Pretty Vile Girl

by Rickie Khosla

  Karan kept looking at the older man, who was still looking away.

  ‘Do you know how old I was when I made my first crore, Karan?’ Lakhani finally said, without shifting gaze. The only thing one could see from where he sat was the tiny speck of a white ship in the vastness of the brownish–grey waters.

  ‘My guess would be that you were very young?’

  Karan’s response made Lakhani smile. “Twenty four. Twenty-four years and two months to be exact. It was my father’s first birthday after his death. I had got my first return on investment on that auspicious day. A cheque for one crore rupees.’

  Karan looked on.

  ‘My father was an alcoholic and a womaniser. Just like his father had been before him. And my three uncles. It was like a pattern among the men folk in our family. They got drunk each day and then they beat up their women and children. They were all businessmen, but they never flourished. How could they? One can’t if one is buzzed all the time, right?’ Lakhani said. He finally turned and faced Karan.

  Karan nodded slowly and took a sip of his drink.

  ‘You see, Karan, if there was any certainty in my world at that time, it was that my father was going to forever be a pathetic, drunk bastard. Just like his father, and his three older brothers,’ Lakhani said. Then, after a momentary pause, he added, ‘No, wait, there was one other certainty as well.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘That my father would die young. You know, just like his father had, and his three brothers, too. Liver cirrhosis, kidney failure, heart—you know how it is with alcoholics.’

  Karan was intrigued.

  ‘So, you know what I did?’

  ‘Tried to save him?’ Karan offered kindly.

  Lakhani burst out laughing. ‘Save him?’ he finally said once he had found his composure again. The spasms had made him place his glass on the table out of fear of dropping it. Karan couldn’t do much except look at his partner and smile along.

  ‘Save him indeed!’ Lakhani repeated. ‘No, my dear friend, how was I ever going to encash the only certainty in my life by saving my alcoholic father? No, that was the last thing on my mind!’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then what? I became an LIC agent and convinced the bastard to sign up for a big life insurance policy!’

  Karan nodded appreciatively at the businessman who was now wiping his still-watery eyes.

  ‘And when he mercifully died two years later, leaving my mother and me a tidy sum of one crore rupees, I started my business. You know what I registered my new company as at the time?’ Lakhani asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lakhani and Son, in memory of my father.’

  Lakhani’s answer made Karan chuckle, and looking at the young man’s response, the older man laughed too. ‘You see, Rathoreji, this goes to show how important family is in one’s life. Your family makes you what you are. Even if you feel it is nothing but a worthless pile of shit, it can still give you plenty. You just have to appraise the right price for it.’

  Karan couldn’t have agreed more. After all, he had used the Rathore family name to his benefit all his life.

  ‘So what is one to make of a bastard like Satyendra Saran who has no antecedents? He is an orphan who grew up at an ashram. My philosophy is: Never trust a man who got nothing from his father. Not even a fucking surname!’ Lakhani said as he took a long swig and emptied his glass.

  Karan smiled at Lakhani’s strange point-of-view.

  ‘It’s true!’ Lakhani continued. ‘Have you noticed how he rarely faces the world? Sometimes, he’s like a shy rat, burrowed in the dirt. Other times he just lingers in the background, as if he’s some kind of a quiet sage. Benignly looking at the world from his corner, occasionally parachuting in to hog the credit when he sees the opportunity. Like what he is going to do to you with Right-dot-Comm.’

  Lakhani walked up to the table and poured himself a fresh glass. Karan kept quiet, mulling over the man’s words.

  ‘To bask in another man’s glory—that is the worst kind of insult. I’m sorry, but I don’t do business with a man like that,’ Lakhani continued.

  ‘I need a man who has the ideas. Big ideas. Like your Right-dot-Comm one. You dreamed of it when you were just a lowly minister in UP, didn’t you?’ Lakhani asked.

  Karan looked at the man sharply.

