“You and Hriday do not have to worry at all. He usually walks right by your room. He would never barge into it with a randi,” Jishnu da reassured Pranjal, who had deep misgivings about living in Shokeen Niwas and was thinking of moving out. But I, Hriday Thakur, had no such misgivings. I loved the wanton amorality of the place. Its chanciness, its far remove from respectability. I wanted to be a writer. It would be here, I knew, that I would start to truly become one. I had finally found my material, if not my voice. Even though Pranjal would later be proven right (as always), I was deeply grateful to Jishnu da for introducing me to the magical world of Shokeen Niwas and the kerosene-suffused bedroom of the late, lamented Sunita Khandelwal.
Small fry
by Meera Nair
Inter State Bus Terminal
There was this girl. The first time I laid eyes on her she was standing in front of the closed Himachal Roadways ticket counter, clutching a valise as if it contained her life savings. From behind she looked like a schoolgirl — her hair fell down her back in two long braids. But then she swung the valise down and turned around and that’s when I saw her chest — straining to escape the tightest T-shirt this side of Bollywood. She was a real cheez, a top-class no. 1 item. Even in the sickly light of the fluorescent bulb that flickered above the counter, her skin looked like she bathed in milk.
I never learned her name, but I owe her my life. Sort of.
She was with a guy and they were arguing. He wanted to get the hell out of there and she wanted him to go to hell — only she said it in words I never imagined could come out of a movie-star mouth like hers.
I was lying under a cart parked in a safe corner of Delhi’s Inter State Bus Terminal. I was fifteen going on hundred that year. A street kid who had seen everything. Still, I had never seen anyone like her. Smooth, rich, glossy from head to carefully painted toe.
I had taught myself to size up people, to spot the suckers and the desperate. In my line of work it was a survival skill. I quickly figured out that she was putting on an act. There was something a little too eager about the way she looked around, as if expecting someone to rush forward any minute and do her bidding. Three in the morning, not even a decent dog awake, and here she was, carrying on loud enough to excite every insomniac crook in the place. Obviously these two weren’t from Delhi. No Dilli-wallah would venture into the bus terminal and yell at this time of night. The last bus had left hours ago and the earliest one was hours away.
After watching a few minutes longer I decided they were boyfriend and girlfriend, even though the chokra looked a good five years younger than Miss India there. The two of them must be off to someplace high in the hills for a week or two of fucking, I figured. Probably staying in some hushed hotel where no one would recognize them and report back to unsuspecting mamas-papas back home.
The boyfriend tried to put a hand on her shoulder and she shook it off. Now, he was a different breed altogether. Hrithik Roshan — style star stubble. Nike shoes. Leather jacket. Everything he had on was foreign, imported, no Palika Bazaar fakery for this one. I just knew she had bought his outfit. He looked like a kept boy, the lucky bastard. I hated him instantly.
Although just then he wasn’t exactly feeling fortunate, judging by his swiveling eyes. Scared shitless more like it. The thought cheered me up a little as I sidled out from under the cart and went in search of Hoshiyaar.
Scalper, tout, scam artist, mentor, mai-baap, fathermother — Hoshiyaar Singh was the closest thing to family I had in that place. He, better than anyone else, would know how to take care of the loving couple.
Hoshiyaar was asleep on his blanket against the wall of the so-called waiting room of the bus terminal, his hands crossed neatly on his chest. Business hadn’t been great tonight, and he’d stuck around in case I managed to reel in an extra customer or two. Fast asleep like this, his gray beard resting on his chest, Hoshiyaar looked like someone’s kindly grandfather, a devout old man who made daily trips to the gurdwara to pray for his soul.
The streetlights outside shone dimly through the high windows of the room. Around me, strewn beside the broken plastic chairs, other men lay huddled on their sheets, hands clutched between their knees. The suffocating stink of urine pressed down on us all. A chilly little breeze had sprung up and it came in through the open doorway and twirled up the trash, yesterday’s newspaper pages and plastic bags, toward the hapless sleepers.
These poor bastards hadn’t managed to snag an official ticket in time for a bus to Karnal or Kullu or any one of the small towns the government buses jolted past. The men had probably stood in endless lines all yesterday. By the time they got their precious ticket the last buses would’ve been full. That’s why they were still here, sleeping open-mouthed on the filthy floor — because they couldn’t afford anything but a cheap ticket on a government bus.
But for the rich or desperate there were easier options: buses that parked with their lights and engines switched off in the dusty lanes behind Ritz Theatre or Mori Gate, or in front of the Tibetan refugee colony. Most of these vehicles were illegal, run by black-market operators without government permits. The bus mafia bribed local politicos, State Travel Association clerks, travel agents, the police — threw money all the way down the food chain to scalpers like Hoshiyaar. Who, in turn, sold tickets for whatever the going rate was that day.
The ticket counters wouldn’t open for a few hours yet and the shouting, fist-waving crowds wouldn’t be here until later, but I was dead certain Hoshiyaar had tickets to sell. I was also pretty sure that Miss India had cash enough in that bag of hers to buy a Volvo bus, never mind a ticket on one.
Now, standing next to Hoshiyaar, I shivered. His face, shadowed and cratered in the half-light that came in through the window, looked bloodless. Someone nearby sighed deeply in his sleep and I was suddenly frantic for Hoshiyaar to wake up, scared like a child alone in the dark.
“Chacha.” I crouched down close to him, then remembered.
I’d better make sure the couple was still there before I woke Hoshiyaar — otherwise he’d twist my ear like a bottle cap.
The couple was headed toward us looking around for someone to make them an offer. They knew the rules of the ticket game after all.
“Chacha,” I hissed once again in Hoshiyaar’s ear. The old man snapped awake and stared at my face fiercely without missing a beat, as if he had just closed his eyes a second ago.
“Kya bey, Ramu? What is it?” Even after all these years, his instant alertness unnerved me and I took a shaky breath before I stuck a thumb in the direction of the duo.
“Two bakras for you,” I said. Sheep for the shearing.
He took a look then turned to face the wall. “You woke me up for that?” he said. “Go away, fucker, I’m asleep.”
I couldn’t believe it. Ever since I was a kid, washing used plates and glasses in a basin under the table at Sethi’s food stall, it had been my job to spot the potentials, to alert Hoshi-yaar or keep the suckers talking until he arrived and took over.
This was the second time this month he’d chosen sleep over the solid dhanda I was reeling in.
“Acha, theek hai, I’ll go tell Jaggu then,” I said, naming a rival ticket tout. “He needs the business and that chick is dripping with cash.” The old man sat up at that, hands smoothing down his beard, and I swear I could hear his mind click on instantly, I am talking tchak, like a pistol’s trigger cocking. He flicked two fingers at my skull but I ducked.
“You do that and I’ll break your legs.” He wasn’t kidding so I grinned to convince him that I was. He stood up, straightened his white kurta, still crisp after a full day’s work, and waited until the couple came closer. Behind them, Jaggu and another ticket tout emerged, snouts quivering, but slunk back into their corners when Hoshiyaar sauntered toward them. No one who did any business in the terminal messed with Hoshi-yaar. The few who did either left to find other turf fast or had nasty accidents. Once I saw him slowly bend a man’s arm the wrong way until it jerked out of the shoulder socket with a soft pop. The sound kept me from sleeping some nights — nights I lay awake and thought of leaving Hoshiyaar.