... and smells of steaks in passage-ways ..

This is about an evening last December or thereabouts, dug out from 'Drafts' because of a wunnerful time last Wednesday evening.

A non-evening in a Delhi non-winter. With the up-side of finally meeting the Babu, whose writing I like enough to qualify as a bona fide … ummm, fan, even. And meeting again the Babu’s Other Half, who is intimidatingly sharp, depressingly cool and had minor rock star status in Cal some decades ago. Worth it for that alone, not counting the bonus of seeing in the flesh (rather more of it than one recalled, actually) a certain celebrity stripper from the Ananda spa.

Raj Kamal Jha has written another book. His third, and apparently a good one. His first was such a stylistic miscegenation – Amit Chaudhuri sets up Arundhati Ray (you can already make out I didn’t like Jha’s first, can’t you? Go on, say it, I’m biased!) on a blind date with John Irving. Awful stuff from a good writer. But “Fireproof” has been appreciated by Learned Persons who Understand Literature, so I shall buy it and hope it’s not, as the name suggests, a future Night Shyamalan script.

Said book was launched at the India International Centre, where one rolled up in search of like-minded company. And soothed internal issues about freeloading by sipping only soda. Such restraint. No wait, I had three fish fingers – should I send Picador a cheque? I knew precisely two people there. The Babu, once we were introduced, was the third. (And a bit of a disappointment, because my mental image of somebody plump, squat, square-jawed and shawl-wrapped was totally off the mark.) There was a BYT who led me to the venue, but sadly enough, she did not stop to chit-chat once we were in.

Chatted with the Dilton for a while, while he pointed out in quick succession (a) a poet (b) Ruchir Joshi and (c) Kanika Gehlot. Hysteria-inducing account of the reaction in Delhi to her tell-all book, but if even DD does not remember the name, it must have been quite awful. (DD remembers everything. Or at least used to, when he still quizzed. OK, qualified statement – he remembered everything as long as he was stoned. Now do you see why he was a rock star on the quiz circuit?) Kanika Gehlot needs to see an orthodontist, no no, not SEE in that way, CONSULT, as in use the services of. The ORTHODONTIST’S services, boys and girls, let’s not be smutty here. I don’t know her from Eve, but I remember a piece she wrote some months ago. Nasty piece of work.

In the meantime, one PYT markedly pushed off from DD’s side the moment I hove into view; another rushed up to us and breathlessly asked if she could “borrow a cigarette”. Say what? Borrow? What does she do, hand back the stub? This cigarette thingy was repeated in various versions over the next 20 minutes (which was all I stayed, since I ended up with nobody to talk to). I spent some time in a wicker chair, sipping my soda and watching the fauna of literate Delhi.

A young lady looked at me, whispered in her swain’s ear, looked at me again. Did I resemble somebody she’d seen on a post-office wall? No, I thought I knew the reason. Sure enough, she came over and asked for a cigarette. What is it with Delhi, is this the “khoo” thing these days?

Then I got tired of it all and went back to my room and slept fitfully, with unpleasant dreams that woke me up but vanished from my memory.

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