M.V. Swaroop
It had been threatening to rain for weeks. Sometimes, it drizzled shyly. Sometimes, there was just a bracing moisture in the air. Like most July evenings in Madras, it was cloudy and sultry at once. I was playing with the blinds of my window when I heard a woman in my head. ‘Ajeeb daastaan hai yeh,’ she sang. It was immediately followed by a phrase of the chastest Begada. Pa sa ga ri ga. Then she sang ‘Kahaan shuru kahaan khatam’, only to be followed by da pa da ma ma ga ri sa ga. ‘Yeh manzilen hain kaunsi’, ri ni da pa sa. ‘Na woh samajh sake na hum’, ni ni da pa da ma ma ga ri sa.
Two musical idioms. Two voices. Both strong, both distinctive. One’s musical intonation was breezier, freer, but seemed to possess depth; the other was heavier, more accented, but wore its heaviness lightly. The former was Geeta Dutt’s, definitely. Or maybe I had just taught myself to hear it in her voice; she should have sung the song. The latter, I gathered, was Brindamma.
Soon, the voices were accompanied by an image. It was a hazy place. It looked like a crowd of men in retro suits, smoking away. But they all seemed immersed in the music of the band playing in the background with the two of them singing. Geeta, Brindamma. Each smilingly challenging the other in her own style. They were backed by horns. There was a string section. There was a veena. There were drums. There was a mridangam. The place was not too crowded, but it possessed some kind of earthy energy.
I was now walking involuntarily towards the band. The men at the tables seemed to silently cheer me on. They didn’t say a word, they didn’t even really look at me. But it felt like they were urging me towards the stage. The Begada had, by this time, blended seamlessly into the ‘Ajeeb dastaan’. They were now two parts of the same song being sung in the same style. I wasn’t walking any more, I was floating towards the stage. Something drew me towards it. Someone, rather. The two styles sounded now like they were being sung by the same person. They were two facets of the same voice, like two sides of a story. The singer’s face was obscured by the smoke, but the details slowly emerged. Nandini Nambirajan. Nan-di-ni, I called out to her, pausing after every syllable. Rather apt, I think, that Nabokovian allusion, for she was, all said, thirty years my junior.
I was getting closer to the stage, the crowd still quietly prodding me along, when there was a shriek. It didn’t come from Nandini, for she wasn’t on stage any more. Before I could find out who it was, the stage dissolved into the blinds of my window and I was back staring at the dull Madras evening.
A Prussian blue Honda Civic swerved into the impossibly narrow Kondi Chetty Street. It navigated brashly around a cycle rickshaw, pushed two small trucks out of the way and frightened a canoodling family of hens and roosters before settling down opposite my office window. This meant that no other vehicle could pass through the street, but the insolence with which the car careened around the street before it came to a halt showed that the driver didn’t care.
Geeta Dutt now sang ‘Hoon abhi main jawaan, ae dil’ as a lady wearing the most elaborate modern Indian wedding attire – a mirror-ridden bright blue ghagra-choli, large eye-piercing jewellery, a stole that rested uncomfortably between the arms and greenish-blue eye-shadow – got off the car. She was shapely and ample at once.
She seemed to be heading towards my office. I closed the blinds, gulped down the tea, silenced Geeta Dutt, pulled out a particularly large book from the shelf and put it on my table. I opened a page, left a pencil on it, marked out three lines with a blue highlighter, stuck Post-its on two other pages and waited for the doorbell to ring. When it did, I sat at the table and announced, ‘It’s open!’
She walked in. I smiled. And she fell – tripped on her own billowing skirt. I rushed to help her to her feet but she didn’t need my help. She set her bag on a side-table by the entrance.
‘Are you all right? Water?’ I asked, trying to be sensitive.
‘Is that all you can offer your clients?’ she asked, not betraying any emotion.
‘Whisky?’ I paused. She didn’t react. ‘And a cigar, perhaps? I have one that is rolled in Brazil on a virgin’s thigh.’
‘From what your office looks like, you can’t afford one of those,’ she said. She was right. The chairs were old (inherited from a generous friend), the books and reporters were all second-hand, the bookshelves were made of steel, yellowing paper lay strewn like clothes after a night of passion. There was no coffee machine (a boy brought me three cups of chai a day – one, early in the morning before I left for court, the second one, early in the evening when I came back, and the third, late evening, just before I left for home), no water filter (I carried a bottle from home), no table for a secretary (I didn’t have one), and no computer (I used one at a cyber café downstairs).
