Mr Iyer Goes To War

by Ryan Lobo

  ‘We are approaching a dark place, Bencho,’ Iyer says cryptically, his knee beginning to ache with the previous day’s exertions.

  ‘Yes, sir, I think this is the opium factory in Ghazipur. And now there are many other factories here too.’

  ‘No, Bencho, that monkey was a messenger sent to warn us.’

  ‘Sir, that monkey was high on opium. They eat it from the factory.’ Bencho says, checking his cell-phone parts, which seem to have dried.

  ‘Quiet! You are unaware of the dangers here.’ Iyer says, using his staff to push the boat away from the dead shores while scanning the foam for crocodiles.

  Bencho snaps the rear cover onto the phone and switches it on. He holds it in front of Iyer’s face. A wallpaper shot of Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva, appears before the phone goes dead.

  ‘It is not working,’ whimpers Bencho.

  ‘We have bigger things to worry about, Bencho. We are not in our world.’

  Iyer takes over the punting pole and grunts as he punts them through the alien planet.

  ‘It’s my phone! Also we cannot tell the time as neither of us have watches.’

  ‘Bencho, we live in the centre of time. We are bordered by the dimming glow of the past and looked down upon by a fathomless future. We live in the briefest of illuminations, the slightest glow, the barest flicker. An eye blink! Time cannot be told, so do not fear, Bencho. It is only mere mortals of the ape variety who use cell phones to tell the time. The brahmacharis of ancient times never had cell phones.’

  ‘I saved up for this,’ Bencho says, wringing his hands.

  ‘Chela, we should be able to tell the time by the passage of the sun and the lengths of shadows, both from the sun and the moon. We have lost touch with all this. It is time to rediscover it.’

  ‘Sir, I am worried.’

  ‘Can I help you to get rid of your worry?’ asks Iyer in his sweetest voice.

  ‘Yes, sir, please,’ requests Bencho, handing the phone to Iyer, who promptly hurls it into the foam.

  Bencho turns to Iyer and stares, too stunned to speak for a moment.

  ‘Why did you do that? That’s the only phone we have!’

  ‘No phone, no time, no worry,’ replies Iyer, flopping down on the deck and stretching out his legs as if he is relaxing on a picnic.

  We journey into the heart of things.

  Not placated by his philosophical approach, Bencho rises to his feet. Sensing battle, Iyer grabs his staff and leaps to the bow, whirling around in a crouch, eyes narrowed.

  ‘Bencho, I have been trained by the gods to defeat anyone.’ He twirls the staff.

  ‘Sir, I paid extra for the internet plan,’ hisses Bencho, cracking his knuckles.

  Iyer makes a move, feinting with the staff. Bencho nimbly avoids the stab, grabbing Iyer in a headlock as Iyer grabs Bencho’s thigh, lifting Bencho’s foot off the deck. Grunting and gasping, with Bencho on one leg and Iyer’s head under Bencho’s arm, Iyer’s face turns blue – neither able to get the better of the other.

  A sound reaches them over the water: a human scream merged with another sound, the screeching of metal on metal, knife on a lathe.

  ‘Bakasura!’ says Iyer, extricating himself from Bencho, who freezes.

  ‘No, sir, machinery.’

  ‘He is near, Bencho.’

  They hear the scream again, and it is unmistakably human.

  ‘Let’s leave,’ says Bencho, grabbing the punting pole, the scuffle forgotten.

  ‘Coward!’

  Iyer leaps into the shallow river and pushes through the water, moving through the mist towards the sound. It comes from the left, or maybe the right.

  He pauses, listening hard, and changes direction.

  Another scream, and he turns again as Bencho drags the boat up onto the bank, begging Iyer to stop.

  ‘Sir, the cops will harass us if we’re witnesses. Please let’s go!’

  Ignoring him, Iyer runs into the mist through the dry reeds that crumble into dust when he brushes against them. He emerges in a dry lake bed filled with the boles of dead trees, their roots covered in motor oil and plastic litter. A dead place.

  A lone, emaciated sadhu sits cross-legged in front of a gigantic rotting stump of what was once a banyan tree. Above him, a tattered banner reads that he is on hunger strike to save the Ganges from industrial pollution. Iyer folds his hands together as they pass him and climb the embankment surrounding the lake bed.

