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Mrs. Pushpa Kumari was a proud member of the Janawadi Mahila Sangathan and expected her husband, Assistant Sub-Inspector though he was, to help in the kitchen. He was laying the table and flipping TV channels at the same time. He settled on a loud and shrieking report about Muslims unfairly taking a disproportionate number of jobs in the Indian bureaucracy and police.
“Uff, you have put on this idiotic channel again? This man just makes things up.”
“I met Jamal while I was on duty at a protest today. I don’t know what is happening to him – he wasn’t such a badtameez earlier. Spends his entire day going from one useless meeting to another. I told him to focus on his career, and he started shouting at me in front of my juniors. Muslim boys are reacting badly to any mention of their careers and this channel is telling us that they are capturing the civil services!”
“Arre, who has any career these days, except the rich! Our boys are going around doing deshbhakti on the streets. Their boys are protesting. Achcha, first you change the channel. I don’t want to see this stupid man while I am eating.”
Achche Lal brought out the rotis from the kitchen.
“Even Aamna is worried about Jamal. Their only son! He could easily have gone abroad. Aamna was talking about him at the party office yesterday, and didi said to us that our children are too sensitive for the present world.”
“Some children are sensible also, in addition to being sensitive.”
§
Jamal was coughing fitfully when Amma flung open the door to his room.
“Hide in your room and have more cigarettes.”
“It’s the air.”
Amma rolled her eyes.
“You know that Achche bhai is like a brother to me. Pushpa and I are like sisters. You insulted him in public? I don’t want to hear any excuses. Get up right now, go and bring rotis from Laadley’s shop. Achche bhai will come for lunch and you will apologise to him.”
§
Laadley Khan swatted at a single fly and managed to kill two. He was really quite large, but always underestimated his own strength.
Outside the nehari shop, along the open gutter, two mangy dogs fought over some bones and gristle, while the onion skin and rotting lemon peels lay unheeded. Laadley Khan, the proprietor of that shop, sat cross-legged on a large Neelkamal plastic chair, behind a small aluminium counter, and stared at this scene. Suddenly, he made the connection: “Arre, you’ve thrown the muck just outside my door. That’s why the place is infested with flies.” He glared at his staff.
The establishment was situated in a narrow, winding alley in the old city. Ancient havelis, now partitioned and for the most part decrepit, blocked the sun and sky. It was often said that their old inhabitants, particularly those who had had to leave them for Lahore, pined for them. Laadley Khan’s family had never gone anywhere. From his position of vantage, the chair upon which he remained perched, he keenly guarded the alley. He now saw a thickset man emerge from the grey smog and walk up quickly, purposefully. Laadley peered suspiciously at the figure until he recognised him: “Oh, Jamal bhai!” he said to himself. Jamal dodged the garbage and the scavengers and called out as he entered the shop, “Are my rotis ready?”
Laadley Khan had always been burly, but had only recently become bearded. Patting his beard, he smiled at Jamal and, turning towards the tandoor to his right, barked, “Bring Jamal bhai’s packets!” Jamal observed him for a few seconds and enquired casually: “Have you hennaed your beard, Laadley?” Laadley Khan blushed.
A slightly built man, wearing a checked lungi and a sleeveless brown sweater, was hunched over the clay oven. He got up silently and handed Jamal a stack of greasy brown paper packets that smelled of tandoori roti and kabab. Jamal leaned back as he adjusted them against his chest. “For the love of Allah, why don’t you have the place swept?”
‘I’d very much like to have the place swept, Jamal bhai, but what will I do with the trash? The municipal cart doesn’t come all the way here, does it? Every bastard is turning vegetarian suddenly. Nobody wants to touch animal filth, it seems. Not even the thieving mehtars. I’d have the waste thrown into the municipal dump on the main road, but it’d just lie there also, and then everyone will get upset with me. So, I say, it’s my garbage, let it just stay here.’
“Achcha? And what will people think when they come to eat your nehari?”
“Who comes to eat my nehari? Everyone buys rotis from me and then goes to Rahman Miyan’s fancy restaurant to eat his famous paya. All the big people go there, and the foreigners too. Only some local friends like you and Habib bhai come here now.”
