by Polly McGee
‘Let’s go, Baj, before it cools, man.’
Poona nodded in approval to them both, following behind Baj to do the necessary with her guests.
***
Sita had arrived at Hastinapuri Estate as the lunch table was being cleared away. Baj prepared some tea, and Sita, Poona and Lola sat around the large communal dining table, hunched over Sita’s phone. The footage of Rocky was fleeting, but there was no doubt in Poona or Lola’s mind that this was their boy, alive, well, earless and with a monkey companion. Sita looked at the scrap of paper Lola handed her, the scrawl confirming Rocky’s address was the same as Gaurav’s – 33 Hastinapuri Marg.
This was the most intriguing coincidence of all – that Rocky had been captured and taken back to the house he had originally been lost from, only to run away again. How did dog-hating Gaurav fit into this picture? Surely he had recognised Rocky as his own? None of it made sense.
Sita pulled up the picture of the framed photographs. In the loving arms of the attractive owner, it was clear that this was an image of Rocky in happier times.
‘Where is she now, Sita? The woman in the photo; did you say she was dead?’ Poona asked.
Sita nodded. ‘Gaurav said he had recently lost his wife – he didn’t mention having lost his dog.’
Lola took the phone and peered closely at the picture. Baj delivered the sweets that Sita had brought as a gift, now artfully arranged on a serving tray. He served Lola the plumpest sweet, glancing over her shoulder.
‘She’s Preity,’ he said.
Lola scrutinised the picture of the woman on the phone more closely. ‘Really, you think so? She’s not that pretty.’
‘No, Lola-ji,’ said Baj. ‘Not pretty. Preity. Preity Sahni. She is a model-cum-actress also.’
‘Do you know her, Baj?’ Sita wrote down the name, overjoyed at the time she had just been saved trawling the internet for clues to the mystery woman’s identity. Baj shuffled his feet, his face a familiar shade of red.
‘Only from the television-cum-internets.’
Sita contained a smirk. ‘Is she dead?’
‘Not according to Bollywood Insider; she is a late replacement in Dancing with the Stars.’ Baj put down the sweet tray and made a show of checking his watch, quickly leaving the women alone with their investigations.
‘Your Baj could be my next entertainment reporter, Lola.’ Laughed Sita.
‘He’s not my Baj.’ Lola had begun to take on the colour of Baj’s ears.
Sita raised her eyebrow at Poona, whose lips just slightly twitched with a smile.
‘So where is Rocky now?’ asked Poona.
Sita shrugged. ‘I didn’t see them on Hastinapuri Marg when I walked back, and it’s a straight line from here to Gaurav’s.’
Poona shook her head, deep in thought. ‘Why would anyone live in that cursed house?’ Poona said.
‘Cursed how?’ Sita’s interest was piqued.
Poona told them what she knew from the local gossip surrounding the house. Owned by the council, there had been a string of high-profile deaths at the residence over the past three decades. Suspicion and fear had caused the bungalow to be used sporadically for functions and little else. All the deaths had been violent and strange. Most politicians were reluctant to stay, despite the luxury.
‘It’s why Godboley chose to stay here, not down the road. Although that didn’t help him much.’
‘Sounds like a mobile curse.’ Sita wasn’t convinced. She liked to think of herself as an evidence-based kind of girl. ‘I went inside; it seemed like a perfectly normal house – no bad vibes, just a dude with a massive ego.’
‘That place has bad vaastu. Five thousand years of architectural science can’t be wrong,’ Poona said with conviction.
‘Architectural superstition you mean, Aunty.’
Lola got up. ‘Time to make like an Indian lady and do the paneer.’ At Sita’s inquisitive gaze, she explained she needed to prepare dinner for the guests. She then l turned to Poona. ‘Fish tonight. Right, Poona?’
Poona nodded.
Lola headed for the door.
‘Lola-ji, I want to serve fruit cream for dessert.’ Poona was constructing the menu on the run.
‘Okay.’
‘Ask your Baj to get some pomegranates at the market when he gets the fish.’
‘Not my Baj.’ Lola’s voice echoed down the corridor.
