The deaths of Rekha Merchant and her children are first recalled through a newspaper account that places their earlier fall from a Bombay skyscraper beside later tragedies at the same building. The recurrence makes their deaths part of a pattern of loss surrounding Gibreel Farishta, without explaining Rekha’s motive or establishing a supernatural cause.

The Earlier Death

A report published after S. S. Sisodia is found dead in Gibreel Farishta’s apartment says that Rekha Merchant had thrown her children and herself from the roof of the skyscraper a couple of years earlier. The account provides no names or number for the children and gives no further circumstances. Its compressed, retrospective form leaves the family’s deaths starkly stated but unexplained.

The Building and the Later Tragedy

The newspaper links Rekha’s death with Alleluia Cone’s later fatal fall from the same roof, presenting the two incidents as related. Its headline invokes the supposed curse of Everest Vilas, turning the building into a recurring setting for death while stopping short of proving any literal curse. The report also appears amid news of Sisodia’s death and Gibreel’s disappearance, placing Rekha’s earlier loss within a new cluster of violent events.

Recollection and Narrative Significance

A later, uncertain recollection brings Rekha back as a figure floating above her carpet, in an account that also refers to a fall and to another man. The passage does not clarify what was witnessed, so it functions as an echo rather than a definitive explanation of her death. Across the newspaper report and this fragmentary memory, Rekha remains connected to Gibreel’s story through recurring images of absence, falling, and unresolved loss.