Love Curry Read online

  PANKAJ DUBEY

  LOVE CURRY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

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  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  LOVE CURRY

  Pankaj Dubey is a storyteller who keeps meandering between various forms of media. A bestselling bilingual novelist, he is also a screenwriter and film-maker. He has written all his books—What A Loser!, Ishqiyapa—To Hell with Love and the latest Love Curry—in Hindi as well.

  A recipient of the Best First Published Book of an Author Award at Lit-O-Fest, Mumbai, Pankaj Dubey has also won the Youth Icon Award for Social Entrepreneurship for initiating India’s first street film festival for children in slums and villages—the Sadak Chhaap Film Festival—in Karnataka in 2010. He later won the Creative Leadership Award at Lit-O-Fest, Mumbai, for his campaign to increase readership by taking his novels to twenty small towns and cities in India.

  Pankaj Dubey is known to address sociopolitical issues with quirky humour in his writings. A law graduate from Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, he also has a master’s in applied communications from Coventry University, West Midlands, England. He has been a journalist with the BBC World Service in London. He was among the three novelists from Asia to be selected for the prestigious Writers’ Residency in the Seoul Art Space, South Korea, in 2016.

  You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram (@carryonpd). To know more about him, visit www.pankajdubey.com.

  By the Same Author

  What a Loser!

  Ishqiyapa

  1

  She climbed on to him, casting off her silky, backless negligee. In baggy jeans, he lay waiting and watching her, smiling and increasingly restless. Skin met skin and it felt so warm and good. She kept slithering up and down him. No matter what she did or where, he simply loved it. So he gave her a free ticket to please herself. Kissing, cuddling, kicking and moaning, they spent the next half hour exactly the way they wanted. Then fell back on the bed, drained but replete.

  It was quite a high bed with an extra mattress and fluffy pillows. Topping it was a quirky bed sheet that flaunted a Japanese girl on it, hand-painted. Mood lighting and seductive music added colour to their frolic. And they were not alone here. Printed feng shui dragons, hawkish paper birds and glitzy butterflies watched them make out from the walls on which they were pinned. Tribal masks, wind chimes and wooden aircraft swayed overhead, enjoying their foreplay. Posters of pretty women winked and teased from every corner. In this room like no other, they sure had company.

  She scrunched a portion of the girl painted on the bed sheet and asked with a pout, ‘What’s she doing on your bed?’

  Staring at the girl on the bed sheet, he told the one asking him, ‘She’s in queue!’

  She hit him then. Playfully. He pulled her down hard and locked her tight in his arms. Her face, inches above his own, dazzled him. Looking deep into those eyes, he blew at her lightly, making her smile. And look even prettier, if that was possible. Minutes passed and they stayed that way, drowning in each other. Then his muscles began to ache. Beauty can bewitch, but weight can kill. So he turned sideways and eased off her luscious kilos on to the welcoming bed sheet.

  Sprawled next to him, her eyes left his face to rove over his bare chest. Her manicured fingers traced the path her eyes had forged. Learning every nook and cranny of his well-carved torso, she paused at the imposing eagle tattooed over his heart. It was special, eye-catching—and more than just a tattoo. It was a statement of all that he was.

  She decided to make the eagle her own, and so she began to colour it with the red lipstick that was her constant companion, filling the dark eyes of the predator a deep red. He twisted, uncomfortable with her artwork. But she kept at it.

  ‘Don’t. You’re hurting it.’

  Brushing off her hand, he grabbed fistfuls of her coal-black hair and drew her face to him again.

  ‘Kiss me, baby,’ he hissed. Their breath mingled and the heat that was generated threatened to overpower her. She tried to resist even as he feasted on her mouth.

  Sensing her holding back only incited him to grip her harder. He pulled her to him with sudden force, and she fell on top of him—and they fell off the high bed. Landing on the floor with a loud thud, they rolled with laughter, pointing fingers at each other.

