There is silence as the others digest this philosophic remark.
‘Baaaaz … tard!’ Raka says feelingly. It seems to be his favourite drunken exclamation, uttered in trademark, rhythmic style. He thumps Ishaan on the back affectionately. ‘More drinks for my brother here! My other brother’s paying!’
Everybody downs their drinks with gusto.
Maddy straightens his tie. ‘Let’s head for the girls, what say? The one in the middle has a certain je ne sais quoi.’
‘Chup, saale qwa qwa.’ Raka yanks him back. ‘You think all girls are pretty. You have no standard.’
‘All girls are pretty,’ says Maddy doggedly and makes to rise, but Shaanu puts a hand on his arm.
‘Wait. All in good time.’
‘But those civilians are stealing a march on us!’
Shaanu’s grey eyes sweep the room.
‘We’re easily the coolest cats here.’
Raka and Maddy turn to stare at him in disbelief.
He grins.
They burst out laughing.
‘Cocky little bugger, aren’t you?’ Maddy says, settling back in his seat. ‘So, was that shirt really stitched by a Chakkahera yokel?’
‘Then what.’ Faujdaar pats his taut abdomen complacently. ‘My sister chose the cloth. And the cut. She says this shade – it’s called firoza blue – works really well for me.’
Maddy and Raka, studying the glove-like fit of the shirt, have to agree that it does.
‘I wish I had some sisters,’ Maddy says gloomily. ‘All I have in my family are men. Each one a fucking hero with a mantelpiece full of shiny trophies.’
Faujdaar puts down his glass, concerned. ‘Who’s a mental piece, yaar?’
‘Never mind.’ Maddy knocks his drink back. ‘I’ll just never be as good as my uncles and brothers and father, you know? At NDA everybody thought I had an advantage because the instructors knew my family – but it’s not an advantage, it’s a bloody golden shackle.’
Raka pats his arm.
‘That’s why when I got the Air Force I grabbed it,’ Maddy continues. ‘All the army men at home were so impressed, because they’re all too dumb to handle the math and the science required. But … I’m not in love with heights.’
A sympathetic silence reigns.
‘I have problems too,’ Raka says finally, letting out a sigh so gusty the collars of Ishaan’s shirt flutter in its blast. ‘I’ve been in love with Juhi Gupta for four years now. Haiii … Juuuhiiii Gupta. Tell Shaanu how beautiful Juhi Gupta is, Maddy.’
‘Oh, beautiful,’ Maddy agrees obligingly. ‘A living doll.’
‘Too right!’ Raka rocks back in his bucket stool and sips his drink, gratified.
‘But Maddy thinks all girls are pretty,’ Shaanu can’t resist pointing out.
‘Chup, chutiye.’ Raka frowns. ‘Juhi Gupta is something else.’
‘Have you known her long?’ Shaanu asks.
The pride of the NDA shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Four years.’
‘Kuch setting ki hai? Told her you like her? Or only far far away se?’
Raka sits up with great dignity. ‘We’re good friends.’
Shaanu chuckles. ‘Loser.’
Raka looks indignant. ‘Baaztard, we have an understanding! And we’re meant to be. Otherwise why would her father get a transfer to Jodhpur this year only, huh?’
Shaanu sits up.
‘She lives here? Why didn’t you call her here tonight?’
‘I can’t just call her!’ Raka says, horrified. ‘What will she think? I mean…’ As Shaanu’s pitying grin grows broader he recovers himself. ‘She’s studying for her MA na, that’s why she can’t come. She wants to be a teacher.’
‘But you said you have an understanding,’ Shaanu points out.
Maddy chuckles. ‘He’s her rakhi brother.’
‘No!’ Shaanu swivels to look at Raka, appalled.
Raka sighs, looking part-miserable, part-coy.
‘At least I get to see her this way.’
‘Pathetic.’ Maddy sips his beer. ‘And incestuous.’
‘Besides, her father doesn’t like the IAF. The moment I picked it, he made a glum face and told her, Bade risk waala job hai, beta! They fly such small, undependable planes, not even pressurized properly. His ears will burst, his lungs will rot, he’ll be dead before he’s thirty.’
‘What crap.’
‘We’ll live till we’re hundred.’
