Yes, hello-hello. What hello-hello? What should I hello?
Chi-aayeela! Cannot the fatty bambola see the station is closed? The lock on the door means CAL-O-SDA, closed. No one is here. Our dear PM is visiting this dangerous city so all policemen have gone for roadside duty. Except me. I am here because today is my last day. I am going to be dismissed from duty this evening.
Before leaving for bandobast, Inspector Chavan showed me the red file. ‘Your dismissal orders are finally here,’ he said. ‘Stay back, relax, when I come back in the evening I will give you the discharge letter.’ Chavan would not meet my eyes. Poor boy, I feel sad for him for feeling bad for me when there is nothing anyone can do.
Two weeks ago, three officers from Anti-Corruption Bureau caught me taking five hundred rupees from the owner of a Chinese food stall on Jamnadas Marg. They swooped in as Bittu was putting money in my shirt pocket. Bittu was more alarmed than me. ‘I did not tell them, I did not tell them!’ he kept shouting as the ACB snakes took me away for questioning.
I know Bittu did not tell them. The next morning I asked the cobbler, the popcorn seller, the batata-vada vendor, the paani-puri man—I did not threaten them; I just wanted to know who told ACB that I took money from everyone every month. ‘We did not do anything,’ they all said. Yes, but who reported my name? ‘We did not do anything,’ they kept saying like stupids.
It’s okay; after Chavan returns this evening, I will hand over my cap, my belt, and my ID. In a few days I will join my brother’s family in our village near Lonavala and apply for a guard’s job in one of the factories there. But I am worried for Gorya and Rajesh and Bittu. Junior Constable Dhodpode, the one who is going to replace me, is not like me. He is young and strict and too much of a policeman to tolerate sob stories from people doing business on the street illegally. He will tell them to pay the official monthly fine of two thousand rupees or get out and go do business elsewhere. I am most worried for Mohan, that legless, myopic, nearly mad newspaper seller; where will he go?
In the jeep, as the ACB men drove me to their office, I tried to talk to them, tried to tell them about the lives of people hawking on the streets. They have nowhere else to go. But no, I do not support what they do, so every month I try to break their backs a little, not by fining them the official two thousand rupees, but by taking what I know they can afford to give: five hundred from Bittu, three hundred from the two Rajeshes, hundred from Tukku Mama, and fifty from Kaliya, the mute coal seller. This way they remain where they are; they don’t become bigger than their roadside selves, and they don’t become dangerous city scum.
‘Sit shut!’ one of the ACB men shouted at me. ‘Shameless, corrupt man. Save these stories for the tribunal!’
I looked at the three ACB faces. They looked so grave and stern, more machine than human. Sometimes my replacement Dhodpode has a similar look on his face, upright and no-nonsense. I want to know: Who are these new-generation officials? What country do they come from? Arrey, don’t they know that these petty criminals and roadside businessmen are our people only, we are just like them, how can we be so strict with everyone, how can we go about enforcing laws and ravaging lives like dictators? Policemen. We are policemen.
‘My, my,’ said the magistrate at the tribunal, ‘now tell me, Senior Constable Shegde, if you feel so sorry for the illegal denizens of Jamnadas Marg, why do you take cuts from their meager livelihoods every month?’ I looked around the room in disbelief. Chi-aayeela, where was I? I felt like asking the magistrate, this is India only, no? ‘Everyone does it,’ I said. ‘Really?’ the magistrate said. ‘Can you name your colleagues who take bribes?’ Bastard. ‘Everyone does it,’ I repeated softly. The magistrate huffed: ‘Yes, and until we can afford to dismiss the entire police force and risk anarchy, I am dismissing you.’ Two newspapermen in the room jumped to their feet shouting, ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ The magistrate nodded humbly.
Bastards. We are not police for the rich and salaried only.
We are also police for Nimmi the whore and Manilal the guttercleaner. Once Nimmi joked with me, ‘Shegde, the day I get a license, you dare not ask me for money.’ A customer told her that the government is thinking of giving licenses to sluts. Good, let them; and let them also give a permit to Umar-bhai for his barbecue-beef stand and an ID card to Bhanu-ben for her hooch shop. When all these people are respected by the government, so-called corrupt officials like me can run after real criminals who loot and murder. Question is, will there be any such criminals left?
‘Excuse me, havaldar! I am talking to you!’
Deva rey, and now this woman. Educated people are always talking to you. I switch off my transistor. ‘Station closed, madam. You go, come back in evening. Okay?’
