The Cobbler

Raman sat on a small wooden bench in the small makeshift hovel while the cobbler was replacing the soles of his shoes. His shoes tended to chafe fast and this one had developed cracks, and the sides had given way to expose socks. He had used the pair for close to ten years, and it was full of stitches and leather patches. He decided it was time to give it a new sole, in which case it would last another five years. This man was his favorite cobbler, sitting by the intersection of the two main roads of Belapur, and he opened early and closed late. The other cobblers in the locality were all lazy and opened at 10 a.m. and closed at 6 p.m. for their nightly drink of bewda.

On previous occasions their exchanges had revealed that he was from Uttar Pradesh, and he was a farmer too. Twice every year he would go to his village to look after his crop.

“Bhai-saab Make it majbooth, so that it will last me a life time,” Raman said to the cobbler.

“Yes I will.”

The hovel was made of plastic sheets held by bamboo sticks, in which rested a trunk which contained the cobbler’s implements. There were assorted leather sheets, rubber tubing and other accessories lying around. A policeman came to the small hovel. He wanted his shoes polished. He was as dour, humorless man, and was breathing heavily, and cleared his throat often.

Policeman’s shoes were polished by the cobbler’s assistant, a thin individual with a high-pitched falsetto voice, more like a woman’s. He seemed an honest policeman for paid the cobbler before he walked to his beat position at the intersection. Raman could see him look at all the vehicles that passed, and occasionally gesture to a vehicle that was about to break some law.

The morning was hot and Raman could see people on the way to work. There were cute-looking girls wearing chappals, some of them so worn that he wondered why girls took no care of their feet. They may wear the best dresses but on their feet would be much-repaired sandals from a cheap road-side vendor. There were nicely filled out girls, whose bodies would give a “twooooingggggg” sound like a tuning fork if you even touched them. They vibrated all over as they walked their self-aware walk. But Raman knew they were all bitchy and very hard to please, something to do with their genes. His wife was bitchy, too.

“What should I charge for the bananas?” The cobbler’s assistant asked.

Then Raman noticed a basket of bananas that sat beside the hovel.

“It’s twenty rupees for a dozen, but you can give it away for eighteen, that would give us a profit of three rupees,” the cobbler said.

But there were also apples, and berries laid out on a wooden plank, covered by a cloth that looked like a woman’s.

“So, you are into the fruit business.”

“Yes. I am. It belonged to my wife.”

“Where is she now?”

“She left me.”

Raman’s breath caught, sweat had formed on his brow, and he wiped his face with a handkerchief. He somehow managed to hide his embarrassment.

“With whom?”

“With a havildar.”

“That one?” Raman asked pointing to the policeman who was standing in the middle of the road directing traffic. He was now wearing a cheap goggle to protect his eyes against the afternoon glare.

“No. Not that one. He is a friend.”

“You mean the one who ran away with your wife?” Raman asked.

The cobbler looked irritated.

“What saab? How can I call the man who ran away with my wife a friend? But it happened and I accept it.” He turned his face and spat, not bothering to get up.

He had torn off the old sole and was fitting a new sole to Raman’s shoe. Somehow he seemed willing to talk. Replacing the sole would fetch him Rs 150, a good amount. Raman was curious to know his story, how it all happened.

“She just walked in one day and sat here next to my shop to sell fruits, she was pretty and about half my age, and beautiful, aah, the sort of girl who would go “Tooiiinggggg” like a tuning fork if touched,” he giggled and spat at the spot where she presumably sat.

“Her name was Suman,” he added.

Oh God! This is a lucky bastard, this tyke of a man, Raman thought.

“Then our love started, in between cobbling shoes and selling fruits.”

So this man, this nondescript, rough-looking man who chewed tobacco had an affair with a girl half his age? His teeth were protruding. But about love’s caprices Raman knew plenty. Wasn’t he one of its victims?

“You had a love affair?”

“Yes, it happened, just happened. Not like they show in the movies, initially it was just talk, and then it went on to intimacies. Then I married her in front of a temple in the presence of a priest. Then she came to live in my zhopda.”

Raman knew that the richest and the poorest were often the most promiscuous. They marry and leave their partners, and go away when they find someone they like a little more. It was the middle class that remained stuck to their ideals of morality and monogamy. This man probably had a wife in his native Uttar Pradesh, and had made one here too. Enjoying life, Raman thought.

“Initially it was a good arrangement. Our business began doing well and we put that phone booth over there. We had three people working for us: two people at the phone booth and one to help with the fruits.”

That’s a typical Indian enterprise, the roadside vendor. There’s money to be made in a small hovel by the road, in the swelter, exposed to smoke, heat, dust, and the streets. They sold anything from fruits, telephone calls, and services like mending of shoes. This man is an entrepreneur; he must have made a lot of money.

“Then it all began to go wrong. When she first came here and I gave her this space, she said she didn’t have any family, just a wandering fruit seller. And there was this havildar, like that one there, who would stand at the intersection and come to buy fruits and have his shoes mended. I was suspicious of him from the start. She started flirting with him saying he was from her village in Ratnagiri and spoke her language – Marathi.”

The shop assistant called out in his effeminate voice. He wanted to know how much he would have to charge for one and a half dozen bananas, at Rs 18 a dozen.

“Twenty-seven, you lazy idiot, bewakoof,” he shouted to him.

“One fine day she said she wanted to go to the market to buy fruit and didn’t come back. The havidar also was not to be seen. So I went to the police station to write a complaint, and told them one of their havildars had done this to poor me.”

“Did they write the complaint?”

“No. They laughed at me and asked me for papers to show that I had married her and to show proof of her identity. I didn’t know a thing about my Suman. I had never bothered to ask. I have a wife in Uttar Pradesh and she hardly talks to me when I visit her twice a year.”

“You were at fault keeping two wives; do you know it is a crime?”

“What about us poor people, saab, we have no fixed life like you people. We go where we please, make any woman as our wife; we don’t know all the kanoon-binoon.”

“Oh, okay,” Raman grunted as he watched the cobbler give his shoes a firm hammering on the cobbler’s shoe last.

“And you made no further attempts to contact her?”

“No. But I know she will come back. She has to come back one day.”

Raman was surprised, “How do you know?”

“She was pregnant with my child when she left.”

“How do you know she will come back?”

“That harami Havildar will not bring up another’s child, would he? He would soon realize he had been cuckolded! Meanwhile, I will keep running this fruit shop for her.”

Raman’s wife, too, had run away with his only child. The man who seduced her was a clerk in the revenue service. On evening Raman returned from work and found a note on the kitchen table.

“I can’t stand your stingy ways anymore. I am leaving you,” it had said.

I still have hope, Raman thought.

He paid the cobbler, wore his freshly-soled shoes and walked out into the hot sun. The shoes felt odd on his feet.

Seats, Red Spit, and Being Steve Smith

The SUV drops me at Vashi station. The Vashi Infotech Park is just above it, a tired-looking structure in the evening sun. I can see it’s seven towers rising like some futuristic monument, no, some kind of tomb, I think. Manju, my girlfriend, and Satish, my friend, aren’t with me today. So, my mood is out. I climb the stairs alone to our floor.

I, Manju and Satish travel together in the vehicle to the outsourcing unit where we work. We stick to each other, perhaps, from habit. We have to. We also go for movies together. We smoke when we travel, and Satish sometimes bring something to drink, like Coke and rum mixed in a plastic bottle. We all sip from that only. We aren’t as high-funda as the rest of the call center gang. But we stick together and nobody bothers us. When they go for rave parties, we go to the movies or to a pub. Cool, na?

Our floor in the huge park made of granite is dirty; there are red spit marks. Dust and cobwebs hang everywhere. By the way, the inside of the call center is also called “floor.” The man - okay, okay, a boy, hardly my age - who manages the floor is called “floor manager.” From the tube lights the rays filter down through the cobwebs, the air is thick and musty. The elevator is nearby, but I don’t take it. It is littered with coffee cups, chewing gum wrappers, and tea bags. The roof of the elevator hangs down on a screw and, if it collapses, it can kill someone. Who cares? Life and labor are cheap, so, cool.

The Vashi station downstairs is full of flies. There is a steady rumble when the trains come in from Victoria Terminus and Thane and people disgorge like some fishing net being opened and the fish being let out. And they writhe like fish too. Really! A few dogs lie about in stuporous sleep. Wonder what they dream about, dogs, I mean. I think they are so lucky. Eat, sleep, eat, sleep, like there’s no care in the world.

