THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS

by Anuja Chauhan

  ‘Sounds promising.’ Varun’s voice is sour. ‘Have fun, darling.’

  10

  Dylan has the strangest sense of déjà vu when he enters United Coffee House. There is an all pervading smell of sambar and masala dosai, but he’s suddenly back in Berco’s Chinese restaurant, face to face with the questionable Sardar. Think positive, he mutters to himself, and notices a thin girl in a floral salwar kameez eyeing him furtively. He walks up to her.

  ‘Hello, I’m Dylan. Are you Kamaljeet?’

  ‘Preet,’ she corrects him. ‘Kamalpreet. Yes, I am she.’

  She has a clear, sweet voice. Dylan pulls up a chair, sits down next to her and quickly switches languages.

  ‘You’ve come alone, Kamalpreet?’ he asks her in Hindi.

  She nods, looking at him out of huge, brandy-coloured eyes, rimmed with fine, pale lashes. She is thin, too thin. He wants to squeeze her hand, tell her everything will be all right and feed her a good nourishing meal.

  ‘My condolences for your father’s death. I trust everybody at home is coping well?’

  Kamalpreet’s chin starts to wobble alarmingly. Her eyes well up and she lets out a convulsive little sob. People at the other tables stare at Dylan accusingly.

  He flushes and reaches into his jacket and drops a clean handkerchief onto the table.

  ‘Here,’ he says awkwardly. ‘We can do this later, you know. There’s no hurry.’

  ‘Oh, yes there is,’ she says fiercely, her huge eyes burning in her tiny bit of face. ‘I’ve been wanting to say this out loud for years. Have you got a pen?’

  ‘I’ve got a cassette recorder,’ Dylan says. ‘But don’t you want to eat something first?’

  Kamalpreet shakes her head. A lock of curly brown hair escapes her guth and falls on her forehead. ‘No!’ she says vehemently, twisting his handkerchief between her fair, bony fingers. Then, realizing she’s being rude, she adds in careful English, ‘Thank you, but I am not hungry.’

  Dylan’s heart turns over. He says lightly, ‘Here, take my card. You should check that I am who I claim to be, you know. What if I’m not?’

  She smiles at him. ‘Oh, I know ki you are Dhillon only,’ she says confidingly. ‘Aapki picture dekhi hai na, paper mein.’

  He looks at her warmly. ‘You’re being very brave doing this. Does your mother know?’ He sounds absurdly like an Abba song, he thinks irrelevantly.

  ‘Mummy toh wahin khatam ho gayee thi ji,’ she replies matter-of-factly. ‘She died in the rioting only. Myself all alone.’

  He frowns. ‘You might get a lot of attention after the story breaks. Unwanted attention. Where will you go? Have you got anything planned?’

  She squares her thin shoulders. ‘You don’t worry about all that, Dhillonji,’ she tells him, almost comfortingly. ‘You just take your recording.’

  He nods, privately resolving to keep an eye on her for a while in case the story starts to spiral out of control. ‘I’ll just order my coffee and then you can start talking. It’s okay to record you, right?

  Kamalpreet nods. Her brandy-brown eyes grow huge as he loads a new cassette into the recorder. She sits up straight and pulls her chair in a little closer.

  ‘Should I pick it up?’ she asks, reaching eagerly for the gadget.

  ‘Just let it lie there between us,’ he says quickly. ‘And now it’s… on.’

  English transcription of the conversation between Dylan Singh Shekhawat and Sardarni Kamalpreet Kaur

  DSS: You are Kamalpreet Kaur?

  KK: Lai, I just now told you that!

  DSS: Answer yes or no, please.

  KK: Yes.

  DSS: Erstwhile resident of Room Number 12 of Block 32, Tirathpuri?

  KK: Yes.

  DSS: And you were present in this house on the entire night of 1 November 1984?

  KK (muttering): I already told all this, why is he asking everything two-two times?

  DSS (patiently): I have to, Kamalpreet, this is the proper official way.

  KK (slightly mollified): All right.

  DSS: So, can you tell me, in your own words, what happened that night?

  Pause.

  DSS (gently): Kamalpreet?

  KK (in a tightly wound up voice, that seems to belong to a much younger girl): Mummy-Papa were scared. Very scared. They locked up the door, put off the lights and turned on the radio. We listened very softly to All India Radio.

  AIR was reporting from the funeral of the PM. Who-who had come. What-what they were saying. People were singing holy songs. There were crowds at the funeral chanting Blood for Blood! A Life for a Life!

