Taklu and Shroom

by Ranjit Lal

  ‘Miss Zara, I’m happy to meet you.’ Brigadier Diaz glanced at some notes and looked up. ‘You’ve known Gaurav Roy for over three years now?’

  ‘Yes.’ This man seemed so calm and collected, like he already knew everything.

  ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘We have Alsatians in Bombay. He had come to see a pup; he lived in Bombay at the time.’ Zara looked up, and bitterly added: ‘She was the dog you people shot in cold blood!’

  ‘What happened yesterday evening?’

  She told him why she had come and how she had bumped into Gaurav and Shroom.

  ‘You’re a very courageous young lady to have dared to walk down an unknown mountain forest track in the evening in the kind of weather we had yesterday.’

  ‘And you guys seem to like harassing innocent people!’ she snapped.

  ‘Did Gaurav ever tell you that he wanted revenge for what happened to his dog? Did you ever get the impression that he wanted to harm the little girl?’

  ‘For god’s sake, she said he pulled her to safety when she fell off the mountain – and he was carrying her piggyback up that track when I met him. The first thing he said when we met was that we had to get her to safety – that she’d had cancer and shouldn’t get wet.’ She glared at him witheringly, but her cheeks had gone a little pink. ‘If he wanted to harm her, he had plenty of opportunity to do so, don’t you think? And when those men started shooting, he turned around and shielded both her and me! Take a look at his cheek, if you don’t believe me!’ She was almost in tears. The man had guessed – he’d already smelt out what Gaurav had confessed to her in the cavern.

  ‘I suppose he could have let her drop,’ he said casually, ‘and no one would have known.’

  She was spluttering with anger. ‘Is that what you are trying to pin on him now? First, you shoot his dog and cover up by saying he was trying to kill the PM and now you’re saying he wants to kill the PM’s grandniece – after he rescues her and gets shot in the face for his trouble. You make me sick!’

  He looked amused and raised his hand. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you, miss. That’ll be all for now. Please send in the little girl now. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t speak to Mr Gaurav until after I’ve seen him.’

  ‘What?’ Shroom was thrilled, her eyes dancing with excitement. ‘They want to interrogate and debrief me? Oh, boy! Wait till I tell Taklu!’

  Her grandmother looked at her, clearly not amused. ‘Come on, Gudiya will carry you to my study – you shouldn’t put your weight on that leg.’

  ‘I don’t want to be carried! I’m not a baby! Gudiya, give me that stick! Will they shine floodlights into my eyes?’

  Leaning on her stick, she hobbled into the room as Snake-eyes hovered despairingly behind her. Brigadier Diaz stood up and saluted. Vijaya took a chair and shook her head in disapproval. Really, trust the fellow to pander to her whims – he was just encouraging her!

  ‘Brigadier Diaz, chief of intelligence, espionage and counter-terrorist operations, ma’am!’ he barked, smiling into his moustache.

  Awestruck, Shroom saluted back. ‘Special Agent Shroom, reporting for debriefing, sir!’

  ‘Right, Special Agent, at ease! I need to ask you some questions: When did you first meet,’ he glanced at his notes, ‘Special Agent Taklu?’

  ‘I saw him when he was walking to Megha aunty’s place – the Emerald Eden Estate – with his mother and baby sister. He was a taklu, like me; I thought he had escaped from the kingdom of taklus.’

  ‘And? When did you first establish contact?’

  ‘I spied on him in his verandah first. Then he turned up at Shroom’s Perch the next morning and… and,’ she smiled, ‘at first I got a bit scared.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Well, I saw him drawing these scary pictures – and he was angry. I thought he was a serial killer at first.’

  ‘So how did you make friends with him then?’

  ‘Well, he made friends with Tinku. But he was very sad and angry because you people killed his dog, Rani.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Then I wrote to bade-mama, saying all he wanted to do was to protect his own fat ass… oops, sorry.’ She shot a glance at the Geek Empress.

  ‘He never told you whom he wanted to kill?’

