Six Suspects (20 page)

The embrace is broken by someone shaking my shoulder violently.
I look up to find a tall man with a thick curled-up
moustache glaring at me. It is Ram Singh, Ritu's bodyguard.

'Baby!' he thunders at her with the authority of a trusted
retainer. 'Your entire family is waiting at home with your birthday
cake and this is where you are spending your time? If Bhaiyyaji
were to see you in this condition he wouldn't leave you alive. Now
come with me this instant.'

Ritu wrenches herself from me with a terrified cry and gets up
from the bench. Ram Singh grabs her arm and begins dragging her
towards the car park. She cannot even muster the courage to look
back at me.

I am left contemplating the reach of her father. If Ram Singh
can inspire so much terror, what will being face to face with
Jagannath Rai be like? What kind of nasty things will he do to me
once he finds out about the naughty things I have done with his
daughter? I can only hope that just as the gangsters whose briefcase
I have stolen have no clue to my whereabouts, Jagannath Rai
will be unable to trace me.

On returning to the temple, I find Champi sitting in her usual
place, chatting to a dark-skinned stranger. This is the first time I
have seen her chat with anyone in the temple. I approach the
gulmohar
tree. The man sitting on the bench is the strangestlooking
person I have ever seen. He is no more than five feet tall
and jet black, like the
habshis
they show in movies dancing with
the heroine in a nightclub in their leopard-skin loincloths, chanting
some nonsense like '
Hoogo Boogu
' and thrusting their spears in
the air.

'Who was that stranger you were talking to?' I ask Champi the
next morning.

'He is my friend, and he is staying in the shack next to ours,'
says Champi. 'What does he look like, Munna?'

I glance at Champi sharply. There is an expectant look on her
face, as though my answer will be a confirmation of what she has
already visualized in her mind. I see the same bashful glow on her
cheeks as I have seen on Ritu's. With a shock I realize Champi
might be falling in love with that tribal. Somehow, because of her
ugliness, the possibility has never crossed my mind, and I realize
how selfish and insensitive I have been.

'What does he look like?' Champi repeats.

'He is tall and dark and very handsome,' I reply, bringing a
smile to Champi's face. No point telling her that her Romeo is a
black midget who looks like a clown.

*

The next week is the most agonizing of my life. Ritu does not call
me and her mobile appears to be switched off. I am unable to
sleep, my mind full of grim portents. And my foreboding seems
justified when I get a frantic call on 17 March from Malini, Ritu's
friend whom I met in the night club. 'Munna, Ritu needs to see
you. With great difficulty I have managed to bring her to my
house. Can you come right now to West End?'

I take down the address and rush to her house, a smart villa in
a leafy suburb. A distraught Malini receives me and takes me to
her room, where I receive the shock of my life. Ritu limps up
to me, looking like one of those battered housewives they show on
TV. There are bruises on her forehead and chin, welt marks on her
cheeks and dark circles under her eyes.

'Who did this to you?' I cry.

'There was a big fight in the house on the day of my birthday.
Ram Singh spilled the beans about my affair with you. My
father threatened to shoot me. But it was Vicky who actually
hit me.'

An incandescent rage begins building inside me. 'How dare he
do this to you?' I seethe. 'I will kill him.'

'Now I have been forbidden from leaving the house and my
mobile has been confiscated,' Ritu adds. 'Luckily Malini came to
meet me today and managed to bring me here. I wanted to warn
you to be very careful. Your life could be in danger.'

'But what about
your
life? The butchers in your house are
quite capable of killing you.'

'It is a woman's fate to suffer. But I have taken one courageous
decision at least. I have told my father that I will not marry
Kunwar Inder Singh, even if he kills me. That alliance was
arranged by my father only to further his political agenda. I refuse
to become a pawn in his dirty game.'

'Then marry me.'

'My family will never allow me to marry you.' Ritu slowly
shakes her head. 'But I have made it clear that I shall not marry
anyone else either.'

'Then marry me against your family's wishes. We could go to
a temple right now. Once we are legally married, your father
won't be able to do a thing. The police will protect us.'

