Battle for Bittora

by Anuja Chauhan

  'There are eleven sets of wooden elephants in different sizes,' she would report in a slightly stunned voice. 'Sixteen sandalwood chariots, with horses attached, of Arjun listening to Krishna's discourse. Forty-nine boxes with silver, or more likely white metal, bowls. There are countless nylon blankets, most of them featuring horridly cheerful sunflowers, roses or ducks. There are cuckoo clocks and grandfather clocks and fourteen melmoware dinner sets in ghasdy colours. There are nine Chinese vases, four Mah-jong sets, seventeen chess sets, two of them probably made of illegal ivory. There are stuffed toy koalas, giraffes and Assamese water buffaloes. Any number of ugly garlands made of sandalwood bark shavings. And nine, no ten carpets featuring dragons. Jinni, this is insane, my mother had all of Vishal Mega Mart inside her storeroom!'

  Meanwhile, the monsoon continued to pour down with a vengeance. The house dripped constantly, and the grass in the garden, deserted by the gourmint gardeners since Amma's death, had grown almost as tall as a paddy field. Too scared to wander into this wilderness which was probably 'seething with bandicoots and monitor lizards', as Ma darkly put it, the two of us had taken to pacing up and down the driveway every evening, earthworms and jamuns squishing below our feet.

  I don't know why I didn't just tell her about the Tawny-Zain tie-up. Maybe I was worried she'd go confront Tawny or something. Maybe I was just too vain to level with her that Zain, far from being in love with me, had been playing me for a sucker all along. Maybe, pathetic loser that I was, I kind of liked hearing her air her Sarojini Naidu Indian Love Story theories. Whatever. I didn't tell her.

  Instead, I spent a lot of time watching TV, where the news channels were still frantically covering the election. Ours had been in the third phase and there were two phases more to go, mainly in the south, but also in Himachal, Haryana and some parts of Pavit Pradesh. The counting was to be on the twenty-seventh of June, exactly two weeks after our polling. Whenever I thought about it, I felt physically sick. It was worse than waiting for my class ten board results. Really.

  Thankfully, the shock and scandal at Pushpa Pande's funeral had died down. Mostly because a renegade nephew of TB, a young, butcher-like, heavily eyebrowed and sideburned IJP dude, had managed to eclipse Zain and me in the popular media. He'd made fun of Muslim names and surnames, saying they sounded scary and barbaric. Then he'd said something blatantly incendiary, like 'if any hand raises itself against the Hindu majority of India, I will cut off that hand'.

  The IJP was appalled at such unvarnished, unwarranted frankness. They started scurrying around, spewing political double-speak or claiming Doctored tapes! Manipulated footage! Pragati Party conspiracy! But nobody really bought it.

  So then, hoping to deflect everybody's attention from the husky young butcher's doings, they promptly went back to gushing about their 'brother-sister' policy for Hindus and Muslims. They even attempted, briefly, to pass off our embrace as an example of such brotherly-sisterly love.

  A very senior IJP leader from Gujurat snarled into the news channel mikes that it was all very well to sit in Delhi and Mumbai and talk, but the truth of the matter was that practically all of rural India - and most of urban India -- was against mixed marriages. 'It is every Hindu mother's nightmare,' he said, 'that her daughter will end up wearing a burqa.' He wound up this shockingly chauvinistic statement by adding that he was confident that, urban flak notwithstanding, the anti-mixed marriage policy would pay rich dividends at the hustings.

  So then all the big Bollywood Khans with mixed marriages came out strongly in protest of the policy.

  All this excitement seriously rattled the cage of the maverick Muslim cleric from Hyderabad, who started on his 'Conversion through Love' agenda again, exhorting young Muslim boys to seek out, marry and convert Hindu girls. Finally, the district magistrate got the police to crack down on him. They placed him under house arrest and told him to shut the fuck up, which he did, albeit unwillingly. The IJP, thrilled at the unholy mess they'd managed to create, gleefully denounced him in public. They also tried to smarm up to Khiladi Kumar, the only Bollywood superstar with what they called a 'normal' marriage, to push their agenda, but were struck catatonic by the massive fee he quoted.

  And so, looking around for some fun and high jinx to end the final phase of their campaigning on a high note, they zoomed in again on the embrace between Zain and me, interpreting it this time as a symbol of non-brotherly, non-sisterly lust.

