Murder at the Grand Raj Palace

by Vaseem Khan

  “Hah! Kids these days. They have no idea what marriage is. They watch those soppy movies and think it’s all roses and chocolates. And then reality drops on them like a herd of elephants.”

  “Talking of elephants… Wasn’t that a clever little thing?”

  Once the room had been cleared, Big Mother wheeled her chair forward and glared at her granddaughter. “I think it’s time you explained exactly what is going on here.”

  Anjali sighed. “I wanted to tell you, Big Mother, but I couldn’t. When you and my father first told me about the marriage proposal from the Deshmukh family, and how it would solve our financial problems, I was livid. How could you put me in that position? Ransoming my future against our family’s good name? I was so angry that I went to see Gautam, to tell him to stuff his proposal, and his money.” She paused. “But then, once I met him, I realised that he wasn’t quite the oaf I had expected him to be. He too lived under the burden of expectations. Yes, he had chosen me, but his choices were limited. His father expected him to marry into another noble family. In fact, he had shown courage in asking for my hand, knowing his family’s animosity towards us. I realised that duty binds both ways. I began to consider the sacrifices that you and my father have made, the choices you were never allowed to make, trapped by tradition and responsibility.

  “I’m not sure exactly when and how it happened, but Gautam and I fell in love.

  “I suppose that was when we might have just gone along with your plans for us, the royal wedding, everything. But there was something holding us back—the ancient feud between our families. The fact that Gautam’s father would always believe that he had somehow saved us by marrying his son to me.”

  Shaktisinghrao blinked, and seemed about to say something in his defence, but a tug on his arm from his wife silenced him.

  “And then, as I saw the preparations for the wedding, the ruinous one-upmanship that our fathers were engaged in, I realised that things were worse than I feared. A few weeks ago, Gautam and I both saw them fighting over who would buy us a Rolls-Royce! That was the last straw. There and then we decided that, somehow, we needed to end this ridiculous feud.”

  “And your bright idea for how to do this was to vanish?” Big Mother glared at her granddaughter.

  “We knew that trying to talk sense into our fathers would be pointless. The only thing that would force them to work together was something that affected them both equally.”

  “Hah!” said Big Mother. “These two idiots almost knocked each other senseless because of your disappearing act.”

  “But Moth—” protested Prakashrao, but was cut off by a wave of Big Mother’s hand.

  “You’re right, Big Mother.” Anjali sighed. “Things didn’t quite work out as I had thought. I underestimated the enmity between our families. I hoped that my mysterious disappearance from a locked room would help them find common cause; that they would work together to find me—I knew they would not go to the police, not at first, because of the scandal. I hoped that they would realise that this wedding isn’t about wealth and power, but about people. About me and Gautam. About two great families becoming one.” She turned to Poppy. “I am sorry for involving you. I thought it would help to have someone outside of the family to convey my supposed last-minute doubts to them. I couldn’t ask Huma to do that. She would have seen through me, known that I was up to something. When we met in the hotel, I sensed that you were the sort of person who would blame yourself for my disappearance, because of the advice you gave me. I had hoped that you would find out about my vanishing act—I knew it would be hard to keep it a secret within the confines of the hotel—and that you would go to my family and give them the impression that I had gone because of my desire not to go through with the wedding. As it turns out, they didn’t really need the push.”

  “Have you any idea, young lady, of what you have put us through?” said Big Mother. “The trouble you have caused?”

  Anjali looked rueful. “You told me yourself, didn’t you, Big Mother, that you wished for this feud to be ended? Well, now it is. Not artificially, by marrying me to Gautam, but in reality. I think our fathers have finally seen sense. At least I hope so.”

  “And if we hadn’t found you? Or if these two dolts hadn’t buried the hatchet? Then what? Would you have gone through with the wedding?”

  Anjali exchanged glances with Gautam. “We would have done what was right,” she said, cryptically.

  A silence fell over the room, broken only by Ganesha snuffling at a fruit basket he had discovered sitting on a sideboard.

