Chain of Custody (7 page)

Once, there was nothing in Doddegubbi but mango orchards and millet fields. A few farmers lived there, struggling to eke a livelihood out of the land. They grew whatever would grow there. Cauliflowers, cabbage, beans, spinach, snake gourds and chayote that everyone else called ‘bengloor kathrikai'. They grazed their cows and in the evening there was the old temple they went to worship at. But the church changed all that in the late nineties with a spate of conversions. It brought people to live in a deserted tract of many acres. Every convert received a
piece of land and some money to build a house of their own. The poor from Vasanth Nagar, Lingarajapuram and Vivek Nagar congregated at the land the church had given them in return for converting, and a new village sprang up overnight. It was called Gospelnagar.

The church opened its door, awaiting the flocks of converts. But only a few arrived. Husbands and wives converted but the children remained Hindus. And so, even though a house had a cross fixed to the lintel above the main door, and a photograph of Jesus with his bleeding heart and long melancholic face within, there were also photographs of Ganesha, Lakshmi and Shiva presiding over the household.

Shanthi and her husband had been one of the earlier converts. Shanthi had been unsure about changing her religion but Ranganna, who was now Daniel Ranganna as she was Esther Shanthi, had insisted. Besides, it was the only way they would ever have a house of their own.

A motley group of men, women and children were gathered on the road outside the line of houses in Gospelnagar. They stared as Gowda's bike turned the corner, the duk-duk sound echoing through the street.

Ranganna stood by the side of the road with his hand on his hip. He slammed his forehead with the palm of his hand as he talked to a group of men. At the sight of Gowda's bike, he peeled himself from the group.

Gowda parked the Bullet on its stand. Santosh stood helplessly, not knowing what was expected of him. ‘What happened?' Gowda asked with a curtness that surprised Santosh. Gowda, he thought, was very fond of Shanthi.

‘I don't know, sir, I don't know!' Ranganna wailed, beating his hands on his head. ‘It's all that woman's fault. She is never at home. Who knows what happened to my daughter?'

Gowda quelled him with a glare. ‘Stop this playacting, Ranganna,' he snapped. ‘If anyone is to blame, it's you; if you didn't drink through everything you earned, your wife wouldn't need to work in three homes. Where is Shanthi?'

From within the house, Shanthi came out. Her hair was unkempt and her face was tear-streaked. ‘I am here, sir,' she said, her voice hoarse from crying.

‘Tell me what happened,' Gowda said, softening his tone.

‘She went to school as usual on Wednesday, sir. It was her maths exam. When she didn't come back by one, I got worried. I waited till two and went to the school. The teacher said she attended the exam but left an hour early on her own. All her friends were still writing the exam at that point, she said. I went to each one of their homes but no one remembered seeing her in the school afterwards. Where could my Nandita have gone, sir?' Shanthi began sobbing again.

‘Have you registered a complaint at the station?' Santosh asked, seeing Gowda's discomfiture.

Shanthi shook her head. It was her husband who spoke up. ‘We can't go to the police. Once everyone knows about this, who will marry her?'

‘She is what, twelve years old, and you are worried about what will happen ten years from now?' Gowda snarled.

Shanthi hastily interrupted. ‘I was waiting for you to come back, sir. Some of our close relatives have gone looking for her.'

Gowda sighed. Most people were wary of going anywhere near a police station. Even when they needed the help of the law. ‘Go to the station right now and register a complaint. We can't do anything legally till a First Information Report is written,' he said. ‘I'll speak to the station writer. You know Head Constable Gajendra, don't you?' He turned to Shanthi. ‘Make sure you go too.'

‘How will you manage, sir?' she asked as Gowda turned to go.

‘Don't worry about that. Let's find your daughter first,' Gowda said gently. ‘Shanthi, she will be fine,' he added. ‘She must have gone to a relative's house in Kolar. Isn't that where your relatives are?'

Shanthi nodded. ‘I have an aunt in Tumkur too.'

‘She must have gone there,' Gowda said, starting his bike. He turned to look at Santosh. ‘Have you had lunch?'

