Baaz

by Anuja Chauhan

  ‘Good morning,’ she replies composedly, leaning back against the doorjamb and looking much less bashful than him.

  Maddy looks at his friend’s incandescent face and smothers a smile. A besotted Baaz is going to be pretty entertaining to have around, he realizes.

  ‘Wh-where’s everybody?’ Ishaan asks next. He’s just noticed that her mouth looks a little swollen, a little bruised. My doing, he thinks with exultant possessiveness as his eyes drop to the pillow in his hands.

  ‘Listening to the radio chatter,’ she replies, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s been going on practically non-stop since we tuned in.’

  Maddy looks up, surprised. ‘The mechanic came? I’d given up on that joker.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Tinka replies. ‘I had a look at it and it turned out to be exactly the same wireless radio Jimmy used to have. He taught me how it worked. So I fixed it.’

  ‘You fixed the radio?’ the boys speak in unison, clearly impressed.

  She grins and shrugs. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How are you with watches?’ Maddy asks. ‘’Coz I broke mine when we bailed out of the Caribou. I’ve got all the bits, I think. Can you fix it?’

  Tinka laughs. ‘I can try!’

  ‘Excellent,’ Maddy says briskly and heads out of the room.

  Alone, Ishaan and Tinka look at each other for a long, crackling moment. Then in two quick strides, he is beside her, his hand wrapping around her wrist, jerking her to his chest. He speaks against her cheek, ‘I won’t fly any more if that’s what you want.’

  ‘What?’ She laughs as her hand comes up to caress his face. ‘I don’t want you to stop flying. It’s what you do.’

  ‘I can do other things,’ he asserts unhesitatingly. ‘Really well. Lots of things.’

  ‘Name one.’

  ‘I can box. Drive a tractor. Make love – I make love well, right?’

  He looks at her for confirmation, his gaze only slightly anxious.

  And now Tinka does blush. An undeniable, beautiful blush. ‘Right.’

  Shaanu grins.

  ‘And I can knit.’

  She tilts her head.

  ‘You know how to knit?’

  ‘Then what? Nothing fancy, but I could make you a muffler! My sisters taught me – you think only your brother taught you things?’

  She lays her head against his chest.

  ‘Ishaan…’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘Come down and listen to the chatter. Nikka Khan and the rest of the army top brass have been summoned to Governor House by the Governor – the UN contingent has been invited too – I think he wants to surrender.’

  • • •

  Bloody, hand-to-hand combat has broken out in the streets of Dacca. One by one, every building and every house is being entered, fought over and won. The port towns of Chalna and Khulna have been captured, with not a whimper out of the US’s Seventh Fleet stationed right there in the Bay of Bengal. The IAF have been merciless. MiGs and Hunters have been pounding down on the Bangladesh borders ever since the four-hour ceasefire ended.

  As Pakistan reels from this relentless attack, they also have to deal with Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw addressing their troops in the eastern theatre directly on the radio, telling them that they are surrounded and appealing to them to use their brains, save their lives and surrender to India.

  Crouched over his freshly repaired illegal radio, Macho da cackles with delight as he eavesdrops on General Nikka Khan’s increasingly frantic attempts to bypass the petrified Governor and get through to President Yahya Khan and the other high-ups holed up cosily in Lahore.

  ‘The man’s been abandoned,’ he gloats, his exquisitely embroidered prayer cap set at a rakish angle on his head. ‘Hung out to dry! Well, it’s only what he deserves. He deserves worse, actually! He should be lynched in public for what he’s done to my land and my people! Mark my words, he will be!’

  ‘What about Macho’s secret mission?’ Shaanu whispers to Maddy as he slides in to sit next to him in the radio room. ‘Why don’t you ask him about it?’

  ‘You ask him,’ Maddy growls back. ‘He was in a foul mood because of your stunt last night – thank God Tinka repaired his radio!’

  ‘My stunt or your st—’ Shaanu starts to say hotly, then stops. ‘Okay.’

  Raising his voice, he addresses the Mukti. ‘Sir, if the Governor is indeed planning to surrender, how will that impact our mission?’

  ‘And what is the mission, anyway?’ Maddy chimes in.

  Macho da’s eyes skitter away, and land on Front Room, who is standing in the doorway, his expression as serenely unflappable as ever.

