The Accidental Apprentice (24 page)

She accompanies me to a nearby clinic, where a nurse cleans the wound and disinfects it. Our route passes through a bustling street market. On the way back, we come across an inspector wearing the uniform of Maharashtra Police. He is busy negotiating with a toy vendor, his Rajdoot motorcycle purring like a wildcat on the side of the road.

Mercy tries to propel me gently in the officer's direction. ‘We can still go to the police.'

‘I can't. I've promised Neha.'

She grips my arm. ‘We shouldn't allow Raoji to get away again,
didi.
' Her eyes burn with a dark fire, like black lava from a volcano that has erupted inside her.

I gaze at her, at the toyshop, and an idea flashes across my mind.

‘I have a plan,' I whisper to her.

‘Tell me,' she whispers back.

*   *   *

There is an electric charge in the air. It is the final round of eliminations. Today the last two singers will be shown the door, leaving the twenty contestants who will fight it out for the coveted crown on live television.

I wait with the rest of the audience, as the tension builds to a peak.

One by one, the judges announce the names of today's contestants. It is like a game of chess; the trick is to anticipate your opponents' move. The judges try to protect their assets, pit their best singers against weaker opponents and checkmate the other teams.

‘I nominate Javed,' Bashir Ahmad declares. A ripple of excitement goes through the audience. Javed Ansari is the clear favourite till now. Bashir's move is a queen's gambit.

‘I select Sujata Meena,' says Udita Sapru. Sujata is an earthy singer with a throaty voice. She is the equivalent of the horse, the joker in the pack, capable of causing an upset.

‘My warrior is Nisar Malik,' says Rohit Kalra. The Kashmiri is not the best singer in his team. He is a pawn who can be sacrificed.

‘And I field Neha,' announces Raoji. A gasp escapes from everybody's lips. A face-off between Javed and Neha makes no sense at this preliminary stage. It is like pitting two queens against each other in the opening gambit itself.

The four contestants line up on stage and the elimination round begins.

Bashir Ahmad chooses a powerful love song for Javed, and his protégé delivers it flawlessly, wowing everyone with the range, intensity and raw expressive power of his voice.

Sujata Meena's forte is folk songs, and her guru allows her to sing to her strengths. The Rajasthani ballad that she belts out has the audience entranced, her gutsy, freewheeling voice a compelling counterpoint to the calculated perfection of Neha's vocal style.

Nisar Malik's rendition of a tragic Kishore Kumar song is also surprisingly impressive, dripping with the melancholy of heartbreak and disappointment.

And then it is Neha's turn. Everybody looks at Raoji expectantly. Neha waits on stage with an angelic smile, but I know she must be having butterflies in her stomach. The only thing that matters to her is winning this contest. And this is the make-or-break moment.

Raoji clears his throat. ‘Neha is my best singer, so I will give her a song that showcases her full vocal range.' His face is expressionless under his dark glasses as he tells Neha, ‘
Beti,
I want you to sing “Kuhu Kuhu Bole Koyaliya”.'

I am stunned. The taut grimace that skews Neha's mouth tells me even she wasn't expecting this. Raoji has set a clever trap. Unfortunately, there is no way for my sister to avoid it. She tries bravely to carry the song, but yesterday's ordeal has left her underpowered. Her notes sound a little tired and pinched. Once again, the upper register in the song's most difficult
antara
strains her voice, which sags towards flatness.

The result is a foregone conclusion. In the judges' reckoning, as also in that of the audience, Neha is the weakest singer of the lot. She gets eliminated.

A solemn hush falls over the audience as it comes to grips with the humbling realisation that one of the early favourites has bitten the dust. Neha is stony-faced, accepting the verdict with stoic resignation.

The final elimination round begins almost immediately thereafter, one that pits Mercy against three other singers, all much inferior to her.

Udita Sapru asks Mercy to sing ‘Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon' (‘O! The People of my Country'), a patriotic song by Lata Mangeshkar, which is revered as the ultimate tribute to the fallen Indian soldiers of the 1962 war with China. Today, Mercy surpasses herself. She breaks through her frozen depths and sings with daring, gifted abandon. The song acquires wings, as though liberated from its earthly confines. Her lilting voice soars upwards to the heavens, sweeping away the orchestra, the judges, the audience, everything in its path. Imbued with the exquisite agony of loss, the dirge becomes almost like a catharsis, an elegy for her fallen sister. I get goosebumps hearing her notes reach a purity of perfection unmatched in the history of the contest.

