The arranged murder?️

chapter 2

Hello, this is Saurabh Maheshwari speaking, taking over from his

lordship Keshav for only a short while.

I am on my way to meet my fiancee Prerna on Karva Chauth.

I took an auto rickshaw to New Friends Colony, a roughly half-hour ride

from Malviya Nagar, and rubbed my hands to keep them warm.

'Left?' Prema’s message brought a smile to my face.

’Yes, in an auto' I replied.

’Come soon. I’m hungry.'

’Yes' I replied.

‘Drive fast, bhaiya' I told the auto driver.

I looked at my phone and smiled. Could there be a luckier man? My

fiancee decided to keep a Karva Chauth fast for me, even though we aren’t

technically married. Isn’t she sweet?

’Haven’t eaten anything all day. No water even ®' Prerna messaged.

’Have something, my chikki.’

'No, the moon rises in less than thirty minutes. You’ll be here by then.

That’s when I break the fast.'

’I love you' I texted.

’I love you too'

Another message came immediately after. ’I have something special to

share with you.’

‘What?’

‘Come and I’ll tell you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something unbelievable but special. I just found out/

I called her on video call. She picked up. She was in her room. I saw her

super cute face. She shook her head.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Don’t look at me like that. I want you to see me in my Karva Chauth

clothes for real. When I am fully ready'

‘Wait, what did you want to tell me?'

‘I’ll tell you—come quickly, no? I'm hungryyyy.’

‘I am comingggg...’ I replied. She cut the call.

As the auto rickshaw waded through the Delhi traffic, I thought of

Keshav.So Mr Keshav Rajpurohit has allowed me a tiny space here to tell my

side of the story. This is after he has given you his version. He’s already

brainwashed you, I’m sure. He has perhaps told you that I am just an

oversensitive sissy on his way to becoming a henpecked husband. That it is

me who overreacted. Mr Oh-so-cool Keshav was just making some

sarcastic comments and I should just get over it. Oh, and I’m sure he told

you I slacked off on work at CyberSafe and ignored Z Detectives

completely? Good, believe him.

I fell in love, that's what happened. For the first time in my life. Just

looking at Prema smile makes me melt inside like a chocolate lava cake.

When Prerna calls, every word she speaks is a happiness injection right into

my veins. Call me a romantic fool.

Unlike Keshav, I have never had a long-term girlfriend or any short-

term hook-ups. Did he tell you about his Tinder addiction? Yes, it is an

addiction. He’s slept with ten girls since last year. He doesn’t even know

their last names. In some cases, not even the first. You can call him a stud or

whatever. To me, it is a sickness. He can do whatever the hell he wants. But

he has to understand I'm different. I have one, and only one, Prema. That’s

who it is going to be for the rest of my life. To make her happy, I skipped

work a few times. I took a trip with her. I helped her in her work. Of course,

Mr Keshav, upset that I wasn’t giving him a hundred per cent attention,

sulked like a baby. He has forgotten how I used to cover for him at Chandan

Classes, our previous job, when he would skip work to meet his girlfriend. I

would not only make good excuses for him, but also finish his assignments.

Even at CyberSafe, he once had a Tinder match who could only meet in the

afternoon. He dashed out of the office and I covered for him and told Jacob

he had a family emergency. Of course, when time comes to return the

favour, Mr Six Pack bitches and whines about my relationship.

And then he crossed all limits one day when Prerna was at home. You

want to know what happened?

‘Why have you stopped?’ I said to the driver when I realised we hadn’t

moved for five minutes.

TIT signal. Takes a long while here,’ he said.

I checked the time. It was 7.24 p.m. According to Google, the moon

would be visible at 7.46 p.m. I had some time. I didn’t want Prerna to wait

in hunger a minute more than she needed to. I just had to get there before

the moon did. Of course, the moon didn’t have to deal with Delhi traffic.‘Where have you reached?’ Prerna sent a message.

‘Twenty minutes away. IIT signal is a pain.’ ‘Cool. Take

your time. I will try not to faint.’ ‘Hungry, my gulab jamun?’

‘On the roof, all decked up, waiting for you.’

‘Moon there?’

‘Don’t see it yet.’

‘I will reach soon,* I said.

‘Take the stairs. The back door is open.’

The signal turned green for the third time and my auto finally got a

chance to cross. I checked my pocket for the gold necklace I had bought for

her.

Fifteen minutes later, the auto entered the quieter lanes of New Friends

Colony, passing the metro station, and then into A Block. Prerna lives in a

four-hundred-square-yards kothi, or bungalow, located in a lane of posh

bungalows. A narrow lane passes behind these kothis, allowing access to

the back entrances. Entering from the front door would mean meeting the

entire Malhotra clan. Neither Prerna nor I wanted to be ridiculed for being

this lovey-dovey couple that keeps a Karva Chauth fast before marriage. We

had decided she would keep the creaky metal back door open for me

instead.

