The Hope Factory A Novel

twenty-three





TWO MONTHS OF MONSOON RAIN and the approach of winter had tempered the blazing heat of summer. RAINFALL LOW, the headlines had screamed in June, DROUGHT A POSSIBILITY, before abandoning that viewpoint a few weeks later and rushing to other extremes. FLOODS, they shrieked. But despite the coolness of the day, despite the air-conditioning that further cooled Anand’s office, the Landbroker seemed to be feeling the heat.

“It has never happened before to me, saar,” he said.

Anand absorbed the misery on the Landbroker’s face and knew that, whatever was going on, the Landbroker was not complicit in it. “Tell me again,” he said. “Tell me again.” He calmed his own breathing and kept his voice soft, his eyes on the agitated rise and fall of the Landbroker’s shirt and the nervous vibration of his fingers on his knees. It seemed that any sudden gestures might set him to fleeing, startled light-foot, like a gazelle in the jungle.

“It has never happened to me before, saar,” said the Landbroker. “Usually, when such a phone call comes—and it happens, I’m not saying it does not happen—it is a simple affair. Some political fellows will call, they will ask for some money, I will pay, the deal will proceed. Normally, I would not even mention it to you. Just like I do not mention the number of times I might have visited this farmer, or drunk coffee with that one, or even helped that other one organize his daughter’s wedding.”

Anand knew all this, the laborious process of relationship building that underlay the Landbroker’s deals, part of his efforts to join a patchwork of independently owned fields into a single, consolidated sale of land. “Yes, yes,” he said encouragingly.

“All that is normal. I am doing every day. This is my work. And if a particular political party can benefit by such a sale, they will try. After all, they have to raise funds for elections, isn’t it? As I said, that too is normal. So when I received the call yesterday, at first I was not worried. I thought, okay, it will be some routine haggling with a cup of coffee. They will say a price. I will say something lower. Then we settle. As simple as that. And then that farmer will be instructed by them to sell. But this time …”

“Yes,” said Anand. “Tell me again.”

“This time, they are not fixing a price. They don’t want to meet me. They want to meet you. They say that, otherwise, they will not allow the deal to happen. They will not allow that farmer to sell.”

“Can they do that?”

“Yes, they have the power,” said the Landbroker. “This particular party is very strong in this area, many supporters. If they decide that this one sale should not happen, the farmers will listen to them. And for those who protest, they will be threatened by the party goondas.”

“If we have no choice,” said Anand, cautiously, “then I suppose I will have to meet them.”

The Landbroker nodded, so unnerved that he did not seem to be able to utter his usual comforting mantra of “not to worry, saar.”

Anand briefed his colleagues about this new development. Mrs. Padmavati listened to him in a wise silence, but Ananthamurthy turned voluble, in his agitation asking the same question that had first troubled Anand. “Why Cauvery Auto?”

Anand wagged his head, but Mr. Ananthamurthy’s question was apparently rhetorical; he had launched into a diatribe, triggered by god-knows-what memories and years of democratic injustice. “See,” Ananthamurthy said, “this is how it is. This is the very truth of the matter. We can work. We can create. We can work very hard—and the minute we can say, yes, we are having a little success, there they are, hands outstretched like beggars. Rubbish political parties! As though this country will not run better without any of them. They dare to speak of returning to Ram Rajya, but instead of setting up a kingdom of the gods, a land of honor and justice, they create a Ravana Rajya instead, unleashing a hundred demons across the land. I tell you, sir, there is no hope. With government like this, there is no hope. I tell you, sir,” he said, “I have been expecting this. The minute we gave that last wage increase—you remember?—three months ago?—I said, now they will smell money, and they will come. Rascals! Scavengers! Feeding like hyenas off the work of others. Hyenas—and as stupid as owls, no doubt.”

“Yes,” said Anand, aiming for soothing acquiescence rather than actual concurrence.

