‘I want to talk to you,’ he says. ‘Alone.’
‘Isn’t this alone enough?’ she asks as she leans around him to show the middle finger to a gang of stragglers who are sniggering at how close Satish and she are standing. They snigger even louder and scurry away, and Eshwari turns back to Satish.
‘Talk.’
‘Why do you give that ass Kakkar so much patta?’
Eshwari’s eyes kindle. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Scratch that,’ he says hastily. ‘I’ll start over. I’m not very good at this.’
‘You’re not good at most things besides calculus. What is it?’
But Satish is looking oddly hesitant.
‘You liked it when Dillu was honest with Dabbu, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Okay.’ He nods, and takes a deep breath. ‘So, I know I asked you out last year and you said no, but I just wanted to double-check again this year, because sometimes…’ He pauses and looks away towards the crowded corridor full of sweaty, recessing Modernites. Then he looks back at her, his eyes searching. ‘Sometimes I get the vibe that maybe… maybe you want me to ask you again. So I’m asking.’
Eshwari is appalled to feel her heartbeat quicken. Because this, after all, is only Steesh. He may have topped the year and scored a few match-winning centuries and silly girls like Gitika Govil may be swooning over him, but it is still only stupid, stinky-after-cricket Steesh.
‘What are you asking exactly?’
He shoots her an exasperated I know you’re doing humanities but apply yourself a little, will you look.
‘Go with me to the farewell,’ he spells it out for her. ‘Be my chick.’
At which unpoetic utterance Eshwari’s heart, fresh from reading Dylan’s eloquent outpourings for Debjani, instantly goes back to beating normally again.
‘No, thank you!’ she declares, tossing her glossy black head. ‘I told you I’m not allowed boyfriends till I’m twenty-one.’
He looks at her for a while. She looks right back. ‘And what am I supposed to do till then, huh?’ he says finally, bluntly. ‘Jerk off to pictures of you at your sister’s wedding?’
Eshwari chokes. ‘You are an animal,’ she spits out. ‘Just… never, ever talk to me again, okay?’
‘So now the princess has changed her mind?’ The Judge throws up his hands in disgust. ‘And she wants to marry him, after all? Is she sure? Suppose we invite him home and she heaps insults on him again?’
‘LN, I explained,’ Mrs Mamta says patiently. ‘There was a mix-up with the mail…’
‘What does that Sridhar pup mean by gifting Eshu perfume, I’d like to know!’ the Judge continues agitatedly. ‘Insolent young hound. This house is turning into a bloody Majnu ka tilla, Romeos crawling out of the damn woodwork – damn this thing!’
This, because the drawstring of the pyjamas he is attempting to climb into has slipped inside the seam at one end. He sticks a finger inside and rummages around for the submerged string in a helpless sort of way.
Mrs Mamta Thakur takes the pyjamas from him.
‘Can we just talk about Dabbu?’
‘Why?’ the Judge demands, taking long strides around the room, his white kurta flapping. ‘Why should we talk about her? Did she talk to us before throwing a tantrum in a drawing room full of people and insulting my oldest friend? He’s not even speaking to me any more! Thankless! They’re all thankless!’
‘They are good girls.’ Mrs Mamta’s voice trembles. ‘And don’t you start on about poor Chandu again! I think it’s high time we started speaking to her, just imagine, her baby is crawling now. Antu met them on his trip to the US. He looks just like you, apparently, only with blond hair and blue eyes. Antu said,’ her voice catches, something that doesn’t happen very often, ‘that he has a little hammer, just like a judge’s gavel, and that he frowns and shouts and bangs it about,’ she gives a great gulp, blinking back tears, ‘just like you! And his name is Hendrik!’
‘Yes, I agree it’s a dreadful name but there’s no need to cry,’ the Judge says impatiently. ‘Little Hendrik Narayan Lippik. Fine name for a grandson of the Thakurs of Hailey Road to have!’
‘I was thinking we could invite them to Dabbu’s wedding,’ Mrs Mamta says, dabbing dolefully at her eyes with the Judge’s pyjamas.
But this is too much. The Judge whirls around furiously, kurta flying, knobby knees flashing.
‘Dabbu’s wedding to whom?’ he demands, making frustrated snatching hand gestures in the air. ‘You are living in a dream world, Mamtaji. With what face can I go back and speak to the Shekhawats?’
