The Taj Conspiracy (13 page)

She leapt up, screaming, ‘Help me! Help me!’ Her cries rang out in the open space as she raced along, tears streaking her cheeks.

Her shrieks brought an old man to the vault’s mouth where bright bulbs were diffused by the darkness and mist. As Mehrunisa plunged towards the arched entrance, he held out his arm to steady her. He regarded the flustered woman who was casting uncertain glances behind her as she panted to a halt. Whatever was in the rear seemed to have been swallowed by the mist.

Mehrunisa doubled over, clutching her abdomen and drawing lungfuls of air. Ahead, some stalls were still open, the wooden jewellery boxes and ivory-inlaid artefacts glowing in the amber light. A few curious faces were turned towards her. She straightened, whispered her thanks to the man who had steadied her, and stumbled out into the melee of Chandni Chowk.

The honking traffic, the clatter of mule-drawn carts, the bustling pedestrians, the clamour of street vendors— for once it was comforting. Mehrunisa stood there panting, perspiring, shivering. She felt her stomach heave. As she bent, a liquidised version of her lunch flew out and spattered the soil and her moccasins.

Agra

S
SP Raghav had just finished updating his boss on the Taj supervisor’s murder case. Since there was no breakthrough to report, he spent time emphasising the leads they were pursuing. That did not cut ice with the DIG who was curt in his rebuke: next time I call, I want results not lecture-baazi!

Stung, SSP Raghav attempted to drown his anger in three cups of specially-ordered ‘sugared’ tea. While most men treated stress with cigarettes, Raghav’s substitute was tea. Now he drank the sweet tea with relish and nursed his chagrin when the phone rang: Mehrunisa. He glared at the glowing green screen—the gall of that woman!

‘What?’ he barked.

In a subdued voice the woman informed him that the artist Nisar was dead.

‘What! Nisar who?’

She explained that Nisar was the young son of the chief artisan of the Taj Mahal, the one who had been assigned to make the changes to Mumtaz’s tomb. She had sought him out in Delhi, as she had promised. They had set up a meeting but someone had murdered him before she reached the venue.

‘Murder?’ Raghav blinked hard. A second murder...

Yes, the woman replied, and started to explain how she had found Nisar with blood on his sweater when Raghav interrupted her.

‘Slow down, okay. Tell me everything from the beginning. Start with how you established contact with this Nisar,’ Raghav prompted as he thought how the woman seemed to be making a habit of finding corpses. This was the second corpse she had found in ten days. And in both cases she had fixed a meeting with the deceased. Something was fishy here....

Having heard her out, he asked if she had informed the police.

Well, that’s why I am calling, she said, taken aback.

He had meant the Delhi police but he didn’t say anything. The woman did sound shaken.

‘I want you to stay put,’ he said in a severe tone. ‘First the supervisor, now this artisan. Meeting you is proving dangerous for people.’

As he hung up, he thought furiously through what she’d told him. Were the two cases related, in which case there was credence to Mehrunisa’s view about the changes in the tomb’s calligraphy. Was the woman intrinsic to the two deaths? And who was this ‘masked’ man who had terrified Nisar and pursued Mehrunisa with a knife? The man was either fearless or a lunatic. While he had planned the attack around closing time, it was still a gamble that there would be no people around. The city of Delhi heaved with humanity round the clock.

By now—he glanced at his wristwatch, it had been a couple of hours since the murder—the Delhi police would’ve been alerted. He would call an old friend in the department and see what leads he could get.

Delhi

T
hat night, Mehrunisa slept fitfully. The full moon placed a spotlight on every object, making it glint in the dark of her bedroom. Soft edges acquired sharpness, amorphous shapes became shadowy forms, and red splotches seemed to erupt out of everything, even her white duvet. Nisar’s slack, cold body swam in front of her eyes before it was replaced by the memory of his mother as she offered Mehrunisa puffs and tea and spoke lovingly of her son’s gift for singing. An anguished Mehrunisa sat up in bed sobbing. How would Nisar’s parents cope with the murder of their young son?

Finally, she vacated the bed for the armchair where she huddled, arms wrapped around her legs, chin atop her knees. Mehrunisa knew loss and guilt but, for the first time in her life, she had known terror. The knowledge that she had been a second away from being impaled made her shudder again.

