Delhi Noir (2 page)
Thankfully, there are writers who are willing to see Delhi as it is, and this anthology contains stories by fourteen of them.
Delhi Noir
’s contributors are diverse: They are Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs; Punjabis, Biharis, Bengalis, and Ker-alites; men and women; gay and straight. Many reside in the capital, but others have addresses in Uttarakhand or the U.S. Some have published critically acclaimed books, and a few are still working on their first manuscripts. What they have in common is the inclination to write delectable literature that doesn’t shy away from the city’s uncomfortable underside. Their fiction isn’t politically correct and refuses to pander to popular perceptions about India or its capital, perceptions that conform with the agendas of governments, glossy magazines, and multinational corporations.
I’ve borrowed three popular slogans that are tattooed across the city to divide these fourteen stories into sections. The title of the first section—
With You, for You, Always
—is the well-known motto of the Delhi Police. These stories range from humorous to perverted, but all scrutinize the presence (or lack thereof) of the cops who man the front lines of the capital’s law-and-order system. Newcomer Omair Ahmad’s detective story forces readers to come to terms with the fact that the Congress-led government was complicit with the massacre of innocent Sikhs in the wake of Prime Minister In-dira Gandhi’s assassination. Irwin Allan Sealy’s tale about a vigilante autorickshaw driver who avenges sexual assault on the Ridge is defined by the wry, rhythmic prose that garnered him a place on the Booker Prize shortlist in 1998. Author and civil servant Nalinaksha Bhattacharya invites us into the life of a police officer who extorts sex from the wives of low-level central government employees. His is a sardonic, hard-hitting parody of the Indian television serials that are voraciously consumed by all rungs of society—those who live in brothels, mountain villages, and the extravagant farmhouses of Delhi.
The second section’s title—
Youngistan
(land of the youth)—is a spoof of a Pepsi advertising campaign that attempts to appeal to India’s 200,000,000 young people aged between fifteen and twenty-four. Unlike the folks in the ad, however, lives in these stories don’t get easier by drinking a cola or encountering megastar Shah Rukh Khan. In Delhi-raised New York resident Mohan Sikka’s “Railway Aunty, an orphaned college student stumbles into a prostitution ring that lurks beneath Paharganj’s veneer of civil servants and backpackers. Bihar-born Delhi resident Siddharth Chowd-hury bewitches readers with his raunchy, violent musing on life in a university dormitory. His prose alters the DNA of the English language, and is the literary version of good jazz.
Walled City, World City,
the slogan heading the final section, stems from a
Times of India
campaign that encourages Delhi citizens to forget the city’s painful past, its riots and pogroms. This bullish advertisement makes a simple comparison between Delhi’s history—Mughal rule, colonialism—and its current aspirations—superpowerdom, cosmopolitanism. But Tabish Khair, author, academic, and a former
Times of India
reporter, reminds us that border crossings aren’t just comfortable flights on 747s. They also define the lives of countless young farmers and laborers who’ve abandoned rural India for the capital to cook, clean, and shine shoes. Veteran Uday Prakash scrutinizes the promise of social mobility in the “new India” and exhibits the vitality and universality of Hindi-language writing. Closing out this volume, the always provocative playwright, author, and illustrator Manjula Padmanabhan trans-ports readers to a nightmarish futuristic vision of Delhi as a “world city.”
These fourteen stories span the length and breadth of Delhi, from familiar spots like Jantar Mantar and Lodhi Gardens to more off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods like Gyan Kunj and Rohini. Together they give you an alternative map to the city, one that doesn’t shy away from its strident flaws and yet also sheds light on beauty in overlooked corners and conversations.
Delhi readers will be well acquainted with this volume’s Blue Line buses and Mughal tombs, and also with most of its contributors. But this is the first time they will see original works of fiction by such a varied, talented group of authors in a single book. Non-Indian readers will be unfamiliar with many of the names in this book, which will hopefully offer them a rare taste of a different type of Indian writing: literature that fascinates simply beacuse it’s well written—not exotic. For these readers, we have provided a glossary of the Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi words used in
Delhi Noir
. It will hopefully make the richness of Indian language and culture accessible to an international audience without compromising the quality and flow of these stories.
