by Ajeet Sharma
In no time, the warden was finishing her second apple. Natali and Smita watched their warden’s head jerk a little as she slowly bit into the core of the fruit. The juice flowed out of her mouth as the munching slowed. Her eyes rolled and the breathing became a burden. Feeling restless, she spread her legs and propped her body on her hands. ‘Dhish … happle,’ she slobbered. ‘Itsh … itsh …' Godavari tried to sock Smita with the back of her hand but missed her as her vision was blurred. The movement caused her bun of oily, muddy hair to open. Her torso heaved up and down a few times and within seconds, like a stuffed sack of wheat, she fell on her back.
This time, they expected her to be gone for at least twenty hours; such was the power of the herbal drug that was injected several times into each apple in the crate.
The fruit was then offered to the two guards at the main gate, who took much less time to fall over each other.
The campus was in control and the women were ready for a rebellion.
Receiving a signal from Bagga, Nazia entered the hostel along with her cameraman. There was an air of celebration around as the warden had been tricked again. The estate manager introduced the reporter to the inmates. ‘This is Nazia Akhtar, Rishiji’s friend. She will broadcast everything tomorrow morning on her news channel. You are going to be on television, ladies.’ The tense faces blushed. Minutes later, Rishi and Ira’s coordinators announced on all the floors that everyone had to assemble outside the Admin Block.
It was nine o’clock in the evening and Kajal, a twenty-eight-year-old woman with a bright face, was inside one of the two special guestrooms on the first floor of the Admin Block. The man beside her was Mahendra Mattoo, a minister from Jammu and Kashmir and close friend of Niranjan Fotedar.
Like many other guests visiting the Home, Mattoo, too, was a man of high importance to Fotedar, as his job was to effect a quarterly transfer of party funds from his state to the welfare home … to Fotedar’s coffers. In return, the minister enjoyed a substantial commission and a night with an inmate as and when he needed to address his urge. Tonight was going to be another night for this fifty-one-year-old politician and father of a college-going son.
There was a strict order from the warden for the chosen women: body bathed in scented water; sari fresh, colourful, and tightly draped round the body; eyes kohled; lips moist; and hair untied. They had to manage the one-night makeover on their own. Any failure to comply with the order called for a near-death punishment.
‘Here. Have some more and you’ll be fine.’ Mattoo held his glass before Kajal’s lips, pushed her head down and forced her to drink the bitter liquid again. She had lost count of the number of times she drank from the glass. Staying awake was a challenge. Even so, she concentrated on her prayers while the minister watched a pornographic film on the large-screen TV.
Mattoo was a fair complexioned man with big, round eyes and a small mouth. When in his home state, he would wear a bandgala and trousers. When he visited the welfare home, he looked no less than a swindler. Before settling in bed this evening, he was in a silk shirt and jeans with a broad leather belt—it had a golden ‘M’ as its buckle—around his prosperous belly.
On a table near the bed was a covered dinner tray. Beside it stood an almost-finished bottle of Black Label. Mattoo had been drinking for the past two hours.
He pawed at Kajal’s chin. ‘Get up!’
Drunk, she strained her eyes at the wall clock. It seemed to indicate ten-past-ten. ‘I need to … go to the loo,’ she slurred.
Reluctantly, Mattoo said, ‘Do your business and come fast. You have a more important job waiting here.’ He sniggered like a mean thug.
‘Yes, sir.’ Kajal got off the bed and staggered to the bathroom adjacent to the entrance. Looking back and confirming she was out of his view, she unlatched the main door of the room and entered the bathroom unsteadily. Forcing her brain cells to think straight, she recalled Ira’s instructions and groped for a switchboard on the wall.
There were five switches on the board. She put the first one on. There was a sound of an exhaust fan. She put it off at once. She moved her hand to the second one and put it on. Nothing happened. Third one. A bulb glowed. Not wasting any time, she put it off, on, off, on, off, at equal intervals. Hope I am doing it right, she thought.
‘How long will you take?’ came Mattoo’s voice.
Finishing her job, Kajal staggered back to the bed.
