Kumbhpur Rising

by Mayur Didolkar

  ***

  Chapter 7

  The atmosphere in the traveling vehicle was of quiet euphoria. Rani hugged and kissed each one of them including Rakesh who was sprawled in the backseat, Ragini’s arms were bloody from keeping the pressure on his wound. Rajat drove.

  “He said he would not stake the fate of this town on a gun battle between you guys and his men, what did he mean by that?” Rani asked. Nobody answered.

  As they drove through the town, Rajat could hear wails coming from everywhere. Those wails were coming from the angry undead villagers of Kumbhpur. They had lost the battle one more time and now that the fire of the jungle was sweeping through the town, the wail soon became a constant drone like an aeroplane engine during take off. Rajat had to drive slowly to avoid the spots where fire had broken out and also because he was constantly crying. Vinit tried to soothe him by putting an arm around him. Rajat recoiled at being touched.

  The main bridge had collapsed but Rajat knew another way which was used before the bridge was built. It had now become decrepit through disuse, but it was still serviceable. As they crossed the temple everyone including Ragini touched their foreheads in prayers. Rajat however did not.

  They were almost across the small water logged road when there was a deafening roar, and as everyone turned their heads they saw an incredibly sight.

  They were about five kms from the town main and with the dense foliage around them their view of the town and the sea beyond was completely blocked. But even then they all could see a great white wall rising maybe a hundred feet in the air as the roar of rushing water became an angry shrill shriek and the first wave of the wall of water hit Kumbhpur.

  “Holy shit,” Neeraj said as he saw the wave climb and climb till it was so high that even with his head craned out of the jeep window he could not see where it reached. Then there was a jolting thud as the wave descended on the town. Rajat lost balance of his vehicle and rammed it into a tree. The engine coughed and sputtered now, very close to quitting. Rajat cursed and backed out. Then he heard a deafening crash as millions of gallons of sea water hit the Kumbhpur coast. The jeep wobbled as the earth beneath them vibrated with the impact and a tree fell behind them, missing the rear of the vehicle by inches. Rajat pressed down on the accelerator and sped away.

  The water seemed to come at them with deadly speed. Soon another wave higher than the one before rose and hit the town, submerging it completely under water. They were climbing but the water kept climbing behind them and for a moment Rajat thought that they had fought and come this far only to die of a natural disaster.

  “This is what he was talking about,” Rani cried.

  “The guy created a Tsunami?” Vinit asked incredulously.

  “Yes” Rani replied as they fled from the town.

  As Rajat brought the jeep on the road which terminated at the main road that once led to the bridge, the force of water seemed to abate a little. The direction of the waves was straight and since they were moving east of the coast it did not follow them as they had feared.

  The jeep finally reached the main road at six in the morning and there was a muted cheer in the vehicle. Happy and Rani hugged each other and Vinit and Neeraj slapped Rajat’s back. This time he did not recoil at the touch. Even Ragini left her nursing duties for a minute to clap.

  “The old man left no ends untied, all the mess he created is beneath the water now,” Neeraj remarked.

  “His mess and ours,” Rani replied, she was feeling a dull pain in her jaw like she had felt when they were carrying her through that creepy part of the jungle.

  Up ahead they could see smaller villages on either side of the road, people were coming out of their huts and houses and they were staring in awe at the giant waves hitting the coast. But this was human and even in panic it never felt so good before.

  “What remains is the little matter of getting our stories straight before someone starts questioning,” Vinit said.

  “Only academic for me since I am getting off at the next turn Vinit,” Neeraj said “But my suggestion is, get rid of the weapons and say there was a political skirmish in the town in which these people got caught. You tried to help them and escaped since access to reinforcements was cut off due to the rains and the bridge collapsing”

  “That sounds right,” Rajat said and with his free hand he slung his AK-47 out of the door in the rice fields to his left. Happy too bent over Neeraj and threw his rifle and handgun on the road. Ragini picked up Rakesh’s rifle and threw it, opening the rear door for a moment before pulling it shut. Vinit was the last one to get rid of his rifle.

  “Just one correction Mr. Joshi,” Neeraj felt cold metal touching his waist as Vinit spoke “you are coming with us and stand trial for your crimes,”

  “What crime? Killing people? Boy they would not have a defendant’s box big enough to stand us all, or have you forgotten about what really happened down there already?” Neeraj asked.

  “What happened in there would stay there. It is too weird to explain. But you have murdered before coming here and for that you must stand trial” Vinit said. His voice took the flat tone of a cop talking to a criminal. Rajat realized how innocent he had been till then. Wild horses could not have dragged him to demolish his own house otherwise, but a sense of camaraderie and kinship made him follow his friends. Now, in the harsh daylight of post crisis he knew what he mistook for brotherhood was nothing but the behavior of animals that depended on the pack to stay alive.

  “Drop the gun Inspector,” there was a hard voice from behind as Neeraj craned his neck and noticed two things. He had dropped his own handgun on the backseat before helping Rakesh inside. Now the gun was in Ragini’s hands and its barrel was pressed against Vinit’s ear.

