiwari’s smelly chair and holding his nose.)

  When Tiwari returns, his underlings Kamte and Pandey are standing outside his office. “He has come,” says Kamte breathlessly. Tiwari nods, lifts his belt above his belly, and barges in. As he walks in he considers this life form called Parthasarathy. Such a dry chap. His face has no color, his eyes are like water, he has no taste, wears pale shirts, and his handshake is limp.

  Parthasarathy had never seen field duty. In the eyes of his subordinates he lacked credentials. His file was so thin and his job experience was woefully short. When questioned about this his laugh was hollow. He was a placeholder for the position of head of Special Branch, brought in because of the untimely death of his predecessor. He had been in charge of the succession committee which had just one member because the others had begged off. Nobody wanted to get between two vindictive types like Ranvir Pratap and Dharamdas Tiwari. Partha had grumbled that neither of them seemed fit for the role and then bought himself a six-month extension.

  “Tiwari-ji, come, take a seat.”

  He falls into the visitor’s chair in his own office, which protests immediately by expelling air. It is hot and sultry and the room feels like a sauna. He opens a shirt button hoping for a sliver of relief.

  “The name of my successor will be announced in several months, giving us room for a smooth handover.”

  “Why the delay, sir?” blurts Tiwari. “What do we do in the meanwhile?”

  “More of the same,” replies Partha.

  The room falls silent until Partha finally dismisses them, letting himself out even before Tiwari has struggled to his feet. In his journal Partha notes, Will Ranvir and Tiwari be on their best behavior these next six months? I suspect they will be at their worst.

  At his desk, Tiwari rings a bell and Kamte and Pandey fall over each other as they enter. He pulls out his pistol and they recoil. The instrument of war tangles with Tiwari’s pocket and belt buckle. He pulls the trigger and a dull click emanates.

  “Chai, sir?” asks Kamte. “Can I get you some vada pao to eat?”

  Tiwari fondles the pistol and looks into the snout with each eye. “Oshiwara,” he says finally. He needs an outdoor interrogation to get his mind off these office battles.

  They walk deliberately to the jeep. No directions are given yet they reach the same suburb in Oshiwara where foliage is thick along a deserted road. They pull over onto a grassy knoll. Nobody speaks.

  “Off-duty hour,” Tiwari eventually says.

  “Happy hour,” says Kamte.

  Tiwari pulls out a bottle of liquor from the glove compartment. Kamte has brought glasses and the three of them drink for a while. In a few minutes a police jeep will arrive with a scheming informer, one who thought he was clever.

  Tiwari turns to Kamte’s young colleague. “Pandey, how’s your English these days?”

  Pandey nods. “Good, sir.” It’s in fact his strong suit, and he narrowly missed becoming a teacher in a Hindi Prachar Sabha.

  “Good. Today’s interrogation will be in English.”

  A man from Goa had information on a iron ore mining case. His
name was Sequiera and he had been beaten up, seemingly in the last couple of days from the way the blood had dried. Tiwari frowned, visibly unhappy.

  Good khabar can make you smile. You can see the effect it has on Tiwari’s face. The moment sometimes arrives after days, and other times it arrives suddenly when you least expect it. Information has an expiration date, so the sooner it is gleaned the better. Pandey asks his first question that night in English and Sequiera replies. Tiwari and his team look at one other and they can barely contain themselves.

  * * *

  That night Tiwari has a recurring dream about a woman. He is naive and he is awkward and fulfillment eludes him. As the night drifts away he sleeps fitfully. While Tiwari sleeps a night bus passes by his window. The night tour was growing popular because Mumbai by night is a different beast.

  Nandini looks tired as she sits next to the driver with a mic in her hand. She usually makes a few closing remarks. Tonight she has an enthusiastic group and she will let them talk.

  “Nandini, tell us more about Mumbai.”

  She cocks her head as if deep in thought. “In this Mumbai anything can happen.” She pauses. “Your turn,” she says. And they set off at each other with rapid-fire dialogue.

