The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star

by Vaseem Khan

  “The truth? It was because I wanted my mother to suffer. I wanted her to feel some of the pain that Aaliya’s mother felt when my father abandoned her. And I needed time to think. You may not believe this, but once I got inside Ali’s skin I felt myself changing. It was no longer a performance. I was living the life of an ordinary man, helping out at the hospital, seeing the world through the eyes of the poorest people in our society. It sobered me up, I don’t mind telling you. For the first time I felt as if I was making a real difference in people’s lives. I wasn’t sure—I’m still not sure—that I want to go back to my mother and the life she’s laid out for me. I’m not sure I want to be movie star Vicky Verma any more.”

  “A lot of people are relying on you,” said Chopra. “Many people will suffer if you don’t return to finish The Mote in the Third Eye of Shiva. Not just your mother.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Vicky sighed. “And God knows I want to confront her with the truth, to have it out with her. I want to see her face when I tell her what I’ve done. I need to know that she feels some remorse for ruining two lives.”

  Chopra observed the boy’s defiant expression, reflecting once again on the endless ability of human beings to surprise him. Whatever happened now, one thing was certain: Vicky Verma would never be the same vain, arrogant young man he had been just a few short months ago.

  If any good had come from this sorry episode, then it was that.

  A CRIME FROM THE PAST

  Rangwalla stood before the eunuchs in the breakfast hall. He glanced at the clock on the wall. He had timed his morning’s entrance precisely. One by one the eunuchs fell silent, perhaps sensing that something was amiss.

  “Aren’t you going to eat, dear?” said Parvati, eventually. “We must keep up our strength.”

  “I’m afraid it is time to bring this charade to an end,” said Rangwalla. “It is time for truth.”

  “Truth?” Mamta frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “It is time for me to introduce you to our ghost.”

  “Hai, Ram!” squeaked Rupa. “Have you gone mad?”

  Rangwalla glanced up at the clock again… Any moment now… Just then it chimed the hour, and the doors to the breakfast room swung back.

  Munshi Premchand entered, followed by the watchman, Shantaram. Premchand tapped his walking stick with annoyance on the parquet floor. “What is the meaning of this? Why did you wish to see me? We’re not due to begin for another hour, and I am a busy man.”

  Rangwalla held up a finger. “Just one moment, please.”

  A minute passed during which everyone looked at each other in bewilderment, and then the door opened again. This time a woman entered—the woman Rangwalla had trailed to the village the night before.

  “The ghost!” wailed Rupa, rising to her feet. She swooned dramatically, falling backwards into Mamta’s lap.

  “Stop overacting, you fool,” said Mamta crossly, and pushed the eunuch onto the floor. Rupa’s head quickly reappeared, peeking above the table.

  “This is no ghost,” explained Rangwalla. “Though, I’ll admit, she is the woman who has been singing in the haveli at night. Her name is Darshana.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” asked Premchand. “What is this girl doing here?”

  “She is here to help me tell a story.”

  “A story?” echoed Parvati. “What story?”

  “The story of the Master and his mother.”

  Premchand scowled and seemed about to say something, but then the watchman, Shantaram, placed a hand on his arm. The two men exchanged a long look, and then Premchand subsided.

  Rangwalla looked at Darshana, and nodded.

  “Once upon a time,” began the young woman, “there was a thakur—a landowner—named Ranveer Pratap Rathore. As landowners go he wasn’t a bad man. He was tough, but generally regarded as being good at heart. He drank too much and chased women, but which landowner didn’t?

  “And then, one day, Rathore married.

  “The woman he married was young, and came from a wealthy family in another state. She thought of herself as a princess, and in some ways she was. The woman—Thakurani Jaya Rathore—soon proved to be the antithesis of her husband. She was a hard, cold woman, wedded to tradition. A streak of cruelty distinguished her, quickly alienating the local villagers.

  “In time the union was blessed by a son. The boy—named Suraj Pratap—was an instant disappointment to his mother, a cripple, with a crooked leg and a retiring disposition. Unable to mask her dismay the Mistress treated the boy with coldness from the day of his birth. If the boy found any warmth at all it was from his father, but this was not destined to last.

