Chankya's Chant (33 page)

At the Durbar Club opposite the Lucknow railway station, the ambient temperature was almost ten degrees below. The smell of fresh jasmine flowers pervaded the air. The interior décor was of dark wood and deep-red velvet. In the centre of the room was a dance floor where, some fifteen young girls clad in extravagant lehengas gyrated to popular Bollywood songs. Around the perimeter sat lecherous men drinking whisky. Smitten patrons showered notes on girls who caught their fancy, drowning them in a cascade of crisp currency. The cash would be efficiently mopped up from the floor by the waiter on hand. Fifty per cent for the establishment, fifty per cent for the girl being fêted.

Eesha was lost in her own world—shutting out the leers of the men inside the club—allowing herself to get immersed in the music. Her penchant for jewellery was evident in the glittering bangles, chains, earrings and nose ring that adorned her. Her make-up had been professionally applied but was not overdone. She was just twenty-one and oozing sex appeal. She had been dancing for the past three hours but wasn’t tired. The spliff of cannabis had taken care of that. The train journey had been long but drugs had been on hand to remove the fatigue and boredom. Thank God she needed to be here only for this single assignment. The city was a dump!

One of the men seated near where she was dancing had already sprayed her with cash and winked at her, indicating that he was ready to pay for some one-onone action outside. She smiled at him, sizing him up. He was obviously loaded. She glanced over at the bar where Ikram’s man was standing, sipping a Coke. He nodded at her. The prey had taken the bait.

As they made their way to one of the seedy little rooms upstairs, Ram Shankar Dwivedi stared at her lustfully, like a dog with his tongue hanging out for a bone. Eesha would give him the bone he wanted, although, judging by the bulge in his trousers he seemed to have one of his own.

The room was a small windowless twelve-by-twelvefoot number. Towards the centre of the main wall stood a queensize bed, draped in a floral bedspread that bore patches and stains that could not be attributed to the pattern alone. To one corner was a single chair that faced a mirror—an oddity in this crummy room. Mercifully, an air-conditioner installed in lieu of a window was working and the room was cool.

‘So shall I tell you what’s on the menu?’ Eesha asked as she sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space next to her. He nodded mutely, intoxicated by her blandishments.

‘BBBJ, BDSM, Bareback, GFE, DT, HJ—’

‘I don’t understand any of this—’ he began.

‘Hush. You don’t need to. I’ll show you everything,’ she said as she began to help him off with his clothes.

The photographer arranged by Ikram’s man stood in a dark room behind the two-way mirror on the other side of the bedroom wall. He had set his camera to manual mode and the shutter to thirty seconds. The photographer’s finger was firmly frozen on the button of the camera, mounted on a tripod. The shutter kept clicking and whirring over and over again as Ram Shankar Dwivedi chose items from Eesha’s extensive menu.

‘The road contract we handed over to Agrawalji’s

nominee—’ began Chandini.

‘Yes?’ asked Gangasagar.

‘His nominee turned out to be Rungta & Somany, the conglomerate, you know, the one with whom we negotiated on the farmers’ land.’

‘Somany was also the one who supported us by sending that Bollywood bimbo—Anjali—to campaign for you,’ reminded Gangasagar.

‘Precisely,’ acknowledged Chandini, ‘but we now have a problem’.

‘What?’

‘The R&S fortune is in dispute. The World Bank project was allotted to a private company belonging to the senior partner, Rungta.’

‘And?’

‘The junior partner—Somany—is now claiming that it should have been allotted in the name of the parent company in which he holds an equal share.’

‘How does this concern us? I’m sure you floated an open tender following all the
apparent
norms of transparency and fairness, right?’ asked her devious mentor.

‘Obviously. But now Somany has threatened to go to court. If he does, the resulting attack on Rungta will drag the state government into this mess.’

‘We can’t afford to antagonise either one of them. Let’s schedule a meeting with Somany to talk some sense into him.’

‘You don’t need to schedule a meeting.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s waiting outside to meet us.’

‘I have been cheated of what should have rightfully belonged to both partners fifty-fifty. How can you allow this injustice?’ asked Somany as he strode in dispensing with all formalities.

‘Nice to meet you too,’ said Gangasagar saracastically.

‘Madam, I beseech you. Remedy this mistake and I will not drag this issue to court,’ pleaded Somany of Chandini.

‘How can we get involved in a squabble between partners?’ asked Chandini.

‘You have no alternative. If this dispute goes to court, all the sordid details of how the contract was awarded are bound to spill into the public domain,’ said Somany.

‘Are you threatening the state government of Uttar Pradesh and its chief minister?’ asked Chandini angrily.

‘I am not, madam, but I shall be left with no option but to wash dirty linen in public if you do nothing,’ said Somany.

