‘I was going to you,’ he says gruffly. ‘Dammit Bannerjee! You’ve fucked up my travel plans again. Just how many tickets are you going to make me cancel?’
Meanwhile, Bhavani, almost home now, sits back in his official car and heaves a sigh of satisfaction.
The case has wrapped up nicely, all in all. The killer has been caught. The little love story has closed satisfactorily. An orphan has found a family. A hardened addict has gone back into rehab, swearing to his mother that this time he will come back clean and stay that way. At least one sinister plan of a megalomaniac defence minister has been foiled. A certain brand of bling encrusted ShivBling is poised to get a lot of free publicity, which will probably result in a huge peak in sales for Cookie Katoch. And judging from his chastened, sober demeanour, a certain young inspector seems to be pining for a young woman whom he considered, only three weeks ago, far beneath him.
Oh, and a hundred and eighty-year-old club seems to be well on its way to gaining its first female president.
There is just one more thing that remains to be done.
Bhavani leans forward. ‘Take it from the Khan Market side,’ he tells the driver. ‘We have to buy five stalks of pink Oriental lilies.’
Acknowledgements.
I’ll start with the clubs.
The Army Club in Dinjan, Assam, where the three-year-old me learnt how to swim, and famously ran up a tremendous bill in Coca-Cola and French fries, secure in the knowledge that ‘club mein paise nahi dene padte, bas papa ka naam bataa do aur phir sab kuch free!’
The DSOI at Dhaula Kuan, from where three of us four sisters were married. So lovely in the eighties with its kidney-shaped swimming pool, kesar-scented mutton biryani, insanely well-stocked library, and gorgeous flower garden.
The Delhi Gymkhana Club where Niret and I spent many, many Thursday nights when we were dating, and not enough Sunday afternoons once we were married.
The Press Club of India at Raisina Road, with its inverted snobbery, smiley-faced waiters, stinging Romonov Vodka-Limcas and the best ‘bomb shaami kebabs’ in the city.
The sunny, sky-blue Bangalore Club, the multi-balconied Catholic club, all clubs, basically!
From clubs and club culture to the king of clubs. I owe a special debt to A.S. Dulat – a cosy chat we had at the CCD in the DGC in early 2020 is what got me started on this book, in the first place.
Then the lockdown kicked in and all the clubs shut down and I wrote in a house bursting at the seams with children and dogs. Naturally I drove Niret, Niharika, Nayantara and Daivik nuts by shoving drafts in their faces and needily demanding feedback. Thank you, guys, for making it so both brutal and bang-on.
I badgered friends and family too. Many thanks to my sisters, Mini, Ruhi and Nandu, my cousin Prashant, my father, Revti Raman, and my friend Shalini Beri.
Hardi Singh, who helped me develop ACP Bhavani.
My cousin Monu Singh, the OG Pinko Hathni.
All my sisters-in-sweat at my Zumba class.
My muse Tamara Rhea Rebello, whose face and form I totally ripped off for Bambi Todi.
My friend Rishi Dogra whose surname and name (almost!) I stole for my Kashi.
Gautam Mengle, who read this manuscript and corrected my many many police procedure errors.
My incredibly talented niece, Laila, who lent voice and melody to the Secrets song, and performed it so beautifully for the book trailer.
Dame Agatha Christie, empress of whodunnits, whose every book I have read multiple times, and who inspires absolutely everybody who attempts to pull a murderer out of a hat.
The HarperCollins India team – Ananth Padmanabhan, Swati Daftuar, Bonita Vaz Shimray, Shabnam Srivastava and Shatarupa Ghoshal, who are all so kind yet firm with my agonizing and nit-picking and general control-freakiness.
I find I cannot end this without mentioning my recent crisis of faith. After about twelve years of full-on Roman Catholicism, I have become happily post-religious, deeply averse to all organized religions, believing only in the divine spark in all of us, and marvelling at the Creator’s work every time I unpeel oranges, or look deep into a puppy’s melting brown eyes, or see sunshine sparkling on water, or inhale the scent of harishringar flowers.