  Suddenly, shouts and cries came from outside our house. Papa rolled me up inside a mattress and carried me out to the balcony and dumped me down with the other mattresses. I was very thin in those days, na.

  Pause.

  DSS (teasingly): You’re still very thin. What happened then?

  KK: Jeeps. Full of men with fire torches and sticks. They stopped in the chauraha – the crossroad below our room – started banging on the doors, cursing all Sardars and telling them to come out.

  They banged on our door, broke it down… Mummy ko worry thi ki they would find me, so she ran out, without her dupatta, I think-so to distract them… She was a beautiful woman, my mummy.

  Pause.

  DSS: Then?

  KK: I never saw her again, though we searched and searched all the hospitals, all the rubbish heaps, and later, all the mass graves. Papa remained hidden in the cupboard… He got scared, I think-so… He saved himself, but since that day he was just… broken inside.

  Pause.

  DSS (very gently): Kamalpreet, think and answer – could you recognize any of these men if you saw them now? Have you ever seen any of them again?

  KK (voice chattering slightly): I can recognize the man who was in the first jeep, the leader. In a black kurta and jeans. He had a fire torch in his hand and he kept shouting, Reward! Reward! Whoever kills the most Sardars will get a reward! He is always on TV now, wearing white. My father just sat down and died when he heard he had been clean-chitted.

  Sobbing.

  DSS (gently): Would you like us to stop?

  Sound of nose being blown vigorously, followed by sniffing. KK: But maybe it’s good that he died, because I am freed from the promise I made to him, and can now testify against this man.

  DSS: Who is this man, Kamalpreet?

  Pause.

  KK (very quietly and clearly): That madarchod Hardik

  Motla. Murderer. Khooni. I’ll never forgive him. God will never forgive him. He’ll go to hell, you’ll see. Rats will eat his eyes.

  Long pause. Just the humming of the tape rolling.

  KK (with a little tinkling laugh): Aur lo ji, here is your coffee. Lai, are you going to drink it without any milk or sugar? Isn’t it kauda?

  DSS: I like it kauda. No no, it’s okay, you can keep that handkerchief.

  ‘You’ve got that smitten look again,’ Ethan tells his brother as they lean against the bar in the Jasmine Garden at the Gymkhana Club. ‘Who have you met today?’

  ‘Shut up, rat,’ Dylan says lazily. He is feeling quite at peace with the world. He has sent off the transcript of the Kamalpreet Kaur interview to Bombay and reached the club well in time for the party. ‘And straighten your tie. Have you been scraping your pimples again? You’ve got all these red scabs on your face.’

  Ethan, looking rather dapper in his very first suit (Jason’s, altered by Amreek tailor to his height and skinniness), pulls a face. ‘Probably an allergic reaction to meeting all the Rics from Balmatta, Mangalore.’ He grimaces. ‘Can you believe they’ve all shown up?’

  Dylan grins. ‘Cedric, Ulrich, Derek, Eric, Patrick, Scooter Rick and Auto Rick?’

  Ethan nods. ‘The seven sons of Prick. Not to mention their lovely sisters Cecilia, Camellia and Cordelia, the daughters of Genitalia.’

  ‘Lord, it’s a circus, isn’t it?’ Dylan says, not without pride, as he looks around and sees how
very full the Jasmine Garden is. Fairy lights twinkle in the neem trees, lending an intimate air to the gathering of over 300 people. The old wooden dance floor, highly polished and sprinkled lightly with talcum powder, glitters like a sugar-dusted chocolate brownie begging to be bitten into. The bearers, smart in their white, silver-buttoned uniforms, eye the frisky crowd, pick up their trays and throw back their shoulders, like soldiers readying for war. ‘I never thought everybody we invited would show up.’

  But everybody has. The Mangaloreans, thrilled that the party is in October, when the weather in Delhi is actually pleasant, booked an entire bogey on the Konkan–Delhi express and have turned up in full strength, bearing kilos of frozen shrimp, shellfish, baangday, taarlay and koobays packed in ice-boxes as gifts. The prettiest Mangy daughters have arrived with their mammas, eager to interact with the handsome Shekhawat boys who, despite the Rajput taint, are still a prized matrimonial catch. The only problem, the mothers say darkly, is catching them. Still, it can’t be denied that they know how to make a girl feel both weightless and adored on the dance floor.

