The Taj Conspiracy (18 page)

She hurried towards the main entrance. Striding down the hall in his dressing gown, hair awry, was Professor Kaul. Like a wild animal that had escaped its cage, he tossed his head around, without taking notice of Mehrunisa where she stood or Singh where he sat a few feet away on the patio.

‘Kaul uncle?’ Mehrunisa made to touch him.

Turning at the sound of her voice, he asked abruptly, ‘Where is Mehrunisa?’

She was too stunned to speak.

He looked through her as he queried again, ‘Has anyone seen her?’

‘I am standing right in front of you, Uncle.’

‘Rubbish!’ Professor Kaul shook his head. ‘What sort of joke is this? Mehrunisa is a girl, twelve-thirteen years old.’ Once again he cast furtive glances around him. ‘I was looking to tell her a story. A,’ he lowered his voice and tipped his head conspiratorially, ‘special one.’ His voice rising, ‘Find her, quickly. Before I forget the story.’ Panic seized his face, contorting the handsome visage into one of terror.

Taking his arm gently, Mehrunisa guided him towards the seat she had just vacated. ‘Why don’t you tell me the story, before you forget. That way,’ she continued in her calm voice, ‘I will make sure the story reaches her.’

He eyed her doubtfully, but seemed to decide that she was trustworthy for he began to talk, words gushing forth as if from a burst dam, steamrolling any pause or punctuation.

The story was a familiar one—Mehrunisa had heard it many times in her childhood. A popular incident from the
Mahabharata
, the story was narrated with such rapidity that it probably made no sense to R.P. Singh who was observing the professor as if he were a laboratory specimen.

Yudhistra, the eldest Pandava, was made the crown prince of Hastinapur. This made his cousin Duryodhana jealous. With the help of his maternal uncle Shakuni, Duryodhana made a plan to kill the Pandavas. He persuaded the five Pandava brothers to attend a grand fair in the town of Varnavat where he had a lac palace built for them. Lac burns easily and he planned to kill the Pandavas in their sleep. However, their uncle Vidura learnt of this plot and warned them in time. He also had a secret tunnel dug, through which the Pandavas could escape. The five brothers, with their mother Kunti, stayed in the palace during their visit. Bhima, the second
Pandava brother, himself set the palace on fire. Then they escaped safely through the tunnel, leading Duryodhana to believe they had perished in the fire.

On finishing his rapid-fire narration, Professor Kaul gulped lungfuls of air. After which he slumped in the chair, and all Mehrunisa wanted to do was to hug him. She made to lean forward, draping an arm around his back when he bolted upright.

His eyes were round with fear as he clutched her wrist and whispered hoarsely. ‘Tell her, tell Mehrunisa when you find her, to watch out. Watch out for Aurangzeb!’

An enervated Professor Kaul, totally spent after his narration, was back in his room. While Mangat Ram watched over him, a pale Mehrunisa had returned to the patio.

R.P. Singh’s eyes narrowed. ‘Aurangzeb again. For a historical figure to suddenly go contemporary would require a reason.’ He hunched forward and looked at her meaningfully.

Mehrunisa nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aurangzeb is clearly not a militant—the urgency, the intimacy, with which Kaul uncle mentioned his name makes me believe he knows his true identity...’

‘So why doesn’t he disclose it?’

‘Because he is unable to,’ Mehrunisa suggested. She disclosed that the professor was diagnosed with a syndrome that had robbed him of a large chunk of his memory.

‘But he is clearly afraid,’ R.P. Singh patted his bald pate, his mouth pursed in contemplation. ‘The professor is afraid for you.’

Mehrunisa lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

Was he mistaken, or were her eyes green? Singh wondered. Mentally shaking himself, he said, ‘This story that your uncle narrated—is there a relevance?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mehrunisa said in a shaky voice. ‘He has always been an ardent storyteller. All my knowledge of Indian mythology comes from the stories he has told me. My father had little interest in them. This particular one that he narrated, I’ve heard before.’

‘Are patients with this syndrome known to recall their lost memory?’

‘Yes, the doctor mentioned that Kaul uncle could recollect fragments of his past which he would vocalise without any apparent context.’

‘See,’ R.P. Singh sat up excitedly, jabbing the air in between them with an index finger. ‘I’m wondering if some stimuli triggered the professor’s recall of that story, and the warning about Aurangzeb.’

‘You think the two are related?’

‘Perhaps.’

Mehrunisa sat there trying to figure what the story of the lac palace had to do with Aurangzeb. When R.P. Singh requested her to recount it for him, she did so slowly, all the while looking for a link.

‘A fascinating story,’ Singh said. ‘Old rivalry, a plan to kill, ingenious escape.... What do you think is the most critical element in the story?’

‘The escape?’

R.P. Singh’s right index finger probed the air as if attempting to locate something before it came to a halt. ‘Masking the escape. That, to my mind, is the crux of this matter.’

Delhi

T
he man at the centre of the Taj conspiracy was the murdered and corpse-gone-missing Arun Toor. R.P. Singh had a sketchy idea of the man from the file SSP Raghav had developed on him. It contained some photographs, a record of his work experience, educational certificates, testimonials of people who worked with him and had known him. His house had been searched, twice; his colleagues and acquaintances questioned—a couple of constables had travelled to Benares and Etawah to interview Toor’s relatives; another constable was working through the list of contractors who carried out regular repair and maintenance work at Taj Mahal, and yet—nothing. Nothing had turned up which shed light on why somebody would want to murder Arun Toor, bachelor, history major, and Taj supervisor. What he needed therefore, was a better sense of the man, his personality, his friends and enemies. Since Mehrunisa had spent time working with him, and they’d been friendly, he decided to talk to her about Toor. ‘Why don’t you tell me more about the Taj supervisor?’ he asked. ‘This all began with Arun Toor, and I know nothing about him.’

