His bank passbooks were there, a few blank diaries, old calendars and sundry stationery. Wedged between these mundanities, vacation photographs of my family. Sajan hoisted on my hip as the Eiffel Tower blinked behind us with pinpricks of starry light. Manas, heaving a grinning Rhea atop his shoulders, above glittery Simla snows. Kodaikanal, Rome, Masanagudi, the backdrops of our fleeting togetherness. How easy it had felt to frame our lives into pleasing prints. And how touching that Baba had cherished those postcard dispatches, without having toured those places himself.
In the bottom drawer, a book titled ‘Heavy Metals’ was bound in blue cloth. An old textbook, printed in 1968. I held the heavy spine in my arm and flipped through tedious pages filled with the chemical properties of various metals. The pages were tinged with a fuzzy brown, and speckled with black dots. I imagined the landscapes the book had traveled, from Baba’s college lab to the dusty confines of small Indian towns. My eyes slid across complex chemical drawings and tables, across chapters labeled Mercury, Chromium and Cadmium when a scrap of newspaper that had been used to bookmark a section fell to the floor. I lifted the tattered scrap to place it again, between two pages. Just then, a word caught my eye. The article was ripped off from the India Times, and the name of the place read Dhoolvansh, the date June 21, 1979. The snippet read: Protestors gathered at the site were teargassed by a battalion of policemen. The crowd dispersed soon after the first few tear gas bombs were thrown. ‘This is a small incident, and should not be taken seriously,’ the proprietor added. The page had been torn there. I quickly tucked it into my pocket, replaced the textbook in its place and shut the drawer.
I slipped into the other rooms, and then finally prised open Asha’s cupboard. This used to be Ma’s cupboard, filled when she was alive, with musty books and a few knick-knacks. I stared guiltily at its innocent new contents: Asha’s neat stacks of georgette saris and multi-hued handbags on the shelf above. I had already opened Baba’s drawers, and examined his things. Why did it feel more deceitful to spy on Asha? The top shelf held a safe, where her real jewellery must have been stored. It was guarded by five blank red dashes. A five-digit pin? Time was running out, Asha would return soon and I could hardly be found like this. Five digits? I tried R-a-h-u-l, Asha’s son’s name. No. I tried the name of their Kolkata home, S-a-n-t-i. No. I tried S-r-u-t-i, her daughter’s name. I tried J-C-R-o-y, Baba’s last name. Then suddenly, with trembling fingers, it struck me. I hadn’t yet tried S-a-j-a-n. It worked. The safe sprung open. Inside the gaping dimness, a few bundles of cash, the expected jewellery cases and a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Below the Gita, a small twist of papers, tied in twine. With hasty fingers, I slipped off the twine and unfurled the rolled bunch. Share Certificates. Printed on thick, pinkish-yellow paper, with a florid border. ‘This is to certify that the persons named in this certificate is/are the registered holders of the below mentioned shares in the above Company subject to the Memorandum and Articles of the Company and that the amount endorsed hereon has been paid up on each share…’ The company name printed above the certificates was Kushi Constructions Ltd and the certificates bore Baba’s name: Debashis Roy. Wasn’t that the company that Senior Mehta had founded? Had Baba invested in that company? Why did it seem like all the Fantasia parents were linked in some insidious manner?
My fingers continued to scrounge around the safe, but besides the share certificates, the box was bereft of any other snatches from the past. I closed the door, and stared again at the red blanks.
As I shut the cupboard, the front door clicked open and my stepmother walked in. She had a new doll for Rhea, an Indian Barbie with a black braid and sari which she was thrilled by. Asha beamed at me with unsuspecting affection. Gazing into her ingenuous eyes, something shifted inside me. I was thankful that her sunny presence had diffused into Baba’s life. He might have been much worse without her. Maybe it wasn’t just the pill that had arrested his dementia. My Kolkata trip had thrown up new questions, but it had also given me some resolution, as I steeled myself to look further into the past.
