When Guddu the constable swings his lathi[1], he imagines revenge against his violent, merciless father. In his hands, it becomes more than a four-foot piece of bamboo. It is a brush with which he paints a mural of retribution. Oiled before every use, the lathi splinters wrists, shatters shins, opens skulls, bruises backs and bellies. It slashes and swings day after day, Guddu dancing to its rhythm.
He does not see the students, workers, farmers or teachers who come in his path. His mind’s eye replaces them with the long-dead man who raised him back in the village. That man screams and begs for mercy, running from blows across the courtyard, in narrow alleys and wide city streets. Some days, his skull cracks and he dies, and Guddu sleeps better for it. His duty is done.
When Raja’s scooter sputters into the narrow bylanes where his enemies live, he closes his mind to the choking engine, the stench of open drains and the squalor that is much the same as his part of town. His duty is greater: revenge against the progeny of invaders who desecrated and looted his great land, Sonchiriya[2], the Golden Bird.
Every riot is a new game, with new tools. Sometimes Raja cuts them down with swords, on other days he drives daggers through their hearts. But he lives for the petrol bombs. Nothing pleases him more than watching the flames roar through their homes and their shops, melting the signboards bearing their profane names. Through it all, his mind conjures visions of mediaeval domes and towers crashing to the ground, the glory of his own people rising again.
Somewhere between Guddu’s beat and Raja’s route there is a wall with a small hole in the bottom. Behind that wall lives a cat. She hides from dogs, vehicles and thrown projectiles, coming out only when Sunny walks past.
Sunny likes the ginger tabby. He walks past her spot every day, and always has a present. A piece of fish. Some milk. Occasionally, a dead mouse. Sunny is kinder than Guddu, who swings his lathi at the poor animal, and Raja, who always has something to throw at her. He then walks to the other end of the street, bringing food to a group of elderly parents who have spent decades protesting for their missing children.
When he was making his first memories, Sunny saw his family look the other way when a mob dragged a neighbour out and killed him. Thirty years later, he makes it his duty to never look the other way.
This morning is different. The cat pokes her head out of the wall at the appointed time, but Sunny isn’t there, nor are his gifts. The acrid smell of burning tyres and plastic wafts in from the end of the street. Shouts and screams have not allowed her to sleep all morning. She wonders what keeps Sunny away, and if he will come.
Sunny has every intention of making his appointment. He has stayed at the protest overnight, fearing a mob attack. The mob comes as promised, and the protestors flee for their lives, seeking refuge with the police. The police see things differently. They’ve picked a side, and it isn’t the one sandwiched between them and the mob.
On the frontlines, Guddu’slathi prepares to sing. His mind’s eye can already see his father begging for mercy, and the lathi picks Sunny to exact this day’s revenge.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The bamboo sings and catches Sunny on the arm, thigh and head. Blood streaming down his face, he stumbles back towards the attacking mob.
As the police pushes the protestors back, Raja imagines a vast field of battle, armies massed on both sides, noble patriots charging hard into the ranks of the vile invader. Sunny stumbles into his field of vision.
“A mighty general!”, Raja thinks. He is glad today is sword day.
He does his duty. A body falls. Crimson blood soaks cat treats wrapped in a brown paper bag. A few hundred yards away, the cat stops waiting and retreats into the safety of the wall.
[1] A policeman’s baton
[2] Literally, golden bird. A reference to a mythical Indian golden age
