by Salil Desai
“Yes. I had gathered information and first went to consult a surgeon in Delhi . . . I was put off by the shadiness of his practice but he had told me the entire procedure involved. To start with, certification by two psychiatrists of my dysphoria—”
“Dysphoria?”
“Yes, Inspector. Haven’t you done your homework? Dysphoria is the compelling psychological and physiological urge to change one’s sex,” Anushka smirked. “Two qualified psychiatrists need to certify this condition of any individual who wants to change his sex. This is to be followed by hormone therapy for a year or so, then compliance of legal formalities for undergoing surgery, and finally the actual series of surgeries. I came back to Bangalore and thought the matter over. I had several doubts. How was I to be sure that it was worth undergoing gender reassignment? What if something went horribly wrong? What if the surgeries failed? It was a big risk, plus the shadiness of it all. I needed to find the right doctors, people I could trust. So I began looking all over India. I even wondered if I could get it done abroad.”
“Is that when you first thought of getting a Portuguese passport?” Saralkar asked.
“No, no, that was later. It hadn’t even crossed my mind then,” Anushka Doshi said. “I was just hunting for the right doctors and the money I would require to live the rest of my life as a woman later on, the investments I needed to make to lead a comfortable existence, when I realized I needed more money-spinning avenues. And that is when I got this idea of recruitments abroad; I thought it would really bring in money faster. I, of course, couldn’t run it myself so I thought of Bhupathi who I had met during some land deal. He seemed just the right guy to run the scam. He agreed to become my partner but in turn suggested that we needed one more partner, and that’s how Shaunak Sodhi came into the bloody picture.”
Anushka Doshi paused, a look of disgust on her face as if contemplating how different her life would’ve been if there had been no Shaunak Sodhi. “Headstrong, educated nitwit!” she spat out the words and picked up the narrative again. “I didn’t want him—too white collar for my tastes. All crime requires blue collar instincts. Shaunak was a novice in scamming and crime, he was very unstable, but Bhupathi convinced me he was the right guy for the racket, especially because he seemed corporate and street smart at the same time. When BORIS became a success my initial reservations faded, but when things began to go wrong, after the suicide of one young man, whose death created a furore, Shaunak was the first to panic and began flapping and clucking like a complete idiot. In jail he turned Bhupathi’s head also, and by the time they got out on bail they got it into their heads that I was somehow double crossing them and getting away scot free.”
“Weren’t you?” Saralkar took a dig. “They went to jail, you didn’t. You successfully managed to portray yourself as the innocent partner, who knew nothing about the racket. Then one after the other you swiftly liquidated properties bought by the three of you, which were all in your name and salted away all the money. Why blame them for suspecting your motives and intent?”
Anushka Doshi sniggered. “All part of the game, Inspector. Come on, you know it. That’s how things work. What did they expect? That I would try and get myself implicated in the scam too? Does that make sense? I told Bhupathi and Sodhi repeatedly that it would all blow over soon. Even if there was enough evidence against them in the scam, they would soon be out on bail and we’d get good lawyers and defend them. Bhupathi understood the ways of the crime profession but this idiot Sodhi was just unnerved by jail and that damned asthma he suffered from . . . he just wouldn’t listen to reason. Yes, I’d sold off a lot of property but he got it into his head that I was double crossing them. And then they began demanding a much higher share from the proceeds. His logic was that they were undergoing all the hardships of jail, so I should hand over the lion’s share of what I had liquidated as compensation. When they got out on bail, Sodhi was completely out of control. Abusing, demanding, threatening. I could see Bhupathi too had started supporting his views, although hesitantly. He had also developed a sense of grievance that I was cheating him.”
“So you hatched a plan to invite Sodhi and Bhupathi for a compromise meeting, pretended to agree to their demands, got them drunk, killed Sodhi and threatened Bhupathi with dire consequences if he did not go along with your plan of establishing your death—the death of Rahul Fernandes—and propagate the false myth of Shaunak Sodhi as the absconding murderer.”
