THE HOUSE THAT BJ BUILT Read online

  ‘I did a B.Com,’ Bonu answers, sipping her tea.

  Samar looks at her, confused.

  ‘And the designs?’ he asks. ‘Matlab, who does the designing? You?’

  She doesn’t reply. Just plays with her hair and sips her tea.

  Samar doesn’t get the hint. ‘I mean, I’ve recently started seeing a designer so I know designing stuff is serious shit.’

  Bonu chokes, spluttering tea, and puts down her cup. As he watches in concern, she wipes her chin, hits herself twice in the chest and asks, her voice a little squeaky, ‘Whi…whi…which designer are you seeing?’

  ‘Susan,’ Samar replies as his toasts pop up. ‘Adams. Are you okay?’

  Bonu gives a strangled little gasp. ‘Susan Adams! Of course I’ve heard of her. Good for you. Are you going to get married?’

  Samar was buttering his toast, but at this he sets the knife down.

  ‘And the Bonster strikes again. Hasn’t anybody ever taught you to mind your own business?’

  ‘I am minding my own business!’ Bonu makes a quick recovery. ‘It’s called Vicky’s Secret! And that’s what I was talking about when you show-offily dragged your so-famous designer girlfriend into the conversation!’

  He bites into his toast unconcernedly. ‘I was not showing off. If I were showing off, I could have mentioned more impressive stuff than that, you know.’

  Bonu, who is guilty of stalking him fairly obsessively in her younger years, knows this only too well.

  ‘So what’s Vicky’s Secret busy with right now?’

  Bonu improvises glibly, her palms clammy with panic. What if he’d seen the Susan Adams anarkali and recognized it? She could’ve been facing legal action—again. This has happened twice before, a fact she omitted to mention when she gave him her little two-crore-turnover speech. Bollywood designers had complained that their designs were being lifted and they were losing serious business, especially in the Dubai market. Bonu had to shut down her website twice and relaunch it under a new name, the first being Vikram&Binni and the second Fashion Vickypedia. Vicky’s Secret is the third avatar of the same business venture and she doesn’t want to go through the tiresome process of shutting shop, lying low, and then going onto GoDaddy.com all over again to see which domain names are still available for her to buy. It’s too exhausting.

  Samar, meanwhile, is studying her face. She is clearly very proud of her business, at the same time strangely reticent about it. But then, so am I, he thinks wryly. I bite off people’s heads if they start going on and on about my movies.

  He ends up doing exactly this when he talks to his stepmother on the phone, later that evening. Anjini Singh has read about the fiasco at the Sparklers and is worried Samar’s getting all cranky and snappy because his movie isn’t shaping up well. She tells him as much.

  ‘The film’s going fine, Ma,’ he snaps. ‘Can we please talk about something else?’

  ‘Okay,’ Anjini says peaceably. ‘How’s BJ? What’s Chachiji up to? And how’s Bonu Singh?’

  ‘She’s about to make the Forbes list of richest Indians, I think,’ Samar replies wryly. ‘Her business is doing really well.’

  ‘Well, I’m all for girls being financially independent!’ Anji declares energetically, and Samar rolls his eyes. Anjini has recently been appointed editor of Allahabad Buzz, a gossipy Page-3-type supplement to India Post, Allahabad’s biggest newspaper. The fact that her stepson is a successful Bollywood director has nothing to do with this appointment, of course. It all happened because, ‘I’m considered such a style leader in Allahabad, na, and everybody says I should compete in Mrs India but I can’t because you need to have a biological child to do that and my darling Samar is not really mine, and all the jewellery stores love me and they toh sponsor everything, and I also have such a talent for writing—I was just about to start my MA in Literature when BJ got me married off. I cried for three nights.’

  Now she continues, untroubled by the fact that she is contradicting her little homily on the essentialness of financial independence for women, ‘How come she isn’t married yet?’

  ‘Ma, I can’t ask her stuff like that.’

  ‘Let’s just hope she has more business sense than her father,’ Anjini continues with a sniff. ‘Thankfully, she hasn’t inherited his looks.’

  ‘Yes, she is pretty,’ Samar allows after a pause. ‘Her hair eats food, though.’

  ‘What?’ Anjini sounds confused.

  Samar explains. ‘Well, it’s so long and wriggly and all over the place that when she sits down to eat—she doesn’t even sit, actually, she sort of sprawls out—it gets into the plate and laps at the raita.’

  ‘Well, thank God all she got from that ugly Vickyji is curly hair,’ Anjini says candidly. ‘What is she like, but? Matlab, as a person.’