THIRTY-TWO
I HAD BEEN WONDERING all along about how I would coax Senior Mehta to talk to me again, to a woman who had such a tenuous relationship with him: son’s friend’s wife. But sitting across from him, in the verandah of his Raj-era bungalow in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Bengaluru, under the flared eaves of his shingled roof, I contended with the opposite problem. How could I halt his digressive monologue on his deprived childhood? Isolated from his family, he was more garrulous than he had been at Fantasia. Which was great, but I wanted to return to the topic that interested me most: the events at Dhoolvansh. I had told him that I was visiting a friend’s farm in the vicinity. Since Hansika had mentioned he lived here, I had thought I might drop in to say hello.
Mehta’s farmhouse was guarded in front by three uniformed guards, one of whom held a snarling Rottweiler by its leash at the gate. ‘Who you want to meet?’ the guard barked, his hand poised to unleash the dog if my response was incorrect. ‘Mr. Mehta, you can tell him I’m Raj’s friend,’ I said, glancing at the high walls crusted over with jagged pieces of broken glass. The guard made a call to someone inside the bungalow, and I was asked to furnish my name. When the large gate was grudgingly swung open, one guard frisked me while another snapped my picture and captured my thumbprint. As far as I knew, Senior Mehta lived here alone. Then, why all this airport-style paraphernalia?
Seated in his wheelchair, with his arm resting on a short walking cane, Shyam Mehta continued to brag about his uncanny rise from bus conductor to mining magnate. Since his visit to Fantasia, Mehta had developed some spinal issue that precluded walking. Hansika had mentioned that it was a psychological issue provoked by his collapse inside our project. With an occasional polite nod, my eyes roved over the magnificent Victorian bungalow, located at a relieving distance but also a comfortable proximity to Bengaluru. Across the flower-filled garden, impossibly picturesque fields and lakes were blotted by a blue mist. Behind the stained glass windows framed in arched wood, the living room fireplace radiated a warm orange. If Mehta, as he had claimed, had started out as the penurious son of an illiterate farmer and lived a ‘lion’s life’, why was he so afraid inside his lavish home? And despite his outward bluster (his jaunty boasts, his imperious summons to his valet), I couldn’t help but notice the bulge in his side pocket: a pistol. Who or what was he so afraid of?
Briefly touching on the manner in which he had founded Kushi Mining, established its ‘magnificent employees colony’, inspired its ‘grand philanthropic gestures’, Mehta’s talk segued from his gritty climb to the middle ranks to his inevitable spiralling up the country’s coils of power. He bragged about the people he knew in Delhi: ministers, corporate chieftains, bureaucrats, senior policemen, film stars, cricketers. Every second sentence was punctuated with a famous name, followed by an anecdote about how that celebrity had genuflected in Mehta’s presence, begging for some favor.
‘Last time, you left Fantasia in a hurry. We didn’t conclude our talk,’ I said, as an impeccably dressed valet arrived with a tray bearing Scotch for Mehta, tea for me, and slices of fruit cake.
The mention of Fantasia seemed to trigger an odd expression on his face. His blue-veined, mottled hand moved towards his side pocket, and rested on its metallic bump. I could almost sense his fear pulsing out towards me like ripples of white heat. ‘You should move out of that place, it’s bad luck,’ he said. His tone had shifted from its modulated pleasantness into a teeth-gnashing growl that evoked his Rottweiler. I remembered Hansika’s remark about the fear on his face after our Zen garden meeting. What had he encountered at Fantasia that had given rise to such mystifying terror?
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘You are just like Raj, you are thick and foolish. You do not see anything.’
‘What did you see? You need to tell us, so we understand.’
‘You people, you don’t have beliefs in anything. You’re a f
aithless lot. There’s no point telling you. That place has bad energy.’
‘I believe in supernatural forces,’ I said, masking my lie with a steady voice.
‘Then move out. Shut the place down. Before it’s too late.’
‘But can you tell me why you think it has bad energy?’ Apart from the fact that my son died in the most baffling circumstances there.
‘The place is haunted.’
‘What did you see there?’
‘It’s there, in plain sight, if you look. But you people won’t. Because you’re too caught up in your modern thinking.’
I sighed. After all those exhausting manoeuvres I couldn’t leave with just vague aspersions.
‘Can you tell me more about the protests in Dhoolvansh? What were people protesting about?’
