Dazedly, she watches the Hot Dulari sashay towards the main house. Eshwari runs up to talk to her.
‘See?’ says Dylan’s voice from behind her. ‘Eshu’s got it. She’ll head her off. Now will you please turn around and talk to me?’
Dabbu, glancing down as she turns to face him, realizes her right foot is drenched in puppy pee. Also, that he’s still holding her. And that his sinewy muscular arm leads up to a strongly corded neck, to the jaw of a cowboy, to the mouth of an angel and to eyes that mean business.
She swallows.
‘Yes, of course, let’s talk,’ she says in her mature newsreader voice.
Dylan sits her down upon the circular platform under the champa, and then sits down beside her.
‘Thank you,’ he says simply. ‘For saving me. For saving the entire country.’
‘Saving you equals saving the country?’ Dabbu gives a scornful little laugh, looking down at her hands, twisting her ladybird ring. ‘Wow, you have a high opinion of yourself.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ he says, and there is an edge to his voice now. ‘I meant, you got them to withdraw the bill. You know that, right?’
She looks up. ‘Yeah, I know,’ she says, trying not to sound too pleased with herself. ‘So, I’m not as dumb as you thought I was, huh?’
‘I never thought you were dumb,’ he replies, his voice warm. ‘You’re smart. You’re one smart Molonchin.’
Dabbu, pleased but vaguely suspicious that he’s being patronizing, looks down and away. A little silence follows, broken only by the heartfelt curses of the builder as he argues with the tent-wallah.
‘So much money for a simple shamiana? Is it made out of diamond bricks and silver mortar? So sorry, I didn’t realize, I thought it was cloth and bamboo only! You bloody thief and son of a thief!’
‘It’s stronger than these pigeonholes you built out of adulterated maal,’ returns the tent-wallah, waving a contemptuous hand at the six-floor-high Hailey Court building. ‘Two hundred litres of rain can fall on my shamiana and it won’t collapse. Not even a leak. So cough up my money, makkhichoos.’
Debjani clears her throat.
‘Uncle-aunty must be so happy you’re safe. Did you get your accreditation back?’
‘Yes, I did. And I got a promotion. And a bunch of job offers.’
‘How nice,’ she replies demurely. ‘You’re eligible again. Mangalorean maidens will queue up to marry you.’
‘Dabbu, listen –’
‘Don’t call me Dabbu!’
‘What are you so angry about?’
She turns away from him, her eyes starting to well up again.
One caveat, though. The sentiments expressed in the letter are slightly dated. Quite dated, actually. Remember that.
Debjani dashes her hand across her eyes. She knows why he’s here. Because he’s grateful. Maybe he even wants to marry her out of sheer gratitude or something. But gratitude isn’t enough. Even gratitude with such a luscious butt.
She turns to face him.
‘I’m not angry,’ she says steadily. ‘Those editorials you wrote were very courageous. You risked your life, Dylan, and your friends and colleagues rallied around you brilliantly. What I did wasn’t really that important. You don’t owe me anything.’
He frowns. ‘Wait, I’m not the brave one, and I’m not here coz I owe you anything. I –’
But Dabbu has leapt to her feet.
‘Fuck!’
Now what? Dylan looks around, thoroughly fed up, and spots a pug-faced lady – Debjani’s weirdo aunt, if he remembers right – stumping down the driveway, brandishing a wicked-looking knife. She hurtles right past them, totally ignoring Dabbu’s agonized wail of ‘Chachiji, wait!’ and turns a sharp left into the sumptuously decorated Hailey Court drive. The pink ribbon, stretched out from gatepost cherub to gatepost angel, snaps smartly into two as she walks right through it.
‘Stop her, stop her!’ gasps Samar, capering up and waving several spent rockets around agitatedly. ‘The Pushkarni’s upon her! She’s going to go up to the sixth floor and push Chachaji right off!’
‘What!’ Dabbu whirls to look at him. ‘How did you even think up something like that?’
‘She told me!’ he explains earnestly. ‘She said the soul of Pushkar Thakur is inside Ashok chacha now so she has to kill him!’
A bright yellow blur streaks past Debjani. ‘Hai-hai!’ wails the Hot Dulari as she runs. ‘Bachaaaaaaooo!’
