The Nidhi Kapoor Story Read online

  When he saw Nidhi and Payal at the door, he stopped. He dropped the stick and looked benevolently at his daughters. Since he came back to Ronak, he hardly got to see his daughters. Even when he was at Moksha, he didn’t see them that often. The two Kapoor ladies went to Moksha as often as they could but the meetings were too far apart and too short.

  The room was in serious disarray. Broken pieces of artifacts that adorned the wall previously were now littered across the room.

  Payal was the first to react. “What happened, Papa? Are you OK?”

  Nishant meekly nodded and motioned at Payal to come closer.

  She started to walk but Nidhi held her hand. Payal looked at Nidhi.

  “What happened? Look at what you’ve done! What’s wrong with you? See you broke the trophy!” Nidhi said, annoyed. She bent to pick a Filmfare trophy that had fallen off a table and had chipped from one side.

  Nishant waited for Nidhi to place the trophy back on a cabinet. He then extended a letter towards the girls.

  It looked creepily similar to the letter that the killer had left in the typewriter. Payal balked at the sight of it. Nidhi hastily snatched it and read it. She took a deep breath, crumpled it in a ball and threw it angrily against a wall. She yelled at the top of her voice, “You fucking bastard. You have crossed the line now. I am going to fucking rip your head and kill you. How dare you!”

  For an instant Nishant saw flashes of himself in Nidhi’s countenance. Payal was really scared at this display of anger. She had seen Nidhi angry like that before as well and that time, things had ended in a rotten mess.

  Nidhi was out of control with rage. She was breathing heavily. “I am going to kill that fucker. He’ll pay dearly for it. I want to talk to Shiva right now. Where is he?” Nidhi bellowed.

  Shiva was Verma’s handyman who did odd jobs for him. Shiva was about forty-five, stout like a bull, dark like a moonless night and fiercely loyal to Verma. He had been picked from the street by Verma’s father and he had grown up with Neelima and Naveen. The odd jobs ranged from running errands to driving him around to settling debts to making threats to chase away overenthusiastic fans to keeping the media hounds at bay at public appearances. He was the closest that Nidhi had as a personal bodyguard.

  “Beta, what happened?” Verma asked, looking dubiously at Nishant.

  Nidhi looked around the room, found the crumpled paper, picked it up and gave it to Naveen Verma. “Read it yourself!”

  Verma unfolded it hastily and in the process, tore off a corner.

  Dear Nishant,

  Welcome back. Are you happy to be back?

  I am not. Why? Because you are an animal and animals like you belong in cages, not in homes. Not homes, not heaven, not hell. Cages.

  It’s time for you to pay for your sins. I’d make you pay. Right here. At Ronak.

  Before I kill you, Nishant Kapoor, I want you to think of everyone that you have hurt, think of everyone that you’ve killed, think of everyone you have tortured. If you can’t make a list, start with your poor wife. If not even that, just look at Nidhi. Remember the things that you did to her when she was a child? No? Ask her. I am sure she hasn’t forgotten.

  Now imagine if I were to inflict all that suffering on you? Or maybe on Payal? How would that be for justice? For revenge? Sweet, I think. No?

  She has escaped from me twice already. You think she’d be lucky third time around? I don’t think so. Save her if you can. I dare you to.

  Oh, can you tell Nidhi that I am going to be with her very soon? I know she’s waiting for me. After all, she and I were made for each other. Both of us have no one else apart from each other. Nothing can separate us. Not you Nishant. Not that muse of yours. Remember her? Thanks to her, I got out of my shell. She made me what I am. I can’t thank her enough. Too bad you’re not with her. You miss her? No? Good!

  I am coming Nishant. To make you pay for your sins. It’s going to be either you, or Payal.

  Take your pick.

  Like the previous letter, this one ended abruptly as well. Again there was no signature.

  Naveen sat down on the unkempt bed silently. Nishant rolled his to chair where Payal was. She was still confused about the contents of the letter. “Will someone tell me what is happening? What is the fuss all about?” Payal yelled.

  When no one answered, Payal looked at Nidhi for support. Nidhi was still seething with anger. A heavy silence shrouded the room.

