The Nidhi Kapoor Story

by Saurabh Garg

  Nidhi, on the other hand, had remained stoic. Her face was devoid of any emotion. She merely pulled out a cigarette and smoked it slowly, as if she were savoring the taste of tobacco on a silent night. Nishant’s reactions, his misery, had had no effect on Nidhi.

  She smoked her cigarette without interrupting the predictable motion of bringing the cigarette to her lips, taking a drag, resting her arm at the side of her body and exhaling slowly.

  The biggest discovery of Nishant’s life seemed trifle to Nidhi. His misery was further amplified by Nidhi’s indifference and nonchalance.

  After Nishant slumped on the floor and did not make any attempts to get back on the bed or the wheelchair, Nidhi came around to his room. She found Nishant slouched on the floor. He had made no efforts to move. With the affection reserved for one’s parents, care reserved for fragile glassware and tenderness reserved for a newborn baby, Nidhi helped Nishant on the wheelchair. Once he was seated on the wheelchair, she ran her hand through his head affectionately. She massaged his temples and rubbed his shoulders.

  This was probably the first time Nidhi was showing signs of affection towards her father. This was also probably the first time in so many years that Nidhi had touched Nishant. However, if Nishant were in his senses, he would have realized that Nidhi’s touch was devoid of any affection. It was dead cold.

  Nidhi gingerly pushed Nishant’s wheelchair as if he were a precarious patient. She got him out of the room and the house into the lawn. She took him close to the swimming pool and rested the chair at the edge of the pool. She squatted cross-legged next to the wheelchair. The father and daughter were now looking at the illuminated swimming pool and the outlines of Ronak looming beyond it.

  Nidhi flicked a pack of Stikk from her pocket. She stuck a cigarette between her lips and lit it. She offered the cigarette to Nishant. Nishant ignored the offer and stared at the calm surface of the swimming pool.

  Nidhi shrugged, took a puff and flicked the ash into the pool. The grey lump floated on the surface for a bit and then it disintegrated. It started dissolving in the water slowly and the little bits of paper and tobacco started to float on the surface. She looked at it with approval and said, “You know, mumma taught me this amazing secret to bear pain and suffering you inflicted on us. She told me to close my eyes and think of the happiest time of my life. And then imagine that I was magically transported there. You know what was my happiest time? It was playing in the lawn by myself. Next to this very pool. Or with Payal. Or with Mumma. Did you know? Did you, Papa?”

  She was getting worked up. She checked herself and caught her breath. She took a drag. She continued, “I don’t know how mumma managed with you. You know she loved you like crazy. I asked her why she didn’t leave you but she wouldn’t tell me. Love is so strange; it has its own ways. You know, she didn’t fight with you even when you were with other women. She was fine with that and everything else that you did. She just wanted some respect. If only you gave her some, things would have been so much better. We all could be living together as a family. Papa, you know, love is like that thing that you can give and give and give, and yet it never ends. The more you give, the more you get. Funny, you had love for everyone but for your wife and daughter.”

  For a father and daughter, Nishant and Nidhi had had very few private moments. In fact, this was the first time when they were talking to each other privately. Nidhi’s childhood was muddled with conflicting emotions. On one side was Neelima and her unquestionable affection. On the other side, Nishant and his nonchalant indifference. Somewhere in the middle was Payal who was as confused as Nidhi was, but had Nishant’s affection and attention.

  Nidhi continued to talk, “Papa, you know you’ve made me strong. Every time you beat me, you helped me become stronger. Every time you hurt me, I learnt that I could tolerate more pain. Every time you ignored me, I got another lesson in solitude. All these things have helped me over the years. I know you did not want to. But you did. Remember that writer? Shakespeare? He said, ‘All the world’s a mere stage and we are mere puppets?’ Papa, you were a puppet. You were merely here to help me become who I am. Thank you, Papa.”

  Nishant finally craned his neck to look at Nidhi. Her back was straight and she was leaning back on her arms, head flung back as she stared at the sky above. Nishant, from the vantage point of his chair could see Nidhi’s forehead and he realized that she had inherited his disproportionately large skull, an evident characteristic of the entire Kapoor clan.