  “Mumbai, my perfumed garden.”

  “Creeks that reek.”

  “A vast pond that feeds big fish.”

  “Where minions labor.”

  “And time travels by train.”

  “Snatches of song, whiffs of a better life.”

  “Shop windows.”

  “Nullahs, galas, gullies, rickety cabs, and drab buildings.”

  “Dug-up streets that drop you home.”

  “Poseurs on street corners and roadsides.”

  “Wake up, makeup.”

  “Carry your cubicle to your cubbyhole.”

  “I want, I need.”

  “The next best thing.”

  “It’s happening, man.”

  “The giddy blur.”

  * * *

  The bus has passed and Tiwari tosses and turns like a whale caught in low tide. A nerve flutters in his arm and his mind flits between the crass and the nude. Fuck it, the mattress is too firm. As dawn breaks he struggles to his feet, downs a coffee, and heads for the mirror.

  “I can see you, Tiwari,” he tells his reflection.

  He opens his pantry and reaches for his stash of biscuits. He has bottles filled with sweet rusks, cream biscuits, and the local naan khatais. He crunches a handful.

  Down below are the tiled rooftops of Mumbai. An unused chimney stands over a small schoolyard. Noises filter upward: scattered horns of the impatient, children shouting while playing, a municipal truck gathering garbage, and a querulous namaazi clearing his throat into a mosque’s megaphone.

  Thoughts swirl in the recesses of his mind. He touches the burning bulb to feel the heat and looks in wonder at the burn mark. He is restless and scratches himself near his Adam’s apple, drawing blood. He washes the nick and it smarts. He has a shower and changes into a white kurta and pajamas. It is a Sunday, a day that heightens his innate fragility.

  Tiwari’s home makes him despondent. His family life is like a physical ruin. He is a bachelor and a virgin and even now the proximity of a woman gives him goose bumps. Surprising, given that he has three sisters, but then they are much older and still treat him like a child. In his teens he had to take turns and wash clothes and share a bathroom with them, and the place was a mess with their clothes and underwear drying inside at all times. His mother was big-boned (and so were his sisters) and she had hairy forearms and a deep voice and she smothered him. She was inordinately fond of him. At school his shorts were starched and flared, his shirt was tucked in tight, his hair was oiled and parted down the middle. His mother would comb his hair to heighten the parting; one wave of hair went left and another went right. His head resembled the pages of an open book.

  “You should have been a priest,” his mother says every now and then. She pictures her son standing like his forefathers once did in the Dashashwamedh ghats in Banaras. They stood bare-chested with water climbing to their midriffs as they stepped into the river of sacred ablution called the Ganga. It was a long line that was broken by Tiwari’s father, a line of priesthood. Tiwaris were men who were proficient in Sanskrit, a language that was never a mother tongue; it was a sacred and elaborate script that spoke only to gods.

  He sits up in bed and rubs his distended stomach. “I have only pawns on my team,” he grumbles to himself. “But at least I have real work, I am busier than ever. And Ranvir? He has a small team. Munna, Karan, and Tapas; but they are idle. They sit around their office doing crossword puzzles in English.”

  He needs ammunition against this trick squad. He has something but he isn’t yet sure what it means. In typical Tiwari fashion he had sent Pandey with a key to snoop inside Ranvir’s lair. This was Pandey’s first test. Kamte had to cover for him, standing the whole night outside the Special Branch front porch on one leg and then the other, losing his balance. Pandey ran down the batteries of his flashlight rummaging through the place, taking pains to set it back exactly the way it was. He let himself out in the morning through the small window when the security detail changed over.

  He found very little because there was hardly any paperwork in that office. In desperation he riffled through what was lying around and made some notes. He shared these notes with Kamte before meeting Tiwari. Kamte examined the disjointed sentences which made no sense to him.

  “Your promotion is doomed,” he informed Pandey. Secretly he was pleased the young challenger had failed.

  They trooped into Tiwari’s office unshaven and unkempt and found him looking restless. He clearly needed good khabar.

