The Hope Factory A Novel

seventeen





MR. ANANTHAMURTHY WAS FOND of discoursing on the auspicious nature of Deepavali—and as though to prove him right, Anand received a surprising phone call.

“Happy Deepavali, saar,” said the Landbroker. “I have good news for you…. I have arranged some land for you to see.”

“Really?” He had not believed that the Landbroker would ever deliver on his vague promises. “That’s great.”

Early the next morning, Anand passed the biscuit factory and parked his car next to the bicycle repair shop opposite the Mariamma temple. The Landbroker was waiting for him, emerging from his nondescript car into the brilliant sunshine, wearing his oversize, gold-rimmed dark glasses and a tight pink polyester shirt.

“Namaskara, saar,” he said as he clambered into the passenger seat next to Anand and pulled a large satellite photograph out of a file. “Gugalarth,” he said, and Anand blinked uncomprehendingly for a moment before he realized he was looking at an image downloaded from Google Earth. On this, the Landbroker had drawn the outline of a spread of land that enclosed several contiguous farms, his stained finger stabbing at the paper while he spoke at length and with some intimacy about the land, twelve acres, saar, and the price per acre. On paper, the land looked small and somehow false, as the earth does when seen from a plane, a piece of a strange planet that cannot possibly translate into human concerns.

In a manner that invested the proceedings with a pleasing frisson of secrecy, they left Anand’s car tucked into a side road and drove across to the farmland in the broker’s nondescript car, inconspicuous and incapable of alerting anyone to their presence or their interest in the property, fluffing the golden dust of the sandy road about them.

The Landbroker explained that acquiring this land was not going to be a straightforward process. The land was owned by different farming families. But no problem, he could and he would bring them to the table—that was his job, after all—and he was very good at it. “I know them, saar,” he said. “And they know me. Most importantly, they trust me. They know I will not cheat them; promise them one thing, give them another. Trust is very important, saar.”

They stopped down a narrow, bumpy road. Night rains had washed the countryside; in the morning sun, the burnished earth glowed an ancient emerald green. Anand was instantly captivated. The crop cultivation had stopped; quick-growing eucalyptus formed a young grove in one field; others were bare, dotted with wildflower bushes and solitary trees. He was reminded of growing up in Mysore; of gardens and endless trees, of cycling past open spaces; he went tumbling hastily into a future where he would buy this land and he would bring the children and they would tumble through the fresh air in turn, enjoying picnics and racing through the wild grass with the wind on their cheeks.

The arrivistes of the city were in the near distance; the newly built warehouse walls, the distant buzz of chain saws cutting trees and drills boring their way through stone, the gentle mist of cement dust, settling like perfume on the leaves of the eucalyptus trees.

The land was pure, so beautiful. So suitable for his factory. He wrenched his mind away from fantasy. He turned to the Landbroker, waiting quietly to one side.

“Listen,” he said, “I do not like to deal with underhand fellows. No rogues. No political parties or goons. No criminals. Nothing like that.”

“Me neither, saar,” said the Landbroker. “Hai-yo. They are all rascals. I do my work and like to live a peaceful life. But some bribe,” he said, “will have to be paid to the registrar clerk. For registering the sale deeds.”

“Why?” asked Anand.

“Come, saar. What are you saying? How else will it get done?”

“Right,” said Anand.

“So, shall I proceed with this?” asked the Landbroker. He outlined the rates and terms in greater detail. “Some portion will have to be in cash—that you organize. I will do as quickly as possible, saar. It all depends. Some families will agree quickly; others may take more time. Some will have brothers who are living somewhere else and so on. It is complicated and it will take some time and effort, but I can do it for you, if you are sure…. So, saar, I can proceed freely?”

Anand did not allow his anticipation to show. “Let me see the land papers first,” he said, frowning slightly. “Before I give final okay.”

“Yes, saar, of course. You will need to show your lawyer.”

The Landbroker gave his sudden smile. He scooped up a handful of the red earth between his fingers, crumbling the soil before looking up at Anand. “Very good, saar. It is a lovely land, you will enjoy. You can grow things in one corner, even if you are building factory on one side. That will give you some flowers or some fruit trees. You can take home for your family.” He whacked at a wildflower bush with a dry twig, beheading a few buds, as iridescent in his pink shirt as a large butterfly against the brown and green of the earth.