  Nidhi caught Nishant looking at her. She smiled. She gave Nishant her legendry smile that had won her many accolades over the years.

  Nishant was suddenly proud of her. In Nidhi, he saw a younger version of himself. When the thought crossed his mind, he was petrified. Nishant knew that he was probably the toughest adversary that anyone could ever have. If Nidhi were one-tenth as good, or as bad, as Nishant, he was in trouble. And there would be no escaping. She would have planned for that. For the first time in his life Nishant was suddenly sorry for how he had treated Neelima and Nidhi. He felt bad about his behavior. Not because he had realized his mistake, but because he saw a severe punishment looming ahead.

  It was one of those insignificant nights when the moon was like a faint sliver of a curved ball. It wasn’t bright and it wasn’t dull. In fact, a few stars were brighter than the moon. Just that the moon was bigger in size and hence appeared more radiant.

  “Papa, remember that night when you dragged mumma and me out of the house and threw us in the swimming pool?” Nidhi said calmly.

  Nishant thought that he saw a flicker of menace pass through Nidhi’s eyes. It was there for a split second, before the tenderness was back. It was the same look that often crossed his eyes just before he was about to slay his prey. Nishant was surprised that he could read Nidhi’s mind so well. It was like gazing into a mirror.

  Nidhi was talking about the incident that was taped and left in Naveen Verma’s car. It was the night that changed everything for the Kapoors. To Nishant, it was like any other night when he had attacked and hurt his wife and daughter at a flippant pretext. To Nidhi, that night had made clear the purpose of her life. The reason for her existence. Revenge. Against her father. For things that he did to her mother.

  “That night… that night Papa, I decided that I would kill you. And I would kill you as soon as possible. Without any mercy. A fast death with no chance of survival. You were a monster and you had to die fast.” Even though she was threating her father, she was calm and composed. Her tone remained flat, devoid of any emotion. She paused and looked back at the swimming pool. She started humming a Kishore Kumar song, just the way Nishant crooned one of his songs when he was blackmailing Tabrez Khan for Ronak.

  Nishant was terrified by the composure with which Nidhi delivered her sermon. He realized that he made a mistake in choosing Payal as his successor. Nidhi would have made a far better heir.

  Nishant had a vague idea about what was coming his way. But he did not know what to do about it. He could not escape. There was nowhere to go. He had to survive the next minute and the minute after that and so on and so forth. He had to hope for the best. He would eventually find a way out. He was the Nishant Kapoor who had defied all odds all his life.

  Nidhi took a break from her song. “You know, Papa, I realized that I was wrong. Killing you would serve no purpose at all. It would be letting you go easy. You deserve more pain. Something that makes you fathom what you did. Something… something that makes you feel sorry for things you did. Something that reminds you of all those people you hurt. No? What do you think?”

  Nishant had often rued his behavior over the years. He often marveled at the colossal damage that he had inflicted upon others. He did want to undo a few things. But all said and done, he was not really sorry for his actions. He had to do those things to become what he had wanted to. It was a battle between ambition and ethics. And he was sure of the side he wanted to be on. Besides, in any battle there anyway is some collateral
damage.

  “Are you sorry, Papa? For the things you did? How does it feel to lose everything that you ever cared for? I took everything away from you. One thing at a time. It took me so long to plan, plot and execute this. Trust me, it was totally worth it,” Nidhi went on, her voice echoing her satisfaction.

  Nishant thought about Ronak, about Payal. He looked up at the moon and the stars. He thought, “There’s no way that life is serving this to me after all these years. I should’ve died a long time back. Maybe on the night when I was poisoned. Was it Nidhi who poisoned me? Why did she save me then?”

  “You know, Preeti was the toughest to get rid of,” Nidhi said, interrupting Nishant’s thoughts.

  Nishant had decided that he wasn’t going to speak. He wouldn’t give Nidhi the satisfaction of a victory. Anyhow he could not justify his actions even if he tried. He could not apologize. He could not escape. He would thus let things run their course. But at the mention of Preeti, he was shocked.

