NOBODY LIGHTS A CANDLE
Anjali Deshpande
14
It was not tough to find the Kiliopetra parlour. The only thing that was tough was to not get noticed by the policemen in the thana. The parlour was too close to the police station, almost opposite it. He parked the bike well past the thana, across the road, ran a hand in his hair to rumple it properly, fished out a cap from the box on his bike and fixed it on his head at an angle that covered most of his forehead and only then retraced his steps in the direction of the parlour, first examining his booty. The yellow cloth appeared to be a corner of a dupatta. The golden yellow thing was a gold button. Two discs of gold, one smaller than the other held together with a slim stem of gold. The larger disc was studded with a sparkling stone. Was it a diamond? Or just some bauble? He held it to the sunlight. The stone gave out rays of light. Even glass shines light on you, he thought. He did not make a guess. Just as he was about to enter the parlour a girl stepped up and tried to shut the door on him.
“Sir, ladies, only ladies,” she said.
He stuck a foot in the doorway and said that he wanted to talk about Renu, he wanted to know something that the police…he had not even finished the sentence when hearing the word ‘police’ the girl ran in. He looked around. There were two rooms. The outer one had five mirrors on its two walls and in front of each one was a soft cushioned swivel chair. Each was occupied by a woman, one of whom had a blue paste spread over her face, another had something white like toothpaste on her arms and a third had her feet on a towel in the lap of a girl seated on a footstool. He had seen only this much when the girl came back to ask him to come into the other room.
Adhirath went in to the other room where a woman, who could have been the ‘madam’ of the parlour, told him with folded hands that only yesterday they had made their statements to the police, and she would appreciate if the police did not barge in during business hours, it was good that he was in plain clothes, and actually did not even look like a cop, could be from the CID, but when he names Renu it does impact the business…
“The impact looks very good,” said Adhir imitating Bharat and his language and tone of a Haryanvi villager. That was true. Ever since the news of the murder had spread more ‘ladies’ had begun flocking to the parlour and the regular ones had arrived before time to get something or the other to be done to themselves.
“Not from the police,” Adhirath said. “I am a relative of the girl. Wanted to see her stuff. Chachi was asking for it. Her mother. Poor woman. If you wish I can get someone from the thana to come here as my witness.”
The threat like query had the desired effect. For half an hour he sat inside drinking tea, he told the parlour owner that his aunt had named his cousin Suryabala, but the inspector had told him that she lived here under the assumed name of Renu. The girl had been dead for them in all practical terms. Now all that was left was to be done with the last rites and bathe in the Ganga, because the birth of such a girl itself is a sin from which there is no escape for the family.
“Bathing in the Ganga is necessary. Twice, twice my aunt got her married off but she could not wash her sins away, could she? She could not bathe in the Ganga and be rid of the sin of bringing in such a girl into the world. Such a bad character that girl was,” Adhirath said stressing every syllable and touching both his ears with his hands, using Bharat’s accent and tone.
“She was not like that,” said Mrs Malik incensed by his words. “You people look at parlour work with wrong eyes. We don’t do anything bad, it is honest work. Your sister also wanted to live the way she wanted to. She would have married someone too of her own choice. Which women don’t want to have home and children? You give bad name to parlour but when there is marriage in family all come here, all send sisters and daughters to us to get bridal done. Why? We are also called to the home, yes we are. For make up jee.”
Adhirath said that could be so in the cities but in the village the tradition is different, even now they put turmeric on the bride at home only. Mrs malik told him that “womans from Amirpur, Chandola, Jhandapur, and so many other villages are coming here to get facial done”. Facial is not like make up nobody gets to know you got it done. Otherwise what did he think all that glow on their faces comes from eating carrots?
“The daughter-in-law of pardhan of Chandola comes here every month with her mother-in-law. She is the one who went and told the village folk that Renu works in this parlour. She always got Renu to do pedicure. Always. Once she was saying that come to my house and do it. Renu said no. I had to talk to them, make them understand that our girls don’t go to people’s houses on their own. If you want things done at home we go as team and you have to send car to take us and to return back home. We keep all security for our girls. Here, Rakhi has come. Rakhi, take him to Renu’s room.”
