THOSE PRICEY THAKUR GIRLS

by Anuja Chauhan

  An hour later, the motion is sustained and Jai Kakkar ends up coming second overall. Eshwari and Debjani discuss the verdict as they walk home together.

  ‘I can’t believe the other judges loved that invertebrate,’ Eshwari snorts. ‘He hasn’t stopped talking since he lost his stammer. He’s even become some sort of stud. And he has no beliefs at all, you know, Dubz, he’d have argued just as passionately against the motion.’

  ‘He’d make a good lawyer then,’ Debjani points out. ‘BJ would love him.’

  ‘I’m glad I got to show you off in school, though,’ Eshwari says, moving onto a more interesting topic. ‘You’re so famous! The English teachers go gaga over your diction and all the boys think you’re hot.’

  This is indeed the national opinion on Debjani. Her popularity has sky-rocketed over the last few months – she is recognized wherever she goes, her dentist on Pusa Road has stuck a picture of her wearing braces at fourteen in his shop window and a very famous star son has officially declared in Stardust that he is crushing on her.

  My supta vastha really is over, Debjani thinks, giving her glossy waves of hair a complacent pat. Just then a shower of wet cement falls from the construction site at Number 13, peppering her thoroughly. Eshwari chuckles.

  ‘I wish this stupid building would just hurry up and complete itself,’ Debjani huffs. ‘I’m sick of their hammering!’

  She is also sick of her elder sisters’ visits. They are both back, kids in tow, and are sitting around sipping tea when Eshu and she walk into the kitchen. Chachiji isn’t there, mercifully.

  ‘Ma, is it really true, what Chachiji keeps saying about Dadaji pushing Dadiji off the terrace?’ Binni is asking. ‘I thought she fell because it was dark.’

  ‘What?’ Mrs Mamta Thakur’s head snaps around. ‘What rubbish! Who told you that?’

  Binni looks uneasy. ‘Chachiji only. She said the Pushkarni was murdered by her husband after she had a big fight with him about selling off one more house.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, Binni,’ Mrs Mamta says firmly.

  But Binni is in full flow.

  ‘And now Chachiji says she’s haunting the construction site, spooking the labourers, causing accidents and delays, and she will never let the building be built.’

  ‘All this wet cement fell on Dabbu just now,’ Eshwari exclaims, hugely thrilled. ‘You think that could be…?’

  ‘No,’ her mother snaps. ‘And please don’t repeat any of this in front of your father, girls. He’ll get extremely upset.’

  ‘He’s already extremely upset,’ Anji says gloomily. ‘How long is he planning on sulking at Ashok chacha? It’s so immature.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ Binni says with a sympathetic air. ‘Life has been rough on him ever since he retired. First Chandu ran off, then Ashok chacha and he fought, then Balkishen Bau died, and then Dabbu caused a fight between him and his best friend.’

  Debjani stays quiet – her father hasn’t been talking to her of late.

  ‘Maybe you should withdraw the case you’ve filed against him, Binni,’ Anji says bluntly. ‘That might cheer him up.’

  But that Binni will not do. Vickyji needs the money from her hissa to consolidate his business. What she’s asking for, she insists, is well within her rights. And that’s that.

  Everybody sips their tea.

  ‘Let’s go to the tailor,’ Eshwari says suddenly. ‘I’ve borrowed a really good sample from a friend of mine. They’re Levi’s – actual Levi’s, imagine – with a skinny fit and a cinched-in waist. We’ll get Amreek tailor of Up-To-Date boutique to rip it off in light blue denim for all of us!’

  The borrowed Levi’s jeans are tried on by everybody, and even though they sag on Debjani and strain on Binni, they decide that Amreek tailor will surely be able to adjust that much. A search is launched for the cranking handle and soon Anjini drives the old Ambassador to the buzzing tailoring block that is CP’s Mohan Singh Place.

  Inside Up-To-Date boutique, Amreek tailor himself greets them with a cordiality that borders on obsequiousness. As he is an extremely sought-after personage and actually has tattered posters of Farrah Fawcett and Brooke Shields to testify to his Up-To-Dateness upon his plywood walls, this is extremely gratifying.

  ‘Kuch cold drink vaghera?’ Amreek offers, smiling coyly at Debjani as he motions to a minion to turn the revolving ceiling fan towards her. ‘Campa ya Frooti?’

