The Storks was a hugely popular show, even more popular than Knocked Up, a show that featured pregnant celebrities. But it was now slowly but surely losing ground. More and more viewers were choosing to watch Medical Miracles, a crude reality show started by a rival channel called Straight Shooting that had been set up three years ago by the priest. This channel was also a government venture, supported by the Moral Police Force, so the media mogul could hardly target it without angering the authorities. At the end of the financial year, when the channels submitted their reports and analyses, the show that had created maximum impact would win the Golden Geese, a pair of magical birds that fornicated every night and laid a golden egg in the morning. The Storks had won the Golden Geese every year since its inception. But this year, the Geese looked all set to fly out of the media mogul’s windows.
Straight Shooting only featured reality shows and most of them were about lesbians, gays and people of such unnatural sexualities. This particular show, Medical Miracles, profiled such elements in society and invited them to participate in a reality show in which the priest would cure them. Sometimes the cure was yoga. Sometimes it was shock therapy. One lesbian had been cured just by lighting an incense stick!
‘Why do you think Medical Miracles is popular?’ the media mogul asked the nervous reporters and newscasters who were huddled into the Good News conference room. The graph on the projector watched over them like a displeased god.
‘People like to watch sick things,’ mumbled a twenty-something reporter, running her hand through her shiny hair.
‘Braid your hair and pull up your shirt,’ said the media mogul, hardly looking at her.
‘People are religious. They like to see the priest…’ trailed away one young man as the media mogul fixed her eyes on him.
‘People are stupid. Not religious. That’s why we are here. To give them instructions,’ said the media mogul, lazily flicking a pen at him. ‘That’s why the government is here. To tell them how to live.’
In the fifteen years that had passed since Good News had been founded, she had given birth to five children and had added fifty extra kilos to her frame, much to the approval of the president. She’d even married a man suggested to her by the president, the CEO of a company that made sports shoes and sponsored the president’s campaigns generously to stay in his good books. The CEO travelled a lot and the media mogul didn’t complain. Four out of their five children studied in a residential school in another part of the country. The eldest, the one of whom they never spoke, was dead. Shot by the chief himself for breaking the law.
The media mogul made quite an impression as she stood there, watching every face with her close-set eyes.
‘People are blank slates,’ said the media mogul. ‘It is for the likes of us, who work for the government, to fill them up with what they need to know. If we find something we haven’t written, we wipe the slates clean and start again.’
Nobody spoke.
‘If Medical Miracles is more popular, it only means that they are filling up those slates faster than we are. And what is faster than fear? Unnatural sexuality is a disease. The audience is afraid that they will catch it. They watch the show because they want to see these unnatural creatures be cured. Because then they can rest easy, knowing that if it happens to them or to their children, god forbid, there is something that can be done.’ The media mogul paused. At that time, when it had happened to her son, there was nothing that could be done other than end it all with the chief’s bullet.
‘If we are to topple them, we have to offer something that is far more chilling than that,’ she finished.
‘But what?’ blurted out the reporter who had quickly braided her hair and pulled up her shirt.
The media mogul smiled slowly. ‘Find out if you want to keep your jobs,’ she said.
Seven
The dupatta regulator had a headache. His temples throbbed violently and the white light in his office hurt his eyes. The headaches were becoming too frequent. In the beginning, he had put it down to stress. Though most people assumed he had a soft job, nothing was farther from the truth. True, his job did not involve physical exertion or battles in conference rooms. He was only, as a derisive colleague in the Public Indecency Department commented, a report-writer. All that the dupatta regulator had to do was attend the morning assembly at the university, take a survey of the students present and write a report as to who had violated the regulations prescribed in the Conduct Book under the dress code section. The female students could wear anything (as long as it was longer than 2.5 inches below the knee and wasn’t sleeveless) but a dupatta was compulsory.
By passing this simple rule, the university had saved millions of rupees in security. They no longer had to worry about unauthorized molestations and rapes on campus. Earlier, cases of violence against girl students were on the rise and the university had been flooded with suggestions, each more expensive than the last: CCTVs, appointing security guards, providing safe transport twenty-four hours a day, self-defence classes, stringent punishment for offenders, etc. The vice chancellor was in despair. There was simply no budget for such extravagance! It was then that the dupatta regulator had stepped in. He had been a mere stenographer at the vice chancellor’s office, scrawling long memos in shorthand. But by this single stroke of genius, he managed to solve the university’s problem and create a respectable, well-paying government job for himself. Universities in other cities too were hiring dupatta regulators after seeing the considerable impact that the rule had made on the crime rate.
No wonder the other staff members were jealous. Some had gone as far as to insinuate that the dupatta regulator had come up with such a scheme only to sell dupattas from the cloth shop that was owned by his father. But ultimately, everybody had to bow down to the simple, beautiful logic in his suggestion. Dupattas prevented rape. Everybody knew that. The statistics did not lie. That was the beauty of numbers, they presented the truth objectively, with no frills and airs.