  Naveen had been thinking quietly all this while. He finally broke the silence. “I… I don’t believe this. Where did you find this, Nishant?”

  “It was in the drawer of the table. I opened it to look for a pen when I saw this,” Nishant replied plainly.

  Nidhi had calmed by now. She was massaging her forehead with her left hand and was drumming on her thighs with her right. She did it when she was in deep thought. Payal had slumped on the floor next to Nishant and had rested her head on his thighs. Nishant was patting her head lightly.

  He pointed at the table. It had a typewriter, an older model, on it.

  “When did you see this?” Naveen asked.

  “Ten minutes back.” Nishant seemed resigned.

  “And when did you type it?” Naveen hurled the sudden question at him.

  “I type… what do you mean I typed it? Why would I… Are you… are you trying to say…” Nishant was lost for words at the allegation. He then immediately started laughing hysterically. He was mumbling, “I.. write.. threaten Payal… no.. yes..”

  “What he means is that no one has come to Ronak in the last three days. Apart from the three of us, no one even knows that you are here, Papa. Only you could have typed this!” Nidhi said.

  Nishant started to protest but Payal spoke, “What is in the letter? Will someone please tell me? What did Papa do? What is in it? Nidhi? Naveen?”

  Nishant was now hysterical. He was laughing like he used to laugh in his parties after he was drunk. He knocked his head back, looked at the ceiling and kept laughing. He was shaking his head at the same time. His grip on his wheelchair got tighter and he started to rock back and forth.

  Nidhi turned around and stomped out of the room. Payal ran after her. Nishant, still laughing, was left alone in the room with Naveen.

  “Nishant, you are a sick man. It was the biggest mistake of my life to get my sister to marry you. Not a single day has gone by when I haven’t regretted the decision. We are trying to forget the past and move on. Please stop playing these dirty tricks to get attention. Please let us live in peace. Please. I beg you.” Naveen made an elaborate gesture of folding his hands and bowing in front of Nishant. Shankar heard the rhetoric and bowed his head.

  Even though he was distraught at the thought of someone trying to hurt Payal, Nishant liked what he saw. Naveen had been his biggest adversary and he was now begging. He wanted to tell Naveen that he had not written the letter and that the girls were in real danger. But his vanity and pride took precedence over his fatherhood. He remained quiet.

  Naveen got exasperated. He crumpled the letter again into a ball and threw it at Nishant.

  ∗∗∗

  After Naveen left, Nishant read the letter again and again and tried to make some sense of it. He wanted to do something but he could not think of a solution.

  Nishant knew that he wasn’t the best human being to walk on Earth, but he had done some good deeds as well. He started scribbling his thoughts in his notepad. He divided the page neatly in two halves and listed everyone he thought he had been unjust to, on the left and everyone he thought he had been benevolent to, on the right. He should’ve done this exercise years ago.

  Just then, he felt that someone was back at the window, looking at him. This time, he refused to give in to the temptation. “I am not going to look at you. I know you are not there. There is no one at the window. You don’t exist. It’s my imagination at play. Go away, whoever you are. I have already caused so much grief to Payal,” he spoke loudly.

  Before he could co
mplete his conversation with the imaginary thug, he heard a metallic gong. It was as if someone used a metallic object to rap the grill on the window.

  Nishant turned immediately at the window. He couldn’t see anyone. However, the Ashoka trees along Ronak’s boundary wall were conspiring with the winds and swaying gently.

  Nishant shrugged and started to laugh again. He then turned back to his notepad, back to scribbling names of his friends and enemies. Enemies on the left and friends on the right. He saw that the column on the left extended all the way to the bottom of the page. The one on the right had hardly moved beyond one or two lines.

  Book 3. Lobh

  Lobh∗ is “…a strong desire for worldly possessions and a constant focus on possessing material items, especially the urge to possess what rightfully belongs to others…”

  ∗ Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobh

  12. Sometime in the 1980s. Ronak.

  The first time Nishant set his foot inside Ronak, he was gate-crashing a party, hoping to hobnob with the celebrities.

