Anji’s nostrils flare. ‘What are you trying to insinuate exactly?’ she says, the colour in her cheeks suddenly hectic. ‘That because I can’t have childre –’
‘Arrey, no no.’ Mrs Mamta goes over to her quickly. ‘Of course not, Anji, don’t be so sensitive!’
‘Just leave that poor dog alone,’ the Judge growls.
An awkward silence falls.
Finally Anji says, with artificial brightness, ‘Uff, really, I miss you girls so much and when I come you just sulk at me about everything! Your mongrels will stay unfixed, Dabbu. And Chabbu, that Georgie Porgie is not gay. Happy?’
That evening, there is an indefinite power cut and a lively family circle forms on the terrace. The girls carry rolled-up gaddas up the stairs, a glass bottle filled with fridge-cold water to dampen them with, packets of potato wafers and a blender full of cold coffee. Even the Judge promises to come up upstairs presently and appreciate the blooming amaltas.
‘There’s a gym in our colony now,’ Anjini announces, flopping down on the gaddas once Eshwari has sprinkled them well. ‘I’ve joined. The owner begged me to – everybody follows my lead, na. And now Rocky Singh the instructor ignores everybody else and just gives tips to me. It’s so embarrassing. Do you know what he said to me yesterday?’
Dabbu is fairly sure nobody said ‘what’ but Anjini provides the answer anyway.
‘Ki Mrs Singh, is that new newsreader on TV your elder sister? She looks so much like you!’ She screams with laughter.
‘It’s probably the juvenile behaviour,’ Eshwari quickly murmurs into Debjani’s indignant ear. ‘Makes her look younger than you.’
Dabbu gives a snort of laughter.
‘What, what?’ Anji looks hurt. ‘What did you say? You girls have so many secrets. It’s not fair.’
‘Nothing,’ Eshwari says, turning up the radio. ‘I’m trying to tune in to Yuvvani for A-Date-With-You. But the static’s terrible.’
‘Expecting a request?’ Anjini says knowingly. ‘Basketball babe in the Number 10 shirt, without you my life is dirt!’
‘More like Kot-piece queen, I love you so, our boring dads will never know!’ Eshwari murmurs. Debjani gives her a dirty look.
Anjini pricks up her ears instantly. ‘What’s this? What’s this?’ she says, delighted. ‘Somebody’s crushing on Dabbu?’
‘No!’ Debjani shakes her head vehemently.
‘So lucky,’ Anjini sighs. ‘You’ll probably have a love marriage. Not like me, bundled off to the first bakra on the block.’
Mrs Mamta frowns. ‘That’s not right, Anjini. You chose Anant yourself – such a handsome boy.’
‘But I wanted to have a career first!’ Anjini protests. Her voice becomes wistful. ‘I wanted to be an airhostess with Indian Airlines. You know, travel the world, meet new people.’
‘Binni didi says you just wanted to meet the Prime Minister,’ Debjani remarks. ‘I mean the now-ka-Prime Minister. That your favourite fantasy was sashaying into the cabin, bending over and breathlessly asking, What can I get you, captain?’
Anji doesn’t get angry. Instead, she smiles secretively.
‘I’d have hooked him if I’d met him,’ she says, as though stating a simple fact. ‘I’m prettier than the wife – definitely.’
There is silence.
Whatever happened, wonders Mrs Mamta wearily, to being good?
‘I think Antu’s having an affair,’ Anjini says next with relish.
Mrs Mamta sighs. Eshwari smothers a yawn. Why does she pretend she wants to talk about me, Debjani thinks, nettled, when all she really wants to do is talk about herself?
‘Antu bhaiyya’s not the affair types,’ Eshwari offers comfortingly. ‘He’s probably just overworked or something.’
‘Fat lot you know, Chubs.’ Anjini immediately takes offence. ‘The girls in his office all dote on him. Actually,’ her voice grows speculative, ‘I wouldn’t mind if he had an affair, it might spice up our marriage...’
‘Why are you here, Anjini?’ her mother asks suddenly. ‘Tell me. What has happened?’
Anjini shrugs and looks up at the amaltas, her brown eyes clouding over.
