The Third Squad

by V. Sanjay Kumar

  She gathers the group for a brief history lesson. They listen patiently but their eyes cannot help but roam. “Look, there is Shivaji on a horse,” says a middle-aged man, and a younger woman photographs pigeons taking flight.

  She does the causeway next and that takes an hour. The group could easily spend a full day there lingering about.

  “Come back here in the evening,” she advises them. “Come back here to the streets of Colaba at night if you are adventurous.”

  “What kind of adventure?”

  “Look around. People shuffle at night through smoky joints. You can find a place that serves cheap alcohol and fried surmai fish where they also play the music of Al Stewart and Jethro Tull. Just remember to stay anonymous.”

  They head back to the six-road crossing. Nandini moves toward a nearby structure. The group is distracted by two beggar women holding infants, who they finally pay to move away. Nandini meanwhile stands and observes this building that has so captured her imagination.

  “Made of stone, more than a hundred years ago,” she begins.

  “Architect Stevens,” reads Smart Aleck from his notebook. “But wait, that doesn’t make sense.” He looks toward Nandini with confusion.

  “It wasn’t designed by Charles Stevens but by his illustrious father, Frederick W. Stevens.”

  The structure is very different from the nearby theater. It is made of chiseled stone blocks and there is no carving. Yet the architecture, the design, and the detailing come from a spare, compelling aesthetic. There are a series of arches across the facade and the detailing is inlaid with stones of varying colors and sizes.

  “Damn, it’s a beauty,” someone from the group mutters.

  And then they glimpse the sign out front that reads, Maharashtra Police Headquarters.

  “Cops, in this building? I mean, why?”

  “Why not?” replies Nandini.

  He shrugs.

  “Let me tell you something. The police of Mumbai have moved into buildings with character and history, and perhaps rightfully so. Think about it: the cops in Mumbai write its history. This city is big and in your face; crime is big, business is big, and so is the police force. And offense is taken and given.”

  The group glances around curiously and eyes a traffic cop. He is a little overweight, wearing fashionable dark glasses and a gleaming belt. He is busy giving someone a ticket in Marathi.

  “Mumbai police have developed a character that takes from the city,” continues Nandini. “Every now and then, Mumbai throws up superstar actors, billionaire businessmen, and crime warlords. Cops get big on you too, so the police force has responded by rearing so-called supercops, or they at least like to propagate that rumor.”

  “The papers make such a big deal about encounter cops and shootouts,” someone says.

  Nandini laughs. She glances toward the lamppost where I am standing. As if on cue I release the balloon. It rises and tangles with a wire before bursting. Everyone turns in my direction. Some of them duck and others laugh nervously.

  A little later they reach the Victoria Terminus Station. It is a remarkable structure with vertebrate arches and ribbed turrets. It has domes and there are figurines and gargoyles in the mix as well. The building could be a Victorian palace or a Gothic seminary. There is a more recent extension on the side that is ordinary and more down to earth, where the passing hordes don’t bother looking up and merely climb aboard trains each day to lead them to suburban homes and factories.

  “Architect Stevens,” Smart Aleck announces again smugly.

  Nandini walks them through an alley past another Gothic-looking structure. A sign outside says, Mumbai Police Headquarters. The building is marred by fat sewage pipes that crisscross its facade. There are Y joints, L joints, and gravity-defying U shapes. Finally she leads them to their minibus, gives a brief summary, and sends them on their way.

  * * *

  Some days Nandini follows me. She retraces my steps. How does she choose the days and how does she get them right? Simple. She reads about what’s been happening around the city in the newspaper, stares hard at me, then reads my face. I ask her why she does this. She says she needs to know and she needs to understand. And sometimes she needs to set things right.

  “I don’t need a conscience,” I tell her. “And please don’t keep count.”

  She doesn’t listen.

  Later that evening Desai calls and says, “Rest easy; the information was spurious. No need to follow your wife around more than you already do.”

