Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  In Tiloni, an independent candidate, bald, transvestite and much given to flashy nylon saris, with a pair of fleshy, swollen red lips as his symbol, had topped the exit polls for two whole weeks. He promised he would open a Bollywood-style film school in the constituency and, as proof, organized a rally which would be 'packed with stars from Bollywood and Hollywood'. People turned up in thousands, but when they found nobody but Mac Mohan aka Sambha from Sholay, a. fat blonde woman with suspiciously dark roots, and a monkey-faced Shahrukh Khan look alike, they grabbed hold of the hapless hijra, pulled off his sari in a manner reminiscent of Draupadi's vastraharan, beat him up mercilessly and sent him scampering off, bare-bummed.

  And Salmon Khan, maverick movie star and shirtless crowd puller, who was campaigning for whichever candidate took his fancy, regardless of party or ideology, made a speech urging people to vote for 'good purrsons', which got five thousand hits in two hours on YouTube. Wearing a tight, sleeveless, salmon pink T-shirt and a wire hairband, he declared that 'it didn't matturrr what kind of clothes you worrre, as long as you were a good purrson with a purrre hearrt - and that if you wurrr a pooorr purrson, and couldn't afforrrd good clothes, then you should at least wearr clean clothes. And drrrive carrrefully. Without drrrinking. Jai Hind.'

  Totally disgusted with these bizzare goings-on, the news channels on TV were hailing this election as the most lowbrow Indian election ever.

  The psephologists were moaning that, this time round, there had been no issues or polemics or higher levels of debate whatsoever. 'It's basically just a bunch of greedy, opportunistic people, running helter-skelter, frantically trying to make up the numbers,' they moaned on news channel after news channel. 'Anybody is getting into alliances with anybody. The manifestos are a joke. Sab kuch chalta hai. This entire election is ideologically bankrupt.'

  The dirt entered our life too, the very next day. When I took Ponky out for an early morning walk, it literally flew up and hit me in the face. A flimsy, luridly pink pamphlet, covered with thick black type. Begumbagh was awash with them. They stated, in the most graphic, explicit Pavit Pradeshi, that I had managed to get a ticket to contest the election only because I had sexually serviced practically the entire Pragati Party working committee in just about every position. They also said that I was a shameless wanton man-eater who had recently had an abortion. As to the father, it could be any one of my endless list of Canadian, Chinese and African clients, none of whom could satisfy my slavering, raging lust.

  Reading the shrill, gloating, self-righteous words, I suppose I should've been angry. I should've been furious and vengeful and out to screw whoever had done this. But somehow, I couldn't summon up these strengthening, focused emotions. I just felt... ill. All sucked out. Like I wanted to sit down, right there in the middle of the dusty street, like a cow, and never get up again. Very poor-spirited, I know, but I couldn't help it.

  I just couldn't get over the fact that somebody disliked me enough to do something as vicious as this. Because I tend to go through life operating under the assumption that, basically, people like me.

  Holding the pamphlets in my hand, out on the streets of Begumbagh, with the loo swirling around me, I came very close to crying.

  Somehow, I managed to follow Ponky home and handed the pamphlets, in all their lurid pinkness, to Amma.

  She took it pretty stoically. She said, wrinkling up her patrician little nose in disgust as she read them over a breakfast of hot fried paranthas and mixed fruit jam, 'Chheee, what ghatiya tactics. We will have to turn this into an opportunity somehow, Sarojini.'

  I looked at her hopelessly. What was she talking about?

  'Of course it's an opportunity, madam,' said Gudia aunty at once. 'It's our chance to have that boy put behind bars!'

  'Amma, Zain couldn't have done this,' I said automatically, not sure if I really meant it.

  Amma pushed her chair away from the table and glared at me.

  'Why?' she demanded. 'Because he went to that Windcheater school? Don't be Nave, Sarojini.'

  'Because...' I paused. 'Because, well, he's my childhood friend... Surely Zain wouldn't stoop to something like this?'

  Gudia aunty tittered. 'Jinni, don't talk like a child. Madam and I are political veterans, we know. Besides, Jugatram just informed us that thousands of these pamphlets have been circulated. Somebody has clearly spent a lot of money. It has to be Khan - we've bought off all the others, haven't we?'

  'Maybe Dugguji did it without Zain knowing,' I said, a little desperately.