  ‘No, he said his boss would eliminate him if he did.’ Her eyes widened. ‘You,’ she exclaimed, pointing her finger at him, ‘you’re his boss, right? You sent him here to kill those fellows!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can neither confirm nor deny that. Now tell me about yesterday evening.’

  ‘I called him to Shroom’s Perch at 1830 hours. Bade-mama wanted to meet him today, so I had to tell him.’

  ‘You could have rung him up…’

  ‘I did, to fix the meeting in the evening.’

  ‘I mean you could have told him about today’s meeting on the phone.’

  ‘Nah! You guys must have bugged the phone! Besides, I wanted to surprise him.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘He came. Then it started raining and got foggy and he said we should shelter under the trees. I was dying to tell him, so when we stopped because the cloud became too thick to see, I climbed on a rock to tell him in his ear and my foot slipped…’

  ‘You stopped?’

  ‘Because of the clouds; we couldn’t see anything. I was holding his hand.’

  ‘And then you slipped?’

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced guiltily at the Geek Empress. ‘I stepped up on a rock so I could tell him in his ear, and my foot slipped and I fell.’

  ‘But you were holding his hand. Did you let go?’

  ‘I let go because I was trying to get my balance. But I fell backwards…’ Her voice petered away and the Geek Empress stroked her head.

  ‘Do you think you can go on?’

  She nodded and gulped, and stared at him defiantly. ‘But I wasn’t scared. I fell into a tree and then suddenly he was shouting at me not to move. I was stuck in a tree top; he said I was slung like a leopard’s kill between two branches. Then, then he rescued me. I was going to fall again when he grabbed my hands and pulled me up and over, and then carried me piggyback to the owls’ cave. He was like Superman.’

  ‘I see. What happened in the cave?’

  ‘His girlfriend was there – I don’t know where she came from – and she changed my wet clothes. Then I found the bag with the remotes.’

  ‘Did you show them to Gaurav?’

  ‘Yes, he said it must be some bird-recording equipment left by the bird researchers and to leave it alone. He wasn’t really paying attention – his girlfriend was there, you see.’ She smiled knowingly and crossed her legs. ‘These boys are all the same.’

  ‘Did you ever feel he might want to harm you?’

  She looked at him as though he were crazy. ‘Are you kidding? We’re partners: we ate from the same energy bar. He took a bullet in his face for me!’

  ‘Why did you take the batteries out of the remotes?’

  ‘Just for fun, really. I thought, what if these weren’t bird-recording things; I mean, they didn’t look like recorders and there were no birds around, so I thought, better just throw away the batteries.’

  ‘And just as well you did. You saved everyone’s lives.’

  She grinned nonchalantly. ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘Thank you, Special Agent Shroom, you’ve been a great help. We’ll probably have to give you a medal for that.’ He nodded at Vijaya. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘we’ll have the boy in next.’

  Vijaya was staring at him, appalled. She saw Shroom out and came back into the room.

  ‘Brigadier Diaz, just what exactly are you trying to establish?’

  ‘Madam, we have to look at every possibility. He had motive and he had opportunity – and yet, thank god, he did not avail of it. We had an angry, probably irrational, teenager here and they’re among the most dangerous and unpredictable of people. He saved her life instead. We need to find out why.’

  Gaurav ha
d woken up some time earlier and found his clothes washed and ironed and lying neatly on the bed. He dressed and then Savita brought him some tea. ‘You’re to stay here,’ she said, smiling, ‘until you’re called.’

  He wondered where the others were and then heard Shroom in the corridor outside, tapping with her stick. Savita and Gudiya were outside too, as well as a plainclothes chap, and they waved him back in. Was he under some kind of house arrest? His mother would have a fit.

  At last Vijaya knocked and entered. ‘I’m sorry for keeping you in your room,’ she said. ‘But Brigadier Diaz would like to ask you a few questions about what happened. Your mother knows you’re here – she called the estate yesterday and got a bit frantic when no one answered, and called here. She’s on her way here now.’

  Vijaya ushered him into the study, and Gaurav stopped in surprise.

  ‘Hello, son, I see you remember me…’

  ‘Yes, sir, but what…’

  Brigadier Diaz gestured to the chair. ‘I’ve been designated to make enquiries, so will you please answer my questions?’

