Half of What I Say

by Anil Menon

  They looked nonplussed. Anand poured them a round. Money was cheap, time was priceless. This nostalgia trip—or pastalgia, as Kannagi called it—had been fun, but he wanted to get back to the present.

  ‘Let’s order lunch,’ said Phirozshah, looking at the day’s specials.

  ‘Hmm. A song in the key of pig or key of duck, that’s the question.’

  ‘Mine’s usual. Sizzler.’

  ‘Salad.’

  ‘Savages.’ Phirozshah shuddered. He pushed back his chair, got to his feet. ‘Tell Joshi it’s duck. He knows how I like it. Be back in a jiffy. Damn prostate.’

  They watched him stagger off towards the restrooms.

  ‘Good old Fuckshaw,’ said Dorabjee, fondly. Then he turned to Anand. ‘We should meet to discuss your new project. Digital access for the masses. Very exciting. Profitable too, if it’s done right.’

  They discussed the broad parameters of the give-and-take. The conversation was warm and harmonious. Dora-bai really did seem keen on the technology and what it could do. At some point, it struck Anand they were back in their hostel room, having one of those much-missed adda sessions, and at any moment, the mess bell would ring and they’d all head out to the great hall.

  A waiter was coming towards their table. A short old man with greying hair, moist eyes and a pencil-moustache. In British times, he would have worn a white turban, black cotton coat, crisp white lungi, black shoes and gray socks. He looked out of place in the Lair’s uniform.

  But this was Joshi’s table. The Lair’s members as well as the waiters were very particular about who worked which tables. The old man bobbed his head and smiled, a flash of teeth that bisected the quivering distance between apology and deceit. The waiter was carrying a tray, at first sight, a circular silver-plated tray, cheap nickel-plate alloy of course, yet another arbitrage good from China, the usual buy-low sell-high plot, a story told through thousands of products of all shapes and sizes, some easily grasped, like a rectangle, others easily pointed, such as a cylinder, but why did this cylinder have two holes, disc, rectangle, cylinder, holes, but Anand had already recognized the object. A gun!

  Later, he could only reconstruct memories of memories of what had happened. The original event itself was mostly lost. He remembered shouts. He remembered grabbing the tablecloth, dishes scattering, the checked cloth unfurling in front of Dorabjee, a magician making his assistant disappear; later, he puzzled over why he’d felt a cotton cloth would stop a bullet. The shots had sounded very loud and strangely familiar. From the movies, no doubt. His tablecloth stunt had worked, the shooter had been disoriented. Dorabjee was shot but not fatally. Crack! Crack! The waiter was shot down by Dorabjee’s guards, but not before his second shot went through Phirozshah’s throat. If his friend had but stayed in the bathroom a little longer, just a extra few seconds, he’d probably be still alive.

  ‘It’s all right Ratnakar, it’s all right.’ He handed his shaking assistant a glass of water. He avoided looking at the bullet-ridden waiter. Just an old man with a cheap knockoff desi katta from UP or Bihar. But his own hand was trembling the way Father’s hand had trembled after the stroke.

  It would be nice to go home but Cyrus, Dorabjee’s Chief of Security, had other plans. He was to wait in the Cigar room; a special armoured limousine was being arranged, courtesy the General. An ambulance was on the way. He heard Dorabjee snarl to someone: I want the media kept out of this, you hear. Ratnakar appeared to have recovered. He felt a hand, guiding him. Where were they going? Oh yes, the Cigar room of the Lair. Fuckshaw, he remembered, liked a cigar after a meal. Well, a little secondhand smoke wouldn’t hurt.

  #

  ‘Ashraf, slow down.’ Kannagi sat up in bed, still disoriented from the sudden awakening. She moved the phone closer to her ear. ‘Where is Sawai?’

  Sawai was at the JLN Government Hospital. A ward boy, who’d worked in Sawai’s hostel, claimed Sawai had been deposited at the hospital at four in the morning by a couple of plain-clothes Lokshakti officers.

  ‘Is he hurt?’ cried Kannagi. She reached for her canvas shoes and slipped the left shoe on before she realized she wasn’t wearing any pants. ‘Hold on, I’m on my way. Where are you at?’

  ‘I’m getting out.’

