The promise of today

The promise of today

She woke up that morning knowing it was going to be a beautiful day; determined that her day would be beautiful. Today would reflect the image of the rising sun she saw.

No not today, not today for the endless dreary depression of the dead being tossed in a heap with other unidentified bodies. Not today for children dying without seeing the life they were promised, and most certainly not today to watch bloated bodies with organs ripped off by the sea float to the shore.

Dr. Nita Shankar was on holiday for a week. She may be alone but that didn’t change the fact that she was on a holiday to forget the harrowing days she lived through. Dealing with the victims of Tsunami was most certainly not on her list of things to do today, in fact, never again would it be on her itinerary of the day.

Today she would get a massage or, maybe, read the book that had been lying in her bag for months now; She could finally go on a much needed shopping spree and eat in the new restaurant, not so new anymore of course, but new to her. She could splurge today. You’re a rich woman when you have done nothing but tend to the dead or dying for 3 months on a regular income that you didn’t have the time or heart to spend. Who could eat a sizzler after holding a child’s intestine in her hands?

The dead or dying... When would Nina learn to switch her brain off and stop thinking! It was just a job wasn’t it? To hell with that stupid oath she took. It was meant to be just a job. Tending to the sick is just a job! So what if they were dying? So what if they struck by a tragedy of unimaginable proportion? It was high time to stop. People did not land up on hospital stretchers to die, Not in Kasturi Bhai Private Hospital anyway, she decided with a violent mental shake up.

After this holiday she would be paid lots and lots of money to tend to people who, she decided, would live long. There would be medicines for everybody. There would be no fight with politicians over where the funds are going. People would live. One in thousands would die every year instead of one in thousands surviving everyday. Oh no, not in those swanky, disinfected Kasturi Bhai Private Hospital beds with their clean white sheets that smell of the sun and Dettol.

It was a new beginning and oh yes, the sun had set on those dying people who would cry. Who were they to cry anyway? They only had to see one person die, see one house washed away, one child die slowly of starvation while watching helplessly. No it was she who deserved the right to cry! She saw the endless lives wasted away. She saw how only the drunks and no goods were safe from harm. She saw the endless bottomless sea spit out disfigured bodies. She saw money for antiseptic and glucose being spent on a flashy BMW for the mayor. What did everybody else have to cry about?

Of course, who cared about the silly graduate from some medical school who decided to spend half a year tending to the hopeless dying? What was the purpose of her job anyway? Make the dying see truth? Help their family (if they found any that is) deal with the grief?

To hell with all that! Not ever again!  It was high time all the melodrama ended. She was looking at a new life now- one of great riches. The dying poor could do just that-die! If it wasn’t the Tsunami it would be poverty or something else, entirely, that killed them. Why waste her life on them? Something had to kill them anyway right? All better now, praise the Lord for natural calamities, they proved to be the fastest way to get rid of the nation’s parasites didn’t they!

Oh she would never have to deal with that in Kasturi Bhai Private Hospital. No siree, she would see people pay happily in Rupees and Dollars and Pounds. She would watch as people got better every single day. She would help and be helped and she would never ever have to perform three surgeries at the same time ever again. It was time for change and it was going to come soon.

Oh but dear Dr. Nita Shankar. When world she grow up and take off her rose tinted glasses? She never asked, so the interviewers never told that if a patient who suffered an accident was wheeled in she couldn’t touch him with a barge pole till the police came in. So what if he died?

What the people at Kasturi Bhai Private Hospital didn’t tell the silly, idealistic Dr. Nita Shankar MBBS, was that even the poverty stricken landed up in Kasturi Bhai Private Hospital. She forgot to ask, so didn’t tell her that if a poor woman walked in with her child who could be rescued she couldn’t a thing till the deposit was paid for. Oh no, the thalli that the weeping mother would violently yank off her neck simply wouldn’t do. She must, yes she must, with a grim face, tell the woman, watching her child die, to pawn her oh so precious thalli for her little munchkin and come back with the money because till then, well until then, Kasturi Bhai Private Hospital would not recognize the child as its patient.

Foolish,foolish Nita Shankar. What could she possibly know of the business health care is? At 25 straight out of medical school and Tsunami relief work Nina Shankar didn’t realize that every rising sun was followed by a setting sun and that the dark doesn’t get any prettier with money. 

Mrs. Pinto's house

Mrs. Pinto's house

Dear old Mrs. Pinto would sit in the garden of her ancient three storied bungalow and watch for hours as people passed by. Occasionally, she would ring the bell to summon her trusted man servant Lalji. She would sit endlessly on the rusty garden chair, that at some point of time was painted white as was the fad, and watch as a procession of vehicles pass her gate.

 She loved watching it- the magic of mobility. People of different shapes and sizes would make her beloved Mumbai come alive. Of course, what helped keep the love for this life outside was how, invariably, every one of these passers by in their many avatars would look at this bungalow, in the middle of a residential area full of multi storied buildings, and wonder how it had survived.

Mrs. Pinto loved to tell anybody, who bothered asking, how the bungalow came to be hers and why she could never sell it. How could anybody help listening to this frail old woman in her flowery cotton nightie tell her story? You could fall asleep over the tea and cucumber sandwiches she would serve you, but you woul wake up having listened to every word of her story.