‘No, sir, but …'

‘If I don't eat something soon, I'll pass out. If you don't want to eat, you can watch me,' Gowda growled.

‘It seems to me that everything has changed. I was away for just six months but it feels like six years,' Santosh said, gazing around almost wistfully as they rode towards the restaurant.

It was a café-like place with tubular steel chairs and granite-topped tables. A bicyle hung from the stucco-finished wall and each table had a bicycle bell to summon the waiter.

Gowda rang the bicycle bell with an almost imperious note and said, ‘Change is inevitable. You can never reverse the past.'

While they waited for the food to arrive, Gowda called Gajendra. ‘Have the child welfare officer come in this evening. I need to speak to him.'

Gajendra sighed. ‘We don't have one any more, sir!'

Gowda frowned. ‘Why? What happened to Manjunath?'

‘His father expired and he has gone on leave. I think he'll try and arrange for a transfer to Tumkur,' Gajendra said.

Gowda paused for a moment.

‘I think you are thinking what I am thinking, sir,' the head constable said softly.

Gowda grunted. ‘Let me talk to DCP Mirza. He would be the best person to speak to. I am sure he'll make it happen.'

‘Santosh sir will do a good job as CWO, sir. And it will give him some time to settle in before taking up active duty,' Gajendra said.

When the food arrived, Santosh watched Gowda eat. It seemed he had changed too. Santosh couldn't exactly fathom how, but he had. Where was the man who would have headed to the nearest Darshini restaurant to tuck into a bisibele bath or a karabath? Instead, he seemed to be eating what looked like fat noodles at a place called Bicycle Café. Apart from the bicyle role-playing as wall-hanging, there were no bicycles around and hardly a soul.

‘Do you like what you are eating?' Santosh asked. ‘Is it Maggi noodles?'

‘Pasta,' Gowda said, twirling a strand around a fork. ‘It's nice. Do you want to try it?'

Santosh bit his lip, unable to decide. ‘Is it beef?' he asked.

Gowda frowned. ‘Chicken. But what's wrong with beef?'

‘We are Hindus, sir!'

Gowda's mouth twisted into a narrow line. Santosh felt that familiar knot of fear. ‘I'd like some,' he said hastily.

Gowda called for an extra plate. He doled out a portion for Santosh and said, ‘Don't use your hand. Watch how I eat it with a fork …'

Santosh stared at his plate of pasta helplessly. Some things never changed, he thought. Gowda still had the ability to fill him with adulation one moment and infuriate him the other. We are Indians and Indians eat with their right hand. Why do we have to use a fork? God knows how many mouths it has been into.

‘Are you ready to join duty?' Gowda asked abruptly. A gust of warm air rushed in as the door opened and a group of northeastern students walked in.

Santosh stared at them for a moment and then, meeting Gowda's gaze, he said, ‘I am not sure, sir. But if I don't now, I might lose my nerve forever.'

‘Countless policemen go through service without anything like this happening to them. It's unfortunate that you had this happen to you on your first case,' Gowda said, choosing each word carefully. ‘If you are unsure now, you may never be able to after a few days. For what it's worth, I'll be with you. And …' Gowda paused. ‘I am never going to let you risk your life again. That is a promise I made to myself.'

Santosh felt a lump in his throat. But he knew that Gowda wouldn't like it if he said he was moved. So he said, ‘They should have added some dhania podi to this pasta thing!'

Gowda grunted in agreement. He had thought the same but Urmila had almost bitten his head off for saying so. ‘What is wrong with you? This is an Italian dish. You should eat it like they do, not smother it with coriander powder and turn it into Udupi Italian.'

‘True.' He grinned. He rang the bell again. ‘Get me some more chilli flakes and some coriander powder,' he said.

