Turbulence

by Samit Basu

  “Transition?”

  Jai sighs. “You know, I used to be a patriot,” he says. “With me in command, India could have ruled the world. I could have destroyed Pakistan single-handedly, and carried on from there. If only. If only they’d been capable of following a simple plan, listening to clear instructions. But something happened that made me realise that they weren’t ready — not just Indians. Humans. People who are not like us.”

  “You’re uniting people with powers.”

  “I’m uniting people who were chosen to stand above the ordinary. Chosen to take charge, to make changes. Who aren’t afraid of embracing their destinies. The rest are sheep. Their time has passed. And —”

  Jai smirks and runs a hand through Namrata’s hair.

  “You’re a good interviewer, you know,” he says. “But there’s no point doing this with no one listening, is there? Later, when you introduce the world to its new gods, make sure you have your questions ready.”

  Namrata manages a weak smile.

  “Now that’s incentive,” she says.

  “I can inspire you further,” Jai says. He reaches out and touches her face, and she finds she’s trembling too violently to smile any more.

  “How long do I have?” she asks.

  “When I see you next,” he says, “your time will have run out.”

  He turns and strides from the room.

  Namrata stands silent, silhouetted against the madness outside, for a whole minute.

  “You might as well get up,” she says finally.

  “Yeah, you can let her go now, Aman,” Tia says.

  Aman releases Uzma sheepishly.

  They rise.

  “Thank you,” Uzma says.

  “So, you’re his enemies,” Namrata says. “Which one of you does the mobs?”

  “Not us,” Tia says. “Why didn’t you tell him about us?”

  “I never sign up for a job until I’ve looked around for a better offer,” Namrata says. “What’s yours?”

  Uzma smiles her most winning smile.

  “Coffee?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Considering that Aman has recently stolen billions of dollars and put them into schemes to stop global warming, it is distressing that his car, currently zipping through the elegant streets of South Mumbai, is a giant SUV. But none of the big black monster’s other occupants are complaining about this. Beside Aman, Uzma stares through the tinted windows at the Mumbai traffic bathed in amber light. Behind them, Tia quickly gives Namrata a highly edited account of their superhero experiences so far.

  It is difficult to tell Namrata elaborate stories, she has a TV reporter’s habit of interrupting constantly, not allowing her interviewees to get in more than a brief quote. But so gracious is her manner and so delighted her expression when another Tia emerges and clambers into the SUV’s spacious rear, that Tia does not really mind. Besides, the memory of Namrata’s ashen face in the shadows of the Wankhede press box would have aroused pity in the hardest heart. Despite her swiftly regained composure and steady smile, Namrata is clearly too shaken by her recent encounter with Jai to go to her hotel, and has decided to spend the night with a friend who lives very near Yari Road.

  Uzma has been stopped several times while trying to ask Aman and Tia why Namrata cannot simply come and live with them — their mysterious refusal, combined with the knowledge that Aman and Tia have clearly not told her all their plans, has cast Uzma into a slight but pointed sulk.

  By the time Tia has finished their superhero origin story, though, Namrata has recovered considerably from her ordeal and has a million questions and theories, most of which concern the mysterious mob-frenzy specialist she first encountered in Delhi and now at the cricket match.

  “Whoever he is, his power doesn’t work on me,” she says, her hands moving automatically to emphasise the point to her viewers. “I felt nothing at the rally or the game — and it doesn’t work on Uzma either.”

  “Jai could be lying,” Tia points out. “I think it’s him, and he was just trying to sell you the idea that his enemies were even worse.”

  “I don’t think it’s Jai,” Aman says. “We saw that tiger-headed guy and the green girl in the crowd, remember? If they were working for Jai, he would have kept them from going crazy. Whoever got the crowd going prevented them from capturing Reddy.”

  “So now we have two sets of superpowered villains to worry about?” Uzma says. “That’s fantastic. How do we know that at least one of these groups isn’t following us right now?”

