The Zoya Factor (21 page)

And Rinku Chachi clapped too. 'Bhai, ten out of ten!' she declared.
'Kitna
good answer
diya na,
Zoya?'

I looked at her, completely disgusted. I wanted to tell her, remember your ugly nephew, Zoravar?
He
was a soldier who fought for his country. Nikhil Khoda was just some overpaid, over-hyped pretender. But she wasn't even looking at me. She was looking at the TV where the next babe had drawn a card with the name of the spurious soldier, Captain Coldheart himself. Well, I knew what was on his mind when he pinned his Boost-brown eyes on her. 'Do you believe in luck?'

Poor girl, it was an out-of-syllabus question and she got really rattled. She started off by saying that we make our own luck, then changed her mind and said luck was another name for blessings from God, and wound up by looking very confused and wretched and said that she wasn't sure.

There was a strained silence and then Khoda leaned in and said into the mike, 'My sentiments exactly.'

That got a laugh. The other judges and the large-toothed compere all applauded madly.

Nikhil said, 'Well done, Deepika,' quite kindly, and then they cut to an ad break.

Rinku Chachi went to the kitchen to fry some more tikkis for Gajju while I sipped my cold coffee thoughtfully and wondered if Khoda knew about my dad's blow-up with the IBCC yet. I didn't think he did because I had bumped into him in the hotel lobby after our meeting with Zahid. He'd been wrestling grimly for his kitbag with an overenthu bellboy who wanted to carry it for him. He'd spotted me, said a surprised
hi
and suddenly let go of the bag. The bellboy had almost fallen over backwards.

Maybe he thinks I'm following him around, I thought gloomily. First Famous Studio, now the Taj lobby. And before that the elevator in the Sonargaon! Oh God, that's it! He probably thinks I'm a total stalker! Maybe I should call him and tell him I'm not. I fished out my cellphone and looked at it dementedly.

And then it rang.

I almost dropped it in surprise but recovered and hit the answer button.

'Hello?'

'Zoya?' A toe-curlingly deep, warm voice. 'It's Nikhil.'

'Nikhil,' I said like a witless person. 'Uh...Nikhil, who?'

'Nikhil Khoda. You know, from Dhaka?' he said dryly.

My eyes swivelled to the TV instantly. 'But you're on TV!' I said stupidly.

He
tched
impatiently. 'The show got over an hour ago. It's not really live, you know.'

'Oh,' I said idiotically. 'Who won?'

'Urvashi, I think...Listen, I know it's very short notice but is it okay with your dad if I take the two of you out for dinner tonight?'

Huh? Nikhil Khoda wants to take Rinku Chachi and me out for dinner?
Then I realized he meant Dad and me. He must've been briefed on the IBCC meeting. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, 'My dad's out of town. But I'm available!'

He sounded a bit like he was laughing as he said, 'Okay. Message me the address. Pick you up in half an hour.'

I told a confused Rinku Chachi that I was going out for dinner. 'Oh, and by the way,' I said as I kissed her goodbye to go downstairs and dress, 'bet you a thousand bucks Urvashi wins.'

The moment I was downstairs I got cold feet. Damn, I'd been overeager, hadn't I? I'd yelped and squealed and actually said I was available. I wondered if I should call Nikhil back and say that I was actually at a rocking party and had somehow managed to forget that while talking to him. But then I decided he might see through the ploy. I would just have to be extra cool when we met, I figured.

Still, at least getting ready was a no-brainer. After seeing all those hot Miss India contestants on TV, I decided the smartest thing to do was to not try at all. So I showered quickly and yanked on a faded-to-threadbare pair of jeans along with a rather bravely pink little kurti. I rubbed on some carefully careless kaajal, pulled on my chunky red sneakers, fluffed out my hair and sat around breathlessly, wondering if I'd
dreamt
the phone call.

Clearly not, for in a while my phone rang again.

'I'm here,' Nikhil said. 'Are you going to open the gate?'

