Asha could tell by the momentary tightening of Karan’s mouth that he was livid that she had turned up with her mother. The women in their family were expected to stay at home on such occasions while the men dealt with the formalities of the funeral. Asha and Amma had no business to be here, as far as Karan was concerned.
But what could he possibly do about that now given that the world’s cameras were turned on him? He could hardly refuse his stepmother and half-sister entry on those archaic, feudal grounds.
Asha could see the smooth politician battling with the seething stepson in Karan’s immobile face. But this once, the politician won over the stepson. He walked up to Sadhana Devi, bent down to touch her feet, and then guided her and Asha to Birendra Pratap’s body so that they could offer flowers and pay obeisance.
Asha could feel her mother’s hand trembling inside hers as she led her to the gaddi on the side. The people already seated moved over to make space for the widow and the daughter.
Asha settled her mother down, wiping the tears off her face, and whispered, ‘Be brave. He would have wanted you to be brave.’
And then, instead of sitting down in the space vacated for her, she went and took her place beside her brothers. She could feel the animosity coming off Karan in waves, but all she could think about was how peaceful Baba looked in death. The stern frown, the downward droop of the mouth was gone. He looked serene, almost happy, as he lay there surrounded by masses of white flowers.
A gust of wind from the nearby air conditioner blew some white rose petals on to Birendra Pratap’s cheek. Almost without thinking, Asha bent down and gently brushed it away.
That one touch destroyed her. Tears tumbling down her cheeks, she bent down to kiss her father gently on the forehead.
That was the image that the TV channels kept coming back to through the day. And that was the picture that was on the front page of every newspaper the next morning.
Asha Devi with Birendra Pratap. An inconsolable daughter bending down to kiss her dead father for the last time.
Her brothers, Karan Pratap and Arjun Pratap, were nowhere in the frame.
▪
Jayesh Sharma, leader of the Opposition, was not a happy man as he sat down to breakfast. All the newspapers lined up before him had identical pictures on the front page.
Asha Devi—honestly, which twenty-something willingly used an honorific like Devi in this day and age?—leaning gracefully over her father’s dead body, a delicate hand caressing his cheek. Her eyes were bloodshot, her mouth quivering with pain, but even in that distraught state there was no denying the beauty of her bone structure, the sweetness of her expression or the perfection of her figure.
As he lopped off the top of his soft-boiled egg to dunk his buttered toast, Jayesh knew that he was looking into the face of the enemy.
Birendra Pratap may have kept his daughter out of politics and exiled her to London so that she didn’t interfere with his dynastic plans. But now that he was dead and she was back in India, it was only a matter of time before the party brought her front and centre in their appeal for a sympathy vote.
Karan Pratap may have been his father’s designated heir with Arjun serving as the mandatory (though far from satisfactory) spare, but neither of them had the easy charm, the deft political touch or the charisma of their half-sister. She would be the new star on the political firmament, outshining her brothers without even having to try. He was willing to bet his own political career on that.
Over the years, Jayesh had seen for himself how even hardened political hacks melted when Asha lowered her head and smiled shyly up at them, her big brown eyes framed by the most absurdly-long eyelashes he had ever seen, her dimples making adorable half-circles in her cheek. And he knew for a fact that the shyness she often displayed in public was just an act. Put her in front of an audience and Asha would have them eating out of the palm of her hand in an instant. Send her out on the campaign trail, and she would be kissing babies and hugging old ladies as if her life depended on it.
In the last general election, her indefatigable efforts on behalf of her father had led to an increase in his margin of victory of just under a lakh votes. In the next election, if she decided to come back to India and join politics full time, she would be a formidable force for the LJP. Stick her sad little face on the party posters; and an additional 100 seats were guaranteed. And that wasn’t counting how many more votes the LJP would gain because of the sympathy wave created by Birendra Pratap’s assassination.
Jayesh slammed his coffee cup down on table with a loud, ‘Fuck!’
