Recipe for Disaster: The Pimp and the Princess
Sep 12 2007 | Views 177 |
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Tags: murder make-up disaster recipe fashion clandestine happily ever after.. BMW 325i pimp and the princess pineapple cake sox afeemchi euphoria
Tags: murder make-up disaster recipe fashion clandestine happily ever after.. BMW 325i pimp and the princess pineapple cake sox afeemchi euphoria
It was a cold, windy, shattered night - occasionally lit up by the wandering moonlight that touched, caressed and moved on from Bilal's shoulders to his ears and far beyond the rapid twist and turn of his mind.
The agile mountain goat on the narrow, winding path carpetted with dry, some-what dead leaves and cow-pie (however did cows manage to get up here in the first place, he irritatedly asked no one in particular?) stood firm, chewing a few wet morsels of wild shrubbery and watched Bilal's dubious stance on going further up rather slyly.
Maybe the 'future biryani' was asking for it; maybe it was his imagination, but the goat looked to Bilal as if mocking him for even thinking of making it up the steep hill in one night alone: it locked eyes with Bilal's weary ones that gazed out at the muddle of thoughts clankering through his brain, almost screaming to be addressed and soothed and put to rest with some sort of action.
Bilal's brisk strides belied his 49years on the planet, fighting for his share of food in a family of 13, then working to eke out a living at the brick factory that was a 2-mile trek from his shanty, clobbering money-lenders who took more than their dues of interest and principal twice over from his afeemchi father who'd rather give away his (Bilal's) hard earned cash than have the human blood-suckers take him away from his few moments of euphoria.
A real looker in his youth, the streak of pink across his cheekbones, had more to do with the rough-hewn shoes Bilal wore while working his way up the rugged and unforgiving North Indian hills; having to grasp at errant branches each time the wind knocked him for a six, slapping him into re-thinking his plan and dig in his worn-out footwear into the heart of the sodden earth had rendered Bilal's complexion a ruddy visage. Nearing the goat, he had a flash of pushing it off its perch on the rock that jutted diagonal to him - just for fun.
.......
As quickly as the thought came, it vanished with more powerful images of the recipe he was memorizing in his head that required his full attention.
......
Bilal's lean, muscled back turned on the cold of the night as he swept across a clump of mud and rubble before him, expertly negotiating his road-grip much like the safety conscious Volvo, the Swedes gift to accident free family travel. He had driven one for an entire summer once - escorting a noveau riche Delhi clan around these very treacherous mountain slopes and earned his wife the distinction of owning a double gas connection, two burner gas range, a small crisper fridge and television set from his generous advance earnings that year - all for showing the outsiders plots of land they could grab and convert into commercial undertakings for added profitability.
What use that profitability, he sourly thought, when the men in the Volvo, couldn't walk themselves around to sipping the fresh mountain stream water and insisted on Bilal getting it for them in their sterilized shiny stainless steel thermos caps? They wanted 'scenery' and 'lake-view' and 'peace of nature' but couldn't get themselves to breathe without their a/c cars?
And when he was seeing them off after receiving his full and final payment and having patiently put up with their crude, often vulgar use of the national language - with no regard for the womenfolk with them, the men had provided for the recipe for disaster themselves.
In fact, Bilal, reasoned ,as he wiped the evening dew off his forehead, the kutta-cheez, had asked for it: alluding to the 'fashion' his wife - the beautiful Shamila - kept up with, her artistic hand at make-up, her doe-eyes and 'lacheelapan,' observed but once, when she'd crossed their path during one of their on-road jaunts; Shamila was returning with two pitchers of water and unaware of any remarks to her flexibility , cosmetic use (if quick strokes of home-made kaajal could be called that at all) and lush and full-bodied frame.
As she turned the corner and headed down the brick-lane to their two-room tenement, Bilal had turned the Volvo towards the upper road and swerved hard to jerk the men-folk in the luxury vehicle out of their leery commentary and chain of thoughts. It hadn't worked: in fact, quite the opposite, much to Bilal's chagrin and ultimate disbelief,: their wives had urged them on, apparently amused by their husbands' interest in a 'pahari murgi' to get the water-bearing woman over for some 'light fun and games.' They believed it would 'spice things up.'
