Faiz doesn’t have the time to argue with us. He has to be at the kirana store and also the mosque. I shout “okay-tata-bye, loafer” as he leaves.
“Faiz found out about Bahadur’s elephant and money,” Pari says when Faiz is too far to hear her. “Not you.”
* * *
Ajay and his brother are hanging freshly washed shirts on a clothesline nailed to the outside wall of their house when Pari and I get there.
“Your didi used to do this before?” Pari asks. She’s barely hiding a smirk; she thinks the boys in our basti have an easy time because their parents force girls to do all the tough jobs. But her ma and papa don’t even ask her to peel an onion.
“Heard anything about your friends?” Ajay asks.
Pari says no. Then she tells Ajay about IMEI numbers.
“Papa has already asked the police to track Didi’s phone,” Ajay says. “But they haven’t done it.”
“Your sister’s mobile, you have a receipt from when she bought it?” Pari asks.
“She got it second-hand, I don’t know from where. There’s no receipt. Papa looked for its warranty papers to show the police, but he didn’t find anything.” Ajay wrings the water out of a shirt, badly, and gets his feet wet.
I wonder if Aanchal’s boyfriend gave her the mobile. This part of our detectiving has turned out to be a failure like all parts of our detectiving.
“It’s ekdum-stupid the police haven’t already tracked Aanchal’s mobile,” Pari says as we haul our feet and our heavy bags home.
“I wish we had their technology,” I say, but I don’t even know how to use a computer.
“You think Byomkesh Bakshi was hi-tech?” Pari asks. “All he had was his brain.”
Sadly, my brain isn’t intelligent enough to tell me where Aanchal is. I try to make my ears catch signals as I walk home, but I don’t pick up anything more than the usual bazaar and basti sounds of arguing mouths and hissing cats and jibber-jabbering TVs.
DAYS PASS FAST AS HOURS AND—
—Aanchal doesn’t come back and Bahadur and Omvir don’t come back either, but on the TV news I spot a headline that says: Dilli: Police Commissioner Reunited with His Cat!
Papa sees it too. His face curdles like milk left out in summer, and his fingers harass the buttons on the remote. The volume goes up and down, the newspeople are replaced by singers and dancers and then cooks in other channels.
Even if our basti goes up in flames, we won’t be on TV. Papa himself says so all the time, and he still gets mad about it.
I ask him if I can watch Police Patrol. He lets me even though it’s an only-for-grown-ups episode about five children killed by their evil uncle who pretended to be their best friend.
One morning soon after that night, when November has rolled into December and even water smells of smoke and smog, Pari, Faiz and I see Aanchal’s papa on our way to school. He’s buying packets of milk and telling anyone who’ll listen that the police are in the silk-lined pockets of rich murderers and kidnappers. “Laugh at me now,” he says, “but you’ll remember my words when other children go missing. And believe me they will.”
A man howls as if he’s shocked to hear that, but he’s just getting his ears scraped out and oiled by an ear-cleaner with a brass ear-pick and several balls of fluffy cotton. We pass a bad-tempered Santa Claus with dirt streaks in his white beard, wearing a holey red suit, ordering around a group of workers making a snowman out of Styrofoam and cotton. People snap photos of the half-made snowman on their mobiles.
At assembly, the headmaster scolds boys caught making dirty drawings in the bathrooms. Then he talks about Bahadur and Omvir. It’s almost six weeks since they have been seen, he says. He warns us against running away and also tells us about child-snatchers who carry sedative injections and sweets laced with drugs. “Don’t go anywhere alone,” he says.
I look at Faiz. He’s alone at night in the bazaar. I should have remembered to worry about him.
In the classroom, as Kirpal-Sir asks us to list the names of state capitals, I tell Faiz not to stay out late.
“When did you become my abbu?” he asks.
“Fine, go get snatched then,” I say, pushing his hand away from my side of the desk.
The spotty boy who is Runu-Didi’s No. 1 fan bumps into me during the midday meal break.
