Baaz

by Anuja Chauhan

  Mamuni grins at Prasanto, who swings her into the salsa, careful of her bulging belly.

  The singer’s pleasant voice rises to hit the high notes of the last line:

  ‘Aa gaya toh, bahut pachhtaye…’

  And the crowd joins in with gusto to sing the only word of the song they know, which of course is

  ‘Geetu!’

  As the troupe swings into the final chorus, the lyrics of which all the children know, Tinka turns around and scans the crowd for the man who’d started the singing.

  And spots him.

  Standing in the back, leaning against a broken-down water pump, wearing a rather dashing black leather jacket over a tight blue T-shirt and jeans faded in just the right places.

  It is Fabulous Shaanu Bhaisaab. Clearly, he can hit the high notes as easily as he can hit a guava from forty feet. He is looking right at her, his Kota-grey eyes steady and questioning and curiously alight.

  As Tinka waves to him, tentatively, apologetically, he smiles at her briefly, and then very deliberately turns around and walks away.

  • • •

  ‘You should have struck when the iron was hot, yaar!’ Raka is really upset. ‘Spoken to her then and there!’

  They’re gathered around the dining table of his tiny quarters. Maddy, back from his helicopter flying course, has just been given a full report of Shaanu’s inexplicable behaviour at the refugee camp by the disgusted Juhi. She has now gone off to cook dinner, her attitude that of one who no longer wishes to place good money on a lame horse.

  ‘It’s his old we’re-the-coolest-cats-in-the-place logic,’ Maddy drawls as he sips his drink. ‘Why should he go chasing the girl? She should come chasing him.’

  ‘Oye hoy!’ exclaims Raka. ‘Is that it, Chakkahera? You’re too hep to chase the general’s daughter, now?’

  ‘No ya, buggers,’ Shaanu says good-naturedly. ‘Nothing like that! I just thought…’ His voice trails away as his expression softens. ‘… that she looked like she needed space.’

  ‘Space? The final frontier?’

  ‘To think,’ Shaanu explains. ‘To be alone, and spread out a little, do her charity shows and all. So I let her be.’

  ‘Balls.’ Raka snorts rudely. ‘Teri phat gayee. You chickened out basically! Made so much fun of me for not telling Juhi I liked her, and now you’re doing the same thing yourself!’

  Shaanu, reddening slightly, retorts with spirit. ‘At least I’m not a rakhi brother!’

  Maddy snickers. Raka glowers.

  Shaanu grins. ‘Also, I let her have a good look at me, in case she’d forgotten how hot I am. Then I left.’

  ‘Hey Bhagwan, he thinks he’s Miss India!’ Juhi marvels from the kitchen. ‘So cunseeted ki I can’t imagine! Uff!’

  ‘Did you give her the full 360-degree view?’ Maddy wants to know. ‘You know, the slow twirl?’

  ‘Of course.’ Shaanu grins. ‘I’m a professional.’

  ‘Chutiya strategy.’ Raka looks glum. ‘All this dur-dur-se space-giving. It’ll never work.’

  Chutiya strategy or otherwise, it’s the one Shaanu has decided upon. And he sticks to it consistently over the next two weeks.

  ‘Have you noticed,’ Kainaz says to her niece over tea at the Sarhind Club lawn one evening, ‘that your young Jat seems to have huge sympathy for the refugees? He’s there practically every day, God bless the boy.’

  She then spoils the effect of this entirely straight-faced speech by giggling so hard that she snorts tea through her nose.

  Tinka puts down her cup in disgust.

  ‘You are so juvenile,’ she tells her aunt.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Kainaz retorts. ‘You’re grown-up enough for the two of us.’

  Tinka glares at her, very red-cheeked, and picks up her tea again.

  ‘He was playing cricket with the kiddies yesterday,’ Kainaz continues. ‘The ball ended up on the dispensary roof so he hoisted up one of the boys to get it down. The child scrambled wildly and your Jat’s T-shirt rode up, and I got a teensy-weensy peek at his yummy chest and tummy. He’s delish, darling.’

  And Tinka, who had seen Shaanu hit the six that sent the ball flying to the dispensary roof, has to admit, even as she sinks her teeth into a wonderfully moist shammi kebab, that he is delicious.

  And that she is constantly hyper-aware of his presence in the camp. Playing a merry game of teen-patti with the biranganas here, sharing an argumentative cup of tea with the Muktis there, whistling as he goes about digging and lifting and cleaning everywhere.

