“I wouldn’t know Dev. I can ask around if you want?”
“No, that is fine. I will speak to him. Don’t worry.”
No one at the office could recall who delivered the box. He hid it in the cupboard as soon as she left the office. He waited until he had sorted out all the daily routines of the Care Home before he dared have look inside. He locked the door and closed the curtains before picking up the box from the cupboard and opening it.
There were twenty plain brown paper packets neatly arranged inside. There was nothing written on the paper packets either. He emptied the box to see if there was a note underneath. There was nothing. He was a bit lost. He did not know who to deliver the packets to and how much money he was expected in return. He got through the day filled with apprehension. He kept looking at the front door of the Care Home half expecting the man from the shed to appear. But no one came. He stuffed the box into his bag and took it down to his car at lunch time to take it home. Once inside the house he hid it in his wardrobe under all his clothes. Nothing happened the whole of next day to and he was beginning to think he might have to find Lenny and give the box to him. Finally the phone call came as he was getting ready to go to the temple the next day.
“Did you get the supply?” The gruff voice of “the gaffer” was unmistakable. There was no small talk. “Have you looked inside?”
Dev was taken aback for a minute and stuttered, “Yes, Yes I did.”
“You better remember what I tell you and not make any mistake.” The voice continued as if Dev had not said anything. “All you got to do is take it to the Central Motors and the guys have been told to pick things from you.”
The line went dead. He looked at the phone to see if he was mistaken. Nothing. He tried the call back and he got an operator’s mechanical voice saying “number not recognised.”
He took the packets in a plastic bag that night to the “Central Motors” not really sure what to expect. The public toilets under the Belgrave flyover had the infamous name of “the central motors.” No one knew exactly why it was called that. It was frequented by druggies, drug pushers, pimps and prostitutes plying their business after dark and sometimes even during the daytime. It was quite big, windowless building right under the flyover lit up with tube lights. Most of the lights had long been broken by those who frequented the place for nefarious activities other than using it for toilet purposes. The council had long given up replacing the bulbs. No sooner were the bulbs replaced, they would be broken within 24 hours. Bright light was not conducive for the kind of business that took place there. The place was made darker by the red painted walls, which had become darker over the years. No one had complained and the council had not bothered to repaint the walls. It suited the users perfectly.
Dev could not see anything as he entered the dingy toilets. He stood just inside the door trying to adjust his eyesight to the darkness. His eyes lit up when he saw Lenny lounging in the shadows of the toilet.
“Thank goodness you are here.” Dev exclaimed as soon as he saw him. “I did not know what to do with this stuff.”
Lenny pulled him into the corner and put his finger on his mouth shushing him.
“Not so loud.” Lenny whispered. “You just stay here and they will find you. I will let you know who the customers are when they get here.”
“I am doing this as a favour to you Lenny. Don’t expect me to do this for very long.”
“Thank you Bro. You are doing me a big favour. I won’t forget it.” Lenny had replied. “It is only till he gives me back the job. It won’t be long, I promise you.”
His expensive Rolex watch showed midnight when the first customer rolled in. He had not seen the young weedy guy come inside. He was not aware of him until Lenny nudged Dev and whispered, “Give him the stuff.” Dev was taken aback and didn’t know what to do for a minute as he stared at this apparition who had turned up out of nowhere standing next to Lenny. The guy would not look up at either of them and was constantly shifting his feet.
“Go on, give him the bloody stuff.” Lenny whispered again, this time a little louder.
Dev fumbled as he tried to get his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket to get the stuff out. He tried to pull out one brown paper packet and got his hand stuck in the process and dropped several packets on the ground.
“Bloody hell, Bro. What is the matter with you? Get a grip on yourself man.”
Lenny whispered loudly as he bent down to pick the packets up from the ground. He pushed one of the packets to the guy’s hand and said “Go on, shove off now.”
Dev found his hands were shaking uncontrollably and he was sweating profusely. He tried to speak but only managed a croak in the process.
“You will be fine Bro. First time is always the hardest. These guys are all harmless. They are so full of drugs and weak, that they can’t hurt a fly.” Lenny said to reassure him. The next client came in a few minutes later and Dev had finished distributing all the packets within an hour. As Lenny had said the next ones were not so bad. But he was still very glad to get it all over with. He wiped his face, which was now dripping wet with sweat and shook Lenny’s hand before rushing back to his car which was parked half a mile away on a side street.
It did not take him long to familiarise himself with the “customers.” It was during the third “drop” as Lenny would say that he noticed two men in dark hoodies at the Central motors. The two men had entered the toilet together and did their business. They took their time to wash their hands and dry their hands, which was a bit unusual, Dev thought. Clients visiting those toilets did not bother with the water generally after urinating. It was more common for them to spit at the toilet or the corner of the room rather than wash their hands. Neither of them said a word nor looked at Dev who was standing in the dark corner of the large toilets. He watched them walk out of the toilets with increasing tension. There was something about the two, which made him nervous and afraid. As he walked out of the toilets at end of “deliveries,” there was no sign of them anywhere. He kept thinking about them as he drove home that night. There was no sign of them the next time he went to the central motors and he soon forgot about them.