Hirsh Sawhney
Delhi, India
May 2009
T
he call, when it came, was unexpected, but then most calls in her life had been. She’d been looking up a number in her cell phone when it suddenly started blinking and vibrating. Her thumb punched the answer button before she had time to process things, and the thin, tinny voice said, “Suhasini? Suhasini?”
The little screen showed Sunny’s name, but she didn’t really feel like raising the phone to her ear. Even in the afternoon it was too early in the day for Sunny. Irritated, more at herself than anything else, she punched the speakerphone button and cut the caller’s desperate “Hello?” with her own voice. “Tell me, Sunny, you need money?”
For a moment there was no answer, and she thought he’d hung up on her. Sunny had never hesitated to say anything but a hurried “Yes” when asked if he needed money. It was what made him such a good snitch.
But his voice came through again, hesitant now. “Suhasini?”
“Yes, baba, Suhasini,” she said, speaking to him as if he were a small child. “Damnit, you’re calling me, you should know who you’ve dialed. Or are you stoned again?” He might have been one of her more reliable informants, but this didn’t mean she liked him.
“Listen, Suhasini, Triloki gave me something for you.”
“So?” She thought it was odd that Triloki would give
Sunny anything for her. Triloki knew where her office was if he needed to send anything. He’d been her senior partner, after all, until she’d found him blackmailing one of their clients.
They hadn’t been in touch for the last two years despite the fact that the private investigator community in Delhi was such a small one. Her annoyance with Sunny became one pitch higher. Sunny had always been a resource for Suhas-ini. She was the one who had found him stealing the drugs from the hospital and decided that he was better use as an informant than in jail. It was bad form to tap somebody else’s snitch. It made the informants uncomfortable and more nervous than they already were. But Triloki had always taken liberties; she liked to think it was his way of flirting with her. Maybe she had been eager for that, for him to cross boundaries, to be more than just business partners, which was why the betrayal had hurt so badly.
“He said to get it to you quick. Gave it to me yesterday.
Said it had to do with Arjun Singh.”
“The politician?”
“No, no, the collector—you know, old things, what do you call them, un-teek things …”
Un-teek?
she thought, until the sounds rearranged themselves.
Antique
. Arjun Singh, the antique collector. She’d heard of him.
“The one who lives near Nizamuddin?” she asked.
“Closer to Ashram, in a haveli near Hotel Rajdoot.”
“Yeah, yeah, near the railway station, not the dargah. Why don’t you bring it over and stop pissing yourself?”
She’d been pushing him since the mention of Triloki’s name, but even she knew when she’d gone too far. This wasn’t her usual style. Detective work, like all good intelligence, relied on confidence building. You didn’t build much with rudeness and insults.
“Busy, I’m busy. You want it, you come yourself.” His voice was brusque, the whine gone from it in his attempt at manliness.
“Right, right,” she tried to be soft, but it was too late now, and after some useless information that was a waste of her time, he hung up. She would catch him for lunch, and maybe he would speak after being fed. It was only much later that she realized that he hadn’t asked for money for the information, or even hinted at it.
Had she realized this immediately, it might have saved her from something, but then again, maybe not.
Arjun Singh rang right afterwards, almost as if they’d coordinated it.
“Hello?”
“May I speak with Ms. Das?” the voice on the other side said. The language was impeccable, intonation precise. She could hear money, great amounts of it, in that voice. Old money. This was a voice nurtured by wealth and generations of connections.
“Speaking,” she said, trying to clear the crudeness that had come from speaking with Sunny from her own voice.
“Ms. Das, I hear you are the best detective in Delhi,” the voice said.
“The agencies are always the best,” she found herself saying. “They have the resources. And Jaidev Triloki has a good reputation.” The last bit surprised her as it came out, and she wondered why she was still defending the man’s reputation.