Still, the dupatta regulator was a lonely man at coffee breaks and staff meetings. The others knew he was not one of them. He did not have a PhD and he was, after all, only a stenographer, they whispered to each other when he was out of earshot.
‘But these headaches are not because of them,’ the dupatta regulator said to himself. The pain followed him home and gave him no respite even during weekends. His wife dutifully massaged his head, made hot and cold packs, conducted pujas, stopped eating onion and garlic and bathed in cold water. She’d even gone on a country-wide pilgrimage, dipping herself in holy rivers and singing bhajans with holy men. But nothing helped.
‘Maybe I have a disease,’ the dupatta regulator thought suddenly. ‘And this is only a symptom. Maybe I’ll just fall down dead at my desk one day.’
The thought sent a shiver down his spine. The faces of his sons swam to his mind and tears began to roll from his eyes. His wife had become pregnant three months after their wedding, but his eldest son was not born until two years later. When he’d heard he was going to have a son at last, he kissed the doctor who whispered the news to him. The dupatta regulator would never forget that day as long as he lived. He’d seen his son on the tiny screen, waving his arms and legs about. A person already, even before he was born.
‘I will see a doctor,’ he said to himself. ‘I will get to the root of this.’
Just then, there was a knock on the door. It was a girl student, her face flushed and agitated.
‘Sir, I need your help,’ she said as soon as she came in.
The dupatta regulator looked at her mildly. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘I was walking down corridor A1 when a senior boy … well, he brushed past me. Deliberately!’ she said.
‘Okay,’ said the dupatta regulator. ‘And then?’
‘I shouted at him and he pulled my hand. Then he…’ she stopped, her cheeks turning bright red. ‘He groped me. My breasts, I mean.’
The dupatta regulator winced. He hated it when peop
le said the word ‘breasts’. It made him sound like a pervert, watching women’s bodies at work. All he was doing was protecting them from themselves.
‘Complain to Public Indecency,’ he said. ‘This is not my department.’
‘I did!’ said the girl, growing more agitated. ‘They called the boy but he claimed that my dupatta was not according to regulation, so he was within his rights to … to do what he did.’
‘So what can I do?’ asked the dupatta regulator, rubbing his head. He knew what was coming.
‘Please, sir, you have to come and testify for me. I was present at the assembly this morning during the survey. You must be aware that my dupatta was according to regulation,’ said the girl, her hands tugging at the ends of her t-shirt. There was a cartoon on the t-shirt. If the dupatta regulator was not wrong, that was a cartoon of Tom from the Tom and Jerry series. His youngest son was very fond of it. Or was it Chota Bheem that he was now watching? The dupatta regulator couldn’t remember.
‘Is that Tom?’ he asked the girl, just to be sure.
‘What?’ said the girl, not understanding.
‘There. On your t-shirt. Is that Tom?’ he asked.
‘Oh. Yes,’ she said, confused.
‘Was the cartoon visible when you were wearing your dupatta?’ asked the dupatta regulator.
‘I-I don’t know,’ said the girl. ‘But I know I was wearing it to the correct length and breadth, just as I am now. Or you would have reported me. Please, sir, you have to tell the Public Indecency chairman this. He didn’t believe me. He wanted you to personally come…’
Of course he did. The chairman of the Public Indecency Department always tried his best to pull the dupatta regulator out of the comfort of his office.
‘I find that cartoon provocative,’ said the dupatta regulator. ‘Why would you put a cat on your t-shirt if not to attract attention to your … err … that place?’
He would not, could not, say that word.
‘But how does that matter?’ said the girl, exasperated. ‘There is no rule that says students can’t wear clothes with cats on them! We only have the dupatta rule!’
‘Ah. But you don’t understand. If a student wears her dupatta properly, she is automatically protected from molestation. If you were molested in spite of wearing a dupatta, it only means one thing: you were not wearing it properly,’ said the dupatta regulator.
‘Then why didn’t you pull me out of assembly today?’ said the girl, almost shouting. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes.
The dupatta regulator sighed. He had brought this up with the vice chancellor just the previous day. For some girls, just a dupatta was not sufficient to cover their … chest. They were well-endowed and it was of the dupatta regulator’s humble opinion that they wear a thick jacket over their regular clothes to prevent unlicensed incidents. The vice chancellor had hemmed and hawed and told the dupatta regulator to remind him of this later. The vice chancellor was close to retirement and he did not want to make any radical changes that might benefit the man who was to take over from him. Not after he’d put in all the hard work in the first place.
This episode would make his case stronger, the dupatta regulator thought. He would convince the vice chancellor of the urgency of it. He slathered his forehead with balm and got up from his seat. It was only Thursday. He had to suffer through one more working day to get to the weekend.
‘Come,’ he told the girl. ‘We have to meet the VC.’
On the way to the vice chancellor’s office, the dupatta regulator wondered if his father’s shop was well-stocked in jackets.
