Corporate Carnival (16 page)

I looked at him long and hard. Rachel was right. There was a kind of openness about this boy that was quite disarming. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ I told him, patting him on the shoulder. Suddenly I felt very responsible and grown up. I, Jai Patel, was getting youngsters married.

The evening ended with a Bollwood music session. Sunny Singh took us all by surprise by belting out the latest item number, replete with vigorous pelvic movements. He made it his own by replacing one of the words in the lyrics with his name. Balancing a glass of beer on each of his palms, he danced in front of his wife to the tune of ‘
Sunny
badnaam huwi, darling tere liye’. Not to be outdone, Bharat sang and danced to a modified version of another recent hit, ‘My name Saxena, Saxena ki jawani…’. But the highlight of the evening was a performance by Pammi, Sunny’s wife. She labelled herself ‘Sikhni’ Chameli and did an impressive little item.

Before leaving, Andy grasped my hand. ‘I’m very grateful to you for taking the trouble. I think my parents might just listen to you,’ he said.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I was at Kitch’s house in Chennai.

‘Have you gone mad, Jai?’ his father asked me. ‘You are asking me to let my son get married to a British woman five years older than him, whom he has known for just six months?’

‘We did not expect this from you, Jai!’ his mother said accusingly. ‘You were smart enough to marry a girl from among your own! Now you want us to welcome this… this divorcee girl? We thought you will give Andy good advice, Jai. Instead of that, you are trying to ruin his life!’

‘Aunty, I didn’t marry Mina because she was a Patel! That was incidental. Look, aunty, uncle, I’ve known Rachel for years… She is a lovely girl. I have seen her and Andy together many times and they make a wonderful couple.’

‘So that’s what he has been doing in the Gulf,’ his father said, raising his voice a notch, ‘becoming a
couple
with this woman? I am desperate for someone to help me run my business, but still I sent him there to get some exposure and stay out of trouble. And this is what he does. That black sheep! He has always created trouble for me. Always!’

‘But uncle, Kitty married Shree and see how happy they are together. And look at Kitch and Galiya. What a lovely pair! And little Olga, the apple of your eye! Look at it this way. No other couple combination could have produced Olga just the way she is!’

‘There is no issue with Galiya, Jai. She is not older than Kitcha and is very understanding of our culture and customs. If Anand marries this British girl, all of Chennai will be talking about it. She does not even seem to have a proper family. What can we expect from a girl with such a background?’

This seemed to be a suitable cue to win some pity points. ‘Rachel lost her father when she was just three, aunty,’ I said solemnly. ‘For months, she was in tears.’ I felt like an actor who had been handed an extremely powerful scene. I hoped I was getting the right amount of pathos in my voice. ‘In
tears
!’ I continued, striving for the emotional touch and aiming to break my voice suitably. ‘For months and months. Her mother turned into a recluse. She was an only child. Her only friend in the whole world was her little rocking horse…’

‘I don’t care
,
damn it!’ Kitch’s dad shouted. ‘Rocking horse or flying elephant, what does it have to do with us? Po da!’

Kitch’s mum stepped in. ‘And even worse, she is a
divorcee
.’ She seemed determined to harp on that theme. ‘What guarantee is there that she will not leave my son after two months?’

‘Aunty, Andy is a wonderful guy, but he is no saint. We can’t deny that. There is an element of chance in every marriage. Andy is young but in some ways, very mature. So is Rachel. They have given it a good deal of thought and seem to know what they are getting into. And they are both adamant that they will get married only with your blessings. As for the divorce, aunty, it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t leave him, he left her.’

‘Why? Maybe she was not a good wife.’

‘She was the perfect wife! But h-he was an alcoholic,’ I said, letting my imagination flow. I had no idea why Rachel had divorced. ‘For two years, the poor girl tried her best to help him. She even appointed a nurse and used up all her personal savings. But that man, that shameless beast! He… he ran away with the nurse.’

There was silence. I racked my brains for something positive to say. ‘Even Mina simply adores Rachel. And you know Peggy, our boss. She really likes her as well. She thinks she’s a good worker and a terrific human being.’

