The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(102)

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN


ARNAV

Arnav gazed at his dreamy wife and sighed, his hand on the fancy steering wheel of his new car. Like all the other joyous transformations in Arnav’s life, this car had showed up because of Tara, to fit in her wheelchair. But nearly one year after that dark Diwali at the farmhouse, he had still not been able to bring her justice.

Or to Neha Chaubey and the other women. The case dragged on in the courts. As Tukaram had predicted, even though some papers claimed that Karan Virani had gone bankrupt funding his nefarious activities, a pack of the country’s highest-paid lawyers stood behind him, trying to get him an insanity defense. Not many others, though. Not Rehaan, who had dropped out of all his movies and the public eye. Not Namit Gokhale who had lost his cabinet seat as the Home Minister following the newspaper reports. He took every opportunity to mention his lack of association with Bollywood stars. Nor Joshi, who had been suspended and was being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Arnav still couldn’t believe he’d mistaken Karan for Rehaan. Yes, they were the same height, wore similar beards and clothes, and the smoke had made him queasy, but he was a police officer. He should have known. He was the reason why Tara had not found peace in all these months.

The only sense of closure he could give Neha Chaubey’s family was to gather her body together, and arrange her funeral. He’d done the same for all the other women’s remains: the bones from the evidence locker, the others Bilal had helped uncover, buried in the farmhouse’s courtyard rose garden.

Twelve bar dancers had died. Seven bodies from the cases recorded by the police. Five more, whose skulls were unearthed from Karan Virani’s garden, their bodies never located. Rasool’s men had confessed, but their boss had escaped to Thailand, running his empire from Bangkok, if Zoya’s sporadic calls to Tara were any indication. Vijayan’s name had risen on the most-wanted list, his remaining men, arrested at the farmhouse, in jail.

Nandini and her articles had kept interest in the case alive, as had Kittu, Karan, and Rehaan Virani’s fans, fighting hashtag battles on social media—relentless in their strident demand for a detailed enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The court of public opinion had condemned Karan Virani, especially after Kittu Virani’s postmortem report leaked. She’d died of an overdose of vecuronium bromide, exactly like Neha Chaubey. Kittu had lain paralyzed but awake for each moment of her foot being sawed off. She’d died bleeding and unable to breathe, with her heart shutting down in cardiac arrest.

Arnav often had nightmares of that horrific basement, but long drives like this with song and laughter were an equally frequent experience. When they reached the Ravan Dahan, Arnav sent Pia with the others to go up close to watch the Ravan burn. He parked Tara’s wheelchair at the grass near the beach with a view of the Ravan Dahan and the sea. His head on her lap, he watched the traditional fierce red demon, with his black handlebar mustache, his evil, tortured eyes, his mechanical arm slicing the air with a tiny, ineffectual sword. He thought of Asha, who used to make fun of his scrambled-Ravan name, and smiled.

Tara crooned under her breath, a sad yet hopeful tune that he didn’t recognize at first but turned out to be a rendition of Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi. As darkness descended around them in a comforting embrace, the Ravan caught fire, releasing gunpowder and sulfur smoke, lighting upward from the ground, spitting out a bouquet of firecrackers to the loud cheering for the victory of good over evil from the gathered revelers. Tomorrow, this Ravan would be swept away with the debris.

No endings, though. Only beginnings. Another Ravan would rise again soon—a ritual of nature. As Pia raced toward them, laughing, chased by her friends, Arnav held on to Tara’s soft, nerveless hand. From moment to moment, life changes its face, he hummed with Tara in Hindi. In this moment, for now, it seemed enough for the demon to keep burning.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Books are magical things that look like they are made of paper and color and ink, but the secret ingredients are the authors’ tears and infinite solidarity from the community that surrounds them.

The Blue Bar came into my consciousness in a UEA-India writing workshop by Romesh Gunesekera: Tara in her shimmering blue saree. Its first chapters were written at a workshop by David Corbett.

I wrote the first draft in Kuala Lumpur in a month of isolation facilitated by Sharin Hassan and Karen Pereira.

I was able to research it in Mumbai, owing to the hospitality of Karishma Radhakrishnani and Rohit Mansukhani. Key research also became possible by the grace of the inimitable Satvasheela Prithviraj Chavan, who aided me in speaking with police officers and visiting training facilities to understand the lives of the brave and proud Mumbai Police. I spoke to officers who shall go unnamed because of confidentiality reasons: they described a police officer’s life, the realities of patrolling, and the workings of gangs and dance bars. Vaishali Ghorpade made some of these impossible-to-organize meetings happen, as well.

More assistance came from Koral Dasgupta: she introduced me to Deepak Rao, the deeply knowledgeable Mumbai Police historian, who advised me with key location, police procedure, and plot possibilities. So many other friends offered support as I visited slums and dance bar neighborhoods, and walked Mumbai’s streets.

Thanks to the generosity of Vandana Shah, I got to visit the movie sets of Tanhaji and watch an actual film shoot in progress, where ace director Om Raut shared his insights. Irene Dhar Malik put me in touch with her brother, the maverick filmmaker Onir, who explained how a film production works and the ways of Bollywood denizens. Noted screenwriter Shiv Kumar Subramaniam gave sage advice on writing, acting, and the Bollywood lifestyle.