“Listen,” Papa tells Ma, “Madhu, meri jaan, the police won’t do anything to us. Drunkard Laloo’s wife has given them her gold chain. Nobody’s bringing JCBs to crush our basti.”
I look at Papa open-mouthed because he only just came home but has already found out about the gold chain. What if he knows Kirpal-Sir kicked me out of school too?
So far no one has asked me why I got home early, not Shanti-Chachi who gave me a plate of the kadhi pakora and rice her husband had made for her, or Runu-Didi, whose No. 1 job Papa says is to keep a sharp eye on me. Ma didn’t even notice the new dirt-stains on my uniform, probably because the basti was full of talk about Bahadur and the police, whispery-scary talk that made people forget me.
“What do we lose by being a little careful?” Ma says now. “Maybe there’ll be bulldozers, maybe not. Who knows anything for sure?” She wraps two cotton dupattas around a framed certificate that Runu-Didi’s team won for coming first in a state-level relay race, and places it gently on top of her pile. It slips down to the side and lies crooked above the rolling pin. Ma straightens the frame again, biting the inside of her cheeks and breathing heavily.
The dangly bulb above me hums with hot current, and its shadow swishes over the shelves, the cracks on the wall, and the watermarks from monsoon floods that I can see now because Ma has moved tins and plates around. Ma likes our house to be clean, and she scolds me if I don’t put my school books and clothes where she has told me to put them, and now she’s the one making a big mess.
Papa puts his arm around my shoulders and brings me close to his paint-and-smog smells. “Women, na,” he says. “Getting worried over nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” I say.
“Jai, the police can’t just start a demolition drive. They have to give us advance warning,” Papa says. “They have to paste notices, talk to our pradhan. Our basti has been here for years. We have identity cards, we have rights. We’re not Bangladeshis.”
“What rights?” Ma asks. “These minister-people only remember us a week before the elections. And how can anyone trust that badmash pradhan? He doesn’t even live here anymore.”
“Is that really true?” I ask. It’s hard to imagine Quarter in a hi-fi flat. He looks like he belongs in jail.
“Madhu, if the police demolish our basti, where will they get bribes from?” Papa says, which is what Pari had said too. “How will their fat wives eat chicken every day?”
Papa pretends his teeth are tearing the meat off a chicken leg. He makes slurpy-hungry noises and licks his fingers.
I laugh but Ma’s lips are turned down and she keeps packing. When she finally finishes, she places the bundle by the door. She has to lift it with both hands because she has stuffed too many things inside. Only Papa will be able to run with it slung over his shoulder.
Afterward, we have dinner.
“If our basti is demolished,” Runu-Didi says, “will you make us live with Dada-Dadi? I won’t go there, okay, I’m telling you right now. I won’t do all this purdah-vurdah nonsense. I’m going to win a medal for India one day.”
“That day a donkey will sing like Geeta Dutt,” I say.
Geeta Dutt is Papa’s favorite singer. She sings in black and white.
“Children,” Papa says, “the worst thing that’s going to happen is that we won’t be able to eat rotis until your very wise, very beautiful mother unpacks her rolling pin. That’s all. Understand?”
He looks at Ma and smiles. Ma doesn’t smile back.
Papa tucks my hair behind my ear with his left hand. “We have been paying the police hafta on time. And now they have got an extra gold chain. Like a second Diwali bonus. They won’t bother us for a while.”
When dinner is done and the washing-up is finished, Ma dries her hands on her sari and tells me I can sleep on the bed tonight. Papa looks startled.
“Why?” he asks. “What did I do?”
“My back’s hurting,” Ma says without looking at him. “Easier to sleep on the floor.”
Didi drags out the mat she and I usually share from under the bed. She does it so quickly that the bags Ma stores there spill out.
“Watch it,” Papa says and angry lines crease his face.
I help Didi put everything back into the bags, a plastic gun and a wooden monkey that I haven’t played with in ages, and the torn clothes Didi and I have outgrown. Together we spread the mat out on the floor. Its edges are permanently curled where they hit the legs of the bed.