His wife, Malti, seated opposite him looking through some legal briefs, started and whispered, ‘The children, Jay!’
Ah yes, the children. Gayatri, ten, was slowly making her way through a bowl of cereal, taking in one Cheerios at a time with a tiny measure of toned milk, and chewing forever, her eyes fixed on her iPad. Malti was convinced that she was a budding anorexic, and would not allow her to leave the table until every morsel set in front of her was finished. Aryan, eight, was wolfing down his cheese omelette, ketchup smeared all over his face and the front of his pyjamas.
Charming.
Neither of them was paying the slightest attention to their parents. Jayesh grimaced by way of apology to his wife, she smiled her forgiveness and went back to her papers. And normal breakfast service was resumed.
This was what Jayesh loved most about living with Malti—the absence of drama, the lack of histrionics, the dispassionate calm she brought to his life.
The two of them had found each other rather late in life. Malti Sahai (as she was called then) had already turned thirty, well past the age when girls of her background were supposed to marry, but there still was no prospective groom on the horizon. It was hard to see why. The daughter of one of the most prominent families of Delhi—both her parents were Supreme Court lawyers—she seemed to be the perfect catch.
Beautiful in a patrician, well-bred way—with her high forehead, straight nose, a bow-shaped mouth and beautiful black hair that fell way below her waist when she left it loose—she was well-read, a perfect conversationalist and smart as a whip. She came from money and was making more of her own, having built up her own practice from scratch, disdaining any help from her parents.
Despite all these virtues, though, Malti still hadn’t found a man (a fact her mother rued every day, much to Malti’s annoyance). Not because no man would be interested in her; but because she was not interested in most of the men she met. Malti had high standards, and she was not willing to compromise on them. She wasn’t going to be pressured into settling just because she had turned thirty. It would take a special man to break through her defenses, and she was prepared to wait for him.
And that man, as it turned out, was Jayesh Sharma. At a youthful thirty-three, Jayesh was already a two-time Member of Parliament and a strong contender for the leadership of the Samajik Prajatantra Party (SPP), when they met. But it wasn’t his drive and ambition that had appealed to Malti, or even his boyish good looks (if anything, she worried they made her look older by comparison). What had struck her about Jayesh at their first meeting—at the thirtieth birthday party of a mutual friend held at Delhi’s Gymkhana Club—was a certain old-fashioned chivalry that was rapidly going out of style.
Malti’s best friend, Smita, had had rather too much to drink in the course of the party. And by the end of the evening, she was dancing in what could only be described as a very provocative fashion on the makeshift dance floor. Ten minutes into this performance, Smita had whipped off her chiffon top to reveal an extremely diaphanous bra underneath, to the cheers of the watching crowd.
An appalled Malti rushed in to cover her friend with her scarf, and then tried to bundle her off the dance floor. Smita was not to be budged, though, resisting with all her might, the drink and adrenaline making her freakishly strong. Malti was just going to give up the struggle, when another pair of strong hands joined her in pulling her friend off the floor. The
y belonged to Jayesh Sharma.
Between the two of them, they wrestled Smita out of the party and into Malti’s waiting car. Jayesh had dropped his card into Malti’s lap, before the driver drove off, saying, ‘Let me know that she’s okay.’
Jayesh, who hadn’t had a serious relationship since breaking up with his American girlfriend while he was at Yale, had been rather intrigued by Malti. Unlike the pretty little girls who tried their luck with him at Delhi parties, she was a grown woman, mature, intelligent and yes, beautiful. But it was her self-possession that appealed to him the most, her utter lack of self-consciousness, and her strong sense of loyalty as she tried to preserve her friend’s modesty even as the rest of the crowd cackled with delight.
A grateful Malti had called the next day to thank him profusely. Their conversation had then digressed into a post-mortem of last night. This led, in turn, to a discussion about why they had never met before, even though they had so many friends in common. Then, as was inevitable in Delhi, the conversation turned to politics. Before they knew it, they had been chatting for an hour.