Bilal had grit his teeth and moved upto 6th gear as the road straightened out like sheet metal before him - none of its hilly tendencies apparent for a good 3 kms. He was having an out of body experience: he saw himself jumping out of the car, catching the slow-moving, big-bellied threesome by their collars and determinedly dashing their fat heads onto the rocks as in a slow, menacing motion of disciplining a case of bad manners.
Murder, it is believed is usually very gruesome, but this would be bringing them to task who thought nothing of demeaning a woman, with words that like arrows shot from an archer's quiver, can never quite be taken back.
Clandestine designs and plans were all uttered in the same breath with which the men and women in the Volvo inhaled the fragrance of fresh pineapple cake, brought a few hours ago from the district headquarters' only real bakery, Sakleys, before their toxic minds thought of visiting the wilds in the outskirts where a similarly placed businessman friend had an 'cote-aij,' no doubt for meaningless meanderings of body and soul-less experiences such as their womenfolk were jesting about.
Dirty sox would probably be a purer deal than the single mind of any of his passengers, thought Bilal, impotent with effervescent rage: euphoria, sudden and overwhelming, took over as the crisp, clean breeze forced some of the pent-up rage to give way to even breathing. He, Bilal, wasn't their 'ghulam' or trained lap-dog - he could go ahead and teach these guys a lesson once away from town and their destination on the fringes of the hill-top town, seemed ideal for retribution.
Wondering about Shamila's flexibility, were they? he clamped his jaw and brought the accelerator back to life, maneuvering flamboyantly over the edges of the road. More than once, the women of no particular shape, would caution him in voices more prone to bargaining diamonds for favors given - and enjoyed - than holding conversation, to slow down and drive carefully.
And all the more was Bilal torn between taking them off the road to watch them meet a fate they would hardly have imagined he could write for them with a twist of the steering wheel while jumping off the car himself.
But that would have been too quick a punishment and not half as painful as he wanted their lesson to be; for, he was, he reckoned ,as he brought the Volvo to a stop outside a neat little Scottish type cabin, a man who took the matter of his wife's honor seriously. And she was a good little woman too, having served him well in the 10 years of their wedded lives in a devoted manner- gentleness and compassion her best virtues- far beyond her more apparent attractive veneer, which only his family knew of - for it was they that she served in a humble, sacrificing and near-motherly way.
He hadn't racked his brain enough for the dose they deserved, loutish minds all, when the women descended from the Volvo, rubbing their ample posteriors and foreheads alternately, and whined to their menfolk about laying off Bilal for his rough driving.
That's how the deal had ended: 10 years ago.
Bilal had been ungraciously told to "sod off" just like that - of course, having been given the fat wad of notes that brought many conveniences for his wife soon after for the month and a half's real estate scouring and odd jobs he'd done for the uncouth holidaymakers, it wasn't that difficult to literally sod off. (That Shamila would not have been around long enough to wear the shine off the household conveniences was not a future he'd anticipated...but that comes later).
The fact that he was told to do so when 35miles away from any civilization and on a dirt road in the hills, with dusk approaching, was a bit disconcerting and stung Bilal. But more barbs were to follow, though to be fair, the 'loutish minds' (Bilal's generic term for the guests) were not aware of any connection of their request with Bilal's own state: they asked him to find out about the woman. His woman.
All the rage had done him no good for when he was smacked with the order in the face - and the gut, - it seemed he was deadened to intelligent response. Petrified could have described him. Then again, so could contemplative.
Bilal chose not to rise to the remarks or the requests: he simply nodded to the oldest man saying, "Find her for us tonight, will you?" It hadn't helped when the women pitched in with, "Oye, give him an advance-shadvance, ji...for persuasion..." and the men had cackled, " These women don't need persuasion - they are like Eveready batteries- heh ji?" and the other men had joined in the rambunctiousness of the moment.
........
Bilal had turned the same shade of red as tonight even then, but remained silent as he went into the cloak of the night - a grimly, incensed man.
......
5 and a half hours later, Bilal had knocked on the door to his familiar tenement, longing to be comforted by Shamila's blue eyes that saw everything and gave nothing away and her hushed, cooing tones that preceded a night of loving always.
Instead, when the door remained resolutely shut on his bemused face, Bilal had looked down to find no lock on it - she had to be in the house then, but why wasn't she answering the door?
He pried it open (it jammed a bit during the rainy season, the wood having bloated to different proportions than it was crafted for and dragging in the doorway at times) to find his wife - nowhere.
