by Arnab Ray
Bad blood. He could smell it. This boy smelled clean.
One of the guards ran over, and he couldn’t remember having seen him before. Sandhu kept changing men, so that was nothing odd.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked the guard.
‘Goyal.’
Goyal escorted Jagan Seth up to the main entrance and to the living room.
‘Where is Mala?’
Goyal seemed nervous. ‘She is upstairs, getting the girl ready.’
Jagan Seth knitted his brow. He did not like people being tardy. So un-British. He was already here and on time, and the girl was still getting ready. It sounded too much like his real wife, always getting ready, and she had been dead for twenty years and thank God for that. He patted his silver-headed stick on the marble table.
‘Well, get my food, boy. Or is that also not ready?’
‘It’s coming. I will send word immediately.’ Then he stepped out of the house and closed the main door behind him. Jagan Seth heard the key in the lock turn as Goyal exited.
‘Hey you, why did you lock it?’ Jagan Seth called out to Goyal.
At the same moment, he saw two shadows fall across the wall of the living room. He turned his head to the side towards the passage, expecting Mala and his food. She was not there.
Standing in front of him was Nilendu. And with a gun in hand, Arjun.
Jagan Seth scrambled up and made for the door but Nilendu was on to him in a flash. Stepping behind him, he pulled his arms back with a light crunch, and the old man howled in pain.
‘The more you struggle, the more it will hurt.’ Arjun’s voice was soft yet deadly.
Jagan Seth knew that struggling got you hurt. He had said that so many times to the girls here, so many times that he himself had forgotten.
‘We are going to go upstairs to your bedroom. We are going to go real slow and easy and no one gets hurt.’
‘What do you want?’ Jagan Seth spat out in disgust. ‘And where is Mala? Where is Sandhu?’
‘Mala has gone home and Sandhu has given you up.’ Arjun pointed towards the staircase with his gun and Jagan Seth noticed it was fitted with a silencer. ‘Which means Nilendu and I are your entertainment for the night.’
It was then that Jagan Seth realized one more thing. Both Arjun and Nilendu were wearing gloves.
It was cold in New Delhi in December. But not that cold.
First Jagan Seth shouted. Then he swore. Then he threatened. Then he wept. Then he offered money. Then he begged. Then he broke into a fit of coughing. Then he shouted and the cycle repeated itself. Twice.
Finally, all his energy spent, he sat weeping on the chair, hands tied behind, drool sliding down the side of his mouth.
Bangali stood at the window, right behind Jagan Seth. Arjun sat on the magnificent four-poster bed wearing an expression of tired boredom, the gun pointed at their prisoner, looking around from time to time to the pictures of naked white women on the walls. Neither of them had spoken a word since they had brought Jagan Seth to his bedroom. It was their absolute silence – their total lack of desire to engage with him in any way – that seemed to have petrified Jagan Seth more than anything.
‘My sons will rape your wife and sell her to a kotha.’
‘I will give you half of what I have. No, I will give you all of it.’
‘It was all Sandhu’s idea.’
‘Please, you are like my sons.’
‘I brought you into this business.’
‘I will do anything you want.’
‘I will rub my nose on the ground in front of you.’
‘My sons will slit the neck of your child.’
Nothing Jagan Seth said seemed to provoke the two, who sat looking at him with stony-eyed impassiveness. When Jagan Seth had seemed to have run out of threats and promises, Arjun finally broke his silence.
‘Are you done?’ he said quietly.
Jagan Seth rolled his eyes in the way he used to do when he was angry, but now it just made him look like a scared clown.
‘No, I am not done, you little rats. Release me this moment, I demand it.’
Arjun brought out a rag from his pocket and said, ‘Fine, then.’
Seeing the rag, Jagan Seth screamed and started pleading for mercy, not knowing what Arjun planned to do. Arjun merely stood up, tied the rag securely around Jagan Seth’s mouth and then returned to the bed.
‘Now listen to me carefully. Very carefully, to each and every word I am going to say. I don’t want you to reply, not that you can, but I want you to hear. Understand? Nod your head if you have understood.’