  Then Ashraf’s agitation once again got the better of him. The DU hostels had been raided, there were cops everywhere. Phirozshah Mistry had given permission for the Lokshakti to enter the hostels. Enterthehostels, ma’am! Firsttimeinthirtyyears. Last time this had happened was in the Emergency. So what did that mean? The days of the Emergency had returned, what else. Everyone knew Mistry was a langoti-yaar of General Dorabjee.

  ‘All that doesn’t matter right now!’ said Kannagi. She scooped up her purse. ‘Let’s go get him.’

  ‘I can’t. They’ll arrest me, ma’am.’

  Ashraf said he’d escaped being picked up at the grounds but didn’t dare return to the hostels. He also didn’t dare go home. He was planning to hide at a cousin’s place in Haryana.

  ‘They’ll leave you alone,’ said Ashraf. ‘You’re Anand Dixit’s sisterin-law. See how they released you from lockup—’

  ‘Okay Ashraf, find a place to chillax.’ She didn’t bother to correct him. She hadn’t been released because of Anand Dixit. Officer Bilkis had let her go. ‘I’ll make sure Sawai’s okay. I’m a DU professor, that still counts for something. If your cousin’s place falls through, you can crash at my place. We’ll fight another day.’

  ‘Thanks, ma’am. But I’m getting out of Delhi. Vande Mataram.’

  ‘Vande Mataram,’ said Kannagi, sadly. She had a feeling Ashraf was done with the revolution.

  Ditto for Bhaavi Itihaas, she knew. It was a headless horseman headed nowhere. The key leaders were all either in jail or on the run. About a dozen students had been rusticated. Rank-and-file protestors were being asked to choose between paying a steep fine or a sound thrashing; this automatically separated the rich students from the impoverished ones. Families were being held hostage. Would the Lokshakti be waiting to nab whoever came to help Sawai?

  Kannagi put down the purse. Just crazy-rushing to the hospital wouldn’t do any good. First, alternate arrangement had to be made. Akka would know what to do. Akka’s people would call their people, and ambulances, private clinics, and around-the-clock care would all happen magically.

  When she dialled, Shabari took the call. She reported that Padma was getting her hair done but would call back in a few minutes.

  ‘How are you Shabari? How’s Sudhir?’

  ‘Fine. We’re both fine. Madam will call you in a few minutes, didi.’

  ‘Is she under that heater thingy? I really need to talk with her.’

  Shabari didn’t seem to understand but it also felt like she chose not to understand. ‘She’ll be finished in a few minutes.’

  Okay, okay. A few minutes was cool. She pulled up Google Maps on her phone. JLN Hospital was on Sunahsepa road in Daryaganj. She had a rough idea of the area. The simplest route was to take the metro to Chandni Chowk and then a rick.

  Kannagi hurriedly got ready. Sleep was long gone but her body still acted as if it was owed something. The geyser short-circuited as she was filling the bucket with hot water. Normally, the LED light switched from a green to a flickering orange, but now it was a dead plastic gray. The water was cold. Idea! Why waste energy heating gallons of water when only the person had to be kept warm during the shower? Was it possible to have a hot shower without heating water? A topic to raise at the next fab-jab. As she showered in the cold water, she jumped up and down in the small area, but that seemed to only further aggravate her body.

  Post-shower, she dressed, then called Akka. Still getting her junk waxed. Akka and her frikkin hair. Why couldn’t Akka rub against rocks like every other frikkin woman? And why the hell did she need to go through Shabari? Was Akka still sore from the fight last evening? Damn it, she was sick of Akka treating her like a child. And Akka had crossed the line. One thing for Akka to impers
onate her at the Studio. But to not tell her about Bilbo’s death, to decide it was better for her not to know, that wasn’t cool. Not cool at all.

  Kannagi checked her email, answered a few. She posted her idea about hot showers to the Mr Natwarlal cloud. Within a few minutes, a discussion began to coalesce. But it was hard to focus and she logged out of the cloud.

  John Liu hadn’t called. He hadn’t emailed. Obviously, he was pissed with her. Join the queue. He had a right to be angry. Hell, she was pissed with herself. With her bad luck. With the fact that she wasn’t a quantum particle and couldn’t be in two places at the same time.

  Kannagi glanced at the time. Okay, that was it. She grabbed the cell, called her sister.

  ‘Shabari, put Akka on the line. Now.’

  ‘Yes, didi.’

  Padma took the call a few seconds later. She was disinclined to help. Sawai? Who Sawai? Her sister sounded cold, irritated.

