Legal Fiction

by Chandan Pandey

  I addressed my companions in a bid to make him listen: Are you people also afraid of Junior Dadda?

  We have to stop going there from tomorrow. Motumal has confiscated our things. Kushal managed to rescue his uniform and Mukesh his turban. The landlord said that if any wear and tear had taken place in the room, he would cover the expenses by selling our stuff.

  Where will we do the rehearsals from tomorrow?

  If I ask Anasuya, she will say, ‘Do it at home.’ But I won’t. She doesn’t like noise.

  So then, dear Rafique, where will you do the rehearsals from tomorrow?

  How will you perform on 15 August?

  DAY THREE

  THIS MORNING TOO BEGAN AT the tea stall near the bus stand. What was different was that I had arrived fairly early today, so there was almost no one there. I had been mulling over a problem since the morning. The things I could not tell Anasuya the previous night weighed me down. And all that weight on my mind did not let me see how drastic a turn things had taken. In fact, it was Anasuya who would tell me about this.

  I would have felt better if Archana had accompanied me. The ritual of installing the kalash – the vessel – for the Dol Mela was to be held at Dadda’s home today. This was an important event, and I had been invited as well. But the matter of Rafique and Janaki was disturbing me so much that I decided to go to Anasuya’s place first. An old woman was there to see her. It was Jagdish’s mother.

  I told Anasuya everything I had learnt the previous day, but I could not tell her why Rafique might have decided to leave home. Gathering some courage, I finally asked her, ‘Did Rafique ever mention Janaki? Do you remember anything?’

  ‘Yes. He always mentions her name. She is his student.’

  ‘People are saying all sorts of things about the two of them.’

  When I said that, she stood up and walked across the room to go outside. She returned holding the day’s paper and opened it to the third page. On the top right was an article that read: ‘Author Arjun Kumar to be felicitated at BL(D)U.’ A description of the function followed. The news also mentioned that a symposium had been organized.

  Below this was another news item: ‘Love Jihad: Muslim teacher absconds with Hindu student.’

  ‘Love’ was printed in red and ‘Jihad’ in green. The piece was pretty long. ‘A matter of love jihad’ was printed in bold. I feared for Anasuya’s safety as soon as I saw it. The intriguing bit about the report was that it had very little information about the meetings between Rafique and Janaki. Such reports generally carried information such as the number of years the couple knew each other, whether they had been seen together earlier, what a neighbour had said, and what the wife had said. But there was nothing of this sort. What was dwelt on in detail, however, was that Rafique’s current wife was also a Hindu, and his modus operandi suggested that he was part of a gang. It was lamented that he had decided to leave his wife while she was pregnant. The article also said that Janaki’s family had severed relations with her. Anasuya was mentioned at the end: ‘His wife refused to comment on the situation.’

  Anasuya said this was a lie. ‘Nobody bothered to ask me anything.’

  ‘You have to come to Delhi with me.’

  ‘This report is a lie.’

  ‘It’s published in the paper now.’

  ‘I am worried about Rafique. If this news were true, the police would have certainly registered a report. Rafique isn’t like this.’

  ‘I am afraid for you. People can harm you using Janaki as an excuse. Think about your unborn child. Come with me to Delhi. You can return after everything has settled down.’

  ‘Return to whom?’

  I had no answer to this question, merely arguments that would make my life easier but not another’s. I wondered whether Anasuya’s repeated denials of the news report came from a place of feeling abandoned rather than from her trust in Rafique. Lies and betrayals are often tolerated in relationships because people don’t want to be left alone. They brush aside all red flags and cover naked truths with their own delusions. But those who are aware that they have no control over love, they don’t fall into the trap of truth, lies and betrayals.

  This meeting was bound to end somewhere, so I repeated, a little loudly this time, ‘Archana has invited you. Come to Delhi. Think about your unborn child.’

  She sat right there on a stool. Why did I not have anything else to say to her? I wanted to talk about the weather, but it would have been pointless in these circumstances. Talking about her brothers would have been equally futile. Rafique’s absence had filled up all the space around us to such an extent that there was no room for words.

  She walked down the stairs to see me off. ‘There’s a literary function in the afternoon,’ I told her while standing in the sun on the stairs. ‘I will return in the evening. You are coming along with me.’ I was now very close to her and was looking up at her from a step below – an inverse of the photograph that had been found in my house.

  A bicycle was parked downstairs near the door. Waiting for its rider. Anasuya, who had been calm and composed so far, grabbed its handle and seat and began to weep, her head bowed. She repeated between her sobs, ‘This is all a lie, a lie, all a lie.’ Those who passed by may have thought I was part of the scene, but only I knew that I was no more than a bystander.

  To comfort her, I placed a hand on her shoulder. On a spot that was at the very edge of her shoulder, beyond which the body didn’t exist and only memory or imagination did. ‘Stop crying. Please, stop crying. Be brave. Think of your unborn child.’ I found myself using the unborn child as my weapon. I was seized by the thought that if I, who had only been around for a day or so, was using a child against a woman or her emotions, how terribly and repeatedly must those who live together use the same weapon all their lives. Mankind left no stone unturned in transforming this natural gift of a woman into a curse.