  “We don’t,” says a Tia from the SUV’s rear. “Which is why Aman and I came up with a cunning plan. We’re ready.”

  Aman brings his SUV to a halt, leans to his left and peers towards the back of the car. Namrata and Uzma turn too, and are greeted by a startling sight: there are two Tias sitting in the back of the car, each wearing a dirty sari and a wig of brown, sun-bleached hair. They carry bunches of lifestyle magazines under their arms. One Tia opens the rear door and hops out. Aman restarts the car and swerves back into the endless stream of traffic.

  “What is she doing?” Namrata asks.

  “Selling magazines,” Tia replies.

  “We’re going to drop off a Tia at every major traffic intersection,” Aman explains. “She’s going to go from car to car pushing magazines into windows, seeing if Jai’s inside. If she finds him, she’ll tell us. They’re all going to call me once every five minutes — so we’ll know if they find her. She’s also going to send more Tias to local train stations, airports, the docks — Tia’s a one-woman city-wide manhunt.”

  “I’m just a girl looking for love,” Tia says.

  “And what if they catch her?” Namrata asks, horrified.

  “I’ve died lots of times,” Tia says. “It’s all right.”

  “You’ve died? How does it feel?”

  Tia laughs, shifts along the seat, and puts a jovial arm around her copy’s shoulder.

  An hour and a half and several Tias later, they’re sitting at the Barista on Yari Road, fending off waiters who keep flocking to Uzma to see if there’s anything else she might need with her coffee — ice-cream, a hazelnut topping, a wedding ring?

  Around them, fashionable young men and women sit and loudly proclaim their plans to the world. The Yari Road Barista is always full of actors and producers, all of whom are permanently on the cusp of great things, great changes — TV to film, C-list to B-list, Bollywood to Hollywood, jobless to overexposed. Shiny, dressed up to within an inch of their lives, super-fit and eternally hopeful, they gather in little clusters as they reel off lists of forthcoming projects, laugh uproariously whenever they think jokes have been made and sit for hours not listening to any voices but their own.

  Yet, even in the middle of all this compulsive attention-seeking, all eyes in the cafe flicker periodically towards Uzma. Finally one thick-spectacled producer shambles up to her and asks, “Weren’t you on TV just now?” Uzma denies this, smiling, and the bubble of self-obsession that normally seals the Yari Road cafe off from the rest of the world is restored.

  “The rest of you have powers that you exercise consciously, right?” Namrata says. “But Uzma and I are similar — we don’t choose when our powers are going to, like, start doing their thing? It’s — what are those muscles in the stomach called?”

  “Involuntary?” Aman suggests.

  “Yeah. Things just happen to us.”

  “It’s not like we have an ‘On’ switch,” Aman says. “The first time I figured something strange was going on, I started hearing this roar of phone conversations. Then screens from all the wireless internet connections in the area started flashing in front of my eyes. I thought I was going crazy. It was a long time before I managed to focus, to pick out what I wanted to hear. The first time, I felt like screaming, hitting everything around me — anything to make it stop. Now I’m offline unless I choose not to be, but I’m still not sure how I do it. Our powers are growing. You’ll probably manage to control yours
at some stage.”

  “The funny thing is,” Uzma says, “that just a week ago I thought the Bollywood Grooves classes I took at Regent’s Park were going to be the toughest part of the whole adventure.”

  “You had it easy, believe me,” Tia says. “I was in the bathtub at home, and the doorbell rang, and my mother-in-law was yelling for tea. I was really tired, and didn’t want to get up at all, but the noises outside didn’t go away. Everyone was yelling for me instead of hauling their own fat bottoms anywhere. And then I decided to get up, and suddenly there were three of me, and only one towel. I’ve never freaked out so much — I tried to beat myself up, all of us were screaming. Not fun.”

  “What about the people in your team who have the real superpowers?” Namrata asks. The others stare at her blankly and she shakes her head. “Guys, you’re all really sweet, but come on, how stupid do you think I am? I’ve spent a lot of time with politicians, and none of you are good liars. Where are the big boys?”

