The Taj Conspiracy (27 page)

Mehrunisa urged him on with a smile.

‘Aurangzeb was fond of khichri, Sahib said. His taste in food was unlike that of his father Shah Jahan, who favoured rich food.’

Mehrunisa’s mouth fell open. ‘
Aurangzeb
?’ Her voice was a croak. ‘Who was he calling Aurangzeb?’

Mangat Ram seemed not to have noticed the incredulous look on her face. Reaching for a head of garlic, he sat on the tall wood stool and started to peel a clove. ‘Bhushan sahib, who else?’

‘But why would he call Raj Bhushan Aurangzeb?’

‘It is a direct translation of his name. Aurang-Zeb. From Urdu, or is it Persian?’ He wrinkled his nose at Mehrunisa. ‘It means ornament of throne. Raj, ornament; Bhushan, throne.’ Mangat Ram lifted his brows. ‘Living with Sahib for forty years has made me into a small-time teacher as well!’

Delhi

M
ehrunisa paused at the gate. She had headed out of the house after Mangat Ram’s revelation, hoping some outside air would vacuum the fuzz from her mind.

Raj Bhushan was Aurangzeb!

It had been staring at her all the time, yet she had not noticed. How could she have missed the connection when even her uncle, in his state of amnesia, had been agitated enough to warn her.
Hang on
! She was moving too fast. Mehrunisa tugged her pashmina shawl closer around her and attempted to marshal her thoughts.

First: Aurangzeb was Raj Bhushan, there could be no doubt. Arun, who evidently knew the nickname, had mentioned that he was expecting Aurangzeb. The ASI director-general’s presence in the Taj Mahal was natural—nobody would think twice about the director visiting the preeminent monument on his list. Thereafter, Kaul uncle had cautioned her about the dead Mughal emperor. And now Mangat Ram had divulged that the professor routinely teased Raj Bhushan with that moniker.

Second: Raj Bhushan did not reveal to the police that he had met Arun on the evening of his murder. Why? What was he attempting to hide? He might have been the last one to see Arun alive. He might have seen somebody who could be implicated. He might have witnessed the murder ...
He might be the murderer
!

On the last thought Mehrunisa gasped. Even the police was working on the premise that Aurangzeb was either the murderer, or directly linked to the murder. But this was too improbable. ASI director-general Raj Bhushan did not seem the murdering kind. Besides, why would he want to kill the Taj supervisor? They
were
dissimilar—were their relations strained? Had they had a falling out? But surely, as the ultimate authority, he could always have fired Arun if they had work problems—so why murder him? No. Then why not inform the police that he had met Arun on the night of his murder? Was he trying to avoid a scandal—the police would have questioned him and the media would have got nosy? Perhaps he had nothing concrete to disclose and decided therefore to stay silent?

Watch out for Aurangzeb
! That was what her uncle had said.
What
should she be watching out for? What did the professor know? And how did he know it?

She would talk to Professor Kaul. While she may not know Raj Bhushan well, her godfather still did. If Mehrunisa voiced her misgivings, maybe Kaul uncle would be roused out of his state to say something.

She went inside to call R.P. Singh right away.

Delhi

S
hri Kriplani was furious. So enraged was he that he was in danger of choking on his own animus: the glass of yellow piss he had drunk in the morning after his daily constitutional had tasted pungent enough to make him gag.

The first urine of the morning was a snapshot of his previous day: clear, with a pleasant aroma meant he had eaten healthy and thought pleasantly. However, the previous day’s news report had put his mind in turmoil, his acidity had acted up, and he had slept fitfully as he strategized through the night; the result, therefore, was cloudy, foul-smelling urine. At such times he felt he should take an occasional break from urine therapy....

But the essence of urine therapy was predicated on harmony between input and output. It was a daily reminder to stay calm and think with a cool head. Today, he needed that.

The Waqf Board’s statement asserting a rightful claim to the Taj Mahal had made headlines in all the top dailies.

The Board chairman had been interviewed on TV channels where, contrary to expectations, he turned out not to be a bearded, skull-capped mullah but a rather telegenic young fellow. Now, a TV crew was waiting to interview Shri Kriplani.

Any other time he would have had a field day.

The sons of Babur were a most militant minority. When not cosying up to their Muslim neighbour and assisting in terror attacks on Indian soil, they were bent upon usurping India’s heritage!

