2 States The Story Of My Marriage (23 page)

he said.

‘It’s OK. The point is, if you feel horrible then you need to do what it takes to
get to be number one. And….’ I stopped myself.

‘What? Say it,’ he said.

‘And if you don’t have marketing skills, then better admit that than take a moral
high ground about knowledge. You’ve done good work, let the world know. What

the hell is cheap or shameless about that?’

Uncle didn’t respond.

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‘I’m sorry,’ I said, composing myself.

‘No, you are right. I am useless,’ he said, his voice quivering. I became worried
he’d cry.

‘I didn’t say that. We made this, right?’ I pointed to my laptop.

‘You think I should present? Will I be able to?’ he asked.

‘You will kick ass,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Sorry, I said you need ice?’

He shook his head.

‘You’ll be fine. Tell Verma you will present this. Don’t give him a copy.’

‘I’ll fight with him?’

‘Yes, if you call it that,’ I said. ‘And make sure from now on, people know about
the work you do. Look at Bala, my boss. He copies the country manager on

everything. Bala briefed the country manager about the food menu for this stupid

local concert we are having next month. You definitely have to get noticed, you

don’t have to work. That’s how corporates work, everyone knows it.’

Uncle nodded and fell deep in thought. I checked the time: 2 a.m. I couldn’t

control a yawn.

‘OK, we should go to bed,’ uncle said and stood up. ‘Wait.’ He came back with

a lungi and a vest. ‘Here, will this do?’

You got to be kidding me, I wanted to say, but said, ‘Perfect.’

Uncle showed me the guestroom. I sat down on the bed with the nightclothes

in my lap.

‘What do you want to be? MD at Citibank?’ uncle asked me as he reached the

door to leave my room.

‘A writer,’ I said.

‘Excuse me,’ he said and his tired body became alert again.

‘MD, country manager, I don’t care, It’s not me,’ I said.

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“Will you leave the bank?’

‘Not immediately. I’ll save for a couple of years first.’

‘And after that? What about your parents? Are they OK with this?’

‘We’ll see. You should sleep, uncle. You have a presentation to make

tomorrow,’ I said.

Uncle switched off t he main light and left. I went to the bathroom and

struggled with my lungi. Finally, I used a belt to tie it around my waist and lay

down in bed. My back was resting after eighteen hours; I let out a sigh of relief.

Uncle knocked on my door. He came inside and switched on the light again.

I sat up on the bed in one jerk. ‘What?’

‘Water,’ uncle said as he left a bottle next to my bed. ‘Drink up, or you will have
a headache in the office tomorrow.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘You OK with that lungi? You need help?’

‘No, I am fine,’ I said and clutched my belt and modesty close to myself.

‘Good night,’ uncle said as he switched off the light again.

‘Good night, sir,’ I said and cursed myself for the next ten minutes for calling
him sir.

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29

‘Three lakh!’ Bala flipped during the concert steering committee meeting. Yes,

one of the great value additions from Bala is to make everything sound important.

He created the CSC, or the Concert Steering Committee. It sounded so important,

I could almost put it in my resume.

But right now, we had a problem. Everyone kept silent as the person in charge

of the singers gave her report. ‘You want three celebrity singers, sir,’ said

Madhavi, a fat agent with spectacles who looked like a cross between a school

prefect and an ICU nurse.

‘But how can they get paid so much?’ Bala said. Somehow, Bala felt only he

deserved a job that paid far in excess of the work involved.

‘They come with a band, sir, and back-up singers,’ Madhavi said.

Everyone in the room nodded.

Bala shook his head. ‘Why do we need back-up singers? The main ones will

crash or something?’

Nobody laughed.

‘Back-up means chorus, sir,’ Madhavi said.

Bala remained unimpressed.

‘Chorus are those people who say aa aa aa in love songs, sir,’ said Renuka,

another agent.

‘I know what chorus is,’ Bala said as he banged his fist on the table. ‘But this
is too much.’

‘We can cut the food,’ said one agent. He got more dirty looks than an eve-

teaser in a bus. He retracted his suggestion.

‘Why don’t we get some lesser known singers?’ I asked.

‘But this is a Citibank event. If we get B-grade singers and tomorrow HSBC

does an event with A-grade singers, we are screwed,’ Bala said.

‘Sir, the venue….’ One agent who had never spoken in a meeting in his entire

career was shot down in mid-sentence.

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‘Has to be five-star,’ Bala said.

‘Who is the top singer of the three?’ I said.

‘Hariharan,’ said one agent.

‘No, it is S.P. Balasubramanium,’ said another.

War broke out between the normally peaceful Tamilians. When it came to

music, they could kill.

‘No match, Hari is no match for SP,’ Madhavi shouted emotionally.

‘Suchitra? You forgot Suchitra?’ another agent said.

Bala stood up. Like all corporate meetings worldwide, even this one had ended

without a conclusion. ‘All I am saying is, we can’t afford to pay this much. The

venue, food and advertising are already costing four lakh,’ Bala said.

‘Advertising?’ I asked.

‘We are giving a half-page ad in The Hindu,’ Bala said.

The agents closed their files to leave.

‘Isn’t it an invitation-only event?’ I said.

‘Exactly, the ad will say so. Only our customers will have the invites. However,
the ad will ensure their friends and relatives feel jealous.’

‘That’s the Citi advantage,’ I said.

‘Exactly.’ Bala patted my back.

‘So, dad’s happy, huh?’ I quizzed Ananya inside the auto.

‘You bet. Dad only talks about the presentation at dinner every day. And now

he’s in Delhi, to make the same presentation in head office. Can you believe it?’

Ananya said.

‘Wow!’ I said as we reached our destination.

