Baaz

by Anuja Chauhan

  Idly, during his lunch hour, Carvalho leafs through them.

  It’s the usual collection. One glossy imported Playboy, its pages well-thumbed and stiff with dried fluids, a couple of Debonairs and some assorted pin-up posters, all creased and folded up. From the dog-ears on the magazines, it is easy to see that Dilsher had a type – leggy, big-bosomed, blonde.

  Carvalho is about to consign the whole lot to the dustbin when, slipped into the pages of a Debonair, he discovers something that looks like a leaflet from an ordnance manual.

  Frowning, he scans the sheet.

  It is literature for a missile of some sort, he realizes after studying the sheet for a while. FAB500 M-62. That’s a Russian coding number, Carvalho knows, but he doesn’t remember the missile off-hand. Why would Dilsher have kept its literature under his mattress?

  He reads through the leaflet again, more closely this time.

  The bomb weighs 1000lbs, he learns, is elongated and streamlined, hence is wind-resistant, which, the leaflet claims, will ensure high speed of delivery and minimum drift.

  Very interested now, Carvalho flips the leaflet over and finds one word written in ball-point pen ink, in Dilsher’s unformed scrawl.

  Tezgaon?

  An hour later, Carvalho is scouting feverishly through the ordnance depot with the supplies team and Rakesh Aggarwal.

  ‘Er, what exactly is this missile, sir?’ Raka asks.

  ‘It’s the only free-fall weapon in the IAF’s Russian Fighter’s inventory,’ Old Kuch Bhi tells Raka, manic eyes glittering. ‘I can’t believe we overlooked it all this time!’

  Neither can Raka. But now is not the time to gripe.

  ‘Is it accurate?’ he asks, tugging on his moustache.

  ‘Totally, Aggarwal Sweets! And we’ll get the armourers to reset the fuse setting. They’ll be set to explode after impact, once they’ve ploughed through the earth – they’re strong enough to cause damage even to a hardened runway. Just dive down, ekdum Baaz-ke-maaphik, drop ’em on the sweet spot, and we’ll be home!’

  But dropping ’em on the sweet spot is easier said than done, Raka points out. These are bigger, heavier bombs – they will make the MiGs sluggish, and worse, when the pilots go into a dive, could cause the aircraft to mush dangerously.

  ‘They’re better than the S-5s, that’s all I know,’ Carvalho snaps crankily. ‘I think Dilsher was onto something. Let’s try them out on your sortie today.’

  Raka agrees – but not without reservations, which he confides to Shaanu outside the briefing room a little later.

  ‘Basically, your nose is pointing somewhere, and these heavy bombs are pointing somewhere else, so the aircraft flight path becomes a total hotchpotch. Accuracy suffers. Carvalho insists we can achieve accuracy if we can manage to start off very very straight, and then as we dive downwards, approaching release range, we’ll gain speed naturally and mush less, so we can drop the things off easily, rise up and zoom away.’

  The flaw in this plan, Shaanu knows, is that when you come steep-glide diving straight down the length of the runway, you are effectively a sitting duck. The gunners know you’re committed to coming in from a certain direction, so they point their guns in that direction and then just sit pretty, singing ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain, when she comes’. When you show up, they can spot you, take aim and pick you out of the sky at leisure.

  He tells Raka this, and Raka nods grimly. The MiG fighters have already experienced this twice before, getting hit smack in the belly with ground fire as they dropped the largely ineffective S-5 missiles.

  ‘Matlab ki, it’s total madness, Baaz,’ he tells his friend. ‘Every moment you’re thinking laga!, you’ve been hit, and every other moment you’re thinking phew, nahi laga. It’s a constant chant in your head, and bloody unnerving, but you get used to it – so much so ki when somebody actually gets hit, it comes as a sort of surprise.’

  They both go quiet, thinking about Dilsher.

  ‘I just hope Dillu’s wet dream doesn’t end up killing us all,’ Raka says gloomily. ‘What was the fucker doing, jerking off to missile manuals, anyway?’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Shaanu says abruptly.

  ‘What?’ Raka demands suspiciously. ‘Your puny plane is too small to carry these missiles, so please don’t offer Carvalho your services!’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ There is an edge to Shaanu’s voice. The smallness of the Gnats is a sore point. ‘But I’ve got an idea on how to distract the Tezgaon gunners…’

  He explains his plan to Raka, who listens, then shakes his head vigorously and entreats his buddy to get admitted to the pagal khana in Agra.