  * * *

  Why does Nandini show the tourists these police buildings when there is so much else to see here? I am at least glad she stopped at the Mumbai police HQ because a few steps away there is a small nondescript structure whose architect is unknown. This is the Special Branch, an elite unit of Crime Branch, Mumbai. No one from this branch wears a uniform, even on field duty. No names are displayed and there is no roll call. The building is squat and square and it has no detailing. Nothing that happens here gets recorded and yet the stuff of myth and legend is cast in every stone.

  The front portion of this building houses a small, secretive unit called the Third Squad. It is ruled by a taipan named Ranvir Pratap. He is a living legend. The rear of this building is operated by a unit informally known as the Khabari Squad, which deals in nuggets of information and billets of dirt. Heading this network is a King Rat called Tiwari. Both warlords have an unknown rank which is quite senior.

  Both men also have one common trait: they are constantly talking. In the case of Ranvir, he simply assumes I am there and most times I in fact am. In the case of Tiwari there is nobody. The turd talks to himself.

  The contrast between the two teams is remarkable. Members of the Third Squad are known to be quiet and antisocial. It seems we do not mingle and we have no opinions to share. Our boss approves of this framework. The Khabari Squad, on the other hand, makes a living by trafficking in rumor, opinion, and hearsay. According to my boss all are treated with the same brush and painted up as fact.

  Ranvir Pratap and Tiwari report to a dry, dull suit named Parthasarathy. He is an IPS officer and a bookworm who has risen to great heights by some unknown accident. In meetings he echoes what people say and usually does nothing. At the last meeting held in his fabled office, Parthasarathy asked Ranvir Pratap to put his team through a series of medical tests, including home visits from a counselor. A lady (she was indeed a lady) named Ms. Daftary called on us and she immediately fixated on the three fat thesauruses sitting on my table. She asked me why three. I had never even thought about it before. Perhaps this went back some years, I told her, when in my school and college I was accused of being emotionless and cold. I was also called moody, sullen, withdrawn, and introverted. Words like these became my name if not my identity, and I had to look to these fat tomes for synonyms and meanings. And then suddenly Ms. Daftary, the kind lady, asked me if I felt any pain. Pain? I mean an ache, she said. I said no, other than some odd gym-related stress now and then. She said that wasn’t what she was referring to. And then she spoke to me about phantom pain. She said people who lost limbs sometimes feel a pain from that very limb that no longer physically exists. This was a phantom pain but it was very real, and sometimes it was so acute that it wrecked people’s lives. I was whole, hale, and hearty, I replied, but she did not laugh. Neither did Nandini, who by this time was paying complete attention. Do you miss not having a father or mother? asked the kind lady. Was this the ache, the phantom pain she was asking me about? Perhaps. Never having a parent, could that still qualify as—? Yes, she said. And thinking about this later, but not too hard, I felt that there might be something called a father figure who perhaps I’m unconsciously acknowledging. It wasn’t such a big deal. I mean, I did respect Ranvir Pratap a lot and I did follow orders and we as a team obeyed. Above all we obeyed.

  You need to see Ranvir Pratap in the evening of his life. He has a distinctive air, gray hair, and that word I found after much search: erudition. How
do I describe him better? Perhaps in another time and place I will.

  But I have to try to understand him to answer the question that Nandini poses now and then: “How can you trust a man who puts your life on the line?”

  The easy answer is: “You have to.”

  City Happenings

  What would you call the characters in these encounters? The media had names. They had invented a terminology, comfortable shorthand serving as a lazy guide. One paragraph of such stereotypes would be found in the “City Happenings” column of the newspaper every other day: A was either a gang member called Altaf or a cop called Athavle. B was a gang member called Bhansali or a cop called Bhosale. C stood for a term that was never used on paper but was practiced: Choreography. D was a Company, and the D Company was an infamous gang. E was for Encounter. And F was for Funnily Enough.

  Most encounters took place in the suburbs, at night, and in lonely places. (There are many lonely places in Mumbai, it seems.) Officially, the hoods always fired first, and the cops only retaliated. Bullets came and went as fusillades and cartridges scattered themselves on the scene, providing evidence. Those who died were criminals and they conveniently carried IDs indicating their name, age, and gang affiliation. Funnily enough, people couldn’t get enough of these reports. These cut-and-pastes were the literature of the underworld.