People walk about listlessly. There are announcements booming from the loudspeakers. I can’t make out anything that is being said. A few policemen sit around and doze. They are supposed to check for explosives. Why aren’t they? I know they don’t have the guts to check me. They only check a few grimily clad individual from the villages who wear unwashed clothes. Then they ask them for money to let them go. Rascals!

Our boys and girls are playing cricket in the corridor. They aren’t supposed to, but they do. Who is there to stop them? The security men tried, but found the young, well-built boys too rough and smart. That’s how we are, rough and smart. The other offices have complained but it’s no use. How can they fight the gang of ruffians, rough- and wild-looking boys with strapping muscles? We all build our muscles. We all need to look good, like we are Salman Khans, or, the girls won’t even look at us. We all wear dirty baggy trousers and round frayed neck tee shirts. That’s okay, grunge is in fashion the more grungy we are, the better the girls like it. We wear our hair long, shoulder length, and often it is streaked blonde.

**********

I meet Satish. He tells me that a new floor manager has been appointed and that he is very rude and aggressive.

-What’s it to me. I do my work and go home.
-He is going to f*** our asses.
-Then I f*** him back.
We laugh.

Almost all companies in the complex are named infotech this, or, infotech that. Information technology. That’s what they mean. Everything depends on one thing – information - and we are the guys who are giving information to the world. We, just out of college, our beards recently grown into goatees, hair long, our jeans dirty, our shoes grimy, working in the airless office we call “the floor” are the ones running companies in the US. Papa detests the look. But he is old-fashioned and wears safari suits and eats betal nut all the time, and, and spits on the walls. Yetch!

- Imagine me wearing a safari suit, I tell Satish.
- he,he,he, we laugh.

I still remember how papa threw a fit when I told him I was going to work in a call center. He is a hard and careworn man. He has laugh lines on his face like Martian craters, you know, like the ones through which - according to National Geographic - water used to flow at one time. Don’t ask me, I don’t know when.

He says I being his only son, and all, am going to inherit his spare parts business. He was just furious. I know. But I have my own ideas, compulsions. My friends were all in call centers and I wanted to be there with them. Besides the girls in call centers are really the forward types. They give. You know what I mean? They really, truly, give, not like the girls in our locality who guard their virginity as if it were some buried treasure. Not that they are virgins either. I know everything.

**********

So I am picked up every evening at 7 p.m. and am dropped back in the morning at 8 a.m. by the ugly toad of a vehicle. But I have fun. The night shift is the best part of working in a call center. There’s lots of music and fun in the cafeteria, and my girlfriend Manju and I go and sit for some time on the ledge that faces the Thane Creek. She’s not the kissing kind, so I don’t force her. Yaar, you have to be careful with these girls, you know. And she wants protections when we do “it.” It’s okay with me. Some “infection-vinfection,” she says. See, she doesn’t want to get them. What the f***, if that’s what she wants, man, then that’s what she gets.

Satish and I have a drink from a coke bottle before our shift starts. I can hold my drink and nobody in the office knows we are drunk. I make calls. I am super-confident when making calls. In fact, the drinks make me confident, that’s my secret. “Yea, partner,” I high-five Satish in the office. After all, those idiots who are sitting in America; they can’t reach out and slap me through the phone wires can they? So I assume the persona of “Steve Smith” and I talk unhurriedly, spelling out each syllable as if the man or woman at the other end is some dumb f***all creature. I make them calls, calls, calls, and when it’s break time my girlfriend and I join the gang playing cricket, or, badminton, and we have fun.

And I see the new floor manager as he comes out of his cabin. He seems as if he is in a big hurry. All he can talk is targets, targets, targets. Man, he is smart, an MBA type from the ayeayeyem, as Satish says. He gave us big, big lectures on productivity and rate per seat and income and overheads. Lots of bullshit, we all laugh. Don’t say all that crap to us. We know you people are fooling us, cheap labor, huh? Talking as if we don’t know, eh?

**********

Sometimes around that time, I don’t know when, Manju tells me she is going to leave the job. It seems the new floor manager spoke rudely to her when she bungled a call. I am shocked. I am so like crying, crying, you know! I am so very sad, sad only. Also, her parents don’t like her working.

-Even my parents don’t like me working in a call center, I say.
-The new floor manager is a madman, yaar, I don’t want to work with him. But we will meet, you know, Sandeep.
-Yes, we will meet, sure, how can I forget you?

She cries. That day we go out to the multiplex to see Spiderman3. She cries and cries a lot burying her head in my chest. I haven’t seen anyone crying so much. I don’t even watch the movie. Why are women like that? My mom also does that. Man, you should have seen her when grandfather died. It could have filled buckets. Honest, man.

**********

That night when I go to office, Manju isn’t on her seat. I feel like my heart has been torn apart by a nail driven into it. So much pain in life, no? I can’t bear it. I cry inside but keep working. That’s when the new floor manager calls a meeting with all of our team leaders and us. He says production is down since we are making less calls. Fewer calls mean, less money, as simple as that. Less money, he pauses, means he is going to cut seats.

That’s what he calls us, “seats.” As if we are some wooden benches made by some carpenter. A**hole he is.

That day I am so upset, I forget to call Manju. She also doesn’t call me. When I got home my papa is again in the lecturing mood. I look at his balding head, gray hair, laugh lines that run crazily over his face. He sits there in his boxer shorts and lectures, and lectures. Do I want to be like him?

-At your age I was going from office to office hawking spare parts. I didn’t have a shop or an office then.
-So what, papa? I can be better in this line than you. Look at my manager. He draws a salary of 100,000 a month. I know I am much better, he is such a freak.
-What did you say? “Freak” where did you get that word.
-That’s how we talk dad. F***ing freak.
That got him so mad she started shaking.
-Get out of my house. I don’t want you here.

That pisses me off. I then go to Satish’s house in a huff. We go out and drink a beer and smoke some ciggies. (Yes, that’s what we call cigarettes.) And we drink a lot of Coke with it and eat a lot of chicken. It’s like this only when we are upset. We have all good, good things when we are disturbed. It makes us feel good. Then I remember Manju and call her.

-Manju sorry I didn’t call.
-It’s okay.
-You should have called, no, yaar? Don’t wait for me to call; you know things in office aren’t that good.
-How am I to blame? I was mood out, no?
-What mood out, mood out? What are you doing at home? Sleeping all day?
-None of your business.
-Don’t talk to me like that. Arre, what happened to you, you were not like this only, no?
-Sorry, Sandeep. I wanted to tell you earlier. Now, I have another friend.
-What?

The cellphone beeps. She has disconnected. I tried calling again. She just disconnects. I send short messages. She doesn’t reply. I am mad with anger. I don’t know what all I call her. I curse her. I send a messaging calling her a bitch. She doesn’t reply. I guess it’s the end, end of our relationship.

***********

That night I sleep in Satish’s house, as he has a room to himself. Next day I go to work from Satish’s home. I can see his dad and mom don’t like me the way they look at my frayed jeans and loafers. What do they know that it’s the fashion these days? I bought this torn jeans for twelve hundred and fifty bucks, yaar. What do they know these old buggers? A**holes, like my papa. Thinking they are so nice because they dress nice and clean? And they think I am a bad influence on their son’s life? I can feel their hatred. They really hate me for spoiling their son. As if their son is some saint or something. He is the one who brings drinks to the office.

I go to the call center. I am depressed because of the incident with Manju. But I concentrate. I got to achieve the target so the company gets money. At midnight I get a call from that short, skinny little girl in human resource.

- What’s the problem, I am working.
- Can you come please? She says it urgently.

They are so polite, “please” and all.

When I go to her office, she is all nice and asks me to sit down. I sit facing her. I know something is up, or, going to happen.

-Well as the Manager-sir said we are cutting down on seats. That word “Seats” again.
-I know. I am cool.
-We have identified you as one of the unproductive seats. I am sorry.

I feel like grabbing her hair and punching her face. But I control myself. What’s the use? At least, I am out of this dump. I coolly come back, high-five my friends and say I quit. I am cool. I write a resignation and mail the short, skinny human resource girl.

It’s not the end of the world after all. Let Manju go her way; I will get a hundred girls like that every day. I will miss playing cricket in the corridor, and the pizza parties, however. I don’t mind. I am okay. I have my options. I can join my dad’s spare parts business. I might wear safari suits and even eat betal, and leave those long red spit lines on the walls one day, who knows?

