THE BUTCHER OF BENARES

by MAHENDRA JAKHAR

  Abhay looked at her with piercing eyes and said with gritted teeth, ‘I have no idea about such theories.’

  ‘What do you think of human sacrifice?’ asked Hawa Singh.

  ‘I’m totally against them.’

  ‘You said that the killings had added a sort of excitement to this otherwise peaceful city. Do you feel sympathetic to this Butcher?’

  ‘Are you trying to corner me into some sort of verbal duel here?’ Abhay Singh said at a high decibel.

  Ruby saw in the light of the moon that his eyes had widened in rage. She said gently, ‘We just wanted to know your outlook on it.’

  He looked back at her and his smile returned. ‘I hope I’m not one of the suspects.’

  Hawa Singh gulped down his drink in one big swallow and asked rapid-fire, ‘Do you know anyone who has been a practitioner of the ancient Indian art of Marma-Adi?’

  Abhay went quiet. He poured more scotch into his glass.

  ‘You must have heard about this form of martial art,’ said Ruby.

  Abhay got up, taking his glass with him. He moved away and looked up at the sky without speaking.

  ‘So you don’t want to tell us,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I have known the greatest practitioner of Marma-Adi in Benares, and known him very closely,’ said Abhay finally.

  ‘Well, we know of one, Baba Ramtirath. Is there anyone else?’ asked Hawa Singh.

  Abhay said with emphasis, ‘I’m talking about the greatest.’

  Hawa Singh held his breath. Ruby waited impatiently.

  ‘He was my brother, Manvendra Singh. The cannibal locked up in the mental facility.’

  CHAPTER 34

  Policemen are often confronted with situations which baffle them at first. A certain crime may seem meaningless, but they have to derive some meaning out of it. They have to connect the dots, find the links, delve into its history, look for evidence, come up with a zillion theories—and arrive at the truth.

  The thing is, truth is always stranger than fiction.

  Hawa Singh’s natural ability to interpret other people’s thoughts and actions made things go faster. He was like an accomplished actor, getting under the skin of the character, feeling like him, behaving like him. A good policeman has to think like an actor to get closer to a criminal. He’ll have to get inside the criminal mind.

  It was 2 am. The meteorological miracle had continued and a starry blanket lay over Benares. But since there were no street lights on the long stretch of road, it was dark. And cold.

  They raced towards the Sparrow Mental Health Institute, riding the Bullet. Hawa Singh drove against the wind, which was like a blow to the face, and a howling in his ears, making his eyes water.

  Ruby had to shout to make herself heard. ‘Manvendra is not only locked in his cell but also chained. He could not have escaped from there. Moreover, he could not have killed and returned without anyone knowing.’

  Hawa Singh turned his head slightly. ‘Unless,’ he shouted back, ‘someone has been helping him there’.

  True, he might have an accomplice, thought Ruby. Someone helping him or he could be working for someone else. Aloud, she said, ‘If Manvendra is the killer, then your father and also the guesthouse owner, both of whom saw him dressed like a sadhu, would have recognized him by his grotesque face.’

  ‘He could have disguised his face,’ Hawa Singh argued, ‘just the way he disguised himself as a sadhu. Don’t forget he is a master of many arts.’

  They were interrupted by the wail of a siren. Hawa Singh stopped the bike. Ahead, at the Sparrow Institute, there was chaos everywhere. Floodlights had been switched on all sides, the few guards of the institution were running here and there, looking inside rooms. Others scanned the vast lawns with torches.

  Three of the guards sped out in a jeep, shouting encouragingly to each other, ‘He couldn’t have gone far.’

  Hawa Singh and Ruby ran up the gravel path towards the building. The siren was still on. He stopped a stocky woman panting down the stairs and asked, ‘What happened?’

  ‘The cannibal has escaped,’ she replied, out of breath.

  Hawa Singh felt the pain of the bullet again. He tried hard to concentrate and closed his eyes. Ruby put a steadying hand on his arm. ‘We need to check on Sudha,’ she said.

  They went to Sudha’s office. The door was open. They walked in to find Sudha Krishnamurthy lying on the floor, the entire office ransacked. Books, furniture, framed pictures and shards of glass lay scattered everywhere. A cabinet had been wrenched open and files were strewn around the place.

