Chapter 7: The Mafia

“Did you watch the match yesterday?” he asked me.
I couldn’t believe this guy. Several different layers of my brain were racing at several different gears into several different directions, but here was Arora, as calm and aplomb as ever.
“What match?” I asked.
“The India match!” he exclaimed and got off his chair, “Oh, what a game – Nehra made the English batsmen go crazy,” Arora did an animated bowling run-up, “He will definitely be one of our best ever bowlers ever.”
Arora stayed up, pacing around the room impatiently. The gleam in his eyes showed no hitch caused by our recent abduction.
There was only one door in the small room, and for the first time in the last hour, it opened again. Out stepped an incredibly short, scruffily bearded man, with a gleam in his eye of definite disdain for the non-vertically-challenged. His arms bulged from his sleeveless red vest, which couldn’t mask the tropical abundance of his hairy chest. The dwarf’s scoff made me wish, for the first time in my life, that I wasn’t blessed with my otherwise enviable six-foot-frame. Arora quickly sat back down.
“Shanker,” he said in a voice that was too big for him, “Rajju Bhai is here now. Wait for ten more minutes and then come out. Bring your accountant with you,” he pointed at Arora.
I nodded as he left the room, leaving the two of us alone again. It suddenly became hotter and stuffier inside. And somehow, smaller.
“Arrey, you should have seen it Azad sir,” Arora said, almost to himself, “Nehra was just embarrassing them.”
“What the hell are you talking about Arora?”
“Cricket, sir! Cricket!” He sprang up again, “The World Cup!”
I looked away. “I don’t follow cricket anymore.”
Arora’s voice reached a new level of bewilderment. “You do not follow cricket?” he quivered, “What kind of an Indian are you?”
I shook my head. Here we were, minutes away from meeting the biggest criminal mastermind of the city, and the only thing that this shithead could worry about was cricket. “I stopped watching cricket after Kapil Dev retired,” I said, before quickly concluding the topic, “And Arora, we have much more important things to worry about.”
His words were about to arrive at the tip of his tongue before my dismissal made them fade away.
In this city, you know that you’re made if Rajju Bhai wishes to see you. All my hard work and the continuous drive to get wealthier had finally caught his attention. Rajju Bhai wished to see me. I had heard rumours about these meetings before – they never ended well. Rajju Bhai wishing to see you is never a pleasant little milestone in one’s life. It is like the school bully wishing to see you in the bathroom after you bring the nicest lunch to school, except that this bully had guns and wasn’t scared of any headmasters, or for that matter, anyone else is organized society.
And it was only a matter of my cruel misfortune that the shithead accountant Arora was around when Rajju Bhai’s goons paid their visit today. For a garrulous fool, Arora was actually semi-decent at his job. Then they decided to bring him along, too.
“It is starting to get hotter now: do you not think so, sir?” Arora said, “Why is there is no fan in this room? It is getting seriously hot. Really, sir, I spent all of last Sunday in my half-pants.”
I nodded and looked away again.
“Really,” he continued, “Have you heard of global warming, sir? I think it is happening. I have never worn half-pants or started sweating in February before.”
I began to sweat just thinking about it. “Yes, yes, maybe that’s what it is.”
“Do you think it will get worse?” he asked, “I think in a few years, we will have to start wearing half-pants from January.”
“No, no, I don’t think it will be that bad anytime soon,” I said, before realizing that I had again unwittingly fallen into his small-talk trap.
Arora opened the top button of his white shirt to loosen his neck. “Do you think they will have a fan in the other room, sir? I really wish they do.”
“Arora, shut the hell up,” I muttered from between my grinding teeth, “We’re here to see the mafia, not the fucking weatherman.”
The room fell silent again, but now, I could think of nothing else but the heat. Arora had a point, because it was way to hot for February.
I checked my watch – it was time to go.
I led us out into the large bright, gleaming, and overbearing lobby of Rajju Bhai’s mansion. For however much of a rogue he may well be, the man did have an incredible taste for architecture and home decoration. The massive room we entered was bedizened in yellow, blue, white, red, and green, and there was confident amounts of each colour to make this amazing mash-up look tasteful.
A spiral staircase led up to the second floor of the building, half of which was stylishly cut off in the form of a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
And from the mysterious puzzle that was the second floor slowly descended a regiment of domineering men in white kurta-pajamas and red headbands. Leading them was another blinding flash of colour, in the form of none other than the numinous Rajju Bhai. I recognized him with an extraordinary sense of familiarity, especially considering that this was the first time I was meeting the man.
“Shanker!” he called out to me in greater amity than I’d experienced in years of semi-close relationships. My toes jittered inside my tight leather shoes. The white background of his dozen bodyguards made his own contrasting colourful attire stand out and blend perfectly with the chaos of colour in the rest of the house.
