by Anita Nair
Ridiculous as he was, Mr Right could be the perfect Mr Right.
Michael looked at Gowda. ‘I don’t know if she will talk when she sees you in uniform.’
Gowda whistled through his teeth. But Tina remembered Gowda from the rescue and her lips stretched a micro-millimetre in recognition. When he walked towards her, he saw her stiffen. He stopped mid-stride and pretended to look at a picture on the soft board.
‘Tina,’ Gowda said. ‘Do you remember me?’
She nodded.
‘Do you remember Ratna and Santosh? We were the ones who rescued you.’
Tina didn’t speak. Instead, she stroked Mr Right.
‘I need you to tell us how you came here. Only then can we catch and punish the people who did this to you,’ Gowda said, careful not to step forward.
She continued to fondle the dog. Michael cleared his throat.
‘Tina, we can do it another day if you don’t want to talk now,’ Urmila said, sitting down beside her.
‘No, I’ll tell you what happened,’ she said softly. ‘Does he understand everything we say?’ She looked at Urmila and then at Mr Right.
Urmila smiled gently. ‘Even if he does, it won’t matter to him.’
‘Will he still like me?’
Urmila squeezed Tina’s hand. ‘He will. He loves unconditionally. Do you know what that means? He just loves. He doesn’t wonder why and how.’
Tina nodded and laid her cheek against the dog.
‘What about Abdul?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Where is he?’
‘We’ll talk to him separately,’ Gowda said.
Tina nodded. ‘How is he?’ she asked. ‘He was taken away from his home too.’
Michael put on the voice recorder on his phone. ‘Whenever you are ready,’ he said quietly.
Tina took a deep breath and looked at the wall opposite as if it were a white screen. When she began speaking, Urmila’s eyes met Gowda’s. The tone was tinny and flat. And there it was again, the third person. This was not her but someone else called Tina, stuck in a nightmare that she would never escape.
Tina began observing Mohan. She thought if she did, she would know how to protect herself till she escaped.
Mohan was clever. He gave nothing away. He watched her all the time. Tina realized they were playing a cat-and-mouse game. And the mice were Abdul and she.
Tina saw the sim he retrieved from his pocket and inserted into a phone to make a call. One afternoon, he brought her new clothes. A brilliant blue salwaar kameez with a dupatta edged with tinsel. ‘Cover your head with it and don’t show your face. And put these on,’ he told her, thrusting a card of stick-on bindis and a dozen glass bangles into har hand. She didn’t understand. Why was he suddenly being nice? What other horror awaited her now?
It all fell into place when Tina saw the three tickets he had got them. Second-class tickets for a man, his young bride and his son from his first marriage.
They boarded the train. ‘Not a word to anyone, do you hear me?’ Mohan said as he shoved a little suitcase under the seat. The chooha barely spoke. Tina saw he had a fresh bruise on his face. After the first time Mohan had slammed her face into the wall, he had stopped doing it. Instead, he slammed the chooha’s face into the wall. He made her watch, and though she steeled herself not to flinch, she did. And then with a grin that wasn’t a real grin, he would thrust her against the table, spit on his palm and slather the saliva between her buttocks, and shove his lund into her anus. The pain was excruciating each time and she could tell that her whimpering excited him as much as the sight of Abdul’s bloody face.
What had Abdul got it for, she wondered. She reached out and took his hand in hers. He didn’t look at her but his fingers tightened around hers. It was the first time she had acknowledged his presence. They held hands till Mohan got up to go towards the door for a smoke.
‘How did you get here?’ Tina asked.
‘I was taken outside my home like you were,’ the boy whispered through cracked lips.
‘Where is home, chooha?’ she asked. His Hindi was not the Mumbaiyya Hindi.
‘Don’t call me that,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ she said, stroking his face.
‘Muzaffarnagar,’ he said.
‘Where is that, Abdul?’
His fingers tightened around hers. ‘Uttar Pradesh. I went out to play in the evening after school. We were playing near the railway tracks … the other boys went back. I waited for them to leave so I could go see if my magnet was ready.’
