The Nidhi Kapoor Story (9 page)

Rujuta was panting from exhaustion. She continued, “I don’t think there is anyone else in the restaurant. I tried checking. By the time I reached, everyone had come out. The damn place has just one entrance and exit. These people, all rushing out at the same time, didn’t they cause a stampede?” Her black one-piece dress was torn from her shoulder and Prakash could see fresh bruises on her leg.

“Relax. Take a break. Are you OK?” Prakash asked, flashing a rare smile. This was probably the first time Rujuta had seen him smile. She was pleasantly surprised. She smiled back and replied, “I’ll be OK. Don’t worry. Just take care of Payal and others.”

This was a different Rujuta than the one Prakash had come to know over the last two weeks. And far different from the Rujuta that he had left at Ronak in the morning. The transformation was miraculous. She was no longer a loud mouth, cocky journalist bent on giving into her animal urges. She was no longer a young woman sick at a barbaric crime scene. She was a brave, sharp and an intelligent individual, a selfless human being worried about others and willing to help. She was in control when the situation arose and could handle stress like mature grownups. Prakash had a newfound respect for her.

He started to say something but there was another loud commotion near Payal. Prakash knew that Rujuta did not need attention anymore. He nodded at her and rushed to where Payal was being looked after.

Payal looked dazed. She saw people swarm around her and looked around, as if she was searching for someone she could find comfort in. When she could not find anyone, she stammered, “Ni… Ni… Nidhi, where is she? Is she OK? Where whe…” Before she could finish, Payal lost her consciousness again.

Verma and Prakash realized at the same time that Nidhi was still missing from the scene. Both of them stared at the fire blazing from inside the Vie. Verma looked up helplessly at Prakash. Their eyes met for a brief second.
Prakash nodded and without losing a stride he ran towards the tunnel of fire and smoke.

∗∗∗

Prakash finished his recce of the charred club. The back of the restaurant, the wooden deck, open bar and the kitchen area were completely burnt. Since the front part was inside a building mostly made up of steel and bricks, it was relatively undamaged but still smoldering like a furnace.

It was almost three in the morning when Prakash finally allowed his forensics team to scour the club for evidence, if any. His experience told him that it was next to impossible to find anything conclusive after a fire. And whatever he had wanted to see, he had seen. This fire was in no way an accident. All electrical connections seemed to be in place and there was no evidence of any short circuit. It was a deliberate act to harm someone, something. Prakash was sure of it. He just did not know if the two cases were related. He did not believe in coincidences, but the case of murder of the pets had now suddenly taken a serious turn. Prakash had to find who was behind the two incidents. And he had to find it fast. He reckoned, Nidhi might not be as lucky the third time around.

∗∗∗

After Prakash had realized that Nidhi was still trapped inside the club, he had run into the blazing building and
found Nidhi lying unconscious near the entrance of the club. He carried her outside the inferno straight to the ambulance. Verma was doing a decent job of keeping the maddening crowds at bay. Though Prakash was gone for all of a minute, the crowd had trebled. More reporters had arrived. More onlookers had gathered. More hands were eager to help.

It was a very close shave for the Kapoor sisters. He thought that if the two incidents - pets and fire, were related, then the next few days were going to be very busy for him.

∗∗∗

Prakash pulled out a pack of Stikk, his favorite cigarette, and flicked one out of it. He tapped his pockets and when he could not find a lighter, he asked one of his constables for a matchbox. The irony of his request did not fail to register with him. He broke into a smile. The second for the evening.

He caught Rujuta looking at him. She was sitting on the road next to an ambulance, her legs folded on one side. Behind her, the nurses were still busy working on injured crewmembers; most of them had superficial burns. Nidhi, Payal, Naveen, Kabeer and others had left for their respective homes. Vicky Taluja had volunteered to stay back to help the medical staff tending to his crew, for his authority could help move things faster. A producer is like the king on a film set who moved the pawns around and ensured a smooth game.

Prakash scanned the scene for anything out of place. The crowd had started to ebb and just a handful of people remained. He walked up to Rujuta and held out a Stikk to
her. She took it gratefully and smiled. “Thanks. I needed it.”

“Why don’t you go home and rest? It’s been a long day. Let’s meet tomorrow and start afresh,” Prakash suggested.

