Now, backed out on the main road, Tia has the same idea. Her Indica is finally pointing in the right direction. As he and the cops walk out of the gali, Sam realizes the chick’s bravado has run dry. Her face is now saying, Shit. Daddy. Daddycar. Aunt. Trouble. Big shit.
As they get close, he waves at her. “Achha, now you go!” He calls out, “I’ll take care of it.”
Him saying this overlaps exactly with her saying, “Dude! I gotta go!” and she takes off, smoothly enough, like her normal fast takeoff, no extra engine-gunning in panic, but no quarter given to the speed-breaker that sits a few yards down, and none to the two stray dogs dawdling in the middle of the road who yelp away right and left as she zips straight through them.
Telling Ajit three days later, Samiran still feels a throb of fear. “That’s when the cops got heavy. She zips off and the fat one says, ‘Who said she could go?’ Tall One says, ‘Why did you tell her to go? That’s very suspisuss!’ Fatso says, ‘You know we can take you into custody right now?’ Tough Guy says, ‘Shall we take you to the thana? Shall we check your house? Which one is your house?’ … And I could see the fat bugger was, like, looking at me as a Revenue Area, but the tall one was acting like I was going to be a Recreational Area. Then, suddenly, this K-5 bastard pipes up and points up here and says, ‘That one! That’s his barsaati!’ and that was it, man. I just lost it.”
“Lost it, how? You didn’t abuse, I hope?” Ajit looks slightly worried.
“Nothing like that, I just got tough myself. Told them to stop calling me ‘tu’ and try ‘aap.’ Told them they could come and check me out anytime, said to them, police harassment big in the news so they should be careful not to be used by some malicious neighbors. Finally said you can never tell who is who in this town, and tried to look like I fucking meant it.”
“So they took your number?”
“Yeah.”
“Called what time this morning?”
“About 9:30.”
“Fat One or Tall One?”
“Fat One, I think.”
“So he’s going to drop in around 1 o’clock?”
“That’s what he said.”
“So,” Ajit looks at his watch and smiles, “lunchtime may mean he’s looking for some lunch money. Revenue Area. You said you are Press, but his SHO’s phone is still intact, two days, no call from anybody high, so he’s going to try his luck again.”
“So what do I say when he comes?”
“Nothing. You relax and enjoy.”
Chandran looks up from Sam’s computer. “Yes, man, you just relax. Let Ajit convey some pnownage.”
“Huh?” Sam is slightly confused.
“Ignore him,” Ajit says. “These bloody Southies speak in another language.”
“Some nice stuff you have here.” Chandran is completely engrossed in Sam’s iTunes library. “Can I rip this sometime?”
“Sure, take what you want.”
“Great, thanks. In fact, I have my drive with me so I’ll do it right now.” Chandran gets up and stretches. “Which was the complaint guy’s house again?”
Sam points at K-5 through the thin curtains. “The corner one. That’s the main gate, on the main road, and that’s the lane, with the side entrance, which they think they own.”
“And this … You got their right name, anh? The family’s name?”
“Yeah, think so, it’s what it says in the colony directory.
Siddiqui.”
“Right, right … And next to them is who? In this one, just across the gali?”
“Flats, three different families.” Sam leafs through the directory. “Ghufran, Abbas, Khan.”
“And then this one, to our right?” Chandran is now pointing at a wall of Sam’s front room, gesturing beyond the view provided by the window.
“Kashmiris. Renting, so name not in this owners’ directory. Some big carpet business.”
“You’re in this corner house, so everyone has a nice view of your barsaati, huh?” Ajit is grinning again. “Nice, clear view of all your activities too!”
“Well,” Chandran stays serious, “nice view works both ways sometimes. Sam has a nice view of these guys too. In fact, we are higher here than most of them.”
“A bit,” agrees Sam, “but there’s nothing to see, usually.”
“Whereas you, my boy, are a one-man, live-action, neighborhood porn channel!”
“I wish. Anyway, I close my curtains.”
“But isn’t this Tia the one who makes a lot of noise? What will curtains do? That little neighbor of yours can probably hear her all the way across the road. Every time she moans he probably sizzles. You need sound padding, like they have in those posh fuckotels abroad.”
