Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  An Indian Love Song.

  They were Zain and me.

  ***

  The photograph freaked me out completely. Don't ask me why. I was conscious of a sudden, searing sense of loss for Bauji and Amma, as well as an entirely unreasonable savage anger at them for trying to manage my life.

  This weird combination manifested itself in a massive weeping jag. I just couldn't stop crying. It didn't help that, as the sun set and the buffaloes began their walk home past our house and the slightly acrid scent of woodsmoke drifted into the garden, Amma's absence hit me like a physical blow. It didn't help that Ponky wouldn't stop howling, sitting out on the verandah, his eyes liquid pools of dumb bewilderment. Or that the dhobi, his face contorted with grief, showed up with a big bundle of Amma's cotton saris, all freshly washed and ironed.

  I grabbed the first one in the pile, a soft, faded, ice blue maheshwari with a tiny pink border, buried my face in it, and wept.

  Ma, after a muttered 'Oh, great...' grabbed the second one in the pile, a leaf-green Rajasthani block print, dropped down beside me, and sobbed quietly too.

  'Didn't he know,' I demanded finally, after what felt like ages, my voice still shaking a little, 'that child marriage is against the law?'

  Ma looked up, frowning, her delicate, Amma-like nose very red.

  'Don't be so literal, Jinni!' she said. 'It was obviously just his fondest dream.'

  'Oh, please,' I told her, 'if he had this great big dream, how come it skipped a generation? Why the hell didn't he make you marry the lecher and wastrel Zaffar Ali Khan, huh?'

  'Now you're being stupid,' she said. 'Bauji wasn't hell bent on some politically correct Hindu-Muslim wedding - he was just hell bent on your and Zain's wedding. He must've felt, even when you were at that age, that you were made for each other.'

  'Which proves that he was senile? I said gloomily. 'And anyway, Ma, I wish you'd stop with all the boy talk. Let's talk about Amma.'

  'Okay,' she said obligingly. 'Amma thought you should marry Zain too.'

  I gasped. 'How could you possibly know that?'

  'She told me,' she said smugly, 'that night, when I spoke to her on the phone for the last time.'

  'You're lying,' I accused her.

  She shrugged.

  'Maybe,' she said. She got up, draped her snotty green Rajasthani sari on top of my head like a bride's veil and went towards the loo. 'But you'll never know for sure, will you?'

  I blew my nose into both the saris gloomily.

  I tell you, my entire family, living or dead, is nuts.

  ***

  'I heard you.'

  Not recognizing the furious, trembling voice, I looked up, blinking. It was Munni. The dupatta wound tight around her neck looked like it was choking her. Her eyes were red and bulgy.

  'Talking about getting married,' she continued, her voice still shaking. 'That's all that matters to you and your mother! Just your stupid little romance! Do you care that aisey IJP candidate ko gale lagake you have made laughing stocks of all of us? Of me? What am I supposed to tell my workers in Champapul? To start hugging IJP workers? To marry them?'

  I looked up at her, open-mouthed. 'Uh, listen, Mun--'

  She pointed a finger straight into my face.

  'No, didi,you listen,' she hissed violently. 'You people...' She shook her head. 'Lok Sabha tickets fall into your lap like ripe mangoes - so you think it is all a joke. Arrey, I am also young! And I have done party work for many many years - but did jiji think of recommending me for the ticket when TB wanted a young candidate? Of course no - she recommended her darling granddaughter from Canada, who knows nothing, who understands nothing - who is set on drowning herself and taking all of us down with her - just because she can't control her feelings for some boy!'

  She was right, I thought, feeling sick. She was absolutely right.

  But Munni wasn't done.

  'Do you know what people would have done to me if I embraced the IJP candidate at my grandmother's funeral? Expelled me from the party!' She snapped her fingers. 'Assi minute phata phat! But because it's you, we have to be so understanding - poor didi, unko itna bad feel ho raha tha na - she couldn't control, they are old friends, na... Now we have to run around cleaning up your mess - and keep our mouth shut tight and say nothing to you! But I can't stay quiet! Somebody has to tell you! Jiji gave up her life so we could win - but now we won't; and I'll never get the MLA ticket from Champapul - because you have dubaoed all of us!'

  Reduced to mute misery, I just sat there, letting her words wash over me in waves.