He unloaded the bundle of cash into a box fitted into the pillar of his bedroom and locked it up again before he dashed upstairs to enquire Shamila's whereabouts from his family living there.
Father was useless: he had half a mind these days and all of it was spent on calculating where to get his next fix from, so Bilal questioned his mother and younger sisters: the youngest had seen Shamila speaking to two fat women in 'punjabi suits' - she'd called out to her to ask if everything was okay, and Shamila had looked up and gestured 'Sab khairiyaat.' She'd got into the black jeep and driven off with them soon after - and that had been good 3 hours ago.
Bilal had borrowed his past employer's run-down Tata sumo (he had plied it for the thekedaar for a good 2 years before quitting and done the man many out of turn favors in driving out holidayers at odd hours to way out places - he ought to have loaned him the car instantly instead of having to haggle his way through a favor for old times sakes...but well, every man was a 'kutta-cheez' when the one in front of them was poor and needy, rued Bilal)
He'd fired up the mountain in the rusty jeep, re-routing himself on the same track of the late afternoon Volvo drive, steeling himself on doing what must be done to them sons of dogs.
Bilal had found the 'cote-aij' locked. The Volvo was gone. And with it - all his hopes of finding Shamila and avenging her honor.
That had been 10 years ago. With a decade between him and the climb he undertook up the mountain tonight, was a lifetime's worth of weeping, solitude, worrying, hatred and half a score of broken dreams.
........
He'd seen Shamila today on the Mall road. He'd not recognized her though. At least, not immediately.
She was thinner (fashionably so) and more beautiful than ever before - if that was possible - and she dripped diamonds, just like the older, fatter, famililar faces flanking her at both sides. They had got into a BMW 325i and their words burned his ears: "What a fate we rescued you from, princess - don't stay too long too close to your roots, or else you will be sucked into the same whirlpool of dust and anonymity again - let's get you to where the party is, c'mon.." and Shamila, his Shamila, had smiled knowingly, conspiratorially and lowered her mascara-ed eyelashes to sweep her cheeks before giggling, "You are right, Didi..." and swung low into the sportscar and even lower in Bilal's estimate.
......
The weather whispered a chant of impending rain as the night-breeze nipped at Bilal's flannel shirt, which he tugged close to his throat, his lungs feeling tight and cold, as his heart did a piroutte within his rib-cage, closing in on him, sort of.
The 'cote-aij' looked the same, except for a few more coats of paint, more cars around it and solar water heating panels on the right side roof. These Dilliwallahs wanted everything new in the market - and the bastards could afford it too, reasoned Bilal doggishly himself.
.....
She danced and flirted. He watched and calculated.
Each plump hand covered with flabby flesh that lunged for her had another alongside proferring at least a gaddi of ten thousand - no wonder she hadn't cared much for his tv, fridge and second gas cylinder efforts - what a life she had, being the centre of attraction, being showered with compliments, champagne and cool, hard cash for evidence of her womanly virtues.
Each plump hand covered with flabby flesh that lunged for her had another alongside proferring at least a gaddi of ten thousand - no wonder she hadn't cared much for his tv, fridge and second gas cylinder efforts - what a life she had, being the centre of attraction, being showered with compliments, champagne and cool, hard cash for evidence of her womanly virtues.
He almost laughed at the word.
Wiles, too, were in the domain of womanly virtues...
For had she not just wrapped him also around her little finger with a quickie summary of what being her 'man-naijer' could be like and enjoy her favors once again - of course, He'd have to get out of his 'dog in the manger' attitude and be generous with sharing her 'natural talents'....
And how readily he, Bilal - the upright - had succumbed to her conniving ways and convincing talk of sharing the good times once again.
Wiles, too, were in the domain of womanly virtues...
For had she not just wrapped him also around her little finger with a quickie summary of what being her 'man-naijer' could be like and enjoy her favors once again - of course, He'd have to get out of his 'dog in the manger' attitude and be generous with sharing her 'natural talents'....
And how readily he, Bilal - the upright - had succumbed to her conniving ways and convincing talk of sharing the good times once again.
How fickle a woman's heart - and how strangely willing a man in love's. Especially when swaddled with what makes the world go round...money, sweeter than honey; as indeed, it was, that evening onwards - for Bilal and Shamila.
.......
And they lived happily ever after.....
The Pimp and the Princess.
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