THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS

by Anuja Chauhan

  ‘Gitika Govil. Are you guys going out?’

  Satish immediately assumes an air of self-important nonchalance. ‘I don’t know. Let’s see.’

  ‘There’s still something left to see?’ Eshwari says incredulously. ‘Knowing you, you must have seen everything she’s got by now.’

  ‘Don’t be crude,’ he replies primly. ‘You girls think south Indians can’t think of anything but that.’

  ‘Don’t lump half the country with your personal randiness,’ Eshwari replies tartly. ‘You can’t think of anything but that.’

  Satish sobers up. ‘I know you think I’m an animal, Bihari, but I’m not. I’ll take it slow with GG. She’s a sweet little thing.’

  ‘So you are going out with her.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘And you’re in love with her?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  The electricity comes back just then, and the generators quit throbbing. Things are suddenly very quiet.

  ‘Well, this is a turnaround,’ Eshwari marvels. ‘The beast has acquired a heart. Rather than just a private part.’

  Satish’s eyes gleam. ‘And if she gets me so turned on that I lose my head and am in danger of surrendering my all to her, I’ll cool myself down by thinking of you. You’ll be my very own visual cold shower. Good plan, huh?’

  Eshwari’s eyes widen in outrage.

  Satish grins.

  ‘Actually, I think it’s a really good match,’ she says. ‘I mean, she’s what – twelve?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ he growls.

  ‘And your mental age is ten. So you should suit each other perfectly. Of course some people might say she’s too old for you, but I’m not one of them.’

  Satish comes to a dead halt, slapping his hand against his forehead. ‘Of course! I was supposed to buy Green Label chai. Thanks for reminding me, Bihari.’

  ‘How?’ she asks, puzzled.

  Satish’s face splits into a huge grin. ‘By turning green.’

  She continues to look at him, still confused.

  He snickers. ‘Must be envy.’

  ‘Babejani, did you hear last night’s bulletin?’ says Amitabh Bose as they both sit in high chairs getting their make-up done. ‘The one read by Sameep and yours truly? Wasn’t it shocking?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Debjani agrees. ‘It was terrible.’

  ‘It was the stuff of horror films,’ he shudders. ‘Harrowing! Really, standards have fallen so low in this country. Of course, I don’t mean you, darling.’

  A little puzzled, Debjani tilts her head. (Don’t moving, madum.) ‘You mean the report on the earthquake in Manipur, right?’

  He beams. ‘Exactly. (Don’t moving, sir.) So you noticed too?’

  ‘Well, it was kind of hard to miss. The footage was so graphic. Over 1,000 dead – and 300 villages annihilated, I believe.’

  ‘Only,’ he leans in close and she can smell mint on his breath, laced with cigarettes and hunger, ‘that clown Sameep said aanhylated. And then he went on to say that rescue operations were undervay. Undervay! And one had to keep a straight face while listening to him say this. He has to know someone big in the ministry – that’s the only explanation for a Neanderthal like him reading prime-time English bulletins. But contacts or no contacts, if he keeps this up, he’ll be shunted down to Parliament News. Aanhylated indeed!’

  And Dabbu realizes that, for Amitabh Bose, the bigger tragedy is not the death of a thousand Manipuris but the mauling of the English language. No wonder Dylan was practically grinding his teeth at me that day, she thinks suddenly.

  ‘Really, my dear, the trials of this job! One deserves a hardship allowance to compensate for sitting under those hot lights listening to Sameep Chaddha speak. Oboriginal! Yoorope! Pidigree! And once there was a devastating avalanchay and over 3,000 people pirished. Luckily one wasn’t reading along with him that night – one would have died laughing.’

  ‘Haha,’ she says weakly.

  ‘Also,’ his tone grows conspiratorial, ‘his natural voice is a reedy treble. That baritone is entirely assumed. It slips sometimes, like a loose pair of knickers.’

  ‘Really?’

  Amitabh Bose nods.

  ‘Now, when yours truly was born,’ he says, throwing back his shoulders. ‘And yours truly cried, as babies are wont to do, yours truly’s grandmother, who was seated in the next room, enquired of the nurses why heavy furniture was being dragged about. That’s how deep yours truly’s baritone was!’

  ‘My sisters love your voice,’ is the only thing Debjani can think to say in reply. ‘They think you sound like Cliff Richard.’

