I wake up with a jolt as the bulky jeep screeches to a
stop. Bhuto gestures at me to wait while he hurries out, slamming the door
shut. I yawn, and try to stretch out my arms, but grimace to grab my shoulder
instead. A sharp shooting pain is knotting up in my neck. Cursing Bhuto for
choosing the bumpiest of all roads, I try to massage out the discomfort.
Bhuto is back soon with hot tea in a clay pot
accompanied by toasted bread and questionable butter on a steel plate. He
smiles at me revealing his stained buck-teeth. A stench from his unwashed mouth
fills the air inside the jeep. I pass him a gum and proceed to get out.
“It’s not safe, babu,” protests Bhuto and extends his
hands to block my way.
“Shut up,” I say and slap away his arms.
I sit down on a tree stub to have my breakfast while
Bhuto, with his huge frame, tries to block me from view. Two men are visible at
the eatery across the street but their worried faces seem to be enveloped by
whatever issues fate has chosen to hurl at them. But Bhuto imagines that they
might want to keep an eye on me.
The food would have tasted good actually, had it not
been for the scratchy, fake moustache that Bhuto has pasted onto my upper lip.
I look angrily at Bhuto. He looks back at me with devotion.
“How much longer?” I ask after placing the empty plate
down.
“Two hours, at the most,” he promises as he opens the
door of the jeep for me. I peel off the moustache, hand it to Bhuto and enter
the jeep.
He tries to object but stops when I pull down my oversized
cap to cover the most of my face. He seems to be more bothered than me about concealing
my identity. But honestly, I also do not wish to be recognized or photographed
in this part of the country.
Bhuto runs to return the plate to the shopkeeper. He comes
back quickly after paying the bill and gets in behind the wheel.
Soon the jeep roars ahead over the rugged terrain and I
drift back into the past instinctively.
Bhuto was only five when I had rescued him from his
native village. His father had left after selling his unwed mother to an oil baron
located in the middle east. Hapless Bhuto was at the mercy of the villagers
when I took him under my wings. I stationed him at the safe house I owned in
Ratanpur. In due course of time, he grew up to be a fiercely faithful henchman.
When he seemed to be ready, I handed over the charge of the safe house to
Bhuto. I was giving him the gift of freedom and power. But the wastrel still cried
his eyes out when I drove out of Ratanpur for the last time. He knew I would
not bother to keep in touch. It would be too risky. That was more than two
decades ago.
And, in the last week, when I was recuperating in the
deepest emotional abyss of my life, Bhuto decided to call me and urge me to
meet him. I was about to disconnect the call when he said that it was about Hiya.
Immediately I prodded him for more information. But he insisted that the phone lines
might be tapped and it would be dangerous for him to divulge more. So, I had to
meet Bhuto again.
Hiya is my daughter, whose charred remains I have
cremated in the last month. She had gone on an excursion with her friends from
college. The cursed bus had toppled off the road, catching fire and killing all
the children.
My vision haze at her thoughts and I quietly wipe off
the accumulating tears. If Bhuto sees me crying he will begin a litany of
insufferable consolations. I look out and try to marvel at the beauty of
nature, instead.
Tall trees with scanty leaves whizz past our jeep. The
red soil starts to look alive as the glow of the morning sun begins to brighten.
The place is notably warmer than I remember it to be. The trees are fewer too.
I wonder if there is truly a correlation between the two. My idle thoughts and
the simple scenery could have combined to form a neutral experience for me but
my memories would not leave me alone. They are rushing in incessantly to meddle
with my present.
I used to come here often along these same roads. My
wife Pramila had no idea about my dealings in Ratanpur. She has always been the
typical good wife, dutiful and silent, just the way I had wanted her to be. She
happily bore me four wonderful sons, never questioned my decisions and accepted
my sovereignty over her body. In return, I loved her dearly. That is why I had
to visit the safe house to satiate most of my carnal fetishes. They were too disgraceful
to do with Pramila.
When my wife was pregnant with our fifth child Hiya I
decided to let her have the baby even after we found out the gender. The trend
of flaunting daughters was on the rise among the powerful. Having a daughter
could boost my public image.
I was quite shocked when Hiya was born. She had
inherited my facial features and her mother’s porcelain complexion. Looking at
her beautiful face I realized that I too had the potential to qualify as a
handsome man; it was just my pitch dark skin that had stood in the way for all
these years. Since then my baby girl took up a place in my heart that I had
never known to exist.
Incidentally, it was soon after Hiya’s birth that I
had distanced myself from the operations of the safe house in Ratanpur. Earlier,
I used the safe house sometimes to hold secret meetings with my guests from the
business world. Countless deals were sealed there which went on to pave the way
to my steady rise. The meetings would usually be followed by a night of
debauchery and merry-making. But with political ambitions in sight, I needed to
be more discreet. My new connections chose to hold conferences at other safer
places. And with the generous growth in my net worth, aspiring models were more
than willing to take care of my sexual needs. I had simply outgrown the amenities
of the safe house. However, I could not just dispose of the women who
entertained there. Also, there were clients who had grown into the habit of
visiting the place. That is when I promoted Bhuto to manage the safe house and
cut the Ratanpur episode off from my life.
And now, here I am, travelling with Bhuto to Ratanpur,
praying desperately to see my only daughter saved by some miracle. But, as I
travel deeper into the hinterlands, my hopes begin to dwindle alarmingly. There
are things far more sinister than death itself, that could have befallen Hiya. I
can no longer push away that menacing trail of thought. I clutch my hair with
both my hands and feel like tearing them all out.
“Stop the jeep,” I growl.