‘Right here,’ I said to the driver when we reached the back lane.

‘Main entrance is in the front,’ he said as he fumbled for change.

‘It’s fine,’ I said and stepped out.

The grey evening, cold breeze and dim light made the alley seem darker

than usual. I looked up at the sky. No moon yet, or at least I couldn’t see it

from where I was. I gently opened the back door and shut it from inside. I

climbed up the steps from the ground floor, where the Malhotras had their

main living room. I passed the mezzanine level, which had the kitchen for

the entire house. I heard the whistle of a pressure cooker and could smell

rajma being made. This is a gift —I can tell what is being cooked in a

kitchen far away by just breathing. I guess the Malhotras were readying

themselves for a post-Karva Chauth feast. I paused to catch my breath on

the first level. Maaji, Prerna’s grandmother, stayed here with Anjali,

Prerna’s cousin from America, and Prerna’s aunt Bindu, who taught in a

school and looked a bit like a scary headmistress with her spectacles, stocky

frame and curly hair. After a few seconds of rest, I climbed up to the second

level. Prerna lived here with her parents, Ramesh and Nee-lam, along withher fourteen-year-old brother Ajay. I panted as I climbed up to the third

floor. Aditya, Prerna’s father’s younger brother, occupied this entire floor.

He lived alone, but also had his music studio here. I could hear music being

played inside. I reached the final few steps that took me to the terrace. I

checked that my sweater and kurta were in place. The climb had made me

sweaty but I had carried my cologne with me. After a few liberal sprays, I

pushed at the already open terrace door.

'Mehndi lagake rakhna, doli sajake rakhna,’ I sang the song from

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, the movie which had a classic rooftop

Karva Chauth scene.

The sky had become pitch black. The slight fog made the shimmering

lights of the New Friends Colony houses twinkle in the background. As I

sang the song, I looked at the sky. There it was—the fourth day of the

moon, which all the married ladies in Delhi would be flocking to see along

with their husbands tonight. In this case, husband-to-be in three months.

'Lene tujhe, o gori.. .’ I continued to sing. I looked around for a Prerna

dressed in traditional wear, metal sieve in hand, smiling shyly. She does that

—goes shy on me when I least expect it.

'Prerna, bebu, I’m here. You can eat now,’ I said and laughed.

No response. Near the terrace door I found a switch for the light. I

flicked it on. A yellow bulb lit up brightly. The entire terrace became

visible. Still no Prerna.

’Jalebi, where are you?’ I said a bit louder.

In one comer of the terrace, a red and gold dupatta lay on the floor. I

went over and picked it up. It lifted in the wind and the mesh-like fabric hit

my face. I removed the dupatta from my face and looked at the floor again.

Three feet from me I saw a metal sieve. I lifted it up and turned it around in

my hand a few times. I looked at the moon through it, as Prerna was

supposed to see it. Had she gone down to use the restroom? I took out my

phone and dialled her number. There was no response.

I heard horns blaring from down below on the main road outside the

house. There seemed to be a traffic jam. I looked over the ledge of the

terrace. Traffic had stopped on both sides. A crowd had gathered below,

right in front of Prema’s house. I tried to see what had happened. I couldn’t

figure out much in the darkness.

I dialled Prema’s number again. I couldn’t reach her. I typed a message.

‘Where are you, bebu? Waiting for you on the terrace.’She didn’t read it—only one tick on w******p. The message didn’t

even get delivered.

‘Aren’t you hungry? Come, eat,’ I sent another one.

Even this message went undelivered. The noise below rose in volume. I

still couldn’t figure out what was going on. Maybe something had happened

and Prerna had gone down to join the crowd as well, I thought. I turned

towards the terrace door to take the stairs down.

Before I could reach the door, Prerna’s father Ramesh and two other

men came running upstairs to the terrace. I recognised Gupta and Arora,

neighbours of the Malhotras.

‘Hello, Uncle—’ I said before Ramesh interrupted me.

‘Saurabh? You were here with her?’

‘With Prerna? I came to meet her. Where’s she?’

He didn’t respond. He touched the dupatta in my hand.

‘I found this here, Uncle, when I came.’

Gupta took the metal sieve from my other hand. He showed it to

Ramesh and Arora.

‘Malhotra ji,’ he said, ‘you better not let this boy go.’

'Go where?’ I said, perplexed.

‘Uncle, what’s happening? I just spoke to Prerna,’ I said to Ramesh. He

remained silent as we walked down the stairs. Gupta held my elbow tight.