This whole thing is Harrison Ford’s fault, she broods. She had been so eager to see his latest Indiana Jones film that she went to see it with Anant’s boss. Okay, maybe that wasn’t very smart because the man was a total despo and she knew it would make Anant cross, but she was angry with Anant because… well, she has forgotten what it was she had been angry with him about. Anyway, she took the house keys without realizing it and he was locked out of the house when he came home from work, and while they stood arguing about it on the doorstep, a delivery man arrived with fifty exotic orchid stems, flown in specially from Thailand, bearing the card of their pimply Eureka Forbes salesman with whom Anji had flirted one day because she had been so depressed after meeting all the glowing, pregnant-for-the-second-time mothers during the parents-teachers meeting at Samar’s school. She tried to explain this to Anant, thinking, with her usual optimism, that perhaps a showdown would be good – it would lead to angry words and lots of tears and drama and a deliciously tempestuous reconciliation. But instead, he folded his arms, became all silent and tight-lipped and left for the US without saying a word to her.
‘Oh, nothing, Ma,’ Anji sighs. ‘Everything’s fine. I was just missing you guys, that’s all. Tell me, should I get my hair permed?’
The green gate kunda clangs musically just then and Mrs Mamta looks down at the driveway. It is the Judge, coming back from a walk. His body language looks just a little furtive to her, and for a moment she wonders if Chachiji is right; maybe he really does sneak off to make phone calls and arrange rendezvous with another woman. Stop it, you’re thinking like Anji, she tells herself sternly.
The Judge appears on the terrace presently, slightly out of breath. He looks at the little party on the mattresses and smiles. ‘Mamtaji, your nest is full tonight!’
Anjini springs to her feet. ‘Bauji, you never let us sleep outdoors when we were young!’
‘You never asked,’ he replies simply. ‘All you ever wanted was a desert cooler for your room and when I organized that, there were endless arguments about whose turn it was to fill water in it.’ He makes talking gestures with his fingers. ‘Kichid kichid kichid.’
Anjini’s face falls.
‘LN, see the flowers!’ his wife steps in quickly. ‘Aren’t you glad we planted so many trees around the house?’
The Judge nods. He looks across at Number 13, beyond the boundary wall. ‘That building is going to be six floors high. The trees will help block it a little, I suppose. Even then, I don’t think you will be able to sleep up here any more.’
‘How bad are Chachaji’s debts anyway?’ Anjini asks. ‘And what on earth did he do to – ouch!’
This, because her mother has just pinched the soft flesh of her upper arm.
‘I feel bad I couldn’t do more for Ashok Narayan,’ the Judge says heavily.
Debjani rolls over onto her stomach and hugs her pillow. And encounters Eshwari’s huge black eyes looking right into hers.
‘Tell,’ she whispers.
Debjani smiles, feeling a ridiculous surge of heart-tightening excitement.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she whispers back.
‘What did you do?’
Debjani doesn’t reply. Instead, with a sudden, dramatic movement, she rolls onto her back and stares up at the stars. ‘What colour eyes would you guys say I have?’
Eshwari looks puzzled. ‘Brown,’ she says. ‘Everybody has brown eyes. Or black eyes. That is, everybody Indian.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Anjini puts in. ‘A lot of people say my eyes are the colour of brandy. Some say sherry. And some say aam-papad.’
‘Those are all the same colour!’ Eshwari looks unimpressed. ‘It’s just a fancy way of saying brown! We’re not goras with blue and green and grey and brown eyes to pick from! No, Dabbu?’
To he
r surprise, Dabbu looks unconvinced. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she murmurs. ‘There are subtle nuances to each shade...’
Eshwari looks at her in disbelief and her black eyebrows snap together. She says, lowering her voice to a whisper, ‘So what colour eyes did the harami say you had?’
‘He didn’t,’ Dabbu whispers back, going bright red and feeling thankful for the darkness. ‘We just practised reading… he has a Mac.’
Eshwari looks like she wants to shake her. ‘Why are you so careful, Dabbu? Can’t you just admit you like him?’
‘His hands are nice,’ Debjani replies. ‘Lean but strong – and he types really fast.’
‘Hey bhagwan! So now you like his hands too – how long will it take you to like the whole package?’
‘I don’t know,’ Dabbu says again.
Eshwari glares at her, exasperated.
‘Besides,’ Debjani points out prudently, ‘why should I put myself out there? I have to know if he likes me too.’
Eshwari groans, picks up a bottle of water and hits herself repeatedly on the head with it.
