Club You to Death

by Anuja Chauhan

Ro, the taller, thinner of the two, all tightened skin and nude lipstick, lets out a little scream. ‘Oh my God, you’re glowing! The gold facial has done wonders, babe!’

  Cookie, smaller, rounder, pink-mouthed, responds with a wicked grin. ‘This glow isn’t from gold, it’s from the gossip! Lovely, lovely gossip! Tell more!’

  Roshni tightens her ponytail. ‘Arrey, I already told you everything. Next episode will play out now. Urvi’s coming for class. She responded with a thumbs up to Leo’s message.’

  Cookie gives a little gasp. ‘Oh my God, she’s going to brazen it out, is she?’

  Roshni shrugs. ‘What choice does she have? The election’s today! It’s her last chance to suck up to us! But yeah, you’re right – it takes guts to show up like nothing’s happened!’

  They run down the pillared veranda to the gym.

  ‘Leo’s bike is here.’ Cookie nods to the Hayabusa parked on the road on the other side of the veranda railing. ‘Hurry, we’ll get to see him changing shirts!’

  They both laugh as they enter the gym.

  An EDM track is pumping loudly on the speakers. Leo is clearly in the middle of his one-hour personal workout.

  ‘Good morning!’ Roshni calls out cheerily, more than usual perhaps – it’s always a bit awkward to act naturally in front of somebody you’ve just been gossiping about.

  There’s no reply.

  The two women exchange looks, smothering guilty giggles. Usually, when they walk into the gym for this class, Leo’s wrapping up his workout, which he does alone every morning. In fact, there’s been a lot of giggly talk among the DTC Zumba girls about how, if you come early enough, you can begin the day with a blessed darshan of him in all his sweaty splendour, bench-pressing like a beast.

  ‘Leeeeo?’

  No answer.

  Bopping to the peppy beat, they look around the various aisles of the gym. The multi-station is unoccupied, and so is the row of treadmills. They swivel around to the rowing machines and ab-isolators but he isn’t there either.

  And then, as an insistent, electronic beat drop kicks in on the speakers, they spot him. On the bench press Kashi Dogra had admired the morning before. Lying on the deep-red leather bench on his back, with his legs stretched out on either side, his metallic neon green water bottle standing beside his sneakered feet.

  Cookie grips Ro’s arm. ‘He’s wearing the camouflage tracks,’ she whispers. ‘That means he must be wearing—’

  ‘The tightie-whitie racerback vest!’

  They both giggle and tiptoe closer.

  Leo is wearing the sleeveless white vest. His smooth, brown, muscular torso is shiny with sweat, the veins on his forearms and shoulders are standing out clearly. His hair is pulled back into its usual samurai topknot. He looks like a life-size superhero action figure – or one of those gorgeous American GI Joe dolls with every muscle lovingly etched and defined.

  Except that a gleaming silver barbell stacked with a hundred and twenty kilograms worth of plates is pressed against his windpipe, pinioning him to the red-leather upholstered bench, cutting off all air.

  The mighty chest is still straining upwards, fully inflated, but the head lolls sideways unnaturally. The sweaty corded neck is contorted to an impossible angle, and purpling with contusions. There can be no doubt about it – the glorious action figure is pathetically, irretrievably broken.

  The dead eyes protrude from their sockets slightly, staring blankly at the two women.

  Cookie and Ro emit ear-piercing screams.

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Leo!’

  They scramble forward, sobbing a little with shock and horror, struggling with nausea.

  ‘He’s still warm … oh God, oh shit, what the fuck happened here, Ro?’

  ‘Help me!’ Roshni’s voice is desperate. ‘Maybe we can still help him – let’s get the plates off …’

  They drop to their knees on one side of the prone figure, remove the clips that secure the plates in place and slide them off the bar. The freed bar rises up into the air, and can be pivoted off the broken body.

  ‘Leo!’ they call urgently as they remove it. ‘Leo!

  Cookie lifts one clammy, lifeless forearm to feel for a pulse. After a few moments, she shakes her head.

  ‘There’s nothing here, nothing. I feel nothing at all!’

  Tears fill her eyes as she looks at her friend in the mirrored wall. They are both reflected there, suddenly looking much closer to their actual ages in spite of their girlish clothes and ponytails.

