The Third Squad

by V. Sanjay Kumar

  Meanwhile, nobody dared search Swamy’s pockets, and for some decades they swelled with ill-gotten gains. Some of it went to cops and some to magistrates. The rest was naturally seen with a blind eye. Who the fuck cared?

  “I do,” said Ranvir Pratap.

  A couple of years back a reputed astrologer told Swamy he was past his due date. Swamy disappeared and went underground. Nobody had seen him since, though it was rumored he came out at night in an SUV with tinted windows and that he visited temples where he prayed for his own longevity.

  He had reason to feel threatened. The Bombay police had taken out a contract on Swamy, after all. That was just how it was done. The local term for this practice among the crime gangs was supari. No one in the police force wanted this particular supari, and so it landed in the lap of a greenhorn, a relative newcomer in a new squad who had a reputation for never missing in target practice. His name was Karan and he was reported to be a little mental. He had agreed on one condition—the encounter would not happen in Wadala. There was no question of challenging Swamy on his own turf.

  “Do we have a date?” asked Karan.

  “Yes,” said Desai, his controller. “The eleventh. Boss likes the eleventh.”

  “Why?”

  Because on January 11 Surve died. He died, man. They were waiting for him and they waylaid him. He lay in an ambulance and cursed till the moment he went. Karan saw the body and the grimace in a grainy photograph. Surve was a burly figure with a chestful of hair. They trapped him when he emerged from a taxi near the Ambedkar College junction. The police had been tipped off and two cops got him. Surve was armed; it seems he fired first, but he missed. Raja Tambat and Isaque Bagwan entered history books by firing a clip of bullets into Surve’s chest and shoulder. This was history, the first encounter killing carried out by Mumbai police. And it happened in Wadala on January 11, 1982.

  * * *

  It was said of Karan that he seemed like a “decent” person when he joined the force. The fact that he would kill people would color his résumé somewhat but that was a departmental thing—a job description—and something he had to do to get a salary and a promotion. His boss Ranvir Pratap had ground to make up. Too many hoods who had practiced mayhem for so long had lived well into their eighties and nineties. It felt unnatural, almost a failure for cops like him that so many of them died from natural causes.

  Karan was an unlikely specialist. He was prone to stand for hours on the roadside, an uneaten dish in front of him, speaking in a monotone to either his wife Nandini or to his controller, a disembodied voice named Desai. And this would happen in the midst of an assignment. It was scary that he could still execute successfully.

  “What was in the magazine?” asked Desai later that night.

  “A list of two things: the temple he will visit tomorrow; and his preferred seat inside his car.”

  “Is that enough for you?” asked Desai. He sounded skeptical. “Do you need backup? Should we get you a semiautomatic weapon?”

  “No, it will be too obvious. His people will spot me.” There was no point in telling Desai that he had never used an automatic weapon.

  “Who was that?” asked Nandini when he returned to the table. They were having dinner.

  “No one important,” said Karan. He sat down heavily and stared at his plate.

  “Then eat.”

  He couldn’t. He poked at the food. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then go to sleep,” his wife said.

  The night was too quiet and the chawl was full of furtive sounds. In bed, he couldn’t toss and turn as he wished because Nandini was a light sleeper. He stared at his phone in the dark and watched time pass slowly.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked at one point.

  He found an excuse to walk into the outside corridor where he could glimpse the city lights. Beyond the chawl Bombay was shape-shifting. The factory worker and the trade unionist had walked into the sunset, pulling down the curtain on the era of local manufacturing. The militant political party had thrived using jingoism and strong-arm tactics. Spiffy office-goers arrived, and they too thrived thanks to liberalization and the opening up of the economy. A certain licentiousness had seeped into the city, a rowdy good nature exemplified in its cuisine and its festivity. Then, with the arrival of immigrants, Bombay retired, its suburban identity prevailed, and the city called Mumbai found its voice. Mumbai turned its back on Bombay, then dropped its pants and showed its rump. One survivor in this transformation was the chawl. It was a distinctively Bombay creation, and a hardy piece of architecture that was now a curious remnant in Mumbai.

