6

But that’s it for the rest of the morning! In Prashant, I encounter something new (granted I’ve only been doing this since yesterday): conscious, or not, psychic resistance. Throughout our short scooter ride, and thereafter at his place at the till of his store, I cannot make him return to the captive woman. Without my intervention, he thinks repeatedly of Jatin, the police, the crowd manhandling him last night, the pictures of Jatin’s doorway on TV, the weird athlete who rang his doorbell this morning, his guru on stage. We watch the news story develop and even the connection with the tweets is made by early afternoon, but not once can I nudge Prashant back to the mystery woman. Until I return to wondering if it’s a buried fear — a long-ago crime as yet uncovered.

Incidentally, after the woman flashed through Prashant’s thoughts, I entered Mummyji to discover what she might know. I tried nudging her: was it her who haunted Prashant? Had his mother once been tortured that way? I put locked rooms in Mummyji’s head, and doors behind cupboards. I put a woman in darkness and food on an aluminium plate. I stopped short of making Mummyji voice any of this to Prashant only because her mind didn’t latch on to a single picture.

In the middle of the morning I’m in crisis. I’m inside the head of a grocery-store owner in Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi, on the off-chance he might have got away with, or merely knows of, an ancient crime. I’m from South Calcutta, to which I’ll never return. I’ve never been in Lajpat Nagar before. I was once a history teacher with friends called Bhaswati, Arati, Moushumi. That was last month. Arati and I were having pretty average dosas at Dakshinapan shopping centre eleven days ago! At least she might now be with Tuntuni, the one ‘happy’ ending I’m clinging to.

Ten days ago, I argued with Arati that we couldn’t appoint ourselves judge and executioner. Now Sukkhi and Jatin are both dead, and I’ve had my new power for under a day. Someone with a functioning moral sense might also have run that champion all the way to the police.

But I died yesterday, along with my moral sense — although my death isn’t even worth a news item, and I no longer know where my body is. Somehow, last night, I lost sight of the idea of trying over and over to re-enter it, and now I wouldn’t know where to search. It will make its way to Calcutta: should I hitch a ride to Delhi’s vast airport and try one last time to live??

Shouldn’t I be there, in any case, looking for someone flying to Calcutta, or even directly from Delhi to London, to let my sister know the full and insane truth? At least I won’t need no motherfucking visa!

I died yesterday, but something is still here. Why is it preoccupied with this Lajpat Nagar grocer? Why do I remain so hideously entangled? Where is the freedom, the boundlessness, or even the nothingness I was expecting? Why am I haunting these strangers? What catastrophic trick did Shivani pull, and I fell for it hook and line?

If even death isn’t the end, then what is?

If it’s a superpower I have, whose script am I following this time? Because I’m certain now, nobody doles out superpowers for free.

If it’s a superpower I have, how come there’s a wall in this guy’s head even a ghost can’t scale?

Shivani, is this your revenge; or is it my punishment, Ravi? This hot, dusty, constricted purgatory?

Answer me just one thing. Anybody.

Do the scurrying and the manipulation ever cease?

At 1.30, the one news channel that Prashant seems to trust, which is unabashedly Hindu nationalist, carries the story of Jatin’s final tweets, but with an unexpected twist. The reporter, a Delhi version of Jogomaya in Calcutta, insists to camera that ‘some angry members of the minority community have taken swift and brutal action’, because Jatin was an up-and-coming film-maker ‘dedicated to exposing social ills’.

I’m gobsmacked by the spin. Why exactly would a Muslim murder a whistle-blower exposing fake news about Muslims? Isn’t it much more likely to be an angry henchman dispatched by Jatin’s own side, who are furious and baffled at this self-sabotage, disappointed that the pogrom they were looking forward to would be postponed, at least until another lie was spun? And why can’t I once get this fucker Prashant to switch channels to see what the other networks are saying? Don’t tell me that’s his Shakti — to be a blockhead: block out every image and voice except those of his guru and beloved grocery store.

Even though I’m bodiless, I rock slightly, and something pulses faster. Sometimes the truth can be that simple.

Wouldn’t it be a useful Shakti to have if you were holding someone captive — that you could screen out all undesired, unpleasant voices and thoughts?

Even though I have nothing left to lose, I’m suddenly afraid. I quit Prashant and move into his young assistant Gagan, who’s just going off to lunch in the room at the back of the store.

Prashant picks up his tiffin carrier when Gagan returns to look after the shop. There was nothing in Gagan about the woman in darkness.

‘Sir, will you be stock-taking today?’

‘Uh, yes, but only a partial one. I should be back in half an hour. If I’m a bit late, it’s because I’ve closed my eyes for ten minutes. Last night Guruji had a concert, you see.’

I realise Prashant is heading outside, and decide to use Gagan to find out what some of the saner channels are saying. Then, at the last moment, I change my mind and leap back into Prashant, but stay absolutely still.

Prashant takes a left turn off the main road a few stores along, then a short walk down a side lane until he arrives at a warehouse entrance. He unlocks and pulls up the shutter, and switches on the light. After closing the shutter, he sits at a desk, brings up a YouTube video of the PM’s Mann ki Baat (‘My Thoughts’) from the previous month, and begins to eat. I’m still lying low, taking in no more than the grocery inventory all around (lots of Kissan jam and Tide washing powder directly in front of us), and a spare scooter parked by the opposite wall. The warehouse is small, perhaps fifteen feet by twelve.

After he has eaten two rotis and most of his rajma, Prashant rises, washes his hands at a basin behind him, drinks water, and begins to take stock of his supplies. The man with the immovable mind, as I’ve come to term him, gets to work inspecting some Kellogg’s and Maggi boxes. On YouTube, the PM is still speaking; a single word he uses switches my attention. We have moved from learning about the ‘do or die’ spirit of the Quit India movement against the British — something for the history teachers who might be listening — to an exhortation to those of us who are fortunate enough to be born in independent India ‘to find our inner Shakti and listen to its voice, and serve our country as the freedom-fighters once did. There were great challenges then,’ he says, ‘but the challenges now aren’t small. The heroes from those times have become legends, but I know there are many hidden heroes amongst you. Thankfully, today there is no need for such extreme sacrifice. Today, you can prosper and raise your brothers and sisters with you.’

Prashant, boss, what did the PM mean by ‘Shakti’? Was that just an expression for inner strength, or was he speaking in code to the elect, a nudge and a wink to the likes of us?

But Prashant isn’t listening. Prashant has finished his stock-taking and is now at the table to pick up his water bottle and two containers from his lunch box. Oh, and his keys.

Prashant is unlocking not the front shutter once more but what looks like a manhole cover that had been concealed by the cardboard boxes he’s moved aside.

Prashant is picturing the woman again.