Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Cheers to that.

What else do we have here?

There’s an open carton, an old Hewlett-Packard printer cartridge carton lying open on the table. I’m relieved to see that its contents are somewhat sunnier — two yellow photo sachets, one labeled “Otter Pics” and the other “Otter Kills.” Nice. I had no idea that she had an interest in otters. It suddenly makes her less — how should I say it — less hazardous. The idea of her walking on a beach, or a riverbank, with the wind in her hair…relaxed, unguarded…looking for otters…makes me glad for her. I love otters. I think they might be my favorite creatures. I once spent a whole week watching them when we were on a family holiday, a Pacific cruise along the west coast of Canada. Even when it was stormy and the ocean was dangerously choppy, there they were, those cheeky little bastards, floating nonchalantly on their backs, looking for all the world as though they were reading the morning papers.

I tip the photos out of one of the sachets.

None of them are pictures of otters.

I should have known. I feel like the victim of a prank.

The one on the top of the pile is a photo taken on the promenade around Dal Gate in Srinagar. A swarthy Sikh soldier wearing a flak jacket and holding a rifle is on his haunches. One knee up, one knee down, posing triumphantly over the corpse of a young man. From the way his body lies, it’s clear the young man is dead. He’s propped up on his chin, which is jammed up on the one-foot-high concrete verge that runs around the lake, the rest of his body is slumped in a downward arc. His legs are splayed, one knee bent at a right angle. He’s in trousers and a beige polo shirt. He’s been shot through his throat. There’s not much blood. There are blurred silhouettes of houseboats in the background. The soldier’s head has been circled with a purple marker. Judging from the dead man’s clothes and the weapon the soldier is holding, it’s a pretty old picture. In each of the other less dramatic photographs of groups of soldiers taken in marketplaces, at checkpoints, or on a highway while they are waving down vehicles, a soldier has been singled out with the same purple marker. There’s no obvious connection between them. Some are clean-shaven, some are Sikh, some are obviously Muslim. In all but one of the photographs the setting is Kashmir. In the one that isn’t, a bored-looking soldier is sitting on a blue plastic chair in a sandbagged bunker in what looks like the middle of a desert. His helmet is on his lap and he’s holding an orange fly swatter and looking away into the distance. There’s something about his eyes, something blank and expressionless that holds your attention. His head too is circled with that purple marker.

Who are these men?

And then, when I spread them out on the table, I get it — they’re all the same soldier. He looks different in each photograph, except for his eyes. He’s a shape-shifter. Maybe one of our counter-intelligence boys. Why does he have a purple noose around his head?

There’s a file in the carton that says “Otter.” The first document in it looks like someone’s CV. The letterhead says Ralph M. Bauer, LCSW, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, followed by a long list of his educational qualifications. A word jumped out at me. Clovis. Ralph Bauer’s street address was East Bullard Avenue, Clovis, California.

Clovis was where Amrik Singh shot himself and his family. In their home, in a small suburban residential colony. And then I get it. Spotter. Otter. Of course. The man in the photographs is Amrik Singh “Spotter.” I never actually came face-to-face with him in Kashmir. I didn’t know what he looked like as a younger man (those were pre-Google days). These pictures of him bear almost no resemblance to the photograph of him as an older man, pudgy, clean-shaven and looking completely disoriented, that appeared in the papers after his suicide.

My veins feel as though they’re flooded with some kind of chemical, something other than blood. How did she get hold of these documents? And why? Why? What use did she have for them? What was this now? Some sort of voodoo revenge fantasy?

The first few pages in the file are a sort of questionnaire — a series of those typically corny, psychobabble types of questions: Have you ever had distressing dreams of the event? Have you been unable to have sad or loving feelings? Have you found it hard to imagine a long lifespan and fulfilling your goals? That sort of thing. Attached to the questionnaire are two written testimonies signed by Amrik Singh and his wife (hers long, his very brief), and photocopies of two thick, neatly filled-out application forms for asylum in the US, also signed by them.

I need to sit down. I need a drink. I have a bottle of Cardhu that I shouldn’t have picked up in the Duty Free on my way in from Kabul, and shouldn’t have brought up here with me. Especially not when I have promised Chitra that I will never touch another drink. Not a peg. Not a drop. Especially not when I know my job is at risk. Especially not when I know that my boss has given me this one last chance to — in his hackneyed words—“shape up or ship out.”

I’d like some ice, but there’s none. The whole freezer has turned into a block of ice and needs defrosting. The fridge is empty but the kitchen is stacked with fruit cartons. Maybe she was — is — on one of those trendy detox diets where you eat only fruit. Maybe that’s where she’s gone. To a yoga retreat or something.

Of course she hasn’t.

I’ll have to drink the Cardhu neat. It’s really cold and those damn pigeons really ought to stop fornicating on the windowsill. Why won’t they stop? Date: April 16th, 2012 Re: Loveleen Singh née Kaur and Amrik Singh

This is a request for a Psycho-Social Evaluation of Amrik Singh and his wife, Loveleen Singh née Kaur, to determine if they were victims of persecution as a result of the abuse, police corruption and extortion they suffered in India, their native country. Do they have a genuine “well-founded fear” of being tortured or killed by their government? They are seeking asylum as they claim that Amrik Singh will be tortured or killed if he returns to India. During the course of the interview I administered a Trauma Symptom Inventory-2 (TSI-2), Mental Status Checklist, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Screening Interview, and a Davidson Trauma Scale. A lengthy history was taken during a two-hour face-to-face interview with each of them to complete a narrative of the actual events that they actually experienced in Kashmir, India. Background:

Mr. and Mrs. Amrik Singh reside in Clovis, California. Loveleen Singh née Kaur was born in Kashmir, India, on November 19th 1972. Amrik Singh, born in Chandigarh, India, on June 9th 1964. The couple has three children, the youngest of whom was born in the US. The couple fled from India to Canada with their two older children. They entered the United States by foot on October 1st 2005. They first entered Blaine, Washington, but now live in Clovis, California, where Mr. Amrik Singh works as a truck driver. Loveleen Kaur is a home-maker. They are constantly anxious about their family’s safety. Loveleen’s Narrative:

This is a Narrative based on a paraphrase of Loveleen’s interview.

My husband Amrik Singh was a military major posted in Srinagar, Kashmir. While he was on the post I did not live with him on the base, I lived with our son in a private accommodation, in a second-floor flat in Jawahar Nagar, Srinagar. In that colony many Sikh families and only few Muslims live. In 1995 a human rights lawyer by the name of Jalib Qadri was kidnapped and killed and my husband was blamed by the local police and we felt that Muslims were framing him. My husband did not accept bribes and he did not like Muslim terrorists. He was an honorable man. In his own words: “I will not cheat on my country and you cannot bribe me.”