by Nikita Singh
The situation got more and more complicated, because Varun caught me having coffee with Josh when I’d told him I was going shopping, and he was uncharacteristically upset. By our fifth day in Singapore, we were barely talking to each other. Josh finally decided to smooth things over by inviting us to dinner at a seafood restaurant near the Singapore Flier.
The Flier is a huge Ferris wheel, like the London Eye. Varun and I went for a spin in it before dinner. We were a little late getting to the restaurant because I wasted some time and heaps of money in the souvenir shop. Josh had booked us a table in an alcove secluded from the rest of the restaurant.
Varun’s mood had improved, and he greeted Josh happily. My spirits, on the other hand, plummeted when I realised that Deven was part of the dinner party. Monique got up and hugged me enthusiastically. I hugged her back, and raised an eyebrow at Deven over her shoulder.
‘I do need to get out once in a while,’ he said huffily.
‘Of course you do,’ began Monique, and then suddenly clammed up when she encountered furious glares from both me and Josh.
Varun hadn’t noticed, luckily. He sat down, and began scrutinising a menu.
‘Maybe you should order for all of us,’ he said to Josh. ‘I don’t even know what half these things are.’
‘Oh, I’m as bad as you are,’ said Josh, as he beckoned to a waiter. ‘I jab at the menu and trust my luck.’
Josh and I were both distracted, going through the menu with the maitre d’, otherwise we might have averted what happened next. A young waiter was going around the table shaking out the table napkins from the elaborate shapes they were folded into. He moved from Varun to Josh to Monique…and then to Deven—and he shook Deven’s napkin out and tried to put it on his lap. The napkin gracefully fluttered through Deven, and landed on the chair—we could still see its outline through Deven as he tried to wriggle away from it.
The waiter’s eyes were as large as saucers, and he looked like he was about to scream. Varun was still reading the menu, and hadn’t noticed anything wrong. Josh and I stared at each other dumbly—we had no idea what to do. Monique gave us an exasperated look, and swiftly knocked my handbag off the table where I’d put it. It hit the floor and opened, spilling its contents (which included a sanitary towel and a box of condoms that Varun had bought in the morning) to the floor.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said, and to the waiter, ‘Can you help me with this, please?’
He knelt automatically, and began to pick up things, his eyes still fixed on Deven. I got up as well, and grabbed the
ST and the condoms and shoved them back in my bag. Monique looked up at the maitre d’ and said cheerfully, ‘Maybe you could get us the wine and a seafood platter, and we’ll decide on the rest in just a bit.’ He bowed slightly, and left.
‘It’s okay,’ Monique said softly to the waiter.
‘But, I don’t understand…’ Josh began to say, when Deven interrupted. ‘He used to be at The Plaza earlier, right?’
The waiter nodded. ‘So he was there when I had the heart attack. Just like the rest of you. But he didn’t recognise me, like you didn’t recognise him. So he didn’t realise I wasn’t…’ he struggled a bit—he still found it difficult to accept that his untimely demise was an established fact ‘…I wasn’t there,’ he finished.
‘Of course he didn’t, poor man,’ said Monique in motherly tones. She looked at the man’s name tag. ‘Ahmed, you’ve had a bad shock. I’d say you tell your boss you aren’t feeling too good, and run along home. And don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with you.’ She slipped a couple of notes into his hand.
Ahmed nodded, and almost knocked Josh over in his hurry to get out of the alcove.
Next we had to deal with Varun, who was looking at all of us and wondering if the shrinks in Singapore offered volume discounts. Josh and Monique avoided catching his eye.
‘Uhh, Varun, there’s something I need to tell you…’
I began. ‘You remember my boss, Deven?’
He frowned. He’d never been too involved in my career. ‘Think I met him once—fair short guy, bit of an asshole. Hang on—wasn’t he the chap who popped it when you were in Singapore last?’
Deven scowled, and Monique looked upset.
‘Well, he’s here.’
‘You mean he’s buried here?’
I hesitated. ‘No. It sounds pretty crazy, but his…ummm…ghost or something is here.’
‘What crap!’
