The media is watching closely. Unfortunately, voter involvement, at least at this initial point, three weeks before Bittora goes to the polls, seems to be rather low.
***
'Quite a nice article, isn't it?' Gudia aunty cooed in breathless cloying accents, her large watery eyes locked into mine. 'Such a big picture also! Madam, you must be so proud of your famous granddaughter!'
Amma grunted.
I plastered a polite smile across my face and merely said, 'Thanks, Gudia aunty.'
It was a swelteringly hot day, forty-one degrees according to Our Pappu, and we were sitting in the verandah of the Tughlaq Road house, getting ready to depart for Bittora by the evening train. It was to be a large contingent - lots of workers, the core team for the campaign, Joline Bai, who was joined at the hip with Amma, Amma and me. And also, it now appeared, Gudia aunty.
Gudia aunty gambolled into our lives when Amma entered politics after Bauji's death, and has been holding on grimly ever since. She looks rather like a middle-aged Sesame Street muppet, one of those over-eager, hyper ones, with bulging ping-pong ball eyes, a huge nose and a gulping, whiny little voice. She trails behind Amma, running her errands, being yelled at and pushed about, always smiling a nervous, appeasing smile. She has proclaimed herself Amma's 'second daughter' and says she'll do anything for her because Amma got her some sort of secretarial job at the All India Pragati Committee headquarters when she was down and out many years ago.
She fully creeps me out. She's kind of like that weirdo nanny in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. You know, the one who insinuates herself into the heart of a family and then starts killing them off one by one.
'Are you coming with us, Gudia aunty?' I asked, fervently hoping she would say no.
Gudia aunty turned her huge watery eyes upon me, blinked and said gushingly, 'Of course! I'm going to be madam's election agent! Oops - ' She raised one ungainly, red, knuckled hand to her mouth. 'I mean, ha ha, your election agent!' She swatted my arm in an awkward attempt at playfulness. 'This will take some getting used to!'
'Well, then get used to it, Gudia,' Amma said wearily. 'Now go and organize some tea.'
Gudia aunty flushed a little at Amma's dismissive tone, but got to her feet immediately. 'Of course! I am not a guest in this house, to sit in the hall and be served tea!' she said archly. 'I know madam's kitchen like the back of my hand! Jinni, can I offer you some tea? You are the visitor here, really! I am quite at home!'
You see how totally creepy she is? Talking to her is like biting into a slice of extra-sweet dussheri mango, and then discovering it's been cut with the onion knife.
'Why do you put up with that woman, Amma?' I asked crossly, when Gudia aunty had blundered away towards the kitchen. 'And why is she coming with us?'
Amma shook her head. 'Gudia haj had a very sad life, Sarojini,' she said reprovingly. 'She was orphaned at ten, had a hysterectomy at twenty, and then her hujbend left her - not even to go and live with another woman - just to be alone!'
'I would've left her too,' I muttered.
'See ij an excellent election agent,' Amma said stubbornly. 'We won't have anyone else.'
'What does an election agent do, anyway?' I wondered aloud. I was pretty hazy about all the nuts and bolts of campaigning stuff. My expertise was mostly limited to smiling winsomely and saying Vote for Pushpa jiji! Vote for Pragati!
Amma rolled her eyes. 'The election agent is the candidate's most trusted person. The core of the core team. See can sign documents on the candidate's behalf. Also, see visits the office of the district commisner every two days and submits full accounts of all the monies her candidate is spending. With bills and everything.'
'Why is that such a big deal?' I asked, not particularly impressed.
Amma rubbed her ear lobe tiredly. 'Do you have any idea,' she asked, 'how hard it ij to spend six-seven crores and make it look like you spent only twenty-five lakhs?'
'Six-seven crores?' I gasped. 'That's insane.'
Amma just looked at me.
'Don't be Nave, Sarojini,' she said sternly.
I flushed.
'I'm not being naive,' I said doggedly. 'You know Bauji wouldn't have approved.'
Amma sniffed.
'Bauji wouldn't have approved of your haircut!' she shot back. 'Times change, Sarojini.'
I backed down. 'So you want her to diddle your accounts. Fine, I get it. Just - don't treat her like a dogsbody, okay? Or push her around, that's all I ask of you.'