“You must wait for your sister to finish training and take her home,” he says, chucking black looks over the playground to where Quarter is holding his daily court under the neem tree. “She shouldn’t be out by herself. Times are bad.”
Everyone thinks Quarter is terrible and we still can’t pin the kidnappings on him. Either he is too clever for a criminal or we are too stupid. Still, I’m not taking advice from a loser.
“The only person Didi has to be scared of is you,” I tell the spotty boy and run away.
* * *
When the last bell rings, Kirpal-Sir shouts over our noise that we should remember to finish our projects and bring them to class on Monday. This project is to make greeting cards for New Year. It’s the worst project I have ever heard of.
We dash out of the classroom, and then the school gate. It’s a Friday and Faiz is making us hurry. On the road, there’s a flurry of pushcarts and cycle-rickshaws and parents waiting to take their small children home. I can smell the roasted peanuts and the steaming sweet potato cubes dusted with masala and lime juice that hawkers sell from their carts and baskets.
A hand with a cluster of bangles clanking at the wrist pushes aside a woman wearing a burqa, and the voice that belongs to the hand shouts, “Pari, there you are.”
It’s Pari’s ma. I have no idea what she’s doing here; she has to work until much later.
“Ma, what happened?” Pari asks. “Is Papa all right?”
Pari’s ma sobs. “Another child,” she says and tightens her hold on Pari’s wrist.
“Ma, it hurts,” Pari says.
“Another child disappeared last night,” Pari’s ma says. “A small girl. Your neighbor-chachi called me on my phone as soon as she heard. People are looking for her everywhere. It’s not safe for you to walk home alone.”
“She’s not alone,” Faiz says. “We’re here.”
A cycle-rickshaw full of schoolchildren chugs past. Spicy smells of biryani and tandoori chicken waft by. It doesn’t feel like something dreadful has happened. Everything around us is noisy and normal.
“Jai, where’s your sister?” Pari’s ma asks.
“She has training.”
“Your ma said to get her too. I spoke to her on the phone.”
The ladies-network in our basti is too strong. I run back to the playground. Runu-Didi is laughing with her teammates.
“Didi,” I say, “somebody else has disappeared in our basti and Ma called Pari’s ma and said we should all go home together. Pari’s ma is waiting for us at the gate.”
“I’m not coming,” Didi says.
“Another child has disappeared?” Tara, her teammate, asks.
“Tara’s ma is going to bring me home,” Didi says.
“She isn’t even—” Tara says but Didi shushes her. “Bye-bye,” Didi says to me.
If she gets kidnapped, it will be her fault. I did my best. At the gate, I tell the lie Didi asked me to tell. Pari’s ma says okay in between sniffles.
We walk home, in a row, ignoring the curses of rickshaw drivers who are angry we are blocking their way. Faiz leaves for the kirana store and doesn’t let Pari’s ma stop him. He tells her if he doesn’t work, his family won’t be able to eat, which is a half-lie. Pari’s ma believes him.
The alleys are full of men and women pointing their fingers at the sky (are the gods sleeping?) or in the direction of the highway where the police station is (when will those sons-of-donkeys wake up? ). “Let’s gherao the superintendent of police, teach
him a lesson,” someone says. “I heard he’s in Singapore,” someone else says.
Pari’s ma ushers us forward, not stopping to chit-chat, not letting us ask questions. When we reach her house, she says, “I have to leave Pari with the neighbor-chachi and go back to work.”
I guess she doesn’t care if I get kidnapped. But then I see that Shanti-Chachi is standing there, talking to Pari’s neighbor-chachi. Ma must have told her to bring me home from Pari’s house. Our basti has turned into a prison. Guards are watching us everywhere.
Shanti-Chachi asks me where Runu-Didi is. I repeat Didi’s lie.
