Those Pricey Thakur Girls (11 page)

‘Oh, please,’ Debjani dismisses this with unconscious snobbery. ‘I know much bigger words than that.’

And so they begin work. Dylan has typed out the transcripts of his latest interviews with the residents of Tirathpuri on his Mac, and he opens one of these at random. Debjani twists her hair into a rope, pulls it onto one shoulder, looks intently at the screen and starts to read.

‘
The last two years have brought some healing to the family of Rajbir Singh and Satinder Kaur. After living in the grounds of the Indraprastha Stadium for the first three months post the riots, they shifted out to a tent behind their local gurudwara. Now they are back in Tirathpuri and are slowly rebuilding their ten feet by sixteen feet home. Rajbir Singh weaves string beds and his wife works from home knitting sweaters for a local NGO. When asked about her hopes from the SIC, Satinder Kaur’s eyes well up with tears. “My Simarpreet was only fifteen. Her favourite colour was bright yellow. She was wearing a new yellow and pink dupatta the day those daanavs came…
’

Debjani stops. ‘Daanav is a Hindi word,’ she says.

‘So?’ Dylan asks without looking up.

She says, not without pride, ‘So, since I’m allowed to make copy changes at DD, I would change it to demons – or maybe devils.’

‘Okay,’ he shrugs.

Her voice grows stronger and more assured.

‘
And now she is gone and no SIC report can bring her back. But yes, I do want to see Hardik Motla hanged by the neck until he is dead. If I get that closure, I will finally be able to move on and be a cheerful mother to my two young sons...
’

And so it continues. The next article is about Indo-Russian trading ties and Debjani reads through it glibly, her confidence growing with every sentence. Dylan is a good driller, calming and unobtrusive, scrolling the text smoothly, blinking every now and then to remind her to blink, but otherwise managing to act like he isn’t there.

‘That was very good!’ he says finally. ‘You’ve got into the rhythm of it. You seem completely un-self-conscious now. I think we deserve to break for lunch.’

‘Tell me something about yourself,’ she asks him impulsively at the dining table, over the fish curry and rice that Mrs Shekhawat has laid out. ‘Something
real
, so I can decide if you’re honest and brave and kind.’

Dylan lowers his glass. ‘Why is that mandatory?’ he objects mildly.

Debjani flushes. She can’t believe she has laid bare her list of qualities-my-dream-man-must-have so blatantly.

‘Oh, because my father says those are traits all Rajputs must possess,’ she says.

‘Really?’ His brow furrows. ‘I know lots of Rajputs who are slimy and cowardly and cruel.’

‘
Son
na.’ Mrs Shekhawat has just entered the room, bearing a plate of freshly fried papad. ‘Don’t be rude.’

‘That’s okay.’ Debjani picks up a papad and crunches into it. ‘I was just asking him about his childhood, aunty. What kind of stuff did these boys get up to?’

Dylan racks his brains to recollect a brave childhood deed and draws a blank. ‘Let me see…’

‘Arrey, what will
he
tell!’ Mrs Shekhawat sits down at the table and pulls the plate of rice towards herself. ‘
I
will tell you, puta, these boys, what
rascals
they were!’

Dylan eyes his mother in exasperation. How excited the Lobster is. She is reading all kinds of major significance into the fact that he has invited this Dabbu for lunch. It’s sad, really.

‘Mamma…’ he says, waving a serving spoon at her warningly.

‘Now you’ve spilt curry on the tablecloth! Cheh, you boys are so clumsy. That’s why I have to have such plain tablecloths, Debjani – you must be wondering – though I’ve always admired the pretty embroidered ones your mother lays out.’

‘She embroidered them herself,’ Dabbu replies, pleased. ‘Right after she got married, when she was pregnant with Anji didi. Cross stitch and satin stitch on casement. It took her ages.’

‘Debjani embroidered her own shorts,’ Dylan puts in blandly.

‘Really!’ Juliet Bai glances down at Dabbu’s Daisy Dukes, her expression rather doubtful. ‘How pretty! Maybe one day,’ she clears her throat meaningfully and takes a bold leap, ‘one day you will embroider a cloth for
this
table, hmm?’

There is a strangled choking sound from Dylan. Dabbu smirks.

‘See, puta, we had this old uncle Donny – Donald Noronha, my mother’s first cousin from her mother’s side. All the Noronhas were randy, but this Donny, he was the randiest. He was a bachelor and forty-plus, but all the women were mad about him. Heart-breaker, hymen-breaker we used to call him –’

‘Mamma!’ Dylan exclaims, scandalized. ‘Go make a bhindi painting or something!’

