8

My sudden flash had led to nothing. Varied searches on my phone (with my dosa to one side) for any mention of similar ‘gifts’ or mysteries elsewhere, either in India or abroad, had yielded zip. It was inconceivable that these incredible things were happening only to three people in Calcutta; like us, others must be keeping their cards close to their chests. People didn’t want to give their powers away, nor reveal what they had done to keep them.

Which thought was madder: to believe that such things were happening worldwide, or that we were the chosen ones? Sensing that my excitement would overcome me, I put my phone away and focused on the concrete thing I planned to do this afternoon.

I shared with Arati the idea of paying Ramesh another visit.

Driving along Lansdowne Road to pick up my friend Bhaswati from her office on Camac Street before we visited Ramesh at his sweet shop in central Calcutta, I had a few minutes to contemplate the stupendous weirdness of the day so far. (Thankfully, the TV vans had given up their vigil when I returned to my street to check at 12.35; I left a not-especially optimistic Arati — who of course had no idea of the extra card I held up my sleeve — to try to get some sewing done at my place while she waited to hear from me.)

I first realised I had the gift barely five hours ago! I’d been on my way to grovel before Dhanuka. How fucking remote that now seemed!!

Then — as if I were Simon effing Cowell — I handled Dhanuka and the media in short order with jaw-dropping aplomb, even if the lady says so herself. Because let the record show that I’d figured out only as Dhanuka was dismissing me from her office that the madness happening within me was a gift, and not some stress-induced collapse of the wall between reality and lunacy. How remote does that belief now seem?? Hiren Kapadia, paramour extraordinaire, even though we’ll probably never meet, you were the unlikely turning point. By the way, that bat really does love you, so treat her well and hopefully it’ll filter down to the whole school. You’re welcome, FMHS, even if you’ll never know who to thank and I’m not there to personally benefit.

And now it’s one in the afternoon on a Friday, I’ve flushed my job down the loo, and, instead, am on the most focused mission ever — to wring the maximum out of this gift before one way or another it disappears. Has anyone in the history of discovering their superpower been more level-headed than this? It’s a serious question! That’s how rapidly I’ve adjusted to this new normal, learning from the experiences of Shivani and Arati that above all you can’t waste a minute.

The only downside I’ve so far found, the one thing to be sort of wary of, and that I haven’t spoken about yet, is, believe it or not … mirrors. Not quite my kryptonite — that would be an exaggeration — because minor contact such as with the one in my car sunshade or the side mirror I just peeked into as a little test, or when I washed my face in the bathroom at home, is absolutely fine. But I did find on that same occasion that a longer stare at my reflection made me a little breathless and uneasy, and unable to hold my own glance after a while.

But who’d want to waste this most precious time of all with this kind of navel-gazing anyway? Perhaps it’s for the best for such remarkable powers to be directed outwards, to helping as many others as I can. Isn’t that another vital lesson to draw from the tragedy of Shivani — to try to avoid becoming obsessed with the power itself, and most of all to know which way to point it?

So, holding firmly to the great advantages I had over Shivani — hindsight and age — here was my line-up for the rest of the day. Bhaswati and I would arrive at the sweet shop with a ploy in mind, and above all for me to simply look at Ramesh. Because I’m certain that if I can stare, I’ll soon know.

Meanwhile I’d also written a conciliatory email to Mrs Jalan, asking for a meeting this very evening and claiming to have further news to share, which was true. I did plan to tell her about the ‘price’ that was probably asked, because I was almost certain it was a choice Shivani had confronted, although I had no idea in what way. Perhaps her parents would remember if she had been away without explanation; afterwards, if I decided to offer my findings to Somayya in some form, the police could check her phone location to see if Bardhaman cropped up at any point. Of course, my helpfulness with the Jalans would stop short of sharing my most compelling proof, simply because I had the same plan in mind for them as for Ramesh. Let me sit across from you for a while and dig out what was between you and your daughter.

So, with any luck, that’s one recent death and a long-ago disappearance cleared up between lunch and dinner. Feel free to compare that with the first-day to-do list of any superhero worth the name! Correspondents, hang in there. Chandra Sir is coming for you.

Despite the grimness, and gravity, of my two undertakings, I found myself turning up the radio station and singing along all the way from Monoharpukur to Elgin Road (I even spent some of the journey to Bhaswati’s thinking of a name for this however-temporary hero: Mindwoman, maybe; Knowall, nope!), and then more happened en route to send me soaring even higher! When I glanced at my still-silent phone while waiting interminably at the Lower Circular Road lights — ah, how Calcutta brought its superheroes right back down to earth! — I scrolled through the first few of the 1,104 notifications that awaited me on Twitter, each of which seemed to be a wholehearted endorsement of Chandra Sir’s goodness and wisdom. My defence-by-social-media strategy appeared to have proved a masterstroke. The luckiest day of my life was still gathering steam.

