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‘That’s stupid, this is a single firing gun and that thing there,’ he said pointing to the gun in my hand, ‘it’s a miracle that it works.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my gun?’ asked Chaddha.

  ‘I thought it’s his gun,’ he said pointing at me.

  ‘Yes, yes, sorry, what’s wrong with his gun?’ Chaddha rephrased.

  Harpal grinned. He knew whose gun it was. He said, ‘This is an example of terrible workmanship sir. You have been duped.’

  ‘Why?’ Chaddha was irritated. He thought his gun was brilliant.

  ‘Shut up Chaddha, just shut up,’ Sampu interrupted, ‘Colonel Sir, I meant that there’ll be no reloading.’

  ‘Ok. No reloading,’ Harpal nodded.

  ‘Ok,’ I said. I noticed Puran was looking at me and grinning. A short, thin, bearded man with sad yellow eyes stared at me from the only mirror in the room. I smiled at my reflection. It smiled back. I walked up to Harpal. I wasn’t smiling anymore.

  We stood facing each other in the middle of the room waiting for Narender to bring a carton that I could put on my face. I asked ‘Seven paces?’

  ‘Ok,’ said Harpal.

  ‘Eight?’ I said. It sounded like a puppy whining.

  ‘Behnchod, khatam karo ye chutiyaap!’ Harpal shook his gun impatiently.

  ‘Ok, eight it is,’ Sampu declared.

  Narender appeared with a small blue carton. I read the label: Royale Adult Diapers, under it in cursive: the respect you deserve. Harpal screamed ‘No, not this one, take it away RIGHT NOW!’ Narender trembled and ran back in, Harpal shouted after him, ‘Bring the mineral water carton. It’s in the storeroom.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Narender replied. He came back with a carton that was too big for my head.

  ‘Let it be,’ I threw the carton on the sofa. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  Puran counted till 10: ‘GO!’ he screamed. We walked eight paces. We turned and I heard a bang. I got hit in the stomach. I was in pain. Harpal was groaning too. He was holding his left hand and cursing ‘Lucky bastard. Lucky, lucky bastard’. Chaddha checked where I’d been hit. I opened my eyes a wee bit. I wasn’t bleeding. Puran was bent over Harpal. He had a large Dettol bottle in his hand. I shut my eyes again and waited for it to end. There was some commotion and people talking. There was talk about what happens if both parties get hit. No one had a clear answer. Narender had found some milk while looking for the carton. He offered to make tea. Everyone said yes.

  Harpal was hit on his right finger. He shrieked when Puran put Dettol on it. My tummy wound was superficial. Chaddha said my paunch saved me and I should be thankful for having one even though I was otherwise thin. I thanked the lord for my paunch and that made me hungry. I asked Sampu to ask Narender for biscuits.

  Harpal, Chaddha, Sampu and I sat on the sofa with cigarettes. Puran sat on a stool and watched us. No one said anything. Narender got tea and biscuits. Everyone was quiet. I gobbled three Parle-Gs as quietly as this solemn occasion demanded.

  Chaddha stood up when we were done. ‘Colonel Harpal uncle, we will vacate the house today. We won’t come back. Please, please don’t go to the police. I can only request you. The rest I leave to you.’

  Harpal didn’t answer. He was looking at his family photographs. Puran ushered us out. He said at the door, ‘I will talk to Colonel sahib.’

  Chaddha said, ‘Please do. Thank you.’

  I said, ‘No Puran ji, please don’t. Let him decide on his own. I will accept whatever happens now.’

  Chaddha hugged me in the lift. My shoulders went limp and I would have slept standing if Sampu hadn’t started his Parashuram comparison all over again. He said that I am aaj ka Parashuram, he said Nana Patekar could do my role in the film adaptation. I told him to shut up.

  It was 5:15 am. Suman had messaged. I replied. I told her I’m fine.

  The pigeon I had shot was alive and flapping at the same place waiting to be killed. I put a band-aid on my wound and went to sleep.

  PART FIVE

  Trishanku’s heaven

  Deepu finds his Omega

  I woke up thinking of my father. I called him. His phone was unreachable. I got a call from Deependu—Fulki’s employer. He said they had thought about it after talking to my mother. He’ll withdraw the case. I thanked him profusely. I said I’ll meet him at the police station.

