Wrought-Iron

The ornate pattern in the balcony grill was a shame to the nondescript neighbourhood in which it belonged. Evening sunset felt gilded because the grill would give it back its last regal shine as it seeped in the last rays of the day’s light to be disbursed unraveling patterns of geometric haze on the marble floor of the balcony. In the days when it was made to order and finally installed, on the fourth storey, people came to watch it from the roads. In the ensuing years, students and photographers of architectural passion have greedily lapped up its awe. It sits pretty dreary today, a chance chaos, rather than its actual worth brought and removed it from highlight.

Around the little circles, somewhere in the middle of the grill, was inscribed ‘KAMANI’, throughout the length of the grills. Some said it must have costed Hiralal a fortune to cast his name on iron. Hiralal Kamani was thrown out of his family’s legacy in Ahmedabad, when he had decided to marry one Shahida Begum of the tall-statured Waqar Ahmed’s family. They were one of the richest in the city, in education, culture and wealth and could not worry less about the fact that they did not have a son. Such a plethora of open-mindedness was rare. Is.

When Shahida was selected at a University in Calcutta to teach, about seventy years ago, the couple shifted base. With her father’s help, Hiralal too, expanded his business in automobile spare parts distribution and building and soon became a roaring success.

When two suicides took place off the grill over a span of twenty years, the inmates began to question the piety of the flat. Shahida Begum was found on the road, face down, twenty two years ago. Hiralal was away on a business tour. There was no suicide note to conclude the reason, and thus it was assumed that boredom must have sealed her fate. The daughter, Prerna, and son Abhishek Kamani were in their early twenties. Soon after, Prerna was married off to Jitesh Binani and Abhishek brought home a lovely Sindhi wife, Anuradha. One day, around evening, Anuradha woke up to the screams on the road. Life changed for her when she was huddled to be kept off the sight of her husband, Abhishek. He had committed a bland suicide as a fruitless resolve to the debts he could no longer take care of.

In the next two years, Jitesh took charge of his father-in-law’s business. Hiralal died knowing that his business was in safe hands while his daughter no more was. Jitesh started frequenting the house on a regular basis and apart from business acumen, greed and lust took the better of him. Anuradha too gave in to desire. As came to be known quite openly, Jitesh was now the all in all of the Kamani money and women. While Prerna was independent in her own rights, she could not raise her voice against her husband. She was cordial with her sister-in-law, who had a better ‘look’ than her, she observed.

As we wonder from our bus window, what has caused the crowd under the Kamani Grill House as it is known, we are not yet aware that another death has taken place off them. The sunset rays are still swallowed well by the name, and the curse continues. By the time we reach home, local news greets us about the fallacy of death. “Is it Prerna? Is it Anuradha?” “Suicide, or murder?”

A detailed picture-by-picture explanation is provided in the front page of the newspapers the next day. Both the women are dead. Prerna had feigned a suicide for Anuradha and completed it with an accompanying note in which she confesses about her affair with her brother-in-law. As she was about to push her off, Anuradha posed to be the stronger of the two and pushed Prerna instead. The suddenness of this event brought upon her a wave of guilt and fear. The suicide note went down with Prerna, speaking of her death. In a fit of what could be best described as what the grill does best, Anuradha jumped off it too.

Jitesh Binani was harassed by media and questioned by relatives. To them all, he seemed a little fuzzy and only spoke one thing – ‘Cursed Kamani Grill’. Legend is, after the grill was built, Hiralal had, much akin to Emperor Shah Jahan, gone on to destroy the factory and its workers in one single, cruel, all-devouring fire. Though no evidence was ever found that he got the fire to start, he was often found sharing his pride, ‘No one can get such custom-build grills.’

The innocent grills soak in the sunset.