Six Suspects (37 page)

Consumed with curiosity, he began following her. She went
through silent back streets littered with rubbish, along dark alleys
and cobbled, winding paths, and emerged eventually at the mouth
of a crowded, lively street. There were ancient, double-storey
houses on both sides of the road, with intricately carved balconies
which resonated with music and the tinkling of dancers' ankle
bells. On the ground below, women with hard faces and vacant
eyes, some only wearing low-cut blouses and petticoats, leaned
against shadowy doorways and beckoned passers-by with provocative
smiles. There was a corner
paan
shop where a man doled
out ready-made triangles of betel leaf, a stall selling bread
pakoras,
and even a store for pre-paid phone cards. The smells of jasmine
perfume and fried food mingled in the thick humid air. While the
rest of the city was fast asleep, the residents of this street were
having a party.

'Welcome to Dal Mandi,' a man wearing a
lungi
and tank top
accosted Eketi. 'Would you like to try our goods?' Behind him, a
girl in a pink sari giggled. But Eketi took no notice of her, intent
only on following the woman who was now walking purposefully
towards the far end of the street. The road ended in a T-junction
where she turned right into another alley. Eketi turned right too.

Suddenly she whirled around and caught Eketi by his right
hand.

'Why are you following me? Do you think I am a prostitute?'

Taken completely by surprise, Eketi struggled to free himself
from her grip, which was as strong as a man's. '
Mujhe chhod do!
Leave me!' he cried.

She looked at him closely. 'Who
are
you, you little black devil?'

'First you tell me,
what
are you?'

'What kind of question is that?'

'I mean are you a man or a woman?'

She chuckled. 'This is the question which everyone wants
answered. Some men are even prepared to pay to find out.'

'I . . . I don't understand.'

'My name is Dolly. I am the leader of the
hinjras
.'

'
Hinjra?
What's that?'

'You have not heard of eunuchs? Which planet are you from?'

'I honestly don't know about eunuchs.'

'We are the third sex. Between male and female.'

Eketi's eyes opened wide. 'Neither man nor woman. How is
that possible?'

'In our country, everything is possible.' Dolly waved her hand.
'But tell me about yourself. Who are you? Where are you from?'

'I am Jiba Korwa from Jharkhand.'

'Jharkhand, eh? I used to have a friend called Mona. She was
from Jharkhand too, but not as dark as you. Now she has gone to
try her luck in Bombay.'

'Where do you live?'

'Not too far from Dal Mandi.'

'And what is this?' Eketi pointed to the brown packet in her hand.

'Oh this? This is the medicine which I have found with great
difficulty. There was only one pharmacy open at this hour. This is
for my friend Rekha. Her daughter is extremely sick.'

'What's the matter with her?'

'She has malaria. For ten days she has had a high fever.'

'Malaria? I can cure malaria.'

'You?' She appraised him from head to toe. 'You five-foot
joker, you now say you are a doctor?'

'Believe me, I am. A pretty good one, too. On my island I once
saved a boy who was going to die of malaria.'

'Island? Now which island is this?'

'
Kujelli!
' Eketi exclaimed and, to cover up his blunder, quickly
opened his canvas bag and took out a bunch of dried leaves. 'This
plant can cure malaria. If you will take me to your friend, I will
treat her daughter.'

'Is that so?' Dolly thought for a moment and then nodded her
head. 'OK. No harm in trying you out. Come with me.'

Eketi resumed following her through the twisted by-lanes of
the city. They went down a couple of alleys, crossed a stinking
open drain, and suddenly Eketi found himself in the enclave of the
eunuchs. Even at this time of the night, they were up and about,
dressed in saris and
salwar kameez
, with painted faces and outrageous
hair-dos. They greeted Dolly and watched Eketi curiously,
more friendly than hostile.

The houses here were small and austere, mostly one-room
shacks built with brick and cement. Dolly stopped in front of a
house with a yellow door. A
hinjra
wearing an orange-and-blue
sari with a bunch of jasmine flowers woven into her braid ran out
of the door, clutched Dolly and began to weep. 'Tina is going to
die. My poor Tina,' she wailed.

