Six Suspects (19 page)

'One hour,' I say and he promptly charges me five hundred
rupees and hands over a clunky key. 'Room 515, fifth floor. The lift
is round the corner.'

I can sense Ritu's increasing discomfort as I usher her into
the lift. Room Number 515 turns out to be at the fag end of the
corridor and there are cockroaches scurrying across the frayed and
dusty red carpet. I am already regretting my decision to come to
this dump. But it is too late to backtrack. I open the door and am
pleasantly surprised by its neat and efficient orderliness. There is a
large double bed with a crisp white sheet and fluffy pillows. The
walls are painted a pastel pink, matching Ritu's dress, and adorned
with framed pictures of scenes from Delhi. There is even a wall
clock, busy ticking the seconds. A small wooden desk and chair are
placed near the far wall. The red curtains, made of some kind of
rough fabric, look brand new but are not thick enough to keep out
the ambient sounds of traffic and trade. The lingering smell of a
faint rose perfume enters my nose, either left behind by the
previous occupants or sprayed by the management as a romantic
touch. But the icing on the cake is the packet of Nirodh condoms
left discreetly on the lower shelf of the bedside table.

Locking the door behind me, I take Ritu in my arms. She
accepts my embrace willingly but there is a new stiffness in her
body. She grimaces slightly as I kiss her again on the lips, more
hungrily this time.

My hands get rid of her
chunni
and commence their descent
down her back, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin fabric
of her
kameez
. She begins shivering as I unbutton her shirt and lift
it over her head, uncovering her from the waist up. Only a white
lace bra remains and its sight serves only to inflame me further.
That is when Ritu does a peculiar thing. She does not try to stop
me, does not demurely cover her chest with her hands; she simply
starts sobbing. I have been with enough girls to suspect that her
tears are not so much a mark of protest as an appeal for caution –
this is probably her first time – yet they make me distraught. I
know I can ignore this minor hiccup and continue my conquest.
But Ritu seems so utterly defenceless, her face so guileless, that my
raging desire begins to seem crass and vulgar. Taking advantage of
her would be as reprehensible as taking a coin from a blind beggar.
So I wipe her tears with my fingers and hand back her
kameez
.
Then, fully clothed, we sit down on the bed and simply hold
hands. I don't remember for how long we do this, but a curious
change begins to come over me. Gradually my eyes lose focus.
They don't see the bed and the headboard and the walls and the
pictures. My ears stop registering all sounds. They don't hear the
honks of the auto-rickshaws, the cries of the fruit-sellers or the
screeching of crows. As the clock ticks off the seconds, all I notice
is the slight trembling of my skin and the warm beating of my
heart. I look into Ritu's moist eyes and feel as if the whole world
is contained in their glistening depths.

The spell is broken only by incessant knocking on the door.
'Time is up, Sir. We need the room back,' I hear the manager's
voice.

Glancing at the clock, it is a shock to discover that we have
been in the room for over an hour. I get up quickly from the bed
and unlock the door. The manager seems apologetic but it is the
sight of a maid, armed with a fresh sheet, which brings me up
short. I hear the sound of the lift opening and a middle-aged
couple steps into the corridor, probably the next hourly tenants of
the room. The man, dressed like an office clerk, sniggers at me; the
woman, heavy set, but fashionably dressed in trousers and shirt,
giggles like an adolescent schoolgirl as Ritu and I pass her, her face
shining with unrestrained longing.

The encounter with this lusty-eyed couple shames me. But it
makes Ritu clutch my hand with a fierce new possessiveness.

When we step back into the street dusk is falling, draping the
surroundings in a misty grey light. The quiet murmur of the afternoon
has given way to the din of evening traffic, the cacophony of
car horns and the revving of bus engines on the main road.

'I am late,' Ritu frets. 'I must return immediately or Ram Singh
will come looking for me.'

'When will I see you again?'

'I don't know. I am going back to Lucknow tonight.'

'But how will I live without seeing you?' I cry.

'Love doesn't end just because we don't see each other,' she
replies.

'At least give me some idea of when you will return to Delhi.'

'In three weeks. Just in time for my birthday.'

'Your birthday? When is it?'

'On the tenth of March.'

'Then I must get you a present.'

