Akhil Sharma - An Obedient Father

"I'm sorry"

Anita did not respond. Her lips pulled the rest of her face down. "What could you do?" she said.

I could have never gotten involved with Mr. Gupta. I could have withdrawn when Mr. Bajwa appeared. But Anita did not point these things out.

That night excitement and joy roused me out of sleep. Half awake, I did not understand where the pleasure was coming from, but I wanted it to be morning and for me to be drinking tea and hanging my laundry on the balcony ledge. It took several breaths for my thoughts to clear. Then I understood my happiness was from Anita's taking my side. Maybe Ajay's murder had frightened her with how complicated and violent the world was, and perhaps my confessions had made me appear less dangerous and readied her for some sort of reconciliation. Whatever the reasons, things were different.

My room was silent and dark. The flat beyond my door and the city outside the flat were also silent and dark. I lay on the cot and felt the world exhaling with me.

NINE

T

WO days after Mr. Gupta's nomination was withdrawn, our flat was raided by income tax agents. The doorbell rang. Asha got up from the common-room floor, where we were eating breakfast. The bell could have been a holy man begging or the man who threw newspapers at our door, but I felt my attention arching. I had asked Krishna to come with his boys and stay with us because I had been worried about violence. They had brought shotguns wrapped in olive duck-cloth that they kept under my cot. Most of the day they spent lying on their sides on the floors of various rooms, playing cards and smoking rolls of bitter-smelling bidis.

"Income tax," a man's voice called from Anita and Asha's bedroom. Immediately five men sped into the common room. Munna and Raju jumped up. All the tax people wore the jackets and ties of office workers. I was frightened even though I was certain there was

nothing to find in the flat. "Who is Ram Karan?" someone asked, and I stepped forward. A man passed me several identification cards. The stamps on the cards were accurate, but I showed them to Krishna to flatter him. Even as he was examining them, the income tax people spread through the flat. Munna and Raju followed them to see that no evidence was planted.

"Who are they?" asked the man who had given us the identification cards. He was in his early thirties and had hair only along the sides of his scalp.

"My nephews."

"Guns," somebody shouted.

"They are registered," Munna answered.

Krishna went to join his sons.

We moved into the living room, and I signed a document attesting to my name and residence. "It's all right," I whispered to Anita, who sat beside me on the sofa. I brought out receipts for the television, refrigerator, and some of the furniture. I was once offered a scooter as a bribe. I was glad I am frightened of driving. All my receipts were from local stores, which diminished suspicion.

The tax people went through the flat taking off the covers of pillowcases and poking in the flour and lentil tins. They turned upside down the can in the latrine that we use to flush. We tried to make sure they were never out of sight.

As minutes passed and nothing was discovered, Raju became bolder. "We're so poor, we hope you plant evidence."

"Shut up," said the man who had given me the identification cards.

When the tax people began gathering in the living room as if there was nothing to find, my fright eased enough for me to speak out. "I am a poor man. This is a registered slum," I said.

The raid took a little more than an hour. When they left, Krishna and his sons returned to their breakfast while Anita and I cleaned the flat. Looking around her bedroom, which appeared no different from before, she spoke to herself, "I'll mop today."

I was still uncertain of her tolerance of me. "There's nothing in the flat to find."

We ate our now-cold breakfast.

I went to work. I had been at the office for twenty minutes when Anita phoned. "There's a tax raid," she said. "I told them there was one two hours ago but they don't know about it. They have identification also."

"Should I come home?"

"No. They're just standing and talking in the living room."

"It's Congress and the BJP seeing if there's any more money to be had."

"At least the neighbors will think we're rich," she said.

I went to Asha's school that day because I wanted to comfort her if she was worried about the tax raid. But the way Asha talked of the raid, it appeared that she thought of it as an adventure.

That evening the man who tapped our phone called. "Mr. Karan," he said, "why didn't you come to me with the money you wanted to donate. I could have helped."

I wondered who this man was and whether he could still harm me. "I needed to get things done quickly."

"I wouldn't have been slow."

"I am sorry"

"I'm sorry, too."

The man remained on the line. "I wasn't thinking." He sighed and did not hang up. I thought he might want money. "I'm poor now."

When I did not follow this up, he abruptly said, "Okay. Tata," and clicked off It was an hour before the dial tone returned, and at first I believed disconnecting my phone line was going to be his revenge.

Krishna and his sons stayed for three weeks. Asha and Raju would play badminton for hours on the roof After they left, Anita and I began playing badminton with Asha. I played with her only if Anita was also on the roof

Idid not talk to Mr. Gupta again after I told him that all his campaign money was gone. I did not hear from Mr. Bajwa either. I had stopped thinking of Mr. Bajwa when his wife phoned.

The one phone for the junior officers is on a table in a corner. I had been sitting at Mr. Mishra's desk talking and got up to answer the ringing. As soon as Mrs. Bajwa introduced herself, I knew why she must be calling.

"My husband hasn't been home in three weeks," she said. "I haven't seen him." Mrs. Bajwa sounded both angry and afraid.

"He hasn't phoned here."

"I've called Mr. Gupta many times. He hasn't telephoned back." Mr. Gupta had not been to the office since the BJP withdrew its nomination. A corruption investigation had been started against him. As part of this, I had been interviewed and asked to mail in a form. "Perhaps you can help."

I immediately assumed that Mr. Bajwa was dead. I looked at his desk. Its top was bare. Mr. Bajwa was younger than I. "I haven't talked to him."

"Do you know where he could be?"

"You know what happened with the election?" She did not, so I told her of the withdrawal of the nomination and Ajay's death. When I told her about Ajay she began crying.

"My husband was emotional. I'm worried because of that. You know he became religious after he began being investigated? And then he stopped being religious after Mr. Gupta found work for him. His thoughts run around. That's why I'm worried." I wondered if she was suggesting suicide. The idea of killing yourself was so strange to me then that I believed Mrs. Bajwa did not want to imagine her husband assaulted and unprotected during his last moments and so was explaining things through suicide.

"Is there a guru he used to go to?" I suggested.

"I've already talked to him."

"Do you want me to talk with Mr. Gupta for you?"

"Yes."

I phoned Mr. Gupta as soon as we hung up, and left a message.

Mrs. Bajwa never called again.

Several days later Mr. Mishra learned that Mrs. Bajwa had appeared at Mr. Gupta's house and forced him to meet her. When he denied knowing what had happened to Mr. Bajwa, she became hysterical, claiming that Mr. Gupta was lying because he hated Mr. Bajwa and did not want to comfort his wife.

One Sunday afternoon, six or seven weeks after this, Mrs. Gupta and Mr. Maurya came to the flat. I had been asleep on my cot. Anita woke me and I went to the living room. Mrs. Gupta was sitting on the sofa holding her hands together in her lap. "Your friend has been kidnapped." I did not know whom she was referring to. "Your friend's wife has come to ask for help."