Pukhri

The street was empty save for the odd dog sniffing about here and there. Pebam Pratima was returning home from a day of dressing fish at the market, rubbing her two hands together in an effort to soothe the arthritic joints. As she walked past the streetlamp installed next to Khulem Hemraj’s house, his dog Chaoba, a midsize mongrel with the colour of cracker biscuits, slid out of the unlatched gate and barked at her with passion. The surprise attack provoked a volley of curses from the woman. In the very next moment, a blast of tabla, flute and stringed instruments heralding All India Radio’s evening news issued forth from an open window to her right, and a car entered the street. Pratima wasn’t as familiar with the types and brands of cars as her son was, but she noted it was white, big, and had tinted glasses for windows and an empty number plate. None of the families in the area had a car of this build.

Whoever was behind the wheel was in a hurry. Dust rose high as the car sped into the interior of the leikai. Muttering the last profanity she could wring out, Pratima walked the few more steps leading to her own gate. Just as she touched the handle on the gate, the car stopped with violent abruptness, producing a noise composed of the tyres’ screech and a single shrill meep. Pratima calculated the location to be between Saikhom Kiranlata’s dukan and Sanajao Pukhri. She waited for the driver to come out so she could identify them and debate whether to help or not, but the car stayed put, lights on, engines humming. The already exhausted Pratima became apathetic at last. She pushed the gate open and went inside.

As though they had been waiting for Pratima to disappear, the passenger riding shotgun stepped out and strode over to the front. “Turn off the lights,” they told the driver, who complied. They bent down and examined the splayed body of the cat with a pen. Not breathing anymore, they decided. The prospect of being moaned at by the driver for the rest of the week was dreary to this person. Carefully hiding their action from view, they picked up the corpse and scanned for the nearest dumping place. The drains were shallow, and the passenger was an everyday mortal without the gift of foresight. They’d had no cause to think they would be in charge of corpse disposal that night, and so hadn’t brought a shovel.

“Did I kill it?” asked the driver.

The passenger reached for the black poly bag hidden under their seat. It contained chicken bones, some fried peanuts, and empty cans that stank of beer and cigarette stubs. To this collection, they added the pen and the tissue paper which they’d used to wipe their hands. With a glance at the trembling fingers on the steering wheel, they said, “It’s done. Drive.”

Boiboi, a cat from a different leikai, sank into the cold, algae-choked water. His owners wouldn’t be searching for him immediately. Intoxicated with the pheromones in the air, Boiboi had been mostly out that week, engaging in pissing contests and wooing possible partners. The grey-coated muscular bully was famous in his locality as a murderer of kittens and a thief of fish. He often skulked in the corners or planted himself on wall copings to growl at other felines, predatory and protective by turn. He had fathered numerous mini-Boibois in his lifetime, programmed by nature to spread his seed and ignorant of the idea of death, in whose thrall he now lay decomposing as the bacteria went to work.

When Atom Sanajao Singh awoke the next morning, he told his wife he’d forgotten something.

“What did you forget?” his wife Jamini said.

“If I remembered, would it still be forgotten?” he answered.

Jamini plonked a cup of tea down on the dining table. “I’m going to the cha hotel.”

“Get Pratima,” he reminded her. With the tea in one hand and the day’s newspapers in the other, he went upstairs where he could read and drink on the balcony. As soon as he’d sat down on the stool, he realised his glasses weren’t in the pockets of his trousers. The prospect of searching for the glasses all over the house was grim. The tea would be cold for sure by the time he came up. “I can’t,” he gasped.

The tea was sweet and fragrant, the sun amiable, and Sanajao’s mind began to let go of forgotten things. It travelled far and wide, up and down, and then, as it is wont to do, in loops. He thought of the economy, climate change, and other sundry issues that can be thought of with a critical eye without the compulsion to provide real solutions, until his contemplation finally aligned with what his eyes had been fixed on—the pond.

He jumped up from the stool, suddenly remembering what he’d forgotten, and rushed down the stairs. “Chaoba! Chaoba!” he shouted, banging on the door of his son’s room. “Wake up! Do you hear me?” No response came. “What is this?” Sanajao cried. “You useless creature! You’re more of a dog than Hemraj’s Chaoba. Better I adopt that mongrel than continue to feed you with my pension money.”