Dabbu’s jaw drops. She whips around, wondering what to do, and finds that Dylan has vanished from her side.
‘Oh shit oh shit oh shit!’ Eshwari runs up, panting, the rest of the family right behind her. ‘I tried to stop the cow, but she pushed right past me and told Chachiji that she’s the one who’s moving into the flat with the Ant today. So then Chachiji reared, cursing, and said, May you rot in hell, may you be eaten by worms, may termites gnaw at your –’
‘Anus,’ Dabbu completes, her palms clammy. ‘What do we do now, BJ?’
Before the Judge can reply, the twins set up a shrill rongta-raising wail.
‘Dabbu mausi… look!’
And Dabbu, looking up to the terrace of the Hailey Court building, is hit with the cold thrill of foreknowledge.
A stout figure is standing upon the parapet wall, silhouetted against the noon sun. Flanked by the large black humps of two Sintex tanks on either side, it appears eerily resolute. Something drips from the knife it holds in its hand.
‘Blurrrd!’ screams Bonu in a high-pitched voice as a large clear red drop splashes on the ground between her feet. ‘Bl-bl-blurrrd!’ She turns around and clutches Binni, hiding her face in her kurta.
‘The Pushkarni’s taken over,’ Samar says with stoic satisfaction. He puts a comforting arm around Eshwari’s waist. ‘She’s going to jump.’
Don’t jump, Chachiji, Dabbu thinks fiercely. He’s not worth it. You’re too good for this. Don’t you dare jump...
When Dylan, taking the Hailey Court stairs three at a time, burst onto the terrace on the sixth floor, he came upon an oddly calm tableau.
Peering from between the drainage pipes, he saw the back of a man he later identified as Ashok chacha, cowering behind Anjini, his handsome face slack with fear. He was swallowing drily and staring at Chachiji, who was standing in front of Anjini, clutching her bhindi knife. Anjini was looking beyond her aunt, at her husband. And Anant, with his back to Dylan, had just started to speak.
‘Chachiji,’ Anant said, and something in that quiet intense voice made her turn around. ‘Don’t you get it? He loves you.’
Chachiji looked at Anant, her face working.
‘He just…’ Anant paused. ‘Just doesn’t know how to show it. The thing is, you’re so beautiful, and always surrounded by so many admirers… he’s afraid you’ll find him boring.’
Bit of a stretch, that, Dylan thought, looking at Dabbu’s aunt’s pug-like face. The Raquel Wench is definitely more alluring.
‘All this stuff, it’s just a silly misunderstanding. There has never been anybody for him but you, ever since the day he first set eyes on you.’
Chachiji looked just as sceptical as Dylan at this. But –
‘Yes yes,’ A.N. Thakur nodded with sweaty fervour from behind Anjini. ‘The boy is telling the truth. Listen to him! He is reading my feelings for you like a book, Bhudevi.’
‘He doesn’t care that you can’t have children,’ Anant continued, and the throb of emotion in his voice was so real that Dylan pursed his lips, impressed. ‘You’re enough for him. You’re all he wants. So please could you save all your loving just for me – I mean, for him, um… Chachiji.’
Chachiji’s eyes narrowed. She whirled around to look at Anjini, whose eyes, boring into Anant’s, were soft and shining like stars.
Chachiji gave one long, heartbroken, bloodcurdling wail, pushed Anant aside and hurled herself at her husband.
Dylan rushed in, trying to separate them.
But it was too late.
Ashok Narayan Thakur had already slumped to the floor, blood spilling from his smart Charagh Din shirt. Breathing heavily, her hair like a wild grey storm around her head, Chachiji hauled herself up onto the parapet wall and waved merrily at the crowd gathered below.
‘Hell-lo! Here I aaaam!’ She put her arms out wide and flapped them gaily. ‘Time for the Pushkarni to flyyyy.’
And then she walked right off the boundary wall.
Dylan, right behind her, had time for just one, crystal clear thought.
Two hundred litres of rain can fall on it and it won’t collapse. Not even a leak. So cough up my money, makkhichoos.
‘Here goes nothing,’ he said under his breath as he threw out his arms and launched himself off the parapet wall, feeling the sickening suck of gravity hook him right through the mouth and the pit of his stomach.