  And often she senses his watchful grey gaze upon her, quietly confident, biding its time, saying nothing but drawing her to him as surely as he has hooked her with high-strength, tensile, steel wire.

  And still Tinka resists.

  December comes to Calcutta. The mornings grow colder and mistier, the hot boiled eggs sold at street corners topped with salt, chopped onion, green chillies and lashings of raw mustard oil grow more irresistible, and the Sabre-rattling from across the border grows louder and nastier. Pakistan, red-faced over the ignominious downing of their Sabres over Boyra and the coverage this downing received in the Indian press, is intent on revenge. At the United Nations General Assembly, West Pakistani politicians indignantly point out that India is the real aggressor, interfering in their internal matters and providing succour to separatists while it piously pretends to have nothing but sympathy for the East Pakistani refugees at heart. World opinion is divided on the matter. While the Soviet Union backs India, the US and China, worried about the increasing influence of the Soviet bloc, insist that the reports of loot, rape and genocide in East Pakistan have been wildly exaggerated, and continue to stand staunchly behind Pakistan.

  On the morning of Friday, the third of December, Shaanu flies his usual CAP over Dum Dum, comes back to eat a mammoth breakfast at the Officers’ Mess, opens the India Post randomly to page 5 and finds that all talk of war has been pushed off the page by a quarter-page photograph of Tinka in her emerald-green bikini.

  ‘People are just people,’ says bathing beauty. ‘I will never shout Pakistan Murdabad!’

  Were you charmed by the innocent beauty and energy of the girl in the Freesia ad? Did you, like millions of Indians, wonder who this child-woman is and what she does when she isn’t frolicking winsomely beneath a waterfall, revelling in the tingling freshness of Freesia?

  Well, we did. We were so captivated by the bathing beauty that we sent out our reporters to bring her story to you. The story they have come back with, however, is a saddening and shocking one!

  First, our desi bathing beauty is not a desi at all, but an American born, American citizen.

  Second, in these highly sensitive times, when India is on the brink of war with Pakistan, Tehmina Dadyseth has declared: ‘People are just people. Before they are Indian or Pakistani or Hindu or Muslim. Any religion, any nation or any person who tries to make itself or himself bigger by putting down another nation, religion or person is to be condemned. I will say Hindustan Zindabad a million times and with full feeling, but even if you put a gun to my head, I will never say Islam Murdabad or Pakistan Murdabad.’

  These statements were made during a debate at her alma mater Miranda House, three years ago. A senior student, pursuing an M.Phil from Delhi University said, ‘I am not at all surprised that she ended up half-naked under a waterfall, titillating men to buy an American soap. She’s an America-crazy Pakistani sympathizer, like so many of the stuck-up Miranda House girls, who are all crazy for good looks. They swoon over American rockstars and Muslim film heroes and turn up their noses at patriotic Hindu boys.’

  Perhaps it is no coincidence that the titsy-bitsy bikini Tehmina is wearing in the Freesia ad is a traitorous Pakistani green?

  • • •

  ‘They’ve painted a Pakistani flag on your titsy bikini,’ Kainaz Dadyseth says in a dazed voice, pointing to the large Freesia ad photograph that accompanies the article. ‘Look.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Tin
ka throws down the paper in disgust. ‘What rubbish! I’m going to write a letter to the editor!’

  ‘Excellent idea!’ her aunt agrees. ‘Camp cancelled for the day! Here, sit down and compose your thoughts. I’ll get you pen and paper and a nice cup of tea.’

  Tinka looks at her suspiciously. ‘Why don’t you want me to go to the camp?’

  Kainaz sits down heavily.

  ‘Oh bachche,’ she says. ‘Some crazy may throw acid on you.’

  Tinka stares at her in astonishment. ‘Don’t be silly, Kung fui! It’s just a stupid article, that too on an inside page. Nobody’ll read it.’

  But when they get to the camp, it seems like everybody has. The sentries glower at Tinka as she walks in, the women who are queuing up for medicine and their daily cupful of raw rice hiss at her as she passes, and when they get to the maidan, they find that none of the children has showed up for rehearsal.

  ‘Stupid, ungrateful brats.’ Kainaz sits down on a fallen lamp post with a thump. ‘How much you’ve done for all of them…’

  ‘It’s Friday,’ Tinka says. ‘Maybe they’re all at the mosque or something.’

