Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  I almost slammed the brakes in shock.

  'Rajul! You're still here?' I gasped. 'I thought I told you to run and hide?'

  'Did you get good pictures?' he asked Nauzer. 'I couldn't see much from under the back seat.'

  Oh my god, he'd been in the back seat! I'd endangered his life too!

  'Rajul,' I said carefully. 'Don't tell your mummy what we did tonight, okay? She'll just worry.'

  He sucked on his knuckles. 'You're just scared she'll shout at you,' he said sapiently.

  I opened my mouth, and shut it.

  Rajul cast a distinct look of disapproval towards the back seat. 'Achhoots can't keep going off with Brahmin girls,' he declared. 'If achhoots take all the Brahmin girls, what will be left for good high-caste boys like us?'

  'You're too young to be thinking about girls,' Nulwallah told him roundly. 'Too ugly, also. Now show us the way back.'

  'First I thought ki, arrey wah, you are very cool, dragging the achhoot to death!' Rajul continued, ignoring Nulwallah. 'Just like in a movie! I hid and watched him bump along, moaning and groaning; it was fun. But just as he started bleeding properly, you stopped! You shouldn't have stopped, didi.'

  I glared at him, gripping the wheel hard. 'You are one sick kid,' I told him. 'When we reach home, I am going to whack you many times, very hard.'

  'You're not taking the achhoot home? Rajul asked, his eyes very wide. 'To Saket Bhavan?'

  'Why not?' I asked, confused.

  'Everybody will get angry with you,' he said. 'Your Ammaji. And all the Brahmins.' Then he started on his usual chorus. 'NOBODY will vote for--'

  'Okay, okay, I can't take him home,' I snapped. 'So where do I take him?'

  But before either of them could answer, there was a stirring and a moan from the back seat. The loverboy was asking for water. Of course, there was none in the Sumo.

  The groans grew louder.

  Rajul, Nauzer and I looked at each other.

  'Everyone will say you killed him,' Rajul said, not without satisfaction.

  I glared at him. 'And you helped,' I pointed out. 'They'll put you in jail, too.'

  That shut him up for a bit. He sucked on his knuckles pensively, while the groans from the backseat grew steadily fainter.

  'Let's just throw him down on the road and go home,' Rajul said finally. 'He'll crawl off and hide somewhere.'

  The groaning from the back grew more agitated instantly. I caught a muttered swear word or two.

  'Isn't there, like, a hospital? asked Nauzer desperately.

  Silence.

  Finally, I said with grudging decisiveness, 'Yeah, there is. The RAK. We'll take him there.'

  Nauzer looked at me, puzzled.

  'So let's go, then,' he said. 'What are we waiting for? And kiddo, chill, we'll drop you off on the way.'

  ***

  The Raiza Ali Khan hospital is the main hospital in Bittora. I was born there. So was Ma. It had been recently refurbished and, as the brand new neon signs informed me, boasted a Coronary Care Unit, a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Tuberculosis Centre, a Trauma Centre and a 24 hour Emergency Unit.

  I hurried towards the Emergency area, hoping to get some people to help carry the unconscious boy inside.

  There was just one sleepy looking woman sitting at the reception. 'Patient's name?' she asked without any preliminaries, as I burst in.

  Damn. I couldn't quite say achhoot loverboy.

  'BR Ambedkar,' Nulwallah blurted out, trying to help.

  She looked up suspiciously.

  'Uh, it's Babu Ram, actually,' I said hastily. 'He's an accident victim. We found him lying by the side of the road.'

  She looked even more suspicious. 'And he told you his name?' she asked.

  I nodded desperately. 'Yes! Before he passed out. You'd better admit him, he looks pretty serious.'

  She said, 'Madam, if it is a police case, we cannot treat him until the police come.'

  'But he'll die!' I cried out. 'He's very badly wounded.'

  She tightened her lips and looked at a point a little beyond me. 'I'm sorry,' she said distantly. 'My hands are tied.'

  Cow. I would have to do a bit of name-dropping here.

  I leaned in and said persuasively, 'Look, if bending the protocol can help save a life, why don't you? I'm sure my grandmother, Pushpa Pande, three-time MP from this constituency, would really appreciate it.'

  She didn't seem to know Amma's name. It was disgusting. I tell you, the common person's apathy to politics is the reason why India has never become a global superpower.

