Those Pricey Thakur Girls (32 page)

‘For which you should be grateful,’ Motla replies. His voice picks up both menace and urgency. ‘No harm has been done –
yet
. But if you publish it, we will sue you. You will lose both your accreditation and your reputation, and maybe even your health.’

‘How do you know about Kamalpreet Kaur?’ Dylan asks, mystified. ‘Are you having me followed?’

Motla clicks his tongue dismissively. ‘We
know.
That is enough. Consider this a friendly warning.’

‘I’m recording this,’ Dylan says quickly. ‘I put on my recorder the moment your secretary put you through. You better watch out, Mr Motla.’

There is a short pause.

‘You’re bluffing,’ Motla chuckles. ‘Besides, I haven’t said
anything
incriminating! Now you listen to me…’

He’s scared, Dylan thinks exultantly, his pulse quickening. I’ve touched a raw nerve this time. This cat is shitting bricks.

‘You
listen
to me, Shekhawat! Are you listening?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Print that kahani and it will be the last one you write. Got it?’

‘Got it,’ Dylan says crisply and cuts the connection.

He is staring at the phone, his head reeling at the sheer unreality of what has just happened, when it rings again.

‘Motla’s on the war path,’ Hiranandani’s voice purrs gleefully down the line. ‘Well done, tiger.’

Dylan grins. ‘He called you too?’

‘Called and threatened to shut me down. Called Bade-papaji too – tried to get me sacked.’

‘And?’

‘And what, bastard? Are you implying that this newspaper can be bullied or bought?’

Dylan laughs. ‘So we won’t be suppressing it?’

‘Of course not!’ Hira chuckles. ‘
Truth. Balance. Courage.
And by a happy coincidence, tomorrow is the first of November, the fourth anniversary of the massacre. It’s the perfect day to print the story. Just hammer the damn thing out and send it to me. You’ll make the top half of tomorrow’s front page. With your byline and picture and everything.’

‘Great!’ Dylan says, pleased. ‘I’ll get down to it immediately. I did want to do a little more on Kamalpreet first. Show her photographs around Tirathpuri, talk to the neighbours, get their take on her.’

Hira makes impatient clicking noises.

‘Dylan, if you spent another day dicking about Tirathpuri, we’ll miss the anniversary.’

‘You’re right,’ Dylan says. ‘Okay, I’ll sit down to write it right away then.’

It takes him quite a while. Late in the evening, he drops off the finished story in the dispatch room of the
India
Post
office and drives home, tired but satisfied. He had struggled with the piece – not wanting to come across as shrill or tear-jerking or sensationalistic – and finally settled for a simple, factual account that will nevertheless ensure that Hardik Motla spends the next few years behind bars. But writing it has got him a little worried about Kamalpreet. She
is
his responsibility, in a way. And he doesn’t even have her contact number. He has no way of getting through to her at all.

When he gets home Juliet Bai tells him that some Punjabi girl has called for him thrice and will call again in a bit. Dylan wolfs down dinner, staring at the phone, while Ethan makes snide remarks and Jason sulks. Dylan isn’t letting anybody make any calls and his girlfriend’s been sulking ever since the old biddies were rude to her at the party.

The phone rings at five in the morning. Dylan lunges for it.

‘Kamalpreet? Are you okay?’

‘Haanji, okay,’ she replies in her clear, sweet voice. ‘Good morning.’

Phew. It is only now as he relaxes that Dylan realizes how tense he had actually been.

‘You should have given me a number for you! Why have you been calling so many times?’

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Pata nahin, maybe it my veham only, but last two-three days there seem to be strange men looking at me.’

‘That’s because you’re so pretty,’ he tells her, still a little light-headed with relief.

‘You are joking, of course. Being jolly. But these are not the usual roadside cheapies. These are
different.
Apne kaha tha na, that maybe Motla will try to finish us off? I think-so these are
those
types of men. The finishing-off types.’

Dylan sits up. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Cent per cent serious, ji,’ she says, the sweet voice wobbling just a little.

Dylan curses under his breath. He knows better than to suggest she go to the police. He knows what the people of Tirathpuri think of the police.

