THE HOUSE THAT BJ BUILT, page 22
By the end of this long speech, the sisters look quite depressed.
‘So this is real?’ Anjini asks. ‘It could happen? Chachaji could take away our inheritance right from under our noses?’
Paperwallah nods. ‘He could. It’s a serious situation, ladies, please do not labour under the illusion that it isn’t.’
‘Why did he go so quiet on it for all these years, then?’ Eshwari asks.
Paperwallah steeples beautifully manicured fingers. ‘Oh, I think he must’ve thought our legal system would be sympathetic to a sick old man who was losing his faculties. But not so sympathetic to a cabal of young, high-profile heirs who’ve clearly done well for themselves. Also, I think the news of an impending sale has galvanized him. Naturally enough.’
‘So what’s the plan going forward?’ Chandu demands. ‘What will you say in court tomorrow?’
Paperwallah flicks the errant silvery lock off his eyes.
‘Well, though the signatures on the will Uncle Ashok submitted match your grandfather’s signatures all right and tight,’ he says, ‘my team has managed to dig up something quite useful.’
He pauses, stretching out the tension (and the minutes, thinks Eshu, very conscious of the three lakhs per hour meter ticking away), and then continues: ‘When he was young, Uncle Ashok once got arrested for forging his father’s signature—and we have the court records to prove it.’
‘Excellent!’ Chandu exclaims. ‘That proves Chachaji could’ve forged Pushkar’s signatures!’
Shahrukh Paperwallah beams at her, liquid eyes agleam. ‘Precisely.’
‘Goodie!’ Eshu is delighted. ‘Sleazy old Ashok chacha—I can just see him slinking about, forging cheques in fancy establishments! What did he fake it for? Booze bills?’
‘Amongst other things.’
‘What else have we got on him?’ asks Chandu.
Paperwallah spreads out his hands.
‘That’s pretty much it as of now, ladies. Tomorrow’s hearing will be a sort of testing of the waters, really. We’ll both rattle our sabres and talk tough and see where it goes from there.’
‘What a player,’ Anjini says admiringly on the drive back from Shahrukh Paperwallah’s chambers. ‘Worth every penny. I liked how he said we’re the Pandavas, didn’t you? ’Coz I’m so honest and responsible and all. Like Yudhisthir.’
‘Uh, Yudi gambled away his family’s entire inheritance,’ Eshwari reminds her. ‘And their spouse.’
‘Chalo, you’re not married, at any rate,’ is Anjini’s comforting reply. ‘So I can’t gamble away your husband.’
‘I don’t like him,’ Dabbu says decisively. ‘Do you know, I read that he’s been married thrice?’
‘That’s entirely irrelevant,’ Chandu snaps.
‘And each time he got widowed, he got richer.’
‘You don’t like him only because his silver hair is prettier than yours.’
‘He’s too pretty,’ Dabbu says disgusted.
‘Unlike your Dylan, who’s a bit of a blunt weapon,’ sniffs Chandu. ‘Anyway, I too, like Anjini, have a very positive feeling about tomorrow…’
But their mood plummets when they reach the District Court the next day. It is a sprawling, seedy building, noisy and smelly and crowded, furnished with the standard sarkari décor of paan-stained corners and desultorily rotating dirty fans.
‘It’s like Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station without the poopers and the beggars,’ Eshu says. ‘What a dump.’
Paperwallah and his team hurry towards them, sailing through the squalid surroundings with the air of Mumbai fashionistas catwalking through slums.
‘How lovely you all look,’ he greets them gallantly. ‘We’re in Court No. 22. The sitting Judge has some old grudge against Daddy, apparently. We’ll just have to roll with that for now.’
The Judge-with-the-Grudge turns out to be cranky and cadaverous. He is extremely tolerant of Gulgul’s fumbling opening speech, helping him along in a manner that is blatantly partisan, sneers openly at Paperwallah when he presents proof that Ashok Narayan Thakur is an incorrigible forger, tells him rudely to his face that it proves nothing, and then asks Gulgul what else he has to say.