  ‘You can’t even hold me tight?’

  ‘You can’t even smooch me right?’

  Fighting. Complaining. Laughing. They tumbled into each other. And resumed what they had been doing, forgetting their fall.

  Till a loud knock interrupted them; a knock so insistent that they were forced to unlock their lips even as the door stayed locked.

  ‘Yeah?’ he let out irritably, after letting go of her.

  ‘You a’right, man?’ The loud concern floated in through the locked door. That was Ali, his housemate.

  ‘Yup, not dead yet.’

  Satisfied with this answer, Ali left. And so did their enthusiasm. There was nothing left for them to finish. The spark was gone, and so had their rhythm. Sweat was all that remained.

  Picking up his T-shirt, she wiped her face and slowly got up. Hauling himself off the floor, he walked up to the drawer that held his wallet, opened it and drew out some notes—featuring the Queen and her tight smile—and offered them to the girl.

  She shoved the pounds hurriedly into the pocket of her jeans and peeked into the mirror to straighten her messed-up hair.

  He ambled up to her for a last kiss. ‘Zeenat …’ he breathed.

  Plucking out her red lipstick, she ignored his plea and got busy painting her lips a ruby red.

  He kept waiting. She was done.

  ‘Next time, Shehzad,’ was her parting shot, before she went knocking on the door. In the same house. Another room. Another guy.

  The door was half-open. She knocked gently and out came Ali, beaming, wearing his crisp cream pathani suit.

  ‘Please … please come in,’ he beckoned.

  ‘Not today, Ali.’

  ‘I made you some firni … just the way you like it … less sugary.’ His voice was polite and low. Even as he spoke, he darted back into his room and brought out a silver tray, with a bowl of firni. The sweet might draw her in, hoped Ali.

  ‘No, janaab, don’t want anything sweet.’ Zeenat was firm. ‘Just give me the cash and I’ll go.’

  ‘Keema samosas then …’ proposed Ali, pointing to the fried parcels on his tray. ‘Have one.’

  His insistence won out. Zeenat picked up a keema samosa and took a bite. Having got his way, Ali quickly took out an envelope from his kurta pocket and handed it over to her. A benign smile lit up his elegant face. Almost six feet tall, with long, brown hair slicked back to stay out of the way and a face that looked more mature than its twenty-two years, Ali was a fine man by average standards, but distinctly lacking in the seductive quotient

  Not sparing him another look, Zeenat pocketed the envelope and moved on to the next door.

  She knocked, and getting no reply, turned the handle, only to find it locked. Shit! The fell
ow had replaced the internal locking door handle with another that locked on the outside. Shady bugger! Cursing her luck, she began to walk away, when a note stuck beside the door caught her eye. She pulled it out and read: ‘Will have the money transferred by Monday. Yet to get my salary. Rishi.’

  That was Rishi Mathur. Like the character Mr India played by Anil Kapoor, in the Bollywood blockbuster of the same name, this Mr India had decided to go invisible too. Shaking her head, Zeenat decided it was time she too vanished from house number 104, George Street, Hill View, London.

  She walked out, rich and free.

  2

  He came from Agra—the city of the Taj Mahal, a monument that stood for a timeless love. A monument that simply kept standing when his love had wandered off. No wonder he had left the city and its Mahal. Choosing England instead with all its apparent coldness. He wanted to be away from all that had always been with him. No one knew him here or cared to. But there was a comfort in this anonymity. It was only months after he shifted to house number 104, George Street, that some of his neighbours began to recognize him, or what little they saw of him. For he would leave in the morning and return only after it got dark. He could have been the nightwatchman for all they knew. No words he exchanged with anyone. No twitch of a smile to a face that looked familiar. His socializing was restricted to giving someone way if they were in a rush.