  The Rajus are here in full strength too. Most of them have driven down in jeeps from Jodhpur, Jaipur and Mount Abu, and arrived with their handlebar moustaches windblown and flashing eyes red-rimmed, carelessly crumpling the numerous challans they’ve picked up along the way, shouting for garma-garam tea and double-fried eggs even before they have got out of their vehicles. Their wives, bright and bovine in their crushed, floor-sweeping georgette poshaaks, hurry to comply, all the while cracking lewd jokes at their husbands’ expense.

  There has been a perfunctory puja in the morning and an emotionally charged church ceremony at five in the evening. And now, Brigadier Shekhawat’s old Commanding Officer, dug out from his soggy, rundown estate in Coorg, is about to raise a toast to Saahas and Juliet. After this the party (and the bar) will officially be declared open.

  ‘The Lobster looks lovely,’ Ethan says, rather pleased with himself for noticing this. ‘I rather like that butter chicken sari.’

  The sari has been named thus as it is soft, butter-coloured mul mul, thick with cream chikan embroidery. Juliet Bai has teamed it with tiny white pearls around her still slim throat and wrists. A riot of champa flowers cascade down the bridal bouquet in her arms, teamed with feathery fern. Her cheeks are as flushed as a young bride’s.

  ‘Well, I hope she’s happy,’ Dylan says. ‘If I hear the words champa and champagne one more time, I might go stark, staring mad.’

  Juliet Bai, deprived of a wedding, has turned the full force of her artistic genius into the planning of this party. ‘I was saving champa and champagne as a theme for you,’ she had told Dylan bitterly, ‘but as that won’t happen till our Prime Minister takes us into the twenty-first century, I might as well use it for Saahas and me.’

  And so at the centre of each of the circular tables swathed in lace tablecloths is an empty champagne bottle holding a bunch of white champa flowers with a sprinkling of fern foliage. The labels of the bottles have been peeled off painstakingly and replaced with antique cream labels upon which Juliet Bai has handpainted, in beautiful golden calligraphy, Saahas & Juliet 1958. The Rajput contingent, used to bright pinks and vibrant oranges, doesn’t quite know what to make of this pale showing and hopes the champagne theme doesn’t mean the bar won’t be serving Black Label. As for the old Mangalorean ladies, they whisper that that Juliet was always crack, running away with a Rajput and painting her own living room walls, and remember how she turned up her nose at the decorations at Prince Charles’ and Lady Diana’s wedding? Naturally, roses and lilies and chrysanthemums must have seemed too boring to her – or maybe, they add snidely, they were too expensive. Must have got her trio of rowdy boys to swarm up trees and pluck the champas. And the bottles must be from the kabadiwallah only.

  But Juliet Bai doesn’t care. The decorations have turned out exactly as she visualized them, and her artistic soul is quite satisfied. If only, she thinks, her lower lip trembling imperceptibly, the labels could have read Dylan & Debjani instead.

  As everybody shuffles ahead to stand around the dance floor for the speeches, Dylan’s great-grandaunt Philomina Bai, who is seated in a place of honour next to the Brigadier’s mother, points at somebody with her quavering finger.

  ‘Who is that plump pigeon, ba?’

  Dylan turns to see.

  The taloned finger is pointed unerringly at Jason’s simpering girlfriend. She is hovering around the trolley bearing the beautifully iced thirtieth anniversary cake, proprietarily holding a matchbox.

  ‘Why?’ Dylan counters.

  ‘Don’t you backtalk me,’ the old lady snaps. ‘She’s trying to smarm up to us, that’s why. Rubbed off all my rouge with her kisses and then dived so hard for your Dadi-sa’s feet that we thought she’d dropped dead of a stroke.’

  ‘It’s nobody, Aunty Philo.’

  The old lady snorts.

  ‘Nobody who is hoping to become somebody, obviously. And I think her blouse is padded. That body type is always flat-chested with a big, jiggling bum.’

  ‘Maneater,’ says Dadi-sa hoarsely, her kohled eyes snapping in her hawk-like face. ‘He’s a fool. Who is taller – you or him?’

  ‘He’s the tallest, Dadi-sa,’ Dylan replies, hoping this will make the old ladies more favourably disposed to the luckless Jason. ‘Six feet four.’

  ‘And therefore the stupidest,’ Dadi-sa pronounces. ‘The tallest boys are always the stupidest – the blood doesn’t reach their brains, you know.’

  ‘Only their balls,’ Philomina Bai agrees.

  Dylan doesn’t quite know what to say to this.

  The two old ladies regard him beady dissatisfaction.

  ‘What?’ he says uneasily.

  ‘Where’s your girl?’ Philomina Bai barks. ‘That pretty newsreader? Or was that just some story your mother made up?’