“Shanker!” he said again and came closer. He opened his mouth to smile and display a red, yellow, and white set of teeth, which were busy mingling themselves into paan masala. The colours matched his red kurta, his yellow pajamas, and the white patch of hair on his head. He also wore a majestic green stroll over his kurta, which he flipped back behind his shoulder and brought it in front again multiple times a minute.
Rajju Bhai grabbed and shook my hand hard and I noticed a gleaming gold watch on his wrist. He delayed leaving the handshake for just the perfect amount of seconds before moving on to greeting Arora. I marvelled at how pleased I felt at his gracefully offensive assurance.
“Shanker!” he said again, before pointing at his sofa and commanding me to sit down.
I obliged obediently. Arora followed suit.
“Aye, rrin larraer,” Rajju Bhai commanded to nobody. Everybody in the room responded into action.
He sat down on a sofa opposite us. “Hroo al you mooeg, Shanker?” he asked.
“Huh?”
One of Rajju Bhai’s helpers quickly grabbed a small bucket and brought it to him. Rajju Bhai sucked in and then spat out a splash of blood-coloured paan.
“How are you doing, Shanker?” he asked again, his words now comprehensible.
“Oh, oh, fine, fine,” I meekly replied, “Just fine, fine.”
Rajju Bhai smiled and looked around. “You like my house? It’s new, you know? Just moved in last month.”
“Uhm…” I started.
“Beautiful sir, it is absolutely beautiful,” Arora interrupted, “The furniture and layout are awe-inspiring. And the colour schemes – just wow sir, wow.”
Rajju Bhai smiled and then looked back at me. “Is this your accountant, Shanker?”
“Yes sir, I am,” Arora stood up to introduce himself again. Rajju Bhai motioned him to sit.
I stared to and fro between my feet and Rajju Bhai in silence, quickly glancing away each time he caught my stare. Arora continued marvelling at the room, exchanging smiles with the otherwise impassive faces of Rajju Bhai’s bodyguards.
“Did you watch the match yesterday?” Arora asked the surrounding public.
“Oh, yes, yes,” Rajju Bhai answered, “Nehra made the English batsmen go crazy.”
Although it was cooler in this room, I began to itch uncontrollably. I bravely shoved away my diffidence and turned to my polite kidnapper. “Rajju Bhai,” I said as he glanced at me, “Why have you brought us here?”
He smiled and looked around at his staff. “Oh, Shanker Shanker,” he shook his head comically, “Shanker, Shanker, Shanker...”
“Yes?”
“I know where you live Shanker,” his smile grew wider, “I know where you live and I know where your office is. I know where your parents live and I have the address of your wife’s parents. I also know where her sister lives and I am well acquainted with your close friends Vinod and Chhayya...”
My head bowed lower and lower. A young girl placed a glass of water in front of me, which I didn’t dare touch.
“… I know what car you drive and when you go to office and when you come back home,” he continued, “I know about your friend Rakesh and his little flat where you sometimes go to get drunk without telling your wife. I also know about that young pretty receptionist of yours and the scooter she goes around in, and I recognize your eyes when you can’t take them off her…”
I sat dumbfounded. “No, no…” I stumbled, “Atty’s just… Rakesh is a nice guy… I like my wife a lot…”
“Yes, yes, we all do,” he said before looking around at his people, who returned his look with an on-queue burst of laughter.
“So, what do you want?” I spat out to silence them.
Rajju Bhai answered to Arora instead. “How much does Shanker make, Accountant?”
Arora smiled and looked at me for permission. I didn’t give it.
“Not as much as you sir,” he answered to Rajju Bhai, “His house isn’t as grand as yours. Neither is mine. And our colour schemes – sir, they are no match for your creative mind.”
Rajju Bhai began to laugh again. Then the dwarf who we had encountered earlier walked in the room, chewing a toothpick in his mouth. He whispered in Rajju Bhai’s ears and then trotted away.
Rajju Bhai made another motion and one of his bodyguards quickly handed him a pen and a small sheet of paper. He scribbled something on it. “Shanker, Shanker, Shanker,” he stood up and unsuccessfully tried to tuck in his massive belly.
I stood up too. He approached me, folded the paper, and placed in my front pocket.
“12 percent of everything you make, every month” he said and patted my shoulders like a proud father, “Tax,” he smiled and looked at Arora too. “You are big-time man now, Shanker. You need my protection.”
There are certain experiences in life that are so unexpected that it is impossible for us to think of a response. We haven’t planned a response before, because we simply never considered encountering that particular experience or emotion. These experiences include officially realizing that you hate your parents, falling in love (allegedly), and being forced to pay the most dangerous man in the city for his supposed help. So I stood silently in an attempt to come to grips with the unexpected present.