And since then, the conversation had never stopped. A quick courtship, a big wedding, and two children later, Jayesh and Malti were still talking. And such was the almost telepathic bond between them they often didn’t even need words to do so.
Thanking his stars once again that he had found her, Jayesh poured himself another cup of coffee and sought refuge behind one of the newspapers and resumed his brooding.
It had all been going so splendidly well for him over the last six months. The monsoon had failed, so food inflation was climbing. Corruption scandals were making the headlines in the newspapers daily. Tension in the Kashmir Valley had been at an all-time high, with the death toll from police and army action standing at a staggering 657.
Birendra Pratap’s government had been flailing, forced into damage control and crisis management rather than focus on running the country and getting the economy back on track. Job increases over the last quarter had been abysmal, and the country had slipped back to the ‘Hindu’ rate of growth of around 4 per cent.
All in all, Jayesh Sharma had been pretty sure that the next general election would be his to lose. As long as he played his cards right, his SPP would be back in power. And Jayesh himself would be back in the house in which he had spent the most magical years of his childhood—Number 3, Race Course Road.
Jayesh still had many sepia-tinged memories of his time at that legendary address. His father, Girdhari Lal Sharma, had only been Prime Minister for four years, at the head of a fractious coalition that hadn’t survived in power for a full term. But those years at RCR had been among the happiest that Jayesh remembered.
An only child, whose mother had died giving birth to him, he had enjoyed the sense of family that living among a large staff and an even larger security contingent had engendered. He’d spent afternoons on the back lawn, kicking around a football with his SPG guards. He’d stayed up at night, playing chess with his father’s PA. And he’d never been more popular in school than when he hosted his birthday party at RCR.
But that idyll had ended far too soon—as had his father’s life. He had passed away while Jayesh was in the final year of his post-graduate course at Yale, bequeathing his son the family estate in Khewat. Jayesh had won his father’s parliamentary seat unopposed and since then had risen effortlessly to the top of his party. Now party president of the SPP, he had been convinced that the next general election would see him make it back to RCR—this time as Prime Minister rather than the son of one.
After all, his was a young country. And at a youthful forty-five, with a squeaky-clean image, a beautiful, talented wife (a Supreme Court lawyer who brought in the mega bucks so that her husband never needed to taint his hands with black money), two adorable and photogenic kids who made for perfect magazine spreads, Jayesh Sharma was best placed to appeal to it. Especially when his opponent was a tired old man like Birendra Pratap, who looked like his best days were behind him.
But now Birendra Pratap was dead—martyred, as the media kept insisting (without knowing what the word even meant, reflected Jayesh bitterly), and every certainty had been blown out of the water.
If Karan Pratap had any sense, he would call an election right away to capitalize on the sympathy vote generated by his father’s death. That’s exactly what Jayesh would have done in his place (his own father, sadly, had been disobliging enough to die quietly of cancer while out of power). With an assassinated leader, a beautiful charismatic daughter who didn’t have the same political baggage as her half-brothers, a bereaved son as Prime Minister and the entire machinery of the government behind it, how could the LJP possibly lose this one?
The truth was, Jayesh conceded grudgingly, if the LJP called an election right away, the party would probably be sent back into power with a two-thirds majority.
And he would have to wait five more years for his chance to get back to Race Course Road.
That simply would not do. He was not prepared to wait for another five years. His time was now. He just had to find a way to make it work for him.
FOUR
Madan Mohan Prajapati squirmed around to find a more comfortable position in the high-backed armchair he had been offered when he arrived at Number 7, Race Course Road. It was impossible. This chair simply hadn’t been built for comfort. Discreetly massaging that problem spot at the base of his spine, Madan Mohan cast an angry look around the room.
Only six of the fourteen parliamentary board members of the LJP had bothered to turn up on time. And they were what he referred to as the ‘riff-raff ’. The seniors—the home minister, the external affairs minister, the human resources development minister, the finance minister and the two senior-most general secretaries of the party—were running late, as was the Prime Minister himself.