Monique butted in, ‘Oh, but he is! And he’s a really nice person once you get to know him…’ Josh snorted, and Varun leaned back in his chair, looking amused.
‘Maybe the spirit world changed him. Though I doubt it—once an asshole, always an asshole. So, you guys have been messing around with a planchette or something, have you?’ He looked indulgent—like I said, he was a rationalist and didn’t believe in ghosts, but he was too lazy to be rabid about it. Also, he was probably relieved that my sneaking off to meet Josh had such an innocently loony explanation.
Josh intervened. ‘No, Varun, all three of us can see Deven. We think that it’s because we were there when he died.’
‘Cool, a group hallucination!’ said Varun. ‘I’ve heard of such things, but I haven’t really come across it before. Where do you see this guy?’
‘Um, he’s right here?’ said Josh.
Varun began to look a bit puzzled. ‘You mean he’s having dinner with us? What’s he going to eat, virtual shrimps?’
‘No, he’s a vegetarian,’ I said, a bit desperately. ‘Look, Varun, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. He’s here, next to me.’
Varun suddenly lost his temper. ‘Sanjana, you have to be the most credulous person I’ve ever met.’ He got up and leaned over me ‘Read my lips—there’s no one here!’
I didn’t reply. Varun gave a little exasperated exclamation, and turning away, took out a cigarette from his pocket. He fumbled with his lighter a little, and got it going, just as Deven rose from his chair exclaiming, ‘I hate cigarettes.’
The flame from the lighter went through Deven’s side as we watched, and his arm caught fire, burning with a ghostly flame that raged silently across his body. He thrashed and turned, flinging himself through Varun and onto the table.
He was screaming in pain—it sounded so real, I couldn’t understand how Varun and the other people in the restaurant couldn’t hear him. It reminded me of a banned newsreel I had seen of students self-immolating after the Mandal Commission report. The flame was consuming him—his arm and part of his body shrivelled up and turned grey, and then vanished. His face was turned towards Monique, and it crumpled in agony as he gasped out—‘Do something!’ Monique made a strangled sound, and moved to help him, but by the time she got to her feet, he was gone. There was no trace of either him or the fire left. She sat back slowly, looking from Josh to me. Both of us were frozen to our chairs in horror.
Varun said, ‘It’s hot. See Sanjana, I told you there’s no one here.’
‘There isn’t now,’ said Monique in a strange voice, and went into violent hysterics.
We had to leave without having dinner. Josh took Monique home, and Varun and I grabbed a burger each at the McDonald’s nearby. We walked slowly back to the hotel, and I tried to explain the events of the last few weeks to Varun. It was midnight by the time we reached our room.
Varun looked around, ‘You don’t still see him, do you?’
I shook my head. He sat down on the bed next to me, and hugging me, whispered into my hair ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been insensitive. Is this why you’ve been, you know, a little unenthusiastic?’
I nodded, trying hard not to cry. Nothing had gone right since the wedding, and most of it was Deven’s fault. For all I knew, Varun was wondering why he’d married me in the first place. I had been cranky, deceitful and frigid all through our so-called honeymoon. We’d had sex exactly twice since we got married, and it’d been a disaster both times.
‘You’re ok
ay, now, right?’ he said, turning my face up, and looking into my eyes.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Don’t you think we should make up for lost time?’
I nodded happily, and almost jumped on him in my eagerness to begin.
It’s been a month since we returned to India, and my career and sex life are both back on track. I don’t think I’ll ever see Deven again (unless of course my sins pile up and I earn him as a boss in my next birth). But to be on the safe side, I threw away his copy of ‘Blithe Spirit’. He was right anyway—the other two plays in the book weren’t nearly as good.
AN UNLIKELY ACCOMPLICE
PARINDA JOSHI
A strange mix of citrusy fragrance infused with phenyl and medication made Brigadier Khanna’s nostrils twitch and woke him up from the fangs of endless slumber. Something prevented his right eyelid from opening and it wasn’t just the pounding headache. It felt like a paperweight balancing on his eyeball. He attempted to lift his right hand to yank out whatever was mounting pressure on his eye when he felt a whiplash, as if his wrist were chained to something. With a half-open eye, he tried to bring the blurred ceiling back into focus. Clean. White. Exempt from dangling fans. There was no hint of chipping paint on it. There were no destructive sounds of violence from the distance. No loud shrills from victims being tortured. No stench of urine, sweat or blood. He knew it right away. It wasn’t what he’d suspected in his subconscious state.
