Baaz

by Anuja Chauhan

Most of them have faces only a mother could love, Kainaz Dadyseth thinks as she studies the line-up. They are thin, snot-nosed, chapped-cheeked, and all of them seem to have styes in their eyes. Their clothes are either far too big or way too small. Almost all of them are barefoot.

  ‘Who is this?’ they demand now that the formalities are over, swarming around the two women and looking the new visitor up and down with bright, curious eyes. ‘Tomar ma? Didi?’

  ‘Fui,’ says Tinka. ‘Uh, bua. Father’s sister.’

  ‘Pishi!’ choruses the swarm. ‘Good morning, pishi!’

  And then they all demand individual handshakes from Kainaz. She has to shake about fifty-seven small grubby hands.

  Meanwhile, Tinka squats on the ground to connect the turntable to a wooden plug point at the end of an open extension wire. After a couple of false starts, the Aradhana LP starts to revolve jerkily. Lightly, she drops the needle into the groove and the lively opening strains of ‘Mere sapno ki rani’ fill the little shaded area under the kachnaar trees.

  The children’s faces grow solemn with concentration. They put stiffly straight hands to their lips and mime the blowing of a train engine.

  ‘Whoooo hoooooo! Coooo hoooo! Twooooo hooooo!’

  ‘But who’s Geetu?’ Kainaz whispers, mystified.

  ‘Sharmila Tagore.’ Tinka laughs. ‘They think her name is Geetu. Because mere sapno ki rani kab aayee Geetu.’

  Kishore Kumar’s lusty singing kicks in and the dance starts with full gusto, if not full cohesion. Two small lads swagger forward, clearly playing the pilots in the Air Force Jeep, and proceed to do a credible job of lip-syncing to the lyrics.

  Then, with a dramatic little swirl, the main girl makes her entry. Her face is tantalizingly obscured (exactly like in the film) with an Alistair MacLean novel. She moves the book away from her face, right on cue, and Kainaz tries to cover her gasp of distress.

  ‘Oh God, what happened to that poor child’s face?’

  ‘Those are burns,’ Tinka replies softly. ‘Her family did that to her when they found out she’d been raped by the Razzakars. Who also made her pregnant. Her name’s Mamuni.’

  ‘She’s pregnant? Oh God, of course she is, I can tell. How old is she?’

  ‘Thirteen,’ Tinka replies. ‘There are thousands like her. Girls and women raped by the West Pakistanis. We’ve started calling them birangana, which means heroine, to signal that there’s no shame in being one, but it’s no good. They’re already being shunned.’

  ‘People are evil,’ says Kainaz Dadyseth feelingly.

  They watch the children swing and swirl with gusto, shouting ‘Geetu’ at periodic intervals. Presently the song ends and they freeze in a tableau, as poised and intense as professional dancers. They hold the pose for almost thirty seconds, then let go, laughing breathlessly and hitching up their loose pyjamas, all flushed with exertion and importance.

  Kainaz applauds vigorously.

  ‘Shabaash shabaash!’ she shouts. ‘Khoob bhalo!’

  ‘They’re bad, aren’t they?’ Tinka mutters.

  ‘Dreadful,’ Kainaz agrees, still clapping.

  ‘Oh God,’ Tinka sighs. ‘What am I going to do with them?’

  ‘Arrey, drill the little buggers hard,’ Kainaz says, smiling and waving at the children. ‘Tell them to do it again!’

  ‘They’ll never agree.’ Tinka shakes her head.

  The children come clamouring around her.

  ‘Didi, didi, “Haathi mere saathi”!’ they shout.

  ‘Didi, “Chin-chin-choo”!’

  ‘Didi, “Dil deke dekho”!’

  ‘Hush!’ Tinka says sternly. ‘One song, toh, you can’t do properly, want to learn ten more! We’ll do Geetu again. Let’s start.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Didi, once only, “Chin-chin-choo”!’

  ‘Didi, “Haathi mere saathi”!’

  ‘Okay fine fine.’ She produces another LP from her bag. ‘“Chin-chin-choo”. But just once, then it’s back to Geetu, okay?’

  This time the dancing is a mad riot of improvised moves. The children gyrate and twist and shout and pout. Kainaz, watching Tinka match them step for step, sighs wistfully for her own giddy youth, now long past.

  The song comes to its crazy climax and her niece collapses by her side, panting and laughing.

