Daddy's Girl

by Swati Chaturvedi

  They both looked nervous as she ushered them into a Costa Coffee. They both asked for the most expensive and elaborate shakes, and then when Meera sat down with her double espresso, they turned to look at her blankly. She waited for them to talk first. She didn’t have to wait too long.

  Pretty Boy Angad looked at her and asked, ‘Aren’t you too young to work in a newspaper? I don’t read them. Then again, who does?’ Meera realized he was genuinely interested in the answer and was not trying to insult her.

  She shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know, old people?’

  He smiled.

  This was her signal to ask, ‘Tell me about Ambika, what was she like? Did she have a boyfriend? What music did she like? Was she good at studies, sports, did she go to parties? Anything that can help me understand what kind of a girl she was.’

  Under this rapid avalanche of questions, the two looked at her, expressionless, and then shared a glance. Soma sneered said, ‘You don’t understand, do you? Ambika’s life was not like yours.’

  ‘I am sorry, you are right. I don’t understand, but tell me. I want to at least try and figure her out,’ said Meera, realizing that her barrage of questions had irritated the two. While Angad noisily gulped down his shake, Soma said, ‘Ambika hated her life, hated her parents, hated school. She was really depressed, I would say, because she pretty much hated everything.’

  Meera looked at her and silently mouthed, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of her parents. She wanted to finish school and go to college abroad, and never wanted to see Delhi or her parents again!’

  Meera shifted closer to them. ‘Why?’ she asked again and before Soma could answer, Angad blushed a bright red and his straw emitted a noisy gurgle as he finished his shake.

  Soma frowned and without meeting Meera’s eyes, said vaguely, ‘We don’t know the specifics of why she hated them but, she hated them . . . That she said every day and we could hear her fight with them on her cell phone. All parents suck!’

  Oh no, you don’t. I won’t let you get away with vague answers, she thought. ‘Come on, guys. Stop the BS. You know why!’ she said aloud.

  But, stubborn silence prevailed while Angad fidgeted and Soma twirled a knot of her lank hair.

  ‘Okay, Babloo. What was her relationship with him? Did she hate him too?’ she asked.

  This time Angad answered, ‘Hell, no. She seemed to sympathize hugely with him and his condition. Man, she cared . . . she was worried about him . . .’ he trailed off, unsure, but thinking instinctively that he had said too much.

  Meera tried to control her pounding heartbeat. So what Singh had told her was true!

  ‘But, why would she do that when she had someone like you?’ she said, smiling flirtatiously at Angad.

  Angad blushed a deep red again and a now furious Soma said, ‘Angad is my boyfriend. He would never look at another girl! We just thought Ambika was experimenting as she was bored with the guys in our gang. She was crazy and would do anything to piss her parents off.’

  Angad interrupted and said softly, ‘Babe, I don’t think she just wanted to experiment. You know she liked Gagan, but the Babloo thing was bizzaro. Remember once he came to pick her up and she started holding his hands in front of Mrs Mathur? Sort of like a challenge. She wanted her to notice, to object, you know, behave like an adult, tell her off. Mrs Mathur is our maths teacher,’ he added for Meera’s benefit. ‘But man, that Mrs Mathur just looked away.’

  Soma said, ‘Shut up, babe’ and then shrugged. She then said with an air of maturity, ‘Maybe she liked older men. Lots of the girls in our class have older boyfriends. Some are trying out lesbianism but nobody was doing it with a retard cousin. It’s like incest right? Shit! I say the dumbest things.’

  She looked dismissively at Meera, ‘We have to go now. Just remember she was a very nice girl, who just wanted to get out of here because she hated her parents. In fact, all of us do.’

  ‘Okay,’ Meera nodded. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  Soma pulled Angad up by the hand. He smiled at her and they sauntered off, leaving Meera sitting there lost in thought. So Singh had been right, but why wouldn’t he talk to her? Stung, she pulled out her phone and called him. He picked up on the first ring and said, ‘I am free between 6 and 6.30 p.m. if you want to come over.’

  Meera said, ‘Yes, I do. See you.’

  Trudging into the smelly and familiar precincts of the police headquarters, Meera tried in vain to hold her breath and was ushered straight in to Singh’s office.

  He looked at her, smiled and said, ‘Heard you made new friends.’