The song over, she withdraws into her shell, flushed like an exhausted runner. The judges whisper among themselves, make embarrassed eye contact with the producer. It is clear they are devising strategies to justify eliminating her from the contest.

Bashir Ahmad takes a sip of water from the glass in front of him before announcing his verdict. ‘It was a … er … good performance. You are obviously talented. But I don't think you are ready for the next level. There is a rawness in your voice which needs polishing.'

Rohit Kalra finds fault with her deadpan expression and her awkwardness. ‘Singing is not just about nailing the notes,' he observes. ‘It's also about how you convey your message to the audience.'

Raoji discovers an imaginary lapse in concentration in the penultimate stanza. ‘That one little blemish spoilt the entire performance for me. But I tell you what: you do a little more
riyaaz
– a little more practice – and no one can stop you from winning next year's contest.'

‘Thank you, sir,' Mercy squeaks. ‘I need your blessing.'

‘I shall deliver it personally,' says Raoji. He leaves the judges' podium and shuffles towards the stage, feeling his way forward with his stick. Mathew George guides him up the steps. Mercy stands with her head bowed as Raoji approaches her. When he is barely ten paces away, she springs to her feet with a silent cry, a knife appearing magically in her right hand. Under the stark red spotlight, the serrated blade seems to be soaked in blood.

A shocked gasp rises from the audience, and reverberates around the hall.

As Mercy arcs the knife at Raoji's chest, the music director instinctively extends his hands to protect himself. Discarding his stick, he leaps down from the stage with a stifled scream, his face a waxlike pastiche of panic.

An even bigger gasp of surprise emanates from the crowd.

‘You … you can
see?
' Bashir Ahmad notes, his jaw dropping open.

‘That is true,' I say, clambering onto the stage and grabbing the mike. ‘Mercy was not trying to kill Raoji, only to expose him.'

Mercy throws down the plastic toy knife I purchased last night from the street market, her chest heaving with emotion. She falls on her knees, crosses herself and kisses the crucifix around her neck. With tears running down her face, she lifts up her hands in prayer. ‘Lord, have mercy on my sister's soul.'

‘Raoji is not blind, at least not in both eyes,' I continue. ‘He had kept up the pretence so that he could feel up young girls, lure them by sympathy and ultimately exploit them, like he exploited Mercy's sister Gracie, forcing her to kill herself. Last night he tried the same dirty trick with Neha. This evil man deserves to be publicly whipped.'

The crowd roars in approval.

Udita Sapru stands up suddenly. ‘I cannot bear to stay in the same room as this monster,' she declares in a shaky voice, and then stalls, as though fighting with herself to continue. ‘He … he … did this to me, too, when I was a contestant on
Song of Life.
'

The revelation is met with shock, astonishment and ultimately anger by the audience. A couple of men advance threateningly towards Raoji, who cowers in fear.

‘Cut it!' Mathew George leaps out from his director's chair. ‘I say, what's going on?' he asks no one in particular, struggling to maintain an air of professional calm.

‘I should never have agreed to judge this third-rate contest.' Udita flashes a scornful look at him. ‘I quit.'

‘So do I,' says Bashir Ahmad.

‘Me too,' says Rohit Kalra.

They walk out of the studio in a huff, leaving Raoji at the mercy of the hordes swarming at him from all sides.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, I discover Mathew George sitting forlornly on a bench, surveying the ruins of his set vandalised by the frenzied mob.

‘What have you done?' the producer-cum-director screams at me. ‘Raoji is in hospital with fifty broken bones. And my contest has ended even before it had begun.'

‘Don't blame me,' I respond calmly. ‘I only gave you what you wanted.'

‘Why would I want to destroy my own show?' he cries, tearing at his dreads like a madman.

‘You wanted our dirty laundry, our secrets and confessions. Well, I've given you a first-rate scandal. Enjoy.'

