THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS

by Anuja Chauhan

  But when she gets into the house, nobody seems hungry. Her parents are sitting at the kitchen table looking solemn, while Dabbu, still in her nightie, her hair scattered wildly about her, sits between them sobbing tragically.

  ‘What?’ Eshwari asks uneasily. ‘Did one of the laindi pie dogs get run over again?’

  Debjani holds out the paper, her hands trembling, her eyes huge and tear-filled. ‘It’s the India Post.’ She hiccups tragically. ‘Calling me Dolly. Saying I’m en-en-enthusiastic. And naïvely overwhelmed. Everybody must be laughing at me. DD’ll never call me back to read again! I’ve never been so hu-hu-humiliated in my life!’

  And with that she puts her head down on the table and sobs like her heart will break.

  ‘What ruddy histrionics,’ the Judge mutters as he stirs his evening tea. ‘I live in a house full of Meena Kumaris. It’s just one person’s rant in one miserable publication. Will somebody tell that girl she’s overreacting?’

  Mrs Mamta Thakur puts the teapot down with a sigh.

  ‘You know how shy she is, LN. She’s just started to step out of the shadow of her big sisters and bloom a little.’

  Mrs Mamta is much given to nature metaphors. She often refers to her girls as birds, who confusingly (but poetically) bloom. Anjini was an early bloomer, Binni was a late bloomer. Chandu, she hopes, though she has no news of her, is finally in full bloom. Even in her fervent tête-à-têtes with the Almighty, when she beseeches Him to let her girls reach their full potential, she asks Him to let them ‘bloom’. The Judge, though an avid gardener, doesn’t like the word. It feels too wishy-washy to him, too fragile and suggestive of flowers. He’d rather his girls grew into something more substantial and well-buttressed – like a row of sturdy sheesham trees, say.

  ‘That Anjini is to blame for everything,’ he says now, promptly going off on a tangent. ‘Yesterday also, all she could do was criticize. Obviously her magic mirror has started whispering to her about Dabbu’s growing fame. Any day now she’ll show up dressed as an old crone and try and slip her a poisoned apple.’

  ‘Why are you always so mean about Anji?’ Mrs Mamta demands.

  ‘Because she always has to be the centre of attention,’ the Judge replies. ‘She pushes everybody else out. She always has.’

  ‘She doesn’t push everybody out, you always pull her in!’ Mrs Mamta flashes. ‘I was talking about Debjani.’

  ‘Well, if Debjani can’t handle criticism, she shouldn’t be in the public eye,’ says the Judge, shovelling devilled Maggi noodles into his face. ‘Simple.’

  ‘No, it’s not simple,’ his wife flares up. ‘It’s the India Post, LN! Everybody reads it.’

  ‘Worshipping at the altar of the god-of-what-people-will-think,’ the Judge mutters, chewing agitatedly. ‘It’s high time she found a worthier deity.’

  ‘Will you please stop talking tough to cover up for the fact that you’re upset?’

  If I still had a court to go to, the Judge thinks as he swallows, she would never talk back so snappily.

  ‘Nobody will read that story,’ he says testily. ‘The front page news is all about fresh evidence incriminating the Prime Minister in the Bofors gun case. People will only remember that. And even if they do read the article, please remind your daughter that DD auditions are no joke – even Amitabh Bachchan auditioned at AIR and got rejected! So Debjani must have done something right. She mustn’t be so upset because one person, who was in a bad mood because his wife denied him sex like all wives are wont to do nowadays,’ (Mrs Mamta gasps at this random barb) ‘decides to pan her. And if you read it carefully, he isn’t panning her. He’s panning DD!’

  His wife doesn’t reply. Her diamond nose pin is quivering. It is a portent of tears to come.

  ‘Dabbu is sensitive,’ she says. ‘She feels things. And I had really thought,’ her voice breaks just a little, ‘that her supta vastha was finally over!’

  ‘That rubbish again!’ the Judge flares up, really angry now. ‘I am disappointed, Mamtaji, that a sensible woman like you –’

  ‘Oh, be quiet,’ she cuts him off pettishly. ‘Of course I know it’s all rubbish hocus-pocus. But I had hoped good times were finally here for her, LN.’

  There is silence as the Judge scoops up the last of his Maggi.

  ‘So is madam coming to play or what? Or must we spend all Sunday mourning this national tragedy?’