Sita laughed at the retreating Lola. ‘She’s a cook? I thought she was a guest.’
‘She is a miracle,’ replied Poona, ‘without Lola the place would’ve collapsed.’
Poona filled Sita in on what had happened since their last meeting. The days after Malina’s death had been gruelling. Gajrup had lost his mind with grief and gone on a bender so serious Poona thought he would die, too. The police had released Malina’s body, the official cause of death declared as suicide by poisoning. Gajrup had taken the body home to their village for cremation, and was heading to Mumbai, determined to find Geet and tell him about the tragedy. Gajrup had remained tight-lipped on Geet. Poona suspected his absence was the link to Malina’s death, but had not wanted to dig too deeply for the truth in the face of such raw suffering.
Gajrup had had his moments at Hastinapuri Estate since he and Malina had arrived so many years ago, but Poona thought those days were long gone. Poona was devastated by Malina’s death, but equally by Gajrup’s descent back to his drinking demons. As she’d farewelled Gajrup, she believed he would likely never return. Her Hastinapuri family was falling apart.
Lola had insisted on helping out with the cooking at Hastinapuri Estate to keep her mind busy more than anything. Everyone but Lola had been surprised by the extent of her skills. After a couple of days, Poona had stopped supervising her at the kitchen bench. Now she just checked on the food at service, and talked through the daily menu after morning yoga, in what had become a new routine for them. The accommodation was heavily booked leading up to Diwali, and, with Malina’s death and Gajrup leaving, for a moment it looked like they would have to close the business down for the season. Lola had provided the continuity they needed – and she seemed content to work for her food, board and some pocket money.
Without a work visa, Lola had few options to preserve the minuscule amount of cash she had left. For now, she had all her needs met and daily distractions. Her problems were not so much solved, however, as temporarily delayed. Poona had installed her into a small room in the hotel. Moving back into the lean-to had not been an option.
Baj continued to show his capacity for having a cool head and endless loyalty. He had seamlessly stepped into Gajrup’s role during the drunken days that followed the discovery of Malina’s body. With Chatura frequently in London negotiating a new business deal, Baj, like Lola, was indispensable to Poona. He carried bags, welcomed guests with increasing confidence, served up the daily meals and filled in the gaps that Gajrup had left. Poona resolved to make sure he and Lola received a very full envelope of gratitude at the Choti Diwali staff celebration this year. Assuming they all made it to the other side of the holidays without more death and disaster.
Sita listened to Poona’s story, shocked at the misfortune Aunty had been through. Despite her earlier scepticism, she began to wonder if there wasn’t some bad vaastu at the Hastinapuri empire as well as 33 Hastinapuri Marg. Maybe the marg itself was the problem. She shook off the thought, pleased that she didn’t believe in all that stuff. She reluctantly had to go; she had Gaurav’s life to dig around in. She promised Poona that she would keep her up to date and join them on Choti Diwali for fireworks and feasting.
***
Poona was buoyed by the visit and Sita’s boundless energy. The news about Rocky was a ray of hope. If they didn’t know where he was, at least they knew he was alive, and recently seen nearby. Poona decided she would shake off the malaise of recent events and stride out into the sunshine to see if she could find Rocky. As long as Gaurav was in power, none of the animals of New Delhi were safe from the att
acks of council workers or vigilante citizens. She had to act quickly before they were shot with more than nets.
***
Lola weighted the paneer and put it in the fridge to set firm. The pulses were pressure-cooked, the new chapati dough was resting, the vegetables had been prepped and she had even made her first batch of mango kulfi. As she prodded it again to see if it was freezing, she felt a wave of great satisfaction. Her job at Jaipur Nights; the obsession with Roshan; her subsequent immersion in all things Indian; her impetuous departure for a doomed marriage of convenience – even though her decisions had seemed bad, they had all in their own way led her to this moment.
She shot a glance at the entrance to the lean-to, now covered with a heavy cloth and fading marigold garlands. The dead face of Malina flashed through her memory. It came back to her often, floating into consciousness when least expected. For Lola, layered onto the painful memories was Gajrup’s demise.