  ‘But Ma, you know her.’

  ‘She barely talks to me,’ Anjini sniffs. ‘Keeps to herself, upstairs, in that unit of hers.’

  ‘Well, she is rather prickly,’ Samar allows. ‘I overheard her chattering away merrily to her tailors, so it’s not like she doesn’t talk. And BJ just lights up when she’s around.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Anjini is noncommittal.

  ‘She doesn’t talk to you at all? When you’re here?’

  ‘No.’ Anjini’s bright voice has gone rather flat. ‘She’s a snob—or maybe she’s insecure because We all did so well in life and her mother was such a Fail. She didn’t even accept my Facebook friend request.’

  Samar sighs. ‘Ma, FB isn’t as popular with younger people as it is with your generation. Besides she seems really busy. The sewing machines upstairs are always whirring away.’

  ‘That reminds me, Samar, I want you to get out Ma’s old sewing machine for me. We’re doing a feature on unusual hobbies of celebrities—like Amanda Seyfried knits sweaters and Richard Branson flies in hot air balloons? Ya, so I happen to be an excellent seamstress and the Buzz wants to shoot me stitching.’

  ‘Oh! Of course.’ He clears his throat. ‘Uh, Ma, isn’t it unethical of your paper to feature you so often?’

  Anjini gives a guilty, girlish little giggle.

  ‘Yes, it is!’ she admits. ‘But I’m the editor, I get to call the shots, and I like to see myself in the news! Achha, you still have to get me a big star to come for our annual awards night, by the way. If you keep behaving badly and making fun of all of them, how will it happen?’

  ‘I’ll get you someone, don’t worry,’ Samar assures her. ‘Okay, I’ve gotta go—’

  ‘No, wait,’ Anjini says. ‘Ma’s machine…it’s lying in our hissa upstairs getting rusty. Make Bonu’s tailors give it a good servicing.’

  Samar groans.

  ‘What is this? I barely know her, I can’t just ask her to…’

  ‘Arrey, I’m her aunt! And it’s right there only, behind the Lion-the-Witch-and-the-Wardrobe wallah wardrobe.’

  ‘I’m not staying in our rooms.’

  ‘What?’ she demands, her voice suddenly sharp. ‘Why?’

  ‘Bonu Singh said our rooms are really rundown and dusty. Plus, she doesn’t know where the keys are. So I’m staying downstairs, in Mausi D and Mausi E’s old room.’

  Anjini clicks her tongue. ‘She told me that the last time I visited too. My God, it’s been over a year since those rooms were aired. It must be so musty in there, ugh! You have to track down the keys, Samar. Get the rooms cleaned, and the machine too. I want to be photographed sitting behind it. Your new girlfriend’s not the only designer in the family, you know.’

  And so Anjini Singh’s desire to have her hidden talents showcased leads to Samar Vir Singh breaching the barricade of tailors and insisting on opening the door to his hissa. An incident that unleashes a Mega Kaand in the house, of the scale and type those venerable walls have not witnessed in decades…

  3

  Crouching like a giant toad beside the bed as she does the morning jhaadu-ponchha, Mrs Bhudevi Thakur’s cleaning lady informs her that Samar bhaiyya and Bonu d
idi have been sighted in the garden of number 16, setting up BJ’s ancient green baize table and laying out a pack of cards. It doesn’t take Chachiji long to wrap a bright pink bandhani sari around her busy body and waddle across to number 16, brimming over with enthusiasm and curiosity.

  ‘Hai, this is just like old days!’ she exclaims. ‘That day I was too shy of you, Samar, plus-also I did not want to introod. But today, you and I will be partners and have a nice talk!’

  Samar seems ridiculously touched, Bonu notes with some disgust. His harsh features soften as he beams into Chachiji’s pug-like face, clasps her gnarled little hands and laps up the guff she gives him about how he exhibited signs of rare genius even in his childhood and how she’d always known he would become this big, block-busting film-maker.

  ‘Remember all the stories I used to tell you?’ she asks, nudging him coyly. ‘You loved jumping into bed with me!’

  Samar chokes. Bonu doesn’t bother suppressing a grin.

  ‘Er, yes,’ Samar manages to say. ‘Tell me, does the Pushkarni still haunt the houses?’

  Chachiji gives a delighted cackle of laughter. ‘He remembers!’ she crows. ‘Suna, Bonu, Samar ko Pushkarni waali story yaad hai!’

  ‘Even I remember it, Chachiji,’ Bonu rolls her eyes. ‘You scared us to death with that one!’