  Hawa Singh saw a deep wound on Sudha’s head, which was bleeding heavily. He held her in his arms. ‘Sudha, open your eyes,’ he urged.

  There was no response. He looked helplessly at Ruby and let Sudha’s head rest back on the hard floor.

  There was nothing they could do. They made for Manvendra’s cell, and found the door open. There were drops of blood on the tiled white floor. Further in, Dr Binod Pradhan was sprawled on the ground, in a pool of blood. A large chunk of flesh around his throat had been torn off, as if some wild animal had attacked him. His eyes were wide open in a horrified stare. Hawa Singh noticed that Dr Pradhan was lying close to the place where Manvendra had been tied to the wall. Something had made him go up close to the cannibal. Hawa Singh looked for the iron chain. It was lying on the floor like a dead snake. The cannibal had broken his fetters.

  ‘It looks like he escaped from here and went straight to Sudha’s office,’ he contrived to say, after taking a deep, shuddering breath. ‘What did he want with her?’

  As they walked back towards Sudha’s office they saw medics bearing her out on a stretcher. A young lady doctor had examined the woman and ordered that she be rushed to the infirmary. ‘She still has some life. We can save her,’ she’d said. The medics ran with the stretcher down the long corridor.

  The doctor seemed a bit puzzled when she saw Hawa Singh and Ruby Malik, but then recognized who they were. ‘Dr Sudha spoke so much about you both. She loved your dedication and would often set you up as exemplars of hard work.’

  Hawa Singh looked at the badge on her coat. Dr Shruti Srivastava. ‘How did he escape?’ was all that Hawa Singh could manage in return.

  Shruti sighed deeply. ‘It was around 12.30 am that Manvendra started screaming and shouting. He complained of severe headache and even started to beat his head against the wall. I was on night duty. I tried to give him sleep-inducing pills but he threw them away.’

  Shruti went on. ‘Manvendra continued to bang his head against the wall so I called Dr Binod Pradhan and Sudha. Most of the doctors live in staff quarters close by and they were here in a few minutes. Dr Binod went up to him and they seemed to have a fiery argument. I was outside and didn’t hear much.’

  ‘You must have heard something?’ asked Hawa Singh.

  Shruti tried hard to think and said, ‘Manvendra was shouting, “I’ll kill you all. I’m the Butcher.”’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I was too scared to go anywhere near Manvendra so I ran down to Sudha’s office. Then I heard a scream. I knew it was Dr Pradhan, but my entire body refused to move. I was too nervous to react. Hearing the scream, a few of our night guards ran up and saw Dr Pradhan lying there. Manvendra had managed to break free from the chain. He escaped.’

  Ruby tried to appear calm. ‘Where did he go from there?’

  Shruti looked at them with fearful eyes and said, ‘He straightaway rushed inside Sudha’s office. He started to look for files and ransacked the entire place.’

  ‘Where was Sudha?’ Hawa Singh interrupted.

  ‘She had not yet come in. So he went on searching through the files. He was probably looking for his own, in order to destroy the records. I think it was another ten minutes or so before Sudha walked in on him.’

  ‘Did he attack her straightaway?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘No, he wanted her to hand over his file. He kept threatening to kill her. Sudha was too
terrified to do anything. He kept smashing things on the floor. He even punched her and banged her head against the wall.’

  ‘Did he finally get his file?’ Hawa Singh asked.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Dr Shruti replied. ‘Later, Manvendra closed the door and we heard him shouting at her. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then the door opened and he came running out. The guards tried to stop him but he was uncontrollable and escaped into the darkness.’

  ‘Where were you all this while?’ asked Ruby clutching for Hawa Singh’s hand.

  Shruti looked down in shame. ‘I was hiding behind the stairs.’

  ‘You don’t need to feel ashamed of that,’ said Hawa Singh. ‘You did the right thing. He would have attacked you.’

  Ruby realized that the siren had stopped. The air felt still. ‘Do you think Dr Sudha will be okay?’ she asked the doctor.

  ‘There were a few faint signs of life,’ she replied. ‘We have our infirmary and I hope the doctors there have been able to revive her. I will have to rush and check on her.’

