Race Course Road: A Novel

by Goswami, Seema

  If he did that, then his son’s American visa would come through. If he did not, well then, Nitin Goyal was not going anywhere near Harvard anytime soon.

  Gopi Goyal’s initial response was to refuse to cooperate. His son would cope with the disappointment in due course, he thought to himself. Hell, he would buy him a Maserati or a Maybach if that would help. But he couldn’t risk having Nitin—or his wife, Anjali—harmed by those mysterious figures in Dubai who could reach out and murder anyone they desired at any time.

  That’s when the interrogators sweetened the deal. If he turned approver, they promised, they would ensure that the entire Goyal family could fly out to America along with Nitin, where they would be safe from whoever he was afraid of. But if he refused, well then, all bets were off. The family’s passports would be impounded and the security cover the government was currently providing them would be withdrawn.

  Even that didn’t move Gopi Goyal. He knew his wife was savvy enough to have organized security of her own. Anjali was no idiot. She was not going to rely on a few puny constables of the Delhi Police to provide protection from some of the most hardened murderers in the Dubai underworld. By now, she would have engaged the best security firm to safeguard her family. He didn’t need to worry about the government withdrawing the derisory security measures it had put in place.

  Okay then, said the lead interrogator, who had returned to the room after a ten-minute break, if that’s how you want to play it, fine. We don’t want to waste our time with you any more.

  Goyal gave a sigh of relief. They were finally going to give it a rest. Maybe he could now get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. And a chance to catch his breath after being on the alert for so long.

  No such luck. The lead interrogator, who had just received a fresh set of instructions on the phone, took off Goyal’s handcuffs and dragged him on to his feet. ‘We are going to let you go,’ he said gruffly. ‘But the moment you walk out the door, we will let the media know—strictly off the record, of course—that you have turned approver. Let’s see how long you last after that.’

  That’s when Goyal knew that he was done for. As long as he was inside and keeping his mouth shut, he would have been safe. But if he was released with the tag of ‘approver’ attached to his head, he would be dead sooner rather than later.

  ‘Okay,’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘I’ll tell you everything. But first I need my lawyer to draw up an immunity deal. And I want it signed by the President himself before I even open my mouth.’

  One of the interrogators hurried out of the room to make some phone calls while another offered Gopi Goyal a cigarette, his first in months. Goyal took a deep drag, felt the bitter sweetness of tobacco fill his lungs, exhaled, and prepared to wait.

  Madan Mohan Prajapati, alas, would not be granted that luxury. The former Defence Minister had been all set to call on Sukanya Sarkar, another big bouquet of red roses in hand (he was sure that he would have better luck with her than he had had with Didi Damyanti), when his mobile phone beeped.

  Ignoring the open door of his Mercedes, he fished his phone out of his kurta pocket. ‘Call me,’ was the cryptic message flashing on the screen.

  Madan Mohan was torn. The message from his mole in the CBI could not be ignored. The guy had instructions to reach out only when it was important. On the other hand, he could not keep the mercurial Sukanya Sarkar waiting.

  In the end, Madan Mohan decided to err on the side of safety even if it meant incurring Sukanya’s wrath. He headed back to the house to call Amitabh Pande.

  It was just as well that he did. After Pande filled him in on how the morning’s interrogation had gone down; he told Madan Mohan that Gopi Goyal’s lawyer was already hunkered down with the public prosecutor’s team to draft an agreement granting Goyal immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against Akshay Trivedi and Deepak Sethi. Pande was sure that the papers would be signed, sealed and delivered by the end of the day. And then Goyal would begin to talk.

  Madan Mohan knew what that meant. The conspiracy to kill Birendra Pratap didn’t end with the arms dealers alone; it stretched all the way back to him. And once the story unravelled, it would place him, the former Defence Minister and close confidant of Prime Minister Birendra Pratap, in the dock as well.

  If Goyal had turned—and there was strong evidence that he had—then it was only a matter of time before the cops arrived at his door. There was no time to waste. He had to get out of here, and fast.

