Those Pricey Thakur Girls (10 page)

‘I’m glad you liked my ring,’ she says suddenly.

He is taken aback for a moment, and then grins.

‘You heard me, then.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she replies serenely.

‘So, is it purely ornamental?’ he asks. ‘Or does it have any significance?’

She tilts her head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, is it a doggy ring?’ he asks playfully. ‘Uniting you and Moti in a bond of puppy love?’

He is trying to find out if I’m engaged or seeing someone, Debjani realizes. She ought to say something witty and sparkling back to him. But what can she say?

‘Moti’s married to Voti,’ she replies, deciding to take the question at face value. ‘Voti is Punjabi for wife. And they’ve just had a new litter – Chhoti, Dhoti and Roti.’

‘Chhoti is the small one, obviously.’ The long dimples flash as he props himself against the table and crosses his arms across his chest. (Why is he making himself comfortable? Wasn’t he leaving?) ‘Dhoti has a big white bum, am I right?’

Debjani smiles. ‘Exactly!’

‘But Roti defeats me. Unless, wait, is he a glutton?’ ‘He’s light brown,’ Debjani explains. ‘Sort of wheat coloured. So.’

‘Of course. Actually, that was a stupid guess. Because Moti would’ve given you a
pearl
ring.’

‘You sound like my father.’ Debjani makes a face. ‘He says I’m going to marry a dog. D for dog, you know.’

And then she instantly wants to gag herself, because D for Dylan! Oh god, what will he think? Her cheeks turn an incandescent pink.

She is so transparent, Dylan thinks, amused. Her thoughts might as well appear in neon across her forehead for everyone to read. He starts to make some casual reply but just then, a fair, top-heavy young man shambles into the drawing room, looking supremely disgruntled.

‘Bhai, yeh Meenakshi Seshadri cheating karti hai,’ he declares.

‘This is my Gulgul bhaisaab,’ Debjani says to Dylan, who has just done a double take at the sight of Gulgul’s gargantuan biceps.

‘Hello, bicep,’ Dylan says fascinated, then hastily corrects himself. ‘I mean, hello, bhaisaab.’

‘Good joke, good joke.’ Gulgul smiles graciously as he casts an assessing look over Dylan’s body, puffs out his own, far larger chest, hauls his cycling shorts a little higher up his skinny bum, sits down on the sofa and elaborates on his theme. ‘Haan, toh this Meenakshi, she looks like she is wearing an
Amar Chitra Katha
outfit – you know, only a white cloth floating on her upper body – but agar close-by se dekho toh she is wearing a full-sleeved, neck-to-waist skin-coloured blouse! And I’m rewinding and rewinding and looking and looking and wondering ki, bhai where is her
toondi
? Batao!’

Debjani chokes.

‘What’s a toondi?’ Dylan asks, totally at a loss.

‘A navel,’ Debjani manages to say. ‘Gulgul bhaisaab, I’ll just see Dylan out, and come and chat with you, okay?’

‘Hain? But… I needed a favour from you, Dabbu.’ Gulgul clears his throat and the tips of his ears turn a delicate shade of pink. ‘I came to ask specially.’ In a louder voice, he addresses Dylan: ‘Can you excuse us, please?’

‘Of course, I was leaving anyway.’ Dylan nods formally at Debjani and walks out of the room.

Debjani is suddenly disappointed. ‘What
is
it, Gulgul bhaisaab?’ she snaps.

‘Nothing, nothing.’ He kicks off his sandals and, drawn by some irresistible urge, shoves his large foot into the ballet slipper that Dabbu has just discarded to sit cross-legged on the sofa. ‘Hehe! Look at my foot in your shoe, Dabbu!’

As Gulgul’s leg is skinny and hairy and the ballet slipper deep purple and pointy, this is not a pretty sight, but Gulgul appears to find it fascinating. He arches his foot up and down, lost in a reverie, humming a happy little tune.