Jagan Seth nodded his head slowly.
‘Very good.’ Arjun leaned forward, making full eye contact. ‘The most important thing in life for me is family. They are why I live. They are why I can die. You tried to take away my family from me. If I had died there that day, I would have never been able to know whether my second would be a son or a daughter, nor would I ever burst crackers on Diwali with Sudheer, nor would I grow old and see them get married, and then get to play with my grandchildren.’
Bangali interrupted, ‘Bhabhi is pregnant?’
Arjun nodded.
‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘Can we have this conversation later?’
‘No. It’s not as if he is going anywhere. When have we stopped telling each other things like this?’
Arjun ignored Bangali’s interruption and turned to Jagan Seth again. ‘You understand what I am saying? That’s what you were taking from me. Not my life. But my family. And I will never forgive anyone who does that. Never. So save your breath asking for your life. You have little of it left.’
More tears rolled down Jagan Seth’s wrinkled cheeks, soaking into the rag. He tried to say something but it just became a muffled blot of sound.
‘I am going to give you a choice though. Listen to this carefully for I will say it only once.’
Arjun raised his forefinger. ‘We can, of course, kill you. Now if I am in a good mood, and I can’t say I am right now, it could be as simple as shooting you here.’ He took the gun and placed it against Jagan Seth’s forehead. The old man’s eyes grew wide with terror. Then he closed them, expecting the shot. But none came.
‘It sounds painless but it’s not. A close shot often does not kill, merely scoops out skull and brain and you need a second and sometimes even a third to complete the job. As I said, I would shoot you if I were in a good mood. Which I am definitely not.’
Arjun brought the gun down and placed it on his lap.
‘We could definitely stab you to death, and I know you have stabbed people before, so you know how that works. But what I really, really want to do is to take you to the roof of this house and throw you down on to that flower bed of yours. I heard a girl once did that to herself here. Jumped down from that roof to end her life. But she didn’t die. So maybe you won’t either, in which case Bangali and I would have to lift you from there and throw you down again. Hopefully that would do it. You know like Akbar and…Bairam Khan?’
Bangali corrected, ‘Adham Khan.’
‘Anyway, you get the picture. Now the problem with spilling your blood, besides the fact that it’s awfully messy, is that your sons and your sons-in-law would come to know that you have been murdered. They might figure out it’s me, despite being the idiots that they are. They would then come after their father’s murderer, for that’s what good sons do in Hindi films. If they do, Jagan Seth, I will wipe them out. Your sons will be dead. Your daughters will be widows. I can write this down on a piece of paper and sign it. And you know I have the balls. That’s why you set me up for a quiet, sneaky kill.’
Arjun stopped for a second and collected his thoughts.
‘I will be honest. I don’t like the idea of slaughter. Not because I particularly care for your sons or your daughters, but because I am a businessman. When I am killing, I am not making any money. That’s bad for my business. That’s bad for my family.’
&n
bsp; Arjun raised two fingers. ‘Option number two. You kill yourself. You write a note here, and I have the pen and the paper, and those ceiling beams and these bedsheets would do nicely for a simple hanging. That way your sons and your sons-in-law will weep a bit, have a nice big funeral, then put large rajanigandha garlands around your picture – now you do like rajanigandha garlands I have heard – the sons get their inheritance, and everyone is happy. They don’t come after me and I don’t have to waste my time and bullets putting them all in the morgue.
‘Know this. You will die tonight, Jagan Seth. No matter what you do, no matter which way the wind blows, it ends with cotton balls inside your nose. There is no getting around that. Now I am going to give you five minutes to make up your mind. If you do not take option two by the time it’s 10.30 by my watch, then I will kill you. I will be in a wretched, nasty mood and that makes me very creative. So think, think hard.’
Silence surrounded them again, disturbed only by Jagan Seth’s heavy breathing through the rag. He finally nodded his head and said something. Bangali took the rag off. He pleaded again, offered more money, and promised to write this house in Arjun’s son’s name. Arjun signalled to Bangali and he tied the rag around Jagan Seth once again.
