For quite some time now I have been deliberating to relate this incident. This was not merely shocking but acutely puzzling.
It was a regular day. I had gone to Model Town with a friend after college. I got late while coming back -and was expecting a subtle thrashing from Mom since I was on a roll since a week. As I was soft-footing my way into my room so I could quickly change and pretend I had been back long before Mom saw me, my brother casually told me that Mom and Dad were out. Phew!
I was on a call-when I heard some loud noises coming from outside. It took little time to recognize Sangeeta Aunty-our boisterous and voluptuous neighbour's loud voice, "I will not leave without meeting Vipu.." (Thats short for Vipula, my mom)
I got off the call and walked inquisitively towards the door..my aunt who lives on the third floor of our house(ours being a kind of a joint family..the reference is to my father's elder brother's wife..i call her Tayiji)-was trying to calm a frantic Sangeeta aunty who seemed to have seen the ghost of Christmas past. Uncomprehending, I appeared on the scene and threw in my frail "namastey" into the fray. Aunty was seemingly not in mood for greetings. As soon as she saw me, she held me by the arm and went on rambling with Tayiji, shaking me all over as she spoke. I noticed, Aunty had come with a small retinue of hers. Her youngest daughter Aashima and a lean girl who seemed to be their domestic-help. Finally, I asked if everything was okay which was clearly a very stupid question to ask -considering a very angry Aunty, a baffled Aashima, a nonplussed 'maid-servant' and a "what-should-I-do" Tayiji!
I had barely finished my question when Aunty began to fill me in. Aunty lives three houses away from us and from our chatt its an easy two hops to hers. She spreads her washed clothes for drying on her terrace, like most of us. Now, strangely since three or four months- someone had been messing around with her clothes that she put out to dry there. 'Messing' here translates into practically tearing them to shreds!
It'd been a harrowing four months for Sangeeta aunty and her family.She went on railing about how her favourite Bombay Dyne bed-sheets, her husbands' imported shirts, her daughters' newly-stitched suits, their night clothes.....kept getting torn in the most uncanny and violent manner by a mysterious hand.
It would also do for you to know that ours is one of the most quiet and uncontroversial families on our block. Aunty did not suspect anyone...which is to say, any of our domestic-helps, from our house to have been involved in such a mad act. These couple of months she went on knocking at every door on the neighbourhood she suspected, picking up fights and major quarrels with everyone in the process. The Moonlight Furniture shop adjoining her house was the first to bear the brunt. She would line up all the workers there and threaten each one of them individually.
To suspect domestic-helps and subaltern workers in such matters is not just empirical for people but has also become a habit nowadays. Why? Well..in the popular jargon- they are "Chottey Log" with "Chotti Soch". And that, my friend, is that.
So every 'servant' was threatened and questioned thoroughly.(Servant! a word I flinch to use....these people work and we pay them for their services...not to mention the illegality of keeping underage domestic helpers and mostly all of them are underage!...SERVANTS! We might as well call 'em 'slaves'!)
So, after much ado, the mystery was driving Sangeeta Aunty over the edge and rightly so. She is a little over-the-top, in-your-face, and irritating, yes; but she is not of a maligned heart. She always...err.. means well. The shredded clothes left her high and dry every time! Her three daughters and she decided to even install a secret camera but that plan failed on feasibility. They started to live in constant fear--trying not to dirty their clothes and so have to wash and consequently dry them only to have them meet their horrifying fate. You know, it is not easy for a mother of two daughters to go through something like this. Its scary, if you look at it that way. She said the clothes were torn in a particular style. The shirts would be cut from the collar, the suits would be cut with a blade-like thing---in the style of a cross. These crosses had her suspicions drift towards involvement of some jaadu-tona !!
Clearly, the poor woman was in the woods!
Today, finally, the mystery was undone. Her domestic-help, Rekha, had gone to their chatt to fetch the clothes she had put out to dry when she found this young boy in a pink t-shirt armed with a knife-like thing holding aunty's bra!As soon as he realised that he had been spotted, he hopped two chatts and came to ours- and bolted!
Aunty carried a poly-bag in her hand which was full of her torn clothes. She showed me the items one by one-finally revealing her bra -cut in the middle with apparently a single incision. She couldnt be more furious! She said it was that undergarment that did it! That was the last straw on the camel's back. She wouldnt have otherwise come barging in our house-like a madwoman just released from the attic!
Some familiarity with our home seems necessary at this point-
Ours is an extremely busy household. We live on the first floor while Tayiji and my two elder cousin brothers live on the third floor with my dad's elder brother (Tayaji). We have a Girl's Hostel on the second floor of which my mom and Tayiji are in charge. And on the ground floor is a Reebok showroom that we have rented out space to.
