The Benefit Season Read online

  ‘Have they accepted your resignation?’

  ‘Not as yet- but I guess Vishal’s word will convince them to accept it’.

  ‘Is it really that bad?’

  ‘Believe me, I’d run out of choices’.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Look for another job, I guess. I think I did okay, so the competition should be happy to take me in their fold. Or I could start off on my own- I know the ropes.’

  ‘Hmm’, she said, and became quiet. The lights seemed faded, and the music muffled.

  ‘Do you still want to go through with this’, he asked, looking away.

  A tear appeared at the edge of her kohled eye. She looked up at him, hurt, and said, ’Try and stop me! ‘

  ‘Are you sure? You could wait out. Or…’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘…There are many men, better men out there. You don’t have to do this- I will perfectly understand’.

  ‘Many men… Better men? You’re telling me now? With your ring in my breast?’ She took out the ring from her blouse and tossed it on the table. ’You be the man, Mr. Arjun! Don’t make excuses. If you want to break off now for whatever reason, say so. But don’t make me do it just so that you don’t feel guilty!’

  ‘I don’t want to break off Aarti! I wouldn’t for the world! Would you still believe in me, is all I ask’.

  She smiled through her tears. ‘I have always believed in you. Since the days you used to save the school bus seat for me- next to yours, and fight off anyone for it- even the bigger boys’.

  ‘Thanks’, he laughed; bending down, he kissed her head, and carefully daubed at the rogue tear that had found its way to her damask cheek, leaving a furrow in the makeup in its wake.

  ‘We still have a couple of weeks before the wedding- I make enough for both of us. And we can stay at auntie’s place for a while’, she said.

  ‘Let’s see, it shouldn’t really come to that. I have spoke to a few people, and they will be getting back to me anytime.’

  ‘All right! But can we not tell the folks- please? At least not for tonight!’

  ‘I wasn’t going to. But I couldn’t have gone through this without coming clean with you’.

  ‘Okay. But next time, can we please discuss before we take decisions that affect both our lives?’

  ‘I promise’.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’

  ‘Nope’.

  ‘Good then. To tell you the truth, in a way I’m really relieved that Monal is out of our lives. She was a blight.’

  ‘Same here’, he said. Picking up the ring from the table, he kissed it, and tucked it back inside her blouse. ‘Take good care of it’. He patted her arms and left.

  ‘I believe in you Arjun, more than I believe in myself,’ Aarti thought to herself, as his reflection retreated out of view.

  People greeted Arjun fondly as he mingled with the guests. He smiled easily; a great weight had lifted off his shoulders after speaking with Aarti. Luckily she’d not probed much; perhaps she’d already guessed what was going on. And maybe she was right; having Monal out of their lives should be such a good thing.

  His mom called out to him to introduce him to a small gathering of her relatives. Khosla also hung around, swaying a little. He had perhaps been spiking his drinks with liquor smuggled from the lawns. No drinks were permitted till the ring ceremony was over, but Khosla didn’t regard himself as a guest. He was the host.

  ‘I knew this boy was trouble,’ Khosla said, hugging Arjun warm-heartedly; ’…trouble since the day I found him climbing the tree to sneak into my daughter’s room. He was ten then, I think’! The small crowd gasped and gaggled appreciatively.

  ‘Really’, said his mother, shocked. ‘You didn’t tell me this one before’, she turned accusingly to her son.

  ‘Ma I don’t tell you everything now: do I?’

  ‘See, what a big boy he’s become, not telling his ma things,’ She complained, not a little proudly.

  ‘Excuse me, I’ll go check the arrangements outside’, he said and walked into the lawns outside.

  The evening was chilly and foggy; it was the coldest weather in Delhi at this time. Luckily the garden was far from the bustling road and blaring traffic outside. Arjun felt at peace after long last. He paced the thick, fragrant lawns and contemplated on the immediate tasks at hand: no hitches in the ceremony tonight, and a couple of phone calls the next day sounding people off that he was available for hire. He stretched himself and inhaled the sweet-scented air deeply, preparing to speak with the manager regarding the arrangements.