  Debjani, stalking into the garden at this moment, hears this last remark. She tightens her lips and pulls up a chair and sits down, her expression distant. Looking at her swollen eyes, her reddened nose and generally woebegone demeanour, the Judge’s heart contracts with fiercely protective sympathy. He wants to find Roving Eye and bash her/him to pulp.

  ‘Ha, there you are!’ he grunts. ‘Good, good, the others will be here any moment. Move the fan a little, Mamtaji, d’you want all our cards to fly away?’

  ‘Move it yourself,’ Mrs Mamta retorts. ‘I’m going inside. I’ll send out more Maggi when your friends get here.’

  Debjani and the Judge eye each other warily. Debjani has heard enough, throughout the day, to know that her father thinks she is overreacting. And perhaps she is. But she isn’t ready to laugh over it yet – the words wide-eyed and breathless and thank her mummy and daddy and the I&B minister for giving her this golden opportunity are playing in her head like a looped cassette. She helps herself to Maggi and says nothing.

  The Judge opens his mouth to speak.

  ‘One word about the Vunderful Vladimir and I will run out of this garden screaming,’ Debjani says in a low, clear voice.

  He gapes at her. These wretched women can all read his mind!

  Mrs Mamta Thakur calls out from the verandah, ‘They phoned from Rajpur Road. Balkishen Bau is unwell, he won’t be coming today. Should I call Saahas Shekhawat and tell him not to come?’

  The Judge frowns, disappointed. ‘Unwell again! There goes our foursome!’

  ‘And now we must spend the rest of Sunday mourning this national tragedy,’ Debjani mutters, rolling her eyes. The Judge, pleased that she seems to be rallying, shoots her a dirty look so that she knows things are back to normal.

  ‘Should I call? Mrs Mamta asks again patiently.

  ‘Haan haan, call him – no, wait, it’s Sunday. He said he would come straight after evening Mass. We’ll just have to tell him when he gets here.’

  They look towards to the gate where, on cue, an electric-blue Maruti 800 has just rolled up. The Brigadier emerges, slams the door behind him and makes for the green baize table with the vim of a cheetah that has just brushed its teeth and spotted zebra. But the Judge bounds to his feet and rushes to the gate, gesticulating at the reversing vehicle to stop.

  ‘Stop him, Shekhawat, stop him! Arrey, don’t run down those mongrels… my daughter ties rakhis to them! That’s better, nobody dead or maimed. Haan, you! Young man! Arrey, what hello-sir hello-sir? Come out of the car. You know how to play kot-piece, don’t you?’

  And we know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, thinks Dylan dreamily, fresh from church, for those he has called according to his purpose. How providential, that while he has been racking his brains on how to get a second look at the ball-squeezing girl with the disturbingly tawny eyes, her father himself should urge him in, place him upon a pink cane chair and offer him devilled Maggi and steaming hot tea?

  She hasn’t acknowledged him, though. She is busy dealing out the cards, her body moving in a smooth rhythm, the cards dropping onto the table without a whisper. She is wearing one of those baggy, boat-necked, striped T-shirts that all the girls are wearing nowadays, the ones that, halfway through the day, slip off one shoulder in approved Flashdance style to reveal a smooth shoulder and a pretty strap. Hers doesn’t slip, he notices, even when she leans forward and places the diminished pack in the centre of the table. All that’s on display are collarbones that curve back into her shoulders in a way that makes him think, inexplicably, of wings. A tiny silver dog hangs f
rom a thin chain around her neck. She’s really not my type, he decides. Chalo, I’m glad that’s cleared up.

  ‘Young man, you have to play! Hurry up!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dylan apologizes, looking at his cards hurriedly. ‘My grasp of this game is a little rusty.’ He plays his turn. Not very well, apparently.

  ‘That’s the trump!’ the Judge groans. ‘Why are you trumping me? I’m your partner!’

  ‘Fool,’ the Brigadier crows gleefully as the girl over-trumps the card Dylan has just played. ‘We made the first hand, Dabbu! Well done!’

  She gives him a small lopsided smile and looks down at her cards. Something about that smile strikes a chord in Dylan’s memory.

  ‘Sorry, have we met before, er, Dabbu?’

  Her head comes up instantly, twin pools of Pears kindling with anger.

