‘And she’ll tell everybody Eshu’s having an affair with the Mother Dairy booth ka chinkie,’ Anji adds.
‘I wish,’ Eshwari sighs. ‘But I think he’s got some hot Mandakini type hidden away in the hills. Still, you don’t want Chachiji zooming in on you as her primary hate target, Ma. Let’s dig up the Hot Dulari, wherever she is, and bring her back.’
But Ashok Narayan Thakur does this before they can. Resurfacing after a fortnight of ‘work’, he drops by to airily inform Chachiji that he ran into the Hot Dulari while on his travels, and because she looked so broken and bereft and starved, he apologized to her on Chachiji’s behalf for dismissing her so unfairly, and (out of pure, disinterested human kindness) offered to re-instate her as cook-cum-housekeeper in the new Hailey Court establishment. And she accepted. He then summons Gulab and slaps him twice and tells him to forget about opening any gym-shim. He finishes by telling Chachiji that if she doesn’t like the Hot-Dulari-in-the-kitchen arrangement she can continue to live in the annexe at her brother-in-law’s mercy or return to her father’s village in UP.
And so Chachiji heads for Mrs Mamta’s kitchen, wailing, beating her breast and gnashing her teeth. The Judge, hearing her approach, gathers his newspapers and beats a hasty retreat, ignoring the bitterly reproachful glance his wife shoots at him. Mrs Mamta sighs, puts the saucepan on the gas, and gets ready to dish out tea and sympathy.
‘Over my dead body,’ fumes Chachiji as she sips her tea, to a sympathetic circle of Number 16 ladies. ‘AN’s father murdered his wife and that is exactly what AN will have to do if he wants to get that woman inside my flat!’
‘That’s not true, Bhudevi,’ Mrs Mamta rebukes her gently. ‘Don’t say things like that – the children are here.’
‘Oh, we know already,’ Bonu assures her. ‘Samar told us the whole story. She was standing on the terrace, shouting Pushkar, Pushkar, so he came and pushed her.’
There is a shocked silence. Chachiji sips her tea, her eyes glittering. Bonu giggles.
‘What nonsense!’ Mrs Mamta manages to say finally, with a credible amount of vehemence.
‘These children should be playing outside with a ball vaghera,’ Binni declares. ‘Not sitting in the kitchen drinking tea with the big people.’ She slaps Bonu’s wrist. ‘Don’t drink tea! When children drink tea it makes them dark. Drink milk only.’
‘So I’m going to follow family tradition and kill myself,’ Chachiji reiterates loudly, nettled that the spotlight has shifted away from her. ‘On the very day of the building inauguration next week. And then I’ll come back for him. Like she did. The Pushkarni. She gets inside me, you know, takes me over – she wants to do it now, I can tell.’
She throws back her head, rolls up her eyes and starts to rock back and forth. Debjani, curled up in a chair next to the kitchen window, wholly divorced from these proceedings, grits her teeth and resignedly starts to hum a little ditty inside her head. I love my faamly, I love my faamly, I love my faamleee, I love them all…
Just then, the Judge walks into the kitchen, holding a small brown packet of eggs.
‘Why did you go to get the eggs?’ Mrs Mamta asks suspiciously. ‘You know that’s Eshwari’s job.’
‘I wanted some fresh air,’ he replies evasively. ‘And I’m glad I went. I got talking with old Mr Gambhir, he’s very upset about Dylan’s arrest. Mamtaji, I think we should pay the Shekhawats a visit.’
Mrs Mamta Thakur casts a nervous glance towards Debjani, who has gone unnaturally still. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘I’ll come.’ Debjani gets to her feet abruptly. ‘Let’s go, BJ.’
‘I’ll come too.’ Bonu bounces up. ‘I want to say sorry.’
‘What for, stupid girl?’ Binni frowns. ‘Sit down and finish your tea.’
‘What happened at Juliet’s house, LN?’ Mrs Mamta asks her husband that night. ‘Why has Dabbu come back looking like a limp dupatta somebody forgot to starch? Why isn’t she saying anything?’
The Judge sighs and sits down on the bed, his chappals dangling dispiritedly from his toes. ‘Ab what to say, Mamtaji,’ he says, massaging his closed eyes. ‘Basically, hamne der kar di. We were too late.’