  The next morning Karan stood in the shower and let the hot water burn his back and his arms till they reddened. He toweled himself down slowly and deliberately. This would be his first kill. It was a strange assignment and he had been told if he had a clear shot he should take it, even if it was fleeting. He knew that it would happen near his home, too close, but still . . . it would be public and brazen.

  “Aren’t you going to the office today? It is raining, Karan, so you better leave early.”

  What should he tell her, that he was waiting to find an auspicious time for a kill? She left for work after packing his lunch. He stood by for a call that never came, and finally at noon he sat at his dining table and ate his lunch. And later, he snuck out like a thief.

  It was raining hard on his chawl in Parel. The chawl was covered with blue plastic sheets held down by bricks. Beneath them was a tarpaulin cover and the few cracks in the tiled roof were filled with black tar. Karan waited under an awning but water still found a way to drip onto his head. From his vantage it seemed parts of the city were literally going down the drains.

  His thoughts traveled back to a time when the city bled. It wasn’t long ago when Bombay was divided on religious lines. The Mumbai riots were terrible and right here in this gully there was arson and looting. Today no signs remained; nothing except the figureheads and their sycophants. The shakhas were still around, and then there were the local mukhyas and prajapatis. These were the true satraps of this city. They sponsored the revelry on the streets. At festival time they would take money from the residents and fund their pandals and processions.

  He was meticulous in his preparation. Karan had readied his weapon the night before but keeping it dry in the monsoon was a challenge. The roadside gutters had flooded into streams. A large, ungainly rat looked on as the swirl consumed its hideaway; a child gleefully watched the animal get carried away by the deluge.

  Umbrellas formed herds at traffic junctions. The office workers waited impatiently for the traffic lights to change before heading to the new gleaming towers that had sprung up where the mills once stood. When he got tired of taking practice shots Karan joined them, walking with them for a couple of kilometers before returning, a black umbrella hiding his head. Another hour passed and still no news, so he zigzagged across the road, visited some shops, and returned to his spot once more. Occasionally he stood in the open, defying the driving rain.

  A few vehicles clattered past the chawl, splashing water and making waves, a street vendor shouted in vain as his wares were sodden, and the gears of a double-decker bus clashed as it rounded a bend. This was getting tedious. The delay continued. He held his umbrella high and negotiated a crossing. When he tired of holding it he folded it, exposing his mop of soaking black hair.

  He was just another tall man wearing a gray raincoat and plastic shoes.

  The day departed and the rain mercifully eased. Nightlife arrived in a taxi, an old yellow-black Fiat, a braveheart that had seen three engine changes. The cab and the cabbie idled by the roadside, their engines ticking, keeping an eye out for cops. Their passenger was clearly a woman on the make.

  “Mangta kya?” she asked passersby, thrusting a hip, parting her lips, and twirling a bag around her right wrist. She posed next to the Fiat, trying to entice. The interior of the taxi glowed and was playing a song from the film Pakeezah. A drunk leered at her
. “Chal phut!” she shouted. Get lost.

  “Randi,” said the drunk. “Raat ki raani.” In his stupor he was a connoisseur of women.

  Across this tableau stood Karan, a silent observer, patient, still, black umbrella by his side, his hair wet and streaming. After four hours of waiting his phone finally rang. It was time.

  “Where are you?” Nandini demanded, breaking his concentration. “You forgot your lunch box. Wait, it’s empty.”

  He flexed his fingers, rotated his neck and shoulders, and blinked a few times. “Can you get off the line? I’m expecting a call.”

  “Are you at work? How long will you be?”

  “I don’t know.” He hung up on her, then reached inside his coat, felt his holster, and pulled out his gun in a single smooth motion.

  A black SUV came speeding below the overpass, turned, and swerved. Its dark windows were rolled up and its bright lights screamed momentarily into Karan’s eyes. Two traffic lights turned green and the vehicle began to accelerate. Karan took aim at the green lights and fired. Two muffled thumps and then confusion as cars braked and skidded.

