by Pankaj Dubey
‘Ali, don’t you follow?’ Shehzad drove in. ‘Even if you hypnotize the masses, your governments will snap you out of it. Power and paisa are all they want. Nothing else.’
‘And even if we get it, we can’t manage it,’ pointed out Rishi. ‘China’s shitting us already in Ladakh. And Arunachal. No way can we control that long Afghan border.’
‘Afghanistan’s one big headache,’ admitted Ali.
‘Took us years to get rid of Khalistan. This would be like … we’re importing Balochistan. And Waziristan. Why should we?’
‘You got enough Naxals and their Naga–Mizo cousins to keep you busy,’ Shehzad added with a snigger.
‘Yes, makes no sense,’ agreed Rishi. ‘We couldn’t catch one Dawood. Taliban and al-Qaeda will together drive us nuts.’
‘I still think we’ll become big if we team up,’ insisted Ali, not ready to fully abandon the idea of reunifying. ‘These Brits and Americans will come licking our asses then.’
‘You seriously think so? Grow up, fool!’ Shehzad said, brushing aside the Pakistani’s rose-tinted view.
‘The world won’t let it happen, Ali,’ Rishi put it in black and white to his mate.
Ali looked unconvinced.
‘You think China will want to lose you? No way. Even the Arabs won’t want to see you go with India.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re this big Islamist nation. And you got this huge army, air force … plus nuclear weapons.’
‘And …’ pitched in Shehzad, ‘even the US won’t let you out of their clutches … cause there goes boom their biggest arms market.’
‘Why are you singing a new tune today?’ Ali was not getting it. ‘Earlier, you were all for it.’
‘That was yesterday,’ Rishi’s voice had a chill. ‘See where we’re today. Locked up.’
‘Don’t you still get it, Ali?’ Shehzad was getting impatient and irritated. ‘It’s the mentality—you can’t wipe it away. The West was racist, is, and will stay that way. We’ll only fuck up what we have now by trying to unite. That will only divide us more.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Ali’s voice was low.
‘We could do an EU kind of thing,’ Rishi proposed tentatively. ‘Build on SAARC. But even that might not work.’ His voice had lost all the optimism of before. The ways of humans had wrecked every hope he had dared to nurture.
‘South Asians forming a joint armed forces,’ jeered Shehzad, ‘that’s stuff for science fiction!’
‘Right. Trade and currency maybe. But not other things.’
Rishi was with Shehzad on this.
‘Independence is what people want. Not unity,’ declared Shehzad.
‘You, Bangla baby, you shut up,’ attacked Ali. ‘Most of your country gets flooded every damn year. Whoever survives then tries to sneak over to India … and you … you talk of independence!’
‘But Ali, even India won’t really want Bangladesh to join us. We do stand with them,’ explained Rishi. ‘But all these terror factories opening up everywhere, we’re scared.’
‘So we end up with what we started—trade, commerce, tourism and culture,’ Ali listed in a flat tone.
‘Well, we can try and stop fighting. And build more confidence.’
‘Aw, shut up, you two! You’re sounding bloody like the Foreign Office.’
Shehzad was done with all this subcontinental shit. All he wanted now was food, not that he was going to get some any time soon. But this shit? It had to stop—right away.
‘We talk and we rot. Nothing more is left in our lives now.’
No one challenged this statement. The bleak and miserable tone in which Ali stated this was proof enough. But life has a way of changing suddenly, and going exactly the way you never expected it to go.
By the end of next week, all three were out again in the open. Released on police bail, with no conditions attached.
32
Zeenat picked up the evening newspaper. Ever since the terror incident, the media had been in a frenzy, running series after series of highly speculative stories about the blast suspects. They had been carrying opinion pieces that condemned their act, and now upped the ante to control immigration from Asian nations. Also, there was a lot of general terror-bashing in its pages. All of this was guaranteed to wreck her mood. Still, she could not stop reading it. For now, this was her only connection with her friends.
