The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. Balli Kaur Jaswal

The first thing that came up when you searched for her name used to be TELEVISION HOST (to distinguish her from a paediatric dentist named Jezmeen Shergill in Birmingham). Now it was: TELEVISION HOST JEZMEEN SHERGILL BRUTALLY MURDERS ENDANGERED ANIMAL.

      Needless to say, Jezmeen had compulsively typed her name into Google every few minutes today, while she was supposed to be doing seva. She was aware of Rajni watching and disapproving as she tapped away on her phone. Now she sat in the hotel, watching her notoriety multiply in the search result count. Another email from Cameron popped up: SERIOUSLY. DON’T GOOGLE YOURSELF. Easy for him to warn her against it; she’d searched for his name once and found only three hits. One, his earnest and suited LinkedIn picture from at least a decade ago (he had hair then), gave the impression that his early career was in real estate or insurance brokering.

      ‘Oh God,’ Jezmeen uttered aloud into the empty room. Her Wikipedia page – previously only consisting of a short paragraph outlining her modest career achievements – had been updated. The most objective account of Jezmeen’s incident was headed ‘Arowana Fish Controversy’.

       On July 7th, 2018, Shergill was dining in Feng Shui restaurant in South London when she became involved in an altercation with her dining partner.

       Feng Shui, which boasts a ten-foot aquarium, hosts its own rare Albino Arowana fish (valued at £35,000). The fish is known to be very sensitive to conflict and is prone to hurting itself when it is provoked or aggravated. The argument between Shergill and her partner took place near the aquarium, despite numerous attempts from the restaurant owners to ask them to respect the fish and move the argument outside. Onlookers reported that after the restaurant owner tried to steer Shergill away from the aquarium, she slammed her hand against the glass, causing the fish great distress. It leaped out of the water and onto the floor, where Shergill kicked it repeatedly.

      This was the most objective version of events? It was lacking in some key details. For starters, the ‘dining partner’ had been Jezmeen’s boyfriend, Mark. Jezmeen had mistakenly thought that reservations at Feng Shui meant a proposal. She hadn’t allowed herself to consider the possibility that he might be breaking up with her. ‘You just don’t seem very happy with yourself,’ he’d said.

      ‘But my mum just died. I’m dealing with a lot,’ Jezmeen protested. It was an understatement, because Jezmeen couldn’t put in words how she felt about Mum’s death. The thought of death in general had always made Jezmeen desperately want to rewind time, even when she was little. After Dad died, she found it comforting to pretend he was just in hiding for a while, until Mum told her to knock it off. Mum’s death was still unreal to her. She was too old for fantasies of Mum’s absence being temporary, which was where alcohol certainly helped.

      Mark shook his head. ‘It’s been like this for a long time,’ he said sadly, glancing pointedly at the bottle of wine, which had inched towards Jezmeen’s side of the table.

      And did the restaurant owner really attempt to ‘steer’ Jezmeen away? Try, ‘grabbed her by the shoulders, leaving her no choice but to flail in self-defence, accidentally knocking on the aquarium.’ Also, she did not think that the restaurant owner was serious when he told her that the fish – a bloated, miserable old thing – was ‘emotionally vulnerable’. Those had been his words. It was only after the whole incident blew up that Jezmeen learned about the endangered Arowana fish and indeed its sensitive nature. Part of the reason there was so much interest in the incident was because although Arowanas were rumoured to be capable of putting themselves out of misery by flipping out of their tanks, nobody had actually captured it on video before. When Jezmeen and the restaurant owner started arguing, onlookers began filming, thinking they were just witnessing an entertaining tantrum. Now the death of the fish was taking on a life of its own.

      Jezmeen sank back into the bed. She could feel the vodka working now – she had hardly eaten anything all day. After finding out that her video had gone viral, she had to return to the langar hall and wash old breakfast plates, which ruined what little appetite she had. Across the room, the dresser mirror presented an unflattering reflection, but not an unfamiliar one. If she clicked on Images, there’d be a few good headshots but even more stills from the videos: her brief and modest celebrity would turn into infamy now. She hadn’t been on television long enough to have a solid reputation to fall back on – she was an up-and-coming entertainment figure once, and Fish Slayer forevermore.

      Jezmeen scrolled to the bottom of the Wikipedia page where her few acting roles were listed. Before she landed the DisasterTube hosting role, she had been a waitress on EastEnders – recurring for three episodes – and a receptionist in a television movie based on a real-life scandal in a London investment bank. Several other roles hadn’t made it to this résumé, though, and for the sake of beefing up her filmography, Jezmeen considered adding them. She had been a non-speaking extra in a few things, and what about that black-and-white student film she helped to direct ages ago? Then again, Jezmeen was grateful that some roles never made it to her page, like the short film for an amusement park in Taiwan, which people watched before getting on a rather racist Arabian Nights-themed ride. Never again, Jezmeen had vowed, after prancing around in that belly-dancer outfit and imploring roller-coaster riders to save her from her impending marriage to a cruel, moustached king. Then there were the countless runners-up, speaking parts that would have set her up for more opportunities, if she’d got them. ‘Second in line to be considered for Barista #2 in a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant.’ ‘Was told voice too husky to narrate commercial for major adult nappy brand.’ (Initially, Jezmeen thought the director was complimenting her when he said, ‘“Ultra-absorbent” doesn’t usually sound so suggestive.’) Nobody looking at this page would know how Jezmeen Shergill almost became famous before killing that fish and clearly deserved another chance.

      Jezmeen needed a distraction from reading about herself on the internet, or there was a risk of polishing off all of the mini-bar’s offerings before dinner time. She glanced at her open suitcase. In her haste to catch her flight from London at the last minute, she had thrown together a lot of clothes that really weren’t suitable for Delhi – the only appropriate bits were that long, mothball-scented cotton top she’d worn today, bought by Mum from a market in West London years ago, and her one pair of jeans which didn’t have fashionable rips in them. Please dress modestly. Mum had found a way to lecture her about her skimpy clothing from beyond the grave. That was why Jezmeen bristled when Rajni told her off for revealing too much skin yesterday – it was enough to hear it from Mum’s letter. Even though Jezmeen didn’t want to admit that her mother and sister were right, she really needed a more modest wardrobe than tank tops and cut-off denim shorts for this trip.

      Jezmeen picked up the phone and dialled Rajni’s room number according to the instructions. The response was a siren-like dial tone. She pressed 0 for the operator.

      ‘Hi, how do I call another room?’ she asked when the receptionist picked up.

      ‘You dial their room number,’ she said in a tone that suggested Jezmeen was very thick.

      ‘I tried that … Never mind. Thanks,’ she said. After hanging up, she tried Shirina and by some miracle, got connected.

      ‘Hello,’ Shirina said.

      ‘Hey, it’s me. Want to do some shopping at the market?’

      ‘Okay. Where’s Rajni?’

      ‘Didn’t have luck calling her. I’ll knock on her door,’ Jezmeen said.

      They hung up. Jezmeen did a quick check in the mirror and ran her fingers through her hair. Brushing it wouldn’t help much against the gritty air once they got outside.

      Rajni’s room was at the end of the hall on Jezmeen’s floor. She knocked and waited, then knocked again. Eventually, there was a voice at the door. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Raj, it’s Jezmeen. Open up.’

      The door opened a crack through which Jezmeen could see one reddish eye. ‘I was napping,’ Rajni croaked.

      ‘Shirina and I are going shopping. You coming?’

      ‘Uh