Murder with Bengali Characteristics Read online

  Verma looked around approvingly. You had to give it to the Chinese. They knew how to get things done. ‘It’s about time these guys worked for a living,’ he said. Agarwal found the atmosphere disturbing. Some of the players were friends. He hated to see them suffer. He waved out to one of them, who was stretched out on something that was more or less a rack.

  They walked to the centre of the field, where Junior Khan and his manager were waiting for them. Nearby, a small cluster of players stood in a huddle. One of them was doing a quick spot of self-criticism. ‘I didn’t bowl fast enough,’ he was saying, ‘I paid insufficient attention to the instructions of Manager Feng. I failed to work on my upper body strength. My socks smell. I was weakened by drinking too much carbonated beverage…’

  A whistle blew sharply, twice. The players re-doubled their efforts. The air was filled with moans and cries and whispers and sighs. It was like a Swedish film retrospective.

  Junior Khan came forward. He knew Agarwal well. They went to the same clubs. Khan was a superstar, like his father, only more cheerful and less prone to moodiness. He didn’t mind being called Junior, and readily admitted that his dad was much better. Everyone loved him, even the Chinese. They were growing quite fond of Hindi movies. Their moral fibre was weakening.

  ‘Hello Kanti-bhai,’ said Junior Khan. ‘Welcome to Eden Gardens.’

  ‘This is my partner, Verma,’ said Agarwal, ‘he’s from Delhi.’

  He cleared his throat nervously. The matter was delicate. There was no good way to tell a man who was a superstar in seventeen countries that they needed him to pimp for them. Of course, it was all for a noble cause. Lives were at stake. Agarwal had managed to convince himself that his motives were altruistic, although he was not averse to making a rupee or two if the opportunity presented itself. But how was he to broach the subject? Tact would be called for.

  ‘So, dude, where did all the babes go?’ asked Verma, precipitating matters to a certain extent.

  ‘You mean the cheerleaders?’ asked Junior Khan, genuinely shocked. He respected the girls. They were performers, just like him, and his father before him, and an integral part of the KLS experience.

  ‘Ya, man,’ said Verma, ‘are they tired from all the partying or what?’ He emphasized the word ‘partying’. What a dickhead, thought Junior Khan. Fresh from the mustard fields. Either real estate or mining. Even the sand mafia had more style.

  ‘The girls have just finished their reality show,’ he said, ‘Right now they’re at army HQ in Fort William.’

  ‘Raising the morale of the troops?’ inquired Agarwal, politely.

  ‘Being trained by instructors from the Army gymnastics team. They’re on a diet of soya milk and cucumber. They’re suffering terribly. We tried smuggling in some burgers the other day, but the security is way too strict.’

  Agarwal grimaced. There was no doubt about it. He was being fucked by fate. His original plan had involved loitering around the sidelines, chatting up one of the girls near the water cooler during a break between jumping jacks, whisking her off in his limousine for a quick tea with Governor Wen, and then allowing nature to take its own course. Beyond that he would not go. After all, he too had mothers and sisters. But he had not anticipated that the cheerleaders would be in military custody. It wouldn’t be easy to get near the water coolers in Fort William, nor were they likely to be getting many breaks.

  The whistle blew again. Someone had collapsed. Orderlies, resplendent in purple and gold, ran across the field with a stretcher. The stretcher was sponsored by Samsung, and shaped like a mobile phone. They were holding it at a forty-five degree angle, for greater logo visibility. Sometimes the patients slipped off, but the sponsors never complained.

  ‘How about parties?’ asked Agarwal, clutching at straws, ‘You must be having some parties?’

  ‘There is no party except the Communist Party!’ barked Manager Feng, from just behind Junior Khan’s left shoulder. He was recording their conversation with his spectacles.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Junior Khan. ‘Frankly I’m relieved. Those parties were wiping me out. Everyone wanted to come. Nobody ever wanted to leave. It was like hosting three weddings every week. They drank their body weight in alcohol.’

  Agarwal hadn’t realized they were being recorded. It didn’t really matter. His job was to procure a Kolkata Light Striders cheerleader as a concubine for Governor Wen, which would give him the courage to file a report about Bengal designed to petrify the Politburo, and make them less likely to respond to the insults and provocations that the Competent Authority was heaping on their heads. He liked to think of it as a peace mission.