‘Who are you hiding your money from?’ she asked.
‘An honest lawyer doesn’t make much, you know.’
‘Which is why I’m even more surprised.’
I didn’t usually take clients talking back to me. But she did it in a manner that was curt and casual at once. It didn’t prick.
She lit a cigarette. I wanted to stop her – I don’t allow people to smoke in my office – but I didn’t.
‘You are older than I expected you to be,’ she said.
‘I’m fifty-nine. I think I look rather sprightly for my age.’ My paunch was spilling out of shirt, my scalp was fighting a highly successful battle against my hair, my asthma ensured I couldn’t climb up a flight of stairs to my office without frantically searching for the inhaler. Sprightly was the word.
‘Still, they told me you were the man for the job,’ she said.
I didn’t say anything.
She asked, ‘Are you?’
‘Depends on who they are.’
‘They. You know. Those unnamed entities one blames everything on. They.’
‘Oh. Them. I know. What “job” is this? I’m only a lawyer.’
‘They assured me you were more.’
‘They. Yes. They are capable of saying anything.’
She flicked some ash on to the floor and didn’t bother to apologize.
‘Usually, people tell me their names first,’ I said.
‘Don’t act like you don’t know,’ she said.
I didn’t know her name. But I played along. ‘Okay, so what’s the issue?’
‘I have a slightly knotty issue,’ she said.
‘Naughty?’
‘Knotty. With a k.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. So, I’m getting married soon to this man.’
‘Knotty, with a k. Yes.’
She ignored the joke. I wondered if she had used the word ‘knotty’ for this precise reason.
‘Well, he’s my ex-partner’s ex-husband.’
‘Ex-citing,’ I offered. She ignored that. ‘Fairly naughty also, with an n,’ I tried. She ignored the joke again. Then it struck me, ‘Ex-partner?’
‘We ran a little advertising firm…’
‘Oh, sorry. I was getting other naughty ideas.’
She raised her eyebrow.
‘Don’t ask me to explain that joke now!’ I said.
‘I’m not asking you to.’
‘Okay. So you’re marrying this guy. So what? Marry him. It’s a free country.’
‘I don’t want her making any trouble.’
‘What trouble?’
‘You know… Disrupt the wedding, this and that.’
‘Wait. Did your firm break-up because of this issue?’
‘No, we had other issues.’
‘What?’
‘Fee sharing.’
‘Hmmm. How’s she faring?’ I love spoonerisms. They make me feel rather intelligent.
‘I hope I’m not paying for these jokes.’
‘No. They come free with the work. What do you want done?’
‘Keep an eye on her. If she tries anything, stop her.’
I thought for a bit and said, ‘Right. First, I am not a detective. Second, I am not the police. Third, I am not the mafia. Lastly, I do no family law. Find someone else.’
She looked at me pleadingly with those blue eyeshadow-ridden eyes. ‘I’ll pay you well.’
‘Ma’am, this isn’t my job, really. You want a detective.’
‘I want you. Not someone else.’
‘Women keep saying that to me,’ I sighed.
‘Listen, mister. I came to you because your brother told me you had handled something like this before…’
‘He lied.’
‘You haven’t handled something like this before?’
‘I don’t have a brother.’
‘Varun Krishnan?’
‘There are a hundred-thousand-and-eight Krishnans in Madras. They have five-hundred-thousand-and-eight children. Not one of them is my brother. My name is J. Narayanaswamy. I am an advocate. You’re in the wrong place.’
‘Thanks. I should leave then.’ She didn’t look even slightly fazed by the fact that I had no brother. Or that I had refused to take her case. She just stubbed out her cigarette on one of those yellowing sheets of paper on my table, and got up to leave.
‘Congrats on the wedding,’ I said.
‘Excuse me?’ she asked.
I didn’t say a word. She left in a huff – the stole swished stylishly behind her and the swinging door slammed shut. The Honda Civic swerved out of Kondi Chetty Street in the same manner as her stole. Geeta Dutt sang again. ‘Hoon abhi main jawaan, ae dil…’
The woman – I still didn’t know her name – knew that I worked as a detective. That was disturbing. I called Varun Krishnan. I had a different number to call him, registered in the name of P. James. Varun had a number in the name of one A. Andavan. I once asked him what ‘A’ stood for. He said, ‘Alwarpettai.’