@ChandraSir is always worth reading. When the advice is good, who cares about the name? #KeepChandraSir

@ChandraSir replied to all my eleven letters. Never asked for a penny. He/she is the parent I never had. #ChandraSir

I trust @ChandraSir even more now that I know she’s a woman. What does her forced secrecy say about our society? For God’s sake open your minds a little more.

Uncannily, Madam Jalan’s reply to my email also came in right then. Uncanny because I was thinking she would be monitoring these tweets as well.

‘Come to our house. Please bring only the truth with you.’

You bereaved piece of crap, I nearly wrote back, I’m all about the truth right now. You’re the one who’ll be bringing it, though.

This moment of great immaturity, and giddy elation, probably marked the high point of my delusions. I’m overcome by nostalgia when I think of it.

Did you notice something strange about my wonderings above? Something missing? Something like the very basic questions: Where are these ‘gifts’ coming from? Who is doing this, and how??

And also, what exactly will I do when it’s gone; when either it’s just taken away, or else — any moment now — I’m presented a bill that’s too steep to pay? I mean, it was on the far side of amazing to stick it to Dhanuka like that, but next week onwards, what will I, uh, eat?

Yet, incredible as it might seem, at that point on the first afternoon, although these voices were piping up within me, I was simply too exhilarated to take notice. Exhilarated above all by the mad fact that I could be chosen for something like this.

Exhilarated, even though such a ‘gift’ had already claimed at least one victim I knew.

And I’d have forever-after to figure it all out, right? When the dust had settled, or else this mad phenomenon had grown too big to ignore, those with far more resources and a broader perspective would get to work unmasking it. I could answer their questions about my experiences rather than waste this priceless time; act now, do the interviews later.

Of course this was the path to take, to maximise my use of this power for as many people as I could help. Looking away from the mirror for now, looking away from how and why, were no-brainers, like terms and conditions you’d instantaneously agree to while installing the single greatest software update ever.

To yourself!

Ramesh showed no signs of recognising me, so we went ahead with plan A, which was for Bhaswati to pose as a lawyer interested in his defence. If he had remembered me from my earlier visit to the sweet shop, during which we hadn’t spoken, Bhaswati would have claimed to be working for Arati and all we wanted was to double-check a few particulars of his story. In either case we were counting on the fact that Ramesh would be sufficiently ‘impressed’ — and taken aback — by these two middle-class women who wanted to interview him not to request us to fuck off until he’d sorted out his own lawyer. Most of all, as I said, what mattered to me was the opportunity to sit across from him as he spoke. Bhaswati was going to do the talking. I wanted only to stare.

I should say that when I arrived at Bhaswati’s chambers on Camac Street forty minutes before, I’d been toying with the possibility of making her my first confidante. After all, she had staunchly agreed to accompany me at one hour’s notice to Vivekananda Road for this mission which I insisted had to be this afternoon; she’d been an amazing friend the other night when we needed to prepare Arati for her police statement, not to mention several past instances of ready help in matters big and small. But then I walked into her office, and even though she was typing on her desktop I could feel immediately an intense irritation about the upcoming ‘wild goose chase’ and the mental totting-up of the delicious billable hours for which she would soon charge me. I also saw, the moment our eyes met, that she hated the teal-blue top I was wearing, which, by the way, Arati too had (equally silently) disliked when I got changed this afternoon. Both had immediately thought it plunged down way too far. She’s a fool if she thinks anyone will mistake her for a student, were Bhaswati’s unvoiced words about the very first outfit I’d chosen deliberately to mark my permanent liberation from FMHS and Dhanuka.

As I responded in my own head, Well, fuck you, friend!, it came to me that it would be awkward if I ran into someone else with the very same power. But that was when I decided, again, to keep my secret for at least a bit longer, even though on the surface Bhaswati was as warm as ever and made no mention of the long and lovingly itemised bill she was preparing for me.

‘Remind me why this has to be today,’ she asked once we were driving.

‘Um, because I wanted to catch Ramesh before he’d been schooled by a lawyer, if that hasn’t happened already. Whoever sponsored his bail might have also engaged a defence for him, which is why we’re going with a back-up cover story, although of course it would be ideal if he trusted us and spilled the beans on what really happened. But you saw for yourself the other evening the extent to which his lie has traumatised Arati. She feels the whole world will soon believe that she was party to trafficking Tuntuni. I can’t just stand by and watch her suffer until the police eventually clear her name.’

‘Well, that’s reason enough for me. So, did you take the whole day off?’

