The Wrong Hat
Short Story. Published in Batayan, March 2020.
The local police had been called by the college principal to contain the unrest at the Delhi College. The head constable, Pandey, had seen this kind of protest before. There had been more and more of such a nuisance recently. He watched over the young crowd, bemused at the college-going boys and girls' stamina and appetite for troublemaking. Was he this rebellious when he was their age? Did he have the audacity to protest so openly? Had the age of social media emboldened them? Did the modern smartphone they carried in their pockets, make them more aggressive? Perhaps, the daily diet of greasy WhatsApp messages and spicy Twitter feeds had filled their veins with extra belligerence. His retirement date, less than a year away now, seemed to be approaching too fast and he was convinced that he had seen all stripes of crooks and thugs there were to be seen. Yes, the student slogans were feisty and their voices shrill, but the lanky jeans-clad collegegoers with backpacks full of books and young idealism, holding up neatly composed placards seemed rather innocuous. They appeared more like stubborn kids bent on winning an argument than hardened criminals. They were starting to look worn out after a day of high-pitched frenzy. A few of them were stifling yawns. And some were rubbing their eyes. They looked bored and hungry. One could tell that they were planning on disbanding soon. The plan was pretty much to wait and watch till the protest fizzled out.
Some of the students knew Pandey by now, for this was not the first protest they had organized. A few months ago there was a demonstration against the college fee hike. Before that, there was a peaceful procession demonstrating against the wrongful arrest of one of their student leaders who had spoken against Kashmir's lockdown. Pandey had been present to watch over them on both occasions. Their relationship with him was not particularly a chummy one but there was neither a well-defined hostility between them. The students knew that he was just doing his job.
The crowd turned more animated all of a sudden. A group of men wearing khaki clothes descended on the droopy students. They wore helmets and armors like law enforcement officers yet their stance was different, more aggressive, more proficient in starting rather than stopping conflicts. They attacked the students, first with their fists, then with sticks. The shock of being tackled unexpectedly brought about brief seconds of stupor among the students, as they guarded their limbs and heads and placards against the blows.
Startled voices floated up from the student crowd.
Stop, stop…please! We did not cause violence, so why are you attacking us?
Pandey froze on his feet as he realized what was happening. He rushed to the inspector, his senior, who was standing aside allowing this to happen.
“Did you order backup?” he asked the inspector. “But why? They were winding down, weren't they?”
The inspector did not respond. Instead, he took his time stretching his back and rolling his head on his shoulders.
Pandey heard a shriek from one of the students. He rushed forward and tried pulling aside the wiry man who was hurting the student. The man seemed familiar. The man had recognized him as well, for he paused his activity, stared him in the eye, and quickly moved away to the other side of the crowd. The commotion escalated and soon tear-gas canisters hurled at the crowd spewed fumes amplifying the panic further. What followed was utter chaos. Soon after Police vans arrived, students were captured and shoved into the van. The crowd dispersed after losing its leaders but Pandey was determined to find out how the situation shifted abruptly. He had a hunch.
He decided to follow the man he had noticed earlier. Now he remembered who he was. His name was Jaggu. He was arrested about a year ago after he broke into someone's house. Following him was not that easy. The man was agile. He walked briskly and dived into the shadows of South Delhi slums, making his way through a narrow lane. He entered a shack, that seemed better built than the shanties around it and closed the door quickly. Pandey stood outside the door in the misty darkness, wondering what to do next, when the man stepped out again, startling him.
“Why have you been following me?” Jaggu tossed at Pandey, not bothering with a preface.
“What were you doing in front of the college?” Pandey glanced down at the half unbuttoned khaki shirt on Jaggu. “Why are you dressed in khaki?”
Jaggu glared at him for a moment and said in a low voice, “You can't follow me like this!”
They heard voices and Pandey was pulled inside Jaggu's cottage with a sharp tug. “You can't be here.” Jaggu let out a ragged breath.