Raka gulps down his drink and continues. ‘He’s sat in a sarkari office and pushed files his whole life, the coward. Typical babu mentality. He has no cuncept of patriotism, of protecting our nation from the bloody Muslims—’
‘Pakistanis,’ Maddy corrects him.
‘Same thing. And he has no cuncept of striving to be the best that you can be – or courage or daring. He says a man’s job is to earn money. I despise the bastard.’
Faujdaar drums his hands on the bar counter, studying his downcast friends. Then,
‘I am a bastard,’ he says lightly.
Maddy and Raka sit up, their woes forgotten.
‘Shut up, bastard.’
‘That can’t be.’
‘Yes, it can,’ Faujdaar insists, his grey eyes glittering strangely. He pauses and adds with a savage smile. ‘Well, that’s my stepfather’s theory, anyway. He’s told me about a million times that my mother wasn’t married to my father. That she didn’t even know his name.’
The other two stare at him.
‘He’s a liar,’ Raka declares finally.
‘Of course he’s a liar!’ Maddy agrees stoutly.
‘Did you hear that, guys?’
The trio turns around. A group of civilian boys who were trying to chat up the girls has just returned to the bar counter, rebuffed.
‘The pretty Jat doesn’t know who his father is!’
Raka and Maddy look at each other, not sure what to do.
But Shaanu Faujdaar’s having no such problems. He puts down his glass and gets to his feet, legs planted wide, arms folded across his chest.
‘Bad mood mein ho?’ he enquires kindly. ‘Girls didn’t give you any patta, ne?’
‘No,’ the self-designated boss of this group admits, rocking back on his heels cockily, mimicking Ishaan’s accent. ‘Because they weren’t your mother, ne.’
‘Stop him, Maddy!’ Raka shouts. But it is too late. Before they can restrain him, Shaanu Faujdaar has lunged forward and punched the smirking boy right in the face, drawing blood from his nose and a howl of outrage from his lips.
Faujdaar silences the howl by hitting the boy again, straight in the mouth. He grunts and crumples, and his friends leap to take his place.
‘Aajao kameeno!’ roars Shaanu Faujdaar, dancing from foot to foot, fists raised. ‘Who’s next?’
Raka and Maddy exchange glances, shrug, and roll up their sleeves to defend their new friend. Raka picks up a barstool and swirls it about over his head. Maddy lets out a blood-curdling yell.
‘Doggggfighttt!’
And the scuffle blooms into a full-blown melee.
• • •
Two hours later, a beautiful buxom girl, creamy-complexioned, dark-haired and clad in a tight kurta-churidaar, stalks into the Ghantaghar police thaana in Jodhpur, her face thunderous.
She leaves ten minutes later, a trio of ruffians trailing in her disgusted, magnificent wake.
‘Thanks, Juhi,’ says the first of these thugs humbly, the ends of his lopsided handlebar moustache pointing one to the glowing moon above and one to the dusty road below. ‘Sorry for disturbing your studies.’
She tosses her bounteous waves of hair and sniffs, ignoring him.
‘Yeah, thanks Juhi,’ says the second rowdy, modestly trying to hold together his gaping shirt, which is missing several buttons.
‘Don’t mention it,’ she snaps.
‘Pleased-to-meet-you,’ says the third obsequiously, producing a charming smile, which would have been more ch
arming if his eyes weren’t so puffy and blackened.
‘Hullo.’ Juhi’s voice is distinctly discouraging.
There is an awkward pause. They stand around an ancient green Morris Minor parked on the side of the road. Raka puts out his hand hesitantly.
‘Do you want me to drive?’
‘I got here without a problem, didn’t I?’ she replies curtly. ‘Get in the back.’
They shuffle into the back and discover a weedy, chinless lad in the driver’s seat. As he takes in their ruffianish appearance, his Adam’s apple starts to bob up and down agitatedly.
‘Didi,’ he croaks, his eyes darting about. ‘You never told me that this was a police ka chakkar … if Tauji finds out—’
‘He won’t, Kusum bhaiyya.’ Juhi’s voice is sweetly persuasive as she gets into the front passenger seat. ‘Besides, these are decent boys – aren’t you decent, boys?’
They all nod vigorously.
‘Oh yes!’
‘We’re decent!’
