The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star

by Vaseem Khan

  As the wagon laboured up the ridge the quarry came into view.

  Poppy took out the binoculars she had rescued from her husband’s study and examined the open mine’s layout. The quarry had carved out a bowl-shaped depression in the earth: on one side it ended in sheer cliffs of naked sandstone while on the other it formed a shallow slope dotted with scrub, stunted trees, and clumps of brackish grass. High up on the far ridge, above the sandstone rock face, Poppy could make out the shape of a man sitting with his back against a boulder. A rifle lolled between his knees as he smoked.

  She swung her binoculars back down to the quarry floor where approximately one hundred white-suited prisoners toiled in the heat. A handful of khaki and black uniforms moved between the ragged company. One of them, an enormous brute, occasionally lashed a prisoner across the back with what looked like a bullwhip.

  Poppy swept the binoculars over the panorama searching for… there!

  Her heart leapt as she caught sight of her husband. He was chipping slowly away at the sandstone rock face on the far side of the quarry, dressed in prison uniform, turned away from her. But she would have recognised him from any angle. The set of his shoulders, the grey at his sideburns.

  Tears blurred her eyes and she forced herself to look away. She could not afford to smudge her make-up. Her disguise was integral to the plan.

  Poppy was dressed as a traditional Kathak dancer. She wore a fuchsia pink blouse overlain with a dark mirror-worked waistcoat, and tight-fitting churidar trousers, above which she wore a pink lehenga—a loose, ankle-length skirt with gold and silver bands radiating from waist to hem. The skirt was cut on the round to enhance the flare of the lower half during spins. A peaked cap and heavy bangles completed the ensemble. Beside her Chef Lucknowwallah wore a shimmering beige silk kurta above white trousers. Seated on the wagon’s tailboard, Irfan was dressed in a similar fashion with the addition of a colourful turban. And trotting behind the wagon came little Ganesha, his forehead painted in an intricate floral design of red and gold.

  A tremor of anxiety ran through Poppy once again as she considered the plan that she and the chef had hastily thrown together earlier, after Lucknowwallah had made discreet enquiries and determined that new prisoners at Gouripur were routinely assigned to work gangs at the local quarry.

  It seemed impossible that their makeshift scheme could work. But what choice had they?

  The thought of doing nothing while her husband was left to rot in Gouripur Jail was unbearable. Time was of the essence. If Chopra’s fellow inmates discovered that he was a former policeman, his prospects of a safe return from this nightmare would plummet. Perhaps they already knew, and even now were plotting against hi—

  She shook away such thoughts. Concentrate on the task at hand!

  The wagon rolled to a halt at the top of the slope leading down into the quarry. Fifty yards along the path a crude spit had been staked together beside a parked prison truck. A trio of badly plucked chickens were roasting, droplets of fat sizzling into the fire, an occasional singed feather erupting into flame.

  “Hah,” muttered the chef. “Call that roast chicken?”

  A guard emerged from behind the truck, zipping up his trousers. He spotted the wagon and immediately called down into the quarry.

  Moments later the big man Poppy had seen beating the other prisoners swaggered up from the quarry floor.

  “Ram ram, sahib!” grinned Lucknowwallah ingratiatingly. “We are a troupe of travelling musicians. May we offer you some entertainment?”

  The brute furrowed his brow. “This is a prison work gang. What are you doing here?”

  “We are travelling through the region, sahib. We perform, and gratefully accept whatever kindness our patrons can offer. I assure you our performances are renowned throughout the state.”

  The brute swung his crop at the toiling figures below. “Do they look like they need entertainment?”

  “Then perhaps for you and the other guards, sahib? Important men like you should be permitted a break, yes?”

  The guard scowled, but his imminent rebuke was forestalled by Poppy slipping down from the wagon’s box seat and sashaying towards him. Abruptly, she stopped, bowed at the waist, then launched into a series of spins, sending her brocaded skirt whirling around her.

  His eyes glittered.

  It had clearly been a long time since he had last been in the presence of a woman as attractive as Poppy Chopra.