  'I'm sorry,' she said. 'The hospital rules are very strict.'

  Stupid cow.

  Looking straight into her calm, unimpressed eyes, I knew what I had to do.

  'Perhaps I could make a donation of some sort?' I murmured.

  She drew back, looking extremely disdainful. Oh, fabulous, she had ethics and stuff.

  That was when Nulwallah, who'd been gazing thoughtfully at a portrait of Begum Raiza hanging above the reception area, said suddenly, 'Oh, just tell her, Jinni!'

  'What?' I looked at him blankly.

  Nulwallah looked around conspiratorially, then leaned in and beckoned the receptionist chick to come closer.

  'Your trustee, Zain Altaf Khan,' he murmured into her ear in dulcet tones, much to my horror, 'is a very close... err... friend of my friend here.'

  The chick went very still.

  'Very, very close,' said Nauzer again, for good measure.

  'Everybody says that,' she said finally, with a shrug.

  'It's true,' I said fiercely, sensing her cracking. 'I'd call him right now if I could, but I happen to know that he's... umm...'

  'On a flight,' supplied Nulwallah.

  'Yeah,' I said, smiling at him gratefully. 'Zak - we call him Zak, you know - is flying right now. In his helicopter.'

  The chick said, looking slightly impressed now, 'Madam, it is against procedure. But if you can give me some proof, then we can expedite it, little bit...'

  And that's when Nauzer yanked up Rumi's camera and showed her the picture of my sicko pamphlet-printing frenemy in his Deep Purple T-shirt, cuffing me fondly on the chin in Sisodia's conservatory. Looked at out-of-context, it was really quite an intimate picture. His thumb was practically touching my extra-large mouth.

  She peered at it for a long time, then gave a decisive nod and jerked her head at some loitering orderlies picking their noses nearby. They leapt to their feet, and in about three minutes, our patient Babu Ram had been wheeled into the Emergency. I filled out the forms they gave me, more or less truthfully, and then, sagging with relief, slumped into the Sumo and drove home.

  ***

  Nulwallah was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back to Saket Bhavan. I didn't mind, I was too busy feeling nauseous about the effortless way in which I had managed to sabotage my own election campaign. But as we neared Begumbagh, he finally spoke.

  'That wasn't particularly smart, was it, Jinni?'

  Oh, so I wasn't Pandeji any more? Well, I guess we were kind of friends now.

  'What?' I asked miserably. 'Pissing off the Brahmins or claiming to be having an affair with the IJP candidate?'

  'Uh... both, I guess,' he said. 'Sorry for getting a bit proactive there, but I'm pretty sure that if he hadn't been admitted right away, he'd have died.'

  'You're right,' I admitted. 'It wasn't very smart.'

  One lanky brown hand closed comfortingly over mine on the gear stick. 'But it was very brave,' he said encouragingly. 'Even though,' he added ruefully, 'it was what my soccer coach would've called a Self Goal.'

  I laughed weakly.

  'How many Brahmins are there in Begumbagh, anyway?'

  'Millions!' I said tonelessly. 'You have no idea?

  Gloomy silence prevailed for a bit.

  Then he said resolutely, 'I'm going to get to the bottom of this whole pamphlet thing for you.'

  'Why bother?' I said listlessly. 'I know it was Zain.'

&nb
sp; His jaw shot out. 'But I'll get you proof. Proof you can use to get the person who did it disqualified.'

  'You still don't think it was Zain, do you?' I asked him. 'You keep saying the person, not Zain.'

  'I have my doubts,' he admitted. 'I also have my own theories. But hey, Jinni--'

  'What, Nauzer?' I asked, feeling a sudden surge of affection for him. He really was a nice guy. I would never have been able to pull it off without him tonight.

  'If I do get you the proof, will you go out for dinner with me?'

  I blinked. 'Like on a date?' I said stupidly.

  'Sure.' He grinned. 'Why, don't MPs date?'

  'I don't know what MPs do,' I mumbled, going a little red. 'I've never been one.'

  'Hey, c'mon!' he said, giving my hand another squeeze. 'We live in enlightened times! Look at what we witnessed tonight! If a Brahmin girl can dare to date a so-called untouchable boy, why can't a Parsi VJ dare to date a young MP, huh?'

  I could've pointed out that things hadn't ended too well for the couple he was invoking but I didn't have the heart. I just looked at him, a little stunned at this turn of events.