  But then Munni suddenly said, 'Super, didi, super,' and, looking spent, sank slowly into a moodha, buried her face in her hands and started to weep. Soundlessly. Steadily.

  I took an uncertain step towards her.

  The guard called from outside. 'Didi. Visitor.'

  Thankful for the diversion, I muttered an awkward 'Um... we'll talk more later' and hurried outside.

  And beheld a lanky figure draped over the green gate.

  'Nauzer,' I said and motioned to the guard to let him through. 'Hey.'

  He loped up, looking... different. He was still wearing the white kurta he'd been wearing at the temple - but that wasn't what was making him different. It was the expression on his face.

  'You need to know something,' he said, as he sat down beside me.

  'What?' I asked, my head still reeling from Munni s stormy outburst. What was with his expression, anyway? He didn't look sympathetic, or madly in love or anything. He looked... pissed off. What was he pissed off about?

  Abruptly, he said, 'Remember those pamphlets?'

  I nodded. I didn't like the way he was looking at me. My stomach started to churn for some reason. I could hear it churning.

  He looked around, leaned a little closer and said, 'Look, before I tell you, I just want to say that I'm very very sure of my sources. And I have proof. I'll send it to you tomorrow. So don't lose it and start yelling, okay?'

  'Okay,' I said impatiently. 'I won't lose it. So who printed the damn pamphlets, already?'

  Nauzer looked at me in a critical, assessing sort of way, almost the way in which Munni looks at rickety chairs during campaigning, like she's wondering if they're sturdy enough to take her weight. Then he shrugged and said, very matter-of-factly, 'Anthony Suleiman.'

  Huh?

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  He held up a finger. 'No yelling,' he said. 'You promised.'

  I shut it again, abruptly.

  He looked relieved. 'But--' I began loudly.

  He held up his finger again.

  I closed my mouth, thought over it a little, then finally said in a strangled whisper, 'But Tawny uncle is a family friend?

  'Family frenemy,' said Nulwallah. 'Your word, remember?'

  'Rumi's,' I said automatically, then added, 'Are you sure?' My head was reeling.

  He nodded, his demented eyes gleaming. 'I'm sure. I tracked down the printer who did the job. The order was clearly placed through somebody in the Suleiman camp.'

  I stared at him, my mind racing. The pamphlets had broken out the day after Titus visit to Begumbagh, that much was true. But... Tawny uncle? The AIPC General Secretary? The man who'd talked my family into letting me study animation? The man who had bought me my first cell-phone?

  Why?

  Nulwallah said, 'D'you want to know why? Coz I have a theory.'

  I glared at him, simmering with resentment. Who the hell was he, anyway, pointing fingers at my oldest friends. How long had I even known him? I'd known Tawny uncle all my life!

  'What?' I said coldly.

  He looked at me intently, not at all perturbed. 'You know the forests of Durguja?'

  'FUCT,' I said knowledgeably.

  'Excuse me?' he said, startled.

  'They're Full of Unemployed Christian Tribals,' I explained.

  'Yeah, that's right,' he said, looking at me a little strangely. 'Anyway, apparently, there's shitloads of illegal stuff going on t
here. Illegal logging of the reserved forests, bauxite mining. It's a multi multi crore scam. Everybody's involved in it up to their eyebrows. The local officials, the IJP state government and Tawny and Son, our men from Tiloni.'

  'If you say so,' I said doubtfully.

  'That's why the IJP state government is hell bent on getting the missionaries out of there - because they take up for the tribals. Tell them their rights and help them to fight and stuff.'

  Okkayy.

  Nulwallah continued. 'Anyway, after the delimitation five years ago, more than half the forests came into Bittoragarh. So then it suited everybody concerned to have a nice, cooperative MP in Bittora. Which Pushpa Pande was not.'

  That much was true. Amma was fiercely protective about the Durguja tribals. Not because she was madly idealistic or anything, of course. But because of her passionate Tarzan-n-Jane honeymoon there eons ago.

  'You may recall,' said Nulwallah, his voice slipping slightly into Karan Thapar mode, 'that she created a big shindig about the tribals being persecuted back then. But then the morphed photo scandal came along and she got all... err... distracted.'

  'So?' I said defensively.

