Six Suspects (2 page)

'The accused are always the most attractive.'

Franz Kafka,
The Trial

M
OHAN
K
UMAR
glances at his watch, disengages himself from
the arms of his mistress and rises from the bed.

'It is already three. I have to go,' he says as he hunts for his
underwear amidst the tangle of clothes at the foot of the bed.

The air-conditioner behind him stirs into action, expelling a
blast of tepid air into the darkened room. Rita Sethi looks crossly
at the machine. 'Does this wretched thing ever work? I told you
to get the White Westinghouse. These Indian brands can't last the
summer.'

The shutters on the windows are down, yet the oppressive
heat still manages to seep into the bedroom, making the sheets
feel like blankets.

'The imported A-Cs aren't tropicalized,' Mohan Kumar
replies. He has half a desire to reach for the bottle of Chivas Regal
on the side table but decides against it. 'I'd better get going. There
is a board meeting at four.'

Rita stretches her arms, yawns and slumps back on the pillow.
'Why do you still care about work? Have you forgotten you are no
longer Chief Secretary, Mr Mohan Kumar?'

He grimaces, as though Rita has scraped a fresh wound. He has
still not come to terms with his retirement.

For thirty-seven years he had been in government – manipulating
politicians, managing colleagues and making deals. Along
the way he had acquired houses in seven cities, a shopping mall in
Noida and a Swiss bank account in Zurich. He revelled in being a
man of influence. A man who could command the entire
machinery of the state with just one phone call, whose friendship
opened closed doors, whose anger destroyed careers and companies,
whose signature released bonanzas worth millions of
rupees. His steady rise through the echelons of bureaucracy had
bred complacency. He thought he would go on for ever. But he
had been defeated by time, by the inexorably ticking clock which
had tolled sixty and ended all his powers in one stroke.

In the eyes of his colleagues, he has managed the transition
from government rather well. He is now on the boards of half a
dozen private companies belonging to the Rai Group of Industries
which together pay him ten times his former salary. He has a
company-provided villa in Lutyens' Delhi and a corporate car. But
these perks cannot compensate for the loss of patronage. Of
power. He feels a lesser man without its aura, a king without his
kingdom. In the first couple of months after his retirement he
woke up on some nights, sweating and itchy, and reached dimly
for his mobile to see if he had missed a call from the Chief
Minister. During the day, his eyes would involuntarily turn
towards the driveway, searching for the reassuring white
Ambassador with the revolving blue light. At times the loss of
power has felt like a physical absence to him, akin to the sensation
experienced by an amputee in the severed nerve endings of a
stump where a leg once used to be. The crisis reached such a point
that he was forced to ask his employer for an office. Vicky Rai
obliged him with a room in the Rai Group of Industries' corporate
headquarters in Bhikaji Cama Place. Now he goes there every day,
and stays from nine to five, reading a few project reports but
mostly playing Sudoku on his laptop and surfing porn sites. The
routine permits him to pretend that he is still gainfully employed,
and gives him an excuse to be away from his house, and his wife.
It also enables him to slip away for these afternoon assignations
with his mistress.

At least I still have Rita
, he reasons, as he knots his tie and gazes
at her naked body, her black hair spread out like a fan on the
pillow.

She is a divorcée, with no children, and a well-paying job
which requires her to go to the office only three times a week.
There is a gap of twenty-seven years between them, but no
difference in their tastes and temperaments. At times, he feels as
if she is a mirror image of him, that they are kindred souls separated
only by their sex. Still, there are things about her he doesn't
like. She is too demanding, nagging him constantly for gifts of
diamonds and gold. She complains about everything, from her
house to the weather. And she has a ferocious temper, having
famously slapped a former boss who was trying to get fresh with
her. But she more than makes up for these deficiencies with her
performance in bed. He likes to believe that he is an equally good
lover. At sixty, he is still virile. With his height, fair skin and full
head of hair which he dyes diligently every fortnight, he knows he
is not unattractive to women. Still, he wonders how long Rita will
stay with him, at what point his occasional gifts of perfume and
pearls will prove insufficient to prevent her from falling for a
younger, richer, more powerful man. Till that happens, he is
content with these stolen afternoons twice a week.