She gives a hollow laugh. 'I have seen how police officers
quake on hearing my father's name. They will be the first ones to
drag me back to him.'

'Then what are our options, Ritu?'

'None. They say in books that all's fair in love and war. But I
have seen with my own eyes, nothing is fair in either, Munna. Our
love is a prohibited one.'

'Just because you belong to a high caste and I don't? I do not
agree with you,' I challenge her. 'Forty years ago my mother and I
were called Untouchables. We wouldn't have been allowed inside
the temple. Today she not only works there, she also lives there.
And no one dares call us Untouchable.'

'But let her come to our house with your marriage proposal
and then see what happens.'

'What will happen? At best your family will say no.'

'Don't be naive, Munna. You know what they did to that poor
Muslim boy who dared to marry the daughter of an industrialist
in Kolkata. They killed him.'

'But I am not Muslim.'

'Then take a look at this newspaper report.' She produces a
crumpled news clipping from her handbag. It is from some Hindi
newspaper.

'What does it say?'

'It says that two young lovers were lynched in Uttar Pradesh
because they belonged to different castes. Nineteen-year-old
Pritam and eighteen-year-old Sonu were hanged one after the
other from the roof of a house in their village. He was a high-caste
Brahmin, while she was a member of a lower-caste community.
Hundreds of people watched as the couple were hanged. What is
even more gruesome is the fact that the boy's and the girl's
parents not only sanctioned the punishment, but even watched as
their children swung from the makeshift gibbet.' She shudders as
she reads.

'I don't care if they kill me. I still want to marry you.'

'But I care, Munna, I care. If my brother can do this to me, his
own sister, think what he could do to you.'

'You exaggerate unnecessarily.' I wave my hand. 'I am not
scared of Vicky Rai.'

At that precise moment my mobile phone trills. This surprises
me because the only person other than me who knows this
number is Ritu. I press the Talk button and an unknown voice
breathes down the line. 'Motherfucker, listen to me carefully. My
name is Vicky Rai. And you have dared to raise your eyes to my
sister Ritu. Now I will carve you up like a pig, I will break every
bone in your body and then I will feed your carcass to my dogs.
Get it?'

The line is disconnected and the air inside the room becomes
noticeably colder. Ritu doesn't hear the message, but from the
expression on my face she guesses the identity of the caller
immediately. 'It was my brother, wasn't it?'

'Yes,' I reply, still reeling with shock. 'How did he get my
number?'

'He must have taken it from my mobile. What did he say?'

'He threatened to kill me.'

'Oh my God!' she says and buries her face in her hands. There
is complete silence in the room for a couple of minutes. Then she
raises her head and I see her lips curved into an expression of grim
determination. 'Now there is only one option left for us. We have
to run away,' she declares.

'I agree,' I say and clutch her hand. 'We must think of our
future together.'

'But how will we survive? I don't have any money.'

'I have enough to support both of us.'

'How much?' she asks.

'Much more than you can imagine. I promise that you will not
lack anything.'

'Where will we run to?'

'Pick any city you like.'

'I have always wanted to visit Mumbai.'

'So have I. Let's go to the station right now and catch a train.'

'No. If we do that, Malini will be in a lot of trouble.'

'Then when should we go?'

'I know the perfect date. Vicky is having a big party on 23
March to celebrate his acquittal. There will be nearly five hundred
people in the house and in that mêlée I will manage to slip out.
Wait for me just outside the service entrance of Number Six. It is
on the side path perpendicular to the main road. I will come out
at exactly eleven p.m. Then we will take a taxi to the railway
station and escape to Mumbai.'

'Excellent. I will get two tickets for Mumbai ready.'

Our pact is made and I know that a new phase of my life is
about to begin. The future, which was nebulous till now, appears
to be acquiring a definite shape. I am looking forward to living in
Mumbai. They say it is the city of dreams. It has made people
living on pavements film stars and industrialists overnight. Who
knows what it might have in store for me.

