Across the road, less than fifty feet away from where he sat, was the infamous basti ground, the resting place for more than hundred workers eight years ago.
Wadale stared at the place for a while without any conscious thought, and then he heard some footsteps approaching him and a shadow fell over him. He looked up, and saw a villager about his own age, in dirty clothes and a walking stick.
“Namaste Guruji, my name is Bhima and I was killed in this very place eight years back,” the stranger said in a conversational tone. He continued to talk in the same conversational tone for the next hour. Wadale listened to every word he said intently. By the time the stranger bade farewell, Wadale had stopped crying.
Rajaji Ranbir Patil, the local M.L.A. and the biggest landowner of the town, was a large, tall man in his early fifties. As a young man, Rajaji was a wrestler of repute, having wrestled his way to the national championship finals two consecutive years. He lost on both the occasion to wrestlers who had international experience. Rajaji had no ambition of become an international wrestler and losing in the Asian and Olympic Games. He had taken up wrestling because the sport attracted the violent side of his nature, and also because it helped him have the kind of body he could turn women on with. On the second count he was successful beyond his wildest hopes. Even though there was no way to be sure, but Rajaji guessed that he fathered at least ten children apart from his two sons, out of marriage and the daughter of his mistress in Mumbai. There were even a couple of shy confirmations from his lovers (mostly married ladies unhappy with their husband’s skills in bed), that the child they were carrying was his.
Now in his fifties, Rajaji was slowing down a little. Over the last few years the only women outside his wife and mistress he had, was the wife of his munim. The munim, in his late forties had married a second time so that his daughters got taken care of. He was entirely satisfied with leaving his wife’s carnal needs in the capable hands of his master. The woman, Urmila, was just twenty one years old with a full body and a deep desire to be pleased in bed by a strong hairy man. Rajaji was happy to fit the bill.
On that fateful afternoon, when his town started to behave strangely, Rajaji was sitting in his party office, a glass of rum by his side. Later on he was planning to visit his munim’s house and have a round with his young wife.
Rajaji was a courageous man, he was physically strong and in his own illiterate way he had cunning. But even his best friends would not have called him a sensitive man. Over the course of a long political career, he had attacked his opponents with swords and desi guns, he had ordered murder, and paid for it. With this background, therefore, it is perhaps very uncharacteristic of him to have a premonition of what was to happen.
It came to him as he took a sip from his glass and thought of Urmila.
IT’S OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Suddenly there was a loud scream inside his head, and his breath got knocked out of his lungs as if KO’d in the wrestling arena. The hand holding the cigarette began to tremble and the erection that looked so inevitable a moment back at the thought of Urmila’s naked body, suddenly vanished.
His first thought was he was having a heart attack, but then there would have been pain in his chest and he would have felt perspiration, he felt nothing like that and more than the lack of any symptoms there was that certainty inside his head that whatever he was feeling was not physical.
“What happened Rajaji?” his trusted aide Bhosale came in and saw his boss breathing heavily. He moved forward to touch his forehead, but Rajaji brushed him away rudely.
By then, Rajaji was getting some of his control back. He threw the cigarette in a corner and stood up without finishing his peg, his desire to have sex with Urmila was gone now. He decided to head home and have some rest.
That was the last time he would be inside his party office.
Now that we have already seen Neeraj Joshi the serial killer, Neeraj Joshi the stalker, and Neeraj Joshi the investment banker, it is perhaps interesting to see Neeraj Joshi the observer. Observing is to killing what footwork is to boxing.
He was sitting with his shoes off on a ‘khatiya’ in a roadside dhaba, having a cup of tea. The dhaba was just a kilometer away from the bridge that would take him to Kumbhpur. For a shitty little place like that, it was doing brisk business this morning. Including Neeraj, there were eight people having their morning cup of tea, all out of towners like him.
There was a group of four, sitting by a table about ten feet from Neeraj. Like an efficient hunter, he was observing them without letting them realize that someone was watching with more than a casual interest. The group interested Neeraj partly because he was wary about cops tracking him, but mostly because observing people was perhaps the only thing he enjoyed more than killing them.