‘See how he talks.’ Juliet Bai sniffs. ‘Philistine. He was
dreadful
in art at school.’

‘I was dreadful because my mother was my teacher,’ Dylan groans. ‘Who wouldn’t be?’

‘Art is as important as politics, isn’t it, Debjani?’

‘Er, yes,’ Dabbu responds.

‘That machine of yours,’ Juliet Bai continues, nodding towards Dylan’s room, ‘is meant to be used for
art.
Not for typing out articles.’

‘You’re right enough there,’ Dylan concedes wryly.

‘See!’ Juliet Bai beams triumphantly. ‘So one day Donny Noronha started sniffing around Dylan’s and Jason’s piano teacher, Miss Patsy. Such an innocent girl! So pure! So quiet! That devil Donny broke her heart and spat her out like a chewed up wad of sugarcane. Dylan and Jason were furious. And two days after that, he confiscated their football – he said it had crushed his cock.’

‘He ran a poultry farm,’ Dylan clarifies straight-faced as Debjani splutters into her food.

‘So what these rascals did no, they pooled their Christmas money and got 200 beautiful gilt-edged wedding cards printed reading
Donald Noronha weds Daisy Duck
, complete with date, time, venue and his phone number as RSVP, and mailed them to everybody on the church’s mailing list.’

Debjani gasps. ‘That’s…
evil.
Did people actually believe it?’

‘Oh, no.’ Dylan grins reminiscently. ‘But they pretended to. He wasn’t very popular, you know. They kept congratulating him wherever he went. And phoning him up. And sending him presents of little rubber duckies. He was apoplectic. Miss Patsy thought it was damn hilarious, though. It’s the first time we saw her laugh in months.’

Mrs Shekhawat leans forward triumphantly.

‘Now isn’t that a sweet story?’

But Debjani simply smiles enigmatically in reply and asks Dylan if they can go back and practise some more. Dylan, much to his irritation, finds himself on tenterhooks for the rest of the day, wondering if he’s passed her ‘test’. What does this girl want, anyway? A Param Vir Chakra? A certificate of good character stamped by the Vatican? Maybe he should tell her that he won the Excellence in Investigative Journalism Award instituted by the Press Club of India last year. But how to work that casually into the conversation?

‘So? Am I honest and kind and brave?’ he asks finally, as he halts the electric-blue Maruti 800 outside 16 Hailey Road. Moti’s entire family are wagging their scraggly tails, waiting for Debjani to emerge.

Debjani turns to look at him, the slanting rays of the setting sun lighting up her face.

‘You’re evil,’ she says. ‘And cunning. And rude to your mother.
And
probably lusting after Miss Patsy yourself.’

‘That’s true enough,’ he admits. ‘She was…’ he sighs, ‘
phenomenal.
’

Debjani discovers within herself a newfound hatred for all piano teachers.

‘But I did help you with your newsreading.
That
was kind.’

‘Nah.’ Debjani shakes her head, flashing her street-urchin grin. ‘You just wanted to show off your brand-new Apple Mac.’

Dylan opens his mouth to protest. She raises her eyebrows challengingly.

‘You were right,’ he remarks. ‘You really don’t know how to flirt.’

Her eyes widen. ‘I said I don’t know how to talk. I never said I don’t know how to
flirt
.’

‘So you
do
know how to flirt.’ He grins.

‘Wha…? Ya… no!’ She shakes her head. ‘You’re confusing me.’

‘Do you know,’ he continues, squinting down at her, ‘that when the sun hits your eyes they’re the exact same colour as Pears soap?’

She wrinkles up her nose. ‘
Orange
?’ she hazards. ‘That’s just creepy. Also, you’re calling my eyes orange and
I’m
the one who doesn’t know how to flirt?’

His lips twist into a smile but his eyes stay intense, looking down at her, glittering strangely. Debjani’s heart starts to slam slowly against her chest. Harami alert, her brain panics. Harami alert.

‘Listen!’ she says. (Extra loudly, she realizes.)

‘Listenao,’ he replies invitingly.

‘Thank you so much,’ she says sincerely. ‘You were such a help. And I had a lovely day.’

‘Oh, let’s not make a big production out of it,’ he says mockingly as he reaches up to touch her cheek gently. ‘It’s not like it was a date or anything.’