  “Thamba!” shouted a nearby duty cop, waving his arms.

  “Motherfucker!” cursed a driver as he braked, screeching into another car before hitting a pole. Glass shattered and pedestrians jumped out of the way. In the ensuing slowdown the SUV drew alongside Karan, blasting its horn, its tires crunching over the strewn glass. Its custom license plate glinted as Karan’s gun sparked again; the bullet pierced through the windshield glass, spreading a small spiderweb. He waited for the telltale sign as the car swept past. He finally exhaled; there was red splatter on the rear windscreen.

  The SUV jumped the red light and made a sharp U-turn, its tires squealing as the driver shifted gears and gunned the engine. Black smoke and diesel fumes spewed behind the SUV as it sped away. The duty cop futilely ran after it, then jumped onto his motorcycle and set off in chase. A couple of street urchins looked toward Karan wide-eyed. They had heard something but they weren’t sure. He was standing erect and seemed to be brooding. Karan’s gun felt warm in its holster. After a brief pause Karan opened his umbrella and moved toward the chawl, entering it without glancing back. Elongated shadows followed him home, stretching around the bends.

  Soon, at half past twelve, the traffic lights were turned off and would flash orange till the sun rose again. Dogs settled back down on the pavement and in back alleys. The city dragged its feet for a while, its moral compass awry. Down south the famous Rajabai Tower stood tall between a university and a high court. Its clock chimed desolately into the night.

  * * *

  The day after the assignment Karan stayed home and counted sparrows. He had heard that sparrows got fried out of existence by electric towers, so seeing some of them buzz in and out of the sloping roof gave him a sense of hope. Nobody called him, which itself was eerie after yesterday. For some reason he remembered the church at the Don Bosco School in Matunga, where he had studied as a young boy, and how he once by chance attended an emotional memorial service there. He had to stare at a stained-glass window to distract himself from the outpouring of grief. An old man next to him kept smiling through the function.

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I come here for all the memorials.”

  The chawl was customarily quiet at this midmorning hour. Nandini had seemed quizzical since waking up. She was relentless. “What’s the matter?” she asked again as she ironed his uniform. The iron wove around his buttons.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “What are you thinking?” He was midway through brushing his teeth.

  “Nothing.”

  She sighed and smiled gently. “Don’t worry, I’ll eventually get used to you and your moods.”

  When she left he removed his uniform and changed into his pajamas. He slunk on a chair and waited for a call that might not come. At the chawl domestic life proceeded at its own pace; he was the interloper.

  “Karan bhai, you are at home?”

  He nodded. Wasn’t it obvious?

  “Su Karan bhai?” asked a Gujarati neighbor. “Majama?”

  “Majama,” he echoed, managing a smile.

  “Karan kaka, all well?” asked a maid.

  The inquiries were polite, his replies were tart, and the air was pungent with the smell of spices that were seasoning lunch. He sneezed often. He detected the scent of detergent and the slapping sound of clothes being hand-washed. He snoozed for a while and awakened to find the sun in his eyes. He had to retreat further into his small abode and there he rediscovered the small things that made this place home. He puttered about, discovering Nandini in her absence. Her taste showed up in the carefully placed bric-a-brac, her mauve Kashmiri shawl, the two-layered curtains filtering light through the windows, casting shapes on crowded stacks of books that spoke of their shared love of cities. He settled down for a while with a coffee table book called Bombay: The Cities Within, and found that its observations spoke to him. Finally, he sat at the one item that truly belonged to him: his writing desk.

  You are not a writer, he said to himself. He really wasn’t, though he had tried. Your attempts are surreptitious and your thoughts are clandestine. He read aloud from passages he liked, taking care to pronounce each word correctly. And he often sat with a thesaurus, sometimes attempting an original composition with esoteric equivalents of commonly used words. He envied his boss Ranvir Pratap, a man with a mordant wit and a quicksilver tongue. What did he look like? He was stocky and unathletic with no six-pack to boast of.

