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The new tenant who had come to Flat 4C was a smuggler. Ratan was sure of that. The man had straight, black brows and when he smiled, which was seldom, he showed teeth that were crooked. ‘Just like the villain in the film Moti Moti,’ thought Ratan. And was this all his furniture? One cot, a table, two chairs and a steel almirah. Ratan’s father could carry most of it himself, except for the almirah, and for that he had only to call the maali (gardener).
The New Tenant: Story by Poile Sengupta
When everything was taken upstairs – and it took only two trips in the lift and one up the stairs – when the furniture was dumped with a thud on the floor, how little it looked. How ridiculously small! Ratan thought of the other drawing-rooms in the building. The one in 2A, Bhaskar’s, with its large chairs and all those books. And what about the drawing room in Gopi’s house, 4B, just next door? How beautiful it was, with its red carpet where your feet went right in and hugs sofas and the big TV set that needed six men to carry it up.
Then there was the other thing. Why did this new tenant want to stay in this block of flats anyway? He had not come with a family; he could so easily have stayed in Nilgiri apartments, just opposite, where there were one-room flats. Why did he have to come here, to a flat with three rooms plus drawing-dining and two bathrooms? Two bathrooms, imagine that!
“He will probably use one room for his chappals, another for his shoes…” said Bhaskar.
And Panna cut in with, “One sleeve of his shirt will be in one room and other sleeve in another room.”
But Ratan was sure they were wrong. This man was a thief and he had come here because he was hiding from the police. Was this not the best place to hide in, a big block of family flats, just like the smuggler in Ek Heera?
“The trouble with you is that you see too many films,” said Bina, Bhaskar’s sister. “You think the whole world is full of thieves and policeman.”
Bina knew a lot of things; she was in class IX. She had even cut open a frog and had said a frog’s inside was interesting like ours. But there were some things that she did not know; nobody could know everything, could they? And what they did not know was that this new tenant was a bad man, a thief, a smuggler. Not just in Moti Moti but there were other films too where the villain looked exactly like this man – Daku aur Chor,and what about khoon? There really was no doubt about it. Proof? That was easy. Ratan would get proof very soon. Was that not just what the boy hero Chandan did in Faisla? If Chandan could do it, so could Ratan.
But being a boy hero was difficult. Chandan always seemed to have lots of time to chase thieves. Sometimes the thieves even came to him to be chased. It was quite different with Ratan. Poor Ratan! Every time he wanted to go up to 4C to spy on the man, somebody would call him. Bhaskar’s mother, “Ratan, can you ask Bhaskar to come home immediately?” Or Gopi’s mother, “Go and get me a kilo of ghee, quick.” Or his own father, “Ratan beta (son), take these clothes to 5D, the dhobin (washerwoman) has left them here.”
That was not all. Nobody helped Ratan, not even Bhaskar. “Forget it, yaar,” Bhaskar told him. “Come and play cricket if you want to, you can field.” And that fat Gopi stood on his balcony and every time he saw Ratan, he would tease him. “Oi,” he would say, “how many thieves have you caught? Will it be in all the papers tomorrow? ‘Chowkidar’s (watchman) brave son nabs smuggler’.”
But Ratan did not give up. Boy heroes never gave up. They waited for many days.
One afternoon the man came back early. He usually came after the six o’clock news, but that day he was there even before Bhaskar and the others had to come home from school. Ratan was sitting near the gate when the man returned. The man passed by him, then turned around. “Hey, boy,” he said and held out some money. “Can you get me a packet of cigarettes? Bring it up to 4C. Will you remember the number? 4C.”
Remember the number? Ratan knew it by heart. 4C, the smuggler’s house. Yes, Inspector, he is in 4C. No, Sir, he cannot escape. I have bolted the door from outside…
In five minutes, Ratan was going up the lift with the cigarettes. His eyes had narrowed, like Chandan’s. His mouth was a thin, straight line. Another minute and the proof would be in his hands. The proof of the smuggler in 4C. Then all he had to do was to call the police. He could go to Bhaskar’s house or even to Gopi’s house to use the phone. That would serve Gopi right when the police came and…
The front door of 4C was half-open. Ratan stopped and wiped the sweat off his brow as he had seen heroes do just before they faced the villain.
His back against the wall, his arms outstretched, his face turned sideways, Ratan crept up to the door. What would he see? What would he hear? The man was at the phone. Ratan could hear the whir of the telephone dial, then a small silence, and the man saying, “Han bhej do, (yes, send them).” just that.
Ratan’s heart – it could not be anything else – began to thump. So he had been right all along. This man was a smuggler. And now the stuff was coming. Wristwatches, gold, what not. Ratan wondered whether he would get a watch as a reward. He had always wanted an ‘imported’ one because he did not know how to read the time on the other type. And now perhaps…
“Hey you, boys! What are doing here?” It was Gopi’s father coming out of the lift. “Trying to steal, are you? I have caught you now…”
“But I…I…I,” Ratan stammered and tried to get out of his grasp. Gopi’s father held him tighter. Ratan wriggled but it was of no use. Chandan would have kicked his way but how could he, Ratan, Kick Gopi’s father? That was impossible! The door of 4C opened wider and the man looked out.
“I have caught this thieving boy,” Gopi’s father shouted. “He was trying to rob you. I always knew he was up to no good. He…”
The man merely smiled showing all his crooked teeth. Ratan was really afraid. What would happen now? The man might take him into flat and finish him off with some karate or something. If only he could tell Gopi’s father about this man and the phone call and…
But what was the man saying? “Oh, do let him go. He is a good boy. He has got me my cigarettes. He was waiting for me. that is all…”
Gopi’s father let go Ratan’s arm. “If you are so sure…” he muttered. The man took the cigarettes and change from the Ratan and smiled again.
“Good boy, aren’t you? Would you like me to teach you karate?”
Ratan looked up at the man. “Yes,” he said breathlessly. “Yes.”
Gopi’s father grunted. “Now he will go around killing people too.” He was about to say something more when there was a lot of shouting downstairs and the sound of many pairs of feet coming up the stairs. People opened their doors.
“Police!” someone said.
The police! So soon? But he had not called them yet. What would happen now? Would they take the man away? The man in 4C? Then who would teach him karate? All boy heroes had to know karate. Chandan did.
Now the police were on the second floor, now on the third. Were they stopping there? No, they climbed up further. Now they were on the fourth floor landing. And then they stopped.
One of them put his hand into his pocket. Was it for the handcuffs? Ratan stood still. There was nothing he could do now. But could he try? A sudden dive into the policeman’s stomach?
But what was this? The policemen had taken out, not handcuffs, but a piece of paper and was showing it to Gopi’s father. And now suddenly Gopi’s father looked like the moneylender in Dudh Roti. He had his hands folded and was saying something to policemen but nobody seemed to listen to him. One of the policemen rang the doorbell at 4B. The door opened and they all went in. From inside Gopi’s mother screamed.
Bhaskar said later that it was some income tax problem. Gopi’s father was also a kind of thief, he explained. The policemen left Gopi’s flat very late that night. But nobody went to speak to Gopi’s father, though the whole building was awake, even the children.
“Sorry for doubting you,” said Bina. “You can go on thinking that the new tenant is a smuggler. Maybe the next time the police will come for him.”
But Bina was wrong again, though she knew so much about frogs. But she did not know was that the new tenant in flat 4C looked just like the ‘detective’ in the film that was coming next week to Pioneer Cinema. Ratan had just seen the posters.
