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

a sweet, large-eyed brown thing called Ganga – she’d ask me for water and tea very sweetly, even though I never had any. Soon after, she randomly quit. I didn’t give it much thought but then, just a few days before our big engagement, she accosted me on the road and insisted on speaking to me.

She told me that one day, while she was dusting the bottles in the bar, Anshul had grabbed her, thrown her to the ground and forced himself on her. She had pleaded with him and pleaded with him, but he hadn’t listened. Afterwards, he had given her ten thousand rupees, plus her monthly salary in advance, and told her he didn’t need her to work in his house any more.

Of course I was fully shook up. I asked her what she wanted me to do about it, and she said, nothing didi, you look so sweet and nice, just don’t marry that man, he is a monster and will destroy your life.

I told my parents about the incident, but they pooh-poohed it. They said Ganga was making up the story, maybe in the hope of extracting money from me, maybe because she herself was obsessed with hot, hunky Anshul. They said I should ignore the incident completely.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I started watching Ansh all the time, observing little little things – the way he spoke to servants, how curt he was with his mother when he thought nobody was watching, or even how bossy he sometimes was with me … and I started having doubts. On the night of the engagement – Bhavani ji was correct about that, I told him to sneak back to meet me after everybody was asleep – I brought up Ganga with him.

He laughed it off, of course. And then he started asking me all these questions about YOU. He said he’d sensed something between us – it was like he was trying to turn the tables on me, to put me in the wrong. So I told him, ya sure, Kashi and I had a scene, but it was always consensual – not like him, groping Ganga against her will! And then he started calling me a slut! Me! So I told him that while I’d had a few guy friends, I’d certainly never grabbed a manservant in my house and copulated with him forcibly and given him money afterwards! He made a mistake then. He said, I never grabbed her in the bar, and so of course I said, but I never mentioned the bar. He knew he’d been caught then, and, Kash, he … he just lost it.

It was like a mask had slipped from his face. He started talking all crudely, telling me it was time I stopped living in la-la land. He said all men were like this, and that he wasn’t going to pretend to be goody-goody any more, that it would be hypocritical and that he was above all an honest man. Yes, he’d raped Ganga but he’d paid her, her full salary and ten thousand rupees in cash besides, so what was she complaining about?

I started feeling all panicked and sick. I was alone with a raving man and all I could do was fiddle with that blue, Swarovski-encrusted ShivBling Cookie auntie had given us – we’d opened a few presents earlier in the evening, just for fun.

Anshul kept ranting – by now I’d realized the guy had serious issues – and I just sat there frozen with horror at the mess I was in. He said women didn’t mind what you did to them as long as you gave them enough money – his mum was the same and so was mine. He said Paapu was famous in whorehouses all over the world, that everybody on the Marwari network joked about Paapu and called him the human Zomato of strip-clubs. He had a rating for each club and he was never wrong. He said Mammu knew all about it.

He kept hissing and hissing in my ear, like the snake he’d revealed himself to be, and I kept thinking he’s a rapist, a rapist who rapes MAIDS, not even girls of his own class, not that I’m a snob or anything, and I’m really fond of Ganga, but STILL! I kept telling him to shut up, but he wouldn’t shut up, and so finally, just to get him to shut the fuck up, I swung the ShivBling, and whacked him across the side of the head with it.

It shattered with a horrible crashing sound. Ansh crumpled to the ground and didn’t move. There were shards everywhere. His mouth was all slack and open and stupid – how could I have ever thought he was handsome? I didn’t know what to do, so I started calling you. I called you at least six times, till I realized the Doscos weren’t going to let you pick up my call. After what Ansh had just been saying about my parents, the last thing I wanted to do was phone them up. I was going to have to adult properly, and handle this one all by myself, like a grown-up.

I stared at the stupid, ugly body on the ground for a while, repeating, I’ve made a mess, I’ve made a mess, I’ve made a mess, to myself like fool, and then I did what I always do when I make a mess. I called Guppie Ram ji and said, I’ve made a mess. Come clean it up.

There must have been something odd in my voice because he came from the quarters at once.

He was so sweet! He wasn’t at all psyched by the fact that Anshul was the mess. He’d never liked him anyway. I told him that Anshul had tried to rape me, which made him only too happy to roll that SOB in a sheet, drag him out of the cottage and into the patch. It was a