In the group, the tall thin (nay emaciated) man interested Neeraj most. Like everyone else in the group the man was smoking continuously but his eyes had an expression of vague fear that Neeraj could not so much as see, but smell. The little, almost imperceptible twitches of the shoulders, the extravagant drags at the cigarette, indicated one thing clearly. The man was in trouble, and not ordinary troubles like losing a job. It was more like a mental disorder, or prolonged substance abuse. More likely the first. The woman sitting next to him was surely his wife. Her face was a mask of worry. At a guess Neeraj put her age at around thirty-five, but she looked and talked like someone pushing fifty.She was the only one not smoking in the group.
The guy talking seriously with the thin man’s wife looked around her age and Neeraj guessed at some point the guy had an alcohol problem. His movements had the deliberate slowness of someone coming to terms with functioning without alcohol and making just about a passable job of it.
The three people that interested Neeraj the most were all sitting in a row, two from the same group, the third sitting alone by himself at another table.
The bespectacled guy in the group was surely a banker or a corporate sales person. Even so early in the morning, he was dressed in an open throated half shirt that was only marginally creased, his brown cotton pants were equally immaculate, and as he had emerged out of the bathroom a few minutes back, he had combed his hair in place immediately. He was listening quietly to the dark woman sitting next to him.
The woman was a curious combination. She was good looking in a boyish way despite her long dark hair and clear brown eyes. Her eyes, however, had a hard look that made Neeraj instantly alert. This was one woman who lived by her wits, and did a good job of it. The casual, disinterested, way in which she was observing everything around her, hinted at a lifetime of spotting potential trouble. Her walk had the casual yet provocative gait that Neeraj could identify with, having frequented quite a few singles pubs in his early days .The sort of girl who will give you a cool appraising glance and if she notices that you are wearing an expensive watch or the keys on your table show that you drive a Honda City, would walk by you extra slowly and sit where you can stare at her all you like. The type of girl, who never had to make a vulgar pass at a guy to get him, but still got plenty of guys asking her for drinks and a date. Here was a woman who knew what it means to be in control.
The man sitting by himself had got out of a blue Zen about ten minutes after Neeraj. Neeraj’s first reaction was the guy was likely to be an off duty, or worse still, an undercover cop. The man was smartly dressed in jeans and a short provogue shirt and his eyes were hidden by a blue-tinted Rayban sunglasses. His hands and shoulders had the shape that comes from a lifetime of exercise and discipline.
Neeraj’s initial guess was proved wrong the moment the guy took his glasses off. As he turned his face to talk to the waiter, Neeraj got a good look at the man’s dark black eyes. His eyes had the same unmistakable look of fear and being haunted that Neeraj had seen in the thin man’s eyes a few minutes back. If this man isn’t on the run from someone, then I am Sachin Tendulkar, Neeraj thought silently.
Neeraj would have continued his observations silently had
it not been for the thin man.
As the group finished their breakfast, Alok suddenly stiffened a little. The movement was so small, that nobody except for Rani (and the tall man sitting on a khatiya quietly observing them) noticed. Rani instantly put her hand on his shoulder and turned to look at his face. Alok’s lips were quivering as if he was about to cry. There was a cigarette dangling from his lips that looked as if it would fall any moment. He was staring intently at the thirty something man sitting by himself at a table on their left. His look was so intense that eventually the man turned and raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“Excuse me?” He said in a soft cultured voice.
Alok stood up and walked to him in a shambling walk. The stranger, now decidedly nervous, stood up. Rani and Rajat followed Alok.
“You feel it stranger? The invasion? You feel it too don’t you?”Alok asked him.
The stranger seemed flabbergasted. He took off his sunglasses and took a closer look at Alok, and then turned to his other friends.