  ‘Excuse me sir’, a clear, pleasant voice spoke behind him, ‘Mr. Arjun’?

  He turned around. A pretty hostess dressed in the hotel uniform of white and blue, with a small clipboard tucked in her arm stood there, bowing slightly.

  ‘Yes’.

  ‘Sir I have a message for you’.

  ‘Yeah what’?

  ‘Someone has sent for you urgently, requesting for an immediate parlay’.

  ‘Now? It’s my engagement!’

  ‘I know sir, sorry sir. I’ll tell her you can’t come now’.

  ‘Her? Who is it?’

  She checked the clipboard.’ Sir it’s a Mrs. Nagrath, Monal Nagrath’.

  ‘What! What’s she doing here?’

  ‘I have not been informed sir’.

  ‘Where is she? Is she here’, Arjun asked, darting a quick look across the lawns, scanning the shadows to see if she might be lurking there.

  ‘Sir, she said she could come here if you liked- she has an invite. She’s in the parking lot right now’.

  Damn! Khosla had invited her to give blessings! Her blessings? What a mess! Monal was a blot that refused to budge from the landscape.

  Arjun struggled with his thoughts, thinking of a way to spirit her away. Monal’s presence in the hall was bound to get Aarti upset, very upset, especially after he’d told her that he’d burnt the bridges with her and hers. It would be far better to persuade Monal to dispense her blessings from the anonymity of the parking lot outside and leave, rather than lounge in the glare of the dais inside and stay.

  ‘Take me to her’, he said, firm that he would settle the matter once and for all.

  ‘Follow me sir’, she bent forward at the waist and gestured with her hand. They snuck out through the brush covering the lawns, avoiding being seen by the staff. She walked towards a large black Audi parked away from the lit up areas. ‘There’, she pointed out and fell back. He strode firmly towards the car and snatched open the rear door. The car was empty.

  ‘Hey, there is no one here’, he said, turning back towards the girl.

  She had crept up quietly right behind him. She raised a hand deftly and Arjun felt a prick in his neck. The bitch had dug a syringe in him! As he tried to massage his neck, he felt his legs folding under him, and the girl becoming a blur. He tried to lunge at her throat, but it became black all of a sudden and he collapsed to the ground. He faintly heard steps and shouts of some men, and sensed being lifted off the ground and shoved into the back seat, before he finally passed out.

  ϖ

  The men drove Arjun out to a plush farmhouse in Rajokri, South Delhi. The large gates were swung open for them after the armed sentries, with two large imported Akita guard dogs, checked their ID and confirmed with someone on the phone. All the while the ferocious dogs, uncomfortable with the visitors on their watch, wouldn’t let up on the barking. There were CCTVs all over the place, monitoring the gates, the grounds and the big house itself. Two armed men watched keenly from the rooftop as the car drove in and stopped under the porch to the sprawling mansion. Assisted by the house staff, the men from the car lifted Arjun and put him on a bed in one of the rooms inside.

  ‘God, this guy is dead weight’ exclaimed one of them.

  ‘Yeah, and he can be a real nasty too. Better keep a sharp lookout on this one, yeah’.

  ‘How did he get messed up with the likes
of us- seems clean’.

  ‘You’ll live long buddy, if you don’t ask so many questions. He’ll come round by morning. Be careful’.

  ‘Sure. We’ve got an armed watch outside the room- 24x7’.’

  ‘Wonder what good that might do ya. We be off now’.

  The visitors returned to their car and drove out into the chilly, foggy Delhi night. Visibility with fog lights was no more than 50 meters. The driver drove painfully slowly to the railway station and dropped his two passengers there. He left the car in the parking lot and walked down to a nearby seedy Paharganj hotel full of Israeli and British junkies, and skinny Ukrainian girls who come to India swooning with dreams of making it big in modeling or even getting a break in Bollywood, but end up having their passports seized and forced into prostitution.

  The paan-chewing man with stained yellow teeth asked him only for the cash before turning around a heavy, well worn and moldy register, and tossing a ball pen tied to a string on it for the driver to put his details down.

  ‘Thumb or pen?’ asked the cheeky receptionist, needling the driver just to rid himself of boredom.

