30
Chandani
We stood there staring at the man who now cowered before us, defiant and defensive all at once. He was clearly struggling to come to terms with his condition. His eyes kept searching our faces, as if seeking some confirmation that we were neither the products of a phantom phenomenon nor of a trick played upon him by his tired mind. He struggled to speak but the shock had paralysed his tongue and no sound escaped as his lips parted time and again. We had hounded him into a corner and all that was now needed to be done was to give the man time to accept his predicament. When a full ten minutes had elapsed, the zamindar’s shoulders dropped slightly and the look of defeat clearly relaxed his painful expression, slowly working them into a state of blankness. Bhrigu knew that the man had now accepted his fate and it was now only a matter of time and the application of the right amount of pressure to get the truth out.
We were back at the Rohtas police station with Inspector Gyan Gere and our partners in the mission, Pratap and the hawaldar. Bhrigu had some work to attend to and hence he joined us an hour late. We hadn’t just yet informed Chaudhary Manendra Singh about this terrible affair as the culprit was his dear friend. Ghanshyam Singh was locked in the same cell that had housed Bal Kishore a fortnight before. We took our seats around the table and as the hawaldar brought us a much needed cup of strong coffee, I asked my friend ‘Now, can you tell me everything? How did you ensure that Ghanshyam Singh came to the roof a second time?’
Bhrigu took a sip from his cup and said, ‘Can I not relax a little first? As you can seem the operation has tired me.’
I made no remark to this and he must have noticed the exasperation on my face that led him to change his mind. ‘Okay, you win,’ he said. ‘Although I am surprised that you did not nag e to death!’ He cleared his throat and began his narrative. ‘As I saw how Bal Kishore had been killed, I came to the obvious conclusion that we were looking for a sniper of outstanding skill. I then decided to use this great talent of the man against him. Remember that when we reached Bal Kishore’s house, we saw that the door was locked from the inside. It clearly meant that after pulling the trigger, the man, overconfident in his aim, took for granted that he had killed his target with one clean shot. Hence he did not care to check whether his victim was actually dead. His hubris rejected any chance of failure and in so thinking he made a fatal mistake that I exploited to my advantage. I arranged with Inspector Gere to look as if Bal Kishore was just injured and not dead. Next, we located the roof from where the aim had been taken. I then called for the Sarpanch to ensure that he circulates the news in the village that Bal Kishore had been slightly injured by a stray bullet from an unknown madman who had fled the scene and most likely, the village, too. Kishore had been taken to the hospital and as he did not sustain any serious injury, he had returned to his house after a day of recuperation. We started keeping vigil at the house of the old man thinking that once the sniper got the whiff of this news, he would try again to kill Bal Kishore in the same way as before. He took Bal Kishore’s and the police’s simplicity for granted a second time and thus sealed his own doom. I was confident that he would operate only in the visibility of the moonlight as he had done before and hence we had to wait for a full-moon night. That evening when I called for you, it was a Purnima, and therefore, I knew that the killer would set to work on that very night. I had told the inspector to keep the lights on in Bal Kishore’s house and as the sniper took his position, waiting for a glimpse off his target, we nabbed him.’
‘So Ghanshyam Singh could handle a hunting rifle at his age?’
‘It’s in his blood and comes to him as a reflex. Ghanshyam Singh is an expert hunter, a skill he had learned from his father in the days when hunting was a religion in powerful feudal circles.’
There was silence for a couple of minutes and I could hear the clock ticking distinctly ahed us on the wall. A lizard played hide and seek with it and I am thankful that my fortitude allowed me to bear the disgusting sight with aplomb. Normally, I wouldn’t, even in my wildest dreams have allowed to coexist with this revolting reptile. The low, groaning sound of the ceiling fan, as usual, did nothing to provide respite from the blazing hot weather.
Gyan Gere had collapsed into his reclining chair and was on the threshold of falling into a deep, dreamless slumber. He kept looking fixedly at Bhrigu as if insuring he had nothing further to say. At that point, I saw my friend fumbling inside the pocket of his Kurta. After a struggle for a couple of seconds, he drew forth a book. I wondered whether this was the time for him to indulge in his reading habits.
‘Ghanshyam Singh would be called for questioning shortly,’ he said, placing the dirty, crumpled book on the table. ‘he would try to justify his action and make us sympathetic towards his conduct. Trust me; he is a very persuasive man. He may very well trick us into believing that he was the real victim. Hence, just after we arrested him on the roof, I made my wat to his house to search for something I was very sure he had concealed in his house. Something so incriminating that he could do nothing but accept his guilt. I could enter and search his house without interference as they already knew that their master had been arrested and I was there to investigate on behalf of the police. I thought I would have to search the house with a fine-toothed comb to get to that evidence, but was pleasantly surprised when his wife gifted it to me as soon as she knew who I was. The woman looked as tortured as a lamb before it is slaughtered. She said and I quote—‘Take this diary and deliver him from evil. I could not help my daughter when she was alive as I was scared before but not anymore.’ This diary holds the key to all our questions.’
We looked closely at the forlorn, gloomy little diary sitting awkwardly at the centre of the table. The black velvety covering had changed colour to a dirty grey; the pages were solied and looked like old parchment. It was this innocent diary that had somehow been responsible for three deaths and a coma. Bhrigu gently turned the cover and on the first page were written in beautiful, cursive writing the words ‘Chandani, my friend.’ Apparently, Chandani was the name that Meenakshi sued for her diary. I know that when people write personal diaries they often do so by fondly naming it so that they could easily share their inmost thoughts with it, like one does with a dear and precious friend. On the first five pages was written simple but heartfelt poetry on school, mother, and life. The poems were composed by a child but the depth of feeling that was conveyed by those straight, unadorned lines melted my heart and I could feel my face getting flushed with the warmth they carried. On the next eight pages were drawn beautiful pictures of goats, buffaloes, a rough sketch of a younger and happier-looking Ghanshyam Singh, his wife, the fields and her house, her coterie of friends, her school, and a beautiful rainbow rising over a well. The confessions to the diary started after the picture of the hypnotic rainbow. It ran like his—
‘My dear Chandani,
Today, I am a student of class ninth. Wow! Father says that I am really growing fast. He says that soon it will be time for them to marry me off to a prince charming. I am so angry with him when he says such things. I told him squarely that I want to study and become something good, someone good. . . I don’t want to marry ever! He asked me about what I wanted to become. . . and I said I was confused. . . I have not decided just yet. . . My teacher tells me about these wonderful professions. . . (It was then struck off by one clear line) professions, I cannot decide which one to pick. . .
Got to go Chandani. . . Mother’s calling for breakfast. . . Bye!’