  It was a common tactic used by the strugglers in film industry. They would borrow fancy clothes, get decked up as well as their limited means allowed them to and go to parties and events where the stalwarts from the industry had gathered. Getting in was tough but the universal language of generous tip to the gatekeeper would often solve it. If and when you managed to get in, you spoke to as many people as possible and hoped like hell that a casting director or producer or someone noticed you.

  For today’s party, the guard at Ronak took all the money that Nishant and his two other friends had between them. Yet they were glad to be inside. It was going to be the first tryst with stardom for all three of them. Nishant’s two friends were skeptical about their chances, but Nishant was sure. With his boyish looks, the thick mop of hair gelled back to the scalp and a dark tux, Nishant cut a dashing figure. To top his looks, he had his natural charm and wit that could floor anyone.

  As luck would have it, when Nishant was trying to get himself an expensive whiskey form the bar, he bumped into Sapna Khan, wife of Tabrez Khan, a famous producer and the owner of Ronak. It was Sapna Khan who started the conversation.

  One drink led to another, one strand of conversation let to another and soon Nishant’s friends saw Sapna heading into the house. They, however, did not notice Nishant following Sapna at a safe yet definite distance. After that, Nishant remained missing for the rest of the party and for a large part of the next day.

  The friends on the other hand did not have any such luck. They had to settle with a phone number of a production executive and a promise to get them into a screen-test soon.

  ∗∗∗

  The evening after that, when Nishant met his friends, everyone was expecting a grand announcement from Nishant. And grand it was. He was now the lead actor in next Tabrez Khan production and it was his last night in the bylanes of Seven Bungalows, Aaram Nagar, Yari Road, Lokhandawaka and other such places where all other strugglers spent their time. Nishant told them that he had been given a substantial advance to upgrade his standard. That meant that he had to move to a more respectable house from his current shared accommodation in a Chawl.

  A Chawl∗ is a collection of one-room dwelling units clustered densely around an open space. These chawls were constructed in the early 1900s to shelter thousands of workers that had thronged the city of Mumbai, lured by easy employment in the then booming cotton mill industry. Most of these mills and chawls have now made way for large multistorey structures that house plush office complexes and mammoth homes for the super-rich.

  His friends didn’t see much of him for next few months, even though they desperately wanted to. For one, they missed his good humor and zest for life. Second, Nishant was after all, one of their own, who by some luck had managed to get a break in the glamorous world. In their proximity to Nishant, they could feel that they were close to the stardom that Mumbai offered.

  ∗∗∗

  One fine day, Nishant reappeared. With a bang. When shiny new posters were plastered all over the city, announcing his debut film, Pyar Ka Musafir, with Nishant as the lead actor. The film premiered at Maratha Mandir -amongst the grandest cinemas hall in Mumbai. It seemed Sapna and Tabrez Khan had invited nearly half of Mumbai to the premier. Missing conspicuously were Nishant’s invitees. The two zealous friends had assumed that Nishant’s silence was a result of extended work hours. When they reached Maratha Mandir on their own accord and waved frantically at Nishant from behind the tall barricades, Nishant ignored them as if he had never known them.

  The film did not do anything special at the box office. However, Nishant Kapoor left his mark. He earned more praise than the film did. His acting and on-screen presence took the world by storm. Within a few months, from a Joe Nobody, he had become the Nishant Kapoor that he always wanted to be, thanks to those two friends who had asked him to accompany them to the party at Ronak. The ones whom he refused to acknowledge at the premier. Why would he? Hadn’t he left the grimy, boring life of a struggler behind with his role in Pyar Ka Musafir?

  Now that he was known, he set his eyes on larger things. After his debut in Pyar Ka Musafir, he knew that things would be slightly easier. But he did not want to take chances. He gave all he had to his profession. He worked relentlessly and honed his craft. The audience, especially women, loved him. Producers lined at his door to sign him up with absurd amounts of money on offer. Every actor and actress wanted to work with him. There was no one who could ignore him.