  Nauzer leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. 'So, I think Tawny leaked that morphed photo story just to fix her, so she'd be too busy to go poking about in Durguja.'

  'What!' I shook my head. 'That's insane, Nauzer.'

  'He did,' Nauzer maintained doggedly. 'I know this. I tracked down the guy in the photo studio in Noida. The one who morphed all the pictures on your grandmother's orders. He said Tawny paid him to rat on Amma.'

  Could this be true?

  Nulwallah continued, his eyes intent. 'Tawny got Dwivedi in instead, as MP for Bittora, gave him a fat cut of everything, and things went on swimmingly for a while. But then Dwivedi went and blotted his copybook with TB and failed to get the Bittora ticket this time. So Tawny was back to square one.'

  I shook my head in protest.

  'I don't buy this. I mean, Tawny uncle is a bit scheming, but he's sweet... he has three moustaches... he's a. joker, not a villain.'

  'Re-read your Batman, Pandeji,' said Nulwallah, looking irritatingly superior. 'The joker is the villain.'

  I wanted to slap him.

  'But he helped Amma!' I said. 'He got her the Tughlaq Road house for life!'

  Nulwaalah leaned forward. 'To keep her far away from the constituency and all the hanky panky going on there.'

  'He asked me to marry his son!' I exclaimed.

  'To neutralize you, obviously,' said Nulwallah. 'And, by the way, big ewwwwww.'

  'But how would printing pornographic pamphlets about me help him?' I asked, ignoring this.

  'He wants you to lose!' Nulwallah said explosively, now looking like he wanted to shake me. 'Don't you get it? He'd rather the IJP win! The logging and mining is basically an IJP scam, so an IJP MP will have no option but to shut up, take a small cut and let the plunder continue.'

  'But he's an All India Pragati Committee General Secretary...' I started to say, then trailed off weakly.

  Gudia aunty's words had come back to me. Don't be so sure Mr Suleiman is on our side, Jinni. He'd be superhuman if he didn't resent a Pande family dynasty blooming right here on his home turf.

  I'd ignored her when she said it, thinking she was just being her usual insecure, insinuating, no-one-shall-get-closer-to-Pushpa-Pande-than-me self. But now I had a sudden vision of Tawny uncle, his expression a sinister smirk, as he bribed the TB's helicopter pilot to say the chopper had engine trouble. 'Thank you, dear,' he would have said. 'Don't tell anyone, dear.'

  I said slowly, 'So you're saying he screwed us by somehow sabotaging the TB's visit here, aren't you? That was all part of his plan?'

  Nulwallah nodded. 'And here's where I have to ask you not to shriek and shout again...'

  I ran a shaking hand through my hair.

  'Now what?' I asked. 'What could be worse than this?'

  He got off the moodha, and kneeled in front of me, tucking both my hands into one of his large knobbly ones.

  'I wouldn't have told you this today for the world,' he said gently. 'I know what's going on - I'm not blind, you know. But after what happened at the temple, it would be injudicious not to tell you.'

  'What, Nauzer?' I snapped, gripping his hand painfully. 'Tell me.'

  He shrugged, then leaned back, not letting go of my hands, and said, in this very casual, off-hand tone, 'Well, if we just hold on to that thought - that Suleiman is out to screw you - and ride with it for a bit, then it becomes pretty clear that he wouldn't stop at just trying to spoil things for you. He'd go further, surely?'

  'Further, like how?' I asked, wishing he'd just get to the point.

  'Well...' he said, a little reluctantly. 'Obviously, by actively supporting someone else -- helping that someone else win, giving that someone funds, and contacts, and information about your plans well in advance - how else do you think the Salmon Khan rally happened on exactly the same day and at the same time as yours?'

  Something large and heavy fell right through my stomach.

  Nauzer leaned in again, his thumb caressing my white-as-chalk knuckles and said gently, almost pityingly, 'Jinni, it's pretty clear, to an unbiased outsider, that Anthony Suleiman, half-Christian-half-Muslim-and-full-opportunist would have to have been hand in glove right through this campaign with--'

  'Zain,' I whispered, feeling like a Nave nymho fool who'd just been slapped in the face.

  ***

  12

  Shortcut confirmed it. He'd been out of town and he came scurrying over to commiserate early the next day, fretting and afsosing and tch tching and asking me if I'd managed to get any sleep last night.

