by Vish Dhamija
Time was a foggy frame of reference — over sixteen years spent frolicking, even behind iron-clad Moscow, seemed to have passed in a flash; a couple of years in Bombay had become so unbearably heavy that they had altered their whole lives, the entire outlook, the attitude. Sadly though, this wasn't the end, Viviane reckoned, there was no way out. Deborah had underestimated the risks and attempted fleeing twice in their first year of arrival, and the sanctions had been severe: solitary confinement, then repeatedly being raped for over 24 hours with no food, no mercy whatsoever, but she, nevertheless, got away eventually — if killing oneself counted as a getaway, that is. The destitute slit her wrists after the second 24- hour punishment she suffered following a second futile attempt. It sent shivers down the spines of the all other girls in the lodging. This was one world that had no doctor, no police, no court, no jury. Just ex parte sentencing. There was only one law, one verdict, one executioner. Justice Pathak. This was Pathak's world; the dark underbelly that no one ever dared to scratch. No one even harboured the insidious idea of fleeing, much less giving it cogent thought.
Surprisingly, the initial angst Viviane had burnt with, waned. She realised that there wasn't much point souring oneself over something which she had no control over. All it led to was simmering, making her conscious of her defeat. In any case, the world wasn't waiting for an ex-whore. It wasn't like men queued up to take ex-hookers to church on Sundays or to their mothers to fix an alliance. What if she escaped now? Wasn't it too late? In the last few years, she had been made to fuck almost daily with whoever paid. She had mastered the art of shut- your-mind-and-open-your-legs.
Ironically, pulchritude wasn't a positive for Viviane. Considering her profession and circumstances, her beauty had men swooning, and the more men coveted her, the more she had to work. But she was no longer terrified of anything after her first year. She remembered the tipping point, the ordeal, clearly. She had been specifically asked to wear a short black gingham skirt, thigh-high stockings, white shirt and tie to see a rather burly bully of a client unexpectedly; unexpectedly, cause she had her periods, and clients usually stayed away for those three-four days, but this monster had specifically asked for Viviane despite her condition.
'I'm on the blob,' she told him, kneeling down to suck him off.
'So?' He pulled her up with her hair and threw her on the bed. 'Who do you think you are — Liz-fuckin'-Taylor? Turn around bitch. I know other ways to recover my money. Let me give your back passage some exercise.' He looked down at her. 'Ooh, what a tight balloon knot. You got some gel?'
Pressed under his weight, she could hardly move, but she resisted.
'No? No problem bitch.’ He spat into his hand and with sheer brute force punctured her sphincter. After violently thrusting for a few minutes, he left her balled-up, tears in her eyes. Tears of excruciating pain, tears of shame and degradation.
When she had later recounted the sordid episode to Margaret, her friend had laughed and explained that it happened all the time, and that men paid extra for it.
"It is a slam-dunk to get it up the arse. You'll get used to it. Aren't you lucky you aren't accosting on the streets of Bombay. You should be glad you're safe."
Lucky? Glad? There wasn't even relief. What could possibly be worse?
Viviane never bothered to confide her squalid humiliation or pain to Margaret. The two were, of course, friends, but perhaps only because there wasn’t anyone else. Besides each other, they could never trust anyone else in this duplicitous place. Backstabbing for tiddly favours, like a free cigarette or cheap alcohol, was common amongst girls.
Deviate, sick and weird men wanted more than just sex. An ambitious girl had agreed to go for an all-night-anything-goes party. She had to be physically carried back into the room at noon the next day. Viviane pledged never to agree for such a party. However, now that she was eighteen, it would be permissible for VIPs to buy her services discreetly in the comfort of their bed.
First rule of prostitution: never take a drunken trick's mumblings seriously. Rutting men ejaculated at both ends; some uttered vulgarities and obscenities, others showered the slag with praises, even love. Some even returned to lavish a chosen one with small gifts or pay generous tips without the knowledge of their pimps.
All in the name of lust!