  His name was Rishi Mathur, the guy whose door was locked. The occupant of the third room in house number 104. A house that was almost a subcontinent, harbouring as it did three South Asian boys, flying the flags of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Besides the Indian—Rishi—docking in the house were Shehzad from Dhaka and Ali from Lahore.

  Rishi in Agra had been quite a talkative fellow. This was a different version. No, the Queen wasn’t to blame for this sudden, sullen silence. At the heart of the matter was a breakup. One he was finding difficult to chew. So he went quiet and fled to England. He had seen people go to London to study or to get rich. But he came to recover. People arrived here with big dreams. He landed with promises—three promises that he’d made to himself. Three promises that were perhaps the opposite of what any other immigrant from India would have made.

  The first was to stay away from girls—especially the beautiful ones. He could not trust them now.

  The second vow was to never return home. He would do all it took to make this island nation his new home. There was nothing waiting for him in India—and absolutely no one that mattered to his broken heart.

  Thirdly, he would lie low. No soaring aspirations for him. No growth, no riches. He would not be the next British-Indian industrialist or Indian lord in Parliament. All he would be was a nobody.

  It was easy to do the third thing. He simply didn’t need to do much. The limelight ignored him automatically. High denomination pounds stayed away. The few notes he earned kept hopping in and out of his wallet. The heartbroken hero strived for no comeback as a happy success story. All he wanted and got was a corner seat in life.

  No one knew what Rishi did, not even his two housemates. Shehzad from Dhaka and Ali from Lahore lived in the same house with him, but in blissful ignorance. Each one had a story of his own that each wished to keep to himself. Though they shared a subcontinent and now a house, the three were reluctant to overlook the fact that they came from three different countries. This fourth country that they came to live in however threw them together in more ways than one. For starters, they got branded ‘Bloody Pakis’ the second they set foot here!

  In their three-bedroom house, the room in the middle went to Rishi. Shehzad occupied the one to his left. The Bangladeshi was almost twenty-three, but still had a somewhat wild streak, which was announced by the sheer number of tattoos covering his five-foot-eight-inch frame. No, he didn’t need them to enhance his looks—he had plenty of those already. His angular face and curly fringe were a photographer’s dream. The decoupage tattoos advertised the person he was—a question mark. No one knew what he would say or do next, not even Shehzad. Only one thing was reasonably clear—rehab would figure somewhere in his future! For, the fellow smoked up relentlessly.

  What made him so unpredictable was an even bigger mystery. No one knew the painful backstory. It featured a father who was an airline pilot in his home country. But that was before he lost one of his limbs in a ground accident. The tragedy, however, didn’t end there. His mother eloped soon after, forsaking his father for another pilot who was a friend of the family. The six-year-old boy was left behind with a handicapped father, a pit of a future and so many wagging tongues.

  It wasn’t a joyous start by any standard. Boiling inside with anger and hurt and not having anyone to vent his frustration upon, the boy sat for hours at his desk, digging his compass into the wooden head of the table, making hole after hole. That rid him of some of the shit pent up in him, and so he etched and etched, driving his compass on to the desk. Daily. The act soon became his comfort pillow, and in time, he found that all his emotions and pain flowed out in his etchings. Moving from etchings on desks to body tattoos was a natural course. His evolution as a tattoo artist was thus quite organic.

  The room to Rishi’s right was Ali’s. The Pakistani was an assistant chef at the Nawab Balti, a desi restaurant in the Brick Lane area of East London. His unhurried air and polite demeanour often had a calming effect on people. Not that he wasn’t emotional, but he kept it all bottled up, mimicking the stillness of the Thames most of the time. There was however a method to his saneness. He had to be this way to get what he had come for. Yes, Ali too had a story.

  Legendary dhabawallahs of Lahore, his family name, fame and dhaba had fallen on hard times. Prolonged family feuds had driven away all customers and the rupiya, leaving the nihari specialists with a tandoor gone cold. That’s what had forced Ali to migrate to cold and distant England. He had come to turn his wheel of fortune. Make enough moolah to restart the family dhaba. Nihari Badshah, he would call it. Soon it would be the talk of the town. Sending all tongues dripping and stomachs growling.

