Blueprint for Love

by Chatura Rao

  ‘The man who tried to save me,’ she said. ‘Go and check on him. He may need our help.’

  ‘I will,’ he said, heartened that she’d asked for something he could do. ‘Just wait a few hours. I must think.’

  They waited for nightfall. Zahyan took a tired, swollen-eyed Mahnoor to watch the newest Hindi release, Singh is Bling, to fill some time and keep her mind off what had happened. Akshay Kumar was her favourite superstar after all. She fell asleep midway.

  He thought over their options hard and desperately, the gigantic visuals and Dolby Digital sound playing themselves out in a world outlandish to him. Mahnoor and he had no place to go. The tiny home they had rented in Puneet Nagar, the rent of which Zahyan’s uncle had paid in exchange for his caretakership of Ishq bungalow, had served them a violent eviction notice.

  He didn’t feel comfortable taking her to Juhapura immediately to stay among members of their community. Rumours were probably rife there about Mahnoor’s possible molestation, her “dishonour” at the hands of infidel men. Zahyan wanted to protect her from being made a symbol of the community’s honour. She’d been through quite enough already.

  Mahnoor’s family was to be kept in the dark about what had happened. His mother-in-law was not a self-contained woman, he reasoned, so she would make a hue and cry that would disturb Mahnoor further. In truth, the shame he felt at what had befallen her on his guard deterred him from taking her to her family.

  Mahnoor needed quiet time away, he decided, and . . . and whatever else would help her recover her confidence. His thoughts circled exhaustingly around the idea that she should be delivered justice for what she’d suffered. Then somehow, somehow, they might make their peace with what had happened.

  12

  S

  uveer felt Reva’s presence before he opened his eyes. She’d bent and held her cheek close to his before he understood she’d come to his bedside in the general ward of the Government Civil Hospital.

  Her brow was taut with suppressed anxiety, large eyes serious. She tried to smile. ‘I’ve called your mother and told her you’re okay.’

  ‘The MRI shows no head injury,’ she said in response to his eyes that held the question. ‘Your left kneecap is fractured. And right wrist,’ when he lifted his right arm to look at the bandaged inches, ‘is sprained. The nurse has given you a painkiller. The doctor said you won’t feel too much.’

  Suveer was feeling plenty at the moment: he had relied on himself, never reaching out even through the worst phases of his life, and he wouldn’t have called her to his side. But somehow she had come and her presence flooded his senses.

  He was aware that he’d been through trauma and his extreme need of a friend might be a reaction to it. But Reva was actually here, in a yellow kurta and jeans, her thick hair caught up in a rough bun at her nape. Patches of sweat darkened her clothes under her arms and at her belly. Her back was probably wet too. Despite the heavy hospital antiseptic, he caught the scent of her body mingled with a lemon scent she must have sprayed on many hours ago.

  ‘Don’t try to talk …’ she cautioned, although he wasn’t about to; he didn’t want to. He let her cradle his undamaged left hand like he’d held hers a few days ago, breathing, resting in the protective clasp of that memory.

  The ward had ceiling fans that didn’t do more than lazily circulate warm air. There wasn’t much activity. Only a few beds were occupied and their occupants were resting. Curious visitors had come and glanced at him during visiting hours while he’d slept, and now gone away.

  ‘Someone phoned me. Mine was one of the last calls you’d received on your cell,’ she explained. ‘They had called your home already and your parents were quite frantic. But I spoke with them a little while ago. You didn’t tell me your mother knows of me already!’ She was teasing.

  Suveer had mentioned Aboli’s sister to Uma, told her last year and this when he was about to leave for a strange town to mark Aboli’s birthday. Uma understood unusual friendships and had never questioned this one. She also knew that her son did not make friends easily. Aboli’s sister had to be special.

  ‘Will you have some juice?’ Reva was asking. She fetched a covered paper cup from the table by his head. ‘And we could shift you to a private room, if you like. The police had come by. They want to ask …’ But two khaki-clad men were standing by her shoulder already.

  They took down Suveer’s detailed description of the incident, while Reva listened in carefully. When one of them referred to her as his wife, neither Reva nor Suveer bothered to correct him.

