Kumbhpur Rising

by Mayur Didolkar

  Ahead of him he saw Rajesh Ghate kick the door open and the cops entered inside the house guns ready.

  Vinit entered the house a step behind Rajesh and his mind did a slow sick waltz.

  To call the scene inside mayhem was an understatement. It was ten times worse than the school, which was saying a lot.

  Shubhangi’s father–in-law was lying sprawled across the floor inside the living room. He was not just killed; he was literally torn apart, possibly from several chops of the sword. His stomach was ripped open, and coils of intestine lay hanging loosely on one side. He had also lost about a third of his head. Blood was still leaking from his dead body.

  Inside the kitchen, Shubhangi’s mother-in-law lay just as dead, her body half on the kitchen table and half off it. Her head was smashed to pulp so badly, that her head or what remained of it seemed pasted to the table. Blood had sputtered to the far wall. She must have been at least six feet away from that wall when the rolling pin stuck her. Vinit could not imagine the force it must have taken to open a skull like that.

  All this was going on inside some subconscious part of his mind. Outwardly he was still doing his core job, trying to assess the damage and contain it, if possible.

  “Where is the husband?” Vinit asked, and a scream from the upstairs bedroom answered that question.

  The two cops hit the stairs, at the same time Rajaji and his goons reached inside the house. Vinit heard the scream of revulsion from one of the men. In some perverted part of his mind, he was happy about the grisly nature of the murders downstairs, if it was going to stop Rajaji and his goons long enough for him and Rajesh to go upstairs and arrest the teacher.

  Rajesh kicked the bedroom door upstairs, and both of them burst inside, guns pointed downwards. Vinit, however, forgot his warning shout when his eyes took in the fresh horror ahead of him.

  Wadale and Shubhangi were both there, howling with joy, while her husband was screaming in horror. He was tied on the bed face down, while another woman of about Shubhangi’s age (later on Vinit came to know that she was Shubhangi’s sister–in-law), lay dead near the window. She, too, was torn to ribbons with Wadale’s sword. Wadale was still at work on her, administering blow upon blow, each time howling with laughter, while his daughter was at work on her husband.

  Shubhangi’s husband was stripped naked, and she was in the process of anally raping him with a long knife normally used for gutting fish. Shubhangi’s face, hands and chest was all covered with blood. Every time she dipped the knife deeper, a fresh jet of blood came. She turned to see the two dumb struck cops standing, and let out another howl of laughter.

  “Baba here comes two more of them, take care of them please,” Shubhangi told her father.

  Wadale turned and charged at the two cops. Rajesh was the first to break out of his shock. He raised the gun and shot the music teacher once. Wadale took the bullet in his chest on the left side. He was thrown back against the wall, but did not drop the sword. Clutching his side with one hand, he stood up again and charged. Rajesh and Vinit fired almost together, both the bullets hit the music teacher squarely in his chest and throat. With a howl of rage and pain, Wadale was thrown sideways on the bed, knocking his daughter from on top of her husband. After about a minute, he rolled on his side and dropped to the ground. Vinit and Rajesh circled the bed and covered Shubhangi from both sides.

  “Please get down and throw your knife,” Rajesh’s voice was more a request than a command by a man with a gun. The next moment, Shubhangi rose from her prone position and looked Rajesh square in the eye.

  “You get abused all your life and nobody gives a damn, and you just take a little revenge and you people, you fucking people……….” She was too choked with hatred to complete her sentence.

  Just then Vinit noticed a movement behind Rajesh, a gleam of maroon color, and before he realized the danger, his assistant was attacked.

  Wadale unbelievably was back on his feet. He raised the sword with every ounce of remaining strength, and slashed Rajesh across his back. Rajesh crying with pain turned, but the teacher was falling to the ground for the last time. At the same time, Rajesh felt a fresh wave of pain as Shubhangi jumped on top of him, and sank her bloody knife below his ribs. The two went down with a crash. Shubhangi maneuvered herself on top of the wounded cop, and raised her knife again. Rajesh, barely conscious, warded off the stroke by shielding his face with his hands. The knife sank in his wrist, missing the artery by a centimeter. Rajesh screamed with pain.

