The Benefit Season (10 page)

We arrive at what seems to be the center of
the universe where a couple of men lounge on jute charpoys and
discuss the weather while sipping at their hookahs and drinking
sugarcane juice served up fresh by a boy in a frayed dirty white
vest turning a hand-driven sugarcane crusher. Close by is a
hand-pump with a small, cemented enclosure where a couple of young,
dark, pretty, giggly girls are washing utensils and clothes. They
pause in their chores to give me a good look-see, and whisper and
laugh rowdily till a man in starched whites in the center of the
universe barks a command that has them tittering and returning to
the dirty laundry and the brass and copper vessels before they
return to sneaking lewd, sideways glances again at me.

The two ladies raise their hands in Namaste
and speak in the native tongue to Pappu, a tall, wide man with
handlebar moustaches, and bushy eyebrows perched atop kohled eyes.
In his spare time I believe, he must be pulling tanks with his
eyebrows. He nods at them to sit down and moves his eyes
languorously in my direction.

‘
Speak’, he says. The two
men carrying single-shot .303 rifles take up positions behind him
and start nursing with a longing the ammunition belts slung across
their shoulders.

‘
I am here to bring
Chand’s family back with me’; I hold his gaze and reply.

He stares unbelievingly at me before his
face cracks into a big leer. Then he laughs, loudly, like a lion in
his lair. It’s a sign for his men to lapse into boisterous hilarity
as well.

Out of courtesy I join them too, laughing
the loudest. That brings their mirth to a skidding halt.

‘
I have these two men
carrying guns. And many more, that await but a nod from me. Do you,
city boy, run faster than a bullet? Can your neck, city boy, defy
the sharp edge of our swords?‘

‘
No it can’t. But this,
that I bring from the city, can.’ I hand over with ceremony a brown
envelope.

Pappu takes it in a huff
and passes it on to his
munshi
- the accountant- a small man
in round glasses, standing half-hidden behind him. The munshi opens
the envelope and whispers in Pappu’s ears.

‘
Pappu smiles; ‘ So is
this a joke?’

‘
No it’s a blank check,
and a pretty serious one too. Fill in your price, for the freedom
of the family’.

‘
So you think you can
sneak out of here with my people with this piece of paper? We may
not be PhDs here but we are no fools either.’ There is loud
laughter all around again.

‘
It’s not paper- it’s
money’.

‘
And it has wings and it
will take flight as soon as you make it to the edge of that green
field yonder’.

‘
What if the check
bounces? What if there is no money in your account? What if you put
a stop payment on it?’ The munshi waxes poetically, his little
speech music to his ears.

‘
Naa. I will stay back
till the check cashes’.

That sends the men into a huddle again.

The judge next to me decides to make herself
useful. She blabbers in a high-pitched tone, obviously upsetting
Pappu, for his two guards grab her spindly arms, and carrying her
still cross-legged across the courtyard, dump her in the middle of
the washing enclosure, right on top of the heap of utensils and
dirty clothes. She is still squatted in the same position, gawking,
as they walk back smirking. A pall of silence descends upon the
village. Folks have begun to gather closer around us, and men with
guns show up on the rooftops surrounding the central courtyard of
the village where we are sitting. Pappu twirls his moustache and
swigging from his brass glass, smirks at me. The other judge,
shocked initially at the treatment given to her colleague, rises
and begins to scream at Pappu, and entreats the village folk to
unite against this outrage. The men listen with bowed heads, while
the women hide their faces in their pallus. They feel bad, but do
not have the courage to step forward and speak up against the
all-powerful oppressor. The guards move towards the shouting judge,
but I quickly rise and plant myself between them and the small
woman. I have seen enough. And enough is enough. The men look back
at their boss, and on a sign from him; begin to slip their guns off
their shoulders. Before they can blink, my elbow is in one neck and
a kick is in the other chin. A leg wheel from behind for the first
man, and a head and neck throw for the second, has them quickly
biting the dust. Pappu shouts at them to get up but they are done
for the day. He spits venom but does not venture anywhere close to
me. He barks at the munshi to call up reinforcements. And a little
while later, horns blaring and guns roaring, they announce their
arrival.