He had always been the gentle, reasonable one: kind and welcoming in stark relief to Malina’s hostility. Gajrup’s combination of grief and alcohol had been an ugly cocktail, and Lola blamed herself – Geet had run away to avoid marrying her. It irrationally upset her that he hadn’t even met her and had already rejected her – gay or otherwise. She had been a little bit relieved that she didn’t have to go through the awkward façade of the marriage. The expectations of her commitment to the fake relationship and whether she would have been required to consummate had always been unclear. Although, ironically, that wouldn’t have been an issue with Geet.
The greater irony was that Jaipur Nights was a mere stone’s throw away from Oxford Street and had the largest concentration of gay men in the southern hemisphere. She could have been Geet’s gateway to that freedom. I would have been the perfect handbag for him, she thought resentfully: perfect fake-wife material and she could cook great curries.
There was a more imminent problem looming for Lola than wounded pride: her contract with Niz and Amit and the passage home was predicated on being a bride with an actual husband in tow when she returned. Lola had called and left messages with her former bosses, explaining how the situation had dramatically changed and urgently asking them to call her. As things stood, the money she had been promised was to be paid to her once the marriage had been executed. Airline tickets, accommodation back in Sydney, and the cash were all somewhere in limbo between Delhi and Darlinghurst – along with her fate. She had no idea whether Malina and Gajrup had even paid the full amount. And if they had Lola could never prove it. She felt sick as she realised the extreme trust she had placed in people who had put her knowingly in a most invidious position.
She looked at the mobile phone sitting next to the resting dough. Response from the bhai to her panicked calls had not been forthcoming.
‘Are you dreaming-day, Lola-ji?’
Baj placed a large bag of pomegranates, a fish, assorted squash and potatoes, cauliflower, peas, tomatoes, spinach and herbs on the bench.
Lola silenced her thoughts and focused on the delicious array of colour sprawling in front of her. ‘Just wondering if you were growing the pomegranates, Baj, you took so long.’ Lola waited to see if he would take the bait. The humour was lost in translation.
‘It was the important conversations that kept me from returning to you with the fruits.’
‘Important conversations with pomegranates – or did you run into Preity at the market?’
Baj began to pack things away in the compact kitchen. ‘It was on the phone, actually, right in the middle of the fish.’ Baj was building to the critical moment of his story.
‘Eeeewwwwwww.’
‘I am hearing from Gajrup today, Lola-ji; he has contacted me to say he has found Geet in Bombay and told him of Malina enjoying the poison milk.’
Lola’s teasing was silenced by the news. No one expected Gajrup to make it to Mumbai in the state he had been in, or once he arrived, to find his errant son in the millions of people inhabiting the coastal metropolis.
‘Is he coming back? Is Geet coming with him?’ she asked anxiously.
Lola had very mixed feelings about both those options, and yet they could be her only way home if her passage from India was reliant on Gajrup paying Niz and Amit the outstanding funds he had committed to.
‘I am not knowing anything else. He only wanted to know if you were still here. Shall I ring him now – perhaps you want to speak to your friend Geet?’
Lola shook her head. ‘No, no, they need family time.’
‘I am definitely breaking your news today Lola-ji.’ Baj looked pleased with his hunting of produce and gathering of information. Lola made her hands busy to distract her from the news, and how much they were shaking. She packed away the shopping, mechanically putting the produce in its place. Why was Gajrup calling her? Something was up.
‘Baj, can you get me some ice for the fish?’
He went to the freezer, then turned to Lola with new awe. ‘Have your very own been making the kulfi, isn’t it?’
Lola blushed. ‘Han, actually, just happened to have some spare if you want to try it.’
She pulled out a half-filled cup and spooned up a big dollop. It was almost frozen into a creamy, icy mango mass. She held her hand under it and quickly swung the spoon in Baj’s direction. He grabbed her hand to help guide the dripping kulfi into his mouth.
‘Swaadisht, Lola-ji.’
***
The sweetness transported Baj to a new place of pleasurable longing. Lola had thought to make him a special serve. Lola. Thinking about his needs. He closed his eyes, and imagined Lola wearing a sparkling emerald-coloured sari in the kitchen of a small but comfortable house. She was offering him a thali of delicious foods as he sat down for dinner after a long day at work, her hands gently massaging his shoulders as he ate.