So thank you, semi-finally to this Creator, who so generously drops ideas into our head from above, and finally, to my husband, Niret, for understanding when I said, ‘Heaven is not like the Delhi Gymkhana Club, Choku, you can’t get me in on a spouse sponsorship. I will have to somehow find my way in on my own.’
About the Book
‘The high priestess of commercial fiction’ - THE ASIAN AGE
When a hunky personal trainer is found asphyxiated to death under an overloaded barbell at the posh Delhi Turf Club, on the eve of the club elections, it is first thought to be just a freak accident. But soon, it becomes clear that one of the members of the DTC - all pickled-in-privilege Dilliwallahs - is a cold-blooded killer.
As the capital bristles with conspiracy theories, ACP Bhavani Singh, a genial, close-to-retirement Crime Branch veteran, is appointed to the case.
With the assistance of Akash ‘Kashi’ Dogra, hottie crusader for human rights who despises all the club stands for, and Bambi Todi, wealthy girl-about-town who loves the place like a second home, Bhavani sets off to solve a crime that seems simple enough on the surface, but turns out to have roots as deep and spreading as New Delhi’s famous Neem trees...
About the Author
Anuja Chauhan worked in advertising for over seventeen years and is credited with many popular campaigns including PepsiCo’s Nothing Official About It, Yeh Dil Maange More, Mera Number Kab Aayega, Oye Bubbly and Darr ke Aage Jeet Hai. She is the author of five bestselling novels (The Zoya Factor, Battle for Bittora, Those Pricey Thakur Girls, The House that BJ Built and Baaz) all of which have been acquired by major Bombay studios. She lives outside Bangalore with her three children, a varying number of dogs and cats, and her husband, television producer Niret Alva, who is a member of various clubs that shall remain unnamed here.
Also by Anuja Chauhan
The Zoya Factor
Battle for Bittora
Those Pricey Thakur Girls
The House that BJ Built
Baaz
ALSO BY ANUJA CHAUHAN
In a sprawling bungalow on New Delhi’s posh Hailey Road, Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur and his wife Mamta spend their days watching anxiously over their five beautiful (but troublesome) alphabetically named daughters. Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children’s hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the Judge’s favourite (though fathers shouldn’t have favourites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, he of shining professional credentials but tarnished personal reputation, crushingly dismissive of her ‘state-sponsored propaganda’, but always seeking her out with half-sarcastic, half-intrigued dark eyes. Spot-on funny and toe-curlingly sexy, Those Pricey Thakur Girls is rom-com specialist Anuja Chauhan writing at her sparkling best.
Praise for Club You to Death
‘Quite simply, the funniest writer of contemporary popular fiction.’ – TEHELKA
‘Perhaps the best storyteller amongst India’s writers of popular fiction.’ – CARAVAN
‘If there’s one word that describes her writing, it’s chic.’ – THE TELEGRAPH
‘The high priestess of commercial fiction.’ – THE ASIAN AGE
‘The mistress of words.’ – VERVE
‘A perfect read for just about anyone.’ – VAGABOMB
‘Chauhan is something of a rarity.’ – INDIAN EXPRESS
‘Her ear for dialogue is
one of Chauhan’s strengths.’ – INDIA TODAY
‘A distinctly Indian flavor.’ – FIRSTPOST
The brazen style of humour, the settings, and the amusing concoction of Hindi and English make her stories richly Indian.’ – THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE
‘The only Indian writer of popular fiction really worth buying.’ – MINT
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First published by
HarperCollins Publishers in 2021
A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
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Copyright © Anuja Chauhan 2021
P-ISBN: 978-93-5422-319-8
Epub Edition © March 2021 ISBN: 978-93-5422-322-8
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Anuja Chauhan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
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