by Arnab Ray
‘Are you telling me no? In which case I will have to consider some other options. These options would just lead to a lot more bleeding, of people who don’t really have to bleed.’
Haldar nodded his head. ‘Pulak-da does have a problem. We all know it. You know, glad eye, always going after girls, he is a poet at heart after all.’
‘A poet at heart.’ Arjun’s jaw hardened as he repeated the words slowly.
‘We have had some complaints from junior artists, about you know…a little bit here and there…so far I had overlooked those complaints because Pulak-da is a big artist, very senior, but yes, I think we can consider them. We had a written complaint last month against him, some Muslim girl, sensitive angle that, communal you understand and the communists are sensitive about these things, and if I look through the files, there may be others. Also, there have been some other complaints, he once slapped a clapper boy, he makes our union members work overtime without paying, I mean one or two complaints are all right, but when you have so many…’
‘As the president of the union, you have to consider them, am I right?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’
Arjun stood up and Basudev Haldar did so too. ‘See, I knew you were a smart man. You can think on your feet and you are… pliable…So, how long before your Pulak-da gets his letter?’
‘We have to serve him a show-cause and he will have thirty days to respond, as per union rules.’
‘That’s fine. But I want the boycott of his movie from Monday. Monday. And don’t tell me you can’t do it. I did my homework. This is exactly how you people did it for…what’s his name…that director you kicked out of the union…’
‘Rajat Chatterjee…’ Basudev seemed very disconsolate.
‘Yes. His unit caught fire, I remember. Didn’t it? Burned everything down…’
‘You know everything.’
‘Let me put somerosogolla on the deal. Let there be an electric short circuit on his sets, and I will send a little something for your daughter in Bombay. That house you bought in Worli, that’s in her name, right?’
‘That’s most kind of you but, sir, people will ask too many questions. First Rajat’s unit catches fire and then a boycott and then a show-cause and now Pulak-da. It will be too much of a coincidence.’
Arjun patted Haldar lightly on his shoulder. ‘Well, have you considered the possibility of other coincidences? Two successive presidents of the Cinema Artists Union of Bengal end up in the same ditch in Chetla?’
Haldar slumped into his chair, defeated. Arjun walked to the door. ‘I will be in Calcutta till Wednesday. I have a lot of things to do in the city, so please don’t make me come again.’
‘It will be done. But if I may ask, why? Why Pulak-da? Why him? Why do you hate him this much.’
‘One need not explain hate, Haldar babu. Just as one need not explain love.’ And then he walked away, leaving the president of the Cinema Artists Union of Bengal breathing not even a little bit easier.
It was an hour before he got back to the Grand. He opened the door with his key and found Nayantara still under the sheets, just waking up, her arms raised above her head, yawning away the remains of her sleep. She looked at him and smiled radiantly.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked. ‘This shade of blue really looks nice on you.’
He unbuttoned his shirt, looking at himself in the mirror.
‘Oh, just went to finish some unfinished business…’
‘So what happened? Did you finish it?’ Her voice was still groggy.
He turned around from the mirror, his buttons now all undone, and looked at her peacefully.
‘Yes, I think I did.’
There was more unfinished business for Arjun, for there was always business to finish. On the way back to New Delhi, he got down at Mughalsarai and met Yadav, Mishra, Pradhan, Gyanendra, Goyal and a few others at Hotel Bliss – the favourite haunt for whores, small businessmen and gunrunners with secrets. He made arrangements for how the operations would work after his retirement, divvying out areas to each of his men, giving them his contacts in the police and in the administration, which most of them knew anyway. Arjun knew that before long they would be fighting for turf and some of them would be dead in a few years, and a few others would go on to become MLAs and councillors, but he would have been far gone from this world by then. All he wanted from them was goodwill and they seemed happy to hear that. His orders were explicit, they were not to contact him for now, and if he needed to, he would seek them out. Arjun had decided in Calcutta itself to cut off all links with them for a year, let the weaker ones die, the stronger ones rise, and then, once the churn was done, he would reconnect with those who could benefit him in Delhi. But this he did not tell them. That would have been a foolish thing to do.
All business having been taken care of, he boarded the train again. The curse of the rail journey had been magically lifted. He didn’t need sleeping pills any more. On the way, he took another decision. He was going to move out of Lajpat Nagar. Nayantara was right, a Lajpat Nagar address made him look like the successful owner of a garage. His English needed some work. For nothing gave a man more respect in independent India than talking in the language of the colonial masters. A voice came back from the past, a voice of a traitor and a murderer, but perhaps a voice of a man as smart as Arjun wanted to be.
One day, he shall be the Sultan of Delhi.
And Sultans didn’t live in Lajpat Nagar. Nor for that matter did they drive an Ambassador or struggle for words in English.
When he reached home, it was late morning. Sudheer and Mohan were playing out on the streets with the neighbourhood kids. Sudheer ran towards Arjun and hugged him hard, holding on to his midriff. Arjun ruffled his hair and Sudheer asked him what he had got from Calcutta, jumping up and down. There were goodies in the trunk, Arjun assured the boy, and he could see them, but only after lunch. Then Arjun walked through the door and the maid stood aside to let him pass. Taking off his shoes, he went to the kitchen, where Preeti was standing at the gas stove. He approached her from behind, and suddenly held her by the waist and said, ‘I am home.’
