He sat on the bed, poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette. Colonel Khrienuo dead. Only now did he let that sink in. If he had just stayed alert instead of drinking in the daytime. And he had even noticed the Alto the moment he had set eyes on it. The detention centre, the boy in chains, Colonel Khanna and then having to shoot the young cadre who had actually fallen for his ruse. His hand shook as he took a drag. Truth be told, he was afraid now. It was going to be a long night.
The bearer brought him some chapattis and dal, the last meal before the kitchen closed. Arjun ate, and then poured himself the last of Abbas’s bottle. To keep his mind busy he tried to order in his head the points about the drug trade his friend had mentioned to him. How could the meth tablet he had found in Amenla’s room have made its way there from the Myanmar border, assuming that was where it originated from? And could there have been more drugs involved?
The night moved on, and now the inside of the hotel fell quiet as well—the streets had been deserted long ago. He must have nodded off in the chair for a while because he came awake with a start at the sound of knocking somewhere, followed by voices. Who could it be? A waiter or a guest, or somebody from the outside? The main shutter would be down by now, but someone who knew could get the side gate opened. If there was a knock on his door, that was it, there would be no place left to hide for him. Then the voices died away, and the quiet returned.
In the dead of the night he couldn’t distract himself any longer, and he couldn’t sleep either; he had to acknowledge whom he had met. Colonel Khanna, the person because of whom Arjun had ended up leaving the army almost a decade and a half ago in Jorhat. They had taken a dislike to one another right from the beginning. Arjun’s independent approach to operations hadn’t gone down well with a CO who expected and gloried in flattery. Things got worse when Sonali also took a dislike to Khanna and his too-familiar manner at parties. Arjun was sent on vague missions in places where there was little or no insurgent activity, so he had started working on gathering his own intelligence, which was when he got friendly with Abbas. Khanna, when he came to know this, began to comment on Arjun’s parents in the officers’ mess. ‘Punjabis should marry Punjabis,’ was a line of his, ‘hai na? Is there a shortage of Punjabi women in this country?’
He had information about the presence of a group of insurgents in a village one day, and decided to go ahead and strike. It was an overcast, rainy, grey day, the village lanes were muddy, and when they had got there the villagers came out to obstruct them so that the boys could get away. By the time Arjun made his way to the target house they were long gone. Under pressure to show results, with a hostile CO back at the base, and then being blocked by the villagers—he had snapped that afternoon and lost control.
Later, he had been hauled up by the top brass, but had been let off with a warning. Things were covered up. For Khanna, however, it was too good an opportunity to let go. He trashed the operation among Arjun’s fellow officers in the mess, calling it the work of a coward with below-average intelligence. After a few more insults of this sort, a drunk Arjun had punched Khanna, sending him down to the floor in front of a shocked group of officers. He had escaped a court martial, but on condition that he quietly left. The irony, Arjun thought, was that if he had swallowed Khanna’s insults, he might have been in Dimapur now, drinking in the officers’ mess at Rangapahar army base. Instead, here he was in a grubby hotel room, looking to solve a murder in Delhi that hardly anyone remembered. This was what he had done with his life. He poured out more whisky and drank. Past midnight he finally got into bed, unable to keep awake after what had been a long and hard day. Thankfully there were no dreams.
He was woken by someone knocking on the door. The morning light was filtering into the room, and he got up feeling nauseous and with a sore throat. The previous night’s worry hadn’t left him, but he found that it was the bearer Shyamal with a cup of tea and a newspaper who informed him that it was half past five and the Winger would depart at half past six. The bearer had been instructed to leave his number with the agent at the counter, and Arjun told him to come and inform him when he would get the call that the van was about to leave. He drank the tea and then took a quick shower with cold water to wake himself up, which it did.