Seats, Red Spit, and Being Steve Smith

The SUV drops me at Vashi station. The Vashi Infotech Park is just above it, a tired-looking structure in the evening sun. I can see it’s seven towers rising like some futuristic monument, no, some kind of tomb, I think. Manju, my girlfriend, and Satish, my friend, aren’t with me today. So, my mood is out. I climb the stairs alone to our floor.

I, Manju and Satish travel together in the vehicle to the outsourcing unit where we work. We stick to each other, perhaps, from habit. We have to. We also go for movies together. We smoke when we travel, and Satish sometimes bring something to drink, like Coke and rum mixed in a plastic bottle. We all sip from that only. We aren’t as high-funda as the rest of the call center gang. But we stick together and nobody bothers us. When they go for rave parties, we go to the movies or to a pub. Cool, na?

Our floor in the huge park made of granite is dirty; there are red spit marks. Dust and cobwebs hang everywhere. By the way, the inside of the call center is also called “floor.” The man - okay, okay, a boy, hardly my age - who manages the floor is called “floor manager.” From the tube lights the rays filter down through the cobwebs, the air is thick and musty. The elevator is nearby, but I don’t take it. It is littered with coffee cups, chewing gum wrappers, and tea bags. The roof of the elevator hangs down on a screw and, if it collapses, it can kill someone. Who cares? Life and labor are cheap, so, cool.

The Vashi station downstairs is full of flies. There is a steady rumble when the trains come in from Victoria Terminus and Thane and people disgorge like some fishing net being opened and the fish being let out. And they writhe like fish too. Really! A few dogs lie about in stuporous sleep. Wonder what they dream about, dogs, I mean. I think they are so lucky. Eat, sleep, eat, sleep, like there’s no care in the world.

People walk about listlessly. There are announcements booming from the loudspeakers. I can’t make out anything that is being said. A few policemen sit around and doze. They are supposed to check for explosives. Why aren’t they? I know they don’t have the guts to check me. They only check a few grimily clad individual from the villages who wear unwashed clothes. Then they ask them for money to let them go. Rascals!

Our boys and girls are playing cricket in the corridor. They aren’t supposed to, but they do. Who is there to stop them? The security men tried, but found the young, well-built boys too rough and smart. That’s how we are, rough and smart. The other offices have complained but it’s no use. How can they fight the gang of ruffians, rough- and wild-looking boys with strapping muscles? We all build our muscles. We all need to look good, like we are Salman Khans, or, the girls won’t even look at us. We all wear dirty baggy trousers and round frayed neck tee shirts. That’s okay, grunge is in fashion the more grungy we are, the better the girls like it. We wear our hair long, shoulder length, and often it is streaked blonde.

**********

I meet Satish. He tells me that a new floor manager has been appointed and that he is very rude and aggressive.

-What’s it to me. I do my work and go home.
-He is going to f*** our asses.
-Then I f*** him back.
We laugh.

Almost all companies in the complex are named infotech this, or, infotech that. Information technology. That’s what they mean. Everything depends on one thing – information - and we are the guys who are giving information to the world. We, just out of college, our beards recently grown into goatees, hair long, our jeans dirty, our shoes grimy, working in the airless office we call “the floor” are the ones running companies in the US. Papa detests the look. But he is old-fashioned and wears safari suits and eats betal nut all the time, and, and spits on the walls. Yetch!

- Imagine me wearing a safari suit, I tell Satish.
- he,he,he, we laugh.

I still remember how papa threw a fit when I told him I was going to work in a call center. He is a hard and careworn man. He has laugh lines on his face like Martian craters, you know, like the ones through which - according to National Geographic - water used to flow at one time. Don’t ask me, I don’t know when.

He says I being his only son, and all, am going to inherit his spare parts business. He was just furious. I know. But I have my own ideas, compulsions. My friends were all in call centers and I wanted to be there with them. Besides the girls in call centers are really the forward types. They give. You know what I mean? They really, truly, give, not like the girls in our locality who guard their virginity as if it were some buried treasure. Not that they are virgins either. I know everything.

**********

So I am picked up every evening at 7 p.m. and am dropped back in the morning at 8 a.m. by the ugly toad of a vehicle. But I have fun. The night shift is the best part of working in a call center. There’s lots of music and fun in the cafeteria, and my girlfriend Manju and I go and sit for some time on the ledge that faces the Thane Creek. She’s not the kissing kind, so I don’t force her. Yaar, you have to be careful with these girls, you know. And she wants protections when we do “it.” It’s okay with me. Some “infection-vinfection,” she says. See, she doesn’t want to get them. What the f***, if that’s what she wants, man, then that’s what she gets.

Satish and I have a drink from a coke bottle before our shift starts. I can hold my drink and nobody in the office knows we are drunk. I make calls. I am super-confident when making calls. In fact, the drinks make me confident, that’s my secret. “Yea, partner,” I high-five Satish in the office. After all, those idiots who are sitting in America; they can’t reach out and slap me through the phone wires can they? So I assume the persona of “Steve Smith” and I talk unhurriedly, spelling out each syllable as if the man or woman at the other end is some dumb f***all creature. I make them calls, calls, calls, and when it’s break time my girlfriend and I join the gang playing cricket, or, badminton, and we have fun.

And I see the new floor manager as he comes out of his cabin. He seems as if he is in a big hurry. All he can talk is targets, targets, targets. Man, he is smart, an MBA type from the ayeayeyem, as Satish says. He gave us big, big lectures on productivity and rate per seat and income and overheads. Lots of bullshit, we all laugh. Don’t say all that crap to us. We know you people are fooling us, cheap labor, huh? Talking as if we don’t know, eh?

**********

Sometimes around that time, I don’t know when, Manju tells me she is going to leave the job. It seems the new floor manager spoke rudely to her when she bungled a call. I am shocked. I am so like crying, crying, you know! I am so very sad, sad only. Also, her parents don’t like her working.

-Even my parents don’t like me working in a call center, I say.
-The new floor manager is a madman, yaar, I don’t want to work with him. But we will meet, you know, Sandeep.
-Yes, we will meet, sure, how can I forget you?

She cries. That day we go out to the multiplex to see Spiderman3. She cries and cries a lot burying her head in my chest. I haven’t seen anyone crying so much. I don’t even watch the movie. Why are women like that? My mom also does that. Man, you should have seen her when grandfather died. It could have filled buckets. Honest, man.

**********

That night when I go to office, Manju isn’t on her seat. I feel like my heart has been torn apart by a nail driven into it. So much pain in life, no? I can’t bear it. I cry inside but keep working. That’s when the new floor manager calls a meeting with all of our team leaders and us. He says production is down since we are making less calls. Fewer calls mean, less money, as simple as that. Less money, he pauses, means he is going to cut seats.

That’s what he calls us, “seats.” As if we are some wooden benches made by some carpenter. A**hole he is.

That day I am so upset, I forget to call Manju. She also doesn’t call me. When I got home my papa is again in the lecturing mood. I look at his balding head, gray hair, laugh lines that run crazily over his face. He sits there in his boxer shorts and lectures, and lectures. Do I want to be like him?

-At your age I was going from office to office hawking spare parts. I didn’t have a shop or an office then.
-So what, papa? I can be better in this line than you. Look at my manager. He draws a salary of 100,000 a month. I know I am much better, he is such a freak.
-What did you say? “Freak” where did you get that word.
-That’s how we talk dad. F***ing freak.
That got him so mad she started shaking.
-Get out of my house. I don’t want you here.

That pisses me off. I then go to Satish’s house in a huff. We go out and drink a beer and smoke some ciggies. (Yes, that’s what we call cigarettes.) And we drink a lot of Coke with it and eat a lot of chicken. It’s like this only when we are upset. We have all good, good things when we are disturbed. It makes us feel good. Then I remember Manju and call her.

-Manju sorry I didn’t call.
-It’s okay.
-You should have called, no, yaar? Don’t wait for me to call; you know things in office aren’t that good.
-How am I to blame? I was mood out, no?
-What mood out, mood out? What are you doing at home? Sleeping all day?
-None of your business.
-Don’t talk to me like that. Arre, what happened to you, you were not like this only, no?
-Sorry, Sandeep. I wanted to tell you earlier. Now, I have another friend.
-What?

The cellphone beeps. She has disconnected. I tried calling again. She just disconnects. I send short messages. She doesn’t reply. I am mad with anger. I don’t know what all I call her. I curse her. I send a messaging calling her a bitch. She doesn’t reply. I guess it’s the end, end of our relationship.

