The Prime Minister
a serial novel
by Rattan Mann
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Go to Episode 1
Hindi Terms
Lulu: is a useless nut who
can never get anything straight. It is not a name in the usual sense.
Chachi Jaan: is a more respectful
term for aunty. Chacha and chachi mean uncle and aunty and Jaan, meaning
life, adds more honour to the term. It means "aunty, my life". It is not
a name in the usual sense.
Jhuggis: are shanties in
a shanty-town, and jhuggi-wallas are those who dwell in the jhuggis.
Previous Episode
Suddenly loud abuses were heard
at a distance. A single vehement voice was challenging the whole crowd.
It had a very strange and immediate effect. Nobody looked in the direction
from which the abuses came. Most pretended as if they had heard nothing.
Yet, strangely enough, the atmosphere of fun and enjoyment vanished in
a second. Everybody began to feel uneasy, people started to dissociate
themselves from what was happening. Onlookers standing on the fringes started
slipping quietly away. Nobody seemed to be interested in the game anymore.
The abuses grew louder and louder
as the man who uttered them drew nearer and nearer. He was a short but
well-built, muscular man of dark complexion, not very handsome to look
at. But he looked like a fighter-cock, and uttered abuses as if abuses
had their natural abode on his tongue. He was Dhunu, a pick-pocket, a pimp
and the only man from the jhuggis whom even those high-up in the sky-scrapers
feared. Both muscle-man Tutu and hit-man Pupu respected Dhunu, if not actually
feared him.
When Tutu and Pupu saw Dhunu they
too cowed down because Dhunu had a knife in his hand. They knew that to
confront Dhunu was no joke. Anxious to avoid turning a harmless game into
a real fight complete with bloodshed, they quickly abandoned the center
stage, then as quickly as they could without looking chicken, they too
melted into the crowd as nobodies.
An old man stepped forward to placate
Dhunu.
"Dhunu, Lulu fell into the gutter
by mistake. It was nobody's fault. We all were trying to rescue him. I
swear. If you don't believe me, ask Radha."
But Dhunu was not listening and
Radha was not contradicting because she hated blood-baths more than humiliations
and defilements.
Dhunu walked straight up to Radha
and Kali, his tirade of abuses unabated, and started helping them to clean
Lulu up and put him on his feet again. Both the woman and the girl drew
courage from Dhunu's presence, at least enough to stop the tears in their
eyes if not the pain in their hearts.
Soon Lulu was looking clean and
decent enough to be taken to his jhuggi and put into bed. So all four of
them started moving towards the jhuggis and soon there was no one left
in the square except Balwinder.
Balwinder stood where he was, under
the Banyan tree, his head bowed, his feet fixed to the ground, unable to
move, as if he were glued to the roots of the Banyan tree under which he
was standing. He had even lost his turban somewhere and he was talking
to himself.
"I didn't do it, Kali. I didn't
do it. I swear in Guru Gobind's name that I didn't do it. I remembered
my promise and I have kept it. But I always become the black-sheep and
the scapegoat of this community. Whether I do something or not, I always
end up getting the blame. But at least you should have known because you
know me so well."
Suddenly Balwinder began to shiver.
He felt terribly cold. Parts of his body had turned blue, some had frozen
outright. Even his brain was freezing slowly as he made one last effort
to convince Kali and ask her for her help.
"Kali, I am feeling cold, very cold.
Do something to make me warm. I know you are angry, but don't just stand
there like a statue. Come near me and make me warm as you have done so
many times before."
He stretched out his hand for hers
but the girl pulled back as if it was now her turn to take revenge on him,
make him suffer in body all that she had suffered in the soul.
"Kali, you look beautiful when you
are angry. But this is not the time to be angry. Come, forgive me, and
come into my arms." Balwinder was trying desperately to placate her, make
her let bygones be bygones.
It couldn't be said that the girl
was angry, or looked very revengeful because her lips were quivering with
helplessness and her eyes were full of tears. But she would not move towards
him, put his head on her lap or even lift her arms to hug him. It looked
as if she too was glued to something, though what that something was, Balwinder
could not make out.
She was not a girl anymore. The
little girl of nine had grown over the years into a beautiful woman. But
what an elusive beauty she was! She wouldn't let anybody touch her or even
come near her - not even Balwinder who knew her and understood her so well.
If only Balwinder could tempt her to move towards him, to embrace him everything
would be all right, everything would be the same as before, as it always
had been. But somehow Balwinder had lost his magic touch. His magic hold
over her was gone. Not that she didn't care about Balwinder. She did, with
all her heart, but in strange ways that Balwinder could not understand.
And she never tried to explain. She was always there with him, standing
in the corner with tears in her eyes, but she would not go near him or
explain anything. And, beg as he might, she wouldn't lift a finger to make
him warm even when he was freezing to death.
But she was always there - standing
in the corner and looking at him through her tears.
"Kali, come near me and feel my
cheeks. See for yourself how cold they are," Balwinder tried one more time
before giving up. Then he closed his eyes.
At last he felt a hand touching
his cheeks.
Professor Gupta, the head of the
Department of Psychological Warfare, was patting Balwinder on his cheeks,
as his colleague, inspector-general Kumar, head of Internal Security, stood
by and watched silently without commenting or participating.
"Balwinder, Balwinder, do you hear
me? To whom are you talking? Kali is dead. She died twenty years ago when
she was only nine. Do you hear me, Balwinder? Have you understood what
I am saying?" the Professor was trying to bring Balwinder back to earth
again.
"No, Kali is not dead. She is alive.
You are lying. The likes of Kali never die. She is right here with me,
over there in the corner. She is nodding at me. She wants to come near
me but you are not letting her. She is so afraid of you. You must have
done something very bad to her. What have you done to her? What have you
done to her that she is so afraid and sad. She is crying. Let her come
to me. I will wipe her tears. Go away, leave us alone. Then she would come
to me.”
“Come Kali, come to me. We are buddies,
you remember? I will take away your tears and you will take away my coldness.
That is what we always did - took away each others problems. Don't be afraid
of them. Stand by my side as you always have done, and I will protect you
as always. Don't just stand in the corner and stare at me as if you don't
know me anymore. It has been ages since you touched me. Speak to me, Kali.
Tell me what is bothering you. Tell me why you are so sad."
Balwinder tried to lift his arm
to touch her, but it fell limp on his heart. He had lost all strength.
And slowly he lost consciousness. Professor Gupta had failed to bring him
back to earth.
So Professor Gupta looked at his
colleague, inspector-general Kumar, and Sepoy Layak Ram looked at both
of them, because none of the trio in the interrogation team really knew
what to do next.
After a long time the inspector-general
nodded at the Professor and the Professor nodded at the Sepoy. And suddenly,
from a robot-like existence, obeying orders like a machine, or standing
motionless for hours, Sepoy Layak Ram turned into a human being who could
move and talk and feel more freely. Instinctively, he threw his own blanket
over Balwinder, and then fell over him to cover him with his own body so
that Balwinder could be warm again.
"It is all over, Balwinder, it is
all over for the day. I will see to it that you are warm now. I already
have a fire ready for you in the barracks and a bottle of rum to revive
your body and soul. Soon you will be warm and on your feet again - become
the same old rough and tough Jat Sikh who only gets going when the going
gets tough. It is all right now, Balwinder, it is all right now. It is
all over for the day."
Very gently, the man was doing what
the stubborn woman in the corner had so persistently refused to do all
along - rub Balwinder's cheeks to make them warm again.
The day's interrogation was indeed
over!
to be
continued...
Copyright 2004 Rattan Mann
Oslo, Norway
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