Ramkripal kept talking incessantly in a low voice. Perhaps he thought his daughter might be hidden somewhere within his words and talking to us could allow him to reach her.
A thought nagged at me – had someone informed the police about our decision to come here? Today was the fourth day that Janaki had been missing, and the police had arrived only now. So, my apprehension seemed justified. But then I laughed – how on earth could we, with all our limitations, have scared the police into doing its work?
When I asked for Ramkripal’s phone number, he took me aside. ‘Are you a journalist?’ he asked. His question was filled with intense hope. He told me that on the day Rukkhi had not come home, his son, with the help of a friend, had put him in touch with a journalist. ‘He asked me everything over a phone call and requested her photo over WhatsApp. The news item was published in Dainik Jagriti too, but he has not answered our call since then.’
I said, ‘I am not a journalist. I am Rafique’s friend. I’ve come from Delhi.’
Something stirred in him when I mentioned Rafique. His eyes glinted. ‘We heard the news of his disappearance. He came to our home twice. He was Rukkhi’s teacher and also ran a theatre group. I was not in favour of it, but I never stopped her from participating in those activities. Not once did I stop her. Never.’
As if the momentum of his speech was beginning to fade, he looked up and shook his head in denial for a while.
A small boy, who looked to be around eight or nine, came and stood by Ramkripal’s side and spoke to him in Bhojpuri: ‘Ye lo ke bhittar bolawal ja ta.’ They’re being called inside. Besides a few instances in films and on the streets of Delhi, this was my first encounter with the Bhojpuri language.
The boy led us indoors. As I was about to follow him, Ramkripal put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Please make Rukkhi’s mother understand.’
‘Sure,’ I said. Both she and I needed to understand what was happening.
We went from the veranda into a small room. A courtyard lay beyond, past another door in a straight line from the one we had entered by. As I stepped into the courtyard, I saw several women sitting on a tarpaulin. One sat with her back against a wall, seemingly not in her senses. She saw me come in, and I could see her eyes welling up with tears when I looked at her. Perhaps she couldn’t stand the fact that a stranger had seen her helplessness and despair so closely.
The other women had been sitting as if at a wake. They gathered themselves when they saw us five men walk in. One wanted to bring chairs from outside, but I insisted it was not necessary. All of us sat on the tarp with the women.
I presumed the room on the right which the constables were going through must belong to Janaki. I didn’t like the sight of a room filled with policemen, so I looked around for other signs that it was Janaki’s room. I saw the iconic photograph of the poet Muktibodh hanging right above the door. He stood to the right in the picture, holding a burning matchstick to a beedi, and his gesture was so lively that it felt like the beedi would light up any second now. A few lines from one of his poems were scribbled with a black pen to the left:
Consider it ego or
A superiority complex
Or something similar
But the truth is that
We don’t have the time
To achieve
So-called success in life,
We are not idle!
We are extremely busy.
The courtyard had a narrow scaffolding, and it seemed as if the rain had tried getting rid of the last line of the verse. But the line remained – ‘We are extremely busy.’ Something was written on the right edge of the picture, where the frame ended. A two-letter name, written in such a tiny scrawl that it was impossible to read. The second letter was drawn as a brush.
There was a green-coloured handpump in the courtyard with a worn-out handle. A few unwashed utensils lay beside it. A Singer sewing machine was on the other side of the courtyard, and several clothes had been dumped on it. A book was visible in the pile, and the cover looked familiar. Greyish-white, or rather, off-white. The silence was too much to endure, so I got up to check the book out.
‘Oh my god!’ The words escaped my mouth before I knew it, and then, ‘Who reads this?’ I already knew the answer, but I said it aloud in my excitement.
‘Rukkhi Di,’ a girl replied.
‘Are you her sister?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I see a picture of her?’
