‘I have all the sympathy in the world for you. So, I’ll shelve my recently-acquired worldly wisdom and practical understanding and will do whatever you say. But as of now you are not saying anything, not even why you came here!’
‘I … I thought maybe … you … you would have a solution for my current problems.’
‘What solution?’
‘Think!’
‘What am I? And what do you think am I capable of? How come you arrived at this conclusion that I would have a solution to counter such a big conspiracy by such affluent people? Has it been printed in the gazette that Jeet Singh taala-chabi is the wisest smartass in all of Mumbai?’
She kept looking down without a word.
‘What has brought you here is not that difficult to understand.’
She lifted her head in haste.
‘You won’t tell me what’s on your mind. Because if you do, you will yourself establish how selfish you are. Selfish and greedy …’
‘Greedy?’
‘Yes, greedy. Greedy for those luxuries you got used to in these months you spent with Pursumal, which you can’t live without now. A dream unfulfilled is less painful then it being fulfilled and then shattered.’
‘You never talked like this before.’
‘Time is a great teacher. Hard time is the greatest teacher. As it has taught you that if you go back to that old acquaintance Jeet Singh with your problem, he will understand what you want even if you don’t say anything explicitly.’
‘And what do I want?’
‘You know that very well.’
‘Still …’
‘No still. After enduring so much hardship and torturous situations, I have finally been acquitted in a robbery case, or I would be serving five to seven years time. You may say this is the first time in my life that luck has favoured me, and proved that my name, Jeeta, the victor, also means something. Now it is extremely important for me to take every step with caution for some time, and not do anything which could alter this positive change and throw me back into that dark alley I have left behind. You are not aware of the misdeeds I have committed in my animal urge to build that gold-covered path from this kholi to Colaba. You are only aware of the final results of those deeds, because I was overcome by the desire to buy back a sold woman, by paying a bigger price than Pursumal. I paid three instalments, each bigger than the previous one, and when I went to hand over the fourth one, you slapped all the money in my face, saying “It was Mrs Changulani’s house, no Sushmita lives here.” You poured the acid of those words onto me and so enhanced your status, your character in the eyes of your wealthy, reputable husband while I was left to consider the path of death …’
‘I did not know that …’
‘Why did you not know? Didn’t you know that the wounds of words are far more painful than those of the sword? It was a miracle that I did not die the moment you uttered those words. Death did not show me any mercy; not at that time, nor when I tried to embrace it in the lift. Sinners don’t die so easily, they say. However, I did not die that time so you thought of a new use of me in light of your current hardships. But there is bad news for you: I am not going to do anything of that sort. It would be a big thing if you could solve your own problems, but I am not going to do it …’
‘I am unable to understand anything you’ve said.’
‘You understand everything. You are not that naïve, Sushmita Devi. Devi! Ha!’
‘You are insulting me …’
‘I repeat,’ Jeet Singh said as if he did not hear what she had said, ‘this is not going to happen again. Jeet Singh is no more a vault-buster, bloodthirsty robber. Now Jeet Singh is a regular man, a straight dude who mends locks and duplicates keys at his spot in Crawford Market, earning his bread and butter like an honest man using the skills God has bestowed upon him. If you want to get any keys duplicated, or want a lock repaired, then do come to my place. Jeet Singh lockmaker will do the job to the utmost satisfaction.’
‘I am leaving.’
‘ok. But even now if you tell me exactly why did you come, I may change my mind and maybe I can do something then.’
‘Now there is no need of it. Sympathy is an obvious, natural sentiment and if I couldn’t get it …’
‘You are wrong there …’
‘Couldn’t get it from the heart, but just as some words you uttered as a matter of speech. If I couldn’t get sincere sympathy, what’s the use of expecting anything else?’
‘ok, then say it clearly that you came here to get sympathy, only sympathy and nothing else.’
‘I came for something else also.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Today I don’t have anything—food, clothes, shelter. The third problem could be taken care of by my old kholi that I lived in for the most of my life.’
‘So it is final that you will live here?’
‘Where else will I go when there is no other possibility … and what’s the problem with that? After all I have lived here in your neighbourhood for years with my sister and her three kids.’
‘It was different then. Will you be able to live here now?’
‘I have to, there is no choice. Where else will I go?’
‘Right.’
‘I will become used to it within a few days. In fact old memories will start coming back soon. I will remember my sister, and a young Himachali neighbour whose generosity was easily available to us.’
‘Generosity!’
‘Yes, he used to fetch our groceries from the market, repair the blinking tube-lights or the mixer, and change the washer of a leaking tap,’ she sighed, ‘there were so many comforts due to him …’
‘That boy still knows how to do everything. He has not forgotten any of these things. But there is one problem now.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He does not live here any longer.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I came here by coincidence today, to collect some things and deposit others.’
‘Why are you doing all the cleaning then?’
‘I saw the place was in bad shape, thought I must do something. After all I have all the time in the world.’
‘Oh, so this was a big coincidence that you were here when I passed by?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where do you live now?’
Jeet Singh looked away.