He picked up, as usual, after five rings. Never earlier, never later. He was at the dingy bar near the port; I could hear that distinctive hum that only a confluence of tongues could produce. I didn’t know its name (I’m not sure it even had one), but I knew its din. I knew its stink even better – alcohol, piss and sweat. There’s nothing in this world more hard-hitting, and strangely, four drinks down, nothing more comforting.
‘Why did you send a client to my office?’ I asked. I never said hello to him – he would think I was unwell if I did. I also never met clients directly. Varun was the public face of my detective business. He was also my security system – if anyone tried snooping on the snooper, they ended up spending their days in the port bar, watching men getting drunk and walking to a corner of the room to pee.
‘What client?’ he asked.
‘This lady. She wanted me to keep an eye on someone.’
‘Name?’
‘I have no clue. She told me you gave her my reference. “Your brother, Varun Krishnan.”’
‘Boss, rubbish. I know no such lady.’
I trusted Varun; he would never lie to me. I summarized my suspicion for him: ‘There’s a leak in our system. Someone knows I’m a detective. Watch your step. Go out of town for a while.’
‘Okay,’ he said, his voice not betraying a shred of emotion. ‘But,’ he said suddenly, ‘Boss, you’re not even working on anything now.’
That wasn’t fully true, I was looking for Nandini. But Varun didn’t know that. It was a personal project. ‘I don’t get it at all. Give me a few days to think. I’ll get back to you.’
‘Sir,’ Varun said, ‘if you don’t mind me asking…’
‘What?’
‘Why did you meet Babu the other day?’
I had seen him about Nandini, but I couldn’t tell Varun that. ‘How do you know?’
‘Chicken told me,’ he said sheepishly.
Ah, Chicken. He had to be mixed up in this. Velmurugan (known as ‘Burqa Chicken’ – yes, an unfortunate pun) did some legwork for me. I could’ve alerted Chicken of the evening’s events via the phone, but I wanted to see his face when I told him of this – I didn’t trust him.
‘Ask Chicken to come to Queen’s tonight,’ I said, and ended the call. If I said bye, Varun would have worried for my health.
Ten seconds later, the lady walked back in. I was taken aback, but I remained poker-faced.
‘I left my bag,’ she said.
Damn, I thought, I should’ve noticed that bag – could’ve snooped through its contents if I had.
‘Women always make excuses to see me again…’
She picked up her bag and left in a huff, leaving me to my papers and my fake research. I looked out of the window. The Civic backed out and disappeared around the bend into Broadway.
An hour later, I walked across Broadway to the High Court where my car was parked, turned on some Geeta Dutt and drove towards Beach Road as the sun bade goodbye for the day. ‘Jaane kya tune kahi’, her voiced crackled, ‘jaane kya maine suni’, it continued. ‘Baat kuch ban hi gayi’, I hummed along. The song seeped into me, like it always did. It drew me into its universe, gently cajoling me with its swaying rhythm. When it ended, I played it again. And again. And again. On its seventh or eighth run, I reached Queen’s Bar.
It was on a quiet street off Pondy Bazaar, where south India buys bling saris and davanis for bling weddings. My mother told me when I was a kid that it was called Pondy Bazaar because most of the goods came from Pondicherry. That was rubbish – the name came as a corruption of Soundara Pandy Bazaar, named after a certain Soundarapandian Nadar, whose statue proudly stands at one end of the bazaar.
On weekends, only the brave denizens of the neighbourhood venture out on foot, and only the foolish take their cars outside the safety of their apartments’ minuscule parking lots. Pondy Bazaar is frighteningly crowded, and frighteningly popular. You cannot walk three feet without bumping into a bargain or overhearing of one. You can buy anything for a little less than half the price the salesman quotes for it, you can find spare parts for anything you own, you can find someone to repair every kind of machine.
But once the shutters fall down on the mega-shops, the gaudy, flashing neon lights rest for the day, their employees work their way into jam-packed buses to their suburbs, the roadside hawkers throw tarpaulin over their little shops, and the area acquires a different glow. The roads are bathed in orange, from the hazy lights that dot the roadside, the pavements are taken over by small omelette and tea sellers, a few drunks walk to and from the local ‘wine’ shop, families and shoppers gather at the eateries for dinner, the occasional bike speeds by, a few cars sail along the street. Strange city maintenance vehicles trundle along – the garbage trucks that make half-hearted attempts at cleaning the streets, another one that emits some spray that apparently de-mosquitoes the area, tow trucks that have had a busy day making small money off parking violators, assorted cranes from frenetic construction sites making their way back to their nightly resting places.