  “Are you crazy lady?” Vinit asked as the pressure on his ear intensified. “Somebody talk sense into her, if she helps him escape, she is an accessory to murder,” he said. Rajat put the vehicle in neutral and turned around to face Ragini.

  “I will be if you catch me officer but I am getting off with Mr. Joshi too. So you will have to catch us first, as the saying goes,” Ragini said. “You have ten seconds to drop the gun.”

  Vinit lowered his gun and let it drop to the floor. The tension in the vehicle was a sweaty angry beast generating heat off its small body.

  “Now Neeraj where do you intend to get off,” Ragini asked.

  “Here would be fine dear” Neeraj replied.

  “Rani please come on to the back and hold the pressure on Rakesh’s wound. Tell him I loved him like I love you all guys,” Ragini said. Rani began crying.

  “Please stop Ragini, this man is a killer…he will kill you,” Rani said between sobs. The pain in her jaw was intense now and accompanying it was an ache that radiated from her chest and spread to her left arm.

  “We all became killers in there Rani and no, he would not kill me. Like he said he only kills people he does not like, right Neeraj?”

  “As rain dear,” Neeraj replied.

  The transfer of Rakesh’s caretaker took a few minutes as Rani climbed into the back and Ragini and Neeraj got down. They had their backpacks. Ragini walked to Rajat and hugged him.

  “When the nightmares come, just remember saving Rani was worth it,” she said in his ear. Vinit was sitting next to him, his hands tied behind his back by Neeraj.

  “Sorry for that officer, but you will realize when the time is right that there are things in life best left alone and I am one of them,” Neeraj said.

  “Cut him loose in twenty minutes please,” Neeraj said to no one in particular and then he and Ragini walked together. They all stared at the pair, the killer and the call girl, as they descended into the rice fields and disappeared.

  “Good luck dear,” Rajat whispered in a choked voice.

  Things developed fairly rapidly from there on. By the time they reached Sindhudurg town hospital, Rani had developed sharp chest pains. She and Rakesh were admitted to the intensive care wards. Vinit relayed the s
tory pretty much as Neeraj had suggested, leaving Neeraj’s escape out of it. In his version the killer did not return after fleeing Rajat’s house before the trouble in the evening started. He was also relived to find out that his senior Shilpa was rescued by a man claiming to be an ex soldier himself a fugitive of a mental institution.

  Rani went into a cardiac arrest while a physician was checking her vitals and was moved to the second operation theatre. Thankfully, the early detection helped the doctor from preventing a major heart attack which would have killed her. Rakesh too was operated on and finally pronounced out of danger. Rajat dutifully filed a missing person’s report for Ragini. He gave the police constable writing the complaint a passport size photo of Ragini he always carried in his wallet. Happy raised an eyebrow when the photo came out but said nothing.

  At around seven in the evening Vinit was allowed to see Shilpa. He entered her small room and was shocked to see how pale she looked. There was a big bandage wrapped around her head.

  “Glad you made it madam,” he said.

  Shilpa smiled and asked what the story he told the cops. Vinit relayed it, leaving out all the incidents that took place after she had left them last night. Shilpa listened and nodded. “Of course you listed me as missing in action,” she said in a voice that was bordering on to a plea.

  “Of course, they would never know what happened in there,”

  “Would we ever know Vinit? I mean what happened in there? I …” she broke down and sobbed, her whole body shook with each sob. Vinit thought of consoling her but then thought better of it.

  “I became an animal in there …..” Shilpa cried.

  “All of us did madam,” Vinit replied.

  When he left she had stopped crying.

  Epilogue I

  My name is Rajat Sathe, and I am a thirty year old bachelor working with a MNC bank. You read about how our misadventure in Kumbhpur ended. We all managed to come out alive, even though the odds against it were a million to one, but somehow we did. But in a way none of us came out of that place ever.

  Rani had a heart attack when we reached Sindhudurg, and even though the doctors managed to save her, her heart became permanently weakened. I tried keeping in touch, and Happy seemed content to speak to me, but once when I called, Rani answered and requested me not to call her house ever again. I respected that. Then one day I received a drunken midnight phone call from her. She was crying and incoherent. She was at her parent’s place in Delhi after a fight with Happy. She rambled on about Kumbhpur before her father took the phone from her and hung up. Her last sentence bothered me. She said “The guy said Evil is harder to get rid of. He did not mention it is also extremely contagious,”

  I never got a chance to ask her what she meant.Three months later; I woke up at midnight to answer a call from Happy. Rani had another heart attack and she had died before they could take her to a hospital.

  I attended the funeral and Rakesh was there, so was Jeet. Happy seemed unnaturally calm and there were no tears. As I was about to leave, he pulled me aside and asked “Do you still think of that place?”

  “Every second of my life,” I replied.

  “I keep thinking of what those poor guys wanted, they wanted freedom and we did not let them have it for our own selfish ends. There is too much injustice in the world Rajat, and what we did for” he pointed to the pyre with barely disguised contempt “that woman destroyed their revolution. We may pay for it in our lifetime, at least I am sure I will “

  I started to say something and stopped short. I remembered Happy’s re-decorated room when I went there before funeral. He had put up a big whiteboard on one wall with lot of barely legible words scribbled across. Some words like “revolution” and “people’s movement” and “systemic change” troubled me then and they troubled me even more standing near Rani’s pyre. The books about Che and Marx lying around Happy’s house did nothing to ease my misgivings either. I went back to Pune with Rakesh and Jeet. They did not mention what if anything Happy talked to them about.