‘I don’t want to talk about BLOODY Dhoolvansh or those BLOODY protests.’
‘But I need to know, I think they’re linked to Fantasia in some weird way…’ Mehta almost stood up from his wheelchair, then fell back with a loud thump. Was his paralysis feigned since he was afraid to move out of his farmhouse? Just then, the intercom on the verandah buzzed. The uniformed valet reappeared to answer it. ‘Sir,’ he said, after a few seconds, ‘another visitor.’
‘Who’s the bloody bugger?’ Mehta said, his hand shuddering on his cane, his face turned ashen. From the cane table between us, he picked up a pair of binoculars to train on the new visitor. A few more calls between the gate guards and the valet confirmed that the visitor was a salesperson whose entry was briskly denied by a pale-faced Mehta. His lower lip continued to tremble as he turned to me.
‘Are you afraid of someone coming in here?’ Surely, he didn’t think a gun would work against a ghost?
‘They can come in any form,’ he said.
‘Who are they? And how are they connected with Fantasia?’
‘Do you believe in numerology?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t know too much, but I believe in it.’
‘What are your lucky numbers?’ he asked.
‘3 and 6,’ I said, picking any two random digits.
‘Your unlucky numbers?’
‘2 and 4.’
‘Mine are 4 and 8. I had a personal numerologist at Dhoolvansh who told me this. Bad luck numbers are very personal. Raj has different numbers…’
‘How is this connected…?’ I sensed that Mehta was dropping a morsel of sorts into my lap. But it was a cryptic clue that I couldn’t unravel yet. His numbers capered inside my head, but I couldn’t ascribe any meaning to them. Unless, he had seen someone at Villa Number 48. Someone who had turned him into a jittering ball of nerves.
Mehta wasn’t in the mood for interruptions. He almost snarled in response, his canines flashing inside his gummy mouth: ‘All I can tell you is this: the ghosts have returned to Fantasia. So move out before it’s too late. My numerologist always said, you need to take action before bad luck strikes…’
As Mehta continued to reminisce about his numerologist, I wondered what ruse I could use to search his bungalow. Perhaps, some of Raj’s childhood memorabilia was stowed away here? Just then, I was distracted by a dispiriting dampness between my legs. I had forgotten about my period. The wetness signified that I needed to change and also felt like a God-given excuse to wander about his premises.
‘I need to use the restroom,’ I said, startling him into a sudden, disgruntled silence. Lifting his cane, he pointed towards a comfortably furnished bedroom. I scurried into the toilet and couldn’t help but note, that by the side of the commode, lay a stack of weathered Playboy magazines. It amused me still, the stark ordinariness of the extraordinary people who inhabited Fantasia. Raj, for all his showy bluster, was the son of this lonely and terrorised man. It didn’t take much to imagine Raj evolving into an ill-tempered coward, just like his father. Despite the strained atmosphere pressing down into all the farmhouse rooms, when I stood before the toilet mirror, I smiled.
Emerging from the toilet as furtively as possible, I slithered towards the back of the house, into the utility area where Mehta’s unsmiling valet was soaping dishes. ‘Do you have old carton boxes here? Filled with old things? I’m researching the history of families…’ He didn’t seem to care about my academic intentions, but didn’t miss the blush—a pink 2000 rupee note—between my fingers.
Tucking the reward into his starched pocket, he led me towards a triangular cupboard built under a marble stairway. As I yanked the door open, I sputtered and coughed into a puff of dust motes and cobwebs. There were papers piled into several tall stacks, all musty and yellowing. But no toys, no masks, no carton boxes. I was about to straighten my hunched figure, and return to the utility area when my eye alighted on the masthead and on the dates printed below. These were copies of the India Times, from the 1970s. Quickly, I started rifling through the pile. They weren’t in any particular order, with the October issues scattered across the March issues. One edition mourned the death of Jayaprakash Narayan. Another celebrated Mother Theresa’s Nobel Peace Prize. Surely, Dhoolvansh wouldn’t have made the headlines, not even then.
