I was forty years old then. I had requested a transfer from Delhi to Chennai. Delhi, being the capital, it was easy to ask to be transferred to another city from there. Initially, I didn’t want to relocate to Chennai, but due to some unavoidable circumstances, I had to make the move.

The Home Ministry asked, “Can we relocate you to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Chennai?”

I declined.

At that time, I believed in Che Guevara, armed revolution, and everything else that went with it. I was afraid that if I, with my ultra-left leanings, joined the CBI, I would definitely be thrown out of the department. There was also another reason for me being so scared of the CBI.

In Delhi, there lived a critic- his name was Venkat Swaminathan. I was in touch with him from the time I first moved to Delhi in 1978 until 1982. In 1979, he sublet a room in his house to me. Generally, I don’t ask anyone the usual ‘Indian’ questions, such as, where they work, if they are married, how many kids they have, or whether they own or rent their house.

I don’t even know these details about some people I’ve known for years. 

I was working with the Civil Supplies department in Delhi at the time. And I would go to the office only once a month—to collect my salary. I will explain the reason in later episodes.

Swaminathan was just like me, with one difference: he went to the office every day, signed the attendance register, collected his personal mail, and left. He spent no more than half an hour at the office; the rest of his time was spent in libraries or watching international films at Mandi House.

Our daily routine was as follows: we would both leave home at half past nine in the morning. His office was half a kilometre away. We would reach his office at ten o’clock.

I never got a good look at his office, though. I just saw it from a distance, and it was a new building.

“You don’t have to come there, wait for me in the park,” he would say.   Back then in Delhi, there were numerous parks and I used to sit in one, waiting for him. He would come at half past ten. We would have a cup of tea there, catch a bus, and go straight to Lodhi Gardens. He used to bring curd rice for lunch every day. A little bit of rice floating in the buttermilk was what he called ‘curd rice’.

I would think that if I ate just that for a week, I would surely die. I often wonder how the Brahmins of Delhi managed to sustain themselves on such a diet. I would opt for tandoori roti and sabji at a roadside daba next to Lodhi Gardens. Swaminathan would join me for the meal and tuck it all in happily.

Our discussions covered a wide range of topics, including world literature, movies, plays, and philosophy. Our discussions would continue until half past four.

At that point, we would get up and make our way to Mandi House. Mandi House was surrounded by numerous auditoriums, each hosting a variety of international cinema, cultural events, and music programs daily. After watching the show of the evening, we usually wound up the day with dinner and returned home by half-past ten.

As I waited for Swaminathan in the park for half an hour, I often found myself wondering about his job. Based on his appearance and attire, one might assume he was either a clerk or a chaprasi. However, the chances of him being a chaprasiwere slim, as chaprasis were unlikely to be granted a three-bedroom house by their department. It was at the quarters allotted by the government to him that I was renting a room. Another room was occupied by a student from Uttar Pradesh.

The third room was for the critic, his wife, and their ten-year-old son. So I came to the conclusion that he could be a clerk.

One day, Swaminathan exclaimed, “Oh, you’re a Steno?” while observing me scribbling something in short hand on a piece of paper. I was quickly noting down something that he had said. That’s when I came to know that he knew shorthand too. I remarked, “You’re a stenographer too?” He said he used to work as a stenographer, and I thought he might be a clerk who had now been promoted to the role of a head clerk.

Later, he mentioned that he was employed at the Home Ministry. He was usually shabbily dressed, a pair of dungeon black shoes, a worn-out sweater, and a jolnabag (with holes here and there) slung over his shoulder. It was common to see him with a Ganesh beedi in hand, as there was no ‘hysteria’ about smoking in public in those days, and it was allowed almost everywhere.

One day, Swaminathan went to the office, following his usual routine. I was seated in the park waiting for him, and the distance between the office and the park was about one furlong. This was a time when terrorism was not prevalent in India, and all three Gandhis (Indira, Sanjay, and Rajiv) were still alive. The LTTE and Prabhakaran were not as widely known at that time.

Life in Delhi flowed like a calm river. Yadavs would come to your doorstep with a cow, allowing you to witness the milking process first hand. The butter that clung to your hands after eating curd rice required an entire bar of soap to remove it. If you dipped your finger in the milk, it would drip slowly from your hand.

Swaminathan, who had entered the office at ten o’clock, was nowhere to be found by half-past eleven. This was unusual. Curious, I decided to enter his office. To my surprise, ten to fifteen armed guards immediately surrounded me.

I yelled, “Swaminathan! Swaminathan!”

In response, they bombarded me with about fifty questions. They asked me which Swaminathan it was that I wanted to meet. They wanted his job description, my identity, my relationship with Swaminathan, and how I had come to know that he worked there. The rapid-fire questioning unsettled me. It seemed to me that they were treating me as a potential terrorist.

Eventually, they instructed me to produce my ID card. I explained that our civil supplies office did not issue any identity cards.

Finally, Swaminathan arrived after the entire episode had concluded. With his friendly smile, he explained in fluent Hindu (but of course with a “Madrasi” accent), “This Madrasi boy is clueless . Let him be; he entered without knowing.”

It was only then that I learned that he was working at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and that those employed there were prohibited from disclosing this, even to their spouses. Even then, the specific position he held remained unknown to me. It was only later that I discovered that he was a Deputy Director at the CBI.

With this scary incident in mind, I declined the offer to join the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

By Charu Nivedita