‘
What
did you want to talk to me about, Gulgul bhaisaab?’

‘Oh, yes!’ He looks up. ‘Er, Dabbu, see… you know I’m serious about my bodybuilding, na?’

‘Yes.’ She nods impatiently, peering out at the garden.

‘Ya, well, I was reading Arnold’s book on bodybuilding – and in all the pictures in that, the men have no hair.’

‘Okay,’ Dabbu says uncomprehendingly.

‘They are all chikna and oiled, so all the rips and cuts show… And I am toh, you have maybe not noticed, quite, uh…’

‘Hairy,’ Dabbu supplies, tapping her foot, wondering if she can still catch Dylan at the gate. ‘I’ve noticed.’

‘Yes! And I can’t wear a skin-coloured blouse like Meenakshi Seshadri. So, I was thinking…’ He pauses, and then continues in a rush, ‘Can you wax me? Not everything, just the chest. If I go to the parlour they’ll laugh at me – I’ll pay whatever it costs, of course.’

Debjani stares at him, speechless. One moment you’re flirting with a tall dark handsome man who wants to know if you’re engaged, and the next you’re being solicited to make intimate contact with your short cousin’s thick black chest hairs. Such is life. Gross. Grim. Avoidable.

‘But chest hair is so manly,’ she says weakly.

‘Please, Dabbu. It’s to help me attain my
dream.
I want to open my own gym one day! I’m going to call it Gulab’s Gym. Cool, na?’

He fixes his large gulab jamun eyes upon her beseechingly. The very hairs of his eyebrows seem to quiver in a tremulous ‘please’. Everything about him is supplicating. And path blocking. She gets the distinct impression that he isn’t about to let her go anywhere until she says yes.

‘Okay,’ she says in a strangled voice. ‘Come over early tomorrow morning. We’ll do it in the kitchen because I have to heat the wax.’

Gulgul beams.

‘You’re so
good
, Dabbu. So kind! Not like Eshwari… not like Binni… not like Anjin –’

‘You’re welcome,’ she cuts him short. ‘Now can I have my shoe back?’

Putting it on, she rushes outside.

It is dark in the garden. Debjani comes out to find that Dylan is being interrogated by the two old men, who have him backed up against the green front gate.

‘So you think journalists should be answerable to nobody, eh? Not to the government, not to the judiciary?’

‘No, sir,’ Dylan is replying steadily. ‘I think the press
should
be answerable – but only to its readers.’

‘To its corporate masters, you mean!’ the Judge snorts. ‘You people can’t see the big picture. Every third division BA with a pencil in his sweaty hand thinks he is a journalist nowadays! You have no concept of the law – that’s why your reportage of courtroom trials is so botched up. You should all be made to get a law degree before reporting on legal matters.’

‘And all lawyers should get an MBBS before defending doctors, I suppose,’ Dylan replies pleasantly. ‘And judges should attend IIT for five years before presiding over a civil engineering case.’

The Judge gives a short bark of laughter. ‘Perhaps.’

‘BJ,’ Debjani calls out. ‘The cricket highlights are coming on TV.’

The old men’s eyes light up. Without a word, they hurry into the house. Debjani finds herself alone with Dylan.

‘Don’t mind my dad,’ she says with a slight roll of the eyes. ‘Mine is just as bad.’ He grins.

A little silence. Dylan looks over the gate at Voti nursing her puppies upon the sandpile.

‘They look drunk,’ he says softly. ‘Look at their eyes, totally glazed over. And their tummies are as tight as drums.’

Dabbu stands next to him watching the puppies too, completely tongue-tied. There is something a little too intimate about the situation, she feels. The puppies make tiny slurping sounds, then one by one, let the nipple slip from between their teeth and fall asleep, their tiny mouths slack.

‘Hardworking little buggers,’ Dylan says, his voice a husky whisper. He turns to her, his dark eyes warm, and her pulse jumps crazily. God, what is this?

‘So, are you reading the news again this Friday?’

