Those Pricey Thakur Girls (34 page)

Sipping tepid whiskey sodas in the smoky buzzing bar, Varun and Hira face each other over a bowl of soggy masala peanuts.

‘Everybody’s looking at us,’ Varun says gloomily. ‘We’re the whatchumacallit of all eyes.’

‘I’ve written an editorial saying we’re behind our correspondent, of course,’ Hira says. ‘That we support him fully, that this whole thing is a set-up and a gross abuse of power. But quite frankly, I don’t know if I have the balls to print it.’

‘So you
do
think Dylan’s been influencing the witnesses,’ Varun says.

Hira’s face sags a little. He spreads out his hands. ‘I don’t know what to think, frankly. You know I’m fond of Shekhawat. He’s the best we’ve got. But these young firebrands, they tend to get impatient. Sometimes they take shortcuts. The justification usually is: I know it’s true but I don’t have proof, so let me fake it. They think the end justifies the means.’

A long silence follows. They sip their drinks morosely.

‘I can’t believe the old man is going on a protest march,’ Varun says presently. ‘He’ll have a coronary within the first hundred metres.’

Hira smiles a small smile.

‘D’you think his theory could be correct?’

Hira averts his eyes. ‘I have the greatest respect for your grandfather, Varun. But…’

‘You think he’s imagining things.’

Hiranandani shrugs. ‘He was jailed during the Emergency, wasn’t he? I missed all that action, working in London. But I think it made all the press people who lived through it a little prone to conspiracy theories.’

‘How serious is the case against Shekhawat, anyway?’ Varun asks after a pause. ‘Why don’t you speak to the PM about it?’

Hiranandani leans forward. ‘The PM,’ he says emphatically, ‘is pals with me precisely because I never ask him for any favours. Besides, I need to be absolutely sure of my facts before I bring it up with him.’

‘Speak to Dylan then,’ Varun tells him suddenly. ‘Go down to Delhi, hear his version of how the whole thing happened. Maybe that’ll give us some leads, tell us something that can connect this wretched girl to Motla. You could do a little digging on this anti-defamation bill too. Meanwhile, I’ll put a team on it here.’

Hiranandani stares into space for a moment and then nods and gets to his feet. ‘Good idea,’ he says crisply. ‘So let’s hold the fire-breathing editorial for a couple of days, till we find out how many cubic feet of shit we’re actually in. You muzzle your Bade-papaji somehow. Got it?’

Varun looks around the crowded bar in a panic. ‘You’re just gonna walk out and leave me alone
here
? With everybody looking at me and sniggering?’

A wry smile spreads across Hiranandani’s thin, sad-clown face. ‘That lass from
Viewstrack
just walked in.’ He points discreetly. ‘The one you fancy. Shall I introduce you? She’s from College too, you know.’

And fifteen minutes later (maybe because it is be-nice-to-short-fat-men day, Varun tells himself ) Mitali and he are sitting together and talking animatedly. At least, Mitali is.

‘So you actually think Dylan bribed that chick?
Dylan?
’

Varun is mesmerized by the way her nose ring hovers so tantalizing above her red lips. He nods automatically, and then realizing what she’s just said, shakes his head quickly.

‘No no,’ he says, with some vehemence. ‘Of course not. He’s been framed. By that Motla.’

‘By that
lordu
Motla,’ Mitali agrees with passion and knocks back the last of her Romanov and Limca. ‘You’re right, of course, Varun Ohri. Hey, you’re an Ohri – that means you’re the owner of the
India
Post
, right?’

‘
One
of the,’ Varun corrects her despondently. ‘It’s a very large family. I own about half a page of the paper – probably the comic strips. Or the obits. Haha.’

‘Now don’t put yourself down like that!’ She smiles at him. ‘Listen, why don’t we team up and crack this thing right open? You guys cover it for the print media and I’ll cover it for
Viewstrack
. What do you say?’

‘I say a cautious okay,’ Varun replies, thrilled at the prospect of spending more time with her. ‘Provided you don’t double-cross us and break the story first, of course.’

‘That’ll never happen. We move way slower than you print types. Processing, edit, sound. And then two days for the no-objection certificate from the censors.
Then
we get the tapes out.’

‘Well, in that case, Mitali Dutta,’ he says (unwittingly revealing that he knows her last name and therefore knows exactly who she is, though he’s been feigning ignorance for the last half hour), ‘let’s shake on it.’

When Debjani gets to Akashvani Bhavan she finds it buzzing. The Information & Broadcasting Minister visited the studios in the morning so everything is spic and span. The cigarette butts in the potted plants have been scooped up and the pots themselves are gleaming bright orange with a fresh application of powdered brick. In the green room, Amitabh Bose is sitting on a high chair, reeling from a just-met-the-minister high.

‘He knew me
immediately
,’ he crows. ‘The DG tried to introduce me, but he said, no need for introduction, inhe toh
sab
jaante hain. Everybody knows him! And then he asked me if everything was okay and I said it was all good.’

‘But you’re always saying ki everything
isn’t
okay,’ Debjani points out. ‘That there are flies in the studio – one showed up clearly that day when Sameep was interviewing Cliff Richard!’

‘Yeah, well, I think Sameep attracts flies, frankly,’ Amitabh Bose says testily. ‘I wouldn’t have bothered the I&B minister with such a small thing.’

‘And the loos?’ Dabbu demands. ‘You keep saying they could be cleaner. And the autocue breaks down all the time. And…’

But Amitabh Bose is having his face powdered and cannot reply. The make-up dada smirks, thinking that this the first time Bose babu has turned up so early. He has been prowling around the building all day, hoping to meet the minister. While the minister was prowling around the building all day hoping to meet the pretty lady readers – he heard him enquire after Debjaniji
twice.

