The Nidhi Kapoor Story Read online

  Prakash finally spoke, “These illustrations are brilliant. Who could have thought that you could project such deep meaning with such simple illustrations?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That palace in the painting? Where it’s about to rain? That!”

  “Ah rains! You know what I love the most about Mumbai? The rains. The rains here pelt so hard, so thick and so fast that it almost touches your soul. Rains give you a new lease of life. I can’t think of living anywhere else but in Mumbai during the monsoons.”

  Prakash was talking about the painting and Rujuta had taken an entirely different tangent. Rujuta was happy-high in just two pegs. Prakash was still holding his glass of limewater and was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall.

  When Rujuta did not see much coming out of Prakash, she put on Parov Stelar and started to dance along with the music. She was trying and failing miserably to match her moves to the fast electronic beats. “You know Prakash there are times when I don’t believe the life that I am living. If not for my aunt, I would have been a whore in some whorehouse in Delhi.”

  “Rujuta…?” Prakash was surprised.

  “I am serious. The first memories that I have of life are of a small dingy room that I shared with a few other women. I don’t know how many of us were there, but the room was always crowded. That one room was my entire life for the first few years.”

  It was a sight to hold. A thin and slender Rujuta was dancing and talking at the same time. She continued, “I was very young. Very small. I was forbidden to go out of that room. I used to think that the world was just as big as that small room. It had a door that opened into a long dark passage that these women were walking in and out of, all the time. I tried peeping out of that door so many times but all I could see was a dark tunnel and bright light at the end of it. That room, Prakash, did not have any outlet but that door. There was this tiny window area near the roof but that was about it. It got so… so claustrophobic at times that I could not breathe. It was so loud and so crowded and so full of activity that no one heard you. I wanted to get out of that room. I really wanted to. I talked to my aunt about it all the time. She did not let me. Even when I cried and wanted to break out of the room, my aunt did not let me out. I hated her. I would cry and cry and cry until I fell asleep.”

  Rujuta slumped on the floor next to Prakash. She did not stop talking though.

  “That one room was my life. All of us ate, slept, crapped, laughed, cried and fought in that one room. One entire wall of that room, we had this giant mirror lined with light bulbs. And someone or the other was always in front of that mirror and putting on kohl, flowers, powder, lipstick and all those stupid things. The music never stopped and someone or the other was always dancing. I loved the color, the dance and the music. My favorite thing was kohl, kajal. I would put it on my eyes, on my cheeks, everywhere. I loved its color and transformation that it brought about in looks. Imagine a thing as dark and ugly as kajal could change a woman with average looks into a thing of beauty that could kill with her eyes. You know, when I put that kajal, I thought I looked like a doll. I loved it. I would put kajal and dance with others. I still remember a few songs from back then. That song from Tezaab? The one with Madhuri Dixit in it? Ek, Do, Teen….I still remember the dance steps of that song. She is the most beautiful dancer that I have ever seen.”

  Rujuta got up and tried dancing to the Madhuri Dixit hit from Tezaab. But she ended up doing a bad job mixing electronic beats and Bollywood moves. Prakash smiled and patted on the floor next to him, inviting Rujuta to sit next to him.

  “I knew what I wanted to be back then. A dancer. You know what I loved apart from Kajal back then? My ghunghroos. I had a tiny pair. I loved the noise that they made. It was like a lullaby to my ears. The sweetest sound ever. Prakash, I was a very good dancer and all my aunties, everyone was an aunt, we did not have a concept of mothers back there, encouraged me. When they practiced various dance moves, I was the only girl that they included in their practice.”

  Rujuta stretched herself on Prakash’s lap. Her back rested on the cold floor and she held Prakash’s hand over her chest.

  “Tarana Aunty never allowed me to dance or play with others. Every time I’d put my ghunghroos on, she would give me a lecture. When I protested, she’d often slap me. Once she slapped me so hard that my lips started to bleed. That day Prakash, I decided that I would never speak to her again. I wanted to go away from her. Far far away from her. But what could I do? I was young and the world was as big as that small room.”