  ‘You should buy more LPs,’ says one saucy young fellow as he hitches up his pyjamas. ‘Your collection’s too small.’

  ‘Ya,’ chimes in another. ‘We want new songs, more songs, fast songs.’

  ‘In our house we had five thousand LPs. But we had to leave them behind when the Pakistanis came.’

  ‘Abbey ja!’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘It’s true!’

  ‘Enough,’ roars Tinka. ‘Geetu!’

  And Geetu it is.

  ‘We’re hoping to perform this live on Christmas day,’ Tinka tells Kainaz as the kids start their train-like puffing again. ‘There’s going to be a show. Mother Teresa herself is coming. If they’re good enough, that is.’

  ‘They’ll be good enough,’ Kainaz replies. ‘Your Mamuni is good as the coy Sharmila, and that little kid who’s playing Rajesh Khanna, he’s good too. The life of the show, actually!’

  ‘Isn’t he?’ Tinka gurgles with laughter. ‘You should have seen him at the audition, strutting about with a hanky knotted around his neck! He winked at me thrice! So saucily!’

  ‘Quite the little stud-muffin.’ Kainaz studies the skinny figure. ‘He can’t be more than eight or nine, no?’

  ‘He’s eight,’ Tinka confirms. ‘His name’s Prasanto. His entire family was knifed to death, seventeen of them. His mother hid him underwater in a buffalo pond. He breathed with a length of pipe for three hours and survived.’

  ‘Ugh.’ Kainaz wrinkles up her nose. ‘Spare me the gory details, darling. Do all of them have such dreadfully depressing back stories?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ Tinka’s face grows thoughtful. ‘Some of the other volunteers think Prasanto exaggerates, though. They’ve found inconsistencies in his story. They say it’s entirely possible that nobody in his family died and he’s making up these lurid details out of sheer competitiveness.’

  ‘I can’t decide which is worse,’ Kainaz says darkly. ‘A genuine tragedy, or a kid so screwed up that he makes up tragedies! So, what else do you do around here besides being the dance teacher?’

  Tinka sits down beside her.

  ‘Well, I shoot photographs mostly. And when the good light fades, I help with vaccinations and pest control. But dance is the main job the nuns have given me to do. They say the kids need cheering up. Anyway, there are tons of volunteers around. Some Indians, some foreigners.’

  ‘Any cute ones?’

  ‘Kung fui!’

  Her aunt raises her beautifully plucked brows.

  ‘What? One can’t romance in a refugee camp?’

  ‘One can, I suppose,’ Tinka says doubtfully, looking about the dusty, depressing world spread out around them. ‘If the suffering of other people is what turns you on.’

  ‘Oh, don’t turn into such a self-righteous little prig!’ Kainaz says robustly. ‘In the midst of death, we are in life! See, over there, that woman in the patched sari with the three skinny kiddies in her lap is exchanging amorous glances with that one-legged man. And if you don’t think romance has no place in a refugee camp, why’d you pick the Geetu song for the show?’

  ‘The kids picked it,’ Tinka says.

  ‘But it features an IAF Fighter! Like your Ehsaan.’

  Tinka’s face shutters over immediately. ‘I don’t want to talk about Ishaan.’

  • • •

  ‘Raks…’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘What’s wrong with Baaz?’

  The Aggarwals are snuggled up under the velvet honeymoon razai in their little bedroom. It’s late in the night. Through the fly-mesh screen windows comes the sound of crickets chirping. A cool breeze stirs the olive-green mosquito netting
overhead. Juhi is stroking Raka’s hair and sneaking looks at the new silver anklet around her shapely ankle. She’s quite pleased with it.

  Raka groans. ‘Baaz? There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s strutting around pleased as punch and is probably in line to win a Vir Chakra.’

  Juhi pulls his hair.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Stupid,’ she says severely. ‘I didn’t ask you about his Vir Chakra. I asked why he’s looking like his mummy just died.’

  ‘His mummy died fifteen years ago, as far as I know,’ her aggravating husband replies.

  This is rewarded with a harder yank on his hair. Raka rears up on his elbows indignantly.

  ‘What, wifey! D’you want me to go bald before my time?’

  She leans in to kiss his forehead, then raises her shapely leg and points to her toes. ‘Isn’t my anklet pretty?’