  The touch of her shoulder birthed a desire within me. I wished I could enter her skin through this timid touch. I wished it were possible for us to switch skins. Then her sorrows would become mine, and the advantage I had of being able to observe her troubles from a distance would become hers. But alas! If it were so, I could also have found out what hurt her more – that Rafique wasn’t around, or that he had betrayed her. I wanted to peer into her soul and learn what her answer would be if Rafique told her he didn’t want to be with her any more, that he wanted to be with Janaki. I would have felt the movements of her child. But touch has its limitations – it doesn’t transform.

  ‘Is this Rafique’s cycle?’

  She grunted in affirmation, the way one says ‘yes’ with a closed mouth using one’s breath.

  ‘I am taking it. I will bring it back when I return in the evening to pick you up…’ I stressed on the ‘pick you up’.Then I repeated myself because I wanted to hear her say yes.

  But she wasn’t going to say yes, and she did not.

  I decided to take a ride around town, but the bicycle was in bad shape. Deep grooves had formed on the handlebars where Rafique’s fingers might have held them, and I was having a hard time settling my own fingers on them properly. If someone recognized Rafique’s cycle, they might have been confused. The cycle did have brakes, but they didn’t really work. One had to use one’s feet to make it come to a halt.

  The road was narrow. I turned east from the market, mindful that if I went around in a circle, I would reach the police station on the west. The town ended after about a kilometre to the east, but the road went on. There were fewer people here. A school called Saraswati Shishu Evam Bal Vidya Mandir marked the town’s limits. No one was outside, so I guessed classes might have been on. Riding further ahead, I hit a crossroads. I had to choose a path and I turned right. The road to the left must have led to Bihar via Mehrauna.

  I almost ran into a truck near the Durga temple on the Noma crossroads. The government hospital was a little ahead. This is where the journalist Pramod Gupta had his medicine shop. I didn’t have any
trouble finding it: Navbharat Medical Store, directly opposite the hospital. The signboard displayed the names of the two newspapers Gupta wrote for. Beneath it was a board attesting to his membership at a human rights organization.

  He rose from his seat when he saw me getting off the bicycle. There were two or three customers at his shop. ‘You have a cure for every disease, it seems,’ I said, pointing to the signboards that announced his interest in medicine, journalism and human rights. ‘Arey, maharaj,’ he took my hand and welcomed me with extreme humility. When he asked about the cycle, it occurred to me that it must have been him who had filed the report about Rafique and Janaki. I had no objection to his report. But I wanted to know how he could write that Rafique’s wife had refused to say anything when he hadn’t spoken to Anasuya at all.

  He gave his reason, and what a reason it was: ‘Even if I had asked her, would she have been able to say anything? I have accorded her some honour at least. Believe me, sir, it is indeed a matter of love jihad.’

  ‘Don’t call me sir, please.’

  ‘As you wish, sir!’ This time, the ‘sir’ was accompanied by a loud guffaw. ‘Which story will you read at the function?’

  ‘There was no talk of reading a story. Do I have to?’

  ‘What are you saying, sir! It would be lovely to listen to one of your love stories. This is what the programme should be, and indeed will be.’

  I brought the conversation back to my point. ‘But how can you say this is love jihad? Where is the evidence? Did the police ask you to do so? People can hurt Anasuya because of your report.’

  ‘The thing is, sir-ji, the woman should also have thought about all this. She should have thought about all this before getting into a love marriage. There was always going to be some danger…’

  ‘What sort of talk is this?’

  ‘Sir, rest assured, nothing will happen,’ he softened at my objection.

  This was said in the same way that Shalabh had told me they would find Rafique. But I no longer felt the same kind of reassurance I had felt then.

  We took each other’s leave promising to meet again at the function, but not before he made me drink two cups of tea. He said that it was the house rule – a visitor could depart only after drinking two cups.

  I felt like going to the police station but wasn’t sure if I would find Shalabh there. I wanted to know how Rafique, who had been a ‘missing person’ until the party two nights ago – where I was asked to remove my Facebook post about him – had turned into a ‘love jihadi’ in this morning’s newspaper. The news report had probably been written and edited, and its placement on the third page fixed as well, while Shalabh had been assuring me he would find Rafique. He must have kept it from me.

  A YOUNG SIKH MAN SAT ON the bench near the reception. The two of us looked at each other. As I started climbing the stairs, the boy at the reception told me that this gentleman had been waiting for me. By the time he said this, I had already climbed half the stairs, so I turned around to look at the man once more. I recalled he was the same man who had exchanged pleasantries with Rafique’s students at the police station, and Kushalpal had even gone up to chat with him. He followed me to my room.

  ‘My name is Amandeep Singh. I was an assistant sub-inspector here until a month and a half ago,’ he said.

  I remembered he had called me the previous night to say something about Rafique and Janaki. Hearing his name, I looked towards the door. I couldn’t see properly whether it was locked or not, so I got up to check. It was locked.