  The policemen would not commit to filing a First Information Report. It was an hour before they left.

  ‘You look tired,’ Reva said, her palm on his forehead.

  ‘The questioning, I think,’ he mumbled.

  ‘They’ve given you heavy antibiotics.’ She indicated the chart clipped to the foot of his bed that she’d browsed through. ‘Those can knock you out.’

  Suveer wanted to sleep but Reva insisted on spooning into his mouth the thin gruel that the hospital had provided as dinner. As she was feeding him, his phone rang. She had charged it so that if his parents tried his number they would not find it unreachable.

  She received the call. At first no one replied. Then she heard the jangle of a manjeera, one of the instruments Bhajan singers kept the beat with. As it petered away, someone began whispering a string of abuses, threats vile and twisted. He might have got Suveer’s number from the policemen, Reva realised with a jolt. She fumbled to cut the call, shaken at the violence that was conveyed over an inanimate object.

  Suveer was watching her, so she said in as even a voice as she could muster that it was probably a wrong number. But he frowned and taking a long breath closed his eyes worriedly.

  It was too late to shift him into a private room, so when he’d fallen asleep, Reva sat in a steel chair by his bedside to wait out the night.

  ‘Where are you exactly?’ her husband had asked her on the phone when she was on a bus earlier this evening. She had tried to use the usual polite sms to tell Tarun where she was but he had called almost immediately on receiving it.

  ‘On my way to Gandhinagar,’ she’d said and groped frantically for an answer to the question that must follow.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Suveer; he’s had an accident.’

  ‘Suveer?’

  ‘He was Aboli’s fiancé. I’m not sure you remember me telling you about him.’

  ‘Are you planning to stay overnight?’

  ‘I may.’ It was all she could manage.

  ‘Doesn’t this guy have any family?’ He was not angry so much as perplexed. ‘Why must you go to him?’

  ‘I’ll explain when we meet,’ she had said and he had agreed that this might be best and called off with an admonition to call him as soon as she knew when she was going to return.

  ‘Why must you go to him?’ She had six hours on a hospital steel chair to think up various answers to that one, none of which were sensible or logical. Tarun’s parents would get themselves into a frenzy of worry over her whereabouts. She hoped he’d told them she’d had to leave on an emergency business call. She had, after all, left directly from the office ten minutes after receiving a phone call from a stranger who’d told her in Gujarati that Suveer was lying injured in the Government Civil Hospital.

  13

  Z

  ahyan took Mahnoor to the market area close to the Gandhinagar bus stand, crowded even at 9 pm. He purchased a set of clothes for each of them from one of the clothing stores still open. Khush’aamdid, a modest lodge he spotted in one of the side lanes seemed like a safe enough place to stay–unknown, impersonal and run by people of their own community.

  It was a bare room with a double bed and a desk and chair. The wall had a couple of plaques with prayers printed on them. Mahnoor offered to order some tea, but when he took a bath and came out, he found her asleep on the bed.

  Zahyan gazed at the bruises on her face and arm
s, now turning dark like unlit spaces on a winter evening. He went out, locking the door carefully behind him. He walked through the lanes till he found a chemist, bought a bottle of antiseptic, a tube of healing cream and a roll of cotton wool, and came back to the room. He applied it on the bruises he could see. She stirred but slept on.

  Zahyan unfolded the prayer mat provided by the lodge and offered namaaz, seeking guidance for Mahnoor and himself. When he was finished he had an urge to go and meet Suveer who his friends from Juhapura had managed to track down on his request. He felt inexpressibly grateful to the man who had tried to protect Mahnoor. The last they’d seen him he had been lying, injured and half-conscious, on the road. Zahyan ordered two cups of tea and woke Mahnoor up. He couldn’t possibly leave her behind at the lodge.

  ‘But it’s night,’ she said when he told her they were going out.

  ‘The darkness hides us.’

  ***

  It was past midnight when Reva dozed off in the chair by Suveer’s bed. Most of the lights in the ward had been switched off. The place was quiet with sleeping patients. Relatives lay on the floor next to some of the beds. The night nurse hadn’t come to check on anyone since 9 pm.

