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

the grotto for a while. Ash drops from her cigarette.

‘It’s going to be hell cutting this final episode,’ she says finally. ‘I’m going to cry like a complete chutiya.’

Bhavani pats her arm sympathetically. She stubs out her cigarette savagely and lights a new one.

‘Shonali, please don’t mind – but was your relationship with Leo an exclusive one?’

This makes her laugh – a rich, husky, slightly hysterical laugh. Her pink hair ripples in the sun. A few matrons, rushing for the next mass, turn around and stare at her disapprovingly.

‘Of course not! I did my own thang if I wanted to and, I’m sure, so did he!’

‘And these ladies …’ Bhavani pauses delicately. ‘You would know who they are?’

‘I didn’t stalk him, if that’s what you’re suggesting!’ Shonali says, amused. ‘I’m too busy. So no, I won’t be able to name them, or even recognize them – but I got the impression that he was, you know, dipping into his pool of hot cougar clients a little!’

‘Cougar?’ Bhavani is confused.

‘Attractive older women.’

‘Ah!’ Bhavani leans in. ‘What gave you that impression? Please think carefully and tell us.’

She looks amused. ‘Oh, I don’t know … just the way he’d look so smug and full of himself on some days. Purring like a big black cat who’d got the cream! And sometimes’ – she stubs out her cigarette, laughing a little – ‘sometimes he would ask to borrow my camera. I got the impression he was shooting some uh … intimate pics, you know?’

Behind them the church bells start to toll.

‘O really?’ Bhavani says, very slow and soft.

He stares at the innocuous looking camera case on the ground between them, and when he looks up at her again, she is startled by the glow on his face – transforming his plain features so that he looks almost De Niro-esque.

‘How do you store footage shot on this camera, please?’

You are cordially invited to

SHIVBLING

A charity sale of exquisitely crafted, Swarovski studded Shiva lingams

by contemporary artist Karishma ‘Cookie’ Katoch.

All proceeds shall go towards building a medical clinic for migrant labourers.

Shri Gagan Ruia

has kindly consented to light the holy lamp

at 12.30 p.m., the Rose Garden, Delhi Turf Club.

Jai Bholenath!

Some eyebrows are raised when a large contingent of DTC Zumba Girls travels from Leo’s memorial service at the Sacred Heart Cathedral straight to Cookie Katoch’s exhibition at the DTC, but Cookie herself is not at all conflicted.

‘Oho, it’s for a good cause, ya. Leo himself would have wanted me to go ahead with the exhibition! We had both been working so hard together to get my weight down to seventy kgs for it!’

And so, dressed in Jamaican finery with her well-buttressed cleavage on display, she awaits her invitees in a garden strewn with mighty lingams, all lovingly sculpted out of rose quartz, lapis lazuli, malachite, marble and glass. And soon, Delhi’s richest socialites are trickling into the sun-dappled Rose Garden, knocking back sparkling white wine, dipping bits of focaccia bread into warm olive oil, and wah-wahing at the beauty and anatomical correctness of the sculptures.

Mrs Mala Dogra sneaks a look at the discreetly displayed price tags, then tugs at her daughter’s dupatta.

‘I don’t have my reading glasses,’ she whispers. ‘Does it really say thirty thousand?’

‘It says eighty thousand,’ Natasha whispers back. ‘And it’s going to charity! Stop checking the price tags, Ma. It’s bad enough that our khataara just broke down in front of everyone!’

Because the old Maruti Swift had wheezed to a defeated halt in the driveway of the club after its long journey from Noida, Mrs Mala Dogra had had to disembark, and with great dignity, request the ACP and his young inspector to push it up to the porch.

‘But eighty thousand rupees is obscene!’ Mrs Mala Dogra whispers back.

‘Yes, Mother, they are clearly obscene,’ a voice agrees from behind them. ‘What’s with the engorged veins and shit?’

‘Kashi!’ His sister whirls to glare at him. ‘Where were you?’

‘I got held up by VIP traffic,’ he says wryly, nodding towards the entrance. ‘Look who’s here.’

Gagan Ruia, the defence minister’s son, tall, fair and overfed, has just stridden into the garden, dressed in a crisp white pyjama-kurta, and woollen jacket (and his infamous pompommed juttis), with both palms joined reverentially over his head.

‘Jai Bholenath!’ he intones. ‘Jai Bholenath!’

‘Ugh!’ Nattu pulls a fastidious face. ‘They let him in here again? After JuttiGate?’

‘He’s come to inaugurate the exhibition apparently,’ Kashi replies. ‘Cookie auntie must’ve insisted on a real dick.’

Nattu giggles. ‘Look who he’s with.’

And Kashi realizes that Gagan Ruia has been escorted into the Rose Garden by Bambi’s father, industrialist Pankaj Todi. They are twinning in crisp white.

‘Are they tight?’ he asks Nattu curiously.

She nods. ‘It was Bambi’s dad who signed him in that night when he made such a fuss about his stupid juttis,’ she says. ‘Gagan Ruia was his guest. Didn’t you know?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he replies. ‘I know you think I’m obsessed with the Todis, and I track their every move, but I don’t, okay.’

She chuckles. ‘Liar. Ooh, look, mushroom canapes! C’mon let’s score some.’

A chunky brown hand reaches for the canapes at the same moment they do. It is ACP Bhavani Singh. He is looking about the exhibits somewhat bemusedly, but his expression lightens when he sees the Dogras.

‘Oh, vakeel sa’ab, is this your family?’

Kashi is surprised. ‘You guys have met?’

Mala Dogra smiles. ‘The ACP was too kind! He helped us with the car when you were nowhere to be seen.’

‘Ma, that’s not fair,’ Kashi protests. ‘He has a police car! Naturally he didn’t get held up in the roadblock!’

His mother sniffs, unconvinced. ‘Somehow you and your father are never there when we’re in trou—Oh, hello, Cookie!’

Cookie Katoch has descended upon them, gushing vaguely and dispensing effusive hugs.

‘Hello, dear! Hello, dear! Please do pick up a lingam!’

Hai, hai, Mala Dogra thinks to herself. One’s quite enough for us, thank you!

Aloud, she says smilingly, ‘I was just asking my son which sculpture he likes best.’

Cookie