'Yeah,' he agreed smoothly, as the last button fell open gently. (I suppose I could've slapped his hands away and told him to cut it out. But I couldn't. I just couldn't) 'In fact, the COAI has instituted a study to understand the revenue implications of this social phenomenon in India.'
'That's right,' I said shakily to the stars, as he bent to trail kisses along the soft skin his fingers had uncovered. 'They estimate that the loss of revenue due to missed calls is as much as thirty per cent.'
'That's beautiful.' He sighed.
'Yeah,' I agreed. 'It's--'
Huh?
I yanked his head up by his messy hair. 'How,' I asked pertinently, 'is that beautiful?'
He blinked, his eyes just a little glazed. 'Sorry, what?' he said softly, one rough, slightly shaky hand coming up to touch my cheek gently.
My mind went blank.
A stupid little sigh escaped me.
'I missed you,' I whispered.
His eyes darkened. His breath caught. He bent his tousled dark head and kissed me.
It was like we'd never stopped kissing at the wedding. We took up exactly where we'd left off. And at the wedding, I remembered, it had felt like we'd never stopped kissing since we were sixteen. We were sixteen year olds, kissing for the first time. He sank down to the dried neem leaf-strewn stone floor, taking me with him, and then, suddenly, incongruously, the unofficial IJP theme song Sarkar Genda Phool rang loudly in my ears.
I blinked in disbelief.
It was Zain's phone.
He was sitting up, answering it, talking to his party people, and my hands were still under his shirt! I withdrew them hastily and sat up.
'Yeah... okay,' he was saying, a little dazedly, into the phone. 'I'll be down in five.'
He put down the phone and looked at me. 'I have to go,' he said slowly (regretfully?). 'Bunty and I are driving to Tanki tonight. I have meetings in the morning.'
My face was red. Not that he could tell in the darkness, I hoped.
Suddenly I felt incredibly cheap.
'Okay,' I managed to say airily. 'Run along then. Suck up to Karan Sethie. I'll stay here. I came out here to phone my driver, anyway'
He frowned, shaking his head. 'I didn't...' he began, then stopped. 'I wasn't...' He stopped again, and all these hot, brooding lines appeared across his forehead. 'You mustn't...'
But I was too busy dusting the neem leaves off my Mango jeans to answer.
Silence.
I was idiotically close to tears.
'Jinni,' he said finally, half-affectionate, half-exasperated. 'I know how you think. So I want to you to know that this,' he made a sweeping hand gesture which I assumed was to symbolize our recent excesses, 'has absolutely nothing to do with the election, okay? They are two separate things. Have you got that?'
I nodded. 'Of course,' I said lightly. 'The election is the main thing, I know.'
He frowned again. 'That's not exactly what I...'
But I didn't let him finish.
'Go do your worst in Tanki,' I said dismissively, fingers busily dialling Jugatram's number. 'Though I'm warning you, I'm so gonna sweep there.'
***
Jugatram drove up promptly enough, but just as I was leaving, old Dugguji called out to me. He was sitting alone in a curved armchair at the head of the dining table, looking a little like a Sufi saint, with his long beard and glowing white clothes.
'Kitni badi ho gayee ho!' he said. 'How big you have become.'
I smiled vaguely, my mind still on Zain.
'That Rumi told me you are very good at your work? Making very good animations, vaghera?'
I flushed with pleasure, happy that he had not used the word cartoons. 'I'm okay,' I said modestly. 'Not that great. My...' I cleared my throat a little self-consciously, 'my kitaanus for Harpic toiletbowl cleaner won an award for best animation at the Goafest last year.'
He nodded kindly. 'Good, good. Very good.' Then he said, 'You don't feel bad, beta? That your Amma is pulling you out of the work you are so good at and pushing you into politics?'
I shrugged my shoulders. 'No, it's okay actually, Dugguji,' I said, only half-truthfully. 'Koi zabardasti nahin hai.'
He said, thumping the ground with his walking stick emphatically, 'But the world needs artists! They are much, much more important than MPs! Aur waise bhi, you know, Zain is a good boy, he's your childhood friend. He will take care of Bittoragarh. It's not like you will be leaving your grandfather's constituency in the hands of a crook like Dwivedi.'