5
Chachiji is at Number 16 for tea and sympathy. Sitting hunched over the kitchen table, ladling spoonful upon spoonful of sugar into her cup, she tells her sister-in-law and nieces the tragic tale of her day so far.
A.N. Thakur is out of town and Gulab’s law exams are on. He spent the whole night holed up in his room, studying, and early in the morning, Chachiji went to Birla Mandir to pray for him.
‘Let him pass this time, Lord!’ she begged. ‘Once he is a qualified lawyer, he will free me from the humiliation of being married to a man who is sleeping with my cook!’
‘You don’t know that he’s sleeping with the Hot Dulari, Bhudevi,’ says Mrs Mamta. ‘Think of your new payals! It’s all just your veham.’
‘You’re much prettier than the Hot Dulari,’ Anji assures her earnestly. ‘She’s so flat-chested and dark.’
Chachiji sniffs dolefully. ‘It’s not about looks, ladkiyon. She has done jaadu-tona on him – he can’t help himself, poor man.’
The ladies of Number 16 receive this remarkable statement with diplomatic silence. Chachiji continues her tale of woe.
She bought flowers and a coconut for ten rupees. She spent over an hour in prayer. Then she fed the cows outside the temple. And when she finally came home in a cycle-rickshaw, she found Gulab still fast asleep in the downstairs room, Hindu Undivided Family Law spread across his chest, his mouth wide open, eyes shut. He had missed the Bar examination.
‘It’s all that wretched Hot Dulari’s fault!’ Chachiji declares.
‘What?’ Dabbu is mystified. ‘How? He’s the one who overslept! How can it be her fault?’
Chachiji glares at her. ‘She should have woken him up!’ she snaps. ‘I found her boiling eggs in the kitchen, humming Humne tumko dekha, tumne humko dekha under her breath. I’m going to sack her.’
But Dabbu’s mind is travelling along a different track.
‘And what about Gulgul bhaisaab? He’s lost a year, surely?’
‘I’d sack him too, if I could,’ Chachiji grumbles. ‘Adopted that fool from the gutter and look how he repays me! May he get worms! May he rot in hell. May termites gnaw at his –’
‘Anus,’ Anji finishes comfortingly for her. ‘We know. Don’t worry, Chachiji. Have another cup of tea.’
‘Arrey, what tea,’ Chachiji says tearfully. ‘You haven’t heard the whole story yet. When I shook the good-for-nothing awake, do you know what he said to me? Not I-am-sorry-mummy, not I-am-an-idiot-mummy, but good, I’m glad I missed it. I don’t want to do law anyway, I want to open a jim!’
‘No!’ Mrs Mamta says weakly.
‘Don’t tell me!’ Dabbu manages.
‘But I am telling you!’ Chachiji says morosely. ‘The father has gambled away the roof over my head and now the son wants to hobnob with large naked men in chaddi-baniyan!’
‘You know,’ Anji says slowly. ‘That’s not such a bad idea, Chachiji. Gyms are becoming very popular nowadays. And Gulgul really knows his weight lifting.’
‘He wants to call it Gulab’s Gym,’ Debjani tells her aunt hesitantly.
Chachiji stares at both of them, bug-eyed. ‘You two know about this? You’ve been encouraging him? Of course you’ve been encouraging him. Horny girls wanting to see muscular men coming and going the whole day! Well, you won’t. My Gulgul is not going to open a jim, he is going to be a lawyer!’
Mrs Mamta Thakur frowns. ‘Now, Bhudevi, that’s enough. Of course the girls didn’t know!’
‘I knew,’ Debjani says, firing up. ‘Why can’t Gulgul try running a gym? It won’t cost much. He can keep studying law on the side. He already has a really good music system and all the mirrors he needs. You just have to buy him some weights, Chachiji. And maybe a desert cooler.’
‘I’ll buy him sixty kilos of sandalwood to be cremated in,’ swears Gulab’s unnatural parent. ‘Wretched, wretched boy. And shame on you for encouraging him.’
Mrs Mamta tries to calm her down. She explains that all she really needs to do is buy Gulab an alarm clock. ‘And forget about sacking Dulari,’ she says soothingly. ‘AN’s just bought you those lovely payals – which means he loves you – in return, you must show that you trust him. Sacking this woman is below your dignity. Besides, you need all the help you can get today – you have to move out, remember?’
