19.
She told my cousins to let me in. Within the compound walls, next to brand-new marble palaces, our old brick houses remained. Buffalo still snoozed alongside the SUVs. And in the courtyard, our old toothless dadi slept on a charpoy. My uncle emerged at the commotion. He’d grown so fat and grand. He wore so much gold I don’t know how he didn’t fall down. All my cousins lined up, they glared at me, they were spoiling for a fight. “Sunil,” my uncle said, “you worthless fellow, you chor of a man. What is it you want?” I told him I didn’t want trouble, I had traveled very far, and now at the end of my wanderings, I wanted to return home. He replied, “There’s nothing here for a thief!” I became hot in the head, I forgot myself. I said, “It is you who is the thief, uncle, because this land is mine and mine alone, you have taken it from me.” He laughed and dismissed me. “No land is owed to a beast like you.” I stood there humiliated, seeing they wouldn’t budge. I realized how much things had changed, how weak and worthless and unlucky I had become. They all began to laugh at me. They could see it dawning on my face, how my future lay out there on the road, a vagabond. What could I do? I lowered my head, stepped toward the door out to the road. But before I crossed the threshold, I heard my brother’s widow call my name. I turned yet again, and there she was, removing her heavy gold chain. “Take this,” she said, “for the things you have done in the past.” I took it humbly. She remembered the person I had been. When she was in my brother’s bed, I had barely been able to look her in the eye from shame. Even now, it was hard to look her in the face. But with that gold chain in my hand I would begin a new life. My reverie was short-lived. Ten minutes later, as I trod the dirt road, a police Gypsy arrived to cut off my path. A man matching my description had snatched a woman’s chain.
20.
Yes, my uncle had my brother’s widow do his dirty work. The police took me away, registered a case, beat me in the cell, transferred me to Dasna Jail. After so many years, after all I’d done, it was a fitting fate. To be caught right back at the start. And what did I feel now? Nothing more or less than relief. A weight had been lifted from me. I was a chain snatcher, after all. I decided to give in to this. To let go of life, to let prison take hold. Inside, I lost all desire, I wanted for nothing anymore. I was left alone. My face, my scars, my air of decay, meant no one challenged me. I was neither hunted nor hunter. I lived like an ascetic. I was ignored by those men who look for fresh meat. If I was to catch my reflection, I knew there would be no trace of the “Chaddi Baniyan” Rastogi there. I did not catch my reflection at all. I assumed an air of disinterest; I was someone who could smile down on the follies of youth. That’s how I met Sonu, Manoj’s brother. He was a hothead, as I had been at his age. He was always eager to find someone who would hear his story. I listened to him. He said he had killed a man in a dispute. He had entered a showroom in Delhi and fought with a salesman over a car; this fight ended in the salesman’s death. Yes, Sonu shot him in the head. Now he had no hope of being released unless a vast sum of money could be found. Enough money to bribe everyone to secure bail. How will you find that money? I asked him. There’s only one way, he said, his eyes fixed in a violent glare. I’ll have my useless brother kidnap and ransom the behenchod responsible for all our misery. This fucker by the name of Sunny Wadia.
21.
Maybe things are becoming clear now? You think my rambling story is merely leading to this. Think again! We’re entwined more than you know. When Sonu told me this plan of his, I barely gave it any thought. It sounded like something I would have done in the old days, but those days were over. I didn’t think of that stuff anymore. I didn’t care for his dreams of revenge and escape, despite his goings-on. But everything changed, Sunny Wadia, when I saw your face. Up there, on the TV screen on the cell wall of one of the dadas inside. “There he is! That’s him!” Sonu screamed. “There’s the fucker who stole my life. I’ll take my revenge!” And everyone began to laugh at him. “How will you take revenge? Don’t you know who he is?” “He’s the fucker who ruined my life,” Sonu shouted. “Taking our land with his money, spoiling us all.” “No, no, no,” came the reply. “That’s not who he is.” “Who is he then?!” “He’s Bunty Wadia’s son!”
I said nothing while this debate was taking place. But back in the cells, I was a man possessed. I pulled Sonu aside, looked him in the eye, and said, “Get me bail.” He shoved me away. “Get you bail?! Why?” he said. “Get me bail,” I repeated. “What’s come over you!?” he cried. “Nothing,” I said. “I’m myself again.” “You’re talking nonsense,” he went on. “No, I’m talking sense. Now use whatever money you have to get me bail. Then I’ll kidnap Sunny Wadia for you.”