Fatal Mistakes Read online

  Immediately, there came a series of thuds, bangs and grunts from the entrance of the compartment. The Dadar women were boarding. Avantika tensed, much like the young men of Pamplona probably do, when the corral gates holding back the bulls open. Pushing, shoving, jostling they came, a mass of wet umbrellas, soaking handbags and pure rage. By the time the train pulled out of the station, every available inch of floor space had a woman on it. There were women standing between seats, in the aisles, even squatting precariously near the doorway, whose metal doors had been pulled shut to keep out the furious rain. The woman standing near Avantika’s seat held a purse, a plastic bag16 filled with vegetables and a soaking umbrella jutting out from under her shoulder. It dripped water on Avantika’s jeans. She pushed it aside gently, only to be met with a glare from its owner. Avantika returned the glare, but had to cut it short to answer her ringing phone. It was Uday.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘It sounds like a fish market.’

  She took in the seething mass of humanity around her. The cloud of body odour that rose from bodies jam-packed into a closed space. The humidity and the stale air that came from a hundred people breathing in a space designed for fifty. The rivulets of rainwater that ran along the floor, making the already dusty surface wet and filthy.

  ‘I’m in Hell,’ she grimaced. ‘Just left Dadar.’

  He snickered, well aware of what a Virar local looked like after Dadar station.

  ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘At least the story will be worth it.’

  ‘Will it?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t know. Anu isn’t here yet so …’

  ‘What do you mean, “yet”?’

  Avantika explained the situation. Uday was silent for a moment and she could picture him frowning on the other side.

  ‘I know this isn’t ideal …’ she began.

  ‘No, it isn’t. It doesn’t look like this Anu or whoever has thought this through.’

  Avantika bit back a response. He was right. It certainly seemed like that now.

  ‘Look, worst-case scenario, I’ll travel to Virar and come back,’ she said quietly, holding the phone near her mouth so her voice would carry over the infernal noise around her. ‘A few hours of my life I won’t get back; that’s … not so bad. Right? Apart from this motherfucking crowd and disgusting train compartment, I mean.’

  ‘You sound pissed off,’ he said. Then his tone changed. ‘When did you last eat?’

  Avantika rolled her eyes. Leave it to Uday to turn into a mother hen in the middle of a serious conversation. She wasn’t a child. It wasn’t as if she’d just forget to eat. She scrunched up her face, trying to remember. She’d definitely had lunch. She had. Yes. After that …?

  ‘I don’t know … Lunch?’

  ‘You get grumpy as hell when you don’t eat,’ he said. ‘Did you have anything before you left from office?’

  ‘Yeah, a positive outlook,’ she shot back, just as the phone beeped with a waiting call. It was Anu.

  ‘Got to go, it’s her,’ she whispered hurriedly, before taking the call.

  But before the call could connect, the line went dead. She was about to call back, when she got a new text from Anu herself.

  Get down at Andheri. Will wait for you there.

  Avantika stared at the screen. What game was this woman playing? She looked out of the window. The train had just left Bandra station. Andheri was the next stop. The doorway would be crammed with dozens of women, none of whom would get down at Andheri.

  There was an unspoken rule about this. One didn’t just walk into Mordor and one didn’t just enter a Virar fast hoping to get down at Andheri. Passengers who boarded a train for Virar, usually wanted to get off at the stops between Borivali and Virar. If you wanted to get off at any of the other stations the train stopped at, they reasoned, you could take a Borivali fast, or an Andheri fast, or a basic bitch slow train. Anything except a Virar fast, which was already overflowing with people, who couldn’t take any of those other trains to reach where they wanted to.

  Which meant that if you were someone who was aboard a Virar fast, who intended to get off at Andheri, you’d be met with the same level of hostility the Pakistani cricket team faces from local Indian politicians. Chances were, she wouldn’t even make it past the door. She had heard enough stories of passengers physically preventing people from getting off before Virar, even getting violent. Outsiders might call it madness. Mumbaikars called it Virar.

  Avantika gulped as she considered what lay ahead. She didn’t have to go ahead with it. But she had to decide quickly. She typed back a message.

