“I spent a few years in upstate New York,” was all he told
Lakshman. He never told me about his American years either, nor did he write about them in his journals.
“My sister-in-law lives in Toronto, but I prefer it here too,” responded Lakshman. “Best of both worlds.” His south Delhi Hinglish got under Gautam’s skin.
A waiter came, and Lakshman ordered a Johnnie Walker Red Label, some burra kebabs, and mozzarella sticks. Despite Lakshman’s insistence that he have something hard, Gautam stuck with lime soda.
“Are you still into making movies, man?” Lakshman asked.
He was referring to a documentary Gautam had worked on with the BAFTA-winning American director Lauri Zeller.
Gautam didn’t like to speak about her, and Lakshman must have known this.
“Lakshmanji,” Gautam said, “I’m a teacher now. You told me you had something to say about Khem. That’s the only reason I agreed to meet you.”
“I was just getting to your friend.” Lakshman paused for a gulp of whiskey. “He was a true patriot, wasn’t he?”
“I’m no judge of patriotism, but yes, he did good work.”
Gautam’s Hindi was erudite and awkward as usual.
“You know his death was no accident. Gautam, Khem was murdered.”
“You think that’s news to me?”
“It shouldn’t be. But I do have some knowledge that might interest you.”
“That would surprise me.”
“Gautam, I know who killed him.” After making this bold declaration, Lakshman stopped speaking to suck a mutton bone clean. “You’re a Hindi poetry aficionado,” he resumed.
“You’ve obviously heard of Srirang Kumar, na?”
“Of course.” Gautam was particularly fond of one of Kumar’s poems, “The Englishman Is Like a Magpie.” He’d even written a column on it for Bibliophile. “But I don’t think you’ve called me here to discuss poetry.”
“Be patient.” Lakshman paused again, this time to wash down the meat with some more whiskey. “You must know about Kumar’s son,” he said, tongue polishing gums and teeth.
Gautam nodded. Who hadn’t heard of Ashok Kumar, industrialist, defense contractor, playboy?
“Well, it’s the younger Kumar who’s responsible for your friend’s death.” The Canadian Aluminum Corporation, explained Lakshman, had paid Kumar a huge quantity to ensure that Khem would stop getting in its way. “We have evidence: taped conversations, witnesses, bank statements. This might be one of biggest cases of political corruption since Gujarat.”
“And?”
“And we want you to write the story.”
Gautam silently twirled the ends of his mustache and then began shaking his head. “The tribals have been displaced and my friend’s already dead,” he finally stated. “I fail to see the point of such a story.”
“The point?” echoed Lakshman. Then he launched into an oration on the importance of the “fourth estate” in today’s climate. Things like, “Now, more than ever, as neo-imperialistic capitalism mingles with our corrupt bureaucracy, it’s essential that investigative journalism preserve democracy.”
“I’m sorry. I no longer work for the media, especially Indian media,” Gautam responded. He’d come to the conclusion that Delhi’s spineless editors and their delinquent paychecks weren’t worth the trouble.
“Let me finish, yaar. Satya has just signed a deal for a tie-up with the London Tribune.” This article, Lakshman clarified, would not only be a cover story in India, it would also be printed in the Tribune’s weekend magazine. “A London publication means London payment. One pound sterling per word!”
The sum Gautam had inherited from the last of his mother’s siblings would run out next year. A big paycheck would serve him well. He nevertheless continued on with his protest. “I could never be objective about Khem though.”
“Arré, don’t you see? Your insider connections make you the best man for the job.”
You could consider the day after he met with Lakshman, a Sunday, my third date with Gautam.
Ten days earlier I’d started volunteering at the school where he taught. I told the principal I was an MPhil student doing pedagogical research. Her bureaucratic indifference disappeared when I placed an envelope full of five-hundred-rupee notes on her desk. Despite Gautam’s mental turmoil during that period, I managed to get him to notice me.
We’d scheduled to meet outside of Evergreen, where college students were pushing encyclopedias on sweater-clad families who were gorging on chaat and jalebis. Gautam, standing aloof from all this, was petting an overfed stray when I tapped him on the shoulder.
“You look beautiful,” he said in Hindi.
I couldn’t say the same thing about him. The eyes burdened with purple bags of sleeplessness and ganja, they’d been a constant during our few walks and teas. There was something else though, something new. As I later discovered in his journals, his past twenty-four hours had been particularly tormented ones.
“Green really suits you,” he continued. I was wearing a cheap Sarojni Nagar kameez over a baggy salwar, trying to please him by being the chaste desi girl life had never let me be.
He told me he needed to speak about something important, and even though we were still getting to know each other, this wasn’t surprising. There was no one else in his life besides Suraj, and the elite can only relate to their servants so much.
Conversation proved difficult because a loudspeaker was blaring warnings about terrorist threats. Gautam leaned toward me and shouted over the din, “Maybe we could go back to my place?” He tried to feign casualness, but he badly wanted me to come. I hesitated before saying yes though. Too eagerly acceding to his request might not have sat so well with him.
We held hands as we strolled through the market, just another anonymous couple among the Sunday hordes. At the Asian Age offices some shoeshine boys called out to Gautam by name but didn’t beg him for money. He paused to stare as a tipsy policeman yelled at a sabziwallah for spitting paan on the street. “Kya aap janwar hai, ya inasaan? Are you animal or human?”
Gautam’s barsaati was located on top of one of the neighborhood’s original houses, built by a Jain in 1961. Besides a fourteenth-century Lodhi tomb where servants played cricket and young journalists smoked charas, this home was the oldest remaining structure on U-block.
A squat ionic column stood near the house’s front door, and its latticed stucco exterior had a tasteful but chipping coat of yellow on it. Although the boundary walls of neighboring houses were blooming with chrysanthemums that time of year, the one separating this single-story residence from the street was lined with empty discolored flower pots.
I’d never thought post-Partition Delhi houses particularly beautiful compared with the architectural marvels of Calcutta, where I grew up. But as Gautam pointed out, these ones were rather handsome, especially next to the soulless builders’ flats that were spreading across the city like a virus.
When we were about to climb to the barsaati, a scraggly figure came out of nowhere and started mumbling at us. “Hello, bhaiyya, good evening,” the man said, smiling wilily. It was Suraj. “Ah, guest, you have guest tonight,” he said in clunky English. A scarf was tied underneath his chin and over the crown of his head. I pulled my dupatta over my face to shield it from his odor, a mixture of sweat, cheap booze, and soot.
This was poverty’s stench during wintertime, a smell from my adolescence.
He switched back into Hindi. “Achha, sir, kuch... ahhh... chaye. Okhla se?” He wanted to know if another batch of charas was needed. Gautam became uncomfortable and declined.