Corporate Carnival (20 page)

The next morning, we discovered that, thanks to the musician’s presence, the wedding ceremony had been covered by two Tamil dailies and one English paper. The English paper carried a small two-column news item under the heading ‘Brit’s timely entry unites hearts’. The Tamil papers devoted a lot more space to the wedding. One of them had a half-page article with a title that read ‘Tsunami hero gets married in dramatic style’. It included pictures of Andy, Rachel, the schoolkids and Shankar Mahadevan. The other one, a tabloid, screamed in bold print across two pages: ‘White man ensures no delay in Chennai boy’s first night with white woman’.

That night, Peggy, Harry, Rachel, Kitch, Ravi, Andy, Mina, Galiya and I were relaxing by a hotel pool and sipping cold long drinks. I could see that Rachel was still recovering from the rigours of a full-blown Tamil wedding.

‘Mrs Rachel Anand Iyer!’ I teased. ‘Aren’t you looking a little too sexy for a newlywed Tam-Bram bride? Is your husband refusing to buy you clothes?’

‘My young horse will refuse me nothing, Mr Patel!’ she replied. ‘But I spent three hours in front of the wedding fire. I feel more like a piece of meat than anything human. I don’t think I will wear regular clothes again for a long time. Just lotions and some bare essentials.’

I looked at Harry, who was glugging down pint after pint with single-minded focus. ‘Speaking of essentials, Harry,’ I said, grinning at him, ‘now that all this is over, you are free to go about understanding the quintessential India.’

He looked me straight in the eye and twitched his lip, in an action that passes off for a smile among Brits. ‘I have a suspicion that I already have, Jack,’ he said drily.

‘I have some good news,’ announced Kitch’s cousin Ravi, who had just finished answering a phone call. ‘Mary is back home.’

‘Who’s Mary?’ Kitch asked.

‘The maid. The one who disappeared. It seems she had just wanted to rest for a few minutes and fell asleep. When she woke up she got so scared she ran away to a relative’s house. She came back today, full of apologies.’

Distracting Harry from his drink is not easy. But it happened now.

‘Did you say her name was Mary?’ asked Harry. ‘Not something starting with D?’

‘No, I’m quite sure it’s Mary.’

Harry looked at me and then at Kitch. Kitch grinned sheepishly. He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands helplessly. ‘I don’t know why I felt so certain it started with D. Maybe that was the previous maid,’ he said with a laugh.

Harry glared at him. He had suffered much. He did not seem to think his newfound newspaper celebrity status compensated for what he had gone through. ‘Asshole!’ he growled.

After the wedding celebrations, we split ways. The newlyweds went to Bhutan for reasons best known to them. Perhaps they wanted spirituality or maybe they wanted to ferret out the secret to the country’s high level of ‘Gross Domestic Happiness’. A rather worried Peggy returned to Dubai. The new management had apparently not been very receptive to her suggestions for the business. Kitch’s cousin Ravi was spearheading some sort of social movement in India. He had even got offers to join a political party. Harry went off to see the Taj Mahal.

Peggy had told Kitch and me to remain in India, take a few days off and then go straight to Udaipur for the off-site.

‘Peggy, surely we are not that strapped for cash!’ I had said, rather surprised. After all, AdAb was still a strong and widely respected bank.

‘No, it’s not just that, Jack. There is something brewing… something I’m working on. I will be back in Chennai in three days. I want to meet you and Kitch here and then we can go to Udaipur together.’

It was rather odd, but I was happy to leave it to her to sort things out. We took advantage of it by pushing off to a ‘green’ resort near Bangalore – Kitch, Galiya, Mina and I. Mina is a sucker for anything green. We had met this chap who had started an eco-friendly place just outside Bangalore. He told Mina about his earth-saving project and Mina promptly arranged for us to be cut off from civilization for a couple of days. During this time, we would detox – probably by being fed wheat grass and aloe vera – before heading to Udaipur and Dubai and retoxing. The plan suited Kitch because he had an appointment with his godman prospect client near Agumbe in Karnataka. He would probably be able to drive there from Bangalore.

Anyway, there we were in a clean, bright but rather sparse room. It had nice French windows on which an earthworm was slowly making its way up. I wondered if this was part of the deal. I am not a reptile-friendly person. Outside, there were patches of brown and green; trees, bushes and grass punctuated by mounds of earth or bare sand. It was obvious from our drive up that we were at least ten miles away from civilization.