I liked that he had called Bittora Bauji's constituency. I felt, sometimes, that even Amma forgot that part. Still, what was he trying to say?
'You know, beta,' he said,'we have a good survey man, recommended to us by Karan Sethie. His name is Mr Urvashi. It is a woman's name, but he is a man. Very sound fellow!'
I nodded, wishing the old dude would get on with it.
'He is not like those ghatiya newspaper surveys, which interview four-five people only. It is thorough, in-depth, his people are everywhere. Khair, he has done a full survey and it is saying that Zain's chances of winning are eighty-twenty.'
I felt like I'd just been sandbagged.
He's lying, I told myself. Don't be fooled by his grandfatherly air. He's just trying to psyche you.
Old Dugguji continued inexorably, killing me with unsolicited kindness: 'So, here is what I say to you... you are also like my grandchild, no?'
I nodded. I had to hear this one out quietly.
'As your grandfather, then, I am saying to you ki, beta, why to fight a losing battle?'
I just stared at him blankly.
Seeing he was faced with a moron, he spelt it out. 'Two days mein withdrawal date hai, withdraw kar lo.'
Wow.
It was all a Plaan.
They had lured me in here, bathed me, fed and feted me, rendered me incoherent with lust, and now they were closing in for the kill. I continued to look at him, expressionless.
'I know you must have spent a lot of money on this election already. It is not fair that you should lose that. So what I am saying is this - we will compensate you for all the money you have spent. Let us say... what... two crores?'
'That should cover it,' I managed to say faintly.
'But so much money we can't arrange that quickly, so,' old Dugguji paused like he was really thinking about it, 'suppose we give you one now, right now, before you go home tonight, and one in a few days' time - chalo, right after the withdrawal date, then it should be okay, no?'
'It should be,' I agreed.
He leaned forward. 'You are a big girl now, beta, you don't need to ask anybody's permission. And Ammaji is so unwell nowadays, why to give her trouble, no?'
'No,' I said. 'I mean, yes, why to give her trouble?'
'I will instruct them to put a bag inside your car when everybody is still in the conservatory. Nobody will know.'
'Um... okay, Dugguji... put it in the car. And... is it fine if I go to the bathroom? I need to wash my hands before I leave.'
Saying which, I got up and stumbled out of the dining room and into the loo where I'd bathed so happily barely two hours ago. My ears were ringing. I needed to do some serious thinking...
***
The next day was easily one of the worst in my life.
First, I was disgusted with myself for dashing across rural Bittora to get a little Zain-fix. I mean, I'd managed without seeing the guy for nine whole years! Why then, this sudden, desperate conviction that if I didn't have a one-on-one encounter with his smooth, muscular, honey coloured chest every few days, I would die?
Second, I was horribly deflated by the mysterious Urvashi's predictions about how my chances of winning were just twenty per cent.
Third, I was sick with fear about Amma's reaction when she found out I had accepted money from Dugguji.
And fourth, I woke up with a headache from hell.
As we drove drearily through the most depressing, dusty, desolate countryside on our way to Suj
anpur, my temples were throbbing so hard, I was almost seeing double. I could've told Munni or Rocket about it, but I'd learnt by now that they tended to fuss too much. If I mentioned a headache, they'd probably embarrass the hell out of me by kidnapping a doctor to tend to me immediately. Who, in turn, would advise an emergency CAT scan because I was such a VVIP. They'd never do something as simple as getting me a couple of aspirin.
So I just sat in the back seat, doused the pallu of my sari with a bottle of water, covered my head with it, and tried to sleep.
But then the Sumos lurched to a halt. I sat up gingerly, wondering what was going on. We were at a level crossing. Grinning children thrust their heads in through the car window and offered me glowing, deep purple, just-off-the-tree shehtoot. I bought some, while Munni hopped out of the Sumo and headed off somewhere with a purposeful air. Rocket Singh was dozing gently. I scanned the shop signs around us, looking for geographical clues. A cycle repair shop sign informed me that we were on the main Dhoodiya-Sujanpur road. And then I saw a sign for a medical clinic. The board was festooned with a big red cross and proudly read 'Dr J.C. Bhoopendra Singh, MBBS, MD'.
Oh, good, I thought. I'll just nip in there and hopefully, he'll give me some aspirin.
Patting the driver's shoulder, I slid out of the Sumo and zipped into the clinic.
