whatever chachi asks him to do: cooks for her, washes her underskirts, and hangs them out to dry even when the whole lane is watching him. As a midwife, chachi makes loads more money than her husband too, even though he has two jobs.
I see Buffalo-Baba in his usual spot in the middle of a lane, and a policeman in a khaki uniform. Watching the cop are Fatima-ben, worried perhaps that the policeman will do something bad to her buffalo, grandpas with their hands folded across their chests, mothers with babies on their hips, children who don’t go to school so that they can do embroidery or snack-making work at home, and Bahadur’s ma and Drunkard Laloo even though they don’t live on this lane.
I edge closer, ducking under clotheslines heavy with wet shirts and saris, their hems brushing against my hair. Just two houses away from where everyone is standing is a black water barrel by a closed door. It’s the perfect hiding place. I put my school bag down, crouch behind the barrel, and make my breathing shallow so that no one can hear me. Then I peek out with one eye.
The policeman prods Buffalo-Baba with his shoes and asks Drunkard Laloo, “So it’s true? This animal never gets up? How does it eat?”
Maybe this policeman thinks Buffalo-Baba is hiding Bahadur under his dungy backside.
A second policeman steps out of a house. He’s wearing a khaki shirt that has red arm-badges shaped like arrowheads pointing down.
Only senior constables wear such badges. I know because last month I saw a Live Crime episode about a crook who fooled people by putting on a senior constable’s uniform. The fake cop even went to the police barracks in Jaipur to drink tea with the real cops there and left with their wallets.
“Making friendship with a buffalo? Good, good,” the senior constable says to the policeman whose khaki uniform doesn’t have any badges stitched to the sleeves, which means he’s only a junior. Then the senior steps over Buffalo-Baba’s tail to stand in front of Bahadur’s ma.
“Your boy, he has a problem, is what I have come to understand,” the senior says. “He’s slow-brained, isn’t he?”
“My son is a good student,” Bahadur’s ma says. Her voice is raspy from crying and shouting but it’s got a red glow to it because it’s smoldering with anger. “You ask at his school, they’ll tell you. He has a little problem speaking, but the teachers say he’s getting better.”
The senior constable purses his lips and breathes air into Bahadur’s ma’s face. She doesn’t even wince.
“In my opinion,” the junior constable says, “the best thing to do is wait for a few days. I have seen many such cases. These children run away because they want to be free, then they come running right back because they realize freedom doesn’t fill their stomachs.”
“Although,” the senior says, “it appears your husband…now…how can I put it”—he glances at Drunkard Laloo, who hangs his head—“was violent with your son?”
A scratchy silence fills the lane, broken by the clucks of hens that have escaped from clumsily bolted wire cages and the bleats of a goat from inside a house.
No one in our basti wants Drunkard Laloo to end up in prison. But we shouldn’t lie because the senior constable is smart. I can tell because he’s young like a college student and already a senior, and he’s asking questions exactly like the good-cop types on TV. He doesn’t want our money. His only mission is to put bad guys behind bars.
“Saab, once or twice who doesn’t beat their children, haan, saab?” a man standing near Drunkard Laloo answers for him. “That doesn’t mean they should run away. Our children are more intelligent than we are. They know we want the best for them.”
The senior constable studies the man’s face and the man laughs nervously and looks elsewhere, at the silvery insides of empty namkeen packets on the ground and the small children trying to shake off their mothers’ hands holding them back.
Drunkard Laloo opens his mouth. No words come out. Then he shivers as if a current from the earth is shooting up through his legs and hands.
Pari and Faiz won’t believe me when I tell them what I’m seeing now. The best thing is that my grey uniform is good camouflage in the smog.
“You,” the senior constable shouts, pointing at me. “Come here right now.”
My head slams against the barrel as I hunch down quickly but I