  ‘Akka, I need your help. Sawai is in serious trouble.’

  ‘No Kannagi, I am not going to help you. You’re on your own in this mess.’ The lecture started.

  ‘Akka! This is not the time. Sawai—’

  Click. Kannagi stared at the cellphone in amazement. Akka had hung up. She had frikkin hung up! Kannagi grabbed her wallet and though utterly pointless, banged the door on the way out. When she reached Rajat Chowk, she took an auto, told the driver, ‘JLN Hospital, Daryaganj; we have to go to Sunahsepa road,’ hoping she didn’t sound clueless. Delhi’s ignorance tax was brutal.

  ‘Emergency?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Yes bhaiya, but I’m only going to the hospital; don’t put me there.’

  She met his amused glance in the rear-view mirror, returned his smile. Perhaps he found her accented Hindi funny.

  When they reached Daryaganj, the driver ignored her attempts to guide him via the smartphone to Sunahsepa road. She squawked outrage; he ignored that as well. Three shortcuts, a turn onto Durbar road, and a minute later he pulled up in front of the hospital. Good thing you followed my instructions exactly, she joked, but he only nodded. He charged her as per the meter and when Kannagi complimented him on his integrity, he wearily pointed upwards towards the sky. At first she thought he was invoking the gods, but then she realized he’d also extended his thumb fully so that finger and thumb formed an ‘L’. The fucking Lokshakti was cracking down on autowallahs too. She’d never expected spite would motivate her to tip extra, but there was always a first.

  The hospital had the exhausted dignity of a reformed alcoholic. An effort had been made to spruce up the hospital’s exterior but the entrances and hallways revealed not-so-ancient paan stains. The hallways were crowded with patients too poor to go elsewhere. Doors swung open to reveal disasters in progress. In one, an old man with an enormously distended stomach; in another, an old woman being shouted at for her inability to lie still for an X-ray. There were no doctors to be seen but there were plenty of peons and plenty of women in worn but clean white coats. The stink of Phenyl was everywhere and reassuring. Kannagi headed to the woman at the admissions desk and asked for Gawai. The woman wanted Gawai’s first name.

  First name? Sawai Gawai, that’s what everybody called him. But of course, ‘Sawai’ was just his nickname. One-and-a-half Gawai. One-and-a-half times smarter than everyone else.

  ‘Shailesh Gawai,’ said Kannagi, looking around for red-and-black uniforms. No Lokshakti. No police.

  Shailesh Gawai was stashed in the general ward. She got a visitor slip, showed it to the guard and he gestured to a corridor on his left. She had girded herself for a confrontation, and the fact nothing had happened, turned the knot in her stomach tighter. Row upon row of metal beds, precisely spaced. There were clusters of people around most beds. The smell of food. She found a floor nurse and explained that she was looking for Gawai. The nurse consulted a chart, led her to a bed where a man lay moaning. Her heart raced, and then, just as quickly, it relaxed.

  ‘Wife?’ The nurse’s tone was sympathetic.

  ‘No.’

  The man opened his eyes. Nothing registered in his dull gaze. The man moaned. Perhaps he was trying to say something.

  ‘This is not the man I’m looking for,’ said Kannagi, wiping her forehead with her palm. She wished it had been Sawai. This fellow would recover.

  The nurse consulted her chart. Well, this was Shailesh Gawai.

  ‘It may be a Shailesh Gawai but I’m looking for a different Shailesh Gawai.’

  ‘Are you sure this isn’t your husband?’ asked the nurse.

  Kannagi approached the patient. He was wearing a pajama-kurta. There were reddish stains around his stomach and crotch areas. The right knee had been loosely wrapped with bandages. Was this Sawai? She examined his features, noting the swollen flesh around the eyes, the bruise marks around his neck. It could be Sawai; only it wasn’t. Poor fellow.

  ‘Has the doctor seen him?’ asked Kannagi. Now she could be angry. ‘Why are his injuries still not treated? These bedsheets are also dirty. Don’t you know his wounds can get infected?’

  ‘Yes, yes, why not, my father has set aside money for his treatment. I do you a favour and you start to sit on my head. Go admit him in America, I didn’t tell anyone to bring—’

  Kannagi raised a hand. ‘No, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m very worried about my husband, that’s all. I know you’re doing your best.’ She rummaged in her purse, held out a hundred rupee note. ‘Please take… for your inconvenience.’

