The Zoya Factor

by Anuja Chauhan

  The only way I got through the whole process was by chanting fifty lakhs, fifty lakhs, fifty lakhs under my breath. But even that was beginning to lose its charm, especially since I'd realized I'd have to pay a huge chunk in taxes. Somehow thirty-one point five lakhs, thirty-one point five lakhs, thirty-one point five lakhs didn't have quite the same magical ring.

  Zoravar's eyes totally popped when he saw me. 'Wow,' he said finally. 'You in there somewhere, Gaalu?'

  Neelo was ruder. 'Look, Asha Parekh made a baby with Tina Turner,' he said. 'Fuck.'

  I blinked my extremely stiff eyelashes at them and said, 'I don't have a good feeling about this,' through thickly lipsticked lips.

  The shot was still not ready so the spot boys produced three spindly-legged chairs for us and we sat down to wait. The choreographer was lurking in the background looking like he was itching to make me practise the 'Goddess pose'. I hurriedly turned my back on him and almost stabbed myself in the stomach with my trident.

  'Namaste, Zoya Devi.'

  I looked up warily and beheld a large brown gentleman in a starched white pajama kurta. I brought my hands together into an instinctive namaste and a whole bunch of light bulbs popped in my face. When my eyes finally adjusted to the glare, I realized the large brown gentleman had a posse of photographers lurking behind his large brown shoulders. As they scurried away, the large brown man pulled up a chair and sat down on it, large amounts of him hanging off it from both sides. 'Kuku Prasad, MLA, Bhiwandi,' he said, beaming at me.

  'Uh, hello,' I said, as graciously as I could and waited for him to explain himself further. But that seemed to be it. The guy had shot his bolt. He just sat there, beaming. And gleaming slightly, as he sweated gently under the studio lights.

  Neelo said finally, 'So, Kuku, do you work in film production?'

  Kuku laughed, revealing very pink gums. 'No, no, I am here on the party's behalf, to meet Zoya Devi, and her agent Mr Lokendarji. It is about her contesting the upcoming polls, from Ayodhya, on our party's ticket.'

  Neelo swivelled around to look at me. 'You're joining politics!' he gasped.

  'When were you planning to tell us, Zoya?' Zoravar said in this very quiet voice. But it freaked me out. Because my brother never calls me Zoya.

  I shrugged evasively. 'It was just an idea,' I muttered. 'Nothing is pukka yet.'

  Kuku leaned forward and protested. 'What you're saying, Deviji? High Command has approved your candidature! Everything is pukka! You do not know, you have beaten one freedom fighter, one dowry-victim-with-terrible-burn-scars and one Asian-Games-silver-medallist-who-is-also-a-scheduled-caste for this ticket! Competition was very tough! But don't worry! You are approved! We will seek High Command's blessings first thing tomorrow morning and then file your nomination. Tonight itself, we are doing a press release and printing six lakh posters. That is why the photographers are here!'

  Okay, this was news to me. I sucked in my breath and prepared to explode, but Lokey came puffing up just then (which was good, because my exploding would probably have caused my twin torpedo missiles to pop and hit Kuku in his twin Googly eyes and blind him for life, besides leaving me topless).

  I said, through gritted teeth, 'What's going on, Lokey?'

  'Nothing, Joyaji,' he said grinning shiftily. 'Mr Kukuji's here to meet you regarding thee possibility of your being interested in contesting thee election, that's all. Zoravarji, please take...' and he tried to placate Zoravar by offering him a handful of pistas.

  'Hain hain, what-what?' Kuku started to say belligerently, but no one heard the rest of what he had to say, because a huge chanting drowned him out. The sound of a million voices shouting: Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai!

  'It's the soundtrack for the ad,' Neelo said, a little uncertainly. 'I mean, it has to be, right?'

  'Yeah, of course, it must be,' I said, feeling relieved. For a moment the horrible possibility of a real crowd being out there had come to my mind and frozen my blood solid.

  But then Kuku said, 'It is your devotees from your soon-to-be constituency. There are ten truckfuls of them accompanying me.'

