Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,31
a lie though. Only, instead of money, she got the certificate that Ma has now put in the bundle by the door, and a gold-plated medal that Ma traded for a two-liter bottle of sunflower oil. Runu-Didi cried for many nights afterward about the medal, and that’s why Ma got her certificate framed.
“Jai, listen,” Pari says, “we should cut class today and take the Purple Line.”
“What?” I say. “You want to cut class?” I don’t think Pari has ever missed a day of school.
“A djinn has got into her, looks like,” Faiz says.
“Shut up,” Pari says, pinching Faiz’s arm.
“What about your ticket-money?” I ask Pari. I wonder if she has guessed the exact amount I stole.
“We have no time to lose,” she says. “Maybe this was their plan all along—Bahadur goes to the city station first, then Omvir. By now Omvir must have got there too.” She speaks hurriedly, swallowing a few letters so that her words can come out faster. “Maybe Drunkard Laloo beat Bahadur too much this time and Bahadur decided he couldn’t stay in our basti for a day more.”
“But the ticket—”
“Faiz is helping us investigate,” Pari says.
Faiz frowns a big frown. “I’m not,” he says.
“I saw Faiz at the toilet complex this morning,” Pari says. “He said he’ll give us the money for the metro tickets. You said that, didn’t you, Faiz?”
“Maybe.”
“What maybe, idiot?” She looks at me. “He came to the chole-bhature alley with 120 rupees in his pocket. That should be enough, no, for one person to get to the city railway station and back.”
“That’s a lot of money,” I say.
“It’s pricey because we live too far from the city. Also, we don’t get a discount on the metro.”
I know that already. Papa told me a long time ago that only those under three feet can travel free on the metro.
“I was thinking I’ll go alone to the city station, but your didi has given you money, so we can both go,” Pari says.
“Assistants can’t do detective work on their own,” I say.
“Stop fighting,” Faiz says, leaping over a dog’s No. 2 on the ground.
“Why are you giving away your money?” I ask him. “How will you buy your fancy shampoo and soap now?”
“I don’t need it,” Faiz says. “I have got a natural good smell, not like you. Want to check?”
“Never.”
“I’ll return the money to you,” Pari tells Faiz.
“How?” I ask.
Pari has no answer.
Faiz is right, she’s behaving strangely. She never breaks rules and always does whatever grown-ups ask her to do, even when it’s something silly; like she pinches her nose for a minute at night because her ma wants her to. Her ma says Pari’s nose is too big, and pinching will make it small and narrow. Pari says it’s nonsense but does it anyway.
We reach the queues at the school gate. A man wearing a crumpled white cotton shirt and an equally creased pair of khaki trousers stumbles up and down the lines, clutching a photo that he holds in front of each one of our faces. “Have you seen my son? Have you?” he asks, urgently, his voice hoarse as if he has been screaming for hours. “Omvir, you know him?”
It’s the press-wallah.
I try to look at Omvir’s photo but the press-wallah’s hands are shaking, and I see only a splotch of blue and brown. Before I can ask him to hold it steady, he drifts away to speak to someone else.
“He’s a goner,” Faiz whispers. The press-wallah does seem to be shrinking with every step he takes.
“We have to do something to end this,” Pari says. “Haan, Jai?”
“Let’s talk to Omvir’s classmates first,” I say, mostly because I’m afraid to spend Ma’s money. “Maybe he told them where he was going. That’s the right way to do detective work.”
I look at the press-wallah, I think about Ma’s what-if rupees that I have rolled into my geometry box. There’s a lump in my throat I can’t shift by coughing.
* * *
Omvir’s classmates don’t see much of him because he’s hardly ever at school. Pari brings out a notebook and writes down what they tell us. I steal a look at her case notes, which are full of question marks:
dancer?
Hrithik?
Juhu? Mumbai?
Boogie-Woogie Kids?
Boogie-Woogie Kids is a dance contest on TV, but Omvir doesn’t have to go to Mumbai to audition for it. They hold auditions everywhere, even in the one-mall towns near Nana-Nani’s village.
Omvir’s classmates say his disappearance is the best thing ever.