Nevertheless, the task at hand couldn’t be done by him alone. The pond in front of Sanajao’s house was quite large. In his childhood, it used to be called “Atom Pukhri” because his kollup surrounded it, and because—by luck or by design—three quarters of the area of the pond was part of the land owned by Atom Mangoljao, Sanajao’s father. Anybody who doubted this claim could check the jamabandi issued during Mangoljao’s tenure at the Directorate of Settlement and Records. The year Chaoba started class 3, Atom Pukhri attained a new moniker: Sanajao Pukhri. Three years before, Mangoljao had died of cardiac arrest. A fight ensued between Sanajao and his half-siblings over who should get the die-in-harness appointment. The half-siblings were unemployed, while Sanajao was working as a librarian at the government library. The matter was never taken to court. Although the half-siblings had the moral support of the other Atoms, Jamini’s father was a judge with friends in the judicial network. Not only did Sanajao get the job, he also received the portion of the land with the pond. Sanajao’s half-siblings and relatives let him win without letting him forget; retribution stood tall and eternal in the form of brick fences that cut Sanajao off from the rest of the Atoms.

In a community where the strength of the kollup can make or break the individual, Sanajao was alone. He no longer shared the same gate with his relatives. “The pond is mine,” he declared to his wife. “Our ancestral leirak is mine.” During the road paving fevers which preceded general elections, Sanajao convinced the contractors to fix his leirak, slipping a little cash for extra coats of asphalt mixture. The small lane connecting his house to the leikai street remained smooth and safe from wear and tear. There had been days when Sanajao stared at the dilapidated leikai street, compared it to his sleek lane, and felt smug.

Now he was alone. His son wouldn’t wake up before nine and his contact in the MLA’s inner circle had informed that she planned to visit soon unannounced. He was standing at that corner of the sanggoi where his tools and implements were kept. The algae skimmer didn’t feel that heavy in his hand, but the cardiologist had advised him not to exert himself more than necessary.

Sanajao dropped the skimmer. Maybe, he hoped as he opened the gate by a fraction to survey the pond without being spotted by passersby, maybe the algae overgrowth isn’t that bad. It was that bad, and it wasn’t just algae. There was eelgrass, muskweed, taro, water hyacinth, several plastic bottles, and two or three whiskey bottles. In fact, the overgrowth of aquatic plants and the waste accessories had carpeted the entire surface of the pond, giving it the appearance of an unkempt lampak. A car filled with drunk passengers had once driven straight into it for that very reason.

Sanajao was convinced that the MLA would favour the enemy if she saw the pond in its current state. He swallowed and checked his phone. It was six, three hours before Chaoba’s divorce from sleep. The boy had promised to hire his friends to clean the pond for three kilos of beef and four cases of beer, but these friends worked during the week and were available on Sundays. They had regular jobs, unlike Chaoba who worked as an assistant fashion photographer and was busy only during wedding seasons. Sanajao could hire labourers to do the cleaning, but someone needed to supervise them as they toiled. He didn’t trust anyone, much less daily wage labourers, whether they were migrant workers or locals. Chaoba would refuse the assignment. By nature, he refused to do anything on his own and anything that was monotonous. His father had negative faith in him.

One person still lived in the leikai whom Sanajao called a friend of sorts, an executive engineer in his forties who wasn’t from the city. He had been a resident at Sanajao’s leikai for two years. It was perhaps the man’s lack of rootedness in leikai politics, and his career as a civil servant with a respectable income, that had endeared him to Sanajao. It was also he who gave Sanajao the brilliant suggestion to turn Sanajao Pukhri into an urban landmark.

“Think about it,” this friend said, “there are very few ponds left in your Imphal city. None in your municipality. These days the kids like to go on long drives and take photos in front of paddy fields, ponds, whatever. Reconnect with nature, whatever. Parents stuff their kids into their four-wheelers and drive kilometres to see lotuses and mustard flowers. I swear I once saw six children spill out of this one SUV. This lady clicked photos of them, making sure they stood in front of the lotuses. And this guy kept saying—How beautiful! How exquisite! —as if he’d never seen a lotus in his life.”

