One wing of the sprawling house was now reserved for special guests—celebrities, political bigwigs, famous alumni, Board members, school patrons. It was kept locked up for most of the year but maintained meticulously by a caretaker. I took a close look at this wing and filed away its layout in my mind.
I would never forget the look on Johnny Marshall’s face on my first day in school all those years ago, when he opened the door to my persistent knocking. He was in electric blue pyjamas, which had a pattern of little umbrellas on them. The sight of the portly, bald man in those ridiculous pyjamas had brought an involuntary smile to my face but it was wiped off instantaneously when I saw his reaction. I learnt later that I was probably the only student who had ever seen Johnny Boy in anything other than his immaculately tailored suits.
At that moment, I had sensed something was wrong and that this man could not possibly be the bursar but I foolishly went ahead and asked him where I could spend the night. For a few seconds, he was speechless, even as his face turned red and then purple, coordinating well with his pyjamas. Then he let forth a tirade which made me feel that I would be better off going into the ground. Only the fact that I was a new student saved me from a painful caning.
I had figured out by then that I was the victim of a prank but I didn’t tell on Sara or the others. After finally managing to get away from the old man’s rage, I walked back to the academic block, where they were still sitting on the lawn. Sara asked me innocently, ‘So what did the bursar tell you?’ At that, everyone burst out laughing. It was infectious and despite my indignation, I had found myself smiling and sitting down next to them on the grass.
That was a long time ago. The simple friendship which began on that day was now ruined by death, deceit and misfortune. I didn’t even know if I was the same person anymore. I practically started a second life after the Blackout.
I have no memory of that ill-fated camping trip.
It was only much later that I learnt about it, while trying to piece together what had happened. I knew there were six of us. Karan and Sara were seeing each other at the time, and he had come along. I can imagine that none of us had been too happy about it but Sara’s powers of persuasion were legendary and I guess we all eventually must have come around.
I vaguely recalled that I had drunk alcohol for the first time in my life that night and passed out. Sometime during the night, I must have fallen into the river in an inebriated state and was presumed to have drowned. My friends who had planned on getting me drunk had felt really guilty but it wasn’t a crime, of course. The police had closed the case with the verdict that my death was an accident.
Until I heard Sara’s last words to me, I had no reason to believe anything else.
I can’t deny that the possibility of foul play had struck me. It wasn’t inconceivable that one of the others had something to do with the incident, especially since I found it difficult to digest that I would walk into a raging river without realising it, however intoxicated I might have been. In fact, Karan’s name was the one that had kept popping up in my mind.
However, I had finally dismissed the thought, mainly because I couldn’t fathom for a moment what his motive could be. He might have hated me because of Sara’s feelings for me but that wasn’t reason enough for murder. And I certainly didn’t think Sara and he were in it together.
But apparently, that’s the way it was. I found myself believing Sara, despite the circumstances. It’s a pity she didn’t complete what she was trying to say so the motive is still a mystery. I guess I’ll never know now.
It was confounding. Why would Sara, of all people, want to kill me? She had this big crush on me but it hadn’t affected our friendship. Or had it? I remembered that winter evening when she had come on to me very strongly in an isolated area of our school campus, and I had had to push her off. Literally. We never spoke about the incident and continued as if nothing had happened. She never did anything like that again.
There was always something wrong inside Sara’s head. We all knew, though she didn’t ever talk about it. I had gathered it was some type of rare schizophrenia which wasn’t serious enough to prevent her from leading a normal life. We hardly ever got any glimpse of the disorder. I can only remember the one time when she had a fit and fell unconscious in the classroom. We took her to the local hospital immediately but she had to be moved to Delhi and stayed there for almost a month before returning to school.
I don’t know if Sara harboured some kind of paranoid delusion about me, which had prompted her murderous plot. If that was indeed the case, she had kept it very well hidden. Her treachery should have triggered all sorts of angry emotions in me but I felt indifferent. I suppose it was too far back in the past to matter anymore. Besides, justice seemed to have been served already, albeit by a different hand.
Karan was another matter. Not that I needed any additional motivation but it had suddenly become very personal. And for all I knew, the plan might well have been his in the first place. He had already murdered by then, and wouldn’t have had the least compunction in adding me to his tally, especially if he thought it would make Sara happy.
I realised that when I did eventually kill Karan, there would be no satisfaction in the act. No feeling of revenge or justice for his victims. Just a quiet sense of closure, the kind you feel after finally stepping on a cockroach which has been eluding you for a while.
It wouldn’t be easy to get to Karan though. He had elite Z-Plus security around him all the time. His home and office were heavily guarded. A posse of policemen and commandos accompanied him wherever he went. I wasn’t overly worried, because I had succeeded against bigger odds in the past. It was simply a question of picking the right time and place.
