The Miss India Murders

by Gauri Sinh

  On national stage, recent liberalization meant international brands, and with them endorsements and ad campaigns, would be winging their way into the county soon enough. The world’s eyes were on us. It was the heyday for glamour pageants and the fashion and beauty industry in India. And we couldn’t be happier, because it meant a wider professional reach, were we to win yet again on the international stage.

  Keeping this in mind, this year, the year immediately succeeding the big wins abroad, Eye India had spared no expense to razzle-dazzle and upscale the proceedings. It would be a contest like no other, we had been assured of it by our minders, all representatives of the company. A made-for-television spectacle as well, thrillingly extravagant and broadcast live all over the country.

  The girls twitched impatiently on stage. Everyone looked a bit put out by Avi’s clear singling out of Lajjo. Rehearsals for any show were always long and intense, but this time there was a crown at stake. And today, after a gruelling two-and-a-half-weeks of training, there were only four days left and paranoia had replaced pragmatism amongst us all, Avi included. Nerves were very much on display, it was after all a huge production, to be telecast live as well. We couldn’t afford glitches.

  For those of us already deeply established in the fashion world, our reputations rode on the outcome of this pageant. Lajjo and I were the only professional models contesting. But there was also Avi, and the sound and technical team, the backstage team, photographers, the makeup and hair personnel. There were other assorted professionals who put it all together and mentored the contestants. And then of course, there was the megalith media conglomerate, Eye India itself, and its television partners (the World Wide Web was still in the not-so-distant future, and live streaming hadn’t yet become reality)—old hands, all, with careers and soaring status’ to protect.

  Avi’s clear favour of Lajjo was annoying me as well. I was intensely aware that though Lajjo hadn’t reached quite as far as me professionally in the glamour business, tomorrow is another day. You are only as good as your last gig.

  I was acutely conscious of this, especially as the finale drew nearer. As I was sure Avi was, else he wouldn’t have been so effusive in his praise, knowing that I was watching everything, and that I was up next. I knew in the glamour stakes, appearance is all. And so, my move to counter her, immediate and decisive, loud enough over the music so everyone heard.

  ‘Aviiinash,’ I trilled, elongating the I in the name, a measured effort to show both ownership and a deliberate if affectionate pique at his favour diverted so, to any other than I. ‘When is my cue to walk?’

  Avi turned from the sound console, clearly distracted by the subtle warning of temper in my tone. Avi was all about nuance, which is part of what made him such a gifted choreographer. I had always been his star model, we had created a certain magic together. There was history between us enough times for the industry to brand me his protégé on ramp. But I knew, as Avi did, that in modelling, as in business, there are no permanent friendships and no permanent enmity. In a world driven so by illusions—creating them, sustaining them, selling them—it is always and utterly—about just that moment. Clearly this moment wasn’t mine and I was having none of it. As always, Avi rushed to placate. Till the crown was decided, I was still Queen Bee, notwithstanding upstarts.

  ‘Akrrruti, Darrrrling,’ he purred, rolling the Rs in conciliation. ‘Could there be a finale without your entry? Come, love, get on the stage …’

  It wasn’t as if we weren’t aware of our finale positions or cues or even entry points. But today, four days to D-Day, Avi had decided to experiment with music. This morning, all of a sudden, he had decided to use ‘Sabse’ instead of our regular track for this sequence. As our stage entry cues were always set to music, his unexpected change had thrown us all a bit off our game. Hence my query, firm and loud enough for Avi to hear, even over the music’s megawatt boom.

  I rose from my seat in the audience chairs, empty at present, where I had been sitting all this while, reading my cue sheet. The Miss India ramp walk wasn’t all that different from the fashion shows I had done so far and I, being established already, was sometimes given a bit of leeway. Today, for instance, I had been allowed to sit up-front during rehearsals rather than wait in the wings backstage for my turn. In any case, I wasn’t ever about subtlety.

  ‘Watch this, Avi,’ I simpered over the thudding soundtrack.

