Those Pricey Thakur Girls (17 page)

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 consider 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.’

And so Debjani repeats her ‘his loss’ litany and sheds a few tears under the slowly fading amaltas. Dylan stays awake well past midnight, hunched over his Mac, moodily crunching kalkals. The Judge and the Brigadier talk extra-politely across the kot-piece table, urging Maggi and tea upon each other, playing games of seven-eights and heaping silent curses upon the heads of their off spring. Only Juliet Bai watches Debjani read the news every Friday with calm, proprietary pride. She knows something is Up. Just give him time, she tells the Brigadier, he’ll come around, this one’s different. And every night she sends up a fervent supplication to Mamma Mary that Debjani’s heart stays both unbesieged and unwon. The summer waxes, then wanes.

But Juliet Bai’s prayers seem to have lost their potency. Because as monsoon clouds gather overhead, Binni resurfaces from Bhopal in a blaze of glory, bearing news of a brilliant rishta for Debjani.

The arrival of her contingent is typically dramatic. Debjani and Eshwari are up on the terrace, peacefully watering the plants, when Samar Vir Singh clambers noisily up the stairs, taking them three at a time, his usual poise displaced by an expression of sheer panic.

‘Hide me, hide me!’ he yells, wild-eyed, hair askew. ‘She’s here! She’s here!’

‘Who, baba?’ Eshwari asks, spraying him idly with the water hose.

Samar, always so nice to Eshwari, shakes the water off himself and frowns at her awfully. ‘That bloody Bonu!’ he pants, his voice squeaky. ‘Keep her AWAY from me!’

Footsteps sound on the stairs. Samar, cornered, grabs the hose from Eshwari and braces himself with the air of a wet rat making its last stand. As Eshwari and Debjani watch, mildly intrigued, a scrawny little figure bursts onto the terrace, its short spiky hair standing up like cherry-and-cheese-festooned toothpicks speared into a whole cabbage at a birthday party. It is clad in acid-washed denim shorts and a muddy pink blouse, from the yoke of which dangles a demoralized-looking pink organza rose. It is brandishing a Kissan jam bottle in its hand.

‘It’s my
susu
!’ warbles the figure gleefully as it capers about, shaking the bottle and making the yellow liquid inside it froth. ‘Watch out, Samar! I’m going to throw it on you!’

Debjani reaches out, grabs this monstrous aggressor around its waist and lifts it off its feet even as Samar turns the full force of the hose upon them, drenching them both. They gasp, the water is cold.

‘How dare you, Bonu Singh!’ Debjani says, spluttering. ‘That is
no way
for a young lady to behave!’

‘Dabbu mausi!’ Bonu casts both her arms ecstatically around Debjani’s neck. ‘I love you! You were on TV! I told everybody!’

‘Yes, yes,’ Dabbu replies warily, eyeing the bottle the little girl is still clutching in her hand. ‘Put that down, Bones. Gross.’

Bonu giggles conspiratorially. ‘It’s just Dettol with a little water,’ she whispers in Debjani’s ear. ‘But don’t tell him, okay?’

Samar, still clutching the hose, points a shaking finger at Bonu. ‘Stay. Away. From. Me.’

Bonu pulls a fierce face and makes as if to unscrew the lid of the Kissan jam bottle. Samar shudders, throws down the hose and hurtles down the steps. Eshwari scoops Bonu up and kisses her resoundingly.

‘Dirty girl, where’s your mummy?’

Bonu points, and all three girls walk over to the terrace wall and look down. A pot-bellied yellow and black taxi is parked in the Hailey Road driveway, and is busy disgorging, in order of appearance, two thin, bullied-looking young Oriya ayahs, six attaché cases, Bonu’s fair, serene and sleeping twin Monu, and finally Binni didi, who emerges from the front seat beaming and gleaming (it is a hot day), her polka-dotted pallu crumpled to a thin, inadequate strip across her ample frame. Mrs Mamta eyes the contingent with a sinking heart – five more mouths to feed, and these Oriya girls, it’s not nice to say, but they are each capable of putting away a kilo of rice a day. Besides, Binni never offers to help financially when she visits, unlike Anji, who is always sashaying down to Gambhir Stores to buy groceries and flirt with young Mr Gambhir, one of her oldest and most faithful swains.

