Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  Complete silence in the car.

  Then Jugatram, who had been quiet until now, cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

  'Don't say anything!' I thundered at him. 'Especially you, Jugatramji. Do not speak.'

  'Baby, I was just going to say ki I can drive if you are tired now, that's all,' he said in an injured voice.

  Which, of course, put me even more firmly in the wrong.

  A long, reproachful silence followed.

  Broken by Ma, muttering, 'Really, Jinni, winning that election has gone to your head. You've become so unattractively bossy...'

  Which infuriated me so much that I stamped down on the accelerator instead of the brake and pranged the Maruti Zen in front of us right in the ass.

  ***

  That evening, I was wandering moodily under the squishing, dripping jamuns at Tughlaq Road, when a voice called out my name. I turned.

  'What?' I snapped

  There was no reply.

  I peered into the darkness. Now that Amma was gone and her security guards had been withdrawn, people could just wander in and out of the gates at will.

  'Who's there?' I called out.

  A sari-clad form stepped out hesitantly from behind a jamun trunk.

  I squinted into the darkness.

  Large watery eyes, a thin tremulous mouth and a vague smell of vodka.

  'Gudia aunty!' I exclaimed. 'Hey, where've you been?'

  'Jinni,' she said, her voice very slow and dramatic. 'I need to speak to you.'

  'Okay,' I said. 'Hey, it's nice to see you! You just vanished! My god, I don't think I've seen you since the day--'

  'Jyoti came,' she said with a little sniff. 'Yes. We never got along too well, you know, your mother and I. She was too insecure about how fond madam was of me.'

  'Uff, that's all in your head, come in,' I started to say, grabbing her by the shoulder, but she shook her head firmly.

  'No,' she said. 'Not inside. Here.'

  And with that, she sank down onto the grass, amongst the squishy squashy jamuns.

  'Gudia aunty?' I asked, a little alarmed, as I sank to my knees too. 'What's up?'

  She gripped my arm tightly, too tightly, and said, her voice sending goosebumps down my spine, 'Do you know what day it is?'

  'Uh, yeah, I guess,' I said. 'The sixteenth of July?'

  She shook her head urgently, her eyes glassy and wide.

  'It is the last day,' she said, 'for filing complaints against any EC violations committed during campaigning.'

  'So?' I asked, perplexed.

  'So, even if anyone had proof, any concrete, documented, irrefutable proof, bills for instance, signed by the candidate or her election agent, which prove that more than twenty-five lakhs have been spent on campaigning - and if that person were to submit those documents to the election commission now, after the last date is past, the election commission can no longer disqualify the erring candidate.'

  I looked at her, puzzled. She sounded like she'd swallowed the Election Commission of India Rule Book whole. 'Matlab?'

  'Matlab, even if there is any evidence against you, it can't be used against you any more.'

  'Okay,' I said, still confused. 'Cool. So... why are you telling me all this? So I can relax?'

  She just looked at me.

  My eyes widened in horror. 'Is there proof? Was there proof? Oh my god, did someone submit it and file a complaint? Will I have to resign now? Will Zain get my seat?'

  She shook her head. 'There was proof all right. I gave it to him with my own hands.'

  'What?' I squeaked. 'Why? To whom? How could you?'

  'That day,' she said reminiscently, her voice slipping into its familiar, pain-laced Meena Kumari impersonation, 'that black day, when you accused me of...' she paused and closed her eyes, like it was hard for her to repeat such crude words, then continued resolutely, 'of wearing your undergarments...'

  'Aunty, stop,' I interrupted. 'I'm sor--'

  But she carried on. 'Simply because I happen to have a lilac slip as well! The very same shade! Why,' she gave a tinkling little laugh and tossed her head, 'many's the time I suspected you of wearing mine?

  'Of course,' I replied dutifully. 'Now can you tell...?'

  'I was very hurt, Jinni.'

  I nodded, bewildered, wishing she'd get to the point.

  'Gudia aunty...' I said awkwardly, 'I'm sorry. I've been sorry for a while... but what are you saying?'

  'I was so enraged that I went to madam. But she was...' she gave another tiny sniff, 'unsympathetic. Later, of course, I realized it was because she was so unwell. But at that time, I did not know. So I decided to finish off your whole family for good. I took the bills - not all, but the ones which had your signature on them, totalling to well over three crores - drove over and gave them to Zain.'