I was suddenly reminded that Bhaswati had zero interest in social media. She wouldn’t have known a thing about the overnight, and ongoing, ‘Chandra Sir’ tweet-storm.

‘Bhaswati, about that, have you watched any local news at all this morning, especially the Bangla channels?’

Of course, as my lawyer, she knew about the column, but I had the pleasure of witnessing her reaction to the news of my dramatic resignation speech before the cameras this morning. Then we watched a couple of actual bulletin clips on her phone, with edited bits from my speech alongside correspondents’ reports. I knew exactly which YouTube videos to point her to as I drove, having watched these same stories at home with Arati when she too had wondered why I wasn’t at school on a Friday morning.

‘And after we see Ramesh, I need to call back a few of these guys to direct their attention to the phenomenal response on Facebook and Twitter to the Chandra Sir bombshell, which, unfortunately for the Jalans, has kind of been a blessing for me. That could be a separate story in itself. Which reminds me, I must call to ask for my column back. There’s no reason for me to give it up now. In fact, I could probably demand a hefty raise based on the number of eyeballs visiting the page, which is all, hand upon heart, Chaitali really cares about, and it’ll come at the perfect time.

‘I need to thank Mrs Jalan, you know. She dragged me out of the closet. And now, believe it or not, I can’t imagine putting up with Dhanuka for another day. What a difference five hours makes! This morning I would have gone down on her to keep my job, no question, although now I know someone else …’

It was so good to be with the friend I’d long known and loved that I nearly carried on to telling her about Hiren Kapadia. From there I don’t know how I would have wriggled out of disclosing my secret. Thankfully, the sharpest advocate I knew wasn’t listening too closely.

‘You don’t have to be Chandra Sir anymore. You can be Jaya Aunty.’ Which made us both laugh out loud. We quickly settled on my reinvention as Jayadi, and soon after Bhaswati had the genius idea of naming the column ‘Walk-In Closet’.

Just as we passed College Square a vivid image came to me of a girl of about seven tackling with total focus her ice-cream cone. Her Baba held her left hand, and all around were crowds and flickering light decorations. The queue to glimpse Ma Durga was long.

‘You know, I didn’t go to university here, so whenever I pass this place, my first association is with visiting the College Square Puja as a child,’ I said, and the very next moment I knew I wouldn’t be telling anybody about the gift anytime soon. Bhaswati’s surprise was priceless. I felt like the greatest of magicians, like Santa Claus at Christmas, and instantly the implications of both choices were obvious. I could have several moments like this for as long as the gift lasted, or I could opt to creep out my friends, which in fact was likely to happen if they knew I had access to whatever crossed their minds. What would I have done in their place? Walked away without a backward look, right, and messaged my mate to contact me only after the freak show was well and truly over! What had I been thinking?

Instead, what I was sensing now, what I had just created, was sheer, uncomplicated joy, leading to someone profoundly rational considering the possibility of stuff like telepathy, and then going to herself (yes, I could read it, just like that), ‘Nah, this is what true friendship can do.’

Superpowers aren’t just for saving lives and big shit like that. You can also gift people these moments, like a passing street magician.

And do you know what happened right after Bhaswati exclaimed to me that she too had been thinking about childhood pujas at College Square? I saw, as if it was actually occurring, this woman sitting beside me, still shaking her head and speaking as we moved through the traffic, tearing up the bill she had been putting together for me.

And I got a new perspective on why superheroes put such a premium on keeping their identities secret, and also why magicians never tell.

There was a Monginis bakery with three tables a couple of minutes from the sweet shop, and over soft drinks and one pastry — Ramesh, cold-hearted motherfucker that he was, chose the Alpine Choco Premium for a snack even though he well knew what we intended to talk about — we opened the subject of the long-disappeared Tuntuni. We’d asked ‘Swapan’s’ boss (in the nick of time, I remembered to call Ramesh that) if we could borrow his employee for half an hour. Bhaswati offered to compensate the man with two hundred rupees, to which he’d replied with a question: Has Swapan done whatever the police are accusing him of?

‘We certainly don’t believe so.’ Without missing a beat, Bhaswati threw ‘Swapan’ this bone.

To Ramesh, then, we were a lawyer and her assistant who had heard about the case through their contacts at Lake Police Station, and it had sounded like he needed a defence. He fit the profile of people we sought to help, especially when we’d learnt he was a hard-working family man who was being threatened with prison for a collective decision he’d made with his first wife, and from which other, as yet unknown, middlemen and organisations may also have profited. To Bhaswati, at least for now, the story wasn’t much different either. My cover to her had been: I need you just to be a real lawyer, and for that same reason — that you’ll sound so much more convincing — I’ll stay quiet and note things down in a pad. Anything we can get from him, which he wouldn’t have given Inspector Bhadra but might tell his own counsel, would be helpful.

