The Benefit Season (6 page)

Unlike a standard comedian
she makes no attempt to connect with her audience. Instead, she
rolls the eyes, waves the long knotty fingers, bares her teeth in a
snarl, and with an affected accent launches a grand soliloquy on
penises on wheels, and hymens that take winged flight. She only
pauses to ask the whiskered geek perched on the armrest in the
front row if he carries a license for looking that ugly, and if he
has ever had sex, with a partner that is. She wonders who let the
cage open for the monkey scratching her armpit in the second row,
and whether the fluff there may be used for camouflaging a small
tank.
“A farewell to armpits,”
will be the title of her next column she
promises. She explains why terrorists would never hijack the brown
Indian in the third row with the smell of curry on his sleeve, and
why they would never name the presidential residence in America as
the Black House even though they had Obama there now. After talking
on hairy fairies, erotographomanic fairytales and priests that come
before acne on twelve-year-old boys, she continues to shock people
with erotica on cellulite, body hair, and the importance of being
earnest on climaxes. She rounds off by slapping her bums, grabbing
her crotch, and squirting laughing gas through imaginary tits.
Disgusted, the audience gape at her with dropped jaws, while I, the
sworn defendant of the freedom of speech, rise to my feet and clap
for my life. Monal looks at me with surprise, and then catching on,
is quick to her feet for joining me in a standing ovation. The two
of us look like fools clapping away in the dazed hall, but the
audience, not to be outdone in their show of solidarity with their
hard-as-nails boss, are soon cheering and clapping their winning
horse’s victory lap. Paz is surprised with the applause and her
mask of severity slips to reveal a childishly pleased artist
hungering after false praise.

I escort a beaming Paz to Monal’s
office.

‘
So you two are engaged’,
Paz begins.

Monal looks at me quizzically as I hurriedly
explain that I am engaged to some other Monal back home in Delhi.
She gives me a wicked smile as she taps her pencil on the desk and
swings in her leather chair. I kick myself over a silly slip of the
tongue that has me telling lies all around.

‘
Well I really liked your
show, and as you can see, it was such a hit with our staff too. So
Paz, we’ll ready the paperwork, and let you know when we’ll need
your autograph on the dotted line’, says Monal with a straight
face.

Paz seems thrilled as I escort her out; I
take the trouble of calling a cab for her and seeing her off on the
clammy street outside.

‘
Wow, that was
bad…horrific! What poor taste. Who let
her
out her cage I want to ask, and
who gave
her
a
license for all that vulgarity. I mean, come on, it’s not funny of
course, but what she has is sheer lowlife stuff’, Monal says as I
sink into a chair.

‘
Now you see what I
meant?’

‘
I see, yes. Provided the
others fall for her- do you think they will? If my competition is
that foolish then I need have no worries in life’.

‘
To help them make a
decision, let’s drive up her TRPs a couple of notches. I’m sure
Monal, a couple of calls from you to the media houses should
improve Paz’s visibility in the public eye and drive Prerna rushing
into her lap.’

‘
I’ll work on it right
away- now be gone,’ she says, playfully chucking a crumpled piece
of paper at my face.

Once Monal is at it you
can trust
it
to be
done and done well. Things go according to script and Paz suddenly
finds herself on every news channel and girlie magazine, telling
the world why hairy shins have no takers. She calls me, and texts
me several times a day and I start to ignore her. She says there
are many people calling her up to sign her on but she would like to
work with us only since we’ve gotten her this break into the crazy
world of glitz blitz. I know there is only person chasing her and
that person is Prerna.

Finally, she signs a contract with
Plagiaristix when she finds me giving her the cold shoulder. Prerna
has fallen hook line and sinker for our grand idea and puts it into
motion without any delay. They start rolling film and invite their
top star, captain of the ‘Delhi Bellies’ IPL team, Calvin Paterson
and his wife for the first episode.

‘
Are you married’, Paz
asks Mrs. Paterson as the show begins.

Mrs. Paterson smiles shyly.

‘
Was your wife a virgin
when you got married?’ Paz says to a shocked Calvin in her
trademark bitchy style. ‘ Did you insist she bring her hymen to the
table before you cross the aisle?’ Then she turns to the blushing
wife, ‘did you insist he bring his uncut foreskin to the table in
return, Mary?’

