Pretty Vile Girl

by Rickie Khosla

  Manjrekar was not used to having company when he had his meals, and was almost about to shoo the eager beavers away to some other table, but the men looked so earnest and respectful that he nodded his assent instead. The guests immediately pulled up vacant chairs and occupied the open sides of Manjrekar’s table. For Manjrekar himself, this was like establishing a new precedent. It was the first time he had allowed trainees to engage with him outside the classroom.

  The men were seated in a crowded dining mess of the Police Cadets Training Institute in Shahdara, Delhi. It was the first lunch-break of the two-week training program that had begun just that morning. The sessions were called ‘Forensics and First Response’. New police trainees from various State Police Forces had been especially sent to Delhi to attend it prior to their full commissioning as Officers. The selection of candidates for this specialised course was based on their aptitude and interest in the field.

  Babu Ram Manjrekar had branched off into a full-time role of Police Trainer almost three years ago—around the same time he cracked the Ankit Mohile murder case. The arrest of the killer Tobias James had been a good win for the department. Still, Manjrekar’s seniors had complained about how he had quietly established contact with the Central Forensics Lab to investigate DNA evidence without their knowledge or sanction. In fact, they disapproved of how Manjrekar had continued to spend the scant resources of the department on many open cases, despite their explicit instructions to close them based on the negligible chances of their ever getting solved.

  The writing had been on the wall for a while now. Manjrekar’s poor closure rate and the constant distractions in his personal life meant that he had stopped being an asset for field jobs and investigations. No one wanted murder upon unsolved murder showing up on their station crime statistics month after month! Pretty soon, the number of new cases being assigned to Manjrekar had dwindled to zero. ‘His skills may be better suited in Human Resource Development activities in our force—most notably, in the Forensics Training area,’ wrote DCP Dadar in a letter to the Commissioner of Police, Mumbai. ‘I recommend that Babu Ram Manjrekar be transferred to the Regional Training Institute as full-time faculty,’ he concluded.

  And so that was that. Within a month of the recommendation, Manjrekar had relinquished responsibilities at the Dadar Police Station to his successor—and proceeded to take on the role of Senior Inspector, Training, at the newly opened Maharashtra Police Cadets Training Institute in Powai. It was a promotion, which meant a better salary and much improved living quarters. The situation was not all ideal because it also meant losing the comfort of having Padma Tai around to look after Roshni.

  But, at least Manjrekar’s new working hours were better. A 9-to-6 arrangement, with no compulsions of rushing to crime scenes at ungodly hours at a moment’s notice, allowed him better control over his day. By way of financials, the increase in salary went almost entirely in paying for the new ayah, but Manjrekar could manage to send an additional five hundred rupees each month to Archana back in the village, where she was still tending to their elderly fathers. The new job required a little bit of travel—like the current trip to Delhi that Manjrekar was on—and on such infrequent occasions, Archana was only too happy to rush to Mumbai to be with her daughter.

  Other than that, not much else had changed in the hard lives of Manjrekar and Archana. If anything, things were only getting tougher. Roshni was still a terribly sick child, and her physical deformities were now starting to impinge upon her survival in other ways too. Old ailments like frequent breathing trouble were morphing into more serious issues such as badly performing lungs and a weakening heart. They were threatening to tear apart whatever little semblance of normalcy the family had stitched together in their lives since the accident.

  The young men seated with Manjrekar were from different cadres—two belonged to West Bengal Police, one Uttar Pradesh, and Rizvi was from Haryana. They politely waited for Manjrekar to break the ice.

  ‘Did you find the morning lecture useful?’ Manjrekar asked, throwing the question out to no one in particular.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ answered the UP boy. ‘Crime investigation has always been a very interesting subject for me. I don’t miss any film or TV serial where they show it!’

  ‘I hope you understand that real forensics is very different from films,’ Manjrekar said. ‘What we do is not entertainment.’

  The boy nodded sheepishly. His three friends smiled mildly at their friend’s discomfort.

  The men quietly went about their lunch. The only sound that was consuming the silence came from an old TV set perched near the ceiling about four feet away from their table. The TV news was on.