'But you have already given me a present.'

'What are you saying?' I ask, mystified. 'I have not given you
anything.'

She smiles. 'You have given me the best possible gift. You have
given me respect. See you soon, Vijay.' She gently squeezes my
hand in a goodbye gesture and gets into an auto-rickshaw.

As the auto-rickshaw departs, trailing a plume of smoke, a
pang of sadness squeezes my heart with such force that I almost
cry out. And a new realization dawns on me. I had come to
Paharganj a boy, looking for a tawdry thrill. I was leaving it a man,
madly in love.

Lying in bed that night I am tormented with dreams of Ritu. She
began as an object of desire for me, a seemingly unattainable
fantasy, and then somewhere along the way she became real. I am
all too painfully aware of the wide gap between us. She is the
daughter of an upper-caste, upper-class business tycoon and I am
the uncouth son of a temple sweeper. The chasm between us is so
wide that it can only be bridged in dreams. But I pinch myself and
regain confidence with the knowledge that Ritu returns my love.
And, as they say in Hindi film songs,
pyaar
respects no boundaries.
Our love will bridge the chasm. With a little bit of help from a
black VIP briefcase.

I decide to use the three weeks until Ritu comes back to Delhi to
make myself worthy of her. I start going to a private tutor for
English lessons. I meet a property agent to discuss renting a fourbedroom
flat on Ramoji Road. I visit the box factory on MG Road
to familiarize myself with its operation. And then I decide to buy
a birthday gift for her. A diamond engagement ring. It seems like
the best way to convince her family of my richie-rich credentials
and seal our relationship.

I go to a swanky jewellery showroom on Janpath and sit in
air-conditioned comfort as a sales girl in a pink top shows me one
magnificent ring after another. The glittering diamonds are all
shapes and sizes, some as small as a grain of salt and some as big
as a thumbtack, but all of them carry indecently large price tags.
The cheapest diamond ring in the store costs fifty thousand
rupees. What disturbs me is that similar rings, shining just as
brilliantly, are available in plenty of roadside shops in Janpath for
as little as five hundred rupees. 'Those are not diamonds, Sir,' the
sales girl titters. 'They are cubic zirconium pieces, totally fake.
Under a microscope you can spot the difference immediately.' For
a moment I am tempted to buy a fake diamond ring. It feels silly
to be blowing all this money on a piece of rock. And Ritu is not
going to examine it under a microscope. But the very next
moment I chide myself for thinking like a slum-dweller and select
a shiny, one-carat ring costing a whopping 120,000 rupees. I pay
cash, have it nicely gift-wrapped, and then call Ritu on her mobile.
'I have a surprise present for you. Can we meet on 10 March?'

'That is the day I arrive in Delhi. My family will not allow me
to go out on my birthday.'

'But it is absolutely critical that we meet. How about the
Nehru Park at three o'clock?'

'It's going to be very difficult, but I'll do my best to come,' she
promises.

On 10 March, I proceed to Nehru Park with the costliest gift of
my life in my pocket, my palms clammy with sweat. Ritu arrives
on time and alone. We sit down on a secluded bench underneath
a shady tree.

I take out the gift-wrapped packet from my breast pocket and
place it gently in her palm. 'Open it,' I say. She begins unwrapping
the golden paper till the red velvet box is revealed. She slowly
raises the lid. I expect her eyes to be dazzled by the glittering diamond
and a look of shocked delight to appear on her face, but
what I get instead is a pained and pensive expression. 'This looks
like an engagement ring,' she says in a shocked voice.

'It is,' I reply. 'Ritu, will you marry me?'

'But I am already engaged,' she whispers.

'What?'

'Yes. My father has got me engaged to Kunwar Inder Singh, the
crown prince of Pratapgarh princely State. I have managed to put
off the wedding till after my graduation, but I could not prevent
the engagement.'

'So you don't really want to marry this fellow?'

'I detest Inder. He troubled me so much in Lucknow that I
came away to stay in Delhi with my brother. I love you, Vijay, but
I cannot marry you. If I defy my father he will not only kill me, he
will also kill you. That is why I cannot accept this ring.' She closes
the lid and passes the velvet box back to me.

I purse my lips. 'I think it is time you told me about your
family.'