  After lunch, time passed slowly in his head as he tired of checking his phone for messages. He lay listlessly on the sofa. He felt like he was seated in a railway waiting room or at a doctor’s clinic. He twirled a blue paperweight and rapped it against a table, admiring its sound. He watched TV, flipping channels and hoping to get lucky. For a while he slept again. And he dreamed of his city, of its various parts that assembled before him like an archive of the quotidian, an everyday life that he could write about lucidly when he slept.

  * * *

  Words are easy on the tongue but work is hard to find in Mumbai. Old men vie with chokra boys, and sisters vie with mothers. All day they climb up and down the rickety stairs of the chawl doing odd jobs. The city scrimps in its daily life. Chai from a tumbler is shared in groups. Car cleaning pays but only in small change. Elevator attendants, security guards, and peons are proof that vocations trap you for life.

  Every chawl is a bunch of kolis, small rooms that house the middle class. During the day they run kiraana shops, tailoring shops, coaching classes, and crèches right out of their homes. There are doctors too who practice where they live.

  My Parel chawl has good proportions. It has a family life. You flirt in the landing, get engaged in the corridor, your marriage takes place in the quadrangle outside, and your honeymoon is in the cupboard.

  Dust is unhurried in this city. It never settles. Summer brings clichés and the measles, and rain brings the thundering clap. Men wander at this time for nightly visits with painted folk.

  “Don’t be fooled by the bright saris, the kohl eyes, and painted lips,” warn our elders. “Before you flirt with streetwalkers take our hands and check the gender.”

  Chawl life is intimate. The men lean on railings with feet apart, wearing tight pants. The women sit on the floor with feet apart, wearing nightgowns. The neighbors are second rate and the amenities are third class. The scenery is underwear, displayed like newspapers in a kiosk. Every clothesline speaks.

  This is our theater, our darling middle-class Center for Performing Arts. Life is a truthful bore so a little acting helps us all. We know we are God’s rejects but at home we pretend we are Mama’s favored infants. The elders keep telling us that we matter. You are the inner city, they say. This is the soul of the city that resides in chawls everywhere; even in pretentious South Mumbai. Look out for a U-shaped two-storied structure around a quadrangle, with
corridors and rooms in a row. Here you will find no entitlement. If we need subsidy we are told to go out and beg.

  In the chawl we roll up our sleeves, hang our shirt on a wall, and really examine ourselves. Can you? Good. See here, two arms are all it takes. Both hands now. Submit. Remember, power is hungry.

  * * *

  Late in the evening Desai called, finally. Karan grabbed at the phone like it was a life raft.

  “Yes?” He breathed deeply, shutting his eyes.

  “Yes,” replied Desai in his lackluster manner.

  “What?”

  After what seemed an eternity Desai spoke again: “You are unbelievable. You shot through glass into a dark cave but you got your man.”

  “He is dead?”

  “Yes. Internal bleeding killed him, luckily. Go to sleep, you are now officially an encounter specialist.”

  * * *

  There was a big splash in the newspapers the next day but it was the location of the incident that gave him away.

  “Karan, where were you the night before last?”

  He sat her down and told her that he had been assigned to an encounter squad.

  “What did you do? I mean, were you assisting someone?”

  He coughed. “I shot him.” He tried telling her it was a prestigious posting, one that any officer would want. “I am lucky. Do you know my predecessors have appeared on national television?” He even had a recording of a field interview which she insisted on seeing, so they sat next to each other and watched. The people who were being interviewed were his seniors. The anchor was stout, bespectacled, and he was behaving like a fanboy. He spoke animatedly (was that a smile?), aware that this Walk the Talk episode on the NDTV channel was the best-rating material he would ever have. Two men with black, well-groomed hair and mustaches walked alongside him. They seemed casual, diffident, and their eyes buttonholed their neighborhood and never wavered. Behind them walked a lithe, uniformed security cover with an automatic weapon. This was a self-aware tableau that expected retaliation.