  Iyer sees the top of the opium factory as he walks on the crest of the embankment; the troughs show him roofs filled with black opium, stretching all the way up to a stained building surrounded by barbed wire. A fabric mill belches smog from massive stacks some distance away. Ahead, to the left of the banks, small tanneries eject effluent into the water. The smog merges with the mist and flows over the embankment and into a shanty town, which opens onto the river, its bank crowded with trucks. Skinny figures dot the landscape, bent under loads, shouting to be heard above the sounds of an unoiled earthmover that mines black sand from the riverbed and onto a truck.

  He stumbles down the embankment, slipping, knee-deep in sludge, and swatting away flies rising into his nose and eyes. Out of breath, he finds himself in the midst of trucks and loaders as he runs along the open drains of the runoff, whose concrete edges are used as latrines by the residents of the shanty surrounding the factories. He walks down an alleyway, past listless men crouched in the shadows, drinking tea from disposable plastic cups that litter the streets in hundreds, past a bent old woman with face tattoos carrying a pot of water over piles of rubble. A child urinates in the middle of the street. Langur monkeys lie on parapets, stoned and slothful but still watchful.

  ‘Where are you?’ Iyer shouts, scrambling up a mound of coal.

  ‘Sir, I am here,’ cries Bencho, at a distance.

  ‘Not you! The one who screams!’ shouts Iyer, standing on top of the crest and searching the grounds ahead, his view obscured by the branches of a rain tree.

  ‘No more, please,’ someone cries. It sounds like a child, and it seems to come from near a truck close to the river.

  ‘Aha!’ shouts Iyer in triumph, but the coal ridge he is standing on crumbles under his feet, sending him tumbling down its side, picking up speed as he goes. He tries to stop his fall, losing his staff in the process, as he skids head first into an open pit at the base of the pile. As the dust clears, Iyer comes to: arms pinned to his sides, immobile in absolute darkness, upside down in a manhole with his face inches away from a flowing stream of sewage and chemicals.

  A clicking sound surrounds him: the sounds of tiny wings snapping and little feet scuttling. Iyer senses feelers probing his lips and nose. A tiny beast runs over his eyelids. Dazed, Iyer tries to shout, which he does with his mouth closed and teeth gritted.

  ‘Bencho. Bencho!’

  The sound echoes in the pit that extends into a larger network of sewers beneath Iyer. His eyes grow accustomed to the darkness as the surface below his head undulates.

  Bencho rushes about the piles, finally spotting Iyer’s staff at the base of the coal pile. Peering into the manhole, he sees Iyer’s wiggling feet about two feet below.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Get me out of here!’

  Wrapping his scarf around his face, Bencho reaches into the open manhole, but Iyer is too deeply lodged for him to reach. Hooking his foot around a root that snakes out of the coal pile, he lowers himself into the hole and grabs Iyer’s feet with both hands.

  ‘This is Bakasura’s doing!’ Iyer concludes as Bencho attempts to lift him out, groaning with the effort.

  ‘No, sir, these covers have been stolen,’ gasps Bencho, ‘It is eight hundred rupees for one manhole cover, sir.’ Bencho heaves away, gagging from the stench, his face red with exertion.

  Bencho puts all his strength into a terrific yank that dislodges Iyer, sending light streaming into the space beneath him. Blinking in the sudden light while still upside down, Iyer shrieks. The ground b
eneath his suspended head undulates with a sea of cockroaches. Several fly up to his head, and one scuttles across his eyes. More scurry up his sides and onto his body, reaching Bencho’s hands.

  Still shrieking, Iyer is hauled up the hole. Like a volcano erupting, the roaches follow, running up his body onto Bencho’s arms, who begins to shriek as well, trying to whack them off with one hand and almost losing his grip, sending Iyer falling a few inches back into the pit.

  ‘Do not let go! Do not let go,’ begs Iyer, and a roach takes this chance to run into his open mouth, making him gag and spit.

  ‘Sir, I cannot hold you,’ moans Bencho, wide-eyed with disgust as a cockroach alights on his nose, its feelers tickling his forehead.

  ‘No, Bencho, please! Have courage!’