'We won't,' said Amma indignantly. 'We never do,' she added as an afterthought.
Then she looked around furtively, lowered her voice and said, 'Only, you will need to watch her, little bit - see haj a small problem... you know.'
Oh god. I'd forgotten all about Gudia aunty's little problem.
I groaned. 'Amma, the woman is a full blown klepto!'
Amma shook her head. 'No, no, we have no proof,' she said vaguely, not looking me in the eye. 'Besides, see ij very honest about money... only rings and one-two perfume bottles and all disappear sometimes when see is there...'
You see? It's completely illogical. Only my grandmother would pick a kleptomaniac to be her election agent and trust her to handle large bundles of sweet-smelling cash.
'And that too, only after parties when see haj had one-two drinks...'
Make that an alcoholic kleptomaniac.
'You only like her,' I said resentfully, 'because she sucks up to you.'
'Well,' said Amma, poking me with her bony fingers, 'at least somebody doej! Now come, it ij almost time to go to the stasun.'
I got up, glancing again at the news article as I did so. Gudia aunty hadn't been sucking up for once. The picture of me was nice, an arty black-and-white portrait that Rumi had shot on Marine Drive one rainy afternoon, but the picture of Zain was even nicer. He was wearing a retro Def Leppard T-shirt and laughing, looking a little rueful, surrounded by a crowd of doting girls on the campus of Bittora Women's College. Just looking at him made my belly flip over.
Meeting him last night had been so incredible.
And not just because he had turned out to be lean, taut, chiselled and honey gold. Or because his kisses had made my head spin. That helped, of course. But it had been incredible, mainly because meeting him again had been, in a way, like meeting myself again.
I picked up the newspaper for another look at his picture. Was one of the girls groping his butt? Well, good for her.
The caption below the picture said Zain Altaf Khan, IJP candidate, at the BWC's inter-college western music festival.
Was he a snake? An opportunist?
Or was he - my eyes widened - a closet mujahideen or something? Worming his way into the IJP and then trying to finish them off from within. Was that his big plan?
Or was he trying to finish me off from within? Was that his big plan?
I mean, the way he'd just shown up, out of the blue - and been so nice and everything. Surely, that couldn't be a coincidence? Oh my god, supposing he hadn't spent all those years working out and growing tall to be worthy of me? Supposing he'd spent all those years nursing a grudge and figuring out how to destroy me? And I'd let him lead me to the study with the big comfy sofa. I'd let him kiss me, more than kiss me. Much more than kiss me. My insides began to squirm in painful embarrassment. He had seemed so well-prepared... what if there were cameras in that study?
Supposing he'd known, somehow, that I would be standing? When Amma and I alighted the train in Bittoragarh, would we find the constituency plastered with pictures of me in a clinch with him? Talk about getting screwed by the opposition! I'd be doomed before I even began!
Sweaty and panicking, I decided it was time to do something I'd been putting off for almost ten days now. I sneaked into the garden - which was sizzlingly hot, but at least finally free of Bittorawallahs - and called my mother.
The phone rang about sixteen times before she picked it up.
'Hello!' she said, sounding out of breath. 'Please say yo
u're calling about the broken boiler!'
'No, I'm not,' I said grumpily, perspiring in the heat. 'I'm your broken, boiling daughter.'
'Jinnniiiii!' she squealed. 'How are you, baby?'
'Good,' I said. 'What's wrong with your boiler?'
She sighed.
'That,' she said in her lecturing-professor voice, 'is a deep, far-reaching question, too long to be answered in the international phone call format.'
'Okay. Listen, Ma, I, uh, need to ask you a question,' I said awkwardly.
'Wow,' she said chirpily. 'Are you on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Jinni? Am I your Final Lifeline?'
'Very funny,' I said crossly. 'Listen, do you have any issues with my joining politics?'
'Hey, who am I to have issues?' she replied breezily. 'You're an adult. Do your own thing!'
Phew. Thank god. I relaxed.
'Having said that,' she added, her voice switching smoothly back to professor mode again, 'I would much prefer you stick to the intellectual, high-minded, spiritually rewarding and society-serving job of animating cartoons than sink to the squeaky, frivolous, make-believe world of politics.'