It was a small, peaceful room, whitewashed a pale medical green. A large desert cooler kept the place cool and fragrant with khus. A fair, plump, genial looking man, who was sitting behind a smart aluminium desk, looked up with a smile when I walked in and asked, 'Yursss?'
'Yursss... matlab, uh, namaste,' I said, suddenly realizing how shabby I must look in my mustard yellow sari with its damp, wrinkled pallu. 'Actually, I have a very bad headache. Can you give me something for it?'
'Front of the head or back?' asked the doctor.
I thought about it. 'Temples actually,' I said.
'Hmm,' said the plump, genial doctor. Then he looked me up and down and asked abrupdy, 'Periods regular hain?'
Huh? My extra large mouth gaped open for a moment. We were speaking in Hindi, and he had used a word I'd only ever heard in Mala-D ads - mahavaari. 'Yes,' I said, bemused.
'Hmmmm,' he said again, this time softer and longer. 'On the first day, do you see brownish streaks on the pad? Before regular flow commences?'
'Err... yes,' I said, slightly grossed out. Was he a pevert or something? 'That's normal, right?'
'No no no,' exclaimed Dr Bhoopendra. 'That is not good, yursss... not good at all. You could be having cancer and all. In your baby-basket and all...' Then, beckoning me closer, he held a plump, fair thumb to the soft skin just below my left eye, pulled it down and peered inside. 'You need to take a strong syrup to build your strength,' he declared, 'then only the brown streaks and these headaches will go.'
He reached down and opened a cupboard below his desk. It was obviously refrigerated, because a lot of white frosty air billowed out of it creepily. He pulled out a large brown bottle, decorated with the silhouette of a magnificently well-endowed lady, her bosom and butt swelling like the bulbous bits of a sitar, and said, 'Two spoonfuls morning-evening. Taakat ke liye. For strength. Keep taking it until your period is normal. Then headache will also go. Seven hundred rupees, please.'
I stared at him, totally gobsmacked. All I wanted was a two-rupee Saridon pill for my headache, for heaven's sake. What was this?
He smiled at me genially. 'Don't have enough money?' he asked sympathetically.
I stared at him, practically hypnotized. 'Uh... no, actually,' I ventured, wondering what was coming next.
He opened his frosty refrigerated cabinet again, this time to retrieve a shiny steel tablespoon. 'Then I will give you one spoonful, just for now,' he said kindly. 'Only seventy-five rupees. It will make the headache go, at least. That will be good, yursss?'
'Actually, I have a better idea,' I hissed. 'Why don't you give me the whole bottle, for free, and then I'll get it analyzed in a lab in Delhi for, you know, addictive drugs of any sort and human ash and cow dung or whatever. And then, when it tests positive, I'll come back here and take a good hard look at your licence, Dr Quack Quack Bhoopendra!'
I lunged forward, grabbed the bottle from his suddenly slack grip, and bounded out of his little green 'clinic' before he could get another word out of his smooth fat mouth.
Munni was waiting for me in front of the Sumos, looking completely fed up with the heat. 'Where did you go, didi?' she scolded me. 'Train went past ages ago. Get in quick before they shut the gate for the next one!' She bustled me into the Sumo and we managed to scoot across the tracks just before they closed it down. Flopping back in my seat, I realized I still didn't have anything for my headache. Damn.
'What's this?' Munni asked, eyeing my bottle of Taakat Syrup warily. She probably thought the electioneering had driven me to drink like Gudia aunty.
I told her.
She pursed her lips and tut-tutted and professed to be really shocked. 'Want us to turn back and get the boys to bust up his shop?'
It was a tempting offer but I shook my head.
'Not now, Munni,' I said. 'He's not the main problem. The main problem is that both law and order and the public health system are in shambles here - that's why a weed like him is flourishing.'
She murmured something incoherent involving 'this terrible IJP local gourmint' and I closed my eyes, utterly depressed. I was so tired of that particular excuse.
But there was worse to come.
And that was Sujanpur.
When we drove through the arid, dusty villages, our convoy was greeted with wide, skeletal smiles from girls of twenty who looked like old women. We met men with skittering eyes and restless movements who seemed to smirk at everything I said. We met little children with jutting collarbones and unnaturally large, listless eyes, who looked indifferently at the shiny stickers and bandanas we had to offer. The only thing they seemed half into was our orange-white-and-green cellophane wrapped candy.