Rita fumbles underneath the pillow and retrieves a pack of
Virginia Slims and a lighter. She lights up a cigarette expertly and
draws on it, releasing a ring of smoke which is immediately sucked
in by the A-C. 'Did you get tickets for Tuesday's show?' she
asks.

'Which show?'

'The one in which they will make contact with the spirit of
Mahatma Gandhi on his birthday.'

Mohan looks at her curiously. 'Since when did you start believing
in this mumbo-jumbo?'

'Séances are not mumbo-jumbo.'

'They are to me. I don't believe in ghosts and spirits.'

'You don't believe in God either.'

'No, I am an atheist. Haven't visited a temple in thirty years.'

'Well, neither have I, but at least I believe in God. And they
say Aghori Baba is a great psychic. He can really talk to spirits.'

'Humph!' Mohan Kumar sneers. 'The baba is no psychic. He is
just a cheap tantric who probably feasts on human flesh. And
Gandhi is no international pop star. He is the Father of the Nation,
for heaven's sake. He deserves more respect.'

'What's disrespectful in contacting his spirit? I'm glad an
Indian company is doing it, before some foreign corporation trademarks
Gandhi, like basmati rice. Let's go on Tuesday, darling.'

He looks her in the eye. 'How will it look for a former Chief
Secretary to be seen attending something as outlandish as a
séance? I have to think about my reputation.'

Rita sends another ring of smoke spinning towards the ceiling
and gives a shrewd laugh. 'Well, if you find nothing wrong in
having these afternoon trysts with me, despite having a wife and a
grown-up son, I don't see why you cannot come to the show.'

She says it lightly, but it stings him. He knows she wouldn't
have said this six months ago when he was still Chief Secretary.
And he realizes that his mistress, too, has changed. Even the sex
was different now, as if Rita was holding something back, knowing
that his power to mould things in her favour had diminished, if
not disappeared.

'Look, Rita, I am definitely not going,' he says with injured
pride as he puts on his jacket. 'But if you insist on going to the
séance, I will get you a pass.'

'Why do you keep calling it a séance? Think of it as just
another show. Like a movie premiere. All my friends are going.
They say it will be a page-three event. I've even bought a new
chiffon sari to wear that evening. Come on, be a sport, darling.'
She pouts.

He knows Rita is nothing if not persistent. Once she sets her
heart on something, it is difficult to dissuade her, as he discovered
to his cost with the Tanzanite pendant she demanded on her
thirty-second birthday.

He gives in gracefully. 'OK. I will arrange two passes. But don't
blame me if Aghori Baba makes you retch.'

'I won't!' Rita jumps up and kisses him.

*

So it is that at seven twenty-five p.m. on 2 October, Mohan Kumar
finds himself alighting reluctantly from his chauffeured Hyundai
Sonata at Siri Fort Auditorium.

The venue for the séance resembles a fortress under siege. A
large contingent of police in full riot gear are trying their best to
control an unruly mob of protestors shouting angry slogans and
holding up a variety of placards: 'THE FATHER OF THE NATION IS
NOT FOR SALE', 'AGHORI BABA IS A FRAUD', 'BOYCOTT UNITED
ENTERTAINMENT', 'GLOBALIZATION IS EVIL'. On the other side
of the road, a battery of TV cameras are lined up, filming sombrelooking
anchors making breathless live broadcasts.

Mohan Kumar pushes through the mêlée, one hand guarding
the wallet in the inside pocket of his off-white linen suit. Rita,
looking svelte in a black chiffon sari and corset blouse, follows him
in stiletto heels.

He recognizes India's best known TV journalist, Barkha Das,
standing directly in front of the wrought-iron entrance gate. 'The
most revered name in the pantheon of Indian leaders is that of
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or Bapu as he is fondly known to
millions of Indians,' she announces into a hand-held mike. 'United
Entertainment's plans to make contact with his spirit on the
solemn occasion of his birth anniversary have drawn ire across the
country. The family of Mahatma Gandhi has termed it a national
disgrace. But with the Supreme Court refusing to intervene, it
appears that even this most sacred of names will be sacrificed
today on the altar of commercial greed. This distasteful séance will
take place after all.' She purses her lips and makes a grimace
familiar to her prime-time audience.