  'Ho ji!' they screamed from the rooftops. 'Shameless Pragati Party hussy throws herself at a paraya mard, a strange man! A Muslim boy! Her political opponent! At her grandmother's funeral! Dhikkar! Shame shame puppy shame! Is this the sanskar the Pragati Party wants our children to learn?'

  The press kept asking for Zain to come and tell them if he felt violated by my flagrant behaviour but he proved elusive. So they kept replaying the footage of me launching myself into his arms again and again.

  The ploy seemed to go down pretty well, especially in Pavit Pradesh and the other northern states, but of course, no one could really tell for sure -- not even Mr Urvashi, the man with the name of a woman. Either way, I thought gloomily, all the negative publicity would surely make me unpopular with my would-be colleagues in Parliament and with the Top Brass. That is, if I managed to win, which was looking more and more like a total impossibility.

  'I wish I could just slip into a coma or something,' I told Nauzer fervently over dinner on one of his visits to Delhi, 'and wake up on counting day and know my fate once and for all.'

  'Like Zain, you mean?' he said, taking a sip of white wine.

  My heart went bump, like a blind person walking into a stone wall. 'What?' I asked faintly.

  Nauzer looked up in surprise. 'Not literally,' he said. 'But he's switched off his phone and hit the Manali-Leh road. It just opened for the summer. Your dude -- the one who taught you guys to drive - has gone with him.'

  I looked up, my fork halfway to my mouth.

  'Jugatramji?' I asked. 'Really? He didn't say a word about it to me!'

  Nauzer shrugged. 'Maybe he thought you'd feel,' he made dramatic quote marks in the air, 'betrayed.'

  'Oh,' I said, feeling absurdly deflated. 'Whatever.'

  I had somehow assumed Zain hadn't spoken to the press about my Hindu wantonness because he was a decent guy with some residual feelings for me. Now it seemed he hadn't spoken to them because there was no signal in Ladakh. Bummer.

  Nulwallah leaned back in his chair and regarded me with squinting, half-shut eyes.

  'Did Zain and you have a falling out?' he inquired.

  'Now why would you think that?' I replied sarcastically.

  'So you did!' he said. 'Did he deny the tie-up with Tawny?'

  I shook my head gloomily. 'No,' I said. 'He admitted it. In fact, he seemed rather surprised that I was hassled. He said trying every trick in the book was part of the game.'

  'Fair enough,' said Nulwallah, pursing his lips. 'You know what, I like that guy. He's straight.'

  'Huh?'

  He continued. 'It's really your Uncle Tawny who's the snake here.'

  Well, I wasn't as ready as Nauzer to absolve Zain of all blame. Because, of course, Zain hadn't looked deep into Nauzer's eyes and told him that the relationship they shared was special. Or, to be more exact, that he hadn't known all these years that the relationship they shared was special, but now he knew. Or words to that effect, you know what I mean.

  'So there's nothing going on between the two of you?' he asked, penetratingly.

  'Nothing!' I snapped.

  He actually looked a little disappointed.

  Hello, I thought he was supposed to be in love with me!

  'It would've made a great news story,' he explained regretfully.

  I made a small frustrated noise in my throat and reached for my drink.

  So Zain was doing something glamorous and adrenalin-pumping in the hiatus period between the polling and the counting. Typical. I, of course, was doing nothing constructive or impressive. Just
gnawing on the fingernail on my right index finger, watching the tiny black voting dot on it climb higher towards my fingertip as time passed, waiting compulsively for the twenty-seventh, after which... after which, my life was just one big black hole.

  'Can you smell loser stench on me?' I asked Nulwallah worriedly.

  A lanky brown hand closed comfortingly over mine.

  'Not a whiff, Pandeji,' said Nauzer soothingly. 'Hang in there. Just a week to go.'

  ***

  13

  'Didi,' whispered Our Pappu, 'I smuggled the phone inside in my underwear! I am talking from the bathroom! They have just opened the machines!'

  'Well done, Pappu!' I whispered back, then realizing I didn't need to whisper, said loudly, 'Now, don't come to the loo too many times to talk or they'll suspect. Go back and watch your table. We are sitting in front of the TV, the updates will start any moment now!'

