The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

by Tarquin Hall

  Her friend Preeti passed by, reminding her that the archives would be closing in thirty minutes and that tomorrow was Maha Shivaratri, one of the biggest Hindu festivals of the year.

  'Day after is an off as well,' she added. 'We're getting VVIP visit. That Maharani of Alwar is coming. She's donating all her family's private papers.'

  'She'll be present all the day?'

  'One hour maximum, but the DG uses any excuse to take a holiday.'

  Mummy decided to make the best of the remaining half-hour and reached for yet another box file.

  She was indeed very much lucky: Manjit Singh's land records lay at the bottom.

  'Here it is, na!' she cried out, although by then there was no one else there to share her discovery.

  The plot Manjit had been given was in the Karol Bagh area of west Delhi. She made a note of the number - 'T-5361, Block 7A' - and hurriedly gathered up her things.

  Upstairs, Puri's note was waiting for her at the front desk. She slipped it into her pocket and then called her driver, Majnu.

  'Pick me up right away, na.'

  He started to whine about having to work late.

  'Chup!' she interrupted. 'All day you're sitting idle, na! No duty is there. Now come! Hurry! No discussion.'

  She disconnected the call and scrolled down the list of numbers on her phone until she came to 'Chubby Portable'. Her finger moved towards the dial button, but then she had second thoughts. Being a busy and successful private investigator, he'd probably been called away on important business, she reasoned. Surely, then, it made sense for her to go and search for the plot alone. Manjit Singh or his family might not be living there any longer, in which case Chubby would waste valuable time in coming to Karol Bagh.

  Of course if she found that the Singhs were indeed still living at the same address, well, then, naturally, she would call him. Right away. Without fail.

  Yes, that made perfect sense. This must be what Chubby meant by teamwork.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  MAJNU, WHO HAD to be reminded no less than three times not to slouch behind the wheel, took the Upper Ridge Road, crossing the Delhi Ridge, a part of the ancient Aravalli Range and now a reserved forest. It was dark and where the road turned and undulated the headlights of the little Indica swept across rocky terrain thick with kair shrubs and babul trees. This was how most of the landscape surrounding Old and New Delhi had looked when Mummy arrived in the capital in 1947. In the winter, the banks of the Yamuna were carpeted pink with flocks of flamingos. Leopards sometimes strayed into the city. And it was not uncommon to find your path blocked by a king cobra. Once Mummy had even come across an enormous python with a head as big as a man's shoe, basking in the sun out in the garden.

  She remembered Karol Bagh very differently as well: tents pitched on plots, their boundaries marked with lines of stones; the odd one-storey brick structure painted in whitewash; chickens clucking about on dusty roads. In the summer, the residents slept outside under a canopy of stars undimmed by smog. The cries of jackals sounded in the distance. At dawn, the call to prayer from Shah Jahan's Jamma Masjid reached them over the ramparts of the walled city.

  Change had come gradually, sneaking up on Mummy street by street, building by building. Most of the kothis were replaced by three-, four-, even five-storey blocks. Gardens vanished beneath swathes of concrete. If you saw a cow these days it was wandering through traffic, chewing on a plastic bag.

  As a member of the Punjabi Bagh Association, Mummy had always done what she could to help preserve public spaces and keep the colony clean. She was the first to criticise the lack of planning and the corruption of the local authorities. 'Moral fibre is totally lacking, na,' she often said of Delhi's elected representatives. Yet in her heart, Mummy was a city person, and the lack of aesthetics didn't bother her all that much. She thrived on the tamasha, on being in the middle of a crowd in the busy vibrant markets. The smell of aloo tikki frying in hot oil, the sight of dyers pulling cotton saris out of great vats of steaming liquid and twisting them dry, the haunting sound of kirtan spilling out from the gurdwara - all these things made her feel alive. Why Chubby had moved to Gurgaon was something she would never understand. The place had a manufactured quality about it - a kind of albino India. Mummy couldn't bear the idea of ending her days in such a place.

  'Punjabi by birth, Punjabi by nature,' she often said with pride. 'We are big-hearted people, na?'

  This was something Majnu, who was not Punjabi, would have done well to learn from, Mummy reflected as she watched him turn into West Extension Area, his face still long and sullen.

  'What address, madam?' he asked with no enthusiasm.

  'I told you, na! You're getting deafness or what? Block 7A. Straight, then left.'

  She soon discovered that the plots allocated under the Gadgil Assurance Scheme no longer corresponded with today's house numbers. Mummy told Majnu to park - 'Don't sit idle, na! Do window washing!' - and then went and asked around the neighbourhood.

  She knew more than a few locals and it took only half an hour to find the right address.

  A square, three-storey block with narrow windows filled the plot. A nameplate on the door of the ground floor apartment bore Manjit Singh's name.

  Mummy paused, a voice in her head reminding her that she should call Chubby and bring him up to date with her progress. At that moment, however, the door opened and an elderly man appeared. He looked frail, the bags under his eyes sagging like deflated balloons hanging from a light fitting the morning after a party.

  'You're looking for someone, madam?' he asked in Punjabi.