When JD, the impossibly good-looking 28-year-old heir-apparent of one of the most dangerous illegal arms and liquor dealers in Bombay, saw Viviane for the first time the attraction was magnetic. And mutual. If rumours were to be believed, JD's father Bir Desai was ostensibly a benefactor of the Khalistan movement, when, in reality, he was an Amritsar- based notorious arms dealer who smuggled firearms — specifically the famous Kalashnikovs, the AK-47s —and disposed them of to the insurgent Sikhs in the late ’70s. Intrinsically connected to unscrupulous politicians, he was forewarned of Mrs Gandhi's intentions of Operation Bluestar way ahead of time. Having amassed enough wealth, he quickly moved his base to Bombay and laid low for a few months. He could have started a new life like other law-abiding citizens, but Bir Desai naturally gravitated towards the life of crime.
Bir Desai had been canny enough to carry the large consignment of Russian handguns, and ammunition — when he fled Punjab — which he sold cheaply to an equally infamous and dreaded liquor baron called Dada, who distilled more illicit alcohol than the whole of Scotland put together. Desai won favours off Dada and became his confidant. It wasn't long before Desai was screwing the heroin-addict kingpin's pretty, young wife Kiran. Together, the two lovers poisoned the old horse. Desai happily obliged by taking over the dying man's gang and the businesses. And his wife.
Bir Desai, thus, became a dreaded denizen of Bombay underworld.
When Kiran died, Desai met Marie — a young Anglo-Indian girl — a couple of years later and after another couple of years of concubinage, Jay Desai was sired.
Jay Desai was happy his parents had named him Jay Desai. He shortened it to JD, which was also the moniker for Jack Daniels, the whiskey he started drinking when he woke up till he passed out since he had been seventeen. On a friend's insistence, he had agreed to visit a massage parlour — a pseudonym for a whorehouse across the country — Club Cuffe Parade. However, when JD saw Viviane in the room, he was besotted. It was animal attraction at first sight. For the first time she didn't have to go through the motions, she actually found sex pleasurable.
Pathak was called into the room the next morning and JD demanded Viviane should only entertain him. Pathak didn't dare to negotiate; he knew JD's ancestry. If Pathak was believed to be dangerous, Bir Desai was a known nutcase. Moreover, JD was willing to pay for Viviane's time. And maintenance.
Success is such a relative thing; being a mistress of the son of a feared gangland's boss was respectable amongst hookers. Viviane became the queen-bee, venerated by some, envied by others.
JD funded some changes in Viviane's room; a bottomless minibar, always stocked with JD to keep JD inebriated, was installed. He was quite smitten and spent most of his nights with her. As for the day, he didn't work but he returned home only to refill his wallet from Bir Desai's exchequer. Desai Senior had no issues with his only son spending the money, but he wanted to see the son, in whatever state, every day. With no dearth of enemies, unbeknown to JD, but well known to anyone else who had any inclination to harm him, four plainclothesmen followed him everywhere. Surveillance was round the clock, even when he was with Viviane in the room. Bir Desai knew about Viviane. Heck! He knew more about Viviane, including her past and origins in Moscow, than even Pathak did, but he turned a blind eye. JD was safer locked in a room with a whore than on the streets.
JD showered more money on Viviane, buying her dresses, flowers, ordering food from the best restaurants while he was there. On her birthday, he told Pathak he was taking her out for the weekend. Money paid, JD took Viviane to The Taj Mahal Hotel — the one the three girls had eyed in awe when they had waited for Mr Patel three years ago.
However sleazy her rela
tionship with JD was, Viviane convinced herself this was the dream even if only for just this weekend. She contemplated asking JD to help her get away from the filthy whorehouse, but didn't.
He might see that as her way of breaking loose from him. There would be more occasions, she was sure.
JD took her out shopping to Colaba, and they wined and dined in a Thai restaurant on Friday night. They woke up in each other’s arms on Saturday morning and ordered their breakfast in bed.
'You want to go anywhere in particular?'
'Bandra.' Viviane had known about Bandra even before she arrived in Bombay. The place had the distinction of housing the most number of Roman Catholic churches in any city.