  Chaddha was packing. It was quite a sight. I stood at the door and watched. He had his red suitcase open in front of him. The suitcase gaped at Chaddha, Chaddha gaped back at the suitcase. The first thing he put in there was his copy of Hamlet—it looked forlorn lying in the middle of a big empty box.

  I told him Bumbum would be out by 11 am. He said he wouldn’t go to the police station.

  ‘Rani Devi will slap me if she sees me again,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll stay back and prepare for the interview.’

  ‘Ok. Where will we go Chaddha?’

  ‘I don’t know man. If nothing works out, we’ll leave our stuff at Sampu’s place and live in a cheap hotel for a few days till we get a house to rent. Let’s not worry about it. How about some breakfast?’

  He made toast and tea. We ate together. He was lost in thought, then he remembered something, he said, ‘You didn’t hit him. It was his rifle’s trigger guard. His finger got stuck in it.’

  ‘Oh, I thought I had hit him,’ I said.

  ‘He won’t tell anyone about that,’ he said, ‘it makes him look like a fool. He’ll pretend you were lucky to have hit him.’

  ‘Yes, he’ll stick to that.’

  ‘You’re a terrible shot. You didn’t kill the bird, you know that?’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said.

  We finished our cigarettes. Chaddha wanted to be left alone. I bathed, shaved and put on an ironed shirt and trouser, I hung my empty laptop bag on my shoulders. I wanted to look respectable when I met Inspector Rani Devi. At the society gate, a security guard asked me if we were moving out today and I said yes, this evening.

  There was a snub-nosed policeman at the station entrance, he asked me what I was there for, I said a friend of mine was here. He led me to a short, wide corridor that opened to a vacant yard. On the right of the corridor was the lockup. Bumbum was crouched on the floor in one corner, in the middle were two fat men who looked like thugs—one of them had a mole on the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Bumbum,’ I said. He looked up and smiled. I knew that smile. It was the grin of the defeated, the painted smile of people who had lost all hope. It was Ajaiyya’s smile. I stood there looking at him. All these years I had romantic notions of meeting Ajaiyya one day and telling him how bad I felt for the time when he was beaten and tied. Maybe I could tell Bumbum instead.

  ‘Goor manning, bhaiyya,’ Bumbum said.

  ‘Good morning Bumbum ji, how are you?’ I asked.

  He didn’t respond. It was a stupid question.

  ‘Did they beat you here?’

  He nodded.

  I said, ‘I know you didn’t steal. They are withdrawing the case. Fulki and you will be out in some time, don’t worry.’

  He started crying.

  ‘Where is Fulki?’ I asked.

  ‘She is with the inspector,’ he said.

  The inspector’s office was to the right of the courtyard. Deependu hadn’t reached yet. Rani Devi was busy writing something in a file. There was a girl crouched on the floor beside her chair.

  ‘Fulki?’ I said. She looked up. Her eyes were puffy, she had been crying all night. Her right ear was bright red. Someone had been pulling it. I assumed it must have been Rani Devi’s morning cardio.

  ‘Yes, bhaiyya,’ she said.

  ‘I’m Mukund.’

  ‘I know bhaiyya, he has shown me your photos on his mobile,’ she smiled.

  Rani Devi said, ‘Enough talk. Why have you come here?’

  ‘Ma’am, Deependu ji, her employer is on his way. He will withdraw the case.’

  ‘Why are you people busy filing and withdrawing cases? Behnchod, do you think
our time is for free? Do you?’

  ‘No, ma’am, sorry ma’am, umm … we settled it amongst ourselves,’ I mumbled.

  ‘What was stopping you from settling it earlier? Why come here and do this tamasha? You may have settled it but you haven’t settled it with me!’ she paused, she noticed Fulki. She must’ve forgotten that Fulki was in the room. She caught her by the ear and pulled her up, ‘Go out and wait,’ she said.

  She asked after Fulki left, ‘Has your friend found a job for my son?’

  ‘He’s trying Ma’am. These things take time; I’ve been trying to find a job for a month now.’

  ‘Same for my son, he’s been trying for six months, nothing till now,’ she nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they all want something else, they don’t want me.’

  We indulged in some synchronized nodding. She empathized with me even though she didn’t want to.