The next entry was after three months and it said—
‘Dear Chandani,
I think I have finally decided what I want to become when I grow up. I want to be a social worker just like Suman didi who comes to our village every month to provide the poor students with books and stationary. She is a very sweet person and her passion to do good, really inspires me. My teacher applauded me when I told him that I had found my purpose in life, I thought father would be happy to hear it as he is my role model and I want him to be proud of me. I ran to him with the news and waited with delight to see the expression on his face. But Chandani, he wasn’t as ecstatic as I hoped he would be. He said that of all the paying careers, why would I chose a profession, (again it was struck of by a straight line) profession which hardly qualified to be called one? He said that social worker is just another word for unemployed. When he saw that I was confused by his outlook, he tried to cheer me up by saying that he just wanted what was best for his daughter. He said that he could send me to any prestigious school in the country and that I shouldn’t think like the poorer students in my class. Their fate was sealed by their birth but I wasn’t like them. I had the money and the power to mend my fate to what I wanted it to be. I vaguely understand what he was trying to say and I think that he wasn’t wrong either but. . . but. . . why do I feel this horrible pit in my stomach? Why do I find myself rebelling against the very idea? I hope this bad feeling would soon pass.’
The next addition was after eight months.
‘Dear friend,
I have decided that I am my own person and that however much I love my father, I cannot let him dictate my life. I respect him a lot but on this matter I am afraid I will have to put my foot down. I know that he loves me a lot and the only way I can show him that I am really passionate about what I am talking about is by proving to him that I have the qualities to bring a change. I have decided that I will form a committee with a handful of my friends that will look after the interests of the illiterate villagers who are exploited every day because of their lack of education and cunning. My team will look after them and will be made responsible for them. I have decided to call the committee ‘The Guardians’. Once father witnesses how we are capable of doing what we say, he would relent and give me his blessings. Of that I am very confident.’
The next five pages had been compromised to paste photographs of village men and women who had been helped in some way or the other by ‘The Guardians’. Their colourful picture was posted in the left side of the page and the corresponding story on the right. I also saw a group photo of Meenakshi with her community of helpers. She was the girl sitting confidently in the centre. Her kind, bright black eyes, shining countenance and a delicate, sensitive mouth were proofs to her strong, determined but gentle nature. She exuded the calm assurance, silent strength and unassailable dignity of a born leader.
The next addition to the diary came after six months and it read—
‘My dear Chandani,
Our work is gathering speed. We have been successful in helping many poor villagers regarding their diverse problems. Kachani Devi, age 39, was finding it difficult to protect her farm cabbages from the locusts. The insecticide was way too costly for her. Her income was dwindling as cabbage selling is her only occupation. She brought her problem to us and my teak took immediate steps. I told her that the government had subsidised the sale of insecticides for marginal farmers and she could now get it very cheap from a store nearby. We went with her to the store to see to it that she gets the correct price and is not cheated by the unscrupulous, greedy merchants. I am very happy that our efforts are paying off. Educating farmers and local producers about their rights and simultaneously making them aware of the several government schemes run for them has helped these poor people from much distress,
P.S. I hope Father would now see that my work is as important as the paying ones.’
The next few pages were again plastered with the camera conscious pictures of villagers who had been helped in some way or the other by the committee. The diary was serving the dual function of recording the memoirs of a young adult and documenting the progress of her work.
The next piece was added after three months.
‘Chandani,
Today I met a man called Mahesh Yadav who I think is suffering from some sort of delusion. He came to me looking for help and when I asked about his problem, he related to me a bizarre cock and bull story involving my own father! According to this madman, my father has somehow been responsible for the disappearance of his younger brother. One day, he went to the fields to collect the harvest and never returned! At first I scolded him soundly for spreading such vile stories about a very respectable man of this village and then I suggested that the only help that I think he needed was to see a good psychiatrist (it was then struck of with one clear line) psychiatrist. He took offence at my levity in the most ungentlemanly manner and said that many people of this village had lost their young sons to my father’s illegal operation, whatever that was and due to the fear of their lives they have not dared come out into the open. Everyone in this village who has a bonny son reaching adulthood, lives in the fear that one fateful day he will disappear from the face of this earth leaving no breadcrumbs on the trail behind. I lightly asked the clearly deranged person about how he could be so sure of my father’s hand in the involvement and he laughed. He laughed hoarsely. Another sign of mental deterioration. He said that he ‘put two and two together’. To my next question as to what the illegal operation was, he gave me a long look and quietly retreated. This episode made me realise that in my line of work, running against such loafers who have nothing better to do with their time than to indulge in poor gossip was certainly a problem.
He gave me a good laugh though.’
After two months—
Chandani,
After that Mahesh Yadav incident, a few villagers came to me corroborating his outrageous story. They said that Yadav had lost his marbles due to the disappearance of his brother but the crux of his story was legit. My father, they said, is involved in a scandalous operation involving the illegal transportation of coal from Senduwar to Palamau. They said that he was hand in glove in other smuggling operations, too. He recruited youngsters as bonded labourers and worked their hide off at merely a pittance in such smuggling activities. I was shocked to my core and reeled at the spot. My mind could not process what it was hearing. My dear father. . . a smuggler? How could that possibly be? I know he wasn’t supportive of my work but I have always known him to be a kind man and even though I was but an adopted daughter he has done everything for me that any loving father would. It is impossible to believe them. If a person such as my father can be a criminal, then any good person walking on this earth can very well be a criminal, too.
The villagers said that they had kept their mouths shut all this time to protect themselves as my father and the mafia he works for are ruthless and could easily make them disappear, too. But now as they see me, his own daughter working night and day for the betterment of people like them, they could not help but approach me for the biggest problem plaguing their lives in the form of my own father. They felt that as I was his beloved daughter I could coax him to release their loved ones from laboring forcefully in the smuggling operation. I write about this ghastly episode with trembling fingers, a throbbing heart and a mind that has become numb with the blunt force trauma caused by this terrible news. I hope against hope that this be nothing more than a misunderstanding and the fog of confusion clears before the sun rises again tomorrow.’
After a month and a half—
‘Chandani,
I have struggled for the past one month to come to terms with the fact that my father is indeed a criminal who has been responsible for ruining many lives. My heart rebels against this, even in the face of concrete proof but my brain has to acquiesce to the stark, naked truth. It’s hard to believe that only a month and a half ago, I was so close to my father. . . he was my pillar, my strength, my idol. . . despite our small altercation regarding this work, I always looked up to him. . . but. . . now I look at him and he feels like a total stranger. . . I miss my mother, too, who I still love dearly but. . . but. . . how can I go to her for comfort when I see how proudly she flaunts her beautiful Mangalsutra and adorn herself with jewels in the name of my father? How can I make her my confidante when I see her glowing with the sheen of my father’s affection? How can i? The truth will take all happiness away from her but. . . but. . . what am I to do then? I am sick at heart Chandani and sometimes life seems such a burden. . . It is as if an earthquake has shifted the very ground on which I was confidently standing. How I long to escape the misery, the pain, the injustice of life. . . How I wish I was never born. . .’
Three months later—
‘Chandani,
I have met a man called Vidwait. He has come to visit a distant relative who lives in the village. He is a very kind man. I met him at the school when he came to see a student off who happened to be his cousin. I don’t know why but from the moment I saw him it felt as if I had known him for ages. He looked so familiar. He, too, was staring at me from a distance. When I passed the school gate, he introduced himself like a gentleman. Chandani! He is wonderful! He is not only handsome but very soft-spoken too! My life has been in a turmoil these past months as I still struggle to accept the truth about my father and with every passing day, the distance between us keeps growing. . . For the first time after that incident, the dark days of confusion and chaos have cleared to admit a beam of sunlight. I am glad for this respite. . .’