  Amitabh Bose nods, accepting this tribute like it is only his due. ‘A word of advice to you, darling,’ he says. ‘Your smiles are getting to be a little – now what would be a good word to use here – gratuitous. Never show too much teeth. Newsreading is serious business. You don’t want to come across as frivolous. We should look like we care. Ah, I’m done, thank you, dada.’

  The old make-up dada, moving on to a line-up of muscular young women who are there to sing a rousingly patriotic Hindi song, smothers a thin smile. So AB is getting insecure about little Debjani Thakur. The make-up dada wants to tell Debjani to smile as much as she likes, that the nation loves her smile, but he doesn’t. The nation will make its wishes known soon enough, he thinks.

  And the nation does. Mrs Mamta is peeling a large green lauki in the drawing room when it happens. The monthly viewer’s feedback show Aap aur Hum is on. A popular announcer reads out letters from all over India to a senior DD director and he answers them at length. The first letter, from Pritam Rawal, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, bemoans the fact that the late-night Western music programme Hot Tracks is damaging Indian culture and is a bad influence on the youth. The director replies by assuring her that Indian culture is extremely robust and that in any case all objectionable portions of songs – kisses, displays of bare thighs, underarms, navels and immodest dance movements – are rigorously censored. The second letter from Shahid Imtiaz, Hyderabad, says that the serial Ramayana is communalizing the country, to which he smoothly replies that the Ramayana is not religion but culture, and provides archetypes of the ideal husband, the ideal wife, the ideal brother and the ideal friend, which are instructive to everybody, regardless of their religion. And then she reads out the third letter, from one Satinder Singh, Bokaro Steel City, which says: Congratulations on discovering the talented and beautiful newsreader Debjani Thakur. She is a breath of fresh air in the newsroom. Her English is too good, her smile is like warm sunshine, she is so modest, and I am a deewana of the mole on her chin and the rose in her hair. Please give her more opportunities to read, why only Fridays? To which the DD director smiles and starts to make some reply, but Mrs Mamta doesn’t hear it, she jumps to her feet, scattering lauki peels everywhere, and runs to get the Judge, to get Gulgul, to get everybody, the dhobi, the chowkidar, the chinkie Mother Dairy token-wallah, and tell them how famous her Dabbu has become.

  ‘Promise me you and Steesh didn’t write that letter,’ Debjani tells Eshwari as they get ready for bed that night.

  ‘It was from Bokaro Steel City,’ Eshwari replies, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m not even sure where that is. Anyway, it’s not like you got one fan letter. You must’ve got loads, so they read one out, kind of representative of all fifty. Why can’t you just be happy?’

  ‘Oh, I am happy,’ Debjani assures her. ‘Only, it feels so unreal. In a nice way, though. In a really nice way. Oh, Eshu, d’you think he would have seen it?’

  ‘Who?’ Eshwari grins. ‘Satinder Singh from Bokaro Steel City? Hundred per cent. Maybe he’s young and juicy and a millionaire and next month he’ll propose to you via Aap aur Hum. That’ll show Amitabh Bose.’

  At which Debjani hits her on the head with a pillow.

  ‘Ow-ow-ow!’ Eshu groans. ‘You meant the one-faced snake? How was I to know? I thought you were done with him!’

  ‘And… the next school to come on stage is… Modern Sc
hool, Barakhamba Road! Give them a big hand, everyone!’

  ‘What the hell does that mean, give them a big hand?’ Satish grumbles as he slides behind the drum set to tepid applause on the darkened stage of Kamani Auditorium. ‘Are they going to present us with a giant Godzilla hand wrapped up in red wrapping paper? This compère’s such a penis.’

  ‘Shhh!’ Eshwari nudges him hard. ‘The mics are on.’

  Satish is wearing a martyred look today – he always looks martyred at school events where he has to play ‘wimpy nursery rhymes by sissy bands like Cool and the Gang and that crown prince of gay dorks, Eric Clapton.

  ‘Eric Clapton isn’t gay,’ Eshwari had told him as they walked back together from Gambhir Stores last night.

  ‘His songs are,’ Satish had replied doggedly. ‘The lyrics are so… so basic. What is all that moaning about her looking so wonderful tonight? And if she’s looking so wonderful, how come at the end the fucker gets an aching head and she helps him to bed? Is he impotent?’