'No, no, I'm coming out,' I said, hurriedly and made a dash for the door, leaving Eppa flummoxed, watching
Kyunki
in the drawing room, with Meeku snoozing by her side.

I slipped out of the gate, and peered about. Then Nikhil stuck his head out of the driver's window of a long white Taj car and waved to me.

I dove in through the other door. 'Hi,' I went breathlessly.

He pushed his dark hair off his forehead. 'New Rohtak Road? You live on New Rohtak Road? I've never heard of New Rohtak Road in my life!' He looked perfectly edible. And perfectly exasperated.

'Well, it's Karol Bagh technically,' I admitted, as I fastened my seat belt and flicked my hair back. 'But that sounds uncool, so I say New Rohtak Road.'

'But that's deliberate misdirection!' he exclaimed, throwing up his hands and sitting back in the driver's seat. 'Zoya, you're nuts, you know that,
na
?'

About you
, I thought idiotically, fiddling unnecessarily with the seat belt clasp. I was finding it hard to look at him, because, hello, he was just sitting back and
looking
at me.

Like he was really happy to see me.

Like he thought I was nice....

More than nice. Maybe even...pretty?

I managed to look up at him and say, 'No, I'm not.'

He looked at me like he wanted to argue the point, but all he said was, 'Hey, is that your dog barking?'

'Yes,' I said brightly, 'that's Meeku. He's a mix between a Lhasa Apso, a Bhutanese Peke, and an Indian Hound.'

'You mean he's a mongrel,' Khoda said, grinning.

'No, he's not,' I said indignantly. 'He's a mix between a Lhasa Apso, a Bhutanese Peke, and an Indian Hound.'

'He's a
mongrel,
Zoya,' Khoda repeated, grinning even wider, that warm look in his eyes again.

'Mix,' I said idiotically.

'Mongrel,' he said, very softly, leaning in and looking me right in the eye.

My cheeks felt hot. I was not sure why. It wasn't like what he was saying was terribly intimate or anything. But the effect it was having on me was as if he had leaned in and softly said,
Take off your shirt.

I somehow managed to keep my voice steady, 'Well, yes, actually, but that sounds so...'

'Uncool,' he said, drawing away much to my relief. 'I get it.'

He turned his head to look out of the car window then, so I looked out too. I examined the gate of my own house with great concentration, as if I didn't see the stupid, rusty, decrepit thing fifty times a day. It was a pretty unremarkable gate, with an embarrassing number of nameplates nailed onto its brick gateposts.

COL. VIJAYENDRA SOLANKI (RETD)

WING CO. MOHINDRA SOLANKI (RETD)

DR GAJENDRA SOLANKI (PHD, EDUCATIONIST)

MRS ANITA SOLANKI (TAROT READINGS, DESIGNER SUITS, MONDAY CLOSED)

YOGENDRA SOLANKI (FINANCIAL CONSULTANT)

I was thinking gloomily that he probably lived in a house with a beautiful wrought iron gate with no nameplate at all when he said, making me jump a little, 'What smells so nice?'

'Huh?...Oh
that,
' I pointed at the creeper growing in a thick flowering arch above the gateposts. 'Madhumalati,' I said. 'Honeysuckle. My mum planted it.'

'Madhumalati,' he said carefully. 'It's lovely. Wild, but sweet.'

I nodded, wondering if he could smell the putrefying dead-cat odour underlying the madhumalati that was wafting up from the drain under the gaps in the pavement slabs. That was the reason my mum had planted the creeper in the first place. But he didn't mention it. Instead he said, 'So, where d'you want to eat dinner?'

'Actually, I've already eaten,' I confessed.

'Oh great!' he answered, rather surprisingly. 'Listen, I haven't been able to hit the treadmill today, d'you think we could take a walk someplace?'

'But what if people recognize you?' I exclaimed, genuinely concerned. 'They may beat you up!'