  Shaktisinghrao and Prakashrao exchanged glances. “You have a very intelligent daughter,” said Gautam’s father eventually.

  “I know,” said Prakashrao. “And you have a noble son. One I am sure will make her a good husband.”

  “So does this mean the wedding can finally go ahead?” asked Poppy.

  “About that…” said Anjali, looking sideways at Gautam. “There’s a little problem.”

  “What problem?” said Big Mother, her eyes squinting with suspicion.

  “Um… the fact that we’re already married.”

  A collective gasp of shock rippled around the room.

  Anjali sighed. “Gautam and I knew we wanted to spend our lives together. We were worried that, in spite of our efforts to end the feud—or possibly because of it—the wedding might fall apart. And so we got married a week ago, in a registry office, with no fanfare, and no guests.”

  “Oh God, I am ruined!” Gautam’s mother swooned into her husband’s arms, but his own shock meant that he ignored her and she fell heavily to the floor.

  Big Mother grimaced. “Then why go through with this-this charade?”

  “As I said: we needed a reason for our fathers to cooperate. The registry wedding was just a precaution. We still needed a way to bring our families together.”

  Big Mother was silent, evaluating her granddaughter’s words.

  “So what happens now?” said Gautam.

  Big Mother wheeled her chair forward. “I will tell you what happens now. Now the pair of you will get ready. To be married.”

  “But, Big Mother—”

  “Don’t you ‘but’ me, young lady. You’ve had your say, and now it’s my turn. Regardless of your intentions, you have behaved irresponsibly. You have made fools of your family, and put a great many people to inconvenience. This is not the behaviour of an adult, nor is it befitting a princess of either the Deshmukh or Tejwa clans.” Big Mother paused. “And so you will make amends. You and Gautam may be married in the eyes of the law, but the royal families of India have their own sense of what is right, a sense honed over thousands of years. And when two great houses are united, there must be a statement, so that everyone will know. The light of our kind may be dimming, but we are not gone yet. Until that day comes we will abide by the traditions that we have carried faithfully down the ages.”

  Anjali glanced at Gautam. Something wordless passed between them. “We will do as you wish, Big Mother.”

  Poppy clapped. “So there will be a wedding, after all!” she said, happily.

  “No,” said Big Mother, the bones of her face finally stretching into a smile. “There will not be a wedding. There will be a royal wedding. And that is a different matter altogether.”

  THE AGE OF SPLENDOUR

  “Keep that damned monkey away from me!”

  The priest glared at Rocky, the Wonder Langur, as he clutched protectively at his saffron robes. The monkey was perched on Ganesha’s back, shelling peanuts with an air of casual menace.

  Around them the small crowd gathered in the Bhagat Singh garden for the ceremony talked in hushed voices, apart from Big Mother; she had found a like-minded ally in Poppy’s own mother, Poornima Devi, a widow of many years, whose white sari contrasted starkly with the colourful dress of those around her.

  The two women were bent in conspiratorial confabulation, loudly berating the modern world and the ungrateful generation that populat
ed it.

  The priest, who, by dint of great pleading—and an eye-watering sum of cash—had been prevailed upon to return to the Grand Raj Palace, stepped onto the marriage podium. With one eye warily on the langur, he called the gathering to order.

  “May the happy couple please step forward.”

  Anjali Tejwa turned to beam a wide-lipped smile at Gautam Deshmukh… and then they both turned to watch Poppy and Chopra ascend the podium.

  Chopra pulled at the starched collar of his embroidered golden sherwani coat. It had been itching all morning. Well, there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet. After all, the whole thing had been his own idea…

  Poppy leaned into him. “This is the best gift you have ever given me,” she whispered. “Much better than a vacation!”

  The words gladdened Chopra’s heart. He loved his wife dearly, and there was little doubt that his recent behaviour had upset her. He had racked his brain for a suitable way to make amends. How to make up for neglecting their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary…? And then it had come to him. The perfect solution.