  The driver looked up menacingly and raised his middle finger. ‘How about this, after I shove it up yours, along with the register, rolled up?’

  ‘Just asking- no offence’, the receptionist tittered nervously. Then he slammed on the desk a large brass key with a plastic card that said: Room ≈ 113. ‘Here long?’

  ‘No longer than I can help’, the driver said, crinkling his nose at the general smell of decay. ‘Anything died in here?’

  ‘Not when I checked last- can’t remember when that was! But we have a cleaning staff who bring out the dead- when they find any’.

  The driver slammed shut the hefty register and looked with surprise at his key.

  ‘First floor, third room on the left as you climb the stairs. The three digits are just to impress. We just have seven rooms in this joint- mostly on triple sharing basis. And no lifts’.

  ‘Do you want anything, damn you’, he shouted after the driver who didn’t bother to look back. ’Something to smoke… drink… a girl… boy…virgin or hardcore... any color? No? You’re welcome!’

  The driver unlocked the door to his room and lay down on the narrow, damp bed next to the window. His long, thick legs spilled several inches beyond the bed’s edge. He looked around the shabby lodging and sighed. He took out his mobile and called a number.

  ‘Yes’, whispered someone huskily at the other end- a woman’s voice.

  ‘It’s done ma’am’, he said, a respectful tone in his voice.

  ‘Is he okay’, she asked with concern.

  ‘He’ll be fine, and pretty too when he wakes up. We didn’t bump him or anything- just a small jab in the neck. ‘

  ‘Same place?’

  ‘Yes. But be careful- it’s heavily armed, they’ve got dogs and TV all over’.

  ‘Stay low till I come. I’ll call you when I reach, you don’t call me again’.

  ‘Fine ma’am. When do I expect you?’

  ‘Soonest’, Monal said, and hung up.

  She smiled her way through the throng of uber-cool, ultra-rich guests at her anniversary party, and walked out of her lavish penthouse without anyone noticing.

  It was only in the morning, close to noon actually, when on being awakened, Vishal, feeling the usual crash of nausea as the high of coke wore off, was told she was missing. His maid, after cleaning, had announced triumphantly; ‘madam is not in the house’. She probably did a couple of merengue dance steps in the passage and chuckled to herself while leaving the house, feeling happy for madam.

  The following evening Vishal reported her missing in the police station. Being a high profile case, the matter was handed over to the crime branch.

  ϖ

  The shaken guests at Aarti’s engagement ceremony discovered Arjun was missing, when they began to look for him to escort a ready Aarti to the grand dais to an expected thunderous applause. He wasn’t in the toilets, he wasn’t taking any calls- his phone was switched off, and none of the hotel staff had seen him leaving the grounds. Yes, he had wandered into the lawns to check on the arrangements, but the manager there too confirmed that he hadn’t seen Arjun that. After several hours of search they finally gave up.

  ‘We couldn’t find him’, said a shamed Khosla to his daughter in the dressing room. ‘We looked everywhere’.

  ‘There was no need to look papa. I knew he was going to quit- he told me just before the ceremony. You always said he was a quitter and I never believed you, but now …’ she erupted in sobs.

  ‘Hey wait a minute’, Arjun’s mom said sharply. ’There is no need to jump to conclusions because my son is missing. Instead of worrying about him, you two are whining about yourselves! We should be calling the police right now!’

  ‘I don’t think so mama’, Aarti said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He came here earlier in the day. To tell me that he’d quit his job and to ask whether I still wanted to go through with this. He probably wanted to shift the burden of guilt onto me, while he himself was chicken.’

  ‘No son of mine is chicken…or mutton or any fish for that matter’! Mrs. Pasricha, proud mom of one, fumed.

  ‘He’s not coming back, of that I’m sure. You can call the police or the army or the President, and let them know what a fine son you have. I… I am leaving! Papa, please make sure the guests don’t go hungry, and all that food doesn’t go waste’, she said.