***********

That night I sleep in Satish’s house, as he has a room to himself. Next day I go to work from Satish’s home. I can see his dad and mom don’t like me the way they look at my frayed jeans and loafers. What do they know that it’s the fashion these days? I bought this torn jeans for twelve hundred and fifty bucks, yaar. What do they know these old buggers? A**holes, like my papa. Thinking they are so nice because they dress nice and clean? And they think I am a bad influence on their son’s life? I can feel their hatred. They really hate me for spoiling their son. As if their son is some saint or something. He is the one who brings drinks to the office.

I go to the call center. I am depressed because of the incident with Manju. But I concentrate. I got to achieve the target so the company gets money. At midnight I get a call from that short, skinny little girl in human resource.

- What’s the problem, I am working.
- Can you come please? She says it urgently.

They are so polite, “please” and all.

When I go to her office, she is all nice and asks me to sit down. I sit facing her. I know something is up, or, going to happen.

-Well as the Manager-sir said we are cutting down on seats. That word “Seats” again.
-I know. I am cool.
-We have identified you as one of the unproductive seats. I am sorry.

I feel like grabbing her hair and punching her face. But I control myself. What’s the use? At least, I am out of this dump. I coolly come back, high-five my friends and say I quit. I am cool. I write a resignation and mail the short, skinny human resource girl.

It’s not the end of the world after all. Let Manju go her way; I will get a hundred girls like that every day. I will miss playing cricket in the corridor, and the pizza parties, however. I don’t mind. I am okay. I have my options. I can join my dad’s spare parts business. I might wear safari suits and even eat betal, and leave those long red spit lines on the walls one day, who knows?

The Girl Who Fell in Love with Shahrukh Khan

The Girl Who Fell in Love with Shahrukh Khan

 “Ha Chokri tho nathi sudharvani che!” Baa shouts in Gujarati from the kitchen, in between flattening thepla with a rolling pin. This girl will never improve, never!

Baa’s voice would rise into a hysterical wail, “Look here, Bapu, father of my daughters, Cricket or Shahrukh Khan movies, they are the only things that interest her; she will go mad, and drive us mad one day.”

“Why don’t you leave her alone?” is all Bapu would say from behind his newspaper.

“What are you talking? How can I leave alone my own daughter? As if I could,” Baa would again shriek from the kitchen. Her sharp voice would fill the small flat in which they lived in the suburb of Ghatkopar, Bombay. She needs help in the kitchen and none of her two daughters were willing to help. One is interested only in studying all the time and the other – well, Baa is outraged – is crazy about that movie actor Shahrukh Khan. She wonders how her daughters have turned worthless after what she has done for them.

“She will learn her own responsibilities, won’t you my daughter?”

“Yes, I will, Bapu.”

Yet Parul knows nothing of her responsibilities in the Gujarati middle class home where she was supposed to cook vegetable, sauté lentil curry, and shop for groceries. She was supposed to know the difference between cumin and fennel seeds, and between parsley and spinach. Instead Parul is seated on the doorstep of their modest home in the lowly housing complex listening to the radio which is playing the song “Badi Mushkil Hai,” from Shahrukh Khan’s movie Anjam. She likes Anjam in which Shahrukh Khan leaps over several cars in a song sequence to flirt with actor Madhuri Dixit. She likes the song particularly because of her favourite star: his raw energy, the twinkling of his eyes, his dimpled cheeks, his full lips, “Oh, Shahrukh, what a man, hai, hai!” she would exclaim.

She watches all Shahrukh Khan’s movies, wheedling compact discs from friends to watch them on her friend Pallavi’s compact disc player. Her Bapu can’t afford discs or players, he is a poor teacher. She loves the star when he plays negative roles that none of the others actors would touch: serial killers, mafia dons; roles veering towards the dark side of life.

“I am fond of him because of his unconventional looks: he isn’t tall, he isn’t strikingly handsome, yet he is good-looking in a rakish way,” she tells Pallavi.

“But aren’t you aiming too high, dear girl?” Pallavi taunts. Secretly she feels pity for her friend and doesn’t want to see her disappointed when she can’t get the man of her dreams.

“What’s there? Doesn’t matter, I know he is made for me. If not in this life, in the next,” Parul says. She believes in Karma and rebirth. She believes if she is good and devoted to her man in this life she will get him in the next one.

“He is such a super star, lives in a bungalow and drives big cars and you…, look at you, what do....” Pallavi doesn’t complete the sentence and Parul knows what she means. Parul has acne on her face, a snub nose, and she is fat.

“She is in love with a star,” her elder sister Purvi teases.

“Why are you people troubling my girl so much? Leave her alone. She has the right to pursue her dreams,” Bapu is lost in his own world of newspapers and lost literary ambition. He wanted to be a well-known writer. He wrote some short stories and poems long ago, which were rejected by publishers, and now teaches in a nearby school.

“But what if she fails in her final B.A. exams? You will be responsible?” Baa shouts from the kitchen accusing Bapu.

But Parul Kapadia keeps dreaming of Shahrukh. How his hair falls over his eyes, how his cheeks dimple into those deep crags of the flesh, how shapely and attractive his lips are.

Oh! How she wishes she could meet him once!

*********

Then along comes Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, hosted by Sharukh Khan. Parul knows this is her chance. She sits beside the phone and dials the contest number, for hours, then for days. Her fingers ache. She persists, knowing this is her only chance to be with him, at least, be in a room with him, even if she doesn’t get to the competition’s final “Hot Seat.” She keeps dialling, but all she gets is an engaged tone at the other end.

For days the competition’s recorded message hums in her ear. It impinges on her mind. She even imagines Shahrukh talking to her in her sleep, his lips forming the words ever so softly, seductively from his lush lips. All her waking life she fantasises talking to him: when going to college, when in class, and when she is at home dialling the competition’s telephone number which keeps giving off the engaged tone, as millions are trying from all over the country to participate.

“What to do Purvi, I am trying all I can, but the phone lines are always engaged,” she tells her sister.

“Maybe, you should give it up and have proper food and sleep.”

Purvi doesn’t know Parul wants to win this competition for her and the family. She thinks Parul is doing it for her own self. In fact, Parul wants to win it and then shift Bapu, Baa, and Purvi out of the miserable housing complex where water is supplied for only half hour every morning and evening, and sometimes not even that much. She wants to see her father Bapu, happy.

“Soo thaye gayo? What’s wrong with you people? She has a dream, that’s all.” Bapu would scold Baa and Parul. Baa is old-fashioned and superstitious, both her daughters know. Parul knows she has only Bapu’s support.

“If she goes and does something unusual, then don’t blame me,” Baa warns.

Parul knows that Bapu believes that this is a passing phase, some initiation ceremony, something all girls must go through. But she also knows he believes in the power of dreams, and he knows that his dreams had failed because he didn’t attend enough literary functions and literary meets and therefore was not known in the community of writers.

*********

Parul becomes cranky and unpredictable. She skips meals, doesn’t sleep, and sits for hours holding the telephone in her lap, dialling. Sometimes, she is reduced to tears of frustration.

“Did you get through, son?” Bapu would ask from his easy chair in the small verandah of their house. Since he doesn’t have a son he sometimes calls Parul “son.” He considers her the son he didn’t have.

“No, Bapu, not this time. But, next time when the phone lines open I surely will,” she says, rubbing her bleary eyes.

“Son, why are you doing this? See how angry Baa and Purvi are. We aren’t getting any phone calls because you dominate the phones so much.”

“They don’t understand. They just don’t understand me, or, what my heart says. Shahrukh is a really nice man and I have a feeling I will meet him through this contest.”

Bapu looks at her earnest face, her misty eyes, blunt nose, her chubby cheeks and his heart melts for her.

“Okay. If that’s your wish. Do whatever is right, son. I will support you, I am with you.”

************

Then it happens, without warning. It marks the end of all her expectations and the beginning of all her fascinating dreams, now slowly coming true. When she is selected to appear in KBC quiz contest; she dances all over the house, teasing Baa and Purvi.

Two nights ago she had dialled the phone numbers till her fingers had grown numb and her sleep-deprived brain had become blank. “Next one, next one…” she had kept goading herself. She knew no telephone line could be engaged forever. Then she got a recorded message with a simple question to which she gave the right answer.

And so things begin to happen! She receives a letter from the organizers with the dates and details of when and where she has to appear for the show.

