Those Pricey Thakur Girls (7 page)

‘Hain? What is all this?’ the Judge says instantly. ‘The family idiot is wrecking our average! Focus, young man, focus!’

‘
You’re
talking the most, LN,’ the Brigadier says laconically. ‘Here, look, Dabbu and I have won this hand too.’

Dylan groans inwardly as he looks down at his cards and focuses, focuses.

And so the game continues, more smoothly now that the new recruit has got the hang of it. Twilight steals across the garden, the singing of the birds grows softer until it is replaced by the humming of crickets. Finally, Mrs Mamta Thakur walks onto the verandah.

‘LN,’ she calls. ‘Seven o’clock.’

Dylan looks up, suddenly, absurdly disappointed. He realizes he has just spent thirty minutes totally on tenterhooks, waiting for a girl he doesn’t fancy to look at him. And she hasn’t. How humiliating.

Abruptly, he decides he won’t go home without getting through to Miss Ball-squeezer. Just so he can get her off his mind for good. He waits for the game to end and then leans in and addresses her directly.

‘Um, Debjani? I need to make a call please. Could you show me where the phone is?’

‘It’s inside,’ she says, her tone discouraging.

An awkward silence follows.

‘Might as well carry that card table then, if you’re going inside,’ the Judge urges. ‘Strong young fellow like you! It’ll save the girls having to take it in later.’

So Dylan folds up the table and takes it inside. Debjani holds the door open for him, her mind clearly elsewhere. He notices, as he walks behind her, that her legs in her ragged denim cut-offs are slender, smooth and temptingly honey-brown. There is a thin silver bracelet clasped around one ankle. There’s probably some small animal dangling off that too.

‘Where should I put it?’ he enquires, hefting the table.

‘Here, thanks. And the phone’s right over there.’

She starts to walk away.

‘There
was
a cat, you know,’ he says. ‘I didn’t make it up.’

‘If you say so.’

‘It had half an ear missing and it was a dirty orangy brown colour.’

‘A tortoiseshell, you mean.’

‘Do I? Okay, a tortoiseshell, then. One learns something new every day.’

She continues to look sceptical.

‘Anyway, you’re a fine one to lecture against cruelty to animals,’ he says, piqued. ‘When you know very well that you grabbed Moti’s vitals and gave ’em a good long squeeze.’

She stiffens, looking decidedly shifty, then starts to speak.

‘Don’t deny it,’ he says before she can reply. ‘The expression on his face was a dead giveaway.’

She sits down on top of the card table and finally gives him her full attention.

‘See, he’s a street dog,’ she explains earnestly. ‘He isn’t trained. I wasn’t being cruel. It’s the only way I can control him when he gets that rabid.’

‘He could have bitten you,’ Dylan replies. ‘You were barefoot. And wearing those, er, shorts.’

He looks at them as he speaks, noticing that much hard work and creativity has gone into the cut-offs. They are deliberately ripped and embroidered all over with stars and ladybirds – what
is
it with this girl and ladybirds, anyway?

A little silence. Debjani slides her hands into her pockets, puffing out the ladybirds. ‘These are called Daisy Dukes,’ she tells him loftily. ‘They’re a craze in the US right now.’

‘Really?’ He grins. ‘Hey, that proves your dad’s theory – D for Daisy Dukes.
Doubl
e D, actually.’

Her nostrils flare. ‘Is that a cheap crack about my cup size?’ she snaps.

‘Wha...?’ Dylan hastily averts his eyes from her. ‘No no, no way! Of course not!’

‘Good,’ she says calmly. ‘Because I don’t take any shit from guys. I’m a Modernite, you know.’

And deep down I’m just a Columban, Dylan thinks, feeling slightly harassed. A good, convent-educated boy who always makes the mistake of crediting girls with more sweetness than they possess.

‘The only reason I mentioned the, er, Daisy Dukes,’ he says carefully, ‘is because you could’ve got bitten on your legs.’