Mount Mary Church, built by the Portuguese, faced the Arabian Sea, and was the most visited church in the area. It had been long — over three years — since Viviane had been to a church, any church. Though she didn't know what she would ask for. Forgiveness? Or should she thank Him? She was delighted that JD, despite being a non-Christian, came into the church with her, although she found it a bit bizarre that he kept looking over his shoulder, like he was expecting someone.
It was twilight when they came out of the church holding hands, unaware they were being watched. Watched by four pairs of tireless eyes in two white Tata Indica cars, parked at a distance. By the next morning, Bir Desai would know his son was now a devotee.
They, next, drove to where all lovers went to in Bombay: Band Stand — the rampart of the original fort built by the Portuguese in the seventeenth century, as it provided far- reaching views of the sea. Couples still came for the same reason: for the best sea views in Bombay. They sat in the car, overlooking the sea. Viviane was extremely happy to gaze at the sky and the stars. How she wondered where they were...and how had she lost her way with them in her eyes? Unaware of JD's lineage — and the perils that accompanied it — she wanted to step out of the car, hold his hand and take a walk, but he declined.
'It’s not safe,' he told her. 'Why? There's no one else here.'
'You think so?'
He looked in the rear-view mirror. He thought he had seen a car stopping at a distance. No, he hadn't heard the engine die, but he had seen the parking lights being switched off a few minutes ago. As his eyes got used to the darkness, he could see the metal outline of, in fact, two cars.
'There are two cars behind us, sweetie. And they've been there for quite some time now.'
'You think Pathak bhai’s getting us followed?'
'He wouldn't dare.'
'Wouldn't dare? Why not?'
'My dad would kill him if he did anything stupid like that,' JD responded in a matter- of-fact tone.
'What?' Viviane quizzically looked at JD.
'I said if Pathak even as much as thought of causing any harm to me, that would be his last thought. My dad would kill him and his rats.'
'You mean...really kill them?'
JD mimicked a gunshot with his hand. 'Yes.' He blew smoke out of the barrel of his imaginary gun.
'What does your dad do?'
'I'll tell you later.' He sensed some movement in his rear-view mirror, immediately turned on the ignition and put the car in gear.
It was a great weekend. Not once had JD made her feel like a whore. But, it was only a weekend.
Second rule of prostitution: fuck, fuck, fuck, but never get pregnant.
Viviane got pregnant. She was delighted when she found out in December, though all the others forewarned her that it would be the end of JD's fancy. Pathak reprimanded her on the carelessness; he couldn't believe she could be so dumb. He was conscious this would mean the end of a regular flow of cash from the Desai coffers and forbade Viviane — or anyone else — from breaking the unfortunate news to JD. He knew many quacks in Bombay who aborted illegally, that wasn't an issue. The problem was coming up with an excuse to refuse JD from seeing the tart for a couple of days. He couldn't share his wicked plan with Viviane. The only option left was to get someone to Cuffe Parade and let the amateur do the misdeed.
But if something went wrong, and Viviane died? He couldn't risk the wrath of the Desais.
Viviane disobeyed Pathak’s edict and told JD about the pregnancy before the week was over.
'When did it happen?'
'I hadn't anticipated how many times we'd make out when you took me out for the weekend, I ran out of pills…But, please don't tell Pathak bhai, he warned everyone not to tell you...please...' She almost pleaded.
'Why not? It's my baby.'
'He'll —'
'He wouldn't dare say anything.'
'Because your dad will kill him?'
'Yes. I was serious.'
'You didn't tell me what your dad does.'
'He's a gangster, not an ordinary gangster who works for someone else…'
'Is he like…Godfather?' A ray of hope appeared in Viviane’s eyes. If JD’s dad was more powerful than Pathak…
'Yes. Only twice as ruthless, and I am his only child.'
'And you, are you a gangster too?'
'Not yet. Does it matter?'
She flushed. Fear in her eyes, lips pressed tight, she gently shook her head. She really wasn't in a position to mind anyone's profession.
