Those Pricey Thakur Girls (31 page)

Eshwari turns a little pink. ‘You shouldn’t have given me that. It’s too expensive.’

He cocks his head to one side, looking absurdly like a German Shepherd that wants to play. ‘But I told you,’ he says, ‘I won it at a hoopla stall. Full fluke. And it isn’t the real thing, anyway, just a fake from Gaffar Market.’

Yeah, right, Eshwari thinks darkly. She had showed it to Anji didi – who knows about this stuff – and she had declared it the real thing, bought from that big shop in South Extension, no less.

Meanwhile, Satish is peering into her face, grinning. ‘Unless you’re suggesting I actually blew, what, a
grand
on genuine perfume? For
you
? Wow, I must think you seriously stink.’

Eshwari pushes him away. ‘Don’t talk crap, Steesh. Now get out of my way. I have to go call this meeting to order and you need to go sit in the back and look at porn with your ugly friends.’

The Interact Club is a community service initiative whose manifesto vows to ‘work for the upliftment of the blind, the aged, the orphaned and the sick’. Students participate in large numbers, mostly to swell the application forms they send to foreign universities. There are cleanliness drives, educational outreach programmes in the slums and blood donation camps. The only decent thing about the Interact Club, according to Satish, is that they organize the annual Modern School Diwali Mela, which is really
the
place to meet hot dames in Delhi.

This quarter’s blood donation camps, Eshwari tells the assembled students, are going to be held close to different places of worship, so as to underline the secular beliefs so dear to the club. The first one has been organized at the Sacred Heart Cathedral at Gol Dak Khana, the second at the Idgah on Rani Jhansi Road and the third at Gurudwara Bangla Sahib on Baba Kharak Singh Marg.

‘I’ll go to the Gurudwara one,’ decides one of Satish’s back-row buddies. ‘We’ll get
deadly
grub there – hot-hot suji ka halwa and kala channa and puris. The Catholics are damn stingy – they don’t let anybody eat that thin wafer thingie.’

A thin, bespectacled Malayali turns around earnestly to explain the concept of the body and blood of Christ to this ignoramus but Eshwari hastily interrupts, knowing that members, if diverted, are capable of not letting her get a word in till the period is over.

‘Contributions to blood banks have slowed to a trickle because everybody is shit scared of getting AIDS,’ she says, sitting down atop the desk, knowing the sight of her smooth, muscular legs will secure the attention of the rowdiest of the boys. ‘We’ll need to design and print some educational pamphlets.’

‘Let’s put your legs on the posters, Bihari,’ somebody calls out and the entire crowd lets out a cheeky, musical woahhhhhhh.

‘Chup, chutiyon.’ Eshwari frowns around the room. ‘Now somebody will have to go around to all the shops in the neighbourhood requesting permission to put up posters. I need volunteers…’

‘We’ll need auto money,’ somebody says and immediately has to put up with good-natured accusations about embezzlement and cooking of books. School stud and ex-stammerer Jai Kakkar puts up a hand and politely enquires if the esteemed president has considered organizing a sperm donation drive instead.

Eshwari looks at him witheringly.

‘I did think of it,’ she says, black eyes very cool. ‘But then I thought it was better to organize something to which
you
could actually contribute, Kakkar.’

Another lilting woahhhh bursts out from the crowd. Jai sits down, looking slapped and smitten. The meeting ends. The hall empties and Eshwari is picking up her papers when Satish comes up to her again.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he says. ‘
Alone
.’

‘Isn’t this alone enough?’ she asks as she leans around him to show the middle finger to a gang of stragglers who are sniggering at how close Satish and she are standing. They snigger even louder and scurry away, and Eshwari turns back to Satish.

‘Talk.’

‘Why do you give that ass Kakkar so much patta?’

Eshwari’s eyes kindle. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Scratch that,’ he says hastily. ‘I’ll start over. I’m not very good at this.’

‘You’re not good at most things besides calculus. What is it?’

But Satish is looking oddly hesitant.

‘You liked it when Dillu was honest with Dabbu, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Okay.’ He nods, and takes a deep breath. ‘So, I know I asked you out last year and you said no, but I just wanted to double-check again this year, because sometimes…’ He pauses and looks away towards the crowded corridor full of sweaty, recessing Modernites. Then he looks back at her, his eyes searching. ‘Sometimes I get the vibe that maybe… maybe you want me to ask you again. So I’m asking.’

Eshwari is appalled to feel her heartbeat quicken. Because this, after all, is only Steesh. He may have topped the year and scored a few match-winning centuries and silly girls like Gitika Govil may be swooning over him, but it is still only stupid, stinky-after-cricket Steesh.

‘
What
are you asking exactly?’

He shoots her an exasperated
I know you’re doing humanities but apply yourself a little, will you
look.

‘Go with me to the farewell,’ he spells it out for her. ‘Be my chick.’

At which unpoetic utterance Eshwari’s heart, fresh from reading Dylan’s eloquent outpourings for Debjani, instantly goes back to beating normally again.

‘No, thank you!’ she declares, tossing her glossy black head. ‘I told you I’m not allowed boyfriends till I’m twenty-one.’

He looks at her for a while. She looks right back. ‘And what am I supposed to do till then, huh?’ he says finally, bluntly. ‘Jerk off to pictures of you at your sister’s wedding?’

Eshwari chokes. ‘You are an
animal
,’ she spits out. ‘Just… never,
ever
talk to me again, okay?’

‘So now the princess has changed her mind?’ The Judge throws up his hands in disgust. ‘And she wants to marry him, after all? Is she
sure
? Suppose we invite him home and she heaps insults on him again?’