  But Shaanu keeps talking, grabbing Raka’s arm and gesturing animatedly as they walk down the tarmac together.

  ‘Okay, if all else fails, we’ll try it,’ Raka reluctantly tells Shaanu as they reach their jets and clamber up their respective ladders. ‘Jai Mata di!’

  The formation sets off – four MiGs strapped with the massive FAB500s and two diminutive Gnats flying top cover to ward off any marauding Sabres – and descends at four in the afternoon over Tezgaon.

  • • •

  The Intercontinental Hotel squats self-importantly like a fat slice of birthday cake in the dusty plate that is Dacca, the other structures of the city heaped deferentially around it like lesser snacks that know their place. A wraparound colonnade, a glittering swimming pool and several elegant lawns seek to soften its uncompromisingly rectangular structure, with uneven results.

  WWS has done Tinka proud, procuring for her a room on the highest floor, with a view of the city. When she pushes back the curtains as far as they can go and stands at a certain angle, she can just about make out the occasionally shimmering sky above AFS Tezgaon, home of the PAF’s F-86 Sabrejets.

  The official conflict, which began on Friday, the third of December, is ten days old now and on the brink of being won by either India or Pakistan, depending on which version of the news you choose to believe. The pro-Pakistan brigade, mostly the mainstream American press, insists that China is set to intervene now, at this very moment, even as we speak, and will teach the cheeky interfering Indians a lesson as sharp as the one they taught them in ’62. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh sympathizers (which include the International Red Cross and the United Nations teams, even though they are ostensibly neutral) insist that the India-Mukti Bahini alliance is set to win and end the genocide, oppression and misrule of West Pakistan once and for all. The career journalists, a wise, weathered non-partisan crew, shake their heads and talk of how Dacca is starting to resemble Berlin at the end of the Second World War – a city to which the battlefront has arrived. It’ll end badly for Dacca, they predict, and bloodily too, unless somebody has the sense to rise above the hubris and cry Enough!

  India, slugging it out on both fronts, is showing no sign of climbing down. Neither is Pakistan. Seemingly unaffected by the mounting casualties, General Nikka Khan and the figurehead Governor he supposedly reports to continue to talk tough, insisting that Pakistan is in the right and will prevail.

  Tinka, who’s been here for a week now, is not finding things easy. First, the entire hotel staff insists on watching over her with a sort of avuncular lust. Apparently, the head bellboy (a seventy-five-year-old grandfather who should be thinking more about jannat and less about hoors) travelled to Calcutta last month and chanced upon a Freesia poster in a grocery store. He ripped the thing off the wall, carried it home and hung it up with great ceremony in the hotel pantry. And now, every time the azaan sounds, she can’t shake the feeling that the hotel staff (ninety-five per cent male) are on their knees praying for a particularly hot day, so that she will don her emerald-green bikini and frolic in the hotel pool while they hum laaa la-la-la, la-la-la-la…

  Then there’s the fact that her editor won’t stop griping over the fact that her stories aren’t ‘balanced’ enough.

  ‘What the hell d’you mean not balanced?’ Tinka demands for the nth time. ‘I’m t
elling it like it is!’

  ‘Tinka, you’ve filed one story about the horrific effects of Napalm bombing – which is something both sides are using – and three stories about Pakistani violence against the Bengalis. We need something from the other side as well. Aren’t the Bengalis butchering the Biharis? Why can’t you get us some dope on that?’

  ‘I can’t create an artificial balance when none exists,’ Tinka snaps. ‘Yes, the Biharis have suffered at the hands of the Awami League supporters and the Muktis, but the sheer magnitude of the violence inflicted upon the Bengalis is far far greate—’

  ‘Yeah, so let’s have a story on these poor oppressed Bihari sods,’ her editor cuts her off briskly. ‘And we want pictures of bombs falling and dogfights and all that. Those always sell well.’

  And then he cut the line, leaving her to stare down at the phone in disbelief. Does he even realize how difficult it is to get through to him on the phone? There’s always a gaggle of journos waiting to use the erratically functioning line – her turn came after four solid hours of waiting – how can he just brush her off? What the hell is wrong with the world? Why doesn’t anybody give a damn about anything that’s really important any more?