He would get a new box delivered to the care home office now and then with little brown paper packets inside. Dev never saw the “gaffer” again. The man was very prompt with his payments and there was always cash in the box after the first shipment. This went on like a clockwork every fortnight for a couple of months and then started to go down first in numbers and then in frequency. It went on for about six months before completely drying up. Dev was glad to see the back of it.
It was an unusually bitter September night when he was shivering inside the toilets trying to keep himself warm by pushing his hands deeper into his pockets when there was a prod on his back.
“Don’t look around mate. But this is a warning from the gaffer. He is not happy with your work. You have cost him his business.”
Dev tried to turn around to protest when the hand pushed him down.
“I said don’t, didn’t I?” The menace in the voice was unmistakable. “We are taking over the business from Lenny now and you better hope it picks up. Or else, my friend Big Luke here will give you a visit and you won’t like it. You won’t like it at all.”
The hand came off Dev’s shoulder and he was gone. Dev did not dare turn around to look. He couldn’t remember how long he was standing there until eventually his desperate urge to use the toilets himself made him run to the nearest one. His hands shook violently as he tried to unzip his trousers and nearly wet his trousers. He was still sweating profusely as he walked out of the toilets.
His friendship with Lenny strengthened during that six months and they would meet up in the Quebec. Lenny’s addiction to ‘junk’ deteriorated at the same time and he became one of Dev’s “regulars.” The two men from the Gaffer had started back his supplies with “the specials” meant for chosen customers. The numbers were very few and far between.
When it finally dried up completely, Dev breathed a sigh of relief and swore never to get involved with the business again. He had bought a supply of the little brown paper packets “for future use.”
Lenny had become increasingly reliant on Dev to supply him with the junk as he flitted from job to job. He appeared to be permanently broke. His girlfriend, Sharon had thrown him out the house when he lost his last job as labourer. He had been unceremoniously kicked out by the manager when he found Lenny spaced out and weak as a kitten one morning and could not even lift a brick. He had persuaded an eighteen year old girl, Jodie, to take him in (more out of sympathy than love) into her council flat. She had a small baby of her own and worked in the local supermarket.
Lenny had introduced him to “the guy” who could get him as many of “the poppers” as he wanted. It was not long before Dev would swing by the Central Motors first to pick up Lenny and then they would go to the club together.
It must have been a couple of weeks of starting the delivery job that Lenny dropped another request.
“I like you Bro. You know I can do other things for you too.”
“What do you mean?” Dev was feeling quite light headed after going through half a bottle of a “popper.”
“I am much cheaper than those boys you pay for at the club.”
Dev had stopped in his tracks and looked at Lenny. He could not really focus his eyes and just laughed.
“You? You really can do it with me?”
That was the first time Dev took Lenny to the house on Harrison road.
The Temple
Dev watched the young lad out of corner of his eyes as he performed the evening Aarti. He had been coming to the temple regularly now for a while. Dev had noticed him for the first time during the havan after yet another thread ceremony on a Sunday afternoon.
It was a fast disappearing tradition which marked the entry of a boy into adulthood among the upper class Hindus. The boy this time turning into teens and had a lot of his friends had thronged the temple with their parents. All the boys were ribbing the young novice who was in a bright red silk dhoti and a bare chest. That is all except this one boy who sat in the corner alone staring at the fire of the havan throughout the afternoon. He had slipped out of the side door with his mum chasing after him without waiting for the customary meal that followed.
He came back again a couple of weeks later. But this time on his own. Again, he sat in the corner of the temple the entire evening and disappeared before the Aarti was completed. Dev saw him in the temple almost every Saturday evening after that and his behaviour was exactly the same every time. Dev thought he looked very much like Sanju, maybe a little smaller. He missed Sanju badly. His visits to Central Motors and Abbey Park gave him a buzz, but not satisfying like what he had with Sanju.
Dev decided to speak to him next time he turned up. He delayed the Aarti one Saturday waiting for him near the door.
“Hello, young man. How are you?”
He was startled by this and started to back off towards the door. Dev was too quick for that and placed himself in front blocking the exit. The boy stared at him without saying anything and his eyes were wide open, unblinking. Dev could see the stark fear in his eyes. He smiled and put his hand on the boys shoulder. Soft, yet firm. Reassuring yet stopping him from moving at the same time.
“Don’t be afraid.” Dev continued still with his disarming smile. “You are in a temple. You are quite safe. No one can touch you here.”