  Can’t you come in? We can talk here.

  A second later, her phone pinged with a reply.

  Too risky. Please get down. This is the only way.

  What did she mean ‘too risky’? Avantika wondered. Wasn’t inviting violence from disgruntled women while getting off a Virar local risky? Perhaps it wasn’t as risky as whatever fate it was that awaited Anu if she was caught talking by … whom exactly? The number of unknowns in this scenario were too many. She made a disgusted sound. She could just let this go. Go back to writing about where to shop for your back-to-college wardrobe or new umbrella designs seen on the city roads this monsoon. Or she could stop being such a wuss and get this shit done. OK, see you, she typed back.

  She got up from her seat, barely registering the look of surprised relief on the face of the woman standing closest to her, as she quickly sat down on Avantika’s now empty seat. With a deep breath, she skirted past the rest of the women packed into the narrow corridor between the seats, that led to the doorway of the compartment. Sullen faces watched her pass, some expressionless, some disapproving. Yeah, yeah, she thought, I’m a real troublemaker, I get it. At the end of the corridor, she ran into a wall. A solid wall of twenty women who refused to budge.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  No response.

  ‘Arré, let me go,’ she said in Hindi, raising her voice.

  ‘There is no space,’ came back the curt reply.

  ‘I have to get down!’

  ‘Then you should have gotten up earlier!’

  The woman in front of her hadn’t even bothered to turn around and say it to her face. To be fair, she probably couldn’t. There really wasn’t that much space. But the day there would be enough space in a Virar local, would be the day Mumbai stopped flooding every monsoon. There was no point waiting for space to magically appear.

  She gritted her teeth and began to push herself into the tiny gap between the two women standing in front of her. There were groans and unhappy mutters but she ignored them all, focusing solely on navigating through the jam-packed crowd. One or two women raised their voices, snidely complaining about how people sleep in compartments, forgetting to get up for their stop till it was too late and really inconvenient for others. She laughed at them in her mind. They were going to have to get better at sarcasm if they wanted to ruffle someone who grew up around Keshav Pandit.

  Ignoring the jibes, she pushed ahead. All that mattered was that she got to the door. It was painfully slow. Literally. She found she had a newfound sympathy for newborn babies. She now understood the trial of squeezing through an excessively small passage. Although this one was significantly bristlier. She seemed to have brushed against any number of razor-like zippers, sharp umbrella tips and rough-edged jewellery. Her bare arms felt raw as she finally arrived near the door. There was just one woman in front of her and a questioning glance revealed that against all odds, she too was getting off the train at Andheri.

  Avantika heaved a sigh of relief. This story had better be worth it, she thought, just as the train slowed down for an unscheduled halt. This was hardly surprising. Outside, the rain was still pounding the sides of the compartment, in typical Mumbai rain fashion. Visibility was probably low, given the way it had poured since morning. She waited, trying not to inhale the rank odour of the woman next to her. Something hard was pushing into her back, pricking the bare skin of her lower b
ack, where her t-shirt should’ve been. It had probably ridden up in all the sliding and pushing. She shuffled, trying to find a comfortable position, preferably one that didn’t have sharp shit poking into her. But the poking didn’t stop. If anything, it got worse. She craned her neck to see, but all she saw was a woman’s purse, digging into her lower back. What the fuck do these women carry in their handbags, she wondered. Sickles?

  ‘Move your purse, it’s hurting me,’ she snapped at the woman behind her, who gave her a blank look.

  The pain was getting really bad, almost as if whatever it was, was breaking the surface of the skin, pushing deep inside. She grunted and tried to push it away, but couldn’t reach. Her arms were pinned to her sides by the crush of unrelenting bodies.

  ‘Remove it, remove it!’ she shouted in Hindi.

  And then, the pain reached a blinding crescendo and she screamed with agony.

  The pain receded slowly. The woman behind her moved her purse and Avantika’s hand flew to the spot where it had hurt so terribly just a few moments ago. The tips of her fingers ran over a tiny welt. She was dully aware of a dozen eyes throwing her curious glances, a few muffled giggles. The pain turned into rage and she spun around, to face the woman behind her. Well, she tried to spin around, anyway.