DD hasn’t yet informed Debjani when her next broadcast is to be. Or
if
it is to be, she thinks miserably.

She lifts her chin. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘No reason,’ he replies quickly. ‘Just, you seemed so upset over your Balkishen Bau.’

Debjani frowns down at the sleeping puppies. She is feeling like a bit of a fake. She twists her wavy hair into a thick rope over one shoulder and looks up at him impulsively, making him think yet again, for some inexplicable reason, of wings.

‘Look, I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m a very good person.’

‘Huh?’

‘Because I was crying over an old uncleji,’ she explains. ‘You might think I am very nice. But I’m not. Not really. It’s just that it suddenly hit me that he was dead… really, actually,
dead
… and the sun was setting, and frankly I’ve been moping about a nasty review of my newsreading in the
India
Post
. So it was probably thirty per cent Balkishen Bau, seventy per cent nasty review. Actually, eighty per cent nasty review,’ she amends scrupulously.

Dylan doesn’t know what to say – this is more honesty than he has encountered in a while.

She squares her shoulders and looks up at him. ‘Perhaps you saw it?’

He tenses. It’s a question he has been dreading.

‘The newscast? Yes.’

She fixes her luminous eyes on him.

‘Did
you
think it was dreadful?’

‘Uh, listen, Debjani, I –’

‘It
was
dreadful,’ she bursts out. ‘I knew it!’

‘It’s not your fault,’ he says hastily. ‘The stuff they give you to read is such crap, I’d look like a zombie too if I had to read it out.’

‘I looked like a
zombie
!’ she says tragically.

‘Not a zombie, just a bit, er, wooden.’

‘Like Pinocchio!’

He somehow manages not to laugh. Instead, he reaches out and squeezes her shoulder lightly. ‘Stop being such a tragedy queen! Where’s your ball-squeezing spirit?’

It is meant to be a friendly, encouraging gesture. Only, it doesn’t play out quite like that.

Because his hand is large and warm and strong. Which sounds calming, but the effect it has on Debjani is completely panic-inducing. Act
casual
, she tells herself chaotically. Say something. People in Bombay probably touch each other all the time to emphasize a point. Hell, people in Delhi touch each other all the time to emphasize a point! It doesn’t mean anything.

‘It’s the autocue,’ she says with credible composure. ‘In the auditions, we read from sheets. That thing freaks me out.’

Meanwhile Dylan is having the weirdest urge to touch her bare shoulder again. Because her skin is smooth and firm and cool and because… Because I’m feeling
guilty
, he realizes. Of course, that’s it. I’m feeling guilty because I’ve screwed up this poor girl’s life with that hastily written, unnecessarily personal piece, and now I’ll feel like crap until I fix things.

He slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans and says, his voice a little unsteady, ‘So, I have this idea. I know a way in which we can lick this little problem.’

‘How?’ Debjani asks, her voice agonized. ‘I’ve tried to practise, but the more I practise, the worse I get.’

The long dimples flash. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at ten. We’ll kick the autocue’s ass. You won’t regret it. I promise.’

4

‘G
ulgul bhaisaab, you’ll have to be brave.’ Dabbu is hot and sticky and quite fed up. ‘Take your hands off your chest please!’

But Gulgul, standing with his hands covering his torso in a classic posture of outraged modesty, shakes his head vigorously. The removal of the very first strip of wax has brought tears to his eyes and options to his mind.

‘I’ll shave it,’ he says. ‘It won’t be so smooth, and I’ll have to do it every day, but that’s okay.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Debjani, a girl with a mission now, tells him firmly. ‘I spent ages heating this wax, I’m not going to waste it. Now stand still and take a deep breath – see how nice it looks where I pulled the hair off?’

But it doesn’t. It’s all goose-pimpled and red. Gulgul gulps miserably, he is feeling a little faint in the hot kitchen.