  Bencho heaves on Iyer with all his strength once more. Like a cork from a bottle, Iyer bursts out of the manhole and lands on top of Bencho. Rolling on the ground, they slap at their bodies, frantically plucking roaches out from inside their clothes. When Bencho thinks he is done, a tickling makes him look into his briefs; when he checks, a shiny, clicking specimen flies out of his underpants.

  ‘Let us leave this place, let us leave this place for ever,’ Bencho sobs as they stumble away from the pit, collapsing within the roots of a rain tree.

  ‘That was no manhole,’ Iyer maintains, gasping and breathless. ‘I had fallen into a trap dug by Bakasura, a coward, no less.’

  ‘No, sir, my cousin Babli steals these covers.’

  The exchange is interrupted by a piteous scream.

  ‘It is only an earthmower, sir; they make this sound when they haven’t been oiled. Let’s go, sir.’

  Ignoring his breathlessness and the bruises on his elbows, Iyer picks up his staff mid-stride and runs towards the scream.

  12

  Bencho follows as Iyer races along the bank, deserted except for the odd truck being washed. They come to a truck marked Jayachandra Transports. A tall, thin man with greasy hair beneath a white skullcap is chasing a skinny teenager in grease-stained clothes around the vehicle, trying to hit at him with the buckle end of a belt. Neither of them see Iyer till he shouts out to them.

  ‘Mongoose! I am Bhīma, protector of the innocent. Unhand that child or die.’

  The boy pauses, and the driver catches him, forcing him into a crouch and raising his belt.

  ‘Stop!’ Iyer commands.

  ‘This dog stole from me,’ the tall man says, looking a little undecided about his next course of action, given that two strangers – both filthy, with one wearing a suit jacket, and sounding educated and thus dangerous – have approached him from the bushes.

  Bencho, seeing an opportunity, rushes forth, looking to the left, as though someone is present in the bushes, ‘Inspector Sharma, cover the right; Inspector Ghosh, go to the left! Tell the constables to check near the river.’

  The tall man stares long and hard at Iyer. Something about him doesn’t add up. A cockroach runs out of his trouser leg and scuttles away sideways.

  ‘What is your good name and what the hell are you doing?’ asks Iyer in English.

  ‘Sir, I am Aurangzeb, and I am a truck driver. My errand boy stole petrol from the truck.’

  ‘Aurangzeb?’ barks Iyer, confusion flickering across his face. ‘You again! You inflictor of humiliation and renderer of shame! I command you to release this child!’ And Iyer swings his staff at Aurangzeb, whacking him on the side of his head. Iyer’s opponent crumples to the floor, from where he feebly raises an arm.

  ‘Sir? I am only a driver. What will I tell my employers about that missing diesel? I will have to pay for it from my own pocket,’ he says, touching his head where the wood made contact and finding it sticky with blood.

  ‘Is that so?’ Iyer asks. Perhaps this unkempt truck driver wasn’t that Mughal villain after all.

  ‘Tell me child, is this true?’ Iyer asks, his eyes boring into the lackey’s.

  ‘Of course not!’ the boy says, ‘I only took ten litres, and that too because he hasn’t paid me. Also, sir, he keeps a portion of my salary for himself, as commission, he says.’ The boy scratches his clavicle, which seems to pop from his shoulders.

  ‘How much does he owe you?’

  ‘Five hundred rupees, sir.’

  ‘You stole more than ten litres! That’s more than five hundred,’ shouts the truck driver, pressing on his head wound with a handkerchief.

  Iyer rushes forward and raises his staff over Aurangzeb, who raises his other hand to protect himself.

  ‘Aurangzeb, what you put out always comes back at you, my friend, in one life or the other. Pay him or I will beat you to death!’

  ‘Sir, he is like my little brother. I swear I will pay him,’ whines Aurangzeb, ‘but later. My money is at home. By by my life I swear it,’ he says, lowering his raised hand and placing it over his breast.

  ‘Do you swear that you will not loot this child, and pay him what you have stolen from him?’ Iyer asks, his staff still raised over the Aurangzeb’s head.

  Bencho yells into the bushes, ‘Constable! Seize this vehicle.’

  ‘I swear on my mother, sir,’ beseeches Aurangzeb, plucking at the skin of his throat and looking Iyer full in the eye, holding his gaze until Iyer lowers the staff.