She turned her head, surprised, ‘Kya kar rahe ho? The servants are around.’ He smiled and said, ‘So?’ Preeti knitted her brow, even though she was smiling now. ‘Kya hua? You seem to be in a romantic mood, mister.’
Preeti looked different, in a good way, and Arjun could not figure out what it was. ‘There’s a lot to talk about. We will do that at night after the children are in bed. I have some things I need to run by you.’
She moved away from the stove. ‘That could be late. Riti is upstairs sleeping and she has a temperature.’
‘Did you call Dr Banerjee?’ Arjun asked, concerned. She nodded, and he spent some time asking her about their children.
As he was about to leave the kitchen, Preeti said as coquettishly as she possibly could, ‘I have kept a vrat for you. So no romance this month. Samjhe, mister?’ It was then that Arjun realized what had seemed different about her. She had done her upper lip.
Then she added, with a shake of her heavy-bangled wrist, ‘We should go to see a movie tomorrow. Mrs Khanna was saying that she loved Pakeezah.’ Arjun said yes, even though he had just seen Pakeezah in Calcutta with Nayantara. The pressure cooker went off with a hiss and he took the opportunity of the diversion to quickly excuse himself.
That afternoon he stood on the balcony, looking out on to the street. Though a feeling in his stomach pointed him towards Calcutta, he felt happy, in a way he had never been before, happy to be home, to be in the moment, and to be alive.
He took a long sip from the tea Preeti had made, and for once, he did not grudge the cloying sweetness of that extra spoon of sugar.
It was time to close the door to the past, to let go of it forever.
Then he would be free.
4
1966
They rode through the wheat fields of Deoria – Bangali at the steering wheel and Arjun sitting in the passenge
r seat, one hand stuck casually outside, cutting through the breeze as their vehicle whizzed past. The side road they were on did not exist on the map, so no police patrol would be found here, which is why Arjun loved this way through the wheat fields. Not that he worried about the law. They had been paid all the way up, from the mouth to the ass, though one could never be sure of not encountering a crooked uniform, eager for a quick shakedown. Today he particularly wanted to avoid attention for they were carrying an expensive consignment of revolvers and rifles, all hidden within bushels of hay. The railway contracts were coming up for renewal, which meant that the contract thekedaari gangs would be fighting, raiding and counter-raiding, setting fire to each other’s godowns and raining bullets on each other. There had been two main thekedaari gangs for years and a third was coming up and this meant business was good. Very good.
The drop point was a few hours away and they could see that a storm was coming from the way the sky had turned grey-blue at the edges. Bangali had bought a smuggled Japanese camera from Bombay and Arjun had it on his lap, inspecting this expensive contraption with more than a bit of eagerness.
‘I don’t care how great you think this is, but you should not have bought this camera,’ said Arjun, turning it over in his hand. ‘Not with how much you blew up last month.’
‘You sound like you are seventy years old. Live a little, gandu.’ ‘I do live,’ Arjun said with determination.
‘But you don’t live in the present.’
‘I live for the future,’ Arjun replied, turning the lens towards
his face.
‘See – right there is your problem. The future for you always
stays in the future. It never becomes the present. That’s why you
will die with regrets, my friend.’ Bangali reached out and slapped
Arjun’s shoulder. ‘What if we died today? Here on the road.
Right now. I would have had my camera and a house back in the
hills for my mother and my whisky and so many women that the
government should be taxing me for it. You? What would you
have?’
‘The knowledge that my son will be looked after and that my
wife won’t have to sell her body to bastards like you to survive.’ Bangali laughed. ‘I don’t know if bhabhi would be selling,
but I won’t be buying.’ Arjun made a face of mock anger. Bangali
continued, ‘No disrespect. She is just like the government-issue
pans they sell at ration shops, so thick at the bottom that it takes
till the end of time to even boil water in it.’
Arjun shook his head. ‘I should throw your camera out of the
window.’
Bangali smiled apologetically. ‘Don’t mind me. I say these
things. Even though I mean every word.’ Then he laughed again,
even louder than before.
When he spoke again, the mirth had gone out from Bangali’s
voice. ‘I do have a problem with money. My father was a regular
Yudhisthira when it came to cards, and Duryodhana when it came
to telling the truth. The old man gambled away everything that
we had, and even though I hated him for it, and still do, I think I
have turned out exactly the same. A natural gambler.’ ‘They have gambling in Darjeeling?’ Arjun asked, and was
about to say something equally flippant when he realized how
serious Bangali had become.
‘It killed my mother every day to see him come home with
nothing. They never fought. You would think she would give him
hell but she never did. Shrugged and just went on cooking.’ He
wiped his arm on his brow carelessly. ‘That’s why I never want to
get married. You know? Never settle down. Don’t want to turn
another woman into my mother. If you ever see me doing that, be
a good friend and shoot me in the head, will you?’
