Amir came out of the toilet, turned to see the boy still sitting there, and headed for his cabin, feeling guilty. The chap probably hadn’t eaten.
Settling back in his chair, Amir picked up the CV he had been ignoring on his desk. Abhishek Dutta was twenty-four. His early education had been in Benares, at the government-run Kendriya Vidyalaya. To get through those institutions you need to be tough, Amir thought, and examined the photograph. This one looked like a softie: wide-set eyes, narrow angular face, a mop of jet-black hair and a fair complexion. Abhishek had graduated with honours in history from Delhi University’s Hindu College. ‘Ah, my alma mater,’ Amir noted. Work experience … a subeditor at Secure Now … what was that … a security magazine? He tossed the CV to one side, losing interest, and turned back to his computer.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
Amir jumped. He turned to see Abhishek Dutta standing by the entrance to his cabin. The receptionist should have warned him before sending the boy in.
Abhishek was taller than he had expected, with a vulnerable look about him. Chicks must dig this guy, was Amir’s first thought. He looks like he needs mothering.
‘Yes?’ he said aloud.
‘I am Abhishek Dutta, sir. Mr Ghosh asked me to meet you.’
‘Yes, yes. He told me. Sorry, it took me a while. I have looked at your CV. I don’t have anything for you right now, but perhaps in a while. I shall keep the CV with me.’ He reached for the document on the table. ‘Your number is here, right? I will call you if something comes up.’ Amir avoided eye contact, wishing that the boy would leave.
‘Sir, if I could just have a moment,’ Abhishek said, refusing to disappear.
Amir was forced to look up, and felt guilty again. ‘Sit, sit,’ he said resignedly. ‘Tell me.’
The boy spoke in a rushed eager voice, persistent and believable. He described his stint at the security magazine and how, though designated a subeditor, he handled virtually all the production. He researched, edited and proofread stories and even made the pages. There was just no one else. But he felt he was stagnating. There was not much more he could learn at the magazine and anyway, he really, really wanted to be a reporter; not sit at a desk.
Amir knew he should not encourage this keen young man. He should just hear him out and let him leave. ‘So what do you think is the difference between a subeditor and a reporter?’ he heard himself say. ‘Not the technical difference – one goes out and reports, the other produces. Tell me why you feel that you are more suited to being a reporter.’ He couldn’t believe he was engaging in this conversation; he had no intention of hiring the boy.
‘You know, sir,’ Abhishek began tentatively, ‘I think there is one fundamental difference between subeditors and reporters. A subeditor gets life insurance, pays bills on time, checks for the best mortgage rates. A reporter is a bit more reckless.’
The old journalist laughed loudly. What cheek! ‘Did you think of this line before you came here? Or did you hear it in a trashy Hollywood war reporters’ film?’ he asked, not in an unfriendly manner.
Abhishek, embarrassed, was beginning to explain himself when he was cut short by the appearance of a man in his midthirties, with a round amiable face, a receding hairline and a slight paunch. He leaned against the flimsy wooden partition that marked Amir’s domain from the rest of the reporting room.
‘What, boss?’ The man addressed Amir, holding out a piece of paper between finger and thumb with obvious disdain. ‘I am your senior crime reporter and you assign me regular press conferences. What will everyone think? The paper’s image – you must think of the paper’s image.’
Amir, who had been leaning back in his chair, sprang up, surprising Abhishek with his agility. ‘Do they tell you how bad the paper looks when our senior crime reporter fails to get to the spot of a double murder, Vivek?’ Amir towered over the man.
‘I didn’t miss the story, no?’ Vivek smirked. ‘Young reporters are enthusiastic. We are getting old.’
‘You are also getting fat. Now leave me alone,’ Amir said, snatching the paper from him and handing it to Abhishek as Vivek retreated. ‘Go, cover this and file a report. I’ll see you in the evening,’ he told the surprised boy, and turned back to his computer screen.
