The Nidhi Kapoor Story (6 page)

OK, I have to go now. I will come back and meet you again. Soon. You and I are meant to be together Nidhi. This world can’t keep me away from you any more.

There are so many things that I need to tell you Nidhi, so so many. Soon I guess. Till the time we meet, you please take care. And wait for me.

The typewritten note had no sign, no name at the bottom. There were no other marks on the paper. The letter would be sent for forensic examination eventually.

After she read the letter, Rujuta was sick to the gut again. It had elaborated on how the killer had gone about doing this job. She did not know what to do. She had a million questions. Her head was beginning to throb. She
looked up at Prakash, but he had left by then. She looked around and found Tambe grinning at her. “Madam, Saab got a call from the commissioner’s office and had to leave. He has asked me to drop you home. Shall we go?”

Rujuta nodded.“Something is not quite right here,” she murmured.

Tambe just nodded. It was beyond his pay grade to think. He was a mere constable. His duties started and ended with assisting the ACP. It definitely did not include thinking. Pravin Tambe was very proud and content about his position in the hierarchy at the police station, and had no plans to disturb the equanimity.

Rujuta was riding shotgun again and the police jeep was zipping through the uncharacteristically empty Mumbai roads. Most Sundays it was like that. Unless it was important, people tended to stay indoors on Sundays and recuperate from the miseries that Mumbai inflicted on them in the other six days of the week.

The wind through the open jeep was making Rujuta’s long tresses caress her face, obscuring her vision. She used her fingers mindlessly to remove hair from her face and was soon lost in thought.

For Tambe, this simple act of Rujuta’s hands running though her hair was the prettiest sight ever. To him, Rujuta looked like a princess. He slurred under his breath, “Prakash Saab, you don’t know what you are missing. Hope God gives you wisdom and opens your eyes to Rujuta Ma’am.”

5. Day 1, Evening. Ronak.

After the incident, Nidhi and Naveen decided to get Nishant back at Ronak as a precaution. A driver had been dispatched to get him back. He was expected to be back by late night.

Nishant Kapoor had been sent to Moksha after he almost killed himself by binging on a cocktail of drugs, sleeping pills and alcohol. It took expensive doctors long, uneasy months to confirm that he would indeed survive. However, because of the fall, he injured his spine and was paralyzed from the waist down. And as a result of the drug overdose, he had started to hallucinate. Although they were reluctant at first, Nidhi, Payal and Verma decided to send Nishant away to the private medical facility tucked away in the hills of Panchgani, renowned for treating mental ailments.

Malti and Shankar, the domestic helps of the Kapoors, were busy preparing the guest room for Nishant’s homecoming after almost seven years. His erstwhile bedroom was now occupied by Nidhi. The other room where he spent a lot of time was now Nidhi’s office, where the pets were discovered.

“Saheb would be really angry to know that Nidhi baby is using his bedroom. He was always very possessive,” Malti said to Shankar while draping the room with Nishant’s favorite red curtains. The couple had worked for Nishant
for almost thirty years and yet they could not decide if they were happy or sad to see him back at Ronak. They had bumped into Nishant at Marine Drive one evening; and when Nishant learnt that they had just come from Aurangabad, homeless and jobless, he immediately offered them work. It was unheard of
filmwallahs
to accost commoners and help them with their troubles like that. When Nishant hired them, he himself did not have a steady stream of work. But even then, he was confident of his success and he had told Malti and Shankar that one day he’d be a superstar and then they could go back to their village and announce that they worked for the great Nishant Kapoor. When he finally got Ronak, he asked Shankar and Malti to move in with him. Since then, they had been living at Ronak.

Although Malti and Shankar were gainfully employed at the Kapoor household, they weren’t really happy with Nishant when he was around. Nishant was known for his frequent mood swings, short temper and ill-mannered behavior. He had been often unnecessarily harsh and rude to them in the past. After he was sent away to Moksha, things became peaceful and amicable and they were not sure if they wanted Nishant to bring their lives to a sad juncture again.