  Apart from the small universe of Bollywood, his demand came from far and wide as well. He was immediately signed up as the face of many top brands in the country, including his beloved cigarette, Stikk. The advertisement for Stikk featured him walking bare-chested into the sunset on a lonely beach, smoking lazily on his cigarette. He started getting invitations to make appearances at the weddings of the rich and famous. He made new friends and everyone seemed to love even his worst jokes.

  Like any successful young man, he had his pack of women wanting to bed him. He however, stayed loyal to Sapna. At least for some time. Surprisingly, Tabrez Khan had known about Nishant and Sapna all along and yet he cast a blind eye to their relationship. What if his wife was disloyal? It made brilliant business sense to ignore Sapna’s adultery, as long as it remained under wraps. After all, Nishant had already given Tabrez Khan three hits in less than two years.

  Nishant came out of his shell when he won the coveted Filmfare award for a third time in row, again for a Tabrez Khan love story. He knew he had arrived and he now wanted to gather all trophies, all symbols that he had always craved for. Starting with the first real thing that he had come to love in Mumbai.

  ∗∗∗

  To him, it was more than a crumbling old house that had clearly seen better days. And yet every time he went there, he felt this calm permeate through him. Since he knew the owners well, he could go there anytime he wanted and stay for as long as he wished. But he was still a visitor. And it belonged to someone else. He had to own it. On paper. Legally.

  Ronak.

  Apart from other things, he considered Ronak a lucky charm for him, for every time he went there, he came back with something to be happy about. He had fallen for its charm in the very first party that he attended there as a struggler. That time, of course, he couldn’t imagine that he could live at Ronak. But now that he was an established film star, he could offer Tabrez Khan a price that would be fair and more importantly, acceptable.

  It was a fine evening in February. Winter was receding and summers were yet to arrive. The evening was made more pleasant by the imported single malt that Tabrez and Nishant were sipping on. Nishant broached the subject, “Khan Saab, I’ve heard rumors that financiers are shying away from giving out money for new projects. No?”

  Khan sipped onto his glass. “Yeah. The scumbags have found a more lucrative place to park their money. The construction market. Damn them. I have made them lakhs and yet they now talk to me like sting
y moneylenders. Wish I had an alternative to these guys but there are very few people who are keen on putting money in films.”

  Nishant paused. He let Tabrez finish his drink. “I know. I think I have a solution. I was thinking, what if I work without an upfront free? And take something small, insignificant in return? You know, like an exchange, a barter?” he said tentatively.

  Tabrez Khan, called Khan Saab by everyone as a mark of respect for his lineage, looked suspiciously at Nishant. Khan had heard all sorts of requests in his long career in Bollywood. This one sounded as weird. He initially thought that Nishant was talking about Sapna, Khan’s wife. Nothing could be better. He would love to let her go. She was anyway a drain on his finances and energy. But for keepsakes, he treaded cautiously, “What do you mean, Nishant?”

  “You know Khan Saab, I am bored of living in the cramped flat in SantaCruz and I have been looking for a house to live in. Your Ronak is so old and in dire need of maintenance. I was thinking if I could take it and remodel it to suit my needs… you’d get freedom from the crumbling walls and I would get a roof on my head. And in return, I could work the next two-three films for a lot less?”

  Khan stiffened. He shuffled in the deep chair as if it was biting his backside. He stayed calm on the surface. He swallowed the anger seething in him and said politely, “I can’t. Even if I want to, I can’t. Ronak has been in my family for generations. I can’t part with it.”

  Khan was used to getting his way around and Nishant knew that he was talking to a man who was almost a monarch. Nishant said, “Khan Saab, you are my mentor and you gave me my break. I don’t want to pressurize you. I am being reasonable and I really want to do a fair deal.”

  “Reasonable? Let me be reasonable with you, Nishant,” interrupted Tabrez Khan. His calm demeanor was gone. He was now almost screaming. “I got you out from that dirty little shithole and I put you on top of the world. Betajaan, if I can make you, I can bring you down. Don’t you dare talk to me like a two rupees goon! I have seen the world and I know how to deal with the likes of you. I’ve had offers from builders, threats from the underworld and if I haven’t sold it for money or for my life, why do you think I would give it to you?”