'I've been given the ticket from Bittora,' I blurted out, unable to stand the tension any more. 'And I'm standing.'
Silence. Almost a whole minute of it.
'Score one for Pushpa jiji,' said Ma finally.
'Umm... Ma?' I said, my voice pleading. 'Score one for Bauji, actually.'
'I hope so, Jinni,' she said. 'I just hope so.'
I didn't say anything.
See, that's the whole thing.
Amma's politics are different from Bauji's.
I remember a conversation I had with Amma, back when she was still an MP. She had taken Ma and me for a free holiday to a luxury beach resort, whose owner was fighting a court case involving infringement on the no-permanent-construction-within-five-hundred-metres-of-the-high-tide-line clause of the Environment Protection Act. I asked her if it was in good taste for her to holiday there and she explained it all to me, very reasonably. She was always good at explaining stuff.
'Dekho, Sarojini,' she said. 'We respected your Bauji but we learnt from his mistakes.'
'Matlab?' I asked.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, 'Just becauj some fellow gives you flowerj and one-two small prejents and takes you out to dinner, that doej not mean you will let him get into your bed, na?'
'That's not the same thing at all!' I exclaimed. 'And anyway, if I was sure I didn't fancy the guy, I wouldn't lead him on by accepting his presents!'
'Not even if they were very nice prejents?' she asked. 'Not even if they were very nice prejents he could eajily afford?'
'No!' I said, feeling absurdly prim and a little untruthful.
'Then you are a fool,' she said with finality. 'Arrey bhai, look at inflation! People from the constituency just get up and come to our house anytime! We need to maintain twenty-four-hour office and kitchen. We need to have some standing within the party! Also, we get invited to three weddingj a week, minimum. Where we have to give at least thousand rupee lifafa, to keep our nose from being cut off, yes-ki-no? How to manage on twelve thousand a month MP selery? Bhai, we are not proud. Pride ij a sin. If kind friends want to subsidize our lifestyle a little, we just accept humbly and gracefully.'
I pointed out to her that the twelve thousand bucks MP salary was a bit of a scam. If you added all the other perks they were entitled to, like office expenses, travelling concessions, DT-TA, house and electricity, plus the fact that they could fly business class forty times a year for free - the whole deal came close to three lakhs a month! But Amma just waved me away.
Four years later, she had a ready justification for the morphed photo scandal too. She told me, as persuasively as ever, that Bauji knew all the people in the pictures, he'd told her all about them, she'd even met some of them, all she'd done was fake some pictures of meetings that might have actually happened. It wasn't like she'd been involved in some multi-crore scam like most of her other colleagues. It wasn't like she'd embezzled money. Why were Ma and I being such self-righteous prigs? What was the big deal?
She didn't realize that, for Ma and me, it was a big deal.
A long gusty sigh from Ma brought me back to the present.
'Well,' she said lightly. 'When you were little, you were always drawing up these elaborate plans - India's Poor People Plans - you couldn't say poor, you used to pronounce it "pure", remember?'
I flushed. Trust her to remember. It's true. I used to be fully megalomaniacal. I would sit in Bauji's old armchair at Tughlaq Road and draw up complex, detailed plans about how to fix the nation's ills. Massive, state-of-the-art skyscrapers would spring up everywhere, replacing the slums. The 'pure' people could stay there for free, provided they all had a thorough bath, took their vaccinations, had regular health check-ups and sent their children to school. All the rich people, I confidently assumed, would gladly fund these programmes, because they were so rich they wouldn't miss the money. Besides, it would give them a chance to Get in Good with God. At that point in my life, cuddled up to Amma or listening to Bauji's stories every night, I used to think that the most important goal in everyone's life was to Get in Good with God.
'And don't tell me you've gotten over that phase,' Ma continued. 'All you did, the last time I came to India, was sit in front of the TV and gaze soppy-eyed at Kiran Bedi as she meted out swift but sure justice to the masses on Aap ki Kachheri. You have the soul of a benign dictator, Jinni.'
'I don't,' I said automatically, recalling with a pang that Zain too, had once dismissed my 'pure' people plans as borderline fascist. 'Ma, come campaign for me.'