  ‘What was in your purse? It just jabbed me! You couldn’t hear me say “remove it” or what?’ she yelled.

  ‘Stop shouting and doing all this drama!’ the woman yelled back. ‘Little bit the handle or something must’ve hurt you, and so much you’re screaming and all!’ She gave Avantika a disgusted head-shake and turned to her neighbour. ‘Little-little things these people make a fuss about. If you can’t handle it, don’t travel by train, na!’

  So, this is how war begins, Avantika thought angrily. She hated this train, these uncouth people, this whole bloody situation. If Anu didn’t show up on Andheri station with her whole story on a fucking platter for her, someone was going to fucking pay. With an almighty lurch, the train began moving again and Avantika took the opportunity to let her weight fall back on the woman behind her. Caught unawares, the woman tottered on her feet and nearly stumbled. Serves her right, Avantika thought smugly, ignoring the woman’s angry muttering.

  The train was going much slower than before, although the assault of the rain outside had eased up somewhat. A woman standing near the doorway even opened one of the metal sliding doors, letting in a cool breeze. It freshened the air within the compartment a little, but sent a shiver down Avantika’s spine as the air made contact with her damp skin. What she needed was a nice hot cup of coffee. There was a McDonald’s outside the western side of Andheri station. She’d get a cappuccino. It wasn’t half bad, actually. Not gourmet stuff or anything, but good enough to warm her on a cold day. She could picture it now: her hands wrapped around a hot mug or, more likely, a takeaway cup, listening raptly to Anu as she revealed shocking, surprising, front-page worthy details about the murders. It would almost make up for this nightmarish journey. But somehow, she wasn’t feeling angry about that anymore.

  She breathed deeply, letting the crisp air fill her lungs. Almost immediately, she yawned. God, she really needed that coffee. She looked at her watch. 6.10 p.m. Just a few minutes more and she’d be there. There being …? She blinked. Her eyes were feeling heavy. Andheri. She was going to Andheri. Right. Yes. Why, though? To meet someone. Yes. Who? Mmmmmm. Some … was it a woman? It was a woman. Of course. Obviously. A woman. Called. Anne. Enya. Something A. A … nu? Yes. That’s right. Anooooo. She blinked again. Her legs wobbled a little. Her shoulders drooped and her purse, hanging from her left shoulder, slipped downwards. Her head seemed like it was slowly filling with air, turning weightless like a balloon. She yawned again. She should rest her eyes. Just for a moment. She’d open them again. The station, Andheri? Andheri, would be here any moment. She’d have to open her eyes. She’d open them. Immediately. Promise. Just a second. One second of shut-eye. That’s it. Just one s—

  Ten

  Avantika stirred in her sleep and groaned. Her body felt like it was made of jelly. She tried to open her eyes but it was as if someone had placed weights on them. She tried again. The eyelids opened halfway before collapsing with the effort. She swore under her breath and tried again. It took a monumental amount of struggling, but finally, they opened. She couldn’t see a thing. She blinked, just to make sure her eyes were indeed open. The parched feel of her contact lenses told her they were. She blinked furiously to moisten her eyes. She had to stop sleeping with her lenses on. It wasn’t good for the eyes. Why didn’t she take them out bef—? She stopped. She hadn’t fallen asleep. She’d been on the train, standing near the door and—

  She sat up slowly. Every muscle in her body protested at the strain, but the ones around her lower back actually hurt. She rubbed the area absently, then stopped and swore when the pain worsened. That damn woman with her purse. She’d been standing near the door, when that idiot woman’s godforsaken purse had jabbed her and … She groaned at the memory. It shouldn’t still be hurting, though. It was just a prick, after all.17 She shouldn’t be in pain so long after being merely pricked. Her hip muscle really felt sore. What the fuck was in that bag, a skewer? She groaned again and looked around, her eyes slowly getting used to the darkness.