I went to have a wash, but couldn’t find the bathroom. A minute later I found it, outside the room. It was one of those open bathrooms, with a stone floor and a shower in the middle, covered by foliage on all sides and the open skies above. You could shower and smile cheerily at the birds flying above you… that kind of stuff. Again, not my thing.

‘How divine!’ Mina gushed. She is one of those nature freaks. Her idea of fun and relaxation is to watch a bird dip its beak into her cucumber juice or have a worm climb up her leg while she is sipping her tea.

I maintained a silence as stony as the bathroom floor as I surveyed the place. Unable to find any towels or soap, I called reception and discovered that these had to be bought separately – dull-looking, rather expensive towels made of organic cotton and other indigenous material, and some rock-like soap certified to be handmade in an eco-friendly manner by residents of the nearby village. They had no shampoo.

Mina had managed to infect Galiya with her enthusiasm and the two of them prepared to leave almost immediately on a trek to Hasiru Gudi to watch tribals weave mats from coconut tree leaves, but Kitch wormed his way out of it. I had a genuine reason for not joining them: I was nursing a bad sprain. While showering, in a bid to take my mind off the slightly disconcerting fact that I was practically out in the open in the nude, I had chosen to sing. I was singing Shankar Mahadevan’s ‘Rind posh maal’ from
Mission Kashmir
, an old favourite, and had just reached the high-pitched finale which needed every ounce of concentration, when a smallish winged creature decided to join me both in song and shower. Hurtling itself in my direction with a buzzing sound, it latched itself uninvited to my chest.

For a moment I did nothing. I could have been a sculpture in stone. Then I half-yelled half-screamed and went through a series of motions – some intended, some not – calculated to scare, shake or push the creature off me. One of the unintended actions – and the only one that actually succeeded – was to slip on a slightly mossy piece of stone and crash to the floor, wrenching my knee painfully in the process. Stopping both song and shower that instant, I limped back to the room, leaving behind the winged devil and my peace of mind.

The girls were back in time for lunch, armed with handwoven mats and baskets. At the restaurant, we were given a choice between liquid, raw and mixed food. We chose the mixed. It wasn’t too bad. There was a sprout-and-bean salad and a salad with lettuce and tomatoes. There was soup, boiled potatoes, chapattis made of soyabean and whole wheat, some vegetables from their garden and a dessert made with coconut milk.

Over the course of the meal, a lady came around with a notepad, asking if we would like to ‘sleep under the stars’. Mina promptly signed up for all four of us. So, that night, we were put up at a camp nearby, where someone gave us a short astronomy class, mostly with reference to stars that should have been there rather than stars that were there – it was a cloudy night.

We lay down, talking of this and that. I gave my knee a good rub with some oil that the hotel manager had produced, made no doubt from organic seeds. The hotel had provided sleeping bags which had been spread on the grass. It was a quiet night, bereft of breeze. Leaves on trees in the distance moved very slightly. Closer to us, the clumpy bushes were still, like they were carved out of rock.

‘This is it,’ said Mina blissfully, looking at the starless sky. ‘Just the way nature intended it to be.’

The rest of us remained quiet.

‘What was that?’ asked Galiya after a while.

‘What?’ I asked, alert at once.

‘Something just rushed past me.’

‘It must be a leaf or something,’ said Mina.

‘I-it was not a leaf. It went near Jack’s head. It had eyes.’

I sprang up like a horizontal jack-in-the-box. ‘W-w-wazizard?’

‘What?’ Galiya asked.

‘W-was it a lizard?’

‘Of course not,’ said Mina quickly. ‘Jai, it was probably just some baby insect. It won’t harm us.’

‘I’m scared too, like Jack,’ Galiya mumbled.

‘I’m not
scared
,’ I protested. ‘I just don’t like creepy-crawlies. Most people don’t. What’s wrong with that? And I’m not so sure about this idea of sleeping under the stars,’ I went on. ‘There are no stars in the first place.’

‘Jai, please try not to make a fuss. You’re behaving like your cousin Dolly. This is all part of nature. It is one big system – plants, animals, birds, insects and us. We have to…’

Something went plop on Kitch’s bed and hopped away. I leapt up, painfully wrenching my knee all over again.

‘I’m going to the room,’ I said in a voice filled with self-pity and pain. ‘Sleeping under the stars is one thing. But sleeping with lizards and frogs is quite another.’ I hobbled away purposefully, not even turning to look behind me. I could hear them getting up and scrambling, one by one.

