Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,110

caretaker for this flat, someone suggested his name to her. Hiring him was her only mistake. She regrets it deeply. Now, madam is being generous enough to allow me inside without a warrant. We’re going to check everything thoroughly. We request your cooperation. If we find something, we will let you know immediately.”

The too-long speech has made everyone restless. Murmurs rustle through the crowd, spin and gather weight, turn into shouts.

“No,” someone says, raising their fist.

“We have to see with our own eyes if that monster has tied up my daughter inside,” Papa says. He’s standing near the watchmen’s office by the entry gate.

Aanchal’s papa and the press-wallah and Drunkard Laloo and Kabir-Khadifa’s abbu agree and, in voices as loud as Papa’s, they ask to be let in. The constables help the inspector get down from the chair. He makes a call on his mobile. Then he announces that madam is a generous and kind woman, but she cannot have riff-raff rooting through her flat that costs five to ten crores. “Let us do our work,” he says. “Please, just wait here.”

“How many zeroes in ten crores?” Faiz asks Pari as the inspector and constables go inside the gates.

“Eight,” she says. She doesn’t have to count on her fingers.

The gash in my palm stings. I stand away from everyone, tears running down my cheeks. I feel all alone. Even Bahadur’s brother and sister have each other.

“As expected, madam’s house was empty,” the inspector says when he comes out.

“Where’s my Runu?” Ma shouts.

“Where’s Chandni?” Chandni’s ma asks.

Other people pick up her words and our words and throw them at the inspector: “Chandni-Runu, Aanchal-Omvir, Bahadur-Kabir-Khadifa, where are they, where are they?”

“They aren’t here,” the inspector says. “I suggest you disperse now, otherwise we’ll be forced to take strict action.”

“You have done nothing for us,” Omvir’s press-wallah papa shouts. “Nothing. You never looked for our children.”

“None of this would have happened if you had listened,” Aanchal’s papa says.

“Listened,” Drunkard Laloo repeats.

I hear something breaking. A stone has cracked the headlight of a police jeep. Who threw it? A twig zigzags through the air and my eyes follow it until it knocks the khaki cap off the police inspector’s head. People throw whatever they can at the police, the watchmen, and into the balconies of the flats.

One stone hits a watchman’s forehead and blood flows out like water from a wide-open tap. The other watchmen puff up their cheeks and blow into the whistles they wear around their necks. There’s loads of pushing and elbowing and scrambling. Pari and I and Faiz are getting smushed like atta. Ma’s hands grip my fingers tightly. I can’t see Papa.

People kick down the cages around plants, break off branches and, shaking them like spears, approach the watchmen. The policemen swing their batons. We push past them and, because there are so many of us, they can’t stop us. We jump over the barriers, we enter the watchmen’s offices, we throw the gates open. We run in, Ma and Pari’s ma and Pari and Faiz and Wajid-Bhai and me. I don’t even know what we are going to do.

“Runu must be here,” Ma says.

“We will turn their tower to dust,” someone shouts.

I hear sirens, screams, batons smacking flesh, hands clapping, and people crying, pressing their mufflers or monkey caps or mask-kerchiefs against bleeding heads and arms and legs. Flocks of hi-fi people hop around their balconies, shooting us with their phones. Through the glass doors that lead into Golden Gate’s entrance room, I see a group of women from our basti who must work in the building.

A golden light hangs from the ceiling, and two gold-and-white fans spin on either side of it. The floor is white and shiny like a mirror. Tall plants curl out of white pots in the corners, and their leaves are a rich shade of green I have never seen before, not even on the trees in Nana-Nani’s or Dada-Dadi’s village.

“Gita, Radha,” Ma shouts.

“Meera,” Chandni’s ma hollers.

The basti-women who work at Golden Gate push open the glass doors that don’t have a single smudge on them. They tell us many things at the same time:

“Something strange has been going on in the top-floor flat the past few months.”

“Ever since that madam bought the flat. Six or seven months now.”

“A guard said the top-floor flat gets deliveries even late at night. Past midnight even.”

“Varun said it was new furniture, he said the owner was putting in shelves, counters in the kitchen.