‘Just read the letter,’ Mrs Mamta, more composed now, says as she hand him back his pyjamas, slightly damp now and with both ends of the drawstring easily accessible. ‘Please.’
He glowers at her and slowly starts to climb into them, one bony leg at a time. ‘What’s the use of getting these girls married, anyway?’ he grumbles. ‘They never leave the house – Binni is always here, whining about her hissa, Anji seems to have dug herself in too, not to mention those three young tapeworms Samar, Monu and Bonu, devourers of everything they see.’
‘Anji’s having some problems,’ Mrs Mamta says. ‘She won’t talk about it, though.’
‘She doesn’t deserve that nice Anant,’ the Judge replies. ‘He is a decent man and she’s driving him crazy. Poor fool.’ He pauses. ‘And that Vickyji deserves one kick in the backside.’
Mrs Mamta doesn’t reply.
Presently the Judge says, almost pleadingly, ‘The Shekhawats will want to bring up the grandchildren as Catholics. Pour water on their heads and other outlandish things like that. And the boy is trouble – likes to charge at windmills. And he’s had so many girlfriends! Good riddance, I say. Let’s just wipe that slate clean and look for a nice new boy for Debjani – she’s become so well known now! Can’t you talk her out of this, Mamtaji?’
But Mrs Mamta, now combing her rippling hair with her large maroon comb, looks unconvinced.
‘He is the correct boy for her. Read the letter, you’ll see.’
‘Fine!’ The Judge slaps his palms together. ‘I’ll read it. But even if it reads smoother than a Shakespearean sonnet I won’t speak to Saahas immediately. Debjani needs to think this through carefully. Marriage isn’t a joke.’
‘Isn’t it?’ his wife asks wearily.
‘I never thought she would behave like this,’ he says, shaking his head as he climbs into bed. ‘Not Dabbu. My favourite!’
‘Serves you right for having favourites,’ sniffs his wife, rolling over and going to sleep.
Ethan wakes up for school at six a.m. on the Monday after the thirtieth anniversary party. As he shambles down the corridor to the bathroom, rubbing his gummy eyes, he trips over a phone cord stretched taut across the corridor at a height of about two feet and lands on the floor with a thud. Looking up, he observes that the cord is leading inside Dylan’s room, the door of which is shut.
‘Mamma!’ he shouts, rubbing his sore backside. ‘Dylan’s trying to kill me.’
The phone is still in Dylan’s room at ten a.m. and Debjani hasn’t yet called. Perhaps she couldn’t track down that Bonus kid, he rationalizes, staring at the dumb instrument. Because Bonus doesn’t live with them, right? She just comes down for the holidays. Maybe she took the letter back with her to wherever she comes from. Bhatinda? Bhopal? Something with B. Should he just call her himself ? It’s been almost two days since they spoke at the party. No, better wait for her to call – or maybe not?
He is staring down at the phone, willing it to ring, when suddenly it does. He scrambles for it.
‘Hello!’
‘Is that Dylan Shekhawat? The journalist?’
‘Yes, this is he,’ Dylan replies, swallowing his disappointment.
‘Mr Hardik Motla, MP, would like to speak to you. Hold the line, please.’
What the…? Dylan thinks.
And then Motla’s voice comes oiling down the line. ‘That girl is making a f
ool of you.’
What? Dylan thinks, feeling disoriented. She is? And how on earth does he know?
‘That Kamalpreet Kaur. She is ek number ki fraud. It is in a spirit of mutual cooperation that we are telling you, my boy – because journalists and netas must cooperate with one another – that you had better not believe anything she says.’
‘How do you know about my story?’ Dylan asks. ‘I haven’t even written it out yet. It’s just a transcript on an audio tape.’
‘For which you should be grateful,’ Motla replies. His voice picks up both menace and urgency. ‘No harm has been done – yet. But if you publish it, we will sue you. You will lose both your accreditation and your reputation, and maybe even your health.’
‘How do you know about Kamalpreet Kaur?’ Dylan asks, mystified. ‘Are you having me followed?’
Motla clicks his tongue dismissively. ‘We know. That is enough. Consider this a friendly warning.’