  He spoke slowly, trying to conceal his anxiety, pausing after every word: ‘Perhaps you didn’t want to see me.’

  ‘You hadn’t given me your address. How did you get my phone number? And are you suspended right now?’

  ‘Yes, I’m suspended. But my suspension doesn’t disprove my point that this is not a matter of love jihad.’

  ‘Please tell me if you have evidence to the contrary. The police have a video in their possession.’

  ‘Do you trust their stories? Nobody understands their plan, but since everybody is scared, they are supporting them. Rafique wanted to disseminate his mania, a mania which he called a “message”, to thousands through multiple performances of his street play during the Dol Mela. Now these people will use that same festival to spread their message.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘The same ones who are felicitating you.’

  ‘What rubbish!’

  ‘The Mangal Morcha.’

  ‘Hold on, sir-ji, hold on,’ I shouted him down. His explanation sounded like a cooked-up story. The situation was not so bad that I had to start believing a suspended police officer’s theory. But how do you shoo away a man who has barged into your hotel room?

  ‘Sir, the truth is being hidden behind a huge veil. You have also been used as a tool. Weren’t you asked to remove your Facebook post?’

  ‘Is this all the evidence you have?’ The derision in my voice was, in fact, borne out of belief. Very few realities are as clear as death, and most truths turn hazy under a shroud of lies. But the moment you clear away a layer of the haze, reality peeks out. I was more than ready to admit this was not a matter of love jihad – but for Anasuya’s sake, not mine, since that was what she too claimed. But the media, the police, the city, the system – all of them could not possibly be fabricating the truth.

  He stood right in front of me. He had gone silent – perhaps because I had derided him – and now looked at the papers strewn all over the room. I didn’t like the way he looked around. I feared I was being followed under the pretext of searching for Rafique’s diary and notes.

  To help him become more comfortable and get past my earlier tone, I offered him tea. I even asked him if he needed help dealing with the matter of his suspension. He chuckled at first, then said he was in a hurry. He mentioned he was under surveillance, and added that the video clip of Rafique and Janaki that was being presented as evidence by the police was from a rehearsal of one of their plays.

  He came up close to me as he said this. His fear was evident now. I asked him to sit, but he repeated that he was in a hurry. He said I was also being followed.

  Then he gave me a new name – Niyaz. ‘I had saved him from getting lynched by a mob. You should meet him. If he is around, you will find him at Suhag Studio.’ He held a piece of yellow paper in his hand. It had a phone number on one side and directions to Suhag Studio from Radha Chitra Mandir on the other.

  I faintly recalled that I had read about Suhag Studio on a dry page from Rafique’s diary, but at that moment, all of it seemed to be a figment of the suspended daroga’s imagination. I felt like laughing, and the feeling would have stayed had he not told me something baffling before leaving. He added that he had actually come to just tell me this:

  ‘Kushalpal has also gone missing since yesterday afternoon.’

  Kushalpal!

  Nobody had heard from him since he had left to fetch pooris the other day. Of Rafique’s three students, Kushal was the tallest and strongest, and always took the lead in speaking to others. He might have been the same size as Amandeep, the suspended policeman. The steadfastness with which these guys stood by Anasuya was exemplary. I had thought of having a long conversation with them when they left the hotel the day before. I wanted to get to know these brave young men better, but now I was being told Kushal had also not come back home. I had Mukesh’s phone number. He had sent me a few photos and videos that I had not been able to download.

  When I called Mukesh, his phone was answered by a woman. She seemed quite disinterested in the conversation. ‘There is too much noise, speak louder,’ she kept repeating. ‘Can you give it to Mukesh?’ I asked over and over then eventually hung up, hoping that she would ask him to call back.

  The phone rang suddenly, like a flash of memory. Both sadness and anger washed over me when I saw who it was. Anger, because I didn’t know why I was so afraid. Of what or whom? And sadness, over the fact that I was being used
.

  It was Archana.

  I HAD TO VISIT SUHAG STUDIO. I had to look for Niyaz. But before I did so, I decided to read a few pages of the disorderly, dried-up bunch from Rafique’s diary.

  The date was listed as 28 June 2015. It looked like a list of characters in a play. A name was written in the left column, and another on the right. Eight lines in all. It was difficult to figure out which names belonged to the characters, and which to the actors. Amandeep’s name was on top, and Kushalpal’s name was listed next to it. Below Amandeep, there was Niyaz. On its right was Rafique. I understood then that the left column listed out the characters, while the actors’ names were on the right. In between was a line that joined the two names, as thin as the margin between dusk and night:

  AmandeepKushalpal

  NiyazRafique

  MangalJagdish

  AmangalMukesh

  AnuradhaWhom to choose? (Janaki**)

  ChaiwallahNeeraj

  Person oneWho?

  Person twoWho?

  The title of this script or play was listed below: Bachane Wala Hai Bhagwan! – The One Who Saves Is God! From here on, the page had completely dissolved, to the extent that even ‘Bhagwan’ was my own guess; the discoloured page only said, ‘Bachane Wala Hai Bhag’. I added the letters and the exclamation mark as per my own understanding.