Arjun ignored what Bangali said and stuck his neck out through
the side window and yelled up towards the back of the truck, ‘Eh,
Chottu, you doing good up there?’
Chottu was the third wheel of their little driving party. He was sixteen. At twelve, he had run away from home because he did not want to wash clothes and clean donkeys all his life, which was all that society would allow a boy from his caste to do. Chottu’s journey to freedom had ended at a ramshackle dhaba where he had survived washing dishes, serving food and, after the sun had set, servicing truckers and long-distance bus drivers with his mouth or behind. One night, a heavy-set man with an ugly scar had taken him behind the bushes and pulled a sharp cleaver on him when he tried to resist. Bangali had rescued him before the knife had sunk fully into the socket of his arm. Since then, Chottu worked with Bangali and Arjun on the truck, helping them with the loading and unloading of goods and other odd jobs. Today, he was up on the back of the truck, sitting atop the hay under the open sky, free finally from the sweat, pain and humiliation that had been his life. A few minutes ago, he had been singing ‘Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai…’ from Guide in his sweet voice, but he had suddenly stopped
midantara and Arjun did not know why.
It was then that Arjun saw them, standing a quarter of a
kilometre ahead – five men, two with rifles pointing straight at
them while two were rolling two big rocks right on to the road.
The fifth was standing arms akimbo, wearing a blue-pink shirt that
was dramatically thrown open down the front revealing a wellmuscled chest, khaki trousers, black boots, a cheap gold-framed
pair of sunglasses that would be five rupees in Lucknow but could
be bargained down to two, and an elaborately twirled moustache. ‘Slow down,’ Arjun directed Bangali, only so that he had a few
extra seconds to think.
He could see the rifles. Those were standard police-issue
weapons which meant that the men with the guns were most
likely policemen. Yet they were not in uniform. So this was not a
raid. This was a stick-up.
The leader of the group took off his sunglasses and put them into his chest pocket. He had cruel cat’s eyes, blue and still, and the arrogant air of authority that comes from having a uniform and a badge. So there were three policemen in all, with the man with cheap sunglasses the ranking officer, Arjun guessed. The two others – bare-torsoed large men, with oil glistening on their chests – carried large lathis with them, and Arjun was sure they
were hired muscle.
So who were these people? Policemen moonlighting as
dacoits? But that didn’t sound right. All the gangs here knew
better than to touch his consignments. If they did, Arjun would
go after them and so would the police and, within hours, the
bastards would be dead or hung by their wrists getting beaten
naked in a lock-up.
Which meant that Arjun, Bangali and Chottu were in great
danger.
If they were here to rob, they were also here to kill. It didn’t
make any sense to do one without the other.
What if we died today? Here on the road. Right now. What would
you have?
He couldn’t die today. There was too much of his future left. They were only a few metres away now.
‘Stop the truck. Take the pipe.’ There was a broken, rusty lead
pipe on the floor of the truck in the space between them. ‘Shall I get my gun?’ asked Bangali as he slowly applied the
brakes.
‘No gun,’ Arjun said as he carefully pulled out his Colt from
under his shirt.
The man at the centre was now raising his hands, asking them
to stop.
Under his breath, Bangali protested, ‘What do you mean? You
are ta
king your gun out.’
‘That’s because I know how to use it,’ Arjun said tersely. ‘I can try to run them over.’
‘No.’ Arjun shook his hood, still staring down the road. ‘We
are top-heavy. Ride those rocks and we will tip over. Plus they will
shoot if we don’t stop. Brake,’ he said loudly. ‘Now!’
The truck screeched to a halt, throwing up clay and dust
and pebbles, and it was still moving when the door opened to
the side, and Arjun hopped down with the gun stretched out in
front. Bangali followed a few seconds later from the other side,
brandishing the pipe. The breeze had gathered strength, and the
clouds were closing in on all sides.
Closer now, Arjun observed the men more carefully. The one
in front had his thread going down his chest, and when Arjun
looked to the ones with the guns, he could discern, from their up
to-belly-opened shirts that they too had threads.
Brahmin dacoits? He would have time to figure that out later,
he told himself.
Arjun studied the two gunmen. One was holding the rifle in the
correct position, balanced lightly on the shoulder. The other was
holding it wrong. When he would fire, the bullet would fly above
target, because the kick of the rifle would make his arm go up. So one expert. One novice.
The man at the centre staggered forward, his fingers now
arrogantly hooked into his trousers. ‘Aaah, one holds the bow and
the other the club. Arjun and Bheema truly.’
Filmy, very filmy, thought Arjun.
And because he was so filmy, Arjun realized, the man’s moment
had just passed.
Arjun fired. The bullet went exactly where Arjun had wanted
it to, burrowing into the expert shooter’s right shoulder, throwing
up a little cloud of blood and bone. He yelled in pain, twisted
to the right and fell on the ground clutching the spot where the
bullet had gone in.
Arjun could have killed the man if he had wanted to. But he
knew that this was a policeman. Killing a uniform, and that too a
Brahmin in these parts, was a line that could not be crossed lightly. The man in the middle – the one with the cheap sunglasses