“I was maybe fifteen when I married that Mr. Pinto. Of course, in my time, that was very late to be married. You see the problem was not with me; In those days I was so beautiful everybody wanted to marry me, but this Papa... You know everyone always said, “What a wonderful man this Mr. D’Souza is but oh he loves his daughter too much”. You know, he would bring me sweets everyday and he made sure mama braided my hair in the most beautiful satin ribbons. Oh, I wore only lace in those days. It was the thing to do. Not even all these things that you call lace these days, what I had was just beautiful, it was hand made, needle lace.

“Wait... But that’s not what I was telling you about. Ah yes! So my darling father, oh he just couldn’t let go of me. You see, I had three brothers and I was the youngest, the only girl, His own little moon papa called me No, my father couldn’t let go of me. He said that this is India, only. He said, “Anybody can come but this is India. Once a girl goes, she goes forever and never comes back, so how can I let go of my little moon.”

So Mama and Papa would fight everyday. Then one day, Papa didn’t buy me new lace when I tore my dress. Mama told Uncle Chacha’s wife, Auntie Chachi, to stitch it up for me. You see these big gardens? Uncle Chacha tended to them all alone. Oh it was so beautiful then. We grew apples and oranges and lemons and don’t even let me start about the flowers that we grew.

“Oh my old age I did it again. Where was I? Yes I was saying, so one day Papa agreed that my torn lace must be mended and if I lost my ribbons nobody should buy me any more. We didn’t eat apple pies anymore of drink orange juice anytime we wanted. Even Tommy, Lesley and Bob, my brothers who were studying in England, had to come back.  You see I was just a child then and I was happy to have my brothers back. Of course I missed my ribbons and my dresses and limitless supply of everything I wanted but you see, the way I saw it, it was a fair bargain- give up all the fancies to be treated like a queen by your three big brothers whom I loved dearly and missed desperately.

“But one day I heard mama and papa shouting at each other. I can’t say that wasn’t common but, you see, they were in the attic and I was in the garden and to hear them shouting so far away was quite uncommon. What was worse was Mama breaking all her China. So dear it, was to her. You know, it had these delicate blue flowers on them what is that word? Chintz? Something like that, anyway, it was the pride and joy of her life. No don’t misunderstand me, she loved all her children and the dogs and cats and cows we had, but nothing could make her smile quite like her beautiful crockery on her beautiful lace table cover. It had been a while since we had thrown a party to put all that on the table. You see we all ate from steel plates. Mother didn’t trust us with her plates. I mean, a bunch of hooligans like us, of course she would worry about us breaking and chipping everything, so the special plates were for special people.

“So you understand why I was worried when I heard them from where I was standing in the garden. The next thing I remember is Mama running onto the road in her tattered green gown. Why I remember that moment is because I had never seen my mother run out onto the road. I had never seen her run, which was shocking enough, but onto the road? That was something I hadn’t ever thought of as possible. Something about etiquette she would say. “Women shouldn’t run, women should comb their hair, women must keep their hands and nails neat.” You know, my mother was very pretty. Lots of people say I looked just like her and it made me glow. She had beautiful hair. Auntie Chachi would brush it for her every night; “hundred strokes”, she said “to have the hair of Rupunzel.” Sometimes she even let me comb it for her. Mama was always so delicate. The slightest knot and she would whimper. You see, she didn’t approve of screaming no? So to set an example she would never scream in my presence.

“Oh why don’t you tell me when I forget about the story? All you young people, such strange notions of what is proper. So anyway, I had never seen her go outside our gate so when I saw her run out like that I was quite shocked. I was tempted to follow her, it might have been quite a game, but then I remembered the noises upstairs and froze where I was. Then Papa ran out and said to me,

“That’s it! You must get married. I will miss you my dear girl”, then he gave me a tight hug and ran out too.

“I don’t remember too much of the rest of the day. I was quite excited you know. I had seen my cousins get married. I knew I would get new clothes and ribbons for that. After all, I was going to be a bride, you know.

“I don’t know how they found Mr. Pinto and how everything was fixed up. I think the first time I saw him was through the veil on my wedding dress. What a strapping man that Mr. Pinto was. Some twenty-three I was told he was. You know, he had this moustache and he certainly looked like a charmer in his wedding suit. I couldn’t wait to begin the rest of my life with that handsome man.

“I was told later that I had met him before, but you know it wasn’t till I turned 40 that my memory started improving so what to do, I didn’t remember seeing him at all. So, two days after the wedding I was whisked off to some tea garden in Assam where his whole family grew tea. It was a British thing to do but somehow they managed to get a hill for themselves.

“Then two months later I was taken home out of the blue. They said say, “Say goodbye, this is not yours anymore” and pointed at my beautiful house.

“Now, before I tell you the next part, you must remember that I was only fifteen and all this happened suddenly. You don’t take a fifteen year old girl, married or otherwise to her parents house thinking she is going to meet her family, anxious to tell them about all her wonderful new adventures and spring a foul surprise like that on her!

 My god! I must have embarrassed my mother that day because I was wailing like a little child, kicking and screaming. I mean I was a married woman, no? Married women are expected to be grown up however young (or old) they might be and I here I was clinging to that post, you see there, refusing to let go. Mr. Pinto went into a fit and said he would leave without me if I didn’t let go and behave like a grown up. I told him he could go, that I could live without everything but this house. I told him, between my sobs, this was my house and nothing could change that and that it would always be mine.