ANAND WOULD NOT LET himself get excited about the land he had seen. There were two vital, monsoon-engorged Ganga-Yamunas that must be crossed before they could proceed. First, the Landbroker had to collect all the land papers from the various sellers. And then, a lawyer would need to vet those papers for signs of fraud or wrongful ownership.

But without any fanfare, the Landbroker arrived at Anand’s office a few days later carrying an outsize plastic bag. From this, he pulled file after file, piling them on the table in front of Anand’s astonished eyes. “The title papers, saar, for the land…. These are all copies, saar. You can leave with the lawyer. But no need to worry, saar. They are all good.”

The real estate lawyer’s waiting room was filled with urgent, busy people on cellphones carrying oversize documents and trying to assess, out of the corners of their eyes and in between their phone conversations, who the other people in the room were, new money sitting uneasily amidst a pervasive atmosphere of old legal mustiness.

Anand was currently working with three separate lawyers: one for the factory work, reviewing contracts. One, an internationalist maven, who charged exorbitant rates for his advice on the Japanese contracts and who always seemed to be traveling to exotic locations whenever Anand needed to speak to him; traveling, Anand speculated darkly, on the very fees that he had paid him for his time. And now this real estate specialist, to review the land papers that the Landbroker had given him. At this rate, he would soon know sufficient law to hang up his own board: ANAND K. MURTHY, LSL (LAWYER, SCHOOL OF LIFE).

Anand was given to impatience, but he sat quietly. Today he would hear his fate. He had left copies of the Landbroker’s papers with the lawyers. Rural land records were notorious for their dubious provenance. If the papers were dubious; if the titles were not clear; if there could be multiple confusing ownership histories; if the deal smelled even the slightest like fraud, Anand would learn of it today.

At some point in the past, someone in the law firm had made a redecorating effort with heavy wood and potted plants, but like the junior lawyers and clerks bustling by, the plants looked tired and gray, as though they too were fed on half-emptied, cold cups of tea. At last, a clerk summoned him into the air-conditioned inner office.

The senior lawyer, despite his reputation for real estate prowess, was dressed in a badly fitted suit and glasses that slipped down his nose and framed an overgrowth of nostril hair. He sat behind his desk, imprisoned by stacks of files. “Come, come, sir, sit,” he said to Anand, while simultaneously dictating to a clerk in a corner. “Vere-to-four—and he-yur-under—the vendaar—shall be—required … Please sit, sir…. Required! Fool!”

Anand sat.

• • •

THE LANDBROKER WAS WAITING by his car. “Well, saar?” he said and smiled, seeing Anand’s expression. He removed the gold-edged glasses and flung them on the car seat beside him.

Anand laughed in response. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll organize the money as you require.”

He gripped the Landbroker’s hand. When he turned away, the scent of soil, of that rich, magnificent piece of land seemed to linger on his skin.


HIS RELIEF WAS ENORMOUS; in the car, flush from the Landbroker’s success, he telephoned Harry Chinappa.

“Ah, Anand,” said his father-in-law. “So glad you called. Now, about Sankleshwar … I have been in touch, things were a little slow because of the Diwali holidays but should get moving now. I don’t want you worrying.”

“No. That’s okay,” said Anand. “Actually there is something else that has worked out, so there is no need for me to proceed with Sankleshwar. Thank you,” he added as an afterthought.

“Something else?” said Harry Chinappa. “What do you mean, something else?”

“Twelve acres,” said Anand. “Remember that Landbroker I was telling you about?”

“What? That Vinayak Agarwal’s fellow? I thought we had decided that he was entirely unsuitable, most unreliable….”

“He seems reliable. I have just received the lawyer’s opinion on the title papers.”

Harry Chinappa was silent. “I see,” he said, finally. “One rather wishes”—and Anand could hear the wind that presaged the storm—“that you could have told me a little earlier that you were dealing with that fellow.”

“I did,” said Anand, and he was surprised when Harry Chinappa said no more.

Anand asked: “Shall I speak to Mr. Sankleshwar? About this?”