  And finally, of course, there’s Ishaan, or rather, the absence of Ishaan, which she’s carrying around with her everywhere she goes – a horrid, hollow uneasiness bobbing about in the middle of her stomach, making her feel constantly clenched and yet gapingly open at the same time and curiously removed from everything that happens around her.

  ‘Editor’s being a pain in the arse?’

  The crusty, quavering voice belongs to Julian Arnott, an ancient freelance correspondent from the UK. He is bright-eyed and bird-like and incredibly wrinkled, with a fondness for loud batik shirts and silk scarves. He has been ensconced in the telecommunications room’s only armchair, legs crossed dapperly at the knee, waiting for her to finish, but now he seems to be in no hurry to place his call.

  Tinka nods gloomily. ‘He wants me to write a story on oppressed Biharis. You know what, I think you were right, they hired me because they saw that idiotic I-will-never-say-Pakistan-Murdabad article in the India Post and thought I’d toe the official American line.’

  ‘And you turned out to be a Ted Kennedy supporter!’ Julian tsk-tsks. ‘Aah, women are so fickle! Just because the fellow’s better-looking than Nixon.’

  ‘D’you know any oppressed Biharis?’ Tinka asks, ignoring this jibe.

  ‘Hundreds,’ the old journo replies promptly. ‘But surely writing about the Indian de Havilland Caribou, a transport aircraft pressed into military action, that dropped a bomb on an orphanage in Tangala yesterday would be a better idea?’

  Tinka sits up. This is brand new information.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Julian says calmly.

  ‘But India wouldn’t do something so foul!’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘It was an accident, I think,’ he says mildly. ‘Also, my dear, you’re supposed to be neutral.’

  She flushes. ‘Well, yes of course, except that … no, actually you’re right. I’ll chase the story. But can you really drop bombs in a Caribou? Isn’t it some sort of flying bus?’

  ‘You’d have to ask an expert,’ he replies. ‘D’you know any fighter pilots?’

  Her expression grows oddly wooden at this. Julian Arnott’s old eyes don’t miss this, but then, they don’t miss much.

  ‘No.’

  Before he can quiz her further, the door of the lounge bursts open and Leo Stepanov, a chubby young Russian cameraman who works for the Russian daily news station Solntse, peers into the room.

  ‘Our Nikita’s at the military club next door, addressing a big crowd,’ he announces with relish. ‘Everybody’s listening to him with bated breath.’

  ‘Nikka Khan?’ Tinka grabs her bag and jumps to her feet. ‘Oh my God, is it an important announcement? Maybe he’s asking for a ceasefire!’

  Julian looks unconvinced. ‘Are you sure?’ he asks Leo.

  ‘I’m sure, grandfather.’ The Russian grins. ‘But if you’re too decrepit to totter out to see for yourself, I’ll give you one of my pictures for free.’

  ‘Pictures!’ the old man snorts. ‘Any monkey can press a camera button! But to describe a scene, to bring alive the mood, to paint with words, as it were…’

  ‘Are you coming or not?’ Tinka asks.

  ‘I’m coming,’ is Julian’s crusty response. ‘You, Ivan the fool, gimme a hand!’

  ‘My name’s Leo.’

  ‘Don’t babble,’ Julian snaps thanklessly even as Leo pulls him up from the squishy embrace of the armchair. ‘Whuff! Yes, yes, you can let go now, I’m not a bloody invalid. Come now, let’s go.’

  They make their way down the pillared colonnade to the club, flashing their press badges at the security staff at the gate, and emerge onto a beautiful green lawn, abloom with late chrysanthemum and winter roses. A beautifully turned-out crowd is sitting on white cane chairs, listening riveted to a man speaking from a podium.

  A very suave, elegant man this, sporting a nattily tied cravat, a navy-blue beret and a sharp blazer that does a decent job of skimming over his small paunch. His features are very fine, they would be womanish if not for the harsh lines that link the corners of his thin mouth with his chiselled nose. He’s talking into the mic in the most insufferable pommy accent Tinka has ever had the misfortune to hear.

  ‘A naice cup of tea,’ says Nikka Khan sonorously. ‘Fort-teh-three.’

  Tinka blinks.

  ‘Ultah pultah,’ continues Nikka, in the same ghastly British accent. ‘Ultah pultah, sixty-nine!’