  Before any one of us could take in the seriousness of this information, the ten truckloads broke through Studio Security and stormed onto the set in a saffron swarm. They charged towards the large POP-and-plyboard temple - fortunately for me they just assumed a Goddess would be in her mandir - as PPK's crew swooped down on us and hustled us all into the make-up van. The last sound I heard, before the make-up van door shut behind me was of PPK giving mother-sister ka abuses on his megaphone, then a little yelp, and then there was silence.

  Zoravar gave a satisfied little grunt. 'Good scene,' he said. 'If they break his legs he can cast himself in his ad.' Then he crossed his arms across his chest and levelled his gaze at Kuku. 'You were saying?'

  Kuku swallowed hard, 'They are little high-spirited, that's all.... I'm sure if the Devi gives them a darshan...'

  I started to say, 'Mr Kukuji, I'm not sure...'

  And then the door of the make-up van swung open and two dishevelled dudes surged in, their Gucci sunglasses glinting crookedly above their rumpled grey beards. Truly astonished, I blinked my stiff lashes and said hello to Jogpal Lohia and Lingnath Baba.

  'Hello, hello,' Jogpal said distractedly, looking around the crowded van. Then he pounced on Kuku with a little cry, his twin-tunnelled nostrils flaring as he snapped, 'Maderchod, what're you doing here?'

  Neelo said, very austerely, 'Whoa, who's the rude dude, Zoya?'

  I just shook my head, as taken aback as he was. Meanwhile, Jogpal stuck his hand in Kuku's kurta collar, yanked him up and booted him out of the van, shutting the door with a decisive click. Then he turned to Lokey, who was staring at him completely bug-eyed, and demanded, 'What was that fellow doing here?'

  Lokey backed away hurriedly and came up against the wall with a bump so hard the whole van shook. Perspiring profusely, he said, 'He was only here for initial meeting with my client, Lohiaji. You don't like him, no problem, we will reschedule, meet him later. But you, Lohiaji, what are you doing here?'

  Jogpal said, completely ignoring the question, his voice shaking with emotion: 'I don't want this innocent child to be sullied by encounters with such scum-of-the-earth type of people.'

  Then he turned to me, grabbed my non-trident-holding hand in both his own and said effusively, 'Hello, beta, how are you?'

  'What are you doing here? I thought you would be in Australia,' I asked, my head in a daze.

  'I had a board meeting. And I wanted to take Baba's blessing for our team.' (Lingnath tinkled self-deprecatingly at this.) 'And I wanted to see you shoot your first commercial, beta!'

  Lokey said smoothly, 'Mr Jogpal is personal friend of Tauji, you know that, no, Joyaji?'

  I nodded my goopy head impatiently. I didn't like the way everybody was trying to control me here. It was about time I made it clear to them exactly whose name was on the door of this make-up van. I sat down gingerly, mindful of my protrusions and said, 'Let's take this one at a time, okay? First, it's great you're friends with Tauji, Uncle, because I want you to tell him I don't like this script.'

  A minor ripple ran through the ill-assorted group at this statement.

  Zoravar grunted his approval, Neelo muttered a low too fuckin' right, Lokey made mild protesting noises and Jogpal's eyes popped. Only Lingnath stayed serene. I continued, 'I don't like this costume. I don't like this trident. And finally, Lokey, I'm sorry, but I don't like your Kukuji!'

  Jogal instantly turned belligerently on Lokey and demanded, 'Absolutely! What is all this politics-sholitics, Lokendar?'

  Zoravar said, 'Hang on a sec. Let's start from the first item on her list, shall we? Can we do anything about the script?'

  Lingnath said smoothly, 'But why, Devi? It is a beautiful script, crafted specially to showcase your divinity.'

  That rather startled me, because it was weird, the way he used exactly the same phrase PPK had used earlier. 'How come you
know the script so well?' I asked.

  He said, without missing a beat, 'Your interests are very close to my heart, Devi.'

  'What about Nikhil's?' I couldn't help demanding. 'This script reduces him and the team to cartoons. You're cool with that?'

  'Nikhil is like a son to me,' Jogpal said instantly.

  'Then don't you care that the sports media worldwide is laughing at him? At our team?'