  Her large watery eyes looked scornful. 'Dugguji is not that smart,' she said.'Arrey, he gave you all that money just like that! Better face the fact that it's your great friend Zain who's really calling the shots. What did you think? That you had him under your thumb?'

  I flushed. 'That's a little uncalled for,' I said.

  She laughed. 'You young girls, you think everything will go your way always.'

  I said, a little more snidely then I should have, 'Look, why don't you sit down and drink some Himalayan mineral water?'

  She made a sudden movement but Amma was beside her in an instant.

  'See's crack,' she told Gudia aunty soothingly. 'My granddaughter ij a crack. See doesn't realize that all musalmaan men think this way about Hindu women - that we are all nympho. See thinks all this is a game, with rules and times-please and good manners. Arrey bhai, this is politics! It ij freestyle fighting! No holes barred!'

  'That's no holds barred, actually,' I said wearily. God alone knows what she was thinking of.

  Gudia aunty grabbed a pamphlet and stood up, breathing hard. 'Madam, this stuff is filthy! They've slandered your family. And so, just for your sake, I'm going to see the DC and make sure somebody's head rolls for this.'

  She blundered out of the room without a look in my direction. Amma promptly turned reproachful eyes on me. 'Sarojini,' she said, you must be kind. Remember she had a hysterectomy at twenty--'

  'And her husband left her, and didn't even hook up with anybody else, I know, I know,' I said sulkily. 'But could you cut me some slack here? I'm reeling from the shock of my nymphomania having been made public'

  Amma chuckled, walked over and poked me chummily in the ribs. 'When you got all those modest sari bloujej made, you sud have ordered a thicker skin too, Sarojini. Arrey, how many allegesuns have we withstood in aawar time! Now don't take tensun. Chalo, we will also go to the DC. If we can make him feel guilty enough, he may give us permission to hold a rally in the Company Bagh for free.'

  She went off, and I sat heavily on a moodha. Ponky wandered in, collapsed at my feet, and nosed his way into my lap. I read and re-read the pamphlets morbidly, my ears burning, and then let them drop slowly to the floor.

  Now go away and let me think about how I'm going to crush you.

  They were right, of course, I thought miserably. Zain had printed the pamphlets. The fight had gotten real dirty. He would obviously stoop to anything to defeat me. There was no gaping hole in his life that only I could fill. On the contrary, I was the raging nymphomaniac with the gaping hole that nobody could fill. What a bloody con.

  I reached down violently, startling Ponky, grabbed the pink pamphlets and tore them systematically into little strips. Then I got up and walked out to do the day's round of public meetings, white-faced and tight-chested and finally, blessedly, seething with rage.

  Zain denied printing the pamphlets. I heard him say so on the local channel Thumka TV - clearly, steadily, no hint of laughter in his dark eyes. 'I completely deny any involvement with these pamphlets,' he said. 'I respect all women, I respect the election commission and its rules and regulations. I have instructed my workers to scour the streets of Begumbagh for the pamphlets and destroy as many as they can. My heart goes out to Sarojini Pande, who is a good human being and my childhood friend.'

  The bile rushed, bitter and strong, into my mouth just looking at him. I don't need a character certificate from you, you bastard, I thought tightly. You might fool the EC wit
h your goody-goody act, you might fool the voters, but you'll never fool me again...

  The EC officials served a show cause notice on him but, much to our disappointment, they didn't make him spend a single night in the lock-up. He walked out of the police station, looking all troubled and concerned in his white pyjama-kurta and went back to campaigning with a vengeance. Two dogged EC cameramen and about a million journalists immediately started following me wherever I went, obviously hoping for a vitriolic outburst against Zain in one of my public meetings.

  But I'd decided I wasn't going to do that. Along with a bladder of iron, I was also quickly developing nerves of steel. I did the rounds in Begumbagh with as much dignity as I could summon, and our workers reported that the smutty pamphlets had not spread to the other areas.

  'And anyway, Sarojini didi,' Our Pappu told me, 'as it is half the voters in Doodhiya-Durguja and Sujanpur are illiterate. They won't understand all this! So you don't worry, okay?'