She shrugs. ‘I covered my hand with a napkin. A cheesecloth napkin. They’re very thick.’

There were thick cheesecloth napkins on the card table today. Dylan wiped his mouth with one. He tries not to think about it.

He says, ‘At least you admit he’s not the shrinking angel you’re making him out to be.
What
is he, anyway? Why doesn’t he have any hair?’

She crosses her arms across her chest. ‘He has khujli,’ she says in a low voice. ‘Mange. His fur fell out and I’ve got him all these injections, and it’s growing back, but very slowly, and till then nobody will go near him.’

Except you, Dylan thinks, staring at her. Dabbu. Lover of losers.

‘Anyway, you’d better make your phone call. And I should go help with dinner.’ She jumps lightly to her feet and tilts her head. ‘Goodnight.’

And that’s when it clicks
.
Her hair’s all open and she has no make-up on and her shorts are a far cry from the stiff kanjeevaram she wore on TV and she’s in colour now, not black-and-white, but there can be no doubt after that lilting ‘Goodnight’.

‘You’re that newsreader!’ Dylan exclaims. ‘Debjani something!’

Instantly, her face clouds over. Then her eyes get all squinty, she straightens herself, suddenly looking much taller, and raises her chin.

‘Yes.’

Dylan’s head is in a whirl. ‘But you look… so different. Your hair… the shorts...’ He frowns. ‘Is that mole
real
?’

Almost without realizing it, he has moved forward, putting out a hand to the mole he hasn’t noticed so far because he’s been so taken by her eyes. She slaps his hand away.

‘Yes, it’s
real
,’ she flashes. ‘What did you think? That I painted it on before the news bulletin because I want to look like Aruna Irani?’

‘Who’s Aruna Irani?’ Dylan asks, bewildered.

Debjani makes an infuriated noise inside her throat. Dylan Singh Shekhawat, clutching his stinging hand, knows he has never heard a more adorable sound in his life.

‘Just make your phone call, okay?’ she says. ‘And then let yourself out. Goodnight.’

3

T
he Judge wakes up on Tuesday morning to the melodious sound of koels koohoo-koohing. He smiles, rolls onto his side, opens his eyes to drink in the sight of his front lawn, and gets a rude shock. The garden fauna, which until yesterday consisted only of the aforementioned koels, along with several chirruping sparrows and fluttering butterflies, has just had its numbers swollen by an unwelcome new addition.

‘What the devil…?’ the Judge demands, springing out of bed like a suddenly switched on fountain. ‘Why is that ruddy Gulgul cavorting about naked in my garden like a sturdy gazelle?’

Mrs Mamta hurries over to look. ‘He’s wearing a ganji and cycling shorts, LN,’ she says, sounding disappointed. ‘You bhi na, always exaggerating. But Eshwari’s right – Gulgul keeps pumping iron only with his arms, so his chest is big and puffy but his legs are like toothpicks and he has no backside to speak of.’

‘He’s got enough for me to kick,’ the Judge grunts, casting about with one hand for his slippers. ‘Ah, here they are! What’s he doing now?’ He goes up to the window. ‘He’s leaping over the flowerbeds! And picking up my stone pigeons and doing bicep curls with them!’

Snatches of song waft across the lawn. Gulgul’s voice is gaspy but game. He is clearly in a very good mood. The Judge, who isn’t as ‘regular’ as he used to be, thinks sourly that the young thug has probably had a really good bowel movement.

‘
Ey miss, dey dey kiss. Aa gaya, Love 86!
’ warbles Gulgul, his bouffant hair bouncing with every upward flick of his pigeon-dumbells.

‘Damn his insolence!’ the Judge snorts. ‘Don’t pour my tea yet, Mamtaji, it’ll get cold. I’ll drink it after I’ve killed him.’

A few minutes later, Gulab Thakur feels bony fingers pressing into his neck. He gives a little yelp.