  Jogpal shifted his bulk a little and shook his hands about dismissively. 'Bete, why are you worried about these white people's campaigning? They are all hypocrites. They are accusing us of voodoo but they are only doing it because they are scared, they want to play mind games with our boys.'

  'Okay, tell me,' I said. 'Just supposing I don't go back, do you think the outcome of the match will be affected? Seriously? Honestly?'

  Jogpal and Lingnath pondered this question for a while, doing a cool sort of a double act where Jogpal's nostrils expanded and contracted in perfect time to Lohia's ominous tinkling. Outside, my wannabe-constituents were going all out. Ominous thumping sounds filtered through into the make-up van, along with the sound of a shrill thready voice leading the ten truckloads of people in their mindless chant. 'Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai!' Finally Lingnath said, 'Of course the outcome will be affected. You have not seen your astrological chart. Your stars are sublime. Perfect. Unique...'

  But I was looking at Jogpal. He said slowly, 'You should have more faith in your God-given powers, Zoya beta.'

  I replied, 'And you should have more faith in your team.'

  'Yeah, dude,' Neelo piped in. 'As president of the IBCC shouldn't you be worried that public opinion is going against your boys?'

  I was worried Neelo's tone would anger Jogpal, but he just looked at me fondly and said, 'I have to worry about my girl too. I can't leave her to Lokendar here, can I? He is letting her fall into the clutches of corrupt politicians.'

  Lokey almost choked on the pistas he'd been chomping absently while waiting for me to get over my conscience pangs and get on with the shoot. While he was coughing and going red in the face, and trying to say that all the high-minded objections were simply because Lingnath supported another political party, Zoravar, who had reached absently for my trident and, much to my disgust, started to dig into his plaster with the back end of it, said matter-of-factly to Jogpal, 'You want total control of her, you mean.'

  Jogpal said, pleasantly, 'I want to keep her exclusive to cricket, yes.'

  'You know what I think?' Zoravar's voice rang out clearly in the crowded little make-up van, even as he continued to dig casually into his stinky plaster. 'I think you're purposely building up Zoya's status so she gets all the credit for Nikhil Khoda's World Cup victories. You want to make him into a lame-duck captain so you can slowly ease your convalescing blue-eyed boy Rawal into the captain's post.'

  It was like he'd casually pulled out the pin of a hand grenade, and tossed it, smouldering, onto the floor of the make-up van. Suddenly, everything went very still.

  Well, if you didn't count Lokey going 'O behenchod' under his breath.

  As I waited for the bomb to burst, I thought, wait a minute, that actually makes total sense.

  Jogpal was the one who'd picked me and built me up. Nikhil was the one who'd hated to have me foisted on him. Somewhere along the way, Jogpal started making it look like it was all the other way round. Like Nikhil wanted me, and he was just supporting his captain. All his recent interviews, while seeming to defend India in the 'white' media were really subtly undermining both Nikhil's capability and his captaincy.

  Rawal was his favourite, always had been, for a million shady reasons none of us would ever know. God knows what kind of dodgy shenanigans the two of them - the three of them, if I counted Lingnath - had planned for Indian cricket in the coming decade. Jogpal had probably never imagined that Nikhil Khoda would manage to lick the loser rag-tag Indian team into shape as a world-beating side. He must've figured that this team would never make it to the Super 8 and when they came home, fully disgraced, the Indians would hate Khoda and then he could chuck him out and get Rawal in as the new captain.

  Of course he couldn't do that if Khoda's Eleven emerged as champions, which is why he must have zoomed in on me at the IPL, thinking, here was a way to bring Rawal back as captain - just in case Nikhil did bring home the World Cup! It was he who'd put Lokey in touch with Tauji, I recalled now. He probably wrote that cheesy script himself! He wanted to turn Nikhil into a laughing stock. What a snake! And Nikhil thought the world of him!

  I turned towards him, ready to speak my mind but winced when I saw his face. Zoravar's bomb was about to burst. I resisted the urge to stuff my fingers into my ears and waited for the detonation.

  Jogpal exploded.