  Telling his secretary to cancel his meeting with Sukanya, Madan Mohan headed to the privacy of his bedroom. The news Pande had given him was bad, but Madan Mohan was not unduly perturbed. He had always been prepared for just such an eventuality and had his exit strategy ready. His emergency suitcase was packed and ready to go; his carry-on bag had every currency he could conceivably need zipped away in an inside compartment; as was the false passport he would use for the last leg of his journey.

  Madan Mohan picked up the phone and called the airline charter company he usually used for his private travel. He needed a jet to fly to Dubai, and he needed a plane there, waiting to fly him to his final destination.

  And where would that be?

  Madan Mohan declined to say. And the CEO of the charter company didn’t press the point, either. The less he knew about the dodgy ex-Defence Minister dodgy plans, the better it would be for him.

  So, with just one TUMI suitcase and a Louis Vuitton carry-on bag, Madan Mohan Prajapati left his Lutyens bungalow for the last time and headed for the airport. In the midst of all the confusion about government formation, he was sure that it would be a week or so before anybody even noticed that he had gone. And that was all the time he needed to disappear for good.

  As his car drove out of the portico, Madan Mohan cast one last look at his immaculate garden, fringed by blooming frangipani trees. He knew he would never lay eyes on them again.

  But so long as he could make it to that safe haven that didn’t have an extradition treaty with either India or France, he was okay with that. He could always plant more trees wherever he went. Or just buy a villa that came with them.

  ▪

  Sukanya Sarkar was not available. That was the message the SPP got every time one of its leaders called. And they had been calling since 7 a.m., at fifteen-minute intervals.

  First it was Sanjeev Satyarthi and Kalyan Abhyankar who kept trying the phones, in the hope of getting Jayesh Sharma a one-on-one meeting with Sukanya. When they failed to get anywhere, Rajiv Mehta stepped into the breach, with the same lack of success.

  Jayesh still believed that he could convince Sukanya of his innocence if he could just meet face-to-face with her. He had his story ready. One of his party’s social media cell operatives had turned rogue. But Jayesh himself had known nothing of the photo leak.

  That was Jayesh’s story and he was sure he could make it stick with Sukanya if only she gave him a hearing. But Sukanya remained incommunicado through most of the day.

  Finally, in desperation, Jayesh and Rajiv sent Anisa Ahmed to see if she could persuade Malti Sharma to work the phone on her husband’s behalf. Anisa knew that this was a fool’s errand but she accepted it anyway. Clambering into her Honda Civic, she headed towards Vasant Vihar, where Malti had taken refuge in her mother’s house.

  The moment Rajesh Ramanujan’s name had been released to the press, Malti had packed a bag for herself, a couple of knapsacks for the children, and driven off to her mother’s place. The TV visuals of her departure from the marital home had told the sorry story of how Jayesh Sharma’s world was imploding around him. Stony-faced, her eyes hidden behind the sunglasses she never ever wore in public, Malti stared straight ahead as her driver negotiated the car between the throngs of media people crowding the gate.

  Gayatri and Aryan, sitting agog in the back seat, could not understand what was going on. Only one thing was clear to them. Their mother wasn’t happy. But for once it wasn’t either of them who had messed up.
It was their father.

  Anisa was already resigned to failure as she drove into the gates of the sprawling bungalow in which Malti had grown up. She knew Malti’s unforgiving streak better than most. And frankly, if Anisa was honest with herself, this was something past forgiveness. If her husband had betrayed her in this manner, Anisa would also have found it impossible to get past it. So, she understood—at some subliminal level—what Malti must be going through.

  Even so, she was taken aback when she finally came face to face with Malti. The woman looked like a wreck. It was clear that she hadn’t slept a wink last night. And that she had spent at least a part of it crying her eyes out.

  The women exchanged awkward greetings. Anisa didn’t feel that she knew Malti well enough to offer sympathy or even a brief hug to indicate how sorry she was about how things had turned out. And Malti who (rather unfairly) felt that Anisa had been part of the conspiracy to leak Asha’s pictures, was determined not to make this easy for her. Clearly, Anisa had been dispatched as some sort of messenger girl. Well, as far as Malti was concerned, she could deliver her message and leave.