“Is Mr. Mohile, the great Prakash Mohile, tired? Is he postponing his work for tomorrow? Am I right? Did you guys hear?” Rujuta raised her voice, with a hint of a smile in her tone.

“No. I want you to go home and rest. You were the first to report the fire. You are now a witness and I want to ask you a few questions. But not now. I still have to talk to Vicky Taluja. Tambe will drop you home,” Prakash said with authority, without a trace of emotion or humor. He was back to being the terse officer that he was known as.

The prospect of leaving all this mayhem and going back to the comfort of her home sounded great to Rujuta. She thought about the party that she had abruptly left but she knew that her gang was a bunch of hedonists who did not stop their revelry because of these petty cases of arson. She knew her friends would look after Sonal well. If not for the fire, Rujuta would have found her target for the night by now and would have been dancing hand in hand with him, whispering suggestive things in his ears, prepping him for a long night of wild sex.

She did not want to sleep alone tonight. It was one of those nights that made her question her choices in life. If she had a steady guy, she could have counted on him to comfort her tonight. She could call someone over but that would mean engaging in useless social chitchat that normally precedes the act. Going to her aunt’s house was out of question. She did not want companionship. She just
wanted a quick session of hard sex without any obligations. It would’ve helped her relax and sleep peacefully afterward. Just the way pre-historic humans would have done back then, before the social norms and conventions were created. For an instant, she even thought about bedding Pravin Tambe but she checked herself, frowned and sighed out loud, “OK Tambe
Ji
, lets go.”

While she was leaving, a part of her still hoped for a miracle. She hoped Prakash would somehow find his way to her place and take her in his arms. The miracle she hoped for may not happen but she knew something had snapped in Prakash’s head. His looks and conversations were no longer hostile. Rujuta pushed her hair back from her face and said, “Tambe
Ji
, Nidhi Kapoor may not be that bad after all.” With that she smiled to herself.

All these emotions and subtle signals were beyond Tambe’s comprehension. He just nodded and kept on driving. Rujuta was riding shotgun yet again, second time in the long day and her hair were still playing with her face. Tambe looked at it again and marveled at the brilliant picture that Rujuta cut.

8. Day 2, Evening. Rujuta’s Home.

Rujuta lived on the top floor of a nondescript building in one of the bylanes of Khar. The building was almost thirty years old and eventually was bound to come under redevelopment. Redevelopment was nothing but a fancy excuse that a rich builder gives to buy off all residents of the building by paying them some compensation and erecting a multistory tower where homes cost as much as small fortunes. And since this building was to go down soon, the owners did not put a lot of money towards its maintenance.

Rujuta’s was a two-bedroom house. Since the other house on her floor was unoccupied, she had exclusive access to the roof. Like most Mumbai houses, the two bedrooms meant one proper bedroom and a small anteroom. But since it was Mumbai, no one complained about space. Or lack of thereof. However, unlike most Mumbai houses, Rujuta’s house had a terrace. Since her house was on the fourth floor, she had a fascinating view of her neighborhood. In the evenings, she liked to stand on her terrace with a cigarette, Stikk, and a cup of tea and introspect.

Though she was born in Delhi and since then had traveled far and wide, she had her roots in Mumbai. She had no family except her aunt, Tarana. Rujuta often thought that Tarana was quite a modern name for someone her aunt’s age. Lore had it that in her heydays Tarana could give the leading nightingales from Bollywood serious run for money. And yet Tarana was nothing more than a retired sex-worker.
Her best days were clearly long behind her now. Even her most generous patrons, from the day when she was young, no longer needed her advice on any issues. When Rujuta heard it first, it had come as a surprise that prostitutes were often more than mere partners in bed and were expected to act as counsels in deliberations and allies in decisions. She had often thought of doing a photo essay on the counter¬culture but could not find a publication that would pay for it.

Tarana was an old hag for the world, but she meant the world to Rujuta. In fact, the only photo that Rujuta had put up in her house, on the refrigerator, was a tiny mug shot of Tarana. Apart from that, the refrigerator door was a showcase of fridge magnets from every country she had visited. Twenty-one on the last count.

