Read Six Suspects for Free Online Page B

sister,
Sapna, who would also be nineteen. She was probably still
in Azamgarh with my parents, though I couldn't be sure as I
had had no contact with her, or them, for the past three
years. They had erased me from their lives, but I had been
unable to erase them from my mind.
    So I extracted the pictures from the envelope. They
were standard 6 _ 4 glossies. I looked at the first one, and
almost fell off my chair. Because staring back at me was my
own face in close-up. The same large dark eyes, small nose,
full lips and rounded chin.
    I quickly glanced at the second photo. This one showed
Ram Dulari in a cheap green sari, leaning against a tree. Not
only her face, even her build was similar to mine. The only
visible difference was the hair. She had long, lustrous black
tresses, whereas my current hairstyle was a chin-length bob
with the latest asymmetrical fringe. But this was an
insignificant detail. I knew I was looking at my spitting
image. Ram Dulari was my Doppelg?ger .
    What struck me about the photos, beside the uncanny
resemblance to me, was the fact that Ram Dulari seemed so
unselfconscious. There was no artifice, no pretence, no effort
to appear like me. She was just made that way. This was a
girl unaware of her own beauty and I immediately felt a
sense of kinship with her. Here was I, living in a luxurious
five-bedroom penthouse apartment in the best city in India,
and there was she, a luckless orphan, barely managing to
survive in the heartland of Bihar where marauding gangs
roamed free and unchecked. I resolved in that moment to
help her, to send Bhola the very next morning to Patna
to bring Ram Dulari to Mumbai, and to me.
    I don't know what I will do with her. I have enough
servants already, even good Brahmin ones. All I know is that
I cannot leave the poor girl to her fate. I cannot be a silent
spectator to her suffering. So I will intervene in her destiny,
alter her fate.
    But in so doing, will I be altering my own?

4
The Tribal
    T HE CRYING emanated from the middle of the clearing, a long
wail punctuated by two short ones, like a funeral dirge. The
arc of grief rose to a peak, tapered off, then rose again, mirroring
the rhythm of the ocean waves crashing against the jetty a short
distance away.
    It was the beginning of October. The fury of Kwalakangne, the
south-west monsoon, had abated, and the days had started to
become hot once again. Stepping out in the scorching sun at noon
required constitution and resolution.
    Melame and Pemba approached the clearing, where six
wooden shacks with corrugated asbestos roofing stood on stilts.
A couple of young boys wearing shorts were noisily playing
football in front of the huts, oblivious to the wailing in the
background. A thin, mangy dog lay flopped on the ground, its
tongue hanging out. The smell of chicken shit hung in the air.
    Melame paused before the third shack and waited for Pemba
to push open the door. The room inside was small and sparsely
furnished. It contained a high wooden cot with a mosquito net
supported by four bamboo sticks. A clay pot rested on a wooden
stool. The walls were adorned with cautionary posters provided
by the Welfare Department dispensary, warning against polio,
tuberculosis and AIDS. An ancient ceiling fan whirred overhead,
bringing some respite from the heat. In the right-hand
corner, on the wooden floor, lay the naked body of a man
approximately sixty years old. His eyes were closed, but his
mouth was incongruously open, gaping in amazement at his own
death. There were two people, one on either side of the body,
crying in unison. One was a wrinkled old woman, wearing nothing
but tassels made of sea shells around her waist, her withered
breasts hanging like udders on a cow. The other was a young man
wearing a loincloth and sporting a plain clay wash on his face
and body, the sign of mourning. He got up as soon as he saw Melame
and Pemba.
    'Melame is very sad to know that his friend Talai has gone to
the great beyond,' Melame said