  ‘You see,’ Lakhani continued, ‘I have spent a considerable amount of time and money to do my research on you, Karan. I think you sat on your brilliant idea for a year or two, until you made it to the national scene. Then, once you wriggled your way to Saran’s side and established a very cosy equation with him, you coaxed him into your plan—but only because you knew you could not have done it alone. Saran is obviously not a fool. He quickly saw the potential in what you had proposed.’

  ‘Yes, that is how it was.’

  ‘Except that now, this is being seen as Prime Minister Satyendra Saran’s bold new initiative. His grand idea that will revolutionise India. Sure, he is going to share the loot with you. He will have the decency to not cheat you of that because he needs to keep you in his pocket. And he will call you his partner and the world will label you his protégé. But you, my dear friend, will never be anything more than his side-kick.’

  Lakhani refilled their drinks.

  Karan’s face was starting to go red. He was conscious of it—he could feel the warmth caused by the frenetic blood flow under his skin. But he was sure it wasn’t because of the rich alcohol. It was because of Lakhani’s loaded words, biting into his psyche.

  Karan Rathore was beginning to feel angry.

  Lakhani sat right beside him.

  ‘Am I right, or am I right?’ he asked.

  Karan sat motionless for a bit. Momentarily, he took another long swig from his glass. Then, he looked at Lakhani and nodded.

  ‘And that is why, you have to take that bastard down. And install yourself in his place,’ Lakhani said, casually, as if he was prescribing some home remedy for tummy ache. Then, adding, ‘While you destroy him from the inside, I demolish him from the outside.’

  Karan looked at Lakhani quizzically. Lakhani shook his head and smiled.

  ‘My dear friend, is there anyone in this country the media and their corporate masters cannot destroy if they set their minds to it? Have you forgotten who I am?’

  The question made Karan smile.

  The two men settled back on the elegant and comfortable couch they were both seated on. Each took another sip of whisky from their glasses, almost in tandem, and savoured the silken liquor. Lakhani closed his eyes, taking in the flavours of the Rs 40,000 a bottle alcohol. There was no sound in the room except the tinkling of the ice in their drinks and the soft hush of the air-conditioning.

  ‘You still haven’t answered my original question though,’ Karan resumed after several moments, making Lakhani slowly open his eyes again. ‘You could have picked anyone to be your new man in the government. Why me?’

  ‘And why is knowing that important to you?’ Lakhani asked.

  ‘I guess you could say I want to know for my own selfish reasons. I’d like to make sure that no one else fits your needs better than I do!’ Karan offered cheekily. Lakhani smiled but remained silent. It almost appeared that he was debating whether or not to reveal the reason to Karan.

  ‘It’s because I see a lot of myself in you,’ Lakhani said finally. ‘It’s because of what came up in my research on you, it made me sure that you were the one I wanted to partner with,’ he added mysteriously. The remark made Karan stare at him, as if he was almost demanding an elaboration.

  ‘You see,’ Lakhani started quietly, ‘I think I know what you are capable of when you want something desperately. Like what you did when you thought you were about to lose the last election.’

  Karan’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘That Amrit Singh Yadav chap? I don’t know how you managed it, but I do know that you got him killed.’

  With that, Lakhani turned to face Ka
ran, who had turned ashen by now.

  ‘But don’t you worry, my friend. See, even though it is easy for me to go for it, I am not going to dig into how you did it. That is not important. The important thing is—had I been in your position, I would have done exactly what you did!’

  Lakhani warmed to his topic, ‘You and me, my dear friend, we will make a great team. We are like peas in a pod. Same-to-same. Like judwa-bhai in Hindi films, with a fifteen-year age difference. Just a matter of time before you will run the country and I will reap the benefits!’

  Blood was slowly starting to creep back into Karan’s blanched face. Regardless of the fact that Lakhani would have him by the balls when it suited him, the proposition he was offering was still tempting. After all, what was the trifling indiscretion of a past murder in front of the grand dream of ruling the country? ‘A no-contest, really,’ Karan’s mind decided unequivocally.

  ‘So, did my answer finally satisfy you? About why I chose you and no one else? Or do you still have doubts about our partnership?’ Lakhani asked.

