by Gauri Sinh
We both laughed. The Addl.CP had known Parvati’s background, given us immunity we were not even aware of, or rather, I wasn’t, no matter how surreal the situation. Very rarely does that happen.
All along I had wondered why he allowed two girls to pretty much have their way, even assisted us without seeming to, like showing us that video recording of the rehearsal the night Lajjo was killed. Now I knew.
‘Shall we celebrate our continuing existence on this earth?’ Parvati asked tongue-in-cheek. ‘Or then, your wonderful conquest of the glitterbug crown?’
‘Both,’ I told her, suddenly fiercely joyful, looking for the champagne, in this fancy suite I’d been allotted. ‘Let’s do both!’
‘So your dream, that nightmare … it was actually a portent, wasn’t it?’ Jehaan, speaking to me later that night seemed utterly serious over the phone, but I could sense the underlying mischief waiting to surface. ‘Reality played out something like that, didn’t it?’
‘I guess,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Nina really did want the crown, so it was actually a shadowy Miss India hopeful who was behind the murders …’
‘I didn’t mean Nina,’ Jehaan said, then broke into that all-out guffaw he was holding back. ‘I meant you! You wanted that title so much, you dreamed of yourself, as a ghoul after a hoary crown, ha, ha, ha!’
‘I really don’t think that’s funny, Jeh,’ I told him. ‘You can make all the pathetically poor jokes possible. But it won’t make me forget how very troubled I was by all that was happening then. Enough to have nightmares, as you well know!’
‘It’s strange, we were aided by serendipitous coincidences often enough,’ I continued my conversation with him, now thoughtful. ‘Whether you acknowledge them or not. As Avi’s calling the police in immediately when Lajjo was stabbed, not waiting for Eye India to dither or try to cover up that stabbing. Or his changing the music at rehearsal at the last minute, so the drug given to Lajjo didn’t come into effect at the time Nina-Lubaina had hoped it would. Or my own impulsive decision to walk ramp from the front that night, so I escaped being thought of as the one who stabbed Lajjo from the back, even though I was included as a suspect. Or me chancing upon Gokul unexpectedly backstage before the finale, and him giving me Laddo’s real name just like that. Or, Brij’s arrival exactly when we needed him to come at the end—he saved us from being burned alive. Or then, my nightmare itself … you may make fun of me now, but it was you who pointed out at the time, that it was my subconscious trying to direct me to a contestant as suspect. You were right.’
‘It’s a rocker of a front page story tomorrow,’ Jehaan, trying to be contrite, shared his barely-contained excitement on the next day’s headlines-to-be. ‘Glamour, gore, greed … in true tradition of maniacal criminals—tomorrow’s will be a sell-out story for all media.’
‘Glad I could make your day,’ I countered drily, still not in a forgiving mood.
‘Oh, you always make my day, Aku,’ the irrepressible Jehaan charm was at 100-watt supra sparkle now. ‘But tomorrow? Tomorrow, you and your friend Parvati—you’ll be making the nation’s!’
Epilogue
Akruti
And really, that’s how it came to be, the trigger for my current profession. It was as Jehaan predicted, all the way and it blew us away by how fast it all happened. The next day’s headlines were only the beginning to a tight, dizzyingly steep, vertical climb up as far as our public profiles went. And it went on and on.
We were lauded for our presence of mind, our bravery and our quick thinking. Parvati’s RAW connections were not spoken of, naturally. But for that tight circle of powers-that-be in the uppermost echelons of the nation’s influentials, the ‘think-tank’ doers as it were—she became a precious asset. Not the least for her youth and freshness as for her clarity of purpose and her impressive lineage.
We won numerous accolades, perhaps more weighty, if not more prized than my Miss India title. That, despite all the ones to follow, would always hold a very special place in my heart.
I should confess here that after all I had gone through to bag this title, my original goal in pursuing it—an easy entry into Bollywood—didn’t seem as appealing. Everything had changed, bringing in the temptation of newer, more fulfilling possibilities. The option of a far more challenging, if not more lucrative vocation beckoned. My horizons had opened up beyond belief, in a direction I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams.
Meanwhile Parvati’s diary became quite the showpiece. It is kept in the Eye India archives now, for any Miss India hopeful to gawk at, living proof of a time when they almost had to cancel their national treasure contest. This, but for a girl who was determined to help right things and her ambitious comrade-in-arms (who was equally determined to win things!). So we are driven by what we desire deep within, and if committed enough, we are victorious, (sash, crown ‘n all!).
And that is how also, we are often brought on the path we were meant to follow all along. And that is how it happened for us as well.
‘Why don’t you cement it,’ one of our well-meaning friends remarked in casual conversation one day. ‘Make it official? Become who you are already known as? Become … hope?’ I think what she said struck a rather deep chord in us both. We liked the idea of becoming … hope.
Somehow all those coincidences I had described to Jehaan, happenstances as they were, but aiding us along our journey of discovery—we believed they were meant to help us become more. By then we had already become ‘Aku’ and ‘Pari’ to each other. I don’t think we ever again used our full names in addressing each other as we formally had the entire pageant through.
Anyway, with Parvati’s zealous brand of energy, no sooner decided, than done. Licences were looked into that evening, an office was allotted fairly quickly. And one fine day, I arrived at work, not to walk on a wooden ramp, and pout as I had been accustomed to, but to a tastefully shiny wooden desk, under an office placard that read simply but proudly: ‘Akruti and Parvati. Private Investigators’.
And thus it came to be that my chance encounter with the Bollywood superstar SRK led to him offering us our first case in our business together. But as I said, that story is for another telling.
What lay ahead would not be easy. Not entirely as glamorous as what I’d been used to thus far, either. But it would most certainly not be boring!