The book was the second volume of Mayakovsky’s poetry, an old text published by Raduga Publications, a state-owned publisher in the Soviet Union. You couldn’t find it in shops any more. I had both volumes at home, but I had never read either. Raduga had collected Mayakovsky’s long poems in the second volume. There was a rough sketch of the poet on the endpaper in front. Below it was a signature: ‘Rafique Neel’. All I could think of at that moment was that here was a man who had dedicated himself to educating a new generation. Jagdish and Mukesh walked over. Jagdish kept quiet as Mukesh said, ‘Rafique Sir used to assign us a book every month. Mayakovsky’s first volume was assigned to me. On the last Monday of the month, the day when Noma’s market is shut, we were supposed to get together and speak about the book, or poem, or whatever the work was. This month, Kushal got the most difficult book.’ He did not mention the name of the book but chuckled instead. An innocent chuckle.
‘Not used to assign a book, assigns a book,’ I whispered in his ear.
One of the policemen came outside upon hearing us. It was the third constable from the previous day. He was either pleased to see me or did a great job pretending to be, because he greeted me effusively. Then he took the book from my hands and said, ‘We’re conducting a search.’ I remembered nothing else except the indignity of the previous day, so I said to him as he walked away, ‘It’s a book of poems.’ Without turning around, he acknowledged me with a grunt.
Janaki’s sister introduced herself as Maithili and handed me a bundle of eight or ten photos. There was a radiance on Janaki’s face in these pictures that was missing from the image printed in the newspaper.
Maithili requested us to have lunch with them. We looked at our watches; it was already quarter past one.
I had wanted to talk to Janaki’s mother, but I could not even bring myself to look her in the eye. I did not know her, but I could very well understand what she was going through. Because I could empathize with her, I wanted to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth. She did not know us either but looked at us again and again. Unlike Janaki’s father, she was speechless. Her stony eyes did all the talking. It seemed as if her tears had dried up, but I was never right about these things.
As I hadn’t said anything, I tried to touch her feet before leaving. But … Oh, how can I explain the ‘but’, especially when I had to face a mother. She threw herself at my feet instead. And those cries! I can never forget those cries. As she bowed, she struck her head so hard I could hear the sound it made upon hitting the floor. If I hadn’t withdrawn my feet in embarrassment, perhaps the blow would have hurt her less. But her pain was not just physical. Her cries broke past her dammed emotions. Addressing me – yes, me! – she wailed, ‘Hamri bahini key khoji da, ae babu. Hamri bahini ke bola da.’ Help us find our daughter, sir. Bring her back.
Everyone in the courtyard began to weep after that. Jagdish and Neeraj cried into each other’s shoulders. Mukesh wept over a wall. The women covered their eyes with the ends of their saris. A crying Maithili tried to console her howling mother. I wanted to console everyone, but my throat was choked with emotions.
Our collective cries united us as one.
The teardrops that fell in Janaki’s courtyard chased us in the car as well. The car moved at great speed – without a care for the poor condition of the road and the potholes. Sahadeo looked straight ahead and did not pay attention to anything else, as if he wanted to run over the ‘system’. He dropped us off at Radha Chitra Mandir. The place was buzzing with
people since the noon show of Bajrangi Bhaijaan had just ended, and the matinee show was about to begin.
I WAS BY MYSELF FOR THE first time since the morning, but this lasted only until the time I entered the police station. I like to be alone after being around others for an extended period of time, and when I cannot, I turn irritable and lash out. I had wanted to ask Sahadeo to drop us directly at the station, but the past two hours had been so unbearably rough on us all that we felt like accomplices in a horrible crime and could not bring ourselves to say anything.
I was relieved to see Shalabh. I waited for about five or six minutes after sending him a message, and then he came to fetch me. He said he was just about to call me. ‘What are you up to in the evening?’ he asked.
‘I feel like being alone today.’
‘Let’s plan for tomorrow evening then.’
The conversation continued as we went to his office, which was a small one but tastefully decorated. A handful of files lay on the desk. There were other objects too that were legally necessary. Our beloved tricolour, of course. It had a sticker on its base that had become discoloured, probably as the result of attempting to remove it. Gandhi’s picture was on the back wall.
‘I was just about to give you a call,’ he said again.