Fiza stood at the door and saw her daughter’s face change as she began to read:
‘The Holborn blast detainees have been released on pre-charge bail. The police will continue to investigate the case, but said it was no longer necessary to keep the three locked up in the high-security prison. Does that mean the trio no longer pose a risk to the country and our people? Or is this a case of police nerves, as they cannot detain them much longer? Pre-charge suspects can be held for a maximum of fourteen days under the amended PACE law. And they had been in jail just one day short of two weeks. Is the amended law helping them escape? What guarantee is there that this will not become another Khalid story, the terror suspect who left for Syria whilst on bail?
‘It’s been almost a fortnight since the blasts, but there are more questions than answers. Why are the security services so wary of making categorical statements? Even Downing Street is reluctant to confirm that the Indian caught at Holborn Tube station was the main bomber. Labour MP Jim Gilbert, however, has been intensely lobbying for their release. He told BBC Radio, “Even if the authorities assumed they were linked to the blast and arrested them, you cannot keep someone locked up forever only on suspicion.”
‘The lawyer MP has not shied from casting aspersions on the police force. “No doubt there is someone in the security services who wants to delay their release simply because it suits their individual purposes.” The ruling party has condemned the statement as irresponsible. However, human rights groups like Amnesty International, Liberty and Redress are gathering around the Labour MP, pressurizing the government to release the suspects unless specific charges justify their detention. They are demanding that the government immediately come out with a full report on the arrests and subsequent investigations.
‘The tattoo mystery is also yet to be solved. Sources reveal that the new suspect picked up during the Manchester bomb haul has led to many more arrests. The police are tight-lipped on this development. A new Daesh group, Fatah-al-Islamiya has claimed responsibility for both the Holborn blast as well as the Manchester bomb haul. A video going viral for the same is being verified by agencies. If the video proves authentic, the Holborn blast suspects could escape trial.’
Zeenat sprang up from her chair and whooped with joy, squealing in pain the next second, for her operated leg was not used to such sudden movements. Fiza ran in to help her get back to her seat. But Zeenat wanted to be driven over to the boys’ place. Before Fiza could object, Zeenat had changed her mind—she decided to wait. She needed to plan out the whole meeting in her head first. Not that she had not imagined it in her head many times already, but that had been a colourful Bollywood version full of naach-gaana and mushy dialogue. This would be for real. All of a sudden, she felt awkward and shy to meet the boys—the same boys with whom she had always been so comfortable. The next hour or two, she kept flitting between going and not going.
Thankfully, she was spared the decision. The boys came over. They were at her door. Was it like the movies, where the heart can sense the arrival of loved ones before your eyes and ears see or hear them? Actually, no. No one, absolutely no one, rang the bell at their house at this hour of the evening. Mullah would return only an hour later, so logic claimed it had to be them. A part of Zeenat wanted to believe it was like the movies. It refused to accept any other reason, and made her scurry to get ready for the meetup.
Meanwhile, Fiza was greeting and ushering them in. The trio looked worn-out, but at peace. They wanted to meet Mullah.
‘He won’t be back for another hour,’ she replied.
All three
got up at once to leave, saying they would be back when he returned.
‘Have some coffee? Or stay for dinner.’
Thanking her for her kindness, they made to go.
‘How dare you!’ That stopped them in their tracks. ‘You bastards! I get you out, and it’s Mullah you want to meet?’ Hobbling out into the hall, Zeenat was clearly breathing hellfire.
All three did a U-turn and stood gawking. At their love. Standing up there on one good foot. Her voice and spirit as high as ever. Her eyes dancing with rage, nostrils flared and cheeks turning redder by the minute. It warmed their hearts. Seeing her angry and feisty had been too much to hope for. Yet, god had granted them this valley of joy amidst their mountains of misfortune. They smiled at this unexpected gift.
She tottered up closer. ‘I’m mad at you, and you idiots are grinning? Have you lost it?’
Pointing to her hurt foot, Shehzad inquired, ‘Who you been dancing with?’
