Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  'Hawa phir badal gayee,' chuckled Munni, avidly lapping up the headlines in the next day's Hindi newspaper. A picture of me emerging from leaping orange flames graced the cover. 'The wind is blowing for us now! Super didi, super! Phuntaastic!'

  'What bullshit, Munni,' I muttered, secretly pleased, despite knowing better. Really, if I ever became MP of this place, the first thing I'd do is eradicate blind faith and religious mumbo-jumbo in bloody Begumbagh. It was ridiculous.

  Amma was as pleased as punch with her fast thinking. She went chuckling from meeting to meeting, smiling and nodding and telling everyone about the Top Brass rally, which was only six days away now.

  'Arrey bhai, Sarojini, we were thinking,' she said, as she handed me a big mug of yucky buffalo milk in my petal room that night, 'that everything that happens, happens for the best!'

  I looked at her warily. 'Why?' I asked.

  She said, with a smug little toss of her head, 'We were so disappointed when aawar movie Saadi, Khaadi aur Azaadi was delayed. But now we are thinking, your Agni Pariksha and victory in this election will make such a good end for the movie, na? Grandmother passes on the baton to granddaughter. Superb, it will be!'

  'Amma,' I groaned. 'You're spending too much time talking to that idiot Rumi. Please don't take anything for granted! Anything could happen in the next eight days!'

  'Seven, actually,' said Gudia aunty as she busily counted fat wads of money. 'We have enough oxygen. The last consignment will be coming to Shortcuts tomorrow. You drive down and get it, Jinni, and then we need to make the envelopes.'

  I nodded, glad we were on talking terms again. I couldn't help noticing though, that she was smelling of my Moroccan Rose Body Shop perfume again and that the scrunchie in her hair was Amma's.

  'Yeah, sure,' I said unenthusiastically. 'Envelopes.'

  I knew all about stuffing envelopes. It was one of the few things Amma had let me do during election time when I was a child. Ma and I used to do them together, before she got fed up and left for Canada.

  Basically, all the trusted people sit in a big circle and put two thousand rupees into an envelope that already contains a badge, a sash, a cap and, in the old days when the EC wasn't so omnipresent and omnipotent, a T-shirt. The envelopes - one for each worker, so that's one thousand envelopes in all - are then sealed and delivered by trusted crack team members to the workers on the day of the voting. The workers set up tables outside the polling booth and help the voters as they come in to cast their vote. They help them find their names on the rolls and make parchis - the little white voter's slips - for them. They show them EVM mockups and explain which button to press. Sometimes, they ferry them to the booth in tempos or buses and drop them back afterwards. If there's any hanky-panky going on at the booth, they call the crack team. It's an exhausting, vital job, and that's why the whole 'envelope' system is so important. Of course, the going rate had gone up a lot since I did my first stint of enveloping. Back then, we used to put just two hundred rupees inside each envelope.

  Driving back from Shortcut's early next morning, an innocent looking Wonder Woman rucksack on my shoulder, I was surprised to see a lot of reporters outside Saket Bhavan. There were a couple of OB vans too, one of them was just the local Thumka TV, but the other one was NDTV. I honked my way past the crowd of journos at the gate and demanded of a rather subdued looking Jugatram, 'Why so much crowd, Jugatramji?'

  Looking a little shifty, he said, 'Baby, Zain baba has come.'

  I almost dropped my twenty lakh Wonder Woman rucksack. What was the bastard doing in my house?

  'And you let him in?' I asked in disbelief.

  He shrugged uncomfortably. 'Baby, it is Zain baba - and the press were taking so many pictures of him in front of our gate. Maine socha, better inside than outside.'

  'Well, I'm going inside to throw him outside.' I told him. 'You and your Zain baba! If you're so fond of him, Jugatramji, why don't you go campaign for him only!'

  Steaming gently at the nostrils, crushed cotton pallu streaming out like a banner behind me, I stormed into the courtyard.

  Zain, who had been lounging in one of the moodhas, listening to Rajul read aloud from his blotchy English notebook, leapt up when he saw me and came towards me, his eyes dark with concern.

  'Are you okay?' he asked urgently.

  'Why?' I demanded. 'Why shouldn't I be okay?'