‘Uncle, why are you holding my arm so hard?’ I said to Gupta as we

reached the ground floor.

On the ground floor, we crossed the living room, the front patio and the

main gate to come out of the house. There was still a crowd on the road.

Traffic remained choked. A few cars were trying to take U-turns, away

from the jam. Many of Prerna’s family members stood there as well.

‘Saurabh?’ Neelam aunty, Prerna’s mother, saw me first. She wore a

shocked expression. She looked at me as if she knew my name but could

not place me.

The crowd had formed a circle on the road.

That was when I saw Prerna. Face down on the road. In a red and gold

lehenga that matched the du-patta I’d had in my hand a few minutes ago.

Her shoulder-length hair covered the back of her head and the side of her

face. Even in the darkness I could make out the pool of blood around her

head. The people around her stood in absolute silence.

‘Prerna,’ I said as I ran towards her.‘Stop,’ Ramesh said and grabbed my wrist.

‘Uncle that’s... is she hurt?’

He shook his head.

‘What?’ I said.

‘She’s gone,’ Ramesh said, fighting back tears.

My heartbeat paused for a second. I looked at the others, stunned.

Aditya and Prema’s brother Ajay stood with frozen expressions. Next to

them, Neelam sobbed as she held Bindu, who herself was visibly trembling.

‘I just spoke to her,’ I screamed loud enough to startle everyone.

Aditya came and placed his muscular arm around my shoulder. He

patted my back unsteadily.

‘Aditya chachu, what happened?’ I said.

‘She fell down,’ Aditya said, pointing to the roof of the house.

I extricated myself from Aditya’s grip. I ran up to Prerna. I went down

on my knees and touched her hair.

‘Prema, I am here. Let’s eat,’ I whispered.

Gupta and Ramesh came up to me and tapped my shoulder.

‘The police are coming,’ Gupta said. ‘Better we don’t disturb the body.’

‘Police? Body? What?’ I said. ‘She needs to be taken to a hospital.’

‘Come back, Saurabh,’ Ramesh said, his voice soft yet firm.

Both of them held me and helped me to stand up. They pulled me back

a few steps. Gupta had selfassumed the role of guarding me. He gently held

my right hand with his, sort of like a light leash I could not get out of.

Neelam and Bindu were crying loudly by now. Some elderly ladies

came around to console them. I saw Ramesh bite his lip to fight back tears.

Ajay hid his face in Aditya’s chest. With the family in shock and sorrow,

the neighbours tried to determine what to do next.

‘Let’s move her to the side,’ Arora said.

‘No, we should wait for the police,’ Gupta said.

I felt numb. This had not just happened. Maybe I took a nap at home in

the afternoon. This was a horrible dream. I will just wake up and rush out to

meet Prerna. We will feed each other sweets on the terrace looking at the

moon.

Blood from her body was travelling to my feet. I stared at its slow

progress in the darkness. I looked at Prerna again. Properly. Her hands had

henna on them. She had specially applied it for Karva Chauth. I told myself

to wake up. Nothing is wrong with Prerna. My mind went into a blur as itdisconnected from reality. I could see the scenes around me but could not

make sense of them. I heard the siren of a Gypsy; the police were here. I

saw cops speak to Prerna’s father. One of them took pictures of the body

from the top, sides and several close-ups. He also took a picture of the

house and the terrace.

‘Shall we move the body aside?’ Arora said. As colony president, he

was keen to disperse the crowd and get the road functional again.

‘Come, let’s lift her,’ I heard someone say. Almost like a robot, I joined

six other people who lifted Prerna’s heavy body.

‘Not the side of the road. Let’s take it inside,’ a constable said. She was

an ‘it’ now?

They took the body into the house, without any clue where to keep it.

First they kept it on the patio. After some intense discussions, they told us

to lift her up again and take her to the living room. We had no idea where to

place her there either. After all, a living room is for living people, who can

sit anywhere, on the sofa, easy chairs or even the dining chairs. Where do

you place a dead person in a living room? Someone suggested the carpet.

Blood still dripped from the body, leaving an eerie trail wherever we carried

her. Bad, bad dream, I told myself, even as my eyes followed the bloody

track.

‘Place newspapers,’ one of the neighbours had an ingenious idea. Old

papers were spread on the rug in multiple layers. On pages of Delhi Times,

which had an interview with Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt, we placed

Prerna on her back. I could see her face now. Covered in blood, her nose,

cheeks and one of her eyes were badly wounded. They would take a long

time to heal—if she was alive, I added to myself. A cop told us to move

aside.

‘What happened to her?’ I said to the cop.

‘She fell down, what else? Head must have burst' the cop said.