'No way,' she replied promptly. 'So much proximity to Pushpa jiji might derail my menopause. Have you any idea how long I've been waiting for it to hit?'
'Alwayj thinking about yourself,' I said snidely.
She laughed. 'Who else is in attendance?'
'Gudia aunty,' I said gloomily. 'And someone called Rocket Singh, though I haven't met him yet.'
'Ughh to both,' said Ma darkly. 'Gudia toh you know my opinion of... and that Rocket Singh... he's a Saakshaat Fart. A fart incarnate. If flatulence could ever assume human form, it would look exactly like Rocket Singh. Anyone else?'
'Some dude called Pappu,' I continued. 'And lots of nameless hordes.'
'Well, get to know them, Jinni,' Ma advised. 'Or you'll only have Gudia to talk to. And how's Pant-the-elephant?'
'Half dead, I think,' I said vaguely. 'He had a bypass. Why?'
'Arrey! Surely he'll be standing against you on the IJP ticket?'
'Err... it's not Pant this time,' I said, feeling my face go hot.
'Oh, okay. So who is it? Anyone I would know?'
I hesitated. I didn't really trust myself to say this out loud. Ma can read me like a book.
'It's... Zain, Ma. Zain Altaf Khan,' I said casually and braced myself.
Dead silence.
And then a tiny choked squeak.
'Whattttt?'
'You heard,' I said, rolling my eyes.
'Hamara Zain? Maruti Zain?'
I nodded, forgetting she couldn't see me.
'What's he doing in the IJP!'
I said patiently, 'It's a long story, mother.'
She had one of her random lapses of logic then.
'But you're in love with him!' she said.
I gasped in outrage.
'I am so not in love with him,' I spluttered.
A knowing silence.
God, sometimes I hate my mother.
'And these phones are bugged!'
More silence.
'Okay, so I fancied him a bit back then,' I admitted. 'But what did you expect? Between Loreto Girls' Convent and Bauji's house in Bittora, I didn't meet any other guys till I was seventeen!'
'But Jinni,' she said, in this gentle, understanding voice that totally got my goat, you've stuck all those brooding Jim Morrison posters in your bedroom in Mumbai.'
/> 'So?' I demanded.
'So, he looks like Zain - like an emaciated Zain in the terminal stages of AIDS, actually. And you like that raspy singer, whatshisname - who sounds just like Zain. And you cried when you saw that Airtel ad, the one where Saif carries a photo of his childhood sweetheart around for years, and searches high and low for her and then, when he finally finds her, dumps her for Kareena Kapoor. C'mon baby, you don't need to keep secrets from me. I'm your mother.'
'I cried because it was such a lame ad!' I said, feeling really hassled now. 'And anyway, you're just remembering selectively! I wanted to be a cheerleader. I loved Britney Spears. I even had a blonde boyfriend! The banker, remember?'
'That was just peer pressure, baba,' she said pityingly. 'Oh dear, I'm really worried now. Maybe I should come to India... you're going to be such a wreck after you lose...'
I ground my teeth and banged the phone down on her.
***
Our extremely large contingent boarded the train at nine o'clock that night. We were all in the same first AC bogie, but only a privileged few would actually end up inside Amma's compartment for a short conference. So of course, as soon as Amma, Gudia aunty and I were seated, and I had, in anticipation of playing Need for Speed, plugged in and flipped open my laptop, everybody started trying to shoulder their way in through the doorway.
Pushing and shoving and muttering under their breaths, even as they smiled fulsomely at Amma, every single one of the workers stuck in the door seemed grimly determined to hold their ground. One dude even thrust a steel tiffin-box at Amma, which he claimed was filled with home-made atte-ke-laddoo prepared by his wife.
Gudia aunty let out a small, smug giggle. 'So desperate these people are!' she said in a superior voice, from her perch on the berth next to Amma.
Amma sighed wearily. She picked up a bottle of mineral water, ripped off the plastic seal, took a sip and said, in a small, tired voice, 'Rocket Singh. Munni. Pappu. Jugatram.'
The selected four almost died of happiness. They strutted into the compartment, and with an imperious wave of her hand, Amma dismissed the rest of the gang. To the outer darkness, I thought fancifully, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth...
Battle for Bittora Page 7
