“Ok fine…Anish just read the note before you say anything else.” Uncle said.
My hands trembled as I held the old crinkly paper. I opened it and instantly recognized my father’s handwriting. (The handwriting I had seen in his journals) Slowly, I began reading.
Dear Anish, if you are reading this letter it means three things have happened. First-you are come of age. Second-Chandra has told you all the facts. Third-I am no longer alive.
It was like dad, direct and blunt. I smiled despite tears brimming in me.
Son, I am really sorry to tell you I am not your father. But it does not mean I never regarded you as a son.
Reading it brought tears to me. I pressed my eyes tightly to prevent them from rolling down. I went back to reading the letter but I knew the next sentence would sever the last of the ties with my father. And I was right.
You are the son of Chandra and Malti...
The words felt like being socked in the gut. I calmed down and continued to read.
Believe me. Chandra, your father, is the most honorable man I have ever known. He has probably taken the complete blame of disowning you. But trust me he was ready to bear the consequences the moment you were born. It was I who persuaded him not to do any of his foolish bravados. It would destroy his family completely. I took the responsibility of looking after you. But I guess fate had stored something else for us.So son, trust him with your life. I have nothing more to tell you. Besides writing can be a pain. God bless you. Just remember what I have said.
P.S I bear no malice against Malti for the accident on the fort.
Regards your father. Arjun Gaikwad.
I folded the letter, placed it on the table and turned away; I was an unwanted child…the bitter truth sunk in me…I felt unclean. The atmosphere inside the room was suffocating; I stalked out off the place. Outside the rain had grown steady; I stood in it drenching myself, trying to cleanse my unclean feeling.
Minutes passed till I heard someone call my name. I knew who it was.
“Anish.” He called once again. I forced myself to turn. There stood a man before me with the most regrettable look on his face. He had sensed the turmoil upsurging in me and he knew he was to be blamed. Today, he was a complete stranger. All the years of familiarity had died within minutes. Now I realized why he always called my so called dad Arjun, it certainly hurt him to hear me call someone else dad. What should I call him Dad or Uncle? Confusion arose in me.
The familiar stranger put an arm round my shoulder. I was tempted to shrug it off, though it felt comforting. I let it stay after all we were now related by blood.
“Forget the past.” The familiar stranger began. “I will do anything you want and then we can start a new life. And your inheritance is intact. Not a paisa is less.”
I turned to the stranger angrily. But all I saw was pain and tears in his eyes. I could not hold back myself; I flung myself on him and embraced him tightly. “I want to see mother…Now!” I bawled out like a child.
“Yes son we shall go now.” He answered back, hugging me tightly. “A huge load is off my shoulder!”
I relented. For the first time I too put my arm around his shoulder. Like best buddies we started for Maltibai’s house—my mother. Now I realized why she followed me all the time. She being my mother, damn it and she wanted to talk to me. And all this time I had ignored her. I had been one sordid prick!
All my pretences had been stripped away within a moment. I felt lower than Vishy. Even Mohan was much better than me. It was I who was a bastard!
Chapter 9: Tahali Khandar
While walking, soaking in the pouring rain, we found ourselves facing an approaching funereal procession. We respectfully moved aside and uncle inquired about the deceased person. “Maltibai.” Came the reply.
Uncle and I peered through the crowd and saw her sallow face. A wave of remorse and sorrow hit us. “When did she die?” Uncle further inquired.
“Yesterday evening, Sahib.” Some of the mourners stopped and answered.
“Yesterday or today?” Uncle demanded loudly in the otherwise mournful air.
“Yesterday, around five in the evening. Our hospital’s post-mortem report has confirmed the time of death.” They answered almost in unison.
Uncle and I looked at each other. Blanking out the world around us, a flurry of thoughts ran through our mind.
We felt our bodies’ slump to the slushy road, stunned.
“Sahib, are you alright?” Concerned voices around us asked. “Do you want some help?”
We continued to stare at the funereal procession as it proceeded towards the crematorium. The downpour grew heavy cutting down all visibility. But images in our mind were crystal clear.
the end
2. Death Plot
Chapter 1: Death Plot
Gambavandevi—1991. The State of Madhya Pradesh, India.