“Good lord, no,” said Harry Chinappa. “I’ll tell him myself. I’m meeting him next week for my own development work. I don’t want you saying something to mess that up.”

“Okay,” said Anand. “Excellent. Please tell him thank you.” He felt a ridiculous sense of freedom, like a schoolchild who learns that dreaded exams have been canceled. Around him, the traffic seemed to toot and whistle in happy celebration.

*

HIS MOTHER TELEPHONED ON a Sunday morning as Anand and his daughter grappled with geometry, Anand applying a varied and pungent vocabulary to a cylinder that defied the normal rules of existence and presented a new surface area with every calculation. Anand turned to the phone thankfully—his mother’s plumbing problems were surely easier to solve.

His mother was not calling about plumbing. He listened to her, sat in silent thought, and then went in search of Vidya, finally running her down in the bathroom where she was applying hot oil to her hair.

He tried to keep the momentousness of his announcement out of his voice; the doubt that had flooded his system when he listened to his mother, the sense of awkwardness that still would not fade, even half an hour afterward.

“My father,” he said, “is coming on a visit.”

Vidya’s eyes widened in the mirror; she continued to massage her scalp. “Oh.” Hot oil in the spoon, onto her palm, into her hair. “After all these years? Wow.”

Fingers on the scalp, running down her hair. “When’s he coming?” she asked. “God, yaar, what will he eat? He’s very strict veg, no? Remember that fuss he made at that hotel? We’ll have to not cook any meat in the house. Is he just dropping in, or will he actually spend a night?”

Actually, said Anand, I think he is coming to stay for a while. A few weeks.

“What!” she said, finally stopping the hair massage. “How come? What happened? My god!”

His mother had maintained a studied carelessness over the phone, as though this arrangement was standard operating practice between them: she was to go nurse her mother, who was teetering, aged ninety-three, on her deathbed in Anand’s maternal uncle’s house. In the interim, could Anand please take care of his father. “Come to Mysore,” she said, “this very week and pick him up and take him back. I will keep everything he needs packed. Good, very good. And don’t forget that he has to take his blood pressure pills. He does not like to and he pretends to forget.”

I won’t forget, said Anand.

He recounted his mother’s conversation to Vidya very briefly, and something about his demeanor altered the multiple hasty comments that rose to her lips.

“I’ll get the guest bedroom ready,” she said.

“Will he be here very long?” she couldn’t help asking.

Anand did not answer.


HIS FATHER SPENT THE DRIVE from Mysore to Bangalore with his eyes closed, sleeping or otherwise. He emerged from the car and confronted the bulk of his son’s house, representing as it did the fruits of a path he had always opposed. Anand kept silent, embarrassment warring with the pride within him. Would his father see his house as an affront? As a repudiation of his own strictly austere, lower-middle-class brahmin lifestyle? Why couldn’t Vidya have agreed to a smaller house? Happily, the house did not suffer its supersize alone: every home in this neighborhood seemed to suffer from architectural avoirdupois. And, at least, thank god, it wasn’t showily encased in sculptured white marble like the house opposite. The garden flowers were nice. And the house, though overly large and gleaming, was considered, by their friends, to be in good taste. Would his father recognize that?

His father turned to him. “Where is my bed? I hope,” he said, “it is not too soft.”

Years before, when Anand had told his father about his choice of profession, the conversation had not proceeded successfully. “A factory? But you are talking of becoming a businessman!” his father had said. “That is no sort of profession for us.” A businessman. A profit maker. Someone who spends the day counting money and then holding out his hand for more. That is who you wish to be? There is no respectability in such a work. What learning does it require? Tchi-tchi. Anand’s family had agreed.

“Child, you do not come from such a tradition,” said an uncle. “Leave it to those who do.”

“One cannot maintain sound moral and spiritual outlook in the face of the temptations that such a choice of work will bring,” said a grandfather, before passing away.

His father, of course, knew where he had erred: in letting Anand go, at the age of eighteen, to Bangalore to study; and in compounding that mistake by not forcing him to choose between the serious-minded Venkata Iyer Engineering College and the Sri Guru Sevak Engineering Institute, both with excellent academic reputations and very suitable, but allowing him to opt for the Jesuit-run St. Peter’s Academy of Arts, Sciences, Commerce, and Engineering.