‘You don’t want to tell me, do you?’
He did not say anything.
‘That is the way it is, isn’t it?’
‘Why ask for directions to a place,’ Jeet Singh said in a solemn tone, ‘where one doesn’t intend to go?’
‘Maybe one does intend to go there.’
‘You will get lost.’
‘Nevertheless …’
‘This heart of mine is a ruined inn, who stays in a ruined inn?’
‘You have really become very worldly wise. Within months you have learned so many things—how to shut someone up, how to give a tit-for-tat reply … no?’
‘If you need any money then tell me. As of this moment, my total assets are eighty thousand rupees which won’t last long if I do not earn some honest money.’
‘So, you are hinting that I really must not ask for money.’
‘My God, no. I never even thought of it. I mean it, you can ask me if you need anything, but it must not be more than eighty thousand rupees.’
‘I trust you, so let me say this.’
‘What?’
‘There is a need.’
‘So …’
‘So I will talk to some sympathizers, to some close acquaintances, to some well-wishers. I have a few such people in my mind. I will talk to you when I am disappointed by them.’
‘And if you could not find me at that time?’
‘Then I will issue an advertisement in the newspapers.’
‘You are joking.’
‘I will leave now. But before that, I have one last thing to say. Not that you’ll agree
with me but because if I don’t say it now, the weight I bear on my heart and soul due to you, will kill me. Are you listening?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are nobody to me, never were, nor could have been after my marriage. When I made myself understand this, I never thought I would be widowed so soon, would be forcibly widowed by somebody. You were nothing to me, but you could have become everything had my selfishness, my betrayal not altered the course of events. After confessing all this, I can’t even say that I did what I did because of any compulsion. I betrayed you, I broke the promise and God punished me for that. You can see how soon and how severely I was punished.’
Jeet Singh stayed silent.
‘Nobody writes anybody’s destiny. I justified the marriage in the name of my sister’s three children, but now they, too, will be on the road. Not immediately because their yearly fees has been paid but still it’s only a matter of time. My own situation is worse than what it used to be before marriage. Earlier I had a job to sustain myself, but now even that is gone. It is a coincidence that the place here is still in my possession, otherwise I would have been left with nothing—no food, no clothes, no roof over my head. I have to face all this because I broke the promise, I broke your heart and I betrayed you. However, if you can forgive me now, then possibly God will also forgive me, if not immediately then in the long run.’
She looked towards Jeet Singh hopefully.
Jeet Singh started looking elsewhere.
She heaved a sigh, then said, ‘Some words came out of my mouth because I was overcome by sentiment, because I was terrified by the pitiable state of my sister. They did not come out as a condition but as a bargain, as a cry from an agonized, tormented heart. It later appeared to me as some useless outburst. I had never imagined you would take it so seriously. It was just a desire my shaken, out-of-control heart expressed in a grim situation. I hoped against hope by thinking what if that could have happened. But things don’t happen that way, by mere wishes. Had it been the case then I would have wished for the long life of my sister, no?’
Jeet Singh nodded automatically.
‘Then you disappeared, you disappeared suddenly, as if by magic. How can you expect me to feel bound by something I had forgotten almost immediately after saying it? I could take it as binding upon me when the proposal of marriage from Sethji came up. Believe me, I was not aware of your return. I came to know about it only when you reached Colaba to slap ten lakh rupees in my face, to flaunt that you had held up your end of the promise. And I … I became a treacherous, shameless, fraud of a woman. This one thing … one thing became the biggest mistake of my life. And when you came the third time with thirty-five lakhs, then to put a stop to your future trips, and to put an end to your craze, I mustered the courage to shamelessly say that my price had been paid. But you did not stop there. You issued a new order that I must go with you if the correct price was paid. I was the wife of a decent, kind, generous man; how could you expect me to go with you? How could I leave everything behind that very instant and go with you? My feet were shackled by marriage, how could I break those shackles at one command from you? But you never thought of these things. You were there just to issue orders, no matter how nonsensical, impractical and unreasonable they were. And what good would it have done if I had gone with you as ordered? I’m not talking of myself, I’m asking about you. How could someone’s married wife become yours in the blink of an eye? Changulani sahib would have you arrested, and you could not have disowned that you actually ran away with someone’s wife. I would have faced humiliation, but your whole future would have drowned
in darkness.’
‘Who cared?’ Jeet Singh mumbled. ‘I was already drowning in darkness. How could somebody make it darker?’
‘I cared, believe it or not, I cared. I always prayed for your well-being.’
Jeet Singh stayed silent.