  Karan said not a word. Instead, he raised his glass and brought it close to Lakhani’s face. It took the other man a mere second to realise what he was being offered. In prompt response, Lakhani too, brought his glass up to meet Karan’s. The expensive whisky sloshed in the beautiful crystal as the glasses connected playfully in a toast.

  ‘Cheers to new partnerships!’ said Karan Rathore smilingly, cementing the deal that was going to cause a political hurricane in just a few months’ time.

  They may have seemed subtle to others, but the signals were too strong to be missed by Jazmeen. After all, women like her—well-endowed in physical appeal—almost have a sixth sense when it comes to knowing when they are being appraised by a man. Jazmeen had begun to notice it by Karan’s third visit since Arty’s death. Prior to that, her mind had been too fogged to know what was happening around her anyway.

  ‘I have an important meeting at The Oberoi later this afternoon,’ Karan said, explaining the reason he had dropped in unannounced at the Bandra penthouse. ‘Thought I should check in on you since I was in town.’

  She simply nodded her thanks.

  ‘You look good,’ he said. Then, adding a mite too quickly, ‘I mean, that bruise on the face is gone.’

  ‘Yes, it has.’

  ‘Did anyone ask…?’

  ‘About the bruise? Why would they? The one thing that film people don’t ask you to your face is when you have a huge blemish on it,’ Jazmeen explained candidly. ‘Though, of course, they will go bitch about it behind your back.’

  Karan chuckled.

  ‘What can one do, right?’ she added dryly.

  ‘Actually, I meant—did anyone ask you about Arty?’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, no one really knew about us anyway. We had never been out in public together. No events or parties. Sareen, I mean, my assistant needed to be told—so I did tell him.’

  ‘What about the household staff?’

  ‘Both my girls are new. Quiet and simple. They were upset but as long as they get their salaries, they don’t get too sentimental. And the driver you have already taken care of.’

  The driver, Abdul, who hailed from Gorakhpur, had been in Arty’s service in Mumbai for years. Karan had taken him back to their hometown because the master’s sudden death had been too shocking for the employee. There was no way a loose cannon like him could be left alone in Mumbai. Abdul had been replaced by a new driver hired locally.

  ‘And most people used to anyway think that this was my own flat. Arty was always travelling so much. No one is going to be shocked if I continue to live here, even though Arty is—’

  Karan nodded. He couldn’t care less if Jazmeen continued to occupy his dead brother’s flat.

  In fact, if he could have had his way, Jazmeen would never ever leave.

  Over the course of the next three months, Karan made eleven more trips to Mumbai, averaging almost one per week. Each time, he would claim to Jazmeen that he was in town for something ‘official’—like ministerial work, or attending an event, even inaugurating a new building one time. And yet, he would somehow find several hours to be with her at the Bandra flat.

  Once she started noticing them, Karan’s flimsy excuses began to amuse Jazmeen. ‘What a blubbering fool a man makes of himself when pursuing a woman. Even a powerful guy like this one,’ she would tell herself, shaking her head with pity. Not that she minded Karan’s visits. If anything, it was quite comforting to have someone check in on her so conscientiously.

  ‘Are you OK?’ would always be Karan’s first question when they would meet. A simple question, asked earnestly.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Jazmeen would respond. ‘One must move on, right?’ she would say, like she was trying to make a solemn promise to herself.

  As the trips became more frequent, Jazmeen and Karan began to share an easy comfort in each other’s company—the kind that is shared between a man who insists on being a protector, and a woman who is not averse to the attention. In many ways, Karan’s mannerisms reminded Jazmeen of Arty. But that resemblance didn’t make her sad, in fact, it only give her relief. It was as if, somehow, being around Karan’s Arty-ness allowed her to process the truth of his death at her own pace. Small gestures, like how the sides of Karan’s eyes would crinkle when he laughed, his webbed toes poking through his sandals, the white pocks of calcium deposit under his fingernails, even the pattern of his chest hair shading the insides of his translucent kurta—each of those silly, useless things, brought pieces of Arty back to her. Like a warm bath to a spent soul, these memories soothed her body and detoxed her mind of the ache of Arty’s absence.

