NOBODY LIGHTS A CANDLE
Anjali Deshpande
38
Must have been a coincidence that at the red light he spotted Saroj. He lifted his hands in a Namaste form a distance. She threw him a wide smile, even her eyes smiled, and twisting her upturned palm made a gesture asking him where he was headed. Why not go sit under the dome? He followed her car on his bike. When she got down he saw that she was wearing trousers today, white trousers with a white top with fine chikan embroidery. She had the same kangans on her wrists. But today she also had a piece in the same whitish metal around her throat, a thick supple chain like a snake coiled around a stem. Looked like silver but it glowed, it did not look oxidized like old silver. Can’t be silver, Adhirath thought.
“Please don’t mind, but what you wear, is it silver?” he asked her unable to check his curiosity.
Saroj laughed. “Platinum. Come, come in. want to search the bedroom again?”
“That will still be what it was,” said Adhir. “There is a riddle. I want you to solve it for me.”
“Shall we solve it after breakfast?” Saroj said. “I am feeling very hungry today. Coming from Hauz Khas. Mamaji fell ill. We were there last night. I always have my breakfast at home. The conditions there are not so good.”
Today Adhirath had a sumptuous breakfast in the dining room beyond the dome at a long glass topped dining table, curried potatoes, pumpkin sabzi tempered with fenugreek seeds, pooris, nearly oil free dry pickle of mango, fried green chillies and yogurt.
“You were headed this way or did you come only because I saw you?”
Where was he headed today? he did not know.
“Why did you want me to come?” he asked.
A smile began to form, so thin, it vanished before it touched the lips of Saroj.
“I thought maybe you were coming here. Yesterday you went to the farm, so I thought you could come to search the house again.”
“Did Parduman tell you he was going there? He has been living there.”
“He never reported for work after Holi. He called. Said that some policeman has asked for twenty lacs and if we don’t pay up they will accuse Udairaj of having murdered the woman. He said that he went to the farm with Udai and is still there.”
Twenty lacs!
“you gave the money?”
“Why? Why would I give the money,” said Saroj laughing this time. They had both come to the small sitting room outside. The tea had arrived too. Saroj began to ask after his son.
“What happened to your husband’s uncle?” Adhirath had to ask to get the conversation back on track.
“The same thing that happens to old people,” said Saroj. “He has been left alone. Has five sons and daughters, ten eleven grandchildren, none of them here. Lives in that old and big house. Most of the rooms are now locked. Has diabetes. Never cares about appropriate diet. He is very fond of sweets. Sometimes he drinks a lot too. Then he falls sick and dials our number. I went yesterday. Mamaji was perched in the verandah. The moment he saw me get out of the car he began to say, Parduman is very bad, he has been driving my car around the whole day, who knows where he took it. Check the meter, see how many kilometers he has clocked. Kept saying it repeatedly. If the car is not standing right in front of the house old people begin to feel very insecure.”
“What happened the car was parked elsewhere?”
“In Hauz Khas? Parking elsewhere? Impossible people keep potted plants in their parking space when they take out the car. Car out pots in that space. You come back and the servant will spend ten minutes removing the pots. They put in a lot of effort there to reserve their spaces.
“Then?” Adhirath began to get the feeling that she was not indulging in idle chatter. She was handing him evidence, or at least a clue.
“HE was here on that day, the day of Holi. He returned in our car. His driver had left the car here and gone away. Nobody called the driver to ask him to take back the car.”
“SO Parduman took the car back?”
“That I don’t know. But the next day also his car did not get back to his house. It was taken there only the day after that in the afternoon. A driver from our factory took it there. Must have been parked here somewhere, on the roadside. Let it go. Old people keep worrying about such things. Do you have to go somewhere?”
Adhirath had been watching her closely. Why had it not occurred to him to ask how mamaji had got here in the first place and if he arrived in his car what happened to it?
“What kind of car is it?” Adhirath asked.
“Whose? Mamaji’s? An old car. Esteem. Black Esteem. Does not buy a new one. Says nobody steals an old car, it is safe.”
“Where is Udairaj?”
“Must be asleep upstairs. The hangover of Holi lasted for a few days. All the time he keeps lying abed. One day he went to the thana to get his statement recorded. After that his visits even to the club have gone down. Yesterday he went to see mamaji, they are quite fond of each other. But he returned in the evening.”