“No, no. I had not planned to kill Sodhi. I wanted to resolve the issue amicably,” Anushka Doshi said. “But the two just wouldn’t be reasonable, especially Sodhi. They kept accusing me of cheating them and demanding more. Sodhi was drunk and abusive. He insisted we go to my farmhouse immediately and hand over all the cash. I agreed. I also tried to explain that I had already fixed ASI Murgud so that he would slowly weaken the evidence and the case against them, make witnesses turn hostile through bribes or threats. It would take some time but they would eventually be able to fend off a long sentence. At my farmhouse I gave them about Rs 15 lakhs each, but they wanted more. Sodhi turned even more aggressive and threatened that he would testify against me and ensure I also got dragged into the case and went to prison.”
Anushka Doshi paused and looked at the two policemen intently. It was a look Motkar recognized, the look that many criminals gave, yearning to be understood as they prepared to reveal what had been their personal tipping points, which triggered them to commit heinous crimes for the first time.
“It was the threat of a prison term that really spooked me.” Her voice was down to a harsh yet vulnerable whisper. “Going to prison would dash all my hopes, of ever undergoing sex change and living life as a woman, of being happy and at peace. The bastard shouldn’t have threatened me with that. Shaunak Sodhi dug his own bloody grave with that threat because I knew he was serious. That’s when I lost it. I couldn’t bear the thought of living life as a man for years together, that too in a bloody prison. So one moment Shaunak Sodhi was alive, ranting at me, the next he was dead. I shot him at point-blank range; Bhupathi saw me do it and he immediately capitulated with terror. He thought I would shoot him too. I knocked him unconscious and then just sat thinking. A plan soon formed in my mind. I revived Bhupathi and warned him I would spare his and his family’s life if he did exactly as I said.”
“But how come you didn’t kill Bhupathi too?”
“I needed him alive if my plan was to work. Otherwise who would tell the story that Rahul Fernandes had been murdered and Shaunak Sodhi was absconding?” Anushka Doshi replied coolly. “I convinced Bhupathi that it was the only way out. We then severed Sodhi’s head and dismembered him; it wasn’t all that hard. Once you’ve killed the person, he’s like any other inanimate object that has to be cut up. After that we took the torso and buried it at a spot along the Mysore highway, drove further on towards Mercara and threw Shaunak’s head into the valley. From there we split. Both of us had cash. Bhupathi went back to Bangalore to take his family. I warned him that if he got caught he better stick to the version I had said or I would make sure that his wife and son would meet the same fate as Sodhi. The rest of the story you already know. Bhupathi got caught before he could flee Bangalore and he told the police exactly what I had told him to. Even better, he couldn’t lead them to the place where we’d buried the body and so I, Rahul Fernandes, became established as the victim and Sodhi as the fugitive, even though he was dead. In turn I used this as the perfect cover to change my sex and assume the identity of the woman I always wanted to be.”
“So that means you had already made preparations to undergo gender reassignment before Sodhi’s murder?” Saralkar asked.
“Yes,” Anushka Doshi replied. “I told you I wanted to be sure about gender reassignment. So I’d started looking for good specialists and one of them was Dr. Dhingra who had a practice in Mumbai but had also set up a weekend consulting clinic and surgery in Goa, where he had plenty of clients from abroad too. Later he completely shifted to Goa, pro
bably to be close to his paramour Geeta Chaudhuri. I had got to know about Dhingra because by chance I had met Sherly, my wife, at a party. My mind was blown when I got to know that Sherly was a transgender, who’d successfully transitioned from being a male to a female, following gender reassignment procedures. I knew this was the perfect opportunity for me to see for myself and make my mind up about gender reassignment. So I proposed to Sherly and asked her to become my wife. After some hesitation she agreed. Living with her for three years gave me full confidence that becoming a woman through gender reassignment was perfectly viable sexually, emotionally, psychologically, physically, behaviourally . . .”
“Yes, Sherly told me you used her like a guinea pig, experimenting and subjecting her to mental and physical torture,” Saralkar remarked.