I flipped through the inside pages swiftly. I was afraid of the valet reappearing. His stiff visage was as ominous as that bulge in Mehta’s pocket. I heard noises outside, the chinking sound of two knives scraping against each other. Everything in that cupboard, the scampering spiders, the sunlight glancing off the musty shelves seemed to be warning me: hurry up, woman. Unless you wish to be imprisoned inside this absurd house. With a sinking feeling, I was about to halt my search when I spotted a small article on Page 4: The placeline read ‘Dhoolvansh, May 10, 1979’ and the writer’s byline, ‘Nitish Patel’.
With a loud, almost audible panting, I tugged at that paper, held below other crumbly papers, till the article and its accompanying picture emerged into view. I stumbled, grabbing the cupboard’s handle to stop myself from keeling over at the sight of the faded image above the writeup. A small girl, possibly seven or eight years old, dressed in rags, stared into the camera with bulgy eyes. On her lap, lay a clown doll, exactly like the one in Kolkata, and similar to Sajan’s doll. The headline read: ‘Child dies in mysterious circumstances.’ For a few seconds, everything whirled around me and exploded into pixelated fragments.
Images flashed in rapid succession: Mira’s sooty eyes, Kantabai’s seductive back, the fat boy’s watchful presence. Sounds careened into my ears: raised voices, a rope being slung on a tree, a doll swinging like a pendulum and a child’s ear-piercing screams.
My chest felt airy, almost buoyant. I started to read the accompanying text. ‘In a tragic incident at Dhoolvansh, a child has died under mysterious circumstances. So far, no witnesses have emerged.’ Mehta must have wheeled his chair soundlessly into the room, because I did not hear his approach till he imperiously tapped the tile behind me with his cane. His other hand rested on his hidden gun. ‘What are you doing, Mrs. Vedika?’ he asked. My hands shook, and the paper crumbled into fragments. As I whipped around to face him, I held only a portion of the original article in my hands. His fist tightened over his revolver. ‘I needed paper, my menstrual blood was leaking,’ I said, without blinking. Fortunately, my unabashed disclosure rattled him into a sullen retreat.
On the journey back, I spent many hours examining the newspaper snippet I had managed to salvage. Unfortunately, the write-up had been mostly ripped up but the photograph was preserved in its entirety. Was this the Mira of my dreams? Was it her doll that had been snatched away and then strung on a tree? How exactly had the child died? In my dozier moments, I sensed her eyes moving across my face, watching me, sending me a message. She seemed to be from a low-income family, her clothes faded and frumpy. What, if anything, was she trying to tell me? And, how could I decode the sinister pattern here? Why were there so many clown dolls connecting all of this? Why was a live clown present when Sajan died? How was Mira even connected with Sajan? And why had I always been haunted by those nightmares? I didn’t believe in ghos
ts, but was my mother wrong on this, as she was on so many other things? Was some supernatural force at work here?
At Fantasia, I rushed to ascertain the identities of the Villa 48 inhabitants. Because, surely Mehta must have seen someone there, someone who had reduced him into a jittery heap.
It was evening, before I could head out towards the Zen Garden, towards the vicinity of the 40 villas. I skirted the garden itself, its edges flamed by fiery-red bottlebrush trees. The setting sun slanted off the red-tinted roofs, casting a golden glow on the neat hedges and cobbled pathways. From somewhere in the distance, the dusky silence was punctuated by basketball thumps. Occasionally, there was a ‘here me,’ ‘Pass it to me’, ‘Slow, slow’ and then a shrill whistle as a coach halted the game. The first two rows of homes I passed ran from 40 to 47 and ended in a cul-de-sac. So I had to zigzag back to the next row that started oddly enough with 49. I must have missed 48, so I looped back to the cul-de-sac and walked across the rows again. Some gardens had pretty hydrangeas, others sported dragon lilies. But this time around, I was certain. This row held only eight homes, 40 to 47. Villa Number 48 did not exist?
The day had taken on a translucent quality, the tops of the darkening trees foreshadowing the night to come. The streetlights turned the complex ablaze as lengthening shadows wavered on the pathway that curved along the homes. I wondered if the fatigue was getting to me. Was my brain addled enough to miss a two-digit number in our well-ordered terrain? After scanning the territory a few more times, I wound back to our villa and called the clubhouse guard with enyclopedic knowledge of all residents.
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