‘What a life I had!’ she sighed. ‘Humiliated by you and ashamed around my husband, I deserved the abuse you showered upon me. You always tried shaming me, insulting me in whatever way you found possible. Everybody was bent on proving me wrong. They always said what they had to say and nobody, including you, ever listened to me. And you crossed all lines: you called me an “item”, a “thing” to be auctioned publicly. I was ashamed of myself, and caught in limbo. I was totally exposed before my husband even before your last trip. He knew of the seventy-five lakh rupees brought by you in those three trips, he knew of every word exchanged between us during those trips and he had solid evidence for it all. He could have easily called me a characterless woman and thrown me out of the house. But instead, he was ready to free me from the relationship without any strings attached. You were standing outside the closed door ringing the bell and inside he was asking me to feel free from his side to go with you. That too with those seventy-five lakh rupees you had given, and with anything I wished to take from the household. He said the formalities of divorce could be completed later and I was free to go with you that very moment. What do you think should I have done? Should I have moved in with you and shamed a noble soul like him? At that time, it was imperative for me to say—“This is the house of Mrs Changulani. No Sushmita lives here.”’
She stopped for a moment and then said, ‘Despite this, I always cared for you, and prayed that by some miracle you would be cured of that godforsaken infatuation of yours.’
‘And that miracle,’ Jeet Singh said in a low voice, ‘was in the hands of that police inspector husband of your friend’s.’
‘It never happened that way, but had he done anything, it would have been better for you. Had he kept you away from me, your anger would have evaporated with time.’
‘It was a misconception.’
‘Maybe it was, but in reality nothing happened. I just wanted to say that some things are easier said than done. It was easy to say “drop everything and come with me”, but was difficult to act upon.’
‘That story has come to an end. There is no point in talking about it now.’
‘Then let me talk about the thing that has not come to an end. The accusations you have levelled against me are unreasonable. The reason you guessed for my coming here—that I wanted a particular, predetermined solution to my problems—was wrong. You got it absolutely wrong that I had come here to give you a clue about some criminal act. You tried to bash me with it, but I had not come here for that. You said that you were no more a criminal, but a decent, straight guy. I am very happy to hear that. I will pray that you never lose your way again. All things said and done, if I had to get any lock repaired, or a key duplicated, I would surely reach your shop because I am confident you would do it to the utmost satisfaction and you will not overcharge me.’
‘I …’
‘Jeete,’—she got up abruptly—‘now I must go.’
And she went away, leaving behind a flabbergasted Jeet Singh.
The late Pursumal’s eldest son was called Alok, and the second one, who was only a year and a half younger, was called Ashok. They had been living in the UK even before their mother had died of typhoid, six years ago. The younger one was in London and the older one in Manchester. After the death of their mother, both of them tried hard to convince their father to sell his department store and settle abroad with one of them, but he did not agree. He loved Mumbai and he was proud of the progress he had made there. After all it was his hard work and intelligence that had turned his small general store into such a huge business establishment and enabled him to buy two expensive flats in the posh Tulsi Chambers. Other than that, he was accustomed to the fast-paced life of Mumbai, though it was the same fast-paced life that had led him to his death.
This was only their third trip to India since their visit six years ago at the time of their mother’s death. This time they came after being informed of the untimely and violent death of their father. Their sister lived in Kolkata, but according to her, she was so busy with her four kids that she could rarely come to meet their father in Mumbai. The
children could not come to the father and the father had such a lifestyle that he rarely missed them. Then he got married and life took another trajectory, which came to an end only after the murder put a full-stop to it.
The elder sister’s name was Shobha Atlani and she had come to Mumbai with her husband after entrusting the kids to the care of her mother-in-law. Her husband’s name was Lekhumal Atlani; he despised his old-time name and always told everybody that his name was Lekh, not Lekhumal. He had a big hosiery business in Kolkata, which had been made big courtesy his father-in-law’s financial help.
The elder brother’s wife did not come with him as their children could neither be brought nor left behind; the younger one had neither wife nor children.
All four of them, primarily the two brothers, had thrown out Pursumal’s newly married, and now widowed wife, like a fly out of the milk, within hours of reaching Mumbai, and they got the full cooperation of the sho of the local police station, Chandrakant Devtale, in this exercise.
They were sitting at his police station at that moment.
Devtale had received them with the delight and sycophancy reserved for visiting gods.
‘So, what’s the purpose of this visit?’ he asked in an unctuous tone.
‘We are worried,’ said the elder brother Alok, sounding it.
‘Why are you worried when I am here, when everything is under control?’
‘Not everything is under control,’ said the younger one, Ashok.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That photographer, he is the weak link.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘He was not taken care of the way all the other witnesses of the marriage were taken care of. The pundit from the temple is missing, no one will be able locate him. Same for Tiwari, the store manager. Mira Kishnani belongs to our community, we are sure she will never tell on us. But that photographer Santosh Vajpai, he is still available in Mumbai.’
‘He won’t dare open his mouth, I have made sure of it.’
‘He is the weak link,’ Alok still insisted.
‘But how? We have burned his album and flushed the ashes down the toilet. We have destroyed the cd and have confirmed that he has no record of those photographs. He had no extra copy of any picture, he did not make any extra cd and the coverage of the marriage has been erased from his camera. He seemed as timid as a mouse, and looked like he would die of fear when I threatened him with dire consequences if he ever uttered a word about the marriage. Granted that he may still talk about the marriage, but how can he ever prove that it did take place?’
The Colaba Conspiracy Page 6