‘Kaminey,’ his uncle’s voice says tenderly in his ear. ‘You think my garden is a bloody home gym? Tell me why I shouldn’t break your ruddy neck?’

‘Gu-gu-good morning, Tauji!’ Gulgul gasps. ‘I just looked across from my room and thought ki, I mean, these pigeons are exactly the right weight, and papa refuses to pay for more equipment, s-s-sorry
,
Tauji.’

‘Put those pigeons back exactly where you found them,’ his uncle tells him curtly. ‘And come in and eat something now that you’re here. Uff, bring your bag, duffer. And is that a
guide
? You’re studying law from a Jhabvala Guide? No wonder you keep failing!’

Gulgul, somewhat buoyed by the aroma of ande-ka-bhurji, scoops up the despised guide and creeps into the kitchen. The Judge vanishes behind his newspapers.

‘Namaste, Taiji,’ Gulab smiles at his aunt.

‘Arrey, Gulgul. Come, eat something.’

He tucks happily into everything she puts before him, refusing only the cold coffee because, according to his idol Arnold Schwarzenegger, ‘milk is for babies’.

‘You’re not
that
big yet, Gulab,’ Mrs Mamta says fondly. ‘How soft and huge your eyes were when you were a baby – just like gulab jamuns. And your skin was so fair!’

The Judge thinks privately that this was probably because his childless sister-in-law had picked out the fairest, best-looking baby she could find in all of Delhi’s orphanages. And, naturally, one with a penis. Too bad one can’t do height and IQ tests on infants. Gulgul has turned out to be rather short on both counts.

‘How are your studies going?’ the Judge barks.

Gulgul gulps. He has been trying to follow in his uncle’s steps and study law, but he is finding it an uphill task. He has already failed the second-year exams twice.

‘Quite well, Tauji,’ he says weakly. ‘Hehe.’

The Judge makes a small disgusted sound in his throat and leaves the table. Gulgul turns large, timid eyes towards his aunt.

‘I wasn’t running about in the garden just like that, Taiji,’ he volunteers. ‘I was practising positive visualization. I imagined the flowerbeds are my exams and I am clearing them smoothly, one by one. Then I lifted the pigeons like I was lifting the pressure I am under. That is how bodybuilding helps you in everyday life, you know.’

She hands him a banana. ‘So what are you studying for now, beta?’ she asks him kindly.

Gulgul’s eyes cloud over. His bouffant goes a little phuss.

‘Huf,’ he confesses in a low voice and takes a great bite out of the banana.

‘Oh,
Huf
.’ Mrs Mamta nods vaguely.

‘Hindu Undivided Family,’ Gulab explains. ‘Like us. We are all coparceners in Dadaji’s estate.’

‘Oh, no.’ Mrs Mamta is more confident now. ‘Your Dadaji already divided his estate between your father and your Tauji, Gulgul. All that is
done.
’

‘Well, you and the girls are all coparceners in Tauji’s estate, then,’ Gulab says. ‘You’re a Huf.’

‘Sounds like a simple enough subject,’ Mrs Mamta says as she clears the table.

Gulab shakes his head earnestly. ‘No, Taiji, it is very complicated! Look at this question, for example.’ He leafs through his
Jhabvala Family Law Guide
, clears his throat and begins to read.

‘A, a male Hindu, dies intestate in 1979 and is survived by a widow W. He has three sons S1, S2 and S3. S1 is a cripple with an adopted son S1S. S2 is a lunatic. S3 converted to the Muslim faith, married a Muslim girl S3W, begat a son S3S and then died during the lifetime of A. S1S fell into bad company and murdered the brother of A over a property dispute. Discuss who will inherit the 5 crore property of A and what the shares will be.’

‘How tragic for widow W,’ Mrs Mamta says, much affected. ‘Three sons – one mad, one crippled, one dead and, even worse,
Muslim
!’

Gulab Thakur clucks reprovingly. ‘The question is not one of tragedy, Taiji, but of legality.’