With every addition that I read, I became more and more uncomfortable under my own skin; the same discomfiture that possesses you when you unwittingly walk into the most private moments of a person. . . The struggle within the mind of this young girl, standing on the cusp of a breakdown, was almost too much to bear and I gently moved my head to a side, unable to continue with the perusal. Bhrigu was quick to notice my plight. He looked at me with eyes that shone with sincere emotion, almost mirroring mine. Well, whatever the differences in our natures might be, we both fundamentally shared the characteristics of an empathetic human being. Our group had become unsettled, too. The passionate words flowed from the book and saturated the very air that we breathed, threatening to suffocate us. I knew that if I had the choice, I wouldn’t have like to continue with my unpleasant task.
The next addition was after fifteen days—
Chandani,
I have a feeling that my father suspects that I know everything about his nefarious activities. For the past one week, his attitude has completely changed towards me. He no longer asks me how my day went and he no longer inquires about my health. Almost always he used to come to my room at night to wish me goodnight but he has stopped doing so in the past one week. When I tried to talk him over breakfast, he gave me curt replies and I felt as if he was deliberately trying to tell me to leave him alone. Mother also notices his coolness towards me and tries to make it up for him by showering me with her love and care. As I see closely, I can clearly make out the creases on her gentle, beautiful face that weren’t there a few months before. I know she knows nothing but her female intuition is strong and she can very well sense that something’s amiss. As she cannot quite put a finger on it, she is all the more perplexed and troubled. How I blame myself for her pitiful condition! How I wish I could undo everything! Father is not making matters any easier for me. I have sometimes even caught him looking at me with such hate in his eyes that I fear he is waiting to make his move. Chandani, I feel as if slowly and steadily my father and I have begun to fall into the roles of adversaries and I very much fear that the day of our clash sits snugly in the future. . .
P.S. I am thankful to god that in these troubled times, where I fear my own shadow, a great guy like Vidwait is my ally and friend. I now meet him frequently and we share so much! I am thankful that apart from you, I now have a person in my life with whom I feel so loved and secure. . .
After two months—
Chandani,
My worst fears have come true. My father confronted me yesterday and threatened me not to associate myself with the villagers. He also said that if I did not put a stop to my ‘nonsense work’, there would be dire consequences. Chandani, it was so frightening to see the change that has been wrought in him. I could scarcely recognise the man towering over me with red, angry eyes as the loving one that I always knew my father to be. His face was contorted with rage and hatred so supreme that I thought he would explode any second. How can anyone change so? I kept pleading my case and he kept repeating one line over and over again. ‘Leave the nonsense behind,’ he said, ‘and everything will be as before.’ But will it, Chandani? Will it? How can I go on living with the burden of the truth that I now know? How can I? I am not that person and father knows it too and that’s why he’s so angry at me. . .
He has also come to know of my meetings with Vidwait and forces me not to see ‘that pauper’s son’ ever again. I was quite in the face of his explosion that was long overdue but I will fight back. I know my time will come. As I said before, he will not decide the course of my life or my actions. No, he won’t.
After one month—
Chandani,
The past month has seen a cold war developing between me and my father which is threatening to freeze any warmth of feeling that we ever had for each other. I know my father is expecting me to break this ice by apologising to him for refusing to obey his orders, but he knows as well as I do that I am made of sterner stuff. It’s ironical when I think that it was/who was expecting a full explanation from him regarding how the villagers have gotten confused and mixed matters up. . . but his cold and morose behaviour has only helped to prove beyond all doubt that the poor people were telling the truth. I sometimes feel that if I wasn’t his adopted daughter, he would have wasted no time in sealing my fate with them. But I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to enjoy this privilege as his contempt for me gets stronger with every passing day, replacing his love little by little with pure hate. . . I can see it in the way he turns his back towards me if I happen to be in his vicinity and hurriedly sums up a light moment with my mother if I happen to call in on her. He is displacing me from his life and it’s only a matter of time when this irreversible process gets completed. . . leaving me all alone again. . .
P.S. Thank God I have Vidwait to share my troubles with. . . He and I have really grown very fond of each other and. . . and I may very well have already fallen deeply in love with him. . .
The last poignant entry was eighteen days later. It ran like this—
Chandani,
I. . . I can’t believe he could do something as terrible as this! I knew I had started to repulse him but to take that out on Vidwait! How brutal is that! I have no doubts now that my father is a monster in disguise. He could see that he could not harm me owning to the love my mother bore for me. . . and the one person we both are deeply attached, too. I, too, tried to turn a blind eye to everything. . . I suppressed my character. . . I shared in his sins by keeping quiet in the face of his atrocities out of concern for my mother but. . . but. . . he did not leave the matter alone. He just could not tolerate that I was helping his poor victims by doing everything that I could to find the whereabouts of their loved ones. I did not seek to destroy him! I was just trying to help! But his inflated sense of self-importance could not digest that. . . His iron fist had to destroy everyone who did not throw the gauntlet in the face of his tyranny. . . He could not touch me and so he turned towards the one person that meant the world to me. . . Vidwait. You know Chandani; his henchmen beat the poor man to the inch of his life! We rushed him to the district hospital where his life hangs in the balance. . . Oh! If something happens to him. . . The thought makes me shudder with an unimaginable fear. . .
My father will now have to answer to his every sin. I was quiet for far too long but the unrelenting din of injustice has chased every peaceful thought away from my mind. Only vengeance can now still my restless soul. . . I will see to it that he gets his just desserts.
P.S. A room in our house is always under a lock and key. Only my father has access to this room. He enters it surreptitiously and leaves it stealthily. . . I now know that that room must serve as his office for illegal work. I have decided to break into that room as I know for a certainty that I would find proof of his chicanery hidden somewhere in its mysterious folds. I know a villager called Rama who can pick locks. It’s now a matter of time that this vile snake’s cover is blown and the world sees him for what he truly is. . .
On the next page was clumsily posted a page out of a file and as we looked closer we found that it was a balance sheet outlining transactions that involved crores of rupees. The money was paid to the concerned parties for the ‘Supplication of coal’, ‘Supplication of cheap labout’, and ‘Supplication of tendu leaves’. It was a black page out of a black book where the date of operation and distribution of profits to the said parties was meticulously maintained and the balance sheets rapidly approved by the signature of the accountant who was none other than Ghanshyam Singh. The evidence of his complicity in illegal work and thus his subsequent fate was duly stamped and sealed.
The valiant Meenakshi had been successful in her mission of implicating her father and the cost that she paid, a terrible cost that was never mentioned in any ledger. . . was her own life. . .
