3

I am sixteen, and there’s a knock on my door. It’s the same room once more in Alleppey, our round holiday cottage by the backwater that I’m sharing with my parents (my sister is already at medical college and didn’t come with us). I answer readily because I’m expecting room service, but two men charge in, pin me down, gag and blindfold me with incredible efficiency, then tie my hands behind my back and pick me off the ground.

Suddenly I’ve landed on grass, and my feet are being trussed together. Then the men lift me again and move forward, swinging me slightly, and now it’s all about to end because I’m under scummy water and my head is being …

Tamal leaves without protest. It’s 11.35 p.m. He declines my offer to get him an Uber. We kiss before I open the door; we’re going to speak again at nine. He’s going to take the morning off work just for me.

We’d nodded off after our last fuck, and he’d been startled awake as well by my jumping up in breathless panic. I’d immediately known this was no ordinary dream, and asked him to go so that I could play it back.

Afterwards I pour myself a whisky and leave the lights on, and wonder if these are the reverberating footsteps of an approaching demon.

My phone is full of the usual emails, which is of course a much bigger deal than that makes it sound. It means I have my column back, and this time under my own name! Just twenty-four hours earlier, Karishma Jalan had exploded her tweet-bomb, and, overnight, turned my life into debris.

There is a huge amount of fan mail, messages of support for @ChandraSir no matter that he was someone else, and I retweet several of them. The few trolls are easily outshouted.

Reading through these new letters also makes me think of some of the toughest stories I’ve been sent. The ten-year-old girl who was locked up each day and forced to study. The brother who suspected that his sister on the autism spectrum might have a secret she was unable to share. Every time he went anywhere near bringing it up, it triggered a reaction of terror. Which also meant the possible guilty party remained free somewhere close by. Meanwhile, their parents simply refused to have this conversation.

I have the mad thought that I can squeeze in helping several of these unknown correspondents if only the gift will last a few days. I could bring that bastard to book, for example, even if the terrified sister was unable to say the name. All I’d need was a face to picture when I gently asked the question. Afterwards I’d describe what I saw and the brother would recognise him.

The hardest letters, the ones that have haunted me the longest, for which there is a separate folder in my email account: how many of those could I race through, like some chess master, moving from table to table performing successive brilliant interventions?

Relax, Jaya, an amused voice speaks from within. Enough with the dreams of global domination, or at least global salvation. First fall asleep and find out what you wake up with tomorrow.

True, I concede, but still, what if … ? I should be prepared for any eventuality; my case might not follow the exact patterns of Arati or Shivani. It might be days before any demand is made, which means I should have squeezed the maximum use from the gift by then, and so can let it go without regrets. Which is why if, say, the Dr Shome plan works in the morning, and we have an idea of Tuntuni’s whereabouts by tomorrow afternoon, I should be ready to move on to some other people whose stories I know. My correspondents would be natural candidates. I feel fairly certain that’s why I have been chosen for this ability, because this is what I do and I’ve wanted to help in this particular way for so long.

Absolutely, I rubber-stamp myself. That is probably why you were picked, because of how much you care about your correspondents, who would be the natural next candidates. And by the time you’re done with them, going through the entire folder of people who’ve written to you with seriously tough shit, of course it’ll be time up and no chance to visit your mother, right? Naturally.

Because any time given to that would be … just so selfish!