The Rat Eater

by Anand Ranganathan

  Chaubey thwacked Sharma’s pillow with the baint, once, and then again, forcefully.

  ‘Aag. Ban-cho aag!’ hollered Sharma at the top of his voice, looking for immediate paths of escape.

  ‘Where. Where?’ screamed Chaubey and then doubled up in splits, taking the rest of the bay with him.

  As the prank dawned on him, Sharma managed, ‘Sirji—you na,’ and included himself reluctantly in the general laughter, silently lauding himself for having preserved his subordination and not vented his true feelings which were, roughly, Ban-cho, if I was your senior, I would have made you sit on your baint for this. He waited till Chaubey’s laughter had subsided to cut down his own grin.

  ‘Arey bhai, Sharmaji, come on, get up, we have reached Mughalsarai,’ said Chaubey.

  ‘Ji, sir,’ agreed Sharma and crawled out. He was already in uniform and ready to go. Chaubey, meanwhile, rested his back against the bunk stepladder and dusted his khaki pants, after having rescued them proudly from in-between the lower-most bench and its toppled backrest. Next, Chaubey snatched his shirt from the hook; before putting it on, he exhaled against the nameplate and swiped it clean.

  ‘Here, your shoes, sir,’ said Sharma, massaging his eyes and slapping his cheeks a couple of times.

  Chaubey nodded his approval. ‘All ready,’ he said after a while, cajoling his baint as the train stopped, lunged forward and then stopped again, finishing with a backward tug.

  ‘You go right ahead, sir, I’ll follow with the briefcase,’ said Sharma.

  ‘On time, no Sharma?’ said Chaubey, ignoring Sharma’s previous remark. ‘Chalo chalo, bhai,’ he said to no one in particular and was showered with greetings from all sides: ‘Achha, Chaubey saab, very nice meeting you,’ ‘Okay, SP saab, have a nice day,’ ‘Bye bye, Chaubeyji, please, remember my name.’

  Chaubey and Sharma reached the exit. Chaubey looked left, then right, and proceeded to rest his foot gently on the platform. Sharma followed soon after. Chaubey nudged the hem of his cap with his baint and asked, again from no one in particular, ‘Now, where do we find that Bansilal, hain?’

  ‘His stall is right here, on platform one, sir—he said so in his letter,’ answered Sharma, trying his level best to fend off polite enquiries from the gathered coolies.

  ‘Or shall we have some chai-shai first?’ wondered Chaubey out loud.

  ‘As you say, sir. Or we can have Bansilal bring us some chai…’

  ‘Good idea. What time is our train back?’

  ‘Nine-thirty tonight, sir.’

  ‘Good. Plenty of time,’ said Chaubey as he walked the length of the platform with Sharma in his wake, followed by a posse of coolies.

  ‘Arey, hato. Bhuttt,’ warned Sharma, trying to discourage the red menace.

  ‘There. There, Sharma, can you see?’ cried Chaubey excitedly, as though he had spotted the great Indian bustard after days of struggle with binoculars.

  ‘Ji sir, I see it, too—arey, dhuttt,’ said Sharma, pretending to hit one coolie with the briefcase.

  Chaubey and Sharma now stood in front of the stall: A.H. Wheeler & Sons (Prop: Bansilal). Throats were cleared loudly. Two discharges landed on the perforated drain cover in quick succession. Realising that the officers were not going to leave soon, the coolies dissipated, cursing the two under their breath.

  DSP Sharma was first. ‘Who is Bansilal, then, hain?’ he asked curtly, bringing his briefcase in an upward arc, then allowing it to drop down clumsily on the magazine arrangements, neatly tearing the glossy cover of Cine Blitz in two.

  A portly figure emerged from the shadows, proving once and for all that age does not wither away the attentiveness of magazine stall owners. ‘I am Bansilal. And you are? Oh. Namaste, saab, namaste.’

  Meanwhile, the old lady of yore had lost none of her shrieking abilities. ‘…Kindly pay attention! Coming, from, Jammu, going, to, Howrah, Junction…’

  DSP Sharma measured the shape in front of him. ‘You are Bansilal? The one who wrote that letter?’

  ‘Oh. Meri kismet. Ji, saab, I…’

  ‘…the, two, three, three, two, Himgiri, Express, via, Tawi, Kathua, Chakki, Bank, Jalandhar…’

  DSP Sharma spat again, in the general direction of the drain cover. ‘I am DSP Sharma and this is SP Chaubey sir. We are from Crime Branch, Mumbai.’