  When Preeti had disappeared, he had assumed that Preeti had gone back to where she had come from. She did not belong to the industry and she probably had a family to go back to. He had tried to search for her but gave up soon after when another upcoming actress became the apple of his eyes. However, he missed Preeti like no one else. Preeti wasn’t trophy-wife material per se. But in bed, she was better than most other women that Nishant knew of. Definitely better than Neelima. And Preeti had taken an unnaturally long time to give in. He had pursued her, chased her, wooed her for way too long before she agreed. Once you put in this much of time chasing someone, you tend to linger on. And Nishant had lingered. And how.

  “What… what happened to Preeti?” he spoke slowly.

  Nidhi snapped as if waiting for this, as if she was the scriptwriter and knew what Nishant would say. “Did you bother to ask what happened to my mother when you left her to die?”

  Nishant realized his mistake. He turned his head and started to stare at the sky. He shouldn’t have spoken.

  Neelima had died in a fire a few days after Preeti went missing. The entire Kapoor family was in Khandala and like most nights, Nishant and Neelima had an argument. That night however, things had taken an ugly turn and Neelima had threatened to put fire to Nishant’s favorite suit. Nishant thought she was bluffing and motioned towards the bar. He then poured himself a drink and sat in silence and insolence as Neelima drowned his wardrobe and bedroom with imported whiskey, hard vodka and virgin wines. When she was exhausted with the effort, Nishant hurled abuses at her for being a loudmouth, threw a lighter at her and left the room. When he left, he locked the door from the outside because he did not want Neelima’s bickering to trail him to the lovely weather in Khandala. Neelima flicked the Zippo and lit it. When the burning wardrobe failed to get any reaction from Nishant, she threatened to put herself on fire as well. Nishant was too drunk to pay heed and the next thing he knew, the entire house was on fire. Before Neelima could be rescued, she had suffered more than 90% burns. She was burnt so badly that she couldn’t be taken to Mumbai. If euthanasia were legal, Nidhi would have begged the only nurse at the sparse nondescript medical facility at Khandala to end her mother’s suffering. Neelima eventually died a slow and agonizing death in a hospital.

  While Nishant was recounting the horrors of the night when Neelima had died, Nidhi slowly put her hand on the wheels of his wheelchair. She started rocking the wheelchair back and forth. “Papa, you know, during the night, the water in our pool gets really cold. They say cold water is really good. It makes blood move faster. It’s rejuvenating. But it gets tough to breathe when it gets too cold. And when the limbs go numb, it feels as if a million needles are jabbing you all over. Remember that night when you forced mumma to stand in the pool? You remember how she was pleading? Don’t tell me you made all those tapes back then and you never looked at those again!”

  Nishant remembered the night now. He had made Neelima strip and stand in the swimming pool in the cold water. He was so drunk and horny and he wanted to see the voluptuous curves of Neelima playing with water. He could not think of a more appropriate thing to do. It was punishment and pleasure at the same time. And he had recorded the entire episode with a small camera.

  Nishant saw an opening. He thought if he could talk Nidhi down, maybe, maybe he’d have a chance. “Nidhi, it was so long ago. Life has punished me enough. Beta, if you continue to sit here in the open, you’d catch a cold,” he tried.

  Even though Nishant was the one in danger, his eyes were benevolent and seemed concerned for Nidhi’s wellbeing. No wonder it was easy for Nishant to trap young women. But Nidhi was a Kapoor. Nishant’s daughter. She laughed. “Nice try, Papa.”

  In one swift motion, Nidhi rolled the wheelchair forward. Nishant and his wheelchair fell into the pool with a loud splash. Water flew high and drenched Nidhi. She remained sitting at the edge of the pool. She just bent her neck and hid it in her chest to avoid the splash on her face. She shrugged and ran both her hands through her hair to fling off water from her hair.

  The wheelchair meanwhile was sinking fast and Nishant was still trapped under the chair. He was struggling and was trying to escape from the chair, but he could not. Nidhi hadn’t given him any warning before pushing him into the pool.