“Oh Shanker,” Rajju Bhai added, almost as an afterthought, “I hope I won’t have to waste time threatening you with guns and bullets. But if you don’t pay me, I will shoot your wife…”
Keep talking asshole; I’m not afraid of you.
“… And then I will shoot you, too,” he added.
Fucking shit.
He turned around to consult one of his more intellectually dressed associates. I saw from my peripherals that all the colours in the room had begun to turn grey.
“Please, please, no tension, sir,” said Arora, “Azad sir is a good man, sir, he really is.”
“Shut the fuck up, Arora,” I told him.
“Hey!” For the first time, I heard the venom in Rajju Bhai’s voice as he turned his attention back to me, “Don’t you use that language under my roof Shanker. I bring you as a guest into my house and this is how you behave? You better watch yourself or I will have you raped.”
I agreed that it was probably better for me to watch myself.
And soon, Rajju Bhai drifted away and his associates dispersed from view. Arora sat down and shifted away, and then disappeared. The mansion became smaller and greyer. And greyer and greyer. I sat down and my vision became blurry, till the expensive furniture in front of me coasted away to the white horizon and I was left with nothing but black and white bubbles floating about aimlessly.
The next thing I knew, I was still seated, but was all alone in my car; driving aimlessly but heading home.
Fuck.

Rajju Bhai wasn’t my only problem of those times. Anita had started to feel that three years into a marriage was much longer than the ideal time to produce an offspring. But I had too many other complexities in my life to fulfil her wishes.
“But I want to be a mother, Azad,” she protested, “It is every woman’s dream. I want to be pregnant and I want us to have our own baby.”
“And I want to live, Anita,” I said, “I have much more important things to worry about than your motherly dreams. Please – don’t bring this up again.”
And for some time, she didn’t. Instead, I began to notice how every other molehill in our daily lives was becoming a mountain. If I didn’t wear a shirt of her choice one evening, then I didn’t respect her opinion enough. If I didn’t care about her dresses, then I was an inconsiderate husband. And if I worried more about balancing work, Sahni, and the mafia’s rapist nostrils breathing down my neck, I was labelled a home-wrecking workaholic.
Rajju Bhai got his 12 percent the first month, so he sent me a box of laddus as a thank you and also a note asking for 13 percent from the next month onwards. I crumpled the note, ate a laddu, and privately broke down crying.
I couldn’t turn to Anita for the obvious reasons. I didn’t have much of a family and wasn’t a big fan of hers. And I couldn’t turn to Vinod, Sandip, or any other friends I had made in our couples social circuit because I hated all of them. Plus I had long alienated all of my other friends, including Rakesh and Shubham. There was only one person I could think of.
“Hey!” Deepu Chachu’s opened the front door to reveal a voice that was still as refreshingly soothing as it had been in my childhood, “You finally remembered your uncle, eh? What, is it your birthday?”
“No, no,” I flashed an embarrassed smile as he let me in. I had finally begun to accept the inconvenient truth that I wasn’t comfortable in my uncle’s presence any more. It was just age – and this truth which would’ve shocked me into disbelief and blasphemy as an adolescent had indolently grown into another not-so-important realization.
The house that I partly grew up in was the same as ever before. The bookshelves still had the same collection of untouched old English classics which Deepu Chachu still hadn’t dusted off. His small television still had a VCR player and the old kung-fu videotapes lay around which I’d bought to watch here in my younger years. Large empty cardboard boxes crowded the corners with tons of bubble wrap and ropes stuffed in them. Deepu Chachu was never interested in change, and without Chachi around to beautify and renew things, his lifestyle stood paused in the otherwise rushing sands of time.
“Will you have some cold coffee, Azad?” he asked.
I smiled; he never made it as well as Chachi used to. “No, no, Chachu, don’t worry about it.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Chachu offered me my favourite seat, right in front of the television, and sat down beside me.
“So, what brings you back son?” he asked with a friendly nudge, “Is the wife giving you problems again? Or do you finally have the good news?”
‘Good news’ in this context meant ‘baby’. It always meant ‘baby’. Everywhere I went – When are you having your baby? What are you waiting for? Don’t wait too long. Baby, baby, baby. It was like the only way one could contribute decently to the progress of society was if they presented society with another mouth to feed.
“No, no,” I kept my thoughts to myself, “No such good news yet, Chachu. I have another problem.”
Deepu Chachu’s fat spectacles were twice the size of his eyes. He took them off to rub his eyes, which squinted meekly and became half as small. “Tell me, son. What’s wrong?”
“Okay,” I clenched my hand into a tight fist, “Rajju Bhai,” I mumbled his name in reverence, only to watch my uncle’s expression fall thunderously, “He has been forcing me to pay. He’s calling it my protection fund. I don’t know what to do.”
