The Accidental Apprentice

by Vikas Swarup

  ‘Oh, it’s Pinky.’

  ‘Good. See you around, Pinky.’

  I enter the compound and take in the surroundings. The ground-floor flats have manicured gardens and trimmed hedges. The rooftops glint with dish antennae and water-storage tanks. Almost every house has potted plants and hanging baskets. There are SUVs and luxury sedans parked in the shade. Pocket C-1 has the refined gloss of suburban middle-class prosperity.

  Rana’s flat is in the very first building to my left, adjacent to the boundary wall. As I climb up the stairs to the fourth floor, a knot of tension forms in my chest. Slowly, inconspicuously, I draw the revolver from my inside pocket and hold it in my right hand. Then I press the doorbell of 4245 and wait.

  I imagine the shock on Rana’s face when he opens the door and finds himself looking down the barrel of a revolver. I will rudely push him inside, make him kneel on the floor and force him to recount the entire sordid tale of how he murdered Acharya in partnership with AK and implicated me. Then I will phone ACP Khan, make him record Rana’s confession and bring an end to the nightmare that has plagued me since my arrest.

  There is always the possibility that things may not go according to plan. Rana may choose to bluster again, believing me to be incapable of shooting him. How wrong would he be! The revolver no longer feels awkward in my hands, it feels lethal. And I know deep down that I will pull the trigger if I have to. A murder suspect has nothing to lose.

  Almost five minutes pass and no one opens the door. I try the handle and discover it to be securely locked. I press the doorbell repeatedly, but Rana does not respond. After ten minutes of fruitless bell-pushing I come to the conclusion that my quarry is not inside. My heart sinks with the leaden realisation that Rana has also left Delhi, flown the coop. This is one possibility I had simply not considered.

  As I turn away in dejection, something catches at the edge of my vision. It is a flash of blue, somewhere on the main road. I look out at Abdul Gaffar Khan Marg. In the short gaps between waves of early-morning traffic, I catch a glimpse of a tight huddle of joggers in tracksuits and tennis shoes, coming towards Sector C. That is where I saw that blur of blue. But it is no longer there. No, wait, it is there. It is a runner wearing a deep-blue Reebok tracksuit, moving with fluid grace. As I continue to track him, I feel a prickling sensation in my palms. It is none other than Rana.

  The despondency in my heart is replaced with the grim satisfaction of a patient hunter finally sighting his prey. Yes, God is indeed in heaven and justice will finally be done.

  The group are now almost directly opposite Gate Number 4, on the other side of the road. I see Rana break out from the pack and wave to the others as they continue on their way. He hunches over his knees at the edge of the road, like an exhausted runner bowing for breath, as he waits for a break in the traffic to cross the road.

  Now he straightens himself, and takes out a cell phone from his pocket. He glues the phone to his ear, as though receiving a call, and begins to stride across the road. He has not even reached the divider, when out of nowhere a light goods truck comes up behind him, hurtling down the street at dangerously high speed. Rana is too busy talking on the phone to either see or dodge the truck before it ploughs into him. I hear the sickening impact of metal hitting flesh and bone. The phone flies out of his hands. His body catapults through the air and hits the pavement with a nauseating crack. The truck, having rammed Rana, continues to move down the road. There is no squeal of brakes. On the contrary, the driver picks up even more speed, desperate to get away.

  It all happens so quickly that I can only stare in helpless horror. But now my brain is relaying urgent messages, telling me that, if Rana dies, so does my last chance of proving my innocence. ‘Noooo!’ I scream, and run blindly down the stairs.

  I race out of the gate, risk life and limb while dodging traffic, and somehow manage to get to the other side of the road. When I reach Rana, he is still alive, but only barely. The pavement is splattered with his blood and the right side of his face is a mass of raw flesh and oozing brain tissue. His phone lies shattered in pieces a couple of feet away. I kneel down on the pavement and cradle his head in my lap. ‘Rana … Rana,’ I whisper urgently. ‘This is Sapna.’

  ‘Sapna?’ he repeats in a hoarse whisper. Then he coughs, spitting out blood. His breath is coming in short gasps. The pulse at his neck is throbbing erratically. I know he does not have much time left.