The local newspaper had news of Khrienuo’s killing but not about the shootout at the building. This made Arjun feel better; the security forces would be out today, and the Captain would have to lie low after the incident at the detention centre. But still, where Khanna was involved one could never say for sure. He went down to the reception desk and settled his bill with Sushil. Arjun studied the manager: his behaviour seemed entirely normal. Six-thirty came and went, and Shyamal came to inform Arjun that the Winger was waiting for the Brahmaputra Mail to arrive at the station to try and pick up some more passengers. Arjun paced up and down the small room, impatient to leave now.
At five past seven, Shyamal came hurrying to tell him that the Winger was about to leave. Arjun thanked him and gave him a tip, then went down with his backpack, crossed the road and got into the oversized van after buying a bottle of water. He was given a seat in the middle: the third person out of four in the row behind the driver. There were twelve passengers in all, besides the Meitei driver and handyman. The driver drove with a rough aggression; it was both a cause of, and a way of dealing with, the demands of the highway through the hills. Arjun put on his sunglasses and leant back as best as he could between two other men. A few more hours, and once they reached the Imphal valley he would be in relatively safer territory. He prayed there were no checkpoints on the way with information about him.
Past Chumukedima on the outskirts of Dimapur the road started climbing up, with the Chathé river appearing below at bends. The high, rugged ridge appeared, towering above them under a grey sky, its flanks a dry green. They crossed Shaktiman trucks, almost all a faded dark green, almost all without their bonnets, hauling boulders and logs. Here and there amid the dry jungle were strips of rice fields. There were small landslides in the dusty, subsidence-prone section of Lalmati below Kohima, and then there was the slow traffic up through the dusty capital city. Arjun noticed traffic policemen at two places collecting money from the Meitei driver (it was a Manipur-registered vehicle), then at Khuzama the driver paid at three more gates, including excise and the police. Just before Mao Gate on the interstate border three well-built men in jackets and pollution masks collected from the driver as well—everyone took a share of the bounty.
After lunch at a hotel in Mao Gate the Winger set off again, the driver maintaining a steady speed as he negotiated the broken patches and potholes. They were in Manipur now and Arjun felt himself relaxing a bit. Past Maram the winding Barak river came into view down below on the left, and then terraced rice fields on the hills with yellow stubble. The harvest season was long over. The Naga-controlled area of Senapati passed by, and then the Kuki enclave of Kangpokpi, a bumpy road threading past fields hemmed in by the hills. The little towns with their shabby shops were a contrast to the beauty of the pale yellow fields and green hills. They emerged in the valley, after about seven hours of travelling, to a straight road, crossing Sekmai with its rice liquor stalls, finally reaching Imphal at 3.30 p.m.
The Winger stopped down the road from the old Hotel Imphal at North AOC, across from the bus and Tata Sumo counters. Imphal seemed colder than Dimapur, and a few drops of rain fell from the overcast sky as Arjun looked around for an autorickshaw. He found one willing to take him to Hotel Nirmala in nearby Thangal Bazar. It was a short ride to the marketplace but the roads were clogged with two-wheelers. At the very first turning he saw the ubiquitous Manipur Police commandos in their tan-coloured uniforms, pistols in thigh holsters, H&K submachine guns and AK-47s slung over their shoulders. Thangal Bazar lay across the road from the Kangla Fort complex, the old seat of the Meitei kings which had been vacated by the Assam Rifles about a decade ago. Things had improved since then, Abbas had told him, but Arjun could still feel the tension in t
he air. On one side were the Meitei, Naga and Kuki armed groups, on the other the security forces, and trapped in-between were the local populace.
Hotel Nirmala was a modest establishment up a flight of steps in a street with mostly motorparts shops. They gave him a room on the top floor—another windowless room—and he came out to the front balcony and lit a Gold Flake, his first cigarette since entering Manipur. Down below to his left was the Imphal city police station, while to the right, further ahead of the Bihari potato godowns along aloo gali were the covered sheds of the Ima Keithel, or Mothers’ Market, where along narrow lanes women sold dry fish, bamboo shoot and the red and black valley rice. Beyond the flyover on the other side of the market was the famous Polo ground, and the crowded Paona Bazar—a favourite extortion area. He remembered this hotel from years ago when he had been posted for a while at the Leimakhong army camp, and had chosen it now because of its proximity to the police station, not that it was a guarantee of safety in Manipur. The place still had the commercial anonymity he recalled from back then, when he had come with a sub-inspector from the nearby police station to meet an Assamese member of an insurgent group who had been staying in the hotel on his way back from Myanmar. After the meeting, where Arjun had handed over some money to the youth, the SI had taken him to his aunt’s tea stall in Mothers’ Market for boras and tea. Had it really been so many years ago?