“Okay, okay…” Deepu Chachu leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, “Okay, okay…
“The man is above the law. I really don’t know what to do.”
This is a problem Azad…”
“Yes it is.”
“… No one I know has ever been rich or important enough to be bothered by the mafia before. You have scaled new heights in our family.”
I was unsure on whether or not that was a good thing. “So, what do I do?”
Deepu Chachu kept his eyes closed. I wondered why I even turn to him anymore. He’s not the wisest, richest, powerful or most respected of the people I knew. Perhaps it was because he was just the only one alive to whom I could expose my own frailties and not worry about it. His ear was more important than his advice.
“What does your heart tell you son?” he finally said.
I was going to listen to my heart anyways. “I don’t know, Chachu,” I told him, “I just don’t know.”

By the third month, I stopped driving the Maruti to save petrol money, and instead, had to count on Arora to drive me to work on his motorbike every day. The food at home became blander – the vegetables had less salt and the tea had less sugar. I sent Ramu away on an unpaid leave as Anita toiled harder by herself in the kitchen.
I tried to diversify my accounts in the third month, but Rajju Bhai was experienced in the forced-money-extraction business.
“Rolt teet me, Shanker,” he said during one of his surprise raids to my house, “I lro tat you’re upto.”
“What?”
“Ront cheet me, Shanker,” he repeated, “I krow wat you’re upto.”
I flushed. “No, no, Rajju Bhai, I wasn’t cheating. You will get the 13 percent.”
“Phiphteen perchenlt,” he spat outside my door, “I know everything, Shanker.”
As he was escorted back to his jeep, the only sound I could hear was Anita’s muffled sobs from the kitchen.

By the fourth month, I had begun to completely comprehend Rajju Bhai’s paan-mouthed words, so I didn’t need him to repeat it when he asked for 18 percent.
Rajju Bhai didn’t get any money from me that month. He didn’t get any the next month either. When his people began to show up at the work to threaten Atty, I held a panic-button meeting with my wife and staff.
“Does anyone have any advice,” I asked, this time genuinely ready to listen.
Of course they didn’t. Rajju Bhai was untouchable. He could ask the mayor for 18 percent today and the mayor would oblige him by giving 22.
“You will have to keep paying him sir,” sniffed Atty, “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t have those goons coming to the office every day.”
Anita stared at her in disgust. “We should have a child, Azad,” she gave her predictable advice, “It will soften him, I tell you.”
“Do what your heart tell you, son,” opined Deepu Chachu.
“Sir, that new Shah Rukh movie is rocking, isn’t it?” Arora asked, “Definitely one of the best, sir.”
I stepped back, further and further, till I found myself alone in a cubicle. Their nonsensical noises went into one ear, fucked with my brain, and then went out the other. I clenched my hair and attempted to pull it out. Unfortunately, I succeeded.
So, I was losing hair as well? What else could go wrong?
That night, I had a dream about Papa. The following night, I was too afraid to go to sleep.

Chapter 6: Niyati

Let’s talk about fear, shall we?
Fear makes people stupid. Fear makes us hasty and paranoid. It makes us shiver in the summer and sweat in the winter. It makes us make decisions we would never make otherwise.
But worse than fear is terror. Terror is fear on steroids. Terror can make fear look softer than puppies playing with pillows. Terror makes the same afraid people make hastier and stupider decisions and make them quicker.
I was afraid of Rajju Bhai. Anita was terrified.
“He’s going to kill us,” she said.
Ah… Certain Death. Definitely by second least favourite pre-sleep subject matter. My topmost least favourite pre-sleep subject matter was of course my parents, but Anita, for however much of a bitch she can be, would never stoop that low.
“Let me sleep, please,” I begged and turned away. But I was going to stay awake that night, no matter how hard I tried. Rajju Bhai’s face lay plastered on the inside of my eyelids.
And it wasn’t just his face. I saw the faces of his entire gang. And I saw their revolvers and their daggers. And I saw them threaten my wife...
Ah… How did I ever get myself into this?
Several minutes passed. Anita was lying with her back facing me, but I couldn’t hear her snores, which told me that she was probably still awake too. I turned and gave her a hug. My hand brushed against her breast and I quickly shifted it down to her stomach.
I felt her stomach ascend and then come back down as her lungs breathed nervously..
“I’m terrified,” she said.
“I know.”
Anita turned over to face me. “We have to do something, Azad. Rajju has been after you for years… Why don’t you just give him the money..?”
“No.”
“Azad…”
“I said ‘No’!” I pushed my body away from her, “I pay him once and he will come back every month. Say goodbye to your dreams of having a child because I won’t be able to support one. Do you want a get a job Anita?”