He placed her arms and legs in a respectable, straight position. Dead

bodies don’t just lie down gracefully. They have to be put in place.

The cop went about his work as if he were arranging clothes on a shelf.

‘I spoke to her twenty minutes ago' I said.

The constable looked at me, surprised.

‘When life ends, it doesn't even take a minute' he said.

I looked at Prerna’s face again. With the blood, dirt and injuries, she

looked almost unrecognisable. I put my hand on her closed fist.‘Don’t touch her, please. We have to collect evidence' the constable

said.

‘She’s my fiancee' I said, my voice breaking for the first time.

‘I am sorry' the constable said. He covered her face with a sheet of

paper; a Swachh Bharat ad stared at us.

‘Get something better' Gupta said. A few minutes later, someone

brought a white cotton sheet. They used it to cover her entire body,

including her face. I couldn’t see her anymore.

It was then that it hit me—Prerna is gone. She would never come back.

She fell from the terrace. She went there because of me. Odd sounds

escaped me as I began to whimper. Some neighbours tried to calm me

down, but I got steadily more hysterical. A senior cop walked up to me.

‘Were you on the terrace?’ he said in a firm, cold voice, unaffected by

the tragedy around him.

His abrupt question startled me. I stopped crying but did not respond.

Three other cops had also come into the room. The neighbours started to

leave. The few that remained spoke to Prerna’s family members, offering

them their support and condolences.

‘I am talking to you' the cop said, his voice louder.

‘Yes' I said.

‘Why did you go to the terrace?’ he said. I noticed his nametag,

Vijender Singh. The epaulettes on his shoulder told me he was an inspector.

‘To meet her' I said.

‘You met her?’

‘No, I didn’t find her there.’

‘Did you meet anyone else in the house?’

I felt uneasy. I didn’t like his line of questioning. I had my own

detective agency. I knew where he was going. I also knew that when it came

to cops, it was best to speak as little as possible.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘I came in from the back entrance. And took the stairs up.’

‘Why terrace?’

I took a deep breath and looked around me. Everyone seemed busy,

either crying or consoling.

‘We had a plan to meet upstairs, sir, for Karva Chauth. She would see

me and the moon, and break her fast.'The inspector narrowed his eyes.

‘Karva Chauth?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s today. The fourth day of the moon. When married women

fast for their husbands.’

‘I know Karva Chauth. You aren’t her husband. Victim is not married.’

Victim is called Prerna, and she is the love of my life, I wanted to tell

him.

‘We were getting married in three months. She decided to keep the fast

as a gesture,’ I said.

‘Hmmm' he said in an unconvinced tone.

I repeated the sequence of events. I told him how I took an auto

rickshaw, spoke to her and came up to the terrace only to find it empty.

‘And then Uncle came and brought me down. That’s it,’ I said.

‘That’s your version then,’ Singh said.

‘That is what happened,’ I said.

He went ‘hmmm’, again. He turned to Ramesh and started asking him a

few questions. I felt alone in that room, surrounded by people, many of

whom were my would-be relatives. A car honked outside. Aditya went up

to the front door and walked to the patio. He saw the occupant of the car

and opened the gate. A white cab came in. Anjali stepped out. She had her

backpack with her, which seemed heavy and huge compared to her skinny

frame.

‘Hi, Adi mamu, what’s up?’ she said in a cheerful voice, with the hint of

an American accent.

Aditya nodded with a serious expression.

‘What happened?’ Anjali said. She looked around —something was

clearly amiss. Aditya didn’t respond. Both of them walked into the living

room. She noticed the body on the floor, covered in a white shroud.

Someone had died.

‘What happened?’ Anjali repeated. 'Is it Maaji?’

‘We lost everything. Prerna’s no more,’ Ramesh said, swallowing a

lump in his throat.

Anjali walked up to the body, bent and lifted the sheet from the face.

She saw her cousin lying there, dead.

‘Prerna didi?’ Anjali said in a shaky voice.

Aditya pulled her aside.

‘She . . . she was fine,' Anjali said, now in tears herself.Ajay, somewhat lost until this point, went up to Anjali. They both

hugged and cried. The room felt like it was under water, drowning and

sinking and going down, down.

‘When things are calmer, we would like to speak to each member of the

family,’ Singh said to Ramesh.

Ramesh did not respond.

‘And him too,’ Singh said, pointing at me.

Ramesh looked at me with blank eyes and halfnodded.

‘We will wait outside for a bit. Let’s talk once more before we leave,’

Singh said to Ramesh. The cops left the room.

I leaned against the wall, staring at her body. I didn’t know what to do

next. Should I leave? Am I allowed to leave? But am I even supposed to

stay? I needed someone. The one and only person in the world who could

help me think through this situation. I took out my phone.