  Bansilal was all grace. ‘Please. Arey Chotu, what are you looking at, hain? Run and get some chai samosa for our guests. Go.’

  ‘…Patna, Saheb, Bakhtiyarpur, Junction, Mokameh, Junction, Kiul, Junction, Jamui…’

  ‘We have come for a little chit-chat.’

  ‘Arey, DSP saab, please. Arey, Chotu. Get two moodas, quick.’

  ‘For how long have you been the proprietor, Bansilal?’

  ‘…Jhajha, Asansol, Junction, is, arriving, at, Mughal, Sarai, at, platform, number, eleven, Thank you…’

  Bansilal looked ponderingly at the dipping clothesline on which magazines were hung out to dry. ‘Almost thirty-five—no let me see, thirt…’

  ‘Yes yes. Do you have any idea why we are here?’

  ‘I think so, saab. Is it regarding the Apte case? Here, saab, please have a seat. Haan Chotu, now get the chai. Or would you like a cold drink?’

  SP Chaubey opened his mouth for the first time. He yawned. He opened his mouth one more time. ‘Chai’s good. So. Bansilal. When you wrote that letter to our crime branch, was it before, or after, you knew about the reward for information?’

  ‘Before, saab.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I said, after, saab.’

  DSP Sharma stepped in. ‘Chaubey sir, please let me handle this. These people understand a special kind of language…Haan, so Bansilal, do you realise you have made SP saab come all the way from Mumbai just to talk to you? One full working day lost on this phatichar train.’

  ‘V-very sorry about that, saab. I-I did not know they…’

  ‘You think it’s nothing much, to write a letter—the police will just throw it away, kyon? Formalities. Do you understand what formality means?’

  Bansilal smothered his face with a gamchha that had last been washed in 1964. ‘J-ji, saab.’

  ‘…Kindly pay attention! Coming, from, New, Delhi, going, to, Bhubaneswar…’

  ‘You think you can write anything and we won’t follow it up. And-and…Here, is this your handwriting?’

  ‘…the, two, four, two, two, Bubhaneswar, Rajdhani, via, Khurja, Junction, Aligarh, Junction…’

  ‘J-ji, DSP saab, I…’

  ‘…Kanpur, Central, Mughal, Sarai, Junction, Gaya, Junction, Koderma, Adra…’

  DSP Sharma smacked the heavily stamped and notated page with his hand. ‘What do you mean by writing just this one sentence: “I know who the katil of Apte is. Meet me at Mughalsarai station, platform number one. Your well-wisher, Bansilal, proprietor A. H. Wheeler & Sons”. Haan?’

  ‘J-ji.’

  ‘You think you can mislead us? You think we’ll take all this lightly, hain? We are not your ban-cho Mughalsarai kotwals.’

  SP Chaubey ducked sideways and whispered into DSP Sharma’s ear. ‘Where are you going with all this, you fool? Get to the ban-cho point.’

  ‘Y-yes, sir. Haan, so Bansilal. We have come to investigate. Start with your story. And listen, one lie, one lie, and you know. You know, na.’

  ‘…Kharagpur, Junction, Balasore, Bhadrakh, and, Cuttack, is, arriving, at, Mughal, Sarai, Junction…’

  SP Chaubey corrected his cap with a shudder. ‘Leave it, Sharma. Er, listen, Bansilal. Don’t worry about anything. No one is going to touch you. We’ll see to it that you get the reward…get the reward…get the reward…’

  The mock echo of the last sentence terrified Bansilal. He was not to know then that ‘the mock echo’ would go on to become a standard operating procedure for the Mumbai police during interrogations, and that SP Chaubey would get a seva medal for inventing it.

  Bansilal mopped his forehead. ‘S-saab, I swear on Durga Maiyya I do
n’t want the reward.’

  SP Chaubey clucked his tongue. ‘O-ho, who isn’t giving you the reward, bhai? Don’t worry, Bansilal. Just relax. Now start—from the very beginning…Aah, good, very good samosa, bhai. Haan Bansilal, start.’

  ‘…at, platform, number, ten, Thank you…’

  Bansilal cleared his throat, and was about to remove the unnecessary when he thought better and gulped it down. ‘Sir, one day, I think it was only last week…’

  ‘What day?’

  ‘Tuesday, I think, SP saab. Yes. It was definitely Tuesday—I had just come in from the Hanuman mandir.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘I switched the TV on. And what do I see? Ram-Ram, FashionTV—this saala Chotu must have been watching it all night…’

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘Mata Rani only knows how many lady customers he must have lost through this, the harami. But the drawer was full of notes so I guess a lot of gents would have come to the stall.’