  He chanted softly, looking at me, a curious, musing smile on his face:

  Jinni Pande, she's hot stuff,

  Outside sweet but inside tough.

  'So, you like me now, is that it?' I said.

  'Yes!' He nodded emphatically, his eyes disturbingly warm behind his John Lennon glasses. 'I like you now, Jinni Pande. Deal with it.'

  ***

  But I had bigger things to deal with than Nulwallah's sudden infatuation with me. Even though, thankfully, there seemed to be no direct fallout of my excursion into Ahri as yet, the poison from the pamphlets was spreading steadily. Our public meetings were sparsely attended the next day, and there was some muttered sloganeering as we drove through the streets.

  Jinni Pande thu thu thu

  Decent people spit on you!

  Munni got really hassled by that. 'Its so easy to do this to women, didi,' she said bitterly. 'Oldest trick in the bloody book. How to shut their big fat mouths for good?'

  That was the question on my mind too, when we drove to the big Begumbagh temple for the Ramnaumi puja the next day, decorously draped in pretty saris with our pallus covering our heads. The Ponga pandits received us cordially enough, but I could tell they were smirking behind our backs. Maybe they knew about the stunt I'd pulled last night, I thought fearfully. I could only pray that they didn't tell Amma.

  They received us in the 'community' courtyard, which was a major sore point with Amma. She had sanctioned the money for it from her MP's fund, and it was supposed to be a secular space for all Begumbagh residents. But the pandits had got the enormous pillared courtyard built right next to the temple compound, with the result that nobody but high-caste Hindus actually got to use it.

  'And they never vote for us, anyway,' Amma muttered now, as she smiled, bowed and namasted to the reception committee. 'Useless, good-for-nothing educated people!'

  The gig kicked off with an aarti in the main temple. It was a festive affair, all the ladies resplendent in Benarasi saris and oodles of fake (according to Munni) gold jewellery.

  I couldn't help thinking, rather reluctantly, as I inhaled the familiar scent of incense and burning ghee, and gazed at the chubby marble statue, that it was really progressive of Zain's great-granddad to have allowed this temple to be built in the 1920s, right here, in such close proximity to the statue of his late wife, after whom Begumbagh is named. He'd probably done it because, like Bauji, he'd replaced overzealous religion in his life with overzealous patriotism. Boy, would he have been disappointed in his pamphlet-strewing grandson!

  I clapped along sedately during the aarti, constantly making sure my pallu stayed over my head, but somehow, I couldn't get myself to pray. The fact that there was a definite smell of toejam lurking below the incense didn't help. Behind me, Amma wasn't even trying. She dozed off discreetly, waking up only on the third 'Sia Pati Ram Chandra ki jai' at the end of the aarti, which signalled the move to the courtyard, where the food was laid out.

  The food was awesome. There was steaming rasedaar aalu - a hot red curry of broken potatoes with lashings of hing, jeera and desi ghee, hot sitaphal ki sabzi, and a rocking yellow dal tadka. There were moong-ki-daal ki pakodis, with ringlets of cold white radish and, of course, steaming hot-n-sweet suji ka halwa. Supressing a moan of pure ecstasy, I sat down at a table next to Amma and proceeded to eat myself sick.

  Amma was, as usual, eating with gusto, accepting puri after piping hot puri. 'Food ij excellent,' she told the servers. 'Get us some more halwa, pleaj.'

  'Amma,' I said, looking up uneasily. 'It's very rich food, you shouldn't--'

  But she just cracked her slow, sweet smile, and said, 'Life is sort, Sarojini.'

  After everybody had eaten, and Amma was biting into an aromatic saada paan, I realized I'd better take a quick precautionary leak before the drive back home.

  'Amma,' I whispered to her, 'I have to go to the loo.'

  She wrinkled up her straight little nose. 'Arrey bhai, how many times do you go in one day, Sarojini. Go then! God knowj what it will be like! One thing we know for sure is that the bigger the temple, the dirtier the toilet.'

  I stood up, adjusted my sari pleats and wove my way between the tables.

  It took me ages to find the loo. I wandered through large musty parts of the temple complex and through a courtyard full of placidly chewing moonlight-white cows, before spotting the loo at the end of a long corridor of pillars. It wasn't too bad, clean even, but when I came out to wash my hands, I realized that the tap was dry.