She didn’t. So she crept back closer to me. I knew her well enough to see her wet eyes without looking at them.
“Maybe we should have a baby,” she whispered.
Not the line I had wished to or expected to hear. “Maybe we what?”
She sat up, reciting her words like she’d practiced saying them before. “Maybe that’s it, Azad. If we have a child, Rajju will leave us alone. Remember Vinod? He was having the same problems. But after Chhaya got pregnant he never heard from the gangsters.”
Vinod was a friend I had made because our wives were friends. I didn’t like him and I’m sure he wasn’t too fond of me either. But Anita had wanted us to be a ‘normal couple’ and do what ‘normal couples’ do – meet up socially and spend money with people whom you detest.
Vinod had a similar problem to mine – the mafia used to help themselves to every new piece of technology that entered Vinod’s electronic shop. Rajju Bhai had the flattest televisions, the smallest cell phones, and the loudest stereo systems – all for nothing but the price of a hectoring visit.
But when Chhaya got pregnant, things abruptly changed. Rajju Bhai mysteriously disappeared out of their lives and began occurring more frequently in mine.
Anita’s plan sounded too easy to work. “That’s a stupid idea, Anita,” I flouted, “Matter of fact, that’s the stupidest thing you’ve said this week.”
“Think about it,” she said and lay back down.
“You are telling me,” I said, “That I should present Rajju Bhai with another weapon against me? What’s he going to say now? ‘Ay, Azad, I’m going to kill your wife and your baby.’ Why don’t we just hand him the unborn foetus a few months in advance so he doesn’t have to take the trouble of coming back and kidnapping it?” I turned away.
Anita wasn’t convinced. “Just give it a thought, ok? Rajju turned soft when Chhaya’s son was involved. Just think about it.”

And I did think about it. I thought about it all night and I thought about it all of the next day. I thought about it when Rajju showed up at work again, and I thought about it when Atty couldn’t handle the pressure and broke down to tears.
An offspring. My offspring. Mine and Anita’s offspring. It was a scary thought to be responsible for the life of another human being. Another life to take care of. Another child that will grow up in this cruel world. A world full of Rajjus and Sahnis and Osama Bin Ladens and Shiv Sena activists. Another life meant another possibility of a child not raised well. Another life meant another teenage drama, another mid-life crisis, and another depressed senior citizen. Another life meant another death.
I would have to worry about what the child eats. What the child says. Whether the child gets peer pressured or becomes a loner. What if the child picks up bad habits? What if the child becomes left-handed too? What if the child becomes too much like me?
It isn’t encouraging to be a parent when you haven’t been parented yourself.
It is also not encouraging to be a father when you’re wishing that the mother was somebody else. But it was never going to be easy to get rid of Anita, find Kalpana, get her to leave her family for me, and then ask her to carry my seed.
But I couldn’t deny it any longer. If my craving for Kalpana had been equivalent to snorting a line of cocaine, then settling for Anita just to ‘normalize’ life was like taking a sleeping pill.
Aah… Fuck Kalpana! I slapped the side of my skull. She probably doesn’t even remember you, Azad. It’s been twelve years. She’s probably somewhere else fucking that other guy carrying That Other Guy’s seed. Fuck Kalpana and fuck That Other Guy.
Everything was wrong about Anita’s idea. One can’t change their life because of fear. This is terrorism. This is Rajju flying two passenger planes into my BTV office. The last thing I need in this chaotic life is to handle another little piece of chaos.
It took some deep breaths and calm thinking for me to remember that having a baby had worked out for Vinod and Chhaya. Why couldn’t it work for us? Babies are basically puppies who grow slower and eventually learn how to talk. I could definitely take care of a talking puppy – especially if it grew to call me ‘Dad’ and planted some pity in Rajju Bhai.
He has his own family. His eight-year-old goes to school with my cousin’s daughter. I’ve even seen Rajju Bhai at the malls buying ice cream for his kid. Maybe the man does have a heart.
Like so many other choices I had faced throughout my 30-odd years, I felt compelled to decide on this one quickly. When I got home that evening, I had made up my mind.
“Let’s do it!” I said before Anita could tell me what she’d prepared for dinner.
And that is where babies come from.

Chapter 5: Corruption

Oh shit. Oh no. Uh Oh!
Right then Anita’s parents walked in, fashionably late as usual.
“Azad, beta!” My mother-in-law flashed me with the brightest, fakest smile in her arsenal. “Oh beta, you must be overjoyed.”
I smiled back meekly. Her husband didn’t say much as he stood behind her and sniffed the hospital corridor.
“Where is she? Where is the baby?” She asked with revolting enthusiasm.