  I gave a small, choked gasp and sat back on the wet grass with a loud squelch.

  'And he waited till today to submit them,' I said flatly. 'God, that's really cruel.'

  'For one whole month,' she continued dramatically, 'I have been living with a sword dangling over my head. Because I regretted my action almost immediately. And when madam,' she gave a little gulp, 'passed on... oh! I was crucified with guilt. I couldn't face you. That's why I went away. Please, please forgive me, Jinni!'

  'I forgive you,' I said sadly. I mean, what else could I say? She was so pathetic, with her enormous nose and large watery eyes and her hysterectomy at twenty and her husband who-left-her-and-not-even-for-someone-else. 'I was horrible to you. You should forgive me.'

  Silence.

  I popped a squirrel-nibbled purple jamun into my mouth and chewed on it gloomily. A muggy breeze blew. Crickets hummed. Mosquitoes sucked blood. The recycled-sewage water the gardeners flooded the lawn with every evening pooled below us and stank.

  So this is how it would end, I thought. Humiliation. Disgrace. Public vilification. No wonder I'd been exuding loser stench.

  I fished out the plastic MP badge I'd been issued for the swearing in day after tomorrow and turned it over in my hands a few times. 'Well, I guess I'd better return this then!' I said lightly. 'The photograph's awful, anyway'

  She looked up at that, blinking, shaking her head.

  'Jinni,' she said, grasping my hands, urgently. 'You don't understand. I just came to tell you. To confess. No complaint has been filed - I've been checking at the Nirvachan Sadan - the election commission office - every single day. Sometimes twice a day. Zain didn't use those documents. He spoke to absolutely no one about them! I thought,' she stopped, blushed and gave me a timorous smile, her large watery eyes glowing almost maternally in the dark, 'I thought you might like to ask him why...'

  ***

  The sun was rising behind the Lion Bridge over the Bitwa when I drove up there the next morning, a cheerful, India-Gate-balloon sun, reflected in a river of sparkling glass, green as a champagne botde. Birds wheeled in formation over the gleaming water and a veritable army of monkeys - moms, kids, grandparents and bachelor uncles - promenaded along the low boundary wall of the bridge. I peered into the rearview mirror, rubbing my gummy eyes, and winced at my reflection - skin grubby, eyes manic, mouth huge under a half-mad-full-crack mop of hair. I looked like an underfed dolphin with a bad quiff. A quick halt at Saket Bhavan was clearly indicated.

  An hour later, I drove into Purana Bittora, looking and feeling much revived. If the welcome Zain gave me was even one-hundredth of what Ponky had just come up with, I would be extremely satisfied.

  I drove slowly, looking around, as I hadn't been in this part of the city since I was a child. The roads were wide - and quiet at this time of the morning; crows cawed lazily on the blossom laden gulmohar branches above. The sunshine that touched everything had the slightly unnatural sparkle it gets when it bursts out after several days of rain and thunder. Herds of buffaloes ambled past, staring at me with soft dark eyes. A particularly large one eyed me compellingly, then shot out a long pinkish-grey tongue, flicked it upwards, and stuck
it into his nostrils one by one, giving them a thorough, fastidious cleaning.

  Ewww! I groaned.

  And then, abruptly, I saw the palace.

  I wasn't prepared for it. I mean, I knew it had been done up, of course - I'd seen pictures and stuff - but I still wasn't prepared. There were these towering cast-iron gates that I had no memory of. After that, there was a long, sweeping drive, almost a kilometre long, flanked by glowing, ruby red bougainvillea. And finally, there was the palace itself - sprawling, low rise, yellow-stoned, exquisitely restored. In front of it were sleek vintage cars, fountains, lotuses and liveried men.

  I swallowed convulsively. Suddenly, my crisp blue-n-purple sari and ruby red blouse didn't seem so crisp any more.

  One of the liveried gents bowed low as I emerged from the dusty Sumo, feeling small-time and rumpled and nowhere in the league of all this understated opulence.

  'Madam has a reservation?' he asked smoothly.

  'Uh... no,' I said. 'I'm just here for... umm... breakfast.'