  Fortified with this rather depressing logic, I soldiered on through Begumbagh, Vir Singh and Dwivedi alternately by my side. The public meetings had become a bit of a blur, full of promises and exhortations and, of course, hugs, kisses and blessings from women of all ages. Hasina Behenji, having discovered a new affinity with me because of my 'scarlet woman status, showed up by my side wherever I went, constantly promising me the support of the women of Tanki Bazaar. And then, just when I was congratulating myself on weathering the whole pamphlet thing with so much dignity, Amma went and lost it at some stupid meeting in the heart of the Muslim quarter in Jummabagh, lashing out directly at Zain and the entire Altaf Khan clan, regaling the crowds with tales of their debauchery, telling them that no woman would be safe under their stewardship.

  The EC promptly served Amma a show cause notice, and banned her from making any more public speeches. She was apoplectic with rage at this, and so was poor Pappu, who knew she'd done us no end of harm in Jummabagh, because the people there loved Zain so much.

  'Didi, hawa is changing again,' said Munni morosely during one of our nightly conferences. 'It's blowing for Zain bhai now, I can feel it. We will have to do something, otherwise he will pull this election away from under our nose.'

  'Maybe we should print some pamphlets too?' ventured Rocket Singh hesitantly.

  'Saying what?' Amma snapped. 'That that ujless Maruti Zain ij homo with hij darling elecsun agent Bunty?'

  Gross. Really, Amma's mind was like a sink.

  Our Pappu giggled. 'Jiji, that may actually bring him more votes in Jummabagh.'

  Amma chuckled at this, while I stared at the two of them in disgust. What was I doing in the midst of this totally politically incorrect gang of thugs, anyway?

  'We need... something symbolic,' Amma said slowly. 'Kuch drama chahiye. I wonder what it could be...'

  ***

  Nulwallah showed up the next evening, swinging on the green gate, grinning ingratiatingly, asking me if I wanted to clear the air regarding my supposed nymphomania by issuing a statement of some sort. I told him I didn't, but invited him into the aangan for a chat, realizing suddenly that he would be a great guy to hand over Dr Quack Quack Bhoopendra's Taakat Syrup to. Besides, it would be quite therapeutic to talk to someone who didn't have a Pavit Pradeshi accent and who wasn't urging me to release doctored pornographic CDs of Zain in bed with Bunty Sisodia.

  'So how come you're still in Bittora?' I asked him, after he'd duly admired the contours of the lady on the Taakat Syrup bottle. 'Don't you have to cover, like, loads of stories?'

  He shook his head and stretched his lanky, praying mantislike legs on the moodha, his teeth and glasses flashing.

  'We're following this particular election very closely,' he said. 'Right till the grim end. Youngest contestants in India, you know.

  'And,' he continued, his eyes gleaming dementedly, 'cutest.'

  'Me or Zain?' I demanded belligerently.

  'You,' he replied promptly. 'Zain's not really my type.'

  'Thanks,' I said. 'So how many minutes have you devoted to his latest offensive against me?'

  He perked up instantly. 'Are you saying he printed the pamphlets?'

  I raised my eyebrows. 'Well, obviously,' I replied. 'Surely you didn't fall for his cheap stunt, asking his workers to destroy them? That was pathetic!'

  Nulwallah wrinkled his forehead. 'I don't know... I kind of like the guy... and,' he lowered his voice, 'he seems really fond of you. You guys have a solid vibe - I felt it that day, at Casa Sisodia. You seemed very friendly.'

  My heart gave a bump.

  'Please!' I managed to snort dismissively. 'With friends like that...'

  'Who needs enemas?' Nulwallah finished, his eyes glinting.

  I couldn't help chuckling. 'Exactly,' I said.

  'Good! In that case, when all this is over and you're a big shot MP, will you finally do an interview with me?'

  'You think I'm going to win?' I asked excitedly, beaming from ear to ear.

  He winced. 'Little less smile, Pandeji, little less smile. I'm not wearing sunglasses.'

  'D'you think I'm going to win?' I demanded again.

  He shrugged evasively. 'The latest polls show you're catching up... but slowly'

  'But those were conducted before the pamphlets broke,' I pointed out gloomily.

  'Yeah...' He looked a little grim. 'Still, you'll have to do something quick to remedy the character assassination. So whatchha gonna do, Pandeji?'

  'No idea,' I replied.

  There was a scratching at the door and Rumi poked his head in and eyed me warily. 'Friends?' he asked.

  I scowled. I was mad at Rumi.