‘It’s twenty-six after ten. You have four more minutes,’ was all Arjun said, pointing to his watch ominously.
Jagan Seth needed only two. When the rag was taken off, he tried to compose himself for a while, choking back the tears and snot. Then putting on a mask of courage, he said, ‘You have to untie my hands if you want me to write.’
A minute later, Arjun stood with the gun at Jagan Seth’s head. His right hand was untied and a fountain pen put in it.
‘What do you want me to write?’ he asked.
‘Bangali, tell him what to write,’ Arjun instructed. ‘I told you to have something in mind.’
Bangali said with prepared confidence, ‘Write – “Life is beautiful. But dear sons and daughters, anything that begins must end. What then could be better than to end my life on a lovely night like…”’
Arjun made a face. ‘What? Is this a poem by Rabindranath Thakur? Lovely night? Life is beautiful? Does anyone write suicide notes like this?’
‘Well, you tell him what to write then. It’s not as if I have been writing suicide letters all my life,’ Bangali replied.
Arjun grumbled. ‘One simple thing I tell you to do. And you can’t even do that.’
Then he turned towards Jagan Seth. ‘Just write – “I am sorry. My blessings to all. Be happy.” Write it in your best handwriting, don’t scribble…yes, that’s perfect. Now sign. Good.’ Bangali was still grumbling. He did not like the wording of the note. It was too prosaic for his taste.
Jagan Seth’s hands were tied up again. Bangali made the noose, hung it from the beam above, tested it once and then signalled to Arjun. The rag was removed.
Jagan Seth tried to say something and then thought better of it.
‘Please, some dignity, please,’ was all that gurgled out of his throat.
Jagan Seth stood on the chair and placed the noose around his neck. He breathed hard and then he prayed. Arjun and Bangali stood watching. Then he clenched his shoulders and kicked the chair. The noose tightened, his eyes bulged and he gasped for air. Which is when Arjun slid gracefully down to the ground, sat on his knees, and raised his gloved hand to support the heel of Jagan Seth’s shoe.
‘What are you doing?’ Bangali asked in utter shock. ‘Let him die.’
Jagan Seth kicked his feet wildly trying to get away from Arjun, flapping like a fish caught at the end of the hook. But Arjun kept his hand at his heel. Jagan Seth’s stomach voided itself and the stench filled the room. His eyes were almost popping out of their sockets now, the face had turned blue-green, and yet life seemed to not leave him. Then finally, Arjun let his heel go and he jerked once, then he swung for a few seconds like a pendulum, and finally went still.
‘Why…what was that for?’ Bangali could scarcely believe what Arjun had done. Arjun’s eyes had that glint he had seen in that cowshed, the silver edge of an ice-cold dagger. It scared Bangali.
Arjun stood now, arms crossed, looking up at Jagan Seth’s dead body.
‘Some say that when you die, what you feel in those final moments, is what you carry into your afterlife. If you were happy and at peace, then that’s how you will be for all time to come. Now I am pretty sure that’s all a fairy tale, but still, one never knows.’
‘It’s because of those girls, isn’t it…the ones he…you wanted him to…’
Arjun kept looking up. ‘I remember the first time I met him and what he had said then. Low-caste people all around and the bad blood they reeked of…The behenchod never realized that it was himself he smelled – the only blood that ever stank was his.’
He turned towards Bangali and his eyes were glinting again.
‘Time to close the loop,’ Bangali said, and they both started cleaning up.
‘And here you keep telling me not to blow money on cameras and watches.’ Bangali looked at the bundle of notes that Arjun held in his right hand, rolled tight and held in place with a rubber band. ‘I can’t believe you are going to give all of this away.’
Arjun moved slowly down the steps of Jama Masjid, looking to the left and then to the right at the line of men sitting below.
‘It’s not charity,’ Arjun said, ‘it’s the interest on a loan. The principal I will never be able to touch.’
‘I know. I know. Someone saved your life in Lahore and this is your payback. But it is insane.’
Arjun bent down and put a fifty-rupee note on the white cloth that was stretched out. Behind that cloth, on the ancient steps, sat an ancient man with a weather-beaten face and glasses thicker than the bottom of a bottle.