Viviane delivered her baby in the summer of '86. On the morning of July the 12th. It should have been the happiest day of her life, but it turned out to be exactly the opposite. JD didn't turn up that night. She was woken up in the middle of the night by Pathak and asked to follow him to the anteroom where a crowd stood watching the telly. A hush dominated the room as she came in. Doordarshan had its midnight bulletin of local news being read:
"Mr Jay Desai, son of Mr Bir Desai, the noted firearms dealer, has been shot dead earlier this evening. A not-yet-identified man pumped six bullets into Mr Jay Desai at close range as he sat in his car on the traffic light in Nepean Sea Road, less than a kilometre away from his family residence. Police suspect the hand of a rival gang in the killing and are investigating..."
"Good. Now the bitch has to peddle ass once again..."
Viviane overheard someone saying. She went numb. Nothing registered in her brain after that.
Life always played one-sided games, didn’t let people negotiate. Now, it had taken him, and left her in this hole. If only it had been the other way round. Viviane would have hardly minded dying.
Sadly, the Angels of Death don’t negotiate.
TWELVE
2007
The letter lay on his table, a plain brown manila envelope marked "Urgent, Private & Confidential", and so it found its way to the top of the pile ready to be the first thing he picked up when he — the owner, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of NEWS of the DAY, Amit Narang, arrived at his desk at the Nariman Point HO of his publication that morning. And that was precisely what he did. He picked up the envelope even before he sat down, tore it from the side and took out the single A4 sheet it contained. As he dropped the envelope on the desk and rested his fat backside on the black leather swivel chair, he realised there was something more in the packet. He upended it curiously and glared at the SIM card that hit the desk with a tiny sound. He picked it up and looked at it perplexedly, before returning his gaze to read the letter he had cast aside.
"Dear Mr Narang,
I am confident that, by now, you have destroyed the only prints Mumbai Police have been looking for. The SIM card enclosed with this letter is the one I had used to call Samir Suri before I killed him. I have another one which I had used to call Adit Lele. Do you want it? If yes, then I want your newspaper to cover the story of these murders closely. There are more to come. Many more.
Remember, I am watching you. If you do not do something within the next 24 hours, I will be forced to go somewhere else. Even worse, you could be next. Now, you wouldn't like that, would you?"
The letter was unsigned, typed in the Ariel font and printed on a laser printer.
Amit Narang stared at the paper like it was some UFO. He was forty-three, and looked more like the janitor of th
e building than the owner of a newspaper, if one could call his rag one. He was a rare specimen of enthusiasm married to dazzling incompetence, powered only by fortune, and some fortune that was. K.R. Narang, his father, was in the league of the most corrupt politicians India had ever had, which by no means was an easy feat in a developing country plagued with corruption. Despite being expelled from power years ago, the father had enough clout that no one dared to mess with him or his son. Amit Narang's own moral compass didn't point north either: illegitimate money, insincere sycophants for company, immoral friends, iniquitous lifestyle. Illicit activities and businesses more than funded his standard of living. And the newspaper gave him a licence to carry out his carefree existence. Since no one dared to challenge him, he published news, articles, flaming editorials for kickbacks. He shaped careers, destroyed people, dug for dirt if he disliked someone, and veiled miscreants if they helped him or bribed him. And now it seemed that even the heavens were happy with him for sending him this opportunity for a scoop, and then some. He looked at the phone, picked it up, and then put it back in the cradle. He needed to reflect. It was no good telling everyone; he needed to speak to someone who could think. Fuck, this could be a goldmine. He read the letter again and looked at the SIM card. When he looked up, he could see Anita Raizada through the blinds on the glass of his office. Why he hadn’t fucked her till now was the first thought that crossed his depraved mind. He remembered that it was, irrefutably, the only reason he had hired her a few months ago — a young girl with no experience or references, she had come in a tight short skirt and a deep décolletage and during the course of the interview, as they evaluated her, he had imagined her in his bed. How had he forgotten? Well, the time was ripe to test her now. If he did her a favour, shouldn't she reciprocate? Isn't that how the world worked? He picked up his phone and dialled his secretary. 'Send Anita in.'