  'I'm searching for Shri Manjit Singh,' explained Mummy.

  'He died two years back,' the man answered with a fatalistic air.

  'I'm sorry to hear that. My condolences.'

  'He was ninety-eight.' The man paused. 'Why are you looking for him?'

  'I needed some information. Are you his son?'

  'That's right: Hardeep Singh is my name.'

  'I want to speak with you.'

  'I was going for a walk. I always try to take a walk at this time.' He looked over her shoulder with a certain longing. The busy street held the promise of escape from domesticity.

  'It's very important.'

  Hardeep Singh sighed as if going to the front door and being prevented from getting any further was something he was used to. He opened it a little wider and invited Mummy inside.

  'I'll tell Leela to make tea,' he said.

  The living room was furnished with a couple of dowdy couches and armchairs, and a dining table finished in fake wood laminate. An almirah the green of tarnished brass contained a shrine stocked with images of the Sikh gurus. There were a few other personal belongings: a plaster ornament of a family of robin redbreasts perched on a snow-covered branch; a large teddy bear still wrapped in plastic and prominently displayed on a sideboard like a rare family heirloom. Bundles of old newspapers were piled up in one corner, ready to be sold at three rupees a kilo to the kabari wallah.

  The Singhs were wealthy, Mummy reflected as her host went in search of his wife, the property alone being worth many crores. Thus their frugal existence was one of conditioning and habit. Every rupee that could be saved was put away, the number of light bulbs in the living room restricted to a total of one. The result was a murky twilight in which Mummy found herself struggling to make out the details of the family portraits hanging on the wall. The elderly man in the largest portrait was Manjit Singh, she decided. Judging by his style of clothes and the quality of the printing, he'd posed for the shot in a studio at some point in the early 1980s. Other pictures showed his offspring in more recent times - weddings, birthdays, the odd picnic. But of Mrs Manjit Singh, Kiran Singh and her two sisters there was no sign.

  'That is my father, of course,' said Hardeep Singh when he returned to the living room and found Mummy still staring up at the wall.

  'You came to Delhi in '47?' she asked, coming and seating herself on one of the couches.


  'We arrived on a bullock cart, having lost everything,' said Hardeep. 'But my father knew printing. His father had owned a business in Rawalpindi. So he borrowed money and opened a press in Chandni Chowk. We printed newspapers, pamphlets, stationery. Then he got into boxes. He supplied all the sweet shops and packing houses. Things were very good for us in those days.'

  'The business is still going?' asked Mummy.

  'After my father retired, I took over. Then we started to face more and more competition. All the technology changed. It is all computerised today. Our shop is still there, but everything is lying idle.'

  The story was not unfamiliar. Men like Manjit Singh struggled all their lives to improve the lot of their fam-ilies, but their sons didn't prove as hard-working or resourceful. Mummy attributed this phenomenon to a flaw in the Punjabi family system. Sons were too pampered, in her opinion, and this made them lazy. If they inherited property from which they could derive a comfortable income, they simply sat around and did nothing. But of course their wives enjoyed no such privilege. It was their lot to keep the household ticking along. The sweeper-cum-toilet-cleaner and dishwashing walli required supervision; vegetables had to be purchased; meals prepared; children raised.

  The preparation of chai was their remit, too, and soon Mrs Hardeep Singh appeared from the kitchen bearing a tray of steaming cups. A kindly looking woman with a gentle smile, she greeted Mummy politely before serving her. The two women then sat and talked for a while, exchanging social niceties and establishing their family credentials. They might have spent a pleasant hour or two in one another's company, but Hardeep Singh was growing impatient.

  'Now tell me, madam,' he said, interrupting his wife mid-sentence. 'What's your interest in my father?'

  'I'm trying to clear up a mystery - one that goes back to 1947,' explained Mummy.

  'Oh?'

  'Yes, you see in those days I was a volunteer for the Indian Recovery and Relief Operation.'

  Mummy watched his reaction to see if her words had engendered any concern or suspicion. There was every possibility that he and his sister were in touch - that they had reconnected despite Kiran Singh's having adopted a new identity. But Hardeep Singh only frowned and asked, 'This was a government agency of some sort?'

  'We were charged with rescuing Hindu and Sikh women from Pakistan,' she explained.

  Hardeep Singh appeared to absorb this information and lapsed into silence over his tea. When he spoke again a moment or two later, it was on a different subject altogether. 'Delhi in those days was a very different place,' he said. 'You know, when we first came here there were only a few houses. There were some Madrasis around.' By Madrasi he meant South Indians: Tamils, Keralites, Kannadigas. 'We found their food very different. They ate dosas and idlis . . .'

  Mummy listened patiently for a minute or two, used to the ramblings of Indian men, whose conversation often deviated with no warning - another consequence of male privilege. But then she spoke across him. Her tone was brutal. It was the only way.

  'Now, I want to ask if you recognise this girl,' she said, handing him the photograph of Kiran Singh that Aslam had given Chubby.

  It took a moment for Hardeep Singh to get his mind back to the present. 'Ah, yes, very good,' he said. 'But I can't see anything up close without my glasses.'