Like Mysore, Bangalore might be in South Karnataka but, alarmingly, it prided itself on being “cosmopolitan.” Anand’s parents had had no illusions as to the meaning of this word: an influx of people from the farthest reaches of the state, well beyond the influence of Old Mysore. Worse: people from North India, as bad as foreigners in their habits. The very brahmins of Kashmir were rumored to eat meat—and when you said that, you had said everything. His father had inspected the two-page cyclostyled college prospectus dubiously. “Studying engineering? In this place? They are also teaching science, and your marks are good enough to register for either. One may say that science is a good subject, one can obtain a Ph.D. and become a professor, good, good, but,” his father said, forcing himself to practicalities, “an engineer has more scope.” Medicine or law would have done just as well; Anand’s father had a classical respect for all three. Later, when Anand’s mother was absent, he had given his son advice that embraced the nonacademic as well. “They drink,” he said, with a vague notion of Christian mores derived entirely from the cinema. “In church. They drink wine to show that they are good Christians. Please don’t drink.”


VERY QUICKLY, ANAND’S FATHER settled into a daily regimen indistinguishable from his routine in Mysore—establishing himself on the sitting room verandah mid-morning, cross-legged on a divan, a stack of newspapers at his side. His spine was invariably upright, his feet neatly submerged beneath his thighs; the vibhooti-ash markings on his forehead indicating that he had finished with both his bath and his morning pooja. His clothing was free of the shirt-pant-belt-shoes he had worn to work for forty years as a minor bureaucrat; instead, he dressed in a faded banian vest and a white cotton dhoti, freshly laundered and crisp. As the weather cooled through the day, various other items settled like sediment over this basic outfit: a half-sleeved shirt, a sweater, socks, and, finally, the sign of true winter: a long woolen muffler wrapped under the chin and over the head.

Vidya, in some consternation, suggested to her father-in-law that on unseasonably warm days he might, in his son’s house, consider donning a shirt and (if he so wished) turning on the air conditioner, but Anand’s father dismissed such artificial measures with scorn. “I am quite comfortable,” he said austerely, returning to his daily solution of the sudoku puzzle printed in the newspaper, which exercise, in its wake, left the paper littered with pencil markings and creases where it had been folded down to a small square, the size of the puzzle. Anand was in the habit of reading his newspapers with his morning coffee; his father rose betimes and got to them first, subsequently regaling anyone who passed with a précis of the daily news that he considered important. “The blighters,” he would say, “have increased the price of the rail tickets again. Is this how they practice socialism? Will this help the poor?”

His conversation with his son revolved around the news. He evinced no interest in visiting Cauvery Auto, evidently not hearing the question when it was asked.


VIDYA BROUGHT ANAND A message from her father, sandwiched between the stress his father’s orthodox lifestyle was placing on the house. “Shanta is really grumbling; she is having to cook two separate meals: one veg, one nonveg—using separate dishes. By the way, my father called. For you.”

“Why?”

“Because your father won’t eat from any dish that has been previously touched by meat. You know that. And now she may quit.”

“I’ll speak to Shanta,” said Anand. “Why did your father call for me?”

“Call him back, no?” she said.

But he did not need to. Harry Chinappa, after waiting impatiently for his message via his daughter to take effect, called him directly, the phone buzzing relentlessly at Anand like a highly strung mosquito. “My dear boy,” Harry Chinappa said, “I believe your father is in town. Excellent! Must plan a visit. Or perhaps you can bring him by one day with you after work? We can have a whiskey and catch up.” This was his father-in-law’s number two method of dealing with him: orchestrated cordiality when he needed something done. “By the way, I’ve had a word with Sankleshwar. It’s a good idea if you come and meet him with me anyway.”

“Why?” said Anand. “You’ve told him, no? That I am not interested.”

“It doesn’t pay to be shortsighted about this, m’boy. I am not at all convinced about this Landbroker of yours.”

“Why?” said Anand. “He’s okay. I think. I am moving ahead with that.”

“Well, come for this meeting anyway. Mr. Sankleshwar is an important, successful man, and it behooves you to at least say thank you to him personally.”

“Fine,” said Anand. “Fine. Fine. I’ll come.”