  Vinit walked around the bed in a daze and raised his gun. It was a difficult shot since both were still on ground struggling. Vinit was afraid that he might hit his colleague if he tried to take Shubhangi. On the other hand if he did not interfere Rajesh was a goner. His struggle was becoming weaker. Shubhangi had stabbed him twice more and even though both the wounds on his forearms were superficial, he was bleeding profusely.

  Just then Rajaji and one of his goons entered the room. They were momentarily paralyzed by the fresh mayhem around them and in that time Vinit made his decision. He stepped closer to the duo wrestling on ground and waited for Shubhangi to raise her knife to strike again. When she did that, her head was raised, taking Rajesh’s prone body out of the line of fire. Even then, Vinit did not take any chances. He stepped forward and touched Shubhangi’s hair with the barrel of his gun before pulling the trigger. Later on, he tried to tell himself that he had kept his eyes open all the time.

  The sound of the shot was deafening in the small room. The .38 slugs blew Shubhangi’s skull from its base. A big portion of her head disintegrated and flew away with chunks of bone and flesh flying everywhere. Her dead body remained erect for a split second, and then collapsed on top of Rajesh. The knife in her hand clattered to the floor for once without doing any further harm. Rajesh was showered with his attacker’s blood and flesh, and the breath was knocked out of him when the dead body collapsed on top of him.

  The room got crowded quickly, as both the police and the local people got reinforcements. Vinit pulled the dead body away from Rajesh’s and checked on his fallen comrade. Rajesh’s breathing was coming in shallow gasps and his face had already turned bluish. There was a pool of blood beneath him from the two fatal stabs he received. His wrist too bled profusely. Vinit knew in his heart, that it would take a minor miracle to save Rajesh.

  He turned to the Constable standing open mouthed by his side and said, “Ambulance quick and I want two people riding with him,” and then on second thoughts he turned to the body of Wadale and the checked pulse. There was none.

  When he stood up, he saw a few people crowding the room. He shouted to all the civilians to clear out ,nobody put up an argument. Only Rajaji while walking out motioned Vinit to follow him. Wiping his bloody hands on a white kerchief, Vinit followed the local MLA in the corridor outside.

  “Sahib we saw what happened, obviously the teacher had gone mad and so had the girl. It’s a tragedy, and nobody would blame you or your colleague for killing them. We know there was no choice,” Rajaji said, lighting up cigarettes and offering one to Vinit. Vinit took the cigarette, and dragged deeply on it. His tired mind tried to work out exactly what message the politician was giving him. But he had bigger worries right now. This was beyond him and he knew it.

  Since last night about midnight, the town had witnessed a staggering amount of murders. This stopped being disturbing and was quickly getting blown in to a full-fledged riot. Vinit, a lowly PI, was not the right person to handle a disturbance of this magnitude. He pulled out his mobile phone and called his SP at the district HQ. Then he relayed the latest happenings there and requested more reinforcements. The SP, sounding more bewildered than ever, told him that he was driving down there himself and hung up. Just then the mobile phone rang again. It was from the police chowky near the bridge.

  “Sir there is a tourist lady here. We are not allowing any new vehicles, but she would not listen. Says she wants to talk to you,” The duty constable reported.


  “Is she alone?” Vinit asked, as he watched the orderlies wheeling Rajesh out on a stretcher.

  “There are two of them, an older man who looks like her driver or something,”

  “I am going to the hospital, bring them there,” Vinit said and followed the stretcher downstairs. He put the other API; an old hand called Suresh Jait, in charge of the house and followed his colleague to the hospital in the jeep. As he started out, there was a clap of thunder overhead and it started raining. By the time Vinit reached the town hospital it was raining in huge torrents. Vinit ran inside the porch and saw an attractive woman of about his own age standing there with a middle-aged man. He knew both of them were cops the moment he saw them.

  At the Base the news of Sudhakar and Shubhangi’s death was received with somber silence. The Courageous Leader called them soldiers, and assured the men and women gathered that the two would be joining them come nightfall.