  She almost ran, her heels clacking down the corridor. Hawa Singh turned to Ruby and gently put his hand on her head. She hugged him tightly, wishing her terror away.

  But only briefly. Then she pulled away, returned to her professional self, and spoke without sentiment. ‘Where would he go?’ she asked.

  Hawa Singh didn’t have to do any arithmetic to answer that one. ‘He had drawn my horoscope chart on in the Jantar-Mantar, remember?’

  As an afterthought, he added. ‘He also drew my father’s.’

  Ruby looked at him wide-eyed. ‘You mean he will go after your father?’

  ‘In all probability, yes,’ said Hawa Singh.

  CHAPTER 35

  It was 4 am. Mukti Bhawan stood like a skeleton, its bricks showing through the lime wash. A body pressed itself against a wall, and looked into the darkness with vacant eyes. The body was naked but felt no cold. The darkness covered it.

  Hawa Singh and Ruby ran towards it. They saw the staring eyes. Then, the eyes blinked. They did not belong to Fauja Singh, but to another of those awaiting death at Mukti Bhawan.

  Hawa Singh rushed beyond it and inside his father’s room, switching on the lone bulb. The first thing he saw was the Cross.

  There was the jute mat spread on the floor, on it was the tattered mattress, a dirty pillow and two thick blankets that he had newly bought for his father. The Cross had struck right through the blankets.

  Ruby stood frozen to the spot while he removed the blankets with shaking hands. Fauja Singh was not there. The Cross was stabbed into a thick layer of woollens and a pillow kept under the blankets to make it look like a person sleeping there.

  He looked back at Ruby. Life returned to their bodies.

  ‘Where did he go?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘To think he was awaiting death—and narrowly missed it.’

  They hurried out from there. It was 4.15 am.This was the auspicious hour when the devout woke up, had their bath in the Ganges and said their morning prayers.

  Hawa Singh hastened to Dashashwamedh Ghat, Ruby following close behind. He was sure his father would be somewhere nearby. Fauja Singh would often come here and sit by the steps, looking out over the river, waiting for a death that never came.

  Hawa Singh frantically searched the ghat looking for him. He was nowhere. Is it possible that the Butcher had taken him away? Was the Cross some sort of message?’

  Ruby, too, scanned the area. She saw Naga sadhus taking a dip in the water. Water so cold that she couldn’t bear to dip even her hand in it.

  They ran the entire length of the ghat but failed to find the old man. Hawa Singh reflected sadly that though he’d agreed to bring his father to Benares in his last days, he had never wanted him to die. Never, ever. Memories came, unbidden, of their moments together. Holding on to his father’s finger as a child, his father carrying him to school on his shoulders, their bicycle races through the green fields in the village, and their mutual fondness for Kavita.

  Fauja Singh had gradually begun to love Kavita and treated her like his daughter. He had fought a lonely battle to get the village panchayat to agree to the marriage of his only son to a south Indian girl. He had learnt to laugh at her jokes, and waited impatiently for her to cook him dosas and idlis. Fauja Singh got the toilet in the house fixed with a Western-style commode, so that when the girl came home as a bride, she’d have every comfort. He had, at some cost, got marble flooring done in the rooms and bought new bedcovers.

  The day he heard the news of Kavita’s death, he gave up on life. It seemed that all the excitement, happiness and joy he’d ever felt had been chopped away in one stroke. Since that day he had never stepped inside the newly furbished house and lived in a small mud hut that he had built in the fields instead.

  The heart disease was welcome. He didn’t have the will to live.

  Father and son both lived in the shadow of death. Hawa Singh threw himself in the line of fire and till now had come out unscathed. Fauja Singh decided to let Benares take his life.

  Ruby had brought with her a flicker of hope but blackness overcame it. They enjoyed each other’s presence in their lives, but without optimism about the future.

  For now, Hawa Singh didn’t want to lose his father. They had fought, argued, made each other cry, but they were a team. He would never let anyone take his father away. His eyes filled with tears at the thought of losing him.

  Ruby’s cry filled his ears.‘There he is!’

  He turned to see Ruby running down the steps and, before he could move, she had jumped into the water. He joined her. They could see Fauja Singh, with hands folded, slowly descend further and deeper into the river.

