Those Pricey Thakur Girls (36 page)

‘Can you please explain what we are doing here?’ Varun asks Mitali plaintively. ‘The suspense is killing me.’

She doesn’t so much as glance at him. ‘Wait wait wait,’ she murmurs, eyes glued to the tiny TV monitor before her. ‘I’m looking for something…’

‘But
what
?’ Varun knows he is sounding petulant but he can’t help it. They’ve been cooped up inside a tiny edit studio in Safdurjang Enclave for hours now, in a tiny six-by-six-foot basement that reeks strongly of naphthalene balls and damp. ‘I would like to warn you at this point, Mitali Dutta, that my crush on you is in danger of languishing away entirely due to lack of nourishment.’

‘Silly,’ she says, glancing at him briefly. ‘You don’t have a crush on me – you’re just programmed to think that all career girls who smoke and put kajal and wear nose rings are hot.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Varun returns stoutly. ‘I’ve seen beyond your smoke-screen of oxidized silver and carbon monoxide. I know you’re worthy of deep emotion.’

‘Do you want to hear what I’m looking for?’ she asks hastily. Varun grins. ‘Yes, please.’

Mitali presses pause on the footage she has been watching and turns to face him. ‘So, basically, I chatted up all the girls and the old nuns in there to find out about this girl who’s gone missing. Nobody knew much about her. “Kept to herself ” was the general verdict. But then somebody happened to show me a picture of a bunch of the girls on the porch of the Yuvati Niwas. And she’s in the background talking to a wrinkly old guy who used to come over to meet her often. Their records have him listed as her maternal uncle. I took a picture of the register. Look!’

She hands Varun two photographs. Varun peers at the first, his forehead crinkling. ‘What an unlovely sight. And this wrinkly old man is…?’

‘Somebody I’ve seen before,’ Mitali says, banging on the console hard. ‘I wish I knew where – I know it’s in some old footage, so I’m checking all the stories I’ve done, but no sign of him so far…’

‘We’re trying to link her with Motla, aren’t we?’ Varun points out. ‘So why don’t you look through the footage of your interview with him?’

Mitali looks mildly surprised. ‘You’re right. I should have thought of that myself.’

Varun shrugs. ‘It’s only common sense,’ he says modestly. But Mitali doesn’t hear him, she is already burrowing through the box of dusty tapes at her feet. She straightens up, her face red with excitement, adjusting the neckline of her kaftanesque kurta which has slipped deliciously low.

‘Got it,’ she says breathlessly. ‘Let’s check it out.’

They spot him about halfway through the recording. Motla requests a break, holding up his palm horizontally and sticking a finger below it in the time-out sign. He wipes his face with a hanky and then – as Mitali and Varun watch with bated breath in the smelly edit studio – the wrinkly old man from the Yuvati Niwas photograph steps into the frame bearing a packet of Pan Parag. He opens it, extracts a spoonful with a tiny tin spoon and upends it onto Motla’s extended palm. The whole manoeuvre takes only about five seconds. The two players do it with the ease of long practice.

‘Of course!’ Mitali says ecstatically as she freezes the image. ‘That’s why I remember him. We played this shot again and again when we were fine-tuning the edit. This wrinkly old guy kept getting into the shot. He’s clearly Motla’s Man Friday, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is.’ Varun nods emphatically. ‘Now all we need to do is print both these pictures in the paper – the one of him with Motla and the one of him with Kamalpreet. Along with an 800-word piece that I will personally write. And we’re
home.
’

She gives him an impulsive hug. ‘And so is Dylan,’ she says, her eyes alight with happiness. ‘This is fantastic.’

Varun shoots her a wistful look. ‘Yeah, that’ll make you happy, huh? I thought you were just doing this because it’s such a big story.’

‘Oh, it’s a huge story,’ she agrees fervently.

‘I know. Bade-papaji and Hira will be thrilled.’

Chachiji is a happy woman. The flat is almost ready. A big artistic signboard spelling out
Hailey Court
in gorgeously curvy and curling type, has gone atop the six-storied building. The builder has been most obliging, fawning over her gratifyingly and carrying out all her little changes and special demands. The workmen are polishing the marble now, their massive machines grinding late into the night. The sound is music to Chachiji’s ears as she sits at the window in the annexe, her tongue between her teeth, making laborious drawings on green graph paper of how she will arrange her furniture in the flat. ‘The navy-blue sofa set will go here,’ she has told Mrs Mamta. ‘The glass-topped drift wood table over there. My cupboard full of porcelain dogs just here. And of course my carpet with the two Chinese dragons will go in the lowbie. There is a lowbie also, did I tell you?’

Mrs Mamta puts up with this effusiveness bravely, telling the girls that they have weathered the worst of it, and soon Chachiji will be ensconced in her own home, busy and happy.