  Khosla stood rooted to the spot, he wasn’t one to give in to emotions easily, but the sight of his baby in pain was too much for even a stiff father to bear. He strode quickly across the room and clasped his daughter in a comforting embrace. Mrs. Pasricha, who, feeling scorned had retreated sadly to a corner, also couldn’t hold herself from hugging her too and weeping. They remained like that for some time, united in grief, plunged into despair, and left alone by the concerned guests. ‘We must do something’, Mrs. Pasricha, the strongest, the most worried, said finally.

  Khosla nodded. It made no sense to make assumptions- Arjun had never behaved irresponsibly in his life. And he would have the courage to speak the truth, always. He began to worry. ‘Let’s put up a brave front in front of the guests, at least for now. Let them dine and leave. If we don’t hear from our boy by morning, we’re going to the cops’, he said.

  ‘Aarti doesn’t have to face anyone- let her go home’, Mrs. Pasricha pleaded. Khosla agreed and they quietly put her in a car and sent her home, and then walked into the large hall to request the guests to move for dinner. They vowed to keep it simple the next time, should the next time ever happen.

  The next day, by evening, a wan looking Brig Khosla (Retired) and Mrs. Pasricha walked into the Chanakyapuri PS to report the missing. The Station HQ at Delhi backed the parents, and the case was promptly transferred to the crime branch. ϖ

  Chapter 10

  The Spy Who Came In From Nowhere

  A day later, when after filling their tiny chests with fresh air, the songbirds had begun to chirp and whistle and trill in full swing in their dawn chorus, the doorbell to the Nagrath house chipped in by chiming happily, while the master of the house, Vishal, with his face dipped in a bowl of ice to rid of the puffiness of a wasted night, complained of too much noise.

  He wished the visitor away, the birds strangled and his head disconnected. Alas, all three stayed. There being little he could do about the last two, he decided to tackle the problem of the first, who seemed to have planted a thumb on his private property, namely the doorbell, and forgotten about it.

  When he swung open the door with the ice water dripping down his face on his bare muscular chest, through squinted eyes he could make out the blurred outlines of a woman, a child- presumably her own- dangling precariously from her folded arm, and a small man who was shuffling nervously as if impatient to spring forth on orders.

  ‘Hey look we don’t need a maid. Go away’, Vishal said. He half shut the do
or when he changed his mind. He searched his pajama’s pockets and on finding a crumpled and ironed 100-Rupee note, he shoved it in the child’s bib. ‘Here, git’, he said, and felt good. And he shut the door.

  He’d barely crossed the huge hall before the bell began to chime again, insistently.

  ‘What the hell’, he muttered under his breath and pulled the door open again, ready to scream at them to go find work somewhere else.

  ‘Get…’ his voice trailed as the woman held up a police badge under his nose. ‘Myself Krishnamala Kadian. Agent 6: ACP, Crime Branch. This here is Agent 9’, she said pointing towards the shorty who was also holding up a badge- not looking sure if it belonged to him. Only the badge was a pacifier with “Mute Button” written on it.

  ‘That’s a pacifier, agent’; she scolded him. He hastily pocketed it and began to rummage through his collection of Bonny’s baby mild soap bars, belly bandits, nursing pads, nasal aspirators, nipples, brushes and wooden teething toys in his search for the elusive police badge. He wore a broad canvas belt to which were attached an assortment of tools and gadgets necessary for providing immediate succor to a demanding infant, such as a milk bottle, a juice bottle, a spare bottle, a water bottle, a roll of diapers, burping kits, rations and scrubs and brushes.

  ‘Does the kid have a number too?’ Vishal wanted to ask but he felt it wouldn’t befit the somberness of their visage and swung the door open for them to walk in.

  ‘What do you want’, he moaned, sinking in the lush sofa and burying his aching head in his hands. He wondered what the crime branch could possibly want with him.

  ‘How about a photo to start with?’

  ‘Whose photo’, he asked, groaning from the crash after a night of bingeing with coke and drinks.

  ‘How about the missing person’s- to begin with’?

  ‘Who is mi…oh’! He muttered, bewildered. He looked around; he went all over the house but couldn’t find her photo.

  ‘I’ll send one across to the police station later- they must have one in the office somewhere’.

  ‘Don’t you carry one in your wallet’?