The Nidhi Kapoor Story (20 page)

Nishant was depressed for a while. First Preeti, his latest muse, was found missing and now his wife, the other thread that bound his chaotic life together, was gone. He claimed that someone was trying to kill him and destroy his reputation. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing, however. Of course, a large part of the film industry did secretly loathe him and was jealous of his success. Sabotages were not uncommon, but murders were unheard of.

Doctors diagnosed that he was suffering from an early stage of Schizophrenia.

His drug and alcohol problem was known to most of his acquaintances. But no one knew what ticked him into taking drugs in such quantity that night. He had come back tired from a shoot. His usual idea of unwinding was furious sexual activity with whoever was available, for he always had options. It was easy to pick an extra or a passionate fan. He, however, had a special thing for the backup dancers. Most of these women were full at the bosom, wide at hips and yet slender at their waist. Plus they were full of
vigorous energy that they developed over long practice sessions of Bollywood dance moves. Because of his age and rampant substance abuse, he wasn’t really a performer in bed but then women who chose to sleep with him did not do it for pleasure. They were merely using Nishant Kapoor as a ladder, hoping to advance their careers.

Shankar reported that on the night of the accident, he saw one such anonymous dancer leave a few minutes after midnight and then he had locked the main doors.

Nishant Kapoor had stuttered out of his bedroom - it was located on the first floor - a few hours later, tumbled down the winding staircase and had landed on his head. Payal was the first to spot him and found him lying in a pool of blood and vomit at the bottom of the giant staircase. Her loud shrieks woke up everyone and Nidhi came to the rescue. By the time Shankar and Malti reached, Nidhi was already working with Nishant, trying to keep him awake. Before the medical attention could be summoned, a lot of drugs had entered his system and a lot of blood was out of it.

Payal cried throughout the ordeal and kept crying like a child. Nidhi, on the other hand, was calm and took it up like a dirty task that she needed to get over with. Nishant, although half-dead, figured which of his two daughters was being helpful. He thus ignored Payal and tried to talk to Nidhi. His instructions came out as faint mumbles. Nidhi somehow managed to decode those, forced her slender fingers down his throat and made him puke out the toxins that had entered his stomach. She commanded Shankar to fetch some saline water and iodine. Neelima, if alive, would’ve been worried about Nishant, but a large part of her would’ve been happy
at the togetherness of their dysfunctional family. Apart from that one night when Nishant Kapoor almost died, the Kapoors hadn’t been closer as a family, ever.

As a result of the fall, Nishant had injured his head, face, ribs and spine. That night, he should’ve died. If not from drugs, then from the fall. But he knew how to cheat death. The dashing jawline was reduced to a mass of crushed bones and torn flesh. It took him six months before he could chew on his food. His first thoughts, when he gained consciousness after a few weeks, were about his looks. He could not eat properly and yet he wanted a plastic surgery done to remove any blemishes that the accident may have left on his face. When he was finally told that his body was paralyzed from the waist down, he merely smiled at the doctor. The doctor found it odd that he was smiling at his misfortune; he wasn’t going to walk again. They didn’t understand that Nishant was happy to have defeated death yet again.

Nishant showed a great amount of restraint during the treatment. He had a high tolerance for pain and he took the injections in his spine with an aloof grin plastered on his face. He was rational and he knew what was happening around him. He responded to questions, kept track of news and gossip from the industry. Yet, he did not for a minute stop talking about someone trying to kill him. He blamed everyone and anyone that he had known. Starting with his father, his list of suspects included his wife, Nidhi, his brother-in-law, his drivers, his security guards, his friends in the industry and the underworld. One time he even pointed at Payal.

Much to Payal and Nidhi’s disdain, the doctors reported that Nishant was moving fast towards an advanced stage of Schizophrenia and recommended him to a psychiatric facility that was sort of an early retirement home for similar, invalid celebrities, have-beens and old businessmen. It was a luxurious jail where they were free to do whatever they wanted to and yet their actions, even their thoughts, were monitored. Depending on how one looked at it, it could be called a retirement home, or a psychiatric facility, or an ashram, or a clinic, or an Orwellian jail.