‘Yes.’
I told him someone called Amandeep had called, and how he wanted to tell me something about Rafique and Janaki but was too scared. Shalabh let out a loud guffaw. He leaned back in his chair as if he had an easy explanation to offer. ‘So he reached out to you as well! The man wants to be the centre of attention. He sat in this chair before me, and is suspended at the moment.’ When I did not react to this, he reiterated. ‘Suspended! A matter of financial misappropriation has come to light.’
‘Why did the matter come out now?’ I asked curiously.
‘How can I say why now?’ The question perturbed him. ‘Only the constable who was complicit in this sin and whose conscience has woken up now can give us an answer. Amandeep was posted at Baitalpur station at the time and was about to get promoted.’
Both of us stayed quiet for a while. There was no sound at all. Then Shalabh picked up the conversation again, ‘Even a writer like you will be surprised to hear the constable’s account.’
I was surprised anyway. Was ‘financial misappropriation’ enough reason to suspend police officials now!
‘But why does Amandeep want to contact me? I couldn’t sense any deceit in his voice.’
‘Perhaps he wants your help in getting reinstated. Help him if you can. You know people at the top. There is no need otherwise to pay attention to his ludicrous gossip. But do let me know if he tries to get in touch again.’ He paused momentarily. ‘Rafique’s matter, on the other hand, seems to be taking a different turn. This is not a simple matter of disappearance or abduction, as everyone has been thinking. Perhaps you too were thinking along the same lines as your friend. Did you all visit Janaki’s place?’
I was stunned. ‘Have you put us under surveillance?’
‘No, boss. One of the constables who went there told me. Our investigations suggest this is a matter of a romantic relationship. But the meticulous way in which it was planned also indicates something beyond a simple love affair, so we’re investigating that angle too.’ He pulled his phone out, the latest iPhone. Opening WhatsApp, he tapped on a number and played a video for me.
The video was shot haphazardly. The entire frame was shaking as if the camera was not still. One could see Rafique lying down. I recognized Rafique, but Shalabh still said, ‘This is your friend, or your friend’s shauhar, whatever you want to call him.’
Rafique was lying down on a culvert by the roadside. The camera moved to the right, and a young lady appeared. It was clear that this was Janaki. Her gait was unusual, which was noticed by the person behind the camera too, for the lens panned down to her feet for a couple of seconds before returning to her face. Now both of them appeared in the frame. Rafique had left just enough space on the side of the culvert for Janaki to sit.
Rafique: You’ve come?
Janaki: So it would seem.
They both went silent. Then they looked upwards in the same direction. Their gaze was so steady that it became imprinted on my mind.
Janaki: My uncle is in the market today. He had called.
Rafique: Say, we have to leave now.
Janaki: Understand, we have to leave now.
Rafique: Understood, we have to leave now.
Janaki: Must you stand atop your pedestal and ridicule others all the time, Neju? Is this what your Allah-Allah-Khair-Salla has taught you?
Rafique: He has also taught me that people should not be late, but they are.
Janaki: Stop it.
Rafique: Stopped it … Rakesh and Supriya went to the lodge.
Janaki: Find someone else you can go to a lodge with.
The video ended here. Shalabh looked at me for a while, then said, ‘How will you tell your friend?’
After recovering from the shock of the video, I requested him to send it to me. But he said sharing police evidence was not legally allowed. Instead, he handed his phone over to me. ‘You may watch it on this.’ Which I did, several times over.
I pondered over what my reaction to the video should be. Questions erupted in my mind: Who shot it? If a man and a woman are in a relationship and not performing an act, would they allow someone to shoot such a video? For all I knew, it could very well be a scene from one of their street plays. One or two people were visible in the background too. And why did Janaki address Rafique as ‘Neju’?
Shalabh had two answers for all my questions. The first – his answer to my last question – was terribly unconvincing. ‘Perhaps someone else has laid claim to the name “Rafique”, like his wife. Which is why she wanted to give him her own special name.’ As for the other questions, he merely sighed and said, ‘So you’re a video specialist too? And have you seen this video before? Is that why you have an explanation ready?’ This last was intended as a warning for me to not overstep my bounds.
