Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

‘Nat at all!’ he says cosily. ‘Please! Begin your Satyanarayan ki katha!’

‘Okay.’ She takes a deep breath, then pulls up her legs to sit cross-legged on the chair comfortably. In a voice that is light, almost frivolous in tone, perhaps to distance herself from the story she is telling, she begins –

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a fun, fearless, handsome, young mountaineer–tycoon called Anshul Poddar. His family was from Kolkata and he was living and working in Delhi. My parents and his got in touch with each other through a network of Marwari friends and they decided that Anshul and I would make a wonderful couple. A meeting was organized, and it turned out that they were absolutely right. Anshul and I got along like a house on fire! Our engagement was announced literally a week after we first met. We would talk on the phone all day, go for long walks in Lodhi Garden, then come back to the DTC for drinks, dinner and dancing. We were blissfully happy.’

‘How many years ago was this?’ Bhavani asks.

‘Three years – almost exactly.’ The light, frivolous tone is fading fast. There is wistfulness in her voice now. ‘My parents wanted an elaborate engagement party, and would have liked a little time to plan it, but Anshul was leaving soon on a mountaineering expedition. His team was going to travel by bus, then cable car, then helicopter, to reach the Nanda Devi base camp. The whole expedition – preparation, ascent and descent – would be about a month long. His mother said they’d rather have the engagement before he left – “Because, beta, whenever he comes back from these expeditions, he is burnt black by the sun and snow and looks like a purple bhoot. Your photos will be ruined and all your friends will think your parents have married you to a yeti.”’

Bhavani chuckles. ‘Good advice by the mummy ji.’

‘Yes.’ Bambi looks sad. ‘I really didn’t mind either way, but Anshul agreed with his mother – he was definitely a little vain. But I don’t mind a slightly vain man – they understand good grooming and fitness, don’t you think?’

Bhavani, not sure where he stands on this one, murmurs a non-committal response.

Bambi continues, ‘My parents pulled out all the stops for the last-minute engagement. It was held at the DTC, we booked all the guest cottages. It was a brilliant party. Anshul and I had rehearsed a dance – it was a big hit. Everybody said we were the perfect couple.’ Her eyes grow pensive. ‘Even Kashi came – he’s my childhood friend, you know?’ She looks up at him inquiringly.

‘We know,’ Bhavani replies gently.

‘Even he said that Anshul and I were meant to be!’

‘How nice.’

‘My lehenga was bright yellow and gold. The colour of mustard fields at dawn.’

This seems to be the high point of the narrative. She falls silent, her eyes very far away. Bhavani stares down at his knuckles, radiating respectful sympathy. Finally, she draws a long shuddering breath.

‘Anshul didn’t want to leave me that night. He kept insisting that I come with him on the expedition – that he could climb Nanda Devi with me strapped to his back.’ She laughs shakily. ‘He could have done it too – he was tremendously strong. And so tall – much taller than Kashi!’

She stares down at her fingers. ‘Finally, he left. I was so tired, and had drunk so much wine that I went to sleep as soon as my head touched my pillow. When I woke up … ten hours later …’

Her eyes rise to meet his, stunned, bewildered, blind eyes. ‘He … was gone! Forever. It was sleeting, the road was slippery, the fog as thick as soup. Perhaps their driver had been drinking to stay warm, nobody really knows. Their bus went off the road, and plummeted into a ravine. Everybody died.’

She stops. Tears fill her eyes and spill onto her hands.

‘We’re so sorry,’ Bhavani says gruffly.

She nods, wordlessly.

There is a longish silence.

Then Bambi looks up, resolute. Her lips twist into a wry little smile.

‘I’ll spare you the grim details. Let’s just cut straight ahead to two years later, when I finally felt healed enough to meet new men. The first time I went out on a date, I found this’ – she places her finger on one of the letters lying between them on the table – ‘stuck to the windshield of my car the next morning.’

Bee, stay faithful to me … The A to your B.

‘I can’t tell you what I went through, Bhavani ji. I couldn’t decide if it was somebody playing a sick joke, or something else … I called Anshul’s parents to confirm if they had indeed retrieved his body from the wreckage of the bus. It had plunged into a river … Anshul was so strong, and such a good swimmer, perhaps …’ Her voice breaks, she wipes her nose with the back of her hand, look heartbreakingly like a small child. ‘Perhaps … he had survived?’

Bhavani’s voice is deep and soft with genuine sympathy. ‘And what did they say, Bambi ji?’

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. ‘They said that he was definitely gone.’

‘We see …’ Bhavani clicks his tongue sympathetically. ‘You have truly suffered, Bambi ji.’

She sighs, and sits forward, resting her elbows on his desk and cupping her chin in her hands.

‘I decided it was all a silly prank. I know some pretty silly people – they don’t like me very much because I don’t fall neatly into their definition of what a pretty, rich Delhi girl should be – this could be their idea of fun … So the next time a letter came, I ignored it, and the time after that.’

‘You never went to the police?’

‘No.’ Her face grows inscrutable. ‘I thought … I mean, I know it’s silly and melodramatic … but—’

‘You think they are really from Anshul and that is he is alive,’ he says calmly.

She looks troubled.