  Of course, renewing their vows in front of all these people hadn’t been part of the plan. Nor prancing around in this silly outfit. He felt like a clown. But that was Poppy all over. Once he had made his suggestion, she had gone to town. He hadn’t the heart to tell her that he had only been thinking of a simple affair, just the two of them, with maybe Ganesha and Irfan in attendance.

  Still, it was a small price to pay for harmony.

  The real ordeal was going to be sitting through the marathon festivities marking the wedding of Anjali Tejwa Patwardhan and Gautam Deshmukh Patwardhan…

  … which began later that evening with an hour-long fireworks display that lit up the southern tip of Mumbai like the coming of the Apocalypse.

  Outside the Grand Raj Palace dazed beggars reeled away, leaping over the promenade wall and into the soupy Arabian Sea, thinking that war had been declared and the city was under attack. (It was later said that the fireworks had blown the cobwebs out of the ears of bemused fisherfolk ten miles away on Elephanta Island.)

  The fireworks ended with the arrival of a famous American pop star who had been paid an extraordinary sum to parachute in to the festivities. The dramatic entrance was ruined by a high wind funnelling up from the harbour and blowing the star off course, tangling him up in the flagpole atop the Gateway of India monument and resulting in a strangulated hernia. (The star’s voice, however, was not affected. His screams carried far out onto the water, adding to the bemusement of the fisherfolk on Elephanta.)

  Once the emergency services had departed the scene, the festivities resumed, with the arrival of a band of eunuchs, their ragged songs of blessing climbing into the night sky. Shaktisinghrao, a man of staunch tradition, rushed out to pay the eunuchs their expected gratuity. They drove a hard bargain, and by the time he had convinced them to leave, he had been all but stripped to his underclothes.

  Next came the buglers, and the dhol drummers, the juggling dwarfs and bagpipers, the fire-eaters and sword swallowers, and, finally, the snake-charmers, who caused a minor panic when a basket of cobras toppled over onto the road. As the serpents slithered to freedom, gathered gentry and locals alike fled, some following the beggars by leaping into the harbour.

  “Are these people mad?” muttered Chopra, looking on. “No wonder the royals of India are bankrupt.”

  “Well, I think it’s magnificent,” sighed Poppy, eyes glowing. “Besides, you only get married once.”

  Chopra refrained from muttering that in Mumbai, at least, even that wasn’t a given any more. The younger generation appeared to have fewer qualms about divorce and separation. The old taboos were gradually losing their meaning in modern India.

  The elephants were on the march.

  A line of the beasts swayed down the promenade, bringing traffic to a standstill.

  Chopra heard Ganesha trumpeting joyfully. He saw the little elephant skip towards the lumbering beasts, Irfan close behind him. Ganesha’s bottom vanished into the crowd of locals, tourists and wedding guests lining the promenade.

  Atop the lead elephant, which was caparisoned to within an inch of its life, was Gautam Deshmukh, shimmering in a golden wedding suit complete with golden turban. He swayed vertiginously inside a decorative howdah, a rictus grin on his sweating face.

  “Doesn’t he look dashing!” said Poppy.

  “He looks bloody terrified,” muttered Chopra.

  And, after the elephants had passed, came the procession of the nawabs.

  Royals from all over India had been invited to this grandest of weddings, the union of two ancient royal houses. A great gathering of the clans, the like of which had not been seen for many years. On they came, thundering along the promenade in their limousines, sports cars, vintage Rolls-Royces, Buicks and Cadillacs and even, for those with a sense of occasion, horse-drawn carriages.

  As Chopra watched them process into the Grand Raj, these once-fabulous lords and ladies of the realm, he felt time shifting around him, drawing him back into the mists of history, when men and women like this had ruled the land. For all their faults and vices, they had symbolised something, a certain notion of India, an ideal of hegemony now discredited and folded into the great tapestry of the past. In that moment, he understood how his predecessors might have been seduced into admiration. That this collection of unhappy lunatics, monobrowed misanthropes and brutish vulgarians could be called nobility seemed laughable now, a cosmic jest.