  As Poppy danced, another of the guards trudged up the rise, then another. Soon she had attracted an audience. Suddenly, she ground to a halt.

  The brute frowned. “Why have you stopped?”

  “We are humble travellers, sahib,” explained the chef. “We dance to fill our bellies, nothing more. Let us entertain you with our performance. And, in return, perhaps you will reward us with a few rupees for our efforts?” He reached into a straw basket between his feet. “Perhaps we can offer something to accompany your food?” The bottle of cheap whisky glinted in the dying rays of the sun.

  A trembling coursed through the guards. They looked at one another.

  “Very well,” the brute said.

  The sun continued to slip below the cliffs, emblazoning the ridge with colour, and throwing shadows across the quarry. Against the burning umber disc, vultures wheeled and cawed endlessly.

  On the path above the quarry the guards had settled themselves around the fire. Those left down with the prisoners looked up enviously, drooling, wishing they too could join the impromptu festivities. Tiwari, the solitary guard stationed above the quarry on the cliffs, watched the scene with the eyes of a hawk, and the patience of a monk.

  Standing before the fire, Poppy prepared to dance.

  She willed herself to calm. She was a trained dancer—indeed, at the St. Xavier Catholic School for Boys she taught classical Bharatanatyam and Kathak dance. But never had so much ridden on her talent as it did now. She bit her lip and looked over at the chef who was sitting on a rock with a double-headed dhol drum balanced across his knees. He gave her an encouraging nod. She glanced behind her to Irfan who jangled his tambourine brightly. The boy’s face split into a grin and once again Poppy berated herself for bringing him along. Why had she allowed the chef to convince her? What kind of mother would put her child into danger? For Poppy did think of little Irfan as her child, regardless of what anyone said. A mother was, first and foremost, one who loved, and she loved the boy, and little Ganesha too. Her eyes moved to the young elephant, who gripped his own tambourine in his trunk and bashed it against the ground. The sound seemed to delight him and he bashed it again.

  A round of raucous laughter lifted from the guards.

  The chef had been right, Poppy reflected. Ganesha and Irfan made good additions to the troupe, a humorous and welcome distraction adding authenticity to their charade. In an ideal world, she would not have placed them in harm’s way. Well, there was nothing to be done about it now…

  She took a deep breath, then flung herself into the dance, Lucknowwallah beating out an accompanying rhythm on his drum. The guards began to wolf-whistle and clap, waving the greasy chicken legs in their fists.

  Poppy concentrated on the dance, whirling around the fire, teasing with gestures of her hands, and occasionally striking a dramatic pose.

  The classical Kathak dance told a story, and the story Poppy told now was one of hope and despair, of darkness and light, of love and betrayal. She poured every ounce of her lifelong affinity with the art form into her performance. As she whirled ever faster, the cheering grew, until even the prisoners down in the quarry paused and squinted up in the dying light to the pirouetting figure high above them. There was a timeless quality to the moment as if past and present had been brought together for one brief instant, and through Poppy something ancient and primal had been reignited in the world.

  After a while Irfan laid down his tambourine, picked up the bottle of whisky and a cluster of steel cups, and began to move around the fire, pouring out a
generous measure for each guard. Out of the corner of his eye Lucknowwallah watched as each man smacked his lips and drained his glass before demanding a refill.

  Irfan cheerfully obliged.

  Within minutes the cheering voices began to slur and eyelids began to droop.

  The chef smiled inwardly. Evidently his special additive was beginning to take effect. It was time to begin phase two of the operation.

  “Perhaps we can offer some water to your prisoners?” he said, with an oleaginous grin. “It must be thirsty work, breaking rocks in the hot sun.”

  Singh flung his cup at the fire, sending up a burst of flames. “Pah! What do they need water for? They are lucky I don’t… I don’t… don’t…” He lost his train of thought, and stared drunkenly at the chicken leg in his massive fist.

  Poppy danced closer. “Surely a great man like you would not begrudge water to such pitiful creatures?” she said, directing a winsome smile at the brute.