“Don’t worry, you will never get past the first round,” Purvi says.

“Yes I will, I will tell Shahrukh to blow you a kiss,” Parul replies.

“That is if you first get through, no?” Now Purvi is jealous.

“You wait and see,” Parul says.

“You lucky girl,” he friend Pallavi says. Pallavi is happy for her.

********

On the day of the quiz Bapu escorts Parul to the place where the contest will be held. She is amazed by how a television studio looks. The shooting is done during the day. She had imagined it would be done at night as it was broadcast daily at 9 p.m. A shooting takes hours of preparation. There are the studio hands, there are bright lights, there are people hurrying about shouting instructions. Then there is make-up, and all seem to pass in a whirl.

Then Shahrukh makes his appearance. He looks so relaxed and jovial; all nervousness disappears when she looks at him. Here is the man she truly loves, and the man of her dreams, now right before her. Her Shahrukh! She can reach out and touch him if she wants.

Then the opening round of “Fastest Fingers First” starts after the previous episode’s contestant withdraws after winning Rs 650,000.

“Arrange these films of Shahrukh Khan, that’s me (Oh! He dimples so sweetly, Parul thinks.) in the ascending order in which they were released. Meaning starting from the earliest, arrange these films of mine in the order they were released,” his confident voice rings out.

Parul swallows hard. She can’t believe it! Luck is on her side. She has seen all his films, and even knows the years in which they were released.

A. Darr B. Anjam C. Swades D. Mohobatein

Her fingers fly on the screen; she is done in a flash: BADC. Then there is a pause when she can hear her heart beat, her ears ring, and the music pauses for effect.

“The winner is Parul Kapadia, who answered in 3.02 seconds, congratulations Parul!” Shahrukh has called her by her name.

**********

Nervously she walks to the star, her mind in a whirl. It feels like a dream when Shahrukh hugs her. She feels his warm embrace and all nervousness leaves her. Still her knees are weak. At last she meets him! She walks to the hot seat dazed. He wears a nice-looking suit that looks expensive and his face and skin are glowing as he looks at her.

The first few questions till she reaches a prize money of Rs 20,000 are very simple. She knows all the answers.

“From now on Parul the questions get a bit tough,” he says, “are you nervous?”

“Yes,” she mumbles.

“Main Hoon Na? I am there for you. Incidentally, you may know, Main Hoon Na is one of my films. Do you know that?”

“Yes. I have seen all your films.”

“Really?”

He reaches across and shakes her hand. His hand is a little moist in hers.

“Shahrukh, I have a request,” she says in a tremulous voice. A silence falls over the audience.

“Tell me,” he says with all his usual earnestness.

“I want you to greet my father Bapu, who is here, my mother Kantaben Kapadia, my sister Purvi Kapadia, and my friend Pallavi.”

Shahrukh greets Bapu with a namaste. Then he turns his shining eyes towards the camera.

“Kantaben, Purvi and Pallavi, I hope you are watching this. Here’s lots of love and, muaaaaa,” he blows a kiss towards the camera.

A titter passes through the audience.

“Shahrukh, I want to ask you another question.”

“Yes, go ahead.” He looks slightly puzzled; one eyebrow shoots up effortlessly, eloquently, as she has seen in his movies.

“I know how much you love your wife Gauri, but I am in love with you, too. I want to marry you.”

The audience looks on, stunned. Even the camera crew looks on in disbelief. Who is this girl to propose to a star? What is she? But the star doesn’t look ruffled and it seems as if he has met with such girls, with similar requests, that too, often.

“Yes, I will marry you,” he beams, his dimples cutting fissures down his cheeks.

“Y-y-y-yes?” she is ecstatic and can’t control her voice.

“Yes, not in this life, but in the next one.”

Her heart almost misses a beat. Her head throbs, drowning the audience’s laughter.

“That’s enough for me. I believe in Karma and after life. I will wait for you, Shahrukh, promise?”

“Promise.”

*********

That answer makes her happy, and she glows all over. Her mind works faster; even the answers come fast to her mind. For the Rs 1, 250,000-question Shahrukh asks her:

Q: What did Galvin Corporation first manufacture under the brand name Motorola?

A. Battery Eliminator B. Walkie Talkie C. Cell Phone D. Car Radio.

She knows it’s a trick question. Motorola manufactures cell phones, but they also manufacture all the other products. The question is what they manufactured first under the brand name. Cell phone is the obvious answer as Motorola is a popular brand. She answers “C.”

Shahrukh is playful now. Something tells her she is wrong. She has exhausted all her life lines.

“Shall I freeze “C”?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says seriously while the star, her love, tries to create tension with his trademark goofiness.

“No. I think it is “D” Car Radios,” she says. Epiphany has struck.

“Shall I freeze “D”?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, why did you change your mind? Parul, Parul, you were playing so well, you got all your answers right. I told you to be careful. I told you, if you gave the wrong answer you would lose a lot of money.”

Gone, all that money gone in a second! Parul is disappointed and angry with herself. She has acted stupidly and has lost the money she had won, and her dream of a new home is never going to be a reality. The handle of the hot seat seems to slip from her grip. Her eyes can hardly meet his. Her throat feels as if furry creatures are clawing at it.

“However, if you had answered “C,” you would have been wrong; “D” is the right answer.”

Was she right?

“You win Rs 1,250,000. Congratulations!”

Yes, she is right!

“The next question for Rs 2,500,000 is: Which cricketer’s autobiography is titled: Beyond Ten Thousand – My Life Story?”

“A. Sunil Gavaskar B. Allan Border C. Steve Waugh D. Brian Lara.”

Parul is a cricket addict. She knows it is Allan Border who has written that book. But she hesitates.

“What importance does Rs 2,500,000 play in your life?” he asks flirtatiously.

“I want to take you with me on a Hawaiian holiday,” she says.

He pretends to be touched, places both palms over his heart and says, “Jaaneman, sweetheart, my loving wife in my next life, what is the answer?”

Oh, how her heart beats when she hears him call her “sweetheart.” How she would have liked to hug and cling to him for that. She is prepared to give all that she has won, to be his, only his. How her eyes betray her love for the man who sits opposite her, his eyes twinkling in the studio lights, his face a halo of charm, calm and friskiness.

But she has to help Bapu, Baa and Purvi. They need the money to move to a decent house away from the lowly housing complex in Ghatkopar.

“The answer is “B” Allan Border.”

“Congratulations Parul! “B” is the right answer. You have won Rs 2,500,000. Now you can take me on my Hawaiian holiday.”

The next question is tough and Parul is so excited she doesn’t remember what it is. She is ecstatic and in a frenzied state of mind. She says she would quit rather than take a risk.

As Sharukh Khan, the star, her love, envelopes her in a warm hug for the last time she is wondering, does he mean what he says? But she believes in Karma and the eternal chain of death and rebirth. She plans do a lot of good work with the money that she has won. Then when she is reborn he would be hers, in her next life.

When they exit the studio it is evening. As they wait for a taxi to take them home Bapu looks at her and the cheque she is holding and says, “Son, the power of dreams. Didn’t I tell you to trust in your dreams?”

ANAIDA

I am Anaida. People call me “Ida.” Blossom auntie and Percy uncle call me “An idiot.” I live alone in a flat on the first floor of a building in Bandra’s East Indian quarters beside Andrew’s bakery and cake shop and Bhatlekar’s betel-and-tobacco shop. I have lived there all my life at the intersection of two meandering narrow streets with buildings like mine on either sides dating back to the British times. The buildings are all greenish with age and mine is the only one with a lot of bougainvillea tumbling out of it. My bougainvillea. You will recognize them easily. I also have dandelions and some chrysanthemums.

I have lived among the bustle of the cries of trinket vendors, the clang of ice cream sellers’ bells and loud cries of the bread and pastry vendors all my life. From the balcony of my flat I have a good view of the intersection. I sit on a high stool in the balcony and look at the world passing by. I don’t go out and play with Margaret like I did. Margaret is my friend from St Andrews Convent School, where I studied.

I am alone because dada and mamma died two years ago, one after the other. Dadda died first of a heart attack and mamma immediately after that because of some viral infection. When dada died mamma wept a lot. After that she stopped eating regular meals and started wasting away. Blossom auntie brought her food, but she never ate. I know she was going to die. Cunning Percy uncle wanted her to die because being dadda’s only brother he could claim the flat for himself. But I am my dadda’s daughter. I wouldn’t let go of my beautiful flat with the bougainvillea and dandelions in different colors of the VIBGYOR spectrum. I studied that in school, about VIBGYOR, which then seemed like a nice word to know.