The next day, we returned to Bangalore and stayed there while Kitch drove off for his tryst with the godman.

‘You don’t have to take any forms with you,’ I told him. ‘He can just snap his fingers and make his account appear in Geneva.’

‘Along with a few million dollars,’ Kitch said optimistically. ‘Still, I’ll take a few forms along. I might meet some rich disciples; guys with money that now means nothing to them. They might open an account, or even better, just give it all to me.’

So while I went to see a doctor, Kitch went to meet Putla Baba.

While I was at the doctor’s clinic, Kitch called. ‘Jai, this is some place. This is real nature. It’s raining like crazy and there is greenery everywhere. It’s almost bursting with vegetation. I have stopped for lunch now. The ashram is an hour away from here, in the middle of a jungle!’

‘Enjoy!’ I said. ‘Ask the guy to drive carefully. The ghat roads can get slippery when it rains.’

‘So what is the problem?’ the doctor asked me.

‘I have sprained my right knee,’ I told him. ‘It hurts a lot if I turn it left.’

He grabbed my right knee and promptly turned it left, making me cry out. He smiled and nodded his head. He seemed satisfied.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It seems to be a sprain. Let us take an x-ray anyway.’

‘Jai!’ Kitch called again. ‘It’s a weird place, this. They have statues all over the place – putlas. That’s why they call him Putla Baba. They have kept me waiting in a large room. The guy who left me here said, once Baba decides to meet someone he leaves them in this room, and they have to stay here even if it takes days or weeks for Baba to meet them. I’m feeling a little uncomfortable about all this. Also, there are some devotees in the next room doing a weird slow dance followed by a frenzied shimmy. I saw them through a gap in the window. They are wearing nothing on top.’

‘That’s not so uncommon with these devotees, Kitch, you should know.’

‘These are women.’

‘Oh, wow!’

‘Not so wow in a place like this, Jai. It just adds to the weirdness. I can’t quite explain it. Shhh! Someone’s just come. Call you later.’

I went to the radiologist. It was a long wait. There was a sign outside that said ‘Suspicious pregnant women please tell doctor about x-ray’. I had a vision of a room filled with women, their bellies protruding, eyes darting here and there, casting suspicion on each other and furtively whispering to the doctor.

‘Stand very still and turn your right knee to the left,’ the x-ray chap advised me when my turn came.

‘I can’t do that,’ I told him. ‘If I could, I wouldn’t be here.’

‘If you don’t do it, the x-ray will not serve the purpose,’ he said sternly.

I finally consented and went through the painful process of twisting a twisted knee and standing in that position for several seconds as I waited for the chap to click. When I went back to the doctor, he placed the x-ray against a bright light and declared that it was a sprain.

‘Take these tablets for a few days and apply this ointment. Lots of rest.’

When I came out of the doctor’s office, I realized that Kitch had called me thrice. Hurriedly, I rang him.

‘I’ve escaped!’ he gasped. ‘Thank god! The guy who came in was the tea boy. I asked him about all those statues of strange people and he told me they were statues of people whom Baba doesn’t like. He said Baba has the power to turn anyone into a putla! I just ran for my life. I’m in the car now. Hogi, ree!’ I heard him telling the driver. ‘Bayga bayga hogi!’

I turned to the cute receptionist at the clinic. ‘What is “bayga bayga hogi” in Kannada?’ I asked.

She thought for a moment. ‘It means “Drive like crazy”.’

18

The Damocles Sword Dangles

W
e had a day to spare in Bangalore after Kitch got back. Meanwhile, Peggy, after stopping in Mumbai for a day, was already in Chennai. She called to ask if she could meet up with our parents, so Kitch and I arranged it. I was a little surprised, though. I would have thought she’d wait for us to return. It made me all the more certain that something was cooking. We were on the verge of completing one full year at the bank. Just a year, though it felt longer. I think we had managed to pack quite a bit into it.

While we were in Bangalore, Kitch and I had the idea of starting a restaurant there. I came up with a concept that Kitch and Mina just loved. We’d call it K2K: Kashmir to Kanyakumari. We would serve one or two delicacies from each Indian state, rather than just focus on one type of cuisine. They thought it was a unique idea.

‘Frankly, Jai,’ Kitch said, ‘I wouldn’t be terribly upset if something was up at AdAb. I kind of miss the restaurant business. On the other hand, it’s so much fun being together and working together. If we could find a way to handle the restaurant business together, I’d love it.’