  ‘Do you know he’s from our area?’ the young man from UP spoke again. He had turned to focus on the TV visuals. His declaration made the others look towards the news, too.

  ‘We need young blood in our politics. I think he will do very well!’ declared the fairer Bengali boy. Rizvi nodded in agreement.

  Manjrekar read the big, bold white lettering as it scrolled from the right to the left of the TV screen. ‘Prime Minister expands cabinet. Karan Singh Rathore chosen to lead Information and Broadcasting. Young Minister vows to infuse the country with fresh ideas.’

  Manjrekar’s gaze returned to his rice, sabzi, daal, raita and salad. ‘What do I care about these bloody politicians?’ he thought. As far as he was concerned, they were never up to any good. Most of the times, Manjrekar couldn’t even tell one from the other! ‘Infuse the country with fresh ideas. Saala! Let him try infusing some cheer in my life first!’

  Little did Manjrekar know then how deeply impactful Karan Singh Rathore was going to be in his life in a few months’ time.

  ‘Fuck, this Dance Master is a bloody butcher! He is out to kill me!’

  Jazmeen was complaining to Sareen as he applied a thick layer of mascara around her eyes to give them a sexy, smoky effect. The two were inside one of the standard makeup rooms at Yash Raj Studios, preparing for the next shot. Jazmeen was wearing a full body suit of shiny fabric that accentuated her curves and buttocks, with a cut out that started at her shoulders and plunged down the front to expose ample cleavage. The outfit made her look like a sex goddess from outer space.

  All in a day’s work for film star Jazmeen.

  On a normal day of film shooting, the discontent that Jazmeen had just uttered would have never made it to her lips. Yes, the shoot that day had begun at 5 AM. Yes, the beats of the song, though catchy, had an unusual repetitiveness that could make the listener dizzy after fifteen minutes. And, yes, the movements that the choreographer had chosen for Jazmeen and the background dancers had been impossibly complex. But so what? She had endured worse days in the past and not flinched, not even when she had worked through sprained ankles and fevers.

  Today, however, was not one of those normal days of difficult steps and trivial pains. Today was when Jazmeen had completed six weeks of pregnancy. Six weeks of abominable, traumatic, unbelievable unease and cramps. Every day of the first trimester so far had felt worse than the previous one. And today, particularly, was when she felt as if she was going to die of nausea. Her head spun on its own whim, as if it were on a turntable. No food seemed to suit her. And the constant pain just above her groin rose and ebbed in cycles.

  Jazmeen looked at Sareen’s face for a word of sympathy, but there was none. All he had to offer were some frown lines on his forehead that he typically got when he was focusing on creating something exquisite with her hair or on her face. She felt it best not to disturb him.

  After the initial euphoria of discovering that they were going to be parents had passed, Arty and Jazmeen had been mired in the dilemma of how to broadcast the news to a wider audience. The pregnancy had been a wonderful occurrence—but it was still accidental, and untimely.

  ‘We don’t have to get married if your mother has an issue with your khaandaan ki izzat,’ Jazmeen had joked with Arty a few days ago.

  ‘The first question s
he will ask me is—“How do you know that the baby is even yours?’’’ Arty had said with a grin. Clearly, despite Yadav’s offering, the gulf between the mother and the ‘concubine’ had remained just as wide.

  ‘So what are you going to do, Rathore saahab? Is it time to kick this gold-digging prostitute out to the streets?’

  ‘Oh yes, dump this one and find someone brand new to warm my bed!’

  He had grinned when Jazmeen landed a mock punch on his chin.

  Arty broke his big news to Subhadra Laxmi Rathore six days after Jazmeen’s Charan Grover interview. The response from the other side of the phone line was a deafening silence that lasted almost a full minute.

  ‘Ma, are you still there or have you perished from shame and dishonour?’

  The mother ignored the joke. ‘I presume you will want to marry her now?’

  ‘We haven’t decided yet, Ma. Maybe. But we will come to you for aashirwad, in case we do!’ he laughed as she disconnected the call.