The only person Madan Mohan was in the mood to forgive for this tardiness was Karan Pratap Singh. God knows the man had had a difficult week.
Barely had he recovered from the shock of his father’s death than Karan was being driven to Rashtrapti Bhavan to be sworn in as the Prime Minister. Before he could even collect his thoughts, he had had to appear on national television to speak to the people of India and reassure them that the country would stay safe and stable after his father’s assassination. And then had come the funeral, where as the oldest son, Karan had the traumatic task of lighting his father’s pyre.
Since then, the new Prime Minister had scarcely had a chance to grieve his loss. The representatives of countries across the world had descended on Delhi to pay their respects to his slain father, and protocol demanded that he meet with all of them individually. Once that whirlwind was over, it was time for the entire Pratap Singh clan to head to Haridwar to immerse the ashes of their late patriarch.
Only now, nearly a fortnight later, were all rituals and pujas over. The Kriya Karam had been performed (thirteen days later as was customary), a havan (sacred purifying ritual) had been conducted in Number 3, and it was presumed that Birendra Pratap’s soul could now rest in peace. The death rites were over and done with. And now, the living should resume their lives as best they could.
The first sign of things returning to normal (well, sort of) was the fact that Karan Pratap, as party president, had called a meeting of the LJP parliamentary board. The board would usually have met at the party office on Raisina Road, but the SPG was still reluctant to allow the Prime Minister to leave the Race Course Road complex. So, here they all were, gathering together at 7, RCR, to meet with Karan Pratap
Madan Mohan was not happy about this. He didn’t like the idea of holding party meetings at Race Course Road. There was something unseemly about taking over the PMH to discuss matters to do with the party rather than the government. But given recent events, nobody wanted to overrule a jittery SPG that was not allowing Karan Pratap to set foot outside RCR unless absolutely necessary.
Finally, a good fifteen minutes after Madan Mohan had arrived, his fellow minist
ers and the two party officials entered the drawing room where he was seated. Madan Mohan glowered at them, to indicate his displeasure at being kept waiting. Everyone ignored him, except for the HRD minister, an old protégé of his.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said in placatory tones. ‘We didn’t mean to keep you waiting. But we were waiting for the third ferry car to arrive so that we could all drive in together.’
Madan Mohan grunted in response, but he couldn’t help feeling a little gratified. He was the only minister of the government of India who was allowed to drive past the main reception of Race Course Road in his own car. His old friend, Birendra Pratap, had insisted on it. Lesser mortals, even if they were serving in the cabinet, had to leave their fancy cars in the parking lot next to reception and climb into one of the ‘ferry cars’ (or, as the SPG chose to call them, ‘fairy cars’, leading to many politically-incorrect, homophobic jokes) that fetched people to and fro from the gates. The SPG insisted on this, to make sure that only sanitized and vetted vehicles were allowed into the RCR complex.
His mood miraculously improved, Madan Mohan led the others to the conference room, where they settled down to wait for Karan Pratap. Except for the two party general secretaries, all the other members of the parliamentary board were familiar with this room. This was where cabinet meetings were regularly held, and they all had their customary places around the table, which they gravitated to.
No sooner were they seated than Karan Pratap entered, followed close behind by Arunoday Sengupta and Madhavan Kutty. This was, strictly speaking, a breach of protocol. This was a party meeting of the LJP. As officers of the government of India, Sengupta and Kutty had no role to play here, even if they were attached to the PMO. But who had time for ethical quibbles at a time like this?
An instant later, the door opened again and Arjun Pratap walked in and took the seat to the right of his brother. Now, this was unusual, thought Madan Mohan. This was the first time he was seeing Arjun being treated like Karan’s second-in-command. He wasn’t sure he liked it. The chap wasn’t a minister. He wasn’t even a member of the parliamentary board. So, why was he here?
Race Course Road: A Novel Page 7