Even Munni, usually so brash and bold and hearty, was subdued.
'If there's such terrible hunger here, why haven't we seen it in the papers?' I whispered to Rocket Singh as we sipped watery tea at a villager's house that afternoon. 'I've never heard anybody talking about Sujanpur in Delhi!'
Rocket Singh looked at me wryly. 'It's not bad enough, that's why. These children are not photogenic - yet. When they start looking like those African children from Somy-ali-ya, then only the BBC will come. Or if one of the mothers sells a child, or eats it, or something like that. Then toh all the news channels will come. But because these people still have a little grain, a little gruel, a little self-respect... no one cares. Do you know, bitiya, this is the most loyal area in this entire parliamentary constituency? They have always voted for Pragati. And look what pragati they have made!'
'Amma?' I asked. 'Why didn't she do anything...?'
Munni said quietly, 'These people are not Dalits. Or Muslims. Or any special group. They are just... poor. Poor, uneducated Hindu people in an area of barren soil and no industry. Who, for some reason, believe that if they don't vote for the Top Brass's party, they will get no rain for their crops. They think Top Brass's mummy is a goddess. A devi. Some of them don't even know she is dead. Others think that after she died, she became even stronger, and closer to god. So on polling day, we put up big images of her with incense burning before it, and they all come in one after another and press the button on the Finger. They have no schools. No healthcare. And because they treat Pragati Party like a goddess, nobody in it does anything for them. Madam is so busy... she forgets also.'
That was true. The only thing Amma had said about Sujanpur was a careless, confident, 'We'll get a lead from Sujanpur, at least. We always get lead from Sujanpur.' And Ma! When I told her I was going there she said she'd never heard of it. How horribly depressing.
'Don't they get cable TV?' I asked desperately. 'TV serials and all that? I though everyone got that in this day and age.'
<
br /> Rocket Singh shook his head. 'They're too poor,' he said simply. 'Advertisers - even the multinationals who sell one-rupee shampoo and fairness cream sachets - are not interested in them. This man whose house we're having tea in? He is seventh fail and the most educated man in the area. He has no job either.'
I slumped in my seat, feeling sick.
Zain was right, I thought miserably. The Pragati really sucks. They grab the votes and run away and don't show their face for five years. What was the guarantee that I would do anything for these people? I'd probably forget them the moment I got back to Bauji's house, pulled off my chafing sari and put on the AC.
We're useless, I told myself as we drove away, waving with pointed fingers at the small, dispirited crowd. Me and Amma, we're both useless. Two nagins, as Vir Singh had recently said in a passionate speech, an old white nagin and a young black nagin who were sure to give the kiss of death to Bittora if we were elected.
Munni continued, the explanation tripping off her tongue a little too effortlessly, 'Didi, Bittora is geographically one of the larger constituencies. It is much easier if the area is smaller and more densely populated. Then one school can help many children. One hospital also. Or one PHC. Par yahan, everything is scattered. And MP funds are limited. Besides, Dwivedi did absolutely nothing. So what to do?'
But it wasn't that simple. We couldn't blame Dwivedi for everything. The people in Sujanpur clearly had been neglected for a long, long time. Some of it had to be Amma's fault. Clearly, she didn't think that the people who'd voted her in, not once but thrice, had claim to her time. After all, hadn't she told me back in Delhi that: 'Afterwards, you can go back to your job and make your keeda-makoda all day. Go to Parliament on the first day of every sessun - budget sessun, summer sessun, monsoon sessun, winter sessun - milaa-ke-bana four times a year. Wearing a nice sari, of course. And go to Bittora every Diwali.'
It was exactly like Karan Sethie had said, I thought as the Sumo rattled along the bumpy kachha roads. There was no way I could get anything done without living here. Otherwise, the moment I left, things would get slack, the schools I commissioned would never be built, nor the roads or hospitals or anything else. Wells would be dug where the tribals couldn't access them. Or people in the middle would pocket the money and that would be it. Oh god, maybe I should risk a quick swig of quack quack Bhoopendra's Taakat Syrup. My head was threatening to split wide open.
Battle for Bittora Page 21
