A Cut-Like Wound (17 page)

Gowda sighed. Mamtha made him feel tired. Urmila, she made him feel young again. She made him feel that he could still do things; that somehow life hadn’t passed him by.

‘Did you speak to your son?’

Gowda nodded.

‘And?’ Urmila persisted.

‘Some rubbish about the man with him called Osagie which means God Sent in Nigerian having overstayed his visa, etc. And so being a fugitive in the eyes of Indian law,’ Gowda said slowly.

‘But you don’t believe him,’ Urmila probed carefully.

Gowda took a swallow of his whisky. He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’

Gowda remembered the shock of discovering a weed pouch rolled up carefully in a T-shirt. In it was a little stash of marijuana and another of hash. Linked to the shock was relief. At least he wasn’t into the hard stuff. Yet.

‘And…’

‘And I dare not confront him. Confrontation leads to either–or situations. And you can’t do that with the people you love.’

‘Is that why, Borei, all those years ago, you…’ Urmila began and then suddenly there was someone else standing by their side.

‘Quit kitchi-cooing to each other,’ Michael burst in.
‘Do you realize that you have only talked to each other all evening?’

Gowda and Urmila looked at each other. What had she been about to say? He would never know now.

‘So, how is Lady Deviah liking Bangalore now?’ Michael asked, a teasing lilt entering his tone.

‘Lady?’ Gowda’s eyebrows rose.

Urmila flushed. ‘My husband was knighted some years ago. Since we are not legally divorced, I am still Lady Deviah.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Gowda said quietly. His heart sat in the pit of his belly. Lady Deviah.

Urmila gazed at him. A silent yearning crept into her eyes; her fingers fumbled as she played with her rings. There is so much you don’t know. But would you even want to listen if I were to tell you?

Michael looked at the play of emotions on their faces. He cleared his throat noisily. Had he made a mistake by bringing these two together again? Uff men, such a meddling bugger you are, Becky used to say. All the time doing one damn thing you shouldn’t and look no, where it has led to!

Michael felt overwhelmed by the weight of emotion. His and theirs. For a past that seemed to have been spent with no means of making amends now.

‘I have to go,’ Gowda said suddenly. ‘It’s a weekday…’

‘But you just got here.’ Urmila touched his sleeve. I can only presume so much, the gesture said. I cannot ask more even if I want to. For you are a married man. And I am Lady Deviah.

‘Another ten minutes, that’s all I ask,’ she said.

Gowda nodded and was rewarded by a smile that snarled his gut. What am I doing? he asked himself. My career is
going nowhere, my wife is a stranger, my son is probably a drug addict, and here I am falling in love again. Do I really need this in my life now?

‘No, you don’t,’ Michael said.

‘What?’ Gowda growled.

‘I said you don’t have to rush. You can stay another ten minutes.’

THURSDAY, 11 AUGUST

Gowda stared at the screen of his mobile. He had just selected ‘Create message’, and the blankness of the space was a taunt.

He put the phone on the table and leaned forward, clenching the edge of the table. The phone beeped. He picked it up and saw one new message. Urmila. She had written:
Thank you for attending my do last night. Do you think that one day it may be possible for us to finish a conversation?

Gowda’s heart raced. A smile hung at the corner of his lips. He felt like he was nineteen years old. His fingers felt all thumbs as he pressed ‘Reply’. Roshan had said that was the way to text. With thumbs, and not as he did, meticulously and methodically pressing the keys with his index finger.
Yes
, he texted.
You choose the day, time and place and I promise not to run away this time
.

He imagined the message flying through the air and across the city into her lap. He imagined the expression in her eyes. Something in him quickened.

His phone lit up. ‘
This evening at my house. 8 p.m
.
’

‘
Will be there
,’ he texted back.

‘
Can’t wait
,’ she wrote.

‘
Likewise
,’ he texted and felt a foolish grin settle on his face. Fuck! What had he gone and done?