Samiran doesn’t say anything. Ajit is a friend but Chandran he’s meeting for the first time. Ajit sees this and fields.
“It’s okay, these Southies are sexless. They get their kicks from world domination.”
World domination or not, Chandran stays focused on his immediate plan. He pulls out a small external drive and plugs it into Samiran’s computer. Then he puts on the headphones. By the time the doorbell rings, he’s got all of Sam’s jazz, most of his early punk, and nearly all of his Velvet Underground bootleg tracks. As Sam goes to open the door, he can hear Chandran singing in a low voice, “Now you know you shouldn’t DO that, don’t you know you’ll stain the CARPET …”
Fat Cop and the mole on his nose are even uglier in daylight; it’s as if two malevolent creatures have come visiting, one attached to the other. The thulla doesn’t wait for Samiran to move aside, he shoulders past him as if it’s his own house and Samiran is some kind of minion who just happens to be there. Once inside, the cop looks around with interest, taking his time, checking out the narrow corridor that leads from the door to the main living area, peering at the Che Guevara poster and the small framed stills from the Apu trilogy. In the small no-man’s-land that joins the rooms, the kitchen, and the door to the terrace, the man discovers Janis Joplin, with her hands crossed over her privates but otherwise naked. The cop tries to decipher the flower-power calligraphy announcing the ancient concert but goes back to staring at Janis’s smallish tits. And then interrogating her crossed hands, trying to get her to part them.
“Mishter Chakkarvarty, you are very fond of naked women, hain?”
Samiran stays silent, wondering where Ajit’s gone. Chandran’s singing has stopped too. For all the cop can tell, the two of them are alone.
“Mishter Chakkarvarty, you have a servant-woman who comes to work for you, no? What she is thinking of this picture?”
Good point. Sam remembers the momentary awkwardness when Farida and Janis first met, the day after he put up the poster. And then Farida’s curtain of dour indifference dropping back in place; the complete absence of any emotion as she dusted over JJ’s naked hippy-waif body, the silent adding of the poster to the other bad things Farida encountered when she came in every morning, the other things she ignored, the booze bottles, the unmade bed, the girls who would sometimes be filling the bed or wandering around the barsaati, clothed, mostly, but their very presence conveying the opposite.
The thulla lets go of Janis and pushes open the terrace door with the very tips of his fingers, like not wanting to tamper too much with the scene of a crime; but his ownership air is fully in place as he walks out onto the terrace—Chakkarvarty, you have come as summoned. Now let’s talk.
“So where is that madam who was driving the car that night?” The cop’s voice is hard without any warning, even the word “madam” is like a slap. “We can either talk to her or we can talk to her father …” The cop looks down at a piece of paper in his hand. “We can talk to Mr…. Avinash Prabhu, C-343 Defence Colony.”
Samiran folds his arms, mouth still shut, wondering what Ajit is playing at. Samiran’s silence seems to send the cop into greater fury. He drops the “aap” he’s been using so far and reverts to the “tu.” “What makes you think you people can turn a decent family ne
ighborhood into a whorehouse mu-halla? Hunh?”
Samiran clenches his fists under his armpits, fighting to keep his face impassive. A pigeon comes and settles on the parapet behind the fat cop. After examining the situation, it starts a slow sentry march up and down the parapet, pecking every now and then at live goodies in the lime paint, being a total sidekick to the cop.
The policeman pulls up a cane chair and sits himself down. He takes out a little notebook and a battered rollerball from his tunic pocket. “What is the girl’s mobile number?” His voice is quiet, final, pronouncing death. “We need to talk to her.”
Samiran opens his mouth, wondering what to put through it. Ajit’s voice is suddenly very audible, speaking in oozingly respectful, clear, official Hindi.
“No sir, no, no, no need for that, not yet. No sir, please, Saikia sahab is usually very tough in these cases, sir, overtough sometimes, so why disturb him? Why bother DCP Corruption, sir, for such a small thing? It would become a policeman’s whole career at stake, sir, because of a small mistake. No, no sir, no, no, there is no demand for a bribe, just a case of … how to say it, overzealous imposition of a certain morality … and, you know, malicious neighbors with nothing better … Exactly, ji, exactly!”
