The Accidental Apprentice (3 page)

It is another matter that his knowledge of machines extends only to tractors and tube wells. He has never seen a microwave oven in his life, and thinks the LG, 15-kg, top-loading washer is an ingenious device for churning lassi! He also wants to bargain with me for the price of things. I try to explain to him that all items in the showroom have a fixed price, but he refuses to accept it.

‘
Dekh chhori.
Look here, girl,' he drawls in his homespun vernacular. ‘We have a saying in our Haryana. However stubborn a goat may be, in the end it has to yield milk.'

He is so insistent that eventually I have to prevail upon the manager to offer him a 5 per cent discount, and he ends up buying a truckload worth of goods, including a 42-inch plasma TV, a three-door fridge, a washing machine, a DVD player and a music system. The other salesgirls look on in hushed awe as he pulls out a thick wad of thousand-rupee notes to pay for his buying spree. Their country bumpkin has turned out to be a shopaholic baron. And I have notched up yet another sales record!

The rest of the day passes in a blur. I leave the showroom as usual at 8.15 p.m. and board the metro, as always, from Rajiv Chowk station.

The forty-five-minute journey takes me to Rohini, a sprawling middle-class suburb in northwest Delhi. Reputed to be the second biggest residential colony in Asia, it is a cheap, ugly tentacle of the capital, crammed with dismal, unimaginative concrete apartment blocks and chaotic markets.

I disembark at Rithala, the last stop on the Red Line. From here it is a twenty-minute walk to the LIG Colony in Pocket B-2, Sector 11, where I live. Of all the housing societies in Rohini, mine is the most melancholy. The name itself – LIG, shorthand for ‘Lower Income Group' – is like a slap in the face. Built by the Delhi Development Authority in the 1980s, the four red-brick tower blocks look like a clump of brick kiln chimneys, their disfigured exteriors and defaced interiors bearing the telltale signs of shoddy government construction. Nevertheless, I am thankful to be living here. After Papa's death we wouldn't have been able to afford even these dreary 2-BHK flats which command rents in excess of twelve thousand a month. Luckily, we don't have to pay any rent for B-29, our second-floor apartment, because it belongs to Mr Dinesh Sinha, Papa's well-heeled younger brother. Deenu Uncle took pity on us and has allowed us to reside here for free. Well, it's not completely free. Once in a while I am obligated to take his moronic sons Rolu and Golu out to a fancy dinner. It beats me why they have to eat out at my expense when their father owns three tandoori restaurants himself.

The first thing you see on entering our flat is a framed black-and-white photo of Papa in the small foyer where we keep the fridge. Decorated with a garland of brittle roses, it shows him as a young man, not yet burdened by the responsibilities of a teacher with three grown-up daughters. The photographer has been kind to him, smoothing away some of the premature worry lines carved into his forehead. But he couldn't touch up the forbidding scowl that was fixed permanently around Papa's mouth.

Our modest drawing-cum-dining room is dominated by a colour blow-up of Alka on the centre wall. Wearing an outrageous red hat, she is posing like the ladies of Royal Ascot. Her head is tilted back slightly, her dark eyes are opened wide and her lips are puckered in a goofy smile. That is how I will always remember her: beautiful, young and carefree. Every time I see this picture, I can feel the room ringing with her infectious laughter. ‘
Didi! Didi! Kamaal ho gaya!
Something amazing happened today!' I can hear her eager voice greeting me, ready to spill the details of yet another silly prank she dreamt up in school.

Below the photo is a faded green sofa set with embroidered white dust covers, a couple of straight-back bamboo chairs with worn-out cushions, and an old Videocon TV perched on the sideboard where we store crockery and cutlery. To the left of this arrangement is a dining table made of recycled teakwood, which I picked up dirt cheap from an embassy auction, complemented by four matching chairs.

