Deja Karma Read online

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  A NOTE TO READERS

  HAVE YOU READ BHENDI BAZAAR?

  COMING IN 2016

  DOOSRA - THE OTHER ONE

  Prologue

  Rumour Books India

  Plot. No 40, Sector 4,

  Panchkula, Haryana,

  India – 134112

  www.rumourbooks.com

  This edition 2015

  1

  First published Worldwide

  by Rumour Books India in 2015

  Copyright © Vish Dhamija 2015

  Vish Dhamija asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work

  ISBN 978-1-63041-284-5

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

  the work of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental, unless stated otherwise.

  Set in Palatino by Ayushmaan Designs, Zirakpur

  Printed and bound in India

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Find out more about Rumour Books India at

  www.rumourbooks.com

  Dedicated to the memory of

  RUCHIRA PATHANIA

  (1968 – 2014)

  See you later, Ruchira

  Hinduism was designed to be a philosophy, a way of life; it was never intended to become a religion but it inadvertently developed into one. It is one of the simplest of religions: if you wish to convert to Hinduism you don’t have to perform any rites, you merely declare yourself as a follower of the faith. The Hindus believe in Karma. And reincarnation. What most people think of when they think of Hindus is paganism, and that Hinduism is a profusion of Gods, but it isn’t. True, Hindus are polytheistic who recognise the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh (commonly known as Shiva). The Creator. The Protector. The Destroyer.

  Brahma is a demiurge in the truest sense of the word: creator of the world yet he became a subordinate God due to a curse. Fact is, who needs the creator after the creation? Vishnu is the antipode of Brahma. The pantheon of deities — Krishna, Rama, Ganesh et al. — are all avatars of Vishnu, all worshipped to protect the believers. Shiva — the God of destruction — is undeniably the most feared and revered of all Gods, worshipped in very few forms: Himself, Nandi (the trusted bull He rides), Vasuki Naga (the serpent wrapped thrice around His neck to represent past, present and future), Trishul (His weapon) and the Lingam (the phallus). Shiva, supposedly, has a third eye on His forehead, which, if He opens, can destroy everything. But Shiva does not wish for an apocalypse, He does not destroy because He wants to; He destroys only when there is no other option.

  Your Karma invokes His choice.

  Author’s Note

  In India, the terms “lawyer” and “vakil” are often colloquially used; the official term is “advocate” as prescribed under the Advocates Act, 1961. Hence, before some advocate decides to take me to court over this, I confess I have taken the liberty of informally using Advocate, Lawyer, Attorney, Solicitor and Vakil in both their singular and plural forms to break the monotony of repetition. I could have also used Counsellor and Barrister, but the former sounded too American and the latter, very British.

  Judges in the Supreme Court and High Courts of India are addressed as “My Lord / My Lady” – a legacy of the British. India, being a constitutional democracy, the Bar Council passed a resolution to refer to judges as “Your Honour” or “Janaab”. To preserve the dignity of democracy, at all times, I have addressed the Judge as Your Honour or Janaab.

  At any given point in time, there are over three crore (30 mil-lion) cases pending in Indian Courts. Which means: if I adhered to the true timetable on hearings of this trial this book could go on forever. I have, therefore fast-tracked the case to bring it to a swift conclusion.

  PROLOGUE

  I have rehearsed these lines numerous times since that ill-fated night. The only question I’d ask God — if there is a God — when I see Him: why me?

  If you asked me what can one change in a minute, I would say, a whole life. Not even a minute. Just as a life can be created in less than a minute, so can it be taken. I understand that everyone who is born, dies, but the time allotted between birth and death is your fate-determined tryst with life. Sadly, the enormity of annihilating a life prematurely is such that it alters the life of not only the one who dies but also the abandoned unfortunates, imprisoning them in a catchall of lifelong hurt, a pain that does not fade away. In my case kismet had cheated me. It hadn’t provided me with my expected predestined stretch with either of my parents on earth.

  The day, which for most of us is the beginning of their lives, ended up being the gloomiest one for me. It hadn’t started out that way. The beginning and end of the same evening were as different as black from white. An electrifying evening — in more ways than one — gave way to a sordid dénouement that was, only a few hours previously, absolutely inconceivable. And though it was a celebratory night for all of us who had taken the final undergrad paper, it was a forlorn finish for just one of us. Me.

  I have rehearsed these lines countless times since that ill-fated night, the only thing I’d ask God when I see Him: why me?

  Why did it have to be my father who got murdered that night? And if that wasn’t enough, why did it have to be my mother who was accused of and convicted of the heinous crime?