  He'd been driving me crazy, moaning on and on about the smells and the mosquitoes and the heat, like some city-bred diva. He complained that the AC hissed hot gas and the shower had no pressure. He carped constantly about his ghamoriyan. But when he turned up his nose at Hasina Behenji and alluded to her in a not-very soft voice as Pasina Behenji, I snapped and told him that the sooner he got his pampered ass back to Mumbai, the better it would be for everybody.

  Now he rolled in, all meek contriteness, looking like an ad for Incredible India. Elaborate, deep orange mehendi adorned his forearms, striped pyjamas encased his willowy legs and a traditional Bittora weave kurta graced his slim torso. He had a tilak on his forehead, and there was a tinsel-fringed Pragati Party muffler slung around his neck, almost obscuring his faithful camera.

  'I've been at the Begumbagh temple, praying for victory for you and ignominious defeat for your foes,' he announced virtuously as he produced a little tin box of holy ash and rubbed some on our foreheads. 'It's beautiful,' he added ingratiatingly. 'All of PP is beautiful! So...' he paused, searching for the right word, 'unspoilt.'

  'Uh huh,' I said, noncommittal.

  Nauzer looked at him in disgust. 'D'you even know what's happening in the election, Rumi?'

  Rumi looked up, all offended. 'Course I know,' he said. Then he added mysteriously, 'I know more than you know, Mr Smarty pants Reporter Guy,' and threw down a thick bundle of A4-sized sheets on the table with a flourish.

  'What's this?' said Nulwallah, pouncing on the papers at once.

  'Those are personal!' I said sharply, because I had an inkling of what the papers were. 'Off the record, Nauzer, okay?'

  'Okay, okay,' he said, nodding distractedly as he scanned the sheets. 'Wow, these are really good.'

  I sneaked a peek at the pages. Yes, they were what I'd thought they were. Bugger.

  'Duuuuude,' gloated Rumi happily. 'You are so busted! This is conclusive proof that you and six pack Zak used to be an item!'

  'Oh, for heaven's sake, these aren't love letters,' I said dismissively, as I picked up a bundle and slowly turned the pages. 'They're just a comic book series we used to write.'

  THE

  INCREDIBLE CASE FILES

  OF THE

  AMAZING INCENDIARY ENFORCER # 49

  MP BY DAY, ENFORCER OF THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION BY NIGHT

 
; ART TEXT JINNI PANDE ZAIN ALTAF KHAN

  Rana Thakur, scion of one of the richest families in Pavit Pradesh, was a lonely child. Orphaned at an early age, Rana was brought up by an elderly trustee, who had been a legendary freedom fighter in the 1920s. Now crippled, living in obscurity and deeply mistrustful of all material success, this trustee told tales of idealistic days to fire young Rana's imagination.

  Years later, propelled by a fervent desire to serve the people of India, Rana rides on family name and fabulous wealth to join the leading political party of the day, and gets sworn in as a Member of Parliament in the all powerful Lok Sabha.

  But just one session in Parliament reveals that an MP's hands are tied. Because 90 paisa out of every 1 rupee that is sent to the states by New Delhi is eaten up by a nexus of venal middlemen. Only 10 paisa trickles down to the common man. Hobbled by the twin chains of corruption and sycophancy, an MP can achieve virtually nothing.

  And so Rana decides to achieve Freedom at Midnight. By day, Rana is the quintessential bribe-taking MP, hand-in-glove with the Nexus. But come midnight, and Rana takes to the skies as Enforcer 49, to ensure that the Nexus's plots are foiled and all government policies that exist on paper are actually implemented. The Enforcer ensures that schools actually run, that roads are really constructed, that jobs are properly created. Until the break of dawn, Rana patrols the country tirelessly to enforce Justice - Social, Economic and Political; Freedom - of Thought, Action, Belief, Faith and Worship; Equality - of Status and Opportunity; and ensures amongst all Indians Fraternity - assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation.

  In short, everything that was promised in the original, 26thNovember 1949 draft of the Indian Constitution.

  'These drawings are really good,' said Rumi condescendingly. 'The framing is excellent too. How old were you when you did them?'

  'Fourteen,' I said, shortly, not looking at him. Knowing the mind that had scripted this idealistic, though purple, prose had also scripted the obscene pink pamphlets circulating all over Begumbagh was making me feel physically ill.