  ‘Are we ready?’ Macho da asks.

  Front Room smiles. For the first time ever, Shaanu and Maddy hear him speak. His voice is soft and rustling. ‘We will be.’

  The Mukti’s eyes turn back to them.

  ‘Yes, well, it’s all a little fluid at the moment.’

  Maddy and Shaanu exchange looks.

  ‘I’ll brief you as and when the time comes.’

  Harry Rose, who has been sitting quietly till now, gets to her feet.

  ‘We need to brief India about this high-level meeting at Governor House,’ she declares. ‘It is vital information – they could use it to precipitate something.’

  ‘India!’ The Mukti’s dark eyes flash as he curls his lip contemptuously. ‘But they’re so untrusting, so holier-than-thou! Why do we have to share information with them?’

  But when she walks up to the radio, sits down and starts to work the controls, he doesn’t object, choosing to just glower behind her sullenly.

  ‘Hello, Gori Kalaiyaan, come in, Gori Kalaiyaan…’ Harry Rose speaks into the receiver. ‘This is Mukti four trying to re-establish contact. This is Mukti four…’

  Lots of static and crackle, some of it loud enough to make them all wince.

  ‘We used to speak to your guys regularly before our radio packed up,’ Harry Rose tells Maddy and Shaanu. ‘This used to be their frequency. Maybe they’ve given up on us – we’ve had no contact with them for over ten days…’

  And then a familiar irascible voice crackles through the line.

  ‘Gori Kalaiyaan to Mukti four. Gori Kalaiyaan to Mukti four.’

  Maddy and Shaanu look at each other, stupefied.

  Then they leap to their feet and yell as one into the receiver: ‘Sir! Sir! It’s us, sir!’

  ‘Who’s us?’ Wing Commander Hosannah Carvalho’s voice demands grumpily. ‘Identify yourselves.’

  But the two boys are too elated to be coherent. They just shout hoarsely that it is them.

  Kuch Bhi’s voice crackles through again, charged with emotion.

  ‘Subbiah! And Chakkahera! That you, ain’t it, Chakkahera? Should’ve known it would take more than three Sabres to quash your Jat ass!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘It’s us, sir!’

  Is their senior officer’s voice trembling? Surely not – he isn’t a damsel with fair, dainty wrists, as his call sign suggests. He is the Chief Operations Officer of that most feared and revered of bases, AFS Kalaiganga. The tremble must be the static on the freshly repaired wireless.

  ‘The ladies have been missing your piano playing, Subbiah. I’ll give them all a kiss from you!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Maddy shouts back. ‘I mean, please don’t, sir!’

  ‘All this is very moving, I’m sure,’ Macho da says sourly from his place in the corner. ‘But we actually contacted you to give you some vital information.’

  ‘Of course.’ Old Kuch Bhi’s voice grows attentive instantly. ‘Update me, please, Mukti four.’

  Harry Rose leans in.

  ‘We have information of a high-level party,’ she says. ‘At Governor House. They’re talking surrender.’

  ‘Time?’ Carvalho’s voice is crisp.

  ‘10.30 a.m. Today.’

  ‘That gives us half-an-hour. Appreciate the tip, Mukti four. Take good care of our boys. Lads, we’ll be seeing you soo
n.’

  • • •

  ‘Gentlemen, we have information that the Pakistani top brass are meeting shortly to discuss surrendering. We expect Nikka Khan to be vehemently opposed to this. He may even convince the Governor to hold out and fight, leading to more killing, more carnage and the prolonging of civilian agony.’

  The briefing room, packed with MiGGies, drinks this in.

  Carvalho leans forward, breathing hard.

  ‘And so, we plan to, uh, drop in uninvited at this party and gently nudge them towards surrender.’

  He proceeds to brief them on their mission, an audacious sortie right over Dacca, with the Governor House itself as target. The psychological impact of this, Carvalho feels, will be huge. It will seem that the Indians are everywhere and know everything and that resistance is futile. The MiGGies drink it in, fully enthused … until the map of the city is handed around.

  There is gobsmacked silence, and then J-man and Chatty look up at their briefing officer in disbelief. ‘That’s it? We’re supposed to identify the target on the basis of just this?’