  My dad — I loathed him more than I loved him, but he was still my father — was a successful real estate agent who had also invested in other real estate developers’ properties. And though he was the sole provider for our family of three, he was a heavy drinker, an obstinate man who had, of late, become a wife-beater. Squabbles over trivial matters had become a regular feature between my parents. During the Emergency declared by Mrs Gandhi in the late Seventies, the uncertainty in the country and the capital city Delhi forced the property market to crash. At any given point in time my father had millions invested in a multitude of building projects, and when the market nosedived, the money became inaccessible. Worse, no one knew how long it would take for the situation to change. The succeeding government by Janta Party did not stay in long enough to improve matters, and hence cash in our household became scarce and alcohol proliferated in our family life like a virus. The fights became fiercer, more frequent, and filthier. Beatings became more unruly. It had become an almost everyday occurrence now to see my mother bruised, beaten black and blue when I returned from college. Now that I had grown up, I had warned my dad but he, still the sole provider, couldn’t have cared less.

  I remember t
he day vividly. When I had returned from the college revelry, drunk and spaced out, maybe even drugged — who knew what we all smoked and drank — I walked through the front door and saw my father leaning over my cowering mother as she lay wailing on the sofa. I rushed to help her, but seeing that my yelling didn’t stop him, I had run into the kitchen, picked up the meat knife and returned to show him the gleaming blade. I told him in as many words that I wouldn’t stop from slashing his throat if he didn’t leave my mother alone that minute.

  Retracing his steps, his eyes bloodshot and staring at me, my father muttered something incoherent.

  ‘Just get away from her,’ I yelled back, the knife still in my hand. ‘Ungrateful bastard, get out of my house.’ He was too drunk to argue or confront me any further. He stormed out of the living room and went straight to his bedroom. My mother gave me a vexed look first, then hugged me and followed my father into their bedroom. I was too intoxicated to move, to go to my room or to change clothes, and the last thing I remember was plummeting onto the very beige fabric sofa. I have no recollection of anything — you could have had Kenny G play his soprano sax into my ears and I wouldn’t have stirred — till I heard my mother’s scream in the early hours of Saturday morning.

  The image is burnt into my mind in 4D — I can still smell the blood, warm and flowing, my mother standing in shock over my father’s body holding the very meat knife with which I had threatened my dad, her prints all over the long black grip of the blade, her right eye still black.

  Although I was wasted the whole time, I carry a faint memory that there was someone else in our home that night. “Who” it was only occurred to me later, much later, but it was merely my deduction and nothing evidential. However, I never mentioned this to anyone, partly because I was myself never certain if I saw, heard or imagined this person, and more importantly, who would have believed anything that I said considering the state I had been in?

  Everything, everyone was there but the lights went out. It was like groping with the darkness, the nothingness. Flashes struck my brain, but vanished instantaneously. I remember tousling my hair in frustration, in shock, in horror. Then I passed out again.

  With my father dead and my mother arrested — and soon to be incarcerated for the rest of her life — I, Jay Singh, became an orphan that very day. The wheels of my life came off the rails. Clichéd dystopia followed. I was dropped into the real world without a warning, like a rookie swimmer pushed into the deep end without a warm-up.

  The luxury of dreaming was over.

  ONE

  The black Audi slowed down.

  The chauffeur, Bhīma, certainly wasn’t comfortable driving in this sea of traffic with chaotic waves of pedestrians and cyclists, rickshaws, two wheelers and other drivers in their cheap and derelict cars. Despite being in the closed air-conditioned cabin, the sounds from the street were loud and the stench from the open sewage overpowered the expensive deodorant in the ventilation system of the car. The shops on either side of the road were completely rundown — broken signages, shattered windows; gaudy lighting and glaring displays were put up to conceal the dilapidated exteriors — some were even boarded up and the homeless day-labourers were settling in on those storefronts for an early night. An unbroken string of hawkers on trolleys and carts stood outside the shops and blocked access to them, but no one here sold anything of interest to the passenger or even the chauffeur of the car. The Audi, in these surroundings, was itself as out of place as a camel marching in a zebra suit. People turned to see if it was some celebrity, a film star, a singer, some cricketer, but the darkened windows disallowed them that. Must be some VIP, they assumed and moved on.

  ‘Stop anywhere after that white building on the left,’ said the sahib from the back seat, pointing at the building in the next block.

  ‘Jee, Hukum.’

  The car turned left into a side road and stopped. Bhīma got out. He wore a suit. Summer, winter, autumn, spring, morning, noon, evening or night, Bhīma always wore a suit; it was part of his uniform. More importantly, in deference to safety, the jacket of his suit concealed the handgun — a Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum — that he was licensed to carry as security for his boss, Jay Singh. Of course, like many others in India, there were other firearms that Jay Singh owned, but this was the only one that the authorities knew of. Bhīma looked around, his sharp eyes darting like a fox to canvass the area around the car. Bhīma was built like a small mountain; he could well have been a reincarnation of the legendary Bhīma from Mahabharata, or a cousin of modern day Khali of World Wrestling Entertainment. At six feet eleven inches and weighing over a hundred and seventy kilos, he towered over everyone and everything, especially his boss who stood five feet seven. He was the chauffeur-cum-bodyguard-cum-valet-cum-Man Friday, and as loyal to his master as a thoroughbred St. Bernard. Truth is, no one makes such devoted friends in life without eliciting fierce animosity in others. And sometimes you create enemies that stay enemies till they croak. Or you do. Armistice just cannot happen. Of course, some of Jay’s arch enemies had attempted to do what they, themselves, couldn’t achieve with Bhīma around: persuade and bribe Bhīma, but it wasn’t money that got loyalty from him. It was a deep-rooted debt of gratitude that — despite Jay treating him as a close friend — the latter revered his master no lesser than a God. The alliance, the bond was simply unfaltering, and the fidelity: absolute and indefatigable. Unquestioning.

