Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📗

become a saint,’ says Bhavani, rising red-faced and finally out of breath to start on the final basic Xercise – jumping jacks alternating with running on the spot. ‘And a saint could slip off his pedestal and become a murderer!’

Padam Kumar has heard this particular line several times before. It’s one of Bhavani Singh’s four golden maxims, neatly penned by his wife (probably before I was born, Padam thinks peevishly) in multicoloured sketch pens upon the pin-up board in his cabin in the Crime Branch cell in Chanakyapuri.

THE FOUR GOLDEN RULES

1. Hitting people will loosen their tongues. Listening to them will open their hearts

2. ‘Every human being is capable of murder. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.’ – Oscar Wilde

3. Routine work is God’s work. Do it religiously.

4. Never strain too hard. Breakthroughs happen organically, in their own sweet time. If you strain, you will only get haemorrhoids in the brain.

Galling though it may be for Padam Kumar to admit, this faded foundation has helped Bhavani achieve an impressive strike rate over the years. And it is generally agreed that in a workplace that is heated, aggressive and unrelentingly stressful, the genial older man is a walking, talking, low-pressure area. He exists in such a calm, unhurried, non-judgemental and totally receptive state that the hot winds of information come whooshing down on him of their own accord.

It is no wonder then that, when the chief receives an urgent phone call from the president of the Delhi Turf Club, he immediately thinks of Bhavani. A steady, mature hand is needed to deal with whatever the fuck is unfolding at the high-profile club, and ACP Singh is clearly the chap for the job.

Half an hour later, Bhavani is cloistered with the chief in the latter’s office, while the still slightly sulky Padam Kumar cools his heels outside.

‘What do you know about the Delhi Turf Club, Bhavani?’

‘It’s like an Amitabh Bachchan, sir,’ Bhavani ventures, after considering the hallowed institution for a while. ‘Ageing superstar, thoda irrelevant in these times, surviving mostly on reputation.’

The chief chuckles. ‘The members would say that’s sour grapes talking! But yes, maybe you have a point. There is still weight and snob value in the name, however! All the top faujis and civil services chaps, high-flying lawyers and business, politicians even, regard their DTC membership very highly!’

‘Has something happened there, sir?’ Bhavani asks.

The chief nods. ‘I got a call from the Club President. He’s an ex-home secretary of the Government of India. He woke up today to find a dead man on the club premises.’ It’s probably an accident, but it could be murder – the victim got into fisticuffs with a DTC member yesterday in full public view. Beat the other fellow up pretty badly apparently, so maybe that man decided to exact revenge. Go investigate it … but gently.’

‘Sir, isn’t this the club that honourable defence minister sa’ab wants shut down for being anti-national?’ Padam Kumar asks Bhavani in the car as they drive to the DTC a little later.

‘Yes,’ Bhavani Singh replies briefly.

There has been quite a storm in a beer mug with the DTC and the defence minister recently, typical of the hyper-nationalism dominating public discourse in these times.

From what Bhavani can recall, somebody had invited Gagan Ruia, the overfed son of defense minister Govardhan Ruia, for dinner to the DTC. Ruia Jr was wearing a pair of Gujarati mirror-work juttis, so the Club staff didn’t let him enter the main dining hall – they had some only-formal-footwear rule for men, apparently. They requested him to either eat in the lawns, or change into closed formal shoes. Ruia had refused and left in a huff, and half an hour later, taken to Twitter to declare that the DTC was anti-national because it discriminated against ‘Indian’ attire in general and juttis in particular. He had waxed eloquent about the fact that his father, Govardhan Ruia, was a humble bhutta-seller from Kathiawar who had worn only juttis till he was twenty-five – and said he would not rest till the thirty-two acres of prime Delhi land leased to the DTC was reclaimed, and the whole place converted into a massive gaushala. Cows will graze on the sweet grass of all the turf and the tennis courts, he swore, and muscular bhakts will play bhajans on the flute for them, while demure lasses churn butter in the marble-tiled verandas! In about fifteen minutes all the news channels had been discussing the ‘issue’ using hashtags like #JuttiGate and #DTCMeriJutti.

It hadn’t helped that a rather gaga old DTC member had pointed out that Ruia senior and his colleagues had all been assigned sprawling bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi and they were welcome to let cows graze on their three-acre gardens instead! The thirty-two acres of the DTC service five thousand members and their families, this member had said, whereas your three-acre gardens exists to serve only you and your porky son! Naturally, this incensed the IJP camp even further. They re-christened the Delhi Turf Club the Delhi Terrorist Camp right there and then, and have been baying for its closure ever since …

‘So sir, is it anti-national?’ Padam Kumar wants to know.

Bhavani sighs. ‘The definition of anti-national is very, very broad today, PK.’

A messy murder on the DTC premises would suit the IJP admirably, Bhavani muses as his car turns into the imposing black gates of the Club and rolls down the tree-lined driveway. But it remains to be seen if today’s incident is accident or murder …

Looking about the Club premises as he alights from his car, he feels his ageing superstar comparison is not too far off the mark. The main bungalow, almost one hundred and eighty years old, is gracious but, under the sparkling cream paint, somehow exhausted-looking. There are hundreds of five-star hotels in Delhi now, and any number of housing complexes with better pools and courts and other sporting facilities