  “We have planned this carefully, we have succeeded so far, and the rain gods have been favoring us. In another thirty minutes, the bridge will collapse and then we will move into the town. I expect a full victory by dawn tomorrow morning. But before that I need to venture out and take care of the out of towners.”

  As usual nobody questioned the Courageous Leader. The only consensus among the undead was they should start early, as early as possible. Courageous Leader had noticed that his men were biodegrading slowly. The ones whom he had resurrected first were now looking like ghosts, pardon the pun. His people needed new blood and flesh, and he was in charge of providing them with it. He felt responsible towards them the way a father would feel towards his children.

  Courageous Leader himself was not in any hurry. He was a man for all seasons, he had spent so much time lying low that time did not have any specific meaning for him.

  The dilemma facing the Courageous Leader was altogether different. The nutshell of all his existence had been in being an outsider pissing in. Now this battle was to become an insider to piss out. His was a long history of such battles, where the human souls were up for grabs, but the depressing thing for him was that he was always a penny too short, a year too late. He had faced formidable adversaries, and despite fighting tough and fair he had always somehow ended up losing. He was desperate to end the losing streak. And somehow he knew that this quaint little seaside town was the place where this losing streak was going to come to an end.

  A victory was long overdue.

  Chapter 7

  The talk during dinner turned to death. Not surprising since the news of fresh carnage rolled in mid afternoon and no body wanted to go out to the beach after that. Rani and Alok had spent all afternoon lying in the hammock outside and having a nap. That was nice, till the rain broke out and both had to rush in. Rajat and Rakesh continued drinking after lunch, discussing such charming topics as murder and disembowelment. After a few drinks, the anal rape of Shubhangi’s husband seemed terribly wicked to both of them, and they agreed if they ever marry (or remarry) they would never provoke the little woman too much. Getting raped with a knife was a trace tasteless, they agreed.

  Neeraj and Ragini found themselves alone on the terrace late noon. She had come there to have a smoke, and cry a little about Nishant, her husband, now a state guest at the Yerawada Prison. She remembered how the idea of sleeping for money had strangely excited her the first time, and how depressed she had felt when she returned to her flat. She had sat on the living room floor and remembered the john’s beard brushing her face and cried. Later that night, she had almost overdosed on sleeping pills, and called Happy in Delhi. This was five months before Happy’s arrest for attacking a police officer at Delhi Railway station.

  She remembered how Nishant had lost his temper, when she made the mistake of coming clean with him and telling him, how she was managing to maintain herself with the big loans they had taken when they were both employed in the booming dot-com economy. He spat in her face through the bars of the visitor’s facility and called her a whore, which she was. He also told all the police constables standing around that his wife (soon to be ex-wife, if he was to be believed), was a girl for good time, shouting her mobile number loudly and inviting one and all to call her. Ragini continued to receive obscene calls on her mobile for a couple of weeks, till she gave up and changed her number. Three months later Nishant sent a message through his lawyer saying he was sorry, and wanted to meet her again. Ragini went back right after an appointment with a middle aged finance manager of Indian Railways and told Nishant in pitiless details of how she bedded another man, and how he had used her body just an hour back. Nishant cried, and this time Ragini left shouting her own mobile number, telling one and all that she was the one to call for good times. For a change, she did not receive any obscene calls after this.

  She felt, rather than saw Neeraj coming and standing next to her. She turned halfway and saw his side profile. He was a good looking man with an air of quiet self-confidence about him. The way he stood leaning against the balcony railings was far enough in case she wished to be alone, and close enough if she chose to talk. She chose to talk.

  “Lot of violence for a small town huh?” She said.

  Neeraj turned around and said, “Yes, these village folks are sure keeping themselves busy, to say nothing of the strange memories it brings out among us city folks.”

  Ragini let that roll for a while. When he did not elaborate any further she said, “I did not understand the last part.”