Dabbu, standing transfixed below, saw Chachiji start to drop like a stone, bang on track to splatter like an egg on the cemented drive. But then another figure hurled itself at her in a flying tackle, propelling them both forward by a few vital feet, so that they fell down… down… down… and landed on the roof of the monstrous shamiana with a satisfying whummmp.
The shamiana shuddered, staggered, seemed miraculously to hold, and then collapsed. Chachiji, winded but mostly unhurt, was disentangled from various ropes and Dylan’s muscular arms and taken into the house in the care of her sister-in-law. Anji, pink-faced and glowing, came racing down from the Hailey Court terrace, hand in hand with Anant, to report that Ashok chacha had cunningly been feigning death and had suffered only a glancing blow from Chachiji’s bhindi knife.
‘But what about the Raquel?’ Dylan enquires as he sits in the verandah with Dabbu, chugging down an extremely strong brandy and hot water, pressed upon him by the Judge. ‘Where’d she go?’
Dabbu is valiantly trying to ignore the fact that Dylan’s freefall has somehow caused his shirt to rip in seven different places, putting lots of muscular toffee-brown bits of him on display.
‘She beat it,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘Gulgul bhaisaab told her she could get involved in a police case, so she scuttled off.’
He grins at her, his eyes shining with a light that is at once cocky and caressing. ‘So obviously she isn’t honest and kind and brave. Like me.’
‘You’re dumb,’ she replies warmly. She doesn’t add that he’s also swoon-inducingly, knee-bucklingly hot, a ripped alpha male in ripped white cotton. ‘But I suppose people will say you were brave. Maybe,’ her voice catches, ‘Maybe Mitali will want to feature your amazing rescue on Viewstrack.’
He tilts his head, the long dimples flash and his eyes are so playfully challenging that Dabbu wonders if the brandy’s already gone to his head. Or maybe he’s just high on sheer adrenalin from that asinine plummet through space.
‘What’s with that bitchy little lip curl? Just now, when you said Mitali?’
She turns away. ‘Nothing.’
‘You’re jealous.’ He grins. ‘Because I trumped your extempore speech on DD by jumping off a terrace eight floors high.’
‘Six,’ she tells him dampeningly. ‘And this isn’t kot-piece – there’s no trumping going on.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, and the smile has gone right out of his voice. ‘At least if this were kot-piece, we’d be partners.’
Silence.
‘Dillu! How brave you were!’ Anji rushes up and envelops Dylan in a soft, scented embrace. ‘Well done!’
Binni hangs back a little, arms crossed across her chest.
‘Yes, very brave,’ she allows grudgingly. ‘But what about your five-year-old girlfriend?’
Dylan reels slightly: is he being accused of paedophilia?
‘She means your girlfriend of five years,’ Anji explains. ‘Juliet aunty told us about her. The one who works for Viewstrack – she studied with you also.’
Dylan’s brow clears.
‘Mitali’s not my girlfriend,’ he replies steadily. ‘In fact, I think she may be in love with my friend Varun. She’s a nice girl, though.’
Anjini waves a dismissive hand. She isn’t interested in the ‘nice’ Mitali.
‘See! I told you, Dabburam!’ Then she remembers something. ‘Did you meet Charles Sobhraj in jail, Dillu? Is he cute? Or is he creepy and old and chinkie looking?’
‘I never made it into Tihar jail, actually,’ Dylan admits a little sheepishly. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh!’ Anjini internalizes this. ‘Oh, well, okay. Now listen, don’t the two of you go planning a summer wedding just because you’re in a hurry to, you know, do it. It’ll be dreadfully hot, and Dabbu, your sari will go limp, and if it’s white you’ll look like one of those sad Benarasi widows. Now October is a good month – we’ll get narcissuses and those lovely shaggy chrysanthemums…’
‘Anji didi,’ Debjani hisses, scarlet faced. ‘Shut up.’
‘Oh, but why, Dabburam? He just jumped off the tenth floor to save your chachi’s life, sweetie, obviously he wants to marry you!’
‘Sixth,’ Debjani says again, rolling her eyes. ‘And you can’t just assume –’
‘Yeah,’ Dylan puts in. ‘Don’t go making any assumptions, Anjini. I could’ve done it out of love for Chachiji.’
Eshwari comes running up, hand in hand with Samar. ‘What’s happening, what’s happening? Is the engagement back on?’
