We
have another walkthrough of the apartment as Vishal shows Swati the new place.
He asks her if she likes it (I'd have thought he'd do that before he
agreed to take the place, but who knows?) and she gives him a wink with an
"a-okay" gesture. As she turns to look away from Vishal, a timid woman in a sari
emerges from behind the stairs. Oh, the stairs are in an open "L" shape, so it's
not as if she was hiding under them or anything. That's a
different movie.
As Swati gives her a curious look, the woman identifies herself as Bai, the maid of the previous owners. Vishal asks her how she knew that new people were living here, and she replies that Thakkar had told her, and she came to see if she could work for them. Swati tells her that's fine, and she can start tomorrow. Bai again gives an odd, almost child-like smile and gnaws on a fingernail before wandering out of the room.
Vishal
comments that Bai seemed a little crazy, but Swati scolds him and tells him not
to be mean. We follow this up with a montage of the furniture being carried in,
then jump cut to nighttime. Outside, it rains heavily as we cut into the
apartment. A POV shot reveals Vishal sitting on the couch, having a drink and
watching television. Our view continues down the stairs and stops on the
landing. We cut to Vishal's view to see Swati perched on the landing. She looks
as if she's just come out of the shower, and is coyly giving Vishal a "come
hither" look. Vishal doesn't need to be asked twice, and walks over to her for a
kiss-free moment of passion on the stairs. One more nod to the director's theme,
we see them reflected in the full-length mirror in the living room for a few
seconds.
Once
they've cooled off, we see that they've gone to bed for the night. Vishal is
naturally sound asleep, but Swati is restless. She tries to take a sip of water
from a bottle near the bed, but she discovers that it is empty. Looking annoyed,
she gets up to reload. The camera remains stationary as Swati's feet come down
the steps, then the rest of her soon follows. Sorry, bad joke! We watch as Swati
walks down the hall to the kitchen where she presumably fills the bottle, then
puts it in the fridge. She then walks back towards us and goes upstairs. As she
makes the turn at the landing and continues up, we see the darkened form of a
haggard looking woman standing in the bend of the stairs, watching Swati ascend.
This is of course accompanied by a loud hit from the orchestra.
Swati climbs back into bed, blissfully unaware of the unspeakable horrors that lie in wait downstairs. She scoots up next to Vishal and drifts off to sleep. The next morning we see Vishal getting ready for work. A few wordless minutes pass as we see the daily routine unfold - coffee, paper, tie, briefcase, elevator. You know the deal. As Swati sees him off, she stops for a moment outside of Thakkar's door (it is right outside of their own). Out of curiosity, she notices that the door is ajar. We see inside for a moment, and a silver-haired older woman stares at the camera while mouthing words to herself. She seems to be methodically rubbing a necklace with her right hand as she chants in silence. Outside, Swati has second thoughts and leaves the door alone.
There
are a few more shots showing us Vishal as he gets into his car and drives out of
the underground parking garage, then it's back upstairs to the apartment. Swati
is now in the kitchen, where she notices the little storage loft up above her.
Once again feeling adventurous, Swati gets a step-stool and climbs up to have a
look. She sees a child's doll sitting all by itself in the loft, and she picks
it up while everyone who has ever seen a horror movie yells for her to leave it
the heck alone.
Being the innocent soul that she is, Swati smiles at the doll and walks down the hallway from the kitchen to the living room. She brushes dust off of the doll's clothes and playfully shakes its hair around. The camera stops following Swati as she continues to walk towards the living room, and instead lingers on the doorway to the kitchen. For just a few frames, a shadow moves into view, and a small, dark blue boy (seriously) steps into the shot.
We quickly cut away to Vishal arriving at the office. It's business as usual for him as he gets started on his day's work. Back to the apartment! We see Swati returning from a shopping trip and heading for the elevator. As she passes the watchman, he turns his head to cast a somewhat sleazy look at her as she passes. As Swati hits the call button for the elevator, he calls out to her that the elevator is currently out of order. Swati gives him an irritated glare, then proceeds to climb up eight flights of steps to get to her door. As she approaches, she hears the phone ringing and quickly tries to get inside.