  ‘Ok, ask this Deependu-Pheependu to come fast. I have other work to do.’

  I called him. He was in the parking lot. He came in a few minutes later.

  ‘So you found your...’ she read from the complaint, ‘Omega wrist watch worth forty thousand? You found it?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, there was a confusion, my wife had put it in the cupboard,’ he said timidly. I had to strain my ears to listen to what he was saying.

  She said, ‘What? What did you say? I can’t hear a thing.’

  ‘I found it ma’am,’ he was louder this time.

  ‘Very good, very good, how about the mobile and the money?’

  ‘That’s all right ma’am. We would like to withdraw the case.’

  ‘There was no mobile and no money, isn’t it?’ She took a sip from her empty cup. ‘What if I don’t want to withdraw the case?’

  ‘Ma’am let it go, please. We’ll do as you want ma’am,’ I said.

  ‘What do I want? Tell me, you tell me, what do I want?’ she asked. Chaddha would’ve managed this much better. I was fucking up.

  ‘No, no, nothing … I know you want nothing ma’am. We are saying it’s settled, we would like to take them home with us,’ I said.

  ‘What do you have to say?’ she asked Deependu, ‘You think it’s a good idea to waste my time, to waste the time of Gurgaon Police by fabricating lies about stolen watches and stolen mobiles eh?’

  ‘No, ma’am, we didn’t have any wrong intentions. We are sorry. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time. My wife got very upset because he was coming to the house behind our back. We have a small child at home,’ he hung his head as if he had failed a high school test and Rani was his dejected, doting mother.

  ‘Ok, ok. I will decide what needs to be done. You write a letter stating the withdrawal of your complaint,’ she told him.

  He wrote a letter, signed it, gave me a sheepish grin and left. I waited. She was looking through some files. Ten minutes later she looked up and said, ‘You’re still here?’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘Do you have a car?’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘I have to buy vegetables. Will you drive me to the nearby market?’

  I said, ‘Yes, of course.’

  I had two thousand four hundred rupees in my account. She wanted more. I told her my entire sob story. It struck a chord. She nodded a few times. She decided to rob me anyway. I withdrew two thousand and handed it to her. She quickly slipped it into her pocket. She asked me to ask Chaddha to meet her. I told her I would, I requested her to let Bumbum and Fulki go. She nodded. She bought potatoes, small onions, beans and three large red pomegranates. I paid for the vegetables and fruits. I said, ‘My treat,’ and grinned like an idiot.

  Bumbum and Fulki were beaming when they emerged from the station. Bumbum was very sorry for what had happened. He said they would have continued to meet at the boundary early in the mornings, if not for Narender and Harpal. He said none of it would have happened if they had let them be. I told him it shouldn’t have happened anyway. He nodded. I asked him what he planned to do now. He told me he would stay with one of his friends, and he and Fulki had money saved up to rent a room. I told him we were moving out of Srijan Vihar today. He offered to help us move. He wasn’t willing to hear a ‘No’.

  ‘Bhaiyya, if they don’t let me in, I will stand at the gate and help you carry your things out,’ he said.

  He left with Fulki. He said he’d be back in an hour.

  I had thought we had nothing much to move, that it would be easy. The beds and the plastic chairs were our landlord’s, the only furniture we owned was Chaddha’s table, the TT table and my TV trolley. Then I remembered the two TVs, the fridge, the two ACs, the gas cylinder and stove. I realised we would need a moving van and an electrician. I went and hired a tractor carrier. I talked to Chaddha, he said he’ll pay for it. I had reached a point when I had 40 rupees in my wallet and 400 rupees in my account.

  I called my father. His phone was still off. I called his caretaker Shankar ji. He told me that he was okay. Papa’s phone was broken. I asked Shankar ji to give me a missed call when he was with Papa. A few hours later my father called.

  ‘Hello Mukund.’

  ‘Yes, Papa. Whose number is this?’

  ‘This is Shankar’s wife’s number. He gave me her phone for the time being.’

  ‘What happened to your phone?’

  ‘It broke. This Shankarwa always messes up things. I told him not to keep it on the tea table.’

  ‘So it fell?’

  ‘No, it didn’t fall.’

  ‘Then how did it break?’

  ‘It’s not broken, it looks fine. I spilled tea on it. I put it outside to dry but it doesn’t work anymore.’