‘Matlab? He’s not,’ her breath catches fearfully, ‘he’s not dead, is he?’
The Judge shoots her an irate look. ‘No,’ he says. ‘He’s alive. But it appears he has moved on a bit since he wrote your daughter that eloquent epistle assuring her of his undying love.’
‘Is he married?’ she asks, confused. ‘But when, how?’
‘Neither dead nor married,’ the Judge replies. ‘Taken, I believe, is the correct youthful phrase.’
When Debjani and the Judge arrived at the Shekhawats’ home, they found the entire Shekhawat clan in a euphoric mood. A short, chubby man and a beautiful raven-haired, red-mouthed girl were sitting in pride of place in the drawing room, telling Dylan’s family all about how they had just dug up evidence that would vindicate Dylan. The Judge and Debjani were given all the details, of course, but ended up feeling sort of redundant. Juliet Bai greeted them cordially enough, but she seemed distracted and very taken by the red-mouthed girl – Mitali, her name was – pressing tea and kalkals upon her, admiring her clothes, her guts, her brains.
‘She’s so famous, bhaisaab,’ Juliet Bai told the Judge gushingly. ‘She is a correspondent for Viewstrack. Everybody knows Viewstrack. Nowadays people don’t even watch DD – it only mouths the government line, you see – but everybody watches Viewstrack.’
And Debjani knew at once that Juliet Bai had watched the bulletin in which she read out the Human Rights organization’s adverse comments on Dylan.
Mitali and Dylan went to College together, they were told. Mitali and Dylan used to run on the Worli seaface together every day, they were told. Mitali and Dylan had had some stupid fall-out early in the year, but in the last three months he had sought her out, and since then, they had been meeting almost every day, they were told.
‘How nice,’ Debjani said tightly. ‘I’m so happy you’ve found all this evidence, Mitali. When will this story break?’
‘In four days, I think,’ Mitali replied, glowing happily. ‘It’s the end of the month, na, so we’re going to fast-track it and shove it into the tape that’s going out now. I’ve already written out the script and we have most of the footage already, so basically, one day to shoot, one day to edit, and then the whole tape will be sent off to the censors. You’ll be able to pick it up from your local kirana store before the week is out.’
‘That’s awesome,’ Debjani said wretchedly. ‘I most definitely will.
‘And of course, the IP will carry it the very same day,’ the short chubby man put in with a smile.
‘Thank you so much, you have no idea what this means to all of us. Dylan – I mean, Saahas uncle is one of my father’s oldest friends.’
‘Oh, don’t you know Dylan personally then?’ the man enquired of Debjani.
‘Well, I’ve met him a few times,’ she replied. ‘And of course we all read his columns.’
An uncomfortable silence followed. And then the chubby little man burst out laughing. ‘Oh my god, I just realized, he wrote that anti-DD piece about you, didn’t he? How come your families are still talking?’
Debjani shrugged, smiled and stood up to leave. Juliet Bai saw them to the door, hugged Debjani and thanked her sincerely for coming. The Brigadier shook his friend’s hand hard and cautioned them that not a word must be said to anybody about what would soon be out on Viewstrack and in the India Post. Father and daughter responded by giving their solemn word.
‘And then husband and wife shut the door in our faces and went to rejoin the happy-clappy circle around the beauteous Mitali,’ the Judge concludes bitterly. ‘And did I mention, she’s highly eligible. Her father is a very senior IFS officer.’
Mrs Mamta extracts several long silver hairs that are clinging to her maroon comb, winds them into a tiny ball and throws them into a frilly cloth dus
tbin embroidered all over with cross-stitch pansies. The Judge gets the sense that she is consigning Dylan Singh Shekhawat to frilly oblivion. ‘Thank god Dabbu’s job is going well,’ she says. ‘It’ll distract her from this whole mess. Still, it’s sad – she was settling down so nicely and then that wretched letter came along and upset her all over again.’
‘We shouldn’t have taken her to the anniversary party,’ the Judge says heavily. ‘But she wanted to go. She said so.’
After a pause, Mrs Mamta says, ‘Chalo, the good news is that your friend’s son will be out of the hawalat soon. And if you think about it, LN, Dylan and this girl broke up in March, he came to Delhi and fell for Dabbu in April. Sounds like a rebound affair to me. Good thing it didn’t work out. Let’s just rally around Dabbu and cheer her up.’
