The Colaba Conspiracy

by Surender Mohan Pathak

‘And suppose I succeed in locating him, and convince him in the name of Sethji to come back and testify, then who will protect him here? The duty to protect such vulnerable witnesses lies with the police, but in our case it’s the protectors who have become predators. Instead of protecting him, they will shoot him down the moment they get an opportunity. They haven’t been called the most organized bunch of criminals for nothing.’

  ‘You are right. Then?’

  ‘My friend Mira Kishnani was the bridesmaid. She was the secretary to my boss, in that office at Grant Road where I worked as a clerk. She was my close friend, in fact my only friend, and that’s why she was accompanying me.’

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘First listen to the rest of it, then it will become unnecessary to ask this question.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘When you made your second round to Colaba in December, and threw in my face … gave me a sum of thirty lakh rupees, I was deeply disturbed and started thinking of some way, any way, to get rid of you and your stubbornness, your yearning. Mira once visited me around that time and I thought she could be of help.’

  ‘How could she have helped?’

  ‘Her husband Hiranand Kishnani was, and is, an inspector with the Crime Branch. He could have helped me.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘By that time you had left forty lakh rupees with me in two instalments and I could well imagine that you could not have earned all that money through honest means. So … you can put two and two together.’

  ‘I can. Go ahead.’

  ‘I asked Mira if her police inspector husband could do something without lodging a formal police complaint so that … so that you would … how do I even say it now?’

  ‘Then let me. You wanted him to arrange it so that you could get rid of me, that I wouldn’t have dared to come near you!’

  ‘What can I say now? But at that time such was my mindset that every moment I used to fear that Sethji would come to know about your visits to the house.’

  ‘I came only thrice, and each time I did not spend more than ten or fifteen minutes. I even wanted to go back from the doorstep. And if I ever did enter your house, it was always on your insistence. Only the first time did I enter at my will, because I wanted to congratulate you on your marriage.’

  ‘I … I said my mindset was such that …’

  ‘Don’t say anything. Finish your story. So what did Mira do?’

  ‘She did something, but not what I expected or what I had asked her to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She did not go and talk to her husband, but went and told Sethji.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Later Sethji told me, on that day of your suicide attempt in the lift, that my close friend, my closest friend Mira Kishnani had told him everything and expressed fear that it could lead to a bloodbath. She thought that the best way to deal with it was to go and tell her Sindhi brother everything and warn him of the likely consequences.’

  ‘So she told him everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘God! Such treachery!’

  ‘She did not think of it as treachery. She thought she had done the right thing. Being a friend, she told him that it was you who was one-sidedly obsessed with me and used to come to meet me uninvited every now and then. She also did not say anything about the money.’

  ‘Still, it is a betrayal.’

  ‘It was I who did not notice that she was already hostile towards me. She did not empathize with me after hearing about my problems. In fact she immediately said I had been very unfair towards you by breaking the promise, that Sethji was not willing to marry so soon and it was I who had persuaded him to do so because I feared there was a possibility of him changing his mind if I gave him time. She said I married him, Mr Moneybags, for my selfish reasons, and the welfare of my sister’s orphaned children was just an excuse. And can you guess what she said when I told her Sethji was fifty-eight years old and had kids older than me?

  ‘What?’

  ‘That while accepting money bills no one looks at the year of their printing!’

  ‘Shocking! And you still shared your secret with her?’

  ‘At that time I thought these were all personal things, that she was criticizing me in a sisterly manner. I would not have imagined at that time that she could have gone against me, or that she was already against me.’

  ‘So it would be futile to hope that she will testify in your favour?’

  ‘Forget testifying in my favour, she might even allege that I was trying to influence her, and might tell Sethji’s sons or her police inspector husband.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Today I went to my old office, in the hope of getting back my previous job, as it has been only a few months since I left the job. The proprietor of the firm considered me to be an efficient, sincere employee and he had told me while accepting my resignation that I could return whenever I wished. When I did return for real, he expressed a lot of sympathy but when it came to the job, he said there was no vacancy as of now, and I must try after six months or a year.’ She stopped for a moment, then started again, ‘When I was coming out of the office, an old peon told me that the boss was ready to take me back, but his pampered secretary Mira did not want me to join back.’

  ‘Nice friend!’

  ‘Hard times help you tell your friends and foes apart. In good times, everybody is a friend. But a friend in need is a true friend indeed.’

  ‘And that Mira is not such a friend?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? She has already let me down once, and I don’t think she will be different a second time. Perhaps that’s why the saying goes that success makes friends, failure tries them.’

  ‘Too many high-level thoughts for me. So to sum up, the scenario is like this—the pundit who performed the marriage rites is gone, one of the two witnesses of the marriage is gone, while the other—Mira Kishnani—is of no use as she is not going to speak in your favour!’

  ‘Yes, this is how it is.’

  ‘No photographs of the marriage were taken?’