  “Thakur Rathore died when his son was only three years old, the circumstances of his death shrouded in controversy. The police report stated that he fell from the haveli’s roof terrace, breaking his neck. At the time only he and the Mistress had been up on the terrace. The report ruled that his death was an accident, but it was later discovered that the Thakur had been consorting with a woman from a neighbouring village, a rich widow. There was even talk that he had expressed a desire to take another wife.

  ‘Whatever the truth, the fact is that, from that point forward, the Mistress took charge of the Rathore estate. She ruled with an iron fist, tripling the land tithes, and forcing many of the locals to the edge of starvation. She hired a gang of thugs—voices raised in protest against her were swiftly silenced.

  “As the years passed, the Master grew up learning to tread warily around his mother. He was forbidden to leave the haveli, forbidden to keep friends. The Mistress had no desire for her shame to be exhibited before others, the shame of a cripple for a son. His schooling was undertaken by a series of tutors personally approved by her. In this manner the Master grew to sixteen. And then something happened that changed his life for ever.

  “He fell in love.

  “It happened, as these things do, in the blink of an eye. One day, the Master wandered into the orchard at the rear of the haveli, a place where he had spent many solitary hours. But instead of being alone with the peacocks and mango trees as he usually was he saw that a strange girl was seated against the well, reading. He shrank back and watched her. Eventually, the girl told him to come out. She didn’t like being spied on.

  “Her name was Kalpana, and she was the watchman Shantaram’s daughter, newly employed as a maid in the haveli.

  “She was everything the Master was not: bold, mischievous, outspoken. In time a friendship developed. Each day the Master would arrive in the orchard to find Kalpana reading beside the well. Each day she would mock him: his shyness, his stutter, his constellation of fears. But one thing she never mocked: his crippled leg. That, she told him, was God’s design. And who were mere mortals to mock God?

  “Friendship became love; the first true love the Master had ever known.

  “Two years passed in this secret friendship, until, one day, Kalpana said, ‘My father wishes to marry me to Alok. He is a blacksmith. He is handsome and strong; he has a livelihood. What do you think?’

  “The Master was stricken, but he mumbled, with downcast eyes, ‘He would make a good husband for you.’

  “She stared at him, then shook her head. ‘You are an idiot.’

  “In the end they married. The Master knew he could never hope to secure his mother’s approval for such a match. He knew she wanted him wedded to a highborn woman, to add to the estate’s wealth. And so they married in secret, in a temple in the woods, professing their vows to one another with only Kalpana’s elder brother in attendance.

  “They lived as if in a fairy tale. Married in each other’s eyes, but not in the eyes of the law or those around them. Their trysts in the orchard, surrounded by peacocks, became the focal point of their lives. Inside the haveli they studiously ignored one another.

  “But Time does not play handmaiden to the whims of men, and eventually the inevitable came to pass.

  “Kalpana became pregnant.
/>
  “In the village, scandal brewed, but the girl would not reveal the father’s identity, not even when, months later, the child—a boy—was born.

  “Inevitably, some guessed the father’s name, but a conspiracy of silence enfolded the lovers. For no one wished word of the affair to reach the ears of the Mistress. The villagers knew that her wrath would be unimaginable, and that her fury would fall not only upon the girl, but also upon the village.

  “But secrets are like worms inside an apple. One day they will eat their way into the light.

  “When the Mistress found out, it is said she became silent, unmoving for hours. Finally, she summoned her son.

  “Confronted with his mother’s knowledge, the Master, for the first time in his life, spoke to her with courage. Leaning on his cane, he spoke of love and happiness. He begged to be allowed to live the life of his desires. He believed—he hoped—that his mother would understand.

  “He was wrong.

  “The Mistress imprisoned her son in the haveli. Then she sent her thugs to find the girl.