'Yes. I think it is time, too.' She takes a deep breath. 'I am
Jagannath Rai's daughter.'

I feel an electric current dart up my backside. '
Arrey baap re!
The Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh? That dreaded mafia don?'

'The same,' she replies in a low voice.

'Then where are you staying? In some government guesthouse?'

'No. I am staying with my brother in Mehrauli. At Number Six.'

'You mean you are Vicky Rai's sister?'

'Do you know him?'

'Who doesn't know him? He is all over the news for getting
away with the murder of Ruby Gill.'

'I can tolerate the verdict,' she says bitterly. 'What I cannot
stand is the gloating that is going on in our house. It sickens me. I
feel ashamed to belong to such a family.'

'It looks like you don't get along with your father and brother.'

'I never have. There are two camps in our house. My mother
and I are on one side and my father and brother are on the
other, and there is perpetual wrestling going on between the two
camps. Of course, it is the men who always prevail over the
women.' Her head hangs down and a tear trickles out of her eye.

I kiss away her tear. 'Now you can add one more person to
your camp. I will be there for you, always.'

'So you still want to be friends with me, Vijay?'

It is my turn now to take a deep breath. In the face of her
confession I feel the time has come for full disclosure on my side
as well. 'I need to tell you the truth about me, Ritu. Then I will ask
whether you want to be friends with
me
.'

'Do not speak in riddles.'

'I won't. Not any longer. So here's the truth. I am not Vijay
Singh. My real name is Munna. I am not a Thakur. I don't own a
four-bedroom flat. I live in a one-room shack inside the Bhole
Nath Temple, where my mother works as a sweeper. Everything I
told you before was a lie. But only because I am madly in love
with you and didn't want to lose you.'

Ritu crumples in front of me, doubling up in pain as though I
have hit her physically. There is a long pause as she digests the
information I have given her. Then she turns to face me. 'I am presuming
you don't own any factory either. What do you really do,
Mr Munna, besides lying and cheating?' she asks accusingly,
clenching her fists.

I debate whether to tell Ritu about my career as a mobilephone
thief and decide against it. Love might make one blind, but
not stupid. I had to tell her the truth about my family because a
man of Jagannath Rai's connections would have seen through my
deception instantly. But even Jagannath Rai cannot know about
my briefcase. Still, I have the sinking feeling that my love affair is
all but over. Even the money in the briefcase will not be enough
to restore Ritu's faith in me.

'I am a manager at a box factory,' I say with downcast eyes.

'Then where did you get this diamond ring from? Did you
steal it?' Ritu demands.

Having decided not to tell her anything about the briefcase, I
am left with just one option. To prove that my love is real, the
diamond ring will have to become fake.

'It is not a real diamond ring. It is simply cubic zirconium. This
was all I could afford.'

Ritu clenches her fists again and I can sense deep emotion
welling up inside her. In Hindi films, this is when the heroine
stands up and slaps the deceitful hero. I wince, expecting Ritu to
do the same, but what happens next is entirely unexpected.
Instead of slapping me, Ritu grasps my hand. 'You sacrificed your
hard-earned money for my happiness? And that lunch in the fivestar
restaurant . . . You must have blown a month's salary just to
impress me.'

I nod and her eyes turn tearful again. 'I am glad you told me
the truth, Munna,' she says in a broken voice. 'I can tolerate
poverty, but I cannot tolerate falsehood.' She looks me in the
eye. 'You asked me whether I still want to be friends with you.
This is my answer.' She kisses me on the cheek and takes back
the ring.

I don't know whether to thank God or Bollywood for this
remarkable turnaround. The love affair between the rich girl and
the poor boy is staple fare in Hindi films. I wonder whether Ritu
Rai is a star-struck scatterbrain, getting her kicks from romancing
the poor. Another possibility that crosses my mind is that, like the
film-maker Nandita Mishra, she too might be making a
documentary on slum life. But when I look into her eyes I don't
see any deviousness there, I glimpse only genuine honesty. And a
wave of relief sweeps over my body, causing love to gush out of
my eyes, drenching the bench and cooling my heart. I kiss Ritu
back and clasp her in a fierce embrace as though the two of us are
the only living beings left on this planet.