The young man stepped out into the reporting area feeling light-headed. He tried to make sense of the words on the paper in his hands: press conference … police headquarters … betting. He needed to sit down and gather his thoughts, but he wasn’t sure where. The reporting room had started to fill up. Vivek was lounging in front of a computer, a game of Pac-Man playing on auto mode on his screen. A female reporter, about the same age as Vivek, was reading the newspapers, feet up on a chair. Another woman, not much older than himself, was writing in her notepad. She looked up and smiled.
‘Hello. So you got an assignment?’ she asked kindly.
Abhishek nodded.
‘Let’s see.’ She took the paper. ‘Take a seat. By the way, I am Maya,’ she muttered.
Abhishek turned to pull up a chair and said an awkward hello. He sat and looked around, savouring the feeling of being in a reporting unit. He took in everything: the dozen worn chairs; the desks burdened with hundreds of newspapers; the bags, books, notepads, pens and pencils strewn chaotically, belonging to no one in particular. The room was badly lit and there were no windows, but to Abhishek, rejoicing in the prospect of covering an event, infrastructural flaws which reporters bitched about every day simply didn’t exist.
‘It’s easy,’ Maya was telling him. ‘Just go to the police headquarters and meet the PRO, Vikram Singh. He will tell you what to do. Do you know where the building is?’
‘No,’ Abhishek said quietly, ‘I don’t.’
‘Ai boss, you don’t know where the police headquarters is and you are being asked to cover crime?’ Vivek laughed, swivelling his chair to face them. Abhishek, smiling hesitantly, was wondering how to answer him when Amir shouted from his cabin, ‘Vivek, have you changed your mind? You want to cover the PC?’
‘Arre boss, no, no,’ Vivek shouted back merrily. ‘Just wondering at my replacements.’
‘Maya, you come into my cabin and let that boy be. Let him figure it out,’ Amir called again.
She jumped up, winking at Abhishek, and walked off, her long skirt trailing only slightly on the floor.
Setting off to cover his first press conference, the morning’s five-hour wait no longer mattered. At the start of the day, Abhishek had told himself he would not leave without meeting Amir Akhtar. He had met the editor of the newspaper, Mihir Ghosh, the day before when he had come to the office, clutching a letter of reference from his father’s friend, a correspondent at the Times. Mr Ghosh had called him in and after a chat told him that in most cases he didn’t hire Bengalis, fearing charges of nepotism, nor anyone who came to him with reference letters.
‘I cannot give you a job but you will meet the chief reporter, Amir Akhtar. Come tomorrow at nine,’ he had said.
Abhishek felt grateful for the opportunity and was determined to make it work. After graduating, he had spent a year selling washing machines, before joining Secure Now. He had stuck at the mind-numbing job for two years – he needed the money – but in an India changing at a frenetic pace, he was afraid of being left behind.
It was past three in the afternoon, the winter sun shining weakly through central Delhi’s smog-filled air, when Abhishek Dutta stepped out of the newspaper office into the street’s cacophony and started walking the short distance to the police headquarters.
His stomach, acquiescent all day, now protested at the lack of attention. Until just a few months back, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, like most of Delhi’s working districts, had offered a delectable array of affordable street food. In the run up to the Commonwealth Games, in their sanitizing zeal, the government had managed to rinse away most of these eateries, and Abhishek searched in vain for a samosa or a kulche-chhole stall. People hurried along, their recently retrieved woollen jumper
s – pink, blue, scarlet and green – adding a splash of gaiety to this office stretch.
Buses raged past, unmindful of the limitations of lane driving or the cars and bikes that wove between. Auto drivers casually blocked the road, their necks craning out of their vehicles, negotiating prices with potential passengers. Having only recently left the quiet environs of the university where he was camping in a friend’s hostel room, Abhishek was keenly alive to the bustling exchanges of central Delhi.
He turned left at the ITO intersection. A hundred metres ahead, thrusting into the sky like a giant phallus, was the police headquarters; and across the road, shorter and stockier, stood the income tax office. In the by-lane adjoining it, Abhishek spotted a few surviving food stalls. He stood with others at the traffic light, waiting for the crowd to reach a critical mass that would then surge forward, arms outstretched, to stop the rush of speeding vehicles with a collective willpower.
