Pretty Vile Girl

by Rickie Khosla

  ‘This is it!’ Saran’s mind yelled in panic.

  Boom!

  The second pounding had managed to splinter the door near the handle. Any second now, and the drama was going to end. Saran observed the man’s hand and the skin of his index finger tighten around the trigger. He had to act now! Saran lunged forward courageously. But instead of dropping all his weight on the intruder, he tumbled to the side and crashed against the wall. An invisible shove from the left had just pushed him aside.

  In the nick of time!

  Boom!

  The gun went off, its sound so near that it momentarily deafened everyone in its vicinity. The only other sound that had accompanied it was a loud shriek. ‘Stop!’ Jazmeen had screamed just as the bullet had blasted from the gun.

  The next ten seconds were of stunned paralysis. The pounding at the door stopped instantly; the soldiers on the outside halted dramatically by the sound of new gunfire inside. A trigger-happy lunatic meant that their rescue plan for the Prime Minister had just become dangerously complicated.

  Inside, Saran was on the floor, his eyes shooting away from the gunman to figure out who had pushed him aside. What he saw left his eyes wide with horror. Standing four feet away to his left, directly confronting the insane gunman now, was Karan! He looked different, strangely… unlike himself—his white kurta now with a giant patch of wet crimson covering the left side of his torso. Jazmeen was on her feet too, clutching Karan’s shoulder with a stunned expression.. Karan’s face looked blanched, and his entire body was soaked with perspiration. His forehead was mottled with the lines of pain. He was gasping.

  ‘The gunshot!’ Saran remembered in a flash. ‘The bastard just shot Karan!’

  Alarming as that realisation was, endorsed by the growing patch of blood around Karan’s heart, there was something else even more startling about the scene playing out in front of Saran. The shooter’s hand was still raised. His weapon was still pointing. But his aim was not Saran anymore. The gun was now staring at his injured protégé. And it wasn’t surprising why that was so—for gleaming in Karan’s shaky right hand was a handgun too, and it was aimed straight at his attacker’s heart!

  It was a stand-off!

  Saran was left wordless at the events that had just unfolded. Karan was holding a gun! It took Saran a fraction of a second to piece the story together. Clearly, his young colleague must have been carrying his own personal weapon and had somehow managed to fish it out unseen, possibly during the melee at the door. However, before he got a chance to use it and, realising that the madman was about to shoot, Karan must have flung himself at Saran to get him out of harm’s way.

  Risking his own life instead.

  ‘For me. Karan risked his life—to save mine!’

  It was a very sobering thought. It suddenly made Saran terribly ashamed, enough to not be able to look Karan in the eye. He shifted his gaze away from the injured man to the demented cop. Curiously, the attacker had a look of shock too, as if he was himself unsure of what had just transpired. His surprised eyes were staring past Karan. He was looking at Jazmeen. She was clutching the bleeding man like vine clinging to a wall.

  In a dramatic instant, Jazmeen extended her arm and took Karan’s gun from his trembling hands. The bloodied man was gasping in pain but conscious and alert. Sareen, who had so far been in the background quieter than a shadow, intuitively stepped forward and clasped Karan’s shoulders, gently placing the injured man on the floor—and settling himself next to him.

  The stand-off was still on, but it was now Jazmeen who was facing the attacker. The change of protagonist had taken no more than two seconds.

  ‘So, this is how it’s going to be?’ the intruder was the first to break the silent impasse.

  The lunatic’s words didn’t sound like a question, but Jazmeen answered him anyway. ‘Stop. Just stop whatever you have come here to do. Please!’ Her expression was grave. Saran wondered what was going on in her mind. Karan’s gasps were now more audible than before.

  ‘You people,’ Manjrekar said, his voice tinged with scorn, ‘sure know how to stick together with your own type. Protecting each other at all cost. To the world you try to look like saints. In reality, you are nothing but snakes! Ready to inject your poison into anyone who gets in your way.’

  Jazmeen’s hand quivered.

  ‘Well,’ the gunman continued, ‘in the end, what does it amount to? We will all be in front of our Maker. You. And him…’ he said, glancing at the bleeding man on the floor. ‘Even this one,’ he added, darting a scornful look at Saran. ‘You can hide your sins from the world. But how will you hide them from Him?’