Raka leans forward and claps him on the back. ‘Now be a good support and drop us to the Flying College, Kusum bhaiyya!’
Juhi’s cousin obliges, still looking worried. The Morris Minor rattles down the dark street.
Juhi stares out through the windshield, her beautiful face inscrutable.
In the back seat, Shaanu stares out of the window, his expression pensive, even as Maddy’s head droops onto his shoulder drowsily.
Raka clears his throat.
‘Getting into fights is a very bad thing,’ he ventures. ‘Of course it’s a very bad thing! But sometimes you have to take a stand.’
He can’t be certain, sitting where he is, but it seems to him that Juhi’s figure has stiffened in the front seat.
He delivers a sharp kick to Maddy’s ankle.
‘They were saying really objectionable things, yaar Juhi,’ Maddy wakes up to say dutifully. ‘Mother-sister things. That’s not done.’
‘Yeah,’ Raka chimes in. ‘We couldn’t have kept silent.’
Juhi turns to face them, her expression slightly softened, a question on her lips, but before she can get it out, Shaanu raises a hand in protest.
‘No,’ he says emphatically. ‘This particular thing, it isn’t important. It was stupid of me to get into a fight about it.’
The other two murmur in protest.
‘Because…’ Ishaan continues, his voice low and searching, ‘this is the Indian Air Force, right? We’ve got brand new uniforms and brand new haircuts and all the old shit’s been wiped clean. We’ve made a new beginning. We could be anything! That’s what Carvalho keeps saying.’
He looks at his friends for confirmation, his puffy, black-rimmed eyes painfully intense.
‘You’re right,’ Maddy says strongly. ‘We could! We will! You show your stepfather how worthy you are!’
‘And you out-hero every damn Subbiah ever born!’ Shaanu replies. ‘And you, Raka, you stay alive and ask Juhi to—’
‘Baaaaz…’ Raka starts to hiss, then checks himself. ‘Just shushh, okay?’
‘Let him talk, Raka,’ Maddy says.
Raka whirls around and glares at Maddy.
‘You keep quiet!’
‘But why can’t we talk about this?’ Ishaan demands. ‘Juhi has a right to know.’
‘Baaaaaz…’ Raka begins imploringly, then checks himself again. ‘Just keep quiet.’
‘No, let him talk.’ Juhi fixes her beautiful eyes on Shaanu and says kindly, ‘What were you saying, Baaz?’
He begins again, without any hesitation. ‘Just that he’s been in love with y—’
‘Shut up!’ protests Raka, agonized.
‘Continue,’ Juhi says calmly.
‘He’s been in love with you for four years and is too darponk to admit it,’ Shaanu finishes calmly. Also, he burnt that rakhi you tied to him, and flushed its ashes down the toilet. And said gandi-gandi gaalis while he did so.’
There is stunned silence. Even the weedy cousin senses that something monumental is unfolding and eases the car over a speed breaker with utmost gentleness.
Juhi smiles, turns around and looks ahead at the road.
‘I know.’
And the sweetness in her voice is such that Maddy and Shaanu let out a whoop while Raka tugs at his moustache and looks idiotically pleased.
Kusum bhaiyya’s high-pitched, croaking voice joins the conversation unexpectedly.
‘That’s why she tied you the rakhi in the first place. She thought you’d object, or say something! But you didn’t. She came home and cried for hours. What a useless fellow you are!’
Scorn from such a source renders Raka speechless.
His friends chuckle.
‘Clarity at last.’ Maddy beams.
‘Thanks to Baaz.’ Juhi tosses her hair. ‘No thanks to a phisaddi like you – or Raka.’
‘Why do you keep calling him Baaz?’ Raka demands, blushing coyly even as he strives valiantly for normalcy.
‘Because you keep calling him Baaz.’ She blinks, confused. ‘I thought that was his name.’
Raka stares at her, perplexed, while Maddy’s face splits into a delighted grin.
‘It wasn’t.’ He chuckles. ‘But now it is. And it fits. Saala, how he swooped down and did your setting for you, ekdum Baaz-ke-maaphik!’
‘Not just mine,’ says Raka. ‘The girls at the club specifically mentioned that they’d be there again next Saturday.’ He changes his voice to a lilting falsetto. ‘We’ll save a dance for your friends and you!’
‘No need,’ Juhi tells him sternly.