If the plan of carbon dating the monument had worked, he’d have declared the Taj Mahal was indeed an ancient Hindu temple and delivered a body blow to these rabid foreigners. Instead, with that CBI officer on his heels, he had had to relinquish that effort. Things were looking bad....

He inhaled deeply. For a seasoned politician, every setback was an opportunity. It was time to play the elder statesman for TV cameras and assorted reporters gathered outside.

Shri Kriplani was a consummate performer as he parlayed his personal wrath into Hindu umbrage at the Muslim hijacking of Indian treasures. Legs crossed, his dhoti tucked in neatly, he faced the TV camera resolutely and began his withering speech.

‘The Waqf Board has claimed the Taj Mahal. Tomorrow they will claim Qutab Minar, the Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb ... where will they stop? The Parliament House? Why not? They will claim the building was designed by a British architect but the labourers who worked on it were Muslims, mostly; so, rightfully the Parliament House should also be theirs. Once the ball is set rolling, where does it stop?

‘Fact is, the Mughals were invaders. Where did the money for building these lavish monuments come from? From the Hindu masses. How did the Mughal Empire become the richest in the world? By robbing the Hindu subjects. Did they bring these riches and wealth with them from their mother countries of Turkey and Mongolia? Penniless, on horseback, they rode into our motherland and ransacked it. They looted us for centuries and today they want to legalise what they have looted. Shabash! What is the meaning of Hindustan, I ask? Simple. Hindu-stan: the land of Hindus.
The Land of Hindus
! This is my answer to the Waqf Board and any and all Muslim boards and to the Muslims of India. Understand the meaning of Hindustan, and live here.

‘Ours is a great nation. Through the ages it has embraced outsiders and absorbed them into its fabric. A mother never lets go of her children, even when some of them persist in being difficult.

‘In a few days the prime minister will give his annual speech from the Red Fort—it is a time for unity, not for petty squabbles. Jai Bharat! Jai Sri Ram!’

A satisfied, though dry-throated, Shri Kriplani sat back in his chair as the cameras switched off. He had played to the gallery yet ended his speech such that it would elevate him in the eyes of his countrymen, and deflate the communal rhetoric of his opponents.

Agra

R
.P. Singh stood on the balcony of the Taj Ganj police station, munching roasted chana and contemplating the mist that still hovered around. It reflected the state of his mind accurately. Mehrunisa had called to say that she’d found out Raj Bhushan was Aurangzeb. She had explained her reasoning, but it was based on hearsay, not proof. Nevertheless, it added the latest twist in a case that already looked like a dish of seviyan.

As he ruminated on the multiple skeins of the case, people started to gather in the courtyard in front of him. They seemed to be leaking out of the mist and taking form in front of him, dressed variously in shawls, blankets, woolly caps, some coats. Had he missed a memo?

A young man separated from the mass and approached him. R.P. Singh beckoned him inside.

The man seated opposite him did not inspire confidence; less so, his fantastic story.

His mouth concealed behind a hand, Singh scrutinised the young man: long sideburns, longer hair, bell-bottomed jeans fashionably slit at the knees, a denim jacket over a polka-dotted shirt open at the neck—despite the cold day. He was the epitome of a local ruffian from Taj Ganj, the sort who trailed backpacking tourists, and in halting mishmash English promised to show them the best souvenir shops, best restaurants, best whores, best anything. So the logical question was: what was he doing in a police station of his own volition? He would hear the story again, this time for inconsistencies.

Singh wore his best saturnine expression and queried, ‘Aamir? Tell me again why you are here.’

The young man seemed taken aback at the question. He had spent ten minutes detailing the previous night’s event that had rattled the Muslim residents of Taj Ganj. Narrating his story with sound effects, he had made it as graphic as possible. Besides, he was best suited to tell it to the police and convey the fear of the residents: he was, after all, the one with the largest gora clientele. If he could communicate with the firangs, surely he could make one of his own countrymen comprehend him!

Perplexed, he mumbled, ‘Sir, where do I start?’

‘The beginning is usually a good place,’ Singh’s voice was toneless, yet laden with menace.

Aamir’s Adam’s apple throbbed nervously. He began. ‘Sir, yesterday night we were asleep when—’

‘Time?’

‘1.15—I glanced at the clock. It has these glowing hands, you see.’

When R.P. Singh nodded, Aamir continued, ‘So, the locality was asleep. All quiet, as it normally is that late, when a loud voice broke through the night! It was a terrible sound like, like ... a goat being slaughtered at Moharram. Plaintive, pleading. Then shrieks sounded, loud cries, followed by thrashing sounds, and a sound of crackling fire and the air being slashed.... Oh!’