Once across, Abhishek approached a man sitting on a wooden cart, frying omelettes and serving them with sliced white bread.
‘What will you have?’ the man asked, looking up.
‘There’s not much choice, is there?’ Abhishek replied with a smile. ‘I’ll have the bread and omelette.’
‘Ah, but you must look closely, my friend. I have a deep-fried omelette, a lightly fried one, a spicy omelette that will make your loins tingle, and a bland one that will cure your stomach bug. The list is long. My menu is like the human body, babu – you see one man, but the soul has many colours.’
‘You are right,’ Abhishek told the street philosopher. ‘So let me have the spicy one.’
‘Sure.’ The omelettewallah seemed happy with his order. ‘It is a young man’s choice. Where are you from?’
‘Benares.’
‘I knew it.’ The vendor’s smile widened. ‘Me too. There is a smell of the old city and something of the River Ganga in you.’ He joined his hands and touched them to his forehead at the mention of the sacred river, then continued, ‘I never talk to Dilliwallahs. Their soul has only one colour – that of money.’
The sandwich was soon ready and Abhishek ate quickly.
‘You haven’t eaten all morning, have you?’ the vendor asked. Abhishek nodded with his mouth full. ‘I’ll make another for you. It will be quick. I know you’re in a rush.’
Abhishek looked at the man again, hunched over his stove, and tried to guess his age. His hair was jet-black, but the streaks of white in his stubble and the lines across his face gave an impression of years. Oblivious to the cold, he was dressed in a singlet and a faded lungi.
As he ate the second sandwich, Abhishek asked the man how long he had been in Delhi.
‘Seven months. But I am going back soon. My family is still in Benares.’
Abhishek wanted to ask more, but refrained. He knew the story anyway; only the particulars would be new. It could be a daughter’s wedding or a wife’s illness. Sometimes the debts were inherited: a father’s bereavement forcing a son’s hand.
‘You remind me of my son,’ the omelettewallah told Abhishek as he paid. ‘Come again.’
‘Yes.’ Abhishek nodded shyly and walked away, joining the mass effort to cross the road and heading for the police headquarters.
After a routine frisking at the fortified entrance for pedestrians, Abhishek entered a forecourt where official white Ambassadors, festooned with red lights and flags, were parked in a row. The two guards, in full police regalia and striking turbans, were clearly stationed there for ornamental purposes and paid the newcomer no attention as he headed for the door marked ‘Public Relations’.
Inside the long press room, under fluorescent lights, dozens of noisy journalists lounged on fake leather sofas, awaiting the press conference. Several stood clustered around the two flatscreen televisions which shared the wall with photographs of smiling old men in khaki caps.
‘Yes, sir, what can I do for you?’ boomed press officer Vikram Singh, ushering Abhishek to his cabin. ‘Ah,’ he said after Abhishek introduced himself, ‘so Vivek is too big for press conferences these days? He sends the young guns. Is this your first job?’
‘Yes,’ Abhishek replied, deciding neither to press the security magazine stint, nor the fact that this might be a one-assignment show.
‘Excellent.’ Vikram nodded at him happily.
Abhishek was unsure why his inexperience was a matter for such jubilation.
‘There is an old Chinese curse, Abhishek-ji,’ the PRO continued. ‘It says, “May you live in interesting times.” Have you heard it? No? Well, my friend, you are cursed. Anyone planning a career in media now is cursed.’ The smile never left the man’s face. ‘Ten, perhaps fifteen, at a stretch – that was the number of journalists I used to see in a day. Now, before I get up in the morning, I have that many missed calls. But you will see the circus for yourself,’ he said with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Today’s conference is important. You will meet a lot of people.’
One of the several phones on Vikram’s desk rang and he looked displeased at being cut off mid-flow. Shrugging his shoulders at Abhishek to indicate the demands of his job, he picked up the receiver.
An orderly handed Abhishek a glass of water and as he drank, he became aware of a dangerous gurgling in his belly.