  His wife suggested he might like to retrieve them from the breast pocket of his shirt. He did so, slipping them on, and then looked down at the photograph with marked indifference. The reaction, however, was instant. He squinted, furrowed his brow and stared intently at his guest.

  'This is my youngest sister, Kiran,' he said. 'And that's our neighbour's car. This was taken in Mandra. Where did you get this?'

  'From a former associate in Pakistan,' answered Mummy. 'The two of us found your sister in March 1948 in the village of Bajal and tried to help--'

  'March 1948?' he interrupted. 'No, you're mistaken. Kiran died in August of the previous year.'

  'You're sure?'

  He gave a truculent nod. 'Yes, of course.'

  'Were you there?' she asked.

  Hardeep Singh didn't answer. His eyes met Mummy's and held them for a moment. She detected shame and guilt.

  'I met the girl in that picture in March 1948,' she said, persevering. 'And I wasn't the only person to meet her. I received that photograph from a Pakistani military officer who was there with me that day. We brought Kiran to a camp. But she didn't want to stay and that night she ran away.'

  'Impossible,' he insisted. 'You've got her mixed up with someone else.'

  Hardeep Singh lapsed into silence again, staring intently at the photograph. Mummy felt a hand on her arm.

  'Forgive me, but I can't see there's anything to be gained from raking up this past history,' said Mrs Singh. 'It all happened so long ago. What purpose is to be served by bringing up these painful memories?'

  'Normally, I would agree,' replied Mummy. 'My family suffered losses as well. Those memories still cause me great pain. However, this is different. You see, I believe Kiran is alive. She's living here in Delhi.'

  Hardeep Sing's eyes flashed with anger. 'That's enough,' he snapped. 'You've no business coming here and saying such things, madam. Now I want you to leave and don't come back.'

  He was pointing towards the door. Mummy didn't budge. 'All I ask is that you look at these,' she said. 'I believe one of them is your sister Kiran.'

  She held out two pictures, both cut from the social pages of Indian magazines. The first was of Megha Dogra, the second Jasmeet Bhatia.

  'Please take a look, sir,' Mummy implored him. 'I need to know for sure myself.'

  But Hardeep Singh was resolute in his decision. 'I told you to leave, madam,' he said, finger still extended towards the door.

  Mummy could see it would do no good to argue with him. She began to gather up her things and apologised for having bothered them. And then Mrs Singh spoke up, addressing her husband in a soothing tone: 'At least look at them,' she said. 'Otherwise, you'll never know. What if Kiran is alive? How can you live without knowing?'

  She took the pictures from Mummy and brought them over to him. 'Come now, what's the harm?' she asked. 'You've nothing to lose.'

  Hardeep Singh gave a petulant shake of his head. 'I don't want to know - even if it's true, I don't want to know,' he said.

  'Of course you do. Now come. This lady is only trying to help,' she said and laid the photographs in his lap.

  He ignored them for a long while and then turned his eyes down.

  The first picture drew a blank. But the sight of the second caused his lower lip to start trembling.

  'That's her,' he said in a diminished tone. 'Even after all these years . . .' He looked up again. His face showed dismay. 'But it's impossible,' he continued. 'I . . . I heard the shots. Counted them. One, two, three, four . . .'

  The picture dropped to the floor as he buried his face in his hands and began to sob. Mrs Singh put an arm around his shoulders.

  'Mother begged him to do it, not to let her and my sisters fall into their hands,' he murmured through his tears. 'The mob was getting closer. We could hear them - like animals. Father knew what had to be done. He took them inside the house . . . My brother and I waited outside . . . I was only fourteen.'

  Kiran Singh, her sisters and her mother had all been killed that night. But not at the hands of the Muslims.

  Manjit Singh had made sure his womenfolk weren't seized by the mob.

  Kiran, though, had survived. The bullet, her bullet, had missed its target and she had played dead.

  No wonder she hadn't wanted to be reunited with her family, reflected Mummy, the tragedy of it all sweeping over her. It would have meant certain death.

  'I'm so sorry,' she said in a faint voice.

  Hardeep Singh didn't hear her. Nor did he seem to notice her collect up her things and steal from the room.

  Mummy would have to return another day; it was her duty to do so as an officer of the Indian Recovery and Relief O
peration.

  Quietly, she closed the door behind her and stepped out into the evening air. She made her way to the front gate in a daze, her heart aching with grief.

  It was only after she'd reached the car that it dawned on her that she now knew the identity of Faheem Khan's killer. Yet somehow, Mummy derived little satisfaction from her discovery.

  TWENTY-SIX

  AT EIGHT O'CLOCK, as the rest of the Most Private Investigators team set off from Khan Market to target the Indian batsman suspected of match fixing, Flush checked into room 704 of the Maharajah Hotel.

  It was as close to paradise as he'd ever come. The bed was enormous and very bouncy. There was a little fridge stocked with Angrezi liquor and imported chocolate bars. The TV was forty inches wide. And chicken nuggets were available from room service (which, incidentally, worked round the clock).