  So determined was she to keep the meeting short, that Malti did not even ask Anisa to sit down. The two women stood a few feet apart and regarded each other warily. It was with some difficulty that Anisha—who had not bargained for such a hostile reception—came to the point.

  The SPP needed Malti’s help. Sukanya had dropped Jayesh like an unexploded grenade the moment the news broke about Ramanujan’s arrest and retreated to a safe distance. She would not take his calls. She wouldn’t speak to any of his party lieutenants. And none of the Poriborton Party leaders would speak to the SPP either.

  Their only hope now was Malti. The party was sure that if Malti reached out to her, Sukanya would find it impossible to repulse her. Could Malti find it in herself to make that call? Whatever her differences with her husband, however angry she was with Rajiv, would she do this for the greater good of the party. There was so much more than individual feelings at stake here.

  Malti listened in stony silence as Anisa recited the spiel she had rehearsed on the drive over. Then, after a moment’s pause, she asked, ‘Are you quite finished?’

  Anisa nodded yes.

  ‘Good. Then you can take back a message to the SPP. I am not a member of the party. I never have been. I don’t owe the party any favours. Nor do I need to work for its greater good. Whatever I have done for the SPP was in my capacity as the wife of the party leader. Whatever I did was to support my husband…’

  ‘But your husband needs your support now…’ Anisa cut in desperately.

  ‘I’m sorry but I can no longer support my husband. I’m not even sure how much longer he will be my husband.’ Malti shook her head abruptly, as if to admonish herself for giving so much away, and then continued in calmer tones. ‘Please tell the party leadership that I am unable—no, I am unwilling to help. When they didn’t heed my advice when I gave it to them, they lost the right to ask for my help when it suited them.’ With that, Malti nodded her dismissal to Anisa and left the room.

  When Anisa arrived at the Sharma bungalow to relay Malti’s message to Jayesh she found the core group of the SPP plunged into gloom. Rajiv pulled her aside to give the latest news.

  In the hour and a half that she had been away, the party’s prospects had deteriorated even further. In fact, it would be fair to say that they had disappeared completely.

  While he waited for Sukanya to respond, Jayesh had also been trying to reach out to Didi Damyanti, in an attempt to get the numbers somehow. About an hour ago, he had finally got through to Damyanti on the phone. It had not gone well. The Dalit Morcha leader had replied stonily to Jayesh’s pleasantries. And when he had come right out and asked for her support, she had been scathing in her response, disdain dripping from every word.

  There was no way she would ally with the SPP. And she wanted to have no truck with Jayesh Sharma. It went against her grain as a woman to associate with a man who was accused of leaking naked pictures of another woman. And he needn’t bother with all those heated denials, either. At the end of the day, it really didn’t matter if the story was true or false. What mattered was that it was out there and most people believed it. Damyanti could not risk besmirching her reputation by allying with someone who had such grave charges against him.

  By the time her tirade ended, Jayesh was absolutely livid. Why on earth had she taken his call in the first place if she did not want to have anything to do with him? She could have just declined to talk to him? Why agree to speak if it was just to humiliate him?

  If the conversation had just been between the two of them, Jayesh would have drawn a discreet veil over it. But that option was not available to him. He had made the call on the speakerphone in the conference room, so the entire central leadership of the SPP had been witness to his humiliation. Rajiv didn’t see how Jayesh could recover his dignity and his authority after that little display.

  ‘Oh my God, that’s awful,’ said Anisa. ‘How did he react?’

  Bruised and battered, abandoned by his wife and humiliated publicly, Jayesh had reacted by hitting out at Rajiv Mehta. Summoning him into his private quarters, Jayesh had given him the tongue-lashing of his life.

  ‘You are the one who has got me into this mess,’ he had shouted. ‘If it hadn’t been for you goading and pushing me, I would never have agreed to release those pictures. Malti was right all along. I should never have listened to you!’

  What did you say to that, asked a concerned Anisa.