  “The next day Kalpana’s elder brother was discovered by locals in a forest clearing. Dead by knife and fire. Of the girl and her infant son there was no sign. The rumour was later circulated that bandits had surprised them, that the brother had died defending his sister, and that Kalpana and her child had been carried off by the dacoits.

  “This was not the truth.

  “The Mistress’s punishment, you see, was not yet complete.” Darshana stopped, and looked at Rangwalla.

  “Please follow me,” said the former policeman. He turned and headed towards the doors of the breakfast room.

  Rangwalla wound through the haveli, heading down.

  Finally, he reached the lowest level, arriving at a wooden door studded with iron rivets.

  He waited while Shantaram unlocked the door. Then he lifted a wax torch from a cresset beside the door, and lit it.

  They all trooped into the room, a dank and musty cellar, with grey flagstones underfoot and walls of seeping brickwork. The air smelled of repressed memories, and in the shadows it seemed they could hear the papery whispers of the past.

  “What are we doing here?” whispered Rupa.

  Rangwalla walked to the far wall of the cellar, his torch casting a wobbling circle of light around him. Then he turned and faced them. “Shantaram?”

  The watchman hobbled forward, removed the sling from his shoulder, and unwrapped the bundle to reveal two pickaxes.

  “Mamta, I need your help.”

  “What are we supposed to be doing?” said the big eunuch stepping forward.

  “Breaking down this wall.”

  Rangwalla handed the torch to Shantaram, hefted the pickaxe, then, with a grunt, swung at the wall. The pickaxe embedded itself in the crumbling stone, showering chips in all directions. Rangwalla heaved, pulling out a trio of rotted bricks. Rolling her eyes, Mamta joined him, and together they hacked and bludgeoned away at the wall.

  Minutes later, Rangwalla stepped back, passing a forearm over his dust-covered brow. He took the torch and held it up to the gaping hole now visible in the wall.

  A gasp echoed around the room.

  Leering from the hole, at about head height, was a human skull, with the clavicles visible below the sagging lower mandible. A frayed rope wound loosely around the cervical vertebrae, securing the skeleton to a wooden post.

  “Who is that?” whispered Rupa, trembling in the flickering torchlight.

  “The Mistress was not content with simply murdering her son’s bride,” explained Rangwalla. “She had the Master brought down here, and she made him watch as Kalpana was entombed alive.”

  The eunuchs shivered. Rangwalla heard Kavita crying.

  “But that is too cruel!” Rupa gasped. “How could the Master have borne it?”

  “Why don’t we ask him?” said Rangwalla.

  The eunuchs looked at him in confusion… And then it dawned on them. They followed Rangwalla’s gaze… to where Premchand had straightened from his habitual stoop. Suddenly, his features realigned themselves. The perpetual scowl was replaced by an expression of indescribable sadness. His hands gripped his cane as he stared into the distant past.

  “You cannot imagine,” he began, “what it means to look on as everything you ever wished for is extinguished before your eyes. While you stand there, powerless to do anything about it. And afterwards, bloodying my fists against the walls of my own cell, knowing that the love of my life was slowly suffocating to death in her lightless tomb.

  “I haven’t set foot down here since that day. I could not. Yet neither could I bring myself to disinter my beloved and cremate her, as I knew I must. I wanted to preserve her as I had last seen her, right here in this room. I wanted that moment—the last time we had looked into each other’s eyes and professed our love—to last for ever.”

  He fell silent, the memory of that terrible event stifling his words.

  “But the tale does not end there,” continued Rangwalla gently. “The Master was a broken man. He had been a recluse since childhood, now he became doubly so. He never again ventured beyond the walls of the haveli. He never again struck up a friendship with another human being.

  “Years passed. And then the Mistress died.

  “But the routines of his life had become so ingrained in the Master that he could not break free from the invisible chains that bound him. He haunted the haveli, never venturing far from his dead wife.” Rangwalla paused. ‘But one mystery remained. What had happened to the child? The infant son whose death had been ordered by the Mistress?