  Ali was not one to only dream. He was willing to sweat it out in his Brick Lane eatery kitchen for as long as it took, whipping up lamb chops and kebabs. As long as he was cooking, he was happy. Sprinkling the spices, grilling the chicken, watching the biryani cook, inhaling the mixed aromas of ten different things—this was life, and it filled him with deep pleasure. It was almost like making love! Nothing could upset him here. No, he wasn’t that barking chef, losing his cool over every little ingredient or error. Ali stirred his creations with a smile, lost in the art of his preparation.

  This was Rishi’s nest, boasting of an eagle-like Shehzad and the swan of an Ali. Sometimes fighting, sometimes cooperating; and at times, looking past each other as if they were air; all three soon learnt to live with one another peacefully under one roof.

  *

  The doorbell rang. It was the first day of the month.

  On the doorstep of house number 104, George Street, stood Zeenat Amaan. She’d come to collect the monthly rent. This beautiful woman came calling because Mohammad Mullah, the house owner, and her father, told her to. He believed his daughter was his luckiest charm. So all money dealings had to happen through her precious palms.

  Mohammad Mullah was an institution in himself. His life was straight out of Bollywood, with enough masala and intrigue to snap anyone out of their slumber. His daughter was his crowning jewel—his pride and joy. She held not just his heart but many more that came beating her way, taking some, kicking some.

  Her appearance at the house ignited tumultuous feelings inside both Shehzad and Ali. The first wanted to bed her. The second longed to marry her. But this was just the beginning, a trailer of things to come. Shehzad and Ali stood drooling. And Rishi? He sat unmoving like an avatar of Vishwamitra. Life had bulletproofed that overrated organ throbbing near his lungs, making him immune to any degree of beauty.

  Rishi led his life loyal to his three promises. Never losing sight of his vows on what to
steer clear of. Buried in his work and god knows what else, he acted deaf and dumb until it became absolutely necessary to intervene. His housemates were quite okay with this. They were not really interested in knowing him more than he cared to tell. The Ali-Shehzad-Zeenat drooling drama soon matured into a full-fledged chase scene. Everyone seemed to be after someone—everyone but Rishi. Zeenat kept coming and going. And coming again. Shehzad kept throwing her come-hither looks. Ali kept dancing in the background. All in all, it was developing into a masala Bollywood film!

  And then, her visits got more frequent. One day, she was sharing tequila. Another day, she was cooking brunch. Goofing with Ali one day. Cosy with Shehzad the next day. Chatter and more chatter filled the place, sparks flew. Rishi could see, but chose not to.

  Zeenat liked having both men dancing at her feet. One oozed sex. The other spelt grace. It was a heady mix, flooring her, but confusing too. She liked floating on Ali’s compliments. And crashing on Shehzad’s bed. The Pakistani warmed her heart. The Bangladeshi made her hot and sweaty. Both messed up her thermostat way too much. One thing though left her cold—and that was Rishi. The sour and sullen housemate was like furniture to her—existing, but not overtly mattering in the daily scheme of things. Rishi was okay with that, and both tried to outdo the other in this game of indifference.

  Zeenat Amaan was thrilled by the new complications in her life. Ali or Shehzad? Shehzad or Ali? Life was looking up for her. The Dhaka Romeo made her insides jelly. His angular chin, bunched and rippling torso, his unkempt hair … she couldn’t have enough of him. Together they erupted like a volcano that had an overload of lava. On the other hand, small talk with Ali was like a soothing massage, gentle and comforting. She felt secure under his wings. With Shehzad, things were electric. She was drawn. Pulled to him, she held on to Ali too, making a perfect triangle. The third angle in a love triangle is notorious for messing things up. This house was no different. Too many suitors in one house led to collisions—fiery ones.