  'Okay, don't worry, didi!' he said. 'I think so that Sisodia has just come into the bathroom. He must be having a phone too. No shame, breaking the rules!'

  'Never mind Bunty Sisodia,' I hissed. 'Go outside!'

  I put down the phone and flashed a grin at Ma. 'Pappu's in, phone and all.'

  A lusty cheer greeted this announcement.

  It was finally the day of the counting and we were sitting in front of the TV in the finest suite of the extremely seedy Hotel Gangadeep - traditional dugout for all political parties for all countings in Bittora, because of its proximity to the counting venue at Normal Public School, only a three-minute walk away. Everybody was here, my crack team, their crack teams, the grassroots workers, families and friends. It was an unruly, boisterous lot of people, most of whom had been drinking since last evening and parading through the seedy hotel corridors in their underwear. They were also being painfully shy - when they spotted either Ma or me, they would giggle, cross their arms over their chest bashfully, duck back into their rooms and howl with mirth.

  The IJP gang was also camping here, holed up exactly one floor below us. Every time we set up a cheer, they set up a louder one, which of course we felt honour bound to outshout, pounding on the floor with gusto. The hotel, very proud of its status as the traditional counting venue, tolerantly turned a deaf ear to the racket everybody was making.

  The local press was stationed outside, munching on elaichi cream biscuits and little cups of bright orange tea provided gratis by Hotel Gangadeep, while they frantically checked their phones for updates. Their phones rang so often that there was a constant hum of Hindi movie songs in the air.

  We'd checked in the night before and barely got any sleep on the stained, worn sheets, due to a lethal mixture of nerves and mosquitoes. Ma and I had ingested a massive breakfast of greasy puri-aloo and were now plonked on the brown velvet sofa, looking at the TV, fully hypnotized. The table before us was groaning with presents - blessed prasad from about seventeen different temples, coconuts, amulets, tinsel bandanas and baskets of fruits. Rocket Singh was sitting with us, prayer beads clasped in one hammy fist. Munni was still steadily eating puri-aloo. Jugatram, who had returned from Ladakh, slightly shame-faced, tanned deep maroon, and with a dazzling new collection of fake Ed Hardy T-shirts, was sitting near the door, on guard, in case any lowly minions tried to push their way into this sanctum sanctorum.

  Ma looked at me curiously. 'What was that about Bunty?' she asked.

  I shook my head. 'Nothing, Ma.'

  NDTV's election special programme came on just then, with its grand, vaguely patriotic theme music, accompanied by a montage of images, party symbols - the pointing finger, the flower, the elephant, the bicycle, leaders in the middle of speeches, crowds, flags, posters and buntings, two cackling old village women with brightly coloured headscarfs slipping off their wrinkled faces, and ended with a freeze frame of a young rural dude showing his inked finger to the camera. The words INDIA VOTES formed with a dramatic sound effect across his face, and then they cut to the studio and to Pran Bishnoy, looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in a jaunty orange tie, and practically licking his chops in anticipation of the goodies to come.

  'Good morning and welcome to India Votes!' he announced, blinking rapidly, his beard and his voice both quivering slightly with excitement. 'Today is... D Day! The culmination of the world's largest universal adult franchise, the free, fair and periodic general election in which the votes of an estimated six hundred million Indians will be counted! It's the biggest reality show on TV and it will be unfolding live right here, throughout the day, with updates straight from five hundred and fifty counting booths across this great country! Kings will be dethroned today, rookies crowned, demigods banished, myths shattered, and history made. Because this is India, this is democracy at its vibrant, pulsating best, this is the place and the day when the public giveth and the public taketh away.'

  He paused for breath, looking slightly at a loss for words at the end of this obviously rehearsed piece, goggled at the teleprompter for a moment and then continued, in a much more normal voice, 'And here's our very first update - from Belgaum, Karnataka!'

  The update from Karnataka said that a senior Pragati Party leader was trailing by seven thousand votes in Belgaum, but of course, it was early days yet, as about six lakh votes remained to be counted. Bishnoy nodded intelligently and turned to Sameer Marwah, a nervous looking historian dressed in a shabby tweed jacket, who looked like he'd just been dragged through a hedge backwards, and asked him some complicated question about the recent electoral history of Karnataka.