  Meera’s heart sank. He did know about Apoorva aka Shoe Polish! But she grinned and said, ‘Nope, you are my number one source and a very elusive one. Singh sahib, I have news. I met Ambika’s classmates and they confirmed what you told me.’

  ‘Did you doubt me?’ asked Singh sarcastically. ‘Now listen, I am being forced to file a closure report by my superiors, I wanted to file a charge sheet against the Nalwas. I also wanted to name Dr Atul Nalwa and Dr Sudhir Chowdhary, who tried to influence me and the CBI and the SP by calling us up with misleading information several times. This is the case diary which I am showing you.

  ‘The way it works is that we all give our opinion in writing based on our investigation and the forensics. I will show you the case diary and the dummy test we did on the terrace with Babloo’s body. But, two of my superior officers say that the evidence cannot be presented in a trial and we should file a closure report.’

  Singh slumped down in his chair and suddenly kicked his desk, ‘So no one murdered one person and attempted to murder another one inside a locked house, with an untraceable gun!’

  Meera was tired. She stared helplessly at Singh and wondered what to say. ‘Arey yaar, don’t look so upset; stop looking for scoops all the time. I just wanted to let off steam with a decent human being,’ said Singh.

  ‘Singh sahib, don’t let it go. Please show me your case file. Let me do a story. Why should the parents get away with the murder?’ asked Meera mutinously. ‘It’s like there is a diseased vein at the heart of this family. They offend me, make me question things that are as intrinsic to me as breathing.’

  Singh stared at her, unseeing and after a long pause said, ‘Meera, honestly, I don’t know. Let me think about it. I don’t want to play games.’

  Meera looked at him, her cheeks turning bright red. She waved away her tears hastily and said, ‘Singh sahib, I am nuts, I really cry very easily. It does not mean anything.’

  Singh smiled wryly and said, ‘It is okay, I have a girl at home. It’s tears one second, laughter the next. But, Meera, don’t be so thin-skinned. The world is a terrible place.’

  Meera stood up, nodded and hastily wiping her face, left. As she took the stairs, she knew with a sinking feeling what she would have to do next—call the Nalwas and go meet them. And, the stubborn voice in her head said, while Singh claims to be heart-sick, he is doing nothing to nail them while giving me patronizing advice.

  Maybe it was truly dumb on my part to react so strongly but it’s what I honestly feel and I hope it does put some emotional pressure on Singh to deliver the documents.

  She was in no mood to judge herself with her usual unflinching harshness. She felt as if she was smothered in cotton wool, unmoored from her surroundings. She attributed it to her meeting with the two friends of the young girl—these were innocent children, for heaven’s sakes! No matter how mature they tried to appear, how ill-behaved they were or how entitled they seemed, the fact was that they did not know the adult world. And what could they do? Precious little, except for reacting oddly. Sitting in her car and thinking about this, Meera cried her heart out. She wasn’t going to let this story go.

  5

  Entering the Taj hotel, without having had the chance to change out of her sweaty, crumpled clothes, Meera wondered crossly why the boyfriend was so dim and why on earth he insisted on eating at the House of Ming, which Meera had dubbed the Ho
use of Singh—an allusion to the Sino–Punjabi cuisine served there. The majority of the patrons and the boyfriend loved it. They both got chopsticks with their names inscribed on them and a couple of dishes free. The fact that Meera pointedly asked for cutlery there was lost on him.

  As Meera entered, she was greeted by Gopala, the major-domo who had presided over the House of Singh for over thirty years and who was as necessary to the guests as the lashings of soy sauce all their dishes boasted of. ‘Gopala, how are you? Good to see you. I see you lasted longer than Ratan Tata here,’ quipped Meera, while he ushered her to Jai’s table.

  Meanwhile, the boyfriend was basking in the familiar environs and the staff fawning all over him. After Meera ordered a cosmopolitan and bossily said, ‘Bring it from Ricks,’ they settled down.

  ‘You look exhausted. Why don’t you take it easy, babe?’ he asked with genuine concern.

  Meera, after spending the whole day behaving like a mature adult, let loose. ‘I’m gutted and I want to sleep, not have dinner in a fat-cat restaurant. Why can’t you see that I’m in the middle of a big story and I just don’t have time for this?’