  He bowed again, the top of his turban at level with my chest. He extracted the Sumo keys from my nerveless grasp (there was dirt under my fingernails and I quickly curled them under my palms) and indicated that the coffee shop was in through the lobby and to the right.

  'Thanks,' I told him. 'But what I want know first is, where's the loo?'

  He indicated discreetly in the opposite direction and I put my head down and scurried off. I zipped through the lobby like a speeding blue, red and purple bullet and dived into the ladies'.

  The restroom was sumptuous, as large as a banquet hall, with full-length mirrors, plump sofas, subtle lighting and massive bowls of white roses everywhere. An extremely snooty looking cloakroom attendant was presiding over the whole setup. She didn't even glance at me when I burst in.

  Rushing over to the dressing area, I peered into the mirror, combed out my hair, adjusted my sari pallu, and executed a few three-sixty-degree turns to see if I looked presentable from every angle.

  You've just come to say thank you, I told myself firmly as I checked for boogers up my nose. Thank you and sorry. Thank you for being such a gendeman and sorry for being such a bitch. There was nothing else to say, really.

  Because to say or expect anything else would be, to use Gudia aunty's words, Ridiculous. Bizarre. And unbelievable.

  Wow, I totally forgave her that remark now. If I had seen Zain's home earlier and realized it was no longer the mouldering ruin I remembered, I would never have fallen sobbing against his chest. I would've been all, oh no, if I touch him the Aukaat police of Ahri will stone me to death for getting-ideas-above-my-station.

  Then, just as I was finally turning to leave, reconciled, if not satisfied with how I was looking, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  I whirled around.

  It was the snooty cloakroom attendant. She'd slunk up behind me silently. As I looked at her, my mouth half open, wondering if she expected a tip or something, she gurgled, 'Didi!' and dived for my feet.

  'Heyyy!' I exclaimed. 'What are you doing?'

  She straightened up - she was really quite a beautiful girl - and informed me fervently, in the chastest Pavit Pradeshi, that she owed me her life.

  'No, no,' I said weakly. 'How could I... I mean, how could you possibly?'

  'Didi, don't try and deny,' she returned mistily. 'I am Rita Mishra. You saved my Him from the Brahmins of Ahri. I would have suicided if He had died!'

  Huh?

  Then something clicked.

  'Oh my god, you're Babu Ram's chick!' I cried out, delighted.

  She nodded, giggling a little, her snootiness a thing of the past. 'That is not His real name,' she said, 'but yes, now you have understood!'

  But I hadn't understood. What was she doing as a cloakroom attendant at the Taj Bittora? Was she all right? Had her family been hard on her? Had she been married off to some weirdo pandit? Suddenly, I felt horribly guilty that I'd managed to forget about her completely.

  She didn't seem to bear any grudges though. Pressing me into one of the sumptuous winged armchairs, she quickly filled me in.

  Basically, after Rumi and I had spirited Babu Ram away that night, her family had realized they were stuck with an unmarriageable daughter. Nobody would marry Rita if her 'lover' was still at large. Being too delicate-minded to murder her outright, they settled for locking her up in a small room and leaving her to starve to death. She became sick and skeletal there, with no food or loo or water, until some gutsy ladies in the area alerted the local NGO of her plight. Then Zain's cousin Pinky, who headed the NGO, arrived at her home. Ugly scenes ensued, but eventually the family surrendered her to Pinky didi, who introduced her to Zain bhai, who got her this job. Then he produced her lover boy from somewhere and organized a quiet court marriage. The family tried to make a fuss, but once Zain bhai gently hinted that the footage on Rumi's camera could get the whole Brahmin community of Ahri into big trouble, they piped down and shut up.

  Next week, she wound up breathlessly, she and her Him were going to Goa. Zain bhai - who obviously thought of everything, I thought sourly, unlike me who only thought of Zain bhai - had arranged for jobs for both of them at a Taj property there.

  I smiled and hugged her and wished her all the best, but I couldn't help feeling rather deflated. The way the words Zain bhai and Pinky didi had tripped together so easily from her tongue had suddenly given me a headache. They both had so much in common, it made sense for them to end up together. Was I about to make a complete idiot of myself here?