  “Oh but you do Ragini, if you somehow manage to get inside the head of every guest here, I am sure you will find a lot of bad memories, even shameful ones. That is the power of violence. It brings strong memories of the worst thing that has happened to us, or worse still it brings strong memories of the worst thing that we have done. Something that we are ashamed of,”

  “What is the worst memory of your life?” She asked, not sure if she was being nosy.

  “Well I can’t tell you the worst memory; I can tell you the worst thing that I have ever done though.”

  Ragini thought about that for a second not sure if she wanted to know what was the ‘worst thing’ this good-looking man, might have done. She had detected a certain abnormality about him, the moment they first met. She was not too curious; in her short career as a call girl she had seen enough aberrations of human behavior.

  “But something on your face tells me that you are none too eager to listen to it so let’s listen to what is the worst memory of your life?”

  The worst memory of Ragini’s life was undoubtedly the day when her husband stabbed their mutual boss with a switch blade knife, after attempting to take the soon to be defunct office, hostage. Surprisingly she remembered very little about it.

  Nishant had not taken his firing well. He created a scene at the pink slip party (a classy gesture by the company if there ever was one), by calling Happy a whore of his bosses, and spitting on the Managing Director after taking in a mouthful of whisky. His judgment was of course blurred by the fact that the house, which he and Ragini had bought, was about to be repossessed, and he was just another graduate with just two years of work experience in a busted economy.

  Later that night the Managing Director listened to an hour of passionate pleading by Happy, Ragini and Rajat in the adjoining washroom of the hotel. In the end, he consented not to press charges against Nishant and also agreed to let him go with the pre-agreed benefits. Ragini was so grateful she would have slept with him. She did not. However, while they were leaving Ragini felt a hard pinch on her Jeans clad bottom, and saw the MD pass non-chalantly. The next day, when Nishant woke, he had a hangover and he accused Ragini of fucking the MD in return for his behavior. Ragini walked out of the house and did not return to it for three days. She stayed with a girlfriend. Sadly perhaps if she would have stayed with Nishant he would not have completely flipped over.

  On that fateful Monday all the employees fired in the latest batch were called for their final settlement. Happy, who already had an offer letter f
rom a travel house in Delhi, was in the MD’s cabin, saying good bye to him. A small mousy man in his late fifties settled accounts with all the employees. The office space was already sold to an art studio and the office was getting stripped down. Ragini, who was the first one to get her severance pay, had carried the cheque to the ladies room and cried, sitting on the commode. She was still there when she heard noises outside. She stepped out of the ladies room and almost bumped into Rajat who was presently pleading with Nishant. Nishant was calling the MD a motherfucker, and he had a switchblade knife to the throat of the accountant who looked about ready to soil his clothes.

  “Nishant man, come on, no way to behave,” Rajat’s tone was that of utter bewilderment. Just then Ragini saw Rakesh coming down from the terrace, presumably after a final smoke in the old smoking den. He too saw Nishant and stopped in his tracks.

  “Stay out of this whore, I got nothing against you, except you always had the hots for my wife,” even in that moment, Ragini could see Rajat turning pink.It was true that he was always attracted to Ragini, and despite the fact that she had always treated him with brotherly affection, Ragini was sure she had figured in a wet dream or two.

  Ragini stepped ahead of Rajat, and confronted Nishant, hands on her hips, “Come on baby, please think about us. Don’t do this, we are still together, we can work it out,”

  Nishant was crying, but the point of the knife touching the accountant’s throat never wavered, “Sorry baby, it had to come to this, but I cannot let these bastards screw us out of our lives. Our precious lives.” Here Nishant completely broke down and began to sob.

  The MD and Happy walked towards Nishant from the opposite direction. Nishant saw them, and waved them back “No closer Happy, I really don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.

  “Nobody will get hurt if you stay focused Nishant, just for a moment please,” Happy’s voice was calm, soothing as always. He might have been discussing the weekly sales forecast. The MD stopped a few feet away from where Nishant was standing, but Happy just kept walking. Rajat started walking towards Nishant from the opposite direction and in a moment Rakesh joined him. They brushed past Ragini, closing in on Nishant. Nishant flattened himself against the wall, and held the shaking accountant in front of him like a shield waving his knife in an arc.