  ‘Photographs were taken. Sethji did not feel that it was required, but on my insistence he agreed to call a still photographer there.’

  ‘Still photographer, not a video camera operator?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who was the photographer?’

  ‘I don’t remember the name but he came from Fort. He has a shop named Santosh Photo Studio in Nanabhai Lane, near Flora Fountain.’

  ‘You remember the address but not the name?’

  ‘I remember the address because it was printed on a sticker attached to the album.’

  ‘And the name of the photographer is not on the sticker?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe Santosh is his name. People often name their shops after themselves.’

  ‘They also often name it after their wives or their children.’

  ‘Right! So it’s not likely that his name would be Santosh?’

  ‘It is not likely and it is not his name in reality also. Had it been so, I would have remembered.’

  ‘And the address is Santosh Studio, Nanabhai Lane, Flora Fountain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That album is with those people now?’

  ‘It is with nobody now. They burnt it in front of me and flushed the ashes down the toilet. And they did this at a time when sho Devtale of the local police station was present there.’

  ‘That photographer could still be a witness. After all he took the photographs!’

  ‘The people who went this far to make it seem like a marriage didn’t happen, don’t you think they would have “set” the photographer also?’

  Jeet Singh nodded seriously.

  ‘Like the pundit or that store manger Tiwari, he would also have disappeared, or he would refuse to acknowledge that he had photographed the marriage.’

  ‘Right, but what is the purpose of this conspiracy?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvi
ous? The purpose is to debar me, the widow of their father, from inheriting the property.’

  ‘There’s no will?’

  ‘There may be one. In my opinion there must be one. It is not likely that a wise and wealthy person, who had children but lived alone in Mumbai, ignored to make a will.’

  ‘You are right. So there must be a will.’

  ‘But I have no way of knowing the provisions of such a will.’

  ‘I have heard such wills are registered, and one copy is also kept at the registrar’s office.’

  ‘It may have been the case, but still it’s very unlikely that my name would be there in it as a beneficiary.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I would have become a beneficiary only if he had changed his will in the post-marriage months. And he would have told me about this had he done it.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘I still think so. If a person is responsible enough to change his will so as to include his newlywed wife as a beneficiary, he must also be equally responsible in telling her about it.’

  ‘But I thought that a wife could not be debarred from the inheritance of her husband’s property, whether her name is there as an heir or one of the heirs in the will or not.’

  ‘You are talking about a wife, but I was the live-in partner according to his children.’

  ‘There seems to be some reason why they are so insistent on proving that you were Sethji’s live-in partner.’

  ‘What reason could it be?’

  ‘I don’t have an idea as of now.’

  ‘Then what is the point of mentioning it?’

  ‘You faced such injustice, you were thrown out of your dead husband’s house, you should have gone to the police station to report this.’

  ‘Which police station? The Colaba one, where Devtale is the sho? He was standing by the side of those people when they were committing this injustice. What do you think he would have done had I approached him for help?’

  ‘One can approach the dcp of the district if the police are not registering one’s fir.’

  ‘Devtale would have made such arrangements that I could not have reached even the gates of the dcp office.’

  ‘But these days, one can approach the police commissioner, the politicians, the media. The media, especially the tv news channels, take such stories very seriously and give them a lot of publicity.’

  ‘Jeete, they know everything …’

  She had said his name with such intimacy for the first time, but it did not give him any sense of elation, no comforting sensation knocked at his heart.

  ‘… they know of every such possibility, every opportunity that I can avail of. And that’s why they arranged it so that I can’t approach these avenues.’

  ‘Arranged how?’

  ‘By alleging that I committed the murder.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They said I murdered him to get hold of his property. Marriage was a part of the ploy.’

  ‘My goodness!’

  ‘And that the gang of car thieves that did it was led by one Jeet Singh with whom I had a prolonged affair pre-marriage, who lived in Chinchpokli, and who had a locksmith’s spot near a hardware shop in Crawford Market.’

  ‘It’s all words.’

  ‘They say they have evidence.’

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘Murder weapon—they say the murder weapon is a part of Sethji’s household.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘There is a fancy, expensive, horn-handled cutlery set in the house—twelve teaspoons, twelve tablespoons, twelve forks, twelve knives, three bread knives, three carving knives. One of the carving knives is missing, which also happens to be the murder weapon.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘That I had made the murder weapon available to you.’

  ‘Why? Is it so very difficult to arrange a knife in Mumbai to slit someone’s throat, or to stab someone? Did Sethji refuse to die of an ordinary knife, and demanded a fancy, costly knife from that expensive cutlery set because it matched his status? Any kind of weapon could be arranged within minutes in this city, and they say two people had to conspire to get a bloody knife to kill someone. Bloody bullshit!’

  She remained silent.

  ‘You must have said why would you make the murder weapon available to me?’

  ‘I did say this; not the way you said it but I did say it. They replied if I was not the one who made it available then you stole it.’

  ‘I stole it? I used to come to your place?’