Then he changed the topic and said, ‘The member of Parliament, Madam Khudaija Bibi Lari, called again. She said we had to take good care of you. How do you know her?’ Then he added, as if he suddenly thought his question was incomplete, ‘I mean, does she know you through your books or is there a family connection?’
I was hearing her name for the first time. I silently thanked the owner of my publishing house and told Shalabh, ‘It’s her grace, that’s all. Otherwise, who am I that she should know me?’
‘Not at all! Who doesn’t respect writers?’ He seemed hellbent on pursuing this subject.
I thought I should ask him if he did too, but there were other important questions, so I let it go. ‘But you can’t reach a conclusion on the basis of this video, can you?’
‘We are looking for other evidence too.’
‘This has to be a video from a performance of their street play.’
‘You are saying this for the sake of your friend.’
‘Not for the sake of my friend, but for the sake of justice!’
‘We are always there for the sake of justice,’ he said and pointed towards the motto of the state police. ‘We suspended one of ours for the sake of justice. Don’t you think that’s proof enough?’
All the time I was at the station, the question of how to tell Anasuya what I had learnt continued to bother me. What would she go through? What more must she go through? When I tell her, will she look at me? What will she think about Rafique? Will she remember the moments when she might have had doubts about Rafique and Janaki and brushed them aside? Was it even necessary to give this information to a pregnant woman? You could search for a person who had gone against their will. But to look for someone who had left of their own volition would be like an act of revenge. That person should be let go. Those who want to leave must be allowed to leave. Love should not have any dilemmas.
But is it really so easy? How can you let go of
someone you love? Perhaps you could let a lover leave; in fact, you should let them go. But what about someone you were married to? Should you go looking for them for the sake of the child in your womb?
I wanted to go to Anasuya, but I didn’t want to tell her anything. This dilemma would have killed me, had she not called and said she was on her way to the hospital. I was disheartened that she hadn’t told me earlier. I would have gone along myself, or sent Sahadeo with her, or made better arrangements.
‘How are you going?’ I asked her.
She replied as if there was nothing unusual about her answer. If I hadn’t read that page from Rafique’s diary, I would have found it very unusual.
I WAS EXHAUSTED. IF IT WAS any other day, I would have gone off to sleep. I could sleep whenever I wanted, which was a blessing. And I really wanted to sleep at that moment, but the thought of Anasuya would not leave my mind. The diary’s pages had still not dried. After watching the video, I had lost interest in reading his diary, but Rafique’s writing pulled me back towards it like a magnet. Most of the papers strewn across the room were as damp as before, but those spread out in the bathroom were less so. Some had even dried completely. I read these until I fell asleep.
6/4/15
Madam Anasuya wants to give me a surprise. I hope that when she gives me the surprise, my expressions also convey that it is indeed a surprise to me. The landlord’s wife has asked me not to tell Anasuya that she has already told me. But madam, you should have taken me with you to the doctor. I wanted to experience the joy of discovering you were going to become a mother together with you.
The undergraduate examinations begin tomorrow. I have to be the invigilator every day. To be an invigilator is also like playing a character.
12/8/15
The landlord does not like our theatre group’s office. But brother, we’ve just rented one room. He came over and sat in on the rehearsal. If his name was Motumal, it wouldn’t have been out of place – just like that children’s rhyme, ‘The fat man sat on the chair / The chair cried out in despair.’ It was only from the chair’s creaking that we realized someone else was in the office too. He began to say that the play wouldn’t be allowed to go on. The neighbours were apparently objecting to it. All I had to offer him was a role. I thought of offering him Amit’s role, but he absolutely didn’t want it. I wasn’t upset. When people aren’t upset by crimes and murders but get infuriated by discussions around them, what’s the point of feeling bad about this? My students, who are turning into my friends, my companions, consider this my cowardice. But if I don’t mind what Motumal has to say, why should I feel bad about what these rookies say?
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