  Hawa Singh yelled to him, ‘Fauja, where the hell are you going?’

  Fauja didn’t seem to hear them, or he was too pre-occupied with his thoughts. His head disappeared underwater.

  Ruby swam rapidly towards him. It was as if Mother Ganges had called out to her and taken her in Her arms, after all. It was not just a dip Ruby had taken. She had become one with the river—just like Hawa Singh.

  Fauja, too, had surrendered to the Ganges. He was floating away when hands clutched at him to drag him to land. Fauja was unconscious and Ruby had to resuscitate him on the steps of the ghat. Soon, Fauja coughed up the water from his lungs, sat up and stared angrily at them.

  ‘You won’t let me even die in peace!’ he said reproachfully.

  ‘So you wanted to end your life like a coward, committing suicide!’ Hawa Singh shouted back at him.

  ‘I was taking jal-samadhi,’ cried Fauja Singh.

  Ruby held his hand and spoke soothingly. ‘Look how fit and strong you are. You frightened even death away.’

  Fauja softened, his teary eyes on her face. ‘This CID girl saved me. When I opened my eyes under water, I saw Kavita coming towards me and holding my hand. She carried me up.’

  Hawa Singh closed his eyes. The tears mixed with the water of the river on his face.

  A few sadhus gathered around them curiously. ‘Get away from me!’ Fauja roared at them. ‘I’m fine!’

  Ruby helped him get up and placed his arm around her shoulders. Fauja turned to smile at Hawa Singh. ‘My Kavita has come back,’ he crowed.

  Hawa Singh nodded and got up.

  ‘We found a Cross in your room,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Ah, that Cross. Actually, I made it myself and sharpened it to test how the Butcher uses one. I thought I might be able to help this idiot Hawa Singh, but he doesn’t value my advice.’

  They sat near a stall and had hot masala tea. Fauja slurped on it, beaming. ‘I never enjoyed tea so much.’

  Hawa Singh’s mind was racing back to the Butcher. Where could he have gone?

  At that moment Ruby and Hawa Singh looked at each other, filled with the same thought.

  *

  He had finally escaped his prison. He was free. He knew they were closing in on him but in his freedom he had set a trap fo
r them. The policeman from Delhi had worried him but now he could relax. He had set them on a hunt. A hunt into a maze that he had built for them that would eventually lead them nowhere.

  He liked the thought that that girl from the FBI observed him keenly. Maybe she was trained to deduce things. She definitely was smart, and he loved her clear, glowing, fair skin and her eyes. There was something about her that made him want to eat her up.

  But he was in awe of that Hawa Singh. First, he survived the knife attack and then came out alive from the tunnel under the Ganga. That was definitely commendable. In fact, it was unfathomable. ‘Bravo, Bravo, Hawa Singh!’ he shouted to no one.

  The gods seem to be favouring the policeman. Then the thought occurred to him that he, too, was divine, in a way. He belonged to the royal family of Benares. People considered the Kashi Naresh to be the incarnation of Lord Shiva, and thus, being his brother, it made him one of the pantheon of Hindu gods.

  Not that this had anything to do with religion. Nor was he a fanatic. It was about Benares and its history. The historians never got it right. The ancient land of Benares was crying for blood. He was there to fulfil the need.

  Throughout the ages the Vatican had imposed its rule and made a mockery of other faiths. The men of the Cross started the Crusades, targeted Muslims and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women. Now they talk of Jihad, the backlash of the Holocaust and the Fundamentalists targeting them.

  History was coming full circle.

  Benares had also completed its circle and was now giving it back to them. We gave them the science of astrology, astronomy, we gave them the wisdom of the Bhrigu-Samhita. The stars had aligned back to defeat them.

  CHAPTER 36

  5 am.

  Temperature: 1 degree Celsius.

  Windy—North-westerly winds from the Himalayas.

  Clear skies. No fog. Frost formation indicated.

  Hawa Singh had called SSP Neeraj Thakur, and explained the situation to him. The SSP was on his way with his elite command of paunchy, samosa-munching officers. Hawa Singh sent his father away to Mukti Bhawan, asking him to change his clothes and rest.