  He frowned. 'The papers said you were in a fire. In the Ram temple at Begumbagh. Some kind of dumb purity test. Is your crazy grandmother pushing you around, Jin?'

  I gasped. I just couldn't believe the gall of the guy.

  'Get out of my house,' I told him, my voice very level.

  'Jinni, listen,' he began again as Rajul looked at us from one to the other, his hazel eyes wide.

  I cut him off.

  'Get out for ever,' I told him. 'How dare you...' My voice shook, my chest was so constricted with anger I had to stop to breathe. The sight of him oozing fake, noxious concern made me want to hurl. I managed to suck in some air, and then I let him have it, all in a rush.

  'How can you imply that my grandmother would hurt me? How can you ask if I'm okay, after circulating vile, filthy rumours about me? After your sicko Doggieji offers me - me, a Pragati Party candidate - money to withdraw from the election? Are you nuts?'

  'Aar plus Yoo is Roo,' Rajul volunteered suddenly. 'Bhaiyya taught me. He's very good in teaching.'

  'Shut up, Rajul,' I snapped.

  There was a long, tense pause.

  Then Zain shrugged, shook his head and said, 'We didn't print those pamphlets, Jinni, you have to believe me. I wouldn't do that to you! We're childhood friends--'

  'Friends!' I exclaimed. 'You think that stuff matters?'

  He looked up, a lock of dark hair falling onto his forehead, his dark eyes glowing strangely.

  'Doesn't it?' he asked lightly.

  I stood up and crossed my arms across my chest. 'Of course not!' I snarled. 'It doesn't matter a jot! Look, I'm not a fool... don't think I can't see through your great Plaan--'

  'Plan,' he corrected me, looking mildly pained.

  I choked.

  'Whoops, sorry,' he said immediately, looking like he was trying not to laugh. 'That was totally uncalled for.'

  I wanted to hit him.

  He saw the intention in my eyes, I think, because he backed away a little.

  'If any of this comes out,' I said, very low and fast, 'I'll be the one stuck with the bad reputation while you come out looking like a stud. All the chauvinists - and that's everybody in Bittora - will be maha-impressed and vote for you! So I would like to focus on my campaign and not on whatever old connections you're trying to revive. And, by the way, speaking of friendship, I can't help noticing that you never bothered to get in touch with me - for nine whole years - until you found out I was standing from here.'

  He heard me out quietly, his face unreadable. Then he said, with that slight trace of hauteur I hated, his public school accent suddenly very prominent, 'Incredible. You sound just like your grandmother.'

  'And lay off Amma!' I snapped. 'She has the prejudices typical of her generation! So what? I am not ashamed of Amma!'

  All right,' he said, his lips tightening. 'I get it.'

  'Good,' I said dismissively, and sat down on a moodha, picked up Rajul's English notebook and started to correct the dictation.

  Zain loomed tensely above me but I ignored him. Let him find his own dumb way out of the house. God knows he knew it well enough.

  'I didn't circulate those pamphlets.'

  I laughed a low, incredulous laugh. 'Save it for the EC,' I advised him, making large red cross marks in Rajul's notebook.

  'I'm warning you...' he began, his voice thick with a suppressed violence that made tiny hairs stand up on the back of my neck. But I still didn't look up.

  'I was holding back,' he continued. 'Not letting it get too nasty. But now I won't.'

  I finally put down the hideously untidy notebook, stood up and
met his glittering dark eyes.

  'Well, watch out, Zak,' I said. 'Because neither will I.'

  ***

  Ballot Boxing

  Number 27 in our series of reports from Lok Sabha

  constituencies across India

  India's Youngest Opponents

  Shed 'Kid' Gloves

  The 'kid' gloves are off in Bittoragarh.

  The contest between the two youngest Lok Sabha candidates in India, which started with civilized we-are-childhood-friends statements and pious let-the-best-person-win noises has deteriorated into a bloody no-holds-barred brawl, where anything goes.

  Confused locals are struggling to keep up with the constant onslaught of allegations and counter-allegations. Starring with 'issue-based' charges of corruption and negligence, the two candidates moved on to squabbling over who is to be credited with the 'progress' Bittoragarh has recently made and have now graduated into the far more sensational space of immorality, homosexuality and insanity.