I am tempted, on returning to the temple, to go to the sanctum
sanctorum and prostrate myself before Lord Shiva. This seems like
an appropriate occasion to end my tiff with God and seek his
blessings. I even climb up the marble steps. In the face of Ritu's
love, the songs of Bollywood have begun to seem real to me. I have
begun to believe that there might be justice in this world after all.
But a tiny voice in my head continues to hold me back. Where was
God when those young lovers were being hanged? Was he powerless
to stop the murders? Or was he himself a mute spectator to
the atrocity?

I go to the railway booking office and purchase two first-class train
tickets for Mumbai. The Punjab Mail will leave Delhi at 05:30 on
24 March and take Ritu and me straight to Mumbai Central.

I consider what to do with Champi and Mother. Champi appears
to be completely smitten by that tribal. Every day I catch her sitting
on the bench, chatting to him animatedly. And for the first time I
actually hear her full-throated laugh. I don't grudge her that small
happiness. And I feel it is time I informed Mother of my plan.

'Three days from now I am going to Mumbai,' I tell her.

'So suddenly?' she asks. 'Is it because of your work?'

'No. To tell you the truth, I'm getting married.'

'Oh! And who is the girl, if I may ask?'

'Her name is Ritu.'

'And does she live in Mumbai?'

'No, she lives in Delhi. In Mehrauli, in fact.'

'So is she one of the maids from the Sanjay Gandhi slum?'

'They are worthless trash, Mother, that I wouldn't even dream
of marrying. Your prospective daughter-in-law belongs to one of
the richest and most powerful families in the country.'

'You dream too much, Munna.'

'No, Mother. This is real. Ritu and I are getting married and
moving to Mumbai. As soon as we get settled there I will send for
both of you. Then Champi can have her operation. And you can
finally take some well-deserved rest.'

Mother becomes instantly suspicious. 'Why are you going to
Mumbai if the girl is from Delhi? Are you two eloping?'

'Sort of.'

'Look, you had better tell me all about this Ritu. Who is her
father? What is her family?'

'Her father is Jagannath Rai, the Home Minister of Uttar
Pradesh. Her brother is the industrialist Vicky Rai.'

Mother's hand flies to her mouth. 'No. . . . no . . . no,' she
murmurs.

'You always said that we are poor because of our deeds in a
previous life. Well, I have managed to escape the fate that the bad
karma in my previous life prescribed for me, in this life itself,' I
brag, but Mother is not listening to me. She is already in conversation
with her gods. 'How could you play such a cruel joke,
Ishvar
?' she addresses the calendars on the wall.

'What joke? What are you saying, Mother?' I demand.

'You don't know, son,' she replies in an anguished voice. 'This
Vicky Rai is the one who killed your father. Mowed him down
while he was sleeping on the pavement.'

I feel the ground shift beneath my feet. 'What? Are you sure?'

'A wife can never forget her husband's death. Like a film, that
scene has been playing in my mind for the past fifteen years.'

'Yet you kept it a secret from me? He was my father, after all.'

'I was sworn to silence by Jagannath Rai. He gave me money
for this house, for your education, in return for not implicating
Vicky.'

The past has the nasty habit of catching up with you at unexpected
moments. I had suspected all along that Father's death
had resulted in a pay-off to Mother from the errant driver. But I
had been blissfully unaware of the identity of the driver. Or
perhaps I had deliberately not tried to probe too deeply into
the matter. I had conveniently rationalized that we had to move
on with our lives, and Father was not going to come back from
the dead. But now he had. And he had detonated a small bomb
in my life, throwing everything into disarray. A medley of
emotions whirls through my mind, from sadness to anger to
bafflement.

'Perhaps this was pre-ordained, Mother,' I say, after brooding
for a while.

'What do you mean, Munna?'

'Don't you see, this is God's way of exacting revenge? Many
years ago, Vicky Rai snatched something from us. Now we are
going to snatch something from him.'

'So you are still going to marry his sister?'

'Ritu hates her family as much as you do. And Ritu and I love
each other very much. Even Father would have approved of my
decision to marry her.'

'Don't you dare bring your father into this. Or God,' Mother
lashes at me. 'I will go to Vicky Rai's house myself and stop this
wedding.'