  ‘It’s Debjani,’ she says coldly. ‘And we met yesterday, when you were kicking Moti.’

  Ah, eye contact at last. But she has already looked away.

  ‘I wasn’t kicking that dog, Debjani,’ he says pleasantly. ‘I mean, I was, but only to stop it from pulverizing a cat, a tiny, orangy-black cat with a torn ear, so –’

  ‘There are no cats on this street,’ she cuts him short.

  ‘No?’ Dylan, master of flirtation, smiles playfully. ‘Are you sure?’

  Debjani flushes and looks away. Is this dog-kicker calling her a cat? What a jerk. And why did she break out in goosebumps when he said her name in that deep, disturbingly intimate voice? And how mortifying it is that her father dashed madly across the lawn to commandeer him. What if he thinks BJ is up to some extremely unsubtle matchmaking? On top of that, she realizes, her blood curdling at the potential clunkers this could cause her father to drop, his name begins with D.

  She shakes back her mass of wavy hair and looks up at D-for-Dylan indifferently.

  ‘Yes,’ she says steadily. ‘I’m sure.’

  Looking into her eyes, Dylan has the strangest sensation, like his belly has just executed a lazy backflip.

  ‘It’s your turn again, Dyl, play,’ the Brigadier grunts irately, rocking in his chair, caressing his moustache.

  ‘Uh, sure. Here you go.’

  ‘Why didn’t you trump that?’ the Judge groans. ‘Idiot!’

  ‘Whoops, sorry, sir.’

  ‘We lost,’ mourns the Judge five minutes later. ‘Really, Shekhawat, this fellow is obviously your family idiot.’

  ‘BJ!’ Debjani remonstrates, turning a little pink.

  The Judge looks slightly shamefaced, then recovers. ‘My daughter Debjani is very protective of losers!’ he declares. ‘When India won the World Cup she was the only person in the country who sat down and fretted about how bad the poor West Indians must be feeling.’

  ‘That’s a little unpatriotic,’ Dylan murmurs.

  ‘They were just so sure they were going to win,’ Debjani mutters. ‘It must have been really tough for them to accept that they lost. And anyway, we’re too cricket-obsessed in this country – what about hockey? It’s our national game, you know.’

  The Judge waggles his head in an amused see-what-I-mean manner. ‘And do you know why she is called Dabbu?’ he asks as he starts to deal the cards.

  ‘Why, sir?’ asks Dylan with boyish, deferential interest.

  Debjani is torn between wanting to slap him and wanting to strangle her father.

  ‘Because,’ the Judge chuckles, still dealing, ‘when she was a child, although everybody loved the Kapoor clan – Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, then Shashi Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor – somehow that funny-faced Randhir Kapoor’s career didn’t click. All his movies flopped. So Debjani decided to like him. She felt he needed fans. She saw Jawaani Deewani six times – in the theatre. And when Stardust reported that his nickname was Dabbu, naturally her sisters started calling her that.’

  Way to go, BJ, Debjani thinks resignedly as she picks up her cards. Reveal me as an uncool person who actually watches Hindi films. Next you’ll be telling him about the supta vastha.

  ‘So George Harrison must be your favourite Beatle, then?’ Dylan asks and can tell, from the way she immediately stiffens, that he has guessed correctly.

  ‘“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is a classic,’ she tells him coldly. ‘Miles ahead of most crowd-pleasing Lennon-McCartney compositions.’

  She’s actually serious, Dylan thinks, amused. What a weird chick! But she is retreating behind her cards again – he must say something to stop her.

  ‘Dabbu isn’t that bad a nickname, actually,’ he volunteers. ‘I mean, imagine if they’d started calling you Randhir.’

  She ignores him, settling back in her chair and arranging her cards. This Bombay import, she thinks furiously, is just the sort of guy I most distrust.

  Dylan retreats, not looking at all put out. The circulating fan turns towards Debjani, cooling her hot cheeks. Things could have been worse, she admits to herself. At least BJ has been sensitive enough not to bring up the article in the India Post. Probably worried that if he does, I may start blubbering in public and embarrass him in front of his friends.

  ‘This is the third time Balkishen Bau has bailed on us, isn’t it, LN?’ the Brigadier says presently.

  The Judge nods. ‘Yes, Balkishen the Bloody Bailer. Truly there is something in first letters! My name is Laxmi and I’m a lawyer. Your name is Saahas and you are a soldier. My wife’s name is Mamta and she’s a mother. Interesting.’