13
Juliet Bai attends early morning Mass on Sunday. She leaves home before the India Post arrives, but on her way back she pauses at her kirana to pick up the latest issue of Viewstrack. She asks for it in a voice trembling with anticipation, hurries home and switches on the VCR. She doesn’t have to alert the rest of the family – they are already lined up neatly on the sofa – two men and a boy who have just tumbled out of bed but are radiating the tense, focused energy of athletes poised on a racing track, waiting for the whistle to blow.
Juliet Bai inserts the cassette with a thumping heart and sinks down on the sofa between her boys.
‘Please, god,’ Ethan mutters.
The Viewstrack theme music kicks off with a flourish of keyboards and drums; slick graphics roll, images of India unfold, the screen freezes on a 3D Viewstrack super and then the camera cuts to the presenter – a beautiful Bombay film actress, now married and a mother of (reportedly drug-addicted) teenaged children.
‘Hello, and welcome to Viewstrack. This month, our teams travel the length and breadth of the country to bring you political updates from Srinagar and Ayodhya, a report on the state of the rhino in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, a cosy tête-à-tête with delicious new debutant actor Aamir Khan, the star of the superhit film QSQT, and last but most definitely not the least, they discover that there is much more to the Kamalpreet Kaur bribery case than meets the eye.’
The Shekhawats bounce up from the sofa, clapping their hands and whooping hoarsely. Ethan does a little dance around the room, while Jason dives down to the VCR and fast-forwards it – past the wounded soldiers in Kashmir, past the screaming activists in Ayodhya, past the rhinos who are apparently being poached in large numbers for the aphrodisiac powers of their horns in Kaziranga, past delicious debutant actor Aamir Khan – and stops at a shot of the presenter looking into the camera with grim sincerity.
‘And finally, a hot-off-the-press exclusive investigative story that links the prime accused in the anti-Sikh riots investigation with the very woman who allegedly received a bribe for giving false evidence against him. This story has wheels within wheels within wheels. Brace yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, for what is, in this year of exposés, perhaps the biggest exposé yet, brought to you by India Post’s Varun Ohri and Viewstrack correspondent Mitali Dutta!’
Juliet Bai draws a long shuddering breath. The presenter fades out and an image of the porch of the Yuvati Niwas fills the screen.
Ethan turns to look at his parents, his eyes fever bright. ‘This is it,’ he crows, his grin triumphant. ‘This is the point where Dylan Singh Shekhawat rises like a phoenix from the ashes and rubs Hardik Motla’s nose into the dirt! Are you ready, people?’
They nod, eyes glued to the screen where the image of the Yuvati Niwas porch seems to have frozen.
Jason frowns.
He presses a few buttons on the VCR.
Nothing happens.
Jason presses down even harder. His father winces.
‘You’ll break it, Jase. Careful.’
Ethan leaps up and starts twiddling random knobs. ‘I don’t get it. Why isn’t it moving?’
The screen goes black now, and a weird beeping noise fills the air. Words scroll across the screen. Well, only one word, actually.
Censored. Censored. Censored. Censored. Censored.
Censored. Censored. Censored. Censored. Censored.
‘What the…?’
The screen remains black. ‘Censored’ keeps scrolling across it for a good six minutes – pretty much the full length of the Kamalpreet Kaur interview. And then the anchor is back.
‘And that’s all for this month’s edition of Viewstrack,’ she says with a smile. ‘See you next month! Till then, take care and Jai Hind.’
The signature music kicks in again, the camera pulls out and away from the glittering set. The credits roll. Finally, static fills the screen.
And still the Shekhawats sit, dumbfounded and disbelieving, before the TV screen, unable to internalize what has just happened. Ethan suddenly races out of the room and returns a minute later clutching the morning newspapers.
‘There’s nothing in the IP either,’ he says, his voice sounding suddenly very young, his face pale and anxious. ‘I don’t know… Mamma, Dadda… what could have happened?’
‘What the fuck, Hira!’
Hira looks up, his sad-clown face slightly haggard. ‘What?’
Varun glares at him, bewildered and angry. ‘You know what. Why didn’t you print my story?’
‘Did the Viewstrack story come out?’ Hira enquires back.