Nishant protested when he was told about the decision to send him to Moksha for treatment. But by this time, his accusations about an unknown assailant trying to get him had reached intolerable levels. For the first time in his life, his opinions did not matter anymore. Nidhi vehemently opposed the decision to send Nishant away but after Payal coerced her with her tears, they decided to move him.

Appropriate bribes were made to the right police officers to keep the drug abuse bit out of the first information report. Friendships with reporters were dug out and a hasty press release was made to the effect that Nishant was retiring due to his health. To keep attention away from Nishant, at the same time, Nidhi announced her Bollywood debut with R K Cinefilms, the most famous production banner of the time. R K Cinefilms was controlled by Rajesh Kishnani, an old hand in the business. An unknown financier agreed to finance a large chunk of Nidhi’s first movie. Apart from Nidhi and Verma, nobody knew that the rookie financier was a front for Naveen Verma himself.

The entire episode of drug abuse would have been
a scandal of magnanimous proportions and could have tarnished Nishant’s dearer-than-life reputation, but it was handled really well. Nidhi rose to the occasion and weathered the Kapoor clan through the storm.

The facility recommended for Nishant was tucked away on a hillock near Panchgani, some 200 KMs away from Mumbai. The clinic was started as an ashram of sorts by a spiritual guru who claimed that he could help cure a variety of ailments that are often the side effects of money and power, namely, substance abuse and depression. Obviously, these cures and healing came at a fat fee. Over the years, the ashram had evolved into a second home for the discarded rich where they could hide away from the scrutiny of media and society. These were the kinfolks who couldn’t be kept at home or couldn’t be sent to asylums. Both options amounted to sacrilege that could cause embarrassment to their respective families. Thus this clinic, aptly titled Moksha, the union with the eternal, did a flourishing business.

The clinic was far from maddening crowds of Bombay, was very discreet with its operations and was very careful in selection of patients that it admitted. Most of these patients were influential and charismatic in their former lives. And hence the doctors, nurses, attendants were trained to not get influenced or awed by the fame or notoriety of the inmates.

Once inside, the patients were hidden from public eyes and were as good as forgotten. Lore had it that it was like a one way street. Once you went in, you never came out. More dirty linen was stowed at that small hillock than one could find in deep folds of tabloid offices.

At Moksha, Nishant Kapoor did live in comfort and enjoyed his share of attention. What if the ones showering attention on him were older attendants? He could not move around freely because of his paralysis, but his mind remained active with memories of his glorious past and remained obsessed with vivid imagination of an unknown assailant trying to get to him. He often made allegations but no one took him seriously.

He then pinned his hopes on his daughters. But Nidhi was now busy with her fledgling career and could not take out time to travel to Panchgani and meet her father. Payal was sympathetic for the first few weeks, but lately even she had started to ignore his rants. They are right when they say that the strength of a relationship is not tested by adversity but by the biggest enemy of mankind. Time.

Irrespective of what the world thought, Nishant knew that his condition was result of a meticulously planned attack against him. He knew that he was rational, clear¬headed and as alert as anyone could be. He wanted to get out of Moksha, find that bastard who did this to him and shred him to pieces. Each piece fed to Tiger, his beloved dog, just like the good old times.

At Moksha, he had surprisingly few visitors for someone of his stature and reputation. There was Payal and there was Nidhi. No one else. No former acquaintances, no friends, no business contacts, no media, no fans, nothing. Each visit required prior appointment from Moksha and approval from family but there were hardly any requests. One reporter had wanted to meet him for a story that she was doing on the stars of the yesteryears, but the request
was turned down by the family. To give credit to Payal and Nidhi, they ensured that they visited him once a month. On each visit, Nishant would meet them affectionately, gossip about the industry, reiterate his belief about someone trying to harm him and talk about getting out from Moksha soon. Payal would merely cry at his condition. Nidhi, however, would try and put some sense in him. Once the two daughters left after their brief visit, Nishant had little company. Apart from the demons in his head.

