Seven

8. Matter of Charity

Friday, December 14, 2018

Annapurna Ration Shop looked like the thousand ration shops that dotted the country; small, stuffy and noisy as people jostled in the vague semblance of a queue while they waited for their turn. The shop was run by two people, one a scrawny young lad, who did the manual work of measuring out the items, rice, wheat, and sugar, packing them into paper or plastic bags. The other, who was a short rotund middle-aged woman, took care of the billing, all the while shouting at everyone. She was speaking Telugu, his native language, but it was still different. Raghuveer listened with half a mind, trying to place where he was based on the distinctive accent, and relaxed when he was finally able to identify it. They were in the coastal district of Andhra Pradesh and gave a wry smile when he looked up behind him. The closed shop, against whose shutters they had been leaning, had a board that mentioned where they were; Gouthami Ghat, Rajahmundry.

Raghuveer had mixed memories about the place; Kamakshi had insisted that one of the family holidays, a regular feature when the kids were young, be spent here. It had amused him no end, for they had not been together as a family for the entire week. Kamakshi and his parents had hired a car and driven various places way beyond the city outskirts, visiting the numerous temples, each famous and each not to be missed. He and his kids had toured the city, visiting the Godavari bridge, the Dholeswaram barrage, Pappi Kondalu, which in the cool winter days was breathtaking, the entire hill range covered with tropical rain forests. The only place they had visited as a full family was the evening aarti at the Gouthami Ghat. Surprisingly, he had not been bothered by that ritual and had felt a certain calm; happy and content with his family. Even today, almost a decade later, the memory of that evening brought him some peace.

A peace that was broken by a sharp nudge from Luc.

He glared at Luc, who with his trademark nonchalance, pointed out at one man in the crowd. As Raghuveer looked at that man, Luc pointed out another and then another, till he had almost picked out a dozen of the customers and Raghuveer's growled, "If you want me to finish off all of them, you are out of your mind. You said seven people and you have picked out a dozen. And even if I were insane enough to agree, it would not be possible on a practical level to do it with stealth. You seem to be..."

"They have bogus identity cards, they are not eligible for the subsided rations."

Raghuveer stopped, his tirade stumbling to a halt; it was a known story fact, the system was faulty. A mechanism put in place to act as a safety net by distributing essentials at a subsidised rate, it had a greater rate of failure than success. There were cracks throughout the process; poor adulterated stocks, insufficient quantities, the high quality switched with low quality and subsequently sold at market prices, ineligible people being sold the stocks, the list was endless. And here was a way the stocks were being siphoned off.

"So which one of them do I take out?" Raghuveer turned to ask Luc, who replied by raising one perfectly arched eyebrow.

Raghuveer shrugged, there was no point trying to find out reasons for what had to be done, it served no purpose. However hard he tried, he was slowly losing the ability to justify what he was doing. There was no purpose in trying to find out the right and wrong, in the end, it had to be worth saving Tarun. He struggled to appear impassive, but Luc could read him quite well, he learnt, for Luc nodded, "Very well if that is your stand, I have no problem. The lady in charge is your target."

And smiled as Raghuveer looked askance at him, "All of it happens with her compliance, she is an important cog in the whole wheel. Need any further clarifications?"

When Raghuveer shook his head, Luc continued, "Alright then, let us move on, she will finish her shift by ten o'clock and we need to be ready for her."