  “Kya?” Tiwari asked. “Found something?”

  “This is what Pandey found,” said Kamte as he tossed the notes carelessly on the man’s table.

  “Pandey?” said Tiwari. His voice carried hope, his tone feared failure.

  Pandey did not want to be laughed at, or worse.

  “Actually, I didn’t understand these scribbles so I consulted somebody. He told me these are their call signs.”

  “Call signs?” Tiwari looked toward Kamte, who shrugged and turned to Pandey.

  “Call signs are pilot nicknames,” read Pandey from a sheet of paper. “Pilots in the air force give themselves nicknames. They engrave them on their headgear, use them in their radio communication, and even call each other by those names. Usually the names are aggressive, reflecting high levels of testosterone.” He looked up and saw confusion.

  “Continue,” said Tiwari. He liked this boy Pandey. He spoke English like Ranvir. Initially he had been suspicious of him because he had been thrust upon the team by Parthasarathy.

  “Pilots have a different alphabet,” said Pandey. “For them, A is for albatross, not apple; B stands for braveheart; C for Cherokee; D for daredevil; and I for Icarus, the chap who flew too close to the sun and fell.”

  “These are local boys, sir,” said Kamte. “B must be for behan and C for chod.”

  Tiwari laughed. “Behanchods,” he muttered.

  “Yes, sometimes they use cuss words for their targets as part of the game,” said Pandey.

  Tiwari rubbed his face with his hands, picked up a random sheet, smoothed it out, and peered at the words. Each sheet contained four lines:

  TAPAS

  Agent Code: 16

  Call sign: DIFFERENT

  Favorite line: I am the best kind of different.

  He paused and looked toward Pandey for explanation. They moved on to the next one.

  MUNNA

  Agent Code: 11

  Call sign: LOOKOUT

  Favorite line: R-U-ALL-THERE.

  Pandey moved quickly to the third, the file for the now-deceased Kumaran.

  KUMARAN

  Agent Code: 10

  Call sign: PRENATAL

  Favorite line: I got Mother’s blood.

  “Mother’s
blood?” asked Tiwari. “Kamte, do you have Mother’s blood?” He picked up a pencil and scribbled.

  “Kumaran was an orphan, so . . .” suggested Pandey.

  “So?” Tiwari sucked the end of his pencil. He was growing irritated. “Give me Karan’s sheet. I know you’ve intentionally been keeping it for last.”

  Pandey read it aloud.

  KARAN

  Agent Code: 26

  Call sign: PUZZLE

  Favorite line: I am a person, not a puzzle.

  “This is the only one that makes sense,” said Tiwari, glancing expectantly at his two underlings. “Though what he says is wrong. He is a puzzle, not a person.”

  “The whole thing makes them look vulnerable,” said Pandey.

  “I agree,” said Tiwari. “These hit men are big, strong guys. Each is six feet tall, sturdy—quiet, yes, a little aloof, and perhaps a little awkward too. But think about the things they do. It’s frightening. These sheets of paper are childish. I think we need to show this to a psychologist. Let’s give all this to that Evam fellow. Pandey, can you get ahold of him?”

  The next day Evam received a sealed envelope from Tiwari containing copies of the four sheets.

  Tiwari’s Office

  The space Tiwari inhabits describes him better than any résumé. There is no color scheme to speak of, unless dirty gray is considered a shade. The flooring consists of ceramic tiles that have cracked in many places from moving around heavy furniture. This is nondescript, government-issue furniture with each item bearing an inventory code painted in white. Some misshapen cushions have been added by Tiwari and they have made many misshapen bodies a little less at ease. They are encrusted with sweat patches and the embroidery has grown threadbare. There is a rectangular table in the center of the room with a Formica top. On it is a jug of water, three glasses, and geometric tea stains. Tiwari sits on a big, roomy throne of a chair. The place has a smell, an ingrained fragrance that is part cheap barbershop and part third-class railway compartment.