“So there is no obligation on you to keep your shop clean?”
“Oho Jamal bhai. Locals are more troublesome, I must say. Arrey, the Angrez are simple people. They come here to see the old city, eat nehari, not to complain about the garbage. Do you know, a few days ago a firangi came to my shop? He had been walking around the old city and he came here for lunch, but he didn’t say a word about the rubbish.”
Laadley Khan’s minions nodded in agreement: “Yes, the firangi was very cultured. He folded his hands and said namaste”; everyone cackled at the firangi’s apparent faux pas and Jamal grinned too.
“Arre, our Mullah ji, Rahman miyan, even tried to correct him. He said sternly, ‘We say salaam aleikum’, but the poor man got very confused.” Laadley clapped his thighs in mirth and the assistants continued to laugh.
After Jamal had left the shop with his packets, Laadley Khan turned towards the tandoor again, “Listen, swine, collect this rubbish now and throw it into the dump. I don’t want to see this mess in front of my shop.” The man in the checked lungi appeared largely unaffected, so Laadley Khan continued to glower at him, his mouth slightly open, “All right? You heard me?”
§
“He said that I should be ashamed of myself,” said Achche Lal. “In front of my juniors, he said that to me.”
“He said that I should be ashamed of being a wastrel. That I was a jihadi, and a bad son.”
Asghar and Aamna sat next to each other on the divan, trying their best to not laugh..
“I never said you are a Jihadi. I did say you are wasting your time. Your father retired from the examination section at Jamia. He has helped so many people from your community in getting pass marks. But his own son is now failing his exams.” Achche Lal stopped for a quick breadth, “And you just look at your health! Who gets sugar at your age? And even then you are not being careful. His friend was saying that because of his sugar he suddenly gets angry.”
Asghar felt it was time to intervene. “You apologise to your chacha. Achche has carried you on his shoulders at so many of our rallies. Don’t you dare presume to teach him.”
“Pushpa carried him. I was usually on duty by the time he was born. Of course in our student days we went, but he wasn’t born then.”
“When he went to rallies as a student, then it was fine,” Jamal grumbled.
“The times are different now. When we held rallies, it was for nation building, not for anti-national things. There were no hidden agendas, no international funding and toolkits to brainwash people then.”
“He said that I’d get arrested and then my parents would go crying to him for help.”
“Of course, we would go to him for help. One asks ones closest family only for help,” said Aamna. “Stop arguing with your chacha. Go put the rotis out.” Jamal unfolded his legs and reluctantly rose from his seat. She waited for him to leave the room and then added: “Achche bhai, you also start arguing as if you were the same age as him.”
“I was not at all acting his age. I was trying to tell him to get into some government department, preferably the police force. He would be able to help himself and his community much better that way.”
“It’s your right and your duty to point him in the right direction, Achche. But tell me frankly, how many Muslims are there in your own thana? How many SHOs are Muslim?” asked Asghar quietly.
“First you have to at least try to get into the system.” Achche Lal said irritably. He later told Pushpa that they are becoming too negative.
“Who is becoming negative? Asghar bhai, or the entire Muslim community?” Pushpa laughed. “More important, did you ask Jamal to come home on Diwali? He won’t come if you don’t ask him separately.”
§
Kanwal and Nirmal sat on a wooden bench, which was chained to the collapsible grill of Bhawani Mishthan Bhandar. The shop had sold crisp kachauris and jalebis and milky tea since 1949. The boys had been rocking the bench when Shambhu, the owner’s son, came rushing out and yelled, “Don’t do that! You’ll break the bench. Anyway, it’s meant for patrons, not for freeloaders to lounge on.” Kanwal and Nirmal looked at each other in mild embarrassment and Kanwal said: “We would like to have some tea, in that case.” Shambhu muttered something under his breath and went back into the shop.
“Boss, it is not right,” said Nirmal to Kanwal. ”We can’t sit anywhere in peace. Constantly have to be buying something.”
“It’s westernisation, boss. Western consumerism,” Kanwal explained.