31
A Full Circle
Ghanshyam Singh sat facing us on the chair, as straight as an arrow. He very much resembled an old violin whose strings had been tightened to the breaking point. The fibres in the muscles of his face where also painfully strained under the burden that threatened to crush his mind. He looked almost at the point of a mental breakdown but I suppose his hubris prevented him from openly exhibiting his pathetic state. He kept staring into space with blank, slit like eyes as if he was just bodily present with us but his mind was far removed from his physical existence, wandering by itself, looking for a sign of hope to cling to. I had a suspicion that he might be visiting the time when his world came crashing down about his ears as he retaliated with a fury, a blind fury that destroys everything in its path. . . his home. . . his life. . . his own daughter. . . The most important question that was now left to settle was that how much his actions were prompted by passion and how much of it was cold calculation. The more the scales tipped towards the latter, the less became the chances of his salvation.
‘I know you are not in the mood to talk,’ Bhrigu said, trying to pull him out of his trance-like state into the present. ‘So, let’s cut a deal. Let me do the talking and you, for once, listen.’
Ghanshyam Singh’s eyebrows went up a barely perceptible degree but apart from that there was no visible change whatsoever.
‘You said before that you were a man who understood ‘responsibility’ and did everything in your power to protect what was yours. What was yours? Tell me? The fiefdom whose borders where slowly receding or the title of a landlord that was leaving you with your land? You thought it was your responsibility to do everything in your power to hold on to your status and hence you joined hands with the local mafia. Didn’t you? You kept justifying your actions and propitiating your conscience by telling yourself that you were doing it to safeguard your inheritance. . . you were so lost in your own perverted ideals that the lives of innocent men became just a thing that you traded for your selfishness. The road to crime is very slippery. Once you put your first foot, it does the rest for you; it carries you smoothly to your doom. You took a small step by illegally transporting coal and ended up doing everything that was as black as your soul that now hides behind your polished exterior.’ Bhrigu’s face had become flushed with this impassioned speech. He took a deep breath and then began. ‘You became so lost and disillusioned that the life of your daughter whom you loved and cherished became insignificant when she threatened to destroy your house of black cards. You forced her to take her own life and then took a sigh of relief. But when the past threatened to resurrect itself, you went on doing what you did best and that was removing everyone who stood in the path of you and your grandeur. Well, from what I see, I don’t find anything grand about you; I just see a bent, pathetic old man who lost his way and his head. Not very grand is it?’
The heat of the words thawed the ice as Ghanshyam Singh came out of his trance and looked at Bhrigu with eyes spitting fire and I was afraid he would strike him hard, but to my relief, he just glared at him for a couple of seconds and fell back into his comatose state again.
‘Just to bring you up to speed,’ said Bhrigu, now addressing us. ‘I would now tell you why and how this tragedy of epic proportions unfolded. It was this man’s greed that ignited the fuse which led to the conflagration.’ He threw one look of contempt towards the statue of a man and then resumed. ‘Meenakshi wrote in her last addition of how she succeeded in procuring a solid piece of evidence that could help prove beyond all doubts that her father worked for the mafia. The story ends at that despairingly jubilant note and I will now reveal what happened next. Meenakshi, at that time, was under the powerful, almost hypnotic grip of fury and she had decided that while going to school the other day, she would take the evidence to the local police station. But her plans never materialised as Ghanshyam Singh entered his office that very night and quickly discovered that an important page form his ledger book was missing. Meenakshi was unlucky here as she happened to take a page on which her father was currently working out the transactions. Had she taken an old one, of last year’s perhaps, no one would have been the better. Well, on discovering his loss, a mad Ghanshyam Singh assumed at once that his daughter must have had something to do with its disappearance. He violently shook his daughter out of her fitful sleep in the middle of the night and demanded that she immediately return the page back to him. To this, Meenakshi feigned total ignorance. Ghanshyam Singh was already simmering with anger for what he thought to be her daughter’s betrayal and now in the face of such defiance, he lost all restraint and slapped her hard across her face. To add to the poor girl’s misery, he locked her up in her room and said that she could only earn her freedom by returning what was rightfully his. The strained cord that still existed between the father and daughter snapped with this last terrible pull. Meenakshi, when her anger had subsided, was considering in the dead of the night whether she should turn on her father and as she remembered the years of his love and affection, her resolution surely and steadily dissolved. This bitter spat with him renewed the hurt and resentment she was feeling for the past couple of months and as was natural she thought of her only source of comfort—Vidwait. With the thought of Vidwait, she was once again reminded of his pitiful condition and her benumbed bruises spike with an intolerable pain. In that weak moment, it appeared to her that the root cause of everyone’s misery was her own father and as her anger crossed the Rubicon, her hatred devoured her whole. With her skin burning with the fever of contempt, she looked desperately around for a means of escape and finally her eyes rested on the ventilator that occasionally shone into prominence in the dark room by reflecting the lightening outside. It was a space narrow for a girl of her size but somehow she wriggled herself free from her captivity and landed awkwardly on terra ferma.’
‘That night, rain was pouring hard and strong and the ground that she touched was slippery with the stagnation of rain water. Despite the challenges of an unwholesome weather, she kept on running with a manic energy until she found a clearing. I must inform you that she had brought her diary along. I guess in her state of mind she just wanted to hide the diary someplace where a villager could easily find it and thus reveal the truth about her father to the world. As the fields of the village where regularly ploughed and sowed she thought it to be a matter of time that the diary was finally discovered. At last, she found a place to her satisfaction and buried the diary in a shallow grave that she had dug with her bare hands. As her work was completed, the torture that she had endured came rushing back to her as an avalanche and crushed every reason for her to continue living. Before leaving the room, she had pocketed the sleeping pills of her mother that were always stocked in Meenakshi’s room. These she took in full and within an hour her soul was finally light and free from the agony again.’
We were listening with rapt attention as Bhrigu called for a glass of water, sipped noisily and then began his narrative again. ‘The very next day, they discovered the body but even though Ghanshyam Singh combed the house in search of the elusive page, it did not reveal itself. How could it? As he and his men were searching the house inside out, the little diary was lying in its shallow grave, dark and distant from prying eyes.’
‘Meenakshi’s intention was clear nut what she did not know was that the land she was submitting her diary to was no ordinary land but that of Jiyashree, the mythical witch. In the night, she must have walked right past the board. It was an alleged haunted site and hence no one came to venture there. Thus her diary remained in its resting place until the gold hunt began and greed overcame phantom fear.’
‘Malthu was the one who, after being egged on by his friends, arrived first at the haunted site and discovered the nuggets of gold but nobody knew that he had found something else, too. It was the diary of Meenakshi that was sleeping undisturbed for a long time. Had he been any ordinary boy, he would have thrown the revolting looking thing and gathered the shining trinkets instead but as he was a special kid and was gifted with a childlike curiosity; unique and endearing, he was overjoyed at the sight of this old diary with its beautiful pictures within. For him, it was much more precious that the worthless golden scraps. He shared the nuggets with the world but hid his precious diary from everyone but his mother.’