‘But Jai, please try and understand. She is almost
five
years older!’

‘So is Sachin Tendulkar’s wife!’ I replied promptly, grateful to Rachel for this point.

‘Sachin Tendulkar’s wife is not a British divorcee!’

‘And Andy is no Sachin Tendulkar either. So we’re quits! Besides, come on! It’s not fair to hold her age against her. There’s nothing she can do about being twenty-seven, just like Andy can’t do anything about being twenty-three.’ I could see that I was grinding them down with my remorseless reasoning. ‘But the important thing is they are both mature and very fond of each other. I’m sure they will go all out to make this a success. Look, uncle, aunty, you’ve known me for so long now. If I wasn’t so sure, I would not be pleading their case. Please give them a chance. Ask them to come here. That way you will know how well she will fit in. In fact, Rachel is almost Indian! She is friendly, respectful of elders, understanding and humble. And,’ I added, suddenly remembering something, ‘although Andy and Rach have known each other really well only this year, they actually met during Kitch’s wedding. Do you remember a lovely girl wearing Indian clothes at the wedding? The one with Peggy and me? That’s Rachel. You would remember her from the video. And I promise you this: their baby will be as beautiful as Olga!’

His mom said something to his dad in rapid Tamil. I was pretty sure it was about the video. Suddenly the sullen look disappeared from Dharini aunty’s face. I could tell Rachel had been noticed in the video
and
in a positive way. I could make out the words ‘red dress’.

‘Yes, yes!’ I said with enthusiasm. ‘Red and white. She looked very pretty. She really enjoyed Kitch’s wedding. She loves Indian weddings and Indian families.’

‘We will discuss again with you and Kitcha when he comes tomorrow, Jai,’ his dad said. ‘Then we will see. I am not promising anything.’

Kitch didn’t have to do much the next day except nod his head in approval. Watching a pretty Rachel enjoying herself at their son’s wedding seemed to have mollified his parents greatly. But Rachel would have to come to India for a final approval, they said.

That night, Kitch came over to my parents’ house for dinner. There was my father and mum, Kitty and Shree, Kitch and I. Kitty was gushing about her dance school and how well it was going. She had just opened a branch in Bangalore and started yoga classes in Chennai.

Kitch had been planning to go to Zambia the following month. ‘You go instead, Jai. Africa is not for me. The last time I went there, I got arrested for a visa-related problem. This time in Tanzania, I almost got arrested for molesting a woman.’

‘You
molested
a woman!’

‘I didn’t molest anyone! She came and grabbed me just outside the hotel. Then a policeman appeared out of nowhere and said he had to arrest me. I paid him off.’

I stared at him, aghast. This was obviously a ruse between the girl and the cop, a ploy to fleece unsuspecting tourists. It dawned on me that he might not even have been a cop. ‘How much did you pay?’ I asked.

‘Thirty thousand shillings.’

‘Thirty!’

‘Why? Is it too much?’

‘Well, the market rate for not molesting that girl,’ I told him, ‘is twenty thousand.’

14

Trapped Between Two Women

‘I
don’t know what today’s children are coming to,’ Sunny Singh told me in a low voice, nodding towards his son’s room. ‘My son Monty… he is going to prom night, so he wants to wear a new suit and go in a limousine. Arre, what nonsense is this! When I was his age, I was working as garage assistant during the day and as dhaba cleaner at night. After more than thirty years of hard work, today I own sixty trucks, twelve vans and five cars. But I have never been in a limousine. And this munda wants to start his life in a limousine, bloody hell! Any idea what they do at this prom-shrom, Jai? Is it a party?’

‘I think so. I’ve never had one myself. I believe it’s a farewell organized by the school, but Saxena’s son told me that the real party starts only after the formal school party, when the teachers leave.’

‘You mean there will be drinking-shinking, boy-girl everything?’

‘Something along those lines, yes.’

‘I have no faith in this new generation. Of course, with every generation, we have only made this planet worse. But at least in our time we worked hard. We valued things. We respected elders. But look at these gadhe. My father has been staying with us ever since we came to Dubai, as you know. But these two boys, they don’t even know what to talk to him about. They have nothing in common. And they don’t even know when he is talking to them because they are always wearing those damn earplugs.’

