RAINLIGHT RUPA
To my beloved grandchildren, Kai and Kaspian, the blessed inheritors of the magnificent banyan tree, who will continue the legacy in times of peace‌I hope.
The Fateful Night
It was the last Thursday of the month, 29 April 1999. With
torrid summer around the corner, this would be the last party of the season. That Thursday night at the Tamarind Court Café was the most happening night in Delhi. It was to be a multiple farewell party. We were closing for the four-month slack season, and also hosting a farewell for Georges, who was to travel to Canada the next morning for three months. His bags were packed and the driver was on standby for a 3 a.m. departure—which was not to be. Our restaurant used to draw distinguished visitors from all over the world, because it was also Delhi’s first shopping mall of sorts, albeit housed in a charming heritage building surrounded by 2,000 years of history. It boasted eleven chic boutiques, including an art gallery, which showcased the best works Delhi had to offer. And, of course, the trendy Tamarind Court Café, where guests would frequently be treated to live jazz, blues music and impromptu guest performances while they dined on Mediterranean fare. Malini had started the ‘Thursday Night Private Party’ theme some six or seven weeks earlier, when her friends had persuaded her to put aside one night of the week for them to get together and enjoy a private-party atmosphere rather than having to go to the crowded clubs that were popular among the affluent young at the time. They settled on Thursday, since that was the night hip youngsters usually headed to the Djinns nightclub at the Hyatt Hotel. Unable to afford the weekly trips to Djinns, they decided to create their own little club among close friends, styling a new theme each Thursday. Invitations were restricted.
| BIRD IN A BANYAN TREE
This idea started out the first night with eight girlfriends bringing their own wine, ordering dinner at the restaurant, playing their favourite music and just ‘hanging out’ together, having a good time. The concept caught on, and every week it increased in size as its reputation spread by word of mouth. By that Thursday, it had evolved into something bigger. Some friends had started calling me, saying, ‘Our kids are raving about your place on Thursdays. Can’t we come too?’ I could not believe what Malini had created. It resembled New York’s nostalgic El Morocco or Copacabana, with even a touch of Studio 54 in it. The parties took place in a large courtyard with a tamarind tree in the centre. Part of the courtyard would be turned into a bar, part into a dance floor, with lots of casual tables and seating, while under our grand staircase Malini would create a new themed area every week where the guests could hang out to see and be seen. Models, designers, young business tycoons, foreign residents, Bollywood and Hollywood stars, artists, musicians—all turned up to join in the festive atmosphere. On this Thursday of the seventh week before the summer season started, several hundred people came and went during the course of the evening. At that stage we still didn’t have a liquor licence, though we had received notice a few days earlier that the last barrier had been cleared so that there was ‘no objection’ to the final licence—the end of a long and frustrating ordeal. The growing success of the Thursday night parties had become rather alarming for us, because it had passed beyond the original ‘private party’ concept. A sign at the gate announced ‘Private Party’ but by now, word was out and few paid heed to the sign. We didn’t have adequate controls at the entrance—only a single guard. On that April night I was busy the entire evening, rushing up and down and greeting people between the courtyard and the upper terrace where Georges’s farewell party was taking place. As it happened, the World Economic Forum was meeting that week in Delhi, and most of India’s prominent businesspeople had
THE FATEFUL NIGHT |
gathered in town. Some had got wind of the party and decided to come down and check it out for themselves. I was shocked when I started to see faces that I usually saw only in the business pages of newspapers and on television, several with their wives. I was rushed off my feet, greeting them, being introduced, making new acquaintances. They were amazed at the beautiful atmosphere, wanting to know who was who, what was going on, what the night was all about. However, most of them departed before 12 a.m. At one point I glanced towards the gate and saw another group walking in. A tall, handsome man, who I later learned was the Hollywood actor Steven Seagal, came walking in with a group of ten or so Tibetan friends, some of them in Tibetan wear. We showed them up to the upper terrace to shield Seagal from unwelcome attention, and spent a good part of the evening with them. Seagal, a teetotaler, also left well before 12 a.m. We wonder to this day, having seen him in action in his movies, how he would have responded if he had been the one to encounter the scene that was to confront me at 2 a.m. Everywhere I turned I saw celebrities and radiant faces; the weather was perfect. The people, the music, the cool bursts of wind blowing and the crisp, star-filled sky all combined to create magic. Perhaps it was because the crowd was so much larger than we expected, perhaps the night felt too perfect—a strange premonition flashed through my mind, which I shared with a couple of friends. I told them that the night felt so unbelievably good that something terrible might happen and snatch it away from us. They both responded with, ‘Shhh, don’t utter such negative words.’ By 1 a.m. the food and drink had run out and, much to my relief, the crowd had largely thinned out as well. By 1.30 a.m. there were some forty people left, mostly regulars and the younger lot. The staff, as always, had completed their cleaning up, sweeping, washing; the bar and counters had been dismantled; the garbage had been hauled away. They were eager to finish the work because the place would be reopening in eight hours and had to be spic and span, ready for business. They all had to be back for work at 10 a.m.
