The Rat Eater

by Anand Ranganathan

  ‘This X was not a suspect in five previous murders, but four of the five suspects in those murders are dead.’

  ‘Oye, listen, I said enou...’

  ‘Remember, sir, a fellow named Norton. As you read the Curtain tonight, you’ll find that Poirot has di...’

  ‘Oye, you little ban-cho. Stop! You bast...’

  ‘But before the great man has left us, he leaves Hastings with some clues. A copy of Othel...’

  ‘Right, that’s it, ban-cho. Saala, come here you bastard, you are not listening...’

  Kalki emerged from his trance. ‘What…What, sir?’

  ‘Ban-cho, you are telling me the whole plot. You think you can get back at me like this, haan?’

  ‘Arey no no, sir, you misunderstand. I was just trying to spruce up your interest in Curtain.’

  ‘Saaley, to hell with your curtain-shirtain...Oh ban...Is that? That’s my signal.’

  ‘Arey saab, wait.’

  The man waved his fists. ‘You bastard, I’ll see to you next time. And you too, Bansilal.’

  ‘…Kindly pay attention! Coming, from, Firozpur, going, to, Dhanbad, the, three, three, zero, eight, Gangasatluj, Express, via, Firozpur…’

  ‘Sir, believe me I was...’

  ‘…Cantt, Mallanwala, Khas Makhu, Lohian, Khas, Malsian, Shahkht…’

  Bansilal pleaded with the man, now darting his way around stray dogs and tin trunks. ‘Sir, please.’

  ‘…Nakodar, Nurmahal, Bilga, Phillaur, Ludhiana…’

  Kalki and Bansilal looked at each other. The background station hum was shattered by belly-slapping laughter.

  When both had recovered, Bansilal said: ‘Abey Kalki, I could hardly wait. Look at that bastard running for his coach. Saaley, you want me to go bankrupt? Is that it?’

  ‘…Dhandari, Kalan, Sanahwal, Doraha, Khanna, Govindgarh, Sirhind, Rajpura, Ambala, Cant…’

  ‘Arey saab, just the opposite.’

  ‘…Barara, Jagadhri, Saharanpur, Roorkee, Najibabad, Nagina, Dhampur, Seohara, Moradabad…’

  ‘How so, my little Kalki musahur?’

  ‘Arey saab, this pirated edition has seventy pages upside-down and twenty missing.’

  Bansilal instinctively swatted a fly on the face of an annoyed Shatrughan Sinha. ‘What?’

  ‘…Rampur, Bareilly, Pitambarpur, Daryabad, Patranga, Rudauli, Sohwal, Faizabad, Dev, Nagar…’

  ‘Yes. I found out the hard way. The bastards who do this…I had to hitch a ride all the way to Patna to get to a good copy of Curtain and read the end of the story.’

  ‘…Ayodhya, Goshainganj, Akbarpur, Malipur, Bilwai, Shahganj…’

  ‘You are something, boy. I tell you Kalki, you are something.’

  ‘…Kheta, Sarai, Mihrawan, Jaunpur, Jalalganj, Khalispur, Babatpur, Varanasi, Kashi, Mughal, Sarai…’

  ‘Saab, about my daily wage…’

  Bansilal flicked the dead fly off Bihari Babu’s face. ‘Yes yes, in my appreciation of your service, I’ll give you not money but that very ban-cho Curtain—the one in your hand.’

  ‘…Saidraja, Bhabua, Road, Kudra, Sasaram, Dehri, Gaya, Hazaribagh, Gomoh, and, Tetulmari…’

  ‘But saab...’

  ‘Final it is, bhai.’

  ‘Saab, please…saab…yes, madam? You want? Manorama?’

  ‘…will, arrive, at, Mughal, Sarai, at, twentythree, twenty, hours, on, platform, number, seven, Thank you.’

  Bar bar din ye aaye, bar bar din shit laaye; tum karo safai roz ye meri hai arzoo. Happy Burday to you! Happy Burday to you! Happy Buuuurday, dear Marga-r-i-t-a, Happy Burday to you.

  Wake up, wake up, children. It is midnight. The clock has struck, the mouse and the scavengers have run out; hickory, dickory freedom. Say your prayers to Bapuji before you leave. Chapter and worse.