“But, sir,” said Mrs. Padmavati, taking his words with a certain particularity, “that wage increase was a very good thing, is it not? Our workers are happy.”

“Yes,” said Anand.

“It is a good thing,” said Ananthamurthy, with decision. “But see? It has attracted these rascals.”

Anand felt a matching exhaustion; it seemed he was infected by Ananthamurthy’s sudden pessimism. Perhaps it was never going to be possible to outrun the system. It reminded him of the story in his son’s book about the girl Alice who ran and ran in a nightmarish way and, when she stopped, found herself in exactly the same checkered square where she had started.


HIS FATHER WAS CROSS-LEGGED on the sofa in the drawing room. He was not alone, Anand saw; he was entertaining a friend.

“Ah, Anand,” he said, including his son in the conversation, “we were just discussing … Those government blighters seem to be making no progress on the power situation. What do you feel?”

“Your father tells me,” said the visitor, “that you are in business now. But that you are very successful! Very good, very good.”

“It is now the fashion,” said his father. “Changing times! These brahmin boys are no longer interested in academics or medicine or law, they all want to make money. And they are succeeding! You know why? I will tell you. It is because of their heritage: strong academics, especially science and mathematics, strong discipline, clean personal habits. It is the mantra of success in this new software world! … With our traditions, it is only natural that our children will succeed. It is a question,” he said, “of cultural habits. Like the Gujarati, the Marwadi, and the Jew, who all have the culture of understanding money, and so they rule the financial world, is it not?”

“Yes,” said his father’s friend. “Very true. Of course, my son is a lawyer and my daughter is a cardiologist, but I have heard. Your software company,” he suggested, “must be doing a lot of work with America to be so successful.”

Anand glanced at his glass of water. Empty. “I am not in the software industry,” he said. “Manufacturing,” he said. “Engineering.”

“Technology,” his father clarified. “It is all technology.”

“Of course,” said the friend. “So good that you are doing well.”

*

THE DOSA RESTAURANT WAS next to the golf course and one street away from the state ministries of Vidhana Soudha. When he first moved to Bangalore, Anand had learned to love the dosas here along with his college friends, partly for the taste, and partly because they added a strong dose of garlic to the potato palya, a rabid unorthodoxy his parents naturally frowned upon. Shortly thereafter, his comfort levels with garlic had risen and he had upgraded the breaking of parental strictures to cigarettes, alcohol, and sex. Garlic, in effect, had been his gateway drug to defiance, the potato palya in this hotel an early pusher.

Anand was visiting the restaurant after a gap of several years, the slight apprehension within him echoing the excited defiance that had marked his early visits. The small hotel attached to the restaurant was rumored to rely, for profit margins, on hidden operations as a whoretel, but the restaurant itself sported an air of vegetarian innocence, serving a standard South Indian breakfast in the mornings and switching to large thaali-meals and gobi-manchurian for lunch and dinner. But true renown was saved for the dosas, which, on a Sunday morning, attracted herds of families, clustered at long tables of eight or more: complaining grandfathers, mothers-in-law in best sarees flashing ruthless smiles, aging uncles with special dietary requirements, budding girls with beribboned braids sweetly looped upward and tied under their ears, teenage boys in desperately bright polyester shirts, mothers-outside-kitchens at their ease, and harassed fathers collating the menu selections for them all. And among them, scattered and clumped like so much driftwood in the tides, lured by golden dosas and proximity, gatherings of golfers, college students, and legislative assembly members.

This was not a Sunday, yet there was a fair crowd of people from the surrounding law courts and ministry offices. Anand pushed his glasses up his nose and glanced around the Formica-topped tables in the central hall. There was another dining hall upstairs, air-conditioned, quieter, more suitable for families, but not so good for a private conversation. Here, human chatter competed with the clatter of plates and the barely hidden noise of the kitchen; one could discuss anything and not be overheard. Somewhere in here was the Landbroker and the man he was bringing with him. A man who referred to himself as Mr. Gowda and by others as Gowdaru-saar.