∗∗∗

At around nine in the night, Nishant Kapoor finally came back to Ronak, almost seven years after he had left it. By the time he arrived, Naveen Verma had left for his home. Payal and Nidhi had retired to their respective bedrooms.

When Nishant saw that there wasn’t any gathering, any grand celebration to welcome him back to Ronak, he was disappointed. He consoled himself at the sight of Shankar carrying his bags and Malti towing his wheelchair. Since he did not know of the reason for his sudden move back to Ronak, he bombarded Malti and Shankar with questions. Both of them however remained noncommittal. They did fill him in about the murder of the pets. To their surprise, Nishant merely laughed out loud. He did not ask them about the safety of Nidhi or Payal.

Even though seven years seemed like a long time to him, very little had changed at Ronak. The giant solid gate at the entrance, immaculately manicured lawns, swimming pool filled with pristine water, paintings in the hall, trophies on the wall, pictures on the mantelpiece, décor of the rooms, everything was still the same. Everything was still the way it was when he had left. Everything had a distinct neatness and orderliness that was a characteristic to him and his clan.

Nishant Kapoor was overwhelmed. Ronak was his most important possession, probably more important than even Preeti or Payal. But he could not share his emotions with anyone. There was no point. They would just ignore his words as melancholic rants of a madman. He knew he was not mad but someone was determined to prove that he was; the same someone who had tried to kill him; the same someone who had proved to the world that he was insane. Now that he was back at Ronak, Nishant wanted to plot his return. He had to. There was no other way. Nishant Kapoor was a survivor and he would not go down without a fight.

While Nishant was propped up on the bed and was
scribbling his thoughts in his small notebook, a shadow flickered across the window that opened to the lawn. The shadow stared keenly at Nishant.

Nishant felt a cold stare digging into his back. He wanted to look up to the window but could not gather the courage to do so. It was well past midnight and no one was expected to be up and about at this hour, especially with the beefed up security at Ronak after the incident with the pets. But if someone was indeed looking at him, was he there to hurt him? What could Nishant do about it? He couldn’t confront anyone for he had limited mobility. Yelling would be of no use, nobody heeded to him anyway. Maybe all this was figment of his imagination.

He stopped writing and was fighting this war of words with himself. It took some time but his curious brain won the battle against the rational brain and he decided to investigate. He slowly folded the notepad and clasped his hands around it. He wanted to catch the unknown gawker by surprise and thus, without making any exaggerated gestures he turned at the window with a jerk.

Much to his astonishment, there was no one at the window. Even the Ashoka trees lining the walls of the house weren’t moving. He was sure that someone was indeed looking at him. It was a struggle to climb onto the wheelchair but with much effort and noise, he managed to do so. He rolled his wheelchair hastily to the window and tried to peep out of it. He grabbed the steel frame lining the window and strained hard against it. He tried to look around but all he saw was the stillness of night. When he finally realized that there was no one, he was more angry
than relieved.

In his previous avatar, he would have gulped generous pegs of neat whiskey hastily to get over the disappointment and anger of being wrong, but he had been away from alcohol and narcotics for over seven years now. He did crave for the high but he had no access to any substance that could help him.

He was furious with himself and cussed loudly for indulging his senses like that. Maybe he really was going mad and was seeing things that weren’t there. Maybe he ought to take his treatment seriously. But he decided that he would worry about it later. For the time being, he had a task at hand. To plot his comeback. And plot his revenge. Just that he did not know against whom.

He towed his chair back to the bed and opened up his notepad on the last page he was working on. The shadow on the window was back and was smiling at Nishant. Nishant paused for a beat and without turning around, cursed out loud and got back to his notepad.

Book 2. Moh

“Moh
^∗
is interpreted both as infatuation for or clinging to the illusory world of the senses and as illusion of worldly love and attachment. Simply put it is the… “…love of and attachment to worldly things and relations.”