We spent that evening checking out a few pubs and a restaurant or two. Bangalore has many pubs catering to – in complete contrast to Chennai – a thriving pub culture. ‘In Chennai, people seem to drink either at restaurants in five-stars or in the streets or slums. There’s not much in between,’ said Kitch. ‘If only we could get a licence to start a pub or two in Chennai, I’m sure we could make a roaring success of it. Can you think of some sexy name, Jai?’

‘You can call it Sam Bar,’ Mina laughed. ‘You know, like
sambar
! You might attract both the drinkers and the idli eaters.’

Kitch was delighted. ‘It is the perfect name for a Chennai pub!’ he exclaimed. ‘Sam Bar! Wow!’

‘I want to start a non-vegetarian place, guys,’ said Galiya. ‘We need to cater to all tastes, right, Jack?’

‘Right, Gal. We need to make both ends
meat
. Hey, how about this for a name:
Meating Point
. M-e-a-ting Point. Isn’t that cool?’

‘Meating Point! Good one, Jack.’

‘And we can do the e-a-t part of the name in a different colour! So we sort of cover everything. Eat, meat and a place to meet!’ I said, feeling rather pleased with myself.

‘The youth market is where the big margins are made,’ Kitch said. ‘Either they have money to throw or they behave as if they do. Either way, it’s good for us. What attracts the youth, the late teens and early twenties? What do they want? What sells?’

‘Well, we can’t put that there,’ said Mina. ‘Sex and violence in a restaurant would be illegal!’

‘I know!’ I shouted. ‘We can have music like we had at Armani!’

The others looked at me sceptically. ‘And you think that’s what our young people are screaming for?’

‘No, don’t you remember?’ I said excitedly. ‘That client party at Armani! There was a lady on the violin and a guy on the saxophone. We can get two musicians like that and name the restaurant “Sax and Violins”! That will bring in the youth in the thousands!’

‘Idiot!’ said Mina with a laugh.

‘And when the youth find out what the restaurant is really about, they’ll have it burned down in two minutes,’ said Kitch.

By the time we got to Chennai, Peggy was already there. She had already met with both our families and had a long chat both with my dad and Kitch’s. Kitty told us Peggy took her and Shree out for dinner and seemed most interested in her dance school and other plans.

That night Kitch and I met Peggy in her hotel room. Over the next hour, things became clear. A lot had been happening in the background. How little we knew about it, so immersed were we in our own worlds. We had been so focussed on Pedro, godmen, Sunny and all the rest of them that we had completely missed the bigger picture. Peggy filled us in on a lot of murky details and summed it up, saying, ‘Is our future bright? I think so. Is our future here? I don’t think so. As far as AdAb goes, things ain’t looking good.’

Kitch and I looked at each other. He shook his head and smiled wryly. What an institution! Or was this what most large corporations were like? Where ego ruled the roost, loyalties meant more than competence and manipulation superseded strategy. Where long-term benefits were sacrificed at the altar of short-term fixes and clients were mere pawns in the scheme of things.

‘When you go to Udaipur, Jai beta,’ my mum said, ‘make sure you visit Nathdwara and Virpur. You need the Lord’s blessings always, not just when you are in trouble.’ Little did she know trouble was already brewing.

Twenty-four hours later, we were warmly welcomed by the uniformed and turbaned hotel staff and escorted to a boat that would take us to the hotel in the middle of a lake. The hotel itself was a splendid structure in the style of palaces of yore. The pristine lake, the sprawling green lawns, the atmosphere… it is difficult to describe in a few words, but it was, in short, quite magnificent. I made it a mental note to bring Mina here some day.

We stopped at the reception and then I headed to my room; a delightful one – big, done up in pretty colours, beautiful in all respects, except one. Ahmed. Damn! I had forgotten about this business of sharing rooms.

‘Oye tiger! Kya haal hai? I was waiting for you,’ he said.

I eyed him warily.

‘I don’t know how much you know about this, Jai, but finally things are taking shape in this bank. My contribution and experience are being recognized. You must have heard of my 200 million dollar account. Bank ko hila diya hai. I have shaken up the place. Now they want to make me head of the entire business. Your Peggy will have to find some other job soon, bhaisaab. She has personally brought in ten accounts for just 150 million. And I have a single account for more than that. See the difference in class, yaar. I have been told to build the team. I hope you will act sensibly and stay on my side. You’re a good guy.’