Mohan Kumar nods his head in silent agreement as he inches
closer to the gate. Suddenly the journalist's bulbous mike is thrust
in his face. 'Excuse me, Sir, do you believe in spirits?'

A cameraman standing discreetly to the reporter's left
immediately swings in his direction, training a Sony Betacam on
him.

'Shit!' Mohan Kumar swears under his breath as he
flinches instinctively from being filmed on national television. Rita
preens by his side, hoping to catch the camera's viewfinder.

'Do you believe in spirits, Sir?' Barkha Das repeats.

'Only of the drinking kind,' he replies wryly, striding past the
entrance to join the long queue of ticket-holders snaking through
a door-frame metal detector.

'Great answer!' Rita beams and gently squeezes his arm.

Looking at the eager, expectant faces milling around him,
Mohan feels vaguely distressed. The inexhaustible capacity of the
gullible to be cheated has never ceased to amaze him. He frets at
the slow progress of the queue, not having stood in one for the last
thirty-seven years.

After an interminable wait, during which he has his ticket
scrutinized by three different checkers, his body scanned for guns
and metal and his mobile phone confiscated for later return,
Mohan Kumar is finally permitted to enter the brightly lit foyer of
the auditorium. Liveried waiters hover, serving soft drinks and
vegetarian canapés. In the far corner, a group of singers sitting
cross-legged on a raised platform sing 'Vaishnav Janato', Mahatma
Gandhi's favourite
bhajan
, to the accompaniment of tabla and
harmonium. He brightens as he spots several well-known personalities
mingling in the crowd – the Auditor General, a Deputy
Commissioner of Police, five or six Members of Parliament, an excricketer,
the President of the Golf Club and quite a few
journalists, businessmen and bureaucrats. Rita breaks away from
him to join a group of her socialite friends, who greet each other
with little whoops of fake delight and feigned surprise.

The middle-aged owner of a textile mill, from whom Mohan
Kumar had once extracted a hefty bribe, walks past him,
studiously avoiding eye contact.
Six months ago the man would
have fawned on me
, he thinks bitterly.

It is another quarter of an hour before the doors of the
auditorium open and an usher directs him to the front. He has
obtained the very best seats, right in the centre of the first row,
courtesy of an IT company on whose board of directors he is now
serving. Rita looks suitably impressed.

The hall fills up quickly with Delhi's glitterati. Mohan glances
at the people around him. The ladies look vulgar in their brocaded
silks and permed curls, the men faintly ridiculous in their Fabindia
kurtas
and Nagra
jutis
.

'You see, darling, I told you everyone who is anyone would
come.' Rita winks at Mohan.

The audience coughs and fidgets and waits for the show to
begin, but the velvet curtain draped over the stage refuses
to budge.

At eight thirty p.m., an hour behind schedule, the lights begin
to dim. Soon the hall is plunged into spooky darkness.
Simultaneously, strains of the sitar fill the air and the curtain
begins to rise. A single spotlight illuminates the stage, which is
bare save for a straw mat on the floor. Arrayed in front of the mat
are a number of items – a hand-driven spinning wheel, a pair of
spectacles, a walking stick and a bundle of letters. A simple banner
at the rear is emblazoned with the blue-and-white logo of United
Entertainment.

A familiar baritone booms from the large black speakers on
either side of the stage. 'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am
your host for the evening, Veer Bedi. Yes, the same Veer Bedi who
meets you on the silver screen. You cannot see me in front of you,
but you know that I am very much here, behind the scenes. Spirits
are similar. You cannot see them, but they are all around us.

'In a few minutes from now, we are going to make contact
with the most famous spirit of them all, the man who singlehandedly
changed the course of the twentieth century. The man
of whom Einstein said "Generations to come will scarce believe
that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood." Yes, I
am talking about none other than Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, our beloved Bapu, who was born on this very day in the
year 1869.

'Bapu attained martyrdom nearly six decades ago, no more
than a few kilometres from here, but today he will come alive
again. With your own ears you will hear Mahatma Gandhi speak
through the medium of Baba Aghori Prasad Mishra, an
internationally renowned psychic. Aghori Baba possesses the
siddhi
, the divine energy acquired through yoga which enables one
to pierce the veil between this world and the next, and talk to
spirits.