  ‘No time for us?’ he asked, with bewildered hurt surfacing in his eyes.

  ‘No, idiot. Stop behaving like a halfwit. What I’m saying is that we could have just vegged out and cuddled under a quilt. Why is all this so important to you?’ she asked, gesturing at their surroundings. ‘We can’t even talk here; the waiters keep interrupting and we know half the people around us.’

  As if to prove her point, Balwant Singh, the editor of Indian Nation, steered towards their table like a ship in full sail. Singh was extremely fair and portly, with tiny eyes, which seemed to gleam with a watery shine. He was wearing his public uniform of an outdated safari suit, which bristled with Mont Blanc pens from every pocket, including the ones on the shoulders.

  Singh was passionate about his collection of Mont Blanc pens, which were always billed to the newspaper he happened to be editing and which he felt were an appropriate nod to his exalted status as a senior editor.

  Singh was accompanied by his ‘ghost’ who never left his side and cleaned other things apart from his copy. ‘Meera, my child, what a pleasure!’ he said, his tiny eyes gleaming, which always reminded Meera of a pig. ‘It’s good to see you relaxing. I eat here every day, know the food here better than my home’s . . . ha ha ha . . . I believe you are working on the Nalwa case?’ He abruptly put an end to the pleasantries.

  Meera flushed an irate red, while her mind scrambled to all the people who could have told him about her working on the case and, more importantly, why. She mumbled, ‘Not really, nothing major.’

  Singh persisted. ‘Are you sure? The Nalwas are very good people,’ he said. Then, dropping his voice, he added, ‘They know even the highest in the land.’

  Meera knew what it meant—that they were above the laws afforded to the common public. Her blood pressure shot up. ‘Mr Singh, it’s a murder; currently it’s a big mystery, but I hope it doesn’t turn into a tragedy and political circus,’ she said placidly. Pointedly, she did not ask him to join them for dinner.

  Unfazed, Singh, who had a crocodile hide and who had never met a snub he cared to acknowledge, which had contributed in large measure to his rise, instructed Meera in his usual regal fashion, ‘Anyway, if you find anything, call me; I will guide you.’

  Like hell I will! And the only place you can guide me is to dozakh! thought Meera as she smiled pleasantly at him.

  ‘Sweetheart, you were really rude to him,’ said the boyfriend, looking anxious. ‘He is an important guy.’

  ‘Fuck him! Why is he trying to snoop on my story!’ retorted Meera angrily.

  ‘Babe, it is one story after another with you and, these days, all you do is make enemies. Last week, you were talking to Dawood Ibrahim from your own cell phone and now it is the bloody Nalwa murder,’ said the boyfriend.

  Tears, which were always precariously near the surface, rose to Meera’s eyes and she felt misery wash over her. ‘You don’t understand me or what I do and I am sick of explaining. I want to go.’

  But as soon as she said it, she regretted her words. She hadn’t meant to be so rude.

  ‘Calm down; eat your dinner. But, Meera, you are turning into a weirdo diva,’ he said.

  With her typical quicksilver mood swings, Meera dimpled at him and said, ‘Yeah, maybe I am being freakish because I am starving.’

  ‘Sure, let’s feed the beast. You know, Meera, you are my very own spicy jaljeera,’ he smiled shyly and, just like that, peace was restored, But Meera still anxiously wondered about the ‘great editor’s’ curiosity.

  Suddenly, her phone buzzed—an unknown number. Anxious not to break the fragile cordiality between them but unable to stifle her professional curiosity, she answered the phone. ‘Meera, this is Mr Nalwa,’ said a cold, precise voice. Blood rushed to her head. ‘Did you hear me? I am speaking to the Meera of the National Express, right? I believe you wanted to speak to me.’

  At a complete loss for words, the normally saucy and resourceful reporter finally managed to blurt out a faint, ‘Yes, but how did you know? And how did you get my number?’

  ‘That’s not important; when do you want to meet me? Can you come at 10 tonight? We are in the Greens,’ said Mr Nalwa softly and disconnected the phone.

  Looking at the boyfriend with unseeing eyes, all the camaraderie having evaporated with the call, Meera said, ‘I have to go.’

  The boyfriend knew better than to argue. Quietly, his anger palpable, he paid the bill for the food they hadn’t eaten and both of them waited for their cars at the porch.

