Corporate Carnival (18 page)

‘
What!
Who? Why?’

‘Rachel’s mum. You see, there was some confusion. Both Rachel’s mum and her sister had decided to wear sarees, to get into the feel of things. Unfortunately, Andy couldn’t quite tell them apart.’

‘No! What happened? Do they look alike?’

‘Not really,’ said Kitch, ‘that’s the weird part. But of course, they are both British, around fifty and were wearing sarees.’

‘But what did the idiot
do
? Nothing untoward, I hope?’

‘No, no! Nothing like that. Only, he offered dessert to the aunt thrice and not even once to her mum. He thought her aunt was her mum.’

I mulled over this, trying to figure out the logic. ‘So, if he thought her aunt was her mum, how does that account for the third time?’ I asked. ‘It should have been two.’

‘What happened was this. He offered dessert – which, by the way, was carrot halwa with vanilla ice-cream – to Rachel’s aunt, who was very touched and thanked him profusely. Seeing the opportunity to score a brownie point with his future mother-in-law, he decided to serve
her
as well, only, he offered it to the aunt again by mistake. She was a little taken aback and pointed out to him that she had just finished what he had given her. So Andy backed off and decided to leave it at that. But a little while later, he says he felt absolutely certain that the lady who had just come into the room was Rachel’s mum, so he heaped halwa on a plate and gave it to her with a charming smile. But it turned out to be the aunt again. This time she neighed like a frightened horse and ran away. Her mum was a bit pissed off, I believe. But there was no harm done. Rachel told her he didn’t mean to ignore her and it was just a joke. She couldn’t exactly tell her the truth.’

‘But Kitch! We can’t just let this be. I mean, the poor fellow may be having a disease… well, not a disease maybe, but some sort of condition. Remember when he mixed up those two sisters?’

‘Relax, it’s okay, Jai. You get too uptight over these little things. Maybe he has a little problem telling foreign women apart. Most fifty-year-old British women look alike anyway. It’s okay!’

‘It’s
not
okay, Kitch. And it’s not a
little
problem not being able to tell foreign women apart,’ I told him sternly, ‘especially when the bugger is about to marry one.’

16

Till Death Do Us Part

T
he flight which was to have arrived the previous night finally landed in Chennai at about 8 a.m. on the day of the wedding. There had been a technical snag with the aircraft. The muhurtham was between nine and ten-thirty. We would be just in time, if we were lucky. It would be a shame if we were late because Harry was looking forward to savouring every bit of the ceremony. He had never been east of Dubai and his knowledge of India was limited to the Taj Mahal and stories that his grandfather had told him in his childhood. It was just Harry and me, because the others had taken an earlier flight.

I was fidgety from the moment the flight landed. I didn’t want to be late for the most important part of the wedding. You could attend a Gujarati wedding in London or Kenya and still not know the exact moment when the bride and groom got married. In Tamil weddings it’s not like that. It’s a major event. The close relatives cluster on the stage to demonstrate their standing in the scheme of things; the not-so-close ones also try to clamber on in order to appear in the video. The bride sits in her father’s lap, and the groom gets up from his cross-legged position, stands up and braces himself. The head priest swells with importance and signals to a group of musicians; the relatives shout out ‘Gettimelam, gettimelam’ upon which the nadaswaram players and the drummers go into a frenzy and reach a crescendo, ostensibly to drown out any negative remark or sound that may involuntarily emanate from anyone in the vicinity at the critical moment. At this point, the groom ties the all important ‘thaali’ – the Tamil word for a sacred chain used in weddings, not to be confused with the Hindi or Gujarati food thaali – around the bride’s neck. The parents shed tears of joy, the groom looks bemused, the bride looks coy and then the two are man and wife. A few more customary procedures and there they are, permitted to take a brief break from the proceedings in order to receive blessings and gifts from elders and friends before going through with the rest of the rituals.

Harry, ever since he had received Andy and Rachel’s wedding invitation, had been bitten by ‘Indianitis’. Suddenly all the interest in India that normally should have been dispersed over two or three decades surfaced in a rush. In the last few weeks, he read whatever books on India he could get his hands on. He read
City of Joy
, he read a book on the history of textiles in India, he read
The God of Small Things
.

From the moment we walked into the airport, he was The Excited Tourist. His eyes darted here and there, taking in everything eagerly. He saw a large wooden statue of Ganesha and rushed towards it. ‘That’s Lord Ganesha, the elephant god!’ he exclaimed, impressing himself with his knowledge even as I rushed to the customs counter, beckoning him to follow. On the way, Harry kept pointing to statues of goddesses that were kept at different points in the airport and asking me who they were.

‘I don’t know!’ I said after a cursory look. ‘We have hundreds of goddesses. C’mon, Harry!’

Harry came trotting behind me, reluctantly dragging himself away from a statue. ‘I want to understand India in its entirety,’ he said, a little petulantly, ‘the
quintessential
India.’

‘Hang on till the wedding is over, Harry,’ I panted, pulling my suitcase behind me. ‘We have less than an hour to reach Royapettah. You can understand your quintessential India at leisure after that.’