Going through a bead curtain, you enter the first bedroom, which belongs to Ma. It has a bed, surrounded by two wooden almirahs for clothes and a metal filing cabinet that is nowadays used mainly for storing her medicines. Ma's health was always frail; the sudden deaths of her youngest daughter and husband devastated her completely. She just withdrew into a shell, becoming distant and quiet, neglecting to eat and no longer caring about her appearance. The more she retreated from the world, the more disease took over her body. She now suffers from chronic diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and asthma, requiring regular trips to the government hospital. Looking at her gaunt body and silver hair, it is hard to believe she is only forty-seven.

The other bedroom is shared between Neha and myself. My younger sister has only one goal in life: to be famous. She has plastered the walls of our small room with posters of singers, models and film stars. One day she hopes to be as rich and successful as they. Blessed with a pretty face, an hourglass figure and flawless skin, Neha is shrewdly aware of the economic potential of hitting the gene jackpot, and is prepared to exploit her beauty to get what she wants. It helps that she is also a trained singer with a sound base of Indian music and a great natural voice.

All the boys in the neighbourhood have a crush on Neha, but she wouldn't give them the time of day. She has already summed up her future in three letters: B-I-G. And it doesn't include anyone belonging to the L-I-G. She spends her days hanging out with her richie-rich college friends, and her nights writing application letters for participating in reality shows, talent contests and beauty pageants. Neha Sinha is the poster girl for vaulting ambition.

She also has a penchant for mindless consumerism, blindly aping the fashion of the moment. Half my salary every month goes in meeting her constantly evolving needs: skinny jeans, glossy lipsticks, designer handbags, blingy cell-phones … The list never ends.

For the last two months she has been pestering me for a laptop. But that is where I have drawn the line. A ₹800 belt is one thing, a ₹30,000 gadget quite another.

‘Welcome back,
didi,
' Neha greets me the moment I step into the flat. She even manages to raise a smile instead of the sullen pout that is her default setting whenever I deny her something.

‘You know that Acer laptop I've been dying to get?' She gives me that puppy-dog look of hers I know quite well. It usually precedes a new demand.

‘Yes,' I respond guardedly.

‘Well, they've just discounted it. It's now available for only twenty-two thousand. Surely you can buy it at this price.'

‘I can't,' I say firmly. ‘It's still way too expensive.'

‘Please,
didi.
I'm the only one in my class without a laptop. I promise I won't ask you for anything after this.'

‘I'm sorry, Neha, but we just can't afford it. As it is, we're barely making ends meet on my salary.'

‘Can't you take a loan from the company?'

‘No, I can't.'

‘You are being cruel.'

‘I'm being realistic. You have to get used to the fact that we are poor, Neha. And life is hard.'

‘I'd rather die than live such a life. I'm twenty years old and what have I got to show for it? I've never even seen the inside of a plane.'

‘Well, neither have I.'

‘Then you should. All my friends go to places like Switzerland and Singapore for their summer holidays. And we can't even afford a hill station in India.'

‘We used to live in a hill station, Neha. Anyway, laptops and holidays aren't important. Your number-one priority should be to get good grades.'

‘And what will good grades get me? Look where you landed after topping the university.'

Neha has always had this uncanny ability to hurt me, both with her silence and with her words. Even though I have got used to her caustic barbs, this one stings me for its brutal honesty, leaves me speechless. That is when my cell phone rings.

‘Hello,' I answer.

It is Deenu Uncle, sounding very unlike himself. ‘Sapna,
beti,
I have something important to tell you. I'm afraid it's bad news.'

I brace myself for yet another death in the family. Perhaps of some ailing aunt or distant grandmother. But what he says next is nothing short of a bombshell. ‘I need you to vacate the flat within two weeks.'

‘What?'

‘Yes. I'm very sorry, but my hands are tied. I've just invested in a new restaurant and need cash urgently. So I've decided to put the Rohini flat out for rent. An agent called me today with a very good offer. In this situation I have no option but to ask you and your family to find another place.'

‘But Uncle, how can we find a place so soon?'

‘I'll help you find one. Only thing is, now you'll have to start paying rent.'

‘If we have to pay rent, we might as well continue to stay here.'

Deenu Uncle thinks about it. ‘I suppose that's reasonable,' he agrees reluctantly. ‘But you won't be able to afford my flat.'

‘How much is this new tenant going to pay you?'