“You’re right. In the old days people could sit anywhere; they would be offered tea. Now, there is no sense of atithi devo bhava, no pride in our culture…” Nirmal stopped mid-sentence, and nudged Kanwal: “Boss, see what he is doing!”
A slightly built man wearing a checked lungi and sleeveless sweater had emptied a bucket just outside the low boundary of the municipal dump. Kanwal and Nirmal could make out several bones and some gristle in the heap.
“Eh, what do you think you’re doing?” Kanwal shouted from across the road. The man looked startled, but didn’t respond. He turned nervously and made to go back into the alley.
“He has been butchering!” Nirmal yelled. The fleeing man stopped and turned around abruptly: “Abey, it’s not mataji. It’s just a goat. Can’t you tell from the size of the bones?”
Kanwal and Nirmal left their place on the bench and ran across the street, but they stopped at the head of the alley and glanced at each other hesitantly. Kanwal hated going into that filthy alley, where they slaughtered animals and left their bloodied organs strewn about as if to mock him. If he could, he would have driven them all out. “‘Barbarians, terrorists!”’ he spat in disgust.
Nirmal looked at his friend for encouragement and shouted at the man, who had stopped at a safe distance inside the alley: “Pick up your filth and take it back inside!”
“That is the municipal dump!” the man shouted back.
“It’s not meant for butchers and savages. Take it back or we’ll slaughter you and sprinkle your bones in the dump.”
The ruckus grew, and the noise reached Laadley Khan in his nehari shop. He stepped out curiously, as did several of his customers, forming a crowd behind him. Amongst them was Salman, the local delinquent.
“What is going on?” Laadley asked.
“I threw the waste into the dump just as you told me to do, and they started chasing me and abusing me,” said the slightly built man.
“You go inside.” Laadley Khan said to him, and then turned towards Kanwal, “Haan bhai? What is the problem?”
Kanwal and Nirmal looked at each other for encouragement “We won’t allow desecration of our land like this.”
“That dump is your land?”
“There will be no animal slaughter in our area.”
Laadley, his feet wide apart and arms akimbo, frowned exaggeratedly for the benefit of his audience: “Your area? How is this your area? Your sister is married to Srivastava ji’s son. You’ve come from some village to live in your sister’s house and study, and this has become your area? My ancestors are buried here – permanently – not like you.” The rearguard hooted.
Kanwal regarded Laadley Khan with distaste. He wore a filthy shalwar-kameez, with the shalwar tied high and reaching his ankles. He also had a ridiculous henna-coloured beard, which provoked Kanwal: “The whole country is ours. You can go to Pakistan if you want!” he said and made as if to charge. Nirmal held him back and said, pacifyingly, “Let our people win. We’ll then put them all in a municipal cart, with all the rubbish, and send them where they belong.”
Laadley Khan looked gleeful as he readied himself for a fight. There were catcalls from his customers and his employees.
“If you’ve drunk your mother’s milk, come here and fight!” Salman pumped his chest and called out. Kanwal and Nirmal, who were poised at the top of the alley, yelled back, “You will come out some time, won’t you? We’ll show you then. We remember all your faces, you bastards.”
“Am I scared of you, you little twerp?’ Laadley Khan roared as he started to walk towards them. At that fortuitous moment, ASI Achche Lal of Thana Sadar appeared at the junction of the road and alley, followed closely by Jamal, whose parents had insisted that he walk Achche chacha to the auto stand.
“What is happening?” Achche Lal asked sternly.
“Jamal bhai, you only said to throw away the garbage. I told you the municipal cart never comes into our gali, and when we throw garbage on the main road, then these people throw tantrums.”
“He is doing this to provoke us. He is showing us slaughtered animals!” said Kanwal.
“Why does that offend you suddenly, hain?” Jamal turned to look at the heap that had been deposited. “It’s not even inside the dump, you’ve emptied it on the street, literally.”
“It is inside only,” whimpered the slightly built man from within the alley.
Achche Lal got a toehold, “Who has thrown all this outside the designated spot? Hup, come here!” he barked at the slightly built man. The man retreated further into the dark recesses of the alley.