  ‘Maybe it is a good thing that my folks are already dead,’ Jazmeen said to herself, discomforted by a tinge of apprehension when Arty recounted his exchange with his mother.

  ‘A couple more months of shooting and then I will have to take a break,’ Jazmeen thought, watching Sareen putting the final touches to her eyebrows in the mirror. ‘But if I continue to feel sick like this, I won’t even last a couple of hours, let alone a couple of months!’

  Sareen smiled as he surveyed the results of his art in the mirror. Jazmeen did too, despite feeling a fresh bout of nausea building in her chest.

  There was a knock on the makeup room door. It was the Production Assistant advising them that the shot was ready. Jazmeen nodded and rose from her seat. As soon as she did, her skin blanched, and the bright makeup room turned upside down. ‘Are you okay?’ she heard someone say, but the voice felt as if it was coming through a hollow plastic pipe, echoing and almost cartoonish. She felt a bunch of arms clasp her as her legs toppled uselessly, bringing the torso down along with them. As her helpers were slowly settling her down on the floor, a gush of greenish vomit spewed out of her mouth, hitting Sareen’s face, neck, chest and arms. She saw him look incredulously at the semi-solid goo, not comprehending what had just happened. Jazmeen wanted to laugh at Sareen’s shocked expression, but the pain wouldn’t allow her to.

  The pain!

  Jazmeen was jolted by an unimaginable pain in her belly. It was as if her insides were being gutted by a ravaging bulldozer, eating up everything that came in its way.

  As the unbearable physical torment threatened to knock her out of her senses, Jazmeen wailed to Sareen to take her home. She saw him nod curtly, and that made her calm down somewhat. She tried to focus on pleasant things to distract her mind from the pain, but felt delirious. Her brain was starting to switch off, attempting to save itself from a fresh spasmodic deluge. The last thought that crossed Jazmeen’s mind before she lost consciousness was about what she was going to name her newborn. ‘I will name her after my mother.’ After Peace. Serenity. The calmness that she never had in her own life.

  Sheetal.

  ‘It is good to see young people in the Union Cabinet, Sir,’ said Rizvi. He was answering Manjrekar’s question about the news report on TV. ‘Enough with the oldies. They all look like they are about to drop dead!’

  His friends laughed, but quickly restrained themselves when they saw the senior cop’s reserved face.

  ‘You don’t think experience matters?’ Manjrekar asked.

  ‘Yes, Sir, of course it does. But look at the great things the PM and Karan are planning. They can feel the pulse of our generation. The new ideas they have are going to cause a revolution in India! Old politicians might be fine, but only young politicians like Karan can change the country!’

  ‘Karan’s point about unleashing a digital revolution by bringing the full power of information and communications to the poorest of Indians sounds fantastic!’ chimed the darker Bengali boy.

  ‘He has become so popular everywhere! You know, he is from our area!’ parroted the boy from UP for the fourth time in ten minutes. The other Bengali boy playfully walloped his friend’s head at the remark. ‘Saala, how many times will you tell us that? We know he is your Mamu!’ he joked. His buddies started grinning too. This time, even Majrekar’s face broke into a smile, emboldening the young men.

  ‘Yaar, Karan got into politics because of his family background,’ the UP boy explained. ‘His father was a Chief Minister and his mother is also a well-known social figure, so politics is in his blood. Otherwise, look at him—he should have been a film hero!’

  ‘Do you people put up his posters instead of Salman Khan’s in your homes in Gorakhpur?’ mocked Rizvi.

  Since everyone was ragging the poor UP boy, Manjrekar couldn’t resist taking a swipe himself. Uncharacteristically, he said, ‘See, if politics does not work out for him, send your chutiya minister to me in Mumbai. I will make him a real hero. I have connections in the film industry!’

  The proud Gorakhpuri’s face visibly shrunk in diameter. But everyone else at the table guffawed at Manjrekar’s suggestion.