  The story, a grisly gothic saga involving the Judge’s dead parents, had held Samar, Bonu and her twin Monu enthralled when they were children.

  ‘She was a simple, pure woman and her husband, old Pushkar Narayan Thakur, was a drunken lech,’ Samar recites now. ‘He wanted to kill her because she was rationing his alcohol and not letting him gamble away his houses and lands. One day when she was on the terrace, shouting his name, Pushkar…Pushkar…!’

  ‘He came up from behind her…’ Bonu takes up the narrative.

  ‘Giggled wetly…’ continues Samar.

  ‘Said, “You only said Pushkar!” and pushed her off the terrace!’ Bonu finishes with relish.

  There is a satisfied silence.

  ‘Was that story true, Chachiji?’ Samar asks.

  Chachiji looks a little trapped. ‘Arrey nahi nahi, beta. Ekchully, I was going through my meenupause those days na, so I had become little bit mental. Of course nobody pushed my mother-in-law! Anyway, my father-in-law was standing downstairs when she fell, not upstairs behind her. She was cremated with all the proper ceremonies, poor thing!’

  Samar leans forward, his dark eyes intent on Chachiji’s jowly face. So keen is his interest that Bonu looks at him curiously.

  ‘But the bare bones of the story? The unhappy marriage and the many affairs? The fact that he lost four houses like this one in the gambling dens? What about all that, Chachiji?’

  Another little silence. Then Chachiji says constrictedly, ‘Bhai, I don’t know, it was all before my time. I had not even come to live in this house then. You had better talk to your uncle or Laxmi bhaisaab!’

  Samar looks dissatisfied, but just then BJ appears on the verandah, the long-faced Lachhu pushing his wheelchair. Samar leaps to his feet and strides across to them.

  Chachiji relaxes, takes a big swig from a glass of Pepsi, and smacks her lips. Then she leans towards Bonu, eyes gleaming beadily over the rim of the fizzing glass, and asks in a lowered voice, ‘He’s not yet shaadi-shuda, no? No chup-chaap civil marriage ceremony or anything like that? What about living girlfriends?’

  ‘He has a “living” girlfriend,’ Bonu replies sourly. ‘Though, frankly, if I were his girlfriend, I’d rather be dead.’

  ‘She lives with him?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him only, Chachiji,’ Bonu snaps. ‘I neither know nor care.’

  Meanwhile Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur dodders slowly into the lawn and eyes Chachiji with open disfavour.

  I hope he isn’t going to insult her again, Bonu worries. Thankfully, the old man ignores his sister-in-law, sits down and addresses Bonu, his voice querulous, ‘Mamtaji, where is the Maggi?’

  Samar, looking at Bonu, sees her animated expression falter. Then she smiles with determined cheerfulness. ‘No Maggi for you, BJ! And I’m Bonu, Binni’s daughter.’

  ‘Where’s Dabbu?’ is her grandfather’s reply. ‘And Balkishen? Late, I suppose. That bugger Balkishen is always late.’

  ‘Balkishen Bau departed for his heavenly abode over twenty years ago,’ Bonu tells him firmly. ‘And Dabbu mausi lives in Mumbai. All you’ve got today is me, Samar and Bhudevi chachi.’

  ‘Here are the cards,’ Samar says. ‘Won’t you shuffle them?’

  The Judge glares at him aggressively, his faded brandy-brown eyes seeming to bulge from their sockets. Samar holds his gaze steadily. After a while, the older man’s eyes grow more placid and he takes the cards. He doesn’t shuffle them though, just looks down at them, his expression lost.

  ‘I grow old, I grow old,’ he murmurs. ‘I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.’

  ‘BJ, you have to deal.’ Bonu’s voice is gentler now. ‘I’m your partner. Let’s play.’

  The old man glances at the insipid chicken sandwiches set before him and says,

  ‘Do I dare to eat a peach?

  Should I wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach?’

  ‘I have heard the mermaids calling, each to each,’ Bonu completes the verse with an encouraging smile. ‘Now c’mon, BJ, less Eliot, more kot-piece.’

  The Judge looks up, snorts, and starts to deal, very correctly and precisely.

  ‘Got to settle everything,’ he mutters as he weaves around, setting down the cards. ‘Got to do it! Mamtaji said so. Or it’ll create problems for the princesses.’

  ‘Both are mad,’ Chachiji whispers to Samar in a resigned aside. ‘Whole day reciting poetry-shoetry to each other. This girl needs a man. Are you married?’