Tina frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I had heard one of the older boys at school say that if you placed a piece of iron on a railway track, it would become a magnet once a train ran over it. There was a man there. He held up my magnet and asked if I wanted more. I went with him and he offered me a sweet on the way.’
‘How could you have been so stupid?’ Tina asked.
‘And you were not? They got you too! It doesn’t matter. They know how to get us.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know, didi,’ he said, and she felt a teardrop on her hand. It was the first time she had seen him cry. Tears filled her eyes too.
They didn’t dare cry. Mohan would be angry if he saw tears.
‘We’ll make a plan,’ Tina said.
‘And what plan would that be?’ Mohan asked, sitting by her side.
She didn’t reply. But she felt Abdul’s fingers clasp her tighter.
A vendor came by with a metal tray stacked with food packets. The man signalled to him. ‘Two,’ he said.
The vendor put the tray down in the middle of the aisle. ‘What about you? Aren’t you eating?’ he asked. ‘There will be no food till the breakfast stop at Raichur or Guntakal Junction.’
Mohan saw the other passengers look at him. He had forgotten that the gaze of the long-distance co-passenger extended beyond mere curiosity.
Mohan smiled and shook his head. He didn’t want to draw any attention to them. If he said the boy and girl would share a packet, there would be questions. Polite words of enquiry, but questions nevertheless.
He thrust the packets of food into their hands. Abdul tore open a packet and stuffed his mouth. He ate in a frenzy, afraid the food would be taken away from him. It was the first time in many months that he was eating more than the leftovers from someone else’s meal.
Tina ate slowly, chewing one grain at a time. She feared what would come next. But as she looked around her, a small sense of relief grew in her. He wouldn’t dare do anything to her or Abdul with so many people in the compartment. A couple of hours passed. Then Mohan gestured for her to get up. When she stood up, he said loud enough to be heard by anyone who was listening and understood Marathi, ‘Beta, come, use the bathroom before you go to sleep.’
They walked down the aisle towards the end of the compartment where the toilets were. There was no one there. The rest of the passengers hadn’t begun on their dinner yet. He unlatched one of the toilets and shoved them in. It was a tight squeeze but Mohan didn’t seem to think so. Tina stared at the toilet. Now what, she thought. The train had started at Surat and had been running for many hours before they boarded at Kalyan. It had been hosed down, but the toilet still bore the stench of a bathroom used repeatedly.
She heard him unzip his trousers. When she looked up, he had his thing in his hands. ‘Hold it,’ he told Abdul.
The boy looked at him blankly.
‘Hold my lund, you madarchod,’ he said. ‘Unless you want me to slam your head against the sink.’ He reached for Abdul’s head. Tina reached out and took it in her hand. It came alive.
‘Stroke it,’ he said. ‘Up and down.’
She did as he asked.
‘Now take it between your fingers,’ he groaned.
The biriyani she had eaten heaved into her mouth. A retch escaped her lips.
‘You don’t like it, do you, cunt?’ he growled. ‘I’d stick it down you
r throat except I don’t want you biting it off. Looks like you are enjoying it. Or dear chooha’s head will go bang-bang against the steel sink.’
Tina saw the fear in Abdul’s eyes. She bit down on her lip and told herself that she would think of the time her mother and she went to see a film at a multiplex in Bandra. The tickets had cost a lot of money, but her mother had said that for once they were going to splurge and have popcorn too. Caramel and salted popcorn. Make sure you mix them well, her mother had told the boy at the counter. He had smiled and added an extra spoon of caramel popcorn, giving her a wink. Sweet and salt. She didn’t know what each handful would bring to her mouth. Sweet or salt. Or sometimes a combination that made her feel that this must be what Jesus ate in heaven.
She felt something splatter into her hand. The sticky fluid that his thing spat into her when he shoved it up her shithole. So this was what it was. She looked at her fingers, not knowing what was expected of her next.
‘Wash your hands and let’s go back. The next time I gesture, you come here. I’ll follow you in a while,’ he said, opening the door and stepping out.