When I had started, in my naivety, I had
hoped it would be a simple matter of commerce, a happy exchange in
which I would wave a blank check under the nose of a shrewd
merchant, and walk away with a grateful Chand family in tow. But
things are not turning out the way I had planned they would. I have
no Plan B, and Plan A seems to be as good as washed-up. I wonder
how I’m going to stand up to carloads of strong arms, bare handed.
At close quarters, jujitsu has its fair share of admirers, but when
facing the wrong end of a double barrel of a shotgun from 100
meters, there are few takers. If something happened to me today,
and I fail to see why not, my mom would rue the day she did not let
her only child join the family trade of soldiering because she was
afraid of him being wasted on the battlefield, and leaving her all
alone in this world. Had she known her son would throw anonymously
away his life at the hands of uncouth village mutts, she would have
chosen posthumous martyrdom for him over a badly executed barter
any day. I do not think the man believes in taking hostages, and
certainly, seeing the shamefully bowed heads of the menfolk, I
don’t expect there to be any witnesses either.

But the judge seems to be in no mood to
reign in her sharp tongue and she continues to breath fire into the
curdled veins of the folks. The ladies have gathered around the
woman immersed under the hand pump, and are helping her out. More
and more men are gathering on the rooftops, brandishing their
firearms a little more aggressively now, as the frail woman judge
rallies them round, alluding to their manhood as well as to their
impotence in equal measure.

The strong arms have reached the edge of the
courtyard, but the women close in a human circle, preventing their
entry. The men raise their guns and begin to fire in the air, but
the ladies only become more determined to keep them at bay. The men
on the rooftops also respond by firing shots, and an uneasy détente
prevails. Some of them turn their guns on Pappu, and it seems they
would be happy to put Pappu away at one signal from me, or the two
judges. He now stands cowering behind the small munshi; still
showering expletives on folks he’s been treating like scum all his
life.

The wet judge, now sufficiently composed,
strides across to Pappu and delivers a tight slap across the face
with a bony backhand. He clutches his jaw and his shattered ego
with his palm and gapes in shock. She motions him to sit. Then
grabbing my hand, she pulls me down to the charpoy and settles next
to me.

‘
Are we ready to talk
now?’ she says to Pappu. He nods. ‘Then talk to the city
babu’.

‘
Name a fair price. I am
not leaving without them today or any other day’.

Pappu consults his munshi and then the
latter clears his throat, asking to address me.

‘
Can we fill in any amount
that we want’?

‘
Any amount that is fair
and reasonable’.

They rub noses again. ‘Will you pay us 25
Lacs?’

‘
Yes’.

They are surprised. ‘What is the guarantee
that this check is good?’

‘
We will all go to Lucknow
right away, you, the family and I. The check will be presented in
our bank and within an hour the amount will be credited to your
account. Meanwhile the family will be allowed to enter the airport.
When you have the money you will walk away and not look back, ever.
And no guns’!

Pappu smacks his lips and says, ‘what if I
kill you after I’ve collected the amount?’

‘
Do you believe that the
people who can send you a blank check, cannot sign another blank
check, to avenge their man? And of what use is my life to you? I’m
never coming back to make you feel small. In a while these people
will forget what happened here, and life will go back to where it
was ‘.

‘
After this day; I doubt’,
he smiles ruefully. ‘But who can defy the SDM sahib’s diktat! You
will want the papers to their house also I believe’.

‘
Every little scrap that
you have’.

