The Nidhi Kapoor Story (25 page)

Rujuta started to run towards her car, yelling and waving at the same time. Through the windscreen, she saw Prakash look up to her with a confused expression. He leaned out of the window and waved back at Rujuta. Just when his bald head peeked out, the speeding SUV crashed into Rujuta’s car.

Rujuta’s ears were filled with the loud sound of metal grinding against metal. And long screeches and whines of tyres burning against the gravel. The black SUV was now pushing the comparatively small i20 towards the cliff. Rujuta tried to run towards the car but the cars were too far for her to reach in time. She could see Prakash struggling with the seat belt in the twisted metal cage. The airbag, otherwise meant to save lives, had trapped Prakash in the seat.

Leaving the i20 hanging precariously on the edge of
the cliff, the SUV swung back and sped away around the bend. It went away as fast as it had come. The noise made by the collision was now replaced by a deafening silence.

Rujuta was still running towards the car and just when she thought she was within an arms reach, with surprisingly very little noise, the car started to roll down the gorge.

Rujuta howled in agony as she realized what was happening. The car was going to fall down the cliff and it was taking Prakash with it. There was no way she could stop it.

Rujuta, the queen of the world, who could draw and redraw the roads and place the tiny toy cars at her whims, could not do a small simple task of stopping a car from tumbling down the hill. As it went down, the car was breaking trees, dislodging rocks and sending the birds scurrying away into nothingness. In an instant, the car was reduced to a small red patch, getting smaller as it heaved towards the banks of the Dhom Lake below.

Unlike the movies, there was no explosion when the car finally hit the bottom. Just a loud thud, the noise ringing in her ears for what seemed like eternity. Along with it, she could hear the sounds of life all around her. Birds, stray animals, vehicles in the distance, wind and other things went on with their rigmarole. But one life that mattered to her, that life was surprisingly quiet. There was no trace left of it.

∗∗∗

The only man who had made Rujuta feel alive was now
dead. In less than a month, Nidhi Kapoor had brought them closer than most couples come close in a lifetime.

Most women would have stared at the accident helplessly. Or they would have run on the road, trying to find help. Even Rujuta’s first instinct was to climb down the hill after the car. She wanted to reach the rubble in an instant and pull Prakash out of there.

But Rujuta Singh was not going to fall prey to her natural instincts that easily. She knew that the car was gone. And most probably, Prakash was gone as well. And with him, the love of her life. She could have given her life to save Prakash. And yet she showed unnatural restraint. She stared at the smoke coming from the car in the gorge below. She took out her phone and dialed Pravin Tambe.

“Pravin
Ji
, Listen to me carefully. And stay calm please. The car Prakash and I were traveling in, it has had an accident en route to Panchgani…” She was interrupted by frantic reaction of Tambe on the other side.

Tambe wasn’t letting Rujuta talk and she couldn’t understand anything that he said. She shrieked, “Tambe listen to me. Let me talk. Shut the fuck up. The car slipped down the hill near Wai. I can see a lake from up here but I don’t know the name. How soon can you send a local ambulance?”

She had successfully deflected Tambe’s incessant volley of questions that he had barraged her with. She then hung up and stared at the car at the bottom of the hill as if she could get the car to come back up.

Rujuta was surprised at herself for the way she went about the entire thing. She questioned herself for her lack
of remorse at the accident and her composed call to Tambe. She realized that she was not angry. She was not hurt. She was not pained. She was not crying. She was not grieving for Prakash. She was merely left with nothingness. Around her. And inside her. She just sat there, on the ledge, staring into the vacuum that had engulfed Prakash. Her Prakash. Sucked away by the vacuum. The nothingness. The same nothingness that she thought she would’ve ruled like a queen.

And then, she started to cry. In loud howls. She was so loud that it scared all signs of life around her. The birds and the stray animals scuttled away. The noise of traffic moving in the distance was drowned in her sobs. The air grew still and heavy, as if it wanted to blanket Rujuta from any troubles.

All the disturbance that Rujuta caused was too little, too late. The worst fears of Rujuta had come true. ACP Prakash Mohile, of the Mumbai Police, was dead.

