Club You to Death Anuja Chauhan (best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT) 📖

trainer nikalos his juice. Then he comes back, showers, and sits with Amma ji who slips on her dentures and chews through whatever’s left, and finally, at the end of the day, all that staggers into our bedroom at night is a pile of spat-out husk!’

She is almost teary-eyed by the end of this speech. Her voice is trembling. Kashi and Nattu exchange looks, valiantly trying to keep their faces straight.

‘Aaj se dad ka nickname Husky!’ Nattu says finally.

‘Ma, that metaphor is problematic for several reasons,’ Kashi chimes in. ‘Firstly, you’re objectifying your husband – he’s a person not a plant. Secondly, it all sounds wayyy too cannibalistic—’

‘Sexual too,’ Nattu puts in primly. ‘All this talk of juicing and chewing. Highly inappropriate thing to say in front of your children!’

‘Arrey kahan sexual, we have reached the age of innocence!’ snorts Mala Dogra. ‘I am simply craving some quality, honest conversation. Nothing else!’

The conversation continues in this vein for a while. Finally, the siblings manage to extract a promise from their father that he will spend more one-on-one time with their mother, and, after demolishing the mighty bowls of rajma-chawal, the family regards each other torpidly across the table.

‘What’s the latest on the DTC murders?’ Balbir asks his son. ‘You’ve palled up with that ACP, haven’t you? Does he really think Behra Mehra did it? Nobody in the fauj does. They’re all saying he’s being framed.’

‘I think he may reluctantly be coming around to that conclusion,’ Kashi says. ‘I can’t reveal the details because they’re confidential, but there are other theories.’

‘Reveal, no!’ Nattu says cajolingly. ‘Who will we tell, anyway!’

‘No, no!’ Kashi shakes his head laughingly. ‘I can’t.’

The brigadier frowns. ‘Don’t ask him to betray a confidence, Nattu. It’s unethical.’

‘Haw!’ Nattu gasps. ‘When it’s you who wants stock market tips from you son-in-law—’

‘That’s not the same thing at all.’

‘What about Mukesh Khurana?’ Mala Dogra wants to know. ‘Surely he has a strong motive? We all saw Leo knock him down at the club the day before he was murdered! How come this ACP isn’t investigating him?’

‘His wife was damn eager to dig up that kitchen garden,’ the brigadier recalls. ‘Couldn’t wait to put her wretched rainwater harvester into it! Would she have done that if her husband had stuck a body in there a few years ago?’

‘Maybe she didn’t know,’ suggests Nattu.

‘Yes,’ Mala Dogra remarks bitterly. ‘Maybe her husband doesn’t tell her anything either!’

Everybody wisely pretends not to have heard this loaded statement.

‘You guys are right,’ Kashi says. ‘Bhavani should be following up on the Khurana angle. I wonder why he isn’t?’

‘Because he’s being pressured to pin it on old Mehra, that’s why,’ the brigadier fumes. ‘Typical civilian behaviour! They always get a fauji to take the hit for them!’

‘But who would issue such instructions?’ his wife asks.

‘Somebody rich and highly placed, obviously!’ is the disgruntled reply. ‘Mehra’s a vain, credit-hogging fool, I’m sure he’s made a lot of enemies.’

TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED STATEMENT BY OM PRAKASH MEHRA.

My name is Om Prakash Mehra, I was born in Gurdaspur in 1954, went to school in Chandigarh and was selected to the National Defence Academy at the age of 16. I married my wife Savitri when I was 26 years old, served in the Indian army for 47 years, retired at age 65, and for the past three years have been a grieving widower.

On Bumper Tambola Sunday Night, I ate my dinner and went to sleep at 9 p.m. I keep no live-in help but you can check with the security guards in the building. I woke up at 5 a.m. as is my long-established practice and went for my daily morning jog.

I do not know the man Leo Matthew at all. Yes, I received a song video from him late last year, but I could make neither head nor tail of it, and so ignored it completely, and soon forgot all about it.

Yes, I did donate Rs 16 lakh, over several years, to the orphanage in Badshahpur, but I donate money to several good causes. I do not like to speak about my charitable works, but I can produce receipts, if required.

I met Ajay Kumar only once, three years ago, when he arrived at the home of his estranged wife, Ganga Kumar, and began physically abusing her, claiming she was having an affair with a rich sahib. As she is alone in the city and considers me a father figure of sorts, she phoned me and I rushed to the spot, slapped the fellow a couple of times to knock some sense into him, then marched him to the police station to give him a good fright. No formal charges were pressed, however, because Ganga did not want to destroy his life. I somehow got the impression that both husband and wife were eager to avoid the police. He disappeared thereafter and I have neither seen nor heard from him since. Nor, as far as I know, has she.

There seems to be some sort of convoluted theory doing the rounds that I was the ‘rich sahib’ having an affair with Ganga. This is a wild fairy tale and completely untrue.

Another wild fairy tale is that I somehow rigged the tambola game on Sunday to start an argument between Mukesh Khurana and Leo Matthew so I could frame Mukesh for Leo’s murder. Apparently my motive for doing this was to discredit Mukesh’s wife, Urvashi, who is my rival in the Club election, and has publicly accused me of using my position and privilege to force myself upon Ganga. Needless to say, this last is also completely untrue.

Yes, I do have an army revolver like the one found in the kitchen garden, but I misplaced it some time ago.

Anybody who knows the DTC intimately, knows that our late gardener Ram Gopal aka Guppie Ram was a phenku of the highest order, always telling vastly exaggerated tales for his own amusement. He probably found a few British-era bones in the