Crime fiction: Someone has punished Andy for his dark deeds. But who? Could it be his wife Madhvi?

An hour passed.

Madhvi dragged herself out of bed into the bathroom. It was time for the first ritual of the evening – a perfumed shower.

“A woman should always smell like flowers,” he would say. The air was freezing cold, but she knew she couldn’t dress for the season. Standing before her closet, she ran her fingers along the long row of clothes on the hangers. Her skin crawled at the feel of the textures – satin, silk, crepe. She longed for the touch of wool … but in this exquisite wardrobe, curated lovingly by her husband, there was no room for comfort.

Her trembling fingers found the blue chiffon gown with a slit along the thigh. “I want to see you in it when I return, sweetheart,” he had said.

It hadn’t been a request.

Koi ye kaise bataye ke wo tanha kyun hai …
yahee duniya hai toh phir aisi ye duniya kyun hai
yahee hota hai toh aakhir yahee hota kyun hai?

In the simplest of words, this Jagjit Singh song asked all the questions that seared her heart.

Till her late teens, Madhvi had not known the meaning of sadness. Their family of four lived in a 10x10 room that served as the kitchen, living and bedroom. But it had never felt small. In fact, Madhvi’s best memories were of winter nights, wrapped in old blankets and their parents’ arms.

Everybody in the old Gurgaon mohalla knew her as “masterji ki ladki”. Her father, Ganeshi Prasad, was a tailor in a small boutique, and her mother, Damyanti, was a cook in a big kothi on the main road. Together, they earned enough to put their children through school and feed them eggs and milk.

Then one day, Damyanti did not come home.

At first, nobody gave it a second thought. Damyanti’s employers often hosted parties, and she stayed back to cook. If it got beyond nine o’clock, they would drop her off at the mouth of the gully in their car.

But it was past 11 pm, and she wasn’t back.

Ganeshi cooked some khichdi for his kids, and once they were asleep, stepped out to look for his wife. The kothi was about a kilometre away, and as he approached it, he somehow began feeling uneasy. The bungalow guard, dressed in blue, was talking animatedly to someone at the gate. As Ganeshi approached, he shouted, “Here he comes!”, and dashed inside.

Moments later, Damyanti’s saab and memsaab came rushing out. Both looked like they had been struck by lightning. Before he knew what was happening, saab raised his hand and slapped him hard across the face.

“You swine,” he yelled. “You dirty, filthy pig! You sent her here for this.” Then, realising people were stopping to look, he dragged Ganeshi by the arm and pulled him into the kothi. The guard closed the gate with alacrity.

Totally stunned, Ganeshi folded his hands and begged, “Kya hua, saabji? What has my Dammo done?” Theft was the only thing he could think of, but he could not imagine his beloved wife stealing a single penny. Surely, these people were blaming her mistakenly. And where was Dammo? Had they beaten her black and blue? Was she lying inside, bleeding or unconscious?

What they told him next turned his legs to rubber. He collapsed on the ground, wailing. “Saabji, na saabji …”

Damyanti had eloped with their only son, all of 24 years old. He had left behind a letter saying he was deeply in love with Damyanti. She needed to be rescued from her abusive, alcoholic husband. He – they – were leaving and were not to be looked for.

Maybe one day, when we have a child, I shall bring her back and we shall seek your blessings, but today that is not possible, because true love is neither understood nor accepted by our rigid society. Papaji and Mummyji, I am taking jewellery and money from the safe. I hope you will understand and forgive your loving son.

“I will hunt them down and strangle them with my bare hands,” fumed saab, while memsaab just kept howling. They realised Ganeshi was as shocked as they, going by the way tears streamed down his cheeks even though he had fainted.

He tried telling his children that their mother had gone on an emergency visit to her village. But Madhvi and Manoj soon pieced together the entire story.

“Being that beautiful is a curse,” said the well-meaning presswali. “I never told you, Ganeshi, but I once saw her standing with that man behind Swarg Ashram. He was putting a golgappa in her mouth,” said an electrician friend. “I was shocked, but thought he was young enough to be her son …”

And then, Ganeshi himself was clue enough. For weeks he sat lost in a daze, muttering, “Dammo, Dammo … where did I fail in my love for you …”, refusing to eat or sleep. Countless nights he sat in a corner, staring at a bottle of rat poison. How little he had known his beloved wife! To be able to concoct so foul a story; making him out to be a drunken devil … he, who had never even sniffed a bottle of alcohol, never raised a hand on her …

It was only when the boutique lady fired him that he snapped out of his sorrow. He had his two innocent children to think of. Tossing the bottle of poison into the garbage dump, he headed out to hunt for a new job. No one gave him one, so he moved to a smaller mohalla and set up shop in a rented scooter garage.

Madhvi quit studying and began helping her father. He was amazed to discover that she had a natural talent for designing. “Let’s put contrast piping on the sleeves,” she would suggest. “I think a lace border will look good on this kurta.”

It wasn’t long before customers began noticing the girl’s talent. Together, his diligence and her creativity began to pay off. Orders began pouring in, and they worked overtime to keep up. Madhvi refused to let her little brother assist them. “No, Manoj has to go back to school,” she said. “I am there to handle the work front.”

And so they picked up the threads of their life. Manoj passed his higher secondary and began hunting for a job, while Madhvi performed the duties of mother, sister and shop manager.

One day, she was out in the market buying zari when Manoj came running. “Didi … baba …” he panted. They raced back to the shop to find their father writhing on the floor.

And once again, life dealt them a cruel blow. Ganeshi Prasad was diagnosed with kidney stones and advised an immediate operation. During the operation, they discovered a big cyst in the left kidney.

That fateful day, Madhvi’s fledgling dreams came crashing down. She remembered running her hand across the empty savings box, having spent the last of her pennies on her father’s treatment. Even that, of course, had not been enough.

“He needs a kidney replacement,” the doctor said.

It was in those desperate times that Andaleeb Asthana had entered her life. Like an angel. Like the devil.

Excerpted with permission from Soft Kill, Shubhra Krishan, Penguin India.