Grave business: The unlovely bones

Petrol’s ways were as mysterious as his work. How he obtained a supply of bones was a topic of intense speculation.

The sickly stench of a decomposing body wafted out of the autopsy room as we walked through this well-known medical college. Even though it was the middle of the day, the college was practically deserted and pieces of broken furniture dotted the halls.

But we were prepared for all this — after all, meeting the shadowy character known only as ‘Petrol’ was no task for the faint-hearted.

Every now and then a comically obnoxious horn from a passing bus or the chuckles of a group of friends walking towards the canteen would break the deathly silence of the corridors.

However, as soon as we turned a dim corner, the silence was deafening. This was the hall that led to the room that was as dark as the trade that took place in it.

Here sat Petrol, in an office that was only slightly bigger than a broom closet. A table fan that sputtered more than it cooled slowly dispelled the deathly aura that had descended on us as we had walked through the tomb-like abyss.

What followed was the typical Petrol-student exchange, which went something like this:

“Okay, so what will it be? Skull? Upper limb? Lower limb? Whole skeleton?” Petrol gets straight down to business. Obviously, students do not brave these ghoulish grounds just to drop in and say “hi” — they are here for the real thing: organic, tried and tested human bones.

Petrol casually tossed a few bones out of one of his drawers. A rib or two flew past the midday snack he was munching on, and he trawled through his store of human remains with the same unwashed hands he would eat his kebab roll with. The drawer did not of course contain all the bones requested — Petrol needed more time for that. And at the end of the day, Petrol left his humble office and disappeared into the light outside, squinting as he went.

Petrol’s ways were as mysterious as his work. How he obtained a supply of bones that almost never ran short was a topic of intense speculation among bands of students gathered in different corners of the college.

Whether he invaded graves at night or resorted to other means to get his wares, the fact remained that this sinister figure got his hands dirty doing a job no one else wanted to. He was known as the bone dealer who had made a pact with the dead… just to make a few bucks! In doing so, he unwittingly helped a hoard of pious doctors perform better in their exams.

This favour however, did not come for free. “Gari mein petrol daalo gey toh gari chaley gee!” (If you want to run the car, you’ve got to fill it up with petrol) was what Petrol used to say to students asking for his ‘services’. He got his name from the very thing that drove his ambitions… his petrol… money!

The human body was a playground for freshmen trying to mark the exact location of human organs on it during an Anatomy exam. Tired of practicing their skills on dummies, students soon realised that messing with the ‘real thing’ was so much more effective, and that’s where Petrol would come in.

This ignoble rivet in our medical machinery was indispensable. Who else would be willing to sieve dust for bones and lose both his image and name on the way? For the puritan faculty that harped on about medical ethics day in and day out, Petrol was an invisible yet crucial learning aid resigned to an obscure corner.

Just like any other baddie, Petrol too came with a side kick — CNG! From shoveling a grave in the dark to replacing his superior in menial tasks like bargaining with the students, this subordinate cost less to deal with, hence his name.

CNG always hovered in Petrol’s shadow, watching his boss closely to learn the tricks of the trade. After Petrol mysteriously disappeared one day, for some time CNG acted as heir to the empire of bones and skulls that Petrol left behind.

Now though, even this trusty sidekick is not easy to trace. This college that stands smack in the middle of the city has metamorphosed in all these years. The creepy cranny that housed the infamous bone dealer now stands vacant, ready to be flattened to the ground.

Although CNG, the half-blood prince, walks these grounds no more, the treasure he fled with still stays well in demand.

“Bones are now swapped and bartered, traded to younger students by seniors but if they ever run short… You can always find a peon who promises to get you a limb or two from ‘somewhere’!” says a student.

And since Petrol isn’t seen around campus anymore, an urban legend says the human bones that students surreptitiously practice their craft on in that dark basement… may just be Petrol’s own.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 13^th, 2011.