Before coming to this meeting, Anand had made a few phone calls and had learned, from Vinayak, that, if he wanted to see either his money returned or the land deal completed, he would have to meet this man and pay, and, from Amir, that Gowdaru-saar was a well-known political functionary, whose job it was to strong-arm financial support for his party from that particular taluk. Anand was not dealing with a two-bit criminal he could threaten in turn; he was dealing with someone far more consequential.

He quickly spotted Gowdaru-saar against a far wall. If the Landbroker was a cinematic hero, then Gowdaru-saar looked indistinguishable from a Kannada movie villain: large to the point of obese; his pockmarked face sporting a mustache of magnificent proportions; frizzy, unruly hair that haloed out around a receding hairline. But where was the Landbroker? Surely he had not left Anand to meet with this political thug on his own?

Anand’s gaze cleared. He had been staring at the wrong table. The Landbroker was with someone quite different at a window seat against the far wall. Anand made his way over, feeling like he was attracting stares, even if he knew he wasn’t.

“Namaskara,” he said. In contrast to the flamboyance of the Landbroker, his companion was quietitude itself, in a simple cream shirt with signs of great piety about him, the turmeric and vibhooti dotted post-prayer in the center of his forehead, a red thread tied around his right wrist to ward off evil. In other circumstances, Anand might have identified him as a small-time merchant in Chickpet, selling bangles or hosiery or vessels, or an accountant in someone else’s firm. He did not make the mistake of treating him as either.

Gowdaru-saar returned Anand’s greeting with calm, smiling eyes, urged him to sit down, and summoned the waiter to order breakfast, his air of placid goodwill in shocking opposition to both the Landbroker’s nervous energy and Anand’s overwired tension. He seemed in no hurry to broach the matter they were there to discuss, as though this were nothing other than a cheerful, whimsical gathering of friends out to enjoy a lazy midweek breakfast.

“The traffic was very bad this morning,” he said, in typical Bangalore small talk; the traffic: auto-rickshaw drivers with their freewheeling style and panicked foreigners shrieking in the passenger seats; trucks and people-fattened buses that held their breaths and inched their way through improbable, ever-narrowing lanes; the fumes, mingling with the rising heat and rising fury, tamped eventually by rain and resignation; and the spasmodic beat of a passing Bollywood film song—ah baby, oh baby, sexy sexy baby baby.

A passing waiter quick-slammed three steel plates onto the table—fluffy rice idlis and a crisp brown vada, the sambar and chutney slopping over onto the plates from their steel cups. Gowdaru-saar’s food vanished quickly, mashed idlis moving along the conveyor belt of his tongue. Anand broke off a piece of vada and dipped it into the pale green, watery chutney before placing it in his mouth; it stuck in his throat and took forever going down. Cups of coffee arrived, and he sipped gratefully on the hot, sweet liquid.

The Landbroker was vibrating like a bee, unable to touch the food in front of him. Anand wanted to place a hand over his, to calm him, but with Gowdaru-saar’s sharp, observant eyes on him, he did not even venture a sympathetic smile at the Landbroker.

“Saar,” said Gowdaru-saar, “I am so happy to meet you. We have heard wonderful things about you and the work you are doing. So many jobs you are creating. It is very good, very good, saar.”

“Thank you,” said Anand. “You are too kind.”

“And it seems that you are expanding your factory. That means more jobs for our people. That is so good, saar.”

Anand tired of this. “Not so good,” he said. “There will be no new factory if I am prevented from buying the land that is required.”

“Ila, sir. No one is preventing you. Why do you say like this?” said Gowdaru-saar. “Yes, I heard. There was some confusion with the Lok Ayukta. Someone has mistakenly informed them. That is all. And it is really unfortunate that some fool is unwilling to deal with you. But we will take care of that. Not to worry, that land is as good as yours. Your friendship is important to us, saar.”

