Justice

It had been raining in the town of words for two straight days. You could not tell dawn from dusk, the sky looked so leaden, like someone with a secret too dark to be shared. 

In the morning bazaar, men moved around with rolled-up trousers, even women hitched their sarees up a few inches. You had to constantly avert your eyes away from the unfamiliar body parts of familiar people.

Every now and then, they greeted each other. "Low pressure. Bay of Bengal."

Those braving the sticky, treacherous puddles knew it stood for greeting.

Summer, at least, was over for that year. 

On the evening of the second day, Anwar sat at the clubhouse, watching the evening news on television. The misfits who manned the weather office thought the deluge would last another thirty-six hours. A fogged-up Bengal, as seen from satellites in space, reminded him of a hole-in-the-wall establishment right next to the housing society. 

Its owner, so decrepit that he looked like an unsolved puzzle of skin and bones, had made local history by mastering the art of frying all fish and fowl, and some fruits too. He had never trusted any employee or relative with his recipes. Every morning at five, his adult grandsons would take turns to carry him to the shop, where he sat doubled up in front of a blazing charcoal oven till they came and rescued him around midnight. 

Anwar caught hold of one of the young boys hanging around the clubhouse, dispatched him to the fritters shop and wandered into the library's empty reading room. 

He had seen the clubhouse in worse shape. With a corrugated tin sheet for a roof, it operated out of the motor room of the water reservoir when he had first got there. The lending library had consisted of a few dozen books, stacked on a meat shelf, donated by some departing homemaker. A small black and white television perched on top of it, with a sputtering picture tube that frequently squeezed all action into a thin horizontal line mid-screen.

It all seemed several worlds away, from the way things looked now. The blood-red sofas, upholstered with such posh fabric that Anwar always felt guilty sitting down. The shelves, which ran from the floor almost to the ceiling, serviced by a dainty aluminium step-ladder. The room had been done up to a colour called beige, which glowed like a bride's skin under the concealed lights.  

Anwar looked outside. The rain had slowed to a drizzle but there were still no signs of his fritters or his mates. He sat and chewed his nails for a while. When it did not stop him from being bored, he flipped the pages of the lending register. 

Wives and mothers were the most avid readers, devouring at least two books every week. Their taste was for edgy Bangla romance, the ones where women with deep desires smouldered on the covers. Only two English books had been borrowed in the past six months, by Sujoy, the judge's son. They were called 'Moonstone' and 'Catch-22'.

In response to an appeal for donations, someone had once dumped a stack of ancient IKEA furniture catalogues. The scatter-brained Rupsha Moitra was obviously thriving on them, borrowing one every week for a year now. 

At the sound of someone clearing his throat, Anwar looked up. A man he was not familiar with was at the door. He was elderly, though not quite loyal to any particular age. An embroidered cloth bag, heavy with damp, hung from his right shoulder while he peered towards the bookshelves with mild caution. He wore a pale yellow shirt over his white dhoti, the latter was limp with mud splattered near the borders. 

'Yes, how may I help you?" Anwar asked, going up to the door.

"Oh, namaskar," the man folded his palms together in greeting, unmindful of the spray of moisture that landed on Anwar's face from his folded, dripping umbrella. "I've come from quite some distance. Are you the person in charge here?"

"What do you want?" Anwar asked, stepping outside. The stage or performing area, where the man stood, was cloaked in partial darkness, lit only by the diffuse shafts of light coming from the rooms of the clubhouse, arranged in a semi-circle around the stage. He did not want the old man to be tempted to step inside. 

The man hesitated, running his right hand over the furrows of his face as if to wipe them away. His skin looked like ancient bark. "It is, well, it is about a certain gentleman called Romit Sen."