Santosh walked in and almost convulsed in shock at the sight of the taciturn Gowda staring at his phone with a soppy smile. Must be one of those vulgar jokes. He couldn’t think of anything else that would induce laughter in Gowda.

‘Good morning, sir.’ Santosh saluted.

Gowda raised his eyes and in that split second Santosh saw Gowda settle into his habitual demeanour of ‘what now?’.

‘The photographer is here, sir.’

Gowda frowned. ‘Which photographer is this?’

‘Samuel, sir. The witness in the Liaquat case.’

‘What does he want? Can’t you deal with it?’

‘No, sir, he wants to see you. There are two others with him. Ladies, sir.’

Gowda nodded. ‘Send them in,’ he said and opened a file. He heard them troop in but kept his eyes resolutely on the pages in the file. Suddenly, it struck him that he was doing exactly what the ACP did to him when he was summoned to his room. Pretend to be engrossed in a file. Subtext 1: Look, I don’t have the time for whatever it is you have come for. Subtext 2: Duty comes first. Only then, you and your problems.

Gowda slapped shut the file and gestured for them to sit. Again, he saw the ACP possess him. Why couldn’t he smile and be pleasant? Say, do sit down, make yourselves comfortable, whatever. Instead, it had to be that lordly wave of sweeping condescension: You may sit, but that doesn’t mean a thing.

Gowda willed his face into a smile. ‘Yes, how can I help you?’

‘Sir, this is Prabha,’ the photographer said, gesturing to the grey-haired woman on his left. She had the face of someone who had survived much and wore her battle scars as a pennant that proclaimed: don’t mess with me.

‘And this is Ananya.’ Samuel smiled, indicating the young woman.

Pretty, but she was too tall and her face too angular for Gowda’s taste. And there was something else about her that Gowda couldn’t put his finger upon. He had seen Santosh’s eyes linger on her as he had ushered them in.

‘Thank you for seeing us,’ Samuel said.

Gowda reached beneath the table and pressed a buzzer. A constable came in. ‘Some coffee? Or juice?’

The photographer smiled. ‘Thank you, sir, but we just had breakfast.’

‘No, no, you must have something.’ He turned to the constable. ‘Juice. And some of that cake.’

Gowda leaned back in his chair. He really should get rid of the towel he draped the back of his chair with.

‘Sir, we are having a photography exhibition at Ananda, the artists’ retreat near Gubbi. The proceeds of any sale we make will go to fund our NGO that was set up to help transgenders.’

Gowda chewed his lip. ‘Do they need help?’ He moved a paperweight this way and that. ‘Have you seen the menace they are at traffic lights? We receive so many complaints!’

The photographer looked at Ananya.

‘Ours isn’t an easy life, sir,’ Ananya said.

The paperweight fell to the floor with a crash. Gowda stared at the girl; no she wasn’t a girl, but she wasn’t a boy
either. But you wouldn’t know. Who would have thought that she was a eunuch?

‘You…’ Gowda began hesitantly.

‘Yes, I am a transgender. I was fortunate that an indulgent grandmother brought me up, educated me and let me be. I was teased, but mostly it wasn’t unbearable. But so many of us know only ridicule. And then, because there is no other option, we become sex workers; eventually we die of disease or degradation. We don’t have the solace of clutching to a dream called the happily-ever-after that even the poorest of Indians may dream about. Governments can change, wars will be fought, our GDP may grow, our scientists can conquer space, our lives alone remain untouched. Nobody wants us. Nobody even considers us. Like our sexuality, we are there and not there.’ Ananya’s earnestness caught at Gowda’s throat, even though he knew that it was the practiced speech of someone who had said this many times before.

‘So, sir,’ Samuel piped up, ‘we would be very grateful if you could inaugurate the exhibition.’

Gowda flushed. ‘Why me? I am just an inspector. You should call an artist, or a social worker, or some celebrity.’

‘What we want is acceptance. Not to be showcased for a week. Someone like you would bring that first stamp of acceptance. Your coming to the show and inaugurating it will send a message to the common man. We are not dangerous. We are human too,’ Ananya spoke up before Samuel butted in.