“Poor Mama and Papa, they just stood there watching helplessly while I was being dragged off the pillar by my new husband. I was like a beast hanging on to its prized catch. How that man pulled me. Oh, bless his soul and may he rest in peace, Mr. Pinto was such a gentleman. That was the only time he treated me like that. I probably deserved it too, but, you see, it was my garden and my pillar and house and my… Well I could do this forever. I just couldn’t part with any of it.

“Mr. Pinto had decided it would be a one month holiday where I could spend a long time saying goodbye to the house I grew up in. Clearly, he didn’t anticipate the tantrum I threw. So after all that travelling, I was only allowed to stay home from the time I walked in through the gates to the time I was roughly pulled off the pillar.

“That was the last I saw of my parents before they died together. You know, nobody told me what happened to them. No, not the part about their train being derailed during what was considered part of the freedom struggle but about what happened to them after the house was sold. My brothers also refused to tell me. Then they all died and it remained a mystery. I would still like to know but there is nobody left to ask.

“See I’ve take off again and you didn’t tell me. Where was I? Ah yes, so once Mr. Pinto yanked me off the pillar I was sent back to Assam where I made countless devious plans to get back my beloved house. You see, I was happy only in that tea garden, knowing that my house missed me but then to suddenly be told that I could never come back to the house just broke my heart. But then things were what they were and for 26 years I didn’t see my house. My husband and son kept me busy for all that time. Left to myself, I know I would have acted on one of those plans.

“Then one by one the whole Pinto family died. First, it was the parents then the son and I don’t know about the rest of the family but I didn’t wait to hear from them when Mr. Pinto died. You know I missed the family. They were so patient with me. Mr. Pinto’s mother was as nice to me as Mama and Mr. Pinto’s father doted on me. They never had any daughters, you see. There was genuine affection among us. Oh and Mr. Pinto, I still blush to think of all the things he taught me. Dear man, I still miss him.

“So once Mr. Pinto passed, I grieved my husband’s death for a month. It was too much really. Even after all that time I had not really grown up. I was always treated like a spoilt child, no. So when my whole family died I decided enough of this I will go back to the place that made me happiest.

I quickly packed my bags before the rest of the family turned up at the doorstep, found a lawyer and some other people and all and sold the bloody hill. I packed exactly what I needed and reached Bombay.

That’s when I really grew up. I tell you, a single woman in Bombay has much to learn. Especially one who decides to move into a temporary house and adamantly decides to have a particular house.

“After one year of battling with the world I finally got my beautiful house back. Of course I was cheated. Think about it no, who trades a hill for a three storied bungalow? But then again any seller could see that this crazy woman wasn’t counting the Rupees. I was on a mission to get my beloved house back and so I did. My poor son also, Jeff, stuck in London that time couldn’t do a thing. I was a grieving widow and orphan on a mission and no man in his right mind would choose to get in her way.

“Ah! So that is how I came to get my beautiful house back. I’m never letting it go. No. All those builders come and say some rubbish but who’ll give them this beauty to tear down into something that is lots of ugly boxes stacked one over the other? I’ve told that Jeff also that he is not getting the house. What will he do with it anyway in that London? So I’ve written to the Government, some heritage site something, some reporter was telling me. I told you no, anything to protect my house, so I wrote to some people. They’ll come sometime and help me. Hopefully I won’t die before that.

“Ah yes some endless families from everywhere came demanding a piece of my house. I told them off. You, dear child, see a frail woman, but if you threaten my house and my child you’ll see the other side of me. I’m at peace now. I have everything I want. If I die in this house I’ll be the happiest woman there ever was.”

The story never changed. Not the deviances, not the admonitions in the middle- nothing. Mrs. Pinto breathed her last in her beautiful house and the pack of wolves for builders clamoured to buy the house again but Mrs. Pinto had thought of everything before the end.

You can still see the house in the middle of what she called little boxes stacked on top of each other. It is a heritage site now, untouched by change, held in a time wrap. 

Incognito

This is a short story from school that was refined in college. I've read it so many times by now that I can't bring myself to look at it anymore. I'm still surprised this idea even struck me.
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Incognito

Rand building, 9^th main road, Tripathi lane, New Delhi.

The address plate said exactly what the note in my hand did. The one time I wanted my driver to take me to the wrong place turned out to be the one time I was sent a driver who knew where he was meant to go As luck would have it, we did not meet with an accident or land up at a place so far that I would have to cancel the appointment that was made for me. Today wasn’t my lottery-of-luck day.

I take a deep breath and walk into the steel elevator to be confronted by the shadow of who I used to be. Reflected in the metal of the door, I see the image of a washed up 35-year-old with nervous eyes and an unshaved face. For a person usually particular about his looks, I barely recognize the man in the crumpled grey suit as myself. I willed the lift to break down but obviously that didn’t happen either. I manage to humor myself thinking mera number kub ayega but there is very little that is actually funny about that.

