Murder, She thought - Part 1

Every story teller starts his or her story was setting in the time and rules of the world that the story takes place in. I intend to do the same; the time is right now, 2012 A.D. And the rules? I don’t know about the rules of this world. I do not know what I am, a spirit, a specter, a poltergeist. The only thing I do know is that I am dead and I want to find out who did it.

When you think of the word murder the mind always thinks of stormy nights, murderer in a cloak and big knives. But mine wasn’t any of this, in fact it was a calm Tuesday night, the kind where you go on romantic walks and take your kids out for ice-cream.  It was my routine walk back from office, I was carrying my laptop and my handbag and thinking about the mails to be sent from home, the changes to be made in the document; work in short. It’s funny how all that seems pointless after being dead. Then there was a sudden roar of the engine as somebody stepped on the pedal just before it hit me and carried me into the wall. At this point I am assuming my spine was broken as I couldn’t move; there was no pain, but an overwhelming sense of dread. My ears were ringing so I couldn’t hear and I was too scared to scream. I was lying on the pavement face up, so that I could see the last face before through the blinding headlights as a man with his jaws clenched backed up and rammed into me once again to finish the job. Then there was the darkness, coming in from all sides, something like if you had too much morphine. It’s numbing, calm and doesn’t matter how much you try to fight it, it always wins. So that’s what dying is, no white light, no life flashing before your eyes, so gates of heaven or hell,  just the darkness akin to too much painkiller.

But dying sucks. It’s one thing being not able to see your grand children, the Grand Canyon and the grand opera at Melbourne. But your plans cut short at the fancy of another human being is too much for me to stomach, and I want to going to find out the Son of a bitch who did it! And why? That’s the beauty of death, after death you don’t need to explain why.

By the time I got wind of what was happening my post-mortem was already done. Doctors said the cause of death was internal bleeding; they laid out the contusions, ruptured veins, broken bones and a plethora of other medical jargon but nothing about the Cause of my death. Probably that’s how my users felt like when I used to send them the report of why our software crashed. Life is funny that way, or rather life after death in my case. I didn’t know where to go after that, the cremation was tomorrow and I had the night to kill. Suddenly I had all the time in the world, no mails to read, no orders to be barked, no documents to be reviewed, no house to help out in, no dinner to eat, no Physiotherapist to worry about, no sleep to catch up on. So I wandered off as a ghost, into the city.

The city was nothing like I had ever seen before, it was no restaurants serving biryanis late night, no BPO cabs trying to run over everyone on the road, no neon lights flashing, no tall IT buildings trying to proclaim one better than the other. There was a calmness, a familiarity, a oneness with the city. I felt like we could talk, even though I could only listen. Listen to the young waiter throwing away his apron in frustration and others trying to tell him that this is going to pay for his college; the drunk crying for cheating on his wife, the whore swearing to one day get out of this, the traffic sub-inspector worrying about the his son’s football kit while taking bribe from all of them. The city was not about the debauchery and thieveries that they had me believe in the night, at night the city was the most moral and true to itself. I just wished why I had not seen this earlier, but then life is so restraining, choking even, but death …. Death is the ultimate liberty.

As I wandered in the city hearing one man’s talk after another, peeking in one woman’s window after another I realized it was the morning. About time they would burn my body. Burning my body seemed a total waste now. Now there were no communicable disease to ward off, no dangers of being haunted by zombies, no fire god to give offerings to. I am sure they would be a hungry lion or two in the city, that would have been better than a horde coming to watch me burn on a Thursday morning. But that was a ritual that would be done even though I don’t want it now. So I started walking towards it now that walking wasn’t tiring.