Through the grease- and dust-darkened window Anand could see the endless passing traffic, metal glinting in the sharp, white light of November and framed by the political posters and bunting that decorated the far side of the street. An enormous poster held Vijayan’s head over the streams of traffic that went past, painted in gorgeous tones of pink and white, the shadows on his face picked out in green. THE NEW HOPE FOR DEMOCRATIC INDIA, the sign said, next to an Ashoka Chakra, the blue spokes of a great forward-moving nation.

Harry Chinappa had received a very nice letter from him, personally signed, thanking him for his hospitality. Vidya had shown it to Anand, so excited he was surprised she didn’t frame it and hang it on the wall alongside the brightly painted oil canvases of turbaned men and bejeweled women that she paid significant sums of money for. They called it the best of Indian art, she and her friends, but to Anand it was hardly Indian; the romantic rural images depicted had nothing to do with the life any of them lived or indeed would want to live; it was all fantasy, like one might see in a film.

Gowdaru-saar noticed the direction of his gaze. “That,” he said, “is a great man. Very great, very great.”

Anand said nothing.

“It is an honor,” said Gowdaru-saar, “to be a member of his party. Like you, I too have a duty, Anand-saar. Is it not our duty, Anand-saar, to elect the best? For years, we have suffered with bad leaders. Now, finally, we have someone who we can respect. Who we can trust. An educated man. A good man. If we do not, right now, do everything we can to see him elected, would we not have failed in our duty? What use is it for me to talk of my love of my people and my village, if I do not guide them properly …

“So, Anand-saar, I know you can help us. You are such an important man, so much wealth in your factory.”

“No, no,” said Anand. “There is no wealth. We are a small company. We are struggling. You have been misinformed.”

“No, saar. You are doing well. After all, you are buying this large piece of land and even more,” said Gowdaru-saar, smiling, “you are buying even more, is it not?”

“What do you mean?” said Anand, puzzled.

“I mean you are buying some land with our good Landbroker here,” said Gowdaru-saar, “and we have heard that you have also met with Mr. Sankleshwar to buy land from him. Such an important man you are.”

“No,” said Anand, “I am not.”

Who else had Harry Chinappa told? And why? Ah, yes, Anand puzzled it out. Not Harry Chinappa at all.

Mr. Sankleshwar.

Anand at last had a gasp of insight: could this be why things had started going wrong with the registration? Somebody had instigated the Lok Ayukta—and somebody had brought him to this political thug’s attention. Who else but Mr. Sankleshwar, who was powerful, ruthless, politically connected, and—thanks to Harry Chinappa—convinced that Anand had wasted his time and, in scheming duplicity, reneged on their agreement and signed this land deal with the Landbroker behind his back?

The realization made him catch his breath in dismay.

If he was being maliciously targeted, then he was possibly headed toward bigger trouble than he imagined. F*cking hell. He glanced at the Landbroker, who was also looking taken aback at Gowdaru-saar’s words; Anand had made no mention of buying land from Sankleshwar.

Anand tried to appear calm, saying firmly: “No, I am not dealing with Mr. Sankleshwar. I am only buying land from our Landbroker here. And really, we are a small company. You have misheard.” He could see the Landbroker trying to assess his truthfulness, nervous, unsure.

“Is that so?” Gowdaru-saar looked tranquil. “But we have heard otherwise from a close friend, saar. It does not matter. But you are not a small company, you are a great success. We have heard. From a very reliable source. We are sure you can help us.

“You see, Anand-saar, I am not asking for money for myself. Myself, I am content to live in a simple way, in the village where I was born, now part of this great city, with my family and my people. But I am asking for money for the party. Because without money, we cannot win the election. And this country needs people like that, is it not?”

Both their gazes shifted to the poster of Vijayan, smiling through the traffic at them in gentle benediction.