The Judge looks up, immediately interested. ‘His name starts with D,’ he says. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’
She snorts, picks up her maroon comb and starts to work it through her long rippling hair. ‘Well, thank you for not bringing that up. I didn’t think you could be so subtle.’
‘She read better after he coached her. Looked better too.’
His wife sniffs. ‘Anjini spent all day getting her look right. I don’t think you can give him credit for that.’
‘And when we play, he keeps looking at her. With stupid, mooncalf eyes. And when he carries in the table, he uses it as an excuse to hang around like a bad smell.’
‘You’re very observant,’ his wife says drily.
The Judge looks at her curiously. ‘Do you like him, Mamtaji?’
‘I like him,’ she says. ‘And I know what you’re thinking, but the Shekhawats are a good Jaipur family, everybody knows that – and Christians aren’t Muslims, you know. Besides, after the whole scandal with Chandu, we can’t afford to be too choosy.’
The Judge throws back his head. ‘Don’t take that girl’s name in my presence! And what rubbish! We can be as choosy as we like!’
‘Do you think he earns well?’
‘I could ask old Shekhawat,’ the Judge says dubiously. ‘Should I? Does Debjani even like him?’
‘Eshwari seems to think so,’ his wife says. ‘Find out, LN. But do it subtly. And if it isn’t much – his salary, that is – please don’t snigger.’
Her husband looks injured.
‘Am I a bloody lala?’ he demands. ‘Or trading class trash to go grubbing for salary slips? The lad’s a journalist, isn’t he? I’ll go to the club library and take a look at his articles. See if he’s got an intelligent head on his shoulders.’
‘Do that then,’ Mrs Mamta says. ‘But first…’ She hesitates.
‘What?’
‘Well, he’s from Bombay,’ Mrs Mamta says slowly. ‘Things are different there. He could just be… amusing himself with our Dabbu. I’ve heard he has quite a reputation. Juliet has told me herself, many times. She says she has no control over him.’
‘Arrey, how can parents not have control?’ the Judge demands, forgetting for the moment that his third-born ran away with an unknown Estonian on the eve of her wedding. ‘What kind of world are we living in?’
‘The real one,’ she replies crossly. ‘And handle this carefully, or you’ll end up losing your last kot-piece crony.’
‘That’s true!’ the Judge says, much struck. ‘How horrible! Should we just let it go, Mamtaji?’
‘No no, sound out the Brigadier,’ Mrs Mamta decrees. ‘But subtly. And if the boy is not serious, he should stop coming over to our house at once.’
And so, the very next evening, when Dylan enters the living room after a long, sweaty, discouraging day digging up leads in Tirathpuri, he finds both his parents sitting on the couch, eyeing him solemnly.
‘Are you serious about Dabbu?’
For a moment, Dylan has no idea what they’re talking about. Then, ‘What’s all this?’ he enquires, not very pleasantly. ‘A court martial?’
‘Because if you’re not, you’re not to go over there to play cards any more!’
Dylan absorbs this. So the ball-squeezer has told her parents that he kissed her. Well, she’s a newsreader – he ought to be grateful she didn’t announce it on DD’s national network last night, just as cheerfully as she announced the ‘findings’ of the Special Investigative Commission. And now they’ve all made the faster-than-lightning leap from kissing to love to marriage. Typical.
He allows himself to flashback to the encounter upon the stairs for the first time since it happened, and his stomach promptly goes so Russian ballerina that he staggers against the wall weakly, a movement his mother doesn’t miss.
Oh, please. You haven’t exactly made me go weak in the knees.
Why the hell had he kissed her? God knows he hadn’t planned it. He hadn’t planned any of it. He just wanted her to stop looking so damn shattered about that write-up in the IP, that’s all. But his parents are making it sound like she’s embroidering pillowcases with a D&D monogram – all on the basis of one kiss!
‘And what a punishment that’ll be,’ he drawls, very sardonic. ‘Playing kot-piece and eating Maggi is the current high point of my life.’
The Brigadier makes a hasty gesture. ‘You’re not to mess around with my friends’ daughters, sir! This is not some Bombay floozie we’re talking about.’