Papa switches on the TV. The news doesn’t have anything interesting today. It’s all about politics. I stand at the door, listening to our neighbors argue about police and bribes and whether our basti will be demolished or not.
Once I find Bahadur, people won’t have these silly discussions. Instead they’ll talk about me, Jasoos Jai, the Greatest Detective on Earth.
Tomorrow I’ll ask Faiz to be my assistant. We’ll be like Byomkesh Bakshi and Ajit and we’ll detect in the smog-dark lanes of Bhoot Bazaar. We’ll even have our own secret signal, which will be much better than the one the police constables had.
Papa gets tired of the news and tells me to come to bed. I shut the door and switch off the light. Ma lies down on the mat next to Didi. Papa snores in no time, but I pinch myself so that I’ll stay awake. What if Papa is wrong about JCBs? I draw a map of the basti in my head and think of the quickest escape route we can take.
I turn toward the posters of Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna that Papa has taped to the wall. I can’t see them in the dark but I know they are there. I ask them and all the other gods I can name to help us. I decide to say the same prayer nine times so that the gods know how badly I want this. Ma says nine is the gods’ favorite number.
Please God, don’t send bulldozers to our basti.
Please God, don’t send bulldozers to our basti.
Please God, don’t send bulldozers to our basti.
When I find Bahadur, I’ll shove his shit up his mouth.
I slap myself on the forehead for thinking bad thoughts while praying.
“Mosquitoes?” Ma asks.
“Haan.”
I hear the jingle of Ma’s glass bangles, and the rustle of a blanket she has probably pulled up to her nose.
Dear God, no bulldozers. Please please please.
* * *
The next morning, we are late for school, and we have to run, so I don’t get to talk to Faiz about my detectiving idea. I’m tired and sleepy at assembly. In the classroom too, my eyes keep shutting, so I have to hold them open with my fingers. It’s easier to stay awake if you’re flying paper rockets or taking part in arm-wrestling contests like everybody else is doing now.
Kirpal-Sir doesn’t try to stop us. He’s pretending like all of yesterday didn’t happen; like he didn’t scold Pari or throw me out of school. I can pretend too. When I hear the loud phad-phad of a Bullet motorbike on the road outside, I drop a pencil and bend down to pick it up. With my head under the table, I imitate the bike, taka-taka-taka-taka. It’s like a hundred firecrackers bursting in my mouth, filling it with sparks. It wakes me up proper. Others in the classroom laugh. Kirpal-Sir shouts silence, silence, but the laughter only gets louder.
Gaurav makes the Bullet noise along with me. Kirpal-Sir takes out his ruler and raps the table. Slowly the classroom falls quiet.
Sir teaches us Social Science for one hour, then Maths for another; he teaches us everything because they don’t let him into the senior classes anymore. He stops talking only when the bell rings for the midday meal.
In the corridor, we sit cross-legged with our backs against the wall. I look for Omvir, so I can ask him about Bahadur, but I don’t see him anywhere.
The midday-meal people put stainless steel plates in front of us.
“That India map Kirpal-Sir made, with the sun in the east?” I say. “How bad was th
at? His sun looked like a broken-shelled egg.”
“I hope we get eggs today,” Faiz says.
“When have we ever had an egg?” I ask. I’m annoyed he’s not letting me finish what I want to say, but I wouldn’t mind an egg either.
I sniff the air to detect what the midday-meal people have brought for us, but everywhere smells only of smog now.
“I want puri-subzi,” Pari says. Then she chants puri-subzi puri-subzi puri-subzi and other students giggle and join in too until the midday-meal people slop vegetable daliya onto our plates. It’s so watery we have to drink it holding the plates up to our mouths as if it’s gruel. Our plates are empty soon but our tummies are still growly.
“These midday-meal people are making donkeys out of the government,” Pari says. “They keep all the good food for their own children and give us this.” She says this often but there’s never a grain of rice left on her plate.