For a moment, the boy seemed reassured and opened his mouth to say something. But stopped again and started to wriggle out of Dev’s grip. The door behind Dev opened and an elderly couple walked through distracting Dev for a minute. As he smiled at them and said,
“Namaste, uncle. Please come in, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
As he turned around, the young lad had disappeared out through the door. It was several weeks before he came back to the temple again. Dev would keep looking at the door every Saturday evening hoping the boy would return. He would peer out of the door several times to see if he was hiding outside. He even started to feel slightly disappointed when the boy didn’t turn up. It was probably a couple of months later when he had nearly become a memory that he reappeared in the temple. Dev had smiled at him through the Aarti but he didn’t make any attempts to speak to him even though he was quite desperate to talk to the boy. This time the boy stayed back for the prasad after the Aarti. Dev was surrounded by the members of the Hindu Council that evening and they wanted to talk to him about the upcoming elections to the council. Dev could see the boy standing leaning against the back wall as he took the council members into the back room. By the time he had finished with the meeting the boy had gone. He did not see him again.
Dev’s visits to the Quebec reduced somewhat with the Hindu Council elections for a short while. He was appointed the president of the council to the delight of his father. His mother insisted in arranging a special havan at the temple to celebrate this. It was a grand occasion with most of the Gujarati community of Leicester attending. It had attracted the local newspapers too. Meera Ben was so impressed when the local TV news crew came to interview his son. She would tell anyone willing to listen, how regal his son looked on the TV.
Ramcharan had sold the little grocery shop on Harrison road as soon as Dev started to work as a priest at the temple and the attendance went up. Neither he nor Kishen had time to run the shop. Dev had never shown any interest in the shop from the beginning and Ramcharan had not forced it on him either.
Dev had become popular among the priestly community in Britain for his outspoken views on several issues, including his treatment of widows. He was in the news more often than not fighting for the disadvantaged, particularly among the Hindu community. He was quite successful in raising awareness among the political circles of Leicester and he was very friendly with the local Member of Parliament, Fred Homuz. Homuz would consult him for matters involving the Hindus, not just of Leicester, but the whole of the country. Dev would attend meetings at the local surgery on a regular basis, either taking a petition on behalf of the disadvantaged Hindus or on invitation by Fred Homuz to discuss local and national issues. When he was invited to the Member of Parliament’s house for dinner, he knew he had made it.
He was climbing the social as well as career ladder quite rapidly, which had its own effects. He had a lot of friends within the Hindu community as well as outside. He had made several enemies within the temple too, as well as outside. Some of the elders, particularly, Nathuram Godse, an elderly statesman of the Hindu community of Leicester, thought his views were too modern and radical and he was going against the ancient sages of Hinduism.
“Our sacred scriptures were meant to be spoken in the language of the gods which is Sanskrit. That is why it was called ‘Shruthi’ – spoken by the gods. Dev Sharma is causing blasphemy by saying that the hymns can be read in English.”
Nathuram made his views quite plain during the Hindu Council meetings. He was not impressed that he Dev was “only a secretary” of the council. He felt that he was more qualified to run the Hindu Council than Dev who was “an upstart with sacrilegious views.” He had never really understood why Dev was beaten up by some people.
“There must be a reason why he was beaten up. Such people should not be made priests of our temples.” He would repeat to every given opportunity. His intense dislike of Dev was well known among the community.
He was also made the secretary for the Society of Hindu Priests of the UK much to the chagrin of Nathuram Godse. It also meant some amount of travelling for Dev across the country and he was often quoted by the media on issues concerning Indians in general and Hindus in particular. His views appeared to matter to the wider public and the news media would quote him on issues ranging from racial discrimination to religious bigotry and even the refugee crisis in India.
The attendance in the temple grew during those years and most Sundays the temple was packed to the brim. The th
ree brothers were kept busy officiating within the temple and also outside with many religious Hindu ceremonies – naming ceremonies, weddings and sacred thread ceremonies or “Upanayana.” The three of them found themselves running around the city from one function to another during festival days.
The Temple itself was doing quite well with more than a regular income. His father did not take part in any of the ceremonies now. He would come and sit in the temple on a chair watching his children perform with pride. His vision and mobility were still pretty good and he would walk to the Belgrave shopping area every day to buy vegetables. Younger brother, Vijai still lived with parents and there were plans to get him married to an young nurse at the Royal Infirmary. Dev would take great pleasure in ribbing Vijai off as he was the shiest of the three brothers and he would blush bright red every time Revathi’s name was mentioned. Everything was right with the world and Ramcharan was content and extremely happy with himself. Meera Ben had finally stopped complaining about moving to the “cold and depressing foreign country!” She would come into the temple on Sunday afternoons for the havan and sit on a stool listening to the hymns. She had taken to sit in the corner on a chair with sacred beads reciting hymns under her breath some evenings until Dev would come and say it is was time to go home.
The festivals, of which there were several, became bigger by the year. Some of them such as Diwali and Krishna janmashtami became so big that the police commissioner came down to discuss special traffic arrangements for the festivals. One of the local schools agreed to let the visitors use their car park for the visitors during the festivals.
Dev joined hands with some of the local charities to help raise the awareness of the poor and disadvantaged within the Asian community in Leicester. He would spend hours with Fred Homuz discussing the help government could give them.
A helpline started for Asian gay community, as a small offshoot of the main Gay helpline and it became a full institution with several volunteers working in it now, with Dev leading the group.
The Retribution Page 11