Not that I expect to find Karun in these rooms. The occupants are too carefree, the atmosphere too festive, the smattering of Khakis don’t even pretend to be guarding anything. If someone forced Karun here at gunpoint, wouldn’t they keep him more tightly under lock and key? Otherwise, why wouldn’t he simply sneak out and try once more to return to the south part of the city? Surveillance at the gates of people leaving seems pretty lax—after all, didn’t Guddi decamp with an entire elephant?

What I therefore need to hunt around for (without Sarita) are areas of enhanced security. “I think we should split up. Devi ma might call us back at any time—we need to get through the rooms much more quickly.” Chitra rises in opposition to this idea but I hold firm, invoking the authority granted me by the Devi. She then tries to pair up with me—perhaps to keep me subtly off track, as I suspect she’s been doing. “Oh, but you and Sarita form such a great team,” I say. “Let Guddi accompany me.” Chitra’s eyes narrow when I ask for her swipe card—she silently fishes another one out from her pocket and hands it to me.

About to part, Sarita stops me. “How will you recognize Karun when you’ve never even met him?”

I look at her stupefied. How, indeed? How could the Jazter have missed something so obvious? “I guess I’ll just have to ask,” I reply weakly. Sarita’s mouth tightens—she has noted my blunder, added it to the tally.

Before anything else can crop up to scuttle my escape, I promise to regroup later in Devi ma’s suite, and cut out with Guddi.


AS A FIRST STEP, we visit the remaining floors in the wing to verify they are equally unguarded. I have to keep shushing Guddi, for whom stealth and unobtrusiveness seem like entirely alien concepts. “We’re looking for his friend,” she announces to everyone we encounter: cleaning staff, guests, Khakis. “We have permission from Devi ma herself.” She frisks through the hotel as if it were a giant amusement park—swinging down corridors, bouncing on the landing sofas, darting into every nook and corner on her eternal quest for cell phones. The escalator to the ground level fascinates her, though she’s unnerved by the floor swallowing its endless diet of steps.

By the time we’ve finished with the wing, Guddi is bored—she suggests we go pay Shyamu a visit. “I’m afraid he might have caught a cold from that dip in the swimming pool.” When I inform her that elephant stables are not on our list, she gets downcast. “Can we at least catch the last part of the Devi pooja then?”

I block out her voice and concentrate on Karun. Ensconced in this hotel somewhere. The premise I must keep reinforcing in my mind, since without it (as any shikari knows) there can be no game. As far as this wing goes, though, Karun’s trail feels completely dead. The clerks took justified umbrage when I questioned their ledgers—the Devi and he seem to have never met.

Who ordered his kidnapping then? Clearly the same person who runs the show here: this sprawling temple to the Devi, the fireworks, the electricity, the elephants. With such a vast enterprise, it has to be Bhim. The great white Hindu hope, as deft at multitasking as Vishnu himself—whether it’s Muslims in need of massacring or the nation in need of saving. Though what he might want with a vanful of physicists, I can’t guess.

Why haven’t I discerned more evidence of Bhim’s presence at the hotel? Does he maintain a low profile to keep the limelight focused solely on the Devi? Is he holed up in a secret section along with his armory and his men? Wouldn’t locating him lead me to Karun as well?

I make a mental inventory of the parts of the hotel I haven’t explored: the guestroom floors in the towering front wing, the arcade of onetime salons and boutiques next to the lobby, the disco dormitory in the basement. Then there’s the half-complete annex behind the garden enclosure, which Chitra says has remained unoccupied ever since one of the shoddily built floors collapsed inside. A small conference center stands near the badminton courts, along with a shorter building, perhaps a gym, by its side. More structures under construction loom hazily in the rear—to check everything, my parole would have to last well into the night.

But perhaps I needn’t go down my list. Perhaps Bhim’s Khakis can lead me to him. They’re sprinkled rather sparsely throughout the hotel, with the exception of the restaurant coffee bar, where they swarm around the food like insects. Like ants, more precisely, I think—why not track them to get to their anthill?

