Now, I glared at him, torn between two primal urges. To stab him in the eye with the cocktail shaker or to rip off his Deep Purple T-shirt and cover his toned, honey gold chest with fervent kisses.
'Are you two fighting?' Pinky called out gaily from behind us.
'Yes.' I smiled at her, as I made room for her to join the group. 'But nothing major. Just a Lok Sabha election.'
I don't think she heard me. She sat down, glared at Bunty and hissed, 'I can't believe you invited that weasel Sethie to your house for dinner!'
A red-faced Bunty said, 'Shhh! Softer, Pinky. He's a great man, very broad-minded, and you know Zak likes him.'
Zain turned to her. 'I'm sorry if you're upset, Pink. But he's a real harbinger of change in the party. Karan Sethie believes in democracy.'
'Please!' I snorted, and knocked back my mojito. 'I know their kind of democracy! Democracy means the majority rules - Hindus are the majority - so Hindus rule. Spare me that crap.'
'Yeah,' said Pinky, looking at me approvingly, 'and Zak, don't say you're sorry I'm upset. You don't give a damn that I'm upset - and you know it!'
Zain stared at both of us, pretending to look alarmed. 'Oops,' he muttered ruefully. Then he walked away.
Pinky looked after him in frustration. 'Typical,' she said, 'he doesn't even think we're worth a debate. I hate him.'
'Yeah,' I agreed with feeling.
I looked around the room. Zain was talking to Nulwallah. Rumi had buttoned up Dugguji and was explaining to him earnestly exactly what the lyricist meant by the phrase ishq di gali, in the hit Bollywood number 'Ishq di gali vich no entry'. Then he moved on to the multiple oral sex insinuations involved in lighting a beedi from your jigar. 'You know the shape of a beedi, right?' he was telling the old man seriously. 'It's blunt and cylindrical. Now imagine it placed on a young nymph's chest. I'm telling you, sir, the Bollywood greats are nothing but a bunch of dirty old men...'
I shuddered and looked away.
The old bureaucrat who'd been talking to Zain wandered up. 'Hello,' he said animatedly. 'Do you know that the COAI, the Cellular Operators Association of India, is conducting a study to understand the revenue implications of the missed call phenomenon in India?'
'Err... no, sir,' I said blankly. 'Have they?'
He nodded vigorously. 'They estimate that the loss of revenue due to people communicating through missed calls is as much as thirty per cent.'
'That's incredible,' I said politely.
'Yes,' he said. 'Excuse me, beta.'
He wandered off again and I turned back to Pinky.
'Why don't I know you?' I asked abruptly. 'I mean, I knew Zain when we were kids but you...'
'I grew up in the UK,' she said. 'I've come down to set up an NGO. Just moved here a couple of months ago. I'm working with underprivileged women.'
'Awesome,' I replied automatically, but my mind was on something else. 'Uh, tell me, Pinky, d'you know when Zain got started on this whole IJP trip? It just doesn't add up.'
She looked thoughtful. 'I don't know,' she said finally. 'He'd been wanting to do something for Bittora for years and he fell in with that Karan Sethie at some mountain rally - he's a rallyist too, you know that? Anyway, they did some major male bonding and Sethie managed to reel him in. He told him the party is introspecting madly after the last debacle at the polls. They're going to change the system from within, become more inclusive, provide a genuine alternative to the Pragati, yada yada yada - Zain wants to be part of that change.'
'It's completely insane,' I muttered.
'Yes, it's definitely strange,' she agreed. 'When Zain was a kid, all he talked about was the freedom struggle and the Pragati Party. It used to upset his dad - he hated the Pragati for taking away the privileges of the royal houses.'
Just then, Nulwallah popped up again. 'Pandeji,' he demanded. 'Have you heard the latest outrage in Hyderabad?'
'No,' I said warily. Nulwallah's questions were always trick questions. 'I hardly get time to watch TV. What happened?'
He grinned. 'It's quite bizzare. A Muslim cleric has exhorted all young eligible Muslim males to go forth and marry into other religious communities and thus slowly turn the world Muslim. Conversion through love, he's calling it.'
'That's silly,' I said, 'because it cuts both ways. I hope he realizes that his young men could end up getting converted through love themselves?'