There hadn’t been a war. No war. No prisoner of war. No such luck. He’d die a war virgin.
Khanna tried to lift his head, but the pain in the back of his neck was immense. The dizzying effect of sedatives was perhaps wearing off.
‘Wait wait. You’ll injure yourself. Let me help you,’ a mellow voice said. A face with clown curls blocked his view of the pristine ceiling. ‘What do you need?’
‘Who are you?’ Khanna glowered.
‘I’m Sister Jeannette.’ Nurse? Clearly, something terrible had transpired. He blinked with one functioning eye and gave her face a good, appraising look. Don’t humour yourself, lady. Don’t you go all pop queen on me with hair like Jeannette Jackson’s and a voice like Bieber’s. She ignored his unspoken accusation and concentrated on the blood pressure monitor.
‘Jeannette? Really? I’d have never guessed,’ he scoffed. That trace of sarcasm brought some oxygen to his lungs. It made him feel confident in his body’s ability to bounce back.
‘Jeannette? Who’s Jeannette? I said I’m Sister Janaki. You’re in Karnavati hospital. Do you remember anything about last night?’ she inquired, changing the intravenous drip, replacing it with a new bottle of colourless liquid.
‘Just give me some Scotch, none of this nonsensical life-saving saline,’ he grunted.
‘Calm down. You’re moving your hand too much. The drip needs to be stable. Do you remember last night?’
‘Last night?’ His eyes closed out of exhaustion. His ran his tongue sloppily to moisten his parched lips. ‘Not particularly. But it’ll come to me.’
‘The doctor on duty will be in shortly. Are you a vegetarian?’ she asked, promising him a meal, arranging the contents of a tray on the side table as was obvious from the clinking sound. Then she glided the curtains open. That cast a few harsh rays of sunlight on his lifeless face, jarring him slightly.
‘Get me anything with a face.’
She shot him a derisive look. He watched her receding figure as she disappeared in the hallway. A bout of severe cough disoriented him for a while. The twitch of the two needles was increasingly uncomfortable and the occasional pain in his neck was excruciating.
The previous night slowly began flashing on the fleeting black film produced by facing the sun. He was in Manmohan’s kitschy living room—munching on spiced cashews, discussing the unfolding of events, waiting for a report to come through. Manmohan was the Home Minister’s personal assistant. Neat scotch lay on the side table for Khanna. Manmohan’s right cheek was plump with the umpteenth piece of fried onion fritter ball nestled in it. Lalji—Manmohan’s domestic help—was setting up dinnerware, his ears glued to their conversation.
There was a sudden stream of bullets on Manmohan’s main door and windows facing the front yard sometime after nine o’ clock. Khanna remembered being jolted with the unexpected assault, pulling out his handgun—the one he invariably carried—screaming at the unarmed others to escape via the kitchen. He recalled the front door immediately thrusting open, Lalji falling on his face, Manmohan lifting items in close proximity, hurling them at the attackers. Khanna’s bullet had injured one of the infiltrators, knocking him down, while Manmohan tackled the other masked intruder. He recalled yelling at Lalji, asking him to help Manmohan and flee. ‘Get the hell out of here. I’ll handle these bastards.’ His hands were fixated on the 9mm pistol, firing at the coward behind the couch. He’d waited for Manmohan and Lalji to escape through the kitchen before proceeding towards the bugger who was shooting like a child at a balloon shooter game. He remembered intense counter-firing. And then thump. Black out.
It troubled Khanna. He’d jeopardised their lives. Innocent, both of them. Their only blunder was lending him an ear. Khanna had to get up, find them.
‘I understand you asked for a Scotch drip.’ A doctor was at the door, a faint smile playing on his lips.