“I don’t understand what he is saying. Are you people making fun of me?” The voice was still soft and cultured, but now there was an edge to it. Ragini, who heard the whole dialogue from behind Alok, suddenly felt that making fun of this man might be a very bad idea.
Rajat and Rakesh put their hands across Alok’s armpits and half lifted him back to their table. Rani, embarrassed, turned to the stranger and said, “Please forgive us Mister. My husband suffers from some hallucinations, and he is talking something that only he understands. I am sorry he bothered you”
The stranger’s face softened as he put on his glasses again, “No Problem madam, you take care” with this he walked away to the counter to pay his bill.
Neeraj, who had heard this whole conversation quietly, felt a shadow falling across him. He looked up. The thin man was standing over him. Here we go, thought Neeraj and looked up smilingly.
“Something common about all of us my friend. We all are on the run, but one day there will be no place left to run”
Neeraj doubted the truth of the statement seriously; there was always a lot of place to run. But he did not feel like going in to a philosophical argument with a man who was obviously nutty as a fruitcake at eight in the morning. He stood up and patted Alok’s shoulder, starting to walk away when Alok’s words pulled him short.
“I smell blood on you” he said. He was shaking his head sadly as he walked to his car.
The look that Neeraj gave his back was that of a hunter judging the distance between his gun and the prey.
***
The group of a banker, a hooker, a recovering alcoholic, and a scared housewife with her demented husband arrived in Kumbhpur a little after nine in the morning. They walked in on the crazy scene of the death of a child in the neighboring basti.
As Rakesh parked his Scorpio and got out he first heard shrill cries and then the sound of several women crying in a grievous harmony. He turned to see a colony of huts to the left of Rajat’s two storey red roofed house. Several people were already gathered there. A woman about their own age rolled on the ground in the grip of some hysteria, shrieking at the top of her lungs. A couple of women were trying to restrain her.
Ragini joined him to look on as Rajat tapped his shoulder.
“A villager lost her baby daughter last night to fever. Too bad, but it happens all the time here, so let’s not stand and gawk. Please, come inside.” Ragini followed him but Rakesh lingered for a moment longer. There was something disquieting in the spectacle and the apparent casualness with which his friend had mentioned it. He was a little slow in following the rest of them inside.
Rajat was standing in the hall, talking to a middle aged man dressed in a dhoti and kurta. He was discussing the arrangements of stay so Rakesh gathered the other man must have been Rajat’s housekeeper. Rajat told him to get them all tea and breakfast and the man departed.
Rajat walked to Rakesh and said smiling “A little twist in the tale my friends. You remember the bald guy sitting next to us in the dhaba? Well, he is booked to stay in.
At that moment Neeraj was walking quietly across the lawn towards the huts to see what all the commotion was about.
He reached the throng of onlookers, but chose to remain at a prudent distance away from the front. His interest in the commotion was purely to take a look at the local constabulary, since he was sure they would be here too.
He was right. A constable, about 35 years of age, was standing in the front of the group, trying to talk to the screaming woman and her equally hysteric husband.
“The drunken doctor killed her. Killed my Sulochana…………Sulochana…my baby ohhhhhhh my baby.” The woman started beating her chest and again resumed rolling on the ground. Her husband, obviously still in the grip of a hangover, was sitting on his hunches, hitting his forehead with his fist again and again, cursing himself for being unavailable last night.
“Listen Damu, your wife is acting crazy because your daughter died, but let’s talks some sense here. The good doctor gave her medication and he told me that he advised your wife to keep the girl in the hospital for the night under observation. But your wife said she didn’t have the money. The doctor gave the medication at his own cost. This is no way to talk about your benefactor.” The constable was saying in soft conciliatory tone to Damu. Damu continued shaking his head, but the woman looked up at the constable and temporarily held her grief to talk.
“He tried to rape me last night, he………he touched me…the bastard, when I tried to resist, he gave my baby poison. Oh my baby…………S…. Sulochana….”she again collapsed on the ground and started sobbing.