  ‘Very pretty,’ he agrees with immediate appreciativeness, his calloused hands sliding down her smooth calf. ‘Lemme take a closer look…’

  Juhi arches her dainty foot and pushes him away. ‘Something’s wrong with Baaz,’ she repeats, wrinkling her smooth forehead. ‘He’s wandering about smiling automatically, talking mechanically. He’s worn the same shoes to the club three days in a row, there are shadows under his eyes and he never wants to dance.’

  Raka finally sits up, sighs and strokes his moustache. ‘You mean he’s suffering from some kind of delayed reaction from the dogfight? His Gnat exploded, you know, three minutes after they lifted him out of it. That could have shaken him.’

  ‘Uff!’ Juhi sits up and stares at him in acute exasperation, her unbound hair cascading about her naked shoulders. ‘It’s not the dogfight, Raks, it’s that girl.’

  Raka continues to look blank.

  ‘Tinka!’

  ‘Oh, her…’ he responds unenthusiastically. ‘She left, no? Or she got busy somewhere, shooting something.’

  ‘He likes her,’ Juhi says positively. ‘And she likes him.’

  Raka looks doubtful.

  ‘I didn’t notice him paying her any special attention.’

  Juhi stares at her husband in disbelief. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he retorts. ‘Anyway, Baaz couldn’t possibly like her seriously. I mean, everybody’s seen her in a bikini. She’s not a decent girl.’

  ‘Stop talking like a halwai and talk like an Air Force officer,’ says his wife brutally.

  Raka grows belligerent. ‘So I should’ve married a bikini model too? Instead of a girl from a good middle-class family?’

  Juhi throws up her hands, her pretty bosom swelling with indignation.

  ‘Tinka’s family is very good!’ she says. ‘They’re wealthy and high-class and respected.’

  Raka sighs. ‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ he says, glumly. ‘Did you see her snooty aunt that evening? She only talked to Maddy. Because he’s rich and English-medium. She had no time for the rest of us, including Baaz.’ He sits up straighter, tugging at the razai, tucking it around his shoulders and under his butt. ‘And anyway, you didn’t like her, Juhi! You sunaoed her so much that night and were pleased with yourself for doing it! You said she had it coming.’

  Juhi’s eyes grow troubled. She is silent for a while, playing with his hair.

  ‘Yes, but then she came and asked me for Baaz’s address, and she seemed nice. She was so sorry for all the trouble she got you boys into. And she didn’t seem at all stuck-up even though her ad is such a big hit. Besides, Mrs Carvalho said her brother died and that messed her up.’

  ‘So now she wants to mess my brother up,’ Raka says resentfully. ‘I don’t like it, Juhi.’

  ‘Arrey, but even our families didn’t get along at first,’ his wife reminds him. ‘We had to elope – and Shaanu helped! You have to help him too.’

  ‘That was a totally different thing,’ he replies. ‘We were same caste, same community, same social standing! This girl’s some rich Parsi Bombay bitch—’

  ‘Raks!’

  ‘And you’ve toh seen Shaanu’s pitaji. Now try and imagine him and that snooty flower-waali auntie together! What will they talk about? What do they have in common?’

  ‘She smokes and so does he,’ Juhi suggests after a moment.

  He gives an incredulous laugh.

  ‘Virginia Slims and Haryana ka hookah? C’mon, yaar.’

  ‘I don’t know all that,’ she says crossly. ‘And stop hogging the razai … gimme some! Point is, he likes her. And she likes him.’

  Raks maintains his hold on the razai and starts to hum ‘Pyar kiya toh darna kya’.

  She hits him with her pillow.

  ‘Raks!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Help Baaz! Talk to him about Tinka!’

  He throws up his hands.

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because Maddy’s gone off to do that helicopter flying course. Or I would’ve asked him. He’s much more sensitive than you.’ She pauses, then adds pensively, ‘Better-looking too.’

  ‘Achcha!’ He rears up, outraged.

  Giggling, she hits him again.

  Laughingly, Raka wrests the pillow away and grabs her by the wrists. ‘And if I don’t talk to him, then what, madame wife?’

  Juhi’s pretty face grows stern. ‘Then no sex for you.’

  ‘Whaaat?’ Raka’s jaw drops. ‘No!’

  ‘Yes,’ she says ruthlessly, lying back on the bed, her expression resolute. ‘Till you talk to him.’

  Raka rolls on top of her, pinioning her to the mattress. ‘Pukka?’

  It’s his sexy bedroom voice, the one that always makes her toes curl up in helpless longing, but now she resists it.