Through the warm tingly haze of the imported Scottish whiskey from the army store, Sanajao tried to recall when he’d last seen a lotus sticking out of a water body.

“If you plant lotuses, they’ll come here. Sanajao Pukhri. Next to the paved lane. Better background for photos. You can set up a bamboo bench. More authentic.”

Sanajao felt tears prick his eyes. How he used to play with his half-siblings when they were young, sitting on the bamboo pier, their legs dipping into the pond’s cool water. Sometimes fishing, sometimes swimming, in an age when he loved them.

“The MLA can use her local area development fund,” his friend was saying. “Just erect a foundation stone in her name. You can ring the boundary with concrete and add steps. Plant some perennial flowers. Have some swans floating. Seen that Hollywood movie yet? The Notebook? The guy takes the girl out on a boat. The swans—”

“The leikai won’t like it,” Sanajaoba interrupted. “This project might affect the fish population—”

“Plenty of market at the fish!” the friend slurred. “Ehey! Fish at the market. This is why the underdevelopment of my state, our state—do they survive on your pond’s fish?”

With a nod, Sanajao refilled their glasses. A smile spread on his face, slow but steady.

Sanajao Pukhri. The leikai people re-invented the name out of envy. Didn’t he own most of it? Besides, wouldn’t the whole leikai benefit from the project? For generations, the leikai had maintained the pond with his forefathers, cleaning it, fishing from it, and using it to bathe and wash their clothes when there was water shortage at home. If they beautified the place, tourists were sure to come. If tourists came, they were sure to bring fame and popularity. The leikai dukans would flourish again. Sanajao merely had to convince Sakhitombi, the leikai women’s club’s secretary. Though the individual woman’s complaints often fell on deaf ears, the collective women’s voice was heeded without exception.

It turned out that the woman Sanajao should have approached was Pratima, not Sakhitombi. Gurumayum Lokhon Sharma had already relayed his woes to the former. The leikai Brahmin priest was tired of lending the mantop for all kinds of events, including weddings. He was accompanied by Nepram Angamba Meetei, the representative of the Sanamahi adherents. “What about chakkouba?” Angamba demanded. “Even for the Hindus, that feast includes fish and they can’t host it at the bamon mantop. They have to utilise others’ community halls and pay fees. We—” He emphasised the word to mean the Sanamahi residents. “We also have to do the same. It’s humiliating.”

This protest in particular had been repeatedly brought up at formal meetings and informal gatherings. The endless list of Meitei social and religious events required space to accommodate the hundreds of guests and relatives, but fewer and fewer houses had courtyards and sanggois left as the home and kollup expanded. A leikai community hall was therefore of primary importance. It allowed all parents to arrange for the wedding of their offsprings with grandeur. To the misfortune of this leikai, they didn’t have a lampak or any vacant spot of land on which a community hall could be built.

“Absolutely not!” Sanajao told Sakhitombi. “Landfill? My pond?”

“Sanajao,” said Sakhitombi, “Pratima has spoken to Basanta as well. He is of the same mind. It’s a sensible solution.”

Naorem Basanta was the secretary of the leikai men’s club. The man’s favourite pastime was to pontificate on his low opinion of people, especially women. “I don’t give two hoots about what they say” were words the men heard him utter whether the situation called for it or not. “I disagree with them on principle. Always meh-meh-meh-meh about this and that.” How had Pratima managed to persuade the scoundrel?

“Basanta has two daughters to marry,” Sakhitombi added. “You know the poor man can’t even fit a tulsi shrine in the few square inches he calls a courtyard.”

“They can borrow my courtyard,” Sanajao said, inwardly recoiling at the vision of so many strangers intruding upon his territory. “I also have a sanggoi.”

Sakhitombi sighed. “Your home isn’t a mantop or a community hall, Sanajao. We can’t impose ourselves like that. Think of the future, too. Chaoba will marry and have kids. Those kids will have kids. Your courtyard and sanggoi will eventually be converted into ground floors for your progeny. Where does that leave everyone, including them?”

“So kind of Pratima to think for my descendants,” Sanajao said. He meant to be sarcastic.