  ‘Come on, yaar, you must be having some private parties,’ said Verma, ‘otherwise what is the point?’

  Junior Khan smiled and shook his head. ‘Just on my birthday,’ he said.

  Verma was disappointed on a variety of levels. During those cold, dark nights at his mine in Chhattisgarh, as the machine guns chattered and the vuvuzelas droned, he had often kept his spirits up by thinking about the goings on at IFCL parties, where power and beauty united as one. He imagined an Elysium of perpetual spring and shady groves, with wanton foreign women, the finest liquor, and big, chunky kebabs. All Sunita ever served at parties was tiny little biscuits with mysterious blobs on them, and there were never any wanton foreign women. He had soldiered on in the jungle, bolstered by the belief that if he could just avoid being massacred by the Maoists, and continued to accumulate at a 4,000 per cent margin, one day, paradise would be his. Here he was at last, at the very gates to that paradise, and they were denying that it even existed.

  ‘When’s your birthday?’ he asked, without much hope.

  ‘Not soon,’ said Junior Khan. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Say the governor of some country wants to come to a party,’ said Agarwal, cunningly, ‘would you throw a special party for him?’

  ‘We would,’ said Junior Khan.

  ‘And the whole KLS team would be there? Not just the players? Some governors are very particular about this type of thing. It’s a question of respect.’

  ‘Everyone would be there,’ said Junior Khan.

  ‘If you got a request like that, how soon could you set it up?’

  ‘Depends on when the army releases the girls. Unless some of your friends would like to come as cheerleaders? We can arrange costumes for them.’

  Verma and Agarwal looked at each other. They had considered the option of counterfeit, ersatz or duplicate cheerleaders, but the Governor was bound to conduct some form of verification. It was an undertaking fraught with peril. They could very well end up assembling souvenirs in the Central Jail on Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which had recently reopened for business. They shook hands with Junior Khan, saluted Manager Feng, and walked back across the field. Near the boundary, they saw the most famous of the batsmen, half bent over, panting. His coach took the whistle out of his mouth and wagged his finger in front of his face. ‘Three months, no advertising for you!’

  Heartrending cries of despair followed them though the tunnel, until they emerged out into the sunlight. They decided to eschew watching cricket in future, stunned by the underlying inhumanity.

  It was a quiet day at the Gardens. The broad streets around it wore a deserted look. In the distance, a column of tanks was rumbling down Red Road, where fighter jets had once landed during World War II. They were on their way to the border, which remained fluid. A Smiley Drone spotted them and flew in towards them. They were red here, to distinguish them from the yellow ones used in the rest of the country. It made them less reassuring. The Smiley Drone hovered above them, playing a Hawaiian guitar version of the timeless music of Tagore as it received instructions.

  The music stopped. The Smiley Drone quivered briefly and projected a hologram. It was the head of an elderly woman with a dark, round face and wild white hair. She was glaring at them accusingly. Both of them took an involuntary step backwards.

&
nbsp; ‘Attention Citizens!’ said the Smiley Drone. ‘An enemy of the people has escaped from the Pandit Batra Institute for the Criminally Insane! Suspect is unarmed and extremely dangerous. Answers to the name of Pishi. Frequently recites poetry. Severe allergy to the colour red. May be seeking painting materials. Reacts badly to the term “Maoist”. In case of sighting, please report her to the authorities immediately. In case you feel an overwhelming urge to obey her, please back away slowly, and remember to preserve teeth by always using bottle-openers. Avoid Small Peasant Thinking!’

  ‘Naughty boy! Don’t say silly things!’ said the old woman, and gave them one final glare before vanishing. The Smiley Drone flew off, seeking other people to warn, playing a cheerful tune. They stood there, transfixed, as the tune faded into the distance.

  ‘Holy Mother! Pishi has escaped!’ said Agarwal.

  ‘Wasn’t she once a great leader?’ asked Verma.