  Still, I had to say my thank you and sorry; that was only polite. So after hugging her again, I squared my shoulders, raised my chin and stepped into the lobby. My heart was beating fit to burst and I could hear nothing but its demented, impossibly high-decibel thumping. It drowned out every other sound. I was suddenly, miraculously, a unique medical case, a Guinness Book entry, a person who had shattered her eardrum with the sound of her own heartbeat.

  In this numb, deaf, heart-banging condition, I wandered around the lobby, looking for Zain. Of course, I hadn't been smart enough to check if he was even here. For all I knew, he was back in Ladakh.

  I must have been giving out mad-woman-loose-in-the-lobby vibes because a liveried dude slithered up to me right away and asked me what I was looking for.

  I told him.

  He looked a little taken aback, but then he pointed to a set of crystal double doors in the distance. 'Sir is there,' he said, 'You are here for the septic tank conference, I suppose.'

  It was a statement, not a question. Which was very depressing because it seemed to suggest that in spite of all my frantic primping, I was somehow managing to radiate an aura redolent of septic tank. So be it.

  I walked towards the crystal double doors and past the sign that said Fifth International Engineering Conference on Waste Water Management, took a deep breath, and flung the doors open. Here goes nothing, I thought.

  ***

  The hall was dark. And huge. About two hundred people, all seated in groups around circular tables, were looking ahead at some kind of presentation. Except Zain. He was standing in front of a podium, spot lit, dressed in scruffy jeans and a cheesy red Ed Hardy T-shirt, holding a section of what looked like a PVC pipe in his hand. He had on a lapel mike and behind him, on a slide, there was a projected image of what looked like a mountain of dirty brown sludge.

  I sank down in the darkness at the table closest to me and proceeded to listen to a long lecture on waste water management like my life depended on it.

  He talked about solid waste and liquid waste. Kitchen waste and bathroom waste. About how the pipes they'd used in the renovation of the property were made of some corrugated, non-corrosive polymer to withstand the extreme toxicity of the freight they carried. How the waste water was cleaned thoroughly inside the septic tanks and only then released harmlessly into the Bitwa. How the tanks were equipped to handle two hundred and fifty metric tonnes of human waste. How (this with a grin and a modest duck of the d
ark head) his team must've done something right as the waste water model of Taj Bittora had been awarded seven awards for excellence in waste water management by the world environment council.

  Basically, I just watched him. Bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, his voice rising and falling, his hair all tousled, his enthusiasm for the subject electrifying the room. He was always so enthusiastic, I thought besottedly, whether he was writing comics or making kebabs or rally driving or running for parliament. He had so much energy. He talked for forty-five minutes about susu-potty disposal and managed to reduce me to a state of pathetic, worshipful lust. Finally, he stopped, asked for the lights to be switched on, and asked if there were any questions.

  I ducked my head, held my breath, and prayed there were none. But of course, a thin, bug-eyed blonde guy behind me raised his hand and asked some interminably long and appallingly ill-informed question about how this system was taking away the livelihood of the erstwhile untouchable caste of night soil workers and what had Zain done for their emancipation, if anything. I groaned silently as I slid lower into my chair and sank my chin into my chest. This was going to take ages.

  And it did. The questions came thick and fast, most of them totally incomprehensible - at least to me. Finally, just when I thought I couldn't take it any more, Zain said, 'Well, that's it then. The lady there has a question too, I know, but we mustn't trespass onto the time set aside for the next session. Ma'am?' His voice was low and pleasant over the mike. 'I could answer your question now during coffee break, if you like?'

  I looked up with a start and realized he was looking straight at me.

  'Yeah... sure,' I fumbled out, stupidly. 'Coffee would be nice. Thank you.'

  Then I stood up and, hit by a massive nerve attack, walked briskly, not in the direction he was indicating but out through the crystal double doors, heading blindly for the safety of the lobby. There must've been more than just one set of crystal doors, though, because I suddenly found myself outdoors. A low rocky wall and a chain link fence faced me, and I could see tennis courts beyond. I was still trying to figure out where the hell I was, blinking in the warm sunshine, when running footsteps sounded behind me, and then, suddenly, there he was, his dark eyes glowing, his breath coming fast, as though he'd covered a much longer distance than the length of the conference hall.