“We will take the body for postmortem .That should tell us the whole story. Meanwhile, I would advise you to think before accusing an honest man like Dr. Thombre,” the constable said and turned to spit a wad of tobacco. Neeraj got a good look at his face. His job was done. He turned and disappeared back in the direction of the place where he was put up. Nobody noticed him on his way back.
Nobody, save the thin man watching over the scene, from the first floor window of the Rajat’s vacation home.
The day passed quietly in Kumbhpur. There was some bustle in the morning over the child’s death and the arrival of seven strangers from the big city and consequently these two issues were discussed at great lengths by the old men sitting on the chawadi, women on the porches of their house and the powers that be in the Panchayat. The women commented on the clothes the young woman (Ragini) was wearing, showing disapproval on the outside, while marveling on her shapely figure in their minds. A couple of teenage boys in their lonely beds imagined Ragini walking naked in their room and played with themselves. Rajaji and his cronies went over how to cover the doctor’s and their collective asses over the Sulochana case.
The report of the postmortem showed beyond a doubt that the girl was severely allergic to penicillin and by administering her injection of the same the doctor had showed negligence that bordered on the criminal. If taken to court by the poor girl’s parents, Dr. Thombre would lose his license, at the very least. But for the powers in town, Dr. Thombre was one of their own and the town looked after its own. Throughout the day Rajaji was on the telephone with various police and hospital authorities, making deals, pleading on behalf of the doctor sitting next to him. Dr. Thombre looked like he was in grip of a bad hangover.
The group from city spent the day in settling down in their place of vacation. In the evening, all of them went for a walk on the lovely virgin beach and watched the tide coming in. Rani held Alok’s hand and wept silently. Rajat and Ragini went for a long walk together and Rakesh sitting by himself wondered if the two were getting to be an item.
Their strange neighbor was also seen taking a lonely walk along the seaside, bending occasionally to collect seashells. The group did not know that the stranger was scouting the best possible location for the fisherman boat that was due to pick him up in three days time.
The other stranger remained
in his room throughout the day, and the Rajat’s housekeeper commented upon what a quiet and well behaved man he was. The housekeeper’s opinion was greatly influenced by the half liter bottle of royal Stag whisky his tenant had given to him as a gift.
Rajaji went to bed that night at mid night, a little more drunk than usual. He remembered the premonition he had in the morning, and wondered what it meant. Constable Patode went to bed without drinking that night. He had a bandobast duty for the local MP the next day. He slept with a strange smile on his lips. Elsewhere Sudhakar Wadale, his elder daughter, and a few sixth grade students too went to bed with the same strange smile on their faces.
Life was going to change from tomorrow morning.
Chapter 2
It was deep in the night, and Ragini was asleep in the small room that she had to herself in Rajat’s house when her sleep was disturbed by the sound of footfall. Ragini, still not completely aligned to her surroundings, thought it was her roommate and fellow hooker, Sushma, returning from a late night out in their flat in Pune. The steps were a little unsteady, very unlike the click-clack of Sushma’s high heels, and why was Sushma coming to her room instead of going to the shower, (to wipe all the touches as she put it) as was her iron clad habit? Ragini stirred, and remembered the smell of the sea and then slowly her orientation returned. She was at Rajat’s farmhouse in a small town called Kumbhpur with the rest of her one-time colleagues. They were here because Happy and his wife wanted a change of scenery. She was sleeping on an iron cot in a room adjacent to the staircase, a woolen blanket pulled over to her chin. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed. The room was dark, just the way she liked when she was sleeping. An old ceiling fan was whirring noisily overhead and as long as she could tell, she was alone in the room.
“Who is it?” Ragini asked in a sleepy voice.
The voice came from the foot of her bed Ragini turned and saw a child, about four years old, sitting on the edge of cot very near Ragini’s feet. The girl was wearing a dirty frock torn at the hem and sleeves. Her face was caked with what Ragini at first thought was mud, but then realized with horror was dried blood.
Kumbhpur Rising Page 9