The room was a low ceilinged space squashed between two floors, a miyani that tailors use in shops to stitch clothes in. Dozens of cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall, some of which were open. They looked full of cans and bottles of make-up. He had heard of the solah singar of old times. Sixteen make-ups. In those old times did they even have so many different things to scrub, wash, massage and paint, each and every part of the body? In this store room lived the girl from a beauty parlour surrounded by stuff used to improve the looks of other women. There was a folding bed on one side with a thin mattress on it, two trunks shoved under it and when he opened them he saw expensive clothes in them. These were not dresses picked up from the weekly Budh bazaar in mohallas. It was not export surplus stuff. Some of the things the police must have taken away, but what was left looked expensive. There were two three purses too, looked like leather but were of rexine. They were empty. She may have used them turn by turn shifting her things from one to another.
Adhirath lifted the clothes out of the trunk, one after another. There was a lehanga with tassels hanging from the long tapes used to tying it up. It was the brightest dress in the trunk. There were three skirts that were hybrids between skirts and lehangas. And five salwar kameez. He hesitated to touch some clothes, these were inner wear, some had lace on them others were made of netting. He glanced at Rakhi hoping she would help him turn these over but she lowered her eyes. He shook out every lehanga, every salwar, every kurta and dupatta, turned each pocket inside out, ran his fingers in every purse, upturned them on his palms but found nothing.
Handing a purse to Rakhi he said, “Maybe you know if there is a secret compartment in it. I can’t find what I am looking for.”
Rakhi opened the purse and asked him what was it that he was after.
“You lived with her?” Adhirath asked her.
“She lived alone. My home is nearby only,” Rakhi said with a frown. “My famly peoples know what I am doing. And my brother, no, he brings me to leave me here and takes me back to the house also.”
“Then you will not know,” he said.
“We talked lots,” Rakhi said. Her curiosity was aroused.
“Even then she would not tell you secrets. Things that one keeps in stomach,” said Adhir using a local phrase deliberately to pique her curiosity further.
For some time they talked like this till Rakhi could bear no more and asked him to ask her what he wanted to, who knows she may actually have told her some secret! Anyways, what was there to lose? She was not going to tell anyone what they talked about. She could keep secrets. Her interest had reached a high that she could no longer suppress.
Adhirath sat down on the cot and said in a resigned tone, “I was thinking that I will give it to my old chachi, she could have something to hold on to. One day she had called me, my cousin. She said on the phone that someone had given her something very expensive, a diamond. She wanted to make a ring. I work for goldsmith, no, that is why she had called me. She was saying it was like a button. But I can’t find it here. May be the police found it and took it away. Did the police take it?”
“Was it truly diamond? She had shown it to me. It was a button. Looked like gold. She always kept it in the purse. Always.”
“I could have told if I had seen it. How do I know if it was diamond or not?”
“It could have been. The man who gave it to her, he came in this big a car,” she said spreading her arms apart to indicate the size of the car, “with driver. He took her with him. She would be sitting next to him. Very fair. But he was married. I had said to her, what will you gain? What is the use? It is not like he will marry you. She used to say he will always keep her. She said she had addicted him.”
“Addicted? To what?” Adhirath asked taken aback but Rakhi shook her head.
“That she did not tell. That I don’t know,” said Rakhi.
Adhirath began to ask about the button again saying may be the police found it.
“Police may not have found it. Who knows, maybe they did. I and Malik auntie, we both brought the police here. But we did not see the police take away anything like this. But you know, we were not seeing everything that police was doing. That button, no, it was always in her purse. One day I only told her that she should make it a ring because the purse can also be stolen. That is why she must have thought about it.”
Adhirath ran his hands at the bottom of the now empty trunk.
“Do you remember what she was wearing that day?”
Rakhi said that they had all gone to the temple on the day before Holi and there the pujari had tied strings on their wrists. By the time Holika was burnt at night Rakhi had returned home so she did not know what happened after that.
“Every Holi and Diwali pujari ties the thread. It is red and yellow thread plaited together. You must know what it is. She was going to be at home on Holi. I did not come at all so I don’t know what she was wearing. When we left the mandir, that was last time I saw her.”
Adhirath stuffed the dresses back in one of the two trunks and began to climb down with it, but before taking the stairs he turned to her and said, “Rakhi sister, do you want any of these dresses? What will chachi do with them? It is no use to her. If you want, take one or two.”
Rakhi refused to take even one of them.
email: anjalides@gmail.com
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