  The war began when anonymous pamphlets revealing graphic tales of young Sarojini's lusty immoralities flooded Begumbagh, an undecided assembly segment that neither candidate is sure of securing. This was followed swiftly by allegations of debauchery and incest levelled at Zain's father, the recently deceased Zaffar Ali Khan, made by Sarojini's grandmother, the formidable Pushpa Pande.

  Zain's camp responded by claiming that Pushpa Pande was a certified lunatic, even procuring a certificate of insanity from a highly respected local specialist, Dr Bhoopendra, which they circulated in the Doodhiya-Durguja area.

  Sarojini Pande promptly denounced Dr Bhoopendra as a mercenary quack.

  At the time of going to press, rumours are rife in Bittoragarh that Zain Ali Khan is in a homosexual relationship with Bunty Sisodia, a local landowner and industrialist. Videos of the two of them together are circulating in the area.

  In retaliation, Zain has alleged that Sarojini Pande is a tenth class fail with faked certificates, reduced to 'making drawings' for a living as she is a 'total duffer'.

  The EC has served show cause notices on both parties.

  ***

  'I can't believe I have to leave just when things are getting so deliciously low,' moaned Rumi as he packed his rucksack. He'd been summoned back to Mumbai to work on a UNICEF project, making 3-D mosquito models for a series of anti-malaria ads. 'It's so unfair?

  'Then don't go!' Amma sang out blithely. 'Stay! Take more pictures!'

  She seemed to be getting into a recklessly good mood even as things came inexorably to a boil. She'd gone all Hello? Hellloooo? Uff, so bad signal, can't hear anything... and then actually cut the phone when the TB had called to lecture her about our dirty dancing campaigning tactics last night.

  Rumi sniffed.

  'Well, Nauzer took the best pictures,' he said sullenly. (He was rather put out that he'd missed the opportunity to click the raving mobs of Ahri.) 'Still,' his face brightened a little, 'I suppose some of my pics aren't bad either.'

  'Yours are great,' I told him sincerely. 'And you really helped. I think your coming here turned the tide, no, Amma?'

  Amma nodded. 'One hundred per cent,' she said assuringly. 'You brought us good luck, Rumi! We are finally surging ahead. The hawa is with us! Arrey, Bhagvan Agni himself ij with us! The pilla haj run out of tricks. Besides, he doej not seem to have any understanding of The People's minds. Otheriwise he would not say ki you are duffer. Arrey, who cares if you are a duffer, as long as you are a pure duffer?'

  And so, Rumi left, more or less satisfied. But not before offering me all kinds of solicitous advice, and urging me to be kind to his buddy Nauzer. 'He's not a prince,' he said meaningfully, making me want to hit him. 'But he's a great guy. And he really likes you, Jinni. Ever since your Enforcer 49 stunt, he's gone fully boinnng on you. Give him a bit of a test drive, will ya?'

  Like I was even thinking about test driving men! My heart had taken up permanent residence in my mouth because I was so worried that, any moment now, the news of the Ahri incident would break out, losing me all the upper caste votes in Begumbagh, and causing my grandmother to strangle me till I was dead.

  And of course, news of the Ahri incident did break out. Two days before Ammas big Top Brass rally. But not in the way I had been dreading. In a way that was much, much worse.

  ***

  Ballot Boxing

  Number 33 in our series of reports from

  Lok Sabha constituencies across India

  Neck-to-Neck or Necking?

  The youngest ever Lok Sabha election is getting curiouser and curiouser. The two opponents - who have been at each other's throats for the last week, making the vilest of allegations - are now rumoured to be embroiled in a steamy affair themselves, and may have been laughing up their sleeves at the electorate all along.

  The rumour, which has sent shock waves through the IJP, because it violates their pet anti-mixed marriage stance, has emanated from unnamed staff members of the Raiza Ali Khan hospital, who claim to have spotted the two opponents holding hands, hugging and talking intimately into the wee hours of the morning in the hospital lobby.

  Both sides have denied the involvement.

  'Can we please be serious, we're fighting a Lok Sabha election here,' said a visibly irate Altaf Khan. 'I've no time for this rubbish. Yes, she's my friend on Facebook, but I have 630 friends on Facebook - are you implying that I am having an affair with all of them?'