  Then I walked up the six stairs in front leading straight to ramp from the audience seating, rather than entering from the stage area as I had normally done, as we had been practising all this while. Today my ego was taking liberties. I knew Avi wouldn’t dare intervene, because like countless times in past shows together, he understood my current mood, my need to upstage all others present. Avi got nuances right every single time, he could read his star performers’ minds like a book. Besides, he knew when I was like this, I would always be courting drama. For the stage, for live ramp shows—well, there’s nothing quite like drama, even in an improvised avatar.

  I was deliberately sashaying, giving the movement my A-game, though really it wasn’t required right now. But I needed Lajjo to understand who was in the lead here. Upon reaching ramp, I turned to face her, letting my eyes, their colour so much lighter, colder in the halo of the spotlight, give her the full score of hauteur. ‘I need some space,’ I mouthed.

  Lajjo’s nostrils flared when I addressed her, incandescent skin even more aglow in the spotlight. We faced each other, opposite ends of the same ambition, light and dark, her Amazonian figure in six-inch heels dwarfing mine, though I too was in vertiginous, nose-bleed pumps, having shown my ramp prowess climbing those stairs effortlessly in these self-same shoes two seconds ago.

  My unscripted, fifteen-second climb hadn’t gone unnoticed by anyone who understood fashion. It is always harder than it looks, to negotiate stairs in high heels, especially whilst wearing tight gowns that barely allow for any leg movement. All those in the glamour world understand this well, all novices, even more so.

  Trainers, choreographers and the like devoted intense sessions over several days getting contestants to look blithe and unconcerned all the while maintaining audience eye contact, ever smiling, as they negotiated each rung in dangerously high spikes. Fancy acrylic stages or stairwells, though they presented better for big performances, were often more difficult to manoeuvre, slipping on such surfaces was a constant and ready fear. One foot wrong and it was over for a shot at the crown. Worse, injuries could be nasty via stairwell tumbles.

  Consequently, my little sashay up those stairs had managed to evoke both admiration and attention all around. It was clear I had the moment’s psychological advantage, despite Lajjo’s towering over me. And I had the stage, as Avi screeched over the mic, instantly attentive, demanding perfection. ‘Lajwanti, please return to the formation once you’ve pirouetted, as in your cue sheet. Akruti, take centre stage—head ramp, please. You end the sequence, as always.’

  Lajjo’s eyes shot daggers as she acquiesced to Avi, though her face in sharp contrast, stayed serene, a beatific cinnamon Madonna, ever-professional. I refrained from gloating at this obscure victory. It was after all so petty, even if necessary in this game of thrones. My face matched hers in serenity as I glided into the spot she vacated on head ramp, front and centre, letting the light catch my profile—as if born to be here.

  She would soon be joining me again for the final bow, doubling back as I finished my turn, followed by the rest, so audiences would see two lines peeling off, bang-smack centre, separating onto either side of ramp at head ramp. But for now the moment was mine. It was show time.

  ‘Sabse’s soaring climax filtered over the sound system, fitting end to a sequence that might ultimately play decider as to who went home with the crown. I got to end it—it was my face the judges would see last, thus recall first whilst tallying points, even though this sequence would not be included in the judging round. My professional success and Avi’s support had got me this fa
r. The rest was up to me.

  ‘Spot cut … music lowered, and FADE!’ Avi bellowed over the microphone, as we held the formation. Instant blackout descended. For thirty seconds, in pitch dark we had to hold our poses, incase the live TV cameras were still rolling, as they would be on the finale day. Then, as the lights and sound came on, Lajjo would join me on head ramp from her lone position at base stage, the first mover in a chain, so we could file out in decorum, still in formation.

  Upon reaching the edge of stage, blackout once more, then run, still in these absurd heels without bumping into each other or tripping over garments to change for the announcement of the winners proceeding to the next round.

  Today there was a lone camera mimicking the one we’d have at the finale, its red light blinking in the darkness from beyond head ramp as it captured us. We weren’t to move backstage after the second blackout either. We would be waiting for Avi’s instructions.