He was tired and needed a nap more than anything else, but before that he briefly switched on his phone to check for any calls or messages. There were missed calls from his daughter, and from Liza Thomas and Ujjwal Negi—he texted them back saying he had reached Imphal and would call soon—and also two missed calls from Romeo, from that morning. Baia’s friend had asked him to get in touch once he got to Imphal. Arjun switched off his phone, and called the reception from the landline in his room and asked them to put him through to Romeo’s number.
‘Kanano?’ Romeo said in the Meitei language when he picked up after a while.
‘It’s me. Arjun. You had called this morning?’
‘Arjun? Oh, yes, yes, Arjun. Sorry. Yes, I called you. Where are you?’
‘In Imphal. I just got here.’
‘Okay, good, good. Where are you staying?’
He wondered if he should tell Romeo, then thought that it didn’t matter if he knew.
‘Hotel Nirmala. In Thangal Bazar.’
‘Okay. I’ll come see you in the evening. What whisky do you drink?’
After two days of hitting the bottle he would have liked to take a break, but Romeo might have some leads for him.
‘Anything, it’s up to you. Is it still dry here?’
‘Dry outside but wet inside, he he! See you in the evening, Arjun.’
Arjun hung up and got under the thick green Chinese blanket on his bed and was soon asleep.
34
HE HAD A STRANGE DREAM as he slept. An incident from his childhood, in one of those small towns in the North-east his father had taken them on account of his work as the supervisor in a construction company. A stray dog had started coming around to their wood-and-plaster house that stood on cemented blocks; Arjun would ask his mother for biscuits and feed it. In time the dog had started staying below their house. He had started thinking of it as his dog, in spite of his father who worried about the ticks on it and wanted to chase it away. Then the dog got pregnant and delivered six puppies. Two died just after birth, and Arjun and his mother would put out some milk and biscuits every day for the rest along with some leftover rotis for the mother. The puppies grew, and he would play with them after coming back from school—yet another school where he was picked on as an outsider. One day one of the pups looked weak and then started shivering. It passed a watery stool and collapsed on the ground, breathing weakly. Arjun picked it up and took it near its mother, who was feeding the three other pups. The sick pup curled up and died in front of its mother, with Arjun trying to get her to comfort it. He had cried after that, and his mother had told him that pity was an emotion animals didn’t feel. They just knew how to survive.
He woke in the darkened hotel room feeling disoriented. Then he realized where he was, and recalled the dream. The dog had just ignored its dying pup lying there. It had taken Arjun a long time to understand his mother’s explanation. You couldn’t feel pity if you wanted to survive. It was a lesson worth keeping in mind. He got out of bed, washed up and called for some tea and vegetable sandwiches, with pepper and extra butter.
When Romeo turned up an hour later Arjun was out on the balcony, smoking and looking at the evening crowd at the Lucky Chicken Restaurant on the other side of the road above the small motorparts shops. True to his word, Romeo had brought along a bottle of whisky, and several packets of banana-leaf-wrapped steamed chicken and pork which he said was ‘too tasty’, picked up from an outlet run by someone he knew on the Singjamei main road. Along with him was his assistant, whom he sent out to get cigarettes and paan masala.
Romeo was wearing jeans and a sports jacket today, clean-shaven like before with his hair trimmed and gelled. He sat down on the old sofa in the room, reached back into his waistband and took out what looked like a 7.65-mm pistol and placed it beside him.
‘Licensed one, don’t worry, okay?’ he said with a laugh.