Cut to the present, 2018
So many years have passed since then, so much has happened in the interim. I am now matronly perhaps, for all my diva status of yore, and for all my niece Niamat’s ego boost, called me her ‘glamorous auntie Aku’. Young women like Niamat look up to me, not just as future Miss India hopefuls, I think, but as inspiration to pursue any dream that fills them with hope and light and wonder, despite the grimness and hardship involved in reaching it.
We are still a team, Parvati and I. Since that initial success we have managed to cement ourselves in the national psyche as go-tos for complicated conundrums. As our reputation grew and prospered, we got our hands on some really intriguing mysteries together—and tried hard to live up to the reason we had started our agency together in the first place: ‘become hope’. Did we succeed? We’d like to believe we did, in some measure.
Suffice to say, today when people talk of the Akruti Rai, it is mostly not as an iconic model that they place me. More probable, they are registering me as one half of the rather well entrenched Indian Private Investigator duo, ‘Akruti and Parvati’, the international brand. Yes, we are now global in reach in 2018, thanks to the times we live in, so different from 1995, our first case together!
I watch Niamat with pride as she pirouettes once more on stage, chasing her future. It had all gone awry in 1995 as I chased mine. And, of course, it may have been sheer bumbling luck that carried us safely forward then.
But somehow, more than serendipitous coincidences, I believe it was our conviction to help, to make right those awful atrocities in any way we could. Despite our inexperience, or age or circumstance
—to be the best version of ourselves we could possibly be—that delivered us to safety in the end.
Not just safety—for me, a whole new career track, a whole new world. It opened up just like that, because I dared to dream as true to self, as big as I did, in the face of such extreme odds.
You could say our world view determined our destiny. And for that, I wish such a dream of conquest on all who chose to believe, both in dreams (of pageants and crowns or otherwise), as much in themselves as talismans of hope, of rightness in an oft-unsafe world. As for us, we got plenty of opportunities to try and live up to that notion we began our business together with—of being, of becoming hope to those who asked … but that as they say, is another story!
Acknowledgements
Nothing exists in a vacuum, thank you and thank you for your support and generosity in this journey…
Chaitanya: There are no words big enough to encompass your generosity of spirit, that largesse that fills every void. I don’t think a ‘thank you’ would quite cover how special you are to me. But I have to begin somewhere, so let me say not the least for troll and demon duty, hauling both to work in the long hot summer, so I could write in peace.
Jyotsna and Suresh: Papa and ma, thank you your unquestioning support. And for babysitting both the two-legged and the four-legged grandchildren, whilst I wrote and Chait travelled.
Tariecka and Raphael: For that uncomplicated, joyous love that forgives all my trespasses. For existing.
My gracious in-laws, Leena and Pushpendra, for restful intervals at The House on the Farm, Chait’s wonderland extraordinaire, which birthed my first sentence, as it did my final read.
Arjun Gaind: A conversation, an idea, my resignation with stereotypes, till that suggestion, turning experience on its head, and then—this. I am deeply grateful for your many kindnesses, as for your unrelenting encouragement. And will always value all the advice you so big-heartedly shared.
Manasi Subramaniam: For initiating this cycle. It was you who set the wheels in motion, easily and quickly, I am ever grateful for that.
Roshni Olivera: For being that sensible and wise sounding board every single time I hit a curveball. And for offering vital advice. I am truly thankful you are in my life.
Soumyadipta Banerjee: Intrepid Crime reporter, ally— my go-to guy for detailing processes in criminal procedures and national secret agencies that serve this wonderful nation of ours. Thank you.
Manish Pachouly: Veteran Crime journalist, thank you for helping me understand Law and Order hierarchy in beloved Mumbai.
Ananth Padmanabhan and HarperCollins for their faith in my book, thank you so much!
Diya Kar Hazra and the dynamic team at Harper, for supportiveness through this book’s birthing and addressing all worries promptly, with thoughtfulness, a big thank you!
And most especially to the wonderful Swati Daftuar, for being the kind of editor one hopes for but seldom manages to find. Thank you, so very much for your sensitivity, patience, indulgence and above all—inspired editing. It has been such a joy to work with you.
About the Book
Twenty perfect contestants.
One perfect murder.
It’s 1995. The finale of the Miss India pageant, hosted by the mega media conglomerate, Eye India, is only days away. In the running are twenty-one beautiful contestants, including India’s sweetheart and reigning model, Akruti Rai.
The final dress rehearsal ends on a nightmarish note as the sensuous and ambitious ‘Lajjo’ is murdered right on the ramp. Soon, Akruti and her fellow contestants become prime suspects in a case that gets increasingly macabre as bodies pile up – the gossipy, affable pageant hairdresser Doreen, the self-assured mean-girl Nuzhat …
Amidst massive public outcry and searing press coverage, Akruti is convinced by an enigmatic fellow contestant, Parvati Samant, to help her investigate the murders. But who, really, is Parvati? And can Akruti help unearth the sinister truth, clear her own name, and also keep an eye on the prize?
About the Author
Gauri Sinh is the former Editor of Bombay Times, the lifestyle and entertainment supplement of The Times of India, and After Hrs, the lifestyle and entertainment supplement of DNA. She has written numerous popular columns on lifestyle and entertainment for both broadsheets, as well as on social issues and parenting for DNA. In the past, she also edited youth magazines Femina Girl and JLT. Her two previous books are Dogsend, the story of Simba (2010) and The Garud Prophecies, Sitara’s story (2015). Gauri lives and works in Mumbai. Her website is www.gaurisinh.com.
First published in India in 2018 by HarperBlack
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Copyright © Gauri Sinh 2018
P-ISBN: 978-93-5277-587-3
Epub Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5277-588-0
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Gauri Sinh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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