“Stop complaining, yaar,” Faiz says. “At least it’s not made with pesticide like in Bihar.”
Pari can’t argue with that because she was the one who told us about the children in Bihar who died after eating their midday meal. She knows so much because she reads everything, greasy newspapers wrapped around naans and pappads, the covers of magazines hanging outside stalls, and the books at the reading center near the mosque in Bhoot Bazaar where Faiz goes to pray.
The didi at the center once told Pari’s ma that she should ask a private school to take Pari under their “poor quota,” because Pari was too clever for a government school. Pari’s ma said they had tried and it hadn’t worked out. Pari claimed it doesn’t matter where she studies. On the news, she had seen an interview with a boy from a basti like ours who had topped the civil services exam and was now a district collector. If he could do it, she could too, Pari said. I agreed with her but didn’t say so aloud.
Now we grovel for more daliya but the midday-meal people have shut off their ears, so we wash our hands and troop down to the playground. Bhoot Bazaar sounds noisy from here, but we are even noisier.
Runu-Didi is standing in the corridor, talking to her friends. She doesn’t look sleepy like me. She can snore even when the earth is quaking and breaking apart. But the good thing about her is that once we are inside the school, she acts as if she doesn’t know me. I like it that way because she never rats on me either.
Four boys are looking at Runu-Didi’s group with sly eyes and toothy smiles. One of them is the spotty boy who was in my school queue yesterday. His friends laugh at something he says. Runu-Didi and the other girls glare at them.
Near the neem tree where Quarter is holding his afternoon court, I find a twig that I can chew to fool my tummy into thinking more food is on its way. A few boys are standing around Quarter, hands tucked into their armpits for warmth. Paresh, who’s in Standard Six and from our basti, is telling Quarter about the police constables and Bahadur. But Paresh wasn’t even there like I was when it happened.
“The constables asked every woman in the basti to give them whatever they could, gold or cash,” he says. “The policemen hit Buffalo-Baba with batons too.”
I want to put Paresh right but break will be over soon and I have an important task to do. I order Pari and Faiz to follow me to an empty space under an amaltas tree whose flowers paint the ground yellow in spring. Tanvi and her watermelon backpack that she carries everywhere try to join us, but I shoo-shoo them away.
“This whole poor-Bahadur-is-missing thing,” I tell Pari and Faiz, “it’s like a bad Hindi picture, it’s been going on for too long.”
I have to speak up because the small children playing kabbadi-kabbadi-kabbadi are squealing too loud, their fast-as-cheetahs feet kicking up dust from the ground in big, brown swirls.
“I’m going to be a detective, and I’m going to find Bahadur,” I say, putting on my best grown-up voice. “And Faiz, you’ll be my assistant. Every detective has one. Like Byomkesh has Ajit and Feluda has Topshe.”
Pari and Faiz look at each other.
“Feluda is a detective and Topshe is his cousin,” I explain. “They’re Bengalis. The Bengali Sweets-wallah in Bhoot Bazaar, next to Afsal-Chacha’s shop, you have seen him. The old man who shakes a broomstick at us if we go too close to his sweets? That guy. His son reads Feluda comics. He told me a Feluda story once.”
“What kind of name is Feluda?” Faiz asks.
“How come you get to be the detective?” Pari asks.
“That’s very true,” Faiz says. “Why can’t you be my assistant?”
“Arrey, what do you know about being a detective? You don’t watch Police Patrol.”
“I know about Sherlock and Watson,” Pari says. “You two haven’t even heard of them.”
“What-son?” Faiz asks. “Is that also a Bengali name?”
“Leave it,” Pari says.
“Just because you read books doesn’t mean you know everything,” Faiz tells her. “I work. Life’s the best teacher. Everyone says so.”
“Only people who can’t read say such things,” Pari says.