Sakhitombi replied, “Yes, she’s a considerate woman who stands for the greater good of the leikai. What do you say?”

“The answer is no,” Sanajao declared.

The imagined splendour of Sanajao Pukhri had taken hold of Sanajao. In his fantasies, it was rebranded as Naitomlei Pukhri, a portmanteau of naitom (lone) and lei (flower), for the last pond in the municipality should bloom like a flower. Naitomlei Pukhri was to be a pristine water body garlanded by bushes of rose periwinkles and studded with lotuses. Sanajao was on the fence about the swans (he had watched The Notebook and admired the swan lake scene, but somebody had to breed, raise, and feed the aggressive brutes). However, the concrete embankments, the bamboo benches, and the foundation stone honouring the MLA were salient features of the proposed landscape. Sanajao had seen a few ponds like his Naitomlei in Imphal. He was excited.

Had Sanajao owned the entire area, there would be no hiccups in fulfilling this dream. A stalemate loomed on the horizon. He grumbled about this troublesome development to his friend. “Every house used to have a pond,” the engineer said. He crushed the empty beer can and reached for another. “A pond, a courtyard, a sanggoi, a backyard, yennakha. Outside of Imphal, most houses still have them all. That’s why some of your city people have bought land and built second and third homes elsewhere.”

Sanajao gritted his teeth at this blatant generalisation. There were homes in Imphal with these traditional features, and homes “elsewhere” that didn’t. He also thought it was a bit rich of the engineer to prattle on in this fashion. If that man hadn’t purchased half of Basanta’s land and settled in, the latter wouldn’t be joining Pratima’s campaign. Sanajao grew weary of the fool and cut down his company. He was one of the few leikai-folk who didn’t congratulate the man on his upcoming wedding to the chief engineer’s daughter.

On this morning, however, desperation overcame pride. To Sanajao’s immense relief, the engineer answered his call. After the pleasantries had been exchanged, he told the man he needed a favour, laughing uncomfortably as he did so. The engineer didn’t reply at once. Sanajao listened to him tinker with something in the background. “Are you there?” he prompted when he’d waited enough.

“Yes, Tamo.”

“I need your help.”

“Okay.”

“It’s about the pond.”

“Ah.”

Before the tepid replies had a chance to activate acid reflux, Sanajao dived. “I need to get it cleaned. You know what it’s like. They’re doing it on purpose, throwing their waste bottles into the pond. Because I won’t let them build the community hall.” The engineer was no doubt aware of how Sanajao had allowed the weeds to proliferate, which led to the leikai men cleaning their side of the pond at intervals, which led to Sanajao spraying toxic herbicides to annihilate the fish and render the water unsafe. Neither man mentioned this part. “The algae and everything else returned,” Sanajao continued. “I’ll bring labourers from the market. I have the tools ready.”

The engineer was silent.

“You know what it’s like,” Sanajao said with added stress. “If they see me getting the pond cleaned, I’ll become a laughing stock.” He paused and pondered if it was worthwhile to mention the MLA’s imminent visit, but the engineer’s reticence made him suspicious. “So,” Sanajao asked, “will you check on the labourers for me?”

The sound of the engineer’s heavy breathing was quite audible. “Tamo,” he wheezed, “to be honest, you know what it’s like. I’m an outsider. I can’t make the pond my business.”

“Are you saying you can’t do it?”

“Just let the pond be. It’s wild and—”

“Don’t you dare say “authentic”!” snapped Sanajao.

“Okay.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Sanajao asked, more out of anger than anything.

“Okay. Give me a few days. My wife-to-be and I—”

“I don’t have a few days. It was your idea!”

“Thursday.”

A day away, but earlier than Sunday. “Fine,” said Sanajao. “Thursday it is.”

“Don’t these boys remind you of our sons?” Jamini said, sipping her tea. She nodded at the group of teenagers at the next table who were complaining about the poorly prepared dal. “So free with their criticism of food, and where’s a helping hand when we need it? Chaoba buys OK Chicken if I cook any kind of vegetable. We spend money on vegetables and meat every single meal. The expenses just don’t end, do they?”