I work for a publishing company in Colaba. I am a typist. I type envelopes for the company whole day. All I do is type envelopes and addresses. I am surprised there are so many people to send these envelopes to. But Baretto, my supervisor, tells me the company’s income comes from these envelopes. If these envelopes don’t go we don’t get subscriptions and if we don’t get subscription the boss can’t pay us salaries. So I type and type and type till my fingers ache and ache. But I don’t mind as long as they pay me a salary that will pay my milk and bread bills.

I board bus number 81 to work. The bus route is long. But I take a seat by the window and watch people, my favorite pastime. I like to watch people. I like to watch the gleaming cars cruising past the dingy buildings of Mohammed Ali Road and the racket the drivers make by honking their horns at traffic intersections. Sitting in a bus I feel alone and at peace with the world, just like I feel peaceful when I sit in my balcony with my bougainvillea and my dandelions.

When I reach my office Mr Baretto is ready with the addresses I have type.

“These addresses are live people. Consider them people who eat and breathe. We depend on their business. They are givers of our food. Don’t make mistakes. It is easier not to make a mistake than to correct mistakes. I may not check an address and it may go to the wrong address and we will lose business. Right? Agreed?” He would say.

I would nod my head.

But I make mistakes and Baretto would get angry.

“Can’t you do anything properly, men? How many times I tell you to be careful. You don’t listen only.”

He is like Uncle Percy. Only uncle Percy is worse. Uncle Percy looks like the wrinkled and dour gremlins one sees in movies. He owns a community newspaper and is a compulsive gambler. He also drinks a lot and his face is red and florid like a ripe tomato.

In the evening I take the same bus back to Bandra, waiting with office workers like me for the crowds to thin so that I can go comfortably. Well that is my life since dada and mama passed away leaving me all alone in this big world. Dadda had warned me several times to be careful about the “big world” outside. He said “big world” with a roll of his eyes and pursing of lips below his Clark Gable moustache, as if the world was a frightening place. I am not afraid of anyone not even the “big world.”

Actually mama was sicker than dada and would have died sooner hadn’t she been blessed by her Wednesday Mahim novenas. She offered novenas for five full years, that too without a break. She would be there every Wednesday at Mahim Church praying for dada and me.

But when dada died she lost all interest to live. It was like she had no purpose in life. She became like a vegetable you buy from the market, getting up only to go to the toilet. She died in the toilet and neighbors had to break open the door to remove her still body. He face was all contorted and wet with sweat. I felt her hand and it twitched once, that was all. She was suffering from a viral fever for many days and hid it from me.

Soon after the funeral uncle Percy and aunt Blossom came with Fr Alphonso of St Andrews church with so much concern on their faces. I knew their ploy very well. Uncle Percy has very narrow eyes and mama told me never to trust people with narrow eyes.

“Anaida, we will take care of you, no, girl? You can live with us, like our own daughter,” Uncle Percy said.

“See, we are the only ones you have got,” aunt Blossom said.

I said I wouldn’t leave my flat with the lovely bougainvillea and dandelions. Who will water them if I left? If I don’t water it for one day it looks all wilted. Uncle Percy wouldn’t water it. He would sell the flat and then put the money in his loss-making community newspaper and pay off his gambling debts.

“Who will take care of my bougainvilleas,” I asked them.

“What men, bougainvillea, bougainvillea, as if bougainvillea is more precious than your blood relatives.”

“To me it is.”

I didn’t go with them because I would have to live with cousin Martin. Cousin Martin is drug addict and a rough man. He also drinks. I know I won’t be safe anywhere with him around. And when Uncle Percy and aunt Blossom get drunk what ill I do. They fight a lot when they are drunk. All three of them are capable of being rude and abusive when they are drunk.

No baba, I am not going anywhere leaving my balcony seat, the one beside the creeping canopy of bougainvillea stems that looks so beautiful as it tumble out from my balcony. Sitting behind them I can watch people and they would never see me looking at them. Only Margaret knows I am there behind the bougainvillea and waves to me. I wave back.

The next time uncle Percy comes visiting he has Fr Alphonso and Fr Pereira who used to teach us religion at St Andrews school. Fr Pereira is the one who said the funeral mass for mama. I like him more than Fr Alphonso, perhaps because he looks a little like dada with his Clark Gable moustache.

“Anaida, child you need some family, No? Who will look after you when you are sick? You become sick often, often, no? You get these stomach cramps no, painful, painful, then what you do?”

I think for a while. I know it is all uncle Percy’s doing telling Fr Pereira about my stomach cramps. He has no right to. He can rot in hell for doing that and I am not going anywhere leaving my bougainvillea and my dandelions and my balcony. They are my best friends and these people are my enemies.

Like that, like that it went on and on. Sometimes Percy uncle would come along, sometimes he would come with Fr Alphonso and sometimes with Fr Pereira. So many priests came and went with uncle Percy trying to rid me of my precious flat with the bougainvilleas.

My work suffered, Mr Baretto became short tempered and angry.

“Anaida, your productivity is falling, I don’t know how I can recommend you for a bonus this year.”

All I do is type his envelopes, envelopes, and envelopes all day. Still he brings me more and more envelopes and addresses.

“Anaida you are absent minded, you typed ‘Gorey’ for ‘Morey’. Look ‘Gorey’ and ‘Morey’ are two different people. If they get angry they won’t give us business. If they don’t give us business....” his voice trailed off into a very ominous silence.

That day on the bus I thought and thought a lot. What can I do to get that Percy uncle and Blossom auntie off my back? My work was getting affected and if I lose my job, I won’t be able to keep my flat and look after my bougainvillea and dandelions.

That day when I reach Bandra I didn’t go to my flat but went straight to the evening service at St. Andrews church. The church was where both dadda and mama were buried and I looked at their graves from far, I didn’t have the time. The church had gravestones in the courtyard and I walked carefully so as to not disturb the souls resting in them. The beautiful church was full of people and Fr Kenneth D’Souza, head priest, was celebrating mass.

After mass I went to the priests’ chambers and asked to meet Fr. Kenneth D’Souza. Fr D’Souza was preparing to go to the confessional. He saw me and stopped, his eyes wide with surprise and recognition.

“Anaida, what brings you here, child? How are you?”

I wished him good evening and said I was fine.

“Everything okay, baba? I know it has been a terrible loss to you, child. What to do both dadda and mama gone. That too in such a short time. What a terrible, terrible thing to happen, no?”

I was silent.

“Is anything wrong, Anaida? Why are you so quiet?”

“It is uncle Percy, father and Fr Alphonso and Fr Pereira. They have been visiting me regularly asking me to go and live with uncle Percy. I know their intentions aren’t honorable or honest, father.”

Fr D’Souza became silent and thoughtful. He adjusted his belt around his protruding girth.

“How long has this been going?”

“Ever since dadda and mama died.”

“Really? And they didn’t tell me a word,” he looked thoughtful.

“I thought you knew Fr D’Souza.”

“No. I don’t. I am hearing it from you only.”

“I know uncle Percy will take me to live with him and then sell my flat. He is already heavily in debt.”

“ I know, I know. I have been hearing stories of his gambling debts. Card games.”

“Yes, father.”

“Go Anaida. God will bless you and protect you. I will see about Percy and the priests.”

That ended the visits of uncle Percy, aunt Blossom, Fr Alphonso and Fr Pereira to my flat.

I, Anaida, have saved the day, at least temporarily, for me and my bougainvilleas and my dandelions.

CHRISTMAS WITH CHERIACHEN

Cheriachen is sad. It is Christmas, a season to be joyful, and none of his children are around. It’s a day to be happy and jolly but he is not the least happy. He invited me for lunch on Christmas as my family was away and I went, as I am an acquaintance. We are related, yes, but a very distant relationship, in fact, he is a cousin four times removed.

The afternoon is a wintry cool, not too hot, not too cold, the plants in Cheriachen’s balcony dance in a complicated rhythm weaving patterns on the roof of his plaster-of-paris roof where Christmas baubles and streamers hang forlornly.

“There is no future in India. You know something? You should have gone abroad long ago,” he says morosely, “there is no happiness, no future here. Only sadness.”

“Then why didn’t you go?”

“See I could have gone. My brother is in the US, my daughter is in the US, a daughter is a nurse in Ireland, I can go and live with them even now, but I am comfortable in my life here, though I am not happy, I am not very unhappy here,” he says chastened.