The problem was that I didn’t want it to appear like a political assassination. That would only make Karan a martyr.
The other option was to go to the police with all the information I had gathered. Or maybe directly to the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice. I knew I would be able to get access to whoever I wanted. However, there was a serious risk that they wouldn’t believe me. I had plenty of circumstantial evidence but not any conclusive proof. Such a sensational, even incredible, story could easily be trashed as being cooked up by Karan’s political rivals. And once I had played my hand, there would be a war which I could very well lose.
I had another plan.
74
Neel
‘This is just like old times’, said Omar.
We were at the tuck shop.
The building was the same ugly, flat-roofed structure built in the seventies. Clearly, someone had approved the design in a hurry. Or there had been a budget constraint. It stood out like a sore thumb on a campus renowned for its heritage architecture. Only the two tall pine trees standing like sentinels at its entrance provided some visual relief.
Back then, there was only one counter. It was run by a big Sardar named Makhan Singh. You could get pastries, chips, chocolates, patties, sandwiches, Maggi noodles and masala omelettes from Singh-ji. In the summer we would stop by for glasses of cool, refreshing shikanjee. In the winter it would be mugs of thick hot chocolate.
It was very different now. Makhan Singh was gone. There were three separate counters. The biggest one belonged to a well-known cake and snacks chain. The other two offered freshly prepared food. Tables and chairs of moulded plastic crowded the central area. It looked like a company cafeteria now. Earlier, there had been a few wooden chairs and stools strewn around. Most of us used to carry our food outside.
‘What happened to Makhan Singh?’ I wondered aloud.
A cleaning boy who was passing by stopped and answered, ‘Poor Makhan Singh! He got into an argument with a customer over a small issue of change but little did he know that the man was the son of a governor of the Board.’
Singh-ji’s temper was legendary. But he was a large-hearted man. And very popular
with the students, ‘What happened after that?’
‘What was there to happen, sahib? Makhan Singh was ordered by the school administration to apologise which he refused to do, of course. Then they gave him two weeks’ notice and asked him to leave.’
This may have been a random incident. I was aware that the Board was getting far too deep into the affairs of the school, though. And pushing down controversial decisions. There was recently the widely publicised sacking of a long-serving, highly respected teacher. It hadn’t gone down well with anyone.
The boy waved his hand and said, ‘All this you see here came up soon after that. I think they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of Singh-ji so that these fellows could come in.’
Quite possible, I thought. The tuck shop appeared much more commercial than it used to be. These contracts were obviously lucrative.
The boy went off. Omar looked around and asked, ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea for us to meet here, Roy?’
‘There’s hardly anyone around today. Tomorrow will be a different story.’
‘In any case, no one will know it’s Roy,’ I said. ‘Even I didn’t recognise him.’
Omar wasn’t too happy but didn’t say anything. We ate in silence. Roy had ordered a grilled vegetable sandwich. Omar and I had gone in for a bun-omelette and cheese Maggi respectively. The food wasn’t as tasty as it used to be. Maybe we were younger then. And could enjoy the simple things of life more easily. Neither the shikanjee nor the hot chocolate were on the menu anymore. They had been replaced by coffee and aerated drinks from vending machines.
Omar finished the last piece of his over-cooked omelette and sighed. ‘I wish the girls were with us today. Remember how we would land up here after classes every day? Singh-ji would get most perturbed on the rare occasions we didn’t.’
‘Well, they’re not here, Omar.’ Roy said harshly. ‘And you very well know why. This isn’t a nostalgia trip.’
The germ of the idea had been in Roy’s mind for a while. The past few days had really made it feasible. The three of us had discussed it endlessly. Evaluated all the possible scenarios. The first part was relatively easy. Final touches were being given to it as we spoke. The second part was tricky and unpredictable. It could go any number of ways. We had to be prepared for all eventualities.
The plan was simple but audacious. It was woven around the school reunion. Which was starting the next day. The Chief Guest for the event was the President of India, incidentally an alumnus himself. And the Guest of Honour was another celebrated alumnus and public figure.
Karan Singh.
Before Omar could respond, I interjected. ‘Roy, are we ready for this?’
‘I’m not sure, Neel,’ he replied. ‘I really hope so.’
‘Do you think we should have just gone to the police? With all your connections Roy, somebody would have believed us.’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I discussed this with the Members again. They agreed that even if our evidence was accepted, the due process of law could not be subverted. It would be long and protracted, giving ample opportunity for Karan to fight us with all his resources. Witnesses would be killed, evidence would be destroyed, the media would be used to swing public opinion. After all, politicians can easily pull strings from behind bars.’
‘Still, it wouldn’t be as risky as what we’re planning here.’