Vaishnavi, the tallest and broadest among all inmates, stood near the mess with a brigade of fifteen physically strong women. They had received Kajal’s signal and it was time.
‘She’s signalled,’ Nazia alerted her cameraman. ‘You ready?’
‘Like a sniper.’
All other inmates stood at the courtyard around the block, their faces wearing a determined look.
‘Naaow!’ hollered Vaishnavi.
As though driven by a war bugle, the brigade marched towards the block. Nazia and her cameraman went behind them as all other inmates watched, some not able to hold back the tears of revenge.
Within seconds, the brigade reached the first floor and kicked the main door of the guestroom open. A drunk and unclad Mattoo sprang up as the women stormed into the room and took positions around the bed. He pulled a cover over himself and rolled his red and swollen eyes at them. He saw many revengeful faces, a cameraman, and a woman on his side, who, he was sure, could only be a reporter. ‘Please … listen to me,’ he said, holding the cover close to his chest as Kajal fell unconscious on the bed.
‘C’mon, break everything in the room!’ commanded Vaishnavi, raising a fist. Tonight, every inmate would avenge the humiliation and torture they had been suffering for years at the Home.
Before Mattoo could react, sounds of things being thrown and smashed against the walls filled the room. The resplendent chandelier, TV, refrigerator, fine furniture, expensive furnishings … everything was breaking, crashing, splitting or splintering in the screaming and swearing. Nazia thought the whole building would fall.
Mattoo jumped to the floor and crawled under the bed.
Nazia’s cameraman did not miss that. Two women poked Mattoo’s body with rusted iron rods from the bedsides. He lay motionless like a foetus—legs folded and hands shielding his head and face. The jabs caused deep injuries in his back and he cried as if he were dying.
‘Come out or you’re dead!’ shouted Vaishnavi.
Scared, the minister shifted himself out from under the bed and, lying on the floor, begged with joined hands for mercy. He was bleeding from the cuts. He would have known what real pain was had he not been so drunk. Someone threw a cover on him as he spread himself on the carpet.
Moments later, when everyone’s attention was on an unconscious Kajal, Mattoo furtively forced his hand inside the cover to reach for a foot of the bedside table. He groped about, until his hand found what he needed.
Nazia directed the cameraman to take a close shot of Kajal. Four women carried her out of the guestroom, while others decided to break more things and shout slogans.
Vaishnavi went to examine Mattoo. Nazia and the cameraman followed her, the leader. Feeling sorry for him, Vaishnavi drew his hand out from inside the cover and checked his pulse. The cameraman would have missed what happened next had he taken a second more to turn the lens to Mattoo. Holding a gun with the other hand, the minister swung out from inside the blood-splattered white cover and, before giving anyone a chance, fired at Vaishnavi. She ducked to save herself but got it in her shoulder.
The women screamed.
Sitting upright and moaning in pain, slowly, Mattoo raised his gun again to aim for her chest this time when a heavy rod came flying from one side of the room and landed on his head. He collapsed and lost his senses at once.
‘Oh god, Vaishnavi has been hit!’ cried a woman, and everyone began to bawl loudly. The leader of the brigade lay unconscious on the floor. A thick stream of blood oozed out of her wound.
As the news reached the courtyard, more tha
n two hundred women crashed into the foyer of the Admin Block and climbed the stairs to the floor. While the brigade tried to stop them at the door, many succeeded in breaking into the room. Had Godavari been awake that night, she would have known the extent to which the inmates were under the influence of the Freedom representatives. The women unstoppably kicked, strangled, and boxed the unconscious minister until the brigade overpowered them and pushed them out.
Bagga arrived in time and instructed that Mattoo be carried down the building like an injured man was. He had severe injuries. Blood trickled down from a crack in his skull, filling his ears. The right jaw was dislocated and so was the left wrist.