The police officer put the phone down. ‘It’s time. Let’s get everyone to the main building for the conference. Come.’ He led Abhishek back to the press room. ‘The television cameras increase every day,’ he said. ‘Look at this crowd. Until last year we operated from a dingy one-room affair on the first floor. Then we shifted down here. But now even this doesn’t seem enough. Reporters are more important than officers these days. Soon we’ll have to vacate our cabins for you guys.’
At the next entrance, the guards let Abhishek through without a frisk. He did not know it then, it meant he had just entered the privileged domain of the press, which at the lower end allows for free parking, waiving of traffic fines and reserved tickets for box office hits, and at the higher end, government housing, foreign junkets and customized holidays for two.
Inside the conference room, the PRO strode to the front as Abhishek found himself a place at the back. Several dozen television teams were frenetically jostling, trying to negotiate the best possible position for their equipment. Cameramen yelled at their assistants to display channel logos prominently while placing the mikes. The reporters congregated in smaller groups.
Abhishek sat down and felt the rumble in his stomach return with increasing urgency. He cursed the vendor and the food he had so hungrily consumed a short while ago. ‘That’s how he gets the money to dye his hair black – cheap oil and rotten eggs. All these bloody Benarasis are the same – sweet talk and nothing else,’ he thought moodily as he stared at the press handout.
The police officers arrived and Abhishek noted the ease with which the journalists mingled with them, shaking hands, slapping backs and exchanging pleasantries as they made their way towards the stage. A few minutes later, Police Commissioner V.N. Pratap made his entrance through a door adjoining the platform. The journalists immediately settled into their chairs and the cameramen conceded that no more vantage would be secured today. The press conference started a prompt ten minutes later than scheduled.
As the commissioner began speaking about Uday Kumar and his team’s splendid investigation into a cricket-betting syndicate, Abhishek realized that he could hold on no longer and would have to find a loo. He rushed out of the back door and, in his hurry, collided with a young man running in from the opposite direction.
M
ayank Sharma stood at the back of the conference room, trying to catch his breath. He’d left his driver at the traffic lights and sprinted all the way, hoping to catch Uday Kumar before the press conference began but the constable at the gate had held him up to check his ID. Of average height, with a pleasant unmemorable face, and body language designed to deflect attention from himself, Mayank was remembered by few. The young assistant commissioner of po
lice, Crime Branch, preferred it that way.
‘The team displayed exceptional patience in their investigation. It was thorough and meticulous,’ the commissioner was telling the assembled journalists. ‘They waited for months to ensure the case was watertight before making arrests.’
From the dais, Uday noticed Mayank. He whispered something to the officer by his side and slipped out of the hall.
‘Sir, you were right,’ Mayank said the moment they met in the corridor.
‘Wait, not here.’ The second floor housed the police control room, the nerve centre that monitored the 60,000-plus force, and was not the best place for a discreet conversation. Taking the young officer’s arm, Uday headed towards the toilets.
Abhishek had been suffering the indignities of an upset stomach for some time and was finally emerging from his cubicle when he heard hushed voices coming from the far end of the toilet. Something in their tone made him stop, his hand on the slightly open door.
‘Your tip-off … it seems that it’s true,’ Mayank was telling the senior police officer as they entered.
Uday held up a hand, frowning. ‘Just a moment,’ he warned, quickly scanning the rows of open cubicle doors. ‘How are you so sure?’ He looked back at Mayank sharply.
‘Sir, three things. First, word has been put out for a safe house for him. I don’t know where, but definitely somewhere in the city. Second, his central Delhi associates have recently been receiving unusually large sums of back-channel hawala money. Third, his operations in Singapore are winding down. It all adds up to what you had told me: Babloo Shankar is planning a comeback.’
There was a pause. Abhishek remained still. Instinct told him that he couldn’t afford to be discovered.
‘Okay.’ He heard the other voice again. ‘Control your excitement. This must not get out. Absolutely no one in the police should hear of this. Do you understand, Mayank?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Price You Pay Page 2