  Reva awoke to find a tall man with dark pockets under his eyes standing by the side of Suveer’s bed, opposite where she sat.

  She stood up hurriedly. The man indicated with a brief shake of his head that he would not harm Suveer. She realised instinctively that he was the victim Mahnoor’s husband. He looked down at Suveer, his countenance in deep shadow, so she could not guess what he was thinking. Just that he was looking at the lean, pale face of his wife’s defender, and as he looked, he pressed his fingers to his eyes briefly. Then he half-turned in the direction of the corridor that led here; his nod was nearly imperceptible.

  A woman in a dark brown salwar kameez detached herself from the deep shadows and came to stand next to him. Sensing their presence by his bedside, Suveer stirred and opened his eyes.

  He looked at Mahnoor, unblinking. Her eyes filled with tears. As if they were in a dance, her husband stepped back and made way for her to come closer to Suveer. Mahnoor folded her palms together and said, ‘Thank you, Bhaijaan. If not for you . . .’

  She broke down and turned into her husband’s arms. He held her while she wept. He then straightened her shoulders and turned her around, murmuring something in her ear. Gathering herself together, Mahnoor asked Suveer, formally like a child would, how he was feeling.

  Suveer looked over at Reva so she would answer for him by giving them the medical details. His face had gone very pale. He looked more tired than he had after the police questioning. The girl’s presence was bringing back a deluge of sights and sounds from the attack they’d faced together.

  ‘Are you screwing her?’ they had asked, gesturing crudely. This very young woman, so distraught her mouth had dribbled like an imbecile as she’d cried out again and again for her god to save her. And her god had sent him of all people–ineffectual, powerless saviour! Aside of shielding her with his own body, he had not been able to convince her attackers to respect her space, nor to heed her terror. He’d realised while describing the incident to the cops earlier today, that he might have made it worse by losing his temper and challenging the mob.

  He could not bear to see the bruise on her cheekbone that was immediately visible. He could sense fear lingering in the loose brown clothes that she was hunched into. She’d been wholly innocent, blameless prey to the crowd’s innuendoes, their groping hands, and their women’s fists. He felt rage build in the hollow under his ribcage.

  Reva explained Suveer’s injuries to Zahyan and Mahnoor.

  ‘He’ll be well soon,’ she said, trying to ease their guilt and worry. ‘No one can hurt him too badly; he hides his actual life and heart at his home somewhere in the northern hills.’ They listened keenly, anxiously, until Zahyan realised she was being whimsical and tried to smile.

  ‘I wish to interview you,’ Suveer said suddenly to Mahnoor. He looked at Zahyan for consent.

  ‘Only your voice and our story. I will make a sound clip that can be broadcast so people in the outside world will know what was done to us.’

  Zahyan looked unsure and Reva somewhat taken aback. But Mahnoor met his eyes and asked quite calmly, ‘You won’t show my face?’

  Suveer shook his head. ‘It will only be your voice I record. Your story, in your voice.’

  A blue sari-clad nurse came over. ‘Do you have permission to be here? You obviously know it’s past visiting hours,’ she yawned.

  ‘We were just leaving, Sister,’ Zahyan said, his tone contrite. ‘We were concerned about . . .’ As he indicated Suveer’s condition, his personality receded. Suveer realised that unlike Mahnoor whose pretty face and childlike manner drew attention, Zahyan was a man who could slip into the shadows at will. Perhaps this was what had kept his caretakership of Ishq secret as long as it had.

  After exchanging phone numbers with Reva, Zahyan led Mahnoor back into the darkness beyond the blue corridor lights. It was as if they had never visited yet their presence, so arresting for Suveer and Reva, haunted for the rest of the night the half-lit, antiseptic space.

  She gave in to exhaustion and lay down to sleep on the floor next to his bed. Around 5 am, Suveer, his face inches away from hers as he leaned off the bed and shook her awake, whispered, ‘We mustn’t stay here. Not for a minute longer than necessary. Let’s get going.’