"Yes, I can. Now tell me what were you up to?” said Pandey.
“Don't talk loudly. There are people outside,” Jaggu said in a quieter voice.
There was a knock on the door. Jaggu put his finger across his lips cautioning Pandey. He whispered in his ears with a silent plea in his eyes, “Please stay inside while I finish talking to them.”
Pandey nodded briskly and Jaggu stepped out closing the door. Pandey stood rooted to where he was standing. He could hear parts of the conversation outside.
“Did someone follow you?”
“Someone was trying to… but I threw him off.”
“We can help if you can't deal with it.”
“No, that's not necessary. He lost my trail.”
“Here is your share. Are you sure he lost you?”
“Yes. I am sure.”
“You know the instruction in case someone follows you, right?”
“I know.”
“You have to be careful.”
“I will be.”
As the voices faded to a murmur, Pandey let out his long-held breath. As he scanned the dimly lit room, he noticed the sparse furniture. There was a bed with a garish bed cover, a wooden table and a chair on one side. On the other side of the room was a wide velvety curtain that had partitioned off a part of the room. It looked out of place. His curiosity made him draw aside the drape and almost lost his balance as he stumbled on what seemed like a hidden room with a heap of hats and belts and scarves. Behind it was a row of hangers full of clothes. There were so many of them. How could Jaggu afford to buy these many clothes?
On closer inspection, he noticed that the clothes were different from daily wear. They were more like costumes.
The door opened and closed. Jaggu wiped his face and switched on a brighter light. Pandey blinked holding on to a hanger with a saffron-colored dhoti and rudraksha garland with one hand, and a black priest robe with another. He put them back on the rod holding the rest of the clothes and raised a questioning eyebrow at Jaggu. Jaggu opened his khaki shirt unhurriedly and was about to put it away in a hanger when he noticed a bloodstain on the collar.
“I will have to wash this now,” he said with a touch of exasperation in his tone. “Don't look so surprised,” he said avoiding looking at Pandey.
“I get paid well to be someone else. You know how I had to steal from people to remain alive, once. Now I don't have to, anymore.”
Instead of being infuriated at what he had found out, Pandey felt a wave of sympathy towards Jaggu. The kind of things one had to do to survive in Delhi, he thought with a sigh.
"Who asked you to come to college? The inspector?"
“No.”
“But he knew?”
“Yes. He had his orders from above. He had no choice but to cooperate.”
“Then… who called you?”
“I can't tell you.”
Pandey hanged his face and approached the door.
“Don't go out yet. They might still be waiting.”
Jaggu's face held a smidge of compassion despite his severe stance. “Pandey Ji. I don't want you to get hurt.”
“But you had no problem hurting those students?”
“It is not personal. Its either this or becoming a robber. I have a family in my village to take care of.”
Pandey stood looking at him trying to decide whether he felt antipathy or pity towards Jaggu.
“What if everyone thought like you? Just because you have a family to feed, you can get away doing anything?”
Jaggu sighed while he put on a fresh T-shirt. “I tried doing different things. After I was let out of the lockup, I got a part-time at the cement factory, but it does not pay that much. I also tried getting a driving license, but all that also requires money. I am training to be a cab driver. Once that comes through, I will…” He seemed to be struggling with words. “I will leave this hateful work.”
Pandey stood thinking of what to do. The right thing to do was to report Jaggu but what would that do? He went through the other options one by one. He should help Jaggu get a secure job but with his retirement so close by, who would listen to him? He should talk to someone to get Jaggu's license done. Wait, why was he thinking of helping him? He was a crook after all. Unmindfully, he sighed and picked up his hat from the heap it had fallen into. As he was about to leave, Jaggu stopped him.
“Pandey Ji you are wearing the wrong hat. That…that is not your hat.”
Indeed. It was not his constable hat Pandey was wearing. He had donned a military beret.
Silently, he picked out his own hat and replaced it with the wrong hat and set out in the dark to retrieve his steps back to the police station.
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