The bungalow was known as Chaudari Haveli by all. It was a sprawling building. A double storey structure of slate colored solid blocks of stone. It had large windows adorned with glass, wrought iron winding stairs on the outside, stone flooring and stairs inside etc, all colonial style. Everything was solid but drab, lackluster, one of the many remnants of Pre-Independence era.
It had seen nearly three quarters of a century. Now it was weather beaten and slightly disused. Weeds and other feral vegetation began to leave their mark on the building. Being away from the city it was now used as a sanctuary for peace and tranquility. It legally belonged to the Chaudaris—their third generation, Sunny Chaudari. He was now there with his cousin and his two friends to spend the weekend
“A bit dusty, na?” He spoke more out of a need to break the silence. His baby skinned complexion was rosy red from exertion. Sunny Chaudari alias Sumo was just like his name suggested chubby and well padded on all sides with blubber. He was extremely intelligent, bespectacled and the first cousin of Narayan.
Narayan set down his traveler case and studied the gloomy and musty interior. The high ceiling further increased the gloom. He hated high ceilings. It gave him a feeling of insecurity.
“The place will work,” said Narayan, as if to fill in the silence. The silence in the building was deafening. Ganesh beside him simply sucked on a cigar and stared stonily back at him. It irritated him, the guy spoke rarely and only on necessity.
Ganeshpati Hollerman was a wiry, short, and dark chocolate-skinned youth with a stubborn brush of black hair. He originally hailed from the West Indies and was a half-breed. His father was a Caribbean and mother, an Indian.
He was heavily hooked to drugs while the others were just amateurs. He smoked, snorted and even injected himself with lethal drugs.
None of them liked him and to an extent his silence scared them. An aura of menace seemed to emanate off him. They had carted him along with a plan. They were to murder him and were going to be paid for it.
Shanker killed the van’s engine and walked into the building. Tall, well-built and energetic, he seemed to have walked off the fashion ramp. Everyone called him Shan.
Joining his friends he looked around the large, roomy but gloomy place and said, “Doesn’t the place remind you of the Ramsey’s horror house in the movies...only scarier…”
Above them a few birds fluttered out of their niches. Startled, the group broke into nervous laughter
Only Ganesh remained silent. Then his eyes grew alert and his muscles tense. As if he had sighted something at the far end of the house. Only Sumo saw this momentary change in his posture. He looked in the direction and saw the foreboding semi-gloom.
He shivered inwardly and hurried up the dungeon-like stone stairs after his friends. It led to the first floor. A long passage lay before them with rooms on the left, adjacent to each other. Even in the day the passage looked scary. Sumo wondered how he would spend the night.
The noon was hot and silent, too silent. Not a soul or even an insect disturbed the silence outside. It created an ethereal feeling—eerie! Each of t
hem occupied adjacent rooms. But Ganesh chose the one at the extreme end of the passage, away from the rest.
x x x
Sumo sat reading. Ganesh was on a high, barely able to sit. The other two were deep in conversation.
“When do we do it?” Narayan whispered.
“After he sleeps,” answered Shan.
“Then let’s tell Sumo.”
Just as they reckoned Sumo was shocked, “What! Murder Ganesh…!I can’t help you!”
Narayan was first to speak. “You don’t have to help us...Whatever has to be done we’ll do it. I‘m just informing you...”
“Why the hell did you bring me along?”Sumo asked in displeasure.
“This is your place but it was the ideal place for the job. I could not just leave you at home. It would seem suspicious…” explained Narayan.
“Besides we’ll get hundred grand apiece for the job. It’s real cool. Think what you can do with it,” tempted Shan. “Also there won’t be an enquiry for Ganesh ‘cause he’s an illegal immigrant. There’s no record of him entering into the country,” he continued.
“We simply increase the concentration in his syringe…,” continued Shan in explanation, “let him inject himself. Bang the job is done! He dies; we bury him in these jungles and forget about him. Nobody will know, we’ll say he left for West Indies.”
“But why ...why, why kill him?” Sumo asked.