  He chuckled. It was anguish in its rawest form.

  ‘Unless, you think God can’t recognise the real you through all the masks you wear?’

  ‘He is baiting her now!’ Saran thought. He shot a quick glance at the madman, and then at Jazmeen. She was starting to close her eyes! ‘No, no, no, you bloody bitch!’ he yelled at her in his mind.

  ‘Are you so scared of your karma that you hide from it behind veils?’ the gunman asked.

  ‘Open your eyes, you stupid woman, and focus! Kill him before he gets inside your head!’ beseeched Saran’s unspoken scream.

  ‘Do you want me to go and tell the Maker who the real you is?’

  Jazmeen’s eyes were now shut tightly, the face a child makes when she doesn’t want to see, or hear, a tale of horror. When she is impelling her mind to think of something else instead. Something more pleasant.

  ‘Do you?’

  Her hand was shaking like a leaf now. Saran had to do something before everything was lost.

  ‘Kill him!’ he yelled at the top of his voice.

  BOOM!

  India was at a standstill with shock and awe. It had just witnessed the greatest show on earth. Its cast had been A-One, the drama death-defying, and the ending upbeat and thoroughly satisfying.

  Seven minutes after the final gunshot had reverberated through the homes of a billion people, televisions and mobile screens all around the country were showing visuals of Karan Rathore on a gurney, being boarded on to an ambulance. Cameras stationed at least thirty feet away from the auditorium’s back entrance were capturing live images of Prime Minister Satyendra Saran and film star Jazmeen standing together, as if personally supervising the brave Minister’s rehabilitation.

  ‘It is so great to see those two safe and making sure Karan Rathore is resting comfortably. So brave, considering they have themselves just escaped from the clutches of death,’ announced Ruby Verghese over the airwaves.

  ‘Do we know anything about the Minister’s condition yet, Ruby?’ asked the news anchor in the studio.

  ‘It’s difficult to say, Mohit,’ Ruby replied. ‘From our vantage point, his wounds looked very serious. As you could see from the footage from the room, he seems to have taken the bullet very close to the heart.’

  ‘Yes, there has been a lot of blood loss.’

  ‘Well, I can say one thing for sure. Millions and millions of people in the country would be praying for Karan Singh Rathore to pull through. People will talk about his bravery for years to come, about his courage of standing up to a madman—and his loyalty for staking his own life ahead of the Prime Minister. I mean, where do we even see such qualities in this country any more?’

  ‘I agree, Ruby. Well said! And Jazmeen too! Look at the way she took matters in her own hands and ended the stalemate before it got worse. If she was a star earlier, she’s a legend now!’

  ‘Our new National Heroine, Mohit! OK, it looks like they are finally moving the PM and Jazmeen out too. Those ambulances are now pulling towards the back gate.’

  ‘Ruby, what about the other hostage? What news of Jazmeen’s assistant? Is he OK?’

  ‘Yes, from what we have seen and understood, he has escaped unhurt too. The authorities will like to collect his statement at some point. Though, I think it will be a difficult conversation. We believe that the man is mute.’
<
br />   ‘Oh! Is he handicapped?’

  ‘Yes, I was told by my sources that he lost the power to speak since childhood.’

  ‘What is the man’s name, Ruby?’

  ‘They call him Sareen. He accompanies Jazmeen everywhere she goes.’

  The back and forth between the two news personnel went on for several more hours. Neither journalist brought up the topic of the dead man left behind in the makeup room. His body lay on its side in the middle of the floor, the chest split wide open by the shot fired by Jazmeen at point-blank range. His khaki uniform was now mostly black with the blood from his heart. His eyes were glassy and partly open. The muscles on his face looked clenched—and yet strangely, at peace. He had a hint of a smile frozen on his lips.

  ‘This will be our last conversation,’ Manjrekar said. ‘After this, we will only see each other at Siri Fort.’

  Jazmeen nodded in acknowledgement.

  It was 3 AM, two nights before the two of them were to fly to Delhi. Bandra was as sombre as it could possibly be.

  ‘But what if either of us has to convey a last minute change of plans to the other?’