  ‘What … what happened? Who did this to you?’

  ‘He … me … cheat,’ he splutters incoherently.

  ‘Who? Tell me, tell me now,’ I say, trying to coax a confession out of him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says in a death rasp, gazing at me with a mixture of realisation and regret. He coughs again and his eyes begin to roll upwards. The pulse in his neck slows and then stops completely.

  By now a large crowd of onlookers has gathered around me. ‘Arrey, quickly call the ambulance,’ someone shouts.

  ‘No need,’ says another. ‘Khatam ho gaya. He’s dead.’

  ‘Was he your husband?’ yet another bystander asks me.

  ‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I … I just knew him.’

  Surprisingly, traffic continues to flow on Abdul Gaffar Khan Marg as though nothing had happened. Rana’s death is just another cold statistic of a traffic accident. An anonymous death in a dangerous city.

  But the police do have to take note of it. Soon, cutting through the din, comes the sound of a police siren, and I know it is time to leave. I stand up to discover that my salvar suit is stained with blood and even my sneakers have a coating of Rana’s viscera. ‘I have to go now,’ I say, looking for an opening in that tight circle of onlookers.

  ‘My God! Aren’t you Sapna Sinha? The girl who murdered Vinay Mohan Acharya?’ a voice shrills out of nowhere. The spectators draw back with the abruptness of a shudder.

  I freeze like a statue, my entire body numb with panic. Get out! The thought rings in my head with the clarity of a bell. Get out now! I charge headlong into the throng, like a bull into the ring, and force my way out. Not knowing which direction to go, I run haphazardly across the road, just about managing to avoid getting run down by a bus.

  ‘Catch her!’ a man roars.

  That is when I remember the gun. Taking it out of my inner pocket, I stop and whirl around. ‘The next man who comes near me gets a bullet in his head,’ I snarl at my pursuers. They see the revolver and scatter like a flock of pigeons.

  So engrossed am I in watching them flee that I fail to notice the man creeping up behind me, a cricket bat clutched in his right hand. By the time I turn around it is too late. Mouthing an obscenity, he hits out with the bat, catching me full in the stomach. The air gets knocked out of my lungs in a rush, and I crash down on the pavement, staggered and dazed. The revolver goes tumbling out of my hand and ends up in a gutter.

  Somehow I pick myself up and begin running again on stumbling feet, feeling sick and nauseous. The man with the bat tries to tackle me from the side, and I slam into him with full force, sending him crashing backwards into the same gutter.

  By now the crowd have warmed up to the visceral thrill of a hunt. Over a dozen men begin giving chase. I run blindly now, past neat little houses and a Mother Dairy booth, not daring to look back, but the mob dog me like a shadow.

  ‘Faster!’ that voice in my head commands, but my legs just don’t have any more strength left in them. My heart is ready to burst and my brain is threatening to split open.

  I am almost about to collapse on the pavement when I see a red Maruti Swift pull up to me. The rear passenger side door opens and a woman orders, ‘Get in!’

  I fling myself at the back seat with the thoughtless obedience of a cultist. The moment I’m in, the car swerves away from the pavement and gathers speed. When I raise my head I discover a woman in a blue T-shirt peering at me from the front passenger seat. She looks like Shalini Grover of Sunlight TV. The driver is a skinny man with dishevelled hair whom I have never
seen before.

  ‘Are you all right, Sapna?’ the woman asks, and I sag in relief. It is indeed my friend Shalini.

  ‘How … how did you find me?’

  ‘I’ve been staking out Rana’s house for the last two days, hoping to prove his link to Acharya’s murder. I saw him being run over by that lorry. And a minute later I saw you, brandishing a revolver and haring off like P. T. Usha. When I found that mob trying to lynch you, I told D’Souza, my cameraman, to become your getaway vehicle.’

  ‘Hi, I’m D’Souza,’ the driver waves at me from the steering wheel.

  Shalini lights up a cigarette with a lighter and offers me a drag. Only then do I notice the nicotine embedded in the surfaces inside the car like a tattoo. She must be a chain smoker.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I decline, my heart still pounding from that narrow escape.