  ‘They’re mostly Hindus,’ Kainaz retorts. ‘Still, let’s wait.’

  And so they wait. Alone in the muddy maidan with the cold creeping in through their sneakers and Kainaz fui complaining that her backside is in danger of freezing to solid ice.

  But not a soul shows up. Well, until eleven o’clock anyway, when a deep voice drawls out from behind them lazily.

  ‘So Pakistan Murdabad will never be your slogan, eh?’

  They turn around to see a lanky, wild-haired figure studying them sardonically.

  It’s whatsizname, Tinka thinks dully. Macho da, the Mukti Bahini major. He is still wearing his dark glasses, even though his conjunctivitis must’ve cleared up days ago. I bet he wears them just for style.

  ‘Yes,’ she says calmly. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  He grins, showing a large amount of teeth. ‘It seems a lot of people do.’

  ‘C’m’ere,’ Kainaz snaps. ‘Help me up. I’m all stiff. Can’t you round up the children for Tinka?’

  He comes forward gallantly, his black curls bouncing, a faint whiff of whiskey fumes on his breath.

  ‘I wish I could,’ he says, as he draws Kainaz to her feet. ‘But this theatre class is voluntary, I can’t force them to come.’

  ‘So they hate me now,’ Tinka says.

  ‘They hate West Pakistanis,’ Macho da tells her. ‘And you don’t.’ After a moment he says, ‘Tell me, couldn’t you stretch your principles a little, to at least say Nikka Murdabad?’

  General Nikka Khan, also known as the Butcher of Bengal, is the commander of the Pakistani Armed Forces in Bangladesh and is bitterly hated by every fleeing refugee. Though nominally subordinate to the Governor of East Pakistan, he virtually rules the area. Every kind of atrocity has been committed under his regime.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Tinka says slowly, really considering the question. ‘Violence breeds violence. I don’t believe in anybody murdabad.’ Her chin comes up. ‘Nor does Mother Teresa, for that matter, and I don’t see any of you boycotting her.’

  ‘Ah, but she isn’t young and beautiful and dancing under waterfalls.’

  Tinka’s eyebrows rise at the randomness of this statement.

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ she asks.

  Macho da looks irritatingly enigmatic.

  ‘Nothing and everything,’ he says. He turns to Kainaz, his tone meaningful. ‘It would be advisable to take your niece away from here now, ma’am.’

  And much to Tinka’s disgust, this is exactly what Kainaz Dadyseth does. Moving swiftly for a middle-aged lady with an allegedly frost-bitten backside, she has them out of the camp and on a cycle rickshaw in the next fifteen minutes.

  ‘Hurry hurry hurry,’ she harangues the rickshaw-wallah, poking him in the ribs with her bony fingers as he starts to toil up the hill to the city. ‘Uff, we should have got a more muscular fellow! Dum lagao, bhaiyya!’

  ‘Kung fui, you’re being rude.’

  ‘You’re being a fool. Can’t you see those people behind us?’

  Turning around, Tinka sees that there is indeed a scrum of people following them. They’re about fifty feet away. They look shabby and crabby, and they’re muttering loudly. Unease grips her heart.

  ‘It’s just the Friday sabzi mandi,’ she says unconvincingly. ‘They gather here to sell fruits and vegetables every week. Can’t you hear? They’re chanting mandi mandi mandi.’

  ‘God, give this girl some sense,’ mutters her beleaguered aunt. ‘It’s a mob, idiot child. They’re chanting randi randi randi.’

  And indeed they are. The word spews out of them, chanted repeatedly to a staccato beat, full of hate.

  Tinka gives a shaky laugh.

  ‘Wow. Why do they dislike me so much?’

  ‘They’re just lecherous beasts, darling.’ Kainaz rootles around in her handbag for anything that could be used as a weapon, produces a dainty mother-of-pearl nailcutter and chucks it back into the bag in disgust. ‘Your being unpatriotic has just given them an excuse to act upon their lecherousness. Oho, why are you stopping? Haw, coward, blackguard, dog!’

  Because the rickshaw-wallah, who has just figured out that the mob is after the women in his rickshaw, has pulled to a stop, grabbed the small tiffin carrier hanging from the handlebar of his rickshaw and taken to his heels.

  ‘Shit.’ Kainaz looks sick with fear. ‘Tinka, darling … run.’