There was an intake of a breath, almost a sigh. “I am old-fashioned, madam, and I prefer to employ people rather than agencies.” There was a pause, another intake, another sigh.
“And I’m afraid Mr. Triloki can no longer help me. He’s the one who suggested I contact you.”
What the fuck?
she thought, but the words that came out were professional. “Could you tell me who you are, sir, and why you need a private detective?”
“My name is Arjun Singh, Ms. Das. I am a collector of time.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Singh,” she replied sarcastically, “I can’t help you find time.”
There was a moment of silence, and she cursed herself inwardly. She couldn’t afford to speak to a client, and a potentially rich one at that, like this. Most of the old clients had gone with Triloki, and new ones had been hard to find.
When Arjun Singh broke the silence she could hear the edge to his voice. It wasn’t anger as much as strain. Something was riding him hard. “Only God can give us time, and He is hard to find these days,” he sighed. “But I believe you can help me.”
She bit down on the next sarcastic reply that came rushing to her lips, and only said, “How, exactly, can I help you, Mr. Singh?”
“I need help finding someone. I would like to speak to you about it in person, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” Suhasini said. “My office is in CR Park—”
“Could you meet me at my house this evening?” he interrupted. And as she hesitated, a note of pleading entered his voice. “Please, it’s terribly important.”
And somehow she couldn’t say no. She jotted down
Purani
Kothi, behind Hotel Rajdoot,
although she didn’t need to, not after Sunny’s call.
The address confirmed he was rich, to own a whole building like that, but also that he wasn’t one with a taste for the flashy. The area was old, and built-in, with such tangled alleyways that she had always referred to it as Jalebi Central. It was twisted up, like the orange-colored sweets they sold there.
The only case she’d ever investigated in that area was for the government, or at least that was what she had assumed. Triloki had been with the Intelligence Bureau before, and they had received a number of cases through that route. Though he’d never explicitly told her that was who it was for, and payment came in tax-free bundles of cash. He’d always been the one introducing her to these things, and she’d walked right along, Mary’s fucking little lamb.
They’d been hired to take pictures of a Kashmiri politician. A meeting had been arranged for him with a young woman. A classic honey trap, it was assumed that the politico would have one night of fun, and the government would have enough embarrassing photographs to make sure that he didn’t have any more fun afterwards. Except that he just wasn’t up to it. The government had a habit of overkill, and this politician had been worked over so many times in custody that, although he invited the nubile young thing to his room, he only wanted to talk. It was all rather pathetic, and Suhasini, in the next room with the video lead showing her the pointlessness of it all, had been overcome with a strange feeling. It was the only time she’d ever felt any sympathy for the militants.
“I’ll see you at 7 in the evening, Mr. Singh,” she said, and hung up. But after she put the phone down, the remark about Triloki came back to her. She located his number on her cell phone and was about to dial when a sense of caution stopped her and she set the phone down, again. Then she pulled out her second cell phone, the one that didn’t reveal her number on the receiving end, and called Triloki.
There were only two rings before someone picked up.
“Hello?” said a rough voice that wasn’t Triloki’s.
“May I speak with Jaidev Triloki?” she asked.
“One minute,” said the voice, and then there was the sound of muffled voices in the background.
“Hello, this is Jaidev,” said another voice, smooth, full of authority, and so confident that she almost answered despite knowing that it wasn’t him.
“Hello?” the voice said again.
“Mr. Triloki?” she finally asked.
“Yes, this is Jaidev Triloki,” the voice lied, smooth as an oiled snake.
She was so baffled that she did what she had always done as a child when caught by surprise: She lied. “This is Aparna, Mr. Triloki, from the Academy of Investigators in Vasant Vihar.”
“Yes?”
“We wanted to invite you to be one of the keynote speakers at our inauguration ceremony on February 17. The home minister has agreed to be the guest of honor.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll be out of the country at that time,” the man who wasn’t Triloki said. “But thank you for calling.”