  ‘See, sir,’ says the truck driver, and takes his wallet out, removing several notes and handing them to the boy. ‘I will give him the rest later.’

  Somewhat satisfied, Iyer lowers the staff. ‘Child, when you go to Kashi next, tell the famous Panchakanya about my bravery here.’ And without another word he wades into the water, taking a shortcut to the boat that is tied to a branch at the bend. Confused, the errand boy looks at Aurangzeb, whose eyes narrow as he looks at him. Iyer is in waist-deep when the boy shouts after him, wading into the river.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Yes, child?’

  ‘Can I come? I will get off at the next village.’

  ‘He has given his word!’ Iyer says, reaching over to cup the boy’s face in his hand. ‘Have faith, my child.’

  The child bites his lip, realising beyond any doubt that his rescuer is indeed insane. Getting onto the boat, Iyer is overcome with emotion. He feels with all his heart that he is on the right path. Bencho starts the motor and they leave the duo behind, the boat nearing the next bend in the river.

  Iyer begins to sing a verse from the Gita.

  Your right is to the duty only, not to the fruits thereof.

  Do not act for the results of your deeds.

  Never be attached to not doing duty.

  Overcome with joy, Iyer hums between verses as Bencho mans the engine. The river’s course has changed due to sand mining, so Bencho negotiates the gouged sandbanks, steering the boat towards the darker, deeper waters.

  ‘Sir, that boy was a rogue. He betrayed his boss. He stole from that driver. He had a shifty look about him,’ says Bencho as Iyer hums, examining a splinter wound on the webbing between his finger and thumb.

  ‘It is not the business of the brahmachari to discover whether the beaten are reduced to their circumstances by their vices or virtues, Bencho. I only have eyes for their suffering, not their misdeeds.’

  ‘But sir ...’

  ‘When there is no justice, one invokes the gods. I answered that child’s prayer and nullified any previous misdeeds that I might have inflicted on him in some other incarnation. Today we are one, that poor child and I. That boy’s destiny and mine are intertwined, Bencho.’

  Iyer starts singing again, louder than before.

  Never be attached to not doing duty.

  ‘What about Aurangzeb’s destiny? Is his destiny also intertwined?’

  Iyer ignores him, singing as he picks at the splinter in his hand.

  As the boat turns the bend, the truck driver snatches the notes from the boy and grabs his throat. Picking up his belt, he hits the boy across the face so hard that a shaky tooth flies out onto the sand. Then he kicks the boy on the buttocks, sending him into the
side of the truck. The pleading and screaming resume, accompanied by the unoiled earthmovers gouging out the riverbed.

  Bencho hears the screams and rows faster, while Iyer, overcome with bliss, is lost in song.

  13

  The foam dissipates as the river curves away from the factories on the bank. They begin to come across treeless hills growing vegetation, and little fish with shoals rippling the surface reappear. Iyer and Bencho wash with buckets of river water, and dry off in the sun. A kerosene stove, a dish, and a gunny bag half-filled with food supplies appear from beneath the floorboards, and Bencho cooks rice and bhindi under the tattered awning, shielding the flame with his body. He serves Iyer in the only steel plate they have. Iyer takes the plate to the bow, at a safe distance from Bencho, and eats with his back to him. Bencho waits for him to complete his meal before beginning on his own.

  When he is done, he gives the plate to Bencho, who washes it in the river. Then he puts away the plate and eats from the dish, wolfing down the food. Bencho is licking his fingers when another familiar odour makes him rise in alarm. Motioning for silence, he punts the boat towards the bank, taking care not to splash. A small village comes into view, burnt to the ground.

  ‘He is here,’ Iyer says, reaching for his staff and poking it at the lily pads. A bullfrog breaks the surface behind the boat and vanishes, popping up again a few feet away. Iyer strikes at it with his staff. It disappears again and then rematerialises further in the water.

  ‘Bakasura!’

  Bencho sees three bodies floating on a pool beneath a banyan tree, its roots descending into the water like curtains. They are male, and floating face down in the maroon water. Still communing with the frogs, Iyer doesn’t notice them, and Bencho punts the boat away from the banks just as a light patter of rain starts falling. As he rows away, the rain starts in earnest.