  ‘We can’t. Not now.’

  She nodded again. She looked uncertain.

  ‘Madam, look… we have gone over the plan dozens of times now. At the end of the day, it is all very simple. I will kill that kutta Karan Rathore like you want me to. And then you will kill me. Like I want you to.’

  ‘Simple!’ Her lips attempted a smile but ended up in a thin, straight line conveying only woe.

  ‘Don’t forget to carry the “Entry Pass”,’ she said, trying to distract herself with mundane details. ‘Make sure you destroy it once you are inside. No one should be able to trace it back to Karan later.’

  ‘Yes, I will drop it in your purse when I’m alone in your room. No one will ever check that.’

  She nodded one more time.

  ‘Will you carry Karan’s gun or will he?’ he asked.

  ‘He will, like he always does. Like all self-respecting UP politicians.’

  ‘OK.’

  There was really nothing more left to discuss, so they both sat in silence for many minutes.

  ‘Do you think God will forgive me for what I am doing?’ Manjrekar spoke, suddenly ruffling the quiet of the night.

  ‘I still don’t know why you don’t want me to help you. Why bring God into this?’

  He smiled and looked at her. She was serious, concerned.

  ‘This really is between Him and me. He has troubled me enough. And I have too much self-respect to ask Him or anyone else to look after my Roshni. I will take care of her myself.’

  ‘But you’ll be dead!’ she wailed at the man’s twisted logic.

  ‘But she will have what I’ll leave behind. That is all she needs. Don’t tell me you don’t understand why I am doing this?’

  Jazmeen did. She didn’t press on with the debate.

  ‘You know, you are not a bad person,’ he said quietly, after another lull in conversation. The comment made her laugh for the first time in days.

  ‘You think I’m the worst woman in the world! I wriggle my breasts for a living. And I kill for fun.’

  ‘No, Madam. You are a victim of karma. Just like me.’

  ‘So, my karma made me an assassin? Disguised as a sleazy film star?’

  ‘But those are mere masks that you wear for the world. So no one can see the real you.’ His voice had a curious tone.

  ‘What do you mean, Babu Ram?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘I just mean that no one knows who you really are.’

  She looked on.

  ‘Who are you, Deepika Ahluwalia? Why do you hide behind this mask called Jazmeen?’ He looked straight at her, as if trying to peer through an opaque curtain. It made Jazmeen look away.

  ‘To the world, you pretend to be a chaalu bitch, yet, like this—in person—you are no more than a simple, lost, young girl. Lonely within your world, but never alone in the world outside.’

  She felt his eyes bore through her skin, but she couldn’t dare to meet his gaze.

  ‘You tear the world apart with your words, yet, the plight of my Roshni has ripped your heart out.’

  ‘I would do anything to help your child. No child should ever have to suffer…’

  ‘I know, Madam. And yet you shiver at my request to kill me!’

  The starkness of the man’s words actually made her shiver involuntarily.

  ‘Look at you, looking so timid, so unsure about killing someone. And that too a man who wants to die! What kind of an assassin are you if you are scared to kill?’ His tone was mocking. ‘Frankly,’ he continued, ‘you are behaving like you have never killed anyone before.’

  Jazmeen turned and looked at him with a kind of bluntness that caught Manjrekar by surprise. He stopped talking, wondering what he had just said that had bothered her. Jazmeen’s gaze softened momentarily. But Manjrekar’s eyes had widened like an umbrella that had suddenly been snapped open. His face was starting to go white, as if he had just seen a ghost. Except that it wasn’t a ghost he had seen.

  He had just caught a glimpse of Deepika Ahluwalia’s exposed soul.

  ‘Saala… NOW I get it!’ he mumbled in disbelief, his jaw open.

  Jazmeen looked away immediately, hiding her eyes again—fearing that her biggest secret was going to tumble out of them if Manjrekar saw them.

  ‘You have NEVER killed anyone before, have you?’ Manjrekar said.

  She closed her eyes. The mask of Jazmeen had toppled. It had failed her for the first time in her life.

  ‘All those murders! But it was never you! Not one single time. It was always your brother, Ujjwal!’