  “Then, as luck would have it, I escaped from that small room. But with Tarana Aunty. We had some sort of a party and all of us danced through the night. I was so tired that I don’t even remember when I slept and when I woke up, I was in a train. I was so scared at first. It was the first time I was seeing something other than that room.” Rujuta clasped onto Prakash’s hand tightly.

  She continued, “If I hadn’t found Tarana aunty next to me when I woke up, I wouldn’t have known how to react. From my world, that room, I was suddenly out there in the wild. At an unknown place, amongst unknown people. Thankfully, Tarana aunty was holding onto my hand. I still remember the day as if was yesterday.”

  Rujuta involuntarily tightened her grip on Prakash’s hand. Prakash squeezed back.

  “She had this smug expression on her face. As if she had defeated the entire world. Her sneer was the kind that you have when you have pulled a fast one on someone invincible. She looked so content, so beautiful. She was looking out of the window. The sight is still etched in my memory Prakash. She had folded her leg and was holding onto her knee next to her chest. She had rested her face on her folded knee. A burnt out bidi was stuck in one corner of her mouth and she was looking out to the scenery rushing by. She had this one tiny lock of hair hanging out. The wind was playing with it, taking it all over the place but it always came back to its original position, right above her forehead. Her dark skin had taken up a shiny golden color. Sunlight was falling on her face.”

  Rujuta sat up abruptly. She was now sitting cross-legged, facing Prakash. “When I woke up, aunty told me that she has left her dancing behind and was taking me to Bombay. I cried when she told me that she did not carry my kajal or my ghunghroos with her. I wanted to go back. I loved my kajal. I loved my ghunghroos. I loved dancing. I loved flowers and makeup that others put on. I begged her to take me back. I cried till I got tired of crying. And then I slept. I woke up and I cried again. I was so confused with so many people, so many new things around me.

  “You know, I wanted the train to stop so that I could jump off the train and go back to my room, my world, my things, my kajal and my ghunghroos. But the damn thing wouldn’t stop. It just kept on moving.

  “Then one day, the train started to slow down and everyone around me started to pack their things that they had scattered in the coupe. When the train stopped, people moved in, people moved out and it was like a mela. Tarana aunty held me close to her. I clutched her harder. We stood like that till the crowd thinned. I may have hated her for taking me away but I did not want to be left alone in that melee of unknown faces.

  “I did not know that Aunty had taken a giant leap of faith and had run away from a brothel in Delhi to a slum in Mumbai. Aunty could sing really well and she started working as a singer and dancer in a bar. The work was slightly better, but respect however, stayed the same. Men still treated her as an object. Rather than appreciating her talents, they wanted to bed her.”

  Prakash decided to fix himself a drink. He had never imagined that Rujuta could have had such a tumultuous past.

  Rujuta continued, “It was a tough life. We did not have much. Just a small room. It took us almost an hour every morning to reach the secluded train line where we would crap and bathe. We always did that in a group, before the sun came up. It was safer that way. And always with our clothes on. Because it was Mumbai, Bombay back then, and someone or the other was, is always watching. No
t Peeping Toms per se, but watching. They are two different things. You know the difference?”

  Prakash nodded like an obedient child.

  “I studied under a tree with other children from the slum. Prakash, you know, that was the first time when I understood what love felt like. The guy had a beard and every time he looked in my direction, I would freeze. He was my teacher. Even though I knew answers to all his questions, every time he asked me something, I would freeze. I think he knew that I knew all answers and yet I was unable to speak up. I think he reveled in my misery. I even wrote him something of a love letter once. I don’t remember what I wrote in it though,” Rujuta laughed.

  “So one day, I followed him after school and I saw him enter one of the larger houses in the slum. I peeped into the window and I saw him digging in between the legs of a strongly built woman. I thought he was trying to climb over her or something but as abruptly as he had started doing it, he stopped. He rolled over and lit a cigarette. The woman got up, fixed her clothes and put tea on the stove. I was too young to know what was happening but it made me feel strangely excited. I was dying to know more but I could not ask anyone. All this while, both of them were talking to each other, giggling about things. They looked so happy fucking each other.”