  ‘He’s dead. Quite, quite dead.’

  ‘We need to call his family. Where’s his phone? Where’s his phone?’

  ‘There – oh God, Cookie, it’s asking for a fingerprint ID. Should we use it?’

  Biting down resolutely on her rising gorge, Roshni gingerly lifts Leo’s right hand and places his index finger on the phone screen. With a little musical sound, it unlocks.

  ‘Ugh!’ Cookie shudders slightly. ‘Now remove the security lock while you’re at it. Good, now go to Favourites.’

  ‘It’s a man.’ Roshni says. ‘Rax mobile.’

  ‘Call him then!’ Cookie says. ‘And Rosh – we should call the Club president too.’

  3

  Jai Bhavani

  ‘This is nat the way, PK,’ ACP Bhavani Singh says mildly as he performs meticulous toe-touches as prescribed by the Canadian Air Force’s 5 Basic Xercises booklet in the central park of the Hauz Khas Police Colony. ‘You cannat poke your nose in the girl’s privacy like this!’

  He is a soldierly looking man, close to sixty, with a square, homely face and spiky grey hair, and wearing a navy-blue tracksuit. Beside him, reluctantly performing the toe-touches too, is his subordinate, the much fairer, taller and younger Inspector Padam Kumar, resplendent in a bright yellow Brazil soccer jersey, who, being a single man in possession of a good future, is – following in the best Jane Austen tradition – in want of a wife.

  ‘Mummy says there’s nothing wrong in running little bit of background checks, sir.’ A stubborn look settles on Padam’s cherubic face. ‘It is a question of marriage after all! I just used our database to check if she, or her family, have any criminal tendencies.’

  ‘Everybody has criminal tendencies, PK,’ Bhavani replies. ‘You do too, or you would nat be snooping around, using the Crime Branch’s official database for personal work!’

  Padam Kumar’s face reddens. ‘I’m an honest policeman,’ he mutters. ‘I don’t take any bribes or indulge in any shady deals—’

  ‘You are nat doing the department a favour by being honest, PK!’ Bhavani responds mildly. ‘You are just doing your job!’

  Which is all very well for you to say, Padam thinks petulantly, but it is an open secret that apart from you, most of the department is happily on the take!

  Bhavani Singh moves on to doing sit-ups while continuing to speak.

  He really is quite fit for an old man, Padam Kumar admits silently as he switches to sit-ups too.

  ‘And it was nat just a matter of running a simple background check, was it – you have also had this girl followed by constables and checked out by police informers to find out if she has any boyfriends!’

  Padam Kumar says, slightly out of breath, ‘Sir, I thought ki just-for-this-once, there was no harm in using the department’s facilities to get a clean chit on this girl. She is a very good-looking girl, and so she may have had many admirers and, after all, it is a question of my whole life, sir!’

  Bhavani gives an exasperated little exclamation and pauses mid sit-up.

  ‘Accha, so supposing the girl got a dirty chit,’ he says. ‘Matlab, you found out that she has had some boyfriends. Then what?’

  Padam Kumar blinks. ‘Then I would have caught her in a lie, sir,’ he says virtuously. ‘Means she is immoral, and untrustworthy – and not good enough to be my wife and mother-of-my-children.�
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  Bhavani smiles gently. ‘But if she had come right out and told you that she has had boyfriends, then you would have rejected her, would you nat have, my good and self-righteous PK?’

  Padam avoids his superior’s gaze, checks his watch, and moves on sulkily to the third basic Xercise – the back extension. Bhavani sir has an English-teacher wife, two daughters and two granddaughters, so he has no choice but to be broadminded. But I still have a choice, he thinks mutinously.

  As they lie on their stomachs and raise their arms and legs off the ground, alternately arching their backs and sinking back to the floor, he mutters, ‘Sir, my family is very traditional …’

  ‘And you’re just the man to modernize them!’ Aggravatingly, Bhavani is not at all out of breath. ‘The cost of the surveillance work you ordered on the girl is going to be deducted from your next pay cheque, and the only reason we are letting you off without a written warning is because we know you honour your mother. But you must learn to honour your future wife also! Or your marriage will be a very unhappy one.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ PK says miserably, wondering why he has to have such a weird boss. Anybody else in the Crime Branch would have understood and condoned his ‘crime’. But not Assistant Commissioner of Police Bhavani Singh.

