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OTHER STORIES RELATED TO COVER The Slow Steps To Death At the Hyatt Interview: Vinay Kapoor The Original Prom Queen

Sushmita Dev, Natasha's counsellor (along with senior colleague Malvika Rajkotia) in her custody and divorce cases, remembers getting a call from Natasha's long-time friend Deborah Malik saying that "something had happened". "I immediately rushed over to find Natasha in a torn night suit, shaken but not broken," says Dev, "I also remember that she was perfectly fine the following day and wore a polo neck to meet Kiran Bedi for a photography project she was doing for Tihar jail." Almost everyone who knew her agreed that Natasha was a born survivor.

The In-laws Jagat's mother Heminder (left), sister Ritu (centre) and father at the funeral

Natasha had developed an interest in photography in her college days but it was only in the past two years that she chose to pursue it as a career. She took a course at Delhi's JD Institute of Technology (using a camera given to her by her mother-in-law) and subsequently did some work with DCCW's home for abandoned and handicapped children. Her first big project, the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, took her to Bhuj. She put together an exhibition at Delhi's India Habitat Centre. The lofty theme: "Hymn to Dawn: a photo-journey and some momentary perceptions on the human ability to prevail over a cruel paradox called life".

Until the Bitter End Estranged husband Jagat Singh (above) carrying Natasha's bier at the cremation grounds. Friends like Robert Vadra (below) look on.

It looked as though photography was finally becoming an anchor in her life. On the last day of her life when she was sitting with friends in Cafe Turtle and having a cappuccino she told lawyer Viraj Dattar about her plans to take another exhibition to New York and laughingly ended with: "Hey, you're looking at the next Raghu Rai." Vishal Chawla, a man she had dated 10 years earlier and still a good friend all these years, commissioned her to do some commercial work.

She needed the money. Dev recalls that the only reason why Natasha didn't call from her cell phone (98100-99411) when she was assaulted in December was because she couldn't-she had not yet paid her cell phone bill of Rs 3,000. Dev also knows of friends who sent her hampers of food, of how she often took her kids to school by bus before she took a loan to buy a car ("To toughen them up," she would say). "But she was also never ever greedy for money," she adds. "When I was drafting her maintenance and current liabilities in her divorce case, I wrote Rs 15,000 a month for food for the children and her two maids. She told me this was too much and that she only wanted a little help from Jagat." By this time, feels Rajkotia, it appeared that the worst was over and that she was looking up to the future.

Dutiful Political Wife Jagat Singh was the unsuccessful Congress candidate from Bharatpur in 1999. Natasha campaigned alongside him.

Her life during the past two weeks had been crowded with parties, photoshoots and meetings. She told an old friend ending the relationship with Kapoor would strengthen her case for the custody for her sons. (The lower court was to have given its judgement on April 5.) She also said that her relationship with Jagat had "improved tremendously" and that they could be "civil to each other now". According to Chawla, who had been in constant touch with her in the past six weeks, Vinay messaged her three days before her death asking her to "hook up with him". She ignored the message.

Page Three Fixtures Natasha and her then boyfriend Vinay Kapoor were inseparable for a year, living it up on the capital's party circuit

Till a few hours before she died, Natasha Singh showed no signs that she would end up taking her life. On Saturday March 16, Chawla came to her house early in afternoon and played basketball with her on the terrace. At about 4 p.m., Natasha left her house and arrived at the fashionable Santushti complex for friend and designer Aparna Chandra's exhibition at Ogaan. Then at 6 p.m, with a clutch of three friends, including Chandra and lawyer Dattar, she went to Cafe Turtle. Dattar remembers that she was very excited about her future projects. She hardly appeared suicidal.

On reaching home at about 7 p.m, she began popping the first few pills of Alprax, a common anxiety disorder pill, and by 9 p.m., she had gulped over 32, which, according to police investigators, was almost double her "normal daily intake of 14-15 over the past four months". She dozed off for a while under the impact of the pills, but suddenly woke up around 11 p.m. and had a cup of tea. At 11.35 p.m., she picked up her red Nokia 8210, and punched in a message to Malik which read: "Debs just tell the kids that I adored them, I really tried. I don't blame anyone. Just need another world ... Thank you for all your support." And another one, some minutes later, flashed on the cell phone of friend Somaya Kaula, the hopelessness increasing by degrees: "I want to fly high tonight. I hope you are my sister in the next birth."

By the time Malik checked her SMS and called back, 15 minutes had elapsed. Natasha had already left the house. She came back briefly to pick up a bulbous bottle of Something Special whisky. Malik made calls to other friends and drove to Natasha's house, only to find her car missing. Jagat was among the last people to receive messages that night-four of them, the final one at 1.30 a.m.-before she switched off her mobile. In the first one she said, "It's time to say goodbye." The others requested Jagat to tell their sons the truth about their lives and to allow Hanut to light her pyre. The last one said that she wasn't going to send any more messages to him, ever, and that she adored the children.

Jagat was partying near Natasha's home in Greater Kailash and either chose to ignore the messages or wasn't aware they had been sent.

In the Hyatt lobby, designer Gitanjali Kashyap, an acquaintance, saw Natasha coming in but noticed nothing unusual. Natasha took a lift to the second floor, where she had been a frequent visitor to Kapoor's suite-a large, lavish room with neo-classical furniture and a private terrace, where she had even played hostess at many parties. She tried to reach the private terrace adjoining Kapoor's room by breaking the latch of the fire exit, but an alert hotel guard prevented her from doing that. "The idea perhaps," say investigators, "was to jump down from the terrace." A thwarted, desperate Natasha then, say police, took the elevator to the 7th floor of the hotel, unseen by hotel staff. On reaching the top she took the service corridor, then a short flight of stairs, before making her way to the open terrace. She walked through an open door first, then the electrical switch room and past the giant exhaust fans of the air-conditioning plant. Somewhere next to the fans, close to 1 a.m., Natasha took calls from Malik and another friend, Rewati, each call lasting between 5 and 30 seconds. Natasha heard their frantic "hellos" but refused to reply. Then she cut them off. Both callers whose numbers logged up on Natasha's mobile were to tell the police later that they could distinctly hear the whirl of fans in the background. Calls came in 15 minutes later from Andy Sehgal, a friend of Jagat, but Natasha remained quiet. Seconds later, she sent her last goodbye message to Jagat.

Then she began to do what she rarely did-drink whisky straight from the bottle. Friends knew her as someone who preferred gin and vodka or an occasional red wine, but never whisky. Never neat. For the last 45 minutes of her life Natasha stood preparing for death. The plunge to the first floor terrace came after she crawled over an air conditioner duct to the 4 ft 6 in high walls (see graphic) with bag in hand and the phone tucked inside it. As she fell, her jaw slammed against the ac ducts on the first floor terrace, reducing her brains to pulp. Her body landed on its stomach on the sandstone pathway.

It was discovered at 5.40 a.m. When the police arrived, someone turned her body, causing her ribs to perforate her skin. Superficially they looked like bullet wounds, resulting in the police registering a case of murder and triggering innumerable speculative theories. X-ray tests ruled out any bullet wounds. The finger print bureau also determined that only Natasha had touched the whisky bottle. The autopsy was done twice and Natasha was cremated two days later. Her friends and family, including many of the Delhi's famous faces were there, grieving for the girl they cherished from behind thick sunglasses. Her children were not present. They had not been told of her death. Hanut did not light the pyre as she had wanted. As in life, Natasha Singh's wishes remained unfulfilled in death. A frenzied search for happiness and fulfilment had ended in tragedy and grief.