Yama's Lieutenant and The Stone Witch Read online

  He did know something about the horrors of hell but he was honest enough to admit that knowing was not the same as experiencing something first-hand. ‘Stop crying!’ he heard himself saying, adding ‘please’ as an afterthought. Another first. Usually he had precious little to say to the arakshas or upakshinas. The monster the visions had led him to sniffled obediently in response. Even Chandu and Suri quieted down. The hounds and the upakshina looked at him expectantly.

  ‘You have to answer for the blood of the innocent that has been spilled on your account . . .’ He felt like a self-righteous schmuck, but still he ploughed on, ‘What would you have me do? Release you so that you may proceed unhindered on a killing rampage? Is that what you would suggest?’

  She took her time replying, staring fearfully at Chandu, who had released her with more than a touch of disdain. She hugged herself and looked even less the monster he had come to kill. ‘Help me!’ she pleaded, and the endless sorrow in her eyes made him feel sorrier for her than he had ever felt before, and this included the victims of the more vicious killers he had sent to enjoy the tender mercies of the yamaduttas.

  ‘I never meant for any of this to happen. If you ask me to give an account of my crimes, it would not be possible because they have fallen through the cracks in my memory. All I remember are the awful things that happened to me. You told me that I have the blood of innocents on my hands, but my daughters were innocent too . . . And the powers that be did not see fit to send Yama’s lieutenant haring after their killers. There was nobody to pay heed to their cries or mine. I prayed to every single god. None of them got off their sacred backsides to help.

  ‘Did you know that my younger daughter was only a couple of months old and the elder a mere child of five? My husband and his mother blamed me for failing to provide them with an heir to their accursed line. The birth of a second daughter was more than they could stand, and my innocent little ones paid the price for it. They were smothered as they slept, and I lived long enough to see it happen, before being force-fed pesticide.

  ‘They told everybody that I was a whore and that the children had been fathered by two of my numerous lovers. They swore that it was I who had killed them before taking my own life because I was purportedly overcome by guilt. They smeared chilli powder in my eyes and broke my limbs during the cremation rites to prevent my malevolent spirit from haunting them. Fat lot of good it did them! In the end, I killed them all, including my loving husband’s dear mother, second wife and even the bloody baby, the heir, they made together. In my anger, I razed the entire village to the ground.

  ‘But vengeance failed to bring my little ones back to me. So I go from place to place looking for them. My attempts are useless and they make me angry. And when the rage is upon me I can’t seem to control the things I do. If it were possible to undo the damage that has already been done, I would do so.’

  Agni shook his head tiredly. Everybody had a tragedy to share. No exceptions. ‘You still have to answer for more than the vengeance you claimed.’ He felt ridiculous even as he said it. After all the things he had seen and the things he had done, who was he to judge anyone? But he went on because, ultimately, you just had to.

  ‘Everybody I have hunted have had similar tales of woe. But you did not stop with revenge. You are consumed by bloodlust and have to be stopped. Being sorry or saying you have forgotten them now is simply not enough.’

  Agni saw a flash of rage in her eyes. He knew she would have killed him then if she could. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and only emptiness remained—that all-pervasive sadness he could not bear.

  ‘I know that . . . If you let me go, I will spend eternity making amends for all the things I have done. There are some like me who serve the Divine Mother. Perhaps she will take me under her wing. Please! I promise you . . . the time for anger is past, I’ll be good. Believe me! Give me another chance. This is not what I am. Help me!’

  And that was that. Agni called off the hounds and let her go. Just like that. What she had said had touched something in him. Agni wanted to tell her to make the most of her chance at redemption, but putting these things into words had never been his forte. That was Varu’s department. So he hoped she got it and restricted himself to a polite nod.

  As he walked back, the rice stalks swaying behind him, gyrating to the dictates of the sudden gust of wind with terpsichorean fervour, Agni wondered if he had finally lost his mind. It was hard to know with these kinds of things.

  After all, his visions were not exactly chock-full of explicit instructions. Mostly, he caught the arakshas, the hatakas and, more recently, the upakshina mere seconds before they followed through on their design to commit some unspeakable atrocity or the other. This time it had been different, and since he had not been struck down by a bolt of lightning as a mark of divine disapproval, he supposed he had done well.

  ‘You will not believe me, but I swear that some day I will find a way to repay you for the kindness you have done me today, Yama’s lieutenant!’ she told him. Her plain face had looked pretty then and her eyes had shone bright with the strength of her earnestness.

  He was thinking about that when a stray dog attacked him out of nowhere and tried to help itself to a chunk of his thigh. Agni wished he could send that brute off to hell but contented himself with fighting it off. He found a hospital to get his anti-rabies shots before hopping on to the joyride he had previously found himself in.

  The fish still stank. But the good news was that his destination was nearing.

  3

  From Varu’s Book: Letting Go. Or Not.

  Don’t ask me about the date! You are not my fricking history teacher!