“Hmm,” said Pratima. Her son liked vegetables, but her mind was on Jamini’s attempt at being relatable at the greasy cha hotel. The woman did yoga at 4:30 am on the balcony and ate her food steamed. The skin of the fingers, though scratched with use, didn’t bear the stubborn stains and scars visible on Pratima’s ill-treated hands. Jamini’s plate would still have a full puri when they left; the aloo and pickle would be untouched. The sight of the wasted food irked Pratima, but she couldn’t resist the creature that was Jamini.

Jamini was a hot kettle overflowing with tips on self-care. She spoke freely on how to nourish the skin with homemade remedies, how to get rid of dandruff, and why it was important to invest in sturdy Nike sneakers. Her enthusiastic spiels were received by the women patrons of the cha hotel with varying measures of interest. Though Pratima’s own replies were noncommittal on the outside, she took those tips to heart and tried everything within her means. The egg and lime juice for the hair, the besan paste for the skin, the use of baking soda and vinegar to remove odour. Her son had been delegated the task of checking a certain pair of Nikes to go on discount. Jamini wasn’t informed her tips were being followed, because Pratima had learned that her skin would still bear those stains and scars, her hair would still show flakes of dandruff, and the Nikes wouldn’t be sold at a price affordable to her even in sale seasons.

Useless tips aside, Pratima was exploring the effect that Jamini’s beauty had on her. The two women had married into the leikai the same year. Chaoba and Pratima’s eldest daughter, Preeti, were born in the same month, yet Jamini had skin that glistened with an inhumane glow. She was shorter than Pratima, and shapelier, with a tiny waist and rounded hips. Her V-necked blouses clung to her arms and chest. An inch above the point where the two necklines met, a pendant stood erect against the rise and fall of her breasts, its stone redder than rubies, insolent and tempting.

All day at the market, amidst the sweat, the slime, the shouts, and the incoherent motion, Pratima’s eyes were locked on the pendant. She wondered how its weight and warmth would feel on her neck. These musings trapped her in a state of restless desire. So, when Jamini said, “Won’t it be nice if we leikai ladies did yoga together? I can teach you so many easy poses”, Pratima should have responded, “Won’t it be nice if we have a community hall where you can show us these poses?”. Instead, the reply was: “Yes, I’ll think about it.” Yes, I’ll think about it. Like a prayer to hold off the day on which the pond would have to be filled, and the proximity of Jamini’s pendant would be swallowed up by the earth.

“We want to clean the pond and repopulate it with fish,” Jamini was saying. “I swear to you that my husband will let you fish for sale.”

It took effort to curb the annoyance triggered by the transparent attempt at bribery. Pratima’s eyes swept over Jamini. The mercerised cotton phanek and phee, and the satin blouse were pale grey. In an ambience composed of soot, smoke and stale oil, Jamini resembled a carp herself. Silvery, pearly, and gasping for breath. She wanted this game of pretend friendship to end, yet Pratima did not raise her cleaver. “I will think about it,” she said. In her sharp corner of the market, on the low wooden stool, surrounded by spleen, scales, gills, and metal, Pratima sniffed, exhaled, and grunted, cutting and dicing flesh, thinking of red that sparkled, so different from the viscous ugliness of the blood on her feet, ankles, arms, and hands.

Sanajao Pukhri had meant the world to her in the past. Pratima grew up in a town with numerous water bodies; for her, the monsoon meant fishing nets and freshly caught meals. The pond was a source of comfort and reminiscence. While she sat on the bank, laughing and chatting with the other women, Jamini often waved at them from the car as she returned from work. “Isn’t Sanajao’s wife pretty?” her friends remarked. Pratima hailed back at what she saw as a pale form that exhibited signs of life through the open window of a box, its beauty glittery and cold like the expensive metal at the jewellery stores.

Basanta and Angamba had reported to Pratima that, according to their sources, Jamini’s father had been a mentor to the MLA. Pratima listened and did not reveal that the MLA’s most loyal worker was her cousin’s husband’s brother-in-law. She could have finished the matter of the pond already—what memories were tied to a stagnant expanse of sludge and weed? But there was Jamini, the elite of the leikai, who stepped out of her house every morning at 5:30, dressed for Pratima and the short walks, one-sided conversations, and tasteless tea. To the leikai men and Sakhitombi, Pratima’s constant reply was: “Let’s wait and see.”