  ‘Pukka.’

  He buries his head into her bosom and groans.

  ‘Oh Baaz … you baaaztard! Mera KLPD kar diya!’

  Juhi giggles and tugs at his hair to make him look up at her.

  ‘Just talk to him, Raka. Please.’

  He sighs.

  ‘Okay.’

  He kisses her neck persuasively, but she pushes him off and scrambles away to sit against the headrest, arms and legs crossed primly over her luscious body.

  ‘But talk sensitively. Feel your way into it. Okay?’

  Bitterly informing her that he’d much rather feel his way into something else, Raka rolls over and goes to sleep.

  But the next evening, he seeks Shaanu out at the Officers’ Mess.

  He finds him hanging out with the Gnatties, all of whom have grown irritatingly cocky since Boyra. They don’t snigger openly when they see the MiG pilots, but only just.

  Which is probably why I’ve missed the fact that Baaz is low, Raka thinks defensively. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have issues of my own.

  He says as much to Shaanu, as a prelude to poking about in his personal life.

  ‘Those damn K-13s are refusing to behave,’ he says, sliding into the bar counter next to his friend. ‘The Tactical Aviation Centre guys are stumped. The whole precision bombing programme is turning into a guessing game.’

  ‘That’s because they’re fitted with parachutes,’ Shaanu responds listlessly. ‘They make ’em drift. You need a shell that falls like a stone. And you need to set the fuse detonator correctly.’

  ‘Yeah yeah,’ Raka responds impatiently. ‘We have nothing like that in the ordnance factories. So why are you looking so fucked ya, Baaz?’

  Because this is his best attempt at ‘feeling his way into it’.

  A haughty expression slides across Shaanu’s haggard (how could he have not noticed it all this time?) face.

  ‘I’m not fucked.’

  Raka responds to this by glowering at the other Gnatties until they sidle away. Then he lowers his voice and says, ‘Juhi tells me you’re in love with this Tinka from Bombay. Are you?’

  Shaanu stares at him for a moment, his jaw taut, his grey eyes glittering strangely, then gives an unamused laugh. ‘You do know how to drop a bomb, brother,’ he says. ‘Just like that … t
hapaaak!’

  He suits the action to the word, raising one arm and dropping an imaginary bomb dramatically to the floor.

  ‘That’s how your S-5s should fall.’

  Raka holds his gaze. ‘Are you?’

  Shaanu flings back his head, looks Raka in the eye and shrugs. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Hain?’ Raka almost drops his drink. His jaw sags, making him look, even with his gallant hussar moustache, a little ridiculous. ‘Arrey, aise kaise? How can you be? You’ve met her what, twice?’

  ‘Five times, actually.’ Shaanu’s gaze doesn’t falter, the grey eyes sparkle with conviction. ‘I just … know.’

  ‘Does she know?’

  Shaanu shakes his head. ‘No.’

  Then he adds, ‘But she loves me too.’

  ‘Arrey wah!’ A harassed Raka mops his forehead. ‘Phir toh kuch problem hi nahi hai! Let’s call a pandit and start handing out laddoos! Everything’s hunky-dory!’

  ‘No.’ Shaanu shakes his head again. ‘Nothing’s hunky-dory. In fact, she told me she never wants to see me again.’

  Inwardly rather relieved, Raks manages to put on a troubled face.

  ‘Oho … is she engaged to somebody else? Family pressure?’

  Shaanu shakes his head.

  ‘It’s something else.’

  He knocks back his drink and Raka studies him, concerned.

  ‘So where is she now?’ he asks finally.

  ‘At Sarhind Club only, but she’s refusing to take my calls.’

  This doesn’t sound like the behaviour of a girl who loves you, Raka feels.

  ‘Did you guys fight?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t … think so,’ Shaanu replies slowly.

  In the background they can hear Deengu’s hearty voice booming over the general hubbub of conversation.

  ‘So the CO said, have some shame! The Israeli Army is an Orange Juice Army! Powered on the goodness of pure OJ and nothing but pure OJ, they mow down the Palestinians like wild grass! So then I told him, sir, we are also an Orange Juice Army! But we are an Orange Juice and Rum Army! Jaiii shri rummm!’

  A burst of laughter greets this sally.

  ‘Have you tried showing up in person?’ Raka asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Shaanu says gloomily. ‘But I can’t get into the resident guests-only areas, and she never seems to come out to the restaurants or the Anchor Bar.’