Then, the men of the neighbourhood (not the women) get out of the comfort of their apartments to have a drink. Every street in T. Nagar, every lane off Pondy Bazaar, has a shady little hotel. And every shady little hotel has a shady little bar. And of all the shady ones in Pondy Bazaar – I’ve been to most – Queen’s was the one with the most character.
The word ‘Bar’ blinked in bright red neon over a low archway that led down a flight of dingy, dirty stairs that smelt of stale cigarette smoke. At its base was a partly broken door that opened out into dim room full of men in various stages of inebriation. Well, not just men. There were a fair number of women, too – frozen in nude bas reliefs on the walls, engaged in womanly activities such as bathing in a river, washing clothes, and carrying pots of water. On a large screen, Jyothika danced in a yellow sari on a grassy hill, while a nondescript hero cavorted around her, looking needlessly jolly about the whole affair. Queen’s was the sort of place where, if your table sang happy birthday to you, the whole bar would join in. At some point in time, every single person on every single table would wish you a great year ahead.
Chicken sat at our usual table in the far corner, away from the light, away from the crowd. His mouth was half-open as he stared blankly at Jyothika. He was halfway through his drink. I hoped it was his first. You could never tell with Chicken – he would look perfectly sober before erupting into a volcano of drunkenness. He was six-feet-three-inches tall and six-feet-three-inches wide; it was a frightening volcano.
He got up and enclosed me in a warmer-than-reasonable hug. This was his third drink. ‘I have some happy news for you,’ he whispered in my ear. I asked him what it was. ‘Your Nandini is alive.’
I looked up at him immediately. He said, ‘Let’s get a drink first, I’ll tell you in detail.’
Chicken gesticulated to the waiter at the bar counter, and soon a Scotch manufactured in Ghaziabad made its way to the table. I barely sipped it before asking, ‘Tell me about Nandini.’
‘She’s in Babu’s house…’
‘The bastard,’ I said and gulped down the Scotch and motioned for another one. ‘What is she doing there?’
‘That, I don’t know. No one will tell. But she’s there.’
That wasn’t good news. One of Jagathratchagan Babu’s larger sources of income was the flesh trade. The second Scotch came, the second Scotch disappeared down my system. My gullet was burning, I was feeling stuffy. I needed another drink quickly. I called the waiter and said, ‘Get me a triple Scotch.’
‘Boss, chill,’ Chicken said, ‘she’s alive.’
The triple Scotch appeared and disappeared. The insipid Jyothika song melted away, and the room turned black-and-white.
Now there were men in suits and women in dresses. There was a spiral staircase somewhere. I could hear Geeta’s voice telling me, you said something, I said something, and it became something. Her voice was now accompanied by Brindamma singing Nalinakanti. The two were twisting around each other playfully, a flash of this, a dash of that. The men and women in the bar formed pairs and danced to the music, the women drawing the men into themselves – it was becoming something. There was only one woman in the room without a partner; she was the one doing the singing. In a black dress, a sloping hat and dark lipstick, she filled the space around her in a warm glow. I found myself being drawn towards her.
Is that you, Nan-di-ni, I asked. She just sang, smiling ever-so-slightly, You said something, I said something, and it became something. I got closer and recognized her nose first – longer than it should have been, pointier than it should have been. Her eyes, those perennially sleepy, dreamy eyes, perfectly beautiful, yet revealing a latent sadness. Those thin lips that moved so little, those little ears sporting dazzling earrings that always made me smile. Those hips that fit so perfectly in my hands, the curve of her behind, swaying so gently to the lilt of the song… Nan-di-ni, I said. She smiled again, she continued singing. Sometimes as Geeta, sometimes as Brinda.
She held out her hand, asking for mine. I floated closer to her. Nan-di-ni, I said, what are you doing in Babu’s house? She held my hand, gently, and said, I love him. I let go of her hand. I turned around and started walking away. She reached out for my arm, held it and said, I’m sorry, Jay. I turned back to her. Only, it wasn’t Nandini. It was the lady who came to my office that evening.