‘Didi,’ Abdul said.
She glared at him. ‘Don’t say a word. Don’t say anything. Or I’ll scream.’
When it was time to sleep, he offered his lower berth to an elderly woman. ‘The boy can climb to the top and so can my wife. I’ll take the middle berth,’ he said.
He wound Tina’s dupatta around Abdul’s leg and stretched it across the space between the berths to tie it to her leg. Then he fastened the other end around his wrist.
‘Just tug it if you need something,’ he said.
Tina saw the elderly couple glance at each other, hiding their smiles.
At first she thought she would have a few hours of reprieve. A few hours later he tugged at her leg and she got up. He followed her with Abdul in tow. This time he made Abdul do it while she watched. Next time he made the two of them do it together. He left them alone after that.
But they didn’t know that. All they knew was, as long as they were on the train, one more ordeal had been added to the list of what they would have to endure.
‘Get ready. We are getting off at the next station,’ Mohan said.
Tina felt Abdul press into her. She touched his shoulder.
The train ground to a halt and they got out.
Tina read the station clock. It was 4.30 p.m. and the station was called Krishnarajapuram. All railway stations looked alike, she thought. It didn’t matter where she was as long as it was not on a train. She shuddered. The last twenty hours must have been the worst hours of her life.
Now what, she thought. Could there be anything worse awaiting her?
No one spoke. What could they say?
The five of them collectively would have known only a fraction of what she had endured in a few days’ time.
Michael sat frozen in his chair. Santosh stood as if he had turned to stone. Ratna went to sit by Tina. She put her arm around her. The girl pushed it away.
Urmila rose slowly and walked to the door. Gowda followed her outside. She turned to him wordlessly and he held her. The two of them clung to each other.
Something clicked in Gowda’s head. He remembered Santosh narrating to him the brothel guard Daulat Ali’s conversation. He had said ‘thekedar’. So had Tina. Who was this mysterious thekedar who seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere?
Gowda moved Urmila gently away from him. ‘Tina,’ he said, going back in. ‘Do you remember the thekedar man?’
She nodded.
6.00 p.m.
Shenoy looked at Gowda in disbelief. ‘Are you serious?’
Gowda didn’t smile. ‘Hear me out,’ he said.
When Gowda finished what he had to say, Shenoy rubbed his eyes. ‘When do you want me to see her?’ he asked after a pause.
‘I will get both children in the room so we get a definite portrait of this man,’ Gowda said. Then he added, ‘Thanks.’
Shenoy shook his head. ‘How do you do this, Gowda? How do you live without losing your faith in humanity?’
‘Who said I had faith in humanity?’
‘If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be doing this, trying to make things better,’ Shenoy said, preparing to leave. ‘The layers are way beyond what you and I can fathom, Gowda. You know that the traffickers will have clout that extends high up in the world. That they will do everything possible to make it go away?’ Shenoy continued as he gathered up his pencils and sketchpad.
Gowda nodded.
‘And you still want to do it?’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ Gowda said. ‘I have to live with myself.’
8.00 p.m.
At the station, Santosh sat with a disgruntled expression, reading a report. ‘The fingerprint reports are here,’ he said.
‘And?’ Gowda said, dropping into a chair.
‘Sid’s fingerprints are on the door, glass and gate. But not inside,’ Santosh mumbled.
‘What about the vehicle number?’ Gowda asked, looking at his watch.
‘We’ll get a trace on it first thing in the morning,’ Santosh said.
Where had the day gone? It was past eight. He saw he had a missed call. Stanley.
Gowda picked the phone up and called him. What had come up?
‘So what was all that about on Friday night?’ Stanley asked.
Gowda flushed. The truth was he didn’t remember much. Urmila had played for him the audio message he sent her. ‘I didn’t know you cared for me so much.’ She grinned. ‘I especially like the bit about comparing my teeth to Basmati rice. Are they really that long?’ She had prodded him in his ribs.
‘I really don’t know what happened,’ he had told her and she had accepted it just like that.
