The Small-timers

CW: Language, violence

They had an inkling something was not right when the bundle didn’t bleat. But it was dark and they were a bit drunk. And desperate. Now, under a lush tamarind tree close to the hills and far from the village, they were jolted into sobriety and daylight by the tiny human in the bundle.

Rarely in their career spanning 10 years did they commit such blunders. They had occasionally bagged an earthen pot mistaking it to be an ash gourd or heaved a sackful of cow dung cakes believing them to be potatoes. But carrying a human kid in place of a goat! It was a first.

They never went back into the same village once they had pulled a heist. At least not for a year. It was against their principles. Now, it looked like they had to go back the very next day. Byra hissed at Manju.

“All you had to do was bundle up one goat. And you bring this?”

“Yes, easy for you to say… I was the one risking my neck by going into the barn.” Manju sneered right back.

“Ah! is it so? Wasn’t I watching out for you, standing outside? you moron! If anyone had seen, I would have been thrashed first.”

“No, I would have been!”

“Oye, shut up, I would have been. And that’s final…I can’t believe we are arguing over this!” Byra threw his fists in the air.

The shirtless boy with curly hair pressed his hands on his ears. The men stopped.

Manju untied his turban, wrung it, and whipped it at Byra.

Byra caught the loose end, pulled it, and let go with a chuckle. Manju’s back eased and he let out a sigh. Their eyes met and held for a moment. They were more than partners in crime. They were travel buddies, brothers in arms, and each other’s guardians. They just had to return this boy to his guardians. Then they could cut their losses and move on.

Byra moved closer to the little boy. The boy stood up and stared at the masked men. He was not scared of them. He had already seen their faces in the moonlight when they were sleeping like logs.

“Hey, little one, what is your name? Where are you from? Why were you sleeping in the barn?”

The boy opened his mouth, brought his hand to it, and wriggled it.

Muted, the men stared at each other.

***

They walked for two hours. Through the jowar fields, lantana bushes, and on the mud road. They stopped at a shack by the roadside that sold tea and idlis. The old man and his wife at the ramshackle shop looked at the shirtless boy curiously. And the men with suspicion.

“Who is that boy?” The old man prodded as he handed out steaming idlis with coconut chutney on the side.

“Eh… my nephew,” Manju mumbled.

The two men and the boy sat down on the rickety chairs and devoured the snacks on the plates made of plantain leaves.

“Where are you all going to?” the wife in an Ilkal saree that must have been maroon many moons ago enquired, with her nose crinkled.

“Er… to the village fair in Atapur.” Manju rattled off regretting going back to the counter to ask for extra chutney.

 “Why are you covering your face?” The old man peered closer to his face. Manju felt hot and suffocated all of a sudden.

Byra came to his rescue. He flashed a 50 rupee note in front of the old man’s face and said,

“The roads are so bad. Dust allergy. How much?”

They hitch-hiked to the village they had run from, partially covering the boy’s face and pulling monkey caps down their faces.

“Are you feeling cold only on your face?” The farmer guffawed before giving them a lift. He clucked and pulled the reins of his cart, sending the bullocks running on the mud road. The two men and the boy settled at the other end dangling their spindly legs. They jumped up and down as the wheels waddled on mounds of dirt and stones. The sharp endings of the sugarcane load poked their ribs.

 The men sweated under the sun and swore under their breath. They were lucky to get a ride from an outsider. A local would have immediately identified the missing boy and raised an alarm.

***

They got down from the cart when the thatched roofs on the lime-smeared mud structures reared their heads beyond the fields on the horizon. They hoped to leave the boy behind on the cart. But the boy jumped out of the cart with them like a toad. They consoled themselves saying it would have been too suspicious anyway. They decided to wait till dusk to venture near the village.

They trudged a bit off the road. Stopped near a peepal tree.

“I am tired. Let’s rest for a while,” Manju removed his cap and fanned his reddened face with it. Then he took out a beedi from behind his ear.

“Oye! little one, look. There… your village. Why don’t you walk away?” Byra nudged the boy.

The boy didn’t look eager to get back to the village. Strangely, he seemed to be at ease in the company of two strangers.

“Yes, why don’t you?” Manju blew the words along with smoke rings and passed the beedi to Byra.

The boy quietly moved closer to the tree trunk, curled up on the ground, and shivered. Exasperated, the two men covered him with a blanket and waited for the sunset.

Through the smoke rings, Byra saw a police jeep leaving a tunnel of dust behind it on the road. Before he could throw away the beedi and scoot, it sped right down the road and came to a stop in front of the peepal tree.

***

“Since when have you started doing this?” the question followed a stinging slap on Byra’s face. A ceiling fan wheezed above.

He tried to steady himself. The walls of the Avalahalli Police station circled him.

“Doing what Sir?”

The sub-inspector with a bald head and handlebar moustache raised his baton and spat.

“Are we playing games here? Bastard… why did you kidnap the boy?”

“I didn’t sir…it was…an accident,” Thwack. The baton came down. The pain shot up from the calf.

“Useless oafs, getting too big for your chappals! Stealing petty things is no longer enough for you…huh. You had to kidnap the village head’s son!”

Village head’s son? Why was he sleeping in the barn?

Gandhiji smiled from the photograph on the wall.

“Say something, scoundrel! Wait…” the sub-inspector turned to Manju. “And you! shorty, you were missing the food in the lock-up, haan?” The baton swung. Thwack. An odd bone cracked. A lizard on the wall moved closer to the tube light.

Manju stuttered, “Please sir… let us go… We will never come to this side again.”

“You will never get out, to come back again, you oaf. Murder is not like stealing a buffalo. You both will rot behind bars till you sprout grey hair.”

Murder!

The two men gawked at each other. The little boy sat on a chair, cozy in an oversized shirt. His lips pressed together in a thin line and his eyes were blank.

“What murder sir? the child is right in front of you!”

The khaki-clad circle around them exploded with laughter. The lizard licked a fly off the wall.

“Haramkhor! It’s not the child. It’s his mother. She was found dead in the courtyard last evening. Which one of you strangled her?” Thwack, Thwack. Crick, crack.

What! Were we so drunk that we strangled a woman and bundled up a boy? All just for a goat!!

The phone rang. The sub-inspector answered it with his back ramrod straight. And his potbelly sucked in tight.

“Pradhan is on his way! If he lays his eyes on you scoundrels, you are dead meat. Naik, take these oafs away and put them in a cell!”

The boy stirred for the first time. His eyes grew wide as saucers. His shrill voice rented the stale air.

“Wait, sir…I don’t want to see my father…please put me also in a cell!”