*   *   *

Neha and I take a train to Delhi the same afternoon. We spend the eighteen-hour journey in near complete silence, absorbed in our own thoughts. Karan's face hovers in my mind like a persistent fever dream. Neha is unnaturally subdued, with a faraway look in her eyes. ‘No more singing contests for me,' she tells me. She has seen the true face of the world, at last, and it has shattered her illusions, doused her fiery ambitions of instant stardom.

There is a pleasant surprise in store for us the moment the train pulls into Paharganj station at seven a.m. the next day. Waiting on the platform is Karan Kant, holding an enormous bouquet of yellow carnations. I had informed him of our arrival, briefed him on the fiasco that was
Popstar No. 1,
but I never expected him to meet us at the station itself, and that too with a welcome gift. It melts away the failure and frustrations of Mumbai in an instant, makes me feel truly special.

He looks dashing in a striped polo shirt and khaki chinos. My face flushes and my heart almost lurches out of my throat as I step forward to receive the flowers.

To my utter astonishment, he slides past me and puts the bouquet into Neha's lap. ‘Welcome back, Singing Queen.' He beams at her. It's a sweet gesture to cheer her up, but I cannot help feeling a trifle betrayed. A sickly surge of jealousy sours my gut as I watch Neha blush.

Perhaps Karan had anticipated my reaction, for he turns to me an instant later. ‘And don't think I've forgotten you, madam.' He grins like a magician at the end of a trick, and whips out a single red rose encased in cellophane. He offers it to me with a grave little half-bow. Finding me still wrapped in confusion, he scratches his head and rolls his eyes. ‘You don't like roses? Would you have preferred a steaming cup of tea?' Screwing up his face, he intones throatily, ‘Chai! Chai garam!' mimicking the singsong voice of the mobile chai wallahs who stalked our compartment at every stop.

And I know then that he is the same old Karan. The Karan who hides his true feelings behind trite banalities. He remains as frustratingly inscrutable as before. Plus, now he has left me yet another riddle to solve. Is a single red rose worth more than a dozen yellow carnations?

*   *   *

Vinay Mohan Acharya summons me in the evening of the same day.

When I reach his front office on the fifteenth floor, I find a homely-looking South Indian girl sitting on the secretary's desk. ‘Hello, Miss Sapna. I'm Revathi Balasubramaniam,' she greets me. Her cheeks dimple as she gives me a timid smile. Before I can even greet her back, the buzzer on her desk rings and I am ushered into the industrialist's presence.

‘What happened to Jennifer?' I ask Acharya.

‘I fired her,' he grimaces.

‘Why?'

‘She was the snake in our midst, passing on sensitive company information to the Premier Group.'

‘My God!'

‘It was Rana who exposed her. He managed to obtain the call records from her personal cell phone. We found plenty of calls to the private number of Ajay Krishna Acharya, the head of Premier Industries. It was especially intriguing to see calls made to my brother on the same night we finalised our quote for the national ID-card software tender.'

‘So did you confront her?'

‘She denied it, of course. Said someone must have forged the call records to frame her. But every thief denies being a thief.' He gazes pensively out of the bay window at the fading pink sky. ‘An enemy I can forgive, but not a traitor,' he resumes in a hollow voice, as though in the grip of a powerful emotion. ‘A mistake can be corrected, but, once trust is betrayed, it's gone for ever.'

I nod in silent assent.

‘Anyway, I didn't call you here to complain about Jennifer, but to compliment you. You have passed the fourth test with flying colours.'

‘And what test was that?'

‘The test of foresight.'

‘I don't understand. What did I do to show foresight?'

He taps the pile of newspapers lying on his desk. Almost all of them carry the exposé of Raoji on the front page. ‘It took a blind man to reveal your strategic foresight. You had an inkling that something was not quite right about Raoji and you made an ingenious plan to unmask that charlatan. Bravo.'

‘But how did you know of my role in the matter? None of the papers I have read mentions my name.'

‘But they do mention a certain Mercy Fernandez. I got the full story from her. She told me how you were suspicious of Raoji from the beginning. And what you did to save your sister from his clutches.'

‘How do you know Mercy?'