‘He was very possessive about his lucky find and spent hours poring over it, trying to understand the beautifully crafted words written with a feminine flourish. Needless to say, he could not understand much but going over the lines gave him a certain pleasure shared by the keeper of secrets when they have the luxury of knowing something that is hidden to the world. Intrigued and inspired, he even tried to jot down his own ill assortment of words which you would have found had you cared to look at the last pages. No Sutte, don’t interrupt me by looking at it now. It is most distracting. Now, as days changed into months and the rush that had come with his little adventure began to subside, he felt the yearning to share the delights of his find with someone whom he trusted and loved. After his mother, Malthu was close only to one person, Bali. So, he ran to his uncle and with his face beaming with the exultation of a victor, showed him his coveted prize. Bali was more than happy to feign interest to please his nephew whom he genuinely liked but as he began turning the pages, colour drained from his face as he realised the insidious potential of what his hands held. You see, Bali already knew everything about Meenakshi and how she had secreted away the black page to oblivion. He at once understood that where Ghanshyam Singh had failed he had succeeded.’
‘But how did he come to know about everything?’ asked Pratap and I secretly congratulated him on voicing my question.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ replied Bhrigu. ‘He worked for Ghanshyam Singh; not as a mill worker as he told us in the interview but as his guard and henchman.’
‘Oh!’ I ejaculated.
‘Yes. He was very happy at the prospect of getting rewards from the landlord once he presented this gift to him and he tried hard to borrow it from Malthu for a day or two. Had the boy done the needful, he would still be alive but with the obduracy of a child who cannot bear to be parted with its most precious toy, he refused to oblige his uncle. He snatched the diary from his hands and ran in the direction of his house. On the wings of desperation, Bali gave him a good chase and soon overtook his nephew. He tried to wrestle the diary from Malthu’s hands but he protected it against his bosom and nothing that Bali did, help him pry the diary from his interlocked arms. Exasperated and exhausted by his futile effort, he lost his temper and pushed the boy violently to the ground. I assume it was an accident but Malthu fell at an awkward angle that caused a severe injury to his cervical vertebrae and within a couple of minutes he was dead.’
A hush had fallen over the group and in the overpowering silence we could distinctly hear our rapid breathing, trying to keep up with the breathless pave of this tragic story. We kept looking at Ghanshyam Singh almost as if he were a celebrity out of a motion picture. The man was still a living statue with all of hi slife concentrated in the smouldering of his eyes.
‘Bali checked his pulse and after finding none he so panicked that he forgot all about the diary and ran towards the security of his home, away from the scene of the accident. In a few hours, a passing villager discovered the body and somewhere, a loafer gossiped about the witch punishing Malthu for riling her resting place. As is the destiny of rumours, it soon became common knowledge that Malthu had succumbed to the dead witch’s black magic.’
‘When the danger had passed, Bali’s fear of being caught was overcome and he soon became thirsty for the rewards and recognition he would receive once he favoured Ghanshyam Singh with what he had sought for so long. He figured that if he had ever a shot at finding at again, it would be at Jayanti Devi’s house but the question was how to search her hut? She would become suspicious if he boldly attempted such a thing. He racked his brains and soon came up with a plan. He disguised his intentions with fake affection and started showing up at Jayanti Devi’s house inquiring after her and looking after her health. Within a month, he had earned her full trust. Now he borrowed some money by selling a few of his possessions and advised Jayanti Devi to shift to a better house that he had arranged for her. He also asked her to leave all her furniture and belongings behind as they would always evoke the memory of her beloved son. The idea behind this devious plan was to search the house thoroughly once the old lady had vacated it.’
‘So did he find what he was looking for?’ I asked despite myself.
‘I was coming to it, Sutte,’ he said with a hint of exasperation he always kept handy for me. ‘Yes, he did find the diary, It was concealed in a colourful box in some obscure part of the hut. Once he had discovered what he thought was his employer’s unholy grail, he ran to hand it over and earn his reward. Ghanshyam Singh was glad indeed and in return he gave Bali two things. First, his well-earned reward, and second, a warning that he would lose his life if he dared let his tongue, slip the contents of the black page to anyone else.’
‘The matter, again, had the scope of ending then and there with no one the better, but it is said that the dead have a way of rising from the grave and demanding justice. Jayanti Devi, Malthu’s mother, started having a string suspicion; an intuition, if you will, that her son had not died in an accident but at the hands of someone she knew and hated. She suspected that the greedy and unscrupulous Mutukal Kumar was somehow responsible for her loss. She had no one to share her fears with, when I knocked at her door. You already know the rest, Sutte. You can brief our friends about that interview later on.’
‘Do you remember that Jayanti Devi had a strong suspicion of someone watching her? The reason why she did not divulge anything concerning her relatives? Well, she was right but it was not her bete noir Mutukal Kumar who was trying to eavesdrop on our conversation but Bali. From the moment he had accidentally caused Malthu’s death, he had become paranoid with guilt. He irrationally thought that Jayanti Devi might suspect something any day and hence had fallen into the habit of stealthily following her around. His fears escalated to mania when he heard that the old woman was enlisting the help of a detective in solving the case of the mysterious death of her son. He panicked, ran to his house, and shut himself in. You see, Bali was a mentally weak person. He worked as one of Ghanshyam Singh’s henchmen, owing to the recommendation of a friend but he never really appreciated the dangers lurking behind the profession. He preferred to hide behind his other colleagues and let them do the dirty work on his behalf. This arrangement worked and he got to have a decent living, too, but he was always in awe of the lathi bearing, fearless strongmen who protected the zamindar and always thought what a powerful man he must be to command such a force of brutes. The day he went to collect his reward was the day he actually got to meet the man and his menacing manner had chilled his spine in a moment. He swore never to bother him again.’
Bhrigu again had a sip of water and continued, ‘The fact that the case was being reopened exposed his raw nerve and the fear of getting caught took him in its powerful grip. He wanted to warn Ghanshyam Singh about the matter as in a way, they had become confederates in the same crime but the mortal fear of the man kept him in check. After many troubled, sleepless nights he finally decided on what looked like the only course of action left for him to pursue. He was going to take the matters in his own hands and somehow try to nip the matter in its bud.’
‘Sutte, you remember the threatening note on the leaf and the dead bird? Well, that was the handiwork of Bali. It seems that his only ally in his difficult time was the dead witch, with whose help he tried to scare us away, but sadly our rationale defeated the man-witch team.’
I remembered the ghastly incident that had scared the wits out of me. Clearly, the combination of a morbid specimen of a dead crow and a leaf, expressing the less-than-friendly intent of a popular witch was a trifle more than my weak nerves could handle. It was a relief now to know that the alleged preternatural occurrences were just the machinations of a troubled man who himself was half scared to death.