  The older man isn’t done yet. ‘If you really want to get to know this girl better, take her for a walk in this nice weather we are having! Let her choose her own meal in a good restaurant, tell her about your failures and your fears and the women you have kissed, and then she herself will tell you all her secrets!’

  As if! Padam Kumar thinks rebelliously as they get on their hands and toes to start on the fourth basic Xercise – push-ups. Why would I pay for an expensive meal for a girl I haven’t even finalized yet? She should call me to her house and feed me! And why would I put such loaded information into my to-be wife’s hands! But that’s ACP Bhavani for you, he has no concept of the right and proper way of doing things.

  Why can’t I have a normal boss, Padam Kumar wonders gloomily. Or a cool boss. Like in all those Dabangg and Singham movies? The type who makes criminals piss their pants when he walks into the room? When Bhavani Singh walks into the room, all the crooks leap up grinning, and ask him how his granddaughters are.

  ‘Remember you are nat superior to this girl, PK.’ Bhavani is still holding forth. ‘No human being is superior to another. All are equal.’

  This is too much for Padam Kumar, who takes great pride in his badge, and his position as a crusader for law and justice.

  ‘Sir, surely I am superior to a murderer, sir!’

  ‘A murderer can go on to become a saint,’ says Bhavani, rising red-faced and finally out of breath to start on the final basic Xercise – jumping jacks alternating with running on the spot. ‘And a saint could slip off his pedestal and become a murderer!’

  Padam Kumar has heard this particular line several times before. It’s one of Bhavani Singh’s four golden maxims, neatly penned by his wife (probably before I was born, Padam thinks peevishly) in multicoloured sketch pens upon the pin-up board in his cabin in the Crime Branch cell in Chanakyapuri.

  THE FOUR GOLDEN RULES

  1. Hitting people will loosen their tongues. Listening to them will open their hearts

  2. ‘Every human being is capable of murder. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.’ – Oscar Wilde

  3. Routine work is God’s work. Do it religiously.

  4. Never strain too hard. Breakthroughs happen organically, in their own sweet time. If you strain, you will only get haemorrhoids in the brain.

  Galling though it may be for Padam Kumar to admit, this faded foundation has helped Bhavani achieve an impressive strike rate over the years. And it is generally agreed that in a workplace that is heated, aggressive and unrelentingly stressful, the genial older man is a walking, talking, low-pressure area. He exists in such a calm, unhurried, non-judgemental and totally receptive state that the hot winds of information come whooshing down on him of their own accord.

  It is no wonder then that, when the chief receives an urgent phone call from the president of the Delhi Turf Club, he immediately thinks of Bhavani. A steady, mature hand is needed to deal with whatever the fuck is unfolding at the high-profile club, and ACP Singh is clearly the chap for the job.

  Half an hour later, Bhavani is cloistered with the chief in the latter’s office, while the still slightly sulky Padam Kumar cools his heels outside.

  ‘What do you know about the Delhi Turf Club, Bhavani?’

  ‘It’s like an Amitabh Bachchan, sir,’ Bhavani ventures, after considering the hallowed institution for a while. ‘Ageing superstar, thoda irrelevant in these times, surviving mostly on reputation.’

  The chief chuckles. ‘The members would say that’s sour grapes talking! But yes, maybe you have a point. There is still weight and snob value in the name, however! All the top faujis and civil services chaps, high-flying lawyers and business, politicians even, regard their DTC membership very highly!’

  ‘Has something happened there, sir?’ Bhavani asks.

  The chief nods. ‘I got a call from the Club President. He’s an ex-home secretary of the Government of India. He woke up today to find a dead man on the club premises.’ It’s probably an accident, but it could be murder – the victim got into fisticuffs with a DTC member yesterday in full public view. Beat the other fellow up pretty badly apparently, so maybe that man decided to exact revenge. Go investigate it … but gently.’

