Surveying his visage in the mirror the barber is now holding up, he says briskly. ‘Excellent job, Firdaus meri jaan. Just two nicks and a minor bloodletting!’
Firdaus grins a shy, shifty grin. ‘Dekha?’ he crows triumphantly to the onlookers. ‘Kashi bhaiya fights such big-big cases, comes on TV and all, and gets his hajamat done right here! From me! When will you suckers latch on?’
The circle of drivers doesn’t look very impressed.
‘That is because Kashi sir is brave enough to risk a throat-slitting – and we are not!’ one of them quips snarkily.
‘You’re drunk half the time, you’ll kill us!’
‘God knows if you even sterilize that thing!’
‘C’mon guys, if you don’t let him practice on you, how will he ever get better?’ Kashi says as he hands Firdaus a folded note. ‘Give him a chance to make you look handsome!’
‘You were looking really handsome on TV, sir!’ volunteers one of the drivers. ‘On every single news channel last night!’
There is a general chorus of agreement.
‘Nothing like that, boss.’ Kashi, always awkward when praised, goes a little pink around the ear tips and gestures to the chaat-wallah for a plate of shakkarkandi chaat. ‘Masala tez,’ he says, as he drops down to sit on the low boundary wall. ‘Nimbu zyaada.’
‘Should we deal you in, sir?’ asks another driver. ‘Fancy a game?’
‘Just one,’ Kashi agrees, smiling. ‘My Uber will be here soon. How much is the buy-in?’
He raises his eyebrows at the steepness of the stakes, but hands a note of the correct denomination to the ‘banker’, and pops a chunk of chaat into his mouth.
It is the first slow day he’s had in months.
His client, Geeta Nagar Jhuggi Colony Dwellers, has finally been allotted a massive amount in compensation from the Supreme Court for the unauthorized demolition of their shanties thirty-six months ago. The Municipal Corporation has grudgingly coughed up the money. The judgement is a landmark one, and will set a precedent for several such cases all over the country.
Kashi fans out his cards (he’s been dealt a pure sequence and two jokers) and gives a contented sigh. How pleasant it is to sit in the winter sun with no set agenda, with this sweet bunch of guys for company, relishing the nimbu-laced taste of smoky-sweet shakkarkandi, and thinking about how tomorrow he and Kuhu will be in Goa, finally taking a much delayed two-week holiday! Life couldn’t possibly get better.
And then it does. His phone rings.
Kashi grabs it.
‘Hey …’ His voice is a deep caress. ‘All set? Packing for Goa?’
The musical voice at the end is unusually sombre.
‘Kash, there’s a problem.’
Twenty minutes later, it is a rather tight-lipped and taut-jawed Kashi who steps into his Uber and sets off for the Delhi Turf Club.
When the grounds of the DTC roll smoothly up outside his left window, his face grows a little less stormy.
His eyes fill with a sort of resentful wistfulness – how much he had loved this place as a child! The tennis courts, the library, the pool, and later, as he grew older, the gym and the Thursday night bar scene. If somebody had told him then that there would come a time when he would go without dropping in at the Club for three whole years, that too while living four kilometres away from it, he would have just laughed in disbelief.
‘Kashi baba! After so many days!’ says the security guard after Kashi pays off the Uber and strolls in through the main gate. ‘No more long tennis?’
They have a little chat about the state of the nation, then Kashi takes the shortcut through the Lady Darlington Swimming Bath, aka the swimming pool, passing a sign that declares: NO SERVANTS, AYAHS OR GUNMEN BEYOND THIS POINT. The place is practically still practicing apartheid, he thinks, as he crosses the stuffed leopards snarling inside glass cages in the main lobby. Founded in 1844 by bored British housewives, and stormed during the mutiny of 1857, it is still living with its head completely up its own arse – more a symbolic seat of power than the Red Fort would ever be, a citadel of rulers totally disconnected from the rest of the country, who, thanks to Kaya Skin Clinic and Blonde Highlights from L’Oréal Paris, have managed to become almost indistinguishable from the British who built the place. Like the pigs walking upright at the end of Animal Farm, Kashi had told his sister fancifully when she’d called to set up this meeting.
She hadn’t been amused.
‘Oh, stop being such a self-righteous little choot, Kashi,’ she’d growled. ‘You can’t avoid the club forever! It’s too conveniently located! Dadi loves it and she’s really old now – and it’s the only place Mom and Dad can afford to buy booze at, so cut the commie JNU shit and just meet us there! You can’t spend your whole life hiding from Bambi Todi!’
He had stoutly denied hiding from anyone, of course, but as he now enters the sprawling, sunlit, dahlia-edged lawns at the back of the main bungalow, and inhales the well-remembered Sunday morning bouquet of candyfloss, tandoor smoke and strong beer, he has to admit that maybe his big sister had, as usual, stabbed mercilessly right into the throbbing crux of the matter.
He looks around warily. All of Delhi seems to be at the DTC today. The lawns are awash in silk cravats, pashmina shawls and designer sunglasses. People are sitting on white wicker armchairs around low glass tables, eating and drinking like the world is going to end tomorrow. Hotdogs, shaami kebabs, momos, French fries, kathi rolls, chhole bhature, paneer tikkas, beer, whisky, vodka, gin, you name it – fathers, mothers, toddlers, grandpas and grandmas, hot girls and hopeful