‘Headphones,’ I offered.

‘My other son is good at studies, but Monty is at the bottom of his class. He says the teacher is not good. I told him, oye duffer, it is the same teacher for everyone. Then why is it that only you come last? Behind all the other Indians and whites and Arabs? Damn shame!’

Meanwhile, the cause of shame waltzed across the room swaying to music and left the house. Sunny looked up and raised his hands in despair. ‘Okay, let’s forget all this. Let us talk about your Zambia trip. I have a customer there called Sartaj Singh. He is a sweet man, very godfearing. I supply auto spares to him. He wants to open an account with you. It will help me also, because every time I sell to him, he can just ask you to debit his account and credit mine. Transaction becomes ekdam simple.’

Kitch’s client was based in Chingola, a mining town. Sunny’s friend Sartaj Singh was in a place called Ndola. People pronounce it in various ways – Ndola, Undola, Andola, Endola, Dola. But apparently, the right way to pronounce it is exactly the way it is written. Very close to ‘dola’ but with just that touch of the letter N. It’s not easy but it comes with practice, unlike the ‘zh’ syllable in Tamil, where even practice rarely works. They say you have to be born a Tamil Brahmin.

Reaching Ndola was not easy. There was no direct flight from Dubai to Ndola or even to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. I had to go to Nairobi and then take the connecting flight to Lusaka. I spent the day at the Taj Pamodzi hotel, located on a road lined with trees of pretty jacaranda flowers – or so a hotel employee told me – and took an evening flight to Ndola.

It was the smallest aircraft I had ever been in. I needn’t have worried about getting an aisle seat, because I found that every seat in the plane was both an aisle seat
and
a window seat. Basically there were just single seats with the aisle running down the middle. Even at its peak altitude – which, I suspect, couldn’t be more than a thousand metres – I could see plants and trees on the ground below. I also discovered, to my discomfiture, that there was no toilet in the aircraft.

Kitch’s client drove down to the Ndola airport, which resembled the pavilion of a small, rundown cricket stadium. He told me he had brought all the forms with him and was ready to open the account. ‘Very difficult getting all signatures, Jai bhai,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe, it took me three whole months. Maara mota bhai, my elder brother, London ma che; his wife is in Australia with their son and my wife is in India for first baby. Finally I managed to get all four signatures. Oof! Bau mota kaam che, Jai bhai.Very big job.’

He needed a couple of hours with me to run through the mountain of product information that Kitch had supplied me with. We sat at a little café in town where I tucked into a burger and a sundae.

When I was done, I called Sartaj Singh, whose vocabulary seemed to be primarily limited to ‘thank you’. ‘Oh, thank you, ji, thank you, Jai ji, thank you for coming ji, shukar hai Rabba ki, thank you very much,’ he started and continued along similar lines. I gathered subsequently that he had got held up somewhere and if I could get his wife’s signature on a form, he would meet me at the airport closer to the flight’s departure to complete the forms. ‘My wife name Cynthia ji, thank you ji, Cynthia in Sartaj Auto Spares on Mkuma Street, thank you very much ji, thank you.’

I hailed a cab and was on my way. As soon as I entered Mkuma Street, I saw a building that had several shops on the ground floor. A modest sign on one of them read Sartaj Tyres. I stood at the counter and smiled at the plump Punjabi woman who was sitting inside, fiddling with the cash box.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Sartaj Singh?’ I asked.

She was. I briefly explained to her the purpose of my visit and she readily filled up the form and gave me a copy of both her and her husband’s passports. I was just about to put the papers in my folder when I noticed that her name on both the passport copy and on the form which she had filled was ‘Prakash’.

‘Is Cynthia your pet name?’ I asked. ‘Mr Singh referred to you as Cynthia.’

She glared at me. ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘I am not Cynthia. There is no need to go to that bitch! I am his one and only wife, you understand? Not that black chudail. Now go straight to the airport and get Sartaj’s signature and open the account. Go!’