I had reached the 13^th floor in the thirty seconds it took me to think of all that and with a calm I did not feel, walked towards the receptionist and said, “Good afternoon. I have an appointment with Mira Namboodri, my name is Rajdeep Singh.” (Before I go on I find it necessary to tell you how beige wall to wall carpeting and a young receptionist behind a mahogany desk are not relaxing, despite popular belief). She shuffled through her books with a frown and suddenly said, “Oh of course. Mr. Singh. You are an hour early. I’m sure she will see you soon. In the meanwhile, you can wait in the waiting room.” There were two things that irritated me about the pretty receptionist: one, the expressions on her face when she realized who I was and two, her insistence on telling me to wait in the waiting room. I’ve always thought it ridiculous to say something as hackneyed as that, particularly, in a space like this.

In any case now was a bad time to be irritated by a receptionist so I followed her into a room that led off to the right. The beige carpeting continued in this room but the look was far from that of the bland reception. The big fish tank that made up one wall transformed the room into a wealthy man’s drawing room. Rooms that screamed of prosperity in times like these always made me nervous.

I sat on a leather couch opposite the fish tank and barely noticed the woman leave breaking out in cold sweat despite the air conditioning.

Mr. Singh, that’s what she called me…Mr. Singh…. I wanted to scream and tell the world that I am Detective Singh not ‘Mr.’ I AM detective Rajdeep Singh, an inspector in the Special Crime Branch Unit.”

But of course, nobody could know that. Soon enough I would lose my identity as Rajdeep Singh and be a smuggler or gangster or whatever else was required of me. Again.

I looked around the room to distract myself and noticed a framed name plate that read Dr. Mira Namboodri; I knew that already. I also knew that she was the best criminal psychiatrist in the country and the Government paid big money to keep her working on our side.

What I didn’t understand however, was why I was here. This wasn’t where I belonged; this was where high profile criminals or cops who had “gone bad” were brought. What had I done? I sit staring at the fish swimming and lose myself to the nagging memories…

A boy of 21 as patriotic as any average city-bred Punjabi; I saw my family home go up in smoke on1st December 1971. I had heard all the talk of a war but didn’t imagine seeing my family burned alive. I can still recall walking back from college seeing my house on fire with no trace of my family even after the flames were put out. The whole of Punjab turned, overnight, was into a state of hysteria since we were close to the border. The war started 2 days later and I was among the first people to sign up in the Emergency Recruitment Programme. It was probably the need for revenge, more than any special patriotism, which gave me the adrenaline rush I needed to sign those papers.

Thinking back I have no regrets. I was fighting for my country, something every person owed his country. I didn’t have a family to worry about or a family to worry about me and I didn’t particularly have too many friends. I was asked to leave to Delhi the same day. The man at the desk said almost apologetically that they needed all the help they could get.

I went through a series of tests and a physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting week of training. My transformation in that one week will never cease to amaze me. I entered, an uncouth lad of 21 with no idea what so ever of how a gun works or how to eat with anything but my bare hands and left a “gentleman”. I was a proud serviceman. I learnt everything from social niceties to survival essentials in 1 week flat. There wasn’t an escape at the institute anyway.

I hated it while I was there. Being the only boy in my family I had been as spoilt as every boy was in the India of the 1950s and to suddenly have a sergeant screaming in my ear from dawn to midnight made me angry, depressed and amused at the same time. But all that is almost forgotten: the memory I have is of the man who walked out of those gates.

I was an Acting Sub Lieutenant on the Viabhav, my first ship. The war was over in 14 days and I saw very little action. Our ship was headed to Karachi to bomb, and therefore destroy, their naval force but we didn’t reach before the ceasefire was declared. At this juncture being the patriot that I am, I have to say: we creamed the Pakistani force in 2 week and that made me prouder than ever to be Indian. I had my revenge in the enemy nation's disgrace.

After the war I came back to Delhi and for the next 7 years I was transferred several times to various parts of the country to keep the Indian borders safe. In those 7 years I was married and divorced and took up a vow to never marry again which helped when I retired from the Navy force. It was time to help clean up my nation from the filthiest road upwards, time to join the Crime Branch...

To work in the Special Crime Branch is every man’s dream come true. Working undercover against high profile criminals, with top secret gadgetry, felt nothing short of wonderful- who in their right mind would pass up the chance to be a real life James Bond anyway?

It was a rough life but there was no shortage of adventure.  I later found out that the fact that I didn’t have a family and was in the forces, helped immensely. My job was my life. The only part I found difficult was the identity crisis. It was hard for me to go from detective Rajdeep Singh to gangster Tony for 3 months then back again.

 I had been in the force for 7 years and since then had grown in reputation with the completion of every successful mission, but I was never a “cop”- I did not have an office, my driver and house help were hired by the branch I was working for, as was my secretary whom I never met.

I only knew that I was working for the Government because of the papers I had. I was incognito 24/7, 365 days of the year. I did not socialize; I had very few friends and worked like the slave I was, of the nation I loved.

I was the best, or so my boss said. I would solve cases in as little as two months and that is no simple task given what we had to work with. To work undercover involves the greatest risk. Learning the lingo and befriending the right people being the least of those worries. Keeping your true identity a secret is always the most difficult. That meant only one thing- I stayed incognito always.

I had a number of passports, none with my real name on it. Credit cards, ration cards, licenses- nothing. Nothing with Rajdeep Singh on it. The only time I was called by my real name was in Mr. Khan’s office.