  ‘Steesh,’ Eshwari had sighed. ‘Just let it go, okay? Do it for the school.’

  ‘Why can’t we ever play heavy metal at these school events?’ he had grumbled. ‘You’re a big shot in school, why can’t you make it happen? Why is it always sissy shit like Rod Stewart and A-ha? Why not Megadeth? They have deadly drum solos. I tell you, Bihari, I’ve had it. I can’t sit behind you giggly, lipglossed chicks and tap out “She’s So Fresh” any more. My dick will fall off.’

  Now he scowls down at the crowd, perking up slightly at the sight of his newest girlfriend – the second one since GG and he broke up a while ago – sitting in the front aisle with her cute little friends. They’re sitting in the middle of the large, banker-blue Modern contingent, cheering wildly in order to drown out the boos of the big jhund of Delhi Public School, Mathura Road students sitting right behind them. Satish acknowledges the Modernites with a half-hearted wave as Mohit Razdan, Modern’s fair and handsome lead guitarist-cum-vocalist, loosens his school tie and addresses the crowd. ‘Hey there, people,’ he calls out. ‘We’re gonna start with our solo, Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”.’

  The Dipsites boo, Satish’s new girlfriend and her buddies scream and cheer. Mohit strikes up the opening chords and Satish joins in dutifully, rolling his eyes and making covert gagging gestures at Eshwari with his free drumstick at the same time.

  Mohit’s voice is deep and melodious, he has all the chords down pat (they’re dead easy, Satish has assured Eshwari) and the song is a hot favourite with the crowd.

  As Eshwari joins in on ‘You look wonderful tonight’, she realizes that every time he hits the chorus, Mohit is turning to look right at her. His hazel eyes (he is Kashmiri) bore right into hers, and a couple of times she’s actually scared he’ll fumble the chords.

  The duet and group song go off well and soon they’re all bowing to the usual mix of cheers and boos. As they troop backstage Mohit comes up to her and grabs her hand urgently.

  ‘Eshwari.’

  Eshwari turns around.

  ‘Hey, Mohit. Good job. You sang really well.’

  ‘You sang well too,’ he says, his voice sounding strangled.

  That’s overstating it, she thinks, she’s just one of three backup singers who join in the choruses now and then. Satish has told her (often) that the school band only picks her because, for some reason, audiences tend to boo less when she’s on stage. Basically you scare the crowd shitless, Bihari.

  Mohit’s hand is warm and clammy, his eyes are bulging slightly and he is looking all pent up, like he is about to burst. Eshwari wonders if he’s going to ask her where the bathroom is.

  ‘I like you,’ he says suddenly. ‘I’ve liked you for ages. Can we go to the school farewell together?’

  Huh? What? He likes me? Okay. Wow. Well, he’s nice enough, Mohit Razdan, he’s popular and everything, but he reminds Eshwari, just a little, of boiled white channa. The kind her mother has stopped cooking because BJ says they give him gas.

  ‘Let me think about it, okay?’ she tells him kindly, because she is basically a kind girl. ‘I have to go home early today. Can’t even wait for the results to be announced.’

  Mohit’s face falls. Behind her, she is aware of Satish Sridhar’s girlfriend jumping up and down, yanking at his tie and kissing his neck. She’s acting like a groupie, Eshwari thinks. So wannabe. Like this isn’t Kamani Auditorium in freaking New Delhi but Madison Square Garden in freaking New York City. She realizes Mohit is talking to her.

  ‘I thought you and Sridhar were an item. But clearly you aren’t. So I thought…’

  Eshwari leans around him and clicks her fingers at Satish.

  ‘Steesh, you have to drop me home. You promised. C’mon, can we go?’

  Satish disengages himself from the sticky little number’s arms and lopes up to them.

  ‘You’re such a bloody coitus interruptus, Bihari,’ he says good-naturedly. (His girlfriend giggles loudly behind them.) Then he turns to Mohit. ‘Kya gaaya, man. You had the dames all stoked.’ Then back to Eshwari, ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  Mohit, not very sure if he’s being mocked, smiles uncertainly and lets Eshwari’s hand go. She smiles back at him, a strictly perfunctory smile, and walks towards Satish’s bike.

  ‘Did the terrorist ask you out?’ Satish asks in a conversational voice.

  ‘Yes, he did. Did you have any clue he liked me?’

