Ironically both of them were on the pavement that night to escape their past and all that had circumscribed their lives so far. And yet, in order to arm themselves for battle, they retreated right back into what they sought to escape, into what they were used to, into what they really were.
He, a revolutionary trapped in an accountant’s mind. She, a woman trapped in a man’s body. He, raging at a world in which the balance sheets did not tally. She, raging at her glands, her organs, her skin, the texture of her hair, the width of her shoulders, the timbre of her voice. He, fighting for a way to impose fiscal integrity on a decaying system. She, wanting to pluck the very stars from the sky and grind them into a potion that would give her proper breasts and hips and a long, thick plait of hair that would swing from side to side as she walked, and yes, the thing she longed for most of all, that most well stocked of Delhi’s vast stock of invectives, that insult of all insults, a Maa ki Choot, a mother’s cunt. He, who had spent his days tracking tax dodges, pay-offs and sweetheart deals. She, who had lived for years like a tree in an old graveyard, where, on lazy mornings and late at night, the spirits of the old poets whom she loved, Ghalib, Mir and Zauq, came to recite their verse, drink, argue and gamble. He, who filled in forms and ticked boxes. She, who never knew which box to tick, which queue to stand in, which public toilet to enter (Kings or Queens? Lords or Ladies? Sirs or Hers?). He, who believed he was always right. She, who knew she was all wrong, always wrong. He, reduced by his certainties. She, augmented by her ambiguity. He, who wanted a law. She, who wanted a baby.
A circle formed around them: furious, curious, assessing the adversaries, picking sides. It didn’t matter. Which tight-arsed Gandhian accountant stood a chance in hell in a one-to-one public face-off against an old, Old Delhi Hijra?
Anjum bent low and brought her face within kissing distance of Mr. Aggarwal’s.
“Ai Hai! Why so angry, jaan? Won’t you look at me?”
Saddam Hussain clenched his fists. Ishrat restrained him. She took a deep breath and waded into the battlefield, intervening in the practiced way that only Hijras knew how to when it came to protecting each other—by making a declaration of war and peace at the same time. Her attire, which had looked absurd only a few hours ago, could not have been more appropriate for what she needed to do now. She started the spread-fingered Hijra clap and began to dance, moving her hips obscenely, swirling her chunni, her outrageous, aggressive sexuality aimed at humiliating Mr. Aggarwal, who had never in all his life fought a fair street fight. Damp patches appeared in the armpits of his white shirt.
Ishrat began with a song she knew the crowd would know—from a film called Umrao Jaan, immortalized by the beautiful actress Rekha.
Dil cheez kya hai, aap meri jaan lijiye
Why just my heart, take my whole life too
Someone tried to hustle her off the pavement. She moved to the middle of the wide, empty road, enjoying herself now as she pirouetted on the zebra crossing under the street lights. From the opposite side of the road someone began beating out a rhythm on a dafli. People joined the singing. She was right. Everybody knew the song:
Bas ek baar mera kaha maan lijiye
But just this once, my love, grant me my wish
That courtesan’s song, or at least that one line, could have been the anthem for almost everybody in Jantar Mantar that day. All those who were there were there because they believed that somebody cared, that somebody was listening. That somebody would grant them a hearing.
—
A fight broke out. Perhaps someone said something lewd. Perhaps Saddam Hussain hit him. It’s not clear exactly what happened.
The policemen on duty at the pavement snapped out of their sleep and swung their lathis at anybody who was within their reach. Police patrol jeeps (With You, For You, Always) arrived with flashing lights and the Delhi Police special—maader chod behen chod maa ki choot behen ka lauda.*
—
The TV cameras crowded in. The activist on her nineteenth fast saw her chance. She waded into the crowd and turned to the cameras with her trademark, clenched-fist call and, with unerring political acumen, she appropriated the lathi charge for her people.
Lathi goli khaayenge!
Batons and bullets we will bear!
And her people answered:
Andolan chalaayenge!
With our struggle we’ll persevere!
It didn’t take the police long to restore order. Among those arrested and driven away in police vans were Mr. Aggarwal, Anjum, a quaking Ustad Hameed and the live art installation in his scatological suit. (The Lime Man had made himself scarce.) They were released the following morning with no charges.
By the time someone remembered how it had all begun, the baby was gone.
* * *
* Motherfucker sisterfucker your mother’s cunt your sister’s cock.
4
DR. AZAD BHARTIYA
The last person to see the baby was Dr. Azad Bhartiya, who had just entered, according to his own calculations, the eleventh year, third month and seventeenth day of his hunger strike. Dr. Bhartiya was so thin as to be almost two-dimensional. His temples were hollow, his dark, sunbaked skin slunk over the bones of his face and the prominent cartilage of his long, reedy neck and collarbone. Searching, fevered eyes stared out at the world from deep shadow bowls. One of his arms, from shoulder to wrist, was encased in a filthy white plaster cast supported by a sling looped around his neck. The empty sleeve of his grimy striped shirt flapped at his side like the desolate flag of a defeated country. He sat behind an old cardboard sign covered with a dim, scratched, plastic sheet. It said:
My Full Name:
Dr. Azad Bhartiya. (Translation: The Free Indian)
My Home Address:
Dr. Azad Bhartiya
Near Lucky Sarai Railway Station
Lucky Sarai Basti
Kokar
Bihar
My Current Address:
Dr. Azad Bhartiya
Jantar Mantar
New Delhi
My Qualifications: MA Hindi, MA Urdu (First Class First), BA History, BEd, Basic Elementary Course in Punjabi, MA Punjabi ABF (Appeared But Failed), PhD (pending), Delhi University (Comparative Religions and Buddhist Studies), Lecturer, Inter College, Ghaziabad, Research Associate, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Founder Member Vishwa Samajwadi Sthapana (World People’s Forum) and Indian Socialist Democratic Party (Against Price-rise).
I am fasting against the following issues: I am against the Capitalist Empire, plus against US Capitalism, Indian and American State Terrorism/ All Kinds of Nuclear Weapons and Crime, plus against the Bad Education System/ Corruption/ Violence/ Environmental Degradation and All Other Evils. Also I am against Unemployment. I am also fasting for the complete obliteration of the entire Bourgeois class. Each day I remember the poor of the world, Workers/ Peasants/ Tribals/ Dalits/ Abandoned Ladies and Gents/ including Children and Handicapped People.
The yellow plastic Jaycees Sari Palace shopping bag that sat next to him upright, like a small yellow person, contained papers, typed as well as handwritten, in English and Hindi. Several copies of a document—a newsletter or a transcript of some sort—were laid out on the pavement, weighed down by stones. Dr. Azad Bhartiya said it was available for sale at cost price for normal people and at a discount for students:
“MY NEWS & VIEWS.” (UPDATE)