  Singh looked blearily up at her, then lunged for the hem of her skirt. He missed and fell flat on his face, to the slurred laughter of his colleagues.

  As he lay there Ganesha trotted over towards him and banged the tambourine on Singh’s upturned bottom, eliciting another round of inebriated laughter. The little elephant dropped the tambourine and pretended to fumble for it. Quick as a flash, he plucked the set of manacle keys from Singh’s belt and put them into his mouth. Then he picked up the tambourine and jogged over to Poppy who pretended to pet him. Deftly she took the keys and transferred them to a pocket sewn into her skirt.

  Meanwhile, Singh had flopped his great body over.

  He lay flat on his back, belly heaving, staring up at the twilit sky above. Finally, he flapped a hand at Poppy. “Very well. Water for the prisoners. But in return I will have a private dance.”

  Poppy picked up a leather waterskin and raced down into the quarry.

  She ran quickly from prisoner to prisoner, occasionally stopping to offer water in order to allay the suspicions of the few guards remaining on the quarry floor. She recoiled in horror at the marks of beatings, hunger, and something else, a weariness etched onto their souls. She understood now what her fellow Mumbaikers meant when they talked of the brutality of Gouripur Jail.

  Finally, she reached Chopra.

  He watched her approach; the only sign that he recognised her coming was the momentary widening of his eyes. “Poppy!” he hissed in astonishment as she placed the steel cup in his hand and splashed water into it. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Did you think you could just vanish without so much as a by-your-leave and I wouldn’t notice?” she hissed back.

  “This is no time for humour, Poppy!”

  “I am not laughing,” said Poppy evenly. “We are here to help you escape.”

  “Have you lost your mind? Helping a prisoner escape is a criminal offence! If they catch you, you will end up in chains, just like me!”

  “Then so be it,” said Poppy her eyes flashing angrily. “But you didn’t expect me to leave you here to rot, did you? Besides, who says it is always Ram’s job to save Sita?” Her mouth clamped into a rectangle of obstinacy.

  Words failed Chopra. His astonishment was second only to the fierce pride that welled inside him. Each time he thought that his wife’s magnificence could no longer surprise him, she found another way to prove him wrong. “Poppy,” he whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything. You’ll probably just give me a lecture. You need to get out of those chains. Here.” She surreptitiously handed him the keys.

  “How did you get these?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Listen carefully. You must wait for my signal. Then you must unlock yourself and run. Get up that slope and on to the road.” She nodded at the slope on the far side of the quarry, covered by scrub and stunted trees.

  “What then?” asked Chopra. “The guards have guns. Do you plan to outrun bullets?”

  “You will have to wait and see,” said Poppy, mysteriously. “It’s all in hand.”

  “There is one more problem. Up there.” Chopra raised his eyebrows to the ridge above the quarry. “There’s a guard with a rifle. An expert marksman.”

  “Don’t worry. He will be taken care of,” assured Poppy. “You just be ready to go on my signal.”

  “What is the signal?”

  “You will know it when you see it.”

  Chopra nodded. “Go now, before they become suspicious. And Poppy… please be careful.”

  Above the ridge Irfan approached the solitary guard named Tiwari.

  To his left he could see the quarry laid out below his feet, wreathed in shadow. He saw Poppy moving among the prisoners and wondered briefly which one Chopra was. He reflected on the stroke of good fortune by which he had overheard Poppy and Chef Lucknowwallah planning Chopra’s escape. He had insisted on coming along, and although Poppy had been against it, the chef had finally convinced her.

  Irfan would have done anything for Chopra.

  After all, he owed the man much more than mere loyalty. Chopra was Irfan’s hero and now his hero needed him. Irfan would not be found wanting… And besides, what a first-class adventure!

  Irfan padded stealthily towards the edge of the cliff, but even so the stationary man somehow heard him approach. He spun around from his boulder, the rifle between his knees instantly materialising in his hands. As he sighted down the weapon, it seemed to Irfan for one steep second that the man would shoot. Fear froze him to the spot, and he almost dropped the bottle of whisky that he was carrying.