  Eshwari giggles. Anji, who has always been Amreek’s muse amongst the Thakur sisters, looks surprised. Debjani shakes her head quickly. ‘Oh, no. Bas, yeh sample hai, please will you copy it for us?’

  Amreek accepts the Levi’s from her outstretched hand. ‘Amreekan hai,’ he says knowledgably as he turns them inside out, pinching the rivets and fingering the double seams. ‘Yes, I can do it. When your friends ask, say ki your jeans are also Amreekan.’ He winks. ‘Because Amreek tailor made them!’

  Debjani laughs dutifully at this well-worn joke and allows him to slip his yellow measuring tape around her slim waist. He notes down the measurements quickly, discreetly covering his notations with one hand – too many slanging matches have started in his shop because the sisters sniggered at the size of one another’s hips, waist or thighs.

  Debjani sits down on a little revolving stool at the back of the shop and twirls on it idly. In front, Mrs Mamta and Amreek bicker about the delivery date for the jeans (Diwali season hai, Bhabhiji, at least two weeks it will take!). Suddenly she sees Juliet Bai, who has just entered the shop, bearing a bulging plastic bag.

  Juliet Bai spots the Thakurs and utters a surprised squawk. For a moment it looks like she’s about to turn tail and run out, but then she squares her shoulders and steps up with dignity.

  ‘Hello, Mamta,’ she says, and nods graciously at the gaggle of girls. ‘How are you all?’

  ‘We’re well, thank you, Juliet,’ Mrs Mamta replies with equal politeness. ‘And all of you?’

  ‘Fine.’ Juliet Bai’s voice is a little high. She puts her plastic bag down on Amreek’s counter top. ‘Alteration karana hai.’

  Amreek nods majestically. ‘When I am finished with these ladies, I will see to it, ji.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Juliet Bai says gracefully.

  ‘What are you getting altered, aunty?’ Anji asks.

  ‘An old jacket of my husband’s,’ she replies. ‘He’s put on a little weight but he wants to wear it for our thirtieth anniversary party.’

  There is an awkward silence as everybody recalls the last time Juliet Bai and the Brigadier’s thirtieth wedding anniversary was discussed with them.

  ‘And also some old shirts of the boys that I’m getting cut down to my size – I like to wear them when I’m painting.’

  Debjani stares down at the plastic packet. It has Vaz Bakery, Mangalore emblazoned along one side. Some of the shirts inside could be Dylan’s, she thinks with a weird, forlorn pang.

  ‘What a clever idea,’ Anji exclaims. ‘I must do that with some of my husband’s shirts!’

  ‘I started doing it when I first got pregnant,’ Juliet Bai confides and Anji’s face falls.

  Cow, thinks Debjani, not very fairly.

  ‘He makes nice jeans,’ Juliet Bai continues. ‘My boys come here usually, but this year, as Dylan is travelling to Canada and all, Amreek here,’ she turns to him and smiles, ‘has lost out on some business!’

  ‘Is he travelling on work?’ Mrs Mamta asks politely.

  Juliet Bai nods, her eyes shining with pride. ‘For an interview,’ she explains. ‘Waise, you must have seen his articles in the India Post? With his byline? And photo also?’

  They politely assure her that her firstborn has become world famous. Juliet Bai smiles a little uncertainly and says, ‘We will be sending you the invitation for the thirtieth anniversary party, of course.’ She looks Debjani straight in the eye. ‘You must come.’

  And so Debjani has to listen to Anjini and Eshwari eulogize about Dylan all the way home. They have clearly t
aken the sighting of Mrs Shekhawat as a licence to gush upon the hitherto taboo subject of her son.

  ‘He’s doing so well, just see! Travelling to Canada and all. He’s like an avenging crusader fighting for… for whatever it is he’s fighting for. It’s that mouth that makes him so hot – what did his mother say that day? Notice the strongly corded neck, leading up to the jaw of a cowboy, to the mouth of an angel! Waise, I like his eyes too. Dabbu, I really think you overreacted about that stupid article, so what if he wrote it, he must have felt bad, no, that’s why he coached you afterwards. Juliet aunty clearly still likes you. And you would have looked so pretty in church – in wispy cream lace, with lots of flowers. Not everyone can carry off cream, you know, Ma, but Dabbu can. Because she looks just like me.’