‘I’m from Delhi only,’ Binni tells the cabbie. ‘I know what the rates are. This is all you’re going to get. Now go.’

Only then does she turn to greet the family, who have by now lined up neatly to receive her. The Judge first, she bends to touch his feet; then Mrs Mamta Thakur, she bends again; and then the rank and file that are Debjani, Eshwari and the cringing Samar Vir.

‘Hello, Dabbu-Chabbu!’ Binodini pats her sisters’ cheeks carelessly. ‘Hello, Samar Vir Singh, visiting
again
? And so thin! You must eat more – here, I got you some chocolate éclairs. Vickyji has started a new business in confectionaries, you know!’

‘These are not Cadbury’s.’ Samar, restored to equilibrium now that he is far away from the dreaded Bonu, examines the éclair label carefully. ‘They are
Catburies.
What’s Catburies, Binni mausi?’

But Binni mausi is busy making sure that Monu has touched his grandparents’ feet.

‘Whatever happened to the pharmacy business?’ the Judge enquires mildly, while Samar bites gingerly into the chocolate éclair.

Binni’s round face goes pink. ‘It didn’t
go
, Bauji,’ she admits. ‘People in Bhopal are too healthy. There was no real gap in the market. But,’ her face brightens, ‘they all have a sweet tooth so this confectionary factory will go well.’

They all troop into the house, Samar looking a little bemused. The label said chocolate éclair, but he hasn’t found the chocolate yet. He bites into it a little harder, but is seems to be toffee through and through. Rather muddy toffee, too.

‘He is an engineer in the merchant navy,’ Binni announces after the twins have been bathed and fed and deposited into the drawing room for the night. ‘Earning in dollars, spending in rupees. Tall, fair, handsome. Only son. His grandfather was a Rai Bahadur. Over the last two years, he has rejected every single Rajput girl between eighteen and twenty-five in UP-Delhi-MP. That’s how eligible he is!’

‘That’s how
gay
he is,’ Eshwari murmurs, giggling.

Mrs Mamta looks harassed. ‘Bhai, I don’t want a boy who has turned down all my friends’ daughters! It makes things very awkward on Hailey Road. As it is, after Anji married Anant, everybody became so formal with me – they only warmed up again after Chandu ran away.’

Binni bridles instantly. The Judge, relieved that she seems to have got over the shall-I-explain-it-to-you-again-in-Hindi crack, forgets to thunder his usual ‘No talking about Chandu’ admonition. Instead, he hurries in to express the gratitude Binodini clearly thinks is due. ‘Well done, Binni! Mamtaji, we shouldn’t look a gift groom in the mouth – let’s at least meet him, hmm?’

‘He really fancies Dabbu,’ Binni says. ‘He got off the ship, saw her reading the news and fell in love with her that very night. He said her accent was excellent.’

‘What’s his name?’ Mrs Mamta asks uneasily.

‘Dev Pawar. His aunt knows Vickyji’s mamaji, that’s how they contacted me. See!’

She has two photographs: a full-length picture of the boy in a formal suit and a mid-shot where he is smiling, wearing a sporty, hooded Nike jacket, standing on the deck of his last ship with the ocean gleaming azure behind him.

‘See how fair he is?’ Binni says triumphantly.

‘I think the picture’s overexposed.’ Anji squints critically. ‘Look, his hands aren’t the same colour as his face.’

‘He seems nice,’ Eshwari allows, after a tentative glance at Dabbu. ‘He’ll shower you with Juicy Fruit chewing gum and BASF tapes and French perfume. And I think that hoodie jacket is really cool.’

‘It’s the
same
boy,’ Mrs Mamta says. ‘He turned down Gayatri’s Anju. Said her gums were too big. Like a chimpanzee’s. (Which, to be honest, they are.) And Manno bhabhi’s Meera – because she’s a doctor and wouldn’t have time for him. Gayatri and Manno bhabhi still aren’t talking.’

‘He sounds
horrible
.’ Debjani’s voice trembles. The Judge shoots her a keen look. ‘Thinking he’s such a fat fish, thinking everybody’s out to land him, going around rejecting girl after girl! I don’t want to meet him!’