I pointed towards the room, nodded a greeting at my father-in-law, and walked away in the other direction.
Oh shit. Oh no. Uh Oh! Am I ready? Oh shit.
I can’t be a father. I’m barely a husband. I can hardly take care of myself. There’s Sahni. And I have to worry about the gangsters. Oh, I have a family. My life is going to get completely displaced and deracinated. My own family. Oh, no.
I wandered around silently amongst the noise and chaos around me. The white corridors of the hospital had the nauseating habit of being equally as torturous as they were calming.
I left the maternal section and walked into another building in the same campus, where the normal sick and dying people dwelled. The several buildings together made a massive mega-hospital in the university. I could walk around seeing people die and give birth all day.
With each passing moment, the reality of it began to set in on me. You can never be perfectly ready for this day, no matter how many years you spend mentally prepare yourself. This is the day that you become a father. The day that the child in a man’s shoes has to raise his own child.
Your families never fail to remind you. Oh, Azad, you’ll understand blah blah when you have kids of your own. Oh, Azad, are you going to send your children to a boarding school too? We should take care of the environment, they told us; we have to give our children a better future.
It only gets worse after marriage. Oh, so when is Anita becoming a mother? Hey, is something wrong Azad, my friends ask with a wink. You’ll have such tall kids, you two.
And if you manage to fuck up while fucking, you might see this day earlier than expected.
And then she finally gets pregnant. That’s when all hell breaks loose. Somewhere between your wife being bitchier than usual and your house being converted into a fucking kindergarten, the realization of the upcoming new human being in your life tends to get lost. Oh, the baby’s going to have Anita’s eyes for sure, her friends say. What are we going to call him if it’s a boy?
It was all overwhelming and it was all scary, and it was all overbearing and all new.
But when Niyati was born, I felt a strange sense of complacency and completeness when I first laid eyes on her. And I couldn’t help thinking of all the different decisions, combinations, or permutations that could’ve happened in my life to deny her existence. But here she was. Alive, healthy, and mine. She exists because of me.
And the mother, of course.
I turned a corner to face another corridor of countless offices, a window on each to give a small glimpse of countless more patients sitting with their doctors. There are so many lives, I thought. So much else going on outside of my understanding. I walked through that corridor, consciously shunning away my already troubled mind from sniffing in any more insanity with all that else.
But the corner of my eyes caught someone through the window of one of these rooms. My brain couldn’t believe it at first, but finally agreed with my peripherals and decided to respond. I turned to take a second, confirming look.
What the heck is he doing here?
It was Sahni – sitting inside and intently talking to a doctor. He looked delightfully concerned.
My next reaction was fear. Has he been following me? Does he always know where I am?
No, that couldn’t be it. This is a hospital. Maybe he’s just sick. Or dying. The latter, hopefully. A nurse brushed passed me and I suddenly remembered that it was considered rude to be staring into someone else’s business.
But this is Sahni we’re talking about here. He stares into others’ businesses for a living.
I foolishly decided to listen to my conscience and walked away. Hearing screams of pain down the corridor, I looked up to realize that I was in the Department of Dentistry.
So Sahni has bad teeth, then? Nice… Every bit of information against your mortal enemy counts.
A few steps down, I saw another man rush down past me. He didn’t notice me, but looked familiar enough that my eyes followed his desperate rush down the corridor. And then I remembered: he was my competition and the owner of another local movie and news channel: Channel 19.
I was beginning to think that bad teeth are a prerequisite for mortal enmity with me.
What was his name again? I tapped my feet and scratched my hair. I rubbed my prickly cheeks and leaned against the walls. I began to follow him.
What was his name again? Subhash… Suresh… Sandeep… Something? I mean, it was just Channel 19. How am I expected to know more about him and his shitty little channel? The corridor suddenly got busy as he began to disappear in the crowd. I had to stand on my toes to keep him within sight.
He turned right and knocked on a door before quickly letting himself in. I chased Something-19 to that door, awkwardly moving as fast as I could without giving the impression of running.
The room, by another fateful and incongruous coincidence, happened to be the same office as the one Sahni was in. Coincidence?
What wasn’t coincidental at all was the fact that I began to spy on this strange meeting of a dentist, a TV censor, and Something Channel-19 via the small glass window on the door. There must be either something truly fishy on about, or there are a whole lot of movies with objectionably bad teeth being shown on Channel-19.
I couldn’t hear them too well; the chaos in the corridor around me assured that. It was oddly safe to be able so spy on them though, because the cavalcade of people around me was too busy, too sad, or too scared to worry about strange spies.
The dentist stood up and moved to the back of the room as Sahni and Something-19 chatted about something or the other. I checked the nameplate on the door – Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran.
That’s a long name for someone with a dental problem to go and explain that they were looking for Dr. Gunasswhatever.