“Everyone throws it there. If you throw it close enough to the dump, everyone understands that it’s garbage. And anyway, why did they have to go prodding to look at what was there?” Laadley Khan scowled back. “Why don’t you say anything to those two troublemakers, Inspector saheb?”
“Why don’t I arrest you only Laadley? We have to first investigate whether there has been any illegal slaughter,” snapped Achche Lal.
“Achche chacha, don’t say such things. It is a sensitive matter. If you say it lightly even, people will believe it to be true,” whispered Jamal.
“Chaliye, aap log bhi chaliye,” Achche Lal pointed his chin at Kanwal and Nirmal. Then he gestured towards the alley, “I am letting them be because of you Jamal, otherwise one or two deserve to be in jail.” Achche Lal glanced at Laadley, but let his eyes rest on Salman. He then took a few quick strides and left the scene.
Kanwal and Nirmal began walking back towards Bhawani Mishthan Bhandar. Shambhu had come out of the shop, and was watching them with admiration. Halfway, they stopped again, turned around and yelled: “We will get boys from the university; they’ll teach you to hurt peoples’ sentiments like this.”
“I’ll break all your bones, you scoundrel. They have been sent here to study, but all they do is create trouble and waste their parents’ money,” yelled Laadley.
“I say, Laadley bhai, they are just frustrated because they are single. All the frustration is coming out like this. Why don’t you have them blessed at the dargah, they might find love,”’ Salman called out and the crowd tittered.
Kanwal flared up again, “You’ll have us blessed? You fiend!”
§
The portly Balabhadra babu owned a Xerox, scanning and printing shop in the bazaar, his previous enterprise in cyber cafes having failed with the advent of smartphones. Balabhadra babu was an affable man: early on in his printing career, he had landed a profitable contract for printing ‘Modi masks’ for distribution at election rallies. He had made good money but even better contacts and had gone on to benefit greatly from that distinguished visage. Balabhadra babu had printed Covid vaccination certificates, posters felicitating the prime minister on the G20’s grand success, and most recently, banners announcing the forthcoming inauguration of the grand temple, and once again commending the honourable prime minister’s efforts.
Balabhadra babu was usually clad in starched kurtas and pyjamas, which acquired a dirty blue tinge from excessive use of Neel in the wash. He was sipping tea at Bhawani Mishthan Bhandar that evening. Kanwal and Nirmal were on the opposite bench, talking softly to each other.
Balabhadra babu always carried an air of sanguinity about him. “What are you young people discussing, hain? You are young men, you should devote time to nation building,” he said, somewhat superfluously, to Kanwal and Nirmal.
Nirmal had been sitting with one leg folded under him, while the other dangled off the ground. Excitedly, he unfolded his leg and stood up: “Bulbhaddar chacha, we must work together. Our attitude should be nation first; everything can’t be for minorities and backwards alone, while meritorious and nationalist youth suffer. We cannot allow this policy of appeasement any longer, and open cow slaughter like this.”
“Kanwalji and Nirmalji suspect that Laadley has slaughtered a cow. They couldn’t catch them red-handed, but they have given him a strict warning,” Shambhu explained. Their status at the Bhawani Mishthan Bhandar had evidently changed over the course of the day.
Balabhadra babu felt the need for intervention. He shook his head resolutely, “They do it, Kanwal, but not here.”
“We are certain, Bulbhaddar chacha,” said Nirmal.
“Not here, They do it, I am aware. But not here.”
“You know about these things, Bulbhaddar chacha. Come we’ll show you the bones, then you can decide for yourself.”
Balabhadra babu put his half-finished glass of tea down and got up without a word. He followed Kanwal and Nirmal to the municipal dump across the street, accompanied by Shambhu, as well as two other patrons from the shop.
There they stood in a semi-circle trying to look for the gristle and the bones. Much more garbage had been piled on since the incident in the morning. Nirmal found a long stick and prodded the trash till they found the gristle. Balabhadra babu gathered the back of his kurta and sat down on his haunches to observe the bones more closely. He smiled in relief and shook his head: ”Goat,” he said.