Mr. Khan was a balding man of 50, but behind the lazy, obese appearance there lay a mind sharper than any sword. Mr. Khan was the coordinating head of our department. He was the only person who knew how many people the department employed, who was where and who worked for whom. If you needed a partner to work with you ask nobody but Mr. Khan since he was the only person who knew the skills that the other person possessed, or who the other person was in the first place. It was he who personally ensured that every man who worked on a big case got a long, well deserved vacation before he came back for more work which is why I was surprised when I received a telegram on a holiday in Goa which simply read : ‘Return immediately-K’

That could only mean one of two things 1. The previous case wasn’t finished yet 2. Khan was pulling in everybody he could for a very tough case. Despite my bravado I hoped it wasn’t the second,.I lived for a challenge and my curiosity, more than dedication to work, took me to Delhi on the first flight available. Having said that I must clarify that if summons were received there was no choice about doing hwta you are told.

I was in Mr. Khan’s office the next afternoon. The small office had nothing other than a metal desk with files strewn all over it. The ‘office’ could hold no more than 2 people inside it besides him. Though I enjoyed the work that poured out of that little room I never liked going there. There was something about the suitcase room that made me feel ill. It was not nervousness, or fear, but a weird sense of insecurity enveloped me in the room and the brown curtains did nothing to help. But that after noon changed things for me. Mr. Khan looked worried when he silently handed me a thick file. Inside were details of Yadav.

It took me almost an hour to read Yadav’s file and after working on the case for almost 16 months I still don’t know what to call him. What could you possibly call a murderer, drug dealer, rapist, extortionist, smuggler and any dispenser of injustice all rolled into one? Yadav had his finger in every rotten pie.

The problem was tracking Yadav down and proving him guilty of his crimes. Yadav Chopra (his name only on paper) was a criminal mastermind who would drive any legal organization crazy. He had a brilliant mind and fabulous contacts with a team that made sure they left no trace of their involvement.

It was a tough job, so I trained for what seemed an eternity but was really only a month, before I finally tried to join his team in the capital of crime-Mumbai as Om Sachdev. It was tough work. Yadav wasn’t as easy as the rest of the criminals including those I had read about. He was neither a politician nor a business man and nobody had even heard about him,but he heard about me. That was the first time something like this had ever happened. For a man I was tracking to track me down before I found was a whole new experience and I have no shame in admitting that I was terrified.

I was still trying to find him when my doorbell rang one evening. I opened the door to a college boy in jeans and t-shirt. He cocked his head to one side and gave me a sly smile. There was nothing teenage about that smile. It was the smile of a psychotic murder. I was just about to pull my gun out when he said in perfect English,

“Relax Om bhai. Yadav Bhai’s looking for you. Word on the street is you're looking for him. Consider this a red carpet invitation. Follow me in your vehicle. I assure your safety.”

I was dazed but this was a chance I couldn’t miss. Against better judgment I hurried into my shoes and got my bike with false number plates out sooner than I ever had, and followed the beaten up Maruti van.

It was a long ride and I was grateful for the time it gave me to sort out where I had gone wrong, but after an hour through the dusty streets of Mumbai and all this time I still don’t have an answer. I felt like a lamb on its way to a slaughter house blindly following his master. This thought sent another wave of panic through me. I hadn’t contacted Mr. Khan before leaving so if anything happened nobody would even suspect for atleast a few weeks.

With every passing kilometer I grew more worried than the previous. I’d read somewhere that fear is good for the soul, certainly not for me, I thought. I had to keep telling myself that I was a trained professional; born to do this. When somebody catches you unawares, gives you time to balance and you still can’t collect your thoughts- that’s when you know you have found your match. It is strange how experience teaches you lessons you should have learnt before.

The car stopped suddenly, jerking me out of my mental organization, and the boy in it walked into an unfinished building rising over a pile of filth. This was obviously an abandoned building that was never finished. The cemented frame and wild filth gave the place a haunted look. The fact that I was nervous scared me more than the nervousness itself.

With a deep breath I steadied my nerves and walked up the flight of stairs. On the last stair I heard a voice,

“Om Sachdev. Suspended indefinitely for the murder of Shroff.”

Well at least he bought my story. I was much better suddenly and took the last step up to see a handsome man of around 40 reading from a piece of paper. He paused when I’d reached the landing, looked up at me and before continuing

 “I’m am theYadav you're looking for and I’m sure you are not Om Sachdev. I knew you would find me eventually but I was running out of patience with your lack of speed. Why were you looking for me?”

This wasn’t going like I had wanted it to; it was most unusual to meet the boss the first time or to be asked these questions so nonchalantly. I could hear myself speaking but I couldn’t make out what I was saying till it was too late, a result of too many shocks too soon I gather.

I’m told a good lie is rooted in the truth. It had always worked before and given the circumstances I needed the best plans at hand so I told Yadav my version of the truth. I managed to convince him that I was suspended for the murder of Shroff but that didn’t change the fact that I had insiders’ information into almost all police information. I was unprepared and the only thing that helped me keep my outward appearance of cool was the knowledge that I had done this a number of times before.

Yadav was a smart man. There was no questioning that. Nobody gets to where Yadav was, at that point, in the world of crime being stupid. He knew I had access to much needed information but he wasn’t sure about trusting me, smartly so.

