Corporate Carnival (12 page)

The light effects were spectacular and the next half hour was sheer magic. A quartet of aircrafts suddenly appeared over the stadium and in the middle a helicopter hovered in midair, flashing a series of pictures on the ground in an incredible slide show, pictures that traced the history of the FIFA World Cup, combining it with frozen frames of poignant FIFA 2010 moments, with newspaper headlines flashing the choice of South Africa as the host, the flags of the participating countries and more recent clips from the matches – moments tracing ecstatic heights and gloomy depths. The effect was electrifying. Africa had hitherto always remained on the sidelines even as the rest of the planet basked in the glory of growth. This was one event that put Africa in the spotlight. The whole world was watching.

Thousands at the stadium and millions glued to television sets across the earth were enjoying Africa’s impressive ability to turn on a party. Members of the African band Ladyship Black Mambazo played a song, keeping the spectators enthralled by coordinating foot movements magnificently on pictures of keyboard keys that were projected on the ground by the overhead helicopter. Shakira was in impressive form and had the crowd on its feet and screaming for more. There was a beautifully choreographed piece with hundreds of performers dancing and forming the shape of a vuvuzela. There was another where stage dancers representing participating countries held coloured flags and, after a series of superbly arranged moves, left just the two finalist teams ‘facing off’. The crowd’s energy levels remained at a perpetual high, their enthusiasm infectious. All of us screamed, cheered, jumped, whistled and then, just a little later and in complete contrast, we silently rose as one and cried. For those few moments, we stood dumbstruck as we recalled the sacrifices that the man in front of us had made for the people of his country. He waved at the crowd as he was driven in a vehicle around the ground, this man who had displayed courage, compassion and conviction as few men ever have and few ever will. I joined the rest of the stadium as they chanted his name. ‘Madiba, Madiba, Madiba!’ We could not be like him but we could show him how much we appreciated and valued his sacrifices and his contribution, not just to South Africa but to humanity. We got an opportunity to do just that, that day. And I think he heard us.

I didn’t see much of the match itself. In any case, there was nothing I found particularly noteworthy. No head butts or hand of God, nor any spectacular overhead reverse kicks. In fact, the only overhead kick was landed by a Dutchman on the chest of a rival. I was too busy watching the people around me, some shouting with almost inhuman energy, others screaming with uncontrollable frustration, all equally passionate. Shree wore an orange t-shirt that he had picked up the previous day. It read: ‘Paul on the Ball’. Just behind me, a big red-faced Dutch supporter wore an orange one that said, ‘To Hell with
Paul
p Fiction’ and beneath it, ‘Go, Dutch! Go!’ Well, the Dutch tried their damnedest. But they couldn’t get going. Towards the end of the game, the Spaniards managed to sneak the ball in. As the Spanish captain – the guy who nearly put paid to my chances with Pedro by being a saver instead of a scorer of goals – broke into tears and covered his face. Pedro himself, standing two rows ahead of me, clenched his fists, pumped them over his head and let out a roar that was heard by every Spaniard (or half Spaniard) the world over.

The next morning, Pedro asked me to meet him at his hotel so he could sign the account documents. When I called him from the lobby, he asked me to come up to his room. The door was half open. I knocked, entered and almost stepped on the toes of the longest pair of legs I had ever seen. They were bare and smooth and shapely and… well, in short, they were quite sensational.

Coming my way as they did when I was expecting Pedro, my heart can be forgiven for behaving in an unusual fashion. First it stopped beating. Then it beat rapidly, and finally in fits and starts. I excused myself and was about to rush out when the owner of the legs began to purr. In a low husky voice, she told me to sit down and said that Pedro was in the bathroom and would be out in a minute. I sat stiffly on a chair while she lounged comfortably on the bed.

When I mustered up enough courage to look up, she was sitting there, her legs crossed, all poise and queenly dignity, and smiling at me – or perhaps at my obvious discomfiture. She was, I could see now, actually fully dressed and not in her birthday suit as I had presumed. But it was one of those flimsy, minimalist dresses no doubt designed in Paris or Milan and probably costing a bomb. Back in Chennai, still the bastion of traditionalism, most women would have hesitated to use it even as an undergarment.