  Gaurav sat down, his heart sinking. This fellow was an ex-commando hotshot, he was probably in intelligence now.

  ‘We won’t get into the past, son – I know about all that and am sorry about your dog,’ he said. ‘But tell me, how is it that you turned up here of all places, for a holiday? Next door to the prime minister’s grandniece?’

  ‘My father knows Ajay and Megha at Emerald Estate and fixed it up, sir. You can ask him.’

  ‘Did you know that Rukmini is the PM’s grandniece?’

  ‘No, sir, not at first. Megha aunty told us.’

  ‘And how did you react? Everyone says you were still very cut up about what happened to Rani. Did you think about taking revenge?’ The grey eyes looked at him steadily.

  He gulped. ‘I was upset and angry.’

  ‘Angry enough to harm the girl, I presume.’

  ‘But sir, don’t you see, it would not have been fair. We became friends. She’s some kid; she’s had brain surgery and cancer and all that, and look at her now! There would have been no justice in it – just as there hasn’t been for Rani. Even yesterday, after she fell and was hanging over this void, she was saying she wasn’t really scared. She said… she said being scared wasn’t allowed!’

  Brigadier Diaz exhaled noisily. ‘So you saved her life. What exactly happened?’

  ‘Well, she was very excited about the PM’s visit and wanted to tell me something; basically that he wanted to apologize for what happened to Rani. We were returning from the perch and it got very foggy, so we stopped on the ridge. She stepped up on a rock and I think her foot slipped off it. She let go of my hand and just fell backward.’ He stopped and gulped; Diaz’s eyes were boring into him, expressionless. ‘She slipped, sir, and fell. Luckily there was a tree; she was hanging across a fork. I had to get her out of there. After that, we sat on that ledge for a few moments to get our breath back. I took her shoes off because her ankle was ballooning up and told her to leave her backpack. Then I told her to piggyback on me and we crept along the ledge to safety.’ He looked at his fingers. ‘My fingers are still raw and scratched from hanging on to the mountainside.’

  ‘You were very brave – you both could have fallen off the mountainside. But you could have easily left her on the ledge and gone to get help. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘But I couldn’t desert her in the dark and in that heavy rain – and there was a leopard around too. No way, that would have been a crazy thing to do.’

  Diaz nodded and glanced at his notes. ‘I see. Well, it looks like your story has been corroborated by what the commandos have reported. The little girl’s bodyguards found her backpack on the ledge, along with her shoes. A commando retraced your route along the ledge in order to recover it – he says there are gouge marks in the mountain at some places. You did a very brave thing, especially by changing your mind.’ He made as if to stand up.

  ‘Changing my mind? About what?’

  Diaz looked at him steadily. ‘I think you know what,’ he said softly. ‘But good for you. There’s one more thing: your story about what happened to Rani has also been corroborated; that’s why the police dropped the case.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw what happened, son. I entered the restaurant from the garden entrance shortly after I left you and heard the cop blow the whistle and startle the elephant. I saw him shoot the dog deliberately. I shouted, but wasn’t quite sure what was going on, so I let them do their job; at such times it’s better not to interfere because they tend to be trigger-happy and would have probably opened fire on you, the baby and myself. But when they told the press that the dog had attacked them on a command from you, I knew something was wrong. At first they stuck by their story, but when I threatened to go to the press with the pictures I had taken, they backed down. They agreed to drop the case and requested that I didn’t go to the press. The cops in question have been strictly disciplined, though they should apologize to you in writing.’ He shrugged. ‘Then imagine my surprise when some weeks later I get a call from the prime minister. He said his grandniece had complained bitterly about how his security had shot her friend’s beautiful Alsatian in cold blood outside Lodi Gardens and she would never talk to him again, so could I find out what was going on and suggest how we could make amends.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘So you see, young man, all of us are not the monsters we’re made out to be.’ He got up and put his hands on Gaurav’s shoulders. ‘Now tell the others to come here – I want to talk to all of you together.’