It was strange though. For some reason I felt compelled to use my own name. It was probably the worst idea on the planet but it was out of my mouth and then too late. Not that it mattered much. I didn’t exist as Rajdeep Singh in the world anymore so there was nothing they could track.

Khan made sure they could trace a story of some sort though and despite the tail that always hung around to make sure I wasn’t working with anybody but Yadav I managed to tip them off on a few things and gained their trust inch by excruciating inch. Of course it was Khan's info of staged raid's for the benefit of Yadav’s trust but it worked and in three months I was promoted to Yadav’s sharp shooter.

There is one thing nobody seems to understand about the underworld- Dons keep their sharp shooters very close. The men who do the coldest work get the most respect in these circles, so being a sharp shooter worked perfectly with me, it wasn't the first time I was shooting somebody dead or wiping somebody else's blood off my face. My promotion in the ranks allowed me information to the company’s every doing. After all the state sponsored training I was the star among Yadav's shooters.

143 kills later I was assigned Yadav’s henchman. Virender had died in an encounter. Nothing I knew about. It was a freak accident. Of all the things Virender was picked up by the police for jaywalking and eventually they found out who he was and decided to get him over with when Virender provided them with no useful information.

Virender was a great guy and the gang was quite upset about his death. So was I but I was cold enough to not care. I had seen enough men die to not care about death. At times I envied the dead. In any case, Virender’s death only got me closer to Yadav and soon enough he was telling me everything I ever needed to know; anything anybody ever needed to know to pin him down.

It had been a year by now since I had started working with Yadav’s men. The more time I spent with them the harder it seemed to be able to get away and contact Khan’s office. There was information that I had and needed to send out that I just couldn’t, there was either no time or somebody with me.

A year is a long time to be with anybody, particularly an illegal operation. Groups like these stay close. Almost every waking hour is spent in each other’s company. Families know each other and enquire after you, festivals are celebrated together, being ill warranted the extended family to drop in and nurse you back to health. I was part of a family again and slowly the ice in me began to thaw.

Genuine affection that can break any barrier and if you feel the slightest touch of it after years you are hooked. I was growing used to children jumping into my arms when I walked into a house. In true Indian style I would be over fed every time I was forced to join a family at a meal. It was exhilarating to share my existence with a group that seemed to genuinely like me as opposed to a mere briefing and debriefing.

I was getting dangerously close to failing my mission and I could sense it. I ignored the feeling for months but eventually it hit me full in the face when I tipped Yadav off on sensitive information Khan had given me about a warehouse raid.

Things were going downhill, and fast. There was no way Khan hadn’t caught wind of what was going on. He probably did even before I realized it. There was a reason Khan held the post he did – he was spectacular at his job and this came from not forgetting the one rule that we are all taught the day we joined the Special Crime Branch-trust nobody.

The warehouse raid was staged. It was clearly some sort of test. I had been part of enough to know for myself. An untrained person wouldn’t know the difference between a raid and a staged raid, a lot of people part of a unit can’t make out the difference because technically there wasn’t one. You send out armed men who check everything in both cases but it feels different. There’s and electricity in the air that’s missing with a set up. I sensed it and knew Khan believed what I feared.

It was time to pull the plug. This was the first mission I had ever failed and the bitter taste of defeat gagged me. Leaving my new family was not easy especially without saying goodbye but I had a single minded purpose- to go under ground. There is no other way to walk out of a failed mission alive.

Khan was my first point of contact as always and he found me a safe house to be at after a through debriefing. There was nothing in Khan’s manner that was any more unusual than before so I enjoyed my holiday and tried to forget everything that I had grown so used to. I had no friends again, no family again, and certainly no nephews and nieces vying for my attention. I now had whole days of loneliness.

It’s been three months now and I have gotten back to my old self. I can shut down anytime I want to and block out memories that I can’t indulge. I am ready for my next mission.

Being told to come here is an outrage. I’m quite amused by the idea of somebody wanting to read my mind like a book but find it no less disrespectful of my many years of dedicated service. There is a lot that I have kept from myself and so if Mira Namboodri is really as good as she is reputed to be I don’t know what I have walked into and clearly the Government doesn't either because she can't possibly have the clearance required to know everything I do.

Uncertainty is man’s most crippling disease. It spreads from your feet that won’t take a step to your sweaty palms that can’t hold a magazine in place, past your racing heart till it reaches your mind, a space best left untouched.

And so, Ms. Namboodri I need to leave and therefore I shall. The wind at this height is phenomenal. 

An afternoon learning

I like to think that there is goodness in this world, that unlike the movies, even bad people have their reasons, reasons grounded in goodness. I blame my parents for this silly belief despite trying to take owness for my delusions.
My parents are a good middle class Indian couple who worked very hard to instill in us the best of the values their parents and life's learnings gave them. They worked very hard to give my brother and me the many privileged we have had, one of them being a safe environment to grow up in where people look out for each other.

I, only recently, started exploring the world outside my bubble and what a horrifying journey it has been.

Our cities are not very kind to pedestrians. Between the exposure to heat/humidity/rain, broken pavements, angry bikers and hawkers, I have discovered it takes a special kind of strength to walk down Chennai's road. I have made it a game, every thing worthy of disapproval, and the list is very long, gets a special face, there is even one for the not-so-occasional flasher. My game keeps me occupied most days and protects me from everything that I don't want to be affected by and yet some things still make it through the armor.