The leikai street, the crematorium, the shed for the women’s club, everything required repairs. Her own joints and organs required repairs. “Why must the community hall be the priority?” The argument flowed in her head. “Look here—” She kicked at a loose pebble on the ground. “This street, its mud, its pebbles, its potholes. They are destroying our tyres and our backs. Sanajao has the lion’s share of the pond. He has the paved lane. Why must the pond be beautified now?” Caught up in this train of reasoning, she had missed the white car from the previous night parked at the same spot. She might have gone inside without noticing it, had the doors not opened and banged shut in a split second. That made her look up. Again, she stalled at her gate; again, the car stood still. Curiosity got the better of her and she moved towards it, but it started its engines and drove off.

“Show me your cars,” she told her son, Pritam, who was playing a game on his phone.

“Now?” he whined.

“Yes, now.”

Pritam exited the game and opened a folder named “mah real gfs” in his phone’s gallery. It contained around a hundred images of cars of numerous colours, makes, and brands. “Why?” he asked his mother.

“Your favourite amongst the big cars driven here. Show me that.”

A bewildered Pritam scrolled through the images and showed her a Tata Harrier. “This is the cheapest,” he began to say, but Pratima clicked her tongue. “It must be more expensive than this,” she said. Her son showed her three more, none of which matched what she’d seen.

“But,” protested Pritam, “we’ll never be able to buy my ultimate favourite!”

“And that is?”

“This.” He handed her the phone and zoomed in on the part of the picture where the showroom price was quoted. Pratima flicked off his fingers and studied the vehicle. The model in the picture was helpfully white. “This is the one,” she said.

“Ha?”

“How many people in the city might drive something like this?”

“Two? Three?”

“Good. Now stop the stupid game and study.”

“Are we getting a car?” asked Pritam pointlessly.

Meanwhile, the driver and the passenger had stopped their car in front of a tall gated house. “Do you think she saw?” asked the driver. “Does it matter if she did?” said the passenger. “She–” the driver said. “She’s quite influential.” “And the crime you committed is?” replied the passenger. “Prolonged parking?”

The driver licked their chapped lips. “The cat will start to stink,” they whispered.

“No one gives a damn about a dead cat,” the passenger said in a strained voice that suggested their patience was running thin. “Good night.”

The number of damns human beings might potentially give about a dead cat must vary from place to place. A missing cat, however? The driver was on the verge of finding out. Tongbram Sophiya, the owner, happened to be a personality with a substantial following on the internet. “PLEASE HELP. MY BOIBOI IS MISSING. CONTACT 7005667901.” The plea was posted on her social media along with a picture of Boiboi the next day. An unholy number of calls and texts seized the given phone number within the first hour, though not about the cat. They were asking if sop_hiya_boi2mom was single. The number belonged to her father, who switched off the phone when he couldn’t take it anymore. The ad had gone viral. All sorts of people were sharing it, including a cat lover group. Their repost included the message: 1) Boiboi is a male cat. He might come back. Please don’t panic. 2) Boiboi might have been picked up by a fellow catperson. He’s so handsome! If anyone’s found the little guy, please contact @sop_hiya_boi2mom. 3) Cats get harmed in accidents! If someone’s heard of cat casualties in the area, please DM sop_hiya_boi2mom. She’s in distress. 4) Cats can drown. Is there any water body nearby? @sop_hiya_boi2mom. We are with you! This was reposted by Sophiya with the caption: “Pls! m so helpless ryt nw.”

“So much fuss over a cat,” Jamini commented at dinner. “You’d think it was a person.”

“They’d care less if it was a person,” said Sanajao.

“Poor Sops,” Chaoba said. He was acquainted with Sophiya through promotional shoots and he nursed unspoken affections for the girl. “The only water body in the area is our pond.”

The hopefulness in his tone wasn’t missed by Sanajao. “Why don’t you clean it tomorrow and check?” he asked.

As expected, Chaoba said, “No way.”

“The pond is stinking,” Preeti was telling her mother.