We have employed (illegally, like many) two teen-aged boys who make this elephantine household machinery tick. They come from Bihar and they are brothers. The elder one is Badku and the younger one is Sunny. Badku's elder brother Sandeep also worked for us some years back till he left to take up other jobs...For a time, he used to sell peanuts on a cart and now he works as a plumber. I was never fond of Sandeep..also because he was older and so, less lovable; and was very unruly sorts. After he got married, his wife came to work for us for a while too and she used to tell mom that Sandeep beats her. I remember advising her to give it back to him since she was bodily stronger than him...
But I am extremely fond of Badku and Sunny. Badku even has a twin brother in Bihar. Strangely I always felt as if we were keeping the twins separate! Sunny, another from Badku’s gang of brothers, came after Sandeep left. Badku had been working long before Sunny came. He used to take my dog Cyrus for a walk...and give him food when I wasn't around. A few months after Sunny arrived, I remember telling Mom that Badku had become very inactive. He had stopped joking around and laughing as much as he used to. Mom and I used to teach Badku a little now and then between his chores..and he was losing interest in these classes. Gradually he shunned them altogether...and we were all too busy in our own lives that we seldom mulled over his disinterest.
Sunny came along like this new-spirited and gung ho lad, very eager and happy-go-lucky! He never complained of having more chores at hand than he could singly handle. He is easily found singing Himesh Reshammiya songs while cleaning the floor or dusting the house, or making funny faces in front of the mirror while dancing his exquisite break dance that once Badku boasted of! He was like the new kid on the block! He was enjoying his comfort and new routine that Badku had grown casual with and may be wearisome of too--apparently that is what i came to think.
Sunny on the other hand, shows eager interest in studying-I tell him to catch hold of me when ever he finds me or anyone else free..and he used to come with his books and pencil and do exactly that. It was a pain trying to teach him the English letters-he would look up from his book, having only reached till L or M since three days of rigourous drilling...and frowning-and half-jokingly say- "didi..yeh kitne saare bache hain...padna kab shuru karenge?" He is cute, really.
And now and then I will find him doing the dishes while counting his numbers in English aloud. And he would turn as I will enter the kitchen for a drink and ask, " didi yeh 59 ke baad kya aata hai...?"
I would slap him at the back of his head, smiling, and say, "60!"
Badku and Sunny play together on the chatt
and the room where they sleep at night is also on the chatt. Both of them sit watching saas-bahu serials with gusto while chopping vegetables at night in Tayiji's room on the third floor(tayiji's influence, must say!) or some Govinda or Mithun Chakraborthy movie-and would act deaf and mute if somebody called them during it-only budging when Tayiji's howler had reached its crescendo!
Sometimes I felt Badku got jealous of all the attention and praise Sunny fetched on account of his unmitigated spirit to work and not crib about it and his eagerness to study. Dad would draw comparisons a few times in front of Badku to have him stimulated. But I thought it worked just the opposite way! However, I felt and still feel that it was just a kind of innocent sibling rivalry. They seem to play and have fun together, no doubt about that. But Badku I was noticing had become very weary and reticent. But I didnt give much mind to it and I can never be certain if what he did was a result of his getting tired of his monotonous schedule, or anything graver.
Rekha was sure it was Badku who 'lit out' when she spotted him on the terrace shredding Aunty's bra. I stood there in our lobby, listening to this narrative. It was so bizarre! I almost in reflexive told Aunty it can not be! Badku would never do anything like that! I went up to Rekha, who seemed to have won my disapproval automatically, and I asked her if she was sure it was Badku. And she said she was and that he is wearing a pink shirt today.
In my head the following ideas had begun to prop their heads- May be Badku and Sunny played a prank on her and Rekha is trying to get back at them by fabricating this enormous story having cut the clothes herself! Or may be.......it could be..... that it was a Monkey! (they keep straying this side sometimes and once they even took a bottle of cough syrup which was lying in our balcony; ……shredding clothes to pieces seems less bizarre an act on a monkey's part than stealing Glycodin to cure his cough, you know!)
I proposed the latter Monkey possibility to Aunty. But she looked at me in disbelief! Yes, it didn’t explain the Rekha story. Who was on the chatt then? I, Holmes, was acting my own Watson, here!
Aunty could sense we weren’t believing her! She forced us all to the third floor to Tayiji's apartment. It was time for confrontation. Tayiji called Badku-who indeed was wearing a pink shirt! As he appeared on the scene-Sangeeta Aunty immediately held him by the collar-and turned to Rekha- "yehi tha na?" Rekha nodded convincingly.