‘But who will pay you, Didi, if you take my case?’ Ramesh asked Bhaswati, exactly as we’d expected him to.

‘Well, we have an idea beforehand whether the defendant can pay or not, and how much; so, in your case, I suppose the first person we would ask is the one who posted your bail. Who was that, Ramesh?’

Well before he replied, I saw the man: tubby, moustache, glasses. Check shirt. Brown sofas all around the drawing room, which meant Ramesh met him at home. A black retriever that came up to Ramesh for a nuzzle and a pat before settling down on the carpet. Of course I had no idea who it was, but with unexpected directness Ramesh helped us out.

‘He’s a doctor, but I don’t know if he’ll pay for the whole case. I used to drive for him. I’ll ask him, though, if you tell me your fees.’

‘Or we can speak to him directly, if you give us his number.’ That was Bhaswati again. But Ramesh didn’t do that, at least not right away.

‘And for those who can’t pay very much, we have a fund. We cover the expenses. That is why we look for the most deserving cases.’

It was an effort for me to keep from laughing out bitterly when Bhaswati said this with scarcely a flicker. Yes, you, Ramesh, who at the very least by your own admission sold your nine-month-old to unseen foreigners, are among the most deserving of a sound defence!

Ramesh took a bite of his pastry and a sip of Fanta, and remained quiet, as if we needed to convince him some more. I felt repulsed by him. (Of course he had immediately noted my top with approval, and even now was regularly checking me out.)

‘Ramesh, you do realise it’s in your interest to help the police to find this friend of yours, the taxi driver? And it would be even better if you told them anything you know about the foreigners who adopted Tuntuni. For example, we — I mean, they, the police — could verify whether Tuntuni is still alive, which would be the most important thing. And if she is found well and happy, and settled in her new life, about to finish high school or whatever, can you see how much it would help your case? You could say that’s what you had in mind for her.’

Bhaswati was so masterful. I decided I would insist that she charge me for all this. And as I was thinking that, something truly unexpected began to happen. The word ‘foreigners’ — I’m sure that was the trigger — set off all manner of pictures inside Ramesh’s head. Numbers of white people wandering around Calcutta. I could identify the streets — Sudder Street, New Market, Chowringhee, Lindsay. I remembered he had been a bus driver. He would have gone past these pavements all the time.

Could there be any truth to his claim, I found I was wondering — and immediately chided myself in reply. Of course he might have sold Tuntuni to some foreigners. The lie we’re here to break down is his implication of Arati.

‘Do you remember anything — what country they were from, which hotel they stayed at, where your friend would have delivered Tuntuni? He must have mentioned that. Or maybe you took her in the front seat of his taxi, or the back? Did he leave you waiting downstairs, Ramesh? He must have needed someone to hold Tuntuni while he drove. I understand you want to protect your friend, but even the name of the hotel would be incredibly helpful to us, because …’

I could have told Bhaswati that Ramesh wasn’t listening, because his mind was full of another picture. He was in a taxi, seated in the back, a baby in his lap, and then the same baby was in a hospital cot, and Ramesh was in a chair while she slept. There were many others in the ward around them.

I had been diligently playing my (self-designated) role, taking genuine notes as an assistant would. But what I’d just seen was so striking, and strange, I had to intervene. It was a gut decision, but if I didn’t use my power to spring any surprises, I’d be squandering some of the advantage of having this interview on this particular day.

Because what Ramesh had been recalling was an image identical to one that had floated briefly through Arati’s head during our conversation two hours before! Tuntuni — who else could it be? — apparently seriously ill, connected to an IV drip, and Ramesh, this scum, maintaining a bedside vigil!

‘Achcha Ramesh, was Tuntuni ever ill?’

Bhaswati looked at me in surprise, but (of course) it was nothing compared to Ramesh’s reaction. He looked so very similar to her when I’d dropped that line about the College Square Puja that suddenly I felt like the transparent one, and hoped Bhaswati wouldn’t begin to put two and two together. I’d have to curb my enthusiasm about pulling these tricks, at least if I intended to keep my own secret.

And then, in that cake shop, where two college lovebirds were at the next table and I’d had to look away from the boy because his head was so chock-a-block with porn, this ruthless, heartless, hardened motherfucker, who’d sold his own daughter, his baby, to God-knows-who, and never looked back once at the wife he destroyed, broke down completely.

‘Yes, Didi, yes! She was very sick. How did you know? Who told you?’

I was about to reply (claiming it had come up in Arati’s testimony to the police, which we’d been allowed to read), and for Bhaswati’s benefit as well, when through his tears Ramesh said this.

‘That is the only reason I gave her to them.’