Aamir shivered, his face crushed. Shaking his head vigorously, he whispered, ‘It was horrible! Horrible!’

Singh watched the performance—it looked authentic. ‘What happened next?’

Aamir shrugged. ‘I was terrified but I was also curious. So I went to the window to see if I could make out the source. My room is on the first floor, see. The voices were getting louder. I looked out. And what did I see?’ Aamir had clamped a palm on his mouth.

Considering it was a repeat performance, the boy was managing to render it with commendable passion and consistence.

‘Outside in the street was a van. A Maruti gypsy van. Atop it was mounted a loudspeaker that was blaring those sounds!’

‘And why would that be?’

‘How would I know, Sir? That is why I am here—to beg you to do enquiry into this strange happening. Why would pre-recorded cries and shouts be blared into our neighbourhood in the middle of the night? The van took three rounds of our locality, going up and down the street, making sure everybody was awake and hearing the cries!’

‘What did the sounds remind you of?’

Aamir went still. ‘It seemed like a TV news report on a riot...’

Like any policeman, R.P. Singh knew how to mask his emotions. But at that moment, a terrible fear had gripped him. Cars speeding through neighbourhoods, playing prerecorded sounds of riots and screams, had an ugly precedent. On the eve of the Babri Masjid demolition, most Muslims had fled the neighbourhood, scared out of their wits by such cars. In his mind’s eye Singh saw TV images of urban youths in jeans and yellow headbands, and wild-haired, half-naked sadhus atop the central dome of the mosque. Matter-of-factly, he asked, ‘You think they were trying to scare you?’

‘Not me alone, Sir—the entire mohalla. We are a Muslim locality, mostly.’

‘And why would they do that?’

Aamir’s response was to shrug again.

At that instant he reminded Singh of a forlorn child. He saw a different youth: the long hair was lank with grease, the sideburns distracted from a pimply-red skin, his broken English was an attempt to hoist himself on the social ladder, and his nervously flicking tongue a pointer to his inner turmoil. A young Muslim boy raised in the squalor of the Taj’s shadow, eking out a living in Taj Ganj like so many others.

‘Perhaps,’ Aamir’s Adam’s apple was bobbing furiously, ‘they want to drive us out of our homes.’

‘Is there anyone else who can corroborate your story? Any other witnesses?’

Aamir nodded.

‘Well, call them in.’

‘Sir, better if you could just step out to the porch again with me.’

R.P. Singh pushed his chair back and strode to the door. When he stepped onto the porch, the mist had cleared to show a group of forty to fifty people standing in the open courtyard, huddling in their shawls and jackets against the cold. In the midst of all the men with their hennaed beards and skull caps and the women with dupattas were a couple of white tourists. Pointing at them, R.P. Singh turned to Aamir.

‘They heard it too, Sir, and said they would give evidence.’

‘Hmm...’ Singh wagged his head. With a raised palm he acknowledged the greetings from the gathering. His tongue probing the corners of his mouth, he turned to scrutinise the cement floor.

Aamir’s narration had touched a raw nerve. In his mind he saw a shrieking mob dressed in camouflage-green uniforms, carrying assault rifles as they set fire to mudand-thatch dwellings and shot at villagers who escaped.

Mao and Marx were two chutiyas whose guerrilla followers had plagued his life for a decade. However, their victims were tribals and police—so who was this new joker in the pack?

R.P. Singh dispatched SSP Raghav with the youth to investigate Taj Ganj while he left for Delhi. This development was red-hot. Time to drop in on the home minister, with whom he was acquainted from his Chattisgarh days. He needed his muscle to clamp down on Kriplani, in case he was the Joker; fire forensics to deliver the DNA results; and approve additional security for the Taj Mahal.

Delhi

I
t was dusk. The ASI director-general’s office was quiet except for a faint clattering of a typewriter somewhere in the cavernous colonial building where Mehrunisa was awaiting Raj Bhushan. When she had called his mobile earlier he was on a field trip from which, he said, he would return late evening. She had been waiting for half an hour and would have preferred a stroll in the lawn, but a drizzle had started. She shivered. The room’s high ceiling and large windows were meant to keep the place cool in the searing heat of an Indian summer, rendering it wholly unsuitable even in a mild winter. The occasional shiver she felt had nothing to do with her agenda for the meeting, of course.