  ‘Is he announcing Tumbola numbers?’ Tinka asks in disbelief. ‘Now? Why?’

  Leo’s chubby face splits in a grin of pure glee. ‘I told you he’s making important announcements, and everybody is listening!’

  ‘Never trust a Russian,’ Julian says resignedly. ‘Making me walk all this way for nothing.’

  ‘The sun’s good for your old hide, grandfather,’ Leo grins. ‘You’re getting as pale as a snake’s belly in that hotel.’

  ‘Shush!’ An elderly lady with a hennaed bouffant bun frowns at them fearsomely. ‘We can’t hear the number calls.’

  They subside, cowed, in the second-last row of seats.

  Tinka glares at Leo.

  ‘Why did you drag us here?’ she whispers.

  ‘Shammi kebabs,’ he replies reverentially. He is looking beyond her, his gleaming eyes seeking a bearer. ‘The goats in Dacca were made to be minced. You have to try them.’

  ‘Aaah.’ Julian’s old eyes gleam. ‘Our Ivan’s not such a fool, after all.’

  Tinka, uninterested in the kebabs, is watching Nikka do his thing.

  ‘Unbelievable.’ She shakes her head. ‘General-saab has a fondness for Tumbola!’

  ‘General-saab has a fondness for the sound of his own voice,’ says Julian, his quavery voice not as low as it should be. ‘He reads out the numbers every Sunday at the Defence Club. Nobody else is allowed to do it, even though he’s now in charge of the defence of all East Pakistan and most definitely has more important things to do.’

  ‘Some upstart tried to take over the number-calling once,’ Leo chimes in. ‘Conducted an entire Sunday Tumbola and was very funny and charming. Came up with some very original rhymes. Everybody loved him. He was found dead on the banks of the Buriganga the next morning dressed only in little shorts. His testicles had been cut off and stuffed into his mouth.’

  Tinka chokes.

  ‘Nuts on a plate,’ Nikka announces from the podium serenely. ‘Num-bah eight.’

  Tinka stares at him in horrid fascination. She has the creepiest feeling that he is staring right back at her.

  ‘Double D,’ says the general next with a knowing smirk. ‘For-ty!’

  Somebody calls out that they have a jaldi five, and the number-calling halts for a little while. Shammi kebabs and Coca-Colas find their way to the little press gang�
��s table.

  Tinka, staring at the Butcher of Balochistan, now crowned the Butcher of Bengal, can’t help feeling a bit underwhelmed. She has read up on the general – a childhood spent in grinding poverty in a small village in undivided Punjab, seventh of eleven children, missionary school education, recruitment into the British Army, campaigns abroad, the rape of his mother and sisters during Partition and the subsequent reign of terror in the two provinces. None of that seems to tally with the cummerbanded, cravatted caricature before her.

  ‘I can’t help feeling there’s some deep psychological explanation for his behaviour,’ she says.

  ‘Never romanticize a bastard,’ Julian Arnott snorts through a mouthful of shammi. ‘The man’s a despot, pure and simple. A cold-blooded killer. So, naturally, also a narcissist. His office is always calling us asking for cuttings of his pictures and interviews for his several voluminous scrapbooks. The moment he sights camera crews, especially international camera crews, he turns his best angle towards them, smoothens down his dyed black hair and starts flashing his sinister, thin-lipped smile. Hold up your camera, Tinka.’

  She does.

  Nikka preens immediately. Squaring his shoulders just a wee bit more and batting his eyelashes like a female pop singer competing on Eurovision.

  ‘You’re right,’ Tinka says, fascinated. ‘What a diva!’

  She presses her ‘shoot’ button several times and is rewarded by several poses. The general moves just a little every time she clicks, now stroking his eyebrow meditatively, now leaning forward thoughtfully, now shaking the numbers drum in a pensive fashion.

  ‘Maybe he finds you attractive, wench,’ Julian tell her. ‘Maybe looking at you has made him come alive with the freshness of Freesia.’

  ‘Shush!’ Tinka whispers back. ‘You’ll get us thrown out of here.’

  ‘Son-of-a-gun,’ says Nikka. ‘Twen-teh-one!’

  They giggle and the people seated in the next row glower at them. Quickly, they compose their faces.

  The game gets over a little later, a large lady with maroon hair cleaning up the bumper prize, and then Nikka is free to circulate.