Dylan shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Bombay girls aren’t floozies, Dadda. You can’t just make sweeping generalizations like that.’
‘Bobby!’ The Brigadier bristles. ‘Explain to him!’
‘Sonna, listen,’ Juliet Bai says placatingly. ‘Her father has noticed that you seem interested. He has enquired whether this interest is serious. If it is, fine, we can take things further. If it isn’t, you can’t meet her again.’
‘But how can I decide if I’m serious about her if they won’t even let me meet her?’
‘You’ve met her seven times,’ the Brigadier points out. ‘Once, for an entire day. That’s enough.’
‘What is this, the fifteenth century?’ Dylan demands. ‘And did he happen to mention if she likes me? If she’s serious about me?’
The Brigadier is at a loss. ‘No, he didn’t mention that, actually,’ he admits. ‘He said, Find out if your boy is interested, then I’ll ask my girl if she’s interested.’
‘Mujhe Jesu, what a fellow!’ Juliet Bai claps a hand to her forehead. ‘Try and use your brains, Bobby. Laxmi Thakur is experienced, he has married off three girls. He knows how to play this game, how to hide his own cards while coaxing others to show theirs. You, it’s only your first time, but you have to try to be cunning too! Sonna, do you like the girl? Tell me honestly now.’
But an entirely new thought has entered Dylan’s mind.
‘Bobby and Bobby,’ he asks suspiciously, looking from one to the other. ‘Did you guys set this up?’
‘Of course not!’ the Brigadier snorts. ‘And talk to us respectfully!’
But Juliet Bai isn’t listening.
‘See how he’s avoiding answering?’ She nudges her husband. ‘He likes her. I know. She’s just his type. Angelic. Her face reminds me of the Madonna in the grotto in my mother’s garden. He used to light candles before it, remember?’
‘And I smashed it with a cricket ball, remember?’ Dylan snaps.
‘That was an accident.’
‘Whatever,’ he says, suddenly furious. ‘Can’t I ever come to Delhi without you guys trying to arrange my marriage? I don’t have time for this. And I’ll be damned if I’m interested if she isn’t interested.’
Dylan spends the next three days digging up the whereabouts of the ten civil service officers who were present at Motla’s ‘cancers’ briefing. Most of them have been transferred outside Delhi, three are posted abroad. Every single one, he discovers after three days of spadework, has been promoted. Except one, who has been shunted sideways and transferred to the wilds of rural Karnataka. Bingo, Dylan thinks and sets about trying to get hold of his phone number.
When he gets home, hungry but energized, his mother serves him cold shoulder for dinner, while his father makes it a point to bring up the Thakurs, mentioning how the Judge is sulking, how Mrs Mamta has enquired after him, and how there are shadows as purple as jamuns under Debjani’s eyes. But Dylan doesn’t want to think about Debjani’s eyes.
She stands for everything I despise, he tells himself, shovelling rice onto his plate. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the news she reads, all she cares about is looking pretty and getting the pronunciations right.
Later in the night, moodily crunching coconut kalkals straight from the box, he decides that perhaps he owes her, if not an apology, then at least an explanation. With the result that when Eshwari trips down to Gambhir Stores to do her mother’s shopping the next evening, she finds a gawky y
oung boy leaning against the worn wooden counter, winking at her in a familiar fashion.
‘Do I know you?’ she asks with her usual friendly smile.
‘No,’ he says with a grin, his voice wavering peculiarly between squeaky and deep. ‘But I know you.’
Eshwari crosses her arms across her chest. ‘Okay…?’
‘I’m Ethan,’ the mysterious stranger says meaningfully. ‘E for Ethan. I believe your dad’s into the karma of first letters, Eeeshwari?’
‘How old are you?’ she asks good-naturedly. ‘Four?’
‘… teen,’ he says defensively. ‘And I have a girlfriend, so don’t get any ideas.’
‘Listen, pipsqueak –’
‘Let’s talk business,’ he interrupts cockily. ‘Is your sister going out anywhere tomorrow? Far from Hailey Road?’
Eshwari stares at him. He stares back, his grin widening, and she can dimly see the promise of future hotness through the pimples and fuzz on his face.
‘Ethan Singh Shekhawat!’ she exclaims.