The customs officer took a fancy to Harry for some reason, and asked him to open his suitcase. It was filled with several jars of Marmite, cans of baked beans and a few dozen toilet-paper rolls. The officer blinked a couple of times. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘It’s toilet paper,’ Harry replied. ‘You see, I… umm… er… ah,’ he concluded.

The officer stared at the suitcase and then at Harry with a nasty gleam in his eye. ‘You may also have been told that we shit in the streets,’ he said. ‘Why have you not brought bathroom? And what are all these tins?’

‘That, well, you see, it’s my first visit to India and I wasn’t sure about…’

The officer turned to me and spoke in rapid Tamil, which I mostly understood: ‘Your white friend must be expecting an elephant outside the airport to take him to the hotel. Tell him to do an Indian rope trick and climb the elephant.’ He walked off in a bit of a huff.

‘Wow! That bloke was intimidating, Jack. What was all that about? Did he say something about the Indian rope trick? Do I get to see it around here?’

‘Harry, stop talking! Run!’

Half an hour later, we were doing reasonably well for time but moving in fits and starts; for a few metres, our driver would race ahead, stop suddenly with a back-jolting jerk just in front of an unmarked speed breaker, pick up speed and then come to a screeching, heart-numbing halt within a millimetre of the car in front. At all times, we were – to Harry’s extreme discomfiture – within touching distance of vehicles on both sides.

‘Is there a problem, Jack? Or is this regular traffic?’

‘Oh, just routine stuff, Harry.’ I looked at my watch. We would probably make it with ten minutes to spare. By my reckoning, we were just three kilometres away from the wedding hall. ‘We’re doing okay now, Harry. We’ll get there in time.’

‘Phew!’ he said. ‘This is some ride; it’s scarier than a roller coaster.’ He looked back nervously. ‘Why are they honking at us, Jack?’

‘They’re not honking at us, they’re just honking. It’s therapeutic. It releases frustration. Relax, Harry, and take a deep breath. You are in the land that discovered yoga.’

Harry took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with dust and carbon dioxide, and promptly choked. ‘I say! Will I… cough… will I have time to wear my Indian costume?’

The phone rang. It was Kitch.

‘Jai! Where are you?
Where?
Okay, now listen! There’s a problem. We’ve forgotten the thaali! The wedding can’t happen without it. We realized after we came here in the morning and called our maid to bring it, but that mandu idiot girl hasn’t come yet. And she’s not answering the phone. Do me a favour, da. Rush home and bring the damn thing. Do you know the way from where you are?’

‘Sort of, Kitch. I think we are near the end of Chamiers Road now… Tell you what, Kitch, you talk to Harry, I’ll guide the driver.
Driver!
Turn right here, right,
right,
mere bhai,
right turn
!’ I turned to Harry and explained as best as I could, ‘They’ve left something at home. They can’t get married without it. We need to pick it up. Here, talk to Kitch.’

Harry took the phone and I tried to figure out the best way to reach Kitch’s place when approaching it from the wrong side; I had only been to his place from my house. Kitch appeared to have asked Harry to describe the scenes outside the window, so he could follow our progress. ‘I can see a tree,’ Harry was saying. ‘More trees… there are some people sitting on the pavement, apartment blocks, lots of people walking on the road, there’s a poster of an elderly, bald gentleman wearing dark glasses, more posters of him and even more post… what? Okay, okay, no need to get cross, Kitch! Now I see lots of yellow auto-rickshaws, cycles, bikes… cars, whoa! Blimey! What was that? A pothole? Heavens, Jai, I thought we had fallen into a ditch. I say, Kitch, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly remarkable… we’re just going down a road… Oh, there’s something that looks like a hotel. I beg your pardon? Yes, it’s Sheraton… okay. Jai! Ask him not to turn left. Straight ahead, Jai! Straight!’

We covered another few hundred metres. ‘There’s a restaurant on the right,’ said Harry, continuing his monologue, ‘and there’s a huge pit, they’re digging up the road.’

‘Can you put him on speaker, Harry?’ I butted in. ‘I think we’re pretty close.’

‘What, Kitch? A big cow? Yes, yes, I can see it. Left turn here, Jai. I say, Kitch! Listen! There’s no road to the left. The cow is crossing the road now… it’s going towards…’

‘Not a
real
cow, dumbo!’ Kitch’s exasperated voice boomed over the speaker. ‘A picture of a cow on a billboard.’

‘There!’ I pointed some hundred metres ahead.

‘Oh, okay. That’s the one then! Left turn here, er… left… What’s your name, sir? What-is-your-name?’

‘Kulandaivelu, saar,’ said the driver.

‘Umm… okay,’ Harry acknowledged, slightly flummoxed. ‘Now, turn left at the signal just ahead, sir!’

‘Not allowed, saar. Only going right here. No left, no straight. Right going only.’

‘NO!’ Kitch bellowed, his voice loud and clear over the speaker. ‘I don’t care! There’s no time to take the diversion. If there’s no policeman, turn left. Jai! Harry! Turn left! Driver! Left turn eduppa!’