  ‘Sir, isn’t this the club that honourable defence minister sa’ab wants shut down for being anti-national?’ Padam Kumar asks Bhavani in the car as they drive to the DTC a little later.

  ‘Yes,’ Bhavani Singh replies briefly.

  There has been quite a storm in a beer mug with the DTC and the defence minister recently, typical of the hyper-nationalism dominating public discourse in these times.

  From what Bhavani can recall, somebody had invited Gagan Ruia, the overfed son of defense minister Govardhan Ruia, for dinner to the DTC. Ruia Jr was wearing a pair of Gujarati mirror-work juttis, so the Club staff didn’t let him enter the main dining hall – they had some only-formal-footwear rule for men, apparently. They requested him to either eat in the lawns, or change into closed formal shoes. Ruia had refused and left in a huff, and half an hour later, taken to Twitter to declare that the DTC was anti-national because it discriminated against ‘Indian’ attire in general and juttis in particular. He had waxed eloquent about the fact that his father, Govardhan Ruia, was a humble bhutta-seller from Kathiawar who had worn only juttis till he was twenty-five – and said he would not rest till the thirty-two acres of prime Delhi land leased to the DTC was reclaimed, and the whole place converted into a massive gaushala. Cows will graze on the sweet grass of all the turf and the tennis courts, he swore, and muscular bhakts will play bhajans on the flute for them, while demure lasses churn butter in the marble-tiled verandas! In about fifteen minutes all the news channels had been discussing the ‘issue’ using hashtags like #JuttiGate and #DTCMeriJutti.

  It hadn’t helped that a rather gaga old DTC member had pointed out that Ruia senior and his colleagues had all been assigned sprawling bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi and they were welcome to let cows graze on their three-acre gardens instead! The thirty-two acres of the DTC service five thousand members and their families, this member had said, whereas your three-acre gardens exists to serve only you and your porky son! Naturally, this incensed the IJP camp even further. They re-christened the Delhi Turf Club the Delhi Terrorist Camp right there and then, and have been baying for its closure ever since …

  ‘So sir, is it anti-national?’ Padam Kumar wants to know.

  Bhavani sighs. ‘The definition of anti-national is very, very broad today, PK.’

  A messy murder on the DTC premises would suit the IJP admirably, Bhavani muses as his car turns into the imposing black gates of the Club and rolls
down the tree-lined driveway. But it remains to be seen if today’s incident is accident or murder …

  Looking about the Club premises as he alights from his car, he feels his ageing superstar comparison is not too far off the mark. The main bungalow, almost one hundred and eighty years old, is gracious but, under the sparkling cream paint, somehow exhausted-looking. There are hundreds of five-star hotels in Delhi now, and any number of housing complexes with better pools and courts and other sporting facilities than the Turf Club’s. Agreed, the property is on prime location, and the sprawling lawns are beautiful – but they are not as well-maintained as they could be; there is a slight air of seediness to the place – like it is holding out defiantly to a new age, and a new set of rulers.

  Very much in sync with this setting is the man who comes hurrying up to greet Bhavani and Padam. Older than Bhavani, with a receding hairline, bowed shoulders, and an absent-minded manner.

  ‘You must be Bhavani Singh!’ he greets the ACP. ‘Thank you for coming at once! I’m Bhatti, Devendar Bhatti, Club president.’ He rolls his eyes ironically. ‘For my sins!’

  ‘Haha!’ Bhavani smiles sunnily and grasps the proffered hand. ‘We have often heard of the garden at the DTC, but we did nat expect it to be quite so beautiful, sir!’

  Bhatti looks about the garden in a harassed sort of way, blinking his watery eyes. His prominent Adam’s apple and receding chin make him look vaguely hen-like. ‘Yes, yes, there is a gardening committee … they are very … er … committed … but what I want to show you is not very beautiful I’m afraid …’

  He leads the two policemen down the driveway, past the Lady Darlington Swimming Bath and the No Ayahs, Servants and Gunmen sign Akash Dogra finds so problematic, and to the gym.

  There is a knot of women of all ages and shapes waiting outside this building, toting water-bottles and yoga mats and whispering to each other furiously. But when they see the three men approaching, they quieten, push their sunglasses higher up their noses, and look at them expectantly.