Bhrigu was still explaining. ‘I then focused my attention on my last suspect Bali. By what Jayanti Devi had told me about the circumstances following her son’s death, I already half suspected him but after the interview was over, I was fairly certain that Bali had somehow propagated the sad affair. (I asked the reason and he said he would give the particulars later.) That night when we left, Bali was very troubled. His nerves were frayed and he could barely breathe out of fright. He was scared less of us and more of what would happen to him, lest the truth got out and our dear friend in trance here, zamindar Ghanshyam Singh, took him to task. His fear reached its lofty height when the very next morning, his best friend Bal Kishore, paid him a visit. He came to ask after the health of his sick friend and also to deliver the news that the landlord wanted to see him presently. Bal Kishore worked odd jobs for the zamindar and he sometimes used the lad as his messenger. Bali almost panicked after hearing this news as he thought it must have had something to do with the investigation. Out of sheer nervouseness, he told everything that he knew to Bal Kishore and appealed to him to talk to the zamindar and try to convince him of the fact that he did not divulge any of his secrets regarding the black page. Bal Kishore was a good-natured lad and he readily accepted Bali’s entreaties. You see, Bali wrongly suspected that Ghanshyam Singh knew all about the affair. He had some other work that he wanted Bali to handle. It was through Bal Kishore that he came to know of everything. Meanwhile, Bali’s mental strength finally gave way and he fell into a peaceful coma after many a frightful night.’
I glanced sideways at Ghanshyam Singh. He was still as stiff as a rod. I felt that if I lightly touched him, he would trip over like a statue. I was sometimes having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the depraved villain in the story was the old, broken man sitting right before us.
‘We then came upon the scene,’ Bhrigu was saying, ‘and I subsequently figured out the involvement of Bal Kishore. Ghanshyam Singh knew that the poor lad had been caught and detained for questioning and hence he was on his case. He was now a threat far too great for the landlord to be allowed to live. You remember, Sutte, when Bal Kishore saw Ghanshyam Singh as we met outside the police station, he ran like fifty ferocious dogs were behind him? Well, he was scared as he knew the dangerous predicament he had unwittingly landed himself into. He was now in mortal fear of his life. He ran home and tried to barricade himself from that terror. He only checked on the outside world through the ventilator which eventually got the better of him. If I wasn’t a Pundit, he wouldn’t have let me in too.’
As he paused for a breath, I knew that he had concluded the story and as the four of us sat there making a half circle, shrouded in the shadows of intrigue, Ghanshyam Singh’s tremulous voice rose from the forgotten chair on which he sat and said—‘Meenakshi was my daughter. I loved her but. . . she. . . she. . . she destroyed me. . .’
32
The Pieces Fall Together
‘She did not destroy you,’ said Bhrigu looking at him with eyes spitting fire. ‘You destroyed yourself; you and no one else. You cannot assuage your guilt anymore by repeating your lies to yourself. You tortured a poor girl beyond all human endurance, traumatised others who unwittingly shared in your dirty secret, and still all you can think of is yourself. I don’t have to go into my researches to understand people that stand in your lot. It’s very clear. You are a cold-blooded narcissist who is capable only of thinking about himself. I know you will never feel any remorse for what you did and that’s why I will not tolerate another word that falls from your lips. Sir. . .’ He said addressing the portly man, ‘Please show him his new headquarters.’
We were sitting on the porch outside Bhrigu’s house. It was a bright, sunny day and my friend sat on his favourite stool, scribbling intently in his diary. I looked at him for a minute or two and ventured to ask.
‘There are many points in this mystery that you have still not revealed.’
‘Such as?’ he asked, never once looking back at me.
‘You solved the mystery but you did not reveal the key that helped you find the solution.’
He smiled and said, ‘The key is human behavior and a keen eye.’ With this cryptic response, he disappeared into his notebook again. ‘Please don’t do that again. You know how much I hate it!’ I said with visible irritation. Tell me in detail. My first question is that how did you first suspect Bali?’
He exhaled a mock breath of defeat and began, ‘I first suspected him when Jayanti Devi told me with how much zest he had helped her in moving from her house. Bali is a poor man. He had trouble making ends meet and so it stands to reason why, out of the blue, he became so sympathetic for the grieving widow, helping her in a way that was well beyond his means. It was fairly obvious to me that he wanted the house to himself and as it was not for tenancy, it could only mean that he was desperately searching for something hidden in the house. He was the only one in the list of suspects whom I found contradictory from the very first. I would now enumerate the three points that led to it—
The points which led me on to him during the interview were—
‘These points were enough to put me on his case,’ he concluded.
I weighed what he had said in my mind and sifted the evidence. It looked clear enough now that he had said it.
‘But I observed suspicious behavior on the part of Mutukal and Avdoot, too. And remember Meenakumari’s tale? From what she told me, Avdoot had a pretty solid reason to kill Malthu. How did you get around that?’
He coughed gently and said, ‘You observed how both Mutukal and Avdoot became nervous when we questioned them about Malthu, didn’t you?’
I nodded my head and waited for the perfect analysis of these colourful characters that he had refused to provide at the start of the investigation.
‘Mutukal is a ruffian who is very much under the power of his wife. This we deciphered before. He is a slacker as well but the big question is how his character would allow him to behave if he had done anything wrong. Mutukal Kumar is a brute but that is an exterior only that hides and protects a weak heart inside. His every action is prompted by external influence which is his wife. If he had anything to do with the murder, on questioning, he would have panicked and relapsed into his ruffian mode, in order to hide that raw fear. But when asked about his nephew, he started—a) simpering, b) flushing, and c) stammering, which meant that he wasn’t making any effort to hide his weak nature and hence it can be concluded safely that he was hiding nothing. The nervousness that he exhibited was only because he thought he wasn’t doing well in the interview and his wife would therefore be mad at him.’
‘And you have a name for your theory here?’ I asked almost involuntarily.
‘Yes, I do,’ he replied looking sceptically at me. ‘But I have a feeling that your question is more jocular than serious? You never have any special regard for the names I give to my theories.’
I smiled slowly and said, ‘You underestimate me, my friend. I appreciate those titles and if you want, I can offer my literary expertise to name a few.’
‘Please. . . leave that domain to me alone,’ he replied hotly. ‘If you care for it, the name I have given to this behavior is “the turtle effect”.’
It was more than enough that I could do to suppress a loud guffaw. I have oft times wondered that if his R&A is so perfect, why the hell has he to let it all go down the drain with such preposterous names?
‘The turtle effect uh?’ I replied, applying the power of Hercules to control my laughter. ‘And why is that?’
He was looking at me with yes that were turning a deeper shade of red. ‘Because, Sutte, Mutukal Kumar hides his weak nature behind his tough exterior the same way as the turtle hides his soft body behind a hard carapace. Now you get it?’
‘Rather,’ I replied, trying hard to control my insides from exploding with laughter.
His mood had become surly. ‘I don’t think I should say anything else. You guess it for yourself.’
It took quite a lot of coaxing, cajoling and to be candid, begging for him to change his mind.
‘All right. All right,’ he said crossly. ‘No need to embarrass yourself. I will now move on to Avdoot.’
He cleared his throat and said, ‘Avdoot is a weak man with a nervous disposition. He is insecure and requires someone to be his strength and keep on assuring him that all is well. This support he has found in his wife, Indumati.’
‘Now how would Avdoot behave if he had something to hide? Avdoot is a sort of person who, when threatened, hides behind his source of strength and lets that person take charge. He is completely unable to function by himself. His major concern was Indumati getting to know about his love affair with Meena Kumari. Hence, in order to get rid of the dread he was feeling of his wife discovering his secret from an outside person, he, himself, told her everything. Indumati, being a broad-minded, modern woman, accepted his past graciously and Avdoot heaved sigh of relief. This I call “the creeper effect” as Avdoot is a creeper who can only stand erect by entwining to a rigid support.’