After chachi drops me home, I take my EVS textbook out of my satchel and stand on our doorstep without changing out of my uniform. I listen to Shanti-Chachi talking to other chachis. I learn:
the missing child’s name is Chandni;
she’s five and doesn’t go to school;
Chandni’s eldest sister is twelve and stays at home to look after her brothers and sisters;
Chandni is the fourth of the five children in their house. The youngest is Chandni’s brother, who’s only a nine-month-old baby;
that’s four almost-children—Aanchal isn’t a child because she’s sixteen—who have disappeared from our basti. Who’s taking them? Is it a criminal or do we have a hungry, bad djinn in our midst?
Pari would have written all this down in her notebook.
I don’t know for how long I keep listening. Runu-Didi comes home, puts her bag down and squats by the barrel to wash her face. When she finishes, I shift to the side so that she can go inside.
“Why is the kidnapper stealing so many children?” I ask.
“Maybe he likes eating them,” Runu-Didi says. She half-shuts the door so that she can change behind it. I can’t see her, but she keeps talking. “There are people who like eating human flesh. The same way you like eating rasgullas and mutton.”
“Liar.”
“Where do you think the children who disappeared are right now?” Didi asks. “In someone’s belly.”
“A child won’t fit in a man’s tummy. And Aanchal? No way. A snatcher will sell the children he snatched for money, not eat them.”
If djinns haven’t caught them and locked them up in dungeons, Omvir and Bahadur must be cleaning rich people’s toilets right now. Or they must be carrying heavy bricks on their backs, and their eyes and faces must be reddened by brick-dust and tears.
Runu-Didi finishes changing and opens the door fully and goes out to talk to her basti-friends. I walk in and lie down on the bed with the textbook on my chest. I look at our roof, at the small wall-fan that we haven’t used since Diwali, and the lizard sitting still next to it, pretending it’s a part of the wall. I pray: Please God, don’t let me be kidnapped or murdered or djinned.
I remember the railway-station boys and how Guru said gods are too busy to listen to everyone. I wish I could pray to Mental instead.
I think of every name I know, in case that’s Mental’s name. Abilash and Ahmed and Ankit, and Badal and Badri and Bhairav, Chand and Changez and Chetan, I’m finding it hard to think of names alphabetically, so I let them come to my head in whichever order they want, Sachin Tendulkar, Dilip Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru…
* * *
The sound of mustard seeds screaming in hot oil wakes me up. I must have fallen asleep chanting names. I hear Ma and Runu-Didi whispering about the missing girl.
“Runu, you have to be careful too,” Ma says. “Whoever it is, they’re not just kidnapping children. Aanchal is nineteen or twenty, don’t forget that.”
“She’s sixteen,” I say, sitting up.
“How long have you been awake?” Ma asks. She chucks onions into the pan and stirs, the ladle scraping against the sides.
“Ma, is it true that someone’s snatching children to eat them?”
“Kya?”
“Because our flesh is sweet.”
“Did you tell him this bakwas?” Ma asks Runu-Didi. She tries to hit Didi with her left hand, but she can’t reach her.
“I didn’t,” Didi squeals.
“The truth of the matter is,” Ma tells me, “Chandni was outside at night all by herself. She wanted to eat gulab-jamuns and her mother gave her money to buy them. Who does that in such a bad time? Shouldn’t that woman have bought them herself?” Ma gathers ginger and garlic slivers and throws them into the pan, followed by a pinch of turmeric and coriander and cumin powder.
“Chandni’s house is right next to the bazaar, is what people are saying,” Didi says, wiping her hands against her kameez. “It’s no different from me going to Shanti-Chachi’s house.”
“Can’t be that close,” Ma says.
“Maybe her ma was busy cooking, like you are.”
“If Vishnu Bhagwan himself were to ask me to send you outside at night, I would refuse.”
Papa comes in and looks at me with a serious expression.
“What’s this I’m hearing?” he asks. “When we think you’re studying, you’re running around Bhoot Bazaar?”
Ma’s ladle stops stirring.
“I’m here all the time,” I say. “I’m here right now. Can’t you see me?”