SIX WEEKS AGO…
Brigadier Khanna rolled out of bed, at three o’ clock in the morning, slipped into a pair of jeans and a striped Polo T-shirt and hastily left his house. He jumped into his white Santro and slammed the accelerator. With one hand steady on the steering through the serene Cantonment establishment in Ahmedabad, he fervently attempted to call the number he’d received a text from minutes back. The phone faked incompetence. He tried it again. And again. They all went unanswered. It had been a disturbing text. ‘Sonia in critical condition. Anand Villas, Farm House #20.’ Another one had zoomed in seconds later. ‘Your number was listed as emergency contact in her wallet.’
With the sweeping fear of impending bad news, Khanna tried to focus. On the dimly lit city streets, he drove as if he were driving a sports car, swerving, the screeching aftereffect of his tires not registering on his anxious ears. The streets were soundless, with no foreshadowing of danger. An occasional truck zoomed past him, shaking his weightless car. A few young boys on bikes honked ceaselessly to draw attention to their boisterous selves. A weary cleaner or two swept the outsides of commercial buildings. Minutes later, he finally made it to the outskirts of the city. Bumpy, unpaved roads, lack of light posts and signboards made it tricky to navigate an area he wasn’t familiar with. With no clear landmarks or directions, Khanna’s stomach began to churn. GPS makers would blow their brains off before they could set it up in rural India, he’d often joke.
Khanna kept badgering the accelerator, his heart thumping, his mind consumed with Sonia’s thoughts. His niece and all of nineteen, she was an architecture student, a state-level runner and had aced quizzes at the city level. A poised girl, with her head firmly on her shoulders, she was referred to as a role model for other kids in the family. He was her local guardian and she invariably informed him of all big and small outings despite being at the hostel on campus. How on earth did she land up in such a shady area, he wondered.
Khanna drove through countless farmhouses that served as the venue for shindigs of the Ahmedabadi elite.
Anand Villas, an oversized banner with an arrow proclaimed. It led to an uneven road flanked by trees on either side. About a kilometre into it, Khanna spotted numerous cars—Hondas, Tatas, BMWs; one of each variety parked haphazardly. He could see the flickering police car lights lit up the moonless sky. He finally pulled up in front of a sprawling mansion, the entrance sealed by yellow tape.
‘I’m Brigadier Khanna. My niece, Sonia, is inside and I—’he fretfully attempted explanation, storming in.
One of the cops used his baton to impede Khanna. ‘Can’t go inside.’
‘Look, my niece is here, in some trouble,
God forbid.’
‘Everyone here is in trouble, sir,’ the man replied cheekily.
‘What kind of nonsensical behaviour is this? I’m told she’s in critical condition. Can you call the SHO or the Inspector?’ Khanna tried to be dominant, his breath rising up to the neck like a rushing tornado.
‘Name?’
‘Sonia. Sonia Khanna.’
‘Ek min, wait kijiye.’
It set his heart racing, his left hand covering his mouth, his right hand trembling in his pocket. Minutes later, another cop surfaced.
‘Aap mere saath aaiye. Please come.’
‘What the hell is happening here? Will someone please speak up?’
‘Please follow me.’ The cop, arguably a constable, started walking towards the ornate home, turning back to gesture with his hands.
Khanna followed, absorbing his surroundings. Three uniformed men were positioned at the gate guarding the sealed area. Several boys and girls were lined up against the towering compound walls, giving their statements. They all appeared to be in late teens or early twenties, decked up in high fashion; the girls in leg-baring outfits paired with heels and the boys in sports coats. Most of the girls were sobbing, whereas the boys wore long faces.
They walked swiftly all the way around the house on mosaic tiles that glittered in the dark. A makeshift dance floor jazzed up with LED lights stood unattended in one corner in the backyard. Massive speakers were placed at regular intervals, surrounding the dance floor. Blue string lights adorned Gulmohar trees that defined the boundaries of the lot. What must have been a party scene hours back was now a trashed version of it. Empty beer bottles, used cups, tissues, crates; all lay destroyed on the lush grass carpet. The tables with nibblers were intact. Two kneeled policemen were occupied with documenting evidences. The cop Khanna was following tapped another uniformed man on the back on his shoulder. The man turned to look at him.