This title I had no trouble digesting and everything was well in my world.
My friend was saying ‘Avdoot’s weakness was the reason he had to leave Meena Kumari. At first he got attracted to her charm and started dating her but later he cane to know that the pretty girl was just as insecure as him. She was fed up by her unsympathetic parents and wanted just about anyone to marry her and release her from the torture of living with them. Hence, as their dating commenced, she became increasingly clingy and desperate. That was what drove Avdoot straight into the arms of a strong woman, Indumati.’
‘But if he had nothing to hide, why did he break a sweat when we questioned him about Malthu?’
‘Superstition, Sutte, blind fear,’ my friend replied easily. ‘You observed every detail about Avdoot but you failed to notice the rosary, half concealed in his Kurta’s sleeve? That’s the reason I asked him about the profession of his father. He was a village priest, as I had half suspected. Avdoot was brought up in a house steeped in the traditions of orthodoxy and fallacies. That’s the reason behind his weak, timid nature and also for his unreasonable fear of anything even remotely connected to the preternatural.’
I found myself remembering the events of the past as Bhrigu adroitly placed the people in their respective ‘categories’, classifying them according to their personalities.
‘Meenakumari told us about a colourful box where she used to keep her love letters and of how it magically disappeared. You don’t have an answer to that do you?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ he said. ‘Malthu used to visit Meenakumari often as he was her love letter boy. Remember that Malthu was childlike and children often have a weakness for colourful, attractive things. He must have noticed the beautifully decorated box and temptation drove him to purloin it. The reason was that simple. I am positively certain that he used it instead to keep his diary.’
‘You understood that part as soon as you heard it, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. It was pretty obvious.’
‘For you, I’m sure.’
I sat there brooding for a minute before another question assailed me.
‘After Meenakumari recounted her tale, you took off for a few hours. Where did you go and what did you do?’
‘Do you have a page where you have written all these questions or are you voicing them from memory?’ he asked with a touch of brusqueness.
‘It’s your own undoing,’ I replied with a touch of triumph. ‘If you wouldn’t be so stuck up in your philosophy that—‘I will reveal all once I have all the threads in my hand’ we would have fewer questions to go through.’
He looked at me with a hint of irritation but it soon dissolved into a gracious smile. I would even go as far as to say that he laughed a little. ‘You are a marvel, Sutte.’
‘Thank you for the appreciation,’ I shot back.
‘Well, for your answer,’ he resumed after curiously looking at me for a few seconds. ‘I frankly confess that I was taken aback not a little by the story of Meenakumari. It had shifted the basis of my investigation. I wanted to nip this deviation in the bud and hence I ran for help to the village’s most popular Dhaba. It is a place where people usually exchange gossip and make it their business to know anything that should be know about anyone. Naturally, Meenakumari and Avdoot’s affair was common knowledge there. The veterans of the Dhaba told me about how it started on a romantic foot and ended on the left when Meenakumari literally started giving the man a chase almost everywhere he went. As Avdoot was in the habit of relaxing with two of his friends at the Dhaba, she often used to come running to the place, desperately looking for him.’
‘I see,’ I said, again going through the weighing-what-he-had-said-and-sifting-the-evidence routine.
Silence reigned for a couple of minutes, where I found him scribbling in his diary once again. He then eyed me and said suddenly, ‘I didn’t give you Indumati’s analysis, did I?’
‘Nope,’ I replied. ‘And I didn’t find it in my heart to remind you lest it offended you again.’
‘You are a piece of word, Sutte,’ he said, gracing me with his lopsided smile ‘Indumati is a strong willed, intelligent woman who can keep a level head over her shoulders even when others all around her are busy losing theirs.’ He paused for a breath and continued, ‘She is a smart, strong woman with a modern outlook on life even though her rustic background totally rebels against it. This anomalous behaviour clearly reveals that she is scarcely influenced by the opinions of others and has a mind of her own. If she had to execute a plan, she would do it to perfection and leave not a clue behind.
Now, if such a woman had a hand in murder, she would have so cleverly steered the suspicion away from her and scattered it all over her relatives that by the end of the interview, we would have gone back convinced that anyone could be the murdered but her. And that she would have done coolly, without once losing her nerve. When we questioned her, did she behave in that manner? Was she unusually calm and collected? Was she interested in exposing the skeletons hidden in the closet of her relatives? No. The woman was forthcoming with her answers and also exhibited a normal level of anxiety regarding the interview as she desperately wanted her husband to get it. I could see how sharply she followed our questions and was ready with some of her own. By the end of the interview, it was evident to me that Indumati was clear of the crime.’
Even before I could voice my question, he asked coolly ‘If you were to give a name to such behaviour, what would it be?’
I was certainly taken aback at such a direct order. How come he, who is to touchy-feely about this matter, suddenly gives me the carte blanche to say what I pleased? ‘Are you sure?’ I asked feebly.
‘One hundred percent.’
‘Well. . . then. . . ummm. . .’
‘What?’
‘Let me think a while.’
‘Carry on then.’
‘I got it!’ I screamed ‘The Margaret Thatcher effect?’
He guffawed so loudly that I almost fell off my seat. He held his sides and laughed till tears flowed freely from the corners of his eyes. ‘S. . . Sutte!’ He cried between his hysteria, ‘You are too much!’
‘Thanks a lot,’ I replied, confused whether to take this remark as a polite compliment or a vile invective.
‘What have you named it?’ I asked after his cackle had subsided.
‘Your coinage was perfect. Why should I spoil it by offering mine?’
‘Hmm.’
Nirja Masi made an entry just then and removing the Puja cloth that she had left to dry in the sun, retreated, muttering god knows what under her breath. She paused at the threshold, looked at her nephew, and said in her usual stern voice, ‘I give you till tomorrow to decide on a girl. Sitting here idling and laughing with your no good friend won’t help move your life forward.’ After issuing this polite warning, she stomped off.
Bhrigu’s face drooped like a Mimosa Plant touched in full bloom.
‘Cheer up, man,’ I said with a ringing in my voice ‘Tell me, when you first suspected Ghanshyam Singh? I have this feeling that you weren’t easy in your mind about him. His story seemed to touch a few cords in you, I could see.’
I was thankful that my question brought him back from his nightmare world where he was busy running away from a fiend shaped relative. ‘Oh that?’ He ejaculated ‘Yes. After listening to what Ghanshyam Singh had to say about his alleged tragedy, I was certain that he was suffering from the “the Self effect”.’
‘The Self effect?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A person exhibiting “the Self effect” can think of no one but themselves alone. They can be very imaginative and enterprising when it comes to saving themselves and putting false blame on people who are completely innocent of the matter.’ He glanced at the door to make sure that Nirja Masi wasn’t eavesdropping and resumed: ‘His story, as you remember, revolved less around how her daughter suffered and more around how he had to endure everything. Meenakshi, even though dead, was projected as the culprit and Ghanshyam Singh himself, the victim. Tell me, where can you find a genuinely loving father, aggrieved over his daughter’s death, lamenting over his loss and simultaneously pinning everything on her? He was more concerned that we see him as a victim than he was for us to know how his own daughter suffered despite being loved and protected.’