I looked at him.

He smirked. ‘And that finance fellow, Nathan, kambakht! We have taught him a lesson. He used to take a cut from hotels to put them on our approved list. We have caught him red-handed, Jan, Peter and I. Benaqaab kar diya usko, hamne. Bloody thief! Now that bastard will realize that he should not have played around with me.’ He struck a flamboyant pose, swaggered and blew a kiss, slowly and deliberately, with his index finger. ‘Nallavanukku nallavan,’ he said.

I started. That sounded like Tamil.

‘Kettavanukku kettavan,’ he continued with a toss of his head and a nonchalant wave of his hand. Then he contorted his mouth, rolled his eyes upward, waggled his finger at me and snarled, ‘Dushta nai ku yaman!’

For a moment I forgot all about AdAb. ‘W-wha…?’ I gasped. ‘Who taught you that!’

He grinned. ‘Your friend Kitch,’ he said. ‘We saw a Tamil movie together once. The hero keeps repeating these lines and shoots a villain each time he says it. I learnt it from there!’

‘Any idea what “dushta” means?’ I asked, a little hesitantly. It felt weird asking a Pakistani the meaning of a Tamil word. But I was curious. That scene outside Kitch’s house with Kulandaivelu was still fresh in my mind.

‘Evil,’ he responded promptly. ‘“Dushta nai” means “evil dog”. The whole thing means, I am good with good guys and bad with bad guys. And with evil dogs, I’m the God of Death. Tit for tat. Nathan was an evil dog. I screwed him.’

Evil dog!
That driver Kulandaivelu had called me an evil dog! I remained silent, pondering over it and the scenes that followed.

‘Listen, hero,’ said Ahmed. ‘I’m telling you now. You come over to my side. Your Peggy has no role in this bank. Khel badal gaya hai, janaab. Peter and Jan are very strong with the new chairman. It’s a different ball game. Peggy will be finished, take it from me. You and Kitch work under me and I will give you a grade jump. Kya khayal hai?’

‘Thanks, but no, Ahmed. I’m comfortable with Peggy. She’s been a good boss. I think I’ll stay where I am.’

‘Ey, hero, don’t talk like a fool. I’m telling you that woman is history. There is going to be a major change. Most of the Brits and Americans will be thrown out. I’m giving you a chance. If you don’t take it, there is no future for you. If you mess with me, you will be finished, I’m telling you.’

I shook my head.

‘That American bitch will let you down,’ he shouted. ‘Americans are like that. I know them! They are nobody’s friend. First they will screw you, then they will help you and make you pay for their help.’

‘No, Ahmed, we’re a team. I’m not going anywhere.’

He glared at me. ‘You’re a c
oward
!’ he said, with all the emphasis at his disposal. ‘That’s why you are not standing up for yourself like a man. We are from the same subcontinent. Instead of sticking together, you’re just running behind that bitch! Why are you doing this? You want long legs, I can arrange. Any nationality, just tell me.’

‘Maybe I
am
a dushta nai,’ I told him. ‘That’s why I’m running behind a bitch.’

‘Fuck you, yaar,’ he said, more resigned than angry. ‘I had promised Peter I would get your support. But if you won’t come…’ He shrugged his shoulders. Suddenly he got up. ‘I’m going to try and find some night spots in this place,’ he said. ‘Do you know where to go?’

I shook my head again.

‘Yaar, what kind of a man are you? ’ he asked me. ‘You don’t know the hot spots in your own country. Useless!’

I decided to spend my evening visiting the Srinathji temple at Nathdwara. When I got back at night, there was no sign of Ahmed. I must have dozed off the moment my head touched the pillow. It had been several days since I had slept my full quota of seven-to-eight hours.

I woke up late the next day to the sound of vigorous splashing and the tune (or rather, the lack of it) of a recent Bollywood hit. Turning on my side, I saw Ahmed in the nude, in the shower. In my dazed state, I stared and blinked for a few seconds, trying to make sense of this weird dream. Then I realized, to my horror, that the bathroom had only a glass partition from the room. Quickly, I turned to the other side and pretended to be asleep, still reeling from this early morning shock. Perhaps this was some kind of honeymoon suite, I told myself. When it was my turn to shower, half an hour later, I hesitated outside the bathroom.

‘Arre yaar, don’t worry. I may be a pathan but I am only interested in women. So carry on guru, ho ja shuru.’