  “What big boys?” Tia asks.

  “Well, don’t get me wrong, but you guys are the backup team, right? What about the leaders? The people like Jai? The strong men?”

  “We don’t have any of those,” Aman says. “I’m sorry, but there’s just us.”

  Namrata splutters and sprays coffee on the table.

  “Yup,” Aman says.

  “No, no,” Namrata recovers smoothly, “I wasn’t saying you aren’t a man because you aren’t strong.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And, hey, who needs men to protect you anyway, right? What I want to know is: why did the girls get such girlie powers?”

  “Well, if you wanted to be super-strong, Namrata, you should have dreamt of being super-strong,” Tia says. “I’m perfectly satisfied with my power.”

  “It’s just stupid that I’m a superhero and I’m wishing some dude in a cape were around to save me, that’s all. Is it weird that I felt, like, less helpless before I had superpowers?”

  Tia leans forward, and when she speaks, she sounds annoyed.

  “Namrata, there were four hundred people on that plane. Around half of them were women. A lot of them were from Delhi. Your office is in Delhi, right? You know what it’s like. I’m sure there were lots of women on that plane who wanted very badly to be able to go where they pleased, when they pleased, and wear what they wanted in Delhi without feeling threatened. It’s quite possible that some of them are super-strong. But it didn’t have to be the most important thing in their lives, did it?”

  “You’re obviously not from Delhi,” Namrata says. “Are there any women like that, though?”

  “I have no idea,” Tia replies. “If there are, I wish they were here. They could be with Jai, in Kashmir, hiding anywhere in the world, or dead. We’re the only ones we know of apart from you. I mean, there are a few more, but no one like Jai.”

  “Maybe you picked the wrong side,” Aman says.

  “I said it wrong,” Namrata says. “Sorry, I assumed that there were more of you. I didn’t realise that when you were offering coffee, you were being honest. That I could, you know, feel safe again.”

  “Well, you’re not safe,” Tia says. “No one is.”

  Namrata stares around the table, her face quivering with something akin to excitement.

  “What now, people? Do you want me to get in touch with DNNTV’s costume department? Do we form a superhero team? Start a reality show? What? Truth, justice, the Indian way?”

  “I’m British-Pakistani,” Uzma says. “I keep having to tell people this.”

  “You should be the leader, everyone likes you,” Namrata continues, loudly draining her glass of cold coffee. “Tia’s like the secret agent James Bond girl who finds out clues and gets captured. Aman’s the tech guy who sits with the computers.”

  “Thanks,” Aman says.

  “I’d be the one the audiences can relate to. I think it’s a very cool idea.”

  “We’re not forming a superhero team,” Uzma says. “It’s a ridiculous idea. We’re going to find a way to stop Jai from killing us, and then we’re going our separate ways.”

  “Which brings us to the real question,” Aman says. “We don’t know how to stop Jai. You’ve seen him in action at close quarters. Have you — okay, this sounds stupid — have you noticed any weaknesses?”

  “Do you think it would work if I did a story?” Namrata asks. “What if I did this really big feature about all of us, just coming out to the whole world?”

  “How on earth would that help?” Tia asks. “Jai hunting us isn’t bad enough? You want the whole world to join him?”

  “Coming out of the superhero closet isn’t really an option,” Aman says. “And there’s no telling how Jai would respond to it — in any case, we don’t even know what he really wants.”

  “Wait, so he’s not just an evil maniac planning to kill all other superheroes and take over the world?” Namrata asks. “There goes that set of interview questions, then.”

  “So far all we know is that he likes capturing and killing other powered people,” Aman says. “He’s clearly the leader of a team, but what do they want? And there really isn’t much point telling the police or the army about him, is there?”

  “I really don’t want anyone to know anything more than they already do,” Uzma adds. “It’s not just us — we all have families, friends. Aman, I know you’ve done all sorts of things with databases, but no one really uses records to find people here anyway, do they? I don’t want my family to get into any more trouble.”