“What was he wearing on that day, the day of Holi? What was the colour of his clothes?” asked Adhirath.
“White kurta. They always wear that. I had told you the first day you came, that it is the tradition in their family. The colours of Holi look good only on white,” Saroj said now looking at Adhirath carefully.
“And in the morning? Next day? What was he wearing when he opened the door?”
“He was in a kurta. In a yellow kurta,” said Saroj. “White pajama.”
“he remembered to change his kurta even when he was so drunk?”
Saroj kept quiet.
“Was he wearing the same buttons?” Adhirath asked his eyes on hers.
Saroj said nothing. Only her head shook slightly indicating a negative.
“Your farmhouse is very beautiful. Parduman told me how much effort you put in to decorate it.”
“What is the use? I could not spend a single night there. A woman has to first fulfill all the needs of the man,” she said expressionlessly and stood up.
“Is it possible to talk to Udairaj ji?”
Saroj went upstairs to check on him but Udairaj entered the sitting room from some back room and taken aback to see Adhirath he turned back.
“Please sit down. I had come to talk to you only,” Adhirath said as he saw Saroj arrive at the door of the room.
She came in. “How are you feeling?” she asked her husband.
Adhirath felt uneasy. There was hardly any affection in her voice, it did not even seem like a question asked for the sake of formality, but as if there was some hidden sign in it, something to warn him.
Turning to Adhir she said, “He has become very quiet. IS it necessary to talk to him? I think I should take him to a doctor.”
Udairaj looked irritated. He sat down on a chair and placed his feet onto the table in front of him. The pinkish nails of his fair toes looked filed with great care. He began to wiggle them rhythmically.
“Ask,” Udairaj turned to Adhir.
“On the night of Holi, what time did Parduman return?”
“How do I know? I was asleep. When I got up in the morning the car was not here.”
“He has changed his statement twice.”
“Ask him,” Udairaj shrugged.
“He says that night he took that woman to the farm. You also went there. We also found one of your buttons on the farm.”
Udairaj smirked. “It is our farm. May have fallen there some time.”
“I never said it was fallen somewhere,” Adhirath interjected immediately.
“Why else would you ask? You wouldn’t interrogate me if you had found it in a drawer.”
The man was truly sharp. Or he had rehearsed his answers many times.
“But you did go to the farm that night? Where did you park the Esteem? At the turning of the Chatarpur bazaar?”
Udairaj glanced at Saroj and inspected his face with narrow eyes.
“So you got the news about the Esteem? My wife is a good detective. You should take her on as your assistant.”
He now turned to face Adhirath. Adhir’s hair was now crew cut just like that of cops.
“Did Parduman tell you what he told me yesterday?” Adhirath asked him to throw him off guard.
This time Udairaj surprised Adhirath.
“You want to know the truth? I will tell you the truth. As it is the whole matter is like a burden on my chest. I can’t sleep properly. Saroj, get me a drink please.”
Saroj got up, looking a bit unsettled. When she got back there was tall glass in her hand. Udairaj took a sip and said, “is the vodka finished? There is more water in this. Anyway, it will do.”
“Yes, I went there. That Basanti. Or whatever her name was. I was carrying on with her.” He sighed. “Her expectations had gone up too much. She wanted rubies and diamonds. Of course she could not even have thought that I would marry her. but she had got used to luxury. I had given her some jewellery. Clothes. Some cash also. But she always was asking for more. Began to say buy me a flat. I would have. What is thirty, thirty five lacs for me? But the factory closed down. The workers filed many cases against us. Whether there is work or not those workers they wanted their salaries, their severance pay and what not. We had not paid their wages for four months. We were making losses. There was no work in the factory, they sat idle so why would we pay them, but can you talk sense to the working classes? They want compensation. They say it was not their fault that there was no work they had reported regularly on time for the work. Anyway, they filed cases and we shall see when it is decided. I don’t know how much the lawyers will bleed us till then. I was under too much stress. At that very time that woman also began to increasingly ask for more, a lot more. I told Parduman that he was the reason I had met her so he should deal with her. But he was busy making money for himself.”
email: anjalides@gmail.com
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