  They filed in and took their places: Shroom hugely excited and fidgety, Vijaya radiating disapproval, the others a little nervous. From outside came the clatter of a helicopter that seemed to be landing. Brigadier Diaz cocked his head.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘our friend Anantram is being taken to a safer location.’ He nodded at Vijaya. ‘This won’t take long, ma’am; I’ll be brief. Well, you probably want to know what this is all about. We interrogated Anantram last night – he sang long and loud. He and Dr Sham were part of a sleeper unit that had been stationed here with orders to act whenever the PM came here. They were meant to attack in the conventional manner: guns blazing, grenades and bombs going off everywhere, but Dr Sham thought he could put his skills to better – and more spectacular – use and came up with the plan of blocking the gorge and blowing up the wall. Needless to say, they would have succeeded had it not been for the actions of Special Agent Shroom here, who so ingeniously disarmed their remote triggers.’

  He nodded at Shroom, who had turned bright red. ‘Equally, Gaurav here acted with great courage and saved Rukmini’s life so we owe him a debt of gratitude too.’ He glanced at Zara. ‘You, miss, showed exemplary courage in walking down that track last evening. Had you not, Gaurav would not have been able to take Rukmini to the cavern and those triggers would not have been disarmed. And last but not least, the young ladies here, who had the presence of mind to tip us off immediately on discovering the map and other incriminatory material at the cottage and later, whose unconventional use of a brass torch disarmed Anantram so effectively. My congratulations to you all! There is one more thing: please remember that in the end it was the NSG commandos who really put the matter beyond issue by blowing up the rock in the gorge. If they hadn’t, I have no doubt that the wall would eventually have breached with disastrous consequences.’ He smiled. ‘So, as I told Gaurav, all policemen and security personnel are not necessarily like the ones he had the misfortune to encounter. Now come along, the prime minister would like you all to join him for breakfast.’

  This can’t be happening, Gaurav thought as they waited in the dining room for the PM. He looked around. Shroom sat next to him, beaming from ear to ear. Zara, sitting just beyond, was smiling a little nervously, still wondering if this was all jet lag playing devious tricks on her. Raveena and Monica sat on the opposite side with his mother, who had just arrived, looking bewildered.

  ‘I leave you alo
ne for five minutes and you get involved with all these people again!’ she exclaimed, almost in tears as she hugged him. ‘Just look at your face! Papa’s furious because Zara didn’t get in touch with him yesterday… Really, you kids!’

  Vijaya sat at the head of the table and the PM had been relegated to the other end – he was in his elder sister’s house, after all. His personal security officers would probably just stand along the walls, Gaurav guessed, so they could draw their guns at an instant’s notice. He grinned and squeezed Shroom’s hand.

  The PM entered and walked briskly up to Shroom and kissed her. ‘Good morning, Special Agent! How are you feeling? You look battle-scarred. I believe you defused some bombs last night – well done!’

  ‘It’s my job. And I’m fine, thank you.’

  And then the PM shook Gaurav’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said softly. ‘You saved her life.’ He had the same shimmering grey eyes and silvery hair as his sister, though his face and forehead were more lined.

  ‘She saved ours too, sir,’ Gaurav said. He grinned suddenly, and Zara gasped. She knew that look: the guy had just thought of something truly diabolical.

  He had just thought how easy it would be to pick up a knife from the table and… Gaurav shook his head. No matter how much security you were provided it would never be enough. The perfect security was when no one wanted to kill you so badly in the first place that they would actually try. The PM went across to the other side as Raveena and Monica and his mother pushed their chairs back and stood up, and Vijaya made the introductions:

  ‘So you’re the young lady who took out one of those fellows with a torch,’ he said, smiling at Raveena, who blushed. ‘Diaz says some of the commandos are very impressed.’ Next, he went up to Kanika. ‘I’m sorry we’ve caused your family so much distress because of all of this. As I said, it ought not to have happened.’ He looked at Gaurav again. ‘I heard about your dog and I’m sorry. Rukmini did not let me hear the end of it. Anyway, as some recompense, I hope you’ll accept this as a token of our gratitude and apology.’ He nodded at Brigadier Diaz who slipped out of the room.