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

boys are all going for it with full gusto. The only new addition to the scene are random bunches of multicoloured helium balloons on all the food stalls, bobbing on white satin ribbons secured with smooth, white pebbles.

That’s a bit extra, Kashi thinks, amused. Actually, this whole place is frickin’ extra. And where is the Dogra contingent, anyway?

A knot of posh young women, dressed in body-con polo necks, miniskirts and Ugg boots, spot him and stop sipping their bloody Marys.

‘Look!’

‘Kashi Dogra! Wow, he never comes to the club!’

‘Cute! Who’s he?’

‘Bambi T’s ex. He left TVVS and went off to The Doon School in class seven.’

‘Bloody Doon. All the cutest boys go off there as soon as their growth spurt hits. So Bambi dated him? Before Anshul?’

‘Ya.’

‘And after Anshul died, he never tried to slide back in?’

‘No, ya. Anshul’s death devastated Bambi. Besides, he’s got a GF now. Some NGO type.’

‘Damn. All the cute ones are taken.’

Meanwhile, Kashi, unaware of all this scrutiny, notices with interest that the old plant nursery next to the pool has been converted into what appears to be a gym. The view of gleaming new machines through the grilled glass windows is enticing enough to make him saunter over.

Entering the large sunny space, he emits a low, impressed whistle. This new gym is fancy. There’s a spaceship-ish looking Precor multi-station with twelve different exercise settings, a rowing machine, the mandatory treadmills and cross-trainers, but as Kashi is a free weights guy, his eyes are drawn to the extremely well-stocked dumbbell and bumper plate rack, and a bench press so alluring it makes his mouth water. Its body is solid yet sleek, the leather of the bench is a deep supple red, and the Olympic-sized black, urethane-coated plates are as smooth and lickable as butter. The bar itself, resting in its grooved slot above the bench, is a textured, matte silver that makes his palms itch and his fingers curl instinctively.

There are benefits to the DTC membership after all.

‘What’s upstairs?’ he asks the rather superior looking trainer who has materialized silently at his side.

‘An exercise hall, sir. We hold yoga, Zumba and mixed martial arts classes there.’

‘Naice, bro! But where have all the gym rats gone?’

‘To the Housie, sir!’ The trainer gestures resignedly to the balloons tied in gay bunches to the window grills in all four corners of the gym, and Kashi notices that they are all stamped with the words BUMPER TAMBOLA. ‘Cash prizes worth fifty lakh.’

Shit, Kashi remembers suddenly, that’s where the fam must be!

He bids goodbye to the snooty trainer, ducks out of the gym and heads purposefully for the East Lawn. Hopefully, he won’t get yelled at too badly – it’s only half past noon after all, and surely they’ll award him an A for effort for his clean clothes and the smooth shave Firdaus has given him …

‘Kashi?’

Akash freezes.

‘HEY, Kaaaaaasheeeeee!!!’

His feet drag to a halt.

Much to his disgust, his heart starts to slam against his ribs, loud and hard.

Pathetic.

Well, he knew this was bound to happen. The Delhi Turf Club is her turf. This is where she rules.

La Bambi.

Bambi Todi.

BT, bro BT, the Doscos would say with a shudder. Bad bad trip! Dogra ka BT ho gaya. Poor fucker. She sucked him and chucked him like a marrow bone. So much for her being a pure vegetarian.

Should he just … ignore her? Act like he hasn’t heard? Like he’s too busy and important, with grown-up shit to do, and cases to close, and a hot girlfriend waiting for him? Like he hasn’t been stuck in some sort of sick, numbed purgatory ever since she dumped his ass three years ago?

Good idea. He unfreezes, and seeks to set one foot in front of another in the direction of the East Lawn.

But his body has a different plan.

Fuck off, boi, it says mildly as it turns around of its own volition and starts to walk towards Bambi’s voice, which is still calling out his name like a siren on a rock.

And so Akash has no option but to resign himself to the inevitable, smile, and call out, as suavely as he can.

‘Heyyy, Bambi Todi! How’ve you been?’

She throws out her arms then and does that mandatory little screaming dance of joy that girls always seem to do when they see you after a long time. It gives him ample time to walk over to her all slow and casual, like there is no angry, unsteady beat to his heart, no queer sort of gladness in his veins, no quickening of his pulse as he makes skimming, tentative eye contact with her, testing to see if the scar tissue he’s managed to grow since they last met is going to hold up to the occasion.

How can such a small person create so much upheaval in one’s internal workings, he wonders for the hundredth time. Bambi Todi is a five-foot package, the colour of powdered cinnamon, delicately and delectably curvy, with a bright smile and huge eyes, a small snub nose and masses of softly curling brown hair. She has tied a red-checked apron over her cut-off denim overalls, and is standing beside a table holding a confused but cheerful display of vegetables and fruit, a large mixer-grinder, and two shiny, bright red gumboots from which are protruding untidy bunches of bright yellow sunflowers.

Love, love me do!

You know I love you!

I’ll always Beetroot!

So pleeeeeese, love me do! declares the bright hand-painted banner above her head.

Ghanta, you’ll always be true, Kashi wants to say, but what emerges from his mouth instead is, ‘You look like a picnic.’

He tries to say this casually, but it comes out sort of wobbly-intense.

She looks momentarily discomfited, then recovers, tucking a soft, unruly ringlet of hair behind her ear.

‘Come buy some organic beetroot grown right here at the DTC,’ she orders him in the clear sweet voice he remembers so well. ‘C’mon, step up, show me the big bucks you’ve been earning since you left law school! It’s all going to