Dolly spoke with some of the other eunuchs before turning
to Eketi. 'The doctor came to see Tina a little while ago,' she
told him. 'He says the girl cannot be saved, the fever has
reached her brain. My trip to the dispensary has been useless.'
She let go of the medicine packet, which dropped limply
to the ground, and smothered her face with her hands.

Eketi stepped forward and pushed open the yellow door.

He entered a small, crowded room. There were pots and pans
in one corner, clothes in another. But his eyes were drawn to a
mattress on the floor, on which lay a small girl in a frock,
surrounded by blankets. She was no older than eight or nine, with
a round face and almond-shaped eyes. Frail and thin, she seemed
to have been drained of vitality. Her face was pale and there were
large red blisters on her neck. Her eyes were closed, but from time
to time she mumbled incoherently in her sleep.

Eketi unzipped his canvas bag and got to work. He took out
the bunch of dried leaves and asked the girl's mother to grind
them into a paste and heat it. Then he mixed the red clay with pig
fat and smeared the girl's forehead with horizontal stripes. As
Dolly watched sceptically, he applied some yellow clay to the
girl's upper lip and rubbed a hot mash of the dried leaves on her
stomach. Finally he took out a necklace of bones. 'This is the
chauga-ta
, made of the bones of the great Tomiti. It will heal
the body and keep the
eeka
away,' he announced and draped the
necklace over the girl's neck.

'Are you some kind of witch doctor?' Dolly asked with a
worried look.

'I am only trying to help.'

'Now what should we do?'

'We wait till morning,' he said and yawned. 'I am feeling very
sleepy. Is there a place I can lie down?'

'Don't you have your own place?'

'No.'

'I thought so,' Dolly sighed. 'Come, I will take you to my
house.'

Her house was the biggest in the area, with two rooms and a
tiny kitchen. The painted walls were adorned with framed
pictures of gods and goddesses. There was a faded carpet on the
floor and even a small folding dining table with metal chairs. A
wall clock showed the time as quarter to three. Eketi flopped
down on the floor and within minutes was fast asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, Dolly was already up and
about. 'You have worked a miracle,' she beamed at him. 'Tina's
fever has disappeared. She is feeling much better.'

Tina's mother Rekha came in shortly afterwards and fell at
Eketi's feet. 'You are an angel sent from heaven,' she cried, clutching
the tribal's hand. 'My daughter and I are forever in debt to you.'

She was followed by another eunuch, who blinked at him
coquettishly before extending her arm. 'I have blisters on my forearm.
Do you have a remedy for this as well?'

'No, no. I am not a doctor,' Eketi grumbled.

'You must be hungry,' said Dolly. 'I am going to make
breakfast.'

Later that day, as Dolly sat at the table chopping vegetables,
Eketi sidled up to her. 'My curiosity is killing me.'

'What do you mean?' She arched her eyebrows.

'I am still confused about what you told me last night. How
can you be neither man nor woman?'

With a grimace, Dolly dropped her knife, stood up and lifted
up her sari. 'See for yourself.'

Eketi gasped in horror. 'Were you . . . were you born this way?'

'No. I was born a man like you, but always felt like a woman
trapped inside a man's body. I was the youngest of three brothers
and two sisters. My father was a well-to-do clothes merchant in
Bareilly. Growing up was sheer torture. My brothers and sisters
always taunted me. Even my parents treated me with derision and
contempt. They realized I was different but still wanted me to
behave like a boy. So the day I turned seventeen, I stole money
from my father's shop and ran away to Lucknow, where I met my
Guru and got the operation done.'

'What kind of operation?'

'It is excruciating, but they keep you on opium for a number
of days, which takes away some of the pain. Then the
nirvana
ceremony is performed.'

'What is that?'

'It means rebirth. A priest cuts off the genitals with a knife.
One stroke and my organ was gone.' Dolly made a chopping
motion with her hands. Eketi gasped again.

'Once the operation was over, I was deemed to have become a
woman. Then my Guru took me under his wing and brought me
to Banaras. It was here that I discovered an entire community of
eunuchs. I have been living here for seventeen years now. These
eunuchs are what I call my family, this is where I belong.'