  One reason Karan stuck to this occupation was Ranvir Pratap, his boss and a stellar officer from the Indian Police Service who wore his disdain on his forehead. People from the city of Allahabad, at least those of a certain vintage, were learned and would look down once they were out of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Looking down in UP was inadvisable because its gentry had poor habits. If dirt had a retinue it was Uttar Pradesh, said Ranvir. Now comfortably outside UP, when Ranvir glanced down he would find a bloated corpuscle named Tiwari, a man who wasn’t even an IPS officer but who instead came up the ranks and was thus naturally inferior. Tiwari outwardly resembles a lamb, donning this camouflage to hide his devious occupation. He is a sneak, a gatherer of information.

  As a khabari, some people decry his being in the police force. Not that he cares what anyone thinks. Opinions are so tedious, he would say. Up there in his cranium deviance reigned and he let loose his manners. In Mumbai, Tiwari was the crude outpost of this new world, this Navjeevan society we call middle class.

  By bringing two such people to loggerheads, Mumbai reinforced the view that the city is bipolar. In a strange way they exist because of each other. Their differences are many and yet they both serve the only altar in Mumbai that affords any respect: nateeja. Meaning: results.

  Ranvir Pratap

  People expect to glimpse the stately city of Lucknow in Ranvir. This capital city of Uttar Pradesh leaves an imprint that the poetic language Urdu describes as mijaz. Besides his style, demeanor, and diction, Ranvir has what is known as andaz. Off-duty he wears long white kurtas made of fine cotton or muslin. He chooses custom buttons made of silver. Crisp white pajamas complement his kurta. Ranvir’s favored drink is tea and it is a finicky brew, otherwise he won’t touch it. The water he drinks comes from his house in a flask, every day, as does his glass. He does not trust other people’s hands. In a police station he would rather salute than shake them.

  Ranvir is a private person and a well-read one. He has seen an India of small towns and villages where women fetch water from an open well and men till the soil with their bones. Where the farmers worship the sun that burns their backs and the land that breaks it. Where their meager surplus goes to the market, where money hides behind merchants. Most people would rather reside in cities than lead this simple life. The next generation migrates out of this modest existence to places like Mumbai because the city has a strong pull and offers newcomers a different trajectory. Some of these migrants give Ranvir reason to hold a gun. Mumbai’s soil is fertile; moneymen flourish but crime has taken root as well. Crime is an industry in Mumbai whose recruits come from all communities and castes. There are hard-working gangsters here and hard-working cops. The work is alluring but sometimes deadly.

  Ranvir has a leathery face with a few creases. A broad forehead greets you. His lips are pursed and above them a mustache dips at the ends. He has been known to smile at family functions. A smile makes him a different person. Or so it is rumored.

  He is not actually from the city of Lucknow though he is fluent in Urdu. He quotes poetry and occasionally waxes eloquent about the fragrant preparation of dum biryani. And people cannot reconcile this with what he does. It would seem that the head of a unit that dispenses summary justice through a gun should in some sense be visibly a lesser mortal, perhaps from a place like Azamgarh, a district in Eastern UP where khadi bhasha was spoken and lohars, the local blacksmiths, made kattas, the local pistol. Azamgarh is an interesting place that has produced poets like Kaifi Azmi alongside dons like Abu Salem. This is a juxtaposition that makes perfect sense in Uttar Pradesh, a state where crude reality has been given a sort of poetic license.

  Ranvir’s narrative began in a place called Allahabad. In its time this was a town with raunaq, tehzeeb, and other nice-sounding epithets that describe its soul. He grew up in the neighborhood of Civil Lines. In its quarters Urdu was spoken and pure Hindi grew on its trees. Thoughts can make a city; sometimes words can save it. Allahabad had a fragrance despite its open drains.