'Can I quote you?' Nauzer asked eagerly.
'I don't see why not,' I told him. 'So, is there a fatwa out on him yet?'
'Of course.' Pinky laughed. 'And the IJP's after his blood too!'
'Whose blood is the IJP after?' a deep baritone enquired behind us, and we turned to see Karan Sethie, flanked by Zain.
Pinky stiffened. 'Sarojini Pande,' she introduced me formally. 'Mr Karan Sethie.'
'Charmed!' he exclaimed, all silver-haired and debonair, holding out his hand.
I folded my hands. 'Namaste!' I said primly.
He looked amused. 'Namaste,' he said good-naturedly.
I flushed, feeling a little churlish.
'So, Pinkyji,' said Karan Sethie combatively, 'whose blood are we after then?'
'Most everybody's, sir,' she said demurely. 'But specifically, we were talking about the Hyderabadi cleric.'
'Ah!' Karan Sethie looked thoughtful. 'Personally,' he said slowly, 'I feel marriage should have no agenda but love.'
'Is that why you've had three, Karan?' said Zain with a grin.
Everybody laughed, like this was really witty or something. Except me. I was finding the sight of Zain being so charmingly deferential to an IJP frontman faintly nauseating.
'Mr Sethie.' This was Nulwallah at his Karan Thaparish best. 'I hear the latest from you guys, after a Maharashtra-for-the-Marathas dictat, a no-girls-in-pubs order and a no-Pakistanis-or-Aussies-at-the-IPL firman, is a no-mixed-marriages order. Is this true?'
'Listen, dude,' said Karan Sethie trendily. 'The pub thingie was a Sri Ram Sena initiative, the other issues you mention are MNS and RSS affairs. Nothing to do with the IJP!'
'And the demolition of the mosques?' I asked, knowing I sounded Nave as hell, but not caring.'And the persecution in Gujarat?'
He looked at me properly for the first time. 'How young you are,' he said. It sounded really patronizing.
I flushed.
'So's your electorate,' I retorted.
'True... You know, Sarojini, lovely name by the way...'
'It's for Sarojini Naidu,' Zain supplied, smiling slightly, because he knew I hated my name. 'Her grandfather named her.'
'Ah, great man, your grandfather, great man,' said Karan Sethie gustily. 'How sad he would be to see the state of the Pragati Party today!'
I glared at him, irritated. He was talking like he'd known Bauji personally or something. Fat chance - he must've been in diapers when Bauji first became MP.
'But you didn't answer Nauzer's question, Karan - is the party really against mixed marriages?' said Zain.
Karan Sethie furrowed his broad, intellectual-looking brow and sighed heavily. 'We in the IJP,' he said self-importantly, 'believe in Hindu-Muslim unity. We believe Hindus and Muslims should be close, very close, like brothers and sisters.' He paused, letting this admirable sentiment sink in. Then he added, 'And you don't marry your brothers or sisters, do you?'
He laughed loudly. Bunty joined in, chortling away. Nobody else did.
Zain said, with good-natured resignation, 'And that's typical IJP doublespeak for you.'
I looked at him.
So what are you doing in this stupid party? I asked silently.
He flushed a little, almost like he'd heard me.
'Anyway, all this Hindu-Muslim, jaati-paati stuff is old hat now!' continued Sethie, waving his hands fastidiously, like his party hadn't lived off Hindu-Muslim and jaati-paati its whole life. 'The young generation care tuppence about it! They just want a clean, intelligent government that delivers progress to everybody.'
Zain brightened visib
ly.
I wanted to shake him.
Instead, I said politely to Sethie, 'So, basically you're saying that all these years you were pursuing the Hindutva agenda not because you believed in it, but because you felt it could get you votes. Wow, at least in my party we stay loyal to our beliefs, no matter how popular or unpopular they might be!'
Karan Sethie's shoulders shook with silent laughter. He leaned in till we were practically nose to nose.
'Oh, no, young lady,' he drawled, looking irritatingly superior. 'In your party, you just stay loyal to the family, no matter how popular or unpopular they might be!'
Everyone laughed appreciatively.
Except me, of course.
'You know, someone young and fiery like you will just get extinguished in that den of sycophancy. They'll turn you into a yes-woman, you wait and see. You'll soon be tap dancing to the Top Brass's every whim.'