The outcome of that morning’s meeting with Pedro was the signing of the account documents and a promise to remit 20 million dollars. That in itself was enough to take my mind off my frontpage splash the previous day. It did, however, cross my mind during the occasional black moments that I lapsed into, that there ought to be some kind of t-shirt censorship. It appeared to me that t-shirt makers carried their slogans a bit too far. If you wouldn’t print something in a newspaper, I felt it shouldn’t be on a t-shirt. But the others didn’t seem to agree. Kitty and Shree took a far too flippant view of the matter, seeing nothing but humour in the whole regrettable incident. Mina, on the other hand, took a narrow, prudish view and insisted that if I had not removed my t-shirt in the first place, none of this would have happened.

That evening, I had the honour of being invited to dinner at Pedro’s house along with my uncle, aunt, Mina, Kitty and Shree. My aunt chose not to come – she was not comfortable with Pedro’s parties. She didn’t like the way he paraded his trophy women and disliked the way he behaved when he got drunk. I knew what she meant about the trophy bit. And I’m not talking about the photographs in his room.

As we huddled together and chatted, many fair women and strong men – no doubt Durban’s leading lights – walked in to enjoy the Don’s hospitality. Pedro was at his ebullient best, taking great pains over every guest, every spouse and every partner. Wine flowed like South Africa’s Orange river, much of it of local vintage. Pedro had arranged for a team of masseuses who went around kneading necks and tweaking toes as the guests sat smoking cigars or sipping wine.

An hour into the party, Pedro put his arm around me. ‘Alcohol is an incredible thing,’ he told me. ‘A little while ago, none of these women seemed pretty to me. But now,’ he said, giving his glass an appreciative look and a congratulatory shake, ‘now, after a few drinks, they all look beautiful.’

A few minutes later, Pedro produced his partner for the evening, a woman of bewitching beauty. He seemed to like them tall. This one was taller than me, and looked even taller in her heels. She wore a long black cape – at least I think it was a cape, it was this Batman-like thing – which stretched behind her from her neck down to her heel. It provided an interesting backdrop to her delicate curves and served to accentuate the shortness of her dress and the exquisite pearly white of her skin.

Shree, who happened to be talking to me when the woman was ushered in, froze completely. Halfway through a sentence on how Beckham gets the ball to bend, he stopped and never completed it. In the wake of such beauty, he probably felt speech had no meaning. Even the words that he had already uttered appeared resigned to their fate – unwanted and incomplete, they broke into tiny fragments and crashed to the floor.

And it wasn’t just Shree. All around, people had stopped talking and started staring. Only, some did it more discreetly than others. ‘Jai!’ Shree whispered, finding his voice. ‘Look at her. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life! Better than any supermodel! Just look at her, Jai… Oh, my god!’ For a moment I thought he would swoon and pass out. Not that I was immune to human emotions, of course. My mind too was in a whirl.

‘Is she the same one you met in the room?’ Shree asked.

‘No, that one was taller. Those legs almost came up to my chest.’

The girls walked over in the meantime. ‘You guys are disgusting,’ Kitty said.

‘One look at that vampish woman and you two are behaving like besotted schoolboys,’ Mina added.

‘Which woman?’ said Shree bravely, looking everywhere but the right direction.

‘Oof, stop it!’ said Kitty. ‘You can’t even lie properly.’

Around midnight, Pedro changed tack. His decibel level rose. He became less cheerful. Small things started to irritate him. He found fault with the food. He seemed to take a sudden dislike to one particular waiter. He called his butler (whose name, believe it or not, was Lovemore) and asked him to bring the loo to him. Lovemore, no doubt an old hand at this kind of thing, held him gently by the arm. ‘I’ll take you there,’ he cooed.

‘No!’ Pedro thundered. ‘Bring it here!’ There was a pause. Pedro appeared to be grappling with some puzzling issue. ‘Look,’ he said. His tone had changed from angry to forlorn. ‘There is Pedro and there is the loo. Why should Pedro go to the loo every time? Bring the loo here! Fair’s fair!’ he concluded a little tamely.

Lovemore’s kind, experienced and firm hands finally led Pedro to the loo, much against his desire. Upon his return, his mood had undergone another change. He seemed to be eager to share something with his public. He stood up on a chair. ‘Friends!’ he shouted. ‘F-friends and countrymen! Lend me your ears!’ He turned around slowly, heaving gently, trying to establish eye contact with the audience. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends and Romans and most importantly, fellow South Africans. Let us today raise a toast to the host.’