  Chalo, chalo, jaldi, jaldi. Time and tide wait for no child. Neither does open defecation. Ram, Rahim, Vasudha, Josephine, Leyla, Kalki! Chalo, chalo, time to pick up the tatti. Easier when fresh—doesn’t mix with the dog and bull shit that follow a little later. Now pay attention. Be attached to your work, which is picking up shit and not the fruits. And certainly not the money, because money can lead to a landfill. You don’t want vultures circling over you, do you now? Embrace your destiny with pride. Nishkam karma. In the eyes of God, we are all equal. Karmanye Vadhikaraste—no to the fruits, no to the fruits, you bhangi. The attachment has to be to the duty. Pick up shit in this life so maybe, just maybe you can pick up a human existence in your next. Imagine being human—ooh!

  Haina, bolo bolo. Kalki ko potty se, potty ko Kalki se, pyaaaar hai, pyaaaar hai.

  Now, now. Please stick to your task. Children between four and seven—you clean the latrines, go on. Your hands are smaller and more nimble to scoop the poop. And don’t touch anything you are not supposed to. You must not steal. It is very bad to take what is not yours. God is watching and keeping notes, especially over the scum. Because scum is like the disease that can spread unchecked, unlike the creamy layer which is like cream and has to be spread carefully. There’s never enough to go around, see. Cleanliness is next to godliness and godliness begins with not being a petty thief who steals toothpaste, you hear! Creamy layer only steal cream, not chappals. Chi.

  Damn. Toilets are being built, so sad. No more open defecation. Business will go down the drain. Seminars must be held on the importance of open defecation as a business model for an economy that is perpetually orange. What? Yes, yes, forever taking off—neither green nor red. Forever orange. What will the scavengers, those little children we pretend don’t exist, eat? Our children, mine, yours. Born dead—dead right. But they look so happy.

  That’s the beautiful thing about India. Even the poorest of the poor, the Nelson and Gina, the pavitra and the paapi—they all look so happy. Their eyes are sparkling and effervescent. Yes, with temperature—fever. No, no, they are glowing with joy. Poor people are so happy with so little. It is the rich who are difficult. Never happy. In the favelas and townships in Mexico and South Africa, you would be stoned for driving a Lambo. There, Ferrari red is bloody red. But India is truly a free country where you can do what you want. Children will run alongside in delirium, breathe in your exhaust. They are so kind they won’t even scratch your car. Freedom. Weep. Freedom sweep.

  Haina, bolo, bolo.

  Like that, we are very brilliant. Even our poor children are clever. Lack of opportunity. What to do? They breed like rats, these poor people. But see how they MT—multitask. After cleaning the latrines, some of them have graduated to washing cars. And those who have the misfortune of being able to read can be paper boys. Not girls. Because the borrowed cycle is gents only. See, it is a little difficult. Young girls have no underwear so can’t ride a gents’ cycle—you have to be sensitive to these unseen challenges in the context of the poor and very poor in India. It is not the same thing as being wretched in Brazil. Obrigada, nagada, nagada.

  We see them everywhere. MTing. Carrying school bags heavier than themselves to accompany their master’s vice. Running back and forth like rats between errands—tailor, mochi, vegetable chopper, dhobi and in some cases, homework doer. Punkh hote toh ud jaati re…but right now being a punkhawallah would do. Chop chop. Work those arms, little girl.

  No need to get any health insurance or pension or for that matter, anything that even distantly resembles a right. We boast that we give them our used clothes and our leftover food. They would be dead without us, no? If they take a day off, we complain about how there’s no one to walk the dogs, make tea, unwrap biscuits, bring water, turn on the switch, sharpen the pencil and close the window.

  We don’t say they actually help our children do their homework. That would be too much. After all, we found her in Dhanbad on a railway station with lice in her matted hair and nose running like the Ganga. If it had not been for us, she would have become a prostitute. She can thank her stars. We have bought her binoculars and nail polish. So she can feel a little sophisticated. Also perfume from
Sarojini Nagar and Stayfree from Khan Market. So she stays free. And—and—to-and-fro train fare for her to visit her village every two years. Last year, she even accompanied us to our VIP box at a T20. Good karma. Now she wants to go by plane. See, next she’ll ask for Ray-Bans and Victoria’s Secret—these people are really quite greedy.

  We’ll write about you. Observing poverty, hunger and disease is lucrative. It is the stuff of grants and theses and trips to Scandinavia. No worries. Our pickers of night soil and rags, eaters of banana and mango peels will always be there, generation after generation, to tick off the boxes. Looks good on a biodata. Sorry, sorry, CV. Biodata when talking about a ragpicker or a shit collector is really being unkind. Extracurricular activities: Worked for a week in a slum in India where there was no electricity, no 24/7 hot water and no private toilet. And gawd, were the children dirty. But I survived and here I am working for an investment banker.