He motions to the munshi who rushes off to
fetch the paperwork. The Chand family, some five or six of them are
gathered around, unable to orientate themselves to what is going
on. The judge reassures them and asks them to collect their
belongings and lock up the house. I ask the judge to carry out a
headcount and make sure every one of them is present. She walks
away with the Chand children to help them wind up. The munshi
brings up a sheaf of papers. I ask Mrs. Chand to go over them
carefully to make sure everything is in order. After she is
satisfied, I shove them in my bag, and a few minutes later, we are
off to Lucknow. The judges are to remain behind to oversee that
peace prevails. Pappu’s men have been disarmed by the village men,
and locked up in a barn, not to be let out till the following
morning.

I turn to say goodbye to the two judges,
unread but spirited ladies, driven by passion for justice and
liberty for the poor village folks. They have no statutory
authority, but enjoy the unwavering faith of the people and the
administration that allows them to run a parallel system of
homegrown justice to save people time, cost, and lengthy
litigations. I now understand why the SDM chose to send them rather
than revenue officials or policemen. He wanted a revolution to take
place in that dusty back of the beyond village, with a little help
from a total stranger who would not cow down to age old customs,
traditions and beliefs that ensured perpetuity of feudalism and
exploitation. He wanted to help the villagers to help themselves
rather than rely on the crutches of the official bureaucracy that
would never reach in time, or in the right strength. He had ignited
a spark in the embers; and that, with a little help from god, would
be enough.

‘
I cannot begin to thank
you enough. I bow to your spirit.’ I greet the judges.

They laugh like silly girls, their faces lit
up like the free flowing sugarcane stalks with the sun’s rays on
them.

With the Chand family in tow, we head out to
Lucknow to finish the business, and hopefully take the first flight
out to Mumbai.

ϖ

There is no further
adventure till we all reach home, except that it becomes pretty
hard for the aircraft crew to convince the Chand family belles to
sit rather than squat cross legged on their seats. For someone who
has pitched, rolled and yawed on the rutted tracks of our villages
on creaky wood and iron wheeled bullock carts with no springs or
suspensions, they obviously show scant regard for the formalities
of something as mundane as seat belts. Throughout the way they
scream with delight and amazement at the fluffy plumes, or the
azure skies, or the turning wings, and poke a finger into every
little button and crevice around them, to the great amusement as
well as the greater annoyance of all concerned. I dread that they
might ask to use the toilet, for I am sure they’ll squat in that
narrow space as well. But I worry unnecessarily, for they are great
at holding their bladders, not having remembered to empty them in
the excitement of looking over their shoulders to see if the lusty
Pappu was still chasing them. Once we land however they clamber
down the rickety stairs and rush to the nearest parked aircraft and
relieve themselves behind its wheels, in full public view. A just
disembarked cliché party of Japs passing nearby in an airport bus
trample over each other, disavowing their courtesies, to click the
famed Indian buttock answering the call of nature bang on our
international airport. Now they have already seen everything, and
their life is made and money well spent. I wonder how many
likes
these
posts
are going to get-
must break some records I am sure.

ϖ

Monal has rented them a decent sea facing,
fully furnished apartment in Imperial Towers at Tardeo, South
Mumbai. It’s not a tony address but it’s respectable, and will do
for the moment. The company has paid upfront for a lease for eleven
months. The turnover of an IPL team being more than the GDP of an
average African country, I guess once Mukut becomes a star, and the
money starts rolling in, and he has a perfume named after him, he
can upgrade to a better address.

I leave the Chands marveling over the
sliding French windows, the shiny stainless steel kitchen gadgets,
and the cushy mattresses, and I crash on the sofa to steal a few
winks before the girls dress up and we leave for the stadium where
the team will be at the nets. Before long a girl wakes me up,
asking how to take a bath. Thinking there is no water; not unusual
in our financial capital commanding the highest rentals in the
world, I trudge along sleepily to the bathroom. Her problem is not
the water.

‘
Where is the bucket and
mug?’ she says. ‘ How do I take a bath without them?’