22. Day 30, Afternoon. Rujuta’s House.

Rujuta woke up to the sounds of rains lashing against the French windows of her den, the smaller room. She was wearing an old shirt of Prakash. Several sizes too big, it was comfortable and made her feel closer to Prakash.

After Prakash’s cremation, she had buried herself in her sorrows and memories of Prakash. In the absence of any male relatives, Pravin Tambe, the closest one whom Prakash had to a brother, had performed the final rites.

Prakash’s absence had derailed her life like nothing else. She had stopped doing her daily routine of strenuous workout that she did even on days when she was bleeding. She was behind schedule for the first time ever on her assignment. She hadn’t picked her camera in days. Her phone stayed switched off and no one at the publication knew where she lived. She could choose to remain hidden for as long. “If I had died instead of Prakash, no one would even know. Worse, no one would even come to check on me. Except Tarana Aunty maybe,” she thought.

The thought of Tarana broke her stream of thought. She realized that she hadn’t spoken to Tarana in almost two weeks, since the accident. She was surprised that through the misery, she did not think of her even once. She was now suddenly craving to meet Tarana.

Tarana was Rujuta’s comfort person. Rujuta could not think of a better way to break her hibernation and get back to being who she was. With Tarana, she was not worried
about making a fool of herself. Or about sharing her true feelings. Tarana had seen her grow from a cry-baby into an independent woman.

She reluctantly removed Prakash’s shirt and got into the shower. She knew that she’d lost a large part of her reason to live. She tried talking to herself, “Come to think of it, if I ever solve the mystery of Nidhi Kapoor, what would I do after that? More than Nidhi’s attacker, I really want to find who was driving that car. And why did he attack us?” And she suddenly burst into tears. This bout was brought by a combination of her longing for Prakash, her helplessness at bringing Prakash back, her agony at the mystery and her anger directed towards no one in particular. She was still in the shower. She remained standing like that for some time.

All this was new to Rujuta; yearning for a man after he was gone, the bouts of depression and the incessant crying, the gloominess, the longing, the realization that the man was not coming back. One side of her wanted to soak in this experience because she knew that she would never be able to love another man like that. The other part still wanted to wear one of Prakash’s used shirts, feel him wrapped around her and remain buried in a dark room.

Rujuta eventually stepped out of her house. The moment she stepped out, a man rushed at her from the shadows and said, “Madam, I am Shinde. Tambe Sir has sent me. He is worried about you and wants to speak to you. Can you please call him? If you need anything, I am posted here. I am on duty here the entire day.”

He pointed at a tea kiosk that she hadn’t noticed earlier. The man then handed Rujuta a chit that had Tambe’s
number scrawled on it. “Bad handwriting,” Rujuta thought to herself.

∗∗∗

Prakash’s untimely death invoked different reactions from different people.

Rujuta had lost her zest for life. She locked herself and her miseries in her house. She tried sleeping, she tried drugs, she tried alcohol and nothing seemed to work. She tried crying as well because she had often heard Tarana say that everyone needs to shed some tears once in a while. She had said that there was scientific evidence that crying helps alleviate pain. When Rujuta cried, she would often get into the shower and cry her heart out. Her loud sobs were drowned by sound of cold hard water attacking her fragile body with all its might. She often thought that water is funny like that. As long as it’s still, it makes for a very pleasant sight. But when it starts moving, it can cut through the thickest layers of the oldest rocks.

When she grew tired of the closed room, she would often go sit at the terrace, smoking one cigarette after another, till her throat would start hurting. Then she would simply sit staring at the sun or the moon. She eventually ran out of her stock of Stikks and since she had no desire to step out, she quit.

She became a stone. A vegetable. She stopped doing things. They merely happened around her. The scenery was all around her; she became a part of it, rather than being the artist who painted it. She knew Prakash was not coming
back. Her biggest grudge was that Prakash left without as much as a goodbye. She questioned the meaning of life and death but she could not find an answer.

Apart from Rujuta, Pravin Tambe was probably the most affected by Prakash’s sudden demise. He had shaved his head for performing Prakash’s last rites and remained resigned throughout the ordeal. He was too raw to have deep emotions. His thoughts were primal, that of anger, confusion and loss. He just wanted one thing, and one thing only. Revenge. In his long years of service, he had not taken orders from any other man and now that that officer was gone, Tambe did not know what to do.