“Enough,” Papa shouts in his loudest voice. “Do you think this is funny? We have never stopped you from doing whatever you want to do. Either of you.” He looks at Runu-Didi. “But there’s a limit to everything.”
“Papa—”
“Runu, listen carefully. This applies to you too. From now on, no more running-jumping for you after school, understood?”
“But…my…inter-district…I…”
“Bring Jai back after school and sit in the house with him. Put him on a leash if you have to.”
“Coach will kill me,” Didi says.
“Is he coaching the Indian cricket team?” Papa asks. “He’s just a useless fellow teaching PT.”
“Inter-district is a big thing, Papa. Coach wants us to practice every day, even Sundays.”
The onions are smelling burnt because Ma hasn’t been paying any attention to the pan. I wonder how I’ll go to Duttaram’s tea stall day after tomorrow.
“Children are getting snatched only at night, Papa,” I say. “Didi and I are always home before dark.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Didi says, her eyes blazing with angry tears. “Papa—”
“I don’t want to hear another word, Runu. And Jai, you’ll get it good from me if I hear you’re wandering around the bazaar on your own. Don’t think I won’t find out.”
LIKE A LION IN A CAGE, RUNU-DIDI—
—walks up and down our house on Sunday morning, her hair freshly washed and flying around her face like a mane. “Unbelievable,” she says.
“Papa has gone mad,” I say.
I’m late for work and Duttaram might have already given my job to someone else. I know Ma and Papa will beat me if they catch me breaking their no-wandering-around-Bhoot-Bazaar rule, but the beating will be loads worse if they find out the Parachute tub is half-empty and I’m the thief. I don’t want to be a thief. I’m a detective. Jasoos Jai is a good guy.
“I can’t miss training today,” Didi says. “I had to leave early yesterday too. At this rate, Coach will pick that stupid Harini for my spot. She can’t run half as fast as I can, but Coach is best friends with her father.”
“Didi, why don’t you go for training? I won’t tell Ma-Papa.”
“So you can run around the bazaar by yourself?”
“I just want to go to Pari’s house. Pari and I will study together, I promise. We’ll watch a little bit of TV, but we’ll study too.”
Didi thinks about it, still marching around, making the floor jump. “Those who got snatched were snatched at night,” she says, which is what I had told Papa. “We’ll be home before that.”
> I don’t point out that she’s copying my words. “Stupid Harini shouldn’t get your spot,” I say instead.
“But Pari’s ma will call up our ma and tell her what we’re doing.”
“Pari’s ma works on Sundays, just like our ma. And her papa, he goes across the river every Sunday to meet his ma and papa.”
“They let Pari stay at home alone?”
“They take her to the reading center if it’s open. But she’ll be home today.”
I’m not lying. Pari told me so.
Didi makes me sit on the doorstep so that she can change into her sports clothes. I’m allowed inside when she’s dressed. She ties her hair in a ponytail with a white scrunchie, which Ma would have never allowed. If you tie your hair when it’s damp, ugly, fruit-like things grow in it and you can’t pluck them off or anything. You have to shave your head. That’s what Ma says.
I’m already dressed in my usual cargo pants and two T-shirts. Now, over the shirts, I put on a red sweater. Then we make sure Shanti-Chachi and her husband aren’t outside and run.
Luckily, Pari is sitting by her front door, studying.
“Can you make sure this idiot stays at home with you?” Didi asks Pari and, with her hand on the back of my neck, pushes me forward. “He’s not supposed to go anywhere. Definitely not Bhoot Bazaar.” Her voice sounds different; with me, Didi is shrieky, but with Pari she speaks politely, as if she’s talking to a grown-up.
“God promise you won’t do anything annoying, Jai,” Pari says.
I touch the bottom of my nose with my upper lip so that I’ll look like a pig. Then I say, “God promise.” God knows I don’t mean it.
Didi runs off.
“I need to go to the bazaar,” I say.
“But you promised,” Pari says, “just two seconds ago. Aren’t you afraid God will punish you?”
“It’s only to buy gulab-jamuns. God will understand.”
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line Page 17