  “That very instant, I decided that I would marry him and live with him happily ever after. I wanted him to make me laugh like that. I wanted him to hold me like that. I wanted him to teach me. I wanted him to ask me questions and I wanted to fumble while answering. I wanted to make him his tea, light his cigarettes. I wanted him to dig between my legs, but thank God I did not end up with him. He would have made such a lousy lover…” With that Rujuta laughed out loud.

  She gave a meaningful glance in Prakash’s direction. She pointed at him and twitched her fingers, inviting Prakash. Prakash remained stoic though. Rujuta shrugged and got back to her dance and dialogue.

  She sighed out loud and said, “You are a waste, Prakash. Anyway, just when I knew what I was going to be in life, I got the shock of displacement yet again. One fine day, Aunty announced that I was going away from her to a different school that was better than the tree under which I studied. She had found someone who was willing to pay for my education at a boarding school. I cursed that guy with all the cuss words that I had learnt till then. But when Tarana Aunty decides on something, you could move a mountain but not her opinion.”

  “Hmm…” Prakash made another drink. His second.

  “So I went to Welham’s Girls in Dehradun. There, for the first time ever, I had my own room, my own cupboard. The room in the hills was bigger than my entire house back in Bombay and I did not know what to do with it. The best part, it came with an attached bathroom. It was so big, so big that I could sleep in it. The irony is that the first night I was at Welham’s, I could not sleep. It was creeping me out. I was not used to so much space around me,” Rujuta said.

  Prakash finally had something where he could dole out his opinion, “I have heard of Welham’s. It’s amongst the better schools in India. No?”

  Rujuta quipped, “My foot. You leave 600 girls alone in a mountain and you have no idea about the kind of things they’d do.”

  “Really? I am not sure,” Prakash egged on.

  “It’s awesome when parents are around to drop their little princesses. The entire week of orientation is fun. But once the parents leave, the real education starts. One night, someone knocked on my door in the middle of the night. I opened and before I could understand anything, I was splashed with water. The water kept coming till I was drenched from head to toe. They called it water fight. All new girls already drenched to their bones were taken to the open courtyard and were made to strip and dance to raunchy Bollywood numbers. That’s when I understood for the first time what Tarana and other aunts did for a living in Delhi. I felt so humiliated. I was very angry at being treated like that. That was the first time I really thanked Tarana aunty for taking me away from Delhi.”

  She continued, “At school, I wasn’t good with academics but I did really well with sports and dance. I joined the photography club and won every award that could be won with that basic camera that our school had. One of my teachers told me that I could even make a living out of it. That way, I am very thankful for the time I spent there. Otherwise school was boring. Actually, you know, there was so much to do but I did not have company.”

  Prakash had had enough of this unknown Tarana aunty and he was eager to meet her. He himself had had a mentor like that when he was growing up. He never imagined that there could be more people like his Khan Saab.

  “I really want to meet your aunt. When can I?” Prakash asked.

  Rujuta beamed. “Soon. Even she wants to meet you.”

  “Does she know about me?” Prakash was surprised.

  “Of course she does. I don’t really make a lot of close friends easily. Plus, she has to approve every friend before I let him in my house.”

  “So she’s approved all those million people you know personally?” Prakash was now being a mean police officer.

  “Mr. Mohile, most of them are mere acquaintances. But wait. Hear this bit out. This is the juiciest part.” Rujuta was getting excited about something.

  “So, every friend I made had these vivid stories about magic of love and mystic feeling of lovemaking with the magic organs. I am not sure now how many of these were factual and how many fictional,” Rujuta gigged at it.

  “You know I even tried it with a few girls, what else would these girls do when they have been locked away in a hostel?”

  Prakash was nodding his head disapprovingly as if he was a parent and had caught his kids with their hands in the cookie jar.

