The Nidhi Kapoor Story (28 page)

“Hi Aunty! What’s up?”

Tarana’s voice was strained. “Rujuta,
beta
, can you come meet me?”

Tarana was not like a typical clingy mother. She had never expressed her desire to meet Rujuta unless it was urgent or important. Rujuta immediately knew something was amiss. If she could, she would have left everything and rushed to Tarana but she was at least six hours away from
her. Five, if she drove instead of Tambe.

“Aunty, I am in Panchgani. Is everything OK? If something is urgent, I can send someone to your place. OK?” Rujuta spoke with a lot of caution.

“Yes… yes. All is well. Come when you can.” Tarana hung up without waiting for an answer.

Rujuta frowned. If it were not Tarana, Rujuta would have dismissed her as an old crone. But she knew Tarana well. She had to call her back. “Aunty, what’s up? Everything’s OK? You are acting so weird.” Rujuta decided to confront her.

Tarana had picked on the first ring. “How dare you talk to me like that, child?”

When Rujuta heard Tarana’s light reprimand, she was relieved. She knew that Tarana was OK and something insignificant must have crept up. She was relieved. “So sorry, I got worried. What happened?”

Tarana plainly said, “I want to meet Nidhi.”

“Nidhi? Nidhi Kapoor? Why?” Rujuta was thrown off-guard at this request. She knew that Tarana was not star¬struck. However, Rujuta had sent Tarana the case files and her notes at Tarana’s insistence. Could she have found a break in the case? The odd request thus came as a surprise.

“I just want to talk to her.”

“You want to talk to her? Why do you want to… I mean, if I know more details, I… ” Rujuta corrected her in mid-sentence. She was cautious and curious at the same time.

“No,
beta
. You don’t understand. She is in trouble. We need to help her. We need to save her,” Tarana was strained.

Rujuta said, “Trust me, Aunty, she’s safe. She’s safer
than Queen Victoria is. Her house is like a fortress. No one can see her without going through multiple layers of security. She is safe…”

“I said I want to speak to her.” Tarana interrupted Rujuta sternly. Rujuta could hear Tarana breathing loudly on the phone. Rujuta had never seen Tarana lose her composure like that.

“OK. I will find a way to get you to talk to her. Can it wait till tomorrow? Or you want to do this now? Trust me, Aunty, she is at her home and she is safe.”

Rujuta could not understand Tarana’s discomfort about someone as non-important as Nidhi. Maybe Tarana wants to help close the case faster?

After a slight pause and breathing down the phone for what seemed like forever, Tarana dropped the bomb on Rujuta, “That is the problem. That she is home. You have to save her. Nidhi…” Tarana let Nidhi’s name hang in mid-sentence and disconnected the call.

Rujuta stared at the phone in her hand. She shrugged and walked to the jeep parked at some distance. Tambe was sitting in the jeep and looking at her curiously. Rujuta climbed in the front seat with an elegance that surprised Tambe. She motioned at Tambe to start the jeep. Tambe had started to look up to Rujuta as his senior. He needed direction and in the absence of Prakash, Rujuta fit in the shoes automatically.

He started the jeep and just when he put the jeep in gear, Rujuta exclaimed, “Oh fuck! I know what aunty meant. Fuck fuck fuck! How could I be so blind! It was right there in front of our eyes all this while! Tambe, we need to reach
Mumbai as soon as we can. Let’s go!”

Tambe did not understand the reason for Rujuta’s excitement, but he acknowledged her command by flooring the accelerator. He did not ask many questions and merely did what he was told. The jeep responded well and immediately raced down the gentle curves of Sayadhris. Rujuta was lost in thought and stared into the oncoming wind. This time, however, her hair was tied in a tight bun.

27. Day 32, Night. Ronak.

After Nishant discovered Nidhi standing at his window, he was left incapable of any action or emotion. He did try to put a brave front after the initial shock was over, but he eventually conceded. He was defeated. By his very own daughter. This was too much for his pride to tolerate. He merely slumped on the floor motionless, lifeless.

Nidhi, on the other hand, had remained stoic. Her face was devoid of any emotion. She merely pulled out a cigarette and smoked it slowly, as if she were savoring the taste of tobacco on a silent night. Nishant’s reactions, his misery, had had no effect on Nidhi.