  ‘LIGHTS!’ Avi barked into the mic, and obligingly the stage was aglow again. We turned to each other, still in formation, two lines edging ramp, two stars at opposite ends—me at head ramp, Lajjo at the base of stage, waiting to join me.

  ‘BEGIN!’ shouted Avi, but Lajjo had already pre-empted the music and Avi’s instructions, excruciating when I recall it now, her slow sashay towards me. And this was when it all started to go horribly wrong.

  2

  Akruti

  ‘Blood, blood, blood!’ Myra, the contestant standing closest to us, began babbling hysterically as Lajjo toppled. Chaos followed. Three of the girls fainted, two began screaming wildly, gasping loudly for air between shrieks. The rest began exclaiming, some weeping in great heaving sobs, as the shock hit.

  As I remember, I was still holding my arch-rival’s inert body with the blade driven deep, its handle sticking out from her back when someone stepped up. Someone much taller than me, someone with clear brown eyes and a steady gaze, someone who had seemed intensely level-headed to me during training these past few weeks, that quality a necessary Godsend now.

  ‘Let me help you,’ the statuesque Parvati Samant said, easing Lajjo’s passive form out of my hands, her calm words balm to my overwrought mind. ‘Clear the area, please,’ she added, this time to the rest of the contestants, her sudden, easy authority a revelation to me—I’d thought her something of a passive type all this while.

  From the little I knew of Parvati over these two-and-a-half weeks of training, I understood her to be someone not given to moments of high drama. In fact, she had seemed understated in all she did, I had noted that, and even considered it a drawback at the time. In a contest such as this, one needed to let it all hang out, put everything on display, in wide angle 70 mm colour, I felt.

  But in life, at some point, there comes a time when you are grateful, truly grateful to have someone low-key and level-headed by your side. This was undoubtedly one such moment, and I couldn’t have been more grateful to have her there—an oasis of calm amidst the screeching, screaming banshees around. ‘Thank God for the discreet, sensible ones,’ I said to myself.

  Parvati straightened from Lajjo’s inactive figure, steady gaze locked into mine, mouthing what I already knew, ‘She’s gone.’

  I nodded sombrely. There wasn’t much to say at that point, the wailing around us was deafening in itself. Together we placed Lajjo on the floor of the ramp, face downwards so as not to drive the blade in further. The whole situation seemed surreal. Any moment now, I expected Lajjo to sit up and laugh, bizarrely denying she was dead, saying it was a joke of course. I was in shock I knew, with this fantasy—but I refused to crumple like the others. I was made of sterner stuff. Besides, Parvati seemed composed and I wouldn’t let myself lose control if she was showing such fortitude.

  ‘Move, girls,’ I echoed her, suddenly spurred to action. I needed to do something, to not give myself time to think. ‘Let’s get off the ramp,’ I said, then to the nearest minder, ‘Someone please call the closest hospital. We’ll need a doctor.’

  Where was Avi in all this? The fashion industry to me, always operated best when under pressure. Many of its brightest lights—designers, choreographers, co-ordinators—furiously translated bursts of nebulous creativity into finite saleability or high art at a stressful pace. But such intense effort often took a toll. So many were high strung and nervy, comfortable only around what they knew and understood. Unsure in unfamiliar situations, many could and did unravel at the first sign of outside pressure. Not Avi though—he actually became the opposite at this time. It was now, in this unprecedented, unscripted and terrifically tragic moment, that Avi, master of rehearsed perfection, came completely into his own.

  When the lights were switched on, he had gotten a glimpse of Lajjo, the knife in her back, the blood, her expression. My stricken face as I held her had told him what the white noise of contestants wailing and screeching a split second later, could not. Even as he pushed the sound console mic away, even without a doctor present to confirm the same, I could tell he knew Lajjo was gone.

  Knowing Avi as well as I did, I realized that his hyper-sharp instinct was already at work. It was telling him, I was certain, that this was both a sordid and serious state of affairs. He hadn’t bothered with sheparding the contestants, he knew their minders would step in. He wisely asked his aide to make an immediate call first to a hospital, then to the CEO of Eye India. I understood Avi’s reasoning perfectly. Had he called the CEO himself, he would have had to give a long drawn out and detailed explanation, waste precious seconds.