“The same with me. I have learned to adjust. But I read there are guns in schools, violence, and racism, in fact, color discrimination, ten times that we have here.”

“What color discrimination? What are you talking? My daughters are as white as milk, put them next to the white Saiyips, you can’t tell the difference,” I forgot that Cheriachen and his children, though they were a darker shade of beige, considered themselves white, as white as an Occidental.

He pauses as his wife enters and offers me a cool glass of some colored water and Christmas cakes.

“How are you?” she asks me perfunctorily to which I give the standard answer. There is great tiredness and deliberation in her voice, as if she is not feeling too well.

“We were corporate employees. Our lives are gone. We get a pension, which is enough to make ends meet. Our children are enjoying the fruits of our labor.”

I remember, Cheriachen and his wife would walk the three kilometers from home to railway station every day, and not waste money on rickshaws. They would scrimp to the point of starving themselves, but they would save every extra Rupee. They taught their three daughters the value of thrift, and the children all grew to be responsible adults who knew the value of money, and, most importantly, how it is retained and not frittered away.

I know his routine nowadays as I live nearby. He goes for a walk in the morning, comes back exhausted, looks at an animated picture of a waterfall with sound effects, birds chirping, water falling on rocks, which the company he worked for gave him as a retirement gift. That’s all the nature he can afford in the concrete building in which he lives. The building is part of a complex named “Sahyadri,” in Vashi, New Bombay. Then he sleeps the whole day before he goes for an evening walk for purchasing groceries.

The phone rings insistently.

“Lillykutty, pick up the phone, it may be Jessy,” he says from where he sits. He has arthritis and a lot of other illnesses of old age, and is slumped in his chair, his chest collapsed into himself, his stomach protruding, and his face sagging with tissues that were once taut and healthy. His eyes have large circles under them due to sleeplessness, or, due to extra sleep. He sleeps all the time.

“It was difficult,” he reminisces, “bringing up my girls, the work was hard, I was a storekeeper you see, and if something is missing you have to take the rap. I slaved all these years.”

“Jessy is on the phone,” his wife Lillykutty says, “she wants to wish you.”

He gets up heavily from the chair and waddles to the phone re-tying his loose loin cloth around his waist. It had slipped.

“Haaaan, happy Christmas,” he cackles, “how is Shinymol? Fine? How is Joji? Fine?”

Static and an excited metallic voice at the other end.

Yes, he is happy for some time. But the happiness doesn’t last. His face droops again, his eyes again take a haunted look, he sinks into the chair.

“There, I mean in the US, they work only five days. And they don’t have to work like the company has bought our souls. They do their work and then go home. On weekends they go to beach resorts or holiday homes. If you don’t have a job the company pays you five hundred dollars a month, imagine. Around Rupees Twenty Thousand for doing nothing, just sitting at home. It’s not like here.”

It seems he is very upset and disgruntled, “Is that so?” I prompt.

“My other daughter, Jomi, who got married recently to a doctor, she is luckier,” he says pompously, “she is in Ireland and only works three days in a week and rests for four days, and draws a handsome salary, unlike here, you work six days and… all the harassment…,” he groans and shakes his head.

“And free healthcare, do they have free healthcare?”

“Yes, everything is free, absolutely free. Even education. I remember the difficulty I went through to get my daughters admitted to nursing school. I had to pay the hospital fifty thousand rupees. Then the fees, and after passing the miserly stipend they get for two years. Then for the passport, I had to bribe the officials. Yeverywhere corruption. God, it was so awful, but now they are enjoying a good life. God bless them,” Cheriachen says.

“Jomi took her doctor husband to Ireland, and he has a job in the same hospital where she works,” Lillykutty says from the kitchen. She sounds morose and depressed, too, two unhappy people in an empty two-bedroom flat. She is preparing our Christmas lunch. The smell of mutton and assorted curries fill the flat in Sahyadri housing society.

“Jessy’s daughter Shinymol studies for free. You should see her photographs,” he fishes out some photographs from the bottom of a pile of newspapers on the teapoy, “she is so fair, chubby, and fat, anyone would want to take her in hands and kiss her.”

“I guess it is the food they eat there. I read it is full of fat.”

“No. Not that. They don’t have to exert themselves, no? All they walk is inside their houses, from this room to that. To go anywhere they sit in a car, to go to school they sit in a car, to go to church they sit in a car. Not like we used to do. When I was a boy, I would walk five miles to our school, in Kerala.”

So that’s it. The number of empty, wasted miles spent walking is making Cheriachen a bitter man. He should have been in another country, sitting in a car, I think.

The phone rings insistently again.

“Lillykutty, it must be Jomi from Ireland,” Cheriachen says from his chair. He doesn’t make an effort to get up. He can’t.

Lillykutty comes into the room. Picks up the phone and says the usual “Merry Christmas.” She sounds happy.

Then she say “What?” into the phone and listens for a while. I can see her face fall, her body sag. Then she says, “Why do you want to do that? God, help us! God help us!”

Some static from the other end, a distraught voice. She motions towards Cheriachen.

Cheriachen comes to the phone, smiles joyfully, says, “Merry Christmas,” his sagging face muscles stretch, up, up, as he listens. He is imagining in his mind the heaven from which his daughter is calling him, free of worries, free healthcare, in fact, free everything. He is about to cackle when the whole muscles and integument of his face drop like a stone dropped from a height.

“What?” he says and looks at Lillykutty. Their eyes meet. There are tears in Lillykutty’s eyes. She sobs. Cheriachen puts down the phone. His eyes glaze with tears.

“Now, why would she want to do that? She has everything, works only three days a week, has around two lakhs salary per month, a good-looking husband, has everything virtually free, everything free….”

“We found the best husband for her, imagine, a doctor, handsome, too. We arranged the best wedding for her in the community. Now she says she wants to leave him, and she can’t get along with him,” Lillykutty says.

I look away. The rest of Christmas with Cheriachen was a torture, for me, at least.

THE COMPLETE MAN

“Georgie, you should eat your medicines.”

“Yes, you must,” they all agree.

His brothers Luke and Sam are here to make him take his anti-depression medicines regularly. So are his former classmates and childhood friends, Ravindran, Sanjayan and Gopi.

Georgie is acting strange. He is depressed. He won’t go to work. He lies all day in bed and reads strange, spiritual books. He knocks on people’s doors and says weird things. Things like:

“They are coming for us. Don’t open the doors.”

“There is a riot going to happen. Close all doors.”

“The Americans are going to bomb us. George Bush is coming. Take shelter. Go to the maidan and lie flat on the ground.”

He imagines things and thinks they are for real. He wasn’t like this, his brothers Luke and Sam agree. In fact, Georgie was the most brilliant of the three. A good student, a good sportsman, a good marksman, a good speaker, a good… in fact… good at everything he did. He would score maximum runs for the Red House he led in school, win hundreds of marbles in games, win the elocution and memory competitions, come first in the art and writing competitions, and still stand first in class.

Everybody was jealous. Jealous that he was so talented and they weren’t.

“He was good in everything?” Ravindran, an artist who now has a cult following in the advertising profession reminisced. He is content with the way life has treated him, with a lot of money and fame. For him Georgie is now the past, though he felt sympathetic. He remembered the time they would spend together in the school compound chasing butterflies, and Georgie laughing his good natured laugh. He doesn’t deserve this, he thought. Secretly Ravindran was jealous of Georgie in school . He always tried to outdo him in drawing and painting and each time he failed.

*****

The school term was about to end. Ravindran, captain of the Yellow house, was worried about his house’s performance. They would add up the scores in the art and writing competitions and his house would be last in the list of honors. His main rival was Georgie, captain of the Red House, and nobody could beat him in drawing, painting and writing.

Slyly he made a plan. He tackled Georgie rather roughly from behind during the afternoon football game prior to chasing butterflies. George fell and his hand was sprained and had to be cast. But he came back for the art and writing competitions with his hand in a cast. He scored well and took Red House far ahead of Yellow House. Ravindran had lost face.

*****

“Georgie, you should eat your medicines. You shouldn’t worry about what America or George Bush does. It’s their worry,” Sanjayan said. Sanjayan is now a chief executive of a newspaper group, and is widely traveled. Around him there is the smell of success, which is actually the smell of the various expensive colognes he buys when he is abroad.

“No. It’s my worry, no? My children are growing up. I have to support them, no?”