She smoked her cigarette without interrupting the predictable motion of bringing the cigarette to her lips, taking a drag, resting her arm at the side of her body and exhaling slowly.

The biggest discovery of Nishant’s life seemed trifle to Nidhi. His misery was further amplified by Nidhi’s indifference and nonchalance.

After Nishant slumped on the floor and did not make any attempts to get back on the bed or the wheelchair, Nidhi came around to his room. She found Nishant slouched on the floor. He had made no efforts to move. With the affection reserved for one’s parents, care reserved for fragile glassware and tenderness reserved for a newborn baby, Nidhi helped Nishant on the wheelchair. Once he was seated on the wheelchair, she ran her hand through his head
affectionately. She massaged his temples and rubbed his shoulders.

This was probably the first time Nidhi was showing signs of affection towards her father. This was also probably the first time in so many years that Nidhi had touched Nishant. However, if Nishant were in his senses, he would have realized that Nidhi’s touch was devoid of any affection. It was dead cold.

Nidhi gingerly pushed Nishant’s wheelchair as if he were a precarious patient. She got him out of the room and the house into the lawn. She took him close to the swimming pool and rested the chair at the edge of the pool. She squatted cross-legged next to the wheelchair. The father and daughter were now looking at the illuminated swimming pool and the outlines of Ronak looming beyond it.

Nidhi flicked a pack of Stikk from her pocket. She stuck a cigarette between her lips and lit it. She offered the cigarette to Nishant. Nishant ignored the offer and stared at the calm surface of the swimming pool.

Nidhi shrugged, took a puff and flicked the ash into the pool. The grey lump floated on the surface for a bit and then it disintegrated. It started dissolving in the water slowly and the little bits of paper and tobacco started to float on the surface. She looked at it with approval and said, “You know, mumma taught me this amazing secret to bear pain and suffering you inflicted on us. She told me to close my eyes and think of the happiest time of my life. And then imagine that I was magically transported there. You know what was my happiest time? It was playing in the lawn by myself. Next
to this very pool. Or with Payal. Or with Mumma. Did you know? Did you, Papa?”

She was getting worked up. She checked herself and caught her breath. She took a drag. She continued, “I don’t know how mumma managed with you. You know she loved you like crazy. I asked her why she didn’t leave you but she wouldn’t tell me. Love is so strange; it has its own ways. You know, she didn’t fight with you even when you were with other women. She was fine with that and everything else that you did. She just wanted some respect. If only you gave her some, things would have been so much better. We all could be living together as a family. Papa, you know, love is like that thing that you can give and give and give, and yet it never ends. The more you give, the more you get. Funny, you had love for everyone but for your wife and daughter.”

For a father and daughter, Nishant and Nidhi had had very few private moments. In fact, this was the first time when they were talking to each other privately. Nidhi’s childhood was muddled with conflicting emotions. On one side was Neelima and her unquestionable affection. On the other side, Nishant and his nonchalant indifference. Somewhere in the middle was Payal who was as confused as Nidhi was, but had Nishant’s affection and attention.

Nidhi continued to talk, “Papa, you know you’ve made me strong. Every time you beat me, you helped me become stronger. Every time you hurt me, I learnt that I could tolerate more pain. Every time you ignored me, I got another lesson in solitude. All these things have helped me over the years. I know you did not want to. But you did. Remember that writer? Shakespeare? He said, ‘
All the world’s a mere
stage and we are mere puppets
?’ Papa, you were a puppet. You were merely here to help me become who I am. Thank you, Papa.”

Nishant finally craned his neck to look at Nidhi. Her back was straight and she was leaning back on her arms, head flung back as she stared at the sky above. Nishant, from the vantage point of his chair could see Nidhi’s forehead and he realized that she had inherited his disproportionately large skull, an evident characteristic of the entire Kapoor clan.

Nidhi caught Nishant looking at her. She smiled. She gave Nishant her legendry smile that had won her many accolades over the years.