Arjun nodded. The minister’s son appeared to be revealing his true colours. Romeo unwrapped the packets on the table, and poured out three pegs from the whisky bottle.
‘Come on, have it,’ he said to Arjun.
Arjun tried the chicken and the pork, steamed with a light hint of cinnamon and served chopped up with lime and onion. It was surprisingly flavourful. He remembered with some regret the venison poor Colonel Khrienuo had planned to barbeque. The assistant returned with only cigarettes—he hadn’t found paan masala. This annoyed Romeo, and he sent the youth out again.
‘So many Bihari paan shops around here, of course he’ll get paan masala,’ he said. ‘I am addicted to it.’
‘That’s something I never touch,’ Arjun said, taking another bite of the chicken. ‘This is really good, by the way.’
‘My friend’s shop, I always buy from him,’ Romeo said.
The assistant returned after a while, this time with a tin of paan masala, and sank into the sofa.
‘I had to go looking all over the market for this,’ he said. ‘Next time buy several tins together, it’ll save me the trouble.’
‘Good idea. That’s what Kishorji does. He was the one who introduced me to it, when I met him with my father.’
Romeo opened the tin and tossed a spoonful into his mouth, then raised his glass to say cheers.
‘So, any news of Tony Haokip?’ Arjun asked.
Romeo nodded, helping himself to a chunk of pork. ‘There’s someone who knows him,’ he finally said. ‘But you have to go to Tamu.’
‘Tamu?’ That was in Myanmar, across the border from Moreh on the Indian side.
‘Yes. There’s a person I know there, and he knows Tony Haokip.’
‘So Tony is in Tamu?’
‘It’s better you meet this person first, he’ll tell you everything.’
‘But that means I’ll have to go to Moreh and then . . .’
‘Arjun, you leave everything to me. I’ll arrange a taxi for tomorrow, known driver.’
He thought about it. His luck seemed to have turned in a day.
‘Do you know Tony?’ he asked Romeo.
‘Umm, yes, I know him. I mean, I know who he is, haven’t met him.’
‘I see.’
‘But you go tomorrow. It’s a good chance, Arjun.’
‘This person, what is he, a Myanmar national?’
‘Yes, his name is Ong Maung, very good guy.’
‘Okay, if you can arrange that taxi for me.’
‘Sure, Arjun, he’ll be here tomorrow morning.’
The assistant was busy eating, his eyes darting between them, following the conversation. Arjun told himself that he was lucky to have met someone like Romeo.
/>
‘I heard from someone he’s trying to organize a new group,’ Arjun said. ‘Do you know anything about that?’
‘Tony? Maybe. These Naga and Kuki UGs have finished our state. That’s why we need to have our own Meitei groups.’
‘How’s the situation with the valley outfits now? Are they still fighting?’
‘Yes, they’re still active. They have a lot of support, but this state has been so heavily militarized . . . tell me, what will 10 lakh Meiteis do against 100 crore Indians?’
Romeo was getting high, Arjun realized, and all his latent views were coming to the surface.
‘So you’re looking for Tony Haokip in connection with this girl’s murder?’ Romeo asked him.
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm,’ Romeo said, nodding. ‘It’s a bad place, Delhi.’
‘You’ve been there?’ Arjun asked.
‘Yes, a few times. I could make out how our people are troubled by those Delhiites. Especially the girls.’
But was it any worse than what, say, a Bengali or a Bihari would face in Dimapur or Imphal, Arjun wondered. He decided to keep his views to himself.
‘But you know,’ Romeo went on, ‘these tribal girls are also at fault, roaming around at night in shorts and mini-skirts. Arré, know how to dress, ya! Have you heard about any Meitei girl ever getting molested in Delhi, ha?’
Arjun had to agree with him that he hadn’t. The bottle was almost over now, and Romeo was looking at him with a peculiar fixed stare. Was he possibly into men? It must be the alcohol, Arjun thought, the assistant had only had two pegs and the two of them had drunk the rest quite rapidly. He felt clearheaded though, probably the effect of years of heavy alcohol consumption.
More Bodies Will Fall Page 20