  ‘Uh, ummm, no,’ Samar responds. ‘I’m not married. Chachiji, is BJ often like this?’

  Bhudevi Thakur’s pug-like face sags wearily at the jowls. ‘Yes, beta,’ she says. ‘He is like Bijli now.’

  ‘Bijli?’ Samar repeats, rather at a loss.

  ‘Electricity,’ Chachiji clarifies in a loud whisper, reaching for her Pepsi. ‘Some days he is bright and some days he is dim. He has voltage fluctuations all the time, and Bonu is his stabilizer.’

  She sips her drink and returns to her cards while Samar studies grandfather and granddaughter sitting opposite each other at the table, impressed despite himself. Who would’ve thought that snivelly little Bonu Singh, always playing the Poor-Orphaned-Me card, would grow up to be so sympathetic and enterprising?

  ‘Play, Dylan, play!’ the Judge urges, his eyes on his cards.

  ‘I’m Samar,’ he says gently.

  ‘Oh?’ The Judge’s eyes twinkle. He looks from Bonu to Samar. ‘To me, this whole scene smells strongly of D for Déjà vu.’

  He chuckles to himself while the younger people look at each other, mystified.

  He’s really wandering now, Bonu thinks, her heart sinking.

  ‘Uh, how’s everything at home, Chachiji?’ she asks.

  ‘AN is still not fully recovered,’ Chachiji reports brightly. ‘He can only lie in bed and follow me with his eyes. I have to do everything for him. So sad.’

  Good, Bonu thinks privately. If I had a husband as goatishly philandering as Ashok Narayan Thakur and he ended up sick and totally in my power, I would do horrible, unmentionable things to him in the privacy of my bedroom. She wonders if Chachiji is doing any of these things, and if that is the reason for her jaunty air and pink cheeks, then decides she’s being too fanciful.

  ‘Come and meet AN,’ Chachiji entreats Samar. ‘Seeing you will cheer him up, he really enjoyed your fillums.’

  ‘AN,’ mutters the Judge, gnawing on his sandwich. ‘AN, BN, CN, DN! EN, FN, GN, HN!’

  ‘AN is Chachiji’s husband,’ Bonu explains to him gently. ‘He’s your younger brother. He lives next door, remember?’

  The Judge responds to this by poking Bonu between
the ribs with the back of his fork.

  ‘Give the ruddy beggar woman a hundred chips and tell her to git,’ he whispers urgently. ‘Tell her it’s a family-only party. Then we can play two-threes-and-fives.’

  He waits imperiously for her to do his bidding, but his nitwit of a granddaughter just pats his hand placatingly and smiles vaguely around the table.

  Meanwhile, Samar is asking Chachiji what exactly the problem with Ashok Chacha is. Bhudevi Thakur puts down her glass and heaves a gusty sigh.

  ‘First toh he got a Happytietis B,’ she recounts sorrowfully. ‘I thought it would make him little bit happy, but no, it made him so sick and fereved and septick! Then the doctors said he had cancers in his prostate and we had to do radio and keemo, aur kya kya. Uff, beta, what with all the moaning and balding and diaper changing, I felt like I was looking after a small baby only. And after that, just when he was getting little better, something even more bad happened!’

  ‘What?’ asks Samar, concerned. What could possibly be worse than hepatitis B and cancer?

  ‘The Bail’s Pelsy got him!’

  Nodding sympathetically, even as he does some discreet Googling, Samar discovers that Bell’s palsy is a sort of facial paralysis, not very serious.

  ‘I got up one morning and found half his face sagging,’ Chachiji continues tragically. ‘Like a phussss balloon from which the air has leaked. The corner of his eye, the corner of his mouth! But only on one side—the other remained nice and tight. So ugly it was, so disfiguring. Hai hai, this was the worst blow yet! I immediately got to my knees and asked God why he had done this to me!’

  But this extremely lookist lament has reminded Samar of his stepmother. He pats Chachiji reassuringly on the arm and turns to BJ.

  ‘BJ, Ma said to ask you for the keys to our half of the upstairs. She wants your tailors to service Naniji’s old sewing machine, Bonu. She’ll be happy to pay, of course. Possible?’

  BJ nods serenely enough and beckons to Lachhu, but Bonu makes an odd, gulping noise. Samar stares at her curiously. What is up with the girl? Why is she always so jumpy?

  ‘Shuh…shuh…sure!’ Bonu smiles. ‘Except that all my tailors are on leave. And old Ekramuddin, the machine mechanic? He just died. His sons died too, all six of them, and their workshop has shut down. Forever.’