‘Also,’ he resumed after a brief pause, ‘I saw something that corroborated my analysis. You remember when Ghanshyam Singh’s chair gave way and he fell to the ground most awkwardly?’
‘Yes. What about that?’
‘Well, did you not observe how he behaved in the wake of that little accident? His friend, Chaudhary Manendra Singh, rushed to his rescue. Any other person would have been glad for the help but not this man. He was too full of false pride to let anyone lend him a helping hand. He ignored the help his friend promptly and kindly offered, getting to his feet completely on his own. This was a classic case of someone chock full of the realisation of their own self-importance, so much so that they look down upon anything that remotely suggests to their mind the idea of submitting. This incident put a stamp on my diagnosis that the landlord was most definitely suffering from “the Self syndrome”.’
‘Hmm,’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘Now that you have said it, I found myself wondering the same when I saw his reaction to his friend coming to his aid. I found that pretty odd, too. I thought it touched a nerve in him.’
‘Exactly.’
We were silent for a space when I asked. ‘There are still a few questions that keep fighting for attention in my brain.’
‘Call for a ceasefire then,’ he replied with a smile. ‘Now that the case is closed, I won’t take a toll on your patience with my silence.’
I took this opportunity and fired away. ‘We all heard what the diary of Meenakshi had to say. What surprises me is that you knew everything that followed right after her last entry. There was no way of knowing that unless you were right there with her. What sorcery was that, huh?’
‘Sorcery?’ he said. ‘You aren’t calling me a witch now, are you?’
‘Please, answer me.’
‘To answer this question of yours, I’ll have to ask another question.’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you ever plotted a line graph?’
‘What sort of a question is that? Of course I have!’
‘So, you remember how we sued to do it, right? We calculate the x and the y; plot the coordinates on the graph and try to find the relation it follows by the line it traces. May it be straight, hyperbolic, parabolic, etc. . . Once we ascertain the relation, we can know what happened next simply by extrapolating the graph. I did the same with Meenakshi, too. The diary provided enough data to understand the character of Meenakshi and the relation she had with her father. I closely followed the line of action that the events of the diary traced. When it ended, all I had to do was to extrapolate the events further to complete it. I could have made a minimal of error as per the details, but the overall story was quite easy to foretell.’
‘You can plot the graphs of human beings, their activities, and relationships, too?’
‘It is in the line of my work, yes,’ he replied. ‘Have you not seen the various graphs I keep working on in my diary?’
I was too nonplussed to answer to this bizarre approach. ‘One day you will reduce our lives to a few simple quadratic equations, I am sure.’
‘I am trying,’ he said with a half-smile, trying his level best to annoy my sensibilities.
‘Your strange researches will one day be the death of me,’ I cried.
‘Do you want me to calculate that day?’ he asked, now smiling broadly.
I gave up. ‘Now stop gloating and stick to the case at hand. Please tell me everything that the diary revealed to you about Meenakshi.’ After a forethought, ‘And please. . . stick to Queen’s English.’
‘Meenakshi had many qualities,’ said my friend. ‘As you, yourself could have ascertained; she was bright, determined, energetic, a born leader, receptive, fearless, adventurous, and affectionate. She was one of the rare few who put others before themselves; a quality which calls itself altruism. It was indeed a pity that a girl like her could have been under the tutelage of a man like Ghanshyam Singh. She was everything that the feared and he was everything that she despised. They both had forceful personalities which drew power from alternating sources. The nearer they drew towards each other, the greater was the chance that they would repel with a force that would destroy everything that surrounded them. And this is exactly what happened. Meenakshi struggled to accept the real face of her adopted father, but once she did, she knew herself well enough to understand that her father had to be brought to justice. The love for her mother kept her silent for a while but the storm that was slowly brewing and stirring her conscience would never leave her in peace. Ghanshyam Singh was aware of her daughter’s nature and hence he became increasingly paranoid about her actions. The love that he had for her slowly dissipated and raw fear took its place. He knew almost instinctively that if he had to safeguard his reputation, he had to crush not touch her physically so he resorted to torment her mentally. He beat Vidwait to an inch of his life in the hope that this would surely kill his daughter’s spirit and hence liberate him from the ensuing danger. This was a big mistake on his part because this incident acted as a fuel to the fire of hatred that was already smouldering in her heart for him. It was then that she decided that her father would pay for all his sins.’
‘The fire burned her too. What do you have to say to that?’
He exhaled lugubriously and said, ‘Yes. That was inevitable. She couldn’t have lived a day longer with what burned inside her.’
‘And you knew what followed?’
‘Yes. As I said before, I extrapolated the events based on her character and the way her relationship was progressing with his father. Trust me; there was only one definite way that it could have progressed.’
‘And how did you know what happened between Bali and Malthu? Surely, the latter did not leave his diary behind?’
‘Bali is a man of drama. He is not a man of action. His timidity would not allow for it. I inquired about him at the mill; one of the days that I asked you to stay behind. They told me about his reluctance in acting as one of Ghanshyam Singh’s henchmen. He was eager to draw his wages but reluctant to work for it. They would often watch him trailing behind the sinewy men, afraid lest he be discovered among them. If he had killed Malthu, he would have no qualms whatsoever to kill us, too. Instead, he chooses to scare us with presents from the witch. That tells you what? Believe me, a person like Bali can only kill a man by accident and not by calculation.’
‘And one last question,’ I said as I suddenly remembered the bizarre incident. ‘You did not by any chance discover the meaning of the lamp that Bal Kishore drew on the paper? It was just insanity on his part, wasn’t it?’
My friend looked at me with a jolt and said, ‘Oh that? I didn’t tell you about it, did I?’
I shook my head in the negative.
‘You remember me being upset over Bal Kishore’s behaviour?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How can forget that? You seldom look so distraught.’
‘Well, it was later that I realised that Bal Kishore had cracked after all and the lamp that he drew for me was not the manifestation of madness but a hint aimed at truth.’
‘I do not understand.’
He signed deeply and said, ‘Bal Kishore was torn by my questioning. The deep-rooted fear that he had for the landlord was proving it difficult for him to say anything against him. I goaded him to the point where the fear of god finally triumphed over the intimidating mortal. But he still couldn’t bring himself to become candid. Hence he drew me this symbol in a hope that I would know who the culprit was.’
‘But what has a lamp got to do with Ghanshyam Singh?’
‘As I have said before, Sutte, if you keep your eyes and ears open, you will know.’ He said, ‘Did you look at the label of the shirt that the landlord was wearing? Stitched at the corner of his shirt pocket sat the beautiful logo of the prestigious Premium Khadi Empire and you now know what it is, don’t you?’
‘A beautiful lamp,’ I said involuntarily.
‘Exactly,’ he replied with a sickly sweet smile.