Jagangirpuri was most assuredly settled without a planning map. Over many years, people showed up, built a house wherever they found some space, and settled down. In the surrounding area you’ll find what looks like ancient ruins, giving the impression that this area has been gradually inhabited over a period of centuries. If you’re flying overhead and glance down, you’ll see a mishmash of half-built houses. It’s as if someone took the waste material from wealthy Delhi’s architectural finest, and swept it clean out here into a pile: a trash heap of higgeldy-piggeldy brick houses tossed in the middle of a black chemical slime bog that exudes the stench of rotting fruit and vegetables. There are exceptions — a few multi-storied, modern houses. But this is like what Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Bombay look like from way up in the sky compared to the rest of India: incongruous tokens of priceless, shining marble stuck in the mire and mud of the subcontinent’s swamp of chilling poverty.
Narrow alleys or bylanes, no more than ten to twelve feet wide, wind through the rows of houses that are built right on top of one another in Jahangirpuri. In some places, they are as narrow as eight to ten feet from one side to the other. You can traverse these bylanes, without fear of collision, only on foot or by cycle. During the hot season, people bring their cots outside and sleep; settlements like these are the hardest hit by the capital city’s frequent power and water cuts. Gossip, STDs, dengue fever, black magic, criminality, and disease spread most vigorously in places like Jahangirpuri. This summer, the channels built for water drainage were all running open, and every morning, the young and the old and infirm squatted above them and did their business. The smell rising from the ditches after the water is turned off gives the neighbourhood its unmistakable stamp.
It’s half past ten at night right now in bylane number seven, where a fat, dark-complexioned man of forty-five or fifty tiptoes down the alley loosely clasping a bag in his right hand. It’s dark; all five lampposts in the streets are without bulbs. The bright light shining in the eyes of the people sleeping outside bothered them, so they unscrewed the bulbs. At the end of the bylane was (until just a few months ago) a working light, but Gurpreet and Somu from bylane three broke it because they were running around with Deepti and Shalini from E-7/2 of bylane seven, and liked it dark when they brought the girls back late at night on the back of their Hero Honda motorbikes. Deepti and Shalini were C-list models; aside from appearing in cheap ads for underwear and hair removal products, they were also available at nights in five-star hotels, or for private parties. An older lady of the night lived in house E-6/3. Her husband had been run over by a bus in front of the Liberty Cinema three years before. Since then, she has been supporting her three kids and elderly mother-in-law with the help of the kind-hearted men who visit her after hours. She has full sympathy from the residents of bylane seven, and even if the bulb at the far end hadn’t been removed, no one would have batted an eye.
The man with the bag in his hand walks ten steps down the darkness of bylane seven and, halting in front of the ditch, removes a pint bottle of Bonnie Scot, and downs it in one go, before tossing away the empty bottle and pissing in the ditch. The man is Chandrakant Thorat.
Even though he was middle-aged, Chandrakant enjoyed new Indy Pop like ‘Jhanjar wali hoke matvali’ and ‘Channave ghar aa jaave. ’ It was funny that the favourite music of Chandrakant, who spoke pidgin Marathi and just passable Hindi, was Panjabi pop music. And whenever love stirred in his heart for Shobha, his wife, the emotion found expression in Panjabi: Baby, baby, what can I do? My heart’s horn honks when I see your pretty face! You oughta hear it, baby! You gotta hear it, baby! Shobha responded, chiding him, ‘Coming home drunk again? How many times have I told you, drink as much as you’d like, but do it at home. If anything ever happened to you, I’d end up like our lady of the night! Then what?’
These words sobered him up instantly. He certainly didn’t want to die and force his wife to rely on kind-hearted men.
‘You just doused my Bonnie Scot with bitter herbs. Make me some food. I’ve got to go to work early tomorrow.’ Then Chandrakant was silent. He hung his head low as he ate, stretched and yawned, then lay down to sleep on the mat on the floor. She ate afterwards, then did household chores late into the night, washing dishes, chopping vegetables for the morning, ironing Chandrakant’s pants and shirt, until finally, at midnight, she sat by the outdoor tap and bathed. By the time she finished her work, humming some old song while she adjusted the fan on top of the trunk, Chandrakant was already snoring. RUNNING OFF WITH SHOBHA
Shobha and Chandrakant had been living together for some thirty years. Chandrakant had fled with her from Sarani where she had been living with her husband, Ramakant.
Ramakant had no job and no skills: he ran around wherever he could to try and get a small piece of the action. He was addicted to playing the market, and also worked part-time for the police as a false witness. Those days, the eyes of a certain police inspector had fallen on Shobha; every night, the inspector came over to their house to drink and eat. Every night for three months, the middle-aged inspector’s lust fell on Shobha. Those three tortuous months in Shobha’s life were worse than hell. He arrived at the house around nine at night; as soon as he stepped in the door he took off his uniform and hung it on a peg. Now down to his sweaty, smelly, dirty undershirt and brown, greasy shorts, he took a seat on the little mat on the floor, and forbade the outside door to be closed because then there would be no breeze to cool him down. Ramakant served the inspector as if he were his butler, running back and forth to the kitchen and market for salty namkeen snacks, hard-boiled eggs, and, whenever the need arose, another bottle of hooch. Ramakant also kept his glass nearby, so whenever he had a free moment after running around fetching things for the inspector, he sat down next to the inspector and joined him for a shot. He was proud of those moments; they were a real honour and treat. He laughed and joked with the inspector, and chided his wife Shobha — ‘Hurry up, squeeze the lemon, bring the snacks! Inspector sahib likes green chilies. Thinly, cut them thinly!’ Or, ‘Don’t just toss the dish on the floor! Place it in the man’s hand, nicely, gently, that’s it. And what happened to the coriander? Didn’t I just buy two bunches for inspector sahib to enjoy?’
‘Ramakant, how about one more?’ the inspector said. ‘And give your better half something to drink, too. Tomorrow a friend of mine is coming. We’ll have a party!’ the inspector said.
Ramakant’s face lit up at the mention of a party. A party meant he would get to eat mutton or chicken, with plenty of snacks, too, plus more good booze. On top of that, he was always able to ferret away a few rupees from the money the inspector gave him for the food and drink.
‘Consider it done, sahib! So will it be mutton or chicken? Should I have her make fish or pakoras to go with the drinks? She’s a fantastic cook. How much meat, four pounds or five? And how much whisky d’you think’ll be necessary?’ He grinned shamelessly and added, ‘See, if there’s any food left over it’ll be a big help the next day. After a big party Shobha’s in no shape at all until two or three in the afternoon.’
After getting drunk, the inspector might launch into song, or start hurling vile curses. He had convinced himself that Shobha was thrilled to have found such a robust specimen of a man as he, and one with money, too — particularly after playing long-suffering wife to the penniless, shiftless, good-for-nothing Ramakant. The inspector also came to accept that in her heart of hearts, Shobha fancied him indeed. And once the inspector understood this, he stepped up his abuse of Ramakant, chastising and reprimanding him at every word, pausing to fasten his gaze on Shobha, to whom he started sweet-talking. It transpired that since she was little she had a soft spot for dark gulab jamun, not to mention her other favourite sweet: rabri-ilichi kulfi. How was this loser going to procure such sweetmeats for Shobha? The inspector at once sent Ramakant out to fetch the delicacies. As soon as he was out the door, the inspector drew her near.