  Dearest Agni,

  ‘Never explain yourself. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it’—Belgicia Howell

  Nobody remembers this Belgicia babe but the quote itself is famous simply because it is awesome. It is hateful having to explain stuff to folks in general, and that goes double for you. I expect my twin to understand every single thing that goes through my head and heart without my ever having to spell it out. Don’t you dare think it is unreasonable, even if it is! As you know, I cannot handle anything but absolute adoration from you. Is that clear?

  Now we can move on. The thing is there are times in life when I get upset and tend to be less ebullient than usual. That means there could be confusion, doubt, anxiety, fear and panic churning around my insides, leaving them in knots. What is my self-prescribed remedy?

  You are probably thinking that stuffing myself with junk food is my solution. That is not entirely wrong, merely inaccurate. I write. It helps me sort through the chaotic jumble in my head and restore a semblance of order. But that is not the only reason why I write. Sometimes it is because the only true and constant loves in my life are reading and writing.

  I tell myself that no matter what happens, everything will be fine, provided I can read and write. But that is bullshit because my biggest fear is that I can write and write, till the words dry up, and nobody will be bothered to read what has been written with my blood. Nobody understands. And then I tell myself that it is ridiculous to think like that. After all, you will always be there to keep your eyes glued to my words. Even if you are not inclined to do that, a loaded revolver pointed at that fat temple by yours truly will make you exponentially more amenable to my will. Except it will never be necessary, right?

  Anyway, it feels like centuries have elapsed since I put the finishing touches on my book on Yama. You probably thought I was done. Except that it did not feel finished. While I am content to leave my cupboards in a shambles or allow the parts of the house not visible to the visitors’ eyes gather all the dust in the world, this was killing me. Besides, when good things come to an end, it sucks, right? Some things, at least, ought to last forever. So I powered through my writer’s block and ploughed on. You will find the rest of it after bearing with me, while I meander on aimlessly.

  Do read it and make of
it what you will. I still dream . . . of fame, fortune and glory. But what if the universe, in its infinite wisdom, refuses to grant me the superficial shit that is my heart’s desire (I think so, at any rate, because it is hard for me to figure out the nature of the things I yearn for) and has something else in mind for me? What if it is something insanely scary that I’d rather not deal with? What if the stakes are too high and I am called upon to sacrifice more than I am willing to? Or what if an extraordinarily ordinary life is my destiny? Which is the worse of the two?

  But all that is neither here nor there. Plus this kind of talk is likely to make you feel scared silly on my behalf. Don’t worry about me. Ever. My life will always be in my hands and I won’t screw it up past redemption. That is a promise!

  After you are done with this charming missive, be sure to peruse the following pages full of my errant scribbles (only I am allowed to refer to it that way; as far as you are concerned, it is literature of the highest order) with the utmost attention and respect.

  By the way, have I ever told you I am so incredibly proud of you, for just being you? That you are my rock, soulmate and eternal safe-space? If I haven’t, it doesn’t matter because, as mentioned earlier, you have to know the things I think, even when I can’t be bothered to say them aloud.

  Take care of yourself, silly goose!

  With all my love,

  Varu

  4

  The Nobody

  His name was Ram Chandra. Not that anybody gave a crap. His mother had named him after Lord Ram, the ideal male, according to her. His earliest memories included Amma waxing eloquent about the many noble qualities of his divine namesake, pointedly stressing that he was the finest among warriors but knew how to moderate his strength.

  His father had beaten her every single day of their married life. Ultimately it was a stroke that had finished him off and put an end to his violent ways. It was too bad the damn thing had not taken him before he broke a bottle on her head and shoved the jagged edges into her throat. The not-so-heroic or -dashing Ram had been ten at the time. He missed his mother and never forgot her. He tried and marginally succeeded in forgetting his father and the belt that he had used to beat his buttocks raw.

  Ram had not had much opportunity in life and the only thing he had learned to do with any degree of competence was blend into the background. Needless to say, unlike his namesake, no lengthy epics would be written for him nor songs composed in his honour. No temples were going to be raised in his name, and people certainly could not be expected to do him the honour of never forgetting his deeds. And misdeeds. (There had been a couple of incidents with boys that gave him a pang, but, surely, loving them the only way he knew how was better than whipping them bloody?) Instead, they forgot him completely. Even as he lived.

  Because Ram was a nobody. And it was hardly surprising. In a busy, indifferent world, nobody could be bothered about somebody who made his livelihood cleaning up shit and worse. Possessed of an unprepossessing form and a truly unfortunate face with disfigured, slack lips that made him look every bit the drooling imbecile, he walked with a pronounced stoop that was exacerbated by a recent injury he had sustained when a convict at the prison facility he worked at had stabbed him.

  All his life people had simply looked through him as if he were made of glass. It was like he was never there. So he swept the narrow corridors inside the prison compound before swabbing the floors and disposing off the human waste. A broom so discoloured with filth that it could hardly be called a cleaning aid was his constant companion as well as some ancient rags that were a definite health hazard, bottles of foul-smelling acid, bleach, and a rusty bucket that he lugged around. They had not issued him gloves to protect his hands, which had had the unfortunate effect of leaving them ruined beyond redemption, with a much older, sicker man’s tremor. Those who did notice them looked away in disgust, assuming he was a no-good drunk. Which he was, but such prejudice was still unfair.