  ‘Let’s not remember those days,’ said Agarwal. ‘All the small people were acting like big people. All the dadas were worshipping her. We feared her whims and supported her fancies. Laughing at her was forbidden. Voting for her was compulsory. The soil of Bengal is rich with the ashes of those who refused. Sometimes she wrote poetry.’

  ‘Sounds like my mother-in-law,’ said Verma.

  ‘It’s not a joking matter. She has the power to make people obey. It’s a crisis situation. But perhaps everything will work out for the best. The Chinese are mighty. She’s just an old woman. Her former followers are well integrated with the current financial ecosystem. Anyway, there is no point in worrying. It’s in the hands of the gods. All we can do is trust in them and keep making money.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Verma.

  ‘It does not seem that finding high quality concubines in Calcutta is going to be so easy. Traditionally, all of us have faced this problem. My uncle used to go to America, and as a result he contracted AIDS. My representatives are working, but I’m feeling doubtful. I think the time has come to meet Bijli-uncle. He’s a very shrewd person. He looks very quiet, but his brain is always working. That’s his plus point. Perhaps he can give us some suggestions.’

  ‘This is what we should have done at the beginning, man!’ said Verma. ‘I tried to tell you, but you had to be clever, didn’t you? Let me go and handle, you said. What handling have you done? So far, all we’ve done is watch the Governor do comedy, followed by the torture of cricketers.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Agarwal, ‘Bijli-uncle will know what to do. Besides, if we want to go for the option of engineering gadar, we require a leader with charisma. Bijli-uncle has too much charisma. He’s not been using it for a long time. At one time, many Bengalis were confused. Simultaneously they were supporting Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, because of his suspicion of Muslims, Indira Gandhi, because of her resemblance to Mother Durga, and Bijli Bose, because of his resemblance to a tall leader. He never really did anything, but the possibility was always there. Perhaps he’ll be willing to help us. Leave everything to me.’

  ‘If you screw this up, I’ll kick your ass,’ said Verma.

  Agarwal smiled fondly. So aggressive he was. ‘Don’t do tension,’ he said, ‘we just have to pick up a bottle of Lagavulin on the way.’

  13

  ‘These Chinese people have banned all the TV shows, except kung-fu-shung-fu...’

  ‘FISH FOR ALL!’ proclaimed the board above the entrance. Next to the slogan was a happy cartoon fish, leaping into a bright blue fishing boat, not in the least bit put out by the prospect of imminent consumption. The building was a square concrete block in Late Period Stalinist Ugly, typical of every building ever built by the communists in Bengal. Their only other architectural contribution had been to add touches of red to historic monuments, such as the tip of the Shaheed Minar, a large and rampant phallic symbol built to honour martyrs of the freedom struggle.

  The reception was cavernous and entirely empty. Stuffed fish eyed them coldly from the walls. The centre of the room was dominated by a full-scale model of the Digha Ultra-Modern Fish Auction Centre. Stuck to it was a piece of paper with ‘COMING SOON!’ written on it. Construction had begun in 2010, twenty-five years ago.

  Phoni-babu was peering up at a framed poster listing endangered species of fish. It was illustrated, for ease of recognition. ‘Pabda, chitol, topse, tangra, koi, bhetki,’ he read. ‘How can they be endangered? People are buying them in Gariahat Market all the time.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why they’re endangered,’ said Big Chen.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Phoni-babu, ‘that humans are fucking faster than fish, so fish population is not growing as per requirement. What is there left in the market? Nothing except small baby fish, that too in limited quantity. This recent craze for fish-egg pakoras may also be a factor. If we eat all their eggs, where will the new fish come from? Supply is reducing rapidly. There was a protest in our locality recently. All the local aunties were marching. They preferred to be on the streets, rather than face the anger of their husbands. We suppressed it by declaring Section 144, and conducting minor lathi-charge.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a temporary problem?’ said Big Chen.

  Phoni-babu ran his finger over the poster. It was caked with grime.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘this was put up years ago. Problem is not new.’

  Big Chen smiled to himself. Like it or not, the old goat was learning from the boss. He had never seen him use his brain before. ‘Let’s go meet our witness,’ he said. They were here to meet a colleague of the victim and were running late.