  Old Kuch Bhi Carvalho looks down at the paper – a small, crumpled childishly drawn map of Dacca, with a waving Mickey Mouse cartoon and a cheerful Go Well Go Shell printed at the bottom right – and nods.

  ‘Yeah.’

  The MiGGies exchange glances.

  ‘Uh, but sir, why don’t we have a decent aerial map of Dacca?’

  ‘We never thought we’d be bombing Dacca, that’s why,’ Carvalho says tersely. ‘And nobody else in the world thought they’d be bombing Dacca either! Who even wants Dacca? Anyway, look.’

  He moves closer to the Shell map.

  ‘That thing with the little rocking horse cartoon next to it is the Ramanna Race Course – and the big white house with the cartoon of a queen’s crown next to it is—’

  ‘Governor House,’ J-man says in a small stunned voice. ‘Our target.’ He looks up at his senior officer. ‘Are you serious?’

  Carvalho beams. ‘Yes!’

  Chatty studies the small, happy scrap of paper dubiously.

  ‘Is this thing even to scale?’

  ‘Don’t quibble, Chatrath!’ Old Kuch Bhi roars, his patience eroded. ‘Just get up there, swoop down on the first big, expensive-looking damn white building you see, ekdum Baaz-ke-maaphik, and whip that fucker Nikka into cowering submission!’

  Thus whipped into cowering submission themselves, Chatty and J-man stride down dazedly to their MiGs, which the airmen have been fitting with heavy duty T-10 rockets, capable of penetrating armour and concrete.

  ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Chatty asks.

  J-man shrugs. ‘Didn’t you hear the man? Look for a low white building surrounded by gardens. Bomb it to pulp.’

  • • •

  Nikka Khan, unused to being summoned so summarily by the man he considers a weak-kneed figurehead, is sprawled low in his seat at one end of the Governor’s long, glass-topped conference table. Along the length of the table sit officials and advisors, both international and local, and at the other end, the twitching, sleep-deprived gaunt-faced Governor.

  ‘They never stop…’ he moans. ‘Night and day, from the air, and from the water, on every front! It’s a constant invasion – I’m sick of it. We need to make it stop.’

  Nikka leans forward. ‘Excellency, the Americans and the Chinese will be with us soon … we can hold out…’

  The Governor’s bloodshot eyes bug out of their sockets.

  ‘Shut up, you fool! Nobody’s coming to our aid, don’t you get it?’

  There is a stunned silence round the table. The Governor has never lashed out at his Defence Services counterpart so openly.

  ‘General,’ the head of Pakistani Administrative Services for East Pakistan speaks up in his soft, cultured voice. ‘Won’t you consider the suggestion? We should concede surrender, or we will be locked into a deadly battle of attrition against the attacking Indian and Mukti Bahini forces. That will be both expensive and pointless, and precious lives will be lost on both sides.’

  Nikka snorts. ‘What are a few dead Indians and Bengalis? And as for our men, they will be proud to lay down their lives for Pak sarzameen.’

  ‘Would you just listen to me?’ The Governor rolls his eyes. Sweat is rolling down his sagging cheeks. ‘I am your leader.’

  Nikka draws himself up. ‘President Yahya Khan is my leader.’

  ‘He isn’t taking your calls, janab!’ the Governor snaps, now breathing hard. He stumbles to his feet even as the roar of jets streaking overhead fills the air. Everybody looks at each other, fear rampant on their faces.

  ‘Tumansky engines,’ breathes the head of the PAF. ‘Those are MiGs. But … they’ve never dropped bombs on the city before.’

  ‘You think they know we’re discussing this?’ the Administrative Services head whispers.

  ‘They’re coming, you fool!’ The Governor turns back to Nikka, his eyes wild, his voice rising to a shriek to make himself heard over the approaching jets. ‘What are we trying to prove here, exactly? Your loyalty to the Qaumi Tarana? Your manhood? That your lund is the longest on the subcontinent?’

  The last words are practically a scream. They merge with the sound of the MiG engines, now dangerously close.

  Nikka licks his lips.

  Sshviccck!

  And then the beautiful, colonial-era glass windows lining the conference room, through which the morning sun has been pouring onto the red-and-blue Persian carpet, shatter as one. Glass rains into the room.

  Everybody ducks.

  For the next four minutes, the mighty building is pounded by what the Indian newspapers report the next day to be a full load of 192 rockets.