His face darkened immediately and I almost bit my tongue off. 'Sorry,' I said quickly. 'Stupid thing to say.'

He nodded. 'Yeah.' His tone went very dry. 'Contrary to what you may think, people don't hate me just because we lost a couple of matches.'

Keep telling yourself that,
I thought, but what I said, rather fervently, was: 'I know, I know. You're a great player; you're the hope of India, you're -'

'- ready to walk,' he interrupted impatiently. 'Can we hit the road or something?'

So I ducked in through the gate and got him a hooded sweatshirt of Zoravar's from off the washing line. He wore it instead of his fancy jacket and with the hood pulled way down low he did look pretty much like everybody else, only taller.

Then he parked the hotel car in Gajju's spot (with me hoping to get back from this walk before Gajju returned or there'd be a huge family crisis which could escalate into Gajju going on a daal-ladle-hurling spree) and set off for a long walk down the main Ajmal Khan Road.

This road - made famous through a million radio ads for saris, jewellery, suiting-shirting and pressure cooker shops that all sign off with a sing-song
Ajmal Khan Road, Karol Bagh, Nai Dilli
- starts off, all whisperingly, as a wide boulevard lined with old neem trees. Then, after you cross rows of parked cycle-rickshaws with their drivers slumbering all curled up below the trees, oblivious to, or maybe knocked unconscious by, the susu smell of a hundred stray dogs that hangs over that particular stretch, the action begins to heat up. You spot peanut sellers and machine
-ka
-cold-water carts. And once you cross the first red light, Ajmal Khan Road turns into a bright, spangled gypsy's ribbon, unrolling blithely before you in a gay street carnival, with vendors selling every conceivable food and toys on carts lit with cheerily hissing hurricane lamps. Fairy lights twinkle above, a reminder that the Nauratra and Dussehra holidays are just round the corner and rocking Hindi film music blares from speakers strung up on street lamps.

'I thought this place was closed on Monday!' Khoda said, pulling his hood lower in a bemused sort of way as we emerged from under the trees and into the thick of the action.

'It is,' I told him. 'This is the famous all-night Monday cart-market. Pedestrians only. These guys come from all over Delhi to sell their stuff here.'

Khoda shook his head at a bunch of grinning kids indicating that no, he didn't want to buy a toy cellphone, red heart-shaped balloons, a plastic badminton racket or a pair of pink sunglasses. 'Yes-madam-bellies?' called out a rakish looking dude in a
Titanic
tee shirt, Kate Winslet and Leo di Caprio locked in a passionate embrace across his skinny brown chest. 'Yes-madam-tee shirts? Yes-madam-baggies?'

I shook my head at him, and he focused his attention on Khoda instead.

'You sure you don't want a bellies?' Khoda asked me grinning. 'Or a baggies?What
is
a "baggies" anyway?'

'No, I don't want either,' I told him. 'A "bellies" is a flat shoe that will make me look short and a "baggies" is a very outdated trouser. Come on, aren't we doing this for exercise?'

He followed reluctantly, trailing behind me a little, looking at all the crazy stuff on sale on the road, wooden spoon sets, suitcases of every size and colour, piles of spongy, squeaky children's shoes and frilly nylon frocks that looked like iced wedding cakes.

We passed carts piled high with rosy red apples, knobby grey-green water-chestnuts and bright yellow nimbus. We passed carts selling fake Dresden China shepherdesses and porcelain doggies, mosquito nets, fake flowers and digital watches. Then, at a cart piled high with plastic knick-knacks, Nikhil pounced on a red plastic fly-swatter-cum-back-scratcher. 'This is great!' he said enthusiastically, 'It's a two-in-one. I can kill flies and scratch my back as well.'

'That's kind of the idea,' I said, grinning as he waved the idiotic thing around, his eyes all shiny under his stupid sweatshirt hood and tried to swat me with it. I ducked and said hastily, my self-preservation instincts coming into play, 'You know what? I think I want one too!'