  ‘Very often. In the absence of Changulani sahib. Jeete, I’m not saying this, this is what they said. They said the knife was chosen because, later, it could be cleaned and placed back in the cutlery set. But actually it so happened that the carjackers had to run away leaving the knife in the corpse. Now, the prime thing is not whether I gave it to you or you stole it, the prime thing is that both of us conspired to commit this crime.’

  ‘God!’

  ‘They wanted me to understand that if I tried to protest against their injustice, then the next destination for me, and you too, would be jail.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘And guess who was the person painting this picture for me? Who threatened me with consequences if I went against the family? It was none other than police inspector Devtale. It was the sho of Colaba police station who explained all these intricacies to me, and warned me that if I chose to take any of the steps that you just mentioned, he would immediately arrest me under section 120-b, and then life imprisonment would just be a matter of time for me. And for you.’

  ‘It can’t be so,’ said Jeet Singh in a passionate voice, ‘the police can only build a case against the accused. They can’t sentence him too. They have to present the accused in a court within twenty-four hours of the arrest and any expert lawyer can blow their case to pieces in the court.’

  ‘And that expert lawyer works for charity!’

  Jeet Singh felt a jolt.

  ‘I know for sure that such lawyers charge their fees in lakhs of rupees. And I don’t even have two coins to rub together.’

  She started sobbing.

  Jeet Singh sat silently before her.

  When the sobbing stopped, he asked, ‘Why did you come here?’

  She raised her head in awe.

  ‘And give me some answer other than that the door was open and you felt like looking in.’

  She tried to avoid eye contact with Jeet Singh.

  ‘Who am I? Some senior police officer? Some big-shot lawyer? Some neta? Some social worker who had access to the Women’s Rights Commission? Or a reputed private detective? No, nothing. I am a tapori, a lockbuster, a history-sheeter. The very same scumbag whom you wanted to get out of your life so desperately that you sought the secret help of that inspector husband of your friend’s.’

  She kept looking away.

  ‘And even if you came after all that, how come you forgot those golden words of yours, those choice comments you showered me with? It’s not been that long after all, just four months. Just four months ago on Wednesday, the seventh of January, you humiliated me at your doorstep. I will remember the date all my life. Shall I help you remember what you said? You said, “There is no Sushmita here, this is Mrs Changulani’s house.” There was so much hatred, so much venom, such nauseating disgust in that one sentence that I must have died right at that moment. I must not have taken another breath after you poured this molten lead into my ears. It would have saved me from the pain of trying to commit suicide in your lift by lighting my own pyre, and being saved by pd Navlani. But I am such a shameless, ill-fated creature that I didn’t die then or later. I rose from my own pyre, like the living dead but still remained Jeeta, the victor. How you betrayed me! You crushed my heart under your shoe after becoming the wife of a wealthy man. It was you who had said you would be my slave for life if I arranged ten lakh rupees for the surgery of your ailing sister. I fulfilled my end of the promise in the
nick of time; my Lord knows how many difficulties and hardships I braved to fulfil it but I did hold up my end of the promise. And when I got here to Chinchpokli with ten lakh rupees in hand and a thousand dreams in my eyes, I came to know that you had already married Pursumal, and that too before the ashes of your sister’s pyre could cool down.’

  ‘I did it for her orphaned children,’ she said in a hurt voice, ‘I was compelled …’

  ‘You were led by selfishness. It was a chess-like move which could lead you across the threshold to immense wealth. Your friend was right when she said that Pursumal was in no hurry, it was you who was in a hurry, because you feared Pursumal might change his mind. And in any case, you were not going to come to terms with the fact that if you held your end of the promise, your sister’s children would be raised by some lowlife called Jeet Singh. For this, the suitable person was a man of wealth, a man of importance like Pursumal who had great respect in society, and by marrying him, that respect could be extended to you, too. I was worthy of attention only till you expected to fulfil your specific requirement through me. Your sister died and it didn’t become your tragedy, it became my tragedy. With her death, your specific requirement was over, I was over, my existence was over, the promise you made me was over. Everything was over. The only thing that was not over was the mountainous social and monetary status of Pursumal on top of which you found a place for yourself, knowing that an insect like me could never reach those heights. What you didn’t think of, what didn’t occur to you was that nothing lasts forever. And these golden days of yours also ended pretty soon. Now look at you, you are two steps behind the place where you started your honeymoon with money.’

  She started crying.

  ‘And the tragedy of a loser like me is that even at this moment, I can’t retaliate by saying that no broken-hearted, ill-fated lover lives here, this is the house of Jeet Singh lockbuster.’

  ‘Say it!’

  ‘What difference would that make even if I say it? I worshipped you, which is why I was hurt by your words. But you have no such emotions for me.’

  ‘You never know.’

  ‘I know. I am ill-fated, not ill-witted.’

  ‘In the light of what I am going through, you don’t have any sympathy for me?’