She slapped him. All that nervous tension, the pain of waiting and not knowing, and her flip-flop of moods and emotions had taken their toll. It all spurted out in that one extreme reaction, the only reply she was capable of. All three rushed to hold her as she burst out, for she had lost her balance and was about to fall. It was a comic scene. Fiza left them at that. These over-the-top, sentimental displays had never been her cup of tea.
They hung around, swapping stories. The boys regaled her with prison tales. Zeenat enacted how the hysterical media had ballooned up their curry tattoo to cult status. It was back to old times, with Ali and Shehzad vying for her attention, quibbling over every little thing, while Rishi hemmed and hawed and spoke as little as before.
Mullah returned, but only to cloud their happy picnic. ‘A police bail is just that,’ he pointed out. ‘Not a release or pardon. Any time,’ he said with a snap of his fingers, ‘they can cancel it any time. And pick you up again.’
‘That’s not what I asked for,’ Zeenat accosted him. ‘Why are you doling me half measures? I want it all cleared!’
Mullah was at a loss. His daughter was a monster when it came to having her own way, but this time he could not give her what she wanted. ‘Zeenat,’ he started, looking fondly at his daughter, ‘I’m trying, my dear … I’m trying.’
The boys took leave, Ali finding it difficult to not choke at the way Zeenat had just tamed the roaring bully of a Mullah, ticking him off even when he was sweating it out to gift her the impossible. He’d been lobbying in the hallowed halls of power with god only knew whatnot. Shehzad relaxed. His freedom was now not his problem. It was Mullah’s problem. He winked at her in appreciation. Rishi, however, was avoiding this goodbye routine. He had slipped safely into his earlier role of a wallflower till she sent things again for a six at the door, with just two words: ‘Take care.’
Rishi’s whole world turned upside down once again.
33
‘The CCTVs misled us,’ admitted the police, buckling under the media glare and pressure from human rights groups. The supposedly suspect activity of the South Asians that these cameras recorded that day were found to be only as dubious as that of any other lover in London on Valentine’s Day. Further interrogation and monitoring of the suspects had ruled out their involvement beyond reasonable doubt. The house search and other investigations had led to nothing substantial against the Indian or the Bangladeshi. There was no case to be made out against the English-speaking Pakistani chef either, except maybe the possible charge of possessing a pressure cooker, a potentially explosive device.
The new suspect in the police net had taken the investigation on to a totally different track and country, leading to further significant arrests and discoveries, including a new terrorist network. So the old suspects had to be released, and for good this time. But a month got eaten up—two weeks inside jail and two outside—before this clean chit came about.
Mullah’s friend in the Labour Party had all along ranted against the gross injustice meted out to the three young immigrants. He raised significant questions, pulling up the authorities for unnecessarily extending pre-charge detention with police bail, when they had no evidence to look for, as the investigation was going nowhere. ‘Should you justify holding on to suspects while you request for “more time” in the hope of coming up with something some day?’
The clean chit they got completely clean-bowled Ali and Shehzad and Rishi. After all that bizarre questioning and endless micro-examining of every shade of their lives, none of the three believed they would ever be completely off the hook.
Even Mullah had not expected to reap such large dividends so fast. He owed the Labour Party big time now for having set the wheel of justice into motion. Fiza now expected Mullah’s supreme effort to fetch even bigger dividends at home. Zeenat, however, took his role casually in her stride. The boys were innocent and getting them off the racist clutches of the authorities was the sacred duty of every South Asian in this foreign land.
‘Foreign? We are British!’ Fiza was quick to remind her.
‘You may forget your origins, not me.’ Zeenat was getting sassier each passing day and Mullah wondered how far she could go before it became too much for his wife.
Ten houses ahead, Rishi too sat wondering about Mullah’s daughter. His train of thought was way different from that of the old man. So lost was he in his meanderings that he chewed on Ali’s paratha mechanically, forgetting to eat the accompanying alu–gobi. Shehzad slunk up to the plate, substituted the vegetable with some lettuce and stood in the corner to watch the show. Rishi crunched on the lettuce leaves once the paratha got over, not seeing or feeling the taste of anything.