He smiles at her fatuously. ‘Okay, baby.’
But Maddy is thrilled at this update.
‘Wow, they like us!’ He turns to Shaanu, impressed. ‘That was fast work, Baaz!’
‘Then what.’ Shaanu’s grey eyes sparkle cockily in their bruised, blackened sockets. ‘I told you we were the coolest cats in the place.’
TWO
‘She’s the coolest cat in the place,’ a starry-eyed first-year science undergraduate whispers to her friend as Tehmina Dadyseth strides past them, her vibrant red miniskirt swinging, a plate of samosas in her hand, clearly late for her first class of the day. ‘I wish I were her.’
‘You wish you were a crack, you mean,’ sniffs the friend. ‘All these rich arts girls are crack, but she’s the crackest. Look what she’s doing now!’
Because Tehmina, having reached Room 33, has dropped dramatically to her knees in the open doorway, and is holding out the samosas like a tribute to the professor, pleading to be let in. The unseen professor relents and the briber rushes in gratefully, still on her knees, dropping her register in her eagerness and scurrying back out a moment later to retrieve it.
‘Clumsy too! And a show off, maaroing that fake American accent!’
‘Arrey, she lived in America till she was ten, and it’s very slight – besides, her Hindi is so good!’
Her friend isn’t convinced. ‘Do you know she organized an antim sanskar with an actual funeral pyre and last rites for three of her friends who are getting married this month? She has no respect for religion – must be because she’s Parsi.’
‘That was a bonfire party.’ The starry-eyed first-year defends her heroine stoutly. ‘Anyway, I think it’s a shame that girls come here – to the best women’s college in India, for heaven’s sake – to get quality education and then get married off without even completing their degree! Tinka’s protesting against that in a symbolic sort of way – what’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s against our traditions.’ Her friend shakes her head. ‘And I don’t think she’s pretty, she’s so frowny and browny – there are at least ten girls in MH more fair-complexioned than her!’
These accusations are not entirely invalid. As Tinka Dadyseth officially enters our narrative, seated within the gracious, red-bricked walls of Miranda House, University of Delhi, furiously scribbling on a chart paper with a black crayon, it must be admitted that she is not conventional
ly pretty. She is wheatish and unfashionably thin, with slender, tennis-player limbs, unusual in a time when most girls aspire to voluptuous curves. Eschewing the floral prints in vogue, Tinka dresses in skirts of red, orange or emerald-green, teamed with white tops in the summer, and black polonecks in the winter. In an establishment as conventionally fashionable as Miranda House, this is indeed brave. Her hair is black and wavy, her large eyes combative, her nose straight, her mouth generous, her opinions decisive. Her face is long, ending in a pointy chin, and when she smiles, two tiny dimples flash in her cheeks. ‘You look like an imp,’ Jimmy used to say, chucking her under the chin. ‘A young imp – an implet. An implet with dimplets.’
But we mustn’t talk about Jimmy. Nobody in Tinka’s family does.
Now she gives a satisfied little grunt and leans back from the chart paper banner she has been working on.
HANG US! screams the banner in psychedelic colours. Underneath, in smaller handwriting: Quality photo prints from around the world!
It is the eighteenth Republic Day of independent India and Miranda House is celebrating with a mela on the front lawn. There are several stalls selling tea and chaat and jewellery and kolhapuri chappals, as well as the standard hoopla and lucky dip. Usually a fiercely guarded all-girls bastion, Miranda House has opened its gates to the general public today, as the proceeds of the mela will go to soldiers’ widows and orphans. Students from other colleges have been allowed in, and the crowd is peppered with carefully groomed hopeful young men.
Principal Vidya Surendran makes a short speech, the choir performs a rousing version of ‘Kadam kadam badhaye ja’, a second-year botany student renders a particularly lachrymose rendition of ‘Aye mere vatan ke logo’ and the mela is declared open.
The photo prints stall does brisk business through the day, some of which might have to do with how animatedly Tinka makes her sales pitch. The other girls in the stall are all extremely charming, but none of them light up like Tinka does while talking about the merchandise.
‘This is the Rann of Kutch,’ she tells a group of smitten boys, her eyes glowing with passion. ‘A moonscape – literally a moonscape – doesn’t the sand look like waves in the sea?’
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