  Mrs Mamta sighs. ‘Girls, let’s talk about something else. Why are you here again, Anji? And how’s your goodness project going?’

  Anji, who has no happy answers to give to any of these questions, promptly shuts up. But she has made her point.

  ‘I wish I could lobotomize myself or something,’ Debjani mutters to herself as she combs her hair agitatedly in her room that night. ‘Cut out great fat chunks of my brain and just throw them away. I might forget all the GK I mugged up for the DD job, but at least I won’t have these bloody memories.’

  The comb snags upon a knot, jerking sudden, stinging tears out of her eyes.

  But it was such a little kiss. Too little to count, surely. Maybe you imagined it?

  She dashes her knuckles into her eyes savagely, blows her nose, banishes all thoughts of a blue checked handkerchief from her mind, pulls her Jaipuri razai over her head and goes determinedly to sleep.

  ‘You were aiming for three solid witnesses, weren’t you?’ Hira asks Dylan in the IP office in Ballard Estate. ‘One civil services officer, one party worker and one common man? How’s that going? You managed the officer but the poor sod’s been totally discredited now. Do better with the other two, tiger.’

  ‘Surely you haven’t swallowed that trumped-up embezzlement charge?’ Dylan swivels around in his office chair, dishevelled and stubbly, and stares at his boss out of grimy, reddened eyes. ‘You know it’s fake, right?’

  The freshly washed, shaved and delicately scented Hiranandani looks down at his young protégé and sighs. ‘When did you last go home to bathe and sleep?’

  ‘He’ll go,’ Varun Ohri steps in hastily. ‘He’s got some stuff he’s got to wrap up. And why should he doll up for us, anyway? We’re not chicks.’

  Dylan looks around, taking in the unlovely sight of the IP newsroom, full of paunchy, crumpled men drinking tea and eating batata vada. His eyes light up with genuine affection. ‘You’re better than chicks,’ he says sincerely.

  Everyone beams. Varun hands Dylan a steaming glass and a batata vada placed upon a greasy newspaper square. Dylan bites into it.

  ‘Waise, you’ll kill all of us, working so hard, behenchod,’ Varun grumbles as Dylan chews. ‘Take it a little easy.’

  But Dylan can’t help himself. The tapping of typewriter keys is the only sound that focuses him nowadays. He feels at peace only when the words are leaping out of his fingers in a white heat, marching in orderly black rows across the screen, spilling onto the edit page and creating havoc in the body politic.

  ‘You’ve got everybody all stirred up,’ Hira tries to explain to him. ‘People are clamouring for something to be done. We need to get all three witnesses out there – boldly saying stuff that can put Motla and gang into prison – or the readers will turn against us.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Dylan says thickly to Hira through a mouthful of batata vada. ‘You know the embezzlement charges are fixed, right?’

  ‘Immaterial,’ Hira replies lightly. ‘This paper is interested in getting Motla his just desserts. Anandam Dhas’s charges won’t stick. So, what’s your plan?’

  ‘You know,’ says Dylan, stretching out in his chair, ‘that ex-party worker in Canada. He’s promised complete disclosure.’

  ‘Good,’ Hira says. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t do a bunk on you too, like so many others have. And what about the third witness? Somebody who actually lived in Tirathpuri, and was there that night?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ Dylan crumples up the greasy newspaper and chucks it into a bin across the room. ‘I’ve sent out feelers all over Tirathpuri. They know I’m sympathetic. Somebody will bite.’

  Hira nods. ‘Okay, go get the interview. And get a little R&R too. The ladies are complaining that you’re starting to lose your looks – and you know that’s the only reason we keep you around.’

  Dylan grins, not looking too worried about this feedback. He knows he blotted his copybook with the IP girls last Saturday night, when he took the prettiest one of them to the International Film Festival of India, made her sit through two rather sordid films – one Iranian, one Korean – and dropped her home, unloved and mystified, five hours later.

  ‘Fine.’ He gets to his feet. ‘I got all that. Now will the two of you stop clucking over me like a pair of maiden aunts?’

  ‘We used voting lists to figure out where the Sikhs lived. Hardik Motla gave us kerosene and iron rods.’

  The government of India has famously stated that ‘when a giant tree falls, the earth shakes’. But Kailash Tomar, an ex-party worker now settled in Canada and working in a gurudwara to ‘atone for his sins’, remembers those three dark days following the death of the then PM rather differently.