‘We have agreed on fourteen thousand per month. That's a full two thousand more than the going rate. And he is to pay me a one-year deposit in advance. If you accept the same terms I have no objection to your continued stay.'

‘You mean you want us to pay you an advance of a hundred and sixty-eight thousand?'

‘Exactly. Your maths was always quite good.'

‘There's no way we can raise so much money, Chacha-ji.'

‘Then look for another apartment.' His tone hardens. ‘I've to think of my family too. I'm not running a charitable dispensary. As it is, I've allowed you people to stay for free for sixteen months.'

‘Didn't Papa also do so much for you? Don't you have any consideration for your deceased brother? You want his family to come on the street? What kind of uncle are you, Chacha-ji?' I try to prick his conscience.

The strategy boomerangs. ‘You people are nothing but ungrateful freebooters,' he says, rounding on me. ‘And listen, let's cut out all this uncle sweet-talk. From now on, our relationship is strictly that of a landlord and tenant. So either you pay me the full sum within a week, or vacate my flat.'

‘At least give us a little more time to arrange the funds,' I implore.

‘One week is all you've got. Pay up or leave,' he says, and terminates the call.

I find my hands are trembling with indignation. I take a moment to wish all sorts of lingering painful deaths on Deenu Uncle, before narrating the conversation to the other two occupants of the flat. Ma shakes her head, more in sorrow than in anger. The wickedness of the world is something she has taken for granted.

‘I never trusted that man. God is watching everything. One day Deenu will pay for his sins.'

Neha is surprisingly upbeat. ‘I say if that swine is throwing us out, let's get out of this dump. It suffocates me to live here.'

‘And where will we go?' I counter. ‘You think it is child's play to find a new house?'

Before a fresh argument breaks out between us, Mother brings the focus back to more practical issues. ‘How are we going to get all this money?' The question looms over us like an ominous cloud.

Papa didn't leave us much. He had raided his pension fund long ago to finance Deenu Uncle's initial foray in the restaurant business. And his modest savings from his teaching job were used up in the establishment costs of moving to a new city. At the time of his death, he had barely ten thousand rupees in his bank account.

Ma has already figured out the answer to the question. She unlocks her cupboard and retrieves two pairs of gold bangles. ‘I had kept these for both your weddings. But, if we need to sell them to retain the house, then so be it.' She offers them to me with a wistful sigh.

My heart goes out to Ma. Since Papa's death, this is the third piece of heirloom jewellery she has been forced to part with: first to pay for Neha's education, then to cater for her own medical expenses, and now to save this flat.

A heavy silence hangs over our home as we sit down for dinner. I am haunted by an acute sense of failure, as though I'd let my family down when they needed me most. Never have I felt the lack of money more keenly. For a fleeting moment the vision of all those crisp notes lying on the table of the Coffee House swims into my mind, before I dismiss it as a sick joke. How can a madman like Acharya be taken seriously? Yet he keeps circling my brain like an irritating fly.

To satisfy my curiosity, I sit down at my computer after dinner. It is a decrepit Dell tower unit that I salvaged from the showroom just as they were about to dispose of it to a junk dealer. A dinosaur running on Windows 2000, it nevertheless allows me to surf the Internet, check my emails and use the word processor to tabulate the household expenditure at the end of every month.

I log on to the Internet and type in ‘Vinay Mohan Acharya' in the search box. The query instantly registers 1.9 million hits.

The industrialist is all over cyberspace. There are news reports about his business deals, speculation on his net worth, image galleries capturing his various moods, and YouTube videos of him making speeches at shareholder meetings and international conferences. Over the next half-hour, I learn many new facts about him, such as his passion for cricket, his occasional (and unsuccessful) forays into politics, his bitter rivalry with his twin brother Ajay Krishna Acharya, the owner of Premier Industries, and his active philanthropy. He apparently donates buckets of cash to all manner of charities and has twice been awarded the President's Medal for having the best CSR programme. I also confirm that he had indeed lost his wife and daughter in the crash of a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Kathmandu on 31 July 1992, which killed all 113 passengers.