  Once sure of the security, Bhīma moved to open the rear door for the sahib who offered an almost imperceptible nod of approval and disappeared into the white building, which was a hospital. Before entering the hospital, Jay put a hand in his jacket’s inner pocket and speed-dialled Bhīma’s cell from his spare phone. This call would continue till he returned to Bhīma’s sight. This was standard operating procedure. Bhīma would listen attentively to all communication on his car radio — a passer-by could be forgiven for thinking that Bhīma was listening to the audio version of George Orwell’s Animal farm — and would react within minutes, in the event of any emergency, in case his boss was in trouble of any sort.

  ***

  The hospital — if one could call it that — was more of a general practitioner’s clinic with basic facilities and seven rooms for private patients. If one were to look at the official hospital listings — that is, if there were such a guide in Gurgaon — BK Memorial Hospital wouldn’t even feature. Jay’s research had revealed that it was run by its owner-proprietor, one Dr KK Mehta, who was a plain MBBS with no specialisation, but business was brisk, with a never-ending queue of patients from eight in the morning till the same time in the evening. In fairness, Mehta worked relentlessly and even took on apprentices to help out with the patients; he had ten nurses working in shifts to provide services to private beds 24/7.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ asked the receptionist, with henna-streaked hair, looking up from the computer screen she might have been staring at for the last ten or so hours.

  Jay could see the bewilderment on her pretty face. He knew that by no stretch of the imagination did he look like or dress like patients that consulted Dr Mehta on a regular basis, but he didn’t care. Wasn’t that the sole reason he was here? Moreover, she had no business judging him.

  ‘I have an appointment with Dr Mehta at 7:45.’

  ‘Your name please?’

  ‘Singh, Jay Singh.’

  The girl quickly browsed through the diary on the screen in front of her.

  ‘Take a seat Mr Singh. Dr Mehta is with a patient. He’ll call you as soon as he’s free.’

  Jay lifted the sleeve of his expensive olive green linen jacket and glanced at his Hublot: 7:38. He was indeed early, despite the traffic. He looked around to find the reception area completely unoccupied, exactly as he had expected. He had booked the last available appointment of the day since he didn’t want Dr Mehta to be in any kind of haste to see a subsequent patient.

  One needed time to build comradeship.

  He sat there taking in Dr Mehta�
�s clinic: basic yet clean, professional yet unsophisticated — several past issues of the ubiquitous health and vigour magazines found only in waiting areas of doctors, dentists and vets were scattered on the only table in the waiting area.

  Dr Mehta could do so much better.

  ‘Mr Singh,’ the girl’s voice broke Jay’s trance. ‘Dr Mehta will see you now.’

  Jay looked at his watch again. 7:53; the doctor had made him wait eight minutes. He got up and elegantly walked to the receptionist. ‘Thank you,’ he said with a charming smile, that left the girl’s knees a bit wobbly, and moseyed into the doctor’s room. What was the rush?

  ‘Good evening, Mr…’ Dr Mehta uttered, looked up from his screen and stood up to receive his last patient for the day. His countenance also communicated that his clients didn’t look like the guy who had just walked in, that he was used to the pedestrian variety, not swish clientele. ‘…Singh.’

  ‘Good evening, Doctor.’

  ‘How may I help you, Mr Singh?’

  ‘You can call me Jay.’

  Jay Singh skimmed Dr Mehta’s room in one glance. Certificates of his practice, his medical school diplomas, a photograph of his hospital being inaugurated by somebody — even if the somebody wasn’t influential enough to be a known face — and an overabundance of inconsequential freebies that representatives from pharmaceutical companies gift to doctors.

  ‘I want to invest in your hospital.’ Jay sat down without invitation.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Dr Mehta looked confounded. He almost fell into his chair, his eyebrows rose a few centimetres.

  ‘You heard it correct, Dr Mehta. I am here to make a deal.’

  ‘Have me met before, Jai?’

  ‘Jay, like the alphabet J.’

  ‘Have we ever met before, Jay?’ the doctor repeated

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘So, would you mind if I asked you: who are you?’

  ‘Jay Singh. I am a straight-talking defence advocate who wants to invest in your hospital—’

  ‘I am a doctor and you, a defence advocate. Why would you want to invest in a hospital? More notably, why would I let you invest in my hospital?’ Dr Mehta impatiently interjected.