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

‘Uh … um …’ Kashi knits his brow. ‘They’re all unique in their own way … but I do like this green one here! It’s so …’ His fingers shoot up into the air, as if in search of words, ‘Green!’

‘Just like grass,’ adds the hovering ACP helpfully. ‘And this nice chutney.’ He points at the crystal bowl full of basil pesto.

‘It’s called dipping sauce,’ the bearer corrects him importantly.

‘O really?’ Bhavani replies, beckoning him closer. ‘We’ll just dip into it again then …’

Cookie continues to hold forth. ‘The greens stone is malachite. You have a good eye, Kashi beta, this is one of my best pieces. It has a twin – but in lapis lazuli – a deep, rich blue. I had presented it to Bambi and Anshul at their engagement. In fact I asked her to lend it to me, just for this exhibition, I wanted to exhibit that one too, but she said ki she has no idea where it went. Which is a real loss to the art world, of course, but I didn’t want to nag her about it, especially after that engagement ended in such a tragedy,

you know.’

‘We didn’t know,’ Bhavani replies, with great interest. ‘What tragedy?’

‘Oh, ACP Brownie, it was all so sad …’

As Cookie lowers her voice and starts to fill him in on the story, Kashi moves away. He is in no mood to listen to the grand doomed saga of Bambi–Anshul.

As he walks past, Roshni Aggarwal summons him to her side imperiously. Surrendering to the fact that today is his day to hang with boujee boozy aunties, Kashi goes over obediently. She promptly thrusts somebody at him – sullen, paneer-fair and dead-eyed, with worked-out arms, a soft belly and skinny legs. Kashi remembers him vaguely as a senior from TVVS.

‘My son, Aryaman,’ Roshni says, smiling a little anxiously.

Of course, Kashi recalls unenthusiastically, Aryaman Aggarwal, Roshni auntie’s hot mess of a son, is a notorious stoner. It is rumoured that he’d been badly beaten up by his drug dealer once, and left with injuries that had affected his brain.

‘Hey Arya!’ Kashi smiles.

Aryaman looks at him with dull, vacant eyes. ‘Hullo,’ he says finally, reluctantly.

Roshni gives Aryaman a little push. ‘Talk to Kashi, Arya!’ she says brightly, as if her son is five years old. ‘He’s become a very well-known lawyer. You’ll have fun!’

And then she walks away.

Kashi and Aryaman look at each other for a while.

‘So, man,’ Kashi says finally. ‘What d’you think of the uh … exhibits?’

Aryaman doesn’t bother to reply.

Kashi shrugs philosophically and sips his wine. Across the garden, Cookie is still talking earnestly to Bhavani. Seems like she’s giving him the Bambi–Anshul debriefing in great detail.

He isn’t wrong.

‘The Poddar boy was really very good-looking, ACP Brownie!’ Cookie is saying into the old policeman’s attentive ear. ‘And altogether too good to be true! In fact, I told Bambi’s mother ki check-up kar lo, perhaps he is secretly gay or important or something! Not that our Bambi wouldn’t attract the best offers – but you know in India, in the Marwari community especially, for every twenty gorgeous girls there seems to be only one dhangg ka ladka, just one decent boy, and all the girls have to fight for him! People keep saying ki pre-natal sex determination and female feticide is a big menace in our society and the number of girls born is dwindling and kya kya, but to me it seems like somebody is systematically tracking down all our tall, fair, strong, handsome, intelligent boy fetuses and bumping them off in the womb only! Maybe it’s a Pakistani conspiracy.’

Bhavani agrees with her, then inquires in a low murmur about the Kashi–Bambi angle. What exactly is going on there?

Cookie giggles. ‘Oh yes, those two! Quite the lovebirds when they were little! Why, once I saw them in the squash court, all squashed up together …’

She proceeds to give him details that would’ve made Kashi’s ears burn if he could’ve heard her. Luckily, he can’t.

The party rolls on.

Above the Rose Garden, the sky starts to get a bit thundery. The intrepid bits of female cleavage, shoulder and thigh that had braved the late February chill begin to goose-pimple all over the lawn.

And then Bambi Todi bursts into Rose Garden, and things immediately get sunnier.

‘Heyyy guys!’ she says as she plucks a glass a wine off a passing bearer’s tray, drains it in one gulp and comes to stand between Kashi and Aryaman Aggarwal. ‘Wow, I needed that! I didn’t know church services were so long.’

‘It’s been so long since I saw you, Bambi.’

Oh wow, thinks Kashi, startled, I couldn’t get a word out of the fucker and now suddenly he’s all chirpy!

Bambi beams at the drooping Aryaman.

‘I know, Arya! We used to meet so often at the club when we were younger!’

A gleam briefly illuminates Aryaman’s dull eyes. ‘Swimming,’ he says.

‘Yes!’ she replies encouragingly. ‘Tennis.’

‘Yes!’

‘Hooking up on the library roof.’

‘Uh huh!’ She shakes her head, her eyes dancing. ‘That must’ve been with somebody else! Uh … refill please!’ She waves her glass at a bearer.

Aryaman continues to look at her blankly for a while, then finally, his eyes trail away.

‘I’ve seen that guy before,’ he remarks. ‘The one in the fucktard shoes. Who’s he?

This, because Gagan Ruia is walking up towards them, his juttis chwing-chwonging noisily.

‘Bambi! What an amazing artist your Cookie auntie is!’

‘Pick up something then!’ she challenges him gaily. ‘Cookie auntie’s put me in charge of bullying people into buying! All the proceeds go to charity.’

‘Oh daffynitely,’ he replies at once. ‘Come help me choose, na!’

He puts out a hand appealingly. She hesitates, then takes it and walks away.

‘Well, he’s daffynitely hot for her!’ Aryaman sneers softly. ‘What a guy!’

And Kashi has to agree. Ruia Jr looks smitten for sure, staring down adoringly at Bambi as she points out the finer points of each smoothly polished piece. Kashi averts his gaze.

Near the bar, Cookie Katoch’s husband, dutifully present to support his wife, is holding forth