Eight
The rapist loved Fridays. Though he worked seven days a week, Friday had that ring of joy to it. A whiff of nostalgia for his school days when he would fling his schoolbag away as soon as he came back home and run to the playground with his younger brother. He was allowed to stay up late on Friday nights, listening to his father talk about politics, the weather, price rise and, indeed, anything and everything. The best part was that his mother would allow him a late-night snack of cream biscuits or wafers with sweetened cold milk. They were still in his hometown, with his wife and daughter. And here he was, wedded to his work. He missed his family and wished at times that he could bring them to live with him. But his tiny two-bedroom government quarters wouldn’t be enough for them to live comfortably, he knew. His wife loved gardening; his daughter was already demanding a room of her own; and his parents wanted a television set of their own in their room because they wanted to watch their soaps in peace.
The rapist looked at the pile of applications that had come in that day. While most applicants asked for it themselves, some applications were filed by others, nominating someone for a lesson. There was something interesting on the menu today. A Twitter celebrity.
The rapist read through the application quickly, a smile spreading across his face. This woman had posted pictures of herself in bikinis on Twitter and had promised that the next lot would have her in her ‘birthday’ clothes. The rapist took a moment to understand that, but when he did, his smile became wider. This was going to be an easy one. The last woman he had worked with had been a real train-wreck. She had nearly clawed out one of his eyes when he was doing the job. Anyone who didn’t know better would think she didn’t want it one bit. And yet, it was she who had written to him, clearly stating that she was a mother of two who went to pubs and got drunk at two in the morning. The Twitter celebrity was screaming for it, as far as the rapist could see, and he didn’t think she would go back on her very public request.
He put her down for Monday. It would take him a few days to track down her contact details and make an appointment.
The rapist was just about to move on to the next application when he happened to glance up for a moment. And there he was, his best friend from school, walking down the corridor. The rapist never forgot a face. He called out his name and the man turned and looked at him in surprise.
‘Are you … are you…’ he said doubtfully, taking in the rapist’s smart shirt.
The rapist leapt across the table and hugged him.
‘Of course it’s me,’ he said, thumping his back.
‘You look the same,’ said his friend, his eyes travelling across the rapist’s face.
The rapist wished he could return the compliment, but his friend’s haggard face said otherwise.
‘You look well,’ he said instead.
His friend smiled. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I know what I look like.’
‘What brings you here?’ said the rapist. As far as he knew, the friend did not work for the government.
‘I came to apply for a deferment,’ said the friend in a tired voice, ‘of my premium.’
‘Oh, you are on the wrong floor then,’ said the rapist casually. He did not wish to embarrass his friend further by asking questions. The Son Insurance Company was on the fifth floor and the rapist had half a mind to accompany his friend. But he wasn’t sure if his friend would welcome the intrusion.
‘Yes, I was just going to take the stairs,’ said the friend. ‘Why don’t you come with me? We should catch up.’
The rapist was relieved. ‘I was just about to suggest that,’ he said genially. ‘How’s your brother?’ He remembered a plump boy who had followed his older brother everywhere. Their parents had had three little girls after the brothers, but they were too young and the rapist did not know them by name. As boys, they had spent many hours in the mango orchard near their town’s only school, climbing trees and stealing fruit, running in opposite directions when the owner spotted them and set his dogs free.
‘He died in an accident a year ago,’ said the friend. ‘And now, I’m the only son.’
The rapist shuddered. He understood why his friend looked so hapless. The position of the only son was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, only sons were treated like royalty by their families, but on the other, only sons were not allowed to be mediocre. They had to be successful at everything in l
ife as the fate of their family was at stake. As far as the rapist could remember from his school days, his friend was not inclined to be a genius. He was good at climbing trees, but no teacher had ever predicted that he would go far in life. No wonder he was struggling to pay the premium. With his brother’s death, the entire burden of paying the premium had fallen on his friend’s shoulders. According to the laws of the land, it was compulsory for parents who only had daughters to make investments that would take care of their post-retirement lives, but the ones with sons could not enter any such financial plans. They were expected to be taken care of by their offspring completely.
The rapist’s brother was a blacksmith back in their town and between them they managed to pay the son premium comfortably enough. Thankfully, his parents had settled for mid-level old-age insurance and the amount to be paid was not too high. But still, the rapist felt the pinch at times. He earned a basic pay but the lion’s share of his income was from commissions. The more rapes he performed per month, the higher his salary. One month, when he had been laid down with jaundice, he had to sell his wife’s gold chain to pay the premium.
‘I managed somehow till now. But the more I try, the greater the expenses,’ said the only son mournfully. ‘Just yesterday, my youngest sister, who is a university student now, has been instructed to purchase jackets as part of her uniform. This is in addition to the dupatta. And the silly girl is insisting that I get her at least three jackets of different colours or she won’t attend classes.’
The Lesson Page 3