  Really irritated, I yanked at it hard. It hissed, burbled, dripped and suddenly fell off with a clunk while a huge jet of water hit me straight in the chest, soaking me from head to foot.

  I gasped and held up my hand involuntarily, trying to block the flow but it was useless. The jet just forked into two sprays and they wet me in parts the first jet hadn't reached.

  I picked up the tap and tried to screw it back on but the gush of water was too strong. Finally, I just shrugged, dropped the tap and simply moved out of the way. The jet of water was now hitting the opposite wall, running down to the floor and flooding the loo, but there was nothing I could do about it. Deciding I'd just tell one of the temple pujaris about the faulty tap, I tried to towel-dry my sopping wet hair with my sopping wet pallu, gave up, finger-combed it, and resignedly made my squelchy way out of the loo. The tap had done a thorough job. My petticoat, my blouse, even my undies were drenched.

  I decided to head straight for the Sumos. It would look a little odd if I didn't say bye, but not as odd as it would look if I showed up looking like a Bollywood wet-sari sequence, going Bye ji, Thank you ji, Happy Ramnaumiji.

  When I finally found the corridor leading to the community hall, I suddenly realized that everything was eerily quiet.

  Then I heard an odd, rushing sound.

  An odour that reminded me of freshly ironed clothes filled the air. Air which, when I inhaled, seemed to scorch my lungs.

  I turned the corner and my heart almost stopped.

  The hall was on fire. The tables at which we had been eating not twenty minutes ago were aflame, the ornate gateway we'd admired when we entered was blazing and everyone but me was on the other shore of the fiery river, screaming my name.

  'Sarojini!' I could hear Amma's hoarse voice. I could see her hazily. She was trying to push people into the inferno, imploring them, 'Arrey, kuch karo!'

  I whirled around. The fire was behind me now. It was before me, it was everywhere.

  I stood there, panting a little, feeling oddly calm. Last night's Enforcer 49 experience had helped.

  It's just ten big steps, I told myself. Just ten. If you take a deep breath and run, you'll make it. You're sopping wet, in any case.

  I took a deep breath, pulled my pallu over my head and, feeling rather like Johnny Storm from Fantastic Four, rushed right into the heart of
the fire.

  A strange roaring sensation. Unbearable heat. And then I was through. Barely singed, actually.

  There was total silence on this shore of the fiery river.

  Everybody was looking up at me, open-mouthed, as I stood at the head of the steps.

  Well, except for the cameras, which were clicking away busily.

  I grinned my extra wide grin.

  'Wow, lucky escape,' I said shakily.

  And then Amma spoke up. 'It was not a lucky escape!'

  There was a sudden hush. Everyone turned to look at Amma; there was an odd edge to her voice, and she seemed to be on the brink of making some momentous accusation. Behind me, the fire continued to roar, something crashed and fell. I stood uneasily at the head of the steps, looking down at the gawping crowd, wishing they would move back a little.

  Amma hurried up the steps towards me. 'Theek ho na, tum?' she demanded in an urgent undertone, grabbing both my shoulders and looking me up and down for injuries. 'Thank god!' Then she frowned. 'Sarojini, you are wet?.

  'I know,' I said eagerly. 'Amma, so lucky, you won't belie--'

  'Sssssss!' she hissed. 'Keep quiet! Don't tell now!' She turned to face the crowd, her hand gripping my elbow hard, too hard.

  'It was not a lucky escape,' Amma repeated, as all the cameras lapped up the sight of her, small and fierce in her grey and silver Benarasi sari. 'It was an Agni Pariksha, a Test by Fire. And my pure, good, virtuous girl has passed it with flying colours!'

  ***

  The losers actually bought it. Really. God, how dumb were they? Simply because I'd walked through fire, I was absolved of all the dark deeds Zain's pink pamphlets had accused me of. Maybe the Ponga pandits of Begumbagh Ram Temple were petrified of being accused of arson and attempted assassination of a Lok Sabha candidate. Or maybe they thought it would boost tourism and increase donations to their temple or something. Either way, they gave interviews to every possible newspaper and news channel, making the story sound more and more miraculous with every retelling. The verdict was clear. I was a nymphomaniac no more. I was Pure. I'd been given a clean chit by Agni, the God of Fire himself, and all the Begumbagh ki junta bought the story with gusto.