The cops in their jeep arrived soon enough. They looked down on us as if we were dogs. I shouted at them to take us to hospital. “Take him yourself,” one of them said. The other said, “Do you think we’re charity?” “But, sirs,” I cried, “you have your Gypsy right here. He’s dying.” They looked on. “Please, sirs,” I cried, “it’s nothing to you, but it’s my brother’s life.” “Oh, it’s nothing?” the first cop sneered. And with that he turned and the other followed. I ran after them, Sunny Wadia. I fell on my knees. “Please, sirs, just take him, please, why won’t you take him?” The first one looked at me and said, “We don’t want his blood on our seats.” I said, “Sir, if that’s the case, I’ll clean the blood. I’ll scrub it off with my own hands, you won’t see a single stain when I’m done.” Do you know what he said to that? “But where do you expect us to sit while we wait?”
2.
Such is life, Sunny Wadia. My brother died there in the road. My mother blamed me for his death, then collapsed and died herself from shock during his cremation. My father had already died from alcohol poisoning when I was small, so now I was left alone with my brother’s widow and their little son. My uncle lived in the next house with his fat wife and their own stupid sons, and on the pretext of helping they came and took hold of our animals and land and my brother’s widow as well. She wailed and wailed in my uncle’s house, and I lay listening to her in the night. I knew soon enough one of my uncle’s sons would take her as his own.
Oh, Sunny Wadia, I was full of rage, staring at the ceiling. Do you know how much it burned? I wanted to kill them all, smash their heads with rocks, slit all their throats, kill all the cops in the world. But who was I in this world? Without money, without power, without even a bike or a gun or an iron rod to my name. I said to myself, You must find a way out of this place or you’ll be ruined. So do you know what I did? I applied to join the police force.
You look surprised, Sunny Wadia, but understand, I knew what it was like out there. I didn’t want to be next in line. I wanted to be sitting in a Gypsy instead, handing out tickets for life and death. But in the meantime, I started roaming the area, snatching gold chains. It was so easy! The cops didn’t care about this kind of thing, they were too busy protecting men like you, making money for themselves. I loitered in the markets, and one day a man left his scooter running while he went to buy medicine. I stole that and rode off and sold it, then I used the money to buy an old Pulsar like my brother’s. Then with the money from the chains, I bought a country pistol of my own. Now I was riding along on my bike with a gun stuffed down my pants. It was so easy. Yes, I thought, this is the life! Only at home, I was still under a cloud and in such a rage, watching those fellows looking down at me. So I went out and stayed out. I was free when I was on my bike, robbing chains.
Only, I couldn’t get my brother’s widow from my head. I had always caught her eye looking at me. And now I was thinking she should be mine. I found myself daydreaming of this, killing everyone else and taking her back, making inside her a son of my own. As I was riding one evening on the road, I saw a girl walking just ahead of me. A maid from one of the new apartment blocks, fifteen or sixteen years old. She was Bihari, not from here. I saw her and thought it was too late for her to be walking alone, that’s no good, and as I got closer to her I watched the way she walked, I saw her long braids and . . . Oh, don’t look at me like that, Sunny Wadia, with your eyes full of contempt, you know those desires. I’d been so lonely for so long, it was only natural I should fulfill my needs.
I brought the bike to a crawl beside her, smiling, until she turned and looked at me. I was wearing my good shirt, my hair was oiled. I asked if she was tired of walking by herself. She kept her head down and looked away. Did she want a ride? No, she said, but then she turned again to look, and I saw that she wanted it, so I pulled up ahead of her, blocked the path. “Sister,” I said, “it’s dangerous out here, there are many criminals and thieves, I can take you where you need to go very quickly, don’t be afraid.” I asked her name. It was Asha. “I’ll take you wherever you want, Asha didi. Your brothers don’t need to know.” She blushed at that. How charming I’d been. I imagined she’d never been on a bike before. She tried to walk past me but this time it was a game. I held out my hand to stop her and she froze, and I showed her my gun and told her to get up on the bike, sit in front of me. She did as she was told.