  ‘I don’t have any girl,’ Dylan replies shortly.

  ‘Just many many girls?’ Dadi-sa sniffs. ‘It’s your Christian upbringing, I suppose. You’ve grown up surrounded by loose-charactered Anglo-Indians.’

  ‘We aren’t Anglo-Indians!’ Philomina Bai retorts, grossly insulted. ‘We’re very high caste Brahmins –’

  ‘Nothing wrong with Anglo-Indians,’ Dylan puts in fair-mindedly.

  ‘We’re Brahmins,’ Philomina Bai continues hotly, taking no notice of this mild interjection, ‘who were ex-communicated 200 years ago for eating fish! And you shouldn’t talk. I watch Hindi movies – I know Rajputs are always driving about in jeeps looking for village girls to rape.’

  Dylan is rendered speechless. But Dadi-sa has no such problem.

  ‘And have you seen Julie?’ she asks sweetly. ‘Waise, what a coincidence ki baat – Julie sounds just like Juliet, na?’

  Dylan, thoroughly alarmed at the direction this conversation is taking, is relieved to see that the Colonel from Coorg has finally located his speech. Leaving the sparring matriarchs behind, he strides over to the mics and taps on one for silence. Philomina Bai and Dadi-sa have no choice but to lower the fingers they’re waggling under each other’s noses and subside.

  ‘Good evening, everybody,’ Dylan says, his deep voice lazily pleasant. ‘Thank you so much for coming, bearing gifts and looking so glamorous for our parents’ thirtieth anniversary celebrations. This is a big day for the Lobo-Shekhawats and we’re delighted to share it with you…’

  Why does he have to sound so nice? Dabbu, cowering behind her parents, thinks despairingly. And look so handsome? I don’t remember him being so handsome. It isn’t fair.

  She is standing with Anjini, who has nobly restrained her lovely hair into a tight bun and swathed herself in a large brown dupatta so Dabbu can ‘shine’. But maybe I should just open my hair and lose the dupatta, she thinks, looking at her little sister with satisfaction, because she’s shining anyway.

  Shining and pining is how Dabbu would put it. The situation, she thinks, drinking in the sight of Dylan Singh Shekhawat i
n his dark suit, cream shirt and striped tie, is as bad as ever. Thank god the Butt is hidden beneath the jacket. The sight of it encased in those fitted dark trousers might have made her weep. His hair is longer, curling crisply at the edge of his collar. It makes his jaw look stronger somehow. And she doesn’t even want to get into the extremely sexy way in which his lips are almost grazing the mic. She watches as the crowd heckles him good-naturedly, demanding he sing, and when he demurs, asking when he’s getting married and giving Juliet Bai grandchildren.

  ‘Keep it clean, people,’ Dylan rebukes the hecklers mock-sternly. ‘Now, Romeo and Juliet had a nurse as their go-between, but Rajput and Juliet had someone brawnier. I’d like to invite Colonel Rammiah from Coorg, who acted as coach, catalyst and matchmaker in l’affaire Lobo-Shekhawat, to give us a blow-by-blow account of their infamous elopement. Sir, the floor is yours!’

  He hands the mic to the Colonel from Coorg and steps back into the crowd. The Colonel smiles around shortsightedly, opens a thick sheaf of papers and begins to read.

  Well, that wasn’t so bad, Dabbu thinks shakily. I survived him talking on the mic and everything. But when is he going to come up and talk to me? Oh my god, supposing he doesn’t come up to me at all? Supposing he ignores me completely? Why didn’t I think of that before – that’s what he’s going to do! I am going to be completely and absolutely humiliated! Why did I even come to this stupid party?

  Her head starts to spin, she takes a staggering step backward and a hand comes up to steady her.

  ‘Do take this chair, dear,’ a smooth voice entreats. ‘You look a little faint, like.’

  Dabbu turns around. An older gentleman with silver hair and a striking resemblance to Humphrey Bogart is smiling at her gently. There is an unlit cigar between his fingers. He is wearing a dark coat, a rakish paisley silk scarf and exuding expensive aftershave and an indefinable aura of romance. Dabbu blinks, feeling hypnotized.

  He puts his hands on her shoulders. ‘Sit,’ he says in a caressing voice.

  Dabbu sits.

  On the dance floor, the Colonel’s speech is going well. Under cover of the laughs he is getting, Dylan whispers to his brother, ‘What have you done with the church contingent? Father Charlie and Father Vaz? Are they okay?’