‘That’s right. So, is she going anywhere? What time? And how mad is she at my brother?’
Eshwari, much relieved, sings like a canary. Now all I need to do is supervise what she wears tomorrow, she tells herself as she hurries home excitedly. White chikan salwar kameez, I think, with that pink and firoza dupatta, yes, that’s very princess-in-the-towerish... And I have to ensure she washes her hair tonight, not with Anji didi’s smelly concoction, though.
And so, when the appropriately attired but completely clueless Debjani alights hunchingly from a DTC bus in front of the AIR studios the next morning, she finds the tall lithe figure of Dylan Singh Shekhawat lounging against the Shalimar Pan Bhandaar kiosk, waiting for her.
Debjani instantly unhunches. Her chin shoots up into the air, she tosses her dupatta in a regal gesture over her shoulder, and stalks right past the lounging Shekhawat, totally ignoring his half-sardonic, half-goofy smile.
‘Hey!’ Dylan demands as he scrambles to fall in step with her. ‘Didn’t you see me?’
Debjani whirls to look at him.
‘I did, but as your father said you’d gone back to Bombay on some urgent work, I assumed it was an unpleasant hallucination brought upon by indigestion.’
Damn, Dylan thinks. So Dadda fed them some bullshit story to cover for my absence. Why hadn’t Ethan found this out yesterday?
Aloud he says, ‘Uh, I did go to Bombay. But now I’m back. Hi.’
‘That was quick,’ Debjani says ironically. ‘As far as I know, Air India flies to Bombay only once a week.’
He looks caught out. She smirks and starts walking faster, files clutched to her chest. Dylan gives chase.
‘Dabbu, wait!’ he pleads. ‘Listen, I’ve come especially to meet you. Can’t we talk?’
‘What about?’ She walks even faster.
‘I want to apologize,’ he says. ‘For… you know…’ His voice falters and drops as she stops and looks at him ‘… for kissing you.’
Her eyes widen. ‘When?’
Dylan comes to a halt, giving a short, disbelieving laugh. ‘You’re going with amnesia? Wow, that’s mature.’
She stops too.
‘Uff, of course I know when,’ she admits crossly. ‘Just why exactly did you kiss me, anyway?’
Because I’m a horny bastard. Because I couldn’t help myself. Because your face is the face of the Madonna in my dead grandmother’s garden.
He shrugs. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ His eyes lock into hers. ‘Whyn’t you stop me?’
‘I did,’ she says at once.
‘Liar.’
There is a long pause.
Finally Debjani says, ‘Ya, okay, so I didn’t. Big deal. Why are you apologizing? It wasn’t such a dead loss as kisses go, you know.’
He raises his eyebrows.
‘Quite the little kiss connoisseur, aren’t you?’
Debjani, whose only long lingering kisses have been from Moti, Voti and their off spring, manages to look convincingly worldly-wise. ‘Oh, one gets around... you know how it is.’
Dylan, who has always believed in gender equality and in girls having their fair share of fun, immediately wants to line up everybody who has ever touched her and shoot them dead.
‘Well, that’s kind of a relief,’ he says casually. ‘Then you understand… that it was just a kiss.’
She gives him a withering look, throws her dupatta over her shoulder and starts walking again. Dylan strides alongside, his long legs easily keeping pace with hers.
‘Still, no matter how many people you’ve allegedly kissed, I realize that your value system is slightly different from mine.(This had sounded far less glib when he rehearsed it at home!) So I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if my actions led you to think there was some, er… (why is this so damn difficult?) serious intention behind that kiss… because there wasn’t. At least, not yet.’
‘Is that it?’ she says in a small, tight voice.
Dylan reminds himself that he has important work to do. He has to get on a train to rural Karnataka tonight and interview an IAS officer about a closed door briefing from his rabid ex-boss. He really has no time for this.
‘Yeah, pretty much. That’s about it. Sorry again.’
What a smooth, snaky little speech, Debjani thinks savagely. I wonder how many times he’s made it. Well, it’s his loss. His loss. She draws a long, ragged breath. His. Fucking. Loss. I don’t care for him, I don’t even know him, and this feeling of being emptied of all my stuffing and having the daylights kicked out of the limp shell that remains is just my ego taking a beating.
