Waiting for Akash
What do you do when your 14-year-old son is snatched by masked men and bundled into a minivan while he is cycling to school? What do you do when you don't hear from his captors for nearly two years? What do you do when shamans and charlatans appear at your door seeking money in return for "information" on your missing son? What do you do when the politicians invade your home, TV news in tow, to commiserate with you, make promises about catching the culprits and then disappear into thin air?
Well, if you belong to the Pandey family in Patna, you pray for the boy's safe return. You visit temples and go on pilgrimages and keep praying. You cry till your tears dry up. You stop visiting relatives and friends and going on family holidays. You shy away from festivals. During Diwali, the festival of lights, you shut yourself up in the room. You cover your ears and shut your eyes, hoping that the lights will go out and the crackers will stop bursting soon. And you wait and wait and wait, hoping one day Akash Pandey will knock on the door and rejoin his father, mother and two sisters.
Akash Pandey is - was? - unlucky to be born in Bihar. In India's most lawless state, kidnapping for ransom has been a thriving criminal enterprise for as long as anyone can remember. Things have improved a little as the present chief minister has cracked down on crime - 66 people were kidnapped for ransom last year, down from 411 in 2004. Nineteen people have already been kidnapped in the first three months of this year. Most of the abducted people return home after paying through their noses. Akash Pandey is not one of them - yet.
There are other kidnappings in Bihar too, like families of girls abducting boys and forcing them into marriage and such like; these have been merrily on the rise - last year 2,735 such cases were recorded, up from 1,689 in 2001. There is no state in India where law and order has been such a major election campaign issue as in Bihar.
We are sitting in the gloomy Pandey residence in Patna's Rajabazar area on the hottest day in the city so far this year. It was from this rented apartment on a narrow lane that Akash began his fateful cycle to school, barely a kilometre away, on the morning of 10 August 2007.
His sisters, Akanksha, 18, and Ankita, 17, join us. Their parents are away. Akanksha, bright and wise beyond her years, begins telling me the story of her brother. It is one of doting sisters, of a young brother who dreamt of becoming a scientist and working for Nasa, of middle-class India's dreams and aspirations and of how the fickleness of life and a feckless state can paint your world black.
It was just another busy morning in the Pandey residence: the children were getting ready for school, the mother was packing tiffin for them in the kitchen, and the father browsing through the morning papers over a cup of tea before getting ready for work.
"That morning, Akash wore a new school uniform, a white shirt. Then he put on a white cap. He asked whether he should wear this cap. He asked me whether he should apply a cream on his face. I told him to go ahead.
"Then he appeared from his room and asked, 'How am I looking didi [sister]?' I said, 'You are looking really smart'. He was so shy, he hid behind the curtain!
"Then he cycled off to the school. That was the last I ever saw of him."
Soon the telephone rang with the news of the kidnapping. A woman was on the line; she had seen the incident.
"She said my brother had been taken away. His school bag and the cycle were lying on the street. My father was shaking as he spoke. My mum collapsed on the floor in fear, shivering."
The police, Akanksha says, worked on the case for three months, before throwing in the towel. The government announced a reward of 100,000 rupees for any information about the missing boy, but nothing turned up. The woman who called up with the news remained the only witness.
Did you get any phone call or ransom notes after the incident? I ask.
"On 24th October, a telephone booth owner in our neighbourhood informed us that he had received an anonymous call asking to speak to my father, and that they would call later. My father rushed to the booth and waited till 10.30 pm in the night. No call came.
"Then we got two letters asking 1 million rupees ($20,000) in ransom. The letters said that Akash was not eating, that he was crying. The police said that the letters were forgeries."
Then came the politicians and the fraudsters, all cashing in on the tragedy. A woman claiming to be a human rights activist turned up to tell the family that the boy may have mistakenly landed up in prison, and she would secure his release in return for some money. Akash's mother gave her the money and the woman vanished. A priest kept on visiting asking for money to pray for Akash's return.
"When my mum called up the priest, he said he would send up "stronger" prayers for my brother's return if we paid him more," says Akanksha.
The Pandeys have no clue why Akash was taken away. They are a middle class family, and an unlikely target for kidnapping for ransom: Akash's father is a government worker and his mother is a homemaker. They say they have no enemies. But in Bihar, people have been kidnapped for as little as $50. People here believe that a section of the police and politicians have links with kidnapping gangs.
Akanksha takes me to the room where the siblings studied and slept. A small formica topped table where Akash studied stands in a corner. His soft toys are stashed away near an almirah. His guitar lies on the floor; and a few medals - school debate wins - hang on the wall.
"He was," his sister begins, and then corrects herself. "He is very fond of skating. He wanted a new pair of skates."
In a framed photograph, Akash flashes a faint smile outside the Taj Mahal on a family holiday not long before he was kidnapped. In his blue shirt and spectacles, he looks an affable, studious boy.
Do the sisters feel insecure and fearful after the incident? I ask.
"Sometimes we do. One evening, we were alone the house and the electricity went off. I am scared of the dark and started crying. My sister told me to stop. 'Just think about Akash,' she said. 'Think of how he must be living. How can we be afraid?'" says Akanksha.
It is time to leave. Akanksha says she wants to stay back in Bihar, become a journalist and give a "voice to the voiceless". Very early in her life, she learnt the first lesson on life in Bihar, and India - fend for yourself, because the state usually only caters to the rich and the powerful. If you are nobody, the state couldn't care less.
But first, she says, she will receive her brother when she returns.
"We will all celebrate when he returns. We will start going out and attending festivals. We have so many plans lined up," she says. "We are confident that he will come back. We have faith in God."
"Now he must be 16 years old. He must have grown up quite a bit. He must be looking a bit different..." she says, suddenly lost in her thoughts and bleary eyed.
It is difficult to stay on much longer. I take my leave and step out into a boiling afternoon. I make my way past grotty shops and rundown automobile garages that mark the road that Akash used every day to cycle to school. Behind me, the girls wave me off. Then they disappear into their home to continue waiting for their brother.
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