  ‘Why are the Indians doing this to me?’ moans the Governor ten minutes later, as he cowers in the trenches outside.

  ‘The worst is over, sir,’ his ADCs assure him as they lift him out. ‘All should be well now…’

  But they have spoken too soon. A pair of Hawker Hunters swoop in at that very moment and pump a consignment of 30mm cannon shells into the now easily recognizable target.

  When the dust finally settles, the beleaguered Governor has had enough. He signs his resignation with shaking hands and rushes for refuge in the Intercontinental Hotel along with the other foreign nationals, thus bringing an end to the civilian leadership of East Pakistan.

  • • •

  ‘Nikka Khan is going to give us the slip!’ Macho da’s hands are shaking with impotent fury. ‘The civilian leadership has already collapsed, and if Nikka Khan surrenders on behalf of the Pakistan Army today, he too will fly home safely to Lahore. I can’t let that happen, I want that man lynched, hanged, dead and twitching at the end of a rope!’

  The Mukti is pacing up and down in the little radio room on English Road, clenching and unclenching his hands in frustration. The carefully cultivated Sufi ascetic cover is blown, he is dressed in camouflage fatigues, and his eyes are so bloodshot he looks like he’s had a relapse of conjunctivitis.

  ‘I thought you wanted freedom for Bangladesh,’ Tinka says mildly.

  He glares at her. She is lounging comfortably against Ishaan in the back of the room, her tousled head resting on his chest. Her eyes are soft, his arm is around her, her chin is resting on his hand. The two of them seem to shine with happiness.

  ‘Our lovebirds,’ the Mukti says sourly to the others in the room. ‘They’re happy, so now they think everybody is happy. But nobody is! All around you two, people are still suffering and demanding justice!’

  His voice, thick with fury, reverberates in the tiny room.

  Shaanu sits up straighter.

  ‘But Tinka’s right, sir,’ he says, a little apologetically. ‘I mean, we’ve already broken Nikka’s back, an independent Bangladesh is on the verge of being born – let the bugger sign the surrender documents and scurry off home.’

  Macho da shakes his head, his pale brown eyes flashing with fervour.

  ‘You don’t
understand, that man is a monster! He must be made to pay for his sins – brutally and swiftly and permanently – or people will think they can get away with such behaviour! A thousand new Nikkas will raise their heads, here and across the border! And don’t talk back to me, I’m your superior officer.’

  ‘Actually, you’re not.’ Shaanu’s voice is still pleasant, but there’s an edge to it. ‘Now that we’re back in contact with them, I report only to my senior officers from the IAF.’

  The Mukti’s smile grows nastier.

  ‘I’ll cut you some slack today because you’re flying high, Flying Officer. And why wouldn’t you, with such a,’ he sketches an ironic bow at Tinka, ‘lovely lady by your side! But believe me, vermin like Nikka Khan don’t deserve to live.’

  ‘Why don’t we let the war tribunal decide that?’ says Maddy, who is sitting next to Shaanu and Tinka. ‘They’re sure to appoint one, and then—’

  But Harry Rose interrupts him.

  ‘Nikka must die.’ Her voice is deep and cold and pitiless. ‘The blood of thousands of innocents rises from this scorched earth and demands his bali – his blood sacrifice.’

  Maddy’s jaw drops. He stares up at Harry Rose like he is seeing her for the first time.

  There is a rustling in the doorway. The boys turn and see Front Room standing there, his kurta flapping around his bare legs, his expression unflappable.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he murmurs softly, matter-of-factly, his eyes fixed on Harry.

  ‘Nothing less than his flesh and blood will satisfy the souls of his victims,’ she declares next, her hands clenching and unclenching like claws.

  Maddy gulps.

  ‘Aur karle je ne sais quoi,’ Shaanu mutters from beside him. ‘Dekh chhori kitni bloodthirsty nikli.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Maddy says faintly.

  ‘You know what I think?’ Shaanu continues softly, eyeing the trio of blood-lusting Muktis. ‘I think their great, so-called mission is bumping off Nikka. Just that. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Shit,’ says Tinka, stunned. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Maddy agrees, still gulping like a fish. ‘We need to get the hell out of here.’

  An irascible voice sounds in the tiny room.