“Arre, Bulbhaddar chacha, look at the size!”
”Big goat, ” He paused, and then added reassuringly, “It’s not easy transporting animals into that narrow alley. We are all here watching.”
§
Laadley had also gathered his friends that evening for a discussion of the day’s events. As they put out the clay oven, he had said to the man in the checked lungi, “Arre if we catch Jamal bhai in a good mood, he will lift your spirits! Why do you always look so sad and scared you rascal?”
Jamal lit himself a cigarette, took a long drag and coughed: “Then Laadley? This has been good for your business, hain?”
“What?”
“Abey, your little fight with Kanwal and Nirmal! They have declared that they saw you slaughter right here and everyone believes it. I heard someone say that there was no need to go searching for good kababs anymore, when our Laadley is here. Now you can raise your prices again and continue to serve dog meat.”
Laadley Khan touched his earlobes with the tip of his fingers, “No, no, tauba Jamal bhai. I’d never do such a thing.”
“Yes, okay. But it is true about the dogs though, what do you say Habibi? He peddles dog meat as mutton. Have you noticed how dogs run for cover when they see Laadley?
Laadley seemed delighted at the joke.
“And when there are no dogs left, he goes after crows. Have you noticed how there are no crows in our area?”
Laadley pinched his earlobes again, “What all you say Jamal bhai! But by God, do you know the poultry shops in chowk?” He looked around at his audience, “Hain? They get these sickly local quails and colour them all neela-peela, and then sell them at double-price saying they are migratory birds and have only fed on Irani and Kashmiri saffron on the way. And people buy them also!” Everyone burst into peals of laughter.
A door opened and shut loudly, nearby, and Salman teetered into the alley, looking flushed, brushing his hair with the back of his hand. He came and sat on the stairs at a respectable distance from Jamal and Habib.
“Kya hero? Naseeban’s half-witted husband is out again tonight?” said Laadley.
Salman blushed as the man in the checked lungi rolled over with laughter. “Abey, don’t fall into the tandoor!” said Salman, and added, “I really love her,” which caused Laadley Khan to guffaw so much that his belly shook.
Salman quickly changed the subject: “Laadley bhai, you stopped me, otherwise I wouldn’t have let those two get away.”
“When did I stop you?”
“The problem is always that the police are biased. If it were just them, it wouldn’t be a problem, but who can fight with the police?” said Salman, sheepishly.
“The police was not biased today. Inspector Achche Lal contained the situation,” said Jamal.
“Arre, both of you are finding fault with everything I say.”
Habib sighed. “Why is everyone so angry all the time? First, Jamal bhai had a fight, then Laadley had a fight…”
“We have all become radicalised,” Jamal cackled.
“It’s the foreign hand,” Habib smiled too.
“While Nirmal and Kanwal have had an awakening, hain?”
“It’s your Rahman miyan only who has encouraged this kind of activity in our area. He has brought the police in and now swine like Nirmal and Kanwal feel they can question us. Earlier, would anyone have dared?” Laadley looked accusingly at Salman.
“How has he brought the police in?” asked Habib
“Arre! He is a daily informer. Tattles on everyone. Who said what? Who did what? Even the poor children in his madarsa – everyone is under scrutiny.”
Salman spat dramatically. “He informed on all the anti-CAA protestors. So many had to go to jail. Everyone hates him.”
“Our Romeo also got into trouble. Rahman miyan has thrown him out of his quarters at the madarsa. Now he is forced to share beds at Naseeban’s house. Her husband and our hero take turns,” Laadley guffawed again.
“I left the madarsa myself. Rahman miyan has become too controlling.”
Jamal coughed again. “This blasted smog. My eyes are burning.”
“Yes, Jamal bhai. It’s the right mood for murder. Feels like someone will die,” said Salman animatedly.
“Chup! Always talking nonsense,” Laadley growled.
To be continued…
Shahrukh Alam has been trying to write a murder mystery for a very long time. She has written versions of this story since 2013 and The Wire has published one such version earlier. She is hopeful that she’ll deliver a complete mystery this time. 🤞🏻