Mehrunisa nodded but suggested they continue the discussion over some food, and R.P. Singh, having left Agra before breakfast, readily accepted. He was enjoying the company of this woman—she struck him as vulnerable yet resolute, engaging and erudite. As Mehrunisa led the way and he followed, his eyes on her shapely rear, he reminded himself not to get carried away. The Bastar badlands was to be blamed for his sensory deficit—back in the civilised world, his male hormones were in overdrive, he thought, grinning to himself.

The housekeeper brought in a fresh pot of tea, scrambled eggs and a rack of toast. Mehrunisa indicated that he help himself.

As he buttered a toast thickly, Mehrunisa started talking.

When Mehrunisa first met Arun Toor they had got talking like old friends. That was surprising, considering how unlike they were, in both demeanour and upbringing: she was elegant and composed, he was unkempt and gregarious; she had a cosmopolitan upbringing in the Middle East and Europe, he had grown up in the ancient Indian city of Varanasi. What they had in common was a love of Michelangelo, though they were to discover that only later.

One evening, after Mehrunisa had been frequenting the Taj Mahal for over a month, Arun had suggested dinner. He knew a place that served authentic Unani, Persian, food. The legend went that the chef’s ancestor had travelled with the Persian ambassador in the entourage sent by the Shah of Persia to Aurangzeb in honour of his accession to the Mughal throne. The chef ’s ancestors had served in the royal kitchens, and now that royalty was dead, the family survived on the patronage of Agra’s citizenry. Only, Arun added, giving her a once-over, you may find the place short on ambience.

‘If the food is good, I’ve been known to trade atmosphere for it,’ Mehrunisa smiled.

The eatery was a tiny ill-lit place in Taj Ganj where they sat on creaking wooden benches opposite each other as steaming berry pulao and abgusht was deposited on the table. The food, Mehrunisa discovered, was surprisingly good and authentic—the specialty, pomegranate soup, superlative. They savoured lamb morsels against the background drone of evening traffic and swapped stories. When Mehrunisa finished recounting her student days in Florence and her pursuit of Renaissance art, Arun Toor surprised her by concluding, ‘And your favourite artist, no doubt, is Michelangelo.’

‘How did you guess?’

‘You strike me as a person I like to call “classic”—the things that attract them are of enduring excellence. Look at you. Your clothes, your speech, the manner in which you conduct yourself,’ he said, stretching an imaginary thread between his fingertips, ‘elegant, authoritative, but also,’ he winked, ‘typical. Which means, your favourite artist has to be either of the three acknowledged Renaissance greats: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo or Raphael.’

Arun Toor chewed noisily on a green chilli, as above them moths fluttered around a light bulb dangling from a nearby bamboo pole. ‘You mentioned your love for Florence, so it would be logical to deduce the artist would be Florentine. That rules out Raphael. Of the two Florentines, I would bet on Michelangelo.’

Mehrunisa pulled out a wet wipe from her bag and wiped her hands. Arun raised his eyebrows in mock surprise and with his chin indicated the corner basin. Smiling, Mehrunisa shook her head and asked, ‘Why Michelangelo? Leonardo is acknowledged as the complete Renaissance man, and if, as you claim, my taste tends to the classic, surely I’d veer to him?’

Arun nodded, ‘Well said. I would say you had picked a hole in my deduction, except,’ he held up his right index finger, stained yellow from the turmeric in the paste, ‘Michelangelo was the one with a tortured soul.’

Mehrunisa sat still.

‘And I would say,’ Arun continued happily munching his food, ‘that Mehrunisa Khosa shares an empathy with that tortured soul.’

‘Why would you say that?’

‘Your project, Mehrunisa—Indo-Persian linkages—it is a search, isn’t it? A search for answers—to yourself, perhaps?’

‘And you, my friend, have all the answers?’

‘I have offended you. Well, if it helps, let me divulge that my favourite artist is also Michelangelo!’

Arun guffawed at her obvious astonishment. ‘The
other
one. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. You are wondering where and how I got to study Caravaggio? A poor brown boy from the boondocks!’ Arun’s smile had gone static on his face.

Taken aback at the unexpected venom in his voice, Mehrunisa almost flinched.

The next instant Arun snorted, before pointing his index finger at her and grinning cheekily, ‘Got you!’

Growing up in Varanasi, the cultural capital of India, Arun divulged, he had encountered many young backpackers who came to the holy city by the Ganga to discover Hindu spirituality. Somewhere their enthusiasm had infected him and he had resolved to one day travel to a place about which he had little knowledge and immense curiosity—Italy, the fount of Renaissance.

‘Mark Twain said Varanasi was older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together! But a true appreciation of home comes when you have travelled far. I wanted to see if my wanderings in that
other
land of such immense culture would build my appreciation for the art of India. After all, I was infatuated enough to want to pursue a career in it. It seemed like a good test—this exploration of another world and its artistic palate.’

Arun described how he had spent a summer backpacking his way through Italy, studying the sculpture and art in its various museums, working in restaurants to earn money whenever he ran out of it, sleeping on benches in public parks. When he returned he considered himself an amateur on Western art and architecture—at least he could tell a Romanesque church from Gothic, he finished, grinning.

‘So that’s where you discovered Caravaggio?’