  ‘The news broke on AIR first, that it was Sardars who had murdered the PM. It made us very angry, because we loved her like a mother. Then we heard that Sardar families were distributing sweets and dancing to celebrate her death. That made me furious. But my wife said, let it go, jaane do, what can you do now? So I just prayed for my leader’s soul, wept and went to sleep.’

  ‘But later that night, the bulawa came. We were picked up in jeeps and driven to the residence of our leader, Motla saab. He was heartbroken too – his kurta was torn, his hair uncombed, there were tears spilling from his eyes. He came to the front gate and addressed us. There were no mics, but we could hear him clearly. He said, ‘An eye for an eye – a life for a life.’ He repeated it two-three times, louder and louder, till everybody became quiet. Then he said, ‘Here are the voting lists for my whole constituency. It will help you track down every single Sikh family – find them and make them wish they had never been born.’

  As his people handed out bottles of liquor and jerry cans of kerosene, we took up the chant: Blood for Blood! A Life for a Life! They distributed hockey sticks and iron rods too. Then we got back into our jeeps and, drinking and chanting, drove down to the trans-Yamuna area. The Sikh colony of Tirathpuri was very quiet, too quiet. They were hiding, of course, by then they knew we were coming and that we would seek them out.

  Rest all what to tell you, saab, it was like there was a fever upon us. I did things that night that I never want to think of again. I became a demon, a haivaan. Men, women, children, old people, I spared no one. My shirt was soaked in blood, petrol and alcohol. We had been told that the army would be called the next day, so when the sky grew lighter, we got back into our jeeps and drove away. When I got home I just slunk quietly into my bed and slept for two days. My wife said nothing.

  Nobody came looking for me later. Nobody at all. Motla saab kept his promise.

  But Karma came looking. Karma took away my son, he was only ten years old – he got polio and died. My daughter died in her husband’s home in a kitchen fire. My wife got sick at heart. She only lies in bed and stares.

  And so now, to seek forgiveness for my sins, I clean the shoes of devotees in this gurudwara. None of the people here knows what I have done in India. If they find out, god knows what they will do to me. But even that I am willing to face.

  You can print my name, photo, everything. I hope, once I have done this, Karma will release its hold on my wife and she will become well.

  DSS

  ‘Hey, wh
o’s that downstairs in the schwoonng-schwoonng car?’ asks a gangly intern, leaning out of the window of the India Post office in Ballard Estate. ‘Looks like a big shot. Do you think he’s coming up here?’

  Nobody replies. The intern scoops up his table tennis ball and goes back to his game, while downstairs, the door of the gleaming white Ambassador slams shut, seemingly extinguishing the swirling red and blue VIP light. Guards armed with walkie-talkies race ahead deferentially and commandeer the rattling elevator. Two minutes later, Hardik Motla glides out onto the second floor, steely smile well in place, a rolled up India Post in his hand, passes through the double glass doors emblazoned Truth. Balance. Courage. and endeavours to make eye contact with the thin Parsi receptionist.

  ‘I want to meet Shri Purshottam Ohri.’

  ‘Bade-papaji doesn’t sit in office any more,’ she replies, her carrying, high-pitched voice dismissive.

  Motla’s smile doesn’t falter. ‘Then, that…’ His long thin fingers twitch and snatch a name out of the air. ‘That Hiranandani chap will do.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment? Ya aise hi?’

  He smiles even wider and starts to reply, but before he can, the phone on her desk rings. She picks it up.

  ‘Is that Hardik Motla?’ Hira asks gleefully.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The receptionist looks the man standing before her up and down dubiously. Then she cocks one deep purple-tipped finger at him. ‘You are Molta?’

  ‘Motla,’ he corrects her.

  ‘He’s saying he is,’ the receptionist reports back to Hira, her voice redolent of doubt.

  ‘Send him in!’ Hira’s voice practically purrs down the line. ‘I haven’t had lunch yet. What happy happenstance!’

  The receptionist puts down the phone.

  ‘You can go, Mr Minolta,’ she says, managing somehow to convey the impression that he has barely made it in by the skin of his teeth. ‘Just walk right down the corridor. It’s the last door…’

  Dylan is playing carrom with the guys in the production room when he is summoned to Hira’s room half an hour later. He strides in, a little wary. Word has got around that Motla is in the office.