“Oh, come on, Inspector! I needed to find out for myself that Sherly was not faking things and that gender reassignment worked in every way, that’s all. And I rewarded her handsomely, didn’t I? Left her most of Rahul Fernandes’ investments and flat. Anyway, it helped me make my final decision. Two years after marrying Sherly I started my treatment and hormone therapy. Psychiatric counselling had already started. When the recruitment scam blew up, I had already decided to undergo the surgery in a few months and had been taking concrete steps to prepare myself for a new life after the surgery. I was so bloody close to fulfilling my lifelong dream, and Shaunak Sodhi threatened to ruin it all . . . that’s why he had to die.”
“So where did you escape? When did you get the surgery done?” Motkar asked.
“I moved from place to place across India for about three months, and then reached Goa. I squared up with ASI Murgud fairly early on, since I knew I would require him to get things done and to make sure Bhupathi didn’t squeal or crack under pressure. He did a good job by getting Bhupathi off the hook and ensured that the investigation floundered so that no chargesheet could be filed. Bhupathi got bail and fled. I was now quite sure the police had no scent of the truth so I decided to get my gender reassignment done at the earliest. I would then have a new identity as a woman and that would help me flee justice forever. Since I had learnt about the fact that Goan citizens whose parents or grandparents had been living under Portuguese rule could gain Portuguese citizenship, I lost no time in applying for it. Portuguese nationality would also make it easier to travel and settle wherever I wanted and it would also be simpler to switch to my new identity as a woman later legally, since these matters are easier in Europe.
‘‘But when I decided to go ahead with the surgery, Dr. Dhingra told me I would require regular follow-up for at least two years, apart from the continuing hormone therapy. He also told me that the best way to make the transition was to also be in a relationship after about a year. That’s how I decided that it would be best to stay with Bhupathi as a couple and we became Sanjay and Anushka Doshi.”
“Ah, so you did to Bhupathi what you had done to Sherly earlier. You used him as a guinea pig to experiment with your newfound womanhood,” Saralkar said.
Motkar felt himself hit by a wave of nausea. And yet this was the crude and sordid truth of the life of the person in front of them. A person who had an urge so different from normal that he needed to plumb the depths of sadism.
“Well, I had to keep an eye on him, didn’t I? So what was wrong . . . if I . . . I mean I had become a woman, I was not a man any longer, so why couldn’t we have a relationship? It wasn’t as if Bhupathi could’ve got into bed with many women except hookers or maid servants; I was better than that.”
“Then why didn’t the cosy arrangement work out? Why did you have to kill him?” Saralkar asked.
“I had to; I had no choice. If I hadn’t killed Bhupathi he would’ve had me killed or revealed our secret and got us arrested. He had become a complete alcoholic, forever teetering on the verge of full-scale breakdown. It was only a matter of time. He hated me and was shit scared; he knew I had murdered Sodhi and he thought I would kill him some day. He was freaked out by my sex change and by staying with me. He was repulsed by my demands. He didn’t want to have intercourse with me . . . he had become a complete mental wreck. He had also started getting into unnecessary problems, with that agent Somnath Gawli and even my maidservant’s son, Hrithik Dhond, and had lost the ability to tackle things on his own. And then he began visiting and working with that Baba Rangdev. I began to sense trouble. I realized someone had blackmailed him into money laundering and betting activities.
“That meant someone had recognized him or perhaps he had blurted something out while in a drunken state. I began checking his text messages and call logs. Sure enough something was going on. Then sometimes he would blabber things in his drunken stupor, which clearly indicated sooner or later he would collapse and get us into trouble. Side by side he also seemed to be planning something, maybe getting rid of me. In one particular conversation I even overheard him talking to Rangdev about black magic and giving a supari. He thought I was still in the bathroom but actually I had already stepped out. It was a very hush hush short discussion but I heard it. All this rattled me and I knew I needed to act fast. Meanwhile, even after four to five years of the gender reassignment surgery, things were completely frustrating. Nothing was satisfactory. I didn’t feel like a woman, got no pleasure or peace whatsoever. I felt I had been duped. I felt angry all the time, deeply, unbearably frustrated and disappointed. Whatever Dr. Dhingra did, all procedures, all therapies, nothing seemed to help. Earlier I had felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body, now I felt like a freak of nature imprisoned in an artificial dungeon. I had just escaped one trap to land into another. My frustration was turning into rage. If I couldn’t be a woman, I wanted to go back to being a man.”
