The Red Carpet (17 page)

Or half of it, at any rate. The other half proved far more elusive.

“And the chicks,” says Rahul, “in California. Really pretty. You must have seen some serious action, yaar.”

“Serious,” says Swamy, deadpan. “But Murthy was the real swinger.” And Murthy avoids Rahul’s respectful glance to raise his middle finger discreetly at Swamy.

The moonlight slowly seeps into their collective consciousness. Conversation slows down before it really begins, flaring up here and there in a languid, desultory way. Ashwini has shifted over to sit on the floor, next to Murthy, still puffing tentatively on her cigar, rounding her lips and swirling the smoke with her tongue in an effort to produce smoke rings. Across the fire, Swamy can see Murthy’s hand resting gently upon her shoulder.

Their undergraduate dreams of America had focused on the great universities there, but frequently segued to something far more tantalizing; for their engineering class in India had been subdivided by subject matter (electronics, mechanical, civil, chemical)—and also by sexual experience. A very small, elite percentage actually had girlfriends, and sex with those girlfriends. Another small chunk had sex and paid for it, usually from the prostitute who lived up the road. They would queue outside her hut, and after each client she would step outside and wash her bottom out with cold water from the bucket near the door before taking in the next customer. Then there was the festering majority (to which Murthy and Swamy belonged), who were a little more fastidious and had remained appallingly virginal. America, Land of the Blonde and Home of the Brazen, pioneer of UnMarital Sex, would surely change all that. America, whose streets were lined, it was said, with vending-machine girls who lay naked, with welcoming signs painted over slots between their spread-eagled legs that said, For a Treat, Insert Here.

But that, like so many Hollywood-inspired dreams, was pure marketing hype.

Not government endorsed.

Swamy’s first American girlfriend turned out to be significantly non-blonde, a Punjabi woman he met in graduate school. Indian, yes, but she’d grown up in America, and might therefore be more willing to put out. She was; and for that reason alone, Swamy unashamedly stayed with her. He didn’t like her very much, but he was deeply grateful.

Not so Murthy.

A hundred attempts and near misses, and Murthy got so desperate that he had taken to driving repeatedly past the ladies who offered their professional services on a certain corner of El Camino, and who would ask him softly, “Want some poontang, honey?” He did, decidedly so, but a remnant of his earlier fastidiousness kept him from formalizing any business relationship with them.

In fact, Murthy may well be a virgin even today, though that cannot be held against him. Swamy does not know this for a fact. Up to a certain age, one advertises the momentous loss of one’s virginity; beyond that, one keeps quiet and loses it as best as one can. Ashwini certainly does not appear to be concerned.

Dinner arrives halfway through their second drink, the welcome clatter of plates galvanizing them. Swamy’s mouth suddenly waters, as if anticipating a future when it will be denied such flavors, in such surroundings. The dhaba owner carries out trays full of dishes, accompanied and aided by two dusty rag-encased urchins who stare at the visitors with bright, curious eyes. The food is straight from the tava, sizzling with heat and spices that set eyes watering and tongues screaming for more: chicken sixtyfive, pepper mutton, kebabs. Hot rotis are placed on old steel plates weighed down further by dal and vegetables and chicken gravy. Nobody waits upon ceremony: teeth tear hungrily at the fragrant meat, while fingers scoop chopped onion and lime into eager open mouths.

“Leave something for me, bugger,” says Murthy, laughing at Swamy’s eagerness.

“Order another plate, you stingy bastard,” Swamy says. “This one’s mine.”

“Fine, I’ll order one more,” says Murthy, “but you’re paying for it.”

We’ll split it, says Swamy. One-by-two.

It had all started in idle conversation, late one night.

Swamy and Murthy sat at conjoined desks that competed in clutter with the other desks around, problem solving for the big software company that employed them in Palo Alto. The office lights were dimmed, except at odd locations where clots of people worked under fluorescent lighting that did not disguise the bags of fatigue under their eyes, or the late-night sour smell of too little sleep and take-out food that surrounded them. Swamy had finally produced what looked like a solution for a particular problem that had harassed him and the rest of his team for days. He was still tinkering with it, bleary-eyed, when Murthy tapped him on the shoulder.