  ‘Why should we go in?’ asked Phoni-babu. ‘He should come out. Let me drag him out by his hair and hold him from the backside. Then you poke him in the stomach with your revolver. That way we’ll get quick answers.’

  ‘Let’s talk first,’ said Big Chen, and walked in. The corridor was poorly lit, the floor strewn with dried rose petals from some long-forgotten VIP visit. The office was huge and empty, except for a bespectacled young man sitting at one of the desks, checking out light pornography on his phone. It was a room full of files. Files on tables, files in cabinets, files stacked on the floor. Many were damp and mouldy, held together by rotting string, and home to numerous life-forms. Others had fused into solid chunks of compressed and horrible decay. The predominant colour of the room was an indeterminate, mottled grey. Tube-lights lined the ceiling. Some worked. Most flickered. It reminded Big Chen of the Museum of Ethnic Peoples in his hometown, except with files instead of Uighur veils and Tibetan headgear.

  They stepped their way through the files, careful not to get anything on their shoes till they reached the young man at his desk. He was fidgeting nervously. All his colleagues had left long ago, exhausted by a hard day’s work. Their day started at 11.30 with a cup of tea, followed by the newspaper, discussion of the newspaper, speculation regarding lunch, mental preparation for lunch, lunch, recovery from lunch, discreet naps, another cup of tea, rebuttals of points made earlier while discussing the newspaper, and departure, clutching a man-purse with a plastic strap. Sometimes they had review meetings.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ said the young man. He was curly-haired, angelic and thirsty. He was hoping they weren’t here to execute him. The others were waiting for him at the bar.

  ‘No one says you did,’ said Big Chen. He sat down and offered him a cigarette. Phoni-babu grunted disapprovingly. Why don’t you give him a foot massage, he wanted to say. He was against mollycoddling of suspects. The young man looked around nervously. They were indoors. ‘Go ahead,’ said Big Chen, ‘You’re a party member, aren’t you?’

  He had to be. It was the only way to get a government job.

  The young clerk took the cigarette. Big Chen lit it for him. He took a few drags, gaining courage with every puff. It looked like he wasn’t going to be executed immediately. He would be able to say goodbye to his mother.

  ‘You shared a room with Mr Mondol, no?’ said Phoni-babu, ‘We’re trying to understand his character.
What type of character was he?’

  ‘Didn’t talk much, but overall the OK type,’ said the young man. ‘Except he was always clearing files too fast, and causing pile-ups on the tables of other people. Sometimes he even carried them across, without calling a bearer. I tried to tell him this was very wrong, but he never listened. Even the union had a word with him.’

  ‘Troublemaker,’ said Phoni-babu, darkly.

  ‘We tolerated him,’ said the young man, ‘at least he didn’t lecture people, like Mr Sarkar in Purchase. He’s like a machine. Once he starts talking about the tendencies of modern youth, you can’t stop him without chloroform. Even during lunchtime he shows no mercy. If anyone was going to be murdered I would have expected it to be him.’

  ‘This look familiar?’ asked Big Chen, taking out a visiting card. Inspector Li had found it in the dead man’s wallet. He pressed a corner. A little hologram appeared, and bowed deeply.

  ‘It’s him!’ said the young man. ‘The crazy Japanese guy. He came with a ninja. The ninja was wearing a pollution mask. The pollution mask kept talking to us, saying things like, “Please don’t breathe in my face”, and “Kindly kill that mosquito”. The Japanese are brilliant. Everything there is automatic. They even make automatic women. Netaji had the right idea, tying up with them.’

  ‘Well, we kicked their asses in ’22, just before we kicked yours,’ growled Big Chen. He’d fought in the aftermath of the Limited Nuclear Incident of ’22, and seen the Japanese in action. He’d left blood on the beaches of Okinawa. He was no fan of the Japanese. This was one of the many problems with these people. They talked so much and so fast, they hardly ever stopped to think. For them, the rhythm of their words was everything.

  ‘What did he want?’ asked Phoni-babu.

  ‘He came here to look for fish!’

  They both had a hearty laugh. The Fisheries Department was the last place to look for fish. Being very literal minded the Japanese would not have understood this.