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

at his wife, reclining on the gorgeous Malaysian cane bed with a magazine.

‘Drink, Urvashi?’

She shakes her head, smilingly. ‘No, thanks. How was your workout?’

‘Excellent. That Thampi really is a very good trainer.’

‘I’m so glad.’

Her voice is a little subdued. Mukesh looks around.

‘How was your day?’

She puts away her magazine and slides lower under the covers. ‘Oh! Very uneventful. Nothing happened.’

He looks a little nonplussed. ‘So I’ll just have my drink alone then?’

‘Please do,’ she murmurs, slipping on an eye mask. ‘I have yoga at five … Good night.’

He stares down at her motionless figure for a while, then nods, tightens the cord of his dressing gown a little, and pads out into the living room. He is preparing his nightcap when the security guards buzz from the gate.

‘Sir, visitor.’

Mukesh peers into the security camera and recognizes the bulldoggy visage of Club Secretary Srivastava. Uttering a small exclamation of surprise, he presses the speak button.

‘Haan, send him in.’

A few moments later, a manservant ushers the old man in.

‘Evening, sir,’ the secretary says stiffly, hovering in the doorway.

‘Come, come, Srivastava,’ Mukesh says with slightly patronizing affability.

‘I need to speak to you urgently.’

‘Arrey, I was at the club only!’ Mukesh replies. ‘With Thampi – you could have come in there. Why to drive all this way?’

The old man reddens. ‘It’s a confidential matter, sir.’

Mukesh gestures towards a plush seat – the same one Randy Rax had occupied not long ago.

‘Please sit!’ He points to his glass. ‘Drink piyoge?’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

An awkward silence ensues.

Clearly Srivastava is having starting trouble. Khurana sips his drink, and seeks about for something to say.

‘Toh, how’s the staff taken the discovery of the second dead body?’ he hazards finally.

Srivastava unfreezes.

‘Not very well, sir. The kitchen garden is right behind the office block, and quite a few of them have started saying the place is haunted.’

‘Bakwas!’ Khurana says roundly. ‘That body’s been pushing up beetroots there for the last three years and nobody breathed a word about hauntings, and now suddenly the area is infested with ghosts aur kya kya!’

Srivastava responds to this by lapsing back into an incommunicative silence.

Khurana stares at him mystified, then has another go at goading him into speech.

‘So Srivastava, why you’re changing sides? All this time you were supporting General Mehra. You even got me insulted me in front of the whole club on Tambola Sunday! Then why this sudden visit to the humble Khurana home?’

Srivastava presses his lips in a thin line. Then, his voice heavy with disapproval, he says, ‘General Mehra has … betrayed my trust, sir … I was sadly misled.’

‘Really?’ Mukesh leans forwards, his navy-blue robe spilling open a little to flash flesh nobody wants to see. ‘I thought you were a great fan of his!’

The bulldoggy old face starts to purple unattractively. ‘We have a tradition at the DTC sir, that every year during the Bumper Tambola, one line is always won by a proxy of the administrative staff, and all of us divide those winnings amongst ourselves.’

Mukki puts down his glass. ‘Kya, kya? You have tradition that what?’

With even greater stateliness, the old man repeats his little speech. ‘A tradition, sir, that every year during the tambola, one line – top, middle or bottom – is always won by a proxy of the administrative staff, and all of us divide those winnings amongst ourselves.’

‘A tradition of cheating and stealing then.’ Khurana looks triumphantly vindicated. ‘I knew it! Tum log rigging karte ho! You people are corrupted!’

The old man’s colour heightens. ‘It is a tradition devised by a president far greater than your wife can ever be, sir. To compensate for the meagreness of our salaries and show how much we are valued by all members of the Club.’

‘Balls!’ Khurana breathes hard. ‘You buggers are well-paid enough. You have job security. Many of you are on the take for all sorts of things. You’ve no reason to rig the tambola and pocket one large prize every year except plain greed. How do you do it anyway?’

‘It’s a time-honoured system,’ Srivastava explains with dignity. ‘I select a particular ticket, abstract the five numbers printed on it from the ninety-nine inside the wire-frame drum, and slip them up my sleeve.’

‘So that’s why you’ve always resisted an upgrade to an electronic system. I thought you read out the numbers simply because you fancied the sound of your own voice.’

Srivastava ignores this snide remark. ‘Then, during the tambola, I let one ball slide down from my sleeve every now and then, and announce it. A family member of one of the admin staff is in the audience with the selected ticket, and once all five numbers have been called, he claims it.’

‘Bada fine-tuned system lagta hai,’ Mukesh says sourly. ‘Can I ask how the winnings are divided?’

‘According to years of service,’ the secretary replies smoothly. ‘With the longest serving employees getting the most, and the newest the least.’

‘So you oldies get the makkhan-malai.’ Mukesh snorts, unimpressed. ‘So what happened this year?’ Did one of the youngsters, unhappy with his meagre share, go bleating about this grand tradition to somebody. Whom?’

‘General Mehra,’ Srivastava admits sulkily. ‘He came to me and said he had heard of our er … little system, but was quite happy to turn a deaf ear to it – he has quite a sense of humour, General Mehra! If he became president. He said, however, that Mrs Urvashi Khurana was not similarly hearing impaired. When I pointed that she would never find out about the system, he told me that it would be his duty to inform her of this highly irregular practice if she won.’

‘He threatened you.’ Mukesh laughs coarsely. ‘Serves you right.’

Srivastava’s face spasms at this crude remark but he manages to continue his narration solemnly.

‘As you say, sir. Then he made a suggestion which he said could help us both. You print two winning tickets for the middle line this year, he said. Give one to your proxy and one to Khurana – he’s sure to make an