I just can’t help it, like when I see those pretty Western girls that come here on vacation.” He had a big laugh.
They killed the bottle in just over an hour. First, Ramnivas finished off his own fifth, and then he joined the police in a few more shots from theirs — by the end, he was completely drunk. The inspector and his sidekick left the hotel room sometime after midnight. They settled on five hundred to let the matter slide; later, the sidekick shook him down for an extra hundred. By the time they’d gone, Ramnivas was utterly spent, so drunk he was queasy and started getting the spins. Sushma helped him into the bathroom and poured cold water over his head, but Ramnivas lay down right there on the bathroom floor and began to retch. Out came all the butter Schicken, the naan, and the pulao. After the vomiting subsided he clung to Sushma, but everything was a blur, so he went straight to bed.
In the morning, Sushma told Ramnivas that after he’d gotten drunk he told the police about some cash hidden behind a wall somewhere in Saket. Ramnivas instantly sobered up. He’d been so careful about keeping his secret! He hadn’t even hinted about it to Sushma or his wife. In the end, a little booze had turned the sweet smell of success into a putrid pile of shit.
He made a few excuses to Sushma about something coming up back home and canceled their trip to Jaipur, then decided to take the next train back to Delhi.
Just as he’d feared, a police Gypsy idled in front of his house, waiting for him the next morning. “The assistant superintendent wants to talk to you,” a policeman said. Ramnivas got into the Gypsy.
This was some eight months ago — I think it was a Tuesday, and there was a light cloud cover. It seemed it might start to drizzle at any time. That day, I saw a very nervous Ramnivas at Sanjay’s; he was waiting for Sushma.
I ordered two cups of deluxe chai from Ratan Lal, and got my first inkling of how desperate Ramnivas was when I saw him down the piping-hot tea in one gulp, burning his mouth and everything else.
It was early afternoon, and Ramnivas, eyes full of pleading, looked at me and said, “I’ve gotten into a big mess. Way in over my head. Help me find a way out — please! I won’t forget it for the rest of my life.”
I asked him to tell me all about it, and he did; and now I’ve told you everything he told me. When he finished — just as I was about to see if I could find some way to help — Sushma showed up.
“Meet me here tomorrow morning. I’ve got to go,” Ramnivas said, and the two of them jumped in a rickshaw. I watched them ride away until I couldn’t see them any longer. That was the last time I saw Ramnivas.
He hasn’t come back to this little corner of the street.
He’ll never come back. If you ask anyone about him, no one will say a word.
And if you keep going from this corner to the sixteenth-century ruins at the bypass, and ask Saliman, Somali, Bhusan, Tilak, or Rizvan about Ramnivas, you’ll get the same blank stare. Ask Rajvati and her husband Gulshan, who sell hard-boiled eggs at night — they’ll all give you the brush-off.
Even the fair and graceful Sushma, who comes every day from Samaypur Badli to clean people’s homes, will walk right past you at a brisk pace without so much as a word. That’s how bad it is. Nowadays, she’s been seen with Santosh munching on chat and papri in front of the Sheela Cinema.
And if you happen to travel to that little settlement by the sewage runoff and manage to ask for the address of the tiny hut that Ramnivas had converted into a real house, and, once there, ask his wife Babiya or his sickly son Rohan or his daughter Urmila, Where is Ramnivas? you’ll face a stare as blank and cold as stone. They’ll say, He’s out of town. If you ask when he’ll be back, Babiya will reply, “How should I know?”
No one in all of Delhi has any idea about Ramnivas — that much is clear. He simply doesn’t exist anywhere — no trace is left. But I’m about to give you the final facts about him.
If you read any of the Hindi or English newspapers that come out in Delhi — say, Indian News Express, Times of Metro India, or Shatabdi Sanchar Times — and open the June 27, 2001 edition to page three, you’ll see a tiny photograph on the right side of the page. Below the photo, the headline of the capsule news item read, Robbers Killed in Encounter, and below that, the subheader: Police Recover Big Money from Car.
The three-line capsule was written by the local crime reporter, according to whom, the night before, near Buddha Jay-anti Park, the police tried to stop a Suzuki Esteem that bore no license plate and was traveling on Ridge Road from Dhaula Kuan. Instead of stopping, the people inside the car opened fire. The police returned fire. Two of the criminals were killed on the spot, while three others fled. One of the dead was Kuldip, a.k.a. Kulla, a notorious criminal from Jalandhar. The other body could not be identified. Police Assistant Superintendent Sabarwal said that 2.3 million rupees were recovered from the trunk of the car, most of which were counterfeit five-hundred-rupee bills. He stressed the importance of information provided by the Agra police in netting the loot.
If you were to examine the photo printed above this news item, you’d notice that the car is parked right in front of Buddha Jayanti Park. The dead man lying faceup in the street next to its back door, mouth open, pants coming undone and shirt unbuttoned, chest riddled with bullet holes, is none other than Ramnivas — the “criminal” who, to this day, remains un-identified.
Now, listen to what happened that day, a few hours before the encounter.
According to Govind, who sells chai in front of A-11/DX33, Saket, that night at 10, a police Gypsy came with three plainclothes cops. They went into the gym, kicked everyone out, and then themselves left. An hour later, as Govind was closing his stall, the Esteem pulled up. It didn’t have any license plates, and a Sikh, not too tall, not too short, got out.
Ramnivas stepped out of the backseat right after him.
They went inside and stayed for about an hour and a half.
They kept carrying stuff from the building and loading it into the trunk of the vehicle. An undercover Ambassador car pulled up right around the corner, and followed the Esteem when it began to pull away.
Govind said Ramnivas looked incredibly stressed, his eyes glazed over like a corpse’s. He’d tried to say something to Ramnivas, but the Esteem was gone in a flash — the Sikh was driving.
According to what Ramnivas told me about the space behind the wall in the gym at Saket, it must have been pretty large. Conservatively, I figured it had to have been an area of about twelve by four feet. Ramnivas said the space was crammed full of hundred-and five-hundred-rupee bills. Based on that, I did the math. What I came up was that there was easily anywhere from a hundred to a hundred-and-fifty million rupees in there.
Do you remember the case where the Central Bureau raided a cabinet minister’s house, along with a few of his other properties? The investigation was launched by the government that had just come into power, and the cabinet minister under investigation had been part of the previous government. The minister was charged with taking something like a billion rupees in kickbacks from a foreign company that supplied high-tech equipment. The man did a little time, and was later released. He then joined the very same government that had earlier begun the investigation. It’s clear that Ramnivas, guided by auspicious astrological alignments, or just dumb luck, had discovered a problem with his broom; and in order to solve it, he began banging the butt against the wall.