  He was the fifth of seven children. He lost two siblings when he was in his teens. They were a close-knit family and these partings were gut-wrenching. The family astrologer, Gopal Shastri, had made an interesting prediction for Ranvir. “He will choose a career where he risks his life, again and again,” said Shastri-ji. “He will take lives as well.”

  Ranvir’s father, a feared freedom fighter, laughed when he heard this. This fever-ridden, skinny fourteen-year-old son of his was not exactly the biggest threat he had ever seen.

  Ranvir had an idyllic childhood in Civil Lines. The family bungalow had a mulberry tree in front that yielded delicious berries resembling centipedes. The branches of the neighbors’ mango tree spread over their veranda. The neighbors were famous lawyers and some members of that family would become chief justices. Behind the house was a renowned poet whose son would become an iconic actor. Across the lane were freedom fighters and civil servants. The air was charged and Ranvir’s father firmly believed that since his children breathed it, they would do well in life.

  Yet a fertile land that nourished freedom fighters and threw up poets like Nirala, Mahadevi Varma, and Jaishankar Prasad is likely to mess with one’s head. In this land of metaphor there was plenty of room for ambiguity. Ranvir left Allahabad with a confused sense of what was right and what was wrong. How was he to know?

  The train journey to Mumbai prepares you for the worst. All along the railway tracks you see the backs of shanties and the backsides of people. The accumulation of dirt and detritus paints a bleak picture. It also smells. At the Bombay Central Station you encounter crowds in motion. That is the first thing you learn in the city—how to move in a moving crowd. The next thing you learn is how to speak as you walk past. Nobody pauses; they carry on and try to help you as they pass by. Directions come to you from the corners of mouths and half-turned faces. The taxi is a rattling death trap driven by someone from your home town. If you start him off he has a story to tell, just like everyone else.

  Ranvir’s first residence looked like it had been put in a compactor, and resembled an aged face with a hat for a roof.

  “In Mumbai there is water, electricity, and a get-ahead sensibility that thrusts and competes with naked ambition. You realize very quickly that you have left your native place behind. Where you came from is a story nobody wants to hear.”

  So said his first landlord, Girdharilal, who pocketed the advance and gave him a piece of advice, something that Ranvir took to heart.

  “Don’t look for help in Mumbai,” Girdharilal told him. “This is a self-service city. Everybody here is a swayam sevak.”

  “I just need a l
ittle luck,” said Ranvir.

  His landlord snorted. “Luck will not pay your rent.”

  They stood together briefly, sharing tea and a ragda pattice. They did not meet again for a year.

  The street where Ranvir lived was a mirror image of every other street in Mumbai. This is a city of convenience in aesthetic but it is ambitious in its needs. Luckily, unlike the landscape, the people are nuanced.

  There are no famous Ranvir-isms. His approach is simple and borrows from the animal kingdom: stay low during pursuit, keep beneath the radar, live in a nondescript building, wear plainclothes all the time. Second: lock horns, engage from the very start, deal with people directly. And third: go for the jugular. Follow the animal instinct that says, No thought in action.

  The principle of natural selection works because someone pursues and someone else runs. That becomes instinct over centuries. The deer always run, the cats pursue. But there is no hand-me-down DNA for this among men, so the training has to be one-sided. Here is the drill: you are a cop, you are the hunter.

  His team’s groundwork was always thorough and the quarry was researched exhaustively. Ranvir never got personally involved. And he never pulled the trigger—except that first time. An incident at an interrogation set the tone. The quarry was a known killer and the questioning was hard—hard on everybody. The guy admitted to a spree of crimes, showed no remorse, and he was grinning when he died. He didn’t see it coming. The other people in the room said it was a clean break, it was a bare-hand execution: Ranvir held his hair and broke his neck.

  After Ranvir left they strung the guy up in his cell with his bedsheet. Another prison “suicide.”

  This incident saw him get a mild reprimand. They posted him out to a remote corner of UP for a couple of years, ostensibly to cool his heels. But incidents have a habit of following people like Ranvir. He was watched closely to see if he might measure up to be the head of the next encounter unit.