Commissioner Shankar Rao Joshi of the Mumbai police came up with the most heart-wrenching eulogy. Everyone knew of Prakash and his unquestionable dedication to work. At a ceremony to honor Prakash, Joshi had spoken eloquently about Prakash leading the police force by example. Although he did not say anything new, the way he spoke made several of his colleagues emotional. Joshi had been at the helm for a long time and was very experienced at these things. He regretted the loss of a fine police officer, but a long career with the police meant that he knew how to cope up with loss.

There was no word from Nidhi Kapoor. Or Naveen. They were tucked away in the safety and comfort of their respective homes. Prakash to them was a mere accessory, yet another police officer that had died in his line of duty. They did not care for him much when he was alive and they definitely did not spare a thought after he had died.

Media was surprisingly silent. There were mentions
of a police officer losing his life in an accident. Whatever little chance Prakash had to feature in the newspapers posthumously were reduced to zero, as the eldest son of the self-proclaimed patriarch of Maharashtra had announced his decision to split from his father and float a new political party.

Life seemed to have derailed a bit for everyone around Prakash. However, the world does not stop moving around the sun when someone dies. Death tries to put a break and make things come to a standstill, but slowly and gradually, everything comes back to normal. Back to the nonstop grind.

23. Day 30, Evening. Tarana’s House.

The moment Tarana opened the door, she knew something was wrong. Not because Rujuta was meeting her after a while, but because she could tell by merely a look into her eyes, the way only a mother can. Unlike most mothers, rather than throwing questions, Tarana let her eyes speak with Rujuta’s and then embraced her in a tight hug. She folded her arms around Rujuta’s petite frame and rocked slowly.

As if it were a cue, Rujuta started to cry. She tried to hide her tears but she could not. She did not have to. It was Tarana.

After those first few years when Tarana had run away from a brothel in Delhi, she had hardly seen Rujuta cry. Today, she was worried, but she knew that if she showered Rujuta with questions, she’d only make her more anxious. She left Rujuta alone in the hall and went to the kitchen. She did not want to, but there was no other way that she could think of.

She put on the stove and poured some water for tea. She heard Rujuta follow her in the kitchen.

“Tell me what happened. Wait, can you pass on some
adrak?
” Tarana was boiling water for tea.

“Where is it?” Rujuta ignored the first question. Tarana was relieved that she was at least talking.

“It’s in the fridge. You’d see it if you open the fridge.”

Rujuta opened the fridge and broke some ginger and handed it to Tarana. Tarana took a steel glass and banged it repeatedly on the ginger until it was reduced to a messy paste. She added this paste to the boiling water on the stove. Most Indians swear by the magic that this ugly paste of ginger is capable of inducing into a regular cup of tea.

“You did not answer my question Rujuta. What is it?” Tarana spoke while adding
elaichi
, cardamom, to the boiling water.

“Nothing aunty. Nothing at all. I am just tired. It’s been a busy two-three weeks.” Rujuta averted Tarana’s sharp gaze.

“You know Rujuta, I have known you since you were born. Now that you’ve travelled the world and all that, do you think I can’t understand what you’re going through? What is it? It can’t be your office. You are not the kind to crib about work. Did Prakash say something? Bring him to me and I would set him straight.”

She added some milk to the boiling water. The familiar aroma of tea, which Rujuta had grown up drinking innumerable cups of, brought her back to her natural self. Even if it was for a moment. She almost broke into smile but all of sudden, her face lost color. She ran away from the kitchen.

Tarana suspected it had something to do with Prakash. She said out loud, “Kids these days! They get into one fight and they cry their hearts out. When I was growing up, if a man gave his woman tough time, the woman would cut his dick off!” She then poured tea expertly into two glass cups and carried the hot glasses to the sitting room.

Rujuta was lying on her back on the bed. Her head was hanging from the edge of the bed and she was staring at the poster of the iconic picture of NY Taxi No. 1 at the Times Square. She had got it for Tarana from there. New York was the only other city where she could find peace in, apart from Mumbai. Like Mumbai, NY was big enough to let Rujuta remain a tourist and get lost. And yet small enough to allow Rujuta to get familiar with shops, streets, grocery stores, coffee shops, newspaper vendors and other such people that she loved making small-talk to.