To him, these were not really demons. These were actually friends. The only friends. Because they had stayed back, even after he had lost it all. These were the friends who helped him plan his revenge. Nishant was always planning his comeback in his head. His comeback, his retribution, his revenge. He talked about it often when he was drugged by medication. He often slurred about it in his sleep. He would make threats and he was so vocal that staff at Moksha regularly heard him talk. One ward-boy recorded these threats and it became a private joke within the staff at Moksha. The older staff members said that Nishant’s delirious rants reminded them of his remarkable double role from
Lahu Ka Rang
, his only action flick in the long distinguished career. Someone may have heeded his continuous allegations but he was a lunatic. Out of his mind. He was expected to rant, threaten and accuse the world like that.

Nonetheless, despite his limited mobility and restraints, he was glad to be alive. Glad to have conquered death yet again. Glad to have access to the facilities and luxuries that most people could not afford even if they slogged their ass off for twenty lifetimes. Nishant Kapoor,
despite being a mere vegetable, lived well.

However, if you call it living, all the best with it.

18. Day 9, Night. Rujuta’s House.

While the Kapoors were finalizing the modalities around Ronak’s sale, Rujuta was at home. She stepped out of shower. She was naked and little drops of water traced long thin lines along the diminutive curves of her body. She looked up to marvel at her body in the mirror on the roof, smiled at what she saw as she patted herself dry. She put on the new album by Stelar, lit a Stikk and walked lazily to her writing table. She opened her Moleskin to the last doodle that she was sketching. When she sat, Felix took the cue and jumped in her lap. Rujuta loved the feel of Felix’s fur on her bare thighs. She started to stroke Felix involuntarily, and the cat purred and stretched in her lap. Felix was soon yawning and drowsy. Rujuta on the other hand, was lost deep in thought about the incidents of the last few days.

Things seemed to have moved so fast. For starters, she had fallen in love, with someone as unlikely a candidate as Prakash. Prakash was everything that Rujuta wasn’t. Older by ten years, with a very limited social life and a predictable routine. “Maybe we are so different, that’s why I like him so much,” Rujuta thought to herself. She did not know if she ought to be happy about Nidhi Kapoor’s miseries because the case had brought Prakash and her closer. While working on the case, she was enjoying both, proximity to a man and the challenge thrown by Nidhi’s nemesis.

Rujuta was trying to work out a connection between the murder of pets, the fire on the film set and the tape left
in Naveen’s car. All three looked like separate incidents and yet all were connected to the Kapoors. It was more than a week and police neither had a real suspect nor a motive. Except that letter that made the Kapoors sell Ronak. The bungalow was located on a lucrative parcel of land and threats and murders were not really uncommon in the often-murky deals that were changing the skyline of Mumbai so fast. However, Rujuta was somehow convinced that it was an insider. But who? Naveen Verma? Taluja? Payal? Nidhi herself? Or the servants? There was no one else. At the Kapoors, although everything looked rosy on the surface, the past was clouded in mystery.

Rujuta made a neat list of questions. First, who had access to cameras back then and could record Nishant Kapoor beating his wife and daughter? Second, what other tapes existed? Third, what exactly happened in that party that Vicky Taluja talked about? Fourth, why did Payal choose to give up her dream of being an actress? Fifth, could all those allegations that Nishant had been making be true? Sixth, if none of them, then who? Seventh. Why?

Kapoors may want to create whatever illusion for the world, but they were a dysfunctional family at best. Could the family troubles of Kapoors have something to do with these attacks? She also thought about the letters that Nidhi Kapoor had received. She thought about allegations made by Vicky Taluja about the sabotage. She thought about various murky characters that her other interviews had revealed.

It was like a large jigsaw puzzle. Rujuta felt that she had gathered all the separate pieces. But she hadn’t had a peek at the big picture that she could use as a reference to fit
the pieces of the jigsaw in their respective places.

While Rujuta was engrossed in plotting these details, she was unaware of the activity outside her door.

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Rujuta was still scribbling in her Moleskin when the doorbell chimed. Since she was playing the music loudly, at first she did not hear the doorbell ringing. Felix was now napping. Cats had an awesome life. They got massages, scratches and love from their owners. And all they did in return was to accept to eat and sleep whenever it pleased them. Like royalties. Or film stars. Like Nidhi Kapoor.