Varun’s face clouds over. ‘No,’ he admits. ‘It was censored. Motla must have pulled some strings. But that’s not the point. Why didn’t our story break?’
‘Do you want to sit down?’ Hira says mildly. ‘Because what I’m going to tell you may come as a bit of a shock.’
‘What?’ Varun snaps.
Hira sighs and looks him right in the eye.
‘I met Shekhawat in the lock-up,’ he says. ‘It was a rather unpleasant encounter. He admitted to bribing that young woman. Admitted it quite brazenly, actually. He said exactly what young journalists say in such situations – that the ends justified the means.’
‘What?’ Varun sits down rather suddenly. ‘But then why – how – what about all that stuff we discovered in Delhi?’
‘All that stuff Mitali discovered in Delhi,’ Hira corrects him gently. ‘She’s always been a little unbalanced, that one. And madly obsessed with young Shekhawat. They were an item for quite a few years, I believe. She made up a pretty little tale to get him out. And you – because you care for your buddy so much – believed it.’
Varun stares at him, slack-jawed, his mind working overtime. Mitali telling him the call had come from the Yuvati Niwas. Mitali showing him the photo of the wrinkly old man. Mitali fast-forwarding the interview tapes. Mitali clutching his arm, smiling up at him.
‘I – I can’t believe it,’ he says slowly. ‘Mitali wouldn’t… Dylan couldn’t…’ He leans in closer. ‘He actually admitted to you that he bribed that woman?’
Hira looks directly at him.
‘Yes.’
‘And the money?’
Hira shrugs. ‘Came from Canada. Now do you understand why I withheld your story?’
Varun nods shakily.
‘I’m not sure exactly what Mitali’s playing at,’ Hira continues. ‘What is true, what is concocted, if it’s all personal ambition or just plain infatuation. But one thing I know – I’m not putting anything into my paper defending Dylan after what he told me in the lock-up.’
Varun sits up a little. ‘Maybe…’ he says hesitantly. ‘They’ve been torturing him? And he said what he said under duress?’
Hiranandani gives a little bark of laughter. ‘Don’t be absurd, VO. I found him looking quite relaxed, and on first-name terms with all his captors.’
‘Still.’ Varun’s expression grows mulish. ‘I’d still like to get my story out. The wrinkly old man connects Motla and the prime witness testifying against him. That’s definitely news. How about I run it past Bade-papaji?’
‘Sure,’ Hira says lightly as he gets to his f
eet and puts on his exquisitely tailored jacket. ‘But he’s in Delhi right now, marching to protest against the anti-defamation bill. He turned out to be right about that.’
‘Yes,’ Varun admits forlornly. ‘He really is a newsman, isn’t he? He has the nose, he can sniff out a story. Not like me – I should be running a fruit stall in Crawford Market or something.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Hiranandani smiles at him bracingly. ‘I’m headed to Delhi for the protest march too, as a matter of fact. How about we discuss your story with Bade-papaji together once I’m back? And then take a call? Okay?’
And Varun has no option but to say, ‘Okay.’
‘Hello, and welcome to a special edition of Face-2-Face. With me in the studio today is editor-in-chief of the India Post, M. Hiranandani. Welcome to the Delhi DeshDarpan studio, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Hira smiles, his face relaxed and disarming under the soft studio lights.
The interviewer, one of those syrupy women with the coy lips and kiss curls that DD loves, leans forward and looks at him intently. ‘Mr Hiranandani, you participated in the march against the anti-defamation bill today. What were your thoughts as you marched down Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg all the way to the gates of Parliament?’
‘Well,’ says Hira thoughtfully. ‘Naturally, I believe in a free press.’
‘Naturally, naturally, we all do,’ the interviewer neighs in immediate agreement.
‘But at the same time,’ Hira continues, ‘we cannot escape the undeniable fact that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I mean, we do take shortcuts sometimes. We do sensationalize. It happens.’
‘It does, it does.’ The interviewer nods fervently. She’s such a suck-up, Debjani thinks, irritated, as she watches from the shadows. Agreeing with everything that man is saying. Cow.
‘So maybe, a judicious amount of control is not such a bad thing. Not too much, of course, nothing that compromises freedom of speech, but just enough to keep us responsible.’
THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS Page 30