  Karan Singh Rathore was indeed a man blessed with great looks and greater ideas. Being a young politician still in his 30s, and possessing a dynamic personality and a skill for oratory, he had captured the imagination of youth across the country—just like the boys accompanying Manjrekar in the cafeteria that day.

  Karan’s politics had started in his college days—first, in Delhi University where he even had a stint as Treasurer of the Students Council, and later, at Jawaharlal Nehru University where he managed to get elected as President, despite his right-wing leanings, of a student body firmly entrenched in Marxist ideology.

  Jumping into real politics was the next logical step. Karan was first elected to the UP State Legislative Assembly at 28 years of age, becoming the youngest MLA ever from Gorakhpur. It had been a narrow victory against a two-time sitting assembly member, and the only way Karan had managed to be successful was by playing up his family name, his good looks, truckloads of money and gifts, months of relentless door-to-door canvassing, and repeating lies about his opponent ad nauseam. As things usually go in Indian politics, it is easy to distract the voter from the hard work of an incumbent if you give him a shiny new object to play with. Karan Singh Rathore was the shiny new object in that election.

  During his five years in the Legislative Assembly, Karan had focused on only one thing—how to elevate his profile to a national level. Luckily for him, his youth and English-medium education ensured that he became party spokesman and the State Government’s choice for its IT Minister. Karan’s populist scheme of providing free laptops to all postgraduation college-goers and a pen drive to all students in senior secondary and above ensured that he got ample coverage in the national media. It was an entirely different matter that, in reality, most of those laptops and pen drives were of very poor quality and that they were quickly sold off by their young recipients.

  The High Command of the Indian Kranti Party in Delhi was quick to spot Karan’s immense potential, and when the General Elections came along, offered him a ticket to the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur constituency. This time, Karan’s victory margin was huge. At 33 years of age, Karan became the youngest MP in the newly elected House. Based on his past experience at the state-level, Karan was awarded a junior portfolio in new Prime Minister Satyendra Saran’s Cabinet—that of Deputy Minister of Information Technology. The lead role of that ministry was retained by the Prime Minister himself.

  Satyendra Saran’s own ascension to Prime Ministership had been a fortuitous stroke of luck. Not even the most optimistic opinion polls had predicted a win for the Indian Kranti Party in the General Elections, so, naturally, when the party won, it promptly collapsed into in-fighting among its various factions. After weeks of deadlock, Saran’s was the only name that emerged as a consensus candidate for the Prime Minister’s post. He had been chosen mainly because of his quiet and b
land image—like the unthreatening background actor in a film who no one worries about being overshadowed by.

  ‘Harmless,’ as one of the party satraps had once described him.

  Being a veteran himself, political machinations was hardly virgin territory for Saran. He knew that if he expected to last as Prime Minister, he had to quickly find a way to make everyone happy—and then work painstakingly for the next five years to keep them in a jolly mood. Saran knew of plenty of strategies to play those kinds of political games, but no strategy is good if it isn’t executed properly. What Saran needed was a good henchman—young, loyal, smooth-talking, able-bodied in both physique and mind. Someone with enough ambitions of his own so that he could be strung along by tossing the occasional bone of Reward or Importance at him. Like his personal Doberman.

  Satyendra Saran chose Karan Singh Rathore to be that Doberman.

  Luckily for both, the youthful Prime Minister, himself in his early 50s, and the young MP from UP hit it off instantly. Even the personalities of the Master and his Companion complimented each other—Saran being the mature, reserved kind; Karan the unrestrained extrovert.

  Being in Delhi meant that Karan was finally poised for accomplishments that befitted his ambitions. Over the course of his five years as Deputy IT Minister, he got the opportunity to rub shoulders with big names in the field of Software, Media, Broadcasting, Films, Telecom and Education. As the Saran government approached its final year in office, Karan was tempted to explore an intriguing idea that had been gestating in his sharp mind for some time. He knew it was time to finally act upon it. He shared his thoughts with his Boss, who got just as excited. The idea was so compelling that they were surprised no one else had thought of it before! If implemented successfully, it had the potential to revolutionise the lives of millions, especially the youth, in a country where the median age was just twenty-four.