  Nidhi kept looking at the scene peacefully. Nishant, on the other hand, was losing his breath. He hit the floor of the pool and the weight of chair on top of him kept him trapped there. He somehow pushed the chair away and broke free. He shot up like a rocket and surfaced at some distance from Nidhi. He gasped greedily and tried to suck in as much air as he could. A loud moan escaped his throat and water immediately rushed into the opening. He flapped his hands and tried to keep himself afloat. Yet again, his legs became his handicap. In the absence of any float from his lower body, the water pulled him in. He bobbed up and down for some time and eventually found a way to stay above surface. He seemed to have averted death yet again. The genes indeed were selfish.

  Nidhi kept looking at Nishant while he was struggling. Nishant had reached the edge of the pool and had anchored his arms around the metal steps leading into the pool. He did not speak but his eyes were pleading for mercy. Nidhi was composed. “It’s cold na Papa? Come to think of it, mumma wasn’t even dressed. And you know mumma didn’t even know how to swim. Remember that, Papa?”

  Nishant was now shivering. Nidhi got up, walked slowly towards Nishant and crouched in front of him. “Papa, do I leave you here in the pool?” She pulled a gun out of her pocket and pointed at him. “Or do I shoot you in the head and end your misery? Or you know what? Maybe I would not let you die like this in the swimming pool. I’d not let you die. Just the way I did not let you die after I mixed my anti-depressants in your drink.”

  Nishant now knew who had tried to kill him all those years ago. His eyes were stoned. He was staring up at the muzzle of the gun. It was indeed intimidating to stare at the barrel of the gun. He was, after all, on the business side of the gun for the first time.

  When Nidhi extended her hand to move the muzzle in front of Nishant, with a cat’s agility, Nishant lunged at it and tried to grab it. However, Nidhi had sharper reflexes. She pulled the gun back in time. She then started to laugh. Her’s was different from Nishant’s. It was pleasant, infectious. The kind you want to hear. The kind that could make you feel good. The kind that sends warm chocolate down your throat, unlike Nishant’s that was burly that oppressed you. Nidhi’s was sweet and intriguing. You would want to know the person behind that laughter. Spend time with her. Do everything for her and pray like hell that she would continue to laugh.

  Nidhi pocketed the gun, bent over and with surprising strength, she yanked Nishant out of the water in one smooth motion. She let him lie on the grass next to the pool. He was on his belly and was staring at Nidhi’s bare feet.

  Suddenly, he started to laugh. He started to wheeze because he had gulped a lot of water while he was in the pool. He laughed till he started choking on his breath. He coughed and his
entire body heaved along with his coughs. His laughter came out as staccato bursts. But he kept laughing.

  With considerable effort, he turned over on his back.

  Nidhi smiled at him. She knew why he was laughing. She had predicted that he would go berserk when she would pull him out of the pool. Like Nishant, Nidhi had planned things meticulously. She had thought about every step, every action and she had a backup plan in case something went awry. She wanted him to believe that he had defeated death yet again.

  However, she had other, grander plans in store for him. Even now when he had suffered so much, death looked like an easy escape for Nishant Kapoor. But she wasn’t letting him go this easy.

  Nishant looked up at the sky and thought that he saw the stars move. Slowly at first but the stars eventually picked up speed. They were going away way too fast to be real. Was he hallucinating again? Before he could decide, it dawned on him that he was being dragged away from the pool. Roughly, coarsely over the grass. The loose flannel shirt had ripped from under him and he could feel the blades of grass lash against his back. He saw that Nidhi had looped a rope around his legs and was dragging him towards the entrance of Ronak.

  28. Day 32, Night. Ronak.

  After her conversation with Tarana in the evening, Rujuta and Tambe had driven nonstop to Mumbai and then to Ronak. Even though they did not stop anywhere, it took them the best part of five hours to reach. It was more than enough time for Rujuta to piece the puzzle together. She knew the who and how of the Nidhi Kapoor mystery by now. The ‘why’ bit still eluded her. She had briefly spoken to Tarana and Tarana had affirmed Rujuta’s deductions. All that was left was to make an arrest. But before that, she had to speak to Nidhi about her intent. Her reason for her actions over the last thirty days.