‘LN, I
explained
,’ Mrs Mamta says patiently. ‘There was a mix-up with the mail…’

‘What does that Sridhar pup mean by gifting Eshu perfume, I’d like to know!’ the Judge continues agitatedly. ‘Insolent young hound. This house is turning into a bloody Majnu ka tilla, Romeos crawling out of the damn woodwork – damn this thing!’

This, because the drawstring of the pyjamas he is attempting to climb into has slipped inside the seam at one end. He sticks a finger inside and rummages around for the submerged string in a helpless sort of way.

Mrs Mamta Thakur takes the pyjamas from him.

‘Can we just talk about Dabbu?’

‘Why?’ the Judge demands, taking long strides around the room, his white kurta flapping. ‘
Why
should we talk about her? Did
she
talk to us before throwing a tantrum in a drawing room full of people and insulting my oldest friend? He’s not even speaking to me any more! Thankless! They’re all thankless!’

‘They are good girls.’ Mrs Mamta’s voice trembles. ‘And don’t you start on about poor Chandu again! I think it’s high time we started speaking to her, just imagine, her baby is crawling now. Antu met them on his trip to the US. He looks just like you, apparently, only with blond hair and blue eyes. Antu said,’ her voice catches, something that doesn’t happen very often, ‘that he has a little hammer,
just
like a judge’s gavel, and that he frowns and shouts and bangs it about,’ she gives a great gulp, blinking back tears, ‘
just
like you! And his name is
Hendrik
!’

‘Yes, I agree it’s a dreadful name but there’s no need to cry,’ the Judge says impatiently. ‘Little Hendrik Narayan Lippik. Fine name for a grandson of the Thakurs of Hailey Road to have!’

‘I was thinking we could invite them to Dabbu’s wedding,’ Mrs Mamta says, dabbing dolefully at her eyes with the Judge’s pyjamas.

But this is too much. The Judge whirls around furiously, kurta flying, knobby knees flashing.

‘Dabbu’s wedding to
whom
?’ he demands, making frustrated snatching hand gestures in the air. ‘You are living in a dream world, Mamtaji. With what face can I go back and speak to the Shekhawats?’

‘Just read the letter,’ Mrs Mamta, more composed now, says as she hand him back his pyjamas, slightly damp now and with both ends of the drawstring easily accessible. ‘Please.’

He glowers at her and slowly starts to climb into them, one bony leg at a time. ‘What’s the use of getting these girls married, anyway?’ he grumbles. ‘They never leave the house – Binni is always here, whining about her hissa, Anji seems to have dug herself in too, not to mention those three young tapeworms Samar, Monu and Bonu, devourers of everything they see.’

‘Anji’s having some problems,’ Mrs Mamta says. ‘She won’t talk about it, though.’

‘She doesn’t deserve that nice Anant,’ the Judge replies. ‘He is a decent man and she’s driving him crazy. Poor fool.’ He pauses. ‘And that Vickyji deserves one kick in the backside.’

Mrs Mamta doesn’t reply.

Presently the Judge says, almost pleadingly, ‘The Shekhawats will want to bring up the grandchildren as Catholics. Pour water on their heads and other outlandish things like that. And the boy is trouble – likes to charge at windmills. And he’s had so many girlfriends! Good riddance, I say. Let’s just wipe that slate clean and look for a nice new boy for Debjani – she’s become so well known now! Can’t you talk her out of this, Mamtaji?’

But Mrs Mamta, now combing her rippling hair with her large maroon comb, looks unconvinced.

‘He is the correct boy for her. Read the letter, you’ll see.’

‘Fine!’ The Judge slaps his palms together. ‘I’ll
read
it. But even if it reads smoother than a Shakespearean sonnet I won’t speak to Saahas immediately. Debjani needs to think this through carefully. Marriage isn’t a joke.’

‘Isn’t it?’ his wife asks wearily.

‘I never thought she would behave like this,’ he says, shaking his head as he climbs into bed. ‘Not
Dabbu.
My favourite!’

‘Serves you right for having favourites,’ sniffs his wife, rolling over and going to sleep.

Ethan wakes up for school at six a.m. on the Monday after the thirtieth anniversary party. As he shambles down the corridor to the bathroom, rubbing his gummy eyes, he trips over a phone cord stretched taut across the corridor at a height of about two feet and lands on the floor with a thud. Looking up, he observes that the cord is leading inside Dylan’s room, the door of which is shut.

‘Mamma!’ he shouts, rubbing his sore backside. ‘Dylan’s trying to kill me.’

The phone is still in Dylan’s room at ten a.m. and Debjani hasn’t yet called. Perhaps she couldn’t track down that Bonus kid, he rationalizes, staring at the dumb instrument. Because Bonus doesn’t live with them, right? She just comes down for the holidays. Maybe she took the letter back with her to wherever she comes from. Bhatinda? Bhopal? Something with B. Should he just call her himself ? It’s been almost two days since they spoke at the party. No, better wait for her to call – or maybe not?

He is staring down at the phone, willing it to ring, when suddenly it does. He scrambles for it.

‘Hello!’

‘Is that Dylan Shekhawat? The journalist?’

‘Yes, this is he,’ Dylan replies, swallowing his disappointment.

‘Mr Hardik Motla, MP, would like to speak to you. Hold the line, please.’

What the…? Dylan thinks.

And then Motla’s voice comes oiling down the line. ‘That girl is making a fool of you.’

What?
Dylan thinks, feeling disoriented. She is? And how on earth does he know?

‘That Kamalpreet Kaur. She is ek number ki fraud. It is in a spirit of mutual cooperation that we are telling you, my boy – because journalists and netas must cooperate with one another – that you had better not believe anything she says.’

‘How do
you
know about my story?’ Dylan asks. ‘I haven’t even written it out yet. It’s just a transcript on an audio tape.’