'Excuse me--' I began hotly, but he didn't stop to listen.
'What I always ask is,' he said in a louder voice, appealing to all of us with a practised sweep of the arm, 'how can a party that hands down its top post from father to mother to son, a party that is entirely not democratic, deliver to a country that is?'
He sounded so rehearsed, I thought sourly as I shut my stupidly open mouth. Like he said this every day. And how galling to know that he was absolutely right.
'And of course, in your party everybody gets an equal opportunity,' I said sweetly. 'I mean, you've given a ticket to a political novice simply because he's an ex-prince. That's really democratic'
'Uh, a Muslim ex-prince,' Bunty clarified, like that made it slightly better.
'Yeah... whatever,' I said, rolling my eyes.
'Besides,' Bunty went on doggedly, 'he doesn't even behave like a prince. He never did. I mean, when we were kids, he used to bowl.'
Everyone looked blank.
'Matlab ki, he was the only one who actually didn't mind bowling! All the other rich kids only wanted to bat, and made their servants bowl to them.'
'How egalitarian,' I murmured snidely.
'Shut up, Bunty,' muttered Zain. 'You're not helping.'
'We've given him a ticket,' said Sethie, refusing to be diverted, pointing an emphatic finger at me, his eyes flashing with passion and good white wine, 'because he's a fantastic vote-puller. As you're shortly about to find out.'
'Boooooo!' whooped Pinky, looking all feisty and cute.
'Boooooo!' whooped back Bunty, looking like a total choot.
I realized that everyone had formed a kind of circle around Zain and me, and we were standing in the middle, toe-to-toe, like boxers.
Or like people who were just about to kiss.
Raising my chin to look up at him, I found him looking puzzled.
'You feel... shorter tonight,' he said.
'It's my stupid Champapuli chappals,' I muttered, scowling, sticking out one foot to show him.
'Ah...!' He grinned. 'You've been taken down a couple of pegs!'
I just glared at him. He was wearing Champapulis too. But of course, they hadn't made him shrink magically, like mine had.
'Well, get used to the feeling...' He folded one large hand into a fist, reached out and biffed me gently, very gently, on the chin. ''Coz you're going down, Bapa Nagar.'
'In your dreams, baby,' I snapped, so pissed off, my heart forgot to skip a beat at his touch.
'Now that's a picture,' declared Rumi, appearing from nowhere and clicking away. Then he asked briskly, 'I hope you cross-party types are being mature enough not to squabble?'
'Naah, they're squabbling, all right!' reported Nulwallah happily. 'About which is the good party and which is the evil one.'
'Well, darlings, everybody knows that absolutes like Good party and Evil party don't really exist,' said Rumi, busily clicking pictures of Pinky now. 'Every party is usually a mix of both.'
'Yeah...' piped up Nulwallah. 'Most parties are Govils. Like Arun Govil.'
Karan Sethie cleared his throat and said, 'Bachhon, instead of bickering about who's Good and who's Evil and other rhetorical, irrelevant things - if you concentrated on the difference you could make right here in the eight-hundred-square kilometres of Bittora itself, you'd feel a lot more empowered. Most MPs waste too much time in Delhi, at the durbars, as you yourself put it, politicking about. It's a waste of time. You'll be amazed at what you can achieve, if you are a focused, committed and on-the-spot MP.'
'That's what I want to be!'
Zain and I had spoken in unison. We looked at each other, startled.
'Incredible,' said the IJP frontman wryly. 'It would seem that the Bittoragarh voter is spoilt for choice.'
***
After dinner - which was disappointingly uneventful, Zain sat way down the table from me - I picked up my phone to call Jugatram to ferry me home.
'Oh, you'll never get network here,' Rumi informed me. 'Wherever-you-go-our-network-follows my ass. It's a total scam. I tell you, if I see a small, black-faced, brown-assed pug anywhere, wriggling its stumpy little tail, I'll strangle, it.'
He was right, I realized as I looked down at my phone. There seemed to be no network in Casa Sisodia. Idly, I wondered if that could be a campaign issue.
'So where did you call me from?' I asked.
He nodded at the dark courtyard. 'If you walk across and climb those stairs, you'll reach these two lacy stone balcony thingies, one floor up. They jut out, kinda like the boobs of the building. Get onto one of them, face the fields, stand on one leg and you might get two little bars of signal.'