  Rujuta ignored his antics. She wanted Prakash to be privy to her life. Making him the first person, apart from Tarana, to know about her in such great detail. “After school, thanks to my photography portfolio and awards, I won the scholarship to the NY film School and went there for four years. I could’ve never imagined. From a cramped whorehouse of Delhi to slums of Dharavi to mountains in Dehradun to the most famous photography college in the world! It still seems like a dream, Prakash.” Rujuta came close to Prakash and sat down once again.

  They did not realize that they had talked through a large part of the night and it was almost daybreak.

  “US was where I realized what life meant. I seeped in as much as I could. I did a lot of interesting assignments. You know, unlike most people who don’t know what they want to do in life and live with motions, I am so so lucky to have my passion as my profession. I am thankful that I am living my life on my terms. I am living my dream.” Rujuta was now staring at the ceiling.

  “So why did you move back to Bombay then? You could’ve lived anywhere in the world.”

  “I could have, but not without Tarana aunty. When I came back from NY and spoke to her about our future, she flatly refused to live anywhere outside Dharavi. I thus had no choice but to be here. And to be honest, it’s not that bad. I am actually glad I am here. I lived with her for the first few weeks but then she pushed me out and asked me to get a place of my own. I could not comprehend why she threw me out but now I know why. We meet often; I go to her place whenever I can. She comes here rarely. But whenever she does, all she does is lecture me about how I ought to manage this house better!”

  Listening to Rujuta and Tarana’s story, Prakash craved for someone like that in his life. He’d been by himself for a long time and he had no one who he could call his own. His mother was long dead. He did not know if his father was alive, he still hadn’t stopped searching for him. Khan Sir had passed away just about a year ago. He suddenly missed all of them. He felt very lonely.

  Rujuta was oblivious to Prakash’s misery. She continued, “I don’t know what’s in store for me in the future. But, so far, I like what I am doing. I want to live in Europe for a while but I don’t know what to do about my aunt. Let’s see. I also want to meet and thank that guy who sent me to school. I am sincerely inde
bted to him and I would love to give back someday. Aunty says that the chakra of life would someday give me an opportunity to give back.”

  Prakash often had things to say on matters of philosophy. But today he was silent. He was staring at Rujuta with an emotionless expression. He reached out to Rujuta and hugged her awkwardly.

  Rujuta did not know how to react. This was unexpected from Prakash. She had known him for almost three weeks now and he had never been open about his emotions. Rujuta did not know how to react.

  She hugged Prakash back. Gently at first. And then, tightly. As intensely as Prakash was holding onto her. They slowly slumped on the floor. Still hugging each other as if their dear lives depended on it. And it did.

  ∗ http://krishnabhakt.blogspot.in/2010/08/dandniti.html

  15. Day 7, Noon. JW Marriott.

  Payal had agreed to meet on one condition. That Nidhi and Naveen Verma were not told about the meeting. Payal’s insistence on hiding the meeting from Nidhi came as a surprise to Rujuta.

  Payal and Rujuta met at JW Marriott. Due to its convenient location, a lot of TV and film personalities frequented it. The gossip columnists from leading dailies would often camp outside the hotel hoping to get sound bytes or exclusives from celebrities.

  “Thanks for your time, Payal.” Payal was wearing a Paul Smith signature tee over blue jeans. The white tee with bold stripes accentuated her beauty further. Rujuta, like most other women, was very observant when it came to sizing up another women and nothing escaped her sharp eyes. She noted that Payal’s simplicity showed glimpses of someone special underneath.

  “Let’s get on with it. I don’t have a lot of time.” Payal was businesslike.

  “I understand,” Rujuta nodded.

  “So what do you want to know?” Payal was keen on ending this soon.

  “What happened on that night when the pets were killed? Where were you?” Rujuta came straight to the point.

  Payal looked at Rujuta for an instant before she replied, “I was with Nidhi the entire night. She and I were out.” Rujuta realized that Payal seemed to be weighing her words carefully before she spoke.