There were a few sycophantic claps.

‘No, not me,’ he clarified. ‘The host of FIFA 2010. Africa, my friends and dear women, is no more the dark continent. It is a beacon of light. A ray of hope. Friends and South Africans and glorious Spaniards…
Viva Espana!
Lend me your ears.’ He spotted his partner, the ‘vamp’, and his mood changed from patriotism to romance.

He got down from the chair unsteadily and beckoned to her with his index finger, curling it slowly and repeatedly. ‘Come here, baby, and lend me your ears.’

Which she did. Attracting every eye in the room, she sashayed her way to Pedro, her dazzling smile lighting up the place like the beacon that Pedro had spoken of. And when she reached him, she lowered herself into his lap and lent him her ears. For the rest of the party, the Don busied himself nibbling at her earlobes and whispering sweet nothings into her ears. One by one, the guests excused themselves and started leaving.

I found myself talking to the man who was in charge of Pedro’s construction business. He presented his business card to me. It read ‘Nqobile’.

‘N-q-obile,’ I read out. ‘Are N and Q like initials?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It is part of my name. Like this.’ He said his name.

I stared at him incredulously. He repeated it, making a noise like that of horse trot intertwined with ‘Nobeelay’. Of the letter Q there was no sign whatsoever.

‘Why are you making that sound?’ I asked. ‘That horse trot sound. Surely that’s not part of your name? And where is the Q in this?’

‘There is no Q sound,’ he said. ‘The N followed by Q indicates a click consonant.’

‘A what consonant?’

‘Click consonant. It is part of some South African words or names. It is pronounced in different ways. Like
Xhosa
.’

‘Hosa?’

‘No, Xhosa,’ he said, pushing his tongue against his upper teeth and making a clicking noise from the sides of his mouth before proceeding with the rest of the word.

‘So the full word is actually that click sound followed by hosa? What does it mean?’

‘Don’t ask so many questions. Just repeat after me. Xhosa.’

‘Khosa?’

‘Xhosa.’

I shut my eyes and gave it a shot.

‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not Tik-khosa, silly!
Xhosa
. Less of your tongue. Bring more teeth into play. Watch my mouth. Xhosa!’

‘Xhosa?’

‘Yes! You got it!
Xhosa!
That is the community of Nelson Mandela. It is spelt X-h-o-s-a.’

‘But what about the horse trot sound in your name?’

‘Oh, that is a different click. There is a third click as well which goes like this.’ He pressed his lips together and made a noise. ‘See?’

We were now joined by Govinder, Nqobile’s colleague and Pedro’s finance guy. ‘It is like calling a puppy,’ he said helpfully.

‘In Mumbai, they call people like that,’ I told him. ‘But fancy having a sound like that as part of a name!’

‘Okay, now say my name!’

‘Say it to his satisfaction,’ Govinder drawled, ‘and I will ensure that we double the funds in Pedro’s account with you!’

I attempted it.

‘No. Here, the click is not separate,’ said Nqobile. ‘It should form part of the name.’

I tried several times.

‘No! Not click-nobile. Like this, man! Nqobile! Nqobile!’

I repeated it.

‘Wrong! It should start with N, not with T!’

Feverishly, I kept trying. I was getting a little desperate. I wasn’t going to let a thing like this come between me and another 20 million dollars.

‘Not in fits and starts. Smoothly, casually, man. Remember it’s just one word. Nqobile!’

‘Like this?’

‘Where is the N sound? It’s not just the click followed by obile. It is Nqobile!’

‘Nqobile!’

Nqobile narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. ‘Say it again.’

‘Nqobile!’

‘Again!’

‘Nqobile! Nqobile! Nqobile!’

‘Very good! Fantastic!’ Nqobile exclaimed, downing a quick peg in celebration. ‘You are now one of us!’

‘I did it!’ I shouted excitedly.

‘You did, man, you did!’ Nqobile said, looking equally pleased. ‘That is what my name means, Nqobile – to triumph, to succeed.’

I beamed and turned to Govinder. ‘I did it!’ I told him, all pumped up. He didn’t reply. He was sprawled across the sofa just behind us, mouth open, snoring gently every time his stomach swelled up and and letting out a teeny wheeze when it subsided.

‘Jai,’ Mina whispered in my ear, ‘I think we should leave. Pedro’s asleep and most of the guests have left.’