  ‘No, BJ,’ Debjani jumps in, realizing this conversation is headed straight for a D for Dylan, D for Debjani discovery. ‘Firstly, Balkishen Bau is unwell. And secondly, you’re just twisting the words around to make it work. If uncle’s name was Ajay, you would have said he’s in the Army. If yours was Jinesh you’d have said you’re a judge. It’s just silly.’

  ‘Your name is Debjani and you just called diamonds,’ Dylan points out.

  Debjani notices with horror that the Brigadier’s son has lean dimples in his cheeks. D for dimples, she thinks, appalled. Oh god, don’t let BJ notice.

  She flashes him a discouraging look.

  ‘Anjini married Anant and they live in Allahabad,’ continues the Judge inexorably. ‘Binodini married a businessman. And Chandu, that is to say, um… and so on.’

  ‘LN has his own unique theory, as you can see,’ the Brigadier chuckles. ‘He thinks personality traits are alliterative. And matrimonial choices should be too.’

  Laxmi is a loonie, Debjani thinks savagely. Mamta is a martyr. Then she realizes she is just proving her father’s point and gives herself a shake.

  Her fingers are slim, Dylan notices in the meantime, and there is a silver ladybird ring on one finger. And every time the circulating fan turns its steel head towards her, her hair floats away to reveal delicate lines of shoulder, neck and cheek. He is observing this phenomenon with interest when she looks up from her cards and catches him staring. His stomach, which seems to have acquired the soul of a Russian ballerina, rises to its toes and does a series of graceful, slow-motion somersaults through the air. He looks away, flushing. This is ridiculous.

  ‘And what’s your name again, young man?’ the Judge asks. Debjani stiffens. Dylan opens his mouth to answer but she is too quick.

  ‘Can we play?’ she says, her voice slightly bored. ‘We’re really slow today. Only three rounds so far. Usually we manage six rounds in two hours.’

  ‘Hain? What is all this?’ the Judge says instantly. ‘The family idiot is wrecking our average! Focus, young man, focus!’

  ‘You’re talking the most, LN,’ the Brigadier says laconically. ‘Here, look, Dabbu and I have won this hand too.’

  Dylan groans inwardly as he looks down at his cards and focuses, focuses.

  And so the game continues, more smoothly now that the new recruit has got the hang of it. Twilight steals across the garden, the singing of the birds grows softer until it is replaced by the humming of crickets. Finally, Mrs Mamta Thakur walks onto the verandah.

  ‘LN,’ sh
e calls. ‘Seven o’clock.’

  Dylan looks up, suddenly, absurdly disappointed. He realizes he has just spent thirty minutes totally on tenterhooks, waiting for a girl he doesn’t fancy to look at him. And she hasn’t. How humiliating.

  Abruptly, he decides he won’t go home without getting through to Miss Ball-squeezer. Just so he can get her off his mind for good. He waits for the game to end and then leans in and addresses her directly.

  ‘Um, Debjani? I need to make a call please. Could you show me where the phone is?’

  ‘It’s inside,’ she says, her tone discouraging.

  An awkward silence follows.

  ‘Might as well carry that card table then, if you’re going inside,’ the Judge urges. ‘Strong young fellow like you! It’ll save the girls having to take it in later.’

  So Dylan folds up the table and takes it inside. Debjani holds the door open for him, her mind clearly elsewhere. He notices, as he walks behind her, that her legs in her ragged denim cut-offs are slender, smooth and temptingly honey-brown. There is a thin silver bracelet clasped around one ankle. There’s probably some small animal dangling off that too.

  ‘Where should I put it?’ he enquires, hefting the table.

  ‘Here, thanks. And the phone’s right over there.’

  She starts to walk away.

  ‘There was a cat, you know,’ he says. ‘I didn’t make it up.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘It had half an ear missing and it was a dirty orangy brown colour.’

  ‘A tortoiseshell, you mean.’

  ‘Do I? Okay, a tortoiseshell, then. One learns something new every day.’

  She continues to look sceptical.

  ‘Anyway, you’re a fine one to lecture against cruelty to animals,’ he says, piqued. ‘When you know very well that you grabbed Moti’s vitals and gave ’em a good long squeeze.’

  She stiffens, looking decidedly shifty, then starts to speak.