But Stanley wasn’t so easy to placate. ‘I’m in Kothanur to meet a relative. I’ll drop in at your place in about half an hour.’ Stanley hung up before Gowda could make an excuse to put him off.
Gowda was showered and dressed when the bell rang. He had given his teeth a good brush as well.
Stanley Sagayaraj stood at the door, eyeing Gowda curiously.
‘Good evening, sir,’ Gowda said.
Stanley nodded, continuing to look at Gowda.
‘What,’ he asked, ‘is wrong?’
‘Let’s say I am relieved more than anything else,’ Stanley said, following Gowda in.
‘Why?’ Gowda frowned as Stanley lifted the ashtray and sniffed at the butts. ‘What’s up, Stanley?’
‘Do you remember calling me on Friday night?’
Gowda smiled sheepishly. ‘No …’
‘Between that call and what the ACP has been saying, I came here expecting to see you drunk and lolling on your side along with empty bottles of Old Monk,’ Stanley said.
‘I don’t drink like I used to,’ Gowda said quietly.
‘I can see that. You have lost some weight too.’
‘What were you sniffing at the butts for?’ Gowda said, wondering if he should offer Stanley a drink. He needed one very badly after the sort of day he’d had. ‘Having said that, I am going to pour myself a drink. Do you want one?’
Stanley smiled. ‘Sure.’ Then he looked at Gowda and asked, ‘Were you stoned on Friday night?’
Gowda paused. ‘What did I actually say and do?’
Stanley grinned. ‘You don’t want to know.’
Gowda said nothing. He placed the glasses on a table and brought a small bowl of peanuts and Bombay mixture from the kitchen.
Then he went into Roshan’s room and pulled out one of the rice grain-like things from the inner pocket. He held it out to Stanley. ‘I took two or three of these on top of two drinks,’ he said.
Stanley held it between his thumb and forefinger. ‘That explains it,’ he said, his eyes suddenly grim.
‘What is it?’ Gowda felt a huge ball of dismay and worry fill his chest.
‘Molly. Love drug. Or just E. It’s a party drug,’ Stanley said. ‘Your son’s?’
Gowda nodded. He was going to have a serious talk with Roshan. Weed was one thing, but the moment Roshan moved to hard stuff, it was time Gowda stepped in and told him a few home truths.
‘How is the murder investigation coming along?’ Stanley asked.
Gowda shrugged. ‘ACP Vidyaprasad would like us to wrap it up on circumstantial evidence. But I can’t do that. There are more horrifying things buried underneath.’
Stanley held Gowda’s gaze. ‘You think so? Do you have any evidence to support it?’
‘Both, sir,’ Gowda said. His one-time college basketball captain wasn’t someone who needed to be convinced. But Gowda wanted to explain to someone the case he was building.
Stanley listened without interrupting. Neither of them was new to the world of trafficking. Stanley had in fact set up a few raids. But children as sex slaves was something else. It made them feel hopeless. For each child rescued, there were ten children who were lost.
‘Let me know if you need me to step in,’ Stanley said as he rose.
17 MARCH, TUESDAY
3.00 a.m.
Gowda woke up in a cold clammy sweat.
He turned the fan regulator as high as it would go but an incisive heat spread under his skin.
Global warming, he thought. Trees cut in the Amazon basin were leading to climate change, Urmila said. You don’t need to look that far, he thought, propping the pillows against the headboard. Trees being cut all over Bangalore and the buildings that seemed to pop up overnight like mushrooms after a thunderstorm, they caused it too. Climate change. And not just change in weather patterns but human behaviour too. There were over five lakh migrant workers in Bangalore, most of them men. They would do whatever it took to satiate their needs and feel in control instead of languishing as lowly pawns in the fabric of society.
Gowda shut his eyes. He needed to go back to sleep but he couldn’t. He wished he were at the station with all the information at arm’s reach. Gowda swore to buy a laptop and learn how to use it. He needed to. The society that he had to deal with was racing ahead at a speed that defied time, and if he didn’t keep up, its crime and criminals would outrun him even before he began to comprehend what was happening.