| BIRD IN A BANYAN TREE
On my way up the stairs, turning around to take one last look below me, I noticed, through a window across the courtyard, that a few men had walked into the restaurant and seemed to be arguing with the cleaners. This part of the building was intended to become the formal dining room when the restaurant was refurbished. It contained the kitchen to the right, through a blue door, and a small unused bar. It was out of bounds for the guests while it awaited refurbishment. Just before 2 a.m., I descended the stairs and started across the courtyard towards the restaurant. Before I could get there, Malini came running out, visibly shaken, saying, ‘Mummy, some men have just walked into the restaurant and they’re using foul language.’ She didn’t go into the details but looked unnerved. I comforted her, saying, ‘That’s exactly where I’m going, to get everyone out of there.’ Malini later said in her police statement that a man (who would later be identified as Siddharth Vashisht aka Manu Sharma) had burst in with some friends and demanded some drinks. Sharma even offered `1,000 for a drink. Malini explained that the place was shut, that there was nothing left and that he would not even get a sip for `1,000. He responded that he would give `1,000 for a sip of her. Irritated, Malini had left the restaurant, then I had met up with her. Malini’s designer and model friends used to take turns to act as ‘celebrity bartenders’ at these evenings. Jessica Lal was one of them and was there that night, helping out. Her work was over by then, as the bar had long since been taken apart. She had been chatting with Malini and Shayan Munshi, another ‘celebrity bartender’ who was present in the restaurant. They had been reflecting on the success of the evening and were hoping to find something to eat from the fridge when these men had walked in. I started up the four steps that led to the restaurant entrance. As I climbed the third step, I heard a pop. It sounded like a balloon bursting but then, after another step, I heard another pop and this time I saw Jessica, who was standing amongst the men, now outside
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the bar, some fifteen feet away from me, fall to the floor. Immediately, the blue kitchen door beside the counter swung open and a lightskinned, stocky young man burst out into the restaurant from behind the counter, in front of me. I thought I saw him put something shiny into his pocket, which might have been a gun, though I did not see it clearly. I blocked his exit even as I saw his friends make a hasty departure past us to the door behind me. Simultaneously, both Shayan and my electrician Shiv Das pointed towards the stocky man (Manu Sharma), saying, ‘He did it!’ Everything was happening in seconds. Blocking the man’s exit and with my eyes focused on him, I shouted instructions to Shayan, ‘Run outside and ask everyone with cell phones to call the police, the ambulance or the nearest hospitals.’ He ran out and announced to the remaining few guests, ‘Someone shot Jessica!’ Meanwhile, I continued blocking the young man’s exit as best I could, and demanded to know who he was. I kept blocking him in a side-step that must have looked like a dance rehearsal, as he tried to leave through the door. He just kept shaking his head and repeating to all my questions, ‘No, I didn’t do it.’ ‘Everyone is pointing at you, saying you did it!’I glared at him, my adrenaline at its peak. He shook his head and said, ‘No, it wasn’t me.’ Then, mapping my vulnerabilities, ‘Hand me the pistol,’ I risked, pointing at his right-hand pocket, where I thought I had seen him hide something shiny. I didn’t dare take my eyes off him, because I was acutely aware that I needed to keep him on the back foot, in case my gamble failed. Following the example of Rajmata Gayatri Devi, I remember thinking, One of us is going to win this. I decided I had to overpower him somehow. I was hoping someone would come and capture him while I was buying time to delay his exit. I now know that this is not the approach police recommend, worldwide, when dealing with a gunman!