  Haina, bolo, bolo.

  There is always a karmic distance to maintain between the lives of the wretched and the rich. Wretched, rich. Wretched, poor. We do so much for them. But what have we done for ourselves? To free ourselves from the tyranny of ordinariness?

  And then, suddenly, one crosses the road. Goes from here to there and from there to here. Like a benevolent cuckoo that laid eggs in a crow’s nest. Someone who decides to give karma a miss, leaving everything with just a heart and a dream for a compass. Someone who questions all, trusts all, questions nothing, trusts nothing except the now and the here. Apna haath Jagannath.

  The one who dares will be individually feared and collectively condemned. The one who dares to seek knowledge and live life in a ‘non-karmic’ way will be damned. Oh, the joys of inverted commas—a great escape. First we will pretend it is not happening. So will the interloper. In India, everybody lives outside the law anyway. Everyone pretends. The poor, the rich, the middle—we all pretend. Survival is pretence.

  Campris?

  What a splendid marketing tool. Better than the church that has the world convinced it is 2,017 years old. Immaculada.

  Who are these children? Do they know they are children? How, if they have never had a childhood, never really stolen food from the kitchen or swung a bat to play? How are they children if they have not felt the warmth of a mother’s bosom, her smell and her fragrance, the transmitters of culture and traditions, the neurons of character construction and destruction? Did you ever steal ghee, bhangi boy?

  How do you know you are a child if you have never cried over a whim or a fancy? How do you know you have arrived even if you have had the best of education? How do you know the other children of midnight don’t think you are one. Say it! Are you the one who escaped or the one who got entangled?

  It takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach us. And forever for the sun to rise.

  But the son also rises. Didn’t the father say so— ‘He will rise! ’ Maybe your own shadow is upset with you.

  So are you midnight’s child? Say it! Before you rush to die.

  7

  2004—The Heart of the Matter

  Tell her. Tell her. Now. Tell her now, you fool. You waited fifteen years. You stayed up all night yesterday wondering what you will say to her when you meet her at the platform. And now you are tongue-tied. Damn it. I don’t know what to say. We have been quiet for ten minutes. This is getting awkward. Go to hell. Why doesn’t she say something? Maybe there is no need. Maybe she can read me. Rubbish. She thinks I am an idiot. I am. Am I? So where do I begin. That’s a stupid line. Start with something trivial. What is trivia? Relax. Select. Take it easy. What take it easy. She is pretending to be calm. She is acting normal. She can read me. She came all the way to Mumbai just to read me. She is waiting for me to make a false move. How can she act so normal after what happened between us? It’s a set-up. Shut up, you idiot. She is Aparajita, your Api. If she can act, so can you. So act. Pretend. Save yourself. Say something.

  ‘Certainly crowded today,’ said Akhil, breaking their silent climb up the stairway.

  ‘It is,’ replied Aparajita.

  What was that, asshole. It is a train station. Train stations are crowded. Shit, I can’t do this. Maybe when we reach the guest house I can talk to her. Impossible to make any sense here. The whole damn world is watching us. If you keep postponing, tomorrow never comes. Why? Why are you behaving like this with her? Start with something else. What? Tell her how you refused to take a PhD student last year because her name was Aparajita. I can’t tell her that, you jerk. Okay, then. Tell her you have thought of her every single minute of every single day of every single year for the past fifteen years. That sounds cheesy. Anyone can say that. Then go to hell. 37…38…53…I am counting the steps. She belongs to another man. I will keep counting the steps.

  Tell him. Tell him. This silence is awful. I am walking with him. With him. Good lord, him. I am going to keep it simple. I can’t say it here, so be quiet. Why on earth does he not say something? Maybe he feels nothing. I know that is not true, but then what do I really know? Tell him the damn truth, the damn truth. That I came just to see him. That I wanted to see him. But why did I want to see him? Do you know that? No, I don’t. How can I? After all that happened between us. Tell him you stopped caring about your life, tell him you take each day as it comes, that you breathe a sigh of relief once it is behind you. Tell him you don’t care, that you are like the wind, you drift and you reach places you don’t want to or care about. Tell him you miss him but you fear telling him that. Tell him the truth. But I can’t, and besides not now. The whole damn world is watching us. And what will he think, what will he say…you are married and he will think you are nasty to still have such thoughts about him. But this is your chance to tell him, yes he will think…gosh, why is this so difficult? I thought I had smiled my way well through the nervousness. Yes, I thought I was brilliant, wasn’t I? I smiled when all I wanted was for the earth to open up and take me in. I laughed, I cracked jokes, when inside, I was hurting. But why was I hurting? Oh God, this is unbearable. Isn’t he the reason for your coming to Bombay? Go on, be honest. Well, let him say something first. He should start, yes he should. Let him say something first. Oh that’s so typical of you, you fool, you coward. Listen, you must say something now now. Now.