  ‘I’m assuming you’ve escaped from the lockup,’ Shalini says after a while.

  I give a fearful nod. ‘Will you hand me back to the police?’

  ‘Am I nuts?’ she laughs. ‘I have a better plan for my most precious source. I’m taking you to our safe house in Daryaganj.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ I ask with the bitter taste of bile rising up in my throat. ‘Rana’s death has dashed all my hopes.’

  ‘On the contrary, it’s proof positive that you are just a pawn in a deeper game. The way that truck rammed into Rana looked preplanned. That was not an accident: it was murder,’ she says, blowing a smoke ring in my face.

  ‘Somebody called him on his phone just before that lorry hit him.’

  ‘Yes. And I have a very good idea who it was.’

  ‘Who? Was it AK?’ I ask.

  ‘No, it was probably the owner of Indus Mobile, Swapan Karak.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Something was cooking between Karak and Rana. I saw him enter Rana’s flat yesterday and stay there for over two hours.’

  ‘But what business could the owner of Indus have with Rana?’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to be digging into. You relax now, try and get some sleep,’ Shalini says and switches on the car stereo.

  The serene strains of Raga Khamas sung by Pandit Jasraj ooze out from the speakers, calming the world of chaos that has surrounded me. I close my eyes for the first time in more than twenty-four hours. The reassuring trust of a friend and the smooth motion of the car allow me to drift into a much-needed slumber till a burst of sirens startles me into wakefulness.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I hear D’Souza curse. ‘I’ve got three police cars on my tail.’

  ‘One of the mob must have reported our number,’ Shalini mutters, looking at the rear-view mirror.

  ‘You got me into this mess, now you get me out of it,’ D’Souza wails.

  ‘Calm down,’ Shalini snaps and lights up yet another cigarette.

  I blink several times, forcing myself more fully into consciousness as I try to ascertain my bearings. We seem to be near India Gate and approaching a red light.

  ‘What the heck should I do?’ D’Souza demands.

  ‘To begin with, jump the red light,’ Shalini says calmly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jump it!’

  Horns honk and vehicles swerve out of the way as D’Souza speeds through the intersection.

  ‘Now you’ll really get into trouble,’ I fret to Shalini.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘We’ll tell the police you hijacked us.’

  Just when I’m beginning to think we’ve hoodwinked the police, more sirens fill the air, getting shriller and shriller.

  Ditching the main road, D’Souza veers the car into a secluded side street. With one hand firmly on the car horn, he zigzags through a maze of small alleyways, changing directions like an indecisive compass. Still we are unable to completely shake off the lone police Gypsy now on our tail. In desperation, D’Souza cuts across three lanes of oncoming traffic and plunges into the chaos of early rush-hour commute on Janpath.

  It turns out to be a disastrous move. Once we join the sea of cars gridlocked in the outer circle of Connaught Place, Shalini knows it is impossible to reach the safe house. ‘Stop the car,’ she instructs her cameraman.

  D’Souza nods and brings the Swift to an abrupt halt in front of the Regal Cinema.

  ‘It’s best you get out here and look for a hiding place,’ Shalini advises me. ‘We’ll drive for another couple of kilometres till the police catch up with us. At least it will give you a head start.’

  I quickly open the door and step out. Shalini instinctively reaches over from her seat and grasps my hand in a gesture of sisterly solidarity. ‘Keep fighting, Sapna,’ she says. ‘Never give up. And here, take this.’ She pulls out a brown-leather shoulder bag lying at her feet. ‘It’s my emergency travel kit. It has some ready cash, a change of clothes, toilet paper, torch, pocket knife and even duct tape.’

  I grab the bag and give Shalini a wan smile, hoping she can read the gratitude in my eyes behind that patina of fear and uncertainty. ‘How will I ever repay you for all this?’

  ‘Simple. You’ll give me an exclusive interview once you’ve proved your innocence. Now go, go, go!’ she says as D’Souza eases the car back into traffic.

  For a moment I stand still, like someone caught in the disorienting aftermath of a car crash. Shalini wants me to hide out in Connaught Place, but I don’t know a single hiding place here. In fact, it would be impossible to hide in the throbbing, hectic heart of the city.

