Shortly after the story splashed across the front page: Navi Mumbai corporator embroiled in property scams stealing from the common man and in league with Bollywood producer-cum-organised crime boss. It was the talk of my city for many days consecutively. I waited for the call from the chief of police thanking me for alerting him to these shady goings-on and picture of the suspects in handcuffs being taken to justice finally.
No such call was coming. Instead the office of my newspaper was attacked with a small bomb causing damage to building. My editor fled to Dubai to avoid further trouble. Then came the attempt on my life. Leaving the office one day having delivered copy of my latest article I was beset by a dozen thugs on motorcycles and foot, all carrying lathis, chains, machete, etc. I knew that Rajesh Battacharjee had sent them to silence me. But it was too late for him. I had already revealed his deeds to the world and there was no chance for him to bury them again. I dispatched these twelve men sans hassle, very regretful that I must resort to violence to preserve myself bodily. It is always a sad time when one must strike one’s fellow man down but there was no other option available to me. Hearing the cracking of another man’s bones at my hand was a tough event but this is what I am trained for in order to resist the dangers of the world.
‘Tell Rajesh Battacharjee that Bibhuti Nayak cannot be silenced,’ I said to the stricken men as they lay at my feet. ‘Tell Mr Karkera this also. The words I speak come directly from God and his mouth is bigger than all the seven seas, you cannot fill it.’
One fellow promised to convey the message and I helped him back onto his motorcycle after a quick examination revealed no broken bones except the jaw, which did not prohibit him from driving safely away.
I am happy to tell you that this message was delivered successfully, as no further attempts on my life were made before the police finally took an interest in my story. Rajesh Battacharjee, following extensive trial which became headline news throughout the nation, was sentenced to a hefty prison term. Unfortunately Mr Karkera escaped similar fate due to immunity purchased by bottomless pockets. But a different level of justice was served to him by the almighty when he succumbed only weeks later to hail of bullets fired by a rival Don.
I was given the duty of reporting on the trial for my newspaper and witnessed in person the sealing of Rajesh Battacharjee’s fate. A careless threat to my life was uttered on passing of the sentence but he was in no position to act upon it from a central jail cell.
From this eventful segment of my life you will see how littered is the path of the righteous man. Mostly with the stones which wicked men are throwing to obstruct the journey to destiny’s shore. Such men are only envious that their journey is not blessed by the guiding hand of God or illuminated by the talent he gives as a gift to his chosen few. Friends are changing to enemies at the drop of the hat and it is the righteous man’s job to keep his eyes peeled for this eventuality.
Now a new friend has come to me from across the seven seas. His name is John Lock. I did not expect his arrival. It was a surprise gift from the almighty who sent him when I was most in need of his support. His commitment allows me to forget all previous betrayals. He is the first man I have known from England and also the first man I have met whose spirit matches my own. He has been tested very harshly since arriving with illness and unfamiliarity with Indian climate and he has sailed through each test with only minor complication. Soon we will embark together on ultimate test and my mind is very calm because I know he will protect me in the final time. When we have achieved our goal together our love will be sealed and I will wash my blood from him personally. Then we will live out the rest of our days as closest companions who share the sun and rain and all the food nature provides. This is our destiny and there is no force in the world which is strong enough to come between. Sometimes I wonder how so huge the earth becomes so tiny.
Thank you.
31
In the last days the women stamped their protest against us in silences and cooking. They stirred and chopped and whispered and tutted like twins conjoined in alliance against the hurtful outside world. They took slow morning walks together and rode to the market, Ellen precarious on the back of the scooter, trawling home bags of fresh ingredients to assemble skilfully while the men huffed and puffed in the courtyard below them. The scratches they left on the chopping board betrayed their own obsession. They would have made dolls to stick pins in if they’d had the wool and the stuffing.
I was back on Bibhuti’s sofa. Ellen had only let me share her bed that one time, an act of mercy to mark our reunion. She couldn’t stand to have me sleeping next to her again. She’d ask after my aches when she arrived at the apartment for a day of bearing crosses, and tell me off for leaving my socks on the floor.
We had our own alliance, the three men of the house. After a tireless campaign Jolly Boy had convinced his father he had what it took to be the third point of the triangle, the one who’d pass the fresh bats to me as each one was broken. Given the nod all his anxiety melted away. He showed his gratitude by turning his back on the women. He spoke to his mother only when manners demanded it and where once he’d found his calling in making her smile, now he found it in the stopwatch and the icepacks he applied to his father’s multiplying bruises. When I broke my first bat in one strike Jolly Boy was there to pick the splinters out. He offered them to me as a souvenir, sensing their importance. We put them in a cup that we left in a safe corner of the courtyard, out of the rain but close enough to feel its spray. I said flowers might grow from them. He liked that idea.
Bibhuti ended each session more bruise than man but by the evening they’d disappeared. I began to suspect he was painting himself whole again when he locked himself in his room. I listened for the brushstrokes in his meditation silences.
All Ellen wanted to do was eat up the sun after too many years of cold weather. Suddenly the heat that once paralysed her seemed to draw out of her a vitality I thought long lost. I watched the Indian climate buff a shine onto her that I hadn’t seen in half a lifetime, something rich and youthful and provocative. I watched her ripen and forget her disability, become red like an apple.
Sometimes I’d catch her looking at Jolly Boy with naked longing. She’d reach out for him whenever he passed too close, steal a stroke of his head. I felt the absence of children again. A small head of thick hair I could run my fingers through and an uncorrupted mind I could fill with the last thing I’d learned. A fact about friendship or the fish that lives in the lowest depths of the ocean, the one that comes with its own lantern to steer it through the darkness.
At the end of the day we’d all come together to bury our hatchets and eat. We talked economically about food and weather and the key differences between our two cultures, me feeling an affiliation to neither one. Adrift with Bibhuti above the pull of national customs. Citizen of nowhere, light-headed with the rare and shocking freedom that comes from giving up a flag.
The wives would clear the table and wash up and we’d draw into a circle to spin our myths, letting the imagined details of Bibhuti’s happy ending swirl around our heads while the window blackened and the thunder growled. Jolly Boy saw all his friends crouching at his father’s feet, pictured a national holiday in his honour. Bibhuti agreed that that was possible. I just looked forward to when it was all over and we were still standing, only bigger and surer than we’d stood before. Any thrill to be gained from the striking would be incidental. If it came it came. I wouldn’t pretend not to feel it.