The Accidental Apprentice (44 page)

It turns out to be a disastrous move. Once we join the sea of cars gridlocked in the outer circle of Connaught Place, Shalini knows it is impossible to reach the safe house. ‘Stop the car,' she instructs her cameraman.

D'Souza nods and brings the Swift to an abrupt halt in front of the Regal Cinema.

‘It's best you get out here and look for a hiding place,' Shalini advises me. ‘We'll drive for another couple of kilometres till the police catch up with us. At least it will give you a head start.'

I quickly open the door and step out. Shalini instinctively reaches over from her seat and grasps my hand in a gesture of sisterly solidarity. ‘Keep fighting, Sapna,' she says. ‘Never give up. And here, take this.' She pulls out a brown-leather shoulder bag lying at her feet. ‘It's my emergency travel kit. It has some ready cash, a change of clothes, toilet paper, torch, pocket knife and even duct tape.'

I grab the bag and give Shalini a wan smile, hoping she can read the gratitude in my eyes behind that patina of fear and uncertainty. ‘How will I ever repay you for all this?'

‘Simple. You'll give me an exclusive interview once you've proved your innocence. Now go, go,
go
!' she says as D'Souza eases the car back into traffic.

For a moment I stand still, like someone caught in the disorienting aftermath of a car crash. Shalini wants me to hide out in Connaught Place, but I don't know a single hiding place here. In fact, it would be impossible to hide in the throbbing, hectic heart of the city.

I can sense the panic creeping up my spine when my eyes are drawn to a corner of the pavement where a hawker has spread out religious posters for sale. Goddess Durga beckons me like a lighthouse to a storm-troubled ship. And I know that I do have a place of refuge in Connaught Place.

Pulling my chunni over my head, partially obscuring my face, I join the flow of pedestrians making their way to offices and shops. After turning left onto Baba Kharak Singh Marg, I proceed to the Hanuman Mandir.

*   *   *

Though it is just after 9 a.m., the temple complex is bustling with activity. Tattoo and mehndi artists, bangle sellers and roadside astrologers have already set up their stalls. An elderly ‘Spiritual Forehead Reader', offering his services for the auspicious fee of ₹101, accosts me. ‘Want to know your future?' he asks. Even God doesn't know my future, I feel like telling him.

Depositing my sneakers with the old lady at the temple entrance I bound up the steps, two at a time. Seconds later I am in the presence of Durga Ma. Just seeing her divine face fills me with such peace that I forget all my travails. There must be some cosmic coincidence that today is Friday, the day of the Goddess. Perhaps Durga Ma had been calling me all this while, and I was meant to be here today.

A group of women dressed in red saris and loaded with offerings of fruit and flowers are already settling down on the marble floor, preparing to listen to bhajans being sung by a middle-aged devotee in a white sari. I unobtrusively take my place in their midst, keeping my head down so that no one can see my face.

The songs work their magic, and the devotees are soon swaying together, swept up in the rising tide of devotional love and the simple truth of the message. I feel a shower of heavenly grace healing me, renewing me. The queasiness in my stomach and the pounding in my head miraculously disappear.

I remain in the temple for close to nine hours. Till the hunger pangs can no longer be ignored.

*   *   *

When I step outside, the grey of dusk is creeping over the city, enveloping the surroundings in a pallid blue haze. Street lamps are beginning to flicker on, casting ominous shadows on the pavements. Shalini's bag contains the healthy sum of ₹3,000 and I grab a plate of puri-aloo from a roadside vendor.

I sit on a bench and watch the tide of humanity pass by. Bank workers and government employees are hurrying to the metro, eager to go home after another hard day. On the adjacent bench a pair of lovers are whispering inconsolable, desolate good-byes. A flute vendor approaches them and begins playing an appropriately tragic song from
Kal Ho Na Ho.
The melody hushes the cacophony that customarily accompanies peak-hour traffic in Connaught Place, till the moment is shattered by the whine of police sirens.

