The Swamp Girl: Lokhandwala One

By Avijit Mitra

A young woman’s body is found in the mangroves bordering Lokhandwala, the prosperous suburb of Mumbai. Who is she?
Jenny finds an abandoned car on the street near the mangroves. The car belongs to someone named Anu. But where is she?
One part of a pair of women’s dress shoes is found at the crime scene. Whom does it belong to?
What secrets are the three friends Viren, Shafat, and Anil hiding?
What does the recluse billionaire Roy know?
Why did ASI Rana seek a Mumbai posting?
Who has Rohan, Jenny’s brother-in-law, come to meet in Mumbai?
What drives Jenny’s obsession with the story of the Swamp Girl?
Who is Paromeeta?
Everybody has a secret. Everyone’s a suspect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9789358830262

Avijit Mitra

Avijit Mitra is a filmmaker and writer with more than two decades of experience working in the film and broadcast industry in India. He played a pivotal role in the branding and promotions of multiple blockbuster commercial television hits, from daily soaps to game shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati (the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) to the international launch trailers of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s classic, Devdas.Growing up in a sleepy industrial town with endless afternoons, Avijit developed an early interest in telling stories. Working in the corporate sector (Star TV Network, Turner International, ESPN) honed his capacity to thrive on urgent deadlines. Avijit obtained much acclaim for his independent films, Airgun (2021) and Taxi . . . an Uncertain Conversation (2021). Made during the pandemic, the films describe how ordinary people continued their lives as their worlds were upended. When he is not making films, Avijit finds peace in reading philosophy, crime fiction, or playing chess. An avid sports fan, he taught himself to play tennis in 2010 and never misses his tennis day even in the hottest months of the year.Avijit is a committed parent and lives in the city of Mumbai. The Swamp Girl is his first novel.

Book preview

Sneha

Friday, September 25

Ican’t see anything. I can’t fucking see anything.

‘OK. Keep a lid on it, Sneha,’ a voice spoke in my head. ‘You needn’t have gone blind. It's just a dark place you are in.'

How dark?

Darker than when you put a quilt over your head in the night, I answered myself.

I tested that theory by waving my hands in front of my face. Nope, I couldn’t see a thing; the darkness was absolute. I ran my hands over my face and felt something sticky. Blood, possibly? I sniffed my fingers but couldn’t smell a thing. I licked them, and immediately withdrew my hand in disgust; it tasted like rust. I knew the taste of rust because Mum had an iron frying pan at home. Every time she cooked anything in it, there would be a metallic taste.

I stayed still and tried to touch the tip of my nose with my index finger. I kept missing the mark, finding the bridge of my nose or my upper lips again and again. I must be very drunk, I decided.

I drew in a deep breath and counted onethousand- and-one, one-thousand-and-two, and so on till one-thousand-and-five. Then I emptied my lungs slowly. I did that a few times.

I felt a few of my senses return. First, I heard the cicadas; they were loud. Where can you hear cicadas inside the city? OK. Deal with that later.

Then I realised I was sitting in a pool of mud. No time to feel squeamish, I told myself. I got up on my knees and ran my hands all around me as far as I could reach, like parting water in a swimming pool. Did I just do that? No. I had thought of the action inside my head, but my body hadn’t moved. Fuck! I was experiencing some kind of muscle atrophy, some paralysis shit. Maybe I was having a stroke? At my age? I was in our badminton team at college. I did yoga. I could run forty minutes on the treadmill without a break. What shit did I take?

I tried moving my neck, maybe even managed to bend my back a little. A soft breeze rustled around me and I realised I was in the middle of a dense undergrowth. The wind parted the leaves for an instant. I spotted the lights.

They were tiny dots, and they seemed far away. They were throbbing; it felt like staring into a graphic screensaver after downing a couple of beers late at night.

I dug my knuckles into my eyes and pressed hard. When I opened them, the lights were still there.

That must be the Lokhandwala skyline, I decided. For some bizarre reason, I was sitting in the middle of the swamps, the mangroves that border Lokhandwala.

Why had I entered the mangroves in the middle of the night?

How would I get back to the street when I was not even able to move my hands? How far was the street? Why hadn’t Anu stopped me?

Too many questions, I felt sleepy. This place seemed okay . . . I could stay here for a while . . .

I woke up with a start, the blinding beams of a flashlight in my face. I felt mildly annoyed: Why won’t they let me sleep?

‘Can you point that thing somewhere else?’ I called out.

Then I really woke up. What the f . . . Who were these people? Why were they shining a torch in my face? Were they cops? Had I done something?

Calm down, Sneha, I told myself firmly.

The flashlight was close; I had to get up. One muscle at a time.

You can do it.

With what felt like moving houses, I sat up on my knees. I could see better now: one man, thank god for that. But he was hiding behind the flashlight. He? Or, she? Was that Anu? Or, maybe one of the others?

I knew it wasn’t Anu. One of the others then.