Ajit has walked out onto the terrace as if there’s no one else around, his phone trapped between ear and shoulder. He ignores Samiran and the cop and goes to the parapet, making the pigeon flap away. “DCP Saikia, you know, will immediately suspect the other motive … Sir, yes sir … His new anticorruption campaign, yes sir … Well, he has just been posted from the northeast, no, sir? I don’t know if they harass girls there for wearing small-small clothes, no … Oh yes! Hahahaha! Yes, yes sir, army-paramilitary may rape women, but local police will not arrest a boy-girl for kissing! Hahaha, quite right, sir!”
Samiran sees that Ajit is using his hands to carry two glasses and a bottle of beer, all of which he gingerly manages onto the parapet. He listens intently to the other party as he pours the beer, making sure the head of foam is just right in both glasses.
“Ji, sir, Nizamuddin thana, I think … Yes sir, Wahi sahab, the officer is right here. Should I just ask him and call you back? … No? … Okay, okay, I’ll just ask him right now.”
Ajit hands a glass to Samiran and turns to the cop. His tone is politely conversational, equally for the cop and the benefit of his phonee. “Sir-ji, please, can you tell me your name?” Before the cop can answer, Ajit bends to take a look at the name tag on the cop’s left tit. He speaks into the phone: “Subinspector U.P. Singh, sir … Yes, I will just ask.” He turns back to the cop and smiles kindly. “Sir, thoda, please, aapka full name? DCP South wants to know your name.”
The fat cop is sliced into two zig-zagging parts, two halves that fit perfectly but which are barely able to cling to each other. One part of him clearly wants to snatch the phone from this new stranger and slap him unconscious; the other part seems to want to vault over the terrace wall and parachute away. Samiran imagines he can see thin seepings of blood where the blade has cleaved the man. When the voice comes out, it’s barely audible, so squeezed is it by the juice-press of rage.
Ajit straightens up and announces into the phone: “Sir, he says his name is Ujjwal Prakash Singh. Nizamuddin thana, na?” The thulla jerks out the smallest of nods. Ajit listens a beat longer, allowing the bloodlines to well up further, and then, “Okay, sir, yes sir, I will tell him.” He snaps his mobile shut and takes a deep pull on his beer.
“Nice, no? This one is much better than the usual bird-piss we get, no? Genuine German wheat beer. Deepti says her friend will be importing it now regularly.” Samiran forces himself to gulp from his own glass. Ajit turns to the cop. “Sir-ji, your mobile is on and working?”
“Yes.”
“The thana will have your number I take it?”
“It is naat so eejhhi to threaten me, my friend.” Fat Cop is now pushing out his English, trying to jump start it. “You and your friend will get into the deeper trouble.”
“Threaten, sir-ji? Threaten who? Who is threatening anybody? What are you talking about? I am just trying to bring about a friendly solution to the little problem we seem to be having.” Ajit sticks to his smoothly purring government Hindi. “Oh, sorry, we haven’t met. Ajit Karlekar, Delhi Government.” He puts his card down on the low table between them.
Fat-fuck’s phone has a ring-tone that Sam can’t quite place. His voice is cautious as he answers it; Sam can see that the guy’s hoping the whole thing’s a crazy bluff, in which case he’ll be able to tear into Ajit and him, but he can also see that the guy has a sinking feeling about the whole situation; after the first few moments on the phone, Sam can see anxiety cloud the small eyes; he can almost feel the mobile phone winch the man up from his chair, almost hear the voice that makes the man spin around and move away from them. Even from behind, Samiran is sure he can see the sweat spots enlarge, turning the khaki a darker brown under the man’s armpits; and if, maybe, he’s imagining that, he’s certainly not imagining Fat Cop’s smell, which is now sharp and impossible to escape.
