'Sort of.'
'Look, you had better tell me all about this Ritu. Who is her father? What is her family?'
'Her father is Jagannath Rai, the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Her brother is the industrialist Vicky Rai.'
Mother's hand flies to her mouth. 'No… no… no,' she murmurs.
'You always said that we are poor because of our deeds in a previous life. Well, I have managed to escape the fate that the bad karma in my previous life prescribed for me, in this life itself,' I brag, but Mother is not listening to me. She is already in conversation with her gods. 'How could you play such a cruel joke, Ishvar?' she addresses the calendars on the wall.
'What joke? What are you saying, Mother?' I demand.
'You don't know, son,' she replies in an anguished voice. 'This Vicky Rai is the one who killed your father. Mowed him down while he was sleeping on the pavement.'
I feel the ground shift beneath my feet. 'What? Are you sure?'
'A wife can never forget her husband's death. Like a film, that scene has been playing in my mind for the past fifteen years.'
'Yet you kept it a secret from me? He was my father, after all.'
'I was sworn to silence by Jagannath Rai. He gave me money for this house, for your education, in return for not implicating Vicky.'
The past has the nasty habit of catching up with you at unexpected moments. I had suspected all along that Father's death had resulted in a pay-off to Mother from the errant driver. But I had been blissfully unaware of the identity of the driver. Or perhaps I had deliberately not tried to probe too deeply into the matter. I had conveniently rationalized that we had to move on with our lives, and Father was not going to come back from the dead. But now he had. And he had detonated a small bomb in my life, throwing everything into disarray. A medley of emotions whirls through my mind, from sadness to anger to bafflement.
'Perhaps this was pre-ordained, Mother,' I say, after brooding for a while.
'What do you mean, Munna?'
'Don't you see, this is God's way of exacting revenge? Many years ago, Vicky Rai snatched something from us. Now we are going to snatch something from him.'
'So you are still going to marry his sister?'
'Ritu hates her family as much as you do. And Ritu and I love each other very much. Even Father would have approved of my decision to marry her.'
'Don't you dare bring your father into this. Or God,' Mother lashes at me. 'I will go to Vicky Rai's house myself and stop this wedding.'
I bar her way. 'You will do nothing of the sort. If Vicky Rai finds out about our plan he will kill Ritu and then he will kill me. Do you want us both dead?'
Mother glares at me for a while and then bursts into tears.
An uneasy calm prevails in the house. None of us has dinner that night. Mother sulks in her corner and is comforted by Champi. I lie down in bed and try not to think of anything. Sleep comes much later, and is invaded by multiple dreams. I dream of Father lying in a pool of blood and Vicky Rai grinning over his dead body. I dream of Ritu lying inert on a cold marble floor wrapped in a white shroud. I dream of Lallan being whipped in a police lockup. I dream of someone pulling my hair, making me scream in pain. I open my eyes and find three men inside the room, surrounding me. I don't know how they managed to raise the latch and enter my room, but I know that this is not a dream.
'Wake up, you bastard,' I hear a voice say as one of the men pulls my hair again with rough hands. I sit up, and someone flicks the light on, dazzling my eyes. I can now take a good look at the three intruders. The first is a bald man with a bulging neck dressed in tight jeans and a white Reebok T-shirt. The second is a very short man in a shimmering cream shirt, and the third man is tall and wiry with curly hair and a square jaw, wearing black trousers and shirt. There is an air of danger about them.
'Is your name Munna Mobile?' the bald man addresses me. He was the one pulling my hair.
'Why do you ask?' I counter-question.
The baldy turns to the tall, wiry man. 'Tell him, Brijesh.'
'You stole the mobile phone from my car.' Brijesh looks at me accusingly and recognition dawns on me slowly. He is indeed the guy from whose Maruti Esteem I took the Nokia. The past has caught up with me again.
The bald man smiles menacingly. 'You have something which belongs to us.'
I try to bluff my way through. 'You are mistaken. What could a poor man like me have?'
The bald man snaps his fingers and his two assistants begin scouring the room. They take in the posters on the wall, the metal torch on the small wooden desk, and their eyes come to rest on the mattress. The little bump where the briefcase lies is plainly visible. 'Get up,' the short man orders. I stand up; he catches the mattress by a corner and lifts it in one movement. The briefcase is revealed, looking like a black island in a sea of dust.
'What do we have here?' the bald man whistles. He reaches down and picks up the briefcase. A pistol appears magically in Brijesh's hand.
At that very moment Mother enters through the wooden partition in her faded yellow sari and maroon blouse.
'Who are you people? What are you doing in my house?' she demands.
In response the bald man shoves her rudely aside. 'Don't ask questions, budhiya.'
Mother is not one to give up easily. 'I will teach you ruffians a lesson,' she snaps. She picks up the torch from my desk and whacks the bald man on his buttocks with it, knocking the briefcase out of his hands. Despite his bulk, the man whirls around on the balls of his feet, quick as a cat. In one seamless motion he snatches the torch from Mother's hand and swings his fist at her face, sending her sprawling on the floor. Mother raises her head and whimpers. I can see that she is bleeding from her mouth. She tries to stand up and that is when Brijesh clubs her on the head with the butt of the pistol. I cry out in horror as Mother crashes down, knocked senseless, which is just as well because she wouldn't have been able to bear what happened subsequently.
The bald man regains the briefcase and clicks open the two latches. He raises the lid and examines the contents. 'Hmmm… It looks like most of the cash is still here. Only a couple of wads are missing. This might just have saved your life, Munna Mobile. But you will still have to pay the price of stealing from us.'
'What… what do you intend to do?' I ask, backing into the wall, my voice sounding hoarse and unnatural.
'Something that will ensure you never steal another mobile phone.' The bald man grins and snaps his fingers again.
Brijesh hands the pistol to the bald man and suddenly grips both my arms. I squirm, try to break free, but he is too strong. The short man raises his hand to hit me when a mobile phone rings in the room. The three ruffians look at one another quizzically before the bald man takes out a Motorola from the pocket of his jeans and checks the display. 'Yes boss?' he says, putting the mobile against his ear and moving off towards the door. I hear snatches of his conversation. 'We found the briefcase… looks to be reasonably intact… Right now?… OK, OK… I will leave Brijesh and Natu behind… Wait for me. I am coming.'
'That was the boss,' the bald man informs his lieutenants. 'He wants me to come with the briefcase right now. You two finish what you have to. We will meet tomorrow.' He cocks the pistol at me and fires an imaginary bullet, opens the door and steps outside. A little while later I hear a motorcycle being gunned into life. Brijesh still has me pinioned in a vice-like grip. But it is Natu, the short one, who fills me with dread. 'Have you seen the film Sholay?' he asks me, bringing his face close to mine. I can feel his fetid breath on the skin of my neck.
'Yes.'
'Do you remember the scene when Gabbar asks Thakur to give him his hands? Thakur refuses and Gabbar chops off both his hands. I am not going to ask you for your hands, but I will ask for your fingers. All ten of them. Will you give them to me?' He grins, showing uneven teeth stained with betel juice.