‘That’s why daughters are so much better than sons,’ his aunt muses. ‘They’re less sickly, too sensible to commit murder and they know there are no gods like Hindu gods, baba!’

‘Don’t you want to know who will inherit how much?’ Gulab asks.

But before Mrs Mamta can reply, Gulab’s mother stumps into the room, her bulldog-like face bobbing bizarrely above her cotton-candy-pink sari. She sees her son and cuffs him behind the ears.

‘Ow!’

‘Eating egg on Tuesday! And who will eat the atte-ka-halwa I made?’

‘Mummy, I keep telling you, I have to eat a protein-rich diet,’ Gulab replies as he grabs his
Jhabvala Guide
and makes a rapid retreat towards the door.

‘He came over because of his studies,’ Mrs Mamta says soothingly. ‘Some problem he wanted his uncle’s help with.’

Bhudevi Thakur sits down.

‘I hate her,’ she announces.

‘Who?’ Mrs Mamta asks warily, picking up her embroidery hoop and needle. As long as she can remember, Bhudevi has always hated
somebody
. It’s what keeps her going. She organizes her life around the object of her disaffection the way other people organize their living-room furniture around their TV set. And like a TV, she upgrades to a new model every few years. In her childhood it was her elder sister, who had apparently been much fairer than her. She died before Bhudevi got married and her irreverent nieces insist it was their Bhudevi chachi herself who bumped her off. After her wedding, Chachiji focused her hatred on her mother-in-law. After
her
death Mrs Mamta found herself promoted to the spot of Chachiji’s Enemy Number 1, and after spending a few unnerving years in this unwanted spotlight, thankfully found herself displaced by a luscious little item called the Hot Dulari, who is employed as cook at Number 13 and (according to Chachiji) flirts with Ashok Narayan constantly.

‘Oho, Dulari, who else,’ Chachiji replies. ‘She is trying to do jaadu-tona on me.’

‘No no,’ Mrs Mamta protests weakly. ‘Aise kaise? Voo-doo, jaadu-tona, it’s just superstitious rubbish. It doesn’t work. Everybody knows that.’

Chachiji shakes her head. ‘She went off to her village for three days saying somebody had died and she had to attend the funeral. And you know what she did there?’

Mrs Mamta doesn’t want to know. ‘What?’ she asks in her most discouraging voice.

Chachiji leans in, her eyes glinting. ‘She sat in the front row when they were burning the dead body. She cried loudly and beat her breast – all dikhawa, of course! And then, when nobody was watching, she put her hand into the embers and scooped up a handful of the dead woman’s ashes.’

‘Why?’ Mrs Mamta asks, intrigued in spite of herself.

‘She put them into an empty Postman-oil-ka-tin and brought them to Delhi, mixed them with the dalia I take every morning, and made me eat them.’

‘
Why?
’ Mrs Mamta asks, truly mystified now.

‘Arrey, to turn me into a cannibal! Because the spirits of dead people can enter cannibals, na. Everybody knows that. She’s trying to drive me mad.’

Mrs Mamta puts down the pretty cross-stitch pansies she is embroidering and looks at her sister-in-law in fascination.

‘
How
do you know she’s doing this, Bhudevi?’

Chachiji’s voice drops to an impressive whisper. ‘Because our mother-in-law told me. Today only.’

There is a small problem with this statement. Mrs Mamta articulates it.

‘But our mother-in-law is dead.’

Chachiji shoots a distinctly irate look at her sister-in-law. ‘Didn’t you hear a word I said? I’ve been turned into a cannibal against my will and now my dead mother-in-law gets into my body and talks to me.’

‘But,’ Mrs Mamta perseveres, trying to stay calm and reasonable, ‘why would the Hot Dulari do that? What would she get out of turning you into an, uh, medium?’

‘She’s trying to drive me crazy,’ Chachiji replies simply. ‘That’s her plan. She wants me packed off to an asylum so she can live in sin, khullam-khulla, sabke samne, in Number 13 with AN.’