His face pink, Gulgul Thakur scrambles to his feet and asks to present a witness for the prosecution.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ the Judge-with-the-Grudge beams obligingly. ‘Bring him on!’
Paperwallah rises to his feet to protest that nobody had informed him about a witness but he might as well have saved his breath. The clerk announces a name that sounds vaguely familiar and, to the consternation of the Pricey Thakur Girls, dour-faced, Doberman-like Lachhu lopes up to the front, dressed in formal trousers and an oversized double-breasted navy blue blazer with shiny silver buttons. He climbs onto the small cement platform in front of the Judge, and in a hoarse, seldom heard voice, takes an oath to speak the truth and nothing but the truth so help him God.
‘Your name?’
‘Lachhman Kumar.’
‘And you were employed by the late L.N. Thakur?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘For how many years?’
‘It would have been nine years this July, sir.’
‘In what capacity were you employed?’
‘My duties included bathing, massaging, feeding and changing the patient, pushing his wheelchair, reminding Bonu didi to give his medication, and sitting by his bedside while he slept.’
‘And for this you were paid…?’
‘It was hard work, sir. I was on call night and day for twenty thousand rupees a month only. It has been two years since I have seen my wife and children.’
Gulgul lets these facts sink in before framing his big ticket question.
‘Did the Judge talk to you, Mr Lachhman?’
‘All the time. He talked to me, and he talked to himself constantly.’
‘What did he say?’
‘All sorts of things—he complained about the food being tasteless, he complained that the gardener was a slacker, and he worried that Eshu didi wasn’t married.’
There is a titter of laughter around the courtroom. Gulgul looks back sternly and it subsides.
‘Did he ever talk about a will?’
‘Yes sir, quite often. It was something he seemed to be worried about.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He talked to his wife about it—even though she is dead.’
‘And what did he say to his dead wife?’
Lachhu assumes a voice that is a surprisingly accurate though cruel imitation of the late Judge: ‘That good-for-nothing Ashok, my half-brother, has revealed my secret, Mamtaji. He has found the real will which I carefully suppressed. Our girls must not find out that I am a bastard, or that the will on the basis of which I inherited this house is actually null and void!’
‘Objection!’ roars Paperwallah.
‘Overruled,’ smirks the Judge-with-the-Grudge.
Lachhu reverts to his normal voice. ‘Things like that, sir. He said them all the time.’
‘He’s lying!’ Eshu cries out. ‘It’s so obviously rehearsed! How can you do this to us, Lachhu! And you, Gulgul!’
‘Silence!’ snaps the Judge.
And there is silence. Lachhu steps off the cement platform composedly, the buttons on his oversized blazer glinting dully in the tube-lit room. Gulgul slaps him on the back, but somewhat mechanically. Unlike his client, he is both sweaty and miserable, and his large soft eyes look haunted.
‘So basically, between the bloody Grudge-saab, and that ungrateful snake Lachhu, we got totally bajaaoed.’
Samar yawns and rubs his eyes. His stepmother has been talking for the last half hour. It is late and he is at After, cutting the final edit of the Aur Jee video. He has put Anjini on speaker and laid the phone down on the console, making yes, no, and no-shit noises while he works, too glazed over with exhaustion to pay complete attention to what she is saying.
‘Relax,’ he repeats now. ‘It’s all good.’
‘Arrey, what relax-relax! This is how Lachhu repays my poor father? Who helped him so much all his life? The lying, greedy bastard!’
‘Ashok chacha must’ve paid him off.’ Samar leans back into his chair and rakes his hands through his hair. Images of gleaming flesh clad in rich brocade swim sinuously before him on three monitors. He needs to stick in some more shots of the dancers to draw the attention away from the Trings’ weirdest takes, where they clap with far too much zeal and mouth the lyrics with far too little precision. It’s going to take him another night at least. He could leave it to the editor to do, the man’s extremely talented, but Samar always prefers to cut the final-final edit himself.
Anjini laughs bitterly. ‘Well, obviously! That’s what Mr Paperwallah tried to imply too, but I’m not sure the Grudge-saab bought it. Uff, that man was so blatantly prejudiced!’
‘Your lawyer sounds competent,’ Samar says encouragingly.