  He ranted and raved and said he'd been insulted, it was an outrage, that Zoravar was clearly a deranged lunatic or had been left out in the snow too long. He said I was a thankless little witch who had abused his hospitality and a total slut at that, look how I'd been carrying on, unable to leave the Muslim boys alone. He said Nikhil and Rawal were both like sons to him. He said if we dared to go public with these nonsensical allegations, he would sue us so hard we'd be taking chukkars of the criminal courts all our lives. He said, didn't we know how much Standing he had in thee Society?

  When he finally paused for breath I said steadily, 'You can say what you want. I think what my brother says is true.'

  Jogpal reared forward and glared at me so manically, I thought his eyeballs would pop and land like two slimy lychees on the floor. He ground his teeth at me, unable to speak, but Lingnath didn't seem to be having any such problems. He leaned towards me, grabbed my gold-coin-encrusted shoulder, fixed me with his horridly hypnotic eyes and hissed: 'Prove it.'

  And just then, the door of the van burst open and we were all face-to-face with Kukuji's saffron sena, all pantingly eager to take a dekko at the Devi.

  When my 'devotees' saw me, standing there frozen in the doorway of the make-up van, resplendent in my Goddess get-up, an ecstatic, collective groan rippled through their ranks and the chanting started up again, accompanied by the manic tinkling of about fifty little brass bells. 'Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai!'

  If this was ten truckloads-full, Kuku must have packed them in pretty tight, I thought, blinking down at them through my three-inch-long eyelashes. There seemed to be thousandsof them, all wild-eyed and frantic and hysterical-looking. A lot of them looked drunk. Some of them held banners that read: 'Zoya Devi ka Chamatkaari Balla'. Some sported bright red tinsel dupattas tied like bandannas across their foreheads. Music blared loudly in the background. I recognized the tune, it was the standard aarti: Om Jai Jagadisha hare, but the words were new. The chorus, sung in a sonorous male voice, extolled the virtues of my miraculous bat, or chamatkaari balla and rhapsodized about how one whack from it was enough to blow the opposition to bits.

  As Lingnath and Jogpal pushed past us, with one last malevolent look, and headed for their cars, the 'devotees' surged towards me, hands reaching out frantically. Zoravar, Neelo and Lokey surrounded me from three sides and tried to reason with the crowd as they waved cricket bats in my face, and begged me to bless them. Some of them had injuries, acquired on the cricket field, which they claimed that they wanted me to cure.

  I distinctly heard Zoravar tell one of them, exasperatedly, shaking his crutches about, 'Dekhiye, I'm her brother. If she can't cure me, how can she cure you?'

  Some of them got down onto their knees and were praying to me, their eyes closed, tears streaming down their cheeks, smoking, ruby-tipped, Sheraan-wali Agarbattis held in their hands. The sickly sweet smell of synthetic mogra blossoms filled the air. And all the time, the frantic fervent chanting continued. 'Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai! Zoya Devi ki Jai!'

  'Abbey Kuku!' Lokey shouted above the din. 'Abbey Kuku, control your crowds.... Where are you?'

  But Kuku had vanished. So had PPK.

 
And then a guy with a CREW tag yelled out at us from the temple structure, 'Today's shoot has been cancelled! You ought to - '

  But we were never to hear what it was we ought to do. Because, with a crash and a groan and a massive puff of dust, the entire POP-and-plyboard Benares temple collapsed under the onslaught of the fanatical mob, taking large numbers of 'devotees', some production people and a very expensive camera down with it.

  'The false temple has been reduced to rubble,' Neelo mused as we rushed to the car, strapped on our seat belts and prepared to flee. 'Kinda symbolic, don't you think?'

  ***

  'I wouldn't have thought it of you, Zoya!'

  Zoravar, Dad and I were sitting in the garden at Tera Numbar. We'd just finished filling him in on the day's happenings. Predictably enough, he was really mad at me for getting mixed up with political types. 'The trouble is,' he said, smoking gently at the nostrils, 'that you children don't have any concept of history. These people have done nothing but create national strife ever since their wretched party came into existence. I can't believe you even agreed to have a meeting with them, Zoya!'