‘Mmm, just a little harder.’
‘It’s not set properly yet, gimme a break, it’s only been in for an hour.’
‘No, Lola-ji. You’re perfect.’ Baj’s eyes snapped open. ‘I mean, you’re perfect in its making.’ Embarrassed, he let go of her wrist, grabbed the spoon and made a show of washing it.
He took a deep breath. ‘Lola-ji, what time are you finished tonight?’
‘Same as you, Baj, when the guests are done.’ Lola thwacked the back of a pomegranate with a wooden spoon, sending a plume of ruby fruit jewels into a bowl.
Baj watched the frenzied activity, admiring the growing crime-scene splatter across the front of her apron and shirt.
‘Well, that time I will be picking you up.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Surprise,’ he said, leaving the room with a smile.
Chapter Twenty-two
The Slap
Poona had borrowed Rama to accompany her on the afternoon mission. Aside from having a deep affection for the growing dog and his sweet nature, she figured that he could be a good accomplice in helping her sniff out Rocky. Given the current climate for pariahs in the neighbourhood, she had gifted Rama a sturdy new collar with his name and phone contact clearly marked, and had made sure that Baj registered him. Poona had been training him to walk on the lead, and he was becoming quite accomplished for a wild-natured kutta with the brain of a puppy.
Poona had studied a map of the area before they left, highlighting all the byways and alleys off Hastinapuri Marg where a dog on the run might go. She was hoping that he hadn’t made his way back to the park where capture was inevitable – and deadly. The best outcome was that he had been distracted by the rubbish and smells of the street. She hoped at least Rocky had stopped for a while to rest after his escape from number 33.
It was amazing that the dog was even alive. While Poona had an unshakeable faith in God and his myriad incarnations, she was a realist who knew that the injuries Rocky had sustained should have been mortal wounds. She had fully expected him to have moved onto the next life in his karmic cycle.
Poona put a handful of dry dog biscuits into her pocket in optimistic
anticipation, and she and Rama set off along the marg. Her plan was to walk about halfway to number 33, then turn off into the cross-street maze and let fate do its work. The sun had disappeared behind an ominous cloud by the time Poona left the hotel. The afternoon rain had held off for a couple of days; Poona longed for a torrent of water to rinse the air and steam clean the streets. Rama charted a random course, tacking scent to scent. He fussed over slimy banana skins, the sundried bones of a long picked-over chicken carcass and the frequent excrement samples of dogs, cats, bats, rats and humans.
Rama turned a semi-crushed Limca can into a toy. He flipped it with his nose, crunched and licked it for a few sweet, sticky drops of soda, and progressed its journey down the street before the can was forgotten in the face of a new distraction. Poona followed along behind Rama, her arms and his lead outstretched, like a diviner of lost dogs.
‘Rocky, puppy; Rocky, puppy; puppy, puppy; Rocky, Rocky.’
Poona called out her familiar canine prayer. She missed the park kutta and her daily rituals of feeding and nurturing, counting the animals, naming them, documenting their growth, their scraps, friends, foes, fleas and offspring. She felt a surge of anger towards the New Delhi Municipal Council for taking away one of her joys and demonising a species whose only purpose was love and loyalty – unlike so many of the humans she knew. Perhaps when all of the dog and monkey madness was over she could start a dogs’ home. She would be the defender of the pariah. She would be able to buy proper animal medicines and pay more vets to desex the dogs and patch them up when they fought. Then she could find homes with families and people that would love and care for them like she did.
Poona felt emboldened by this idea. This is what she would do; it was her calling. Perhaps she could get some funding from the government and become an NGO; they were always getting money. With all the focus on strays, this would be a good time to provide a non-violent solution to the animal menace. She would be the Gandhi of dogs; she would find a way for peaceful coexistence with humans and the monkeys, too. Her new cause was taking shape. She would speak to that Gaurav herself, pitch him her idea – a solution to his problem. As Poona walked behind her frisky charge, she felt like she was already on her crusade, marching in the streets for dog freedom.