Today is indeed the black date the builder has set for the demolition of Number 13 (no wonder AN has made himself scarce, thinks his sister-in-law darkly). The crew arrives with their bulldozer at the dot of ten, very loud and bossy, and starts arguing with Chachiji about why the house hasn’t been emptied yet. Mrs Mamta hurries over, calms Chachiji down, and officially invites her to come and stay in their annexe for the time being.
Chachiji, instead of being grateful, as Mrs Mamta privately thinks she ought to be, moans about how her evil sister-in-law is making her stay in ‘servants’ quarters’ and drops broad hints about wanting to stay in the main house.
‘I’ll share with Debjani,’ Chachiji suggests craftily. ‘She likes me.’
‘That won’t be possible,’ Mrs Mamta says firmly. ‘Debjani already shares with Eshwari. You had better stay in the annexe only. The three of you can spread out nicely there.’
Mrs Mamta isn’t entirely happy with this arrangement, because Ashok is unsavoury, Chachiji unstable, and even Gulgul, though he himself is sweet, has some very overfriendly, over-muscled buddies. But what to do? Family is family.
It irritates her when the Judge says the same thing, though. ‘Family is family,’ he states pompously. ‘We must stand together.’
‘Oh, it’s all very well for you to talk,’ Mrs Mamta says pettishly. ‘You’ll never talk to Ashok about his disgraceful behaviour, you’ll just shut yourself up in the study. It’s me who has to do all the socializing with your stupid sister-in-law and your randibaaz brother.’
Later in the day the girls help Chachiji move in and set up her kitchen. Satish Sridhar, who has surfaced briefly between his many engineering entrance exam classes, pitches in to help. Eshwari and he stagger back and forth between the houses, carrying boxes and bundles of all shapes and sizes.
‘This is kinda cosy, huh, Bihari?’ He gives her his endearing wolf-puppy grin. ‘Me-and-a-you-and-a –’ he peers into a box, ‘a garam masala grinder, a toaster, a pressure cooker and something that’s quite possibly a sexual pleasure enhancement device. Basically, everything one needs to set up a modern home today!’
‘Shut up, Steesh.’ Eshwari rolls her eyes. ‘And hold your side higher – the carton’s tilting.’
‘I can carry the whole thing myself, you know,’ he assures her. ‘I’m strong enough. I’m just letting you help coz getting so close to you feels nice.’
Eshwari lets go of her side of the carton abruptly.
Satish curses, recovers, weaves around for a bit, then grins at her manfully. She twinkles back.
‘All good?’ sh
e enquires.
‘Of course not,’ he pants. ‘I’m studying engineering, not weight lifting. Get your side again, c’mon.’
Eshwari smiles and grabs her end of the carton.
‘Phew!’ says Satish. ‘Where’s that ape Gulgul when you need him?’
‘Don’t even ask,’ Eshwari replies. ‘He’s fully in the doghouse – must have sulked off somewhere.’
They walk along for a while.
‘I love that perfume,’ Satish says presently. ‘Sometimes I can swear I smell it when I’m swotting over 3-D engineering drawings in the middle of the night. What’s it called?’
His eyes are friendly as he towers over her, but Eshwari can feel her cheeks go hot. The meaningful grin is just a flicker away, and lately she has started responding to it. There is a certain intensity lurking behind it that quickens her pulse, and causes her to doodle E-for-Engineer at the back of her history notebook.
‘Anais Anais,’ she replies matter-of-factly. ‘Don’t get too fond of it though, it’s too expensive to use on a regular basis. I’ll be switching to something cheaper soon.’
‘Oh?’ he replies.
And they let it go at that.
When Dylan and his father drive over the next evening, both in a state of pleasant anticipation, albeit for different reasons, they are confounded to find that a floral cushioned cane sofa has pushed the green baize card table off centrestage. Around the sofa are grouped six besotted men of varying ages and types, and upon it is seated a vision of beauty dressed in a sleeveless pink chikankari dress, with the table fan (no longer set on circulation mode) pointing squarely at her, taking delicious liberties with her cascading curls of hair.
Looking at her, Dylan gets the weird sensation that he has wandered into the pastry section at Wenger’s bakery. Everything is just so ripe and moist and creamy and temptingly displayed.
The six men certainly seem to be standing with their noses pressed against glass. One of them, a scholarly-looking man with slipping spectacles, is speaking.
THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS Page 11