  Tiwari, a gaunt man with a drooping moustache and a hollow face, stared at the boy, unmoving, before finally lowering his rifle.

  Gathering his courage Irfan moved forward and poured out a measure of whisky. With trembling hands he held the steel cup out to the guard.

  Tiwari’s eyes were ghostly in the dusk. There seemed something immeasurably wounded in those eyes, as if Tiwari had seen things that had changed him beyond all recognition. Whatever it was, it stirred up a sudden terror in the boy.

  He placed the cup on the ground, then turned and raced back the way he had come.

  Chef Lucknowwallah fumbled in his pocket for his watch.

  It was almost time.

  He stood up from behind his drum. “And now, great sirs, let us present the climax to our entertainment!” He strode over to the wagon, clambered in the back, and emerged with a wooden crate. He hauled the crate to the fire, then opened it and removed coloured objects of all shapes and sizes.

  Fireworks.

  Around the fire the drunken guards watched with sleep-heavy eyes. Some dozed, snoring into the encroaching dusk.

  The chef set up a ring of fireworks around the spit. Then he nodded at Poppy, Irfan, and Ganesha. “I suggest you all move back.”

  He waited as they clambered back into the wagon. Poppy pulled on the reins, awakening the dozing bullock, and steered the wagon back around the curve of the winding path, Ganesha following. Once out of sight of the guards, she headed for the spot where the road met the shallow slope leading up from the eastern side of the quarry.

  The chef lifted a flaming branch from the fire, lit the ring of fireworks, then stepped backwards into the shadows.

  As the first of the fireworks shrieked into the sky, Lucknowwallah glanced down into the quarry. In the dying light every face was turned upwards. The firework reached its zenith and exploded in an extravaganza of sparkling contrails. A ghostly residue of light illuminated the watching prisoners.

  Satisfied, Lucknowwallah turned and jogged back along the road, following the wagon.

  Down in the quarry Chopra bent towards his ankles. Using the key Poppy had given him he quickly released himself. Then he jogged to his neighbour, Iqbal Yusuf, and bent to his manacles. “What are you doing?” protested Yusuf.

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  Yusuf looked up at the coruscating sky. “You are responsible for this?” A rueful smile twi
sted his greying features. “You are more resourceful than I gave you credit for, Chopra. Now go. Don’t waste your advantage on me.”

  “I told you I’m not leaving without you. You’ve served your time. You don’t deserve to die in this godforsaken hole.”

  “We all receive the death decreed for us, my son.”

  “I won’t leave you to the mercy of these brutes. Now, come on!” Chopra shook the manacles off Yusuf’s feet. Grabbing the older man by the forearm he led him towards the scree-covered slope, moving around the edge of the quarry, sticking to the shadows. Around them prisoners and guards gazed up into the sky, transfixed by the fireworks.

  From the path Poppy watched Chopra and the other prisoner scrabbling up the slope. Terror and anxiety fought inside her. Just a little further! Then surely they would have pulled it off!

  Another fusillade of fireworks screamed into the sky.

  Suddenly, silhouetted on the rim of the quarry’s western ridge, Poppy saw the solitary guard, Tiwari, crouched beside his boulder, sighting along his rifle.

  Horror froze her limbs.

  Why was he still alert? She turned to Irfan. “Irfan, did you give the guard on the cliff the whisky?”

  “Yes,” said Irfan, his face sombre in the flashing darkness.

  “Did you see him drink it?”

  Irfan began to nod, then hesitated. “No,” he said, miserably.

  Poppy looked back down into the quarry. “Dear Shiva,” she whispered, “if I have ever pleased you with my devotion then let me ask one thing of you now and I will never ask for anything again. Bring him safely to me. Please!”

  Down on the slope Chopra ducked low as they scrabbled towards a stunted khejri tree. He could hear Yusuf wheezing behind him. “Not much further—”

  Something whizzed past his ear and pocked into the soil before him, sending up a puff of dust.