“Why did you go near it?” Pratima asked.

“My students wanted to identify the plants by name.”

“Tongbram Sophiya is crying on the internet,” Pritam reported. “Her cat’s missing.”

“I saw that,” Preeti said. “If her fans come flocking to the pond to search for the cat, they’re going to vomit first.”

“Both of you,” warned Pratima, “shut up about the pond and eat your food.” She was thinking about her third encounter with the car. It had appeared again like an omen that evening. Pratima marched straight towards it, bypassing her house. The car zoomed off. She searched the length of the street, right up to the crematorium where the road separated into two opposite lanes which led to the adjacent leikais. Pratima waited at the junction until it became obvious that the car must have fled through one of the leikais. The itch to rip open a new packet of Talab jabbed at her jaws. After Jamini’s entrance, she’d withdrawn from pan masala, fearful to reek of it around that woman, but she still carried a sachet in her purse for emergencies.

This wasn’t an emergency yet, although it was starting to resemble one. Since there wasn’t much left to do except give in to temptation, she turned back and headed home, shaking off the slight chill rising up her back. As soon as she’d covered a good distance, a person stood up from behind the crematorial platform, where they’d been hiding. They, too, started the brief walk home, cursing Pratima, Tongbram Sophiya and her cat, and the irresistible shiny car that had caused the mess. Of this, Pratima was ignorant.

“That car,” she asked Pritam, “how many people in the city own that in white?”

“White? I haven’t seen any. Only blacks.”

Pratima went to sleep, postponing the mystery of the car to another day because she had to wake up early for Jamini. But there wouldn’t be any breakfast the next morning, for when Jamini opened her gate, she was greeted by a crowd. The key players of the leikai and a platoon of youth armed with rakes and nets were gathered beside the pond. Jamini was about to ask what they were doing when she heard a series of chappal slaps behind her. Chaoba was shockingly out of bed. He rushed towards her, gesturing towards the pond and attempting to fix his hair. “Where’s Baba?” he asked. “They’re here for the cat!”

Jamini had forgotten about Boiboi. “What cat? Your father’s gone to the market to pick up labourers.”

“Excellent! Let me through—”

“But what cat—”

“Da Chaoba!” cried the hoarse voice of a young girl. The small sea of bodies parted to reveal Tongram Sophiya, whose eyes were red and puffy from weeping. “We have to search the pond, but the leikai elders are saying we can’t touch it.”

“Don’t worry,” began Chaoba. “My father will—”

“It’s not your father’s pond, Chaothi,” Angamba said with a sneer, deliberately using Chaoba’s childhood nickname to embarrass him.

“Jamini,” Sakhitombi intervened, “where’s Sanajao?”

“He’ll be here soon,” Chaoba answered in his mother’s stead to assert authority. “Whether he’s here or not, why can’t the pond be cleaned?”

Lokhon replied, “Where’s the proof the cat died here?”

“Where’s the proof he didn’t?” said Chaoba.

“Where’s Pratima?” Jamini demanded.

Pratima was at the back. Until her name was uttered by Jamini, her attention hadn’t been on the situation at hand. She’d seen the white car drive down, halt and pick up someone who was a resident at the leikai. It returned on the same route, parking at a short distance from the pukhri. Pratima expected both passengers to get off. Only the driver did, a woman in a crisp ivory salwar suit. The clothes suggested she worked at a government office. From the cool, confident gait, it was obvious she was the type of person who would be at ease in any environment. She approached the pond and stood to watch. Pratima figured she was the fiancé, colleague, and daughter of the boss that the man inside the car had mentioned to the men of the leikai. Before Pratima could make the connection that was just within reach, she heard Jamini speak her name and froze.

“Ho Eche Pratima!” Basanta yelled. “Your opinion is requested. The women ought to decide everything, ha?”

Once more, the sea of people parted and created an open path at the ends of which Pratima and Jamini stood. Sakhitombi, Sophiya, Chaoba, Angamba, Lokhon, Basanta—everybody was staring at Pratima, and she was looking at Jamini’s expectant face. The more she looked, the tighter her lips sealed shut. Jamini sniffed and turned away. The lovely, gleaming carp slunk back into the water. On instinct, Pratima unzipped her purse to get the Talab packet, forgetting the substance was banned.

