little guidance at the right time is very valuable.” He had a small, officious-looking moustache, and though he was otherwise skinny, a paunch the size of a watermelon pushed out his navy-blue pullover. The bazaar gossip, which Mr Qureshi reported to Diwan Sahib daily, was that Chauhan had made enough from kickbacks in his six months here to build himself a three-storeyed house in Lucknow.
“It is also good that you are going to replace the parapets. These old stone ones are so untidy, grass and wild plants growing out of them,” the manager was saying.
“I am putting benches also,” Mr Chauhan said in the Magistrate’s direction. “You will see. Ranikhet has to become the Switzerland of India. Or at least it must be another Shimla. I am making a View Point. With telescope. For one rupee anyone can worship Nanda Devi-ji through zoom lens. And furthermore I am getting many roads re-laid.” After each of Mr Chauhan’s statements, which came with stately pauses in between, the manager murmured, “Point taken, Sir. Point well taken.”
“The roads, that’s urgent,” said the Sub-divisional Magistrate. “Has to be done on a war-footing.” He looked well-informed and important. A uniformed bearer hovered by his elbow holding a tray laden with little samosas. The Magistrate paid him no attention at all.
“Will the metalling of Mall Road go so far as our properties?” the hotel manager enquired in a hesitant voice. “You know, tourism is ruined by bad roads. This road was last repaired ten years back, I hear, but now – ”
“Not this time, not this time,” Mr Chauhan said. “I would like all of Ranikhet to have smooth roads, but this time our budget allows repair of only one part of Mall Road, for administrative purposes.”
I cleared my throat and said, “If only you could repair the road going to St Hilda’s! Our children have a hard time.”
The Magistrate and my host noticed me at last. Together they said, “Madam, you must be – ”
“Maya Mam,” Mr Chauhan said, beaming at me in an unlooked-for burst of bonhomie. “A teacher at the Convent. A valuable citizen! She teaches her children to make jams and jellies.”
“They do schoolwork,” I said. “But they need practical skills too.”
I opened my mouth to expand on the topic, but the men had moved on already to another: who would be the candidates for the elections coming up? The two main contenders for the Nainital seat had already begun campaigning. Surely the B.J.P. would win – the time was ripe for Hindus to govern their own country, show the world, they agreed. “Will the Minister change?” the manager said to the Sub-divisional Magistrate, who replied, “I am a mere servant of the people and have to humour whichever Minister I get.” They laughed together and raised their glasses in a mock toast. The hotel proprietor, unsure of lunchtime protocol in a new town, had served no alcohol. They had to say their “cheers” with plain Coke and Kissan orange squash. His wife was in Delhi still, he said to me, apologetic. “That’s why things are a bit disorganised.” She would come in a month, when it was a little warmer.
I looked around for Diwan Sahib, whom I spotted sitting at a plastic table under a plum tree snowy with blossom, tipping his hip flask into his glass, making no attempt to be discreet. He had come in a dark-blue shirt against which his white shock of hair and beard looked whiter and more dishevelled than usual, giving him a raffish air. He threw a twisted half-smile in my direction and nodded to me to come across. The wives of the other guests, who sat in a separate group further away, sipped their squash and darted him exasperated looks. One said as I was passing, “We must have more lunch parties, but only for select people.”
They looked around the relaid garden and admired the geometric precision of the flowerbeds. Within the beds, segregated by colour and type, were the plants that would flower in summer. Several flowers already bloomed in the martial lines of tulips, lilies, and carnations, staked and tied with string so they could not stray. Some of the women got up from their chairs to examine the flowerbeds closer too, so as to show off their saris. When one of them bent down to sniff the tulips, her companion broke into giggles and exclaimed, “Oh Mrs Sood, those flowers have no smell! They are tulips. They come from Holland.