  Which, of course, I hadn't. Well after midnight, a ragtag bunch of our own party workers, their eyes bloodshot, their faces as black as thunder, had marched in delegation to the garland-wreathed green gate, bearing placards condemning my embrace of Zain, and said that the pamphlets had been right about my moral depravity after all. Ma and I had lain huddled in Amma's big double bed and listened to them chant obnoxious slogans till they were creeped out by Ponky's mournful howling and slunk away after flinging a couple of half-hearted stones at the house.

  But even then I couldn't sleep. Lying awake, burrowed next to my sleeping mother, I thought about what Munni had said, I thought about Amma and the happy movie ending she wanted for SKAA, passing on the baton from grandmother to granddaughter, and how it had been within arm's reach till I screwed it all up with my stupidity. Bloody haarmoans, I thought bitterly, they'd led me up shit creek good and proper. I was going to be the only person in the history of Indian politics to lose an election in spite of a sympathy wave caused by the death of a major political leader.

  I finally fell into a fitful sleep around five, the picketers' sarcastic chanting still ringing in my ears.

  Sarojni Pande thu-thu-thu

  Pragati workers spit on you!

  Anyway, when Shortcut arrived, I glared at him with my bleary red eyes and asked him point blank if he'd been sending money to Zain from Tawny -- and he admitted to it! Large sums of money had indeed been given to his people in Delhi by Tawny in exchange for large sums of money which had been released to Zain by Shortcut's people here in Bittoragarh. It had been going on right from the start. The first installment had arrived the day after Zain filed his nomination papers. Which meant that Tawny, Tits and Zain must have discussed it at the wedding reception itself. And I'd pulled him down and kissed him that very night! God, I was cheaper than mangoes in June.

  Shortcut claimed he was telling me because he was 'on my side', so to speak, but I wasn't Nave enough to fall for that. He was a businessman, and it made sense for him to keep all sides happy. The real reason he had come out and told me, I knew, was because Amma's demise had suddenly turned the tables in my favour. I was pretty much set to win -- or at least I had been, but now god only knew how my stupid public embrace would play out. Shortcut didn't watch much TV, obviously; h
e seemed to have no clue about my political harakiri.

  What a shock he would get when he saw the papers, I thought grimly.

  Either way, any hopes I had had that Nauzer was cooking up a crazy cock-and-bull story because he was madly jealous of Zain and fully enamoured of me, had to go straight out the window now. It was proven, beyond doubt, that Zain was a cunning, scheming bastard. Whatever early promise he might have showed when we were kids had obviously withered away as he grew up. He was nothing but a snake, a devastatingly hot, rough velvet-voiced snake with vulnerable dark eyes, a wicked sense of humour, and gentle, gentle hands and I was going to have to rip him out of my bosom (Can we please not talk about your bosom?) and fling him out into the political wilderness where he belonged.

  But when the papers arrived, a few hours later, it looked like I was the one who was going to be flung out into the political wilderness. All the papers, and I do mean all, had the same damn cover picture. Me sobbing against Zain's chest, his arms cradling me, his chin resting gently on top of my head. His face was clearly visible while mine wasn't, and his expression, under the white bandana, was utterly compelling. He looked sombre and strong and young and tender and sympathetic and superheroic and like he totally deserved your vote. If a man could care so much for his closest opponent, any intelligent voter would reason, surely he would care for his electorate?

  I, of course, looked like the loser, clinging vine that I was.

  It was a fitting culmination to a campaign marked by fabulous pictures -- me with a rubber penis, me with a naked wrestler, and now, me sobbing in the arms of my arch rival. At my grandmother's funeral. And oh, did I mention that my party Top Brass was in the picture too, watching from a distance, an expression of utter consternation on his face?

  Even I didn't feel like voting for myself after seeing the picture -- why should anyone else?

  After I got dressed, Ma and I drove to Normal Public School to cast our vote. Or rather, my vote, since Ma was a Canadian citizen. After that, we were going to patrol as many polling booths across as many areas as we could, checking to see that the voting was proceeding smoothly.

  We reached the booth to find a whole bunch of news vans, all eager to get a sound byte from me. I thanked god that Zain would vote in the Purana Bittora area, so there was no chance of banging into him here and tearing out his eyes and making headlines all over again tomorrow.