'So you are actually a man?'

'Originally, yes.'

'Don't you feel strange without your . . . er . . . dick?' Eketi
asked hesitatingly.

She laughed. 'You don't need a dick to survive in this country.
You need money and brains.'

'And how do you earn money?'

'We sing at weddings and childbirths, housewarmings and
other auspicious occasions, and give blessings. People believe that
hinjras
have the power to take ill luck and misfortune from them.
I also work occasionally for a bank.'

'What kind of work?'

'Very often people borrow money from the bank but fail to
return it. Then the bank asks us
hinjras
to land up at the
defaulter's doorstep. We sing bawdy songs and generally create so
much nuisance that the man pays up.'

'That sounds like fun! So are you happy being a eunuch?'

'It is not about being happy, Jiba,' she said grimly. 'It is about
being free. But enough about me. Tell me, what has brought you
from Jharkhand to our Uttar Pradesh?'

'I ran away from my village. I came here to get married.'

'
Wah
, that's a new reason to migrate. And have you found a
girl?'

'No,' Eketi smiled shyly, 'but I am looking all the time.'

'Have you decided where you will stay?'

'Can't I stay in this house, with you? You have plenty of room.'

'I don't run a charitable guesthouse,' she said tartly. 'If you stay
here, you will have to pay me rent. Have you got any money?'

'Yes, a lot,' he said, and took out the notes given by Inspector
Pandey.

Dolly counted them out. 'This is only four hundred. I will treat
this as a month's rent.' She leered at him and inserted the notes
inside the mysterious confines of her blouse. 'You also need money
to eat. I cannot give you free meals every day.'

'Then what should I do?'

'You need to get a job.'

'Will you help me find work?'

'Yes. They are building a new five-star hotel. I'll take you to the
construction site tomorrow.'

'Then will you show me a little of your city today?'

'Certainly. Come with me. I'll take you to the
ghats
of Kashi.'

Chowk looked completely different during the day. The area was full
of shops selling saris, books and silverware, and roadside eateries selling
sweets and
lassi
. The streets swarmed with people. Rickshaws
jostled for space with cycles and cows walked alongside cars.

Eketi thought the people on the road were gaping at him, till
he realized they were staring at Dolly. Women shrank away in
horror as soon as they saw her. Men scowled and gave her a wide
berth. Children made fun of her, making lewd catcalls. Some
jeered at her by clapping with their palms meeting sideways. She
ignored their taunts and guided Eketi through the crowded
thoroughfare to an alley which led to a series of terraced stone
steps going down to the Ganges, and the tribal had his first view
of the
ghats
.

The river gleamed darkly, like molten silver, with little boats
bobbing on its surface like dabbling ducks. The embankments
were full of pilgrims. Some were sitting under palm-leaf parasols
consulting astrologers, some were buying trinkets, and some were
taking a dip in the river. Tonsured priests chanted mantras,
bearded
sadhus
paid obeisance to the sun and stocky wrestlers
honed their bodybuilding skills. The
ghats
stretched all along the
riverfront, as far as the eye could see. Thin reeds of smoke hung in
the misty air from the funeral pyres burning in the far distance.

'The river unites both pilgrims and mourners,' Dolly said. 'Our
city is a celebration of the living as well as the dead.'

'A man told me that people come to this city to die. Why?'
Eketi asked.

'Because it is said that if you die in Kashi you go straight to
heaven,' replied Dolly.

'So when you die, will you also go straight to heaven?'

'There is no one heaven, Jiba.' She looked benignly at him.

'There are different heavens for different people. We eunuchs
even do our cremations secretly.'

A day later, on 1 November, Eketi began his first real job. Dolly
took him to what looked like the rim of a huge crater. The construction
site inside resembled the ugly bowels of some massive
beast. A thin line of women carrying heavy loads on their
heads moved across the belly of the beast, and men with pickaxes
carved up its entrails. Wooden scaffolds looking like giant
swings had been erected all over the site and monster cranes
reached for the sky with flickering tongues. The air reeked with
the odour of sweat and clanged with the sounds of metal on
metal.