‘I’m recording this,’ Dylan says quickly. ‘I put on my recorder the moment your secretary put you through. You better watch out, Mr Motla.’
There is a short pause.
‘You’re bluffing,’ Motla chuckles. ‘Besides, I haven’t said anything incriminating! Now you listen to me…’
He’s scared, Dylan thinks exultantly, his pulse quickening. I’ve touched a raw nerve this time. This cat is shitting bricks.
‘You listen to me, Shekhawat! Are you listening?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Print that kahani and it will be the last one you write. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ Dylan says crisply and cuts the connection.
He is staring at the phone, his head reeling at the sheer unreality of what has just happened, when it rings again.
‘Motla’s on the war path,’ Hiranandani’s voice purrs gleefully down the line. ‘Well done, tiger.’
Dylan grins. ‘He called you too?’
‘Called and threatened to shut me down. Called Bade-papaji too – tried to get me sacked.’
‘And?’
‘And what, bastard? Are you implying that this newspaper can be bullied or bought?’
Dylan laughs. ‘So we won’t be suppressing it?’
‘Of course not!’ Hira chuckles. ‘Truth. Balance. Courage. And by a happy coincidence, tomorrow is the first of November, the fourth anniversary of the massacre. It’s the perfect day to print the story. Just hammer the damn thing out and send it to me. You’ll make the top half of tomorrow’s front page. With your byline and picture and everything.’
‘Great!’ Dylan says, pleased. ‘I’ll get down to it immediately. I did want to do a little more on Kamalpreet first. Show her photographs around Tirathpuri, talk to the neighbours, get their take on her.’
Hira makes impatient clicking noises.
‘Dylan, if you spent another day dicking about Tirathpuri, we’ll miss the anniversary.’
‘You’re right,’ Dylan says. ‘Okay, I’ll sit down to write it right away then.’
It takes him quite a while. Late in the evening, he drops off the finished story in the dispatch room of the India Post office and drives home, tired but satisfied. He had struggled with the piece – not wanting to come across as shrill or tear-jerking or sensationalistic – and finally settled for a simple, factual account that will nevertheless ensure that Hardik Motla spends the next few years behind bars. But writing it has got him a little worried about Kamalpreet. She is his responsibility, in a way. And he doesn’t even have her contact number. He has no way of getting through to her at all.
When he gets home Juliet Bai tells him that some Punjabi girl has called for him thrice and will call again in a bit. Dylan wolfs down dinner, staring at the phone, while Ethan makes snide remarks and Jason sulks. Dylan isn’t letting anybody make any calls and his girlfriend’s been sulking ever since the old biddies were rude to her at the party.
The phone rings at five in the morning. Dylan lunges for it.
‘Kamalpreet? Are you okay?’
‘Haanji, okay,’ she replies in her clear, sweet voice. ‘Good morning.’
Phew. It is only now as he relaxes that Dylan realizes how tense he had actually been.
‘You should have given me a number for you! Why have you been calling so many times?’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Pata nahin, maybe it my veham only, but last two-three days there seem to be strange men looking at me.’
‘That’s because you’re so pretty,’ he tells her, still a little light-headed with relief.
‘You are joking, of course. Being jolly. But these are not the usual roadside cheapies. These are different. Apne kaha tha na, that maybe Motla will try to finish us off? I think-so these are those types of men. The finishing-off types.’
Dylan sits up. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Cent per cent serious, ji,’ she says, the sweet voice wobbling just a little.
Dylan curses under his breath. He knows better than to suggest she go to the police. He knows what the people of Tirathpuri think of the police.
‘Should I come there?’
‘No no,’ she says half-heartedly. ‘Why would you…?’
‘I’m coming,’ he says, suddenly decisive. ‘Tell me where.’
Without further protest, she gives him the address. ‘But just till the evening. I am catching a five o’clock train to my native place. If you could be with me till then, and see me off at the station.’
‘I’m leaving now,’ Dylan assures her as he gets to his feet. ‘Stay inside the house. And I’ll bring you a copy of today’s India Post. It may cheer you up – your story’s on the front page!’
Over at Hailey Road, Eshwari is sneakily rifling through her sister’s cupboard looking for the wispy cream net chunni that Debjani has spent months embroidering all over with tiny pink rosebuds. She wants to wear it to the blood donation camp at Gurudwara Bangla Sahib today.