Startled, Bhuto thumps down on the accelerator and I
almost get thrown out of the seat. I yell curses at him.
Bhuto tries to calm me down.
“What exactly has happened to Hiya? Is she dead or
alive? What did you do to her?” I ask him fast. “I can’t wait any longer. Tell
me now.”
“Babu, I only tried to help her,” Bhuto says. With his
six footer frame of all muscles, the idiot still trembles at my yells.
“We are very close to the safe house now.”
He points his thick and calloused finger at what seems
to be a dead end. In a flash, I remember the illusion that hid the safe house
from clear view. I nod and try to pacify my racing heart. The jeep rolls on at
a slower pace for a while, before turning right sharply to get into an unseen
alley. The jeep twists its way for another minute to lead to a clearing. Right
in the middle of it is the safe house. It looks bigger somehow. Bhuto has
gotten it painted in absurd shades of red and blue. But I have no time to give
him the earful he deserves. I run wildly to get inside.
All the windows on the wall facing me are open and I
begin to peek in through them one by one. It is through the third window that I
spot her. She is sitting with her back to the window. Her head is drooping
towards the front, covered by her cupped hands. Is she crying? Two raw, red
wounds sprawl across the fair skin on her exposed back.
Scenes from the past begin to flash back rapidly, of
me and others disrobing the unwilling girls, to reveal their firm, young
bodies.
My blood begins to boil as I see Hiya seated there. I
turn around and find Bhuto right behind me. I slap him hard on the cheek. It probably
did not hurt him one bit but he takes a step back.
“After all that I have done for you,” I say. “You
couldn’t even protect my only daughter?”
I take two steps ahead and push Bhuto hard on the
chest with my hands. He starts to chatter something in defence. I have no wish
to listen to his explanations. I start to punch him recklessly.
This is when Hiya and the other inmates run out to
investigate the source of the commotion.
“Baba,” exclaims Hiya. “I can’t believe you kept all
this a secret for so many years.”
My daughter is now standing in front of me. She is
alive. But she looks weak, drained. I shudder as I think of the possibilities
that she had to endure in the last few weeks.
Meanwhile, sensing the distraction, Bhuto has moved a
few feet away from me. The clout knows that he is stronger than me and yet
makes a big show of being afraid.
I glare at him.
“Baba, stop being angry with Bhuto,” urges Hiya. “From
now on, I accept him as my dearest brother. You should happily accept that too.”
I feel like someone has punched my guts out. Bhuto has
chosen to betray my faith in the worst possible way.
Yes, I had sired him a long time ago. Yes, I had sold
his mother off. But I did repent my actions. I made sure that he got a
comfortable life with sufficient power.
I was the one to give Bhuto a life. And today he is
trying to take mine away.
I guess he has put in a lot of effort to trace his
father. When it turned out to be me, he got greedy. I slip my hand into my
right pocket and place my fingers firmly around my pistol. He needs to learn one
final lesson.
“You shouldn’t have revealed my shady past to my
daughter,” I mutter. “It doesn’t matter that I fathered you. You’ll always be
the son of a whore.”
Before I can take out the gun and shoot Bhuto, Hiya lets
out a piercing scream. She always does that to get my attention.
“Baba?” she sounds hurt. “What’s going on here?”
“Babu…babu-” Bhuto stammers.
I notice that it sounds very similar to “baba”. It
fills me with disgust.
“Tell me all that you know,” Hiya commands Bhuto.
Scared, I observe his countenance. It looks all
muddled. Did I just leak my own secret? Did he not find things out?
“I only know that my father pushed my mother into
prostitution,” he mumbles as he stares hard at the ground. “And then he
abandoned me.”
“Don’t talk to Bhuto,”
I warn my daughter. “He runs a covert racquet that deals with human trafficking,
drugs and what-nots!”
“No, baba,” she speaks firmly. “He runs a facility
where he puts up the people he saves. When our bus caught on fire, I was thrown
out through a broken window. And I lay on the ground for hours, unconscious. My
back was badly burnt and there were bruises all over me. Some local goons on
finding me had decided to quietly sell me off at a port. That’s where Bhuto
appeared like a messiah and intervened. He brought me to this shelter and put
me under care.”
“It’s not a shelter,” I shout out. “It’s a brothel.”
“No, it isn’t.”
This time it is the inmates replying in chorus. Some
begin to narrate tales of how they have been saved by Bhuto to be
rehabilitated.
I turn towards
Bhuto. In my pocket, my fore-finger is still placed on the trigger. Bhuto is looking
away.
“And, what were you talking about, baba?” asks Hiya. “What
shady past? Are you really his father? Tell me the truth!”
Her voice is now laced with acid. I have no answer to
her questions.
“He meant that he has always been like a father to
me,” says Bhuto in a small voice. “And, in the past, he had helped me to escape
from the police by erasing my criminal records. Maybe, babu thinks I am still
the same man.”
Hiya looks relieved with the explanation.
“Baba, you’re being really rude to Bhuto,” she
preaches to me. “He is a saviour now, forget the past.”
I keep staring at Bhuto who refuses to look me in the
eye.
“Bhuto?” I ask, my voice much softer. “So this place
is no longer what it used to be?”
“Nothing is no longer what it used to be,” replies
Bhuto. When he finally looks up his gaze has changed. The devotion that I have been
so used to is suddenly gone.
Come on, go ahead and hug him. Tell him that
you are proud. Tell him that you are sorry.
My conscience screams out to me.
I know I cannot do that. Why can I not? Why is there a
weight heaving down on my bosom? I do not know.
Maybe, my maker has all the answers.
So, I wrench out the pistol, lodge the nozzle between
my teeth and pull the trigger.