  Pande's reaction was even more biting. 'It's obviously the latest in a long series of puerile attempts to discredit me and demoralize my workers,' she said. 'The fact that it's coming from the RAK hospital staff proves this. Khan practically owns that place. Anyway, it's no more than I expect from the IJP, they've taken election campaigning to an all time low. But the electorate are not fools - they will show what they think of such tactics on polling day.'

  ***

  I tried to laugh off the whole thing as a crazy rumour but naturally, Amma managed to worm the truth out of me. Backwards. I started by admitting that I had flashed a pic of Zain and me at the RAK - but only in order to get a grievously injured man admitted. And that, of course, totally begged the question she asked next. Why did I have a grievously injured man on my hands in the first place?

  And so, the whole sorry tale tumbled out, complete with cleft-lipped Brahmins and MTV VJs and desperate drives in the dead of night.

  Amma was predictably livid.

  She swore she'd had the whole thing under control, that she'd spoken to the DC, and that the Brahmins had just been frightening the boy, that they had had no intention of actually hanging him. She said I'd overreacted big time, that my small sleight of hand with Dugguji's money had made me too cocky.

  Maybe she had a point there, I thought despondently. Three days later, in the bright sunny daytime, it did seem that perhaps the Brahmins had just meant to torture Babu Ram a little, not actually murder him. What had Rajul said exactly? 'The girl's father says he's going to kill him, but I don't think he has the gurrrts.' And he hadn't been so badly injured when I first saw him. Just totally traumatized. Oh god, I had probably done him the most harm, dragging him along the ground for two hundred metres while doing forty kilometres an hour, acting like I was the amazing, incredible, incendiary Enforcer 49.

  'They were going to kill him, okay,' I told her angrily, with less conviction than I felt. 'You weren't there - you didn't see - they're bullshitting you, Amma! I saved his life.'

  'And finished us off,' Amma, never one to miss an opportunity, said with full dramatic gusto. 'You should have just tied us to the back of the jeep, Sarojini, and driven till we died. Bas! We, Pushpa Pande, three-time MP, have been sacrificed for one miserable achhoot teenager with more haarmoans than sense!'

  She was probably right again, I thought gloomily. As Mr Urvashi was constantly telling us, the Begumbagh assembly segment was critical if we wanted to win Bittoragarh.

  'But Amma, nobody's talking about it,' I told her earnestly. 'They're too scared about the f
ootage Nulwallah's got.'

  It was like she hadn't heard me. 'And what was the need to take him to RAK,' she demanded. 'And boast about being friends with the pilla?'

  I squirmed. 'That was... um... kind of Nauzer's idea,' I said cravenly.

  I think she ground her teeth. 'Bloody Parsi,' she said and retreated into a disgusted silence, leaning back in her moodha, her eyes closed.

  I sat there and looked down at her, worried she might take ill or something. Her face was paper white.

  'Is that all?' she asked, through gritted teeth, her eyes still closed. 'You are just friends with him on facing-book? Or is there anything more?'

  I thought back miserably to the sofa in the study at the wedding in Delhi, to the encounter in the boobs of Bunty's haveli, to the long drive home from the rural areas. And shook my head.

  'No, Amma,' I said steadily. 'There's nothing more.'

  'Bhool jao Begumbagh!' she intoned suddenly, in sepulchral accents, making me jump. 'Forget Begumbagh! Forget Bittoragarh, forget family legacy, forget India's youngest MP! Start remembering your Pixie Animation. Only they will give you job now!'

  'You want some tea?' I said inadequately.

  'Why not?' she gestured martyredly. 'Tell Joline we will take it with two teaspoons of rat poison.'

  ***

  'It's ridiculous,' Gudia aunty told me as I pottered about with the tea things in the kitchen, a little later. 'Where do these people get such stories? Are they mad?'

  For once, I was in complete agreement with her. The story was a gross, all-out exaggeration. All I'd done was flash a picture, that too, a pretty non-raunchy picture, of Zain and me together. So where had they got the bit about us cuddling together in the bloody hospital? What kind of sicko perverts cuddle in a hospital, anyway? It was typical media sensationalism.

  'Luckily, it's a story no one will believe,' Gudia aunty continued, adjusting her housecoat. I caught a flash of a light purple bra strap.