“Dad’s order,” answered Narayan. “Why do you think he’s in India? For sight-seeing? He left the Windies with a death warrant. And I asked Dad for the job.”
Narayan’s father was Sumo’s uncle and a prosperous textile merchant dealing mainly in exports. But that was just a front. He was an illegal drug dealer. Very few knew about it, Sumo had his suspicions, and today they were confirmed. So now Mr. Chaudari had moved on to hired killings, mused Sumo.
Seeing him mulling heavily, Narayan grew impatient, He decided to drop a little threat. “If you don’t, we squeal to Reena, tell her you are a pinky.”
Reena was Sumo’s fiancée and he loved her passionately. But very few knew he was a bisexual. They had once caught him red-handed doing it with a twelve year old boy.
Sumo reddened first with shame and then with anger. They had trapped him in the crime. He hated them. But, only for a moment, till he remembered Reena. What stuff he could get for her with the hundred grand! What had he to do? Nothing. If anything went wrong there was always Mr.C to fall back on. His uncle wielded a fair amount of power and influence.
He looked at the expectant faces of the two and shook his head positively. They punctuated their plot with a small smoke of hash but it was mainly to reinforce courage.
Silently they tiptoed to Ganesh’s room and opened the door. The door creaked slightly on its hinges, it sounded loud in the stillness.
They froze. Ganesh lay undisturbed.
Shan pulled on a pair of gloves and entered the room, alone. A half-filled syringe lay by Ganesh’s bed side. He squeezed out all the contents into the wash basin. Got out a vial of a similar looking liquid and re-filled the syringe. Placing it just the way he had found it, he left.
They lingered out of Ganesh’s open door. Mainly to make sure he injected himself with the high dosage drug left there by Shan.
It would be a matter of minutes. Ganesh’s intake of drugs was done with clockwork precision. For little more than a week he had been with them, they knew his routine.
Within minutes Ganesh arose, simply looked at them, without a mutter he picked up the syringe. Their hearts pumped harder.Their blood rushed up like it aimed to smash through the brains.
Without hesitance, Ganesh inserted the needle into his forearm and emptied the liquid.
Sumo watched in terror and excitement as the Caribbean climbed into the bed—to sleep...eternally
When the trio looked at each other there was stark fear writ on each face. They had just murdered a man. Snuffed out a life! Suddenly, they were aware of the acute silence enveloping them. Despite the heat Sumo could feel his sweat...cold. He also felt an urge for a leak. But didn’t have the courage to go to the loo alone. A raw fear gripped his innards
“Let’s dig a hole an’ make it deep,” drawled Shan, trying to do a weak mimic of a spaghetti western character.
The other two stayed put like they were solidified.
Shan quickly began to close the doors of the rooms. Narayan stopped him. “Let it be open.”
“C’mon then let’s hurry,” Shan whispered urgently.
Slowly Narayan moved. Sumo followed; suddenly the hundred grand did not seem sufficient.
Chapter 2: Death Plot
It was half past six in the evening when they finished digging the grave. A shallow one, for it was hard work. The sun was the color of blood, setting over the western horizon.Dusk had begun to give way to the night, the harbinger of the unexplainable. Sumo shivered with the thought.
Reluctantly they trooped to their rooms. The stone stairs led up to the narrow passage and to the room. It was long and cold akin to the medieval catacombs.
Their feet grew leaden, mouths pasty and skin ashen as they reached their rooms.
All the doors of their rooms lay open except Ganesh’s. The door was shut.
“It could not be the wind..,” Shan whispered. Interrupting, whatever logical thoughts the others harbored.
“Shut up... Shan,” Sumo pleaded in a dry voice.
The wind swept through the passage and a moan seemed to fill it. They walked stiffly and slowly, expecting the unnatural.
The first room was Narayan’s, they peered cautiously into it.
The room lay empty. “A pack of fools you are guys,” whispered Narayan, “to think it harbored a spirit...”
“Screw your lid!” Shan swore, and they continued forward.
Shan and Sumo’s room lay empty and silent.