“That solution of yours,” said Murthy. “Brilliant.”

Thanks, said Swamy. I thought so myself.

“You realize, don’t you,” Murthy said, “that it is something that could potentially work for other businesses as well.”

Swamy didn’t quite get it, until Murthy spelled it out for him: “I mean, fucker, that this is something worth setting up your own company for.”

The conversation stayed with Swamy, burning through his mind, and characteristically, he moved quickly. It was his idea, but it was Murthy, displaying again the financial acumen that he had previously exhibited in ordering their personal finances, who organized the money. The company they worked for gave them its blessings and some money in exchange for some equity, and venture capitalists provided the rest of the funding. Swamy took charge of product development and marketing, and Murthy kept a tight control on finances, saying yes to things that would improve productivity, and no to almost everything else.

When the time came to draw up the shareholding of the new company, Swamy had no hesitation.

Murthy suggested that the promoters’ equity be divided 70–30, with Swamy taking the majority.

Your product idea, said Murthy.

“Your business idea,” said Swamy. “We’re splitting it straight down the middle.”

Equity, it was, one-by-two.

Such careful planning, and, of course, it was the unplanned that happened. They found themselves back in India.

For several years in America, they had controlled their overwhelming homesickness; battening it down, beating it down, tying it into knots and leaving it unexpressed, except occasionally, when eating Indian food, or meeting with fellow Indian expats and talking about Indian politics and movies, or attending a sitar concert, or, best of all, on that rare greedy holiday home. There was simply no other choice but to live and work in America— until, suddenly, it appeared, there was.

The Indian economy had been changing while they were away, and Bangalore, of all places,
home,
had suddenly emerged as a significant location for software development, with software engineers to be had on the cheap. India, where, it was rumored, the streets were newly lined with venture capitalists and luscious golden-skinned damsels, trained in the coital arts of the
Kama
Sutra
. Swamy and Murthy made several wary, disbelieving trips, assessing the viability of shifting their production center ten thousand miles to the east.

“It will cut costs,” Murthy said finally.

“Fuck,” Swamy said, for once rendered speechless by the notion of such a prodigal return.

They came home. Their parents greeted them with tears of happiness and countless marriage proposals. They met up with old friends like Ramu, and made new ones. Swamy continued traveling to America, but this time on his own terms, first class all the way, under the banner of the company he had founded, to meet with customers, to secure orders, before returning home to India to process them, and to socialize with people like Rahul, who, a few years earlier, wouldn’t have given him the time of day.

Karl, Rahul’s friend, now repeats, Shit, I wish I were in your place.

Swamy says nothing. Instead he sips his beer and waits for this Karl to move away, shouting at him in his mind like the commander of a Hollywood action-movie SWAT team: go! go! go! go! go!

They had met earlier that evening at the party. “Hi, I’m Karl,” he’d said, and Swamy had taken him in instant aversion. He knew him. Knew him and his type. He was part of that mystical Indian tribe that, immediately upon landing on American shores, goes completely native, emerging later with Hihowyadoin accents and names like Kamalesh shortened to names like Karl.

It was one of those parties where half the people present had worked or studied in America, and were never able to let that part of their lives go, even while they returned to India to reclaim their past and plot their future. Already, the two other individuals talking to Swamy welcomed Karl in, creating a space for him, and unconsciously increasing the American intonations in their speech. Swamy found himself changing too, but in the other direction; he rapidly indianized his own accent, discarding the drawl and inserting melody, hardening his consonants so that words like “thing” sounded sharply at both beginning and end.

Karl had been in India for a few months, and was not happy. “Man,” he said. “I’m surprised anyone can stick it out here.”

“Oh, it works out,” someone said vaguely, but with a smile that was understanding, complicit.

“Except when the power fails.”

“Yeah, really. And you go shopping and you can’t find shit.”

“Or the phones cross-connect.”

“Or when someone tells you they’re gonna do something immediately, and three months later, you’re still phoning. . . .”