You! I shouted. Me, she said. Think about what happened, she said. You said something, I said something, and it became something, she sang. I held her arm and asked, Who the fuck are you? Before she could answer, there was a huge thud and then a gunshot. The world acquired colour again, the spiral staircase disappeared. The women went back to their places on the wall.
I got up from my table and turned around to see Jagathratchagan Babu in his white shirt and white dhoti, standing by the door, smirking. It was beyond 11 p.m., but his clothes were still crisply ironed. Next to him was Sub-Inspector G.R.K. Prasad, who fired the shot.
‘What’s up, old man?’ the inspector said, ‘Still having those “visions”?’
Babu motioned to the waiters to clear the crowd from the bar. They obeyed. Chicken stood frozen behind me and refused to leave.
‘Let the big man be,’ Babu said.
‘The “visions” saved you last time, when you injured that policeman. But they won’t help you when this policeman injures you,’ Prasad said. The court had accepted my insanity plea then – little did they know that I had managed the judge.
‘We now have proof that you’re a detective, sir.’
I didn’t understand. Chicken roared: ‘Sir is a lawyer.’
Babu took his phone out and played something on it. It was my voice. ‘Why did you send a client to my office?’ A pause. Then, ‘This lady. She wanted me to keep an eye on someone.’ Another pause. Then my voice again, ‘I have no clue. She told me you gave her my reference.’ ‘Your brother, Varun Krishnan.’ Then came the clincher. ‘There’s a leak in our system. Someone knows I’m a detective. Watch your step. Go out of town for a while.’ Babu stopped the recording.
‘You tapped my phone!’ I roared.
‘Nothing that complicated, Jay,’ Babu laughed.
Then it struck me. In Geeta’s words, You said something, I said something, and it became something. ‘Oh, fuck. The lady’s bag…’
‘You ruined a lot of my work, Jay. Especially last month – all that business with the antiques.’
‘I was just doing my job, Babu.’
‘I’ll let Prasad do his job now, then.’
‘Unregistered detective work. Trespass. Theft. Phone tapping. Simple hurt. Grievous hurt… Too many offences, Jay. Not to mention burying evidence, perjury, misleading the court.’
‘Upright upholder of the law, aren’t you?’ I said.
‘I’m just making a quick buck, Jay. You’re in the way.’
Babu took two guns out of his pocket and threw them our way. I didn’t get what was happening, I reached out to grab one. Chicken said, ‘NO! DON’T PICK IT UP!’
But Prasad was too quick. As soon as I reached it, he fired at me. It missed. They were trying to ‘encounter’ me. I tried taking shelter behind a chair, but another shot came. This time, it hit my arms. Then, I heard a third shot. But it didn’t hit me. It didn’t hit Chicken either. It hit Prasad. In the back.
Prasad had fallen to the ground, although I suspected he was still alive. Two more shots, quick, precise, forceful. Babu was down. Behind him, with a gun in her hands, was Nandini staring at me with a fierceness I didn’t know she possessed. My arm was bleeding, the alcohol had dimmed my senses. I reached for Nandini’s hand.
She looked at me coldly and said, ‘Get out of the city for a while. Now that people know who you are, they’re all after your life.’ I tried saying something, but she interjected with, ‘You know too much, you’re too snoopy.’
My Nandini, my struggling little musician, the one who fought with me about whether Brinda was better than Geeta or not. ‘What’s going on, Nan…’
She cut me off again, by simply addressing Chicken: ‘Get out, now. If I see you again, you’re dead.’ Chicken obeyed.
She then turned to me and said, ‘I’m now what Babu was.’ She paused, and continued, ‘Babu made the same mistake you made, Jay. Didn’t see me as a threat. He dropped his guard around me, just like you did when he sent me to you to find out if you were the man that nailed his Chola bronze business.’
‘You’re not meant for this, Nandini,’ I gasped. ‘You should be a singer. Please… You owe it to yourself…’
‘Fuck you,’ she said, and pointed me in the direction of the door with her gun.
My arm was still bleeding profusely, and I staggered to the entrance, half-awake, half-dead. I turned back to find her standing alone in the middle of the bar. A lone beam of white light was shining from the ceiling. There we were, drawn together by fondness, and drawn away by circumstances. There we were, in glorious black-and-white.
She looked at me with those eyes that were content and sad at once. A voice sang from somewhere. ‘Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm, tum rahen na tum, hum rahen na hum’ … Time has fashioned such a sweet calamity. You are not who you are. I am not who I am.