  Satish snorts. ‘He’s been turning to look at you soulfully every time he says “Wonderful Tonight” for the last two months. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘No,’ Eshwari admits. ‘But I noticed today. Don’t call him a terrorist just because he’s Kashmiri, Steesh; seriously, you are so messed up.’

  ‘He’s just so… wet,’ Satish says, handing her a helmet. ‘Like Maggi without Tastemaker. Are you gonna say yes? What about milord’s no-dating-till-you’re-twenty-one rule?’

  His tone is casual but his eyes are searing. Eshwari swallows hard and sits down on the bike, cradling the helmet in her lap.

  ‘I don’t know. He’s cute.’ She looks up at him. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  He hesitates for a moment and then shrugs. ‘Go ahead,’ he says lightly. ‘He’s a nice guy. Give him a try.’

  ‘Princess Elizabeth of England,’ says the Judge, sitting on the terrace parapet early on a thunderously brewing Sunday morning, ‘woke up one morning and found she was queen.’

  ‘Huh?’ Dabbu sits up, blinking, and gives a little scream when she spots her father. ‘You’ll fall over, BJ!’

  ‘You are queen,’ he says smugly. ‘Everybody wants to marry you. You can pick and choose.’

  She looks at him, confused. Of course, she knows she has become popular. People recognize her wherever she goes now. Is that what BJ means?

  ‘The phone’s been ringing non-stop. Rishtas are pouring in – it’s a monsoon of rishtas! I’ve never seen anything like it before, even in the reign of princess Anji.’

  Dabbu’s eyes light up. ‘Really? More than Anji didi?’

  ‘It’s the TV, of course,’ he says. ‘In all fairness, Anji never read the nation the news with a white rose in her hair. So, do you want to see them all – or only the ones your mother and I shortlist?’

  ‘I want to see everything,’ Debjani says, rising lithely from her bed, feeling better than she has felt in weeks. ‘Let’s go.’

  In the Parliament Street office of the India Post, the editor-in-chief pops his head into Dylan’s cubicle, a big smile on his face.

  ‘The phones are ringing non-stop,’ he announces. ‘Compliments – and information. It’s a monsoon of information! Everybody’s talking about how the India Post has risen to the challenge issued by Hardik Motla! One down two to go, they’re saying. We’re getting a lot of leads for the other two witness stories too! Do you want to see them all, or just the stuff the team shortlists?’

  ‘I want to see everything,’ Dylan says, rising lithely from his chair, feeling better tha
n he has felt in weeks. ‘Let’s go.’

  Dabbu’s list of reasons for turning down perfectly nice,

  healthy, decently earning incomepoops under thirty

  (compiled by Anjini Singh and Eshu Thakur)

  He said ‘intrusting’ instead of interesting.

  He said Moti looks like he is in great pain and the kindest thing to do is to put him to sleep.

  He said Mandakini was his favourite actress.

  He said a lot of the brave children in the 26 Jan parade exaggerate their brave deeds to win the award.

  He said, ‘What a good system! We will also name our children alphabetically!’

  He didn’t know who Hardik Motla was. (Who IS he, anyway?) He said, seven times in one evening that ‘we don’t believe in dowry’.

  He said, ‘Nothing can be done with this country.’

  He had hairy ears. Like Yoda.

  He asked, ‘Are you sure you are the real Debjani Thakur? I don’t want to meet any fakes.’

  He came first in every exam, all his life, from nursery to IIT to IIM.

  He had an uncool bum.

  He waggled his tongue at Eshwari when he thought no one was looking.

  His mother wore a spondylitis collar, his sister’s arm was in a cast and his bhabhi was on crutches.

  But the real reasons for turning down every single incomepoop, Debjani admits to herself, as she selects her attire for yet another lunch date, are these:

  He didn’t have long dimples in his lean cheeks.

  He wouldn’t stealthily drop a large clean handkerchief into her lap if he saw her weeping.

  Her life wasn’t on hold till he kissed her again.

  He wasn’t Dylan Singh Shekhawat.

  Dylan stares in exasperation at the pudgy young Sardar in the blue shirt. He had sounded promising on the phone – a native of Tirathpuri and an eyewitness to the rioting. But now he’s not even sure this Sardar is a Sardar. There is something distinctly impermanent about his long, bushy beard. And his turban is very inexpertly tied.