Anushka Doshi stopped and suddenly burst out into a volley of expletives, as if out of control, trying to purge her body of the accumulated poison. Motkar felt his revulsion rising but Saralkar did not react.
“Go on,” he prompted dryly after a long minute.
Anushka Doshi gave him a hostile look, grimaced, then picked up her narrative again. “I was scared that if Bhupathi made a blunder I would be caught and would have to spend the rest of my life as this ghastly freak. I wanted to escape, so I began planning to get rid of Bhupathi and fake the death of Anushka Doshi with the finger of suspicion pointing to Shaunak Sodhi again. I knew eventually the police would trace the case back to my earlier crime. Rahul Fernandes would still remain dead, Bhupathi would die but Shaunak Sodhi’s phantom would still remain alive. With Anushka Doshi’s identity taken care of, there would be no possibility of linking it back to Rahul Fernandes. I would coerce Dr. Dhingra to help me become Rahul Fernandes again and then I would flee India on my Portuguese passport. That’s how I planned it. ASI Murgud had helped me trace Dhingra’s lady love, Geeta Chaudhari, so I decided to abduct her from Tirupati, where we knew she went every year. Snaring her was easy with my past life regression spiel.”
“But didn’t it cross your mind that sex change surgical procedures were irreversible? That no matter what you did or tried, Dr. Dhingra wouldn’t be able to help?” Saralkar asked.
“How was I to be sure that it was irreversible? Perhaps there was some technology to reverse it. If women can undergo sex change to become men, why can’t a woman who was earlier a man become a man again? I mean they use our own tissues and skin grafts to create the organs,” Anushka Doshi said fiercely. “Can’t you see? I just wanted to stop being and feeling like a freak. I had spent my life in this hell, never feeling the slightest pleasure or happiness, always feeling the wrong person in the wrong body, always knowing something was weird and abnormal in me. Bewildered, tortured, as if I’ll explode at any moment, devoured by my cravings that I hadn’t asked for, a body and urges I didn’t choose to be born with . . . and Dhingra had assured me everything would be all right. Then whose responsibility was it to make sure I really became a woman? Felt like one? He had failed and he either needed to make up for it or pay with something valuable to him . . . and I
was bloody well going to make him pay.”
Anushka Doshi regarded them with a strange expression, as if sanity had retreated momentarily and naked, irrational emotion had completely taken over. Was that what happened with most murderers when they committed the act of killing, Motkar wondered. When they were so blinded with an emotion that it obscured everything else—a return to man’s most primitive self in which all other brain functions shut off, leaving just one active impulse that suffused human beings with the will to kill, to harm, to destroy?
“So that’s the reason you planned to pump so much testosterone into Geeta Chaudhari? So that she could start turning into a man?” Saralkar asked harshly. “You knew that would kill her.”
“That’s because you interfered. I was planning to keep her for a few weeks till some signs of masculinity spoilt her feminine features that had so bewitched Dhingra. I had planned one shot a week as they do during hormone therapy . . . that would have been some revenge,” Anushka Doshi gave him a horribly spiteful smile, as if her soul was twisted beyond redemption.
“And what about Meenakshi Rao? What sick justification do you have for that?” Motkar asked abruptly with unexpected fury. He had never felt so angry in a long time.
Anushka Doshi’s look didn’t change. “Would you have preferred if it had been Kunika Ahuja instead?” she said in a mocking tone, which was suddenly loaded with vehement bitterness. “God makes innocent victims out of so many of us, nobody calls him a pervert or a sadist. So why can’t I victimize? I needed somebody to die as Anushka Doshi. It happened to be Meenakshi Rao’s fate. Anyway their lives were hardly worth living, Meenakshi or Kunika—the wretched bitches born and endowed as women and look how they were wasting that womanhood—living like pathetic, teary, long suffering virgins.”
Suddenly PSI Motkar could bear the ravings of this sad, irreparably damaged, demented human being no more. He got up and strode out of the cell, filled with loathing and disgust, without excusing himself even from his boss.