Nishant was suddenly proud of her. In Nidhi, he saw a younger version of himself. When the thought crossed his mind, he was petrified. Nishant knew that he was probably the toughest adversary that anyone could ever have. If Nidhi were one-tenth as good, or as bad, as Nishant, he was in trouble. And there would be no escaping. She would have planned for that. For the first time in his life Nishant was suddenly sorry for how he had treated Neelima and Nidhi. He felt bad about his behavior. Not because he had realized his mistake, but because he saw a severe punishment looming ahead.

It was one of those insignificant nights when the moon was like a faint sliver of a curved ball. It wasn’t bright and it wasn’t dull. In fact, a few stars were brighter than the moon. Just that the moon was bigger in size and hence appeared more radiant.

“Papa, remember that night when you dragged
mumma and me out of the house and threw us in the swimming pool?” Nidhi said calmly.

Nishant thought that he saw a flicker of menace pass through Nidhi’s eyes. It was there for a split second, before the tenderness was back. It was the same look that often crossed his eyes just before he was about to slay his prey. Nishant was surprised that he could read Nidhi’s mind so well. It was like gazing into a mirror.

Nidhi was talking about the incident that was taped and left in Naveen Verma’s car. It was the night that changed everything for the Kapoors. To Nishant, it was like any other night when he had attacked and hurt his wife and daughter at a flippant pretext. To Nidhi, that night had made clear the purpose of her life. The reason for her existence. Revenge. Against her father. For things that he did to her mother.

“That night… that night Papa, I decided that I would kill you. And I would kill you as soon as possible. Without any mercy. A fast death with no chance of survival. You were a monster and you had to die fast.” Even though she was threating her father, she was calm and composed. Her tone remained flat, devoid of any emotion. She paused and looked back at the swimming pool. She started humming a Kishore Kumar song, just the way Nishant crooned one of his songs when he was blackmailing Tabrez Khan for Ronak.

Nishant was terrified by the composure with which Nidhi delivered her sermon. He realized that he made a mistake in choosing Payal as his successor. Nidhi would have made a far better heir.

Nishant had a vague idea about what was coming his way. But he did not know what to do about it. He could not
escape. There was nowhere to go. He had to survive the next minute and the minute after that and so on and so forth. He had to hope for the best. He would eventually find a way out. He was the Nishant Kapoor who had defied all odds all his life.

Nidhi took a break from her song. “You know, Papa, I realized that I was wrong. Killing you would serve no purpose at all. It would be letting you go easy. You deserve more pain. Something that makes you fathom what you did. Something… something that makes you feel sorry for things you did. Something that reminds you of all those people you hurt. No? What do you think?”

Nishant had often rued his behavior over the years. He often marveled at the colossal damage that he had inflicted upon others. He did want to undo a few things. But all said and done, he was not really sorry for his actions. He had to do those things to become what he had wanted to. It was a battle between ambition and ethics. And he was sure of the side he wanted to be on. Besides, in any battle there anyway is some collateral damage.

“Are you sorry, Papa? For the things you did? How does it feel to lose everything that you ever cared for? I took everything away from you. One thing at a time. It took me so long to plan, plot and execute this. Trust me, it was totally worth it,” Nidhi went on, her voice echoing her satisfaction.

Nishant thought about Ronak, about Payal. He looked up at the moon and the stars. He thought, “There’s no way that life is serving this to me after all these years. I should’ve died a long time back. Maybe on the night when I was poisoned. Was it Nidhi who poisoned me? Why did she save
me then?”

“You know, Preeti was the toughest to get rid of,” Nidhi said, interrupting Nishant’s thoughts.

Nishant had decided that he wasn’t going to speak. He wouldn’t give Nidhi the satisfaction of a victory. Anyhow he could not justify his actions even if he tried. He could not apologize. He could not escape. He would thus let things run their course. But at the mention of Preeti, he was shocked.

When Preeti had disappeared, he had assumed that Preeti had gone back to where she had come from. She did not belong to the industry and she probably had a family to go back to. He had tried to search for her but gave up soon after when another upcoming actress became the apple of his eyes. However, he missed Preeti like no one else. Preeti wasn’t trophy-wife material per se. But in bed, she was better than most other women that Nishant knew of. Definitely better than Neelima. And Preeti had taken an unnaturally long time to give in. He had pursued her, chased her, wooed her for way too long before she agreed. Once you put in this much of time chasing someone, you tend to linger on. And Nishant had lingered. And how.