The Commissioner pats him on the back. 'Billy, you have become just like the Americans. Don't worry. Godbole is a professional. There won't be a single mark on the boy's body.'
Bile rises in my stomach like a balloon. I feel like retching.
The Commissioner prepares to depart. 'Godbole, by tomorrow morning I want the name of the collaborator and full details of the MO. Use any means necessary to extract the information. But be careful. Remember, your promotion depends on this.'
'Thank you, Sir. Thank you.' Godbole puts on a plastic smile. 'And don't worry, Sir. By the time I am through with this boy, he will be ready to confess the murder of Mahatma Gandhi.'
I try to recall who murdered Mahatma Gandhi, who is known to have said 'Hey Ram!' just before dying. I remember this because I had exclaimed, 'That's my name!' And Father Timothy had gently explained that it was the name of Lord Ram, the Hindu god who had been banished into the jungle for fourteen years.
Godbole, meanwhile, has returned after seeing off the Commissioner and the two men. He wheezes into the interrogation room and slams the door shut. Then he snaps his fingers at me.
'OK, motherfucker, strip!'
* * *
Sharp, throbbing pain oozes from every pore of my body. My hands are tied to the wooden beam with coarse rope. The beam is nine feet above the ground, so my legs dangle in the air and my hands and feet feel like they are being pulled apart. I am completely naked. The ribs on my chest jut out like those on starving African babies.
Godbole has been punishing me for more than an hour but he has still not finished. Every half-hour or so he comes up with a new instrument of torture. First he inserted a wooden rod into my anus. With chilli powder smeared on it. It felt as if a molten, searing spike was being driven through my backside. I choked and gagged with pain. Then he thrust my head into a bucket of water and held it there till my lungs were about to explode. I spluttered and gasped and quite nearly drowned.
Now he is holding a live wire in his hand like a sparkler on Diwali. He dances around me like a drunken boxer and suddenly lunges at me. He jabs at the sole of my left foot with the naked wire.
The electric current shoots up my body like hot poison. I recoil and convulse violently.
Godbole shouts at me. 'Bastard, you still won't tell me what trick you used on the show? Who told you the answers? Tell me, and this torture will end. You will get a nice hot meal. You can even go home.'
But home seems like a far-off place right now. And a hot meal would make me vomit. If you don't eat for a long time, the hunger just shrivels and dies, leaving only a dull ache in the pit of your stomach.
The first wave of nausea is beginning to assail me now. I am blacking out. Through a thick mist, I see a tall woman, with flowing black hair. The wind is howling behind her, making her jet-black hair fly across her face, obscuring it. She is wearing a white sari of thin fabric that flutters and vibrates like a kite. She opens her arms and cries, 'My son . . . my son . . . what are they doing to you?'
'Mother!' I scream and reach out for her across the chasm of mist and fog, but Godbole grabs me roughly by the neck. I feel as if I am running without moving forward. He slaps me hard and the blackness lifts.
Godbole is holding out the pen once again. It is black with a shiny golden nib. Blue ink glistens at its tip. 'Sign the confession statement,' he orders.
The confession statement is quite simple. 'I, Ram Mohammad Thomas, do hereby state that on 10 July I was a participant in the quiz show Who Will Win A Billion? I confess that I cheated. I did not know the answers to all the questions. I hereby withdraw my claim to the top prize or any other prize. I beg forgiveness. I am making this statement in full control of my senses and without any undue pressure from anyone. Signed: Ram Mohammad Thomas.'
I know it is only a question of time before I sign this statement. I will not be able to hold out much longer. We were always told never to pick a quarrel with the police. Street boys like me come at the bottom of the food chain. Above us are the petty criminals, like pickpockets. Above them come the extortionists and loan sharks. Above them come the dons. Above them come the big business houses. But above all of them are the police. They have the instruments of naked power. And there is nobody to check them. Who can police the police? So I will sign the statement. After ten, maybe fifteen, more slaps. After five, perhaps six, more shocks.
All of a sudden, I hear a commotion at the door. Constables are shouting. Voices are raised. The door shudders and slams open. A young woman bursts into the room. She is of average height and slim build. She has nice teeth and lovely arched eyebrows. In the middle of her forehead she wears a large round blue bindi. Her dress consists of a white salwar kameez, a blue dupatta and leather sandals. Her long black hair is loose. A brown bag hangs from her left shoulder. There is a certain presence about her.
Godbole is so flustered he touches the live wire to his own hand, and yelps in pain. He is about to grab the intruder by the collar, then realizes she is a woman. 'Who the hell are you, bursting in like this? Can't you see I am busy?'
'My name is Smita Shah,' the woman announces calmly to Godbole. 'I am Mr Ram Mohammad Thomas's lawyer.' Then she looks at me, at my condition, and hastily averts her eyes.
Godbole is stunned. He is so stunned that he does not notice that I am equally stunned. I have never seen this woman before. I don't have money to hire a taxi. I can hardly hire a lawyer.
'Come again?' Godbole croaks. 'You are his lawyer?'
'Yes. And what you are doing to my client is completely illegal and unacceptable. I want an immediate end to this treatment. He reserves the right to prosecute you under sections 330 and 331 of the Indian Penal Code. I demand to be shown the papers regarding his arrest. I see no evidence of any FIR having been recorded. No grounds for arrest have been communicated as required under Article 22 of the Constitution and you are in breach of Section 50 of the CrPC.
Now unless you can produce his arrest warrant, I am removing my client from the police station to consult with him in private.'
'Er . . . mmm . . . I . . . I will have to speak to . . . to the Commissioner. Please wait,' is all Godbole can say. He looks at the woman with a helpless expression, shakes his head, and slinks out of the room.
I am impressed. I didn't know lawyers wielded such power over the police. The food chain will have to be revised.
I don't know at what point Godbole returns to the room, what he says to the lawyer, or what the lawyer says to him, because I have passed out. From pain and hunger and happiness.
* * *
I am sitting on a leather couch with a cup of hot, steaming tea in my hands. A rectangular desk is strewn with papers. On top is a glass paperweight and a red table lamp. The walls of the room are painted rose pink. The shelves are lined with thick black books with gold letters on the spines. There are framed certificates and diplomas on the walls. A potted money plant grows sideways in one corner of the room.
Smita returns with a plate and a glass in her hands. I smell food. 'I know you must be hungry, so I've brought you some chapattis, some mixed vegetables and a Coke. It was all I had in my fridge.'
I grasp her hand. It feels warm and moist. 'Thank you,' I say. I still don't know how she got to the police station, or why. All she has told me is that she read about my arrest in the papers, and came as soon as she could. Now I am at her house in Bandra. I will not ask her when she brought me here, or why. One doesn't question a miracle.
I begin eating. I eat all the chapattis. I polish off all the vegetables. I drink all the Coke. I eat till my eyes bulge out.
* * *
It is late evening now. I have eaten and slept. Smita is still with me, but now I am in her bedroom, sitting on a large bed with a blue bedspread. Her bedroom is different from that of my former employer, the film star Neelima Kumari. Instead of the huge mirrors and trophies and acting awards lining the shelves, there are books and a large brown teddy bear with glass eyes.