Anjini is of the opinion that her mother is being way too optimistic. ‘She’ll need somebody to hate, Ma,’ she warns her. ‘She’s got nobody to bitch and moan and carp on about ever since she sent the Hot Dulari packing. Watch out she doesn’t promote you to the status of Enemy Number 1.’

Mrs Mamta looks harassed. ‘Now, girls,’ she says feebly.

‘I agree,’ says Binni. ‘Every time she goes out to water the plants in her tiny balcony, she’ll see your big spacious garden below and hate you. And she’ll come over and make fun of your marble chip floors and your plywood kitchen shutters and the Indian-style toilet in the terrace loo.’

‘And she’ll tell everybody Eshu’s having an affair with the Mother Dairy booth ka chinkie,’ Anji adds.

‘I wish,’ Eshwari sighs. ‘But I think he’s got some hot Mandakini type hidden away in the hills. Still, you don’t want Chachiji zooming in on you as her primary hate target, Ma. Let’s dig up the Hot Dulari, wherever she is, and bring her back.’

But Ashok Narayan Thakur does this before they can. Resurfacing after a fortnight of ‘work’, he drops by to airily inform Chachiji that he ran into the Hot Dulari while on his travels, and because she looked so broken and bereft and starved, he apologized to her on Chachiji’s behalf for dismissing her so unfairly, and (out of pure, disinterested human kindness) offered to re-instate her as cook-cum-housekeeper in the new Hailey Court establishment. And she accepted. He then summons Gulab and slaps him twice and tells him to forget about opening any gym-shim. He finishes by telling Chachiji that if she doesn’t like the Hot-Dulari-in-the-kitchen arrangement she can continue to live in the annexe at her brother-in-law’s mercy or return to her father’s village in UP.

And so Chachiji heads for Mrs Mamta’s kitchen, wailing, beating her breast and gnashing her teeth. The Judge, hearing her approach, gathers his newspapers and beats a hasty retreat, ignoring the bitterly reproachful glance his wife shoots at him. Mrs Mamta sighs, puts the saucepan on the gas, and gets ready to dish out tea and sympathy.

‘Over my dead body,’ fumes Chachiji as she sips her tea, to a sympathetic circle of Number 16 ladies. ‘AN’s father murdered his wife and that is exactly what AN will have to do if he wants to get that woman inside my flat!’

‘That’s not true, Bhudevi,’ Mrs Mamta rebukes her gently. ‘Don’t say things like that – the children are here.’

‘Oh, we know already,’ Bonu assures her. ‘Samar told us the whole story. She was standing on the terrace, shouting
Pushkar, Pushkar
, so he came and pushed her.’

There is a shocked silence. Chachiji sips her tea, her eyes glittering. Bonu giggles.

‘What nonsense!’ Mrs Mamta manages to say finally, with a credible amount of vehemence.

‘These children should be playing outside with a ball vaghera,’ Binni declares. ‘Not sitting in the kitchen drinking tea with the big people.’ She slaps Bonu’s wrist. ‘Don’t drink tea! When children drink tea it makes them dark. Drink milk only.’

‘So I’m going to follow family tradition and kill myself,’ Chachiji reiterates loudly, nettled that the spotlight has shifted away from her. ‘On the very day of the building inauguration next week. And
then
I’ll come back for him. Like
she
did. The Pushkarni. She gets inside me, you know, takes me over – she wants to do it now, I can tell.’

She throws back her head, rolls up her eyes and starts to rock back and forth. Debjani, curled up in a chair next to the kitchen window, wholly divorced from these proceedings, grits her teeth and resignedly starts to hum a little ditty inside her head.
I love my faamly, I love my faamly, I love my faamleee, I love them all…

Just then, the Judge walks into the kitchen, holding a small brown packet of eggs.

‘Why did
you
go to get the eggs?’ Mrs Mamta asks suspiciously. ‘You know that’s Eshwari’s job.’

‘I wanted some fresh air,’ he replies evasively. ‘And I’m glad I went. I got talking with old Mr Gambhir, he’s very upset about Dylan’s arrest. Mamtaji, I think we should pay the Shekhawats a visit.’

Mrs Mamta Thakur casts a nervous glance towards Debjani, who has gone unnaturally still. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘I’ll come.’ Debjani gets to her feet abruptly. ‘Let’s go, BJ.’

‘I’ll come too.’ Bonu bounces up. ‘I want to say sorry.’

‘What for, stupid girl?’ Binni frowns. ‘Sit down and finish your tea.’

‘What happened at Juliet’s house, LN?’ Mrs Mamta asks her husband that night. ‘Why has Dabbu come back looking like a limp dupatta somebody forgot to starch? Why isn’t she saying anything?’

The Judge sighs and sits down on the bed, his chappals dangling dispiritedly from his toes. ‘Ab what to say, Mamtaji,’ he says, massaging his closed eyes. ‘Basically, hamne der kar di. We were too late.’