‘Then be prepared for the entire might of the state government to come down on you! You should not defaecate where you dine, Mr Somany!’ snapped Chandini, her voice rising.

‘Now, now, let us not argue with one another. We’re all decent folk who are gathered here to arrive at a mutually amicable solution, right?’ asked Gangasagar, gesturing for Chandini to calm down. ‘Changing the topic completely, am I correct in believing that you have a personal stake in Majestic Munitions PLC, Mr Somany?’

‘H—how do you know that?’ asked the startled scion of a business house.

‘It’s my job to know everything,’ said Gangasagar. ‘As I understand it, a large chunk of shares in Majestic Munitions PLC—a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange—was acquired by a Dubai-based investment bank in which—or so my sources tell me—you have a substantial stake.’

‘Let’s say that you’re hypothetically right, so what?’ asked the flustered businessman.

‘Talking hypothetically, how would you react if I told you that your hypothetical stake in this hypothetical investment bank that holds a hypothetical share in this hypothetical armaments company could be multiplied six times over in value?’

‘How?’

‘Are we
still
talking hypothetically?’ sneered Gangasagar. ‘I am given to understand that a large order for semi-automatic rifles is to be released to Majestic Munitions but the file is held up in the prime minister’s office. If this proposal were to be cleared, the value of your stake in Majestic would increase in value almost six times.’

‘But we’ve tried everything—’ began Somany.

‘Leave it to me. You shall only have to do six things to get your six-fold return.’

‘And what are these six things?’

‘The first thing you will do is allot two per cent of the shares to a charitable trust. It belongs to a simple sadhvi—a lovely lady.’
Whom I also need to reward for preventing President’s Rule.

‘Done. What else?’

‘Second. Sell the shares of Majestic and book your profit no sooner than the deal is awarded. I cannot guarantee what happens in the future.’

‘Fine. And?’

‘Third. There’s a young boy from a very poor family. He’s the son of the purohit of a Hindu shelter. You shall have him admitted to a medical college that you’re a trustee of.’
A debt must always be repaid entirely.

‘Easily done. Fourth?’

‘Your friend in New Delhi—the defence minister who is lobbying for your Majestic Munitions deal—make him available to me as an ally when I need him in the future.’

‘I shall talk to him. Fifth?’

‘Majestic Munitions has a stake in Strategic Asia Research Defence—SARD—an American think-tank on Asian military matters. I may require a word put in.’

‘Fine. And finally?’

‘Drop the case against your partner—Rungta—so that we can all fucking get on with the fucking business of running this fucking government! And I’m not speaking hypothetically anymore!’

‘Thank you for handling Somany,’ said Chandini.

‘You’re welcome. I’m happy that you followed my advice and yelled at him,’ said Gangasagar.

‘Why did you ask me to be so tough?’

‘If there’s no bad cop, how’s the good cop to get his work done?’ asked Gangasagar.

The chief minister was on her way to inaugurate a primary school in Nutpurwa, a small village about a

hundred kilometres from Lucknow. They were to have left Lucknow at 1 pm but meeting overruns had delayed them by a couple of hours. Shankar had suggested cancelling the visit but Chandini was determined to go even though the state government’s helicopter was out of service. Meetings with businessmen and bureaucrats were urgent but not as important as meetings with humble villagers and children for whom a simple school meant the world.

Winter had arrived and sunset kicked in early. She sat in the rear seat of her official Ambassador car wearing her trademark cream-coloured saree with an elegant beige pashmina shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Shankar sat next to her, helping her clear the backlog of files they carried with them. Ahead of their car were two motorbike-mounted pilot policemen and behind them was a police jeep carrying the chief minister’s bodyguards. The road between Lucknow and Nutpurwa was bumpy and dusty and the convoy made progress in fits and starts.

As dusk approached, the convoy paused momentarily to allow a herd of buffalo to cross the road. The lumbering beasts took their own time, ignoring the impatient honking of Chandini’s police-deputed driver. The herd was extensive and the occupants of the chief minister’s car suddenly found themselves surrounded by hundreds of buffalo. Five minutes later, when the animals had moved on, neither the police jeep nor the bike-mounted cops were anywhere to be seen.

As the dust kicked up by the animals settled, three riders emerged on horseback and within moments the chief minister’s car was surrounded. One of the riders steered his steed towards the driver’s window, pointed his .303 calibre rifle at the driver’s head and shot him dead through the glass which shattered into tiny splinters. ‘It’s Rajjo Bhaiya,’ whispered Shankar to Chandini. ‘He’ll kill us if we don’t make a run for it’. Chandini was paralysed with fear. Her pale complexion had turned snow-white as she nodded mutely in response to Shankar’s words. Another rider used his rifle butt to smash open the car window on Shankar’s side and was now pointing his rifle at him.