Soon every street corner is bristling with uniformed men, wary and alert. Barricades are being put up at the intersections to intercept cars. Near the parking lot of A-Block I spot an inspector questioning the parking attendant, showing him a photograph. I have no doubt it is mine. My breathing quickens. Sweat slicks my palms. One part of me just wants it to end. I want to surrender. This miserable life of living in constant fear and secrecy is worse than death. But that old tenacity also surges within me, telling me that I have to keep running, if not for my sake then for Ma's sake and Neha's.

For the next two hours I duck and skulk, weaving my way through the crowded bazaar and busy traffic. Just after 9 p.m. I find myself at L-Block in the Outer Circle, in front of ‘Jain Travel Agency'. My eyes fall on the display window offering summer specials to Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Almora and Nainital.

Nainital. Just seeing that word brings back so many memories that I almost well up with tears. My decision is made then and there.

The night clerk, a jaded old man, is busy flipping through a TV magazine when I ask for a ticket to Nainital.

‘Eight hundred rupees,' he says in the weary tone of someone who would rather be home watching a serial. ‘Bus leaves at ten thirty tonight from just in front. No cancellation, no refund.'

When I arrive at the boarding point, I discover my fellow travellers to be a large group of boys and girls from a local college, dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts and armed with suitcases and rucksacks. With my head bowed low, I take a seat at the very back of the bus and bury my face in a magazine.

I am a jittery bundle of nerves as the bus approaches the police checkpoint. By the time a perspiring constable clambers inside, my heart is almost in my mouth. He takes a cursory look at the young, grinning faces before him and, with a bored flick of his wrist, waves us on our way.

There is a massive traffic jam on Ring Road as a result of all the security checks, and the bus takes two hours just to reach National Highway 24. My paranoid tension abates only when we successfully exit the municipal limits of Delhi.

The rest of the journey is a blur of off-key songs, lewd jokes, constant chatter and the juvenile boisterousness of college students on a road trip. I watch everyone, observe everything, but do not utter a word. The students also leave me alone. They are too engrossed in their own carefree world to realise that they are travelling with India's most wanted woman.

The luxurious air conditioning, the steady drone of the motor and the gentle rocking motion of the bus soon lull me to sleep. When I open my eyes, warm sunshine is peeking through the gaps in the curtain. I gaze out of the window to discover that the brown, flat landscape of the dusty plains has given way to the lush, green, undulating Himalayan foothills. That first sight of the shadowy distant mountains, wreathed in mist, mesmerises me.

The route is now more challenging, twisting and winding through narrow hairpin bends. We stop in Haldwani for breakfast at a local
dhaba.
The food is delicious and the cool, crisp air invigorating. The restaurant also has a small shop selling various knick-knacks and I pick up an oversized pair of dark glasses. I observe myself in the mirror and note with satisfaction that the sunglasses cover a good part of my face. But then I happen to glance at the wall-mounted TV and learn the devastating news that Shalini Grover has been arrested by the police for aiding and abetting a fugitive. A wave of sadness washes over me, making me slink into the bus before anyone notices my distraught expression.

The remaining forty kilometres go by in a haze of tears. And at seven o'clock I am back in the city of my childhood and youth.

*   *   *

In the early-morning light of peak summer, Nainital looks like an overcrowded train station. Mall Road is flush with gaudy honeymooners and noisy Punjabis. Cycle rickshaws lurch through the bazaar, tinkling their bells at those in their path to give way.

The lake gleams in front of me, full and inviting. A slow, sensuous roll of water shrugs like a shoulder against the Boat House Club. The seven proud hills surrounding the lake lend a mystic feel to the setting, providing a majestic contrast to the shallow, manufactured prettiness of Delhi. As I take in the full sweep of the panorama in front of me – Flats, Naina Devi Temple, Capitol Cinema, Thandi Road – everything about my old life comes rushing back to me.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. I shrink back in alarm only to discover a South Indian family staring at me – father, mother and two young girls. The father, dressed in spotless white linen, with a yellow caste mark on his forehead, approaches me again. ‘Excuse me, madam, could you please be directing us to Rosy Guest House?' He has the hesitant air of a tourist, unsure of a new place, his fingers twisted around the handle of a battered black trunk.

‘I'm sorry,' I reply, pushing the large sunglasses further up my face. ‘I'm new here myself.'