  Yet rule they had, since time immemorial.

  But now the age of giants was past.

  They had lived too loudly and their life force was spent, frittered away like their erstwhile fortunes, a long, lazy decline into moral ruin. Like dinosaurs they had settled into the mud of history, and breathed their last.

  The figures before him seemed to shimmer and fade, like ghosts. He was overcome by a sudden, overwhelming sadness. Perhaps, by bringing them together in this final moment of magnificent passion, history was choosing to honour their passing, the passing of an age.

  The age of splendour.

  Chopra felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find the artist Shiva Swarup standing before him, a gentle breeze from the harbour ruffling his grey hair.

  “May I talk with you a moment?” he said.

  They walked to the Gateway of India, where Swarup lit another of his roll-ups and stared momentarily out to sea.

  From the harbour came the smell of brine and tar, voices raised in drunken snatches of song, the susurration of water sucking on concrete pylons. “I wanted to thank you,” he said finally.

  “Thank me?” Chopra could not keep the astonishment from his voice.

  “Yes. I have decided to tell the press about Kunal.”

  Chopra took this in silence. He knew that by revealing that he had stolen his dead friend’s work to kick-start his career, Swarup would be committing professional suicide. His revelation would not go down well with either the art fraternity or the general public.

  Nor would he be the only one facing the wrath of the Indian masses once the full facts of the case came to light.

  Even now Rohan Tripathi was preparing a press release that would detail not only Burbank’s murder, but the wider aspects of Chopra’s investigation. Tripathi had already contacted the commissioner of police and the chief minister. The revelations of the chemical accident that had wiped out the village of Shangarh would send shockwaves around the country.

  Chopra knew that the true target of the public’s rage would then become the government, the faceless men responsible for the deaths of two hundred individuals. And, inevitably, those who had then covered up the crime. A silent scream that had echoed down the decades would finally find its voice. The media would have a field day, and the ramifications would, no doubt, be felt all the way to New Delhi.

  None of this mattered to Shiva Swarup.

  “You have set me free,” said the artist. “I have lived with the guilt of my act
ions for three decades. It has hollowed me out. You see, it’s not just the fact that I stole Kunal’s work. It’s because I know he would never have begrudged me. He was the sweetest, gentlest soul that I have ever known. Had I asked, he would have given his life for me. In a way, he did.”

  Chopra watched the man, his lonely silhouette against the dark horizon. How frail he seemed. And yet, in the relaxed set of his shoulders, the easing of his countenance, he saw that there was, indeed, a weight lifted from him.

  Perhaps it was true what they said: redemption, however late it may come, was the only sure road to salvation. Whoever had said that guilt was a town you could never leave was wrong. There was always a way out. Most people simply never looked for it.

  “Come on, you’re missing all the fun!”

  Chopra turned to find Poppy bearing down on him.

  She stopped as she reached them, glancing uncertainly from her husband to Shiva Swarup.

  Chopra stuck out a hand. “I wish you all the best. The world is a fickle place. On some days, I can well believe that a man’s star rises and falls by the cycle of the moon.”

  Swarup gave a wry smile, and took Chopra’s hand. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps in time I will be forgiven. But if I paint again, it will only be for myself.”

  Chopra nodded, then turned and accompanied his wife across the concourse to the blazing lights of the Grand Raj Palace Hotel where the wedding of the century was about to get under way.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Although the events in this book are wholly fictitious, the idea for one of the major plot points stems from the real-life Bhopal gas tragedy, a gas leak incident in India often cited as the world’s worst industrial disaster.

  The incident occurred on the night of 3rd December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas. The highly toxic substance made its way into the shanty towns around the plant, killing and injuring thousands. Estimates for the death toll vary from 3700 to 8000. An estimated 40,000 individuals were left permanently disabled, maimed, or suffering from serious illness.