“But first you got to go to work and earn, to make your children secure, like this you have no security only,” Luke the elder brother says impatiently. He seems an impatient man.

*****

Back in school Sanjayan was the goal keeper of the Blue House and he was also a part of the humungous jealousy that Georgie generated in students of AFAC School (students of a rival school expanded this to “After Farting Attending Classes.”) He couldn’t understand how Georgie could do everything he did with complete dedication and seriousness. If he sets himself upon scoring a goal, he did it with an intensity that was frightening.

He was terrorized by Georgie’s appearance anywhere near his goal post. Georgie’s marksmanship was unerring and he could maneuver himself from any angle to score a goal. No goalkeeper was safe with Georgie around. Jealousy rose like a tide inside Sanjayan.

So when Georgie came menacingly towards him during a friendly football match, he saw his chance. He dived, collected the ball and gave it a kick in Georgie’s direction, aiming it at his face. The aim was accurate. The ball hit his face, and Georgie fell down. The kick of the ball had taken him by surprise. His nose bled and he had to be carried away to the school office before Luke came to escort him home.

******

“He was so brilliant, I was scared of his brilliance,” Gopi says. Gopi heads a knowledge process outsourcing project. He has a fetish for expensive shoes and casual wear.

“Yes, I, too,” Ravindran says.

“But he is still intelligent. He needs your sympathy and he would be all right,” Sam says. Sam is the younger brother, a softer version of Georgie. All brother look alike.

“That’s why we are here,” Gopi says, “I thought he would be someone very big some day. Not like this.”

“What do you mean?” Georgie asks indignantly. He thinks the people gathered in the room are a bunch of hypocrites, and knows what they have done to him. How dare they talk about him this way, as if he was some object, a dog that wouldn’t obey its master?

Georgie prefers not to say anything. He keeps to himself. He listens and listens to everyone’s opinion of him, and grows more and more estranged. Why do they talk about me thus? He wonders. This loneliness had turned into self-absorption, and then into seeking solace in drinks. When the world cut him out, he wanted to cut them out, as simple as that.

But a hypocrite such as Gopi seems to be provoking him too much today.

“He was so quiet and so dedicated to his work,” Sanjayan says, “He would solve algebra sums in no time, and I used to take my doubts to him.”

“This one here is the biggest hypocrite of all,” Georgie thinks. Gracy, his wife makes an entry, balancing a tray in both hands. She puts the tray down on the teapoy and with her slender arms passes tea around the room.

“You all tell him, no? I say to him take medicine, take medicine, all the time. He won’t listen to me, only.”

“You shut up, don’t talk,” Georgie tells her.

“I won’t shut up. You shut up. What?”

“If you don’t shut up, I will shut you up,” George’s face darkens with rage.

“People, imagine how I live with a man who talks this way,” Gracy says to everyone, “I don’t want to live with him. I will go to the police.”

For a moment Georgie looks like he would throw something at Gracy, but he doesn’t. He has a sweet nature, everyone knows.

Instead he says, “Does anyone know what that means?” He points to an elaborately framed picture on the wall. The picture shows a man and a woman, standing close together with an intimacy that could only mean they are lovers.

Everyone present shakes their head.

“The complete man. I wanted to be a complete man, once, perfect in everything I did,” his voice is inaudible.

There is a moment’s silence, as the meaning sinks in. His friends and his brothers look at each other and then at the brilliant man, now the antithesis of his own perfection.

“But, look at you, what complete? You are hardly a man,” Gracy’s harsh voice cuts in and then she ambles towards the kitchen.

*********

Gopi was the boy with writing abilities in school. He fancied himself as a future writer. But competition was stiff from Georgie. A love for literature and fine writing bound them. They used to exchange classic novels in comic format that they would borrow from the lending library paying Rs 1.50 each. Thus they would get to read two classic comics for the price of one.

One day Georgie had exchanged the comic version of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe with Rajendran’s Superman comic without informing Gopi. He came to know of this. Georgie confessed it was his fault. But, jealousy was a big thing, eating into their little personas, especially when they were children just forming the iron-cast personalities of their future lives.

Gopi stopped talking to Georgie. He thought that was the best way to punish him. He didn’t know what harm he had done. Georgie is hurt so easily, he has a tender mind, a tender soul. His soul cried for his friendship with Gopi. It was years later that they started talking.

Now as Gopi sat before him everyone wondered how he had succeeded when Georgie had failed. Gopi owned a car, a large flat, and wore expensive dress shoes. But Georgie’s house was barren, the paint was peeling and he wore dusty slippers.

*********

“Georgie you must eat your medicines,” Gopi says.

Georgie can’t take it anymore.

“See this jealous hypocrite. See what he is saying. Have you all no shame, where were you when I was really in need?” Georgie couldn’t control his words, he has lost touch with reality.

His friends and his siblings sit with mouths agape. Shock: disbelief: incomprehension.

The room falls silent. They do not talk for a long while. They realize they are all guilty of what happened to their brilliant friend/brother Georgie. If only they were a bit kinder to him forty years ago, in school, at home. They are all comfortable in their jobs and careers they have selfishly carved for themselves over the years, but they never even thought of the cruelty they had inflicted. Georgie was like the punching bag in the school gymnasium. Now that it’s too late, they realize that their words echo with hypocrisy, and their attempts at helping Georgie seems like a big sham.

The tea grows cold, the steam stops rising from the rims of the cups. They all rise to leave and Georgie escorts them to the door.

“Anyway, thank you for coming, so kind of you,” he says at the door.

LAUGHING GAS

She is ahead of him in the crowd. She is wearing the shortest of kurtas and a churidar that is so tight the buns of her behind form a perfect round football-ish sphere in red. The skin is so fair it is almost golden ("The golden girls" is the name he has coined for her type. They seem to have stepped right out of a golden chariot driven by Eros himself), the profile of the face is even and so well formed that water would glide from her forehead and touch only her nose and would slither further down and only touch the fronts of her breasts. She is wearing heels and the sleeveless yellow kurta only covers up to her waist. Aaah, he groans.

Adrenaline pumps. Nitrous oxide, or, laughing gas releases into his scrotal region, dilating the blood vessels, so that more blood pumps into his sexual organs. He had read in medical school that the reason for an erection is quite simply, nitrous oxide, or, laughing gas. Ha... ha... ha....

He remembers the texts he had read in physiology. "Mechanically erection can be compared to an electromechanically controlled hydraulic system. The most important roles in the phase of erection are played by nitrous oxide and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP)." So the sexual process is nothing but a release of laughing gas, the physician concludes. He as a doctor knows.

He... he... he....

But the exquisiteness of the human being in front of him is what he cannot understand though he has closely examined many of them in the hospital. But then there he is a physician, but here? What's wrong with him? Has he forgotten medical ethics?

He feels an urge to talk to her, but she doesn't look at anyone. She is inhabiting a world presided by the deity Eros, lost in some sweet memory of someone. A man? A woman? That someone is very lucky to at least know her. Of course, she would like to meet and talk to a post-graduate physician such as him.

Model? No. Airhostess? No. Office worker? Could be.

He was sure the work in the mundane and drab office in some congested lane in Andheri would grind to a halt today. Everyone would be staring lustily at her buns, her slow lilting walk, her silky black hair. Could he talk to her.

From what he could see from behind, as he slowly inches forward on the Kurla railway bridge is a soft cheek, and a bit of down around the ear. The slow-moving crowd has come to the end of the bridge and is slowly descending the steps to the west of Kurla. He is careful to keep right behind her, and it's easy because on both sides are slowly inching office goers clutch their rexine bags.

May be, at the exit when there is some more space he can walk ahead and introduce himself with a killer pick-up line. Something like, "Hey beautiful, it's a sunny day, can we make it funny?" No, that won't do. It has to be a lot better than that.

The crowd has moved glacially to the end of the stairs and is dispersing now. The slow crawl has come to an end. Now is his chance. he walks ahead. His heart thudding he prepares to turn around, he does.

"Hi! Darling! Goodu Maarrniinnggguu!"

He could have killed that man, the boor! He feels rage. Some men are so crude. This Road Romeo is dressed in cheap jeans, has his cowlick falling over his eyes, and has a hundred bursting pimples on his scarred face.

He walks ahead, glances back at her one last time. He freezes.

She has earplugs on! She is listening to music. There's no way she could have heard either him or the Road Romeo. He heaves a sigh, then groans, and then laughs ha... ha... ha.... After all, it's only laughing gas.