‘Should I come there?’

‘No no,’ she says half-heartedly. ‘Why would you…?’

‘I’m coming,’ he says, suddenly decisive. ‘Tell me where.’

Without further protest, she gives him the address. ‘But just till the evening. I am catching a five o’clock train to my native place. If you could be with me till then, and see me off at the station.’

‘I’m leaving now,’ Dylan assures her as he gets to his feet. ‘Stay inside the house. And I’ll bring you a copy of today’s
India
Post
. It may cheer you up – your story’s on the front page!’

Over at Hailey Road, Eshwari is sneakily rifling through her sister’s cupboard looking for the wispy cream net chunni that Debjani has spent months embroidering all over with tiny pink rosebuds. She wants to wear it to the blood donation camp at Gurudwara Bangla Sahib today.

She tries not to think about the fact that Dabbu hasn’t worn it yet, that she had probably hoped to inaugurate it on some sunny winter’s afternoon, when she would throw it on like a scarf over a floral dress and go on a long drive with Dylan through the little villages just beyond Qutub Minar and drink chai in a dhaba and perhaps buy wild chrysanthemums and green guavas from cute looking village children.

And you
will
do all that, Dabbu, she thinks fiercely, looking at her sleeping sister. Just not today. Today I want to wear it, because we’re going to the gurudwara and because… Uff. Just because. Sorry, okay?

Most of the members of the Interact Club are already at the Gurudwara gate when Eshu rattles up in a black and yellow autorickshaw. It is a misty morning and everybody is in a good mood, especially Satish, who has a big black camera hanging around his neck.

‘For the winter issue of
Sandesh
,’ he explains. ‘I want a big fat picture of me giving blood right there in the centrespread. You click me, Bihari, I’ve been working out with Gulgul bhaisaab – I’m gonna flex my muscles and all.’

She stares at him, surprised and more than a little irritated. ‘Oh, so now you’re talking to me again? Why couldn’t you tell me this earlier? I could have taken a lift with you on the bike instead of rattling up here in a bloody auto!’

‘Arrey,
you’re
the one who said never talk to me again,’ he comments as he fishes out a Megadeth bandanna and starts to tie it around his head. ‘You called me an animal. Forgot or what?’

But Eshwari is just gawping at him.

‘What?’ Satish demands.

‘You can’t wear
that
inside a gurudwara! There are skulls on it – it’s blasphemous!’

Satish considers this. Then he turns to the one Sikh in their group.

‘Hey, Kakkar, is my bandanna cool?’

Jai Kakkar shrugs. ‘Yeah, it’s cool.’

‘See?’

Eshu rolls her eyes. ‘Fat lot
he
knows,’ she mutters. ‘He’s a Cut Surd, anyway.’

But Jai Kakkar now feels he should pass verdict on everybody’s headgear. ‘You’re good, you’re fine, that’s okay, and…’ He goes a little pink as he looks at Eshwari. ‘You look
really
pretty with your head covered.’

Woahhhhhh!
choruses the Interact Club. Eshwari blushes and swears. Satish glowers.

They surrender their shoes, walk through the little channel of running water and climb up the cool marble steps to the main part of the gurudwara. There is a lovely scent of fresh flowers and halwa frying. Everybody sniffs appreciatively and has a collective epiphany.

They do a quick dive into the main worship area, then come out looking virtuous and queue up for the kada prasad. The man doling it out is fiery-eyed and just a little scary looking, but the Interacters shamelessly hold out their cupped palms at him till he loads them up quite full. It is extremely hot and they have to blow on their hands frantically as they run down the steps to eat near the water tank.

‘No swimming, washing or wringing of clothes by this tank,’ Satish reads out the rules solemnly. ‘No vigorous rubbing or soaping of armpits or other body parts either – and definitely no gargling. Got it, you lot?’

Jai Kakkar comes up to Eshwari as she sits, feet dangling in water as smooth as a sheeted mirror, entranced by the beauty of the place.

‘Eshwari.’

‘Boo,’ she replies idly without looking at him. That’s all it takes to get rid of Jai, usually.