She tries not to think about the fact that Dabbu hasn’t worn it yet, that she had probably hoped to inaugurate it on some sunny winter’s afternoon, when she would throw it on like a scarf over a floral dress and go on a long drive with Dylan through the little villages just beyond Qutub Minar and drink chai in a dhaba and perhaps buy wild chrysanthemums and green guavas from cute looking village children.
And you will do all that, Dabbu, she thinks fiercely, looking at her sleeping sister. Just not today. Today I want to wear it, because we’re going to the gurudwara and because… Uff. Just because. Sorry, okay?
Most of the members of the Interact Club are already at the Gurudwara gate when Eshu rattles up in a black and yellow autorickshaw. It is a misty morning and everybody is in a good mood, especially Satish, who has a big black camera hanging around his neck.
‘For the winter issue of Sandesh,’ he explains. ‘I want a big fat picture of me giving blood right there in the centrespread. You click me, Bihari, I’ve been working out with Gulgul bhaisaab – I’m gonna flex my muscles and all.’
She stares at him, surprised and more than a little irritated. ‘Oh, so now you’re talking to me again? Why couldn’t you tell me this earlier? I could have taken a lift with you on the bike instead of rattling up here in a bloody auto!’
‘Arrey, you’re the one who said never talk to me again,’ he comments as he fishes out a Megadeth bandanna and starts to tie it around his head. ‘You called me an animal. Forgot or what?’
But Eshwari is just gawping at him.
‘What?’ Satish demands.
‘You can’t wear that inside a gurudwara! There are skulls on it – it’s blasphemous!’
Satish considers this. Then he turns to the one Sikh in their group.
‘Hey, Kakkar, is my bandanna cool?’
Jai Kakkar shrugs. ‘Yeah, it’s cool.’
‘See?’
Eshu rolls her eyes. ‘Fat lot he knows,’ she mutters. ‘He’s a Cut Surd, anyway.’
But Jai Kakkar now feels he should pass verdict on everybody’s headgear. ‘You’re good
, you’re fine, that’s okay, and…’ He goes a little pink as he looks at Eshwari. ‘You look really pretty with your head covered.’
Woahhhhhh! choruses the Interact Club. Eshwari blushes and swears. Satish glowers.
They surrender their shoes, walk through the little channel of running water and climb up the cool marble steps to the main part of the gurudwara. There is a lovely scent of fresh flowers and halwa frying. Everybody sniffs appreciatively and has a collective epiphany.
They do a quick dive into the main worship area, then come out looking virtuous and queue up for the kada prasad. The man doling it out is fiery-eyed and just a little scary looking, but the Interacters shamelessly hold out their cupped palms at him till he loads them up quite full. It is extremely hot and they have to blow on their hands frantically as they run down the steps to eat near the water tank.
‘No swimming, washing or wringing of clothes by this tank,’ Satish reads out the rules solemnly. ‘No vigorous rubbing or soaping of armpits or other body parts either – and definitely no gargling. Got it, you lot?’
Jai Kakkar comes up to Eshwari as she sits, feet dangling in water as smooth as a sheeted mirror, entranced by the beauty of the place.
‘Eshwari.’
‘Boo,’ she replies idly without looking at him. That’s all it takes to get rid of Jai, usually.
‘Are you and Satish going around?’
She turns around, surprised. He is still there, sitting beside her.
‘I’m not scared of you, you know,’ he says conversationally. ‘Not any more. I’m taller, and my hair doesn’t curl girlishly now – gone are the days when you could spill red ink on my shorts and tell the whole class I had got my period.’
Eshwari winces. ‘I did that?’
He nods. ‘Yes, you did. But I didn’t mind. You were the only one who made fun of my hair, not my stammer.’
‘I was evil,’ she says, conscience-stricken. ‘Evil Eshwari. I’m so sorry.’
‘Are you guys going around?’
This phrase always makes Eshwari think of BJ. Going Around indeed, he is wont to snort whenever he hears this with-it lingo. What an image that conjures up! A daughter of mine hand-in-hand with some chinless, gulping fellow, going around and around what, exactly? A mulberry bush? The Dhaula Kuan roundabout? A sacred fire?
THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS Page 26