These two are always quarrelling like a husband and a wife who have been married for too long. But they can’t even get married when we grow up because Faiz is a Muslim. It’s too dangerous to marry a Muslim if you’re a Hindu. On the TV news, I have seen blood-red photos of people who were murdered because they married someone from a different religion or caste. Also, Faiz is shorter than Pari, so they wouldn’t make a good match anyway.
“This assistant job,” Faiz says, “how much does it pay?”
“No one is paying us,” I say. “Bahadur’s ma is poor. She had a gold chain and now that’s also gone.”
“Why should I do this then?” Faiz asks.
“Bahadur’s ma will keep going to the police and the police will get angry and demolish our basti,” Pari explains my thinking to Faiz. “But we can stop her if we find him.”
“I don’t have time,” Faiz says. “I have to work.”
“So that your hair will be Silky Soft?” Pari asks. “Or Stunning Black?”
“So that I’ll smell like Purple Lotus and Cream,” Faiz says.
“There’s no such thing. It’s made up. Your life-teacher forgot to tell you that or what?” Pari sneers.
“Listen,” I say, so they’ll stop fighting. “I’ll ask a few questions. Whoever gets the most answers right can become my assistant.”
They both groan loudly, as if they have stubbed their toes against a big stone.
“Jai, you na,” Pari says.
“He’s mad,” Faiz agrees.
“Okay, first question. Are most children in India kidnapped by: (a) people they know, or (b) people they don’t know?”
Pari doesn’t answer. Faiz doesn’t answer.
The bell rings.
“We can look for Bahadur together,” Pari tells me, “but I won’t be your assistant or anything. No way.”
I’m sad Faiz won’t be my assistant, but a girl can be a good assistant too. Maybe. Papa told me about a detective show called Karamchand that came on TV a long time ago. Karamchand had a woman-assistant named Kitty, but unfortunately Kitty wasn’t smart and Karamchand had to spend the whole show telling her to shut up. It’s the kind of story that would make Pari furious. If I tell Pari to shut up, she’ll kick my shins.
“What should our secret signal be?” I ask Pari. “Detectives should have secret signals.”
“That’s the first order of business? A secret signal?” Pari asks. “Be serious.”
“This is serious.”
Pari rolls her eyes. We walk back to the classroom.
“If a child has been missing for more than twenty-four hours, the police have to file a case of kidnapping,” I say.
“How do you know that?” Pari asks.
“TV,” I say. “The police haven’t done that for
Bahadur.”
“Didn’t read about this police rule in your books?” Faiz asks Pari.
“Most children in India are kidnapped by strangers,” I tell them. I don’t know that for sure, but it sounds about right to me.
OUR FIRST JOB AS DETECTIVES—
—is to interview Omvir. He will know more about Bahadur than anyone else. That’s the rule; our friends know the things we hide from our parents. Ma has no idea that before Diwali, the headmaster boxed my ears when I sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” instead of “Jana Gana Mana” at assembly. But Pari and Faiz do. They called me Twinkle for a few days and then forgot about it. Ma would never forget. This is why I can’t tell her anything.
Faiz, who’s not even part of our detective team, shoots down my interview-plan the second I suggest it.
“You should question Quarter first,” he says as we head home from school. The smog sloshes in and out of his mouth, making him cough. “Quarter is your No. 1 suspect, right, Jai? That’s why you talked to him yesterday.”
“What do you know? You think a djinn took Bahadur.”
I speak in a whisper. If djinns are real, I don’t want them to hear me.
“We can interview everyone,” Pari says. “Let’s stop at the theka and ask people about Quarter. If they’re drunk, they might tell us the truth.”
“Accha, now you’re an expert on drunkards also?” Faiz asks.
It’s my job to decide what we should do, but before I can protest, Faiz punches the black air with his rolled-up fist and shouts, “Theka chalo.”
He’ll be late for his shift at a kirana store where he stocks shelves and bags rice and lentils, but he doesn’t mind. He’s hoping he’ll run into his older brothers at the theka.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line Page 6