‘Ever heard of the great king Harshavardhana?’ Bangali asked. ‘He gave everything he had away, at Prayaga. Took off his clothes and gave those away too. Don’t do that please, don’t let me see you naked.’
The old man reached out his frail hand, took the note and held it up towards the fading light to check whether it was real. He could scarcely believe what he held in his hand. A crinkle-free note fresh from the bank.
Arjun did an adaab. By now the other beggars had noticed the largesse of Arjun’s donation. Those who could move were inching closer and those who couldn’t, the ones with stumps for legs and those that did not have them, sat expectantly.
Bangali continued, ‘I get it. You are the good man. You give to the poor. You screw one woman. You live for your children. But why, oh why, do you have to give so much away? Couldn’t you make your divinity a bit low budget?’
Arjun moved reverentially from beggar to beggar, dropping notes into outstretched palms and beat-up tin bowls and dirty blankets, always with a polite smile and an adaab. Soon the bundle of notes ran out. The news had spread. Arjun reached into his long white Afghan kurta to pull out another bundle. Bangali rolled his eyes.
‘To think I always give chaar anna to any beggar and then say “please forgive me”.’
This went on till Arjun had very little left in his kurta pocket, just one note or perhaps two. Satisfied with the donation, they both hurried away from the masjid because more beggers would be coming. In the old city of Delhi, good tidings move even faster than bad, and one did not want to see despair when one had seen so much light, even if it had been just a little flicker.
‘I am not a good man nor do I want to prove that to anyone, certainly not to myself,’ Arjun said after they had walked for a few minutes. ‘I don’t know what the word “good” means. Nor do I care, frankly. Good is like God. I would like to believe there is good in this world, just as there is God, but beyond temples and books, where is God? Where is good?’
‘Now you are the one talking like a communist. Remember, I am the Bangali here. You the Hindustani, you don’t get to doubt the existence of God.’
Arjun smiled. ‘I try not to. I really do. But I wonder. Does God car
e? Even if he is up there? Did you see those people there, blind, abandoned, no legs, wounds, boils, sores? You think anyone cares? God or man? And if neither God cares nor man, what is good then? And what is God?’
Bangali took out two cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Arjun. ‘Someone is very philosophical today.’ Arjun took it and then they stopped as Bangali fished out his fancy new gold lighter, which he had bought from the smuggler’s market in Bombay, where he had been told that this was of Swiss make. ‘So, Arjun, tell me,’ Bangali asked, ‘what do you believe in?’
‘What I told Jagan Seth,’ he said, lighting up a cigarette. ‘Family. My family. That’s where my world ends. That’s where it starts. I will do whatever is in my power to protect them. And if anyone tries to do them harm, I will finish him. Without exception. This is all I know. All I can truly believe in.’
‘So why didn’t you kill Sandhu?’
‘Because killing that bastard would put my family in more danger than letting him go.’
‘You made Jagan Seth suffer like a mad dog and you killed the policeman. Was that only for your family?’
‘I didn’t say everything I do is for my family. I mean I am smoking…this is definitely not for them, I am talking to you, that is definitely not for them.’ Arjun stayed silent for a minute, standing and smoking. Kites flitted above, scraps of colour floating in the breeze, framed by the reddish-orange twilight.
‘I know what I sell kills people. Some of them I know deserve to die, and many who do not. So sometimes, I want to…I don’t know…’
‘Care? And by caring you want to be good?’
Arjun nodded his head. ‘You were right. We are talking philosophy. Next thing you know, I am singing Rabindrasangeet and understanding Satyajit Ray.’ He smiled but Bangali still looked serious.
‘Can I ask you something? Honestly?’
‘Sure.’
‘If I ever betray you, would you kill me? I know if you betrayed me, I would never be able to pull the trigger. Never. I used to believe you wouldn’t either, but the way I saw you, the way your eyes went all crazy when you killed those people, you seemed…I don’t know…so different. And somehow I was not so sure if this is the Arjun I grew up with.’