  The nurse frowned, glanced at the CCD camera at one corner of the room, gestured for her to put the money away. The nurse looked torn between suspicion and the urge to spill something. She came closer and Kannagi caught a whiff of talcum powder.

  ‘We can’t treat everybody like kings. He’s not a serious case, so low priority. You follow? When he becomes high priority, we treat. You have two thousand rupees?’

  Kannagi hesitated.

  ‘I have to go.’ Kannagi opened her purse, removed four five-hundred rupee notes, slipped it to the nurse. ‘Please make sure he has painkillers, fresh bandages.’

  ‘Do you want to give me your number? In case there’s an emergency?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Smart girl,’ said the nurse, approvingly. She took the money, tucked it away in her blouse. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll where take care of him.’

  Kannagi returned to the bedside, snapped some photographs. There had to be some kind of Facebook wall she could post the photos; someone would claim him. Meanwhile she had to find Sawai. Perhaps he was in some other Delhi governmental hospital. She’d just have to check each one. She explained to the now-skittish nurse what she planned to do with the photos.

  ‘Take my photo also,’ said the nurse, and posed smiling.

  Kannagi stopped at the first chai stall she could find outside the hospital. She asked the chaiwallah if there was a place to sit, and he reached behind the stall and handed her a foldable metal chair. She found a shady spot, not far from a chap who was busy cleaning ears. She called Sawai’s closest friends. No one seemed to know what had happened to Sawai. Facebook and Twitter were down. No one had expected the authorities to react with such cunning, such an overwhelming show of force.

  It had only been a few hours but she was already exhausted. Not physically, but mentally. Where could Sawai be? He had just disappeared. The wave of panic was so unexpected she barely had time to set down the cup of chai. The ear-cleaner and his client watched her with interest. The trembling passed. She took a deep breath. Sawai was alive and well. That was all there was to it.

  Officer Bilkis had said Sawai wasn’t with the Lokshakti. Even if she’d lied and Sawai was in the Lokshakti’s grasp, there was nothing to be done. At least, not without Anand’s help or Akka’s help. She called Anand. Ratnakar took the call, promised to pass on the message.

  The logical thing was to check all the government hospitals. Perhaps Sawai had been admitted to some other hospital. A Google search generated a list of thir
ty-seven hospitals, along with phone numbers and their total number of beds. First she ranked them by the number of beds. Chances were that the Lokshakti would stash their victims in the larger hospitals. She began to make the calls. Only fourteen hospitals bothered to pick up. Five provided her with the information they had no such patient, and one sympathetic administrator advised her to first check with the police stations. Typically, the hospital saw the victim usually two or three days after the arrest. If at all. Cops not only moved slowly, they took considerable care not to beat the suspect to a point where they needed hospital care. It was just a bloody nuisance for all concerned.

  ‘He was arrested by the Lokshakti two days ago,’ said Kannagi. By now the sentence was automatic.

  ‘Then I don’t know,’ said the administrator and put the phone down.

  Kannagi wiped her forehead with her hand. Now that she’d decided Sawai was alive, she felt quite positive, even upbeat. This wasn’t the 1970s. People didn’t just disappear. Plus Sawai wasn’t a nobody. He had to be fucking around somewhere. Kannagi collected her things. Returned the chair. Facebook and Twitter were still down. She stopped at a printing store before setting off on the hospital tour.

  Six hospitals later, she was coated in sweat, dust and exhaustion. Only twenty-six hospitals to go. Complicating the runaround was the need to find places to pee.

  She had no doubt she would find Sawai. The only uncertainty was when. At the start of the hospital visits, she’d expected it to happen sooner rather than later, simply on the basis of probability theory, and as the evidence mounted for ‘later’, it only suggested that she should reverse the order of hospitals to visit—the ones with smaller beds first. Each visit only strengthened her resolve. At every hospital, there was some decent person willing to put down their Jane Austen, listen. They solemnly accepted Sawai’s photo with her contact info scribbled on the back, promised to call if there was an update, and usually offered chai. Leaving these places almost with a smile, she could postpone the fact that Sawai remained to be found. Which he would be of course. Just a little later than she’d expected. Uncertainty was a good thing. It meant there was always a chance. She mentally reiterated that little nugget of wisdom as the doubts grew.