Preeti swooped in and snatched the purse before her mother exposed herself. “She’s unwell,” she announced. “I’ll take her home.” As she prepared to remove Pratima, Sanajao’s car roared into the scene. The man was fuming. He had just won the haggle over the wage with the migrant labourers when the engineer called him and said he had to cancel. Something about a last-minute order from his boss to help his fiancé survey a site in a different district.

“What the hell is going on?” Sanajao shouted, jumping out of the vehicle. “Why are you blocking the way to my house?” Several people spoke at once, and in the racket the only sound intelligible to Sanajao was “Boiboi”. “Why would your cat come all the way to die in my pond?” he asked Sophiya. She burst into fresh tears.

As though it had been lying in wait for this exact moment, the bloated dead body of Boiboi popped up on the surface of the water. “There!” yelled Pritam. “The cat’s right there!”

She loved her little incognito trips. The woman the people had voted for was known for her muted cotton phanek and phee. On these trips, she dressed in the opposite. Expensive sunglasses, Khurkhul muga silk suits, shoes bought from high-end showrooms in Delhi, French designer handbags and perfume, and a black Jockey face mask. She was rather thankful to the pandemic for starting this convenient trend of wearing face masks. It allowed her to assume another identity and survey this part of the motherland from inside nondescript cars driven by her most loyal worker, without escorts and protection.

For a just governance, she told the man driving the car. If she went as herself, could she see the true selves of her people? The man agreed. The madam was a retired judge, a great believer in dealing out fair rulings. She had played cricket in her prime and retained that adventurous spirit. He was honoured to accompany her to these necessary outings, and the present case was in desperate need of an intervention.

The MLA was still weighing the scales on the issue of the pond. Both arguments appealed to her. She empathised with the leikai’s need for a community hall, but the last pond in the constituency erected under her watch had a nice ring to it. What she loathed was the way the two sides fought with indignity.

She’d seen plenty of ignominious fights in the courtroom. She had contested in the election. Dirt was everywhere. She hated the sight of it, and she hated that she had to roll in it. She hated what was being posted on social media—she avoided being caught on camera unless it could bring good publicity. Someone had replaced the face of a Bollywood item girl with that of a North Indian politician charged with embezzlement, an elderly man. It made her squirm to watch him in skimpy rags, gyrating the hips and thrusting the breasts in an obscene loop.

Her mission was to see the pond with her own eyes and decide its real worth before the entire leikai made a fool of themselves. Upon finding the crowd, the loyal worker asked if they should turn back. “Go and check first,” she said. “What’s the ruckus about?” When he told her it was about a cat, her disappointment hardened, yet the judge in her couldn’t be suppressed.

Against the advice of the loyal worker, she alighted from the car. She reached the gathering and heard one man say that if the pond had been filled, the cat wouldn’t have drowned. A girl was wailing, asking someone called “Da Chaoba” to tell his father to give her the cat. Another man, no doubt her ex-colleague’s son-in-law and Da Chaoba’s father, was clutching a drenched rotting cat in his hands. He didn’t look like he wanted to hand over the corpse. “How dare you accuse me of murder?” he barked.

If I don’t intervene now, she decided, these insects will eat each other alive. Her very sight would quell the collective fury. She’d have to sacrifice her identity, but no one had their phones out. Besides, who would dare film her as she dispensed justice? Even if they did, was that a bad thing? The clothes were easy to explain. She was in disguise, and she was rescuing a dead cat and bringing her voters under control.

Pushing past Pratima, who could identify the murderer and the time of the murder yet couldn’t be moved to speak, the MLA came to the front. Chaoba had acted at last. He was wrestling with his father for the cat. The former judge took off her sunglasses and commanded the men to stop, and when the cat slipped out of Chaoba’s grasp and came flying in her direction, the former fielder leapt into action and caught it with a swift, smooth motion. But the putrid, lifeless body of Boiboi, resentful of this world of men and women and determined to go out in a spectacular show of vengeance, exploded all over the silk and the leather, and a hundred phone cameras sprang from the shadows to feast upon the wreckage he’d left.