Ali shook his head and, leaving the two fools to their jokes, headed out to his restaurant. Too much time had been lost in jail. He couldn’t afford to neglect his work for one more minute now. Even if he slogged every single day and contracted his shoestring expenses to wafer-thinness, he would still need to work for at least 365 more days to earn enough to return home a victor.
An hour and a half later though, he had retreated back to square one. When it came to Nawab Balti, the clean chit from the police was not enough to whitewash Ali’s terror taint. A fellow South Asian—a Bangladeshi to be precise—the restaurant owner threw up his hands and shut the door on his favourite chef. Ali’s misadventure, he proclaimed in a knowing voice, even if it had been inadvertent, was definitely not good for business. ‘I have a respectable place up here. Can’t afford any of this bad publicity.’ Ali stood dazed, his mind rejecting what his ears were hearing.
Out of a job, Ali walked past the service door to take one last look at the kitchen where he had whipped up not just dishes on the menu, but also his passion for perfection. Wanting to serve a dream every time, and hoping this would one day take him to his own dream. Reality cut into nostalgia with a sharp knife. A substitute chef, with no bombing history or stain, had already been hired. He was busy stirring the onion–tomato gravy. However, Ali did not take it to heart. That period of confinement had freed his mind of many fears and shackles. He now took each moment as it came. Leaning against the wall of another eatery, he did a quick stock-taking. No job meant no work permit, which, in turn, meant no more income or the right to stay in London.
So he bought a ticket on the hop-on–hop-off double-decker bus that took you around the city, stopping at every place earmarked important for the tourist. As he would be leaving the city soon and had nothing to do right now, he might as well see the sights before he left. That night, Ali made the biryani exactly the way Rishi enjoyed it, and also Shehzad’s favourite mutton curry. He planned to invite Zeenat too, but she evidently needed no invitation, because he found her at the door when he returned home.
Once the four had their fill, the Pakistani told them about being sacked. ‘The taint’s not gone yet. The spot has spread far enough to kill my job.’
‘What!’
Rishi had thought he had turned shockproof after the two jolts he had got on that one Holborn day last month. Yet Ali�
�s revelation whacked his mind completely. Shehzad lost his voice. And Zeenat her cool. She would have hobbled off to kill that bloody nawab of Nawab Balti if Ali had not held her back by sheer brute force.
They sat staring at each other, finding it difficult to digest this stinker. Hours slid by. Every idea under the sun, moon, stars and man-made satellites was dribbled in that house that night. But there was no going around the work-permit rule. Even if Ali managed to wangle a new job, the chances of him getting another permit were remote in the current anti-immigrant climate storming the British minds.
What was worse, along with the job, his dream too had been sacked. ‘And it’s not just my dream. It’s my ammi’s dream. My abbu’s dream. And the dream of so many more out there in Lahore.’ He said this laughing, but they knew he was crying inside. In fact, they were all weeping inside.
Rishi and Shehzad were ready to pool their resources if that could do the trick. But their wallets refused to cooperate, filled as they were mostly with air.
Suddenly, Zeenat jumped up in excitement, squealing in pain the next second. Excitement made her forget that she had one leg that was not as strong as the other one yet. ‘I got the perfect idea. It can get you your dhaba cent per cent!’ Her eyes danced as she declared this.
The three boys wondered what was cooking in that unpredictable head of hers.
Seeing them askance, Zeenat challenged them. ‘You think I can’t, right?’
The three dared not agree, though that’s exactly what they thought.
‘Okay. I can’t. But Mullah … Mullah definitely can.’
This was vague. Why the hell would Mullah fund Ali’s dhaba. Unless … Three pairs of eyes flew to her face. Two in panic, one in wonder. Did she know of Mullah’s offer to Ali? Was she actually thinking … could she … no! It was too outlandish for Rishi and Shehzad to even consider for another second. As for Ali, his heart was beating at ten times its normal pace.
The drama queen took her time to relieve them of their misery. For two whole minutes, the three stayed on edge before she chose to unfurl her sure-shot plan.