  'Oh man, who gives a shit about bloody Karnataka!' Ma muttered, reaching for the remote, which I was holding tightly in my hot, sweaty little fist. 'Switch to one of the local channels, Jinni, the Pavit ones.'

  She pried the remote out of my hand and flipped channels until she found the garish graphics of Thumka TV, where a well-endowed lady with lashings of bright red lipstick was sitting behind a sign that proclaimed Voters ka hat zamana in neon orange, white and green. 'Ji haan, voters ka hai zamana, it is a voters' world out thyeure!' she was saying archly. 'This is the public, dear, and it will beat you up very badly if you don't it fear! And now, our first update is here! Sarojini Pande, granddaughter of the recently, tragically expired Pushpa Pande trails by thirteen thousand votes in Bittoragarh.'

  A huge roar rose from the floor below us, causing the walls of the room to practically shake. Almost at once, our workers in the rooms and corridors outside retaliated, setting up massive chants of

  Jab se aayee Sarojini Pande

  Chud gayeen IJP ki gaande.

  Munni leapt up immediately. 'Not that one!' she cried out shrilly. 'I have told you many many times. Not that one!' She wound her dupatta tightly around her neck and rushed out of the room.

  Thirteen thousand, I thought, my heart plummeting like a boulder down a bottomless chasm. I was lagging behind by thirteen thousand votes. How did one even begin to recover from a mortal bloody blow like thirteen thousand votes?

  I clutched convulsively at Ma's shoulder. She pulled me closer and patted me gently. Rocket Singh stopped telling his beads long enough to say, 'Must be Purana Bittora. Khan is strong there.'

  Jugatram grunted. 'System has changed since your time, Rocket Singhji,' he called out from his post by the door. 'They count all eight assembly segments together now. It happens in rounds. One EVM from PB, one from Jummabagh, one from Durguja, and so on. This is an overall lead, not only from one place.'

  Rocket Singh sat up straighter. 'What do you mean by my time, Jugatram Sharma?' he demanded combatively. 'Don't talk like you are some young cock, just because you did some chota-mota jeep driving in Ladakh.'

  I blinked in surprise at this rather random attack.

  Jugatram flushed even marooner. He opened his mouth to say something, but Ma cut in, her voice like thin steel, 'Do you mind? We're trying to watch the counting here. You guys can take this outside, and Jugat, if you're so keen on Zain, go watch the counting from his digs downstairs, okay?'

  They looked insta
ntly abashed. Jugatram subsided, muttering that he was in my team only, in Amma's team only, and Rocket Singh repeated staunchly, with a fierce, defiant look at Jugatram, that the thirteen thousand lead must've come from Purana Bittora undoubtedly.

  We stayed glued to the TV, hoping for updates as the clock inched slowly towards nine-thirty. It would be finished by noon, Our Pappu had said. Which meant, I thought, doing some rapid math, that about one-sixth of the counting was done. Please god, let the other five-sixth go my way!

  Type-written updates from all over Pavit Pradesh now started crawling across the bottom of the ThumkaTV screen. The butcher-like guy with the hate agenda was leading in his constituency up north. The Top Brass, both father and daughter, were leading in theirs. The dude who played Ravana in the Ramanand Sagar tele-serial Ramayana was leading too. The transvestite in Tiloni was trailing by three thousand. And every seven minutes, crawled the damning words Sarojini Pande trails by 13000 in Bittoragarh.

  I'm trailing, I whispered to myself. It's official. Amma, how can this happen? We have a sympathy wave, surely? Could that one embrace really have had such a big impact?

  'It's stuck,' Ma said in answer to my unspoken question. 'They haven't got any updates from the area so they're flashing an old update. Why isn't Pappu sending us anything?'

  At that moment, my phone glowed. I snatched it up and checked the inbox with shaking fingers.

  Leading by four, by the blessing of God and jiji, Our Pappu had written.

  Ma swore. A very rude Pavit word.

  'Ma!' I remonstrated, shocked.

  'Four what, Jinni?' she demanded. 'What an idiot that Pappu is! Four hundred? Four thousand? Four lakh?'

  'Must be four only,' I said gloomily, wondering why my headache hadn't eased at this good news. The rusty vice gripping my head was as tight as ever. 'One, two, three, four. That's one less than five.'