Moina looked at the packet of food she had been given. It was biriyani again. There was a time when she had dreamt of biriyani – the aromatic rice separated grain by grain with ghee and spice, mutton pieces and the cubes of patato, the whorls of fried onion – but now she was tired of it. Instead, she dreamed of other things: a long leisurely bath with water
she had drawn, bucket after bucket, from the well behind her home. Dal chaval and a piece of fried fish and a long green chilli to set her tongue tingling. A walk on the road, feeling the breeze on her face. A full night's sleep. The ceasing of beatings and of the soreness between her legs.

‘What? You don't like it?' Daulat Ali asked, seeing the untouched food. ‘What does the shezadi want? Do tell.'

Moina felt her heart hammer in her chest. Each time he called her princess, it was followed by a beating. She blinked rapidly. ‘No, no, I was just enjoying the aroma of the biriyani,' she said, cramming fistfuls of rice and meat into her mouth and emphasizing her pleasure with loud chewing sounds.

Daulat Ali said nothing. From the partition across came a mewling sound. A girl was crying.

‘Oiii, shut up,' Daulat Ali growled, yanking aside the curtain. ‘Do you want me to come in there?'

Moina caught a glimpse of the girl before Daulat Ali pulled the curtain back. She was a child. I am sixteen but that is a child, Moina thought. How old is she? Twelve or thirteen?

‘Finish eating quickly and you can clean up in the big bathroom. Have a bath. This place smells like a pig sty!' Daulat Ali said as he walked away.

The child is hungry, she thought. She is crying because she is afraid and hungry. Moina shut her eyes tight. She didn't want to think of the alternative.

Daulat Ali returned to stand in front of her. ‘Take that girl with you. Show her the lavatory, and explain to her that if she wants to be fed she must do as we ask. No dhandha, no khana. Tell her that!'

Moina scrambled to her feet. There was a tiny stinking toilet at the end of the hall, which was what she was allowed
to use. The big bathroom was at the end of a terrace, a few feet away from the back door of the hall. Ten steps away. She had counted. Ten steps, during which she could catch a brief sight of the skies, smell the air and feel sunlight against her skin.

When Moina had finished her tenth standard, back home in Bangladesh, a woman her mother knew had suggested she attend tailoring classes. She can find a job in a garment factory, the woman had said. Two streets away from her home was Noor Tailoring Institute. No one knew who Noor was: the lady who ran it or her plump daughter. Moina did what everyone else did – call the middle-aged woman Aunty. Soon she was Aunty's star pupil. It was Aunty who told her that her sister who worked with a fashion designer needed an expert seamstress. It was Aunty who talked to her mother and made the arrangements. Aunty had paid her mother fifteen thousand rupees as advance against the salary whe would earn.

They had taken a bus from Faridpur to Jessore. Two men had met them there and taken them on a bike to the border. Two men who knew a gap in the barbed wire fencing and held it apart for the women to cross. Moina had looked at the gap and known a tremendous fear clamp her feet. What was she crossing into? It was Aunty who pushed her hard, hissing, ‘Do you want to get us shot by those BSF bastards?'

She stumbled in fright. The Border Security Force men were merciless, she had been told. They shot at anything that seemed suspicious – a cat, a crow or a crouching woman. She almost fell and grabbed at the barbed wire. One of the men pulled her hand away, causing blood to spurt from her palm.

Somewhere on that border crossing I left a piece of myself – flesh and blood – Moina would tell Sanya later.

Moina had made it across the border. But after that, everything was a haze of pain. The men had left but there were two others who took them to Habra, where a doctor had sewn up the gaping wound in her palm. From there to Kolkata and a train that brought Aunty and her to Bangalore. They had got off at a station and for the first time Moina felt a surge of hope. The fear and uncertainty that had dogged her began to retreat.

Aunty seemed to know her way well enough. They took an autorickshaw to a house in the middle of a colony of houses. She had heard Aunty say, ‘Horamavu'. What did it mean, Moina had wondered.

‘This is my sister's house,' Aunty had said. But there was no one there except two men. Moina was too tired to care. She had eaten the rice and dal Aunty had rustled up and fallen asleep. When she woke up, Aunty was gone and the two men had been waiting. They had asked her to pack her things.