I am standing at the gates with the contract
as Calvin storms out of the studio yelling on his phone, firing his
agent.

Her next victim, a Bangladeshi cricketer in
the IPL, Sohail Gazi, is storming out of the show after she puts
her second question to him,’ do you clean toilets and wax your legs
as you expect your wife to do’, when I block his path and wave my
contract under his nose, offering him double of what his agent is
giving him. He is happy to settle for half of what I give him,
after he’s done showering his agent with the choicest of
abuses.

The first question had been; ‘why aren’t you
here in a burqa like your wife?’

‘
It’s a shame they have
pulled her show off the air’, I tell Monal as we sip coffee in her
office.

‘
And why’s
that?’

‘
More guys would have
sacked Plagiaristix, and our ranks would have swelled’.

She laughs happily. Plagiaristix is red in
the face while Tom is grinning widely as he approves the contracts
we fax to him for approvals. With two guys in the bag in just a few
weeks in the company, the skies are bright and the bird’s on the
lark. Monal allows me to take the day off to meet Aarti at the
airport and settle her at her aunt’s place. Her joining date has
arrived and I will be lonely and eligible no more.

‘
Hey, Monal, can I ask of
you a favor?’

She listens with a growing smile as I
explain.

She slaps her thigh in glee and says,’ wow,
so sweet! Done!’ And raising her feet off the edge of her leather
and mahogany table, calls her secretary to her office.

‘
I thought you said her
name was Monal’, Monal says cheekily.

‘
That’s a pet name’; I
manage to say.

‘
Monal for Aarti? Wow.
Which one is the pet by the way, Monal or Aarti?’

I say nothing as I shuffle out of the
office, feeling bumpy at Monal’s mirth.

ϖ

Chapter
4

Aarti arrives on the
Scene

Earlier in the day Aarti
had made me promise a hundred times that I would be there at the
airport in the evening to receive her. And that is, after I had not
even suggested such a thing that I wouldn’t be there.

‘
Please be there, ooh
please, pretty please. I can’t wait to see you. Don’t you say you
got caught up somewhere,’ she’d insisted. It’s pointless to remind
her that I was the one in the first place to rule out her idea of
taking a cab to her aunt’s place, her aunt being too old to drive
and come pick her up.

‘
I shall be there darling;
there’s no two ways about it’, I affirm.

‘
You sure?’

‘
You bet’.

‘
You’re the first face I
want to see when I walk out that airport’.

‘
You’re the only face I
want to see at that airport’.

‘
Be there in time- I’ve
heard horrid things about Mumbai traffic’.

‘
I’m leaving
already’.

The moment her plane lands at Mumbai and
she’s allowed to use her mobile phone, she calls me, ‘are you
there?’

I decide it’s a good time to tease her.
‘Sorry baby, something came up, but my cabbie is there. He’ll be
waiting with a sign at the exit.’

There is a loud pause at the other end. I
can hear her breath and in the background the plane
announcements.

‘
So when do I lastly see
you’, she asks, disappointment writ large in the tone.

‘
Tonight itself, I’ve
booked this table at the Levo. After you drop off your stuff at
auntie’s and dab a little powder at them rosy cheeks, he’ll bring
you straight around to me- I’ll be waiting at the table- it’s on
your right, in the corner, away from the band, with the candle
lights and the red runner on white silk.’

‘
Is there a dress code… is
it a fancy place… do I have to wear a gown or something… can you
afford it’, she asks with concern.

‘
As long as it’s not jeans
and your shooting earphones and your firing cap, and a shotgun
slung over your shoulders; it’s going to be fine’.

‘
Arjun’, she says with
considerable stress; I know for sure the brows are close and she is
waving a forefinger in my face; ‘ I know how to dress for an
evening out’.

‘
Just look pretty
then’.

‘
Though you don’t deserve
it, for ditching me, as I always said you would; to you I can’t say
no now, can I? Now, tell me what does this cabbie looks like? Ugly
I’m sure.’

‘
Like any other cabbie,
except that he’ll be in a white dress with a golden trim that you
can’t miss.’