And just as I was losing my patience, Something-19 reached into his pocket and took out a small bundle wrapped in yellow polythene. Oooh – the plot thickens – I hope.
Sahni immediately turned to look in my direction. I ducked at the speed of light.
Did he see me? I crawled away from the door and put my head back up. I could still see inside the room quite clearly.
Sahni opened the yellow polythene bag and out came three or four thick bundles of money. They were the large ones, either 500s or 1000s. Sahni checked the money and then shook Something-19’s hand as he nodded his head in appreciation. Something-19 whispered in Sahni’s ear, as the censor laughed and quickly wrapped the money back inside the polythene bag.
I took a couple more careful steps backwards. So this is how Channel 19 gets away with it…
“Excuse me,” I saw a middle-aged nurse approach me, “Are you quite alright?”
“Quite.” I answered, and continued to walk backwards to avoid further confrontation. Maybe she’ll think I’m mentally disabled and leave me alone.
She didn’t.
“I’m sorry sir, but I think you need a doctor.”
“No, no, I am sorry,” I replied congenially, “But it would be better if you minded your own business.”
But she wasn’t the cooperative type, so she reached over and grabbed my shoulders. I tried to shrug her off. Her armpit odours soon followed, soon welcoming themselves into my nostrils.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to take you to your doctor, sir…”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to break your chin if you don’t let me go.”
She let me go.
“Don’t threaten me sir,” she threatened, “I must take you to your doctor.”
“No, no, I’m not a patient. I’m just left-handed.” I said and walked backwards some more.
“Please come with me, sir,” she took a few steps closer again.
“I’m not a patient, I’m a father!”
Dr. Swamivandena Gunasswhatever’s door opened and out stepped Something-19. He was already looking in the opposite direction and was too busy being inconspicuous to notice me or my current struggles.
I knew that the next figure to step out would probably be Sahni, so I turned around and dashed back up the way I came.
“Sir, stop, stop!” said the nurse as she madly pranced behind me.
“I’m not a patient,” I shouted back, “I’m a father! I’M A FATHER!”

I’m a father. Sahni is corrupt.
Noted.
When I had finally given the sweaty nurse a slip, I found my way back to my wife, my parents, and my daughter. My daughter!
“Hold her, hold her,” encouraged the audience around me. Deepu Chachu had made it too, looking more enthusiastic than I’d ever seen him before.
I held my newborn daughter. And amongst the panic of the day, the screams of my wife, the hustle-bustle at the hospital, the annoying pats on the back by my mother-in-law, realizing that Sahni is corrupt and being chased by a nurse’s armpit, I remembered that I had to provide for another living being.
Shit.

Babies should know how to sleep better.
I mean, it’s true that babies learn most things really quickly, but they don’t master the art of a good night’s slumber quick enough. I should write a memo to God, reminding him to make sure that future children are born with the innate ability of matching their body clock to that of their parents.
Niyati’s cries woke us up again. “Your turn,” Anita said and turned away.
I tried to remember. “No,” I got up, “I went the last time… Anita, I went last time. It’s your turn.”
She was already snoring.
Niyati cried some more. I cursed under my breath and got out of bed, slowly sleepwalking towards her crib. My knee bumped into something in the dark and I cursed again.
How the hell did I get myself into this? I got to Niyati and shushed her. She smiled back up at me as I began to rock the crib.
“You should thank the mafia for your existence, my dear,” I whispered. Oh, if it wasn’t for all that paranoia and fear Anita poked into my head that one night. Maybe then we could have waited longer before having you.
The baby seemed to have read my mind and began to cry again.
“Shushssss,” I said, “No, no, I don’t hate you for existing.” I rocked the crib some more, but that didn’t stop her ever-loudening wails.
Anita’s snores broke with a buzzing sneeze, like the sound of a bee as it getting sucked into a black hole. “What have you done?” she kvetched.
“Nothing, I didn’t do anything – she just started crying.”
Anita stood up, and with her eyes still closed, walked straight to the crib in the dark room. She brushed me aside and took the baby in her arms.
“Ahh… Ba-by… Ba-by… Mamma’s here… Ba-by,” she coochi-cooed. I stood back in jealous admiration.
And soon, Niyati was quite, sleeping like a baby… umm… Sleeping like a baby ought to sleep. I turned away and tucked myself back in bed, facing away from Anita.
Ah… How did I ever get myself into this..? I need more money. Cerelac, nappies, the baby will outgrow everything all the time, so that means constantly getting new clothes, and then sending her to school, and college, and oh shit, what if her future father-in-law asks for a large dowry? I’ll show that son of a…
I needed to slow down. One step at a time. I need more money. The channel needs greater audiences. Better advertisers. What if Sahni shuts me down? How am I going to feed her then? I won’t have the money to bribe him and buy Niyati her dolls.