  ‘Arey here, give me that suitcase,’ said Api, clearing her throat.

  ‘…Kindly, Pay, Attention! The, Six, Zero, One, Zero, Mumbai, Mail, from…’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ said Akhil, relieved the tension was broken at last.

  ‘Listen Akhil, it’s no bother really. I’ll take a taxi to the guest house.’

  ‘…Chennai, to, Mumbai, Central, Via, Trivellore, Arakkonam, Tiruttani, Puttur, Renigunta, Koduru, Razampeta, Nandalur, Cuddapah…’

  ‘No, I told you na, it’s a day off for me.’

  ‘…Kamalapuram, Yerraguntla, Muddanuru, Kondapuram, Tadipatri…’

  ‘Alright. But aren’t we going in the other direction?’

  ‘Relax, Api. I have escorted many women from platforms to guest houses.’

  ‘…Rayalcheruvu, Gooty, Guntakal, Junction, Nagarur, Adoni, Kupgal, Kosgi, Manthralayam, Road, Matmari, Raichur, Krishna, Narayanpet, Road…’

  Api stopped in her tracks. ‘I say, Akhil.’

  ‘…but none as beautiful as you.’

  ‘Watch it. You don’t want to be escorted from the platform to the police station.’

  ‘…Yadgir, Nalwar, Wadi, Shahabad, Gulbarga, Ganagapur, Road, Dudhani…’

  ‘Just what you would expect from a police memsaab for all your troubles.’

  ‘Achha Baba, enough, na. I know you can flirt.’

  ‘…Akalkot, Road, Hotgi, Solapur, Junction, Mohol, Madha, Kurduvadi…’

  ‘Thought you’d forgotten…Arey coolie. Is that St George Road gate still open?’

  ‘…Kem, Jeur, Bhigwan, Daund, Junction, Pune, Junction, Khadki, Lonavala…’

  ‘It is, saab. Closes only after five.’

  ‘Thanks. Come, Api, we’ll
take a shortcut to the car park.’

  ‘…Karjat, Kalyan, Junction, Thane and Dadar, is, arriving, at, platform, number, Seven, thank, you…’

  ‘I am after you...’

  ‘Behind you, Api, behind you.’

  Api smiled. ‘One and the same.’

  ‘So, back in college, were you behind me, or after me?’

  ‘Neither. You were after me.’

  ‘And then I looked back and you weren’t behind me.’

  The witticism backfired. Akhil tried to smooth over the thing. ‘Joke. Arey joke, yaar.’

  ‘Really, that’s not funny, Akhil.’

  ‘Achha sorry, bas. Leave it na, boss, come on.’

  The two squeezed through the side exit and were accosted right away by touts. But they were seasoned at this—the trick was to keep walking. For a moment, Akhil lost sight of Api, who, understandably, had attracted more of the swarm. He managed to catch her by her wrist and pull her to safety. Akhil located the attendant carrying a wire loop overflowing with key bunches, swapped a ten-rupee note for his car keys, and together with Aparajita, navigated his way through the impossible mess, made more impossible by cars in neutral parked bumper to bumper in multiple rows with just about enough space to get through.

  ‘You can let go of my wrist now,’ said Api, smiling.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t even notice,’ said Akhil, embarrassed, as he put down the suitcase and shoved a car away using his backside.

  ‘Hahh…so, here we are.’

  Api couldn’t help the look of astonishment. ‘Hang on a minute. And what in heaven’s name do we have here?’

  Wiping the sweat from his face and neck, Akhil looked at Api. ‘What?’

  ‘This. A Fiat. You must be joking.’

  ‘Why, what’s the problem? You allergic to Fiats?’

  ‘Listen sweetheart, tell me if they aren’t paying you well. I am sure you are well qualified for a constable’s naukri. I’ll talk to Ajay—constables earn a packet these days. I know of one who drives a Honda City…a Fiat.’

  ‘Listen, my apsara. I own this dream car by choice, for your kind information. I mean, what’s wrong with it?’