I’m waiting on the ground floor for the lift. When the doors open, a family emerges — parents and two boys, all looking agitated, but especially the dad who seems incensed. They don’t even notice me as they march past, heading, it appears, straight for the doorman at his desk. The lift doors close again, but I haven’t moved because of what I saw in the minds of all three males. One vision, nearly identical: a man in a security guard’s uniform, curled up on the marble floor we’re standing on, while the three of them kick him in every exposed place.
As they cross the lobby, the dad turns to his younger boy for cursory confirmation — ‘This is the guy?’ — after which the beating commences. The unsuspecting doorman, who had only just looked up, is shoved from his chair and lands on his side on the floor. The father throws the chair to one side and the older boy (seventeen?) joins in with the kicking. It strikes me that all three of them are wearing trainers and shorts, as if to ensure maximum impact and range with their blows. For now, the younger brother, perhaps fourteen, is watching alongside his mum, although he too had been envisioning this very scene. The woman is the only one who looks scared rather than angry. When I glance at her, I see her being thrashed, naked, in a bathroom. She has been in the doorman’s position.
Of course, my mother, sister and I have each been in the doorman’s position with my father. This is probably the excuse I’m offering up for my inaction: that I was back to the terror of childhood.
‘Sahab, I said sorry. When Madam came down, I said sorry. Ask her once,’ the doorman manages to say.
‘Abey Chintu, will you ever fight your own battles, or always come running to us? Come, show this bastard what you’ll do to him next time he dares to meet your gaze.’ Which exhortation from his dad makes the younger boy look at his mother before walking over and kicking the doorman twice in the stomach with his Adidas shoes.
The doorman begs for a moment’s respite. He is thinking of something very strange indeed, visions you wouldn’t expect in the mind of someone enduring an assault. His mind is probably frantic for any relief it can find.
‘Sahab, please, one minute, give me just one minute. Let me show you something, and then, I promise, you can go back to hitting me if you like.’
His plea doesn’t stop the older son, who is now targeting the back of the head and neck, until his father orders him to stop.
‘Consider your job gone as well, bhenchod,’ the man adds, but the kicking has briefly paused.
‘What’s happening here?’ I hear myself say at last. I speak in Hindi like everyone else so far.
The family turns to me, but with no evident fear of having a witness. In fact, the father immediately pictures himself cuffing me one and blood appearing out of the side of my mouth, while in the boys I also see my mouth and midriff.
‘Tell me, fucker.’ The man addresses the doorman. ‘Did you ask her to prove she speaks English? Or is that just for bumpkins like us, while she gets a “Good morning, Madam” standing-up salute?’ He turns to explain to me, ‘This sister-fucker doesn’t think we belong here. He wouldn’t let Chintu into the building today.’
‘Sahab, it was my first day, and I was told mostly women are staying here, and some husbands, so …’
‘You son of a bitch, does your training teach you to ask people if they can speak English and then to throw them out?’ Now the father has the doorman by the throat.
‘Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t attack someone like that, otherwise I’ll have to call Mr Tarun. And you know there’s CCTV here, right …’ This is me, once more in Hindi, trying to get through to this (apparent) fellow guest. Like these charmers, and everyone else in the building, I’ve been here for only a day, so their faces are new to me as well. If the man hadn’t been filled to the brim with violence, he could have made a valid point about the customary snobbishness of places such as this.
‘Sir, please, no, Sir, I admit I was wrong. Please, let me show you one thing, and then you can decide what to do. Madam, you go upstairs. It’s my mistake. There’s nothing to it …’
They all turn away from me. I have been slapped, had my tits grabbed, kissed forcefully, and turned around and held down by my hair in the meantime, all of which are the kinds of things that will take their toll on your sympathies (although with four males looking at me, and me trying not to obviously stare, it’s hard to keep track of who’s wishing what). The doorman staggers to his desk, picks up his phone, finds something on it, and holds it out for the dad to see.
I’m standing over ten metres away, close to the lift, using my power to be in their minds. The older son walks over to join them; the father doesn’t push him away.