The fatty acts shocked. ‘What? How can a police station be closed?’
I look her over from top to bottom. Looks Indian, all right. Then why is she asking such mad-type questions? These people, these people are the problem. The police station must always remain open, the streets must always be clean, the neighborhood must always be quiet. They pay a little tax and they think they can demand their own tiny country within the country. If it was an emergency, she would have dialed 100. Since she has decided to grace Sanpada Police Chowki with her bulk, I am sure she can wait till evening for the station to open. What can I do anyway? Tomorrow I will also be like her: a nobody, a civilian. Besides, did she not call me havaldar?
I get up from the chair under her shocked gaze and start walking to the barracks in the back. She follows me for a few steps, gurgling nonsensically, ‘Havaldar… excuse me… I want to…I mean…havaldar…’ Then she gives up.
Ah, finally some peace. These barracks were built the year before I joined the service. See that fan hanging from the ceiling? The white one in the middle? A few years ago Pawar hanged himself from there. Fortunately, the fan survived. Pawar had joined the service with me. Overly honest. He was strict with civilians—that, one could tolerate. But he was also lippy with the higher-ups, the inspectors, and superintendents, asking them uncomfortable questions all the time. They kept Pawar Junior Constable; made me Senior after five years. But that’s not why Pawar hanged himself. His wife ran away. What a fool, no? Is that something to kill yourself over? They say sometimes that fan starts on its own. I am sure Pawar is still around. ‘Pawar?’ I look up at the ceiling, ‘Pawar, you are there?’
Chi-aayeela! This lady has followed me here even! Look at her, filling up the entire entrance to the barracks. Good thing I did not strip to my underwear. ‘Oh madam, I tell you no, station closed. Why you doing much-much? Go, come back in evening.’ I start to close the door to the barracks.
‘Please, please!’ she says, and starts to cry.
Deva rey! Pinglé-madam should have been here. Junior Constabless Pinglé. Women can handle women well. What can a man do with a woman in tears? He is helpless.
‘Tch, tch, what is this madam, why you are crying? Come, come in.’ I lead her into the barracks and ask her to sit on a bench. I sit opposite her. ‘Now tell me. What happened? House burgled, chain snatched, underworld called, what?’
She tells me.
My jaw drops. What? All this hassle for a runaway husband? Has she not seen herself in the mirror? ‘You have his photo?’
She stops crying; smiles a little. She removes the photo from her purse and shows me.
Aaho, now I understand how the two got together. ‘Good,’ I say, ‘what’s his name?’
‘Tambawala,’ she says.
Yes, but that’s a surname. What’s her husband’s name?
‘S,’ she says.
Is this any time to be coy? S? What S? Suraj, Sumit, Sudanshu, what?
‘Sohail…’
What? ‘Sohail? Like Sohail Khan, the actor?’
She nods, and then she says, ‘But my name is Avantika.’
‘You have some ID card or something?’
She looks more scared now. She tries to take back her husband’s photo. No, no, I shake my head, ID card first. ‘Show whatever you have. Bank card, ration card, anything.’
She brings out something from her handbag. ‘My railway ID.’ She gives it to me.
It’s true. Name: Avantika Joshi.
‘Why still Joshi?’ I ask.
‘My husband did not insist on a name change. He is very open-minded, very liberal. He even lets me wear sindoor and mangalsutra.’
I look closely at her head and neck. ‘And he lets you go for puja also? To the temple?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
She again tries to take back the card and her husband’s photo. I pull them away and place them beside me on the bench. ‘Which temple?’ I ask.
Beads of sweat welt on her cheeks. What can I do? The effect of the khaki uniform is beyond my control. ‘Haanh, madam? Which temple you go to?’
‘… Siddhi Vinayak.’
Really? ‘Which god you pray to?’
‘… Krishna bhagwan.’
Krishna? What nonsense, there is no Krishna idol in Siddhi Vinayak. Every devout Hindu knows that.
I hand back her ID card and husband’s photo. I stand up. ‘Okay, madam, go. I will file the report.’
She looks up at me; she looks confused. ‘Just like that? Don’t you need more infor…’
‘Yes, madam, this is Hindustan, not Arabastan. Everything happens like this only. You go now, okay?’
She gets up hesitantly. ‘But…’
I join my raised hands with a loud clap. ‘Arrey-aye, madam, enough! If you do not like it here, take your miya-ji husband and go to Pakistan.’
She leaves.