  Then, over and above the fashion world’s ready superficiality, over and above consequences of not reporting in to the moolah-controlling bosses first, and in a sincere effort to do right by a girl he had believed a winner—he called the Mumbai police.

  To me, the promptness of Avi’s action was a fine show of real character—when I look back upon how quickly he reacted, and with such utter conviction, I really am proud to be called his protégé. Time is always of essence in righting wrongs effectively, and as one who understood the difference a second could make to any entry, on stage or off, it seemed to me that Avi had pulled off something miraculous. In an event as mammoth, as micro-managed as this one, he had, just by the one call, introduced an outside element to the proceedings. An unknown variable in a production tightly controlled, unforgivingly in-group, the group being a media behemoth, already all about image control from the word ‘go’.

  With his timely move, there was no scope for discussion, no cover up or the like entertained—might well have been attempts, had the Eye India bosses got involved first. After all, so much was riding on this event, publicity, revenue, reputations, the pageant was a national treasure at the very least.

  ‘Minders. Step in, please. Take the girls off-stage,’ Avi announced once over the mic, brusque, then stepped down, off the console to disappear at the far end. No doubt he would be alerting the hotel at the venue, the personnel on the premises to draw a veil over this incident where other guests were concerned, at once. It was now a matter for the authorities.

  Because the police were called immediately, there was a better chance at unravelling the mystery behind Lajjo’s gruesome end—the scene of crime was still fresh, untampered with, as was whatever went, by way of evidence. I didn’t know this so well then, not at all, infact. But I’m narrating now with hindsight 20/20, adding these little extras, so it makes sense for you.

  Without company safeguards or protocol in place, with the police called upon so quickly, the press would undoubtedly be involved too. They’d have a field day soon enough. But there was nothing to be done about it. Avi’s unflinching decision to notify the police had been necessary in the face of the severity of what had happened. It was the first of the serendipitous, ingenuously correct steps in the denouement of events, given the baffling nature of what was to follow. But for now, none of us had a clue, except that everything had gone utterly topsy-turvy. And it was a very uneasy feeling indeed.

  We moved off ramp. The wails
gradually subsided, to be replaced by an even more unnerving silence. Though we were all together, this sudden, awful brush with mortality left each of us alone with our morbid dark thoughts.

  I had no great love for Lajjo, she had been a veritable thorn in my side this entire training period in the contest. But I did respect her as a model, I understood and validated her extreme professionalism and her burning desire to win. I was the same way. And so, I was extremely sorry for her sudden and untimely demise. I harboured no ill will, nor that sense of subtle scheming, the kind those of lesser character might possess or secretly indulge in, now that the competition had been eliminated. My heart and head were clear of malice, that much was transparent, for all to see.

  In fact, I was chagrined that it would now be an unequal contest. I suddenly wished her back fiercely, just so I could win fair and square. Illogical I know, but true all the same. But of course, that was not to be. My fervent wishing was childish and irrational, given the present grave circumstances. And clear evidence of the severe shock I was in at the time.

  That time, and what followed that time was very hard to get through. We had all been witness to a gruesome death, macabre and surreal. But it wasn’t until the police began with their investigation that sordid reality actually permeated our collective consciousness. That this was an out-and-out murder, not an inexplicable death, as I already knew it to be and it would be investigated as such—there was no getting around it.

  The Eye India CEO, arriving out of breath and sweating, called for an urgent meeting with us, ostensibly to calm our delicate nerves, more plausibly to outline what must or must not be said in public.

  But the police were having none of it. They wanted to speak to us all first, as a group, and then individually, starting with me of course—I was the one who had caught Lajjo as she fell. Also, I was the one who had an open, if forced rivalry with her at this contest. This was conveyed to Avi even before the police actually arrived at the venue. They swarmed all around in seconds, and when they did, there seemed so many of them. Most intimidating under the circumstances. The doctor and assorted medical professionals arrived minutes before them, confirming what we already knew—Lajjo was no more.