A part of Swamy could identify deeply with everything they said; it hadn’t been easy, this homecoming; India, providing opportunity and hassle in equal measure. Yet he was also keenly aware of the Great Absurdity inherent in conversations like this: the land of dreams always reconfiguring itself into the one left behind, tinged with regret and wistful desire.

Now Karl wants to know: So, are you going to be based in California again?

Yes, says Swamy, disappointment washing through his mouth at those words.

When you get settled, says Rahul, I’ll come visit. We can go to Las Vegas together, I tell you, man, what chicks.

Great, says Swamy. I look forward to it.

Yeah, it is a good thing you’re going, yaar. I tell you, this country is going to the dogs.

The future was not supposed to lie so.

A few months before their scheduled IPO, when all their hard work and happy clients and good publicity were set to translate into actual gain, in New York, in Bombay, where their share certificates would ascend to a value far greater than the paper they were writ upon, transmogrifying (like magic) into money in the firm and money in the bank—that was when it happened. A worldwide recession appeared, like magic, dreamed up by a drunken genie out of a bottle, cross-eyed with a hangover. It is amazing how quickly venture capital can dry up. How quickly the behemoth companies they were supplying can slide into financial constraint, how quickly they can change their orders, So sorry, yes, it’s tough for us too, recession and all, seven thousand people laid off, good-bye. Kings today, interred tomorrow. As Hurree Jamset Ram Singh, Nabob of Bhanipur, might say: the interredfulness of the king in its very completeness is terrific.

Or as Murthy might say: fuck, da.

Night after disappointing night, Swamy and Murthy stayed at their desks, speaking to potential customers and financiers in countries ten thousand miles away, holding the company aloft through desire and desperation alone. Finally, after months of worry and despair—the first flush of relief. Swamy bounced into the office after spending a week in America followed by an entire weekend on the telephone. It wasn’t what they’d dreamed of, it wasn’t even close, but it was some sort of vindication.

“I’ve found a buyer,” he told Murthy. A multinational firm that was willing to buy their company from them for a decent price and a job in senior management in their own company. Murthy and he could move back to America, to California, in a matter of weeks. They would still have some control over their software product, but as part of the larger organization.

It’s time to go back, he said to Murthy. Things will improve, and then maybe we can try again. Just bad timing, this. It was a good idea. But now it’s time to go back.

Murthy listened, as he always did, thoughtfully, quietly.

Great, he said. I think selling the company is a wise choice; we may not get another chance like this. Not so soon, anyway.

And then he said: But I don’t think I will be going back to California. Bound to be something else I can do around here.

“Right,” Swamy had said eventually.

“What,” he’d asked, a couple of days later.

“There are good opportunities in BPO,” said Murthy. “Worth looking at, at least until the climate improves for software development.”

And Swamy had stared at him, caught unawares by his own surprise.

It wasn’t that Murthy was wrong in his assessment: indeed, companies all over the world were busily shifting their backoffice operations and customer-care call centers to India, for BPO, or “business process outsourcing,” to take advantage of the relatively cheap intellectual labor available here.

It wasn’t even that Murthy was choosing to think, as Swamy twitted him, like a buck-making businessman and not an idealistic software engineer captured by the dream of creating a product that would change the world.

No. Murthy might well be making the right choice. All the faith that Swamy has reposed in Murthy’s judgment over the years tells him that. Swamy’s surprise is directed at himself—and the sudden realization that, unlike Murthy, he does not seem to have it in himself, in this crucial moment of decision, to make that final commitment to India.

He had felt the first inklings of this a little earlier, fueled by the fear that first erupted during those long nights when things looked like they might fail, utterly and completely; when none of the arguments that he used to convince himself to return home—the opportunities, his aging parents, the wonder of being home—gave him comfort. A fear that, by staying behind now, when the going has gone so badly wrong, the fruits of all his years of hard work and sacrifice in America would never again be his for the plucking—that he would, in some atavistic fashion, revert to the state of his boyhood, stuck in India, full of longing, with America hung full and ripe and out of his reach.