  ‘Well, I stood there and took the beating like a man,’ said Rajiv. And then, he shrugged. ‘How does any of it matter anyway? Jayesh Sharma is yesterday’s news. There is no way he can keep the party leadership after this. We will have to deal with a new party leader in due course. So let him shout and vent as much as he wants. That’s really all he can do now.’

  And just like that, Rajiv Mehta wrote Jayesh Sharma’s political obituary and moved right on.

  ▪

  Karan Pratap had the usual aristocrat’s contempt for what he privately referred to as Sukanya Sarkar’s ‘peasant style’. And he was not at all happy about being in a situation where he had to depend on her support to get another five-year lease on Race Course Road. But, as he reminded himself repeatedly, politics is the art of the possible. And the only possible path to power now lay in joining hands with Sukanya Sarkar’s Poriborton Party.

  Arjun Pratap realized that as well. And given how disastrously Karan’s meeting with Didi Damyanti had gone, he did not trust his brother to deal with Sukanya on her own. So, with the aim of surrounding him with cooler heads, Arjun had asked that Asha and Radhika accompany the LJP party delegation that was going to call on Sukanya that evening.

  Arjun was hopeful that Radhika’s presence would have a calming effect on Karan’s temper. And, with a bit of luck, Asha’s presence would also soften Sukanya’s response. The Poriborton Party leader had already shown how sympathetic she was towards Asha by refusing any truck with Jayesh Sharma once it became clear he had leaked the pictures. So, it wasn’t a huge stretch to imagine that Sukanya would be gentler and more reasonable if Asha was in the same room.

  Sukanya, for her part, was beginning to feel like she had boxed herself into a corner. She could no longer have anything to do with Damyanti. The bad blood between them ran too deep for any kind of political reconciliation to be possible. And now, after the recent revelations, she could no longer tie up with Jayesh Sharma’s either. So, all she was left with was the LJP. And that meant dealing with her old bête noire, Karan Pratap Singh.

  Sukanya felt her temper rise as she flashed back to the last general election, when Karan had come campaigning in West Bengal. His father, Birendra Pratap, had always done Sukanya the courtesy of staying away from her constituency. But his son didn’t have the grace for such political niceties. After addressing a couple of meetings in Calcutta, Karan had headed straight to Kantapara to campaign for Sukanya’s opponent.


  That by itself constituted an act of war as far as Sukanya was concerned. But Karan had blotted his copybook even further. At a street-corner meeting held a block away from her own party office, Karan had made some highly insensitive remarks about her appeasement of Muslims. Throughout his speech he had referred to her as Sultana Sukanya. Then came the veiled references to her ‘relationship’ with her right-hand man, Yusuf Ahmed. And he had ended by attacking her decision to arrest some LJP party workers (on no evidence whatsoever, as he declaimed) when a slaughtered pig had been left on the doorstep of the local mosque.

  Karan’s attempts to create communal polarization in the area had worked even better than he might have hoped. No sooner had he flown back to Delhi, than full-scale riots broke out between the Hindu and Muslim communities situated around the mosque. The violence soon spiralled out of control and spread to the entire Kantapara constituency.

  It took two paramilitary forces and ten columns of the Indian Army around forty-eight hours to restore order. And by the time things had calmed down, thirty-six people were dead and hundreds injured.

  But Karan hadn’t managed to damage Sukanya, though. Despite his best efforts to chip away at her support, she had held on to her seat with an increased majority. But, to this day, she had never really forgiven him for coming to her home and setting it aflame.

  How could she possibly agree to an alliance that would see him become Prime Minister again? And yet, what choice did she have?

  The answer to that question became clear to her the moment the LJP delegation was led in to meet her. For right behind Karan and Arjun, entered the two Pratap Singh ladies: Radhika and Asha. And as Sukanya’s eyes fell on Asha, looking a pale shadow of her former self, she knew that she had her solution.

  But of course, she didn’t show her hand as plainly as that. She greeted all the members of the Pratap Singh family politely, but reserved her warmest smile for Asha. Clasping her hands between her own, she said gently, ‘I am so happy to meet you at last. Your courage and dignity have touched my heart.’