  ‘Oh, so why don’t you buy a new one Papa?’

  ‘Why buy new? I will get this one repaired,’ he said.

  ‘Are you all right Papa? Is your health okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m ok. This Shankarwa is exploiting me, he wants all my money, his wife is a whore, she wants all my money.’

  ‘No Papa, please don’t say that. They care for you.’

  ‘They just want money. You have abandoned me, Papa is all alone at the mercy of these villains, they don’t give me food, they hide my fruits, they want to take my car and my things and my money and you have left me and you don’t come anymore and you don’t know but Papa will die, Papa will die soon,’ he stopped to breathe.

  ‘Don’t say that Papa, don’t say that, nothing will happen to you, nothing will happen to you,’ I realised my head was splitting. I pushed my index finger and thumb into my forehead, ‘Papa, Papa …’ I said.

  He didn’t reply. The call hadn’t dropped but he wasn’t there. I called back, the phone was off. I called Shankar ji.

  ‘Bhaiyya, I think you should come. We can’t do it anymore bhaiyya, we can’t take care of him anymore, he needs his own flesh and blood to look after him,’ he said.

  ‘What happened Shankar ji?’ I asked.

  ‘He keeps abusing me and my wife, he keeps calling us names, we put hot food on the table for him, we do everything to make his life comfortable bhaiyya,’ he began crying. ‘My wife has even washed his dirty undergarments bhaiyya, I massage his feet every night... and he calls her names, he calls me a useless idiot who couldn’t do anything in life …’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry Shankar ji.’

  ‘You come bhaiyya, you come, I want to be free of this responsibility,’ he said.

  ‘Shankar ji, show him to a doctor and let me know what he says,’ I said.

  ‘No bhaiyya, you come please.’

  ‘Shankar ji, I will talk to him now and he will accompany you to a doctor tomorrow, ok? Once I have talked to the doctor then I’ll come.

  ‘As you wish bhaiyya,’ he was still sobbing.

  ‘Give the phone to Papa, I need to talk to him.’

  He climbed up a flight of stairs to Papa’s bedroom.

  ‘What is it Shankarwa? What do you want now?’ it was my father’s angry voice.

  ‘I don’t wan
t anything Uncle ji. Please talk to your son,’ Shankar said.

  ‘Why should I talk to him? Why do you talk to my son? You must have told him bad things about me.’

  ‘Please,’ Shankar pleaded.

  Papa got on the phone, ‘Yes, Mukund,’ he said.

  ‘Papa, can we talk? Can you ask Shankar ji to leave?’

  ‘Yes, he’s left,’ he said.

  ‘Papa, I won’t come till you show a doctor.’

  ‘So then don’t come, I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone. You and your mother are made of the same mould, I always knew that.’

  ‘Ok Papa, as you wish,’ I disconnected the phone.

  Woh to hai Albela

  Chaddha’s interview went well. He got back in the afternoon, he was smiling.

  ‘Still two rounds to go but this seems to be clicking Bhandari,’ he said. ‘How about a last game of anti-TT?’ he asked.

  It was a good end to our stay at Srijan Vihar: ricocheting ping-pong balls and the soundtrack of Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa looped on Chaddha’s Sony stereo. We dedicated Woh to hai albela to Harpal. We sang in unison:

  Woh to hai albela

  Hazaron mein akela

  Sada tumne ayeb dekha

  Hunar toh na dekha

  Chaddha won the game. It was close but I was playing with an injury and my tummy just couldn’t move fast enough.

  I began packing. I found Suman’s Al Green CD in my drawer. I played it. I put my toothbrush in a cardboard box. I put my clothes in my old suitcase. The music was still playing when I finished packing the few things I needed to take with me. I took out the CD, put it back in the case and placed it on top of the shiny grey suit that Suman had made fun of. I shut the suitcase. I was done.

  That afternoon we moved our stuff to Sampu’s home. We knew we would be a nuisance but it wasn’t like we had too many options to choose from.

  Moving was painful. Bumbum, Chaddha and I had to pack, carry, drag, lift and push everything from the house to the lift, load it on the tractor and then carry it to Sampu’s living room. When we finished, our house was empty except for the grieving pigeon on the balcony and Sampu’s living room looked like a refugee camp.