I saw her on Monday afternoon, the day of the surgery. It was my usual practice to discuss my surgeries with the family members of the patients. It helped them understand the situation thoroughly and get prepared for future precautions and check-ups. Many family members turned up for these discussions, and the hospital was continually running short of space to seat them all. While some accommodated themselves in the common lobby, ten trying to fit in a bench made for five, others made do with the marble floor. I opened the door at the end of the corridor and called
out, “Charles Sobhraj!”
I was expecting to see five police officers, and probably a worried lady possessing a small frame – his lawyer. Instead, a young girl with a healthy glow on her face ran towards me. I recognised her instantly, possibly from the scandalous television programmes and her stint on Bigg Boss. It was Nihita Biswas.
She didn’t look much like her mother, except that she too had a small stature. She was dusky and big-eyed, and exuded a distinct Bengali aura. Numerous pairs of eyes looked up as she started running; I could almost feel their ears straining to hear the conversation between us. I addressed her in a low voice. “His surgery was successful. I tried to repair the valve, but it did not work out well. I had to replace it since his heart was too frail to withstand a continued leak and the prospect of another surgery in the future.”
Tears rolled down from her eyes.
“Don’t worry; he is doing fine now. He needs to remain in the hospital for a few days, but he has started recovering.”
“When will he wake up, doctor?”
“After heart surgeries, nearly all patients need to remain sedated in the ICU. We stop the sedatives only after checking that everything is normal. So, it will depend on how quickly he recovers.”
She nodded slightly and walked back to her seat, her face directed away from me.
That evening, of all the news reports I saw, there was one that caught me completely off guard. The Telegraph, a news agency based out of the United Kingdom, had this curious quote: We did not want the surgery to happen in Nepal because we do not trust Nepal. That is why we got hold of a doctor who is related to the family. We could trust only a relative with the surgery.
What? Me, a relative of Charles Sobhraj? I had never known that my ancestors had visited Indo-China; Sobhraj’s parents had never visited Nepal. There hadn’t even been an inter-caste marriage in my extended family. Exactly how were Charles and I related?
I called Gyanmani Mama. His curious connection with Charles had left me stumped that day in Khaptad. Perhaps he would know something? “Mama, how is Charles my relative?” I asked him over the phone. “Nihita told a British news agency that I am related to his family.” Mama chuckled. “I am afraid I have something to do with it. You know that I have known Shakuntala Didi for a long time, don’t you? Well, I had a college senior called Biswas in Bhadrapur, who later got married to her. Their daughter studied in the same school as my cousin; she used to call me uncle.”
The morning news was flooded with pictures of Tribhuvan International Airport; a huge amount of gold had been seized there again. I wondered how someone repeatedly dared to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of gold via the airport. A friend once told me, “Those kilos of gold amount to nothing. The real stuff – thousands of kilos, not hundreds – are smuggled through customs.” Perhaps Charles’s confidence of being able to smuggle an elephant through Nepalese customs wasn’t just bravado. Charles was now fit enough to be transferred to his cabin. The swelling from his legs had already vanished; his lungs were as dry as the roasted coffee beans I had beaten for my morning cup. His kidneys were producing a fairly good amount of urine on their own, and we had stopped the diuretics. Catecholamines were not needed anymore to boost the pumping of his heart.
We kept him in the ICU a little longer than required, mainly because the hospital could not afford separate nurses for all the patients in wards and cabins. But by the third day in the ICU, he was wide awake and flirting with some of the nurses. Or so they claimed.
“Why don’t you have bedside tables here?” Charles enquired while I was completing his check-up.
“You mean these?” I pointed towards the bedside table on his left.
“No, no. I mean those tables to help you eat when you’re in bed.”
“Oh, over-bed tables? Well, we do have some, but they are usually occupied by medical charts and X-rays. Whenever you need one, feel free to ask for it.”
He didn’t look satisfied. “Your ICU is quite good, and the staff is efficient. But these tables are not good.”
No one acknowledged that remark, but he went on nonetheless.
“How many beds do you have in the ICU?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Okay, then I will ask my embassy to donate thirty-six nice tables to the hospital.”
His embassy indeed! He talked as if he was the chief of the French embassy, overwhelming a small-time hospital with a massive act of generosity. It made me angry. Here was this European passport holder pretending to be a big shot when he possessed no more than two pairs of clothes and a single pair of colourless, torn shoes! I could never stand it when anyone treated our hospital and us like beggars.
“Rosy,” I called out to the nurse-in-charge. “Give him a pair of slippers to wear. We can consider it a donation from the hospital to a French national. Or you can ask the accounting department to deduct the cost from my salary.’
Charles didn’t seem to mind my angry, sarcastic remark.
“Did Reik call you?”
“No! I have already told you ten times. Why do you want these journalists to contact me anyway?”
“Many people want to know about my condition. I need to assure them that I’m fine.”
Of course. The world had almost stopped because they hadn’t heard directly from a convict for some days. In any case, the media had already concocted detailed reports on his condition, even if they hadn’t had a chance to verify most of them.
“What is the news outside?” he asked, looking interested.
Keeping abreast of the news and being in the news was critical to him.
I could tell him that Pakistan beat India in the final of the ICC Champion’s trophy; Dhoni had been able to score only four runs. I could also tell him that the BJP had nominated Mr Kovind, a scheduled-caste politician, as the presidential candidate. It was being seen as an excellent move by the Modi government. But I knew this was not the news he actually wanted to hear.
“Nothing special. Don’t worry, the world knows about your surgery.”
“But I would like to tell everyone about my progress personally,” he declared as if a huge fan-following was waiting outside the hospital to meet him, eager to hear his voice and see his face.
“Okay,” I said, desperate to end the pointless, frustrating conversation. “Let me do you a favour.” I took out my mobile phone and filmed a small video clip of about 30 seconds. Charles happily announced that he was doing well and recovering in the hospital. That evening, I uploaded the video on my Twitter account with the hashtag #CharlesSobhraj.
By the next morning, Randeep Hooda had quoted my tweet, saying that he was so glad to see him and hear about him, and was “happy that it all went well.” There were two love emojis.
“No one else?” asked Charles, when I showed him the tweet.
I couldn’t believe how self-absorbed he was. Was he expecting a flood of well-wishers to send him “get well soon” messages? I am sure he wouldn’t have liked the tone of the messages that had come in – words bathed in disgust, targeted against the both of us.
Excerpted with permission from Charles Sobhraj: Inside the Heart of the Bikini Killer, Raamesh Koirala, Rupa Publications.