  Over the next few weeks, Jazmeen found another way to put her nerves back on track. She rediscovered her love for cooking. Spending time in the kitchen had always given her solace in the past—from the dreary teenage years at the orphanage to her troubled adulthood with Rubina and Toby.

  Cooking is meditative. But just as there is a serenity in focusing your mind to the choreographed harmony of chopping and sautéing and boiling and baking and tadka, there is also real joy in serving the fruits of your labour at the dining table. Could there be a finer way to bask in the glow of satisfaction than to see someone partake your creation and then laud you for your efforts? And their appreciation didn’t even need to be in the form of words—in fact, the most heartfelt ones were usually wordless. Like, the look that Karan had on his face when he had first taken a spoonful of Jazmeen’s mutton biryani. She was going to have that expression seared on her mind forever, such was the wonderment in his eyes! Since that dinner, Jazmeen had decided that she would cook for Karan every time he was in town.

  And so, creeping ever so quietly that their own subconscious was failing to notice it, the relationship between Karan and Jazmeen was morphing from being one between a man and his ‘dead brother’s woman’ to something a bit more personal and a bit less scandalous.

  15

  All That Glitters is… a Mirage

  Three months ago

  Babu Ram Manjrekar’s eyes were resting on the posh building on Bandra’s 16th Road. He was standing in the pale shadows half-way between two street lights, about fifty feet from the building’s iron gates. Occasionally, he would look up at the penthouse where the lights were on. He was aware that its resident was in, ensconced in the luxuries of the multi-crore property that he had just discovered was not even hers. It was another one in a long list of sordid mysteries that surrounded the woman. In fact, Manjrekar was so intrigued by Jazmeen’s life that he had been visiting that same spot night after night for the entire past week.

  It was already close to 11 PM. Manjrekar had been loitering around the gates for over five hours now. He was awaiting the arrival of Jazmeen’s BMW. He was almost certain that the car was going to be ferrying another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was proving to be Jazmeen’s life. It was a connection that Manjrekar had discovered only through persistence and luck. He just needed
to verify the link physically once before he took the next step.

  Presently, the large 5-Series glided into view. The iron gates parted and the car shot into the driveway. Before the gates could close, Manjrekar got a clear view of the passenger who alighted. The smart politician in a white kurta was exactly the person Manjrekar had expected to see.

  ‘Good,’ he thought. He knew he had made the right decision in buying the train ticket to Gorakhpur just that morning. ‘Let’s see what kind of deadly concoction you two have been brewing out there,’ Manjrekar mumbled as he withdrew from his vantage point to go home. He knew he needed to rush. The train to Gorakhpur left at 4 AM.

  For a man already beaten black and blue by fate, things couldn’t have got any crueller for Manjrekar when destiny decided to come after his only child in its most sadistic avatar. A couple of months after he had returned from Delhi, Manjrekar had had to rush Roshni to the BMC Hospital at Vikhroli in the middle of the night. The girl’s breathing had suddenly faltered precipitously, causing her body to go into spasms. The doctors at the government hospital had tried their best to stabilise her, but her condition had deteriorated progressively overnight. By next morning, the blood clot ejected by Roshni’s weakened heart had travelled to her brain and she had lapsed into a coma.

  Archana had been summoned by her husband as soon as he had got Roshni admitted, and she rushed through the night with a good samaritan neighbour on his motorcycle to be with her child. She was by her husband’s side by dawn. The two, shredded with grief on the inside and yet keeping up the façade of grit and control on the outside, had held vigil outside the ICU, waiting for good news for six days and seven nights. When news finally arrived, it wasn’t what they wanted to hear—though it did sound like what they had expected.

  ‘The tests show that Roshni has suffered brain damage. How severe, we will not be able to tell until we wean her off the ventilator and allow her to breathe on her own,’ the elderly doctor with a kind face said.