‘You know, Dabbu, I don’t think-so that you are doing this correctly,’ he says, looking down at the used strip, thick with a furry layer of uprooted hair. ‘I think only qualified beauticians know how to do this. Isn’t that
skin
along with hair? Maybe that’s why it is hurting so much!’

Debjani gasps at this ungrateful attitude. ‘It’s hurting because you’re so
hairy
,’ she tells him unkindly. ‘Now shut up and bare your chest or I’ll call Ma to hold your hands back.’

But Gulgul continues to cover his nipples coyly.

‘I’ll put ice on your chest afterwards,’ Dabbu says wheedlingly, wondering how she gets herself into situations like this. ‘And then we’ll massage in some cold cream and you’ll see how chikna you look! Even through this little strip I can make out how well-defined your chest is!’

Gulab Thakur perks up a little at this.

‘Definition is very important,’ he says. ‘Definition is everything. The skin must be so thin that the
veins
show. Bulk is for apes, Arnold says. Bulk is noth –
owwwccchh
!’

This outraged howl brings Eshwari running to the kitchen.

‘What are you
doing
, Dabbu? Oh, gross! Avoidable! Avoidable! Why did I have to see that? What an ugly sight! Those used strips could sell in Jagdish Stores as carpeting!’

‘Good you’re here,’ Dabbu says calmly. ‘Help me finish. Two more strips should do it.’

Ten minutes later, a cowed and hairless Gulab Thakur slinks out of the kitchen, clutching ice to his denuded chest, and the sisters sit down to a cup of tea in their bedroom.

‘That was scarring,’ Eshu says darkly. ‘What a sight to wake up to! I’ll probably have the worst day of my life now.’

‘Oh, it’ll be a good day, you’ll see,’ Dabbu sings sunnily as she sinks back into bed.

‘You’re very chirpy,’ Eshwari remarks, yawning as she yanks at the school belt hanging out of the bottom of her closed cupboard door. The cupboard flies opens and all its contents tumble out in a massive heap upon the floor. ‘Damn.’

‘I bet that’s how Japanese people’s guts spill out when they perform a ritual harakiri,’ Debjani says. ‘Why don’t you ever clean that cupboard, Eshu?’

‘I will,’ Eshwari says, rummaging through the heap for her school uniform. ‘What are you doing today?’

‘Oh,’ Debjani says, her cheeks turning a slow, sure red as she picks out a lime-green peasant top from her meticulously neat cupboard and holds it against her body. ‘I’m going to the Brig’s house today – his son’s offered to help me hone my autocue technique.’

Eshwari’s eyes narrow. ‘Which son is this? Aren’t all his sons still studying? Except the harami one – but he lives in Bombay, no?’

‘He’s here on holiday,’ Debjani says, adding a pink sling bag to the lime-green top and studying the effect in the mirror. ‘He came over with the Brig, we got talking and he said he’d give me some tips.’

‘The harami one!’ Eshwari squeals, sinking into her clothes heap. ‘What d’you mean you got
talking
? I thought he was no talking, only cocking!’

‘What rubbish!’ Dabbu splutters.

‘When did he come home? How’d I miss him? Is he devilish?’

‘He’s okay,’ Debjani answers, her cheeks burning. ‘No horns or forked tail.’

‘And the rear view?’

Debjani’s eyes get a faraway look.

‘Nice,’ she admits. And then covers her ears as Eshwari emits a glass-shattering shriek.

‘You said nice! Oh my god, you like him! You like someone! Dabbu likes someone! Dabbu likes someone!’

‘Just a bit,’ Debjani cautions.

‘Just a bit? Or just a butt?’

‘Well,’ Debjani shrugs. ‘I don’t
know
him yet. I mean, I don’t know if he’s honest and kind and brave – my three
essentials
, you know. But I guess he’s cute.’

Eshwari grins, satisfied. ‘So all this sajjing and bajjing is in the harami’s honour,’ she crows. ‘Umm… for your deflowering today, may I recommend the white cotton Sheetal bra and the Nancy panties with the pink dots?’

