There is an iron ladder built into a wall, and a further storage room in which Prashant can stand. There is a light he has switched on just before descending — which, I soon understand, means the rest of the time this inhabited basement is pitch black.
There is a woman lying on a mattress in the corner opposite the ladder, and when she sits up squinting from the light I hear the scraping of a chain. She is wearing a faded sari, but without a blouse. Her hair is short (not long enough for a ponytail), she seems younger than me, but it’s hard to be sure. Between the mattress and the wall, as Prashant gets closer, I see on a low table two Paracetamol boxes, two bottles of water, a spectacle case, a tube of something, a multi-pack of Parle G biscuits, toothpaste, a toothbrush and a pack of sanitary pads, a pencil torch, an empty cup and bits of orange peel. There are two plastic buckets a few feet to her right, and an empty takeaway box, probably from the stadium last night. Upon noticing the buckets, I see as well a tap in the wall and then — the shackle. Her chain would be about six feet long.
Prashant has brought along two containers from his tiffin carrier, and shows his captive ‘what Mummyji has prepared for lunch’ — one of the rotis and the rajma he hadn’t finished. As we draw closer, I see the woman is missing teeth.
‘But this isn’t for now, bitch, because you’ve started your tricks again. From last night I’ve been feeling you in my head non-stop, you whore.’
As I reel from the implications of his charges, Prashant puts the food in the middle of the room, steps forward, gets on his knees, straddles the woman and begins — with the left hand on which he wears a steel-banded watch — to slap her. After ten of those, for several seconds he strangles her. Despite witnessing everything from inside him, I remain still, because any attempted intervention would be attributed to her. Even this punishment, which seems over and above what he ‘normally’ does, is because of me.
After the brief strangling, he lets his pants drop, and is already hard. Within a minute or so, he has come all over her exposed upper body.
‘Today was your bath day, I was planning to bring ice cream from upstairs, tell you more about the concert and what Guruji said, play some songs and videos for us to dance to. But you spoilt all that. You didn’t even let me sleep well after I left last night.’
More slaps. ‘What, what do you get from putting these spells on me? Don’t I look after you? Aren’t you even smart enough to make the most basic connection between your good behaviour and mine? When you treat me well, bhel-puri follows, as well as love, tenderness, time with me. I bathe you as if you were my child, unlock you, fetch treats from upstairs.’ Now Prashant is not slapping, and his voice is high. ‘And what do you get for trying to drive me crazy? Have you thought what would happen if I actually went mad? If I surrendered to the voices you put in my head and just drove my scooter into the path of a bus as you would like me to. How many days would you survive? Where would the food come from?’
‘I’ve done nothing,’ the woman says. She has cuts and marks all over her face. ‘Please give me food.’
‘And what kind of example would that set, that ungratefulness receives kindness in return? You perform black magic on me, and I give you something lovingly made by my mother? Seven and a half years I’ve kept you alive — every sickness, every fever, every single mouthful of food! My mother’s worried about me: she’s always after me to get married, and all this time I’ve resisted her for a smelly, toothless witch, as dirty on the outside as you are within. Even though I feel trapped, I remember Guruji’s teachings and tell myself I owe you something, because you came first, but, even now, when I’m on a scooter on the busiest roads in Delhi, with buses and lorries all around, you send your devils to fill my head! I get no loyalty back. Instead, you want to drive me mad. Bitch, do you even remember what Delhi’s roads are like?’
At this point, he begins to fondle her breasts, then to pinch and squeeze them. The woman yells out and pushes his hands away. ‘I didn’t make you mad. You were always mad. No one will marry a madman like you. That’s why you have to lock me up.’
Prashant goes into frenzy. The second time he punches the woman, I leap inside her and, without another thought or glance, make her grab his semi-hard penis — because he never bothered to pull up his pants — and twist it just like rope, after which she moves on to his balls and tightens her grip, even yanking on them by their pubes. Prashant’s eyes tear up: his screams time-travel backwards through puberty. But also, for the first time, I feel the grip of the fetter on her right ankle.
Prashant grabs a fistful of her hair; in response she squeezes as hard as she can. I make her yell that she’ll bite it off unless he backs away. Suddenly both of them let go, and she pushes Prashant with all her strength so that he falls off the mattress onto the floor.
‘Come near me once more and see what I do.’ But that wasn’t me. All her.
At first, Prashant can’t speak or breathe. The tears fall freely down his face. I think what else I can say to strengthen the temporary circle of protection around the woman. I’ve already acted rashly, and can’t risk further escalation. Because if he decides to finish her off, what exactly will I be able to do?
‘Come back tenderly at night, and I’ll be tender too,’ I make her say, and Prashant looks up in surprise. He still cannot sit up.
‘You’re a snake. I was right all along. All this is because of you.’
‘No, it isn’t. Come back with kindness, and see how I am,’ I make the woman reiterate.
When Prashant goes a short while later, he leaves the food containers in the middle of the floor, out of reach of the woman. He says let the ants and that rat eat it, and you watch. He tells her to piss in the corner behind her — ‘I’ll make you beg for your next bath, for the next time I unlock you,’ — but doesn’t approach her again. I lie still inside her until he is back on the ladder, then cross over. If he does something drastic now, like bring down a knife or some matches and kerosene, or acid, there’ll be nothing I can do. I’ll have failed her completely. I have some powers and intend to use them; I have plans, but the next few minutes are out of my control.
I try to keep calm because now I know Prashant senses me. I wonder what he’s already done for his Shakti. I look around the upper warehouse for acid, fuel, matches. The grocer would have supplies of everything.
The moment Prashant pulls up the shutter and steps outside his warehouse onto the pavement, we’re home free.
Shakti or not, you’re finished, madarchod!