A little reconnaissance reveals a good number of them peeling off towards the annex. So I take Guddi past the garden for a little stroll in that direction as well. The building is drab, almost ascetically plain, as if to atone for the Indica’s over-the-top excesses. Dark windows with stingy panes of glass more befitting an office complex stare out from between concrete strips. Even the side facing the sea has no balconies. The project, announced in the first few flush days of the hotel opening, looks like it stalled even before the war started. Spikes of metal pierce through the unfinished top—after all this time, only three and a half floors stand completed. Belying Chitra’s claims of tottering construction, these floors look quite sturdy, well-fortified.

The entrance actually lies on the other side of the wall enclosing the pool and garden courtyard, which further perks my interest. The barrier means that annex occupants can be kept quarantined, away from hotel residents. The locked metal grille built into this wall is unguarded—a swipe with Chitra’s card opens it. Ahead, though, two Khakis slouch against the building doorway, engaged in casual conversation. As we near, they briskly pick up their rifles. “Where are you going?” they demand in unison, clearly annoyed we have caught them chatting.

Neither my “open sesame” card nor my Devi-level security clearance impresses them. “You need special authorization to enter this building.” When I ask them from whom, they simply glare, as if this will clarify what they’ve said.

Guddi steps in with such a spirited try that I feel ashamed at underestimating her. “If you think Devi ma is going to forgive you two pups for disobeying her command, you have another thought coming. Just yesterday, she had an attendant’s ears cut off—he didn’t hear her order, that’s all.” She snips at a guard with scissor-like fingers, so close to his ear, he backs away.

“I’m sorry, sister. What to do? Nobody is allowed in without permission—the order comes from Bhim kaka himself.”

“So if Devi ma herself came, you wouldn’t let her in either? What if I fetch her now and see what your Bhim kaka says?”

The guards look down sheepishly. Although they hold their ground, Bhim’s name confirms this is his den. “Devi ma would burn you to ashes if we reported you for this,” Guddi calls out as I pull her away.


GUDDI WANTS TO GO complain to Devi ma and return with reinforcements, but I nix this idea, since it would alert Sarita about my lead. “Devi ma’s already been so generous, let’s not trouble her anymore. Let’s try to get in ourselves.”

So instead of returning through the metal gate, we duck behind a hedge and circle back to the annex. The entire ground floor is wrapped in concrete, with the occasional window, sealed and brooding, embedded as an afterthought. I’m struck by the bunker-like look of the building—hardly a design to appeal to tourists. A recessed side entryway leads to a door which, in addition to a card reader, bears a sturdy, old-fashioned padlock. We discover two more doors in the rear, similarly secured.

I’m wondering how we can create a diversion and slip in past the guards when I realize there has to be another entrance: the doors we’ve seen are all much too narrow to get beds and other large furniture through. Could there be another level beneath us? I draw Guddi back to the rear of the building and pull myself up chin-high to peer over the wall that runs past. Sure enough, we’re at an elevation—a driveway down below cuts toward us through a small compound. Unfortunately, I don’t see any steps—jumping seems the only way down.

What to do about Guddi? Certainly, I don’t want her by my side when I find Karun. But leaving her behind presents its own danger, since she might go back and report my whereabouts. The wall decides for us: raised on a diet of village parathas since birth, Guddi is unable to hoist her four-foot-ten body to the top. “Stay here until I return,” I tell her, hoping she’ll obey for at least an hour. I jack myself up all the way on my arms, then swing a leg over to straddle the wall.

“Gaurav bhaiyya,” Guddi yells, just as I lower myself on the other side and hang by my fingertips. “Gaurav bhaiyya, Gaurav bhaiyya, we should have brought Shyamu along. Then he could have lifted me up in his trunk and sat me on the wall.” She pauses for a second. “Would you mind if I go check how he’s doing? I promise to return by two.”

What an excellent idea to keep her out of trouble! I assure her there’s no need to hurry back, she can spend as much time with Shyamu as she wants. “In fact, why don’t you try to sneak him out to the beach again?—I’m sure he’d like that.” As Guddi squeals in appreciation, I yell goodbye and release my grip on the wall.

14

I ONCE READ A BOOK CONSISTING SOLELY OF A CHARACTER’S thoughts as he fell from a cliff. Apparently, in the time it takes to hit the ground, an entire lifetime can be relived. Being airborne reminds me of my own unlaunched memoir—what a perfect interlude to dissect my childhood this would have been! I could lay bare the vulnerability of the Jazter soul, recap my great and poignant love for Karun. The last primarily for my own benefit—to remember again why I’m so witlessly hurtling down to my doom.