‘Ya…’ she agrees dubiously. ‘He’s the best—everybody says so.’
‘Everybody can’t be wrong.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Yesterday on KBC, one man used the audience poll lifeline and ninety-three percent of the audience said the answer was A. So he went with A and lost like, fifty lakh rupees.’
Samar frowns at the monitors, focusing on minimizing the errors in Biren Tring’s lip-syncing as far as possible.
‘Ma, you’ve got to stop thinking like this… It’s not constructive.’
‘Samar, could you please sound more interested? This is your inheritance too!’
‘I am interested! Besides, Dabbu mausi briefed me already. I met her yesterday!’
He doesn’t mention that Dabbu mausi had eyed him very speculatively and asked all kinds of pointed questions about Bonu Singh when they’d met. God alone knows what Dylan mausa and his brats have told her.
‘This whole item song plan is absurd. I’ll be extremely surprised if it works.’
Samar rolls his eyes. ‘It’ll work, Ma.’
‘It had better,’ says Anjini darkly. She and the aunts have finally been told about the Tring solution and they aren’t too optimistic about it. ‘The Trings have started giving interviews left, right and centre.’
Certainly the Trings have acquired a newfound taste for fame. They are constantly giving interviews to random journos, posing for pictures against the weathered walls of the annexe, and glibly mouthing Mustaq’s line about how they’re being discriminated against and how the Thakurs are throwing them out on the streets so callously.
‘But they have to do that, Ma,’ Samar explains. ‘Or Mustaq will suspect they’re up to something. Don’t take it personally.’
‘But suppose they’re playing us?’ Anjini says apprehensively. ‘I mean, suppose they take your money also, and act in the item song also, and don’t move out also! What will we do then?’
‘They won’t do that. They’re my friends,’ Samar assures her. ‘And uh…Bonu’s friends too. Besides, I’ll pay them their money only at the airport. All their tickets have been done, by the way. They’re flying to the Bhutan airport with full family exactly twenty-four hours after the song releases.’
‘What if we don’t get ten lakh hits in one day?’
‘We will,’ Samar replies. ‘Bonu’s main worry is that Mustaq might see the song and figure the Trings have been bribed.’
‘Oh, he’ll be too busy protesting and rallying to notice,’ Anjini says. ‘You should see all the stuff he’s getting up to here…’
Mustaq’s Discrimination against the North-East and Discrimination against Handicapable Persons campaign is definitely gathering momentum. It has garnered more than fifty thousand likes on Facebook, and he has called for a dharna in a weedy, disused park close to number 16. The entire staff and student body of Muskaan School for Challenged Children will be there—along with many TV crews, since physically challenged children protesting against rich Lutyens’ bungalow owners make for a good photo op. Even the Minority Affairs minister and the HRD minister are rumoured to be attending.
‘When will your stupid song be ready?’ Anjini asks. ‘You’re too slow.’
Samar, whose entire team has been carping non-stop about how rushed the schedule for the song has been, and how he’s going to screw it up by being in too much of a hurry, nobly refrains from snarling.
‘It’ll be ready when it’s ready,’ he says soothingly. ‘What else did your Mr Paperwallah say?’
‘Oh, he said that, on the bright side, the judge’s roster will change next month and we may get a new judge, a better judge, somebody neutral.’
‘That’s a good thing.’
Anjini continues, ‘Which is all very well for him to say because naturally, the longer the case drags on, the more money he gets to make.’
‘Who’s paying for all that, by the way?’ Samar asks, bending over the computer to sliver a shot finely.
‘We’ve made a little fund,’ Anjini replies. ‘Bonu isn’t contributing because she doesn’t want to sell, and Chandu isn’t paying because she has no money. The rest of us are forking it out, but we’re keeping tabs—we’ll settle it with the others once the sale is done.’
‘That makes sense.’
‘Mr Paperwallah’s bills are mounting, though. He called for an urgent fifteen-minute conference with us outside the courtroom—which put us back by another seventy-five thousand rupees, of course.’
‘To say what?’