  “The Mistress had given the child to her munshi—you see, there was a real Premchand once—and ordered the child to be disposed of. But the munshi, loyal in all matters to his mistress, could not bring himself to curse his own soul by murdering an infant. And so he did the next best thing. He travelled to the city, to Mumbai, and he gave the child to a community from where he knew there could be no return, a community shunned by all others.

  “He gave the boy to the eunuchs.”

  Another gasp echoed around the cellar. “Hai Ram!” whispered Rupa.

  “The Master, of course, did not know this. He grew old, continuing to believe that his son was dead.

  “And then, one day, everything changed. On his deathbed, the munshi, the real Premchand, wishing to atone for his crime, revealed to Shantaram—the child’s grandfather—the truth. Unable to conceal this truth from the Master, Shantaram repeated the story to the man who had once been his son-in-law, and who he had continued to loyally watch over since the death of his daughter.

  “And so began the Master’s quest.

  “From the beginning he suspected that his task was hopeless. To find the child who had been fed into the monster that was Mumbai more than thirty years earlier—assuming the child was even still alive. Yet he had to try. He owed that much to his beloved Kalpana.

  “But his ways were too deeply ingrained. The prospect of setting foot outside the haveli filled him with dread. Yet neither did he trust anyone else to look for his lost child. And so he decided that if he could not go to the eunuchs of Mumbai, then they must come to him. But he did not wish his mission to be openly known—for he had no idea how his son would react upon discovering the truth—and so he began to invite eunuchs to the haveli, to observe them as they completed meaningless tasks. He felt certain that he would know if one of them was his own flesh and blood.

  “It was an impossible quest, yet what choice did he have? For, like so many of us, the past had him in its clutches. He could not live or die in peace until he had his answer.”

  A grim silence filled the stone vault.

  “But how does the ghost come into it?” asked Parvati eventually.

  “As you can see, she is no ghost,” said Rangwalla, pointing at Darshana. “She is the child of Kalpana’s elder brother, the one murdered by the Mistress’s thugs.”

  “But why were you singing in the haveli?” asked Parvati.<
br />
  Darshana glanced at her grandfather Shantaram. “Because I was angry. Ever since I was a child I had been told that my father had died in a terrible accident. I was told nothing about my aunt at all, except that she left the village when I was an infant. It was only when my mother fell gravely ill a few years ago that she finally told me what had happened to my father, and my aunt. I was furious, furious that everyone had lied to me. I wanted to go to the authorities. I wanted a proper police investigation into my father’s death. But my grandfather stopped me. He was concerned about the Master. I couldn’t understand his loyalty. As far as I was concerned the Master was complicit in my father’s death. I went to the haveli and confronted him. I said many things; I even accused him of standing by while his wife, my aunt, was murdered in front of his eyes. He was furious, and banned me from the haveli.

  “And then, when the real Premchand passed away and revealed the fact of the Master’s lost child, I saw the opportunity for the truth to finally come out into the open. I didn’t agree with my grandfather that we should allow the Master to do things his way. I wanted to go to Mumbai to search openly for my cousin, the Master’s son. Only by finding him and restoring him to his rightful position can some of the evil inflicted upon my family be undone.”

  “And so you pretended to be a ghost?”

  “I never said I was a ghost,” snapped the girl. “I simply couldn’t sit by while this charade went on. And so I snuck into the mansion. I thought if I created enough of a disturbance you would run away, and eventually the Master would be forced to abandon his silly plan, and bring in the authorities as I wished.”

  “But why didn’t you just tell us the truth?”

  She sighed. “I thought about it. But my grandfather was dead set against it. He’s all I have left. I love him dearly and would not have hurt him for the world.”

  “So what happens now?” asked Mamta.

  “I will keep looking,” said the Master sadly.

  “Your task is hopeless,” said Parvati gently. “At least in the way that you’re going about it. Have you any idea how many eunuchs there are in Mumbai? Assuming your son is even still alive and in the city. It will take years. You could advertise, I suppose, make a big production of it, but then every chancer and crackpot in the city will come crawling out of the woodwork. And besides, how could you ever be certain? How will you know if a particular eunuch is your child?”