  SP Chaubey looked around for the dented cone and was heartbroken not to have found it dangling anywhere in the vicinity. He didn’t know what to do with the clenched fist.

  ‘Proceed!’

  ‘Y-yes, so, anyway, I quickly changed the channel to Aaj Tak—and what do I see? A screen full of headings like, Boatul main khoon, Chaar saal baad, Maut ka Djinn. The reporter was saying, very excitedly, that a bottle had been found in England. This bottle had a message in it that described in detail how a man named Ramrao Apte was murdered four years ago back here in India, in Mumbai.

  ‘That got me hooked, SP saab. But what really shocked me was what the reporter added next—that the message had been written by the murderer himself.’

  Bansilal was a born storyteller, SP Chaubey had to admit.

  ‘Hmm, then?’

  ‘Saab, three people were sitting and talking in the studio. One was saying: “Lekin, Kakkar saab, you are the weather man. You tell me how one bottle—one simple bottle—how can it happen that the bottle travels all the way from Mumbai to, what was the place, Dhingra saab, haan, Cornwall. This is simply unbelievable, Dr Kakkar.”

  ‘…and then Dr Kakkar said: “But this is very possible. Things like this have happened before. Once from Canada to Portugal in 19…”…then the anchor cut Kakkar off and asked the third man—he was a private detective from Delhi. The anchor asked: “Dhingra saab, what do you have to say about all this?” And Dhingra said: “This is exactly like what happened in And Then There Were None, the Agatha Christie novel. There, too, just as in this case, the message was in a bottle and the message told of murders carried out by the killer. I tell you, Chaurasiya saab, I get goose pimples by just thinking about the similarity”…and then Kakkar—have you noticed, SP saab, how even after one week, I remember all their names? Because it is fresh as a laal, laal tamatar in my mind.’

  ‘…Kindly pay attention! Coming, from, New, Delhi, going, to, Sealdaah, the…’

  SP Chaubey was on the edge of his stool.

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘…two, three, one, four, Sealdah, Rajdhani, via, Kanpur, Central, Mughal…’

  ‘Ji. Kakkar was saying that because of some unusual—what did he call it—haan, trade winds. Kakkar said because of trade winds, the bottle went through Suez and the Straight of Gibran and then to reach England it took the help of Westerlies. He was even drawing the route out with a pen…’

  ‘…Sarai, Junction, Gaya, Junction, Dhanbad, Junction, Asansol, Junction, and…’

  DSP Sharma was feeling left out. ‘Yes yes, we don’t ban-cho need to know how the bottle reached where it did. And there’s nothing called Gibran. Idiot. Anyway, just carry on.’

  ‘Ji…Then, saab, it took me a minute to think. Murder, Agatha Christie, India—and then like a flash, I got it. What if it was Kalki?’

  SP Chaubey came closer still. ‘Who?’

  ‘Saab, listen, na. I thought, what if it was my Kalki. There was every chance. He could have done it and thrown the bottle in the sea. And how could he have imagined that it would go all the way to England, hain? Anyway, SP saab, I immediately wrote that letter and sent it to the police address mentioned in Aaj Tak. That was on Tuesday, and now I see you so soon. Meri kismet.’

  ‘…Durgapur, is, running, ten, hours, late, from, its, scheduled, time…’

  SP Chaubey was thinking: If this ban-cho is so good at narrating stories, imagine what his grandmother might be like. He came out of Bansilal’s spell and thumped the magazine rack with his fist.

  ‘Now is that all there is? Do you even know how much chaos you created at our end? All because of your one-line letter. So don’t hide anything from us.’

  ‘…of, arrival, and, will, arrive, at, Mughal, Sarai, Junction, at, nineteen, forty…’

  ‘Ji, God promise, SP saab, I have told you everything.’

  ‘…hours, on, platform, number, one, Thank you…’

  SP Chaubey twirled and scrolled up a glossy magazine just for the heck of it.

  ‘Now, tell me about this—what was the name?’

  ‘Kalki, saab.’

  ‘Just Kalki?’

  ‘Kalki musahur.’

  ‘Musa– what?’

  ‘Ji, Kalki musahur.’

  ‘One minute…Sharma, note it down. Haan Bansilal, spell it.’

  ‘Ji, K-A-L-K-I M-U-S-A-H-U-R.’