Through the famed Kathri Masam I have walked under an umbrella shielding myself not only from Agni's obvious anger, but also the many sights that are hard to walk past otherwise. Perhaps I should have turned on the music that day but I didn't and I heard instead an old, weak cry for help.

I seemed powerless to do anything but turn around looking for the origin of that voice and found an old bandaged man. He told me in his failing voice about being a construction worker from Trichy who fell off the second floor. He said he had no money to go home and had nobody to care for him in Chennai. His story took time to tell and in that time my pedestrian armor had re-built itself. When he finished I politely told him that I couldn't help and scurried across the road to ensure he couldn't ask me again.

While crossing the road and walking away I could only think of this man who was so alone in a city unfriendly to people who can't afford it's luxuries.I thought about the ice candy I was craving and the clothes I bought the previous day. I thought of my father who isn't young anymore and works away from home. I thought of myself being lost and being turned away by a skeptical pedestrian. I picked up the pace and my thoughts seemed to follow on cue.

I'm not sure what did it, perhaps it was a sudden breeze I didn't notice but I felt such a deep shame in myself and my scuttling figure on tat hot afternoon. Instead of shrugging off my thoughts as I had taught myself to, I felt compelled to cross back and look for this man, still shuffling down the same road, well behind me looking forlorn.

I walked up to him and apologised for walking away earlier and offered him my phone to call somebody he knew. He turned down explaining to me that he had lost his son's phone number midway between the second floor scaffolding his slipped on and the ground that caught him. I then decided, while patting myself on the back for my goodness, to ensure he gets home. I checked my wallet found a little less than Rs.200. With my experience now I know that a ticket to Trichy can cost about as much and started guiding him towards a local bus stand from where we would travel to the inter-city bus stand from where I would buy him a ticket to get home safe. I explained to him that I would take him till CMBT and buy him a ticket on the next bus to Trichy.

I know I have taken long but this is where the story gets interesting.
This old frail man suddenly looked at me quite intently and explained to me that it was hot and that I had no business making him walk or even walking with him wasting my time. He explained to me in a tone that sounded much like an order, that I must give him the money to get to Trichy and leave him alone. He accused me of being the worst kind of help because I didn't believe him and accused me of being a cheat. While making his speech, he turned around quite suddenly and stomped off in the opposite direction.

I know I have no business being shocked. I have spent a large majority of my life in cities and I have been warned of this scam a number of time. I know as well as you probably do that it was silly of me to agonise over this episode for almost two weeks and yet I can't help myself. I can't help but think, with much bitterness, that people like him should be locked and punished severely. I can't bring myself to forgive him for that betrayal, of proving to me that I truly shouldn't stop and help a stranger, that the human race deserves no kindness. I hate him for having taught me this lesson, of the many many he could have. My mother and many friends have hinted that I should thank him for teaching me a worthy lesson and be grateful it didn't get worse, and yet, I cannot help feeling that he stole a part of me that was good, a part of me that I am unlikely to ever find again
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The man in the picture most certainly is not the man this story is about.   

Wishing on a black hole

There are some days you most force yourself to smile and learn to believe the lie you tell yourself. When you will dance and tell yourself a happy story while inside you feel as broken as a chewed rag doll;
On others days, like today, you do better taking a hammer to your heart, shattering yourself into a million, scattered, pieces that can never be joined again.
On days like today you cry yourself to sleep and wake up knowing nothing but a vast emptiness that will never be filled. A void so great, it will eat into what is left of the facade that is your life. You wish on a star for a numbness that will stop the pain.
You will tell yourself that the happy memories, so vivid, were never real. That it wasn't you walking on the clouds and singing with the birds; that it never happened, that every memory with a smile is only as true as fairy tales and make believe knights, from when you were young.
On some days, like today, you wish you were never happy and never found music and literature that reflected your happiness, had never known what it was like to feel happiness. You wish to erase, as neatly as words on paper, every shared secret, every shared laugh. You wish it never existed and that your only true friend, sorrow, was never left unattended, was seen with less scorn.

What is funny though, is that the more you wish it, the less likely it is that your wish will be fulfilled.

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Song of the moment: Silence and Dante's quote  (I'm paraphrasing): There is no greater sorrow than remembering, in misery, when you were happy.

Televison

I was born in 1988 to a family in the Indian Navy. Colour TVs were just about making their way into Naval bases, cable networks still a long way off. Understandably, I remember little about the early years but my first lucid memory is of singing, “Washing powder Nirma, washing powder Nirma”.

My brother and I were ruled with military precision by my Drill Sergeant mother. Our lives were dictated by the clock. The routine is hard to forget after so many years. 


The truck would pick us up from school and drop us at home. We would spend an hour eating and then go out to play. 
The rule was to be home before 6 pm,when light fell and the street lamps were turned on. So focused would I be on my games of pretend, that I wouldn't notice the failing light until my brother, furious after looking for me for all of fifteen minutes, would find me to drag me home. We would then take a shower, pray and do our homework. Just as a meal ends with the very best part of it- desert, so would our day- we would all, my father, mother, bother and I sit down as a family to watch a few shows every night on Doordarshan.