'You can't be serious!' I said, laughing.
At this, Zain leaned back in his chair, three seats away. 'Oh, he's serious, all right,' he called out, smiling ruefully. 'I could show you the spot, if you like. I need to make a call too.'
His voice was casual, but something in it made my muscles go limp. Setting down the monogrammed silver spoon, which suddenly felt too heavy, I managed to say, my voice very demure, 'Thank you. That would be most kind.'
The dark eyes gleamed wickedly for a moment, but all he said, in the same noncommittal tone was, 'Don't mention it. Come.'
So I picked up my phone and followed him.
He held the glass door of the conservatory open for me in this very chivalrous manner, but I couldn't meet his eyes as I passed through. We walked across the large courtyard without speaking, the muggy heat somehow underlining the utter quiet in the dark fields that stretched out in every direction beyond the haveli. The stars above were bright and the scent of the raat-ki-rani was almost oppressive. Our shadows against the old stone steps were inky black and sharply etched.
There was a flight of stairs, and then, next to the top branches of an ancient neem tree, I saw the twin protruding, latticed balconies. They hung a good three feet above us, with no steps in sight.
Zain mounted one lightly, then turned around and held out his hand to haul me up.
Hah! No way was I falling for this. He'd hauled me up a mango tree once, and what good had come of that?
So I took one step back, put both my hands firmly behind my back and shook my head.
I thought he'd let his hand drop, but he kept holding it out, looking down at me. His expression seemed... friendly. And a little amused.
'You'll never get any signal down there, you know.'
Oh, he was so wrong. I was getting signal all right. All kinds of signals. And they were all radiating out of him. And I knew I was signalling right back. The music from the old harmonium was deafening. Couldn't he hear it?
Apparently not.
Because he just stood there, smiling, head cocked to one side, hand held out, looking nice and harmless.
Come on, his dark eyes seemed to say. I won't bite. Besides, it's just my hand. An entirely non-controversial, non-erogenous body part. What could possibly happen?
I didn't want to be rude. Or prim. Also, I didn't think I could clamber onto that balcony unaided. At least, not without getting my prized new clothes dirty. And
I did need to phone the driver.
So I shrugged, gave this light, sophisticated laugh and placed my hand in his.
Bad move.
His fingers closed surely over mine, he pulled me up, and then somehow, smoothly, effortlessly, and with no fuss at all, I was standing within the circle of his arms. Two large hands rested possessively on the small of my back, and because I'd landed on a low boundary wall, I was directly at eye level with him. Through his Deep Purple T-shirt, and my thin crocheted top, our navels were totally kissing.
'Sorry,' he said as he steadied us. I could feel his chest vibrate as he spoke. 'I thought you'd be heavier.'
I realized dazedly that my hands had come to rest on the face of Ian Paice, the Deep Purple drummer, right over Zain's chest. And that Zain's heart was thudding hard, like he'd just run a marathon.
'Oh, no,' I said, somewhat incoherently, as I snatched my hands away. 'You're just... really strong.'
It was a pretty vacuous thing to say. But I don't know, it was just what my brain had been registering. That he was. Really strong, I mean. Six-pack Zak, as Rumi had put it. He must be fully narcissistic to work out that hard, I thought. If not gay.
'How's your network?' he asked, his hands still clasping me to him with disturbing intimacy, seemingly unaware of the whole navel-to-navel situation.
'Oh, yeah, lemme see,' I said, peering down at my phone, while he, supposedly in order to examine my phone screen, pushed me up even closer against him, exploding my gay theory instantly and unequivocally. My knees practically buckled, but I also made a pleasant discovery. 'Hey, I'm getting full signal now!'
'Great,' he said, laughing a little, his lips brushing my collarbone. 'Now give me a missed call, I'll save your number.'
Hello, no way was I going to give him my phone number! It was bad enough that he was totally psyching me out on Facebook!
So I said, pretending not to notice that his hand had slid up my front and was now deliberately undoing the tiny, mother-of-pearl buttons on my blouse, 'Did you know that Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Africa... all have started making missed calls now? The missed call is India's gift to the developing world!'
Battle for Bittora Page 20