  As a nonentity with a reputation for being silent as the grave and dumb as a rock, he had unofficial security clearance to visit every inch of the prison facility, or at least those places that required his sole expertise in mopping up blood, piss, semen, liquid or solid faeces, spilled food, gravy, remnants of garbage, bone fragments and the physical evidence of all manner of damnable and dastardly deeds committed by the inmates and guards alike.

  He hadn’t spoken in a really long time and had practically forgotten how to, on account of having grown up wild with absolutely no supervision. It was a pity nobody was interested in hearing his voice because there were quite a few stories he could have told them, if he ever got around to finding the right words and the courage to voice them. Sometimes he blabbed when he was drunk but since the words were drowned in hiccup-ridden sobs, not many among his fellow drinkers cared enough to listen or decipher their meaning.

  The endless scouring and scrubbing did not bother him much, though he was brutally overworked and underpaid. At least he was fed thrice a day—all the rice he wished to eat, watery dal and some sort of vegetable matter. Some days there was meat. The prison had a pair of mean German shepherds, and it was his job to cook their beef, eggs and bones; occasionally, when the trainers were bored and less watchful than usual, he filched a little for himself. He liked those days. On national holidays he got a piece of cake, all to himself. He loved those days.

  They did not allow him days off but they did give him a mat to lie on and a threadbare blanket for when it got too cold. It could have been worse, he told himself. Divine providence had ensured that he had food in his stomach, clothes on his back, a partial roof over his head and a poorly paid job. Amma had also been a maid, and she had assured him that they did the Lord’s work, and good, honest labour had dignity, was nothing to be ashamed of.

  Ram wished she were alive to help him sort through the jumbled-up things in his head that bothered him no end (he wouldn’t mention the boys, though, in case she blamed herself and stopped loving him). Some of the things he had witnessed had never felt right and there seemed to be nothing about them that was good or honest. It made him feel unclean, and it was not because he wore the stained, unwashed uniforms they gave him, went about barefoot, hadn’t had a barber attend to him his entire life and washed exceedingly infrequently, if at all.

  It was mostly on account of the fact that he had seen too much. And his heart and soul were covered in grime and slime. When he felt really awful he had to resist strongly the urge to pour the acid down his own throat to clean his insides right out.

  Everybody automatically dropped their guard when he was around, because he simply did not figure in the overall scheme of things. Consequently, he got to watch when they heedlessly let loose the darkness in their hearts and it spilled out as vile deeds and debased acts.

  The entire prison system, with its tiny, cramped cells, inmates crammed in like too many nuts clenched in a monkey’s fist, always got to him. It was nothing like the row upon row of brightly lit units with the barred doors, excellent lighting, stainless-steel latrines and the luxurious bunks well appointed with pillows, sheets and blankets shown in the foreign films that the warden watched while the inmates with the least offensive demeanours and relative disinclination towards violence massaged his feet. In that colourful world of fantasy, the prisoners were togged out in shiny orange uniforms, given plenty of tasty-looking things to eat and space enough to stretch their legs and even allowed to play a sport with a ball that matched the colour of their clothes.

  Ram dreamed of working in a place like that, where he was confident the shit would smell sweeter. Instead, he was where he was. A prison facility with its formidable walls fortified with barbed wire and embedded glass, five blocks with different hues of dull paint peeling away, leaving the bricks exposed. It shamed him and made him feel like he was staring at a woman’s private parts.

  If the facade was bad, the insides were worse. It was a mean place where everyone who did not make a serious attempt to kill or rape wou
nd up being raped and killed instead. Police brutality was merely a way of life. Not a day went by without somebody getting seared by hot irons, having poisonous insects stuffed down their throats or placed in the armpits, scrotum or freshly inflicted injury site, getting suffocated, drowned, blinded with sharp implements and acid, or nipped in the nipples and testicles with pincers and clamps. Then there were the old-fashioned beatings wherein the prisoner was suspended by the ankles with arms tied around the back, and head buried in a foul-smelling gunny bag, which may or may not have a frantic rat in it.

  Underage boys and girls, and women, even the pregnant ones, were not given the special cells allocated to them (he had heard the commissioner using a big word repeatedly to specify that they be kept apart; why weren’t his orders being followed?) but were thrown in along with the general populace, meat for the predators within and without the cells.

  They were fed rice, rabbit food, worms and maggots till they forgot what meat, milk and eggs tasted like. Fights broke out over scraps of food or a fair share of the cake handed out on national holidays. The guards enjoyed watching these altercations too much to intervene. Ram wished he really were a god so he could make it all go away. But since he wasn’t, all he could do was silently clean the buttery and bloodied remains off the floor while murmuring a prayer for the souls of those who had died over a bite of cream and sugar.

  Too many of them had been apprehended for minor crimes—travelling without a ticket, ID or proper papers, reneging on small loans, vagrancy, and the like. They were too poor to afford lawyers or bail and thus wound up doing hard time because the system had forgotten them while their cases lay pending, till the case files were misplaced or forgotten. The better-looking captives, of either gender, were kept around till they lost their looks and were eventually sold off to brothels.