Slllllaaaaap!
Our dining table shook, along with me!!
She hit Badku across the face with the force of a lightening bolt, my fragile "Aunty...naii" was lost in the commotion that followed! She hit him again! And threateningly asked him, "tu hi tha na? bol de varna mein nahi chodungi?" I gathered up enough courage to hold Aunty by the arm and beg her to let me ask. Badku was red in the face. I told him what Rekha had seen on the terrace. And I asked him, very calmly, if he had done it and that he needn’t be afraid. He said no.
Meanwhile my elder Brother had appeared on the scene. He came and questioned Badku politely but sternly. Every eye was digging at Badku now. Aunty in a fit of anger, pulled Arut Bhaiyya aside, narrated the whole story again and to Arut Bhaiyya's great embarrassment-revealed the torn bra to him!
Aunty went up to Badku again-puzzlingly calm and composed-asked him again to tell the truth since he had no other way out-and Badku finally admitted to his crime-but he was adamant he had only gone their today and he hadnt been doing this since 4 months!
The moment he confessed-aunty's transformation was quick as a cat! She hit him ferociously across the face--tearing his pink t-shirt apart with her bare hands in an act of barbarity-saying -Didnt you do the same to my clothes!!
Then followed a third-degree police investigation-
Why did you do it?
Did you have any enmity with me or my daughters?
Did anybody pay you?
What time did you come to my terrace?
Who else was involved?
Was Sunny involved too?
Are you mad?
Earlier you used to tear suits and shirts and bedsheets?what made you tear my undergarment today?
What was going on in your mind when you tore the bra?
Each question accompanied a slap or a demented hair-pulling - answered by silence from Badkus side.
It was a pain for us to see Badku being treated like a lowly criminal. Aunty was merciless. Badku had confessed, I agree, but I still couldnt swallow this frantic bombardment on him by Aunty.
I begged her to stop hitting him. She turned to me. "Do you have any idea what this means? Today he tore up my bra Hina! what must he have been thinking! He had some brainwave, Im telling you! I cant even say what i am suggesting here! Tu samajh rahi hai na?" then turning to Tayiji, "I cannot allow him to stay here..a young girl is living in the house-He will go to the police!God knows what is going on in his filthy mind…or what could he have been planning next…"
Frankly I couldnt see the hype she was attaching to her undergarment. It was as if he had symbolically attacked her sexuality. Her anger was understandable and very natural but to hand-wave logic and rationality like this was ridiculous! It didnt seem to me that he had picked on it intentionally or in a fit of sexual excitement.He was what..15!
Aashima,(a tenth standard kid..as old as Badku i guess) who was constantly slipping in a line or two here and there in the entire episode- finally said with a maturity of an 80 year-old lady-"Didi, there is something wrong with him! Yeh mental case hai! He is a psycho!"
I was at a loss for words. Tayiji kept telling Aunty that Badku has never done anything even remotely close to this..and thay she still cant believe this! I added, trying to regain lost ground, that he is certainly not mad. He has never so much as looked at me in a nasty way! I have been teaching him for god's sake!-he is like a kid to me! He has never shown any dubious signs..his demeanour has been as normal as could be! He has worked for 4 years with us and nothing ever felt out of place!
But nothing would calm the frenzy that Aunty was! She asked Badku to bring the ‘weapon’ he used to shred the clothes…As Badku went up to the chatt…I called Sunny who was crying in the kitchen. All he knew was that his brother was being beaten. I asked him if he knew anything about this and he said no..and I could see him shivering.
My younger brother, Annie and I then followed Badku to the chatt. I asked him again to just tell me what made him do it. Even Annie was very polite but Badku would not concede. It wasn’t as if he was being adamant. I felt he just didn’t know what to say or what was happening or even why he did it. He only knew that he did it.
He picked up a broken blade and took it downstairs to Aunty. But Aunty held him by the torn collar of his t-shirt and shook him hard, saying she was unconvinced that such a blade could make those cuts. She took the blade from his hands and bought it close to his cheeks and threatened she would cut them like he cut her clothes.
I, standing at the head of the sofa where she was sitting now..with Badku kneeling at her feet -happened to think of this incident in Bihar where a pick-pocket, on being caught red-handed, was tied behind a motorcycle –and was dragged around the city-after having one side of his hair shaved off and mercilessly beaten by an angry mob!
Justice and Revenge-was the line that divided the two getting thinner in today’s sentimental, unforgiving and over-sensitive society?