  ‘What sort of ban-cho surname is this, hain?’

  ‘Ji, it’s not a proper surname. I only gave it to him. He was a musahur.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A musahur.’

  ‘What is a musahur?’

  ‘Lowest possible caste. They eat rats, SP saab.’

  SP Chaubey gave out the same cry Mahatma Gandhi had given half a century ago. No, not Quit India.

  ‘Hey Ram.’

  ‘Ji, bilkul.’

  ‘And this, this Kalki, he was working for you?’

  ‘Ji, SP saab, he worked at my stall for six years. Then one day he vanished, just like that.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Ji, let me see. Haan, he came in ‘76, and vanished in…‘82.’

  ‘82?’

  ‘Ji.’

  ‘1982?’

  ‘Ji.’

  SP Chaubey was good at maths. ‘Twenty-one years ago?’

  ‘Er...ji, SP saab.’

  ‘What the...Ban-cho, this chhokra vanished in ’82. And you, Bansilal. This was your lead? Some...how old was he when he vanished?’

  Bansilal was beginning to fear the surfacing of ‘the mock echo’ again. ‘J-ji, not more than fifteen.’

  ‘So you brought us here not because the killer vanished last week or last month, but twenty years ago.’

  ‘N-no…’

  SP Chaubey lunged at Bansilal’s throat. ‘You bas...’

  DSP Sharma held him back, just. ‘Chaubay sir, please. Let me…You ban-cho, Bansilal, you’ll pay for this.’

  ‘N-no no, DSP saab, please forgive me if I have made a mistake.’

  ‘You call this a mistake? And you think you’ll get a reward. For this? Twent...’

  Bansilal joined his hands and beat the air like a reciprocating piston pump jack. ‘I had good intentions, SP saab, G-God promise.’

  SP Chaubey was soothed a little by the oil drilling. He sat back down on the stool. ‘And this musahur fellow. What’s so special about him that you wanted to tell us? That he can eat rats?’

  ‘N-no, SP saab, Kalki had read each and every Agatha Christie novel. Nine times, ten times. He used to mumble the lines from the novels in his sleep.’

  ‘All?’

  ‘Each and every one, SP saab. I know because I stock all of them.’

  SP Chaubey recalled having read a book once but couldn’t bring to mind the title. ‘Ban-cho. Was he mad or something?’

  ‘N-no, saab, he was good at his work. He used to sell chai at the platforms and attend to my stall at night. At night, he’d just sit and read all these books.’

  ‘What happened to him? Why did he dis
appear?’

  ‘I don’t know, saab. One night, I waited and waited but he never showed up for his night duty. And then I learnt from other boys and coolies that he had jumped on a train…’

  Pen poised just above the notepad, DSP Sharma looked up. ‘Which train?’

  ‘I-I don’t know, DSP saab; no one knew.’

  ‘Did he go to some school?’

  ‘Ji saab, to our Rail Karamchari Vidyapeeth. It’s a school for the children of railway employees. I had arranged for…’

  ‘His father was a railway employee here?’

  ‘No, saab. He had no mother or father with him when he came to Mughalsarai. People say he’d run away from his village in Bihar.’

  ‘Which village?’

  ‘I don’t know, saab.’

  ‘Wah. So there’s no way to trace him.’

  The interrogation had reached a point where there was a risk the interrogated might end up learning more than the interrogators. Certainly, Bansilal now sounded more and more confident that the worst was over. He was beginning to pre-empt the questions even. Rather strange, thought SP Chaubey.

  Rather strange, too, that they hadn’t heard the old lady in a while. She couldn’t have dozed off or they’d have heard the snoring. SP Chaubey was starting to miss her. He punctuated his next sentence in her honour.

  ‘So, Sharma, are, we, done, here?’

  ‘Yes, sir, looks like it.’

  ‘And for all our troubles…that ban-cho train journey, the awful toilet, the terrible heat—and now we can’t go back before tonight—for all this. What has dear Bansilal given us? That he thinks a musahur, an urchin, with no mother no father, no ata-pata...Bansiji thinks he’ll get the reward because he has told us of this, of this, Agatha Christie-reading tea boy.’

  Bansilal waited with dread for the next rant.

  ‘Let me tell you something, Bansilal. Ramrao Apte was killed by his secretary. The secretary strangled him, the secretary was caught, the secretary confessed, the secretary is peesing chakki at Arthur Road…You want more? Three police officers got distinguished service medals for solving this murder in double-quick time—and one of them is me.’