^∗
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moh

6. Sometime in the 1980s. Ronak.

Nishant and Neelima’s was a match made in heaven. As if God himself took time out to script the union. Nishant was young, handsome and was already touted as the next big thing in Bollywood. Neelima was rich, beautiful and was trying to find her foot in the industry, and like all other young women, could give an arm and a leg to get close to Nishant.

The wedding was amongst the grandest of the time. A huge
pandal
was erected at the Mahalaxmi Race Course. The Royal Western India Turf Club Ltd owned the racecourse and since Naveen Verma was part of the managing committee, it was not tough for him to cancel all other engagements and book it exclusively for his only sister’s wedding. Neelima chose purple as the theme for the wedding, a novelty for the time. Everything in the
pandal
was inspired by the eccentric color. The grand entrance to the
pandal
had a makeshift fountain that made intricate patterns with jet streams and light. The guests were welcomed by a troupe of
shehnai
maestros called specially from Lucknow. Expert chefs from all parts of the country were present to create and serve culinary delights. The entire
pandal
was decorated with purple tulips, imported from Europe. Who’s who of the country attended the most majestic wedding of the time. Jealous murmurs were floating around the entire
pandal
.

Verma had arranged the entire jamboree in less than a month. He had to. They were running out of time,
for Neelima was four weeks pregnant with Nishant’s child. Nishant had initially refused to acknowledge the child and it wasn’t easy to get Nishant to own up to the baby on the way. Verma, however was an old hand at negotiations and knew the art of persuasion as well as anybody else. He was rich and powerful and had connections. His threats and coercion ensured that Nishant balked into the marriage.

Neelima couldn’t have been happier. Of all the women available to Nishant, he had chosen her as his bride, his life partner. She thought she was the luckiest woman alive to have Nishant as her lawfully wedded husband. To her, it meant that she now had an exclusive right over Nishant. All his charm, his attention now belonged to her. Little did she know that she was going to be so wrong about it.

On the night of the wedding, Nishant was characteristically late for the ceremonies. Everyone knew that he had this habit of keeping people waiting but they also knew that once he arrived he worked his ass off. So when he was late for the wedding, no one was worried. However, Neelima discovered later that Nishant was late because he was busy fucking a nameless actress in his green room behind the
pandal
.

Apart from industry contacts, Nishant did not have a single friend or relative at the wedding. His parents had disowned him when ran away to Mumbai to try his luck in the film industry. Even now when Nishant was famous, his family had stayed away from him. Whatever little friends and acquaintances he made while he was climbing the ladder, he had either left them behind or had cleaned his closet off the ones who could become a liability in the future. His future
had no place for losers.

Right after the wedding, on their honeymoon in the Swiss Alps, Nishant talked Neelima into aborting the baby. But the abortion didn’t go well. Neelima lost a lot of blood and almost died in the process. She was recommended complete bed rest for a few months. Her Bollywood career was over even before it began.

While Neelima was recuperating, Nishant buried himself in work and was often gone for long shoot schedules. Neelima on the other hand, did not have anything else to bank her life on and she started dreaming about another baby.

Even two years after the wedding, Nishant was still not ready for fatherhood. Neelima was always alone and miserable at home. She remained persistent and kept seducing and pushing Nishant for a baby. Eventually Neelima prevailed and she conceived. This time, before Nishant could persuade her to abort, she announced the baby to the world at an impromptu party hosted by Naveen Verma.

Neelima went to labor and gave birth to a stillborn. She couldn’t bear the tragedy and went into clinical depression. Nishant by now was sick and tired of one tragedy after another. He was also bored of Neelima; he had ravaged her in as many ways as he could. He did not lack options outside of his home to indulge in, for his stardom was now fairly established. He figured if Neelima could have a baby to divert her mind to, maybe her depression and other mood swings could get cured.

So one fine day, he came home with a baby girl and
announced that he had adopted her. Payal was about eleven months old and Nishant did not give any explanation about Payal’s parents or her background. Payal was a good-looking, healthy baby and Neelima hadn’t been this happy since her wedding. She finally got something to latch onto. She now had a reason to live. She made Payal her life’s mission and was soon obsessed with her.