For the summer we would travel to my grandfather’s house with Cable TV. My brother and I would sit glued to the TV all day long in awe of that Mecca of cartoons- Cartoon Network and yet, every evening we would watch a set of shows together as a family.Over the years the shows have changed from Buniyaad to The crystal Maze from the X-files to Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. 

The cracks appeared as gradually as (and accompanying) adolescence. I was beginning to get as tall as my mother and she seemed less scary when I didn't have to crane my neck to look at her. I always had an answer to her questions and never found the time to wait for her answers to my, often rhetoric, questions. My father started sailing, my brother left to study and I no longer wanted to watch the same TV shows as my mother.


With inhuman patience, one that neither my father nor brother shared, my mother waited for this phase to pass. I had to leave home before this patience was rewarded. By this time we had probably all forgotten where we started from. 


With the years and distance coming between us, while each of us finds a way to our own lives, family TV time is an ill afforded luxury. It takes the funny voice of one of my nephews or nieces singing a television jingle I'm humming for me to realize we still remain connected in sharing a love for the illusive reality of the entertainment world.

I might be appalled by a lot that is passed off as entertainment, news or advertising today but my opinion of the media will always be coloured by its ability to bring people together and influence an emotion and action.
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My brother in his wisdom gained from an extra 4 and a half years on this planet read this when it was first written and announced that I had confused fact with wishful thinking. I am of the opinion that he is more right than he realises but isn't that the beauty of memory- to allow a person to colour just a little bit outside the lines for a truthful representation of a perceived fact.

Monologue of a disillusioned cynic

Growing up is the process of shedding, layer by layer, every dream you have ever had.

I wish I had said it but I'm only as original as B grade film directors are known to be.  

I watch re-runs of old shows, perhaps, obsessively. This nugget of wisdom is from Wonder Years. 

Despite the many episodes, of many television shows, that I have watched I seem to remember no episode with as much clarity as this one. I will be the first to admit that I have little in common with a child in sub-urban America from the 60s and yet, my disillusionment with my self seemed less solitary when this episode played. I remember feeling betrayed by the writers for displaying, on international television, my shame for all to see and yet feeling at one with the universe in realising (finally) that it wasn't only my burden to carry. 

I have wondered since how true that is. I remember wanting to be a singing-dancing-acting-sailing-smiling-guitar playing-hippy-doctor-lady-princess-war reporter-movie maker-teacher person. Layer by layer I lost every dream. To say it like that, makes it sound comfortable, like the thread-work of fate and perhaps the truth is that I was destined to make the choices I did. I have this uncomfortable itch in my shoe that makes it clear that, with every year, I learned to believe what everybody else told me I could do, more than I believed my own voice- the good one, that is. I let the world be my doctor and sat with my heart open for every pearl of joy to be extracted- for well-being. Always for that. 

I'm beginning to find myself again. After so many years I don't recognise that good voice as mine anymore.
I found that voice in an echoing chorus of so many.

I have the rare privileged of meeting children who share nothing in common with me. These children, for whom to recognise the alphabet is a blessing, have taught me to believe again. The funny thing is, they have taught me that the dreams I regret not breathing life into were intelligent choices. Choices, that in desperation, I allowed myself to believe, other people were making for me but in truth (I'm beginning to remember again) I fought to make. I may not play the guitar but I make my own music. I may not be a doctor but I save lives. I  may not be smile but I know happiness. All of this I simply do by being alive.

It is a not so rare gift- life; One that I don't often find reason to rejoice in.
I'm beginning to realise that growing up could well be stripping away every dream I have ever had to discover reality, often more wondrous than the dream. There is a pain in reality that is rewarding in its sweetness.
Yes, it could well be true that I'm a disillusioned cynic now but I like that better than being a deluded dreamer, despite the ring in the latter. Of course,I don't expect my contentment to last over a few hours. It is the effect of a drug I haven't found. 

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The song that is playing is Joe Cocker's version of 'With a little help from my friends' (but of course!)

My stamp collection

I woke up to the realisation, today, that I am crowded by people.
I know lots and lots of people, lots and lots of people know me too. Some of those people like me, a lot of them are related to me and there are more than I can count who hate me. All of that totals to knowing a lot of people.

Yet, I feel alone.

I don't feel the kind of alone that is tranquil; This is the kind of alone where you scream and nobody will hear you. Perhaps what I can finally see is that when scream nobody will care.

I used to know people who would talk to me and whom I could talk to. I collected confidences as a child collects stamps- some rare and exquisite, most simply to feel a purpose. I would meticulously collect them and file them away making contact to let their energies flow into me in my most private hours.

Over time have felt more lost and alone.
I wanted different things, I abandoned my once prized collection. I chased dreams that weren't mine to live. I return now to old friends and find my neglected collection a confusion. The sequences are lost and I open my book staring at strangers. I feel muted by the faces my mind's eye sees, I feel deaf and numb to the stories I once so meticulously laboured over. In panic I scream endlessly to be heard and yet, I see faces, once loved, drift by sporting masks of shock and annoyance, sometimes sympathy but never, anymore, of companionship.

It is lonely staring at an empty book once so full, so familiar.

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Listening (in my mind's ears) to Buckets of Rain- Bob Dylan