^^^

The cabbie needed no further persuasion. He had heard the voice of authority. He swerved left and then was directed right and left again down Subramaniyan Street, into Abhimarapuram 1st Main Road, stopping at Kitch’s bungalow on the left. The familiar sound of screaming schoolkids threatened to burst our eardrums. Bidding the driver to wait, Harry and I leapt out and rang the bell. There was no response.

At the other end of the line, Kitch was joined by his parents. ‘Bang on the door,’ his father exhorted us.
‘Break it down!’

‘Aunty, can’t we just buy another thaali?’ I suggested.

‘No!’ his mother shrieked. ‘That is the one for which we have done puja this morning in front of the deities. If you can’t get that one, there will be no wedding, that is for sure! This may be a bad omen!’

Harry had disappeared behind the house. He resurfaced suddenly.

‘Harry!’ I said, placing my palm over the phone. ‘Kitch’s mum says they’ll stop the wedding if we don’t retrieve the thaali! Rachel will be devastated!’ I rang the bell again. ‘I think there’s no power. I can’t hear any ringing.’

‘That can’t be,’ Harry surmised in his typically clinical manner. His initial feelings of apprehension and nervousness seemed to have abated and he was getting into the thick of the action. ‘From the backyard, I could see an open door on the balcony of the first floor. There’s a fan running.’

‘That’s another electric phase,’ shouted Kitch. ‘She
must
be there. Can you go back there and shout for her?’

We rushed behind the house. Standing below the balcony, my lungs ready, I suddenly realized I didn’t know what to shout.

‘What’s her name?’ I asked Kitch.

‘I don’t know!’ he replied. ‘Can’t remember right now.’

‘Ask your mother.’

‘They are all very busy on the stage with the priests and everything. I can’t ask anyone now. Just shout, guys. Shout anything!’

Harry and I exchanged a look.

‘Hello!’ I shouted. ‘Suniye!’

‘Excuse me, miss!’ shouted Harry. ‘Are you there?’

Kitch’s voice sounded again. ‘I think her name is either Damini or Dhanalakshmi. I have a feeling it starts with D and ends with I.’

‘Damini!’ I yelled.

‘Dammy-nay!’ Harry shouted. ‘
Dammy-nay!
’

‘Dhanalakshmi!’ I shouted.

‘I say!’ said Harry. ‘I don’t think I could do that one very well, Jack! I think I’ll stick to the first name. What was it now…. Danny-may! Danny-may!’

‘Actually, it’s neither of those,’ said Kitch, sounding excited. ‘I remember now. It’s Damayanti!’

‘Jesus!’ Harry exclaimed. ‘How do you spell that, Kitch?’

‘Screw the spelling, damn it!’ Kitch’s agitated voice reverberated on the phone. ‘Shout, man! Just shout!’

Harry and I looked at each other wildly and then at the balcony above us.

‘Damayanti!’ I screamed. ‘Damayanti! Damayantee-ee! This is not getting us anywhere, Harry. Harry? Where are you?’

Harry might be in a strange land, full of strange happenings, but he was no poltroon. He had his head screwed on right and he was fit and strong. His grandfather had been in the British Navy and he himself had boxed two years for Oxford. ‘I’m up here,’ he shouted. Leaving my phone on the grass, he had shinned up a water pipe that led almost up to the balcony.

‘Harry, that’s fantastic, dude. Way to go!’ I cheered.

He showed me a thumbs up sign and braced himself for the final assault. Suddenly something hit the wall. ‘Ow!’ cried Harry. Something else hit Harry on the ear. I picked it up. It was a sharp pencil. Then there was another, then an eraser, followed by the core of an apple.

‘Ow! I say! Stop it, you guys!’ Harry shouted, waving at something behind me. I turned around. It was the schoolkids! They had all gathered by the wall and looked mutinous. Angered by the fact that someone was trying to enter their beloved Andy uncle’s house by stealth, they had decided to take matters into their own hands. Those little hands were working fast and furiously now. Pencils, erasers, pebbles, tiffin boxes, leftovers, books… anything they could lay their hands on, they were bent on hurling over the wall at Harry.

An intruder at their benefactor’s house, and a white man at that! Over sixty years of freedom and now this! With one desperate leap, Harry jumped onto the balcony and disappeared from sight. This gave fresh impetus to the rebellion next door. It spilled over, like the champagne in Mina’s milk during our Austria trip. Several kids, some of them armed with rulers, sticks and stones, jumped over the wall and rushed towards me. If they couldn’t get the criminal, they would settle for his accomplice. I did the only thing I could. Abandoning all thoughts of Harry, Kitch, Rachel and Andy, I stooped down, grabbed my phone, turned on my heel and fled. Leaping into the cab, I shouted, ‘Go!’

‘Where, saar?’ Kulandaivelu asked.

‘Anywhere!’ I shouted. ‘Just go! Go!’

The driver, meanwhile, spied the pint-sized uniformed revolutionaries and, looking horrified, stepped on the pedal. With a roar and a puff of dust, the car raced down the street.

My phone rang again. I didn’t even realize the line had got cut. But it wasn’t Kitch calling back as I had expected. It was Harry.

‘Jack,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘Th-this lady, this… this maid girl… I think she is dead.’