  Three days later there was a small announcement in newspaper. Happy had launched a political party named “People’s revolution of India”. In the manifesto Happy and two other people declared a systemic change rooting out the government sponsored oppression and corruption. One line in the manifesto read “the country belongs to poor and the hard working class, and if it needs total annihilation of the ruling class to restore the balance of power then so be it.” I read the news and saw Happy standing on a make shift podim in the photo. His eyes had that wild look back again as he screamed to the point of spittle flowing out of his mouth. Somehow that image reminded me of a person I never met in my brief weekend at Kumbhpur.

  As you would have guessed I am keeping an eye on the news of any kind of vessel sinking around Kumbhpur. There have been a few news items so far and most of them are disturbing.

  Rakesh recovered from his injuries, but relapsed in to alcoholism. He drank most of the time to douse the demons that came screaming at night. Oh and I have told you how we got rid of our weapons back there, it seems Rakesh had a small handgun on him that went undetected. One night as he drank till two in the morning hearing the shrill shrieks and the splattering sounds the undead made when shot, he tried to think of something else. Only thing more unpleasant he could think of was his wife Shweta and her cheating. Rakesh set off to her house with his handgun, and managed to drive twenty odd kilometers to her place and ring the bell. Shweta answered the door and Rakesh shot her point blank. Only, when he pulled the trigger, there was an unpleasant sensation like holding a snake in his hand and there was no shot. Shweta collapsed with fright, and Rakesh was arrested. When the police came they found a big man sitting on the stairs laughing hysterically with a toy gun in his hand. Shweta wanted him to go to jail, but unfortunately the IPC has no punishment for pulling the trigger of a toy gun, even at three o’clock in the night. That kind of behavior is considered stupid, not criminal. Rakesh was let off after a warning, but somehow the news of his misadventure reached his boss and he fired Rakesh. Rakesh said he was probably looking out for an excuse. He has found another job since and at my insistence, goes to the same psychiatrist that I go to after coming back from Kumbhpur. It may work and it may not.

  Inspector Vinit Kamble was transferred to the Mumbai Anti Extortion wing, but he has been in the news for the wrong reasons. It seems, he has become something of an encounter specialist and now he faces three seperate inter departmental hearings for staging fake encounters. I called him once when his troubles started and the voice I heard was completely different than the person who fought with me in Kumbhpur. It was harsher, crueler. “I have run off troubles bigger than these, Rajat” he said.

  ACP Shilpa Joshi is on an indefinite medical leave of absence. Saket Nawathe is in the Yerawada mental institution, though his doctors, buoyed by his heroic behavior while saving Shilpa, are confident that they will be able to let him go soon.

  Ragini Kumar is still listed as missing, and Neeraj Joshi is still a fugitive of the law. I really miss both of them, you probably know I had a secret crush on her right form the time she was going around with Nishant, but I found that as I lay on my lonely bed at night, my thoughts about Ragini often run to the enigmatic Mr. Joshi too.

  And one day out of the blue there was an email from an unknown address. The address seemed like one of those that inform you that you have won a lottery run jointly by Microsoft and Yahoo. I was about to mark it as spam, but then decided to read it just for kicks. It had a JPEG image as attachment which showed a greenish blue sea with a bustling beach. It was taken when the sun was about to set. A lot of couples were watching the majestic sight. In that crowd I thought I recognized a pair with their arms around each other, they had the right height and build. The e-mail was a single liner “When you think about the sea, don’t just think about that place. The sea is happy in some places too,” I knew it was Ragini. And she was near a sea and she was happy. I deleted the mail and cried
sitting at my workstation late at night.

  As for me, after coming back from Kumbhpur, I somehow found that the demons haunting my nightmares subsided whenever I was around my family. I visited more frequently to my Sister Shruti’s place and spent long evenings teaching my nephew how to play cricket. And I have stayed away from alcohol for now. I am also consulting a psychiatrist.

  Whenever I think about our trip to Kumbhpur, I have two images prominently in mind, the first is the majestic view of the town’s beach when we reached there, and the second is the undead attacking us in the jungle. Then I realize that even though the undead are down once more and we have moved on with our lives, the beach is as scenic as it was ever. The town was not haunted, we were.

  Alone at night, I stay awake for a long time and think about what happened down there and whether we did what was the right thing to do. I think of Happy and how he led us in to a war and how each of us left something of ourselves behind in that town; how we carried a part of that town with us. It stayed in Rani’s heart and killed her. It made Happy to start a new war right here in the city. A war that I am sure would come at a great personal cost to him and those around him. It stayed in Rakesh’s head and sent him hurtling down the same path he had treaded before. It made one upright police officer lose his faith in law and order, and other to do something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. I know part of it is there with me and will stay there forever. Living happily ever after is a myth.

  I wonder if this is the price of being brave and fighting for something that you thought was just and righteous.