Uday Prakash: The Walls of Delhi

Ramnivas wondered who it could be so late. He opened the door to find two policemen. One was an inspector, and the other, the inspector’s sidekick.

‘You’ve got a girl in there?’ the inspector asked in a scolding voice.

‘Yes,’ Ramnivas replied. The inspector and his sidekick came in. The name V.N. Bharadwaj was engraved on a little brass tag pinned to his uniform. The way he was looking at Sushma! A fury began to build in Ramnivas, but he was too scared to say anything. Sushma was wearing her pink nightie, and you could see right through to the black bra he’d bought for her at Kamla Nagar. And beneath that was her fine, fair skin.

‘Something tells me she’s not your wife,’ the inspector declared. ‘So where’d you pick her up?’ The inspector’s square face housed cunning little eyes that kept on blinking. His hair had been turned jet black with unspeakable quantities of dye, and at first glance he appeared to be a sleazy, shrewd, thick-skinned man who liked to play by his own rules, and never ruled anything out.

‘She lives next door. She’s my sister-in-law,’ Ramnivas said. He was a terrible liar. Between his fear and putting on airs, everything came out sounding feeble and wrong.

‘So, you’ve been having a little party!’ the inspector continued, glancing at the fifth of Diplomat on the table. Then he gave Sushma the hard once-over. ‘She ran away. You helped her. You brought her here. My guess is she’s under-age.’ He turned to Sushma, ‘How old are you?’

She was scared. ‘Seventeen,’ she said. For some odd reason she felt like something impossible was happening, and that she and Ramnivas would both perish because of it.

‘I’m taking you down to the station — both of you. We’ll find out from the medical reports exactly how much fun you’ve been having. That’s a three-seven-five, three-seven-six, easy.’ He pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘So where’d the money come from? A three-star hotel? AC? My guess is this isn’t your usual style. Did you steal the money? Or knock someone off?’

Ramnivas had a good buzz going, and should have been able to pluck up his courage; but Sushma telling the truth about her age had unwittingly thrown him to the wolves. He felt as if he was walking right into their trap. He thought quickly, and a smile took shape on his face. ‘C’mon, inspector, just give the word. Another bottle?’

‘That I can order from the hotel. As for you two — I’m taking you down to the station. Go on, get dressed. Is she coming like this? With her see-through everything?’ the Inspector said plainly.

‘What’s the rush? The station goes wherever you go, inspector. The inspector’s here, and so is the station. Why hurry? We can work things out right here,’ Ramnivas suggested with a little laugh.

He was surprised at himself. Where had this been hiding, and hiding for so long? He took a quick look at the sidekick, who was standing by the bed, to see if he could get him to go along. It looked like yes, Ramnivas thought: The sidekick was busy staring at Sushma, but seemed to give a little nod when his eyes met Ramnivas’s. ‘Aw, they’re just kids, Bharadwaj sahib,’ he said. ‘They come to see the Taj. Let ‘em have their little party. You and me can have some fun with her too. Whaddya say, pal?’

Ramnivas didn’t like what the sidekick was hinting at. On top of this debacle, Ramnivas was now becoming angry. ‘Wait just a minute,’ he said. ‘Look, Bharadwaj sahib, as far as some food and drink go, just say the word, and I’ll have it sent up in no time. But you’ve got to believe me that she’s really my sister-in-law. I swear!’

The inspector began to laugh. ‘Uh-huh. You need an AC hotel room in order to polish off a fifth of single malt with your underage sister-in-law? And then let me guess: The two of you were singing holy bhajans and clapping your hands? I can just see it. But now that you mention it, go get a bottle of Royal Challenge and order a big plate of chicken and some stuff to go with it. Actually, don’t move.’ The inspector sat down on the bed and said, ‘I’ll order from here.’ He pressed the intercom button at the head of the bed that got him to the reception desk, placed the order, and then stretched out on the mattress. He loosened his belt buckle and regarded Sushma, who was sitting at the foot of the bed looking as if she wanted to crawl under a rock. ‘And you — go sit in the chair in the corner and face the wall. Don’t make me crazy. I lose it a little when I drink, and then the two of you’ll go crying to your mothers about big bad Bharadwaj. I just can’t help it, like when I see those pretty Western girls that come here on vacation.’ He had a big laugh.

They killed the bottle in just over an hour. First, Ramnivas finished off his own fifth, and then joined the police in a few more shots from theirs — by the end, he was completely drunk. The inspector and his sidekick left the hotel room sometime after midnight. They settled on five hundred to let the matter slide; later, the sidekick shook him down for an extra hundred. By the time they’d gone, Ramnivas was utterly spent, and so drunk he was queasy and started getting the spins. Sushma helped him into the bathroom and poured cold water over his head, but Ramnivas lay down right there on the bathroom floor and began to retch. Out came all the butter chicken, the naan, and the pulao. After the vomiting subsided, he clung to Sushma, but everything was a blur, so he went straight to bed. He crashed face first, and in an instant a sound issued from his nose that seemed to come from the snout of a horse that had galloped from half-a-world away.

In the morning, Sushma told Ramnivas that after he got drunk he’d told the police about cash hidden behind a wall somewhere in Saket. Ramnivas instantly sobered up. He’d been so careful about keeping his secret! So much so that he hadn’t even hinted about it to Sushma or his wife. In the end, a little booze had turned the sweet smell of success into a putrid pile of shit.

He made a few excuses to Sushma about something coming up back home, not feeling so well, and then canceled their trip to Jaipur. Ramnivas decided to take the next train back to Delhi. BUDDHA JAYANTI PARK, A SUZUKI ESTEEM WITH NO LICENCE PLATES, AND THE FINAL BIDI

Just as he’d feared, a police Gypsy idled in front of his house, waiting for him the next morning. ‘The assistant superintendent wants to talk to you,’ an inspector said from the jeep. He was identified by the name embroidered above his breast pocket as D. K. Tyagi. Ramnivas got into the Gypsy. As they left Samaypur Badli, he saw the bus stop where he used to catch the bus toward Dhaula Kuan, and where Sushma was waiting for him today.

Some eight months earlier — I think it was a Tuesday — there was a light cloud cover, and it seemed it might start to drizzle at any time. That day, I saw Ramnivas at Sanjay’s; he was waiting for Sushma.

When the sky got overcast like that, and there was a trace of drizzle in the heavy air, Ramnivas used to say, ‘It seems like the weather’s whistling.’ And when the weather was like that, he’d take Sushma out for an excursion in an auto rickshaw and feed her all the snacks and junk food in the world. But that day something was on his mind, eating him from the inside. In half an hour he’d done nothing but smoke one cigarette after the other, and was biting his nails, clearly nervous.

I ordered two cups of deluxe chai from Ratan Lal, and got my first inkling of how desperate Ramnivas was when I saw him down the piping hot tea in one gulp, burning his mouth and everything else.

It was early afternoon, and Ramnivas, eyes full of pleading, looked at me and said, ‘Vinayakji, I’ve got into a big mess. Way in over my head. Help me find a way out — please! I won’t forget it for the rest of my life.’