I didn’t need to be told twice. I rushed out of the shop and clambered into the car. As soon as I was out of sight, I called Sartaj Singh. ‘Mr Singh, I got the signature but I am confused. I got it from your wife Prakash. Who is Cynthia?’

‘Oye!’ he wailed. ‘What have you done? I told you Sartaj Auto Spares ji, not Sartaj Tyres. Oye hoye, sirji! Hai Rabba! Now Jai ji, you please quickly go and get another form signed by Cynthia please, thank you ji. I have already told her you will be coming, I don’t want any problem, koi panga shanga na ho jaye sirji, Rabba na kare. Sorry ji,for this double trouble, thank you very much ji, thank you.’

Sartaj Auto Spares was at the other end of the street. I still wasn’t sure who Cynthia was – second wife, mistress, girlfriend, business partner? I didn’t know who to ask and how to ask. Cynthia appeared suddenly – she was short, black, ordinary to look at except for her bright red lipstick. She got down to business at once. ‘Where do I sign?’

After she had finished, she told me firmly, waggling her finger under my nose, ‘Mr Singh wants to open the account with
me
, understand? Not anyone else. He is very clear on that. There should not be any mistake. Are you going to the airport now?’

I put this form too in my folder and headed to the airport. I would just give him both forms and let him decide what to do. Sartaj Singh was waiting for me. ‘I don’t know how to thank you, sirji. I have already got accounts with Prakashji and I had promised Cynthia new account will be with her. Now I don’t know what to do with this other form, ji!’

Suddenly I heard a shrill voice right behind me, making me leap several inches in the air. ‘I will tell you what to do! Bloody man, what the hell do you think? You jolly well open account with your wife who has taken care of you all these years, whose father helped you start your first business. You swindler, scoundrel, scavenger!’ Prakash had entered the scene and was swinging her handbag at her husband.

Even before I had time to close my mouth, I heard Cynthia’s voice. ‘Stop this nonense! I am also his wife, younger and better! I have every right to open the account. How many more accounts will you open, you greedy witch?’

‘You! You dare call me witch!
You
are a witch! And you are a bitch! You steal my husband from me? I curse you! I put on you the curse of all my ancestors!’ She swung her handbag at her, but it slipped out of her hand and caught me on the solar plexus.

I picked it up and turned towards Mrs Singh. But bags meant nothing to her at this moment. To my shock, she grabbed her rival by the hair. She gave it a sharp tug, making Cynthia squeal and step down hard on Prakash’s toes with her high-heeled shoes. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Sartaj Singh, cowering in a corner.

‘Oww!’ Mrs Singh cried, hopping on one foot. ‘Ow, ow, ow! This woman is the devil himself. Did you find no other place to go to, you disgusting female? Could you find no man other than my husband to ensnare?’

Sartaj Singh took a tentative step in our direction, where all the action was taking place. ‘Oye, please ji, please stop it, thank you ji. What crime have I committed that my Rabba is punishing me like this in the middle of the airport? The confusion is utter. Please ji, both of you, I will tear up both the forms ji, but let us stop this tamasha. Jaiji, please can you give me both the papers… thank you so much ji,’ said Sartaj, as I pulled out the forms from my folder. He grabbed them from me and tore them forcefully into two. Then, with greater effort, he managed to rip them into four and after trying hard but failing to tear them into eight, he marched to the nearest dustbin and hurled them in.

‘Zambia Air to Lusaka, Zambia Air to Lusaka,’ a lady announced just then. Still in a daze, I picked up my small suitcase and slunk off towards the aircraft, hoping to leave unnoticed. ‘Thank you ji, sirji,’ shouted Sartaj Singh from behind me. ‘Thank you for coming. Please come again ji. God bless you ji, thank you very much!’

I found my seat, sat down and closed my eyes. Idiot, Sunny Singh. What a waste of a trip. But at least I had managed to get that one account for Kitch even if the other one ended in such tragic farce.

Suddenly a terrible thought struck me. With trembling hands, I opened my folder. My worst fears had come true. In my haste, I had inadvertently handed over all three account forms in my folder – including Kitch’s client’s – to Sartaj Singh for him to destroy. Almost as bad, my left hand was still holding Mrs Singh’s handbag.