As they placed him on a bench in the courtyard, intense slogan shouting began. ‘Stone him to death’, ‘Burn him alive’ …
Sensing there could be another round of attack, Bagga climbed the entrance steps of the block. ‘You have crushed the evil force tonight. This half-dead man on the bench shows as much.’ He pointed at the minister. ‘I request all of you to stop the violence. Rishiji and Madam Bhat will be shocked if they learn about the extent to which you have gone. I can understand your anger. Yet we can’t take the law into our hands. We are taking Vaishnavi and the minister to hospital. May God save their lives.’
A tearful slogan shouting started, and this time it was for Vaishnavi.
It was around one o’clock when Nazia and the cameraman left the Home in their news car. She rang up Karan. It was her third call to him since the operation began that night. ‘I am heading for editing and will return to the Home by eight in the morning for a live cast. The story will go on air from here.’
‘I’d like to be with you for editing, Nazia,’ said Karan firmly.
42
Dan Zabar landed in Delhi after spending a week in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. He was always in search of business plans that matched his standards, and the activity occupied most of his time round the year. His colleagues, Rick Wilson and Mark Allen, in the meantime, reached Pune to sit through more presentations. They did not want to miss a single opportunity.
It was May 22, the day for the first review meeting with Freedom’s directors, based on which Zabar would decide whether his company, Windlyn Capital, should go for another round of funding of Freedom.
He checked into the Mayford Ritz Hotel, his first choice in Delhi, ordered green tea, and put the television on—it was time to surf the news channels. So much was happening in the country: ‘Markets get bullish’, ‘Rupee follows the equity market’, ‘Meeting of cross-LoC traders today’, ‘Action against all new illegal constructions’, ‘Delhi Hounds and Chennai Rangers going steady’ …
A story on Delhi News Channel caught his attention. Nazia Akhtar was live, and in the background stood a group of women in white saris. Holding a microphone, she spoke to the camera: ‘As we continue to be misled by the statesmen of this nation, here’s another appalling story from our very own Delhi, the capital of India. About thirty kilometres from Qutub Minar and in the heart of the Southern Ridge, lies a small village called Asola. This story is about an NGO in this village, called Fotedar’s Home for Women, that is owned and managed by Niranjan Fotedar, a member of Parliament of the ruling party in Jammu and Kashmir.’ A picture of Fotedar slid up on one side of the screen. ‘Last night, the inmates of this home—more than two hundred of them—carried out a mutiny of sorts against their sexual exploitation at the hands of the management that forced them to sleep with their guests.’ A footage of the violence followed as Nazia spoke in the background and gave an account of the incident. ‘As always, last night too a woman was forcibly sent to spend a night with a guest, Mahendra Mattoo, a minister in the government of Jammu and Kashmir. Fed up, the inmates planned to rebel this time and broke into the guestroom where the minister was forcing himself on the helpless woman.’ There were blurred scenes of Mattoo with Kajal in the footage. Subtly, skilfully, and vehemently, Nazia spoke, ‘Frightened, Mattoo jumped to the floor and shot a woman, seriously injuring her.’ Artfully edited shots of Mattoo jumping off the bed and opening fire on Vaishnavi, her falling on the floor, a passed out Kajal being carried away, and women bawling and chanting slogans were enough for anyone to conclude that the minister should be hanged without a trial.
Nazia’s oval face was back on the television screen. Zabar wanted to make a few phone calls, but decided to watch the report further. ‘A few women had to be arrested for resorting to violence, though in self-defence,’ spoke Nazia. ‘Niranjan Fotedar was also arrested early this morning. He has denied all allegations concerning the exploitation of the inmates. The police are waiting to take Mattoo’s statement, who, at present, is in a hospital. The minister faces serious charges, including those of attempt to murder and rape. According to sources, while the matter is sub judice, the operations of the NGO will be managed by the Indian Commission for Women. Inside the premises of Fotedar’s Home for Women, at the Southern Ridge in Delhi, Nazia Akhtar, for Delhi News Channel’.
Zabar’s meeting with the Freedom directors was at eleven o’ clock. He was aware they were in a kind of philanthropic agreement with the Southern Ridge Home. He couldn’t wait to meet the enterprising men and understand from them what exactly were the goals they had set for themselves in business.