Sam can’t take his eyes off the thulla but Ajit is engrossed with his mobile, sipping beer and text messaging intently. All Sam can hear from around the cop’s back and spreading ass is a binary progression of Sir-sir-sir-ji-ji-sir-ji-ji-huzoor-huzoor-ji-sir-huz … a word or syllable getting chopped off here and there as the other side cuts in. At one point, Fat Cop says a name which Sam assumes is that name of the Haryanvi rapist Tall Cop: “Sir, ASI Neb Chand, sir, yes, Neb Chand, he a good—” and then Neb Chand’s goodness is also abruptly cut off. Sam notices the sidekick pigeon is back, waddling and cooing sympathetically as the man nods into his Nokia.
The phone conversation twists Fat Cop around again, and he’s back to facing Sam and Ajit. Still listening and nodding, the man starts to give in to the September heat. His non-phone hand goes first to middle of stomach, through his shirt, right into the belly button, one scratch, two, three, then to the side of his paunch, as if drawing a median around the earth, the fingers fiddling between the liver area and the right kidney, and then, as someone on the other side ups the ante, the hand goes down to the crotch. But there Fat-fuck stops, suddenly aware that he’s being watched.
The next time Samiran sees Fat Cop, however, the man completes the gesture. He begins by fiddling with his balls and then giving them a good, full-turbo mauling. It’s late afternoon a month later and Samiran is looking down from his bedroom window, watching Fat Cop standing outside his entrance, three floors below. Fat Cop is standing there because he has been summoned by Samiran to counter a new policeman, Third Cop, who has entered the frame from outside, entered all the way from Mandawali thana across the river.
Third Cop has also come into Samiran’s life courtesy K-5. Though the pimp-rat hasn’t connected Sam to the sharp misfortunes that have befallen him and his family over the last four weeks, he has figured out that the local cops from Niza-muddin are no longer able to help; somehow or other they’ve been disabled, turned even, so that any complaint seems to almost backfire. K-pimp has therefore called upon the thulla talent from around his factory, obviously bribed them, and sent them, sent this Third Cop, after Sam. Chandran, in the meantime, has picked this up on his magical radar and given Sam an early warning, advising him to call Subinspector Singh, which Sam has promptly done.
“Sir, you know I don’t have a problem with any police, but it would be good if your colleague didn’t waste his time or mine.”
Sam has kept his voice sweet and full of request, since he now knows that this is how menace is best communicated to all but the extremely dumb. Sam has learned a lot since he and Ajit saw U.P. Singh out of his flat over a month ago. “You don’t kick a man when he’s down,” Ajit had explained after shutting the door. “You put a leash around his neck and tell him which way to crawl.”
After the phone call on the terrace, Fat Cop, Fat-fuck, SI U.P. Singh, the Tia-hassling, tit-staring thulla, had looked like he’d be
en sitting on a large, slow-growing cactus bush for many years. Ajit, on the other hand, had been ready with a smile and a cold Pepsi poured into a tall glass. Every time the SI tried to raise the subject, to apologize, Ajit stood at the net and volleyed it, turning the subject away to some other topic of general interest. The message was a) Sir, we are now all here in this friendly, postproblem atmosphere, why bring up what is already past? and b) You motherfucking bug on the asshole of a cockroach, you may think your humiliation is complete, but actually it’s just starting.
In the final sum total there had been both spectacular stick and some small carrot. As Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Shri Satish Wahi sahab’s secretary instructed Singh on the phone, Neb Chand, the wannabe-rapist, was to be transferred to some punishment post. But it was Singh who was to secretly sing out the damning report about Tall Cop’s harassment of innocent young women. It was also going to be part of Singh’s general duties to make sure Mr. Samiran Chak-karvarty, ace web analyst and highly connected press-person, was not hassled by anyone or anything, including nasty neighbors. In return, apropos a discussion on mobile phones, Ajit had gone into Sam’s bedroom, rummaged, and came out with a large manila envelope for Singh. He’d handed this to the cop who was stuttering out his goodbyes. “There are some phones in this magazine, sir, so please take a look. The descriptions are in Russian but model numbers are in Normal, take a look and let me know what you like. I will see what I can do when my cousin returns from Russia—phones are cheaper there than even Singapore or Hong Kong.” With which Subinspec-tor Singh left, carrying a six-month-old Russian Playboy containing three pages of obsolete mobile phones and seven pages of evergreen Playmates of the Year.
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