Omar piped up. ‘I agree with Roy. Getting someone like Karan convicted through judicial channels is next to impossible. If anything, it will expose us to even greater risk. You think he’s going to leave us alone if he’s in jail?’
Roy said quietly, ‘It’s safe to assume that we’re pretty high up on his hit-list. He’ll try to eliminate us as soon as he can.’
I didn’t argue. He was right.
It was for this reason that we had spent the last few days holed up in a remote farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi. It belonged to someone who owed me a favour. Of course, we were now out of hiding. Omar and I, at any rate. We figured that we would be comparatively safe on the school campus. In any case, there was no other option.
As expected, we had had a harrowing time with the police after the shooting at Sara’s place. When they arrived, the first thing they did was take Omar and me into custody. We stuck to our story that it was a gang of robbers who had broken into the house. After an argument, one of the men had shot his three accomplices while escaping himself. The good thing was that all the men turned out to be known criminals. The ring-leader was wanted in a number of murder cases. We were released after twenty-four hours. Helped in no small measure by the strings Roy managed to pull from the outside.
Roy may have pulled off some difficult missions in the past. I knew this one was going to be a real challenge. The stakes were exceptionally high. If he botched it, all of us were finished. Omar and I would play our parts. But the trickiest bit was Roy’s. It would mean the difference between success and failure. And I didn’t want to hazard a guess on the number of lives that hung in the balance.
I was reasonably confident that Karan didn’t know Roy was alive. In fact, I was counting on it.
But I was wrong.
75
Omar
The next day dawned dark and gloomy.
It was unusual weather for that time of year but not unheard of, caused by the tail of the monsoon which had just swept across the peninsula. As I stood on the first-floor corridor of the dorm, the rain came down in blinding sheets, stinging my face with the cold spray. It somehow felt cathartic.
The autumn break for the students was already on, since the festival dates had fallen early. It was a good thing because over a thousand people were expected for the grand sesquicentennial event. The emptied dorms had been spruced up for those alumni who had chosen to briefly relive their days as boarders. Not all certainly, for spending even a single night in such basic, community conditions was not for everyone, however nostalgic the experience might be. For them, there were a number of hotels in the nearby town.
With less than a day to go for the jamboree to begin, people had already started to stream in, mostly in small groups. I guess it made more sense to attend these events as long as you were sure you would have at least a few close buddies for company. It would be interesting to see how the years had treated my batch-mates.
The whole deal of hooking up with ex-flames at school reunions is probably over-hyped by Hollywood movies, but it was amusing to overhear several guys discussing the girls of their respective classes. There was a lot of speculation about what they would look like now, gossip reruns of who was sleeping with whom back then, suggestions of possible trysts at the reunion which were more hopeful than realistic, I imagined.
What heightened their curiosity for the moment was the fact that the women were checking in at the girls’ dorm, which was situated a good distance away, near the gymnasium. Jaded testosterone levels were rising dangerously in anticipation. The dining hall was going to be common though, and the wait would soon be over. I was reminded of the widespread sexual tension before our first social, all of seventeen years ago.
Neel, Roy and I had been allotted the same dorm, incidentally the one we had stayed in during our schooldays. We hardly spoke to each other—after that meeting at the tuck shop, we had decided to keep in touch using our mobile phones only.
My phone beeped. There was a message from Roy.
I responded immediately.
I smiled. It was a rare light moment in the midst of everything that was going on.
There was another message, this time from Neel.
He meant the principal, who was widely referred to by that moniker. John Marshall had passed away five years ago, and the new principal was a retired Army major-general who had a bagful of degrees and had taught at several defence colleges around the country. He was a widower, like his predecessor.
I frowned. It wasn’t necessarily going to be a problem but we couldn’t be certain. The situation had just turned more risky and unpredictable. The apparent reason was plausible enough, though. There was nothing unusual about Karan wanting to come in a day early.
I looked up at the grey sky. Something told me it was a bad omen.
76
Roy
The library was still housed in the same imposing building with the multi-gabled roof, but a lot had changed inside.
There were new kiosks with computer terminals. Bright halogen lights hanging from the ceiling had replaced the dim tubes on the walls. The renovated reading area was now equipped with a water cooler, a luxury unheard of in our time. And there were way more books than I remembered. Clearly, the budgets had gone up significantly. Or maybe a rich ex-student had funded all the expansion to have his name etched somewhere for posterity.
The History section was where it used to be, at one end of the first floor. It was deserted. I had reached early and waited by the tall bay window.
Suddenly, I realised I wasn’t alone.
I couldn’t see or hear anyone but my sixth sense had never failed me yet. I slowly walked towards the shelves and checked each aisle but they were all empty. That only left the alcove where old and damaged books were kept. I pulled aside the frayed curtain which screened it, and saw two faces peering out at me fearfully.
Second Lives Page 24