  It was a small dark room, with a single window. The window had vertical bars and mosquito netting. A cool breeze was blowing in and she could smell the scent of wet soil on it. Outside the window, darkness and silence, punctuated by the chirping of crickets. But the sky was a deep navy blue, which meant it would soon be dawn. Probably. How long had she been asleep, anyway? And where the fuck was she? What was this place? She was still wearing the clothes she’d been wearing before. Nothing seemed out of place. Or, to put it bluntly, she didn’t seem to have been raped and knifed, which, given the headlines these days, was bordering on the miraculous. She shuddered with relief.

  She squinted at her watch but it was too dark to see. My kingdom for a radium-dial watch, she thought, feeling around in the darkness and yawning widely. She had been lying on a low metal cot, on a mattress covered with a thin cotton sheet that smelled slightly musty but clean. The way washed clothes stored for a while in closed cupboards end up smelling. There was a sturdy pillow at one end and a Solapuri chaddar lay rumpled at the other. She felt around with her hands on the bed. No phone. No purse. She crouched on the floor near the cot and grasped at nothing. Her things were missing. She was alone, without any means of reaching the outside world, in a dark room God knew where. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of. This was her worst-case scenario. Her stomach churned. Was she going to end up locked in a cage, in a brothel someplace? Would her liver end up on some black market for organs? Well, joke’s on you, bad guys, that thing’s seen more than its fair share of booze, ha ha. She took a deep breath to steady herself. Don’t get hysterical, she scolded herself, if you panic, you’re only going to make things worse. How? It was her sarcastic inner voice again. How could this situation possibly get any worse? I don’t know, there could be sharks, shut up and let me think.

  Flashes of memory were lighting up in her mind, as dim and useless as those flickering tubelights in government hospitals that automatically make one feel like they’re in an unreleased sequel of Turistas. Memories of falling. Falling, but not landing. Women shouting. A glimpse of unknown faces bending over her. A voice saying, ‘Someone call a doctor!’ Another saying, ‘I know her, I’ll take her to a doctor!’ A sensation of movement, no, not a sensation, just a memory. Light. Then darkness. Then light. Then darkness. Then silence. Were they memories? Or dreams? Was she … was she remembering things that didn’t happen? Her head felt like it was packed with cotton. Her legs seemed to have weights tied to them and the rest of her body felt like it was made of dough. She felt like Jabba the fucking Hutt.

  She got off the bed gingerly, wincing as her hip muscles worked to support her. Moving slowly along the walls, she felt around for some kind of light switch. Sh
e found one on the wall next to the bed. She flicked the switch and the room filled with yellow light from a bulb high up on the wall. There was no furniture besides the bed in the room, which was small, about the size of the kitchen back home. Home. Fuck. Aai and Baba would be so worried. She didn’t even have a phone to call and lie to them that she was safe. She checked her watch. 3.20 a.m. She swore under her breath.

  Below the light bulb was the door to the room. She pushed it gently. It refused to open. She pulled it. Nothing. So, locked then. Fuck. OK. Calm down, calm down, this is … terrible, but you know what you have to do. The question was, should she do it before banging on the door or after? There was no way of knowing who would open the door. If the door would be opened at all. And if it was opened and someone came inside, who’s to say that someone wouldn’t tie her up or something? She reached into her bra and fiddled around. Then she walked up to the door, took a deep breath and began banging on it.

  Muffled voices could be heard from somewhere outside the door. An urgent round of muttering. ‘No, you go!’ a woman’s voice said. Seconds later, the wooden door was being pushed inwards. Avantika took a few steps back and braced herself. A moment later, with a rough shove, the door opened and a woman with a familiar face stepped inside.

  ‘You …’ Avantika murmured, squinting to make sure. ‘Aren’t you … you were at … Dharini Farm … no?’

  Before the woman could reply, another voice answered from the door: ‘As are you, dear.’

  Nalini Gupta stood in the doorway, a calm smile on her scarred face.

  Avantika felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. Nalini? Nalini had brought her here? What the fuck was going on?

  As conflicting thoughts swarmed through her head, the other woman turned to Nalini and asked in Hindi, ‘I’ll get water?’