A bizarre thought occurred to me. Could it be Ash? Why? How? He was a thousand miles away. No, he was in Bombay. Why had he called me?

I felt so relieved that I could remember things. But why had I run into the mangroves? And how did I manage to come this far in, wading through knee-deep water? I wasn’t even wearing any shoes.

‘Who is that?’ I called out. ‘Shafat? Viren? Please, can you help me?'

The flashlight-man stopped moving. What did I say?

‘Listen, whatever's happened, it's OK. I'm sure you guys didn’t mean anything. Just come and help me up. I can’t fucking move!'

I was pleading now. But he continued to stand there watching me. Maybe he was scared? Maybe he didn’t know me? A stranger?

I was starting to get very worried.

I'm not sure how long we stared at one another. The hand that held the flashlight was steady; he wasn’t scared, I was.

I heard something; the noise grew louder and louder into an ear-splitting screech. I had a moment to figure that it was an early morning flight heading out over the Arabian Sea before the flashlight-man charged.

He was on top of me in a second. What? Why? Does he want to hit me?

When he swung his arms, the beam lit up his face for an instant. I recognised him, and I was so surprised. How could it be him? Why would it be him?

But then the heavy torch hit my face with a blunt force. I was so taken aback that I didn’t even hold up my hands to break the blow. Nobody has ever hit me. How dare he?

I scrambled around for a stone, a branch, anything. I shouldfight back! How stupid is it to sit on the ground and get bashed up.

I must have passed out because he was struggling with the belt around my waist when I woke up again. God, does it always have to come down to this one thing?

I drifted into unconsciousness once more. He was trying to strangle me with my belt, and I was dying. It was so strange; I was only twenty-two. I thought I had a whole lifetime left. Years, decades, before we met again, Gari.

Jenny

Saturday, September 26

It was a silver-grey Audi A6 sedan, a big car. Whoever owned it must be rolling in it. It wasn’t even parked right.

I saw the car a while ago but didn’t really notice it. Running was like meditation—you had to clear your mind, time your breathing to the rhythm of your moving feet. I hated it. So, I needed to focus, and the street offered little distraction. It had a wide walkway that stretched for a mile, a serious luxury in the city of Bombay. The road was mostly empty; the denizens of Lokhandwala preferred the ‘cooler’ associations of Jogger's Park. If I could sprint the length of the street twice, it was a good start to the day. And if I could repeat that a few more times, it was Insta-worthy. My posts were only updates for my friends. I didn’t put pictures of myself on Instagram, so much so that even my DP was a no-fuss picture of me with Nate.

I carefully went around the fender of the car that was taking up almost half of the pavement. I thought of jumping over it, take a running leap, be airborne for an instant, moving in bullet-time. Ha! Running was a tiresome business; I had to amuse myself. On my way back, while making the stupid adjustment of going around the car once again, I noticed the front-passenger door was partly open. Creepy. Somebody was sitting inside, watching me.

‘And you aren’t even supposed to park on this side of the road,’ I grumbled to myself. A No-parking sign stood right on top of the car. You had to be either piss drunk or in the need of a loo-break real bad to not notice it.

I gave the car a wider berth on my second round and thought no more of it till my phone rang. I absently patted the device stuck uncomfortably inside a concealed pocket of my shorts. No, it wasn’t my phone but there was one ringing from inside the car. So, there was somebody in there.

The old Nokia tune rang out from inside the car. Who used it these days? I expected a gruff, cigarette smokeheavy ‘Hello’ to replace the ringing sound from my secret admirer hiding inside the car. But the phone continued to ring. I thought I could even hear it from the end of the street. It was apparent that whoever was inside the car didn’t want to take the call. Why not just switch off the phone? Why not just drive away? Why not shove your Audi up your . . .

The tinted windows merely threw back my reflection as I got closer and I caught myself making faces at it like I did in front of my bathroom mirror. I had to look inside the car, wake up whoever was there and . . . and make sure they were okay? It was possible that somebody was sick in there and wasn’t just holed up out of choice.

I used my feet to nudge the car door open wide enough to get a good look. The interior let out a stale smell of spilt beer. The phone had stopped ringing; I couldn’t locate it. A half-upset beer bottle by the driver's armrest was still dripping, leaving an ugly stain on the seat. A cheap icebox lay on the floor. I could also see the key in the ignition.

It looked like an impromptu party had gone bust. But where did the people go? I leaned in to get a better view of the back seat. There was no-one in the back: no sleeping baby, nobody having a heart attack, and no necking couple either (thank god for that). All I could see was a mess of tissues and a women's black leather jacket along with a brown handbag.

Bunch of kids celebrating Friday night in Dad's car.

I found the phone. It was on the floor partly covered by an upset floor-mat. The screen was glowing with many notifications.

Now what? Get into the car? Switch off the ringer on the phone? Read the messages? Why not look into the handbag while I'm at it? Maybe drive the car around the block?

What if she came back while I was messing with her things?