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ she assures him steadily. ‘I’ve no use for a man whose own father admits he’s a fickle, striped insect flitting from flower to flower, dipping his proboscis into every sticky stigma that’s stupid enough to open up for him.’
Dylan’s eyes widen. ‘Dadda said that?’
Debjani looks a little shifty. ‘More or less.’
‘He… my… proboscis?’
Debjani looks even shiftier. The truth is that she is grossly exaggerating the overheard conversation. It was conducted in the drawing room after the kot-piece session. It ended with the Judge asking his friend what the devil he meant by introducing a Casanova into his home. To which the Brigadier replied that the Judge was the one who had come galloping to the gate, flagged down the car and virtually handed his good-for-nothing son a total access pass. Eventually they both agreed that the entire blame was to be laid at the late Balkishen Bau’s door, and parted friends.
‘Yes,’ she says sweetly. ‘He said so. And I like my proboscises pure and committed and exclusive, thank you very much.’
There is a long silence. Two girls in burqas bang almost right into them, then circle around them and walk on, tittering.
Debjani looks up at Dylan, her arms crossed across her chest. She has made things pretty clear. So why is he still standing there, looking at her hungrily, like he’s Moti and she’s a stack of milk-soaked rotis?
Dylan is wrestling with a sense of anticlimax. Somehow this is not how he expected the conversation to go, he realizes with a surge of emotion that feels dangerously close to consternation. He had assumed she would do what girls invariably do when he tells them he isn’t serious, ‘at least not yet’. They assure him that they aren’t serious either, and then the two of them go on to have a happy (for him, anyway) no-rings-attached relationship.
I should never have tried to seek her out and explain myself, he thinks in disgust. What a bloody waste of time. I should cut my losses right now, say something smooth, and bring down the curtain on this whole, messy episode.
‘But there’s no reason we can’t be friends.’ The words almost burst out of him.
‘Friends who kiss?’
‘Yeah,’ he persists doggedly, hardly knowing what he’s saying. ‘Why do all girls talk like that sign in the Giggles Gift Shoppe, anyway? Nice to look at, nicer to hold, if you break it consid
er it sold?’
‘You’ve just given away how cheap your thinking is with that obnoxious remark. Is that how you and Justin and Nathan talk in your chauvinistic all-boys house?’
‘Jason and Ethan actually,’ he replies, stung. ‘At least I remember all your sisters’ names – Apple, Ball, Cat and Elephant.’
She glares at him. He glares back. A machine-ka-thanda-paani cart hovers next to them hopefully.
‘I’m not into friendships that lead nowhere, Dylan,’ she says at last. There is no shy faltering over his name now, he notices with a pang, no looking at his shirt collar instead of his eyes. ‘I told you I don’t flirt.’
‘And I’m not into pretty mouthpieces who read out the news without thinking twice about what they’re reading!’ he snaps back. ‘How could you smile after saying the SIC has cleared Hardik Motla of all charges? How could you?’
‘Wh-who’s Hardik Motla?’ Debjani falters, confused.
Dylan makes a hasty movement towards her, his eyes blazing with such fury that, for a moment, she is almost scared. Then he steps back, taking a deep breath, and slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
‘Never mind,’ he says. ‘Leave it. Look, I have a lot of work to do, you know. A lot.’
Debjani shrugs. ‘So, go do it.’
‘Oh, I’m going,’ he assures her, blocking her path, rooted to the road.
She stares at him for almost an entire minute, but all he does is stare back like he’s incapable of moving. People inside the AIR building start to nudge and point. Finally, Debjani makes an infuriated little noise, steps around him and walks away, blinking back tears, furious with herself, swearing she will never, ever speak to him again.
‘At least he was a straightforward snake,’ Eshwari tells Dabbu on the terrace that night. ‘I mean, he came out and said don’t expect anything from me. Better than being a two-faced snake.’
‘A one-faced snake is bad enough,’ Dabbu replies candidly. ‘I should have trusted my gut instead of being dazzled by his butt. He was kicking Moti the first time we met. He tried to give me some smooth story about protecting a kitten but now I think he just made that up.’
THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS Page 14