She had returned home, managing to maintain a façade of normalcy even as her heart was in a cold clutch.

Mangat Ram, distracted by Professor Kaul’s condition, had refrained from conversation as Mehrunisa headed straight for the bathroom. It took a few brushings and gargles to expunge the bitter aftertaste of vomit. Assuring the housekeeper she had eaten outside, she checked on her uncle who was asleep in bed, his face wan. His situation was steadily deteriorating; the lucid periods were fewer.

Now, pre-dawn, bereft of sleep, Mehrunisa took stock of her situation.

Just a few days ago she had been leisurely researching an architectural masterpiece, assisting a renowned historian, recuperating in the comfort of a loving household, and suddenly, it had all unravelled.... Her godfather was seriously ill; she was attempting to solve a mystery for which she was ill-equipped; two men she knew had been murdered, and in her pursuit for answers, she had almost gotten killed. She was out of her depth here, and the enemy—Bentinck, as her uncle had called him—knew that. A woman trained in Renaissance art, with two elderly men for family, and few friends—how would she fathom the Taj conspiracy? After all, she had no training to solve mysteries, no skills of detection or surveillance or self-defence.

All she had was a knowledge of languages and a love of art—twin legacies of her upbringing. Maadar spoke to her in Farsi, Papa in Punjabi, teachers and friends in Arabic, Italian, English and Hindi. The different faiths of both parents, neither of them didactic, had osmosed into her, yet, Mehrunisa had her first spiritual experience in a museum. The genius of great art was that it influenced one involuntarily. Mehrunisa’s first sighting of
The Pieta
by Michelangelo was a moment that seized her. That man could conceive and sculpt an image of such beauty, tenderness and power, which she, hundreds of years later, could witness, was in itself transcendental. That feeling of simultaneous humbling and upliftment was to recur as she encountered more masterpieces. Having lived between worlds, art was her anchor; it grounded her, whether she was in Italy or India. Which was why it hurt, this attempt to discredit the Taj. As she ruminated, a thought struck Mehrunisa. She sat upright.

The situation was decidedly grim, but even in that darkness there was a glimmer....

Bentinck had tried to kill her. That could only mean one thing: she was on the right track. As the memory of her flight through Red Fort surfaced, Mehrunisa shuddered but stayed focused. Bentinck had demonstrated cunning, stealth, and ruthlessness. He was no ordinary adversary. Yet, he was feeling threatened by her....

How does a major in Renaissance studies, a linguist, a student of Indo-Persian linkages manage to scare an opponent like Bentinck? As she mused, Mehrunisa rolled her kara back and forth on her right wrist.

Chaturanga. The word popped in her mind. Chaturanga. Shatranj. And a section from her Indo-Persian project floated into her mind.

The game the world knew as chess had originated in India as chaturanga. In the sixth century, the Persians learnt the game, and when Persia was conquered by the Arabs, it dispersed through the Middle East under the name shatranj, the Persian corruption of chaturanga. Chaturanga, meaning an army of four divisions, was first mentioned as a battle formation in the Indian epic
Mahabharata
. Arguably the world’s most intellectual game, chess was at heart a battle simulation. Therein lay her answer.

In the battle with Bentinck, the battlefield was the mind.

And there was one way to defeat him: mentally.

In the morning, Mehrunisa decided to go for a walk in the gardens of Humayun’s Tomb. Recently renovated and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, it was an oasis in the bustling metropolis. Savouring the sun of a winter’s day, the breeze whispering in the palm fronds, the soothing hum of distant traffic, she willed herself to believe she could restore things in her world.

When she returned home, she went to see how her godfather was doing. Professor Kaul was sitting up in bed, propped against two pillows, his arms prone by his side, head upturned.

‘Kaul uncle,’ Mehrunisa said.

He continued with his scrutiny of the ceiling.

She bit her lip. ‘When did this happen?’

‘He was fine when he woke up,’ Mangat Ram said. ‘His friend Raj Bhushan came over. He said he would have come earlier but he had a relapse and was laid up with flu again—he had a thick muffler wrapped around his face. I served them tea. They were together for an hour or so. After Bhushan sahib left, I came to collect the tea things and found him like this.’