The driver could be a she—not many guys would use a pink iPhone casing. But what if she had a driver? Or she was being driven around by her friends?

I stepped away from the car. The street was waking up. A young-looking guy dressed for office hurried down lugging a huge laptop-bag. Three men walked by dangling their lunchboxes, barely offering me a glance. I could hear scratches of their conversation in Bengali. They discussed somebody who was refusing their generous offer to come to Bombay and make something of his life rather than rot away in a back-of-beyond town in rural West Bengal. My best friend, Sharbani, is a Bong and I had picked up some of the language from her.

Nobody around seemed to be bothered by the car or the ringing phone. So why should I?

I heard a faint scratching sound and looked up to see a crow sitting on top of the no-parking signage. Hello! You have something to do with this? It was watching me with interest. It held a steady eye-contact with me for a while, eventually got bored, cleared its throat with a rough caw, and flew into the mangroves. Another one took its place and did the same, it's scary-looking claws trying to find a foothold on the sharp metal edge of the no-parking sign. It was only when the third flew away following the earlier birds’ exact trajectory, as if they were digitally programmed to do so, that I took notice. The crows were saying something—there was a dense cluster of them spotting the horizon.

Something lay dead inside the swamps.

I got startled out of my thoughts when a phone rang. It was indeed my phone that rang this time. It was Nathan.

‘Yo!'

Why did he talk like that? And why hadn’t he left for work yet? It was a long drive to Colaba, and even though it's a Saturday, there would be traffic.

‘What?'

‘All OK?'

‘Meaning?'

‘I'm off. I told you I had that audit meeting today.'

‘Yes, I remember. Are you wearing a tie?'

He ignored the quip. ‘Thought I'll check on you. You want me to get anything on my way back? I was thinking . . . no, actually, we should check out that new Thai place, no? Ro must be on his way.'

Rohan was Nathan's younger brother. He was done with college and was moving in to stay with us in Bombay.

I was fond of Nate, but sometimes he could be very irritating.

‘Arre I told you no? Mum wants to cook. The fridge is stuffed with . . .'

I hurriedly stepped out of the way of a jogger, a big guy who took up most of whatever was left of the pavement by the car.

‘But that was stupid, no? What if they saw you?’ I overheard him talking to somebody. Or was he talking to himself? I couldn’t see any phone wire sticking out from anywhere, but he could be using tiny earphones on Bluetooth.

I shook my head. I was going mad. So what if he was talking to himself?

‘You still there, Jenny? Hello?'

‘Yes. Yes, I'm still here. Nate, there's a car out here. Looks like something funny is going on.'

‘Car? What car? Where are you exactly?'

It took him a while to understand that I had found an abandoned car on the street beside the mangroves and that there was a phone inside the vehicle that was ringing nonstop. All this was messing with my precious running time. It took some persuasion to stop him from coming down to fetch me. He left only after I promised to finish my run and head back home.

I didn’t tell him about the crows. But what about the crows?

Kashi

Kashi was two years old. She wore a pink frock. Her mother had cut her hair very short, like a little boy's. The haircut made her broad forehead stand out.

She let out a muffled scream of delight followed by a grunt of determination as she spotted the blue backpack at the end of the room. Her tiny and chubby hands were strong, so she could easily hang by the sides of the bed and allow herself to fall softly to the floor. It was a ritual with her. Wake up early, climb-roll-plank across the sleeping figures of her mum and dad, make it to the backpack at the end of the room.

The backpack was something special; it could reveal a world of treasures. Kashi had once found a whole chocolate bar hidden in the corner of the bag, sticky and sweet. With the bag, anything was possible: a magic wand, a queen's tiara, a secret passageway, a puppy . . .

She turned the bag upside down. Out came a ballpoint pen, a worn-out shawl, a doctor's prescription, a half-eaten apple, a large-sized tiffin box, an empty airfreshener dispenser, broken pieces of naphthalene balls, and a couple of crumpled pieces of paper. The papers had sketches that were the rough outlines of a baby's attempt to draw a human face. She remembered stuffing those drawings into the bag; they were gifts for her father.

And then she hit the jackpot. Out came an article that lit up her face. Kashi stared at it in shock. It was true then—fairies and pixies do exist! Who else could the shoe belong to? In her short life, she had never seen anything more magical.

It was a blue women's dress shoe. It was embossed with a silver tassel that blinked back at her which she would later cut out and use as a headband for her dolly. The blue suede was cool and soothing against her skin. The tiny silver buckle made a tinkling sound every time she shook it.

The sole of the shoe was still damp. That did not matter; Kashi was ready to trade her entire collection of coloured stones for the other part of the pair.

Urvi

‘S orry, Urvi, you said something?’ Niharika asked.

I shook my head.

‘But why is it such a big deal, yaar? Anu's twenty-one!’ Nika was breathless keeping pace with me; I was practically running.

‘Yes. But she always calls,’ I said.

‘Arre, her phone has gone dead! Or maybe she can’t find her phone? You know how these kids are.