A woman is having a shower, seemingly oblivious of a camera somewhere above her. This is what the doorman is sharing on his phone.
‘And there’s a lot more, Sahab, from my last job, and from friends who work in other buildings. I’ll share everything with you, if you just forgive me this once.’
The married man with (at least) two sons, who himself beats up his wife in their bathroom, is finally soothed, calmed, even tickled. He gives the doorman a slap on the back, throws a mock punch at him, snatches the phone away from his older boy (who can’t take his eyes off the screen), and grins. ‘You are a fucker number one, aren’t you?’ he goes, but as you would to a prankster you can’t help being fond of.
Then, astonishingly late, the penny drops, and he turns around, inflamed once more.
‘This shit must be going on here as well. You bastards are recording all of us.’
‘Of course not, Sir, what are you suggesting? How can that be possible? This entire building is owned by the government. Nothing of that sort would be allowed here. If you like, you search every part of your flat. It’s my guarantee you won’t find a thing. These are just for fun, from other buildings. That, too, the women know, I promise you.’
‘What? Are you crazy?’
‘Of course, Sahab, otherwise you tell me how they could get the camera up there above the shower? It’s pocket money for them, on condition their faces won’t be seen. But nothing like that can happen here.’
And that is enough to settle the warrior’s doubts. Within a minute or so, the entire family is standing around me, waiting for the lift to return. I heard the father tell the doorman to WhatsApp the clip to him: ‘Remind me in ten minutes to send my number.’ One look at him and I know how he plans to spend those minutes. His wife is going to feel how aroused he is by the clip (and even more by the idea of other housewives who, supposedly, agree to being filmed in the shower). I glance at her; she’s already guessed.
The lift arrives; they troop in first, and the man says, ‘Come on, Madam, you’ll fit too, no problem,’ as if nothing extraordinary has happened. They’re on the fifth floor; I hesitantly press 11.
The woman turns to me: ‘You must have a great view.’
I want to reply, You’re the one with the Shakti. You’re the reason your family is here. How can you stand to be treated like this? By the way, right now, your husband and one of your sons are imagining me in the shower!’
But we’re forbidden to reveal or ask about Shaktis. It’s one of the rules of orientation.
The family leave the lift without further conversation. The measures they thought necessary to ‘teach the doorman a lesson’ are otherwise truly unremarkable to them. They aren’t even especially pumped anymore. In fact, the last exchange I hear before the doors close is one of the sons saying, ‘Mummy, Didi’s asking to call her back.’
‘Tell her later on. We’re busy,’ the dad growls in reply.
I carry on up, grappling with this latest conundrum: where to begin searching for the hidden cameras in the flat, besides the bathroom, that is?
Fuck it, I decide. If they’re filming us, they already have everything they need from the past twenty-four hours. I’ve pretty much done all my usual shit here — wandered naked, had a play there, and there. You’re welcome! Could have Tindered someone as well if I’d known the doormen would be watching.
A kite shaped like a cockatoo turns up just beyond my balcony as I’m scrutinising the living room for possible cameras. Immediately I wonder if it’s another one.
Of course they would do it. It’s probably one of the main reasons for getting us all together — to give themselves additional ammo to keep us in line, if such was ever needed. The doorman inadvertently gave away this secret.
I resolve that I’ll never let myself be blackmailed by sex clips. Do your worst, motherfuckers. What will that even be? Circle-jerking over them? Emailing them to my mother? Putting them online will only make me feel like another Hollywood star being pried on with a telephoto lens. And you’ll probably do it later anyway to boost the viewing figures of your fucking show.
Of course, I soon learnt that tightening their grip on nobodies like me wasn’t their main objective. We are all small fry in a truly huge net.
And, the ignorant fool further reflects, I know now that women had never been the sole recipients of the Shakti. That was a line of the ‘PM’s’, and Ravi Tarun’s, I swallowed completely, just because every gifted person I’d been allowed to encounter was a woman.
But I’m getting far ahead of myself. Let’s take my delusions step by step.