  “And to be fair to Jai, he’s not gone after anyone’s families to get to them so far,” Tia says.

  “He killed that Baby Kalki’s parents,” Namrata points out.

  “They were on the plane too,” Aman says. “They were on his list anyway.”

  “He’s lucky to have such faithful friends,” Namrata snaps.

  “I’m not justifying anything he’s done,” Aman says. “I’m just saying that revealing what happened on that plane is not something we can just randomly decide to do. It’ll affect a lot of people.”

  “What about Jai’s family?” Tia asks. “Can’t we go talk to his parents or something? Get them to persuade their son to be nice? Where do they live?”

  “London. His sister’s married to a doctor there.” Aman laughs. “You know, as stupid as that sounds, it’s actually better than anything I’ve come up with. He’s an Indian man — we should get his mother to talk to him.”

  “We should kidnap his parents and say we’ll kill them if he doesn’t turn himself in,” Namrata announces. She looks around the table triumphantly. A set of bewildered faces peers back at her. “What? No?”

  “We can’t kidnap his parents!” Uzma cannot believe she’s saying these words and they’re not from a script.

  “Why not?” Namrata demands.

  “It’s not — it’s not a superhero sort of thing to do,” Aman says.

  “Why not?” Namrata’s eyes are blazing. “Who made the rules? Who do we have to answer to? We should at least think about it.”

  “No,” Aman says. “We’re not doing anything of the kind.”

  “He said he would kill me if I didn’t lead him to you. He said he knew where I lived, who my family and friends are,” Namrata says. She drums the table with her fingers. “I think you might need to stop worrying about what might be seen as acceptable behaviour in a comic book, because there are other people who won’t follow those rules. Fine, I wasn’t totally serious about kidnapping Jai’s parents, but if he’s setting out to kill other powerful people — not just powered people, but, I don’t know, people in the army or something — other people are going to be looking for ways to hurt him. His family is an obvious target. Bad things are going to happen to them. Maybe that’s why Jai goes to London.”

  “What do you mean, Jai goes to London?” Tia asks.

  “You guys aren’t the only ones who know more than they seem to,” Namrata says. “I had a vision — when Jai attacke
d me in the press box. I saw him running through a London street, covered in blood. I wasn’t sure it was London — could have been, like, anywhere in England, actually — but it was definitely him, and he was screaming. The streets were full of people. Dead people and burning cars. Whether or not his family has anything to do with it, Jai’s going to London, and he’s going to be fairly pissed off.”

  The others sit looking at one another, struggling to find words, trying to understand what they’ve just heard.

  It’s Aman who breaks the silence in the end.

  “Your visions — they’re possible futures, right? We can change them with our actions, can’t we?”

  “I don’t think so,” Namrata says. “All of them have come true so far.”

  Uzma, who has spent the last few minutes staring vacantly at a TV screen where two children in spangled costumes are gyrating wildly in some grotesque dance contest, snaps out of her stupor, draws her chair forwards and glares around the table.

  “I don’t understand how we can just sit here talking about all this,” she says. “So much has happened, so many people’s lives have already changed. Horse-headed babies, tiger-headed men on live TV, billions of dollars stolen from all over the world, mobs and explosions and murders — why hasn’t the world gone crazy yet? How can all these people just sit here and drink coffee and talk about movie deals? Why aren’t they worried?”

  “Uzma, just three days ago you were thinking about ignoring this and carrying on as if nothing had happened,” Tia says. “It’s just the way people are.”

  “We’re used to ignoring the terrible things right in front of us,” Namrata says. “I work in news — I get to see what’s happening, at least what’s reported. We decide what goes on air based simply on what people want to see, not what they need to know. We’re entertainers, not educators. There must have been a hundred reports of, like, weird people cropping up all over the country, missing-person reports about all those Brits Jai abducted. They’re not interesting. They’re not stories. None of it is real.”