I stand at the gates waiting for her to
fetch her bags from the conveyer belt. Close by, an all-girls
school concert band complete with wind and percussion instruments
and string basses waits, ready to strike up at the orders of their
conductor, standing with his back turned to the gates. An ornate
brass stand is placed behind him, facing the gates with someone’s
name on it- probably Mr. Holland’s.

Aarti, looking resplendent in a white dress,
her mane tied in a neat bun, struggling with her trolley, out of
which keep toppling her clumsily loaded bags, soon arrives at the
gate opposite the school band. She looks around and then peers a
little closely at the name on the brass stand- it’s hers! She halts
and looks quizzically at the band. Curious onlookers have gathered
around and the arrived passengers form a little circle around her,
as the conductor flourishes his baton above his head, and the band
strikes up- “The Perfect Lover”. Aarti is blushing when after the
perfect rendition the airport breaks into applause and cheering,
and waits to see what will happen next to the svelte girl in plain
white waiting in a small circle of people. Somewhere the large LCD
screens mounted on the walls are showing the scene of the band as a
hush falls upon the airport.

I remove my white conductor’s cap with the
golden rim, replace my baton on my music stand, turn and go down on
one knee.

Aarti cups her mouth in shock as I hold her
hand and ask her to marry me. The crowds wait with baited breath,
when after a few agonizing moments for me, with tears running down
her fair cheeks, she says “yes”! I have never heard such a thunder
before, either it’s my hammering heart or the crowd going berserk
or the band striking up “the air that I breathe”, or all of these
things. She sinks to the floor beside me and we hug and I whisper
‘thank you’ in her ears. Then I grab her trolley, and after
thanking the band Monal had arranged as the favor I’d asked of her
earlier that morning, we walk to our waiting cab.

ϖ

I leave the office cab with Aarti and
proceed to Levo by a taxi. Aarti will need time with her aunt - it
would be rude to pull the two girls apart without letting them
indulge in a wee bit of family natter on the scene at Delhi. And
one Khosla is already quite a handful for me without bunging the
sister in as well on the crowded seascape.

Levo is dimly lit- to allow guests intimacy
and anonymity; it is done in an elderly beige and brown. A pale
Naga hostess with muscular calves ushers me to my table in the
corner, at the far end from their clumsy and already drunk jazz
band that is playing a cover tune from Michael Bolton or some such
musician with similar leanings towards the trumpet. The Maître D’
greets me with a plastic smile and asks if I need help with the
wines. I want to ask him for milk, since I am already heady with
love and would rather stay that way- without any artificial
stimulants. But I figure it will look pretty odd sitting alone
nursing a glass of unsweetened milk in a faintly lit corner of a
public dwelling, so I decide to go along with convention and ask
for the house pick-me-up prescription list. A sommelier appears
silently and proceeds to launch an elaborate panegyric on the house
white and red flavors, aromas and vintages that, to a man largely
innocent of fine dining or wining, seem like cuckoo verses from a
strange fable. When he has finished I ask him if he has anything
clear and bubbly with a low alcoholic content. That seems to stop
him dead in his tracks. After he has tucked in the half-dropped jaw
he bows and slinks away, not remembering to smile like everyone
else in this place.

I am brought the bubbly in a bucket clinking
with ice, and the server pops the bottle and leaves me with the
empty evening and the filled flute. I sip and wait.

An hour later the warm sunshine parts the
overhung clouds, the bursting sails empty of the gusty winds and
the tempest settles of the upheaving. Time stops, the music blanks
out as a glowy fairy in white floats across the hall to find my
table. I forget to get her chair as she folds an elbow, plants a
dainty chin on it, and smiles. I tap my pocket for the reassuring
bump of a small box with a humble ring. The shades metamorphose
into a server who adds the sparkle and fizz to her glass. We say
cheers and lose ourselves in each other. She talks while I smile,
digging into the Napoli pomodori secchi with warm artichokes and
stale goat cheese. She digs the sous chefs’ recommendation- the
asparagus shepherd pie- a veggie bastardisation of the classic
meaty original actually; cleansing herself of the diet of the
nomads that ran over the grain eating Indians, she says.