The bigger room had a comfortable king-sized bed, a dressing table and wall-to-wall cabinets. The French window in the room opened onto an alley in the back. A cage made up of metal rods encased the windows. Rujuta had put white curtains on it. There was a giant oval mirror on the roof, directly above the bed. It had taken Rujuta serious money and effort to get that mirror installed. Even the glass workers had never come across the weird request; they did not know what to hang the mirror on. They were also confused about the fan that you expect most ceilings to house. Rujuta eventually got the fan removed and settled for an air conditioner. Apart from this, her room had a big red lava lamp, a few movie posters, wine glasses and fancy coasters that you suspect a twenty-six-year-old, rich, single, successful woman to collect.

The smaller bedroom however, was like a monk’s. It
had nothing but a thick mattress on a wooden-tiled floor, a 5-feet-tall floor lamp in one corner and a low table. She used the table for keeping her water bottles and cups of tea. The walls were bare. No posters, no paintings, no fixtures. This was the room where she spent most of her time. No one was allowed in this room. Not even Felix. A big red basket that served as a bed for Felix was cordoned off in a cozy corner of the drawing room.

The two rooms were so different, as if two very different people lived in the house. When alone, she would invariably sleep in the smaller room, her den. However, every time she got a man home from one of her drunken stupors, she would make love to the guy in the larger room. She loved seeing shapes, tinted red by the light from the lava lamp, on the mirror overhead.

She was always careful to bolt her den while she had someone visiting her. To her, it was symbolic. She did not want any outsider to have access into her private life and her den was the embodiment of that private life. These play-things were definitely not allowed in her private life, for Rujuta knew she’d dump them as soon as the sun would come up and announce a new day. She liked having this control over men. She loved using her sexuality to play with emotions of these men. She was a non-conformist like that. An aberration. An oddity, rather than a norm. More than anything else, it was her revenge on the male kind.

Rujuta had this grudge against men since long. She had never known her father. When she was born, her father had left mother alone to fend for herself and for a young Rujuta. Her mother did not want any responsibility either.
She dumped Rujuta with Tarana and chose to remain incognito. Rujuta did know of her mother’s name and had seen her pictures but had no affection, no emotion towards her. She had no reason. To give her credit, if she did not love her mother, she did not hate her either. Rujuta was aware of her mother’s circumstances and thus was at peace with her mother’s decision. Tarana had often tried to talk to Rujuta about her mother but Rujuta stoically avoided any discussions about her mother.

Her feelings about her father were very clear, though. She hated him. With all her might. And she hated all other men. With all her might. Ever since she was a child, every man had looked at her as an object. Everyone had wanted to touch her, use her and bed her. She was nothing more than an accessory that was meant to be used. And discarded after that. Even now, when she had proved her worth, her talent, she was still treated like an object. To be used and discarded after use.

She had vowed at a young age to take her revenge. She had read somewhere that the best form of defense is offence. So she reversed the roles and turned men into objects. She treated all men like that. Objects that she could play with, physically and emotionally. She wanted men to fight for her, kill for her, get killed and in the end, kill themselves. She was like Carolina Otero
^∗
. She read about Carolina while doing a college assignment on Spanish courtesans and she could instantly relate to her.

She was thus surprised at her infatuation with Prakash. She was supposed to use men, punish men, play with them but not fall in love with them. Maybe she liked
Prakash because he was the only man who had shown absolutely no interest in her. Rujuta thought about Prakash all the time and even now when she was exhausted, she couldn’t get Prakash out of her head. She was playing the scene over and over again. Prakash standing upright against the darkness of night, cupping his hands around a lighter, trying to light a Stikk hanging from his lips.

When she reached home, she put on some Parov Stelar, stripped to her underwear and got in the shower. A few minutes of cold water later, she dried herself and went to bed. Rujuta liked sleeping naked. She’d been doing it since she was fourteen, when she moved into a hostel that gave her a room of her own for the first time in her life. Before that, Rujuta, Tarana and other women from their locality would bathe at the railway water hoses that were used by motormen to clean train coaches. Since this arrangement was out in open, they had always bathed with their clothes on. As a child, it never struck Rujuta that she could have a bathroom of her own. Thus Rujuta, incredibly, had never seen herself naked till she went to the boarding school in Dehradun. This probably made her curious about her body, her sexuality, and her beautiful nakedness.