  ‘You too,’ Tinka says fiercely as she scrambles down from the cycle rickshaw. Holding her aunt’s hand firmly, she looks up and down the deserted road. The darkness is coming down fast and the crowd, looking larger than it was before, is less than forty feet behind them. There’s a line of upended thelas up ahead and, behind it, a small clump of trees.

  ‘Quick, behind those trees.’

  They race down the lonely road to a scanty thicket and duck behind the foliage.

  The mob, about thirty people strong, is moving closer. The two women can now make out individual figures in the gloom. One of them, unmistakably, is eight-year-old Prasanto.

  Kainaz sucks in an outraged breath.

  ‘That little snake!’ she rages. ‘Must have been nursing a grievance for days.’ She clutches at the grass in impotent anger, makes a dreadful discovery and wails aloud, ‘Oh no, this is a shit spot! Tinka, people do chuchchu-potty here!’

  ‘Shush, fui,’ Tinka whispers fiercely. ‘They’ll hear you.’

  She wraps her hand around a large, empty ketchup bottle she’s found in the thicket.

  Kainaz eyes her uneasily. ‘I thought you were a pacifist? If they spot us, just run, okay? Promise me.’

  Tinka’s eyes are intent on the approaching crowd, but she grips her aunt’s hand hard. ‘Promise. I’m not an idiot. I’ll run – as fast as the rickshaw-wallah did. Faster.’

  ‘What a pig, that bloody rickshaw-wallah…’ Kainaz says feelingly.

  ‘Yeah, well, at least we didn’t have to pay him.’

  Kainaz laughs shakily, her face white to the lips.

  ‘They’re here,’ she says grimly. ‘They’ll come straight here, of course, there’s no other logical place we could be.’

  Sure enough, the mob comes panting up, looks about wildly, then thunders up towards their thicket.

  ‘Traitor!’ the mob bawls. ‘Paki-lover! Prostitute!’

  ‘Run!’ gasps Kainaz, stumbling to her feet. ‘Run towards them, Tinka! But from behind the thelas so they can’t see us! They’ll be expecting us to run away from them – stay behind the thelas, Tinka!’

  The mob spots them and sets up a howl of ecstasy. The two women whirl around and start to pelt down the road as fast they can.

  ‘Split up!’ pants Kainaz. ‘We must split up…’

  ‘I won’t leave you!’ Tinka pants. ‘Fui … wait!’

  The mob is practically at her heels now. She gives a l
ittle sob, willing her muscles to move faster, cursing the fact that she’s not as fit as she should be. Spotting a sidelane, she veers into it, hoping the mob will keep going straight, and realizes abruptly that she’s reached a dead end.

  In front of her there is a rubbish dump against a bare brick wall, an unhitched tonga, a looming neem tree and nothing beyond. Cold to the bone, she internalizes that this dark lane is the perfect venue for what the inflamed mob has in mind for her.

  The mob reaches the head of the lane. She can hear hoarse shouts as they argue about whether to go ahead or turn into the lane.

  I’ve got to lure them away from Kung fui.

  She straightens her shoulders, her young face set in grim, timeless lines, and smashes her ketchup bottle hard against the wall.

  The shattering of the glass galvanizes the mob. It turns away from her aunt, who has continued down the straight road, and stampedes towards her, reaching her in a hot fetid rush.

  The figure at the lead of the herd grabs her by the throat and slams her against the wall. Her head hits the unplastered brick so hard she sees stars. The violence is sudden and absolute.

  ‘Say Pakistan Murdabad!’ growls a man she has seen peacefully selling vegetables at the camp gates every day.

  ‘Balls, I will,’ Tinka gasps out. She is flat on her back on the ground now. Her mouth feels bloody.

  And then a child’s tight, breathless voice comes to her ears.

  ‘No, you can’t! Don’t, don’t hit her!’

  ‘Prasanto!’

  Tinka’s eyes fly open only to see the little figure being flung roughly into the crowd.

  She rears up.

  ‘You sick bastar—’

  ‘Say it!’

  She grits her teeth and glares at him, eyes blazing with helpless anger, and shakes her head.

  ‘No.’

  Curses. Snarling. And then more pain as something that feels like a chowkidaar’s iron-tipped lathi is slammed hard against her side.

  ‘Will you say it or not?’ The man’s voice is a scream of thin, violent ecstasy.

  And in that moment of pain and fear, Tinka suddenly comes to the clear, calm realization that it is she who holds the power in this situation, the power to say yes, or to say no.