Turning away from him, I fix my gaze on the Grand Hotel at the opposite end of the lake, the Mallital side. It is a low, colonial-style building with long, open verandahs. Slowly, my gaze travels upwards, tracing a point on the hill behind the hotel, covered in low clouds. That is where the Windsor Academy used to be located.

Almost propelled by an invisible hand, I begin hiking in the direction of the school. The gently winding road takes me past the tacky souvenir shops and the cut-price tour operators, past the Methodist Church and the Inter College. By the time I reach the entrance of the Academy I am wheezing with exertion.

The wrought-iron gate with the blue-and-white school logo invites me. The school must already be closed for the summer holidays, as there is no entry check. I go in through the pedestrian entrance and walk up the paved path bordered by mighty deodars. It forks at the top of the hill, one branch of it going to the principal's office and the main building, the other to the staff residences.

I take the left fork, towards what we used to call the Teachers' Colony. It consists of a grid of whitewashed bungalows laid out in neat rows and separated by wide, cobbled paths. Alka found the housing campus creepy in its extreme orderliness. I always thought of it as a haven, an antidote to the madness wreaked by the disorderly tourists outside.

The colony is eerily quiet. There is not a soul in sight, the residents probably still enjoying their weekend nap. As I pass by the numbered houses, names enter my head automatically. No. 12, Mr Emmanuel; No. 13, Mrs Da Costa; No. 14, Mr Pant; No. 15, Mr Siddiqui; No. 16, Mrs Edwards; and, before I know it, I have come up to my old house.

I stand in front of No. 17 and stare in shock. The house doesn't look like a house at all. It resembles a neglected pigsty. The magnificent lawn, which I had diligently watered, is a wilderness of weeds, rank grass and overgrown bushes. The walls are tinged green and covered with mildew. The front porch, which we used to decorate with
diyas
on Diwali, is strewn with windblown trash. The corbelled chimney, jutting out of the low-pitched roof like a turret, now flaunts a bird's nest.

I feel a rush of anger at the current residents who have brought No. 17 to this pitiful state. This was the house I spent my childhood in, the house where I learnt the hard truths of adulthood. The fondest memories of my life were attached to it, memories of Dussehri mangoes and fireside stories, of the happy family that used to live here before tragedy overtook it.

As I continue to gaze at the house I find those memories coming back. Any minute now Neha will step out of the kitchen door practising a raga taught by that cranky old master-ji. I can see Papa sitting in the wicker chair, laying down his newspaper to regard me with stern affection, and Alka, dear sweet Alka, darting out from behind that ancient oak tree in the rear garden, screaming ‘
Kamaal ho gaya, didi!
'

With every nostalgic recollection comes a wave of unsettling emotions. Familiar voices echo inside my head. It feels as if some fibres in my body are still connected to this house, to this city. I reflect on the balance sheet of my life, what has been gained and lost in the transition to Delhi.

The trilling of a bell brings me out of my reverie. I turn around to find a little boy on a tricycle asking me to give way. He gazes at me with the unabashed curiosity of a four year old.

‘Can you tell me who lives in this house?' I smile at him.

‘
Bhoot.
Ghost,' he replies laconically.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘No one lives here, only the ghost of that girl who died here. Don't stay here too long otherwise she will suck your blood. That's what my mother says,' he says in the exaggerated manner of a child sharing a secret. Then he gives me a brief wave and pedals away on his tricycle.

I realise that the house is empty. It has probably remained empty ever since we moved out. Alka's death tarred it with the taint of scandal and suicide. And now no one wants it.

I pick my way through the weeds to the rear of the house and discover the same rotten detritus that mars the front. The back garden has become a dumping ground for neighbours' trash, giving off the fetid stench of a cesspool. A jumble of discarded furniture and broken equipment is piled up right in front of the rear kitchen door. I step around an upturned toilet cistern and peer through the door's glass panels. The feeble light filtering through the dusty, grimy glass bathes the kitchen in a spooky aura, giving it the abandoned look of a ghost ship.

I notice that one of the glass panels on the door is cracked. A little push and it splinters into pieces on the floor. With my right hand I reach inside and undo the latch.