It was a small gathering, rag-a-tag army of white and most didn’t know each other thanks to my severe attempt to compartmentalize my life. More people had turned up from office though compared to my blood relatives; I didn’t know whether to think that as a triumph or a failure. This was a good place to start looking for my murderer. I was assuming my murder was personal and not a random hit-and-run like the police said it was. I had seen the eyes of my killer; those were someone bent on killing me. But everybody looked sullen, though most were because my death had inconvenienced them in some way. Some wanted some approvals for me, some to earn them money, some were just pissed because they were dragged here in the early morning of a workday, and some just wanted to be sad because it was expected of them to be in such occasions and were not to able to. The only 3 people I couldn’t read were my daughter, my husband and my best friend. If God was out there, he was one hell of a prankster. Someone spoke the word eulogy and there was uncomfortable silence as my people tried to wrinkle their noses to block out the smell of burning flesh. Divya, my colleague, my best friend and my mentee stepped forward after minutes of people looking at each other. She went on at some length to recount my contribution to the company, my handling of crisis situations, my being tough but fair etc. So that’s what my life was, being a well-oiled, smooth running part in a very big machine. There was silence again for a few minutes before my 16 year old daughter stepped forward but choked on her tears. Divya had to come and remove her. All this while my husband Naresh stood stone faced throughout, like he used to when he had too much weed.  I tried to get close to him to smell the weed on him, but I couldn’t. So that what my life’s concoction was – A few awards, one unhappy friend, and an unhappy daughter who was never close to me.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, Leo Tolstoy once wrote. Mine was no exception, it has it's own story. My husband, Naresh didn’t love me, and he made that amply clear when I caught him trying to clear the bill of a hotel through my credit card. He was not supposed to be there and nor was the young lolly who fell for his old school charm and Shakespeare lines, like I had, 20 years back. He had cried and begged and swore never to do this again and I knew that wasn’t true, but I agreed. Was I too busy to realize or too tired to even fight for his affection I never will know. But the woman in her 20s, standing right behind him in the White Saree was proof enough that he hadn’t changed? Was it him in the car, I don’t know; I need to investigate further.

Maybe it was him, the man in the dark colored sweatshirt with a cap over his head, grinding his teeth when he rammed the dark colored SUV into me. I needed to follow him. But what would he gain from killing me? I never objected of his philandering, never asked for love or comfort or companionship, the most I wanted from him was to pose as a happy couple in front of my daughter. So that she still has hope, and not grow up into a bitter women as me. In fact he stated to lose much, I was the earning member of house. He was a washed up writer whose last collection of poems had come 10 years ago, that too of poems he had written 10 years ago. He had a perennial writer’s block which he tried to remove from time to time with weed and young dumb women. Muses as he called them in front of his friends, who joined in with laughing at his joke. Perhaps they too thought it was only fair that their college heartthrob married to a limping, bitter, ice princess sometimes got the taste of the life that had waited him before he stupidly married me. I was too drunk that night to wait for a condom, and he was too chivalrous to suggest anything else when he found out I was pregnant. He picked me up from the way to college and next morning and took me to a Mandir before dropping me back to college. I had left home as a bachelorette and was married before the second lecture. I still remember the face of the girl who gasped when she found out and said this was right out of a romance novel. Now I don’t know whether she would have compared us to a tragedy or a farce?

After the tons of formalities he reached home and sank in the couch.  Signs of a guilty conscience? He sat there stoned for some time while I went to see what my daughter was doing. She had updated “At my mother’s cremation” on Facebook and was now checking the responses on her laptop, apparently two of her friends ‘liked’ it too, I couldn’t say what they liked, that I was dead or she bothered to get up in the morning for something as tasteless as watching a corpse burn.

I turned my thoughts back to Naresh, when I came back in the living room he wasn’t there. He was on a call; he in slow thoughtful speech confirmed his identity to the caller, verified that I was in fact dead and that he had the death certificate and the caller could come tomorrow to give him the cheque. I let out a chuckle when I realized what had happened. It was the life insurance company who had after months of dogging me finally insured me for 10 crores very recently, some underwriter would be fired because of this. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, cry that it was money after all, or laugh that my miserable life wasn’t cheap, in the end it was sold for 10 crores. Now he could finally go to Las Vegas like he had always dreamed and drink himself to death like ‘Leaving Las Vegas’. I began to understand why he had murdered me, it was the logical step. After 10 years he had finally become the man he was always destined to be – smart, dynamic and successful. In that very moment I was proud of him.

But instead of fist pumping or calling his new girlfriend about the Las Vegas plans, he dragged his feet to the most unlikely place, the small room he called his study. He hardly went there, maybe except to show off his collection of books or to play on his computer. But today he wasn’t doing either. He took out the crystal glass along the way that I had gifted him on our first marriage anniversary and poured out a large of Chivas Regal 18 year old ,again gifted by a friend of his on our 10^th marriage anniversary who didn’t know he had quit. And then he took out a pad and a pen and started writing.

“If winds can carry me to you, they would,

Or my love else perhaps if, they could.

Across the hate between us, they should.

To whatever world in now, you stood”

And then a tear drop mixed in the ink. It was been ten years since he had last drank, and ten years minus one day since he had cried.  It couldn’t have been him ….. <to be continued>