‘Shut up
.
It’s not like that. You think what I’m wearing is nice?’

Eshwari looks at her, standing before the mirror in the lime-green peasant blouse, with pink sling bag, dishevelled sticky brown hair and wax-spattered grey pyjamas.

‘
You’re
nice.’ She grins. ‘Yes, I like it. But lose those pyjamas and wear your shorts. And one silver payal. And remember to stay on your toes when you’re sitting in the car, so your thighs don’t press fully upon the seat – otherwise they’ll phailo and look huge.’

At eleven sharp, Dylan, freshly shaved and wearing a body-skimming T-shirt that his mother assures him makes him look exactly like Michelangelo’s David but with clothes on, drives up to the gate of 16 Hailey Road and sounds the horn smartly.

Debjani’s parents, whose eyebrows have already risen upon hearing her plan for the day, now look even more concerned.

‘Cocky chap,’ the Judge grumbles even as Debjani’s heart starts to beat a little faster. ‘When is he going back to Bombay? How long is he here for?’

Debjani murmurs ‘Ma, I’m going’ as casually as she can and walks out to the verandah. And runs smack into Dylan, who’d meant for the horn to be an announcement, not a summons.

‘Whoops, sorry,’ he says, putting out a hand to steady her. ‘Hope I’m not late?’

‘Oh, no,’ Debjani shakes her head, feeling idiotically breathless. Because he is
looking
at her. Like looking at her is something worth doing thoroughly. ‘Come.’

But Dylan just stands there, still holding her hand, still staring down at her.

‘What?’ she says, feeling her face start to flush.

‘Nothing. Just… you look really nice today.’

Debjani, worried that her father might bounce out any moment and ask Dylan what his ‘intentions’ are, replies stiffly, ‘Thanks. Shall we go?’

Dylan looks undecided.

‘Should I say hello to your parents first, d’you think?’ he asks doubtfully. ‘This feels a little high-handed.’

‘Oh, let’s not make a big production out of it!’ she says hurriedly. ‘It’s not like this is a date or anything.’

The warm light in his eyes dies. Abruptly, he lets her hand go. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

He drives them silently around the Connaught Place outer circle, keeping his eyes on the road. He is suddenly rather annoyed. The trouble with girls, especially the prettier ones, is that the moment you give them even one compliment, they start thinking you’re madly in love with them. Why does she feel the need to clarify that this is not a date? I don’t want to date her, damn it! I’m just trying to undo the damage my review may have done to her obviously low self-esteem.

‘Why do you even want to read the DD news?’ he asks abruptly as they pull up at a red light. ‘It’s just a bunch of ministers cutting ribbons and patting each other on the back.’

She tilts her head. ‘Sorry, but do you know of any other TV channel in this country?’

She’s so
smart
, isn’t she, he thinks, irritated. Why doesn’t she wear anything other those skimpy denim cut-offs? How am I supposed to think with those legs on display?

‘There’s a lot of stuff coming up nowadays,’ he says as he turns a corner. ‘People are finding ways to get around DD’s stranglehold. Video news magazines, if you’re hung up on the visual media. Or there’s print.’

‘But no one else has DD’s reach,’ she points out. ‘If you feature on DD, especially on DD English, you’re seen across the country. Do you know, after my first broadcast, we went for chaat to Bengali Market and the chaat-wallah didn’t let BJ pay because he recognized me!’

‘So this is about fame?’ he says, sneering slightly. ‘Are you hoping to get a break in the movies? Or just casting the marriage web really wide?’

Debjani stares at him in disbelief. Just because he’s helping her a little, he thinks he can ask intensely personal questions?

‘Don’t you know,’ he continues, ‘that DD is just a government tool? That after her bodyguards shot down the PM in ’84, DD broadcast footage of her party workers chanting
Blood for Blood!
and
A Life for a Life!
on national television? And that led to the massacre of 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi alone?’

