Fiction: Maya’s elaborate tricks to ward off a billionaire who has his eyes set on her sister’s home

The next morning, Maya walked down to the ruins to meet Bambi, who, like the previous day, was sitting in front of the statue of the snake.

“Tell me something more about this festival you propose, Bambi, the one you want to have on the night of the new moon?” Her brother-in-law was delighted at the interest Maya was taking. He then gave a long discourse on Klu Naga, the snake god, and his central place in the deities of Bon.

“So, basically, your festival is propitiating Klu Naga, who is the Bon deity for ‘fresh beginnings’?” Maya interjected, cutting him off when she had heard enough.

“That’s right.”

“And what rituals would you plan to do during the festival?” she asked.

Bambi rubbed his hands. “Well, there would be chanting, music of horns and drums, partaking of psychotropic brew and animal sacrifices,” he replied casually, much like a waiter recounting the menu to a guest.

Maya had done some reading on the net. “And there would be nudity and face painting?” she prompted.

“Yes, of course!” her brother-in-law assured her enthusiastically, “and ritual flogging to atone for sins at the altar.” Then his face took on a worried look. “Unless there is a problem with that?”

“No, Bambi,” Maya assured her brother-in-law, “please have it all. Just let’s not have any animal sacrifices.”

“But animal sacrifice is central to the ritual!” Bambi protested. “Really, Bambi?” Maya threw up her hands in exasperation. “I spoke with Kalyani and got you your festival. You’ve got nudity, flogging, psychotropic brew and painting of faces, but you are stuck on animal sacrifice?”

After her meeting with Bambi, Maya went down to her sister’s room and gave her a general idea of what she had planned. Just as she began to explain what was required to be done, her sister interrupted her. “Before you get to what we have to do, do you mind telling me why we are having this ‘Festival of Magic’ at all?” Kalyani asked petulantly. “I thought the idea was to stymie Bobby Chander, not to pander to Bambi’s dopey ideas.”

“That’s going to happen,” Maya asserted. “The festival will be the ideal cover to scam Bobby. But it will do more than just that.” She paused, and her sister obligingly asked, “Which is?”

“You have to accept, that your laid-back way of running things was all right when you were the only resort here. With other hotels likely to come up, unless you have some niche attraction, they are going to run you out of business. This festival,” she assured her sister, “which will be exotic with just a touch of the illicit, is going to be just the thing – it will put this resort on the map. It will do what James Bond has done for the martini, what the Beatles did for Chaurasi Ashram and what Charles Sobhraj did for the O’Coqueiro restaurant in Goa.”

“Oh,” her sister said meekly, sounding overwhelmed, “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there with you every step of the way,” Maya said, handing Kalyani a note she had written. “This write-up describes what you have to do while the festival is on. At this point, all I want you to do is to brief your staff that this festival is going to take place. Also, you need to advertise, put up some banners and posters. And you need to speak with your travel agents to get some foreign tourists interested. I’m sure there will be quite a few looking to attend this kind of thing.”

“But you still haven’t told me how holding this festival is going to make Bobby Chander change his mind about buying us out?” Kalyani asked.

Maya, who by now had tired of her sister’s apprehensions, gave her a piercing look. “Do you really want to know?”

“Not really,” her sister replied quickly, realising she was testing Maya’s patience. “It’s just that I don’t want you to hurt him.”

“Of course not!” Maya assured her. “He will just be put through a small trial. The head monk at the monastery used to tell us that trials make us evolve.” She looked up at the ceiling dreamily. “Bobby Chander will be made a better man.”

Maya returned to her room and held another meeting with Kokil and Mithu. “As they say in the military, our plan has a primary aim and a secondary aim.”

“Have you been in the military, Maasi?” her nephew asked cheekily.

“No,” she replied, giving the heckler a cold stare, “but I have scammed a few retired generals, who while readily parting with their money, were unimaginably verbose. Some of their language rubbed off on me. Now shush! Our primary aim is Bobby Chander and our secondary one is to make Kokum Grove the most desirable tourist destination on the West Coast.”

Maya turned to Kokil. “Your next lesson. To execute our plan, we are going to need a dramatic setting. A great con job is like a great novel; it needs a dramatic setting that creates an atmosphere where individuals behave out of character. The dramatic content creates layers, where many interconnected stories can be woven. Take out the American Civil War from Gone with the Wind, and what do you have? A clichéd romance peddled by Mills & Boon.”

“And now you are going to start a war, are you, Maasi?” Mithu asked caustically.

Excerpted with permission from Manohar Kahani, Raghu Srinivasan, Hachette India.