  I can sense the panic creeping up my spine when my eyes are drawn to a corner of the pavement where a hawker has spread out religious posters for sale. Goddess Durga beckons me like a lighthouse to a storm-troubled ship. And I know that I do have a place of refuge in Connaught Place.

  Pulling my chunni over my head, partially obscuring my face, I join the flow of pedestrians making their way to offices and shops. After turning left onto Baba Kharak Singh Marg, I proceed to the Hanuman Mandir.

  * * *

  Though it is just after 9 a.m., the temple complex is bustling with activity. Tattoo and mehndi artists, bangle sellers and roadside astrologers have already set up their stalls. An elderly ‘Spiritual Forehead Reader’, offering his services for the auspicious fee of ₹101, accosts me. ‘Want to know your future?’ he asks. Even God doesn’t know my future, I feel like telling him.

  Depositing my sneakers with the old lady at the temple entrance I bound up the steps, two at a time. Seconds later I am in the presence of Durga Ma. Just seeing her divine face fills me with such peace that I forget all my travails. There must be some cosmic coincidence that today is Friday, the day of the Goddess. Perhaps Durga Ma had been calling me all this while, and I was meant to be here today.

  A group of women dressed in red saris and loaded with offerings of fruit and flowers are already settling down on the marble floor, preparing to listen to bhajans being sung by a middle-aged devotee in a white sari. I unobtrusively take my place in their midst, keeping my head down so that no one can see my face.

  The songs work their magic, and the devotees are soon swaying together, swept up in the rising tide of devotional love and the simple truth of the message. I feel a shower of heavenly grace healing me, renewing me. The queasiness in my stomach and the pounding in my head miraculously disappear.

  I remain in the temple for close to nine hours. Till the hunger pangs can no longer be ignored.

  * * *

  When I step outside, the grey of dusk is creeping over the city, enveloping the surroundings in a pallid blue haze. Street lamps are beginning to flicker on, casting ominous shadows on the pavements. Shalini’s bag contains the healthy sum of ₹3,000 and I grab a plate of puri-aloo from a roadside vendor.

  I sit on a bench and watch the tide of humanity pass by. Bank workers and government employees are hurrying to the metro, eager to go home after another hard day. On the adjacent bench a pair of lovers are whispering inconsolable, desolate good-byes. A flute vendor approaches them and b
egins playing an appropriately tragic song from Kal Ho Na Ho. The melody hushes the cacophony that customarily accompanies peak-hour traffic in Connaught Place, till the moment is shattered by the whine of police sirens.

  Soon every street corner is bristling with uniformed men, wary and alert. Barricades are being put up at the intersections to intercept cars. Near the parking lot of A-Block I spot an inspector questioning the parking attendant, showing him a photograph. I have no doubt it is mine. My breathing quickens. Sweat slicks my palms. One part of me just wants it to end. I want to surrender. This miserable life of living in constant fear and secrecy is worse than death. But that old tenacity also surges within me, telling me that I have to keep running, if not for my sake then for Ma’s sake and Neha’s.

  For the next two hours I duck and skulk, weaving my way through the crowded bazaar and busy traffic. Just after 9 p.m. I find myself at L-Block in the Outer Circle, in front of ‘Jain Travel Agency’. My eyes fall on the display window offering summer specials to Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Almora and Nainital.

  Nainital. Just seeing that word brings back so many memories that I almost well up with tears. My decision is made then and there.

  The night clerk, a jaded old man, is busy flipping through a TV magazine when I ask for a ticket to Nainital.

  ‘Eight hundred rupees,’ he says in the weary tone of someone who would rather be home watching a serial. ‘Bus leaves at ten thirty tonight from just in front. No cancellation, no refund.’

  When I arrive at the boarding point, I discover my fellow travellers to be a large group of boys and girls from a local college, dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts and armed with suitcases and rucksacks. With my head bowed low, I take a seat at the very back of the bus and bury my face in a magazine.

  I am a jittery bundle of nerves as the bus approaches the police checkpoint. By the time a perspiring constable clambers inside, my heart is almost in my mouth. He takes a cursory look at the young, grinning faces before him and, with a bored flick of his wrist, waves us on our way.