I spent that night sleeping like a newborn baby’s stressed father is expected to sleep. Which is equivalent so saying that I didn’t sleep a blink.

But somehow, I seemed to be getting away with it.
Ring! went the phone the next morning, and I knew that there could only be one man calling me from a hidden number.
“Rajju Bhai…” I apologetically said before he shot me for not being apologetic enough.
“Yes, yes, heard you had a daughter Shanker?” came his mumbled voice out of a mouth full of paan masala.
“Yes, yes, I did,” I apologized for reproducing.
He paused and chewed for about half a minute. “Good, good,”
“Good,” I echoed him.
“Achha,” I heard him spit out his masala and return to me, “Theek hai, theek hai, okay, okay, good.”
I didn’t answer.
“Take care of your business then. Call me if you ever need any help, ok?” he said before hanging up. And just like that, he left my life forever.
Anita was right. My heart rate flirted with normality for the first time in years.
It was over. No more Rajju Bhai. No more protection fees. I remembered his house and the fear in Anita’s eyes. I remembered how I had begun to panic and made a fool out of myself.
I laughed. It was over. I ditched Arora and his bike and returned to my Maruti. Ramu was brought back into the kitchen, giving Anita more time to tend to Niyati.

Weeks passed, and Niyati cried a lot. The house had to be changed to fit the baby in. I had to move my movie collection out of the store room at home and into the BTV office. This one act turned out to be the precursor to me increasing the frequency of showing my adult rated Hollywood film collection on BTV. The ex-store room at home was transformed into a pink mess of baby stuff. Deepu Chachu began to visit regularly. Niyati cried a lot.
Months passed, and Anita made me buy a baby book. Its purpose was to record facts about the mundane things that Niyati got up to, but which were somehow newsworthy because she was doing them for the first time. The first time she sat up by herself. The first time she crawled. The first time she stood. The first time she shat her nappies. And all throughout, she cried a lot.
Years passed, and I began to show more and more Sahni-infuriating movies on the channel. He kept on threatening to censor and shut me down. I kept on promising him a bribe. Unfortunately for him, the bribe money was spent on other Niyati-related purchases, such as cribs, clothes, dolls, shoes, cartoons, and a nursery education.
And then one day, I realized that Niyati had stopped crying.
That was the only good news that day. Because, as the Niyati stress began to decline, Anita had started to feel felt the urge to reintroduce me to the bitch in her. The bitch that I had discovered just a few months after marriage. Of course, pregnant bitches are even worse than everyday, standard bitches. But, ever since Niyati was born, my wife had stopped being the crazy hormonal pregnant psychopath and had actually become a gentle, and dare I say, caring mother.
And now that our daughter was old enough to not lose sleep over anymore, the real Anita was back to pollute my life again.
And that day, the day Niyati stopped crying, we had our worst argument ever. I relieved my anger on her fat sister Bubble, reminding her of her stronger influence on the force of gravity. This didn’t make Anita too happy, so I left home to spend the evening in the gentler chaos of the office.
The same day, Sahni gave me a call.
“Oye, Shanker – Vinay Sahni here.”
“Yes?”
“How is work going?” he small-talked.
“Not too bad,” I said. If there was ever a day when I’d sell my soul to not talk to Sahni, it’d be today. “What do you want?”
There was a second’s silence on the other end of the line.
“I see you’re still showing disagreeable cinema.”
Disagreeable. I laughed to myself at the sound of that. Sahni was the type who heavily believed in the rightness and social correctness of language, just to make his point seem more positive than it actually was. Instead of malapropos words like ‘porn’, he would use ‘unpleasant’ or ‘disagreeable’. Instead of ‘death’, he used ‘demise’. And instead of ‘bribe’, Sahni liked to say ‘persuasion’.
“This can’t go on, Shanker. How are you going to persuade me to not shut you down?”
I thought about this for a while. It had many years of dodging and promising and ducking and false hopes. He had just caught me on a very, very wrong day.
“I’m not going to pay you,” I told him.
“What did you say?”
“I am not going to pay you.” I repeated in the same tone.
“You don’t want to play around with me Shanker,” Sahni threatened, “I will snap my fingers and BTV will be over.”
“Fuck you,” I mentioned in passing.
“What did you say?”
“Fuck…” I paused, “…You”
There was no sound from the other end for a few seconds. He then spoke back in what sounded like a mix of Hindi, Hebrew, and Gibberish, “Youiswearuuurhrhrhitsnoverwatchahhhhadeck”
I shut the call off and made the final turn to the office, smiling to myself with a nervous mix of comedy and fear. Atty was not going to be too pleased when she hears this…