‘Are you and Satish going around?’

She turns around, surprised. He is still there, sitting beside her.

‘I’m not scared of you, you know,’ he says conversationally. ‘Not any more. I’m taller, and my hair doesn’t curl girlishly now – gone are the days when you could spill red ink on my shorts and tell the whole class I had got my period.’

Eshwari winces. ‘I did that?’

He nods. ‘Yes, you did. But I didn’t mind. You were the only one who made fun of my hair, not my stammer.’

‘I was evil,’ she says, conscience-stricken. ‘Evil Eshwari. I’m so sorry.’

‘Are you guys going around?’

This phrase always makes Eshwari think of BJ. Going Around indeed, he is wont to snort whenever he hears this with-it lingo. What an image that conjures up! A daughter of mine hand-in-hand with some chinless, gulping fellow, going around and around
what
, exactly? A mulberry bush? The Dhaula Kuan roundabout? A sacred fire?

‘No,’ she says baldly. ‘We’re not.’

‘But he’s picking you up for the farewell party?’

‘Yeah, but that doesn’t really mean anything,’ she explains. ‘It’s only because he lives next door to me.’

Jai rolls up his pants till just below the knees and lowers his legs into the water.

‘That’s good,’ he says finally.

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. I don’t think we should complicate school friendships with this “going around” nonsense. We’re too young. You don’t want to screw up your board results, do you?’

Eshwari pulls back in mock horror. ‘Who
are
you?’ she demands. ‘And what have you done with stud boy Jai Kakkar?’

He gives her an odd, twisted smile.

‘Can we just be friends?’ he asks. ‘I’m a nice guy. Really.’

‘Okay, okay. Don’t be so
filmi
,’ she mutters, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Chalo, we’re friends now, you and me. Jai and Veeru. I mean, Jai and Eshu. Happy?’

He nods, the sunshine dancing on the water reflecting in his eyes, gets up and walks away. As he does so, she notices that his butt is definitely Dylanesque. She has always thought she is way too cool to fall for anybody as obvious as the school stud, but at this moment, she’s not too sure. As she gets to her feet slowly, Satish comes up from behind her.

‘Don’t listen to that choot,’ he hisses. ‘He’s got sex on the brain. Yesterday in bio class, he
twice
said orgasm instead of organism.’

‘Oh, shut up, Steesh.’ She pushes him.

‘Pushy fucker.’ Satish shakes his head. ‘And after I
told
him you’re not allowed boyfriends till you’re twenty-one!’

‘You what?’ she says, startled. ‘No wonder…’

‘And he’s not the only one,’ Satish grumbles. ‘They’ve
all
suddenly discovered you – even that ass Mohit, who started playing the guitar because none of the girls would look at him otherwise. You’re a little Assamese oil trickle and everybody’s a white guy shouting Digboi-Digboi. It’s because all the hot twelfthies have passed out, I suppose. And because this north Indian cloth you’ve wound around your head is making you look all goody-goody.’

‘I hate you,’ she says with feeling. ‘Let’s get the camp started now, okay?’

The polyclinic in the gurudwara compound has put up a banner announcing the blood camp, and two stern Malayali nurses are already in place behind the makeshift counters. They hand the Interacters a set of questions to ask every would-be donor and sit down on their shiny, round-with-a-hole-in-the-middle steel stools, cross their white nylon stocking-encased legs and exude a spirit of pessimism. AIDS has really put a dent in blood donations recently.

The questions to be asked are pretty simple.

Name?

Age?

Please stand on the weighing machine.

Any alcohol intake in the past twenty-four hours? If yes, please do not donate.

Do you have multiple sex partners? If yes, please do not donate.

This last question is the cause of much sniggering and nudging and ribbing amongst the Modernites. Everybody tsk-tsks and regrets the fact that unfortunately, in spite of
really
wanting to, they won’t be able to donate, because they’re sexually so active, don’t you know. Eshwari, disgusted by this juvenile behaviour and stressed out by the fact that there seem to be hardly any donors in sight, sets out on a little walk, intent on commandeering people towards the camp.