‘Shut up!’ Debjani hisses.
But Eshwari has made a discovery.
‘He’s drunk!’ she chortles delightedly. ‘Go for it, Dubz, take advantage of him while he’s drunk! Grab him by the but –’
But before she can complete her instructions, she is pushed aside by an emotional Gulgul who appears out of nowhere, throws his arms around Dylan and kisses him fervently.
‘You saved my mother!’ he blubbers. ‘I am in your debt for life!’ And then, in a slightly altered tone, ‘Arrey wah – solid muscle tone, ya. You’re a jimmer! Where do you do your jimming?’
‘Hello, namaste, I’m the dvelupper,’ a man Dabbu has never seen before in her life pushes in and says hoarsely. He is flashily dressed and, being pale and hairy and knobby, somehow gives the impression of being made entirely out of ginger tubers. ‘I dvelupped Hailey Court next door. After marriage, if your wife decides to sell her one-sixth share in this property and dvelupp it into an apartment building, please call me, okay?’
‘This is ridiculous!’ Debjani roars, her cheeks flaming. ‘Stop it! Right now!’
Sheepishly, the Thakurs fall silent. It is an irreverent sort of silence, with a lot of eye-rolling and silent nudging and giggling, but it is silence, nevertheless. Dabbu frowns at all of them awfully, while behind her, Dylan looks on, his expression one of comic alarm.
The Judge and Mrs Mamta, shaken but relieved, walk out to the verandah and join the group of spectators. Dylan catches their eye from behind Debjani, raising his eyebrows in silent enquiry. They both nod – Mrs Mamta smilingly, the Judge resignedly.
‘Debjani,’ Dylan says, his voice very deep. ‘Dabbu? Stop bullying everybody and look at me.’
But Debjani can’t. Somehow, looking at her large, ill-assorted family is suddenly much easier than turning around to face Dylan’s gaze.
‘We can go away if you like,’ Anji begins to offer but she’s drowned out by a furious hiss of whispered objections.
‘Nooo!’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘I want to see!’
‘This Anji always spoils all the fun!’
Slowly, Debjani turns around. ‘If you ask me whatever it is you may be planning to ask me, in front of my entire snickering family, I will never, ever forgive you,’ she tells him.
Dylan laughs, his eyes alight with possessive tenderness, wraps her fingers around his arm and then, ignoring the chorus of protests that rises from the Thakurs, walks her out of the verandah and into the garden.
He leads her into the annexe. Pausing halfway up the narrow winding staircase, he pulls her to him. ‘Now where were we?’ he
asks, his voice teasing.
She kisses his neck.
‘Here, I think?’
His eyes darken. With a sudden movement, his hands come down to cup her face.
‘Why did you do it?’ he asks, his eyes stabbing hers. ‘I was watching you from the lock-up in that wretched police station and I’ll never forget how you looked at that moment. Seriously scary, like some nut-job suicide bomber about to blow.’
‘Well, thanks a lot,’ she begins to say indignantly but he interrupts her.
‘Why’d you do it, Debjani?’
‘Is that what you wanted to ask me?’ she demands. ‘Coz I was expecting another question entirely. And not th –’
He gives her a little shake.
‘Why?’
She sighs.
‘Well, I couldn’t get your letter out of my head…’
‘Ah! So Bonu finally coughed it up?’
‘Yes.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Which is a whole other story – but let’s not get into that now. And then your creepy boss told me you were a snake and I almost believed him…’
‘Hira? Where’d you meet him?’
‘Never mind. But then that seedy little cat showed up. The one Moti was trying to eat that first day. So I knew you were telling the truth.’
His arms tighten around her.
‘So when you made that newscast, all you had to go on was the cat?’
She nods.
‘Weren’t you scared?’
‘Oh, no,’ she says airily. Then she adds, looking up candidly, ‘Well, I didn’t know then that it was such a big crime to make up and read out your own news. If I’d known, I probably wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Such refreshing honesty,’ Dylan says ruefully as he pulls her to him.
A few minutes later, Debjani emerges, rosy-faced and thoroughly kissed, and announces blissfully, ‘You’re better looking than all my brothers-in-law. I think. Because, to be fair, I’ve never seen the Estonian.’
He grimaces. ‘Thank you. Am I also the better kisser?’
THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS Page 34