Mrs Mamta cannot for the life of her imagine why
anybody
would want to live with her smiley, slimy brother-in-law. But AN has never lacked admirers. Chachiji, for all her pugnacity, is pathetically smitten with him. And so, clearly, is the Hot Dulari.

‘It’s the sleazy Thakur charm,’ the Judge assures Mrs Mamta whenever she brings up this puzzling point. ‘I missed out on it but AN has it in spadefuls – he’s the spitting image of our father.’

Mrs Mamta sniffs. She does not particularly approve of her late father-in-law. Pushkar Narayan Thakur had been a handsome, profligate hellraiser, descended from a long line of horny Hailey Road Thakurs. The family had at one time owned almost half the houses on Hailey Road, built on barren land bequeathed to them by the later Mughals for what was vaguely termed ‘services to the empire’. Nobody talks about what exactly these ‘services’ were, but Mrs Mamta suspects they involved gambling, extortion, contract killings and some high-level pimping. Old Pushkar Narayan was certainly guilty of all these vices – he had inherited five houses on Hailey Road and shrunk them down to two over fifty years of debauchery and sloth. He left one to each of his boys and proceeded to die noisily and painfully of liver cirrhosis, three months after his long-suffering wife tumbled to her death while gathering clothes from the terrace of Number 13 during a sudden hailstorm.

‘But where will she live in sin with AN?’ Mrs Mamta asks Chachiji now. ‘Number 13 has just been sold!’

This is true enough. Ashok Narayan has run through his inheritance at a rate that would have warmed the cockles of his dissolute father’s heart and the house has had to be sold in order to pay off the debts. All Ashok will retain is one ground-floor flat in the block of residential flats that is to come up in its stead.

‘That all I don’t know,’ Chachiji says crossly. ‘I just know what the Pushkarni told me when she ghussoed in my body. I was just looking at that photu of hers, you know the one where she is smiling, holding AN in her arms, when
phuttt
! She dived inside my body through my open mouth. My neck jerked back and my nose-trills became big, and bas, there she was inside me, with her vegetarian appetite and her gassy stomach and all.
You and your husband are doomed
, she said in my head.
I will never let this house be sold. And
y
our whole family is going to fall apart – wait and see!
’

This last certainly sounds prophetic. Things in the family have deteriorated recently. Not content with selling his own house, Ashok Narayan Thakur wanted the Judge to sell
his
house too, as together the property would command a much higher price per square foot. But the Judge categorically refused, insisting there had always been Thakurs on Hailey Road and there always would be, and where did AN think he was going to marry his girls off from? The newly built Maurya Sheraton hotel on S.P. Marg?

Unfortunately, not all his girls see eye-to-eye with him on this. Binni, his strident second daughter, who is in dire need of funds to shore up her husband’s family business, heard the whispers of a house sale and arrived hotfoot from her home in Bijnor to urge her father to sell the house and hand over her one-sixth share instantly.

‘You
must
help me, Bauji,’ she told him stubbornly. ‘You put me in a Hindi medium school and left me in the village with Chachaji for six years – that spoilt my chances
forever.
My own sisters think I’m a behenji. I have to be compensated.’

She had conveniently glossed over the fact that this had been done only because her asthma was so chronic that the doctors insisted she live, not in polluted Kanpur, which was where the Judge was posted in those days, but in the countryside.

‘Binni, it would be idiotic to sell this house now,’ her father said mildly. ‘Its value will escalate for years yet.’

‘But Vickyji’s business needs funds or it’ll go thupp! You have to give me my one-sixth hissa
now
.’

The Judge, who abhors the word
hissa
– the many sibilants in it always make him think of a coiled snake, black hood raised and fangs ready to strike – tried to keep his patience.

‘Then maybe he should get a job
.
He had a decent enough job when you married him, why this obsession with business?’