  Looking at the IV, the cast on his leg and wrist, and the bandages on his head, she wondered if he’d lost his mind. But as the ache in her shoulder caused by sleeping on the cold floor receded, her head cleared. She realised why he saw this as a potentially dangerous place to be in, during the day. He was in a prone position in an open ward, his knee in a cast and an unprotected Reva by his side. His erstwhile attackers could extract revenge for the specific and detailed description of events and people he’d rendered to the police, if they so wished. There had been a threatening call already.

  Reva bought second hand crutches for Suveer from the hospital medical store, paying the sleepy, leering attendant as much as you’d pay for new ones. Suveer, still weak, stumbled a couple of times while using them, but he was determined to leave. Besides their safety, he wanted to record Mahnoor’s story as soon as possible. Reva was tired and grimy but wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere but here with him. He seemed to be holding on to her for support even though he did not touch her, limping awkwardly along on his crutches.

  Suveer and Reva crossed the quiet, still-dark road to a small dhaba opposite the hospital where the first customers were arriving. They sat at a table sipping steaming, over-sweet tea. When they’d finished, he asked her to phone Zahyan and ask him where and when they could meet.

  14

  T

  he visit to Suveer’s hospital bed consoled Mahnoor a little. Late that night in their room at the lodge, silent except for the occasional honk of a vehicle, Zahyan took her in his arms for the first time in two years. Though she slept fitfully, huddled into his embrace with her arms folded over her chest between them, and he slept not at all, they lit a small lamp to arrest the pitch dark of that night.

  At 7am when Reva called with the question of where Suveer should meet them, Zahyan said he didn’t have any ideas. Suveer took the phone to speak with him.

  ‘I need a favour,’ he said without preamble. ‘I must take some photos and videos of the bungalow’s rooms.’

  He wants to go in, Reva marvelled, listening. She wondered if he was suffering from post-traumatic stress, or if the medicines were affecting his judgment. He ignored her stare.

  ‘Why?’ Zahyan asked after a long pause. ‘It’s dangerous to enter the place.’

  ‘That the sound documentary is actually recorded in Ishq bungalow–the very site of contention–will make the feature more convincing.’

  ‘Mahnoor can’t go there,’ Zahyan cut in.

  ‘She doesn’t need to. We won’t take her. I’ll just
click reference pictures. We’ll need these for publicity for when we release the feature.’

  He couldn’t explain over the phone but the extra stills and ambient sound he’d record at the controversial bungalow would help him create the kind of feature he was planning: a personal story that highlighted the ironies of this time.

  ‘We can only enter at night,’ Zahyan said tersely, ‘for a very brief time.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll figure out how to light the frames . . .’

  Reva understood all at once that Suveer’s ethic was supported by hardheaded professionalism. He was willing to take no small risk to get what he needed.

  ‘I’m not saying yes,’ Zahyan cautioned. ‘I’ll think it over.’

  ***

  ‘Will you return to Mumbai?’ Suveer asked Reva as they ate a breakfast of hot idlis at the dhaba.

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’ she asked back with a searching glance. His injuries were so raw.

  Suveer could not answer her. He knew the risk involved in recording in and around the bungalow. Besides, she had her job and–his mind shied away from the fact–her husband to return to.

  ‘I’ll think it over,’ she said, trying to read his averted glance. ‘We need to find you a place to rest.’

  Suveer phoned his friend Prakash, the auto driver. ‘I’ll take about half an hour to get to you,’ the man promised, sounding cheerful despite the early hour.

  Seeing his smiling countenance eased Suveer’s anxiety somewhat. He asked Prakash to take them to a safe hotel in some other part of the city.

  As they headed towards Ahmedabad where Prakash assured them he knew a good hotel, he said he had had no news yet of his brother. He had printed Missing Person pamphlets and pasted them, with the help of his friends, all over Gandhinagar and in Ahmedabad, too. He had received a few calls from people asking how much he would pay for his brother’s safe return. A couple of people had given him leads to ranting madmen they’d spotted. Prakash had been as far as Baroda to check a street corner. And he had been to the morgue twice at the police’s behest to look at orphaned bodies. None turned out to be Parmesh. He said it was a relief to not have been able to identify any of those corpses.