I pushed the image back into my mind and begged Aunty to not exert herself-and thus kill the kid. What made Aunty furious was that Badku wasn’t crying or begging to be forgiven…he just sat there with unblinking eyes, bowed head, and braved the blows, trembling slightly which was being translated into his shamelessness. I was beginning to get impatient and angry at his silence, too.
Arut bhaiya and Tayiji were intimidating him with the anticipation of what my Dad would do to him if he finds out-my Dad, known for his short-temper and less active but heavy-hand! It was apparent that it had the desired effect on Badku but he still couldn’t figure out what to say.
Eventually, Aunty had to leave since Mom and Dad weren’t coming anytime soon. Thank god for that! Tayiji and I talked her into allowing Mom to tell Dad about the incident herself.Aunty left along with her paraphernalia.
After Mom arrived, I sneaked her out of our floor and took her upstairs narrating the tempest that had just passed. Then arrived my eldest brother, Atul Bhaiya…both of them gave this weird, uncomprehending look…which followed the interrogating “WHAT??!”
We planned not to tell Dad that night. Mom decided to call Badku’s elder married sister who lived nearby to take him to their jhugghi and talk to Badku privately…Mom and Atul bhaiya also made vain efforts to talk to him but to no avail. All that he uttered to why he did it was, “Pata nahi...” or “Aise hi…”
On speaking with sunny and Badku’s sister, we found that Badku used to have epileptic fits when he was in his village in Bihar. We then decided it could be some…err… psychological malfunctioning. Mom thought it was unfit for him to stay with us any longer since the issue would’ve spread like wild fire in the neighbourhood by now. And considering that Badku could prove detrimental to the neighbours was a matter of contention. We were sure he wasn’t dangerous to us but we could not risk any further activity in the similar vein to befall on anyone else. What everyone in our family agreed to was that he wasn’t a ‘maniac’ or a ‘mental case’ with preposterous sexual fantasies or manifestations or that he had Rape on his mind!
Yes, there was something wrong and Mom decided to consult a psychologist. But the question whether Badku could continue working at our place loomed large. And of course Dad would decide that the next morning.
I was in college. And when I came back I was relieved to know that Badku would be continuing with us and that Dad had been equally puzzled at his actions and had not skinned him alive…(phew)...only a slap…which I was proud to know he didn’t wish to register on the already shaken child’s cheek…but thought it necessary in order for Badku to keep fearing Someone in the house so that he wont do it again!
Sangeeta Aunty settled for 3 months of Badku’s income to be given to her as retribution for her loss. And Mom’s calm reassurance discouraged her to not report Badku to the police.
Badku is still working here. Things are back to square one. Initially, he found it hard to meet our eyes and would silently carry out his chores for the day without so much as looking at anyone. He wore an apologetic and sad expression for several days on end. I also felt an awkwardness seep in between us and was trying to avoid him so as not to make him feel uncomfortable after Sangeeta Aunty’s subtle ‘suggestions’ of what must the mental case have been anticipating with regard to an impending doom on me!
My grandma used to narrate me this story of Gautam Buddha and Angulimaal. The latter being a famous dacoit and murderer whom the former was bent on transforming. Buddha walked into his den one fine day and unperturbed by Angulimaal’s threats to kill him-showed faith in him and his potential for good which totally touched the murderer thus transforming him into a good man. I remember I used to love that story…
I know Badku is no mass murderer, neither do I claim to be any large-hearted ascetic-but the point that I wish to make is that love and forgiveness have transforming qualities. While separatism and prejudices can only unleash Pandora’s Box and the possible evil in us all!As much theological as it may sound-it rings true to me!
I cant help but wonder what effect would it have had on Badku had we sent him back to his village in Bihar or worse still to the police.
The other day, I was making Maggie in the kitchen-and had sent Badku to fetch those finger-like namkeens that we eat with our tea…For reasons beyond me, I have grown up calling them ‘mattar’ and so does everyone else in our family. I remember telling him clearly, “Chai wale matter lana ok?”
And not so surprisingly, the chap returned from the market with a pack of green peas (mattar)! I looked from the pack to Badku and he looked from the pack to me, knowing he’d bought the wrong item…
That inconsequential moment in the kitchen sort of liberated us both-and we just laughed!
After the humiliation and trauma that followed -over something that he probably didn’t have any control over.... I could see Badku was slowly getting back to like he used to be as he retreated with the peas in his hand, scratching the back of his head confusedly-and went to the vegetable market to return them.
That was the first time when I said to myself-“what a mental case!”
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