Mehrunisa sighed. Time to summon the doctor again. She looked in the bedside drawer for the diary that held Professor Kaul’s important phone numbers.

Mangat Ram stood murmuring to himself. ‘It is a day for strange things. First, the milk split. Then the neighbour’s boy broke the living room glass pane. Next, Raj Bhushan asks for more walnuts. And now, sahib taking to bed like this...’

Mehrunisa was flipping through the diary, not paying particular attention to the housekeeper’s babble. However, the thing about walnuts stuck in her mind—Professor Kaul was partial to them. It helped him think, he said, the process of selecting a walnut, examining where to apply pressure, cracking the shell into two neat halves, retrieving the intact nut, scraping off the skin, and munching on the chewy kernel. Mehrunisa did not share his passion but her godfather had been merrily feeding her the ‘king of nuts’ since childhood.

She turned to ask the housekeeper, ‘What was it about the walnuts?’

Tch! Mangat Ram clucked his tongue. ‘Bhushan sahib never eats walnuts. In fact, the two of them,’ he pointed with his chin at Professor Kaul, ‘would argue over the dry fruit. He never liked it and Sahib would always urge him to eat some. But today,’ Mangat Ram looked mystified, ‘Raj Bhushan ate a bowl of walnuts!’

‘How do you know? Perhaps it was Kaul uncle.’

‘No. Raj Bhushan came to the kitchen looking for me. He handed me the empty bowl, said he loved them and could he have some more. I told you—a day for strange things!’

Delhi

‘L
ook here, read this news,’ Shri Kriplani waved the newspaper at his assistant. ‘Why do we always need the West to endorse us, to remind us of our greatness!’

Prodding his spectacles up his nose until his lashes flicked the lenses, he held the paper up and read aloud, in the manner of a professor lecturing his students. Old habits die hard, and Shri Kriplani had been a professor at Benaras Hindu University for years until, with increasing middle-class affluence and aspirations, a fundamentalist Hindu party that had hitherto been at the political fringe was catapulted onto centrestage. Realising his oratory skills and degree in Sanskrit could be leveraged for greater glory in such a political party, he had switched careers.

‘The hottest chilli in the world is Indian,’ he now intoned. ‘The Chili Pepper Institute in New Mexico has confirmed that the bhut jolokia, or “ghost chilli” measuring at one million SHU—a measure for chili heat—beats the hottest chilli measured so far.’

Shri Kriplani glowered. ‘When in doubt, consult history. Do you know why the Mughals could never conquer the Deccan? They were used to a diet of pulao, almond sweetmeats, and rich fruit, so they had become soft and ineffectual. That is why they proved to be no match for the Marathas, whose bellies were on fire with chilli juice.’

Leaning forward he opened a round steel container. Within it glistened thumb-sized, bright-red chillies. A warm, smoky aroma arose. ‘Bhut jholakiya,’ Shri Kriplani displayed it with a flourish. ‘Here, taste it for yourself.’

The assistant eyed the chilli, his throat constricting in anticipation.

‘Just place it on your tongue, don’t swallow,’ urged his boss. ‘Do you know,’ his voice dropping a few decibels, ‘the army is thinking of using it in weapons?’

The assistant took a chilli, bit a tiny shard and placed it on his tongue. Heat started to singe his gums and tongue and flared down his throat.

Shri Kriplani studied him. ‘It will do the boys good. Inform the shakha supervisor—the boys must chew a chilli before each meal. For a warlike and determined character.’ He dismissed the assistant who, once he was out of view, sprinted to the washroom.

Meanwhile, Shri Kriplani rose from his chair and made for the sideboard. Atop it rested his daily tonic, a glass of pale yellow liquid. He reached for it and, in a single movement, downed the entire glass. Once, he had found it distasteful, but the health benefits had convinced him otherwise. Urine therapy. After all, hadn’t his mentor lived to the ripe age of ninety-nine? He eyed himself in the mirror: the spare, slender frame was packed with the vitality of youth, his eyes were clear and his mind was sharp. In the days ahead he would need all the alertness and energy within him. He had found a way to bring the Hindutva agenda back on track. Pseudo-secularists had derailed it once....