What a pompous know-it-all, Debjani thinks. And I don’t even think that’s true. At least, I don’t remember it being
that
big a deal.

‘Think what you like,’ she shrugs. ‘And I wasn’t the only one who wanted to read on DD. The entire university rushed off to audition as soon as they turned twenty-one. When I got through, two whole years later, I was thrilled.’ She adds snidely, ‘Why do you sound so resentful, anyway? Did you apply and not get chosen?’

Dylan chokes. ‘I’m an investigative editor at the
India Post
,’ he tells her loftily. ‘I think more people would know me than
you
.’

Dabbu, still smarting from the nasty review his newspaper’s given her, starts to tell him exactly what she thinks of the
India Post
. But then the window of the car next to them rolls down and a woman with a tiny baby in her arms calls out excitedly.

‘Hai-ho, you’re the new newsreader, na? I recognized you from the mole on your chin. So pretty! Is it real?’

Dabbu smiles and nods. Dylan glares. The light changes, and the Maruti 800 shoots ahead.

‘You were saying?’ she murmurs.

‘Never mind,’ he snaps.

Why, if he dislikes my job so much, is he helping me? Debjani wonders, irritated. Eshu would say it’s because he’s in lust with me, but I see no sign of lustiness so far. Am I his good deed for the day? Like mine was Gulgul bhaisaab? Does he pity poor pathetic me? How humiliating!

She is still thinking these panicked thoughts when he pulls up outside a pretty bungalow, half obscured by leafy banana trees, a few minutes later. He stalks into the house, making a point of not opening the car door for her.

Dabbu wanders in behind him, looking uncertain.

‘What’s that lovely smell?’ she ventures as she enters through the heavy teak front door.

‘Huh? Oh, it’s Lobaan,’ he says offhandedly. ‘Frankincense. Mamma lights it every morning...’

But Debjani has already been grabbed by a tiny, sweet-faced lady, with dimples exactly like Dylan’s. ‘It keeps out the evil bugs
and
the evil spirits,’ she explains. ‘You must be Mamta’s fourth girl.
Such
a sweet face, ba! Just like the Madonna’s.’

‘Hi, aunty.’ Dabbu turns slightly pink. ‘Ma says hello.’

‘Mamma, we’ll be in my room,’ Dylan says shortly.

His mother looks up and says something in a sharper tone in Konkani. Dylan says something curt in reply.

‘What was that?’ Debjani asks as he walks her into his room, a neat, sunny, blue and brown space.

‘Don’t bolt the door,’ he says, rolling his eyes. ‘And no sitting on the bed. So I told her this was strictly work.’

But Debjani has run up ahead to his desk. ‘You have a
Mac
?’

Dylan, much gratified that she is so impressed, manages a nonchalant shrug. ‘Yeah. And today it’s going to double as a teleprompter.’

Quickly, he explains it to her. He’s got the text ready, articles he’s written in the past, and she is to read it aloud sitting six feet away, just like in the DD studio.

‘I’ll keep scrolling it down for you,’ he says, turning to the computer, ‘at reading speed. Is the font big enough?’

There is a tug at his arm. He turns around and is startled to find twin pools of Pears alarmingly close to his face. This close, they’re almost scary.

‘Thank you,’ Debjani says sincerely. ‘And sorry for that stupid remark at my place. It was dumb.’

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, somewhat distantly. ‘It was pretty dumb.’

‘I don’t know how to talk,’ she offers apologetically.

‘But you’re a Modernite,’ he reminds her.

‘I’m sorry about
that
crack too,’ she says. ‘And for holding up a this-is-not-a-date flag. I realize it was presumptuous. I mean, obviously you have a girlfriend.’

Dylan, trained journalist that he is, knows that statements are questions. But he doesn’t want to answer this one.

‘What a big word,’ he says lightly. ‘
Presumptuous.
I bet you go around saying presumptuous things just so you can use
presumptuous
when you apologize and impress the other person with your usage of
presumptuous
.’