  Epilogue

  The Lull Before the Next Storm

  One month later

  The most important man in her world was gorging on the sandwiches she had prepared for him. It had taken her years but she had finally understood how to get the right mix of the two spreads. The trick to making the perfect ‘jam and butter wali’ sandwich is to use two-parts butter and one-part jam. That way, the sandwich tastes buttery and yet retains the sweetness of Mixed-Fruit. A perfect balance of salty and sweet.

  Just like Mummy used to make them.

  ‘Just the way he likes them.’

  It was Sunday morning, around 10 AM. The summer sun had already started its relentless toasting of the city, but here, inside the plush penthouse on 16th Road, Bandra, it was a cool, manmade 21 degrees Celsius. She had already gobbled up her banana cornflakes and was now on the phone. She had always been a fast eater, ever since she was a child. He liked to be leisurely with his food, eating little and eating slowly, the reason for his gaunt and unremarkable presence which always went unnoticed in a crowd.

  Their breakfast together had been a weekly ritual ever since she had revealed her life’s biggest truth to Arty one year ago. She felt she had to tell him. She owed that much to the man whose baby she was carrying. And so, Arty had ‘met’ her brother for the first time. Even greeted him by his real name.

  It was the only time in recent memory that Sareen had been addressed as Ujjwal.

  ‘I’ll let him eat in peace,’ Jazmeen said to herself. She got up from the dining chair and settled herself down on the luxurious couch fifteen feet away to focus on her other brother who was calling from Delhi.

  ‘Do tell Jolly Uncle that I will come see him in a few days,’ she said. ‘I think they are scheduling Karan’s public swearing-in ceremony on the 15th. I will be one of the official invitees.’

  ‘Yes, Didi,’ Shadab Ahmed Rizvi said. ‘You and Karan Sir have been all over the news. I think he will make a good Prime Minister. You two are the new superstars of the country!’

  ‘Well, none of it would have been possible without Jolly Uncle’s patties and the spycam idea that his waiter planted in that TV reporter’s head. If they hadn’t done their magic, Karan wouldn’t have got an opportunity to save the Prime Minister on live TV!’ she smiled.

 
; ‘He did save the PM, but…’

  She knew instantly what Shadab meant.

  ‘Yes, very sad news about Saran. His death really came out of the blue for all of us,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, Didi.’

  There was a pause for a few seconds. It was time to move beyond the small talk to more difficult matters.

  ‘So, did you…?’ Jazmeen began slowly.

  ‘Yes, I called the life insurance company again today. They will release the settlement cheque of Rs 2 crore to Archana Manjrekar by Friday. Your interview on Times Now must have done the trick. The way you spoke so passionately about forgiveness, and how Manjrekar Sir’s family must not have to bear the brunt of his emotional breakdown. I feel the entire nation feels a huge amount of sympathy for their daughter. You can already see that in the media coverage. Even NGOs are stepping in to help them now. Anyway, legally also, there wasn’t any reason why the insurance payout could be withheld for much longer.’

  ‘That’s a relief!’ she said cheerfully. ‘And what about the Maharashtra Police benefits?’

  ‘Those have already been released. The Police department was just waiting for the inquiry to be over. Even though Manjrekar Sir was involved in a crime, there is still a high degree of respect for him in the Force. People are surprised by his actions, but not shocked. They believe that he simply… snapped because of his troubles.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Jazmeen said sounding non-committal. She realised that she was the only person alive who knew the truth about Manjrekar. The man had not suddenly ‘snapped because of his troubles’, an impression first perpetuated by the gossipy media looking for a filmy explanation, and now believed to be the truth even by his colleagues in the Force. The truth was far from it. Manjrekar’s death in Siri Fort had been part of a choreographed sequence of events directed by Jazmeen, but sanctioned by the dead man himself.

  Babu Ram Manjrekar had taken out a life insurance policy on himself soon after the bus accident that had left his daughter paralysed. The tragedy had been a stark reminder of not only the uncertainties of life, but also of his own indispensability to the family as its primary earning member. No matter how difficult things were in life, now with the policy in place, there was at least the comfort that his sick daughter and the rest of his loved ones would be taken care of if something were to happen to him.