Six months ago, when Windlyn Capital had invested a million pounds in Freedom, it was agreed and documented between the two parties that if six months after the start of operations, the sales volume of Yodel did not increase by 20 per cent over that in the corresponding period of the previous year, Windlyn would decide not to invest more money in the venture.
Karan Jaani and his men now had the most difficult task at hand—to raise more money from the British firm even when the sales volume had not increased.
In the meeting room of their Saket office, Karan presented the performance of Yodel to Zabar. A high-resolution projection on a white screen displayed a graph. ‘There is a 49 per cent chance that people will now recall the brand, Yodel, a percentage much higher than what it was when we started our operations. That’s a milestone achieved,’ remarked Karan, and picked up a thick spiral-bound report prepared by a top marketing research agency. He could have chosen a small firm but Zabar had insisted that the data on which he was to take the investment decision should be provided by a research firm of high stature. Turning over the pages of the report, Karan read, ‘The factors contributing the most to the increase in brand recall are the television commercials and the sales promo, and …’ he turned over three pages and read from a paragraph, ‘another finding of this survey says that consumers would like to view more such commercials in the future.’
‘What was your sales promo like?’ asked Zabar.
‘I describe it as “enticement”,’ said Karan. ‘We wanted to nudge the consumer, push him to the point of purchase, and acquaint him with our brand as against the others in the market. The conversion rate was encouraging, if not significant, and our objective was met.’
‘You mean you had a single promo for all three drinks?’
Vidu glanced at Rishi.
‘Yes,’ replied Karan. ‘That’s our strategy across all our campaigns, including advertising. We’ve been communicating about all three drinks together and there’s a reason behind that—we want to first place Yodel in the minds of consumers. We can have separate campaigns afterwards.’ Observing Zabar’s disagreeing look, he added, ‘There is an advantage to this approach—we are saving on the ad production and media costs, as a single commercial communicates about all three. We don’t have to follow the footsteps of Festi or Crown.’
‘What is your media budget for the IRL?’
‘Less than five crores.’
Zabar calculated. ‘Let’s say 450,000 to 500,000 pounds?’
‘Quite right.’
‘You aren’t airing after the ban. Are you?’ Zabar asked sarcastically.
‘The commercials were banned after forty-two matches … not before they had garnered more than a million cumulat
ive views on YouTube. We’re working on another script for the remaining matches.’
‘What is Festi’s problem?’
‘Not sure. We only aired simple messages. But they misunderstood them—’
‘And sued you on grounds of airing disparaging and defaming advertisements?’ taunted Zabar.
Unaffected by the investor’s comment, Karan asserted, ‘They are insecure, as the most popular Bollywood actor is with us.’
‘Who once upon a time endorsed Festi Cola, had his contract terminated after he was jailed on charges of murder, and is now settling old scores with the company at Freedom’s expense. Right?’ Zabar was angry. ‘I got your strategy, Karan Jaani. Didn’t you too want to settle old scores with Festi? They sacked you for your ads against honour killing. Didn’t they?’ He waited for an answer. ‘You should have avoided the lawsuit. You have provoked a giant.’ He picked up a glass of water and sipped as if it were lemonade. Less sharply, he asked, ‘What was the cause of violence last night at the Southern Ridge Home?’
‘Sexual exploitation of women by the management,’ spoke Rishi, and narrated an outsider’s story.
Zabar did not find anything new in it. ‘Were you men aware of all this?’ He read their faces.
‘Nope. We learnt about it only last night,’ said Rishi. ‘The manager there informed us that the inmates were fed up and whatever happened had to happen.’
‘What now?’
‘We will continue to donate, as we are committed to the cause,’ said Rishi. ‘Our goal is to help and empower these women who are survivors of natural calamities, hardships, and cruelties.’
‘You could have fulfilled your social responsibility later,’ said Zabar, half closing his eyes. ‘You—’
‘There are more details I want to share with you, Dan,’ said Karan.
‘Beauty lies in the details, chief, go ahead,’ quipped Vidu. Zabar looked crossly at him.
‘Consumers, the report says, carry a unique image of Yodel now,’ presented Karan. ‘They feel the brand has a strong personality.’