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We had come to Ratna Stores in T. Nagar to buy steel plates for my chummery.

I needed four, this place had four million of them. Seriously, every wall, roof,

corner, shelf and rack over two floors was covered with shiny steel utensils. If

direct sunlight fell in the store, you could burn like an ant under a magnifying

glass. I wondered how the store kept track of its inventory.

‘How do you ever choose?’ I said to Ananya as we neared the plates section.

Ananya demonstrated the desired width with her hands to one of the

attendants.

‘Seriously, thanks for helping dad. I think he likes you now,’ she said.

‘Not as much as he likes Harish. I drank his whisky though.’

‘What?’ Ananya said.

I told Ananya about our drinks session.

‘You wore his what to bed?’ she said, shocked at the end of my story.

‘Lungi,’ I said as I paid at the cashier’s counter. ‘What’s so surprising? It is
quite comfortable.’

Ananya raised her eyebrows.

‘I did it for you.’ I looked into her eyes.

She moved forward and even though one could see our reflection in five

hundred frying pans around us, she kissed me. All the Tamilian housewives in

the store turned to us in shock.

‘Ananya,’ a lady’s voice came from behind us.

Ananya turned around. ‘Fuck, Chitra aunty,’ Ananya said, lifting a large steel

tray to hide her face. It was too late as the woman had started to come towards

us.

‘Chitra who?’ I said.

‘Chitra aunty lives in my lane. She sings Carnatic music, with my mother,’

Ananya said from behind the tray.

‘I bought Carnatic music CDs, too,’ I said.

‘What?’ she said.

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‘Never mind, hello aunty,’ I said as Chitra aunty came next to us.

‘Krish,’ Ananya said. ‘Colleague.’

‘Really, what kind of colleague?’ Chitra aunty asked bossily.

‘I have to go,’ I said and lifted my plates. ‘We need these before dinner.’

Ananya called me late at night, after I had eaten in the new steel plates.

‘All OK?’ I said.

‘Sort of,’ Ananya said. ‘She is going to tell my mother. They have this rivalry
anyway. Guruji accepted her but not my mother.’

‘And then?’

‘Nothing, I’ll tell my mother she is exaggerating. Am I mad enough to smooch

someone in Ratna Stores?’ she said.

‘You are,’ I laughed.

‘Yes, but only you know that.’

‘I don’t want to ruin what I’ve built with your dad,’ I said.

‘It’s mom you have to worry about now. Manju and Dad are OK.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. I told her you are coming over for dinner tomorrow.’

‘Why?’

‘The stated reason is to thank you for helping dad. We can tell her about our

visit to Ratna Stores before Chitra aunty. Of course, we’ll skip a few bits.’

‘You shouldn’t have kissed me there. Why did you do it?’

‘Because I couldn’t help it, you are irresistible sometimes,’ Ananya said.

My heart stopped for a second at Ananya’s response. Alright Mrs

Swaminathan, if your daughter can’t resist me, there is no way you can either.

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30

‘Excellent presentation, that is what the board told Dad in Delhi. Now they’ve

asked all zonal offices to make similar ones,’ Ananya said in an excited voice.

We sat on the floor for dinner. Ananya’s mom kept quiet as she stirred a bowl

of rasam. She offered it to me without a word.

‘You OK, mom?’ Ananya said.

‘Did you go to Ratna Stores with him?’ Ananya’s mother said, pointing to me.

‘Oh shit, Chitra aunty had to tell you the next morning,’ Ananya said, her hand
busy mixing the rice and daal.

‘Akka, don’t use bad words at the dinner table,’ Manju said.

‘Manju, you eat. I am talking to mom here,’ Ananya said.

‘He’s right. We don’t talk like that in this house. We don’t do the things you do
either,’ Ananya’s mother said as she vented some of the anger on the rice in her

leaf. She mashed and smashed it with all the vegetables extra hard.

‘What have I done, mom? Krish wanted steel plates. How would he know

where to go? I took him to Ratna Stores.’

‘And you do cheap things in the store?’ Ananya’s mother said.

‘What cheap things, mom?’ Manju said.

‘Manju, can you leave the room? Go read you physics book,’ Ananya bade.

‘But I’ve already revised physics today,’ Manju said.

‘Then study maths or chemistry, for God’s sake. Go.’ Ananya’s stern glance

did the trick. Manju picked up his banana leaf and took it to his room.

‘Something something cheap something….’ Ananya’s mother said as Ananya

interrupted her.

‘Mom, Krish doesn’t understand Tamil. Please, speak in English,’ Ananya said.

Ananya’s mother gathered herself and spoke again. ‘Why are you sending

your brother away, when you are ready to be cheap in public?’

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‘I didn’t do anything cheap.’

‘Chitra is lying?’

‘I gave him a little kiss.’

‘Kissing!’ Ananya’s mother said as if Ananya had mentioned us snorting

drugs.

‘Mom, stop hyperventilating. He is my boyfriend. You understand?’

‘You are my daughter, do you understand? You are spoiling our name in the

community, do you understand? I brought you up, educated you, made sacrifices

for you, do you understand?’

I don’t know if mother and daughter understood anything, but I understood it

was time for me to go. I stood up.

‘Where are you going?’ Ananya demanded of me.

‘To wash my hands,’ I said, showing her my curd-filled hands as proof.

‘Even my hands are messy. Stay with me,’ Ananya ordered.

‘You don’t know what I have to bear because of you,’ Ananya’s mother said. In

one movement she stood up, gathered her leaf and composure and left the room.

Ananya let out a huge sigh.

‘I liked the rasam, nice and tangy,’ I said.

‘You said you owe me big time,’ I said. I sat in Bala’s office. He kept both his

elbows on the desk and ran all ten fingers through his oily hair.