  Trying to distract him, Meera said, ‘This hotel’s lobby should be renamed Dalal Street,’ as she spotted a couple of well-known wheeler-dealers. Ignoring the comment, the boyfriend walked her to her car and pointedly said ‘Bye’.

  The sick feeling and gnawing hunger that was usually the star-crossed road to a migraine, was eating at her as she crossed the India Gate roundabout heading to the Nalwas’ apartment. She suddenly felt something trickle down her nose.

  Curious, Meera touched her nose and saw her hand covered in blood. Narrowly avoiding an accident with an oncoming Red Line bus, she stopped the car at the Akbar Road crossing. Feeling faint, she saw the blood covering her shirt. Desperately, anxious that it should not stain the car’s upholstery, she tried to staunch the nose bleed with a wad of tissues. Meera reached for her phone and debated whether to call the Nalwas or her Ma.

  The unstoppable, weirdly bright-red blood, which kept flowing while she felt no pain, decided for her. ‘Gudda, come home; it’s just a nose bleed, you need ice. Can you drive?’ Vaidehiji’s voice was a soothing balm to her frazzled nerves.

  Driving home with a huge mass of tissues plugged into her nose, Meera was nearly shaking due to her nerves. Miraculously avoiding an accident, she reached home and started sobbing as she ran into her parents’ bedroom. Hugging her, Ma said, ‘Arey, Gudda, you are my brave girl; stop this. It’s nothing. You are out in the heat all the time, it was 42 degrees today and your permanent stress doesn’t help.’ Even as her tears dried and she felt cocooned in her mother’s arms, Meera marvelled at her mother’s ability to simultaneously comfort her as well as aggravate the hell out of her.

  Was it the fact that Vaidehiji always had to find a cause for her to apportion the blame—probably a result of her years as a bureaucrat? That she was her mother’s daughter in sharing this trait made Meera hate it even more.

  Turning to her father and burrowing into him as she had done as a child, Meera felt her worries recede. ‘I have to make a call,’ she said reluctantly, without getting up.

  As she dialled Mr Nalwa, she felt the surreal comparison strike her anew. There she was—all the troubles of the world at bay because she had the supreme sanctuary of her parents—while young Ambika was dead. Mr Nalwa’s smooth, clipped voice answered the phone.

  ‘I am really sorry but I had to come home; my nose
started bleeding when I was coming to see you,’ said Meera, uncertainly.

  ‘Oh really? How unfortunate. Do you have a physician?’ asked Mr Nalwa, sounding faintly contemptuous.

  Rallying at his tone, Meera said, ‘It’s minor, I don’t need a doctor. My parents are taking care of me.’

  A short silence ensued as Meera squirmed in embarrassment. Finally, Mr Nalwa said tonelessly, ‘Oh, that’s good. You have my number; you can come tomorrow. I am only free at 5 p.m. That is, if you have recovered.’ The sneer was back in his voice.

  ‘I will be there,’ said Meera and disconnected.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked her father, smiling. ‘Don’t tell me if it’s the source that you don’t want to reveal . . . The one that you keep chanting about these days.’

  Looking at Meera’s expression, his smile died and he said with urgent concern, ‘Gudda, what is it? Who was that? What’s going on?’

  Meera replied, ‘That was Mr Nalwa; I was going to meet him. He’d called me, but I don’t know how he knew. Can I have more ice?’ Her nose had started bleeding again.

  Holding the ice pack to her nose while gently keeping her head upright, he said, ‘Gudda, I like the fact that you care about issues so much. But, being so sensitive and constantly stressed and with this temper of yours, it only hurts you and the people who love you. Now, you need to be careful; you are getting obsessed with this Nalwa case. You need to develop some perspective. The only thing I have learnt in my life is how little we actually know.’

  ‘Papa, I wish I could be like you, but I have to see it through. It’s my job,’ said Meera, with tears streaming down her face.

  Bending down, he dropped a kiss on her forehead, he said, ‘Rest now and stress less, you stubborn Gudda.’

  The next morning, as the dust-laden sunlight flooded through the window and the temperature at 6.30 a.m. touched the high thirties, Meera got up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—the nose bleed and the uncertainties of the previous night vanquished.