‘To demand a complete list of all the people who might turn against us. Ex-drivers, old nannies, relatives, everybody. To stay two steps ahead of Uncle Ashok, he said, we must anticipate, approach and intercept all parties before they reach the court, and arrange for them to be silenced.’
‘Silenced? As in bumped off?’
Anjini makes an impatient sound. ‘No, you stupid boy. Nothing so filmi! Paid off.’
‘Aaah, I see,’ says Samar wryly. ‘So…d’you think there are any turncoats lurking in the wings?’
There is a long pause.
‘Ma?’
‘Not really,’ Anjini says finally. ‘I did notice last week, you know, that…’
Samar pricks up his ears.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Go cut your song. And don’t forget to eat properly. Goodnight.’
Walking along Hailey Road, Eshwari and Satish are discussing Shahrukh Paperwallah’s legal advice too.
‘So what he said was that if we could identify potential turncoats, we could pay them off first,’ she tells Satish. ‘But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was suggesting something worse.’
‘Murder most foul?’ Satish grins. ‘That’s entirely possible. But the revelation that Ashok’s a convicted forger is useful news. Did you know you had forgery in the family?’
She shrugs. ‘Well, we have traitors and pimps and gamblers and guns-for-hire, so why not forgers? You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel that maybe BJ really was a cakkcoo.’
‘Cakkcoo?’
‘Cakkcoo in the nest,’ Eshwari explains. ‘Chachiji’s pronunciation.’
‘Oh fuckkoo,’ replies Satish, looking worried. ‘Don’t even say that out loud, Bihari you idiot.’
They are walking back from Gambhir Bistro, where they’ve often started going for a beer in the evening. The weather is oppressive, Hailey Road feels hot and airless, even this late in the evening. As Eshwari enters through the gate of number 16, Satish glances up at the windows on the first floor.
‘Bonu Singh back?’ he raises his eyebrows. ‘How’s her state of mind now? Is she more in the mood to sell?’
Eshwari rolls her eyes.
‘Dude, I have no clue. Anyway, Bonu Singh is hardly a biggie. Getting the annexe vacated and the court case sorted come first.’
Bonu has certainly been in a bit of a daze post Ashok chacha’s ‘revelations’. She’s been lying awake nights, wondering if it could really be true that her mother and father had turned against their family so viciously. The thing doesn’t ring true—her mother, never mind how much she moaned about her sisters, had always spoken of her father with the greatest respect and affection. And she had loved her mother, there was no doubt about it.
He’s just trying to create a rift, Bonu has been telling herself repeatedly. It’s a lie, a cruel, mean lie and I mustn’t fall for it. I just wish there was somebody I could talk to about this!
But there is nobody. Talking to the aunts is out of the question. Talking to Gulgul mama is impossible too. She doesn’t want to discuss family stuff with outsiders. As for Samar, well, perhaps he could be trusted, but he’s got enough on his plate at the moment.
Her tailors have noticed the change in her. Ever since Bonu didi started jimming again, they whisper to each other, she has been snarling and snapping constantly. Just yesterday she saw Parveen’s eldest daughter—eight years old and bright as a button—threading naada through a consignment of salwars in the workshop, and threw the most hysterical fit. They were all given a blistering lecture on how child labour was illegal and how Parveen’s daughter should be in school and did they all want Bonu to be thrown into jail? Parveen tried to explain that the summer vacations were on, the little girl was bored and had accompanied her mother to the workshop so she could watch TV as there was no bijli in their quarter. But Bonu snarled that she wasn’t running a bloody crèche, the little girl burst into tears and vomited, and all the tailors could’ve sworn that Bonu didi, who never cried, was perilously close to tears herself.
‘I think-so didi ko love ho gaya hai,’ they speculate as they share their lunch at the big worktable. Which is a good thing, everybody agrees, but who can the fellow be?
As the only personable young man who’s been around lately is Samar, naturally, the finger of speculation points towards him. Parveen thinks back to the two times she has seen Bonu with Samar, once at her own house and once in Chandni Chowk, and wonders—then she dismisses the idea. The second time, didi had looked like she wanted to do murder of Samar bhaiyya. Besides, he was her cousin, no? And Hindus didn’t marry their cousins.