Should have reckoned, mused Sumo as they reached the corpse’s room. Here lay the father of all horrors.
The trio stopped before Ganesh’s shut door. They watched apprehensively the closed doors. All courage lost.
It seemed long seconds before Shan ventured forward. Almost shakily he slapped on the switch and the overhead bulb glowed sickly yellow.
Sumo found his throat dry and swallowed a mouthful of air. Rushes of scenes in horror films swirled through his mind. He tried to dismiss it but it stayed there.
Slowly, Shan gripped the handle and swung open the door.
Something came rushing to him dark and large.
Shan screamed. Narayan gasped. Sumo croaked. And it squealed.
The huge rabbit-sized rodent scurried across the stone floor to safety.
“Damn piece of rat-shit!” Narayan screamed after it. But all eyes were on the bed.
Ganesh or at least his corpse lay there undisturbed; a trickle of spittle stained his lips. They stood dumbly watching him. Was he dead? The question swayed in Sumo’s mind.
Shan took a step forward and then behind. “We all go in together...” He croaked an order.
Sumo was about to refuse but Shan’s fury-filled eyes challenged him. All refusals disappeared. What had gotten into the man? Fearfully he followed them. The funereal like silence instantly enveloped them.
The corpse lay there dark, wooden and shrunken. Its skin stretched like parchment across a skull. It showed all the likeness of a corpse.
With hesitance Shan grasped the wood-like wrist to check the pulse. Then slowly he checked for heartbeats. And then the breathing, by placing his finger below the nostrils.
“Dead...,” he proclaimed. The single word hung like terror in the silent room. “Check it out,” he ordered. Sumo stood fear-ridden.
“Touch it!” He ordered again, like a man possessed. They stood frozen.
“Touch it... it won’t bite...,” he ordered with harsh laughter
They jumped at the shout. Narayan abused a mixture of anger and fear. Sumo was too stiff even to swear.
Shan was at h
im, a hand clamped at Narayan’s throat. “Son of a bitch.., you abused me....never do it again...” He pushed Narayan towards the corpse. “I’ll kill you like this Darkie.”
Narayan’s eyes bulged with fear and pain as his face touched the corpse’s chest. “No ... no ‘am sorry..,” he croaked through pain and fear.
Slowly, he released him and turned to Sumo, Shan’s lips were tight like a clam. “Touch...!” He ordered.
Sumo was quick like an obedient dog. Yet his hand hovered over the corpse.
Shan grasped it and pushed his hand down ...bull’s-eye, on the dead man’s face.
The corpse was cold, chilly almost clammy and repugnant. Sumo almost leaked in his trousers. He simply whimpered pitifully.
Shan released his hand and beckoned towards the corpse. “Let’s do away with this garbage!”
The two slunk aside without much movement. Pure evil seemed to emanate from Shan. Quickly, he bent and wrapped the corpse in a blanket, mummy-like. He lifted the small structured corpse like a child across his shoulder. “Follow me,” he ordered.
They trekked behind him through the passage, down the stairs. It was like a scene from the ancient ages. The high priest carrying a human sacrifice to perform barbaric rituals.
They stumbled down the stairs into the dark night. The grass waved as if in fear and the wind rustled the leaves in mournful whispers. Shan paraded stiffly, and headed straight towards the freshly dug grave.
The grave looked yawning and foreboding. Shadows had begun playing tricks. He knelt as if paying honors to a loved one and carefully lowered the corpse in.
The respect shown to the dead man frightened Sumo. It was like... almost like....it was alive; he did not want to complete the thought. It terrified him to no extent.
The shroud covered corpse soon disappeared under a torrent of dirt. They quickly covered the pit and hastily rose to leave. This whole business was terribly scary.
The night lay like dark mist around them and the moon had not risen. They walked warily back to the bungalow. Looking back over their shoulder time and again; expecting...the worst.
All of a sudden Shan looked over his shoulder and broke into a run. Crashing through the vegetation stumbling... running...
In sheer terror the two blindly followed. Believing, the dead man’s spirit was following them or even worse the corpse itself. They continued this wild run till they emerged out of the wild undergrowth.