‘What was the purpose of the visit, anyway?’ she asks him presently, as they take their seats in the studio.

‘The special broadcast for Independence Day,’ he replies. ‘The PM’s address. And also,’ he adds, his voice sinking to a whisper, ‘how DD’s become too anti-government lately.’

‘Huh?’ Debjani says, bewildered. Her mind goes back to Dylan’s blistering piece in the
IP
. ‘But I thought we suck up to the government too much!’

‘Not enough, apparently,’ Amitabh Bose murmurs. ‘Operation Credibility was all well and good for the time being, but now there is an election looming and we need to grab our pompoms and break into a bust-thrusting, butt-wriggling cheerleader routine in favour of the ruling party.’

Debjani unconsciously crumples the scripts Young-Uday has just handed them, starting to feel vaguely mutinous. Amitabh Bose continues, ‘And he also said the new lot of newsreaders needs to pull up their socks. That they aren’t as, ahem,
polished
as us oldies. That they fumble and mumble and look panicky. He said DD should bump them down to reading Parliament news only. But I defended you lot bravely. Thank me!’

Dabbu listens, feeling more indignant by the minute.

‘Debbie, you haven’t read through your script,’ Young-Uday says hesitantly. ‘Don’t you think you should? You always do.’

‘It’s okay,’ she says shortly. ‘I can handle it.’

But when it is time for her to read the last paragraph of her section of the bulletin, she wishes she
had
read through it. Because then she could have swapped it with Amitabh Bose. Or pleaded sick. Or fainted. Or something. Anything to avoid reading out loud, to the whole country, even as a wretched feeling settles in the pit of her stomach:

‘
Human Rights organizations have condemned the actions of
India Post
journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, saying that the bribing and coaching of witnesses in the anti-Sikh riots case has done the cause of justice irreparable harm. They observed that such actions undermine the capability of civil society to have any imprimatur of impartiality in investigating Human Rights violations and urged that Shekhawat be punished severely.
’

‘How much money can you make being a journalist, waise? Matlab ki, wot is thee starting celery?’

‘Not much,’ Dylan says wearily. ‘Five hundred bucks.’

The three policemen absorb this information. They are all sitting around cozily in the warm chowki hawalat. There is a cement bench built into the wall. Sour smelling iron bars. A few dead tubelights do nothing to illuminate the faces of the law-keepers whose yellowish khaki uniforms blend seamlessly with their yellowish khaki complexion, not to mention with the yellowish khaki beedis clutched between their yellowish khaki teeth.

‘You have to do some special course-worse?’ they ask next. ‘Ya bas, graduation is enough?’

Dylan is starting to wonder if any of this is really happening. ‘A course helps,’ he replies. ‘I did a two-year diploma at the IIMC in Delhi.’

‘Expensive hoga,’ the cops say dismissively. ‘Out of our league. Bhai, our starting celery is only fifty rupees a month.
But
,’ one of them adds, balling his hand into a fist, ‘we have
pow
-ur.’

Bit of an over-statement that, Dylan thinks, glancing at the cold, grey bars of the electric heater in the corner. We haven’t had any power in the what, sixteen, hours since I’ve been here.

‘We get kung fu karate training also,’ says the fattest one. ‘The nunchaku is an Indian invention, did you know? In my village of Doondahera, we use two short dandas with a rope in the middle to herd the buffaloes.’

Dylan’s conviction that none of this is actually happening grows stronger by the minute.

‘You also have a really efficient investigative system going here,’ he manages to say. ‘I mean, the way you moved in to arrest me just as I was handing over the bribe. Caught me in the act. Impressive. How did you figure that out?’

The policemen look at each other and smirk.

‘Trying to pump us,’ one of them remarks sapiently. The other two promptly turn to glower threateningly at Dylan.

‘We can kill you, you know,’ the fattest one says, pinching the lobe of Dylan’s ear lovingly. ‘We can do anything we like – no one will ask even one qwoshun.’

‘Not today, though,’ objects the third conscientiously. ‘I can’t do any voilent acts today – my son’s mundan ceremony is at five o’clock – I have to stay holy and pure.’

I wish they’d just leave me alone so I can
think
, Dylan thinks exhaustedly. Try and make sense of what the hell just happened. That girl was obviously a plant, a set-up to discredit me and the paper. But whose stooge was she? Motla’s? That’s why he called me up to say don’t print the story. And I, like a damned fool, got all excited, walked straight into his trap and printed it. But is that all there is to it? Or is there more?

‘We can still
beat
you,’ the first cop is saying dreamily. ‘But very cleverly, pyar se, without any scars or fractures. So that even if you get bail somehow – you bastards always do – you won’t be able to write a story on police brutality the moment you get back to work. What do you say to that, my dear? Want some kambal pitai, hain? Some tender loving cane?’

‘No, thanks,’ Dylan tells them sincerely. ‘And if I get out, I’d rather do a story on your outrageously low salaries. Try and get you guys a raise.’

The cops look at each other and chuckle fatly. ‘Oh, we get by,’ winks the one who has sworn off all ‘voilence’ today. ‘Fifty rupees is only our
basic
, you could say.’

‘The perks of
pow
-ur.’ Dylan balls his hand into a fist and grins. ‘Cool.’

‘But day-to-day life is expensive, you know. Ab, take this mundan only. Three thousand rupees it is costing!’ The cop repeats the figure with gloomy pride, ‘
Three
thousand rupees!’

‘You could earn it back by gambling,’ his fat colleague suggests slyly. ‘Diwali season hai – what about a quick round of teen patti? Ho jaye?’