Debjani, all flushed and buzzing, enters the house to find Samar Vir Singh, her lanky twelve-year-old step-nephew, sprawled across the sofa, his forehead furrowed in thought, eating wafers and playing Chinese Checkers against himself. Her high evaporates, instantly replaced by a faint headache.

‘Well, hello
,
summervine,’ she says as enthusiastically as she can. ‘Did you come,’ (clinging to a faint hope) ‘alone?’

Samar shoots her an ironic look. ‘Of course not,’ he says, his long mobile face creasing into a conspiratorial grin. ‘Anji-ma’s in the kitchen.’

‘Fabulous,’ Debjani mutters as she sinks down on the sofa next to him and kisses him soundly on both cheeks.

‘Where’s Eshu?’ Samar asks.

Dabbu pulls a face. ‘Is she still your favourite mausi, you horrid creature?’

‘She’s not my mausi at all,’ he replies seriously. ‘We aren’t related by blood.’

Dabbu tweaks his ear. ‘She’s still in school. Basketball practice. Can I play one side?’

He nods. ‘You can be red. Red is winning.’

‘That’s very generous of you,’ Debjani replies. ‘So, how’ve you been? What’s the action in Class 7B?’

Young Samar studies her intently. ‘Aren’t you going to meet Anji-ma?’

‘I’ll go in a bit,’ Debjani says airily, thinking, not for the first time, that Samar Vir Singh is an oddly perceptive child. ‘Hmm, you’re right, red is winning. Take that!’

Samar frowns and bends over the board. Debjani collapses back into the sofa and wonders how long she can hold off the inevitable.

Not very long. Before Debjani’s flock of little red soldiers can lay claim to the green triangle across the board, Anjini emerges from the kitchen, exuding Poison and her helplessly appealing kiss me-crush me aura. She is wearing a filmi-looking floral top over her ripe bosom, and – Debjani realizes with resignation – Debjani’s new custom-tailored bootcut jeans. She advances, arms outstretched, a smile of great sweetness upon her face, warmth spilling from her eyes.

‘Dabburam! My baby!’ she exclaims. ‘TV starrrrr! How are you, baba? Why don’t you ever talk to me on the phone?’

‘Hi, Anji didi,’ Debjani says with a tight smile. ‘Nice jeans.’

Anjini gives the tinkling laugh that always sets Debjani’s teeth on edge. ‘They were right on top of the dhobi pile,’ she explains. ‘They’re nice, Dabbu, fitted waist and all. Bit loose though, I have to keep pulling them up.’

Debjani chokes. Anjini clicks her fingers. Her nails are immaculate, painted a delicate shade of seashell pink.

‘Maybe a belt – oh, Chabbu’s school belt, let’s see if I can still get that round my waist… Where is she, anyway?’

‘Not back from school yet.’ Samar springs up from the sofa. ‘I’ll go wait for her at the gate.’

‘That boy is crazy about Chubs.’ Anjini rolls her eyes.

Mrs Mamta Thakur enters as he leaves the room, still in her flowered dressing gown, looking harassed. She has every reason to be. Anjini has just spent the entire morning telling her about her latest how-to-get-pregnant strategy.

‘First I thought I would fast,’ Anji had explained. ‘But then I thought my motive might be tainted, that I might just be doing it to lose weight and
pretending
it was to please God, you know?’

Her mother nodded. Anji has done this before. A sixteen Saturdays fast, a month of Mondays fast. She’s even done a maunvrat – a no-talking fast – for two whole weeks, something the whole family remembers quite fondly.

‘So now I have
sworn
to become good.’ She perched herself on top of the kitchen counter, her eyes glowing with the fervour of those who swear mighty oaths. ‘Really, really
good.
I realized I’m not getting pregnant because I’m not a good person. It’s a punishment. So now I am going to eschew all vanity, all competitiveness and all jealousy totally, and spread kindness and sunshine and happiness wherever I go.’

Mrs Mamta looked at her apprehensively. Ever since she can remember, Anjini has slotted her own sex into two categories: the vast majority category that she dismisses as a) not as pretty as me, and the extremely tiny minority category that she allows to be b) as pretty as me. Similarly, the vast majority of men falls into a) smitten by me, while a tiny smidgeon serves out their notice period in b) not yet smitten by me. It is a simple universe and Mrs Mamta is not sure it can handle the revolution Anji is planning.