The Hope Factory A Novel

nine





“ISN’T THIS NICE? SO FRESH.… Come on, yaar. Stop yawning and stretch …”

At six-thirty, Cubbon Park was suffused with the fresh pink of early morning, the red buildings and green trees glowing; the smattering of early morning exercisers looking determined. Like Anand, Valmika was in sweatpants and T-shirt. Father and daughter set off together on a slow trot into the depths of the park, past the walkers and clumps of yoga-contortionists on the grass, occasionally being overtaken by more serious runners.

It was years since Anand had been running; his wife didn’t question his sudden commitment to fitness; Valmika (with a stern eye on her slim waistline) agreed to join him, and Pingu’s pre-bedtime enthusiasm did not survive the night. “Lazy bum,” Valmika now huffed with the austere censoriousness of an older sibling. “We should have forced him to come, Appa. He’s getting unfit.”

“Next time,” said Anand. His muscles, long unused, were already aching; he was surprised at the strain; his naturally slender physique concealed the sly weakening of the years, the slithering depredations of approaching middle age. He saw the ease with which his daughter kept up with him and suddenly determined to do this more often, to build up his stamina, to run ten miles with ease, to compete in marathons, to discover, in short, the elixir of immortal youth and enchantment, right here, in Cubbon Park. Moisture coated his face, dripped down his neck into his T-shirt, a relic of a recent family holiday, soaking the image of palm trees and waves forming the word PHUKET.

“So how come Cubbon Park?” his daughter asked, when they slowed to a walk. “We could have gone running around Sankey Tank; that’s closer to home.”

“This is green and nice, no?” said Anand.

Valmika glanced slyly at him. “You know who we might meet here? Someone who lives rather close by…. Guess who.”

Anand focused on his breathing and wiped his forehead with the edge of his T-shirt.

“Thatha! He comes here … on his ‘morning constitutional.’ ” Valmika did a surprisingly good imitation of Harry Chinappa’s intonation, and Anand tried not to laugh. “Hey now, don’t,” he said. “Be respectful…. He’s gone to Coorg, actually,” he said, in spite of himself.

“He’s going to take us there soon,” said Valmika. “He promised. He is planning to breed one of his dogs—and he’s convinced Mama to let us have a puppy. Pingu and I get first choice. Won’t that be great?”

“Yeah, great. What kind of dog?”

“Yellow Labrador. Fanta…. Do you remember her? She must have been a puppy herself the last time you came …”

Anand didn’t remember. Though the children loved traveling there with their maternal grandparents, his own visits to his in-laws’ property in Coorg were few and far between.

“A dog should be good fun,” he said, “we can—” Valmika interrupted him with “Oh, look! There’s Kavika-aunty.”

She waved and ran over. Kavika was walking across the grass toward them, holding on to the leash of an aging cocker spaniel. Like them, she was in T-shirt and sweatpants. She was not alone with her dog; she was accompanied by her little four-year-old daughter. Anand watched her laughing and talking with Valmika, who was kneeling and fussing over the dog. The child hung back a little, perhaps rendered shy by this beaming teenage energy.

He walked over slowly. His heart rate had still not recovered from his running; he could do little more than nod and smile when she looked in his direction. The child peeped at him from behind her mother’s leg, and he found himself instantly relaxing. The responsive twinkle in his eye drew her out; soon she was exchanging confidences, showing him the bruise she had acquired the day before in her grandmother’s garden. Her skin was two shades lighter than her mother’s, just like her hair and eyes; these were the only hints of her putative foreign paternity; in the rest of her, her direct glance, the spark of her intelligence, her laughter, it seemed he could detect the graces of her mother.

“Come, Valmika,” he said eventually. “We should complete our run.” His daughter pulled away reluctantly; he turned away more slowly still, watching them walk away at the dawdling pace of young child and aging dog.

He and Valmika completed their circle around the park, jogging back to their car past the red High Court buildings, the stretched residence of a short British past and vainglorious Vidhana Soudha, full of aggrandized aspirations.

“We should do this every week, Appa,” his daughter said, her face aglow with heat and endorphins. “Isn’t Kavika-aunty cool?” she said. He smiled but did not answer.


HIS CALF MUSCLES WERE already tightening and painful by the time he reached his office, but he forgot them when he looked at his emails. There, number five from the top on a long list of incoming messages, was the mail they had been waiting for. He read and read again: Cauvery Auto had made the short list; the Japanese parent car company would very much like to take things further in a series of future meetings.

He immediately forwarded the email to Ananthamurthy and Mrs. Padmavati; they arrived in his office minutes later, their happiness written across their faces.

“It is because of our prayers,” Ananthamurthy said, “and also the level of preparation we put into the meeting.”

“Can it be that they are looking nowhere else?” Mrs. Padmavati asked. “That they have already decided upon us?”

“No, no,” said Anand, decidedly. “There is a short list. We cannot count our blessings, yet.”

“They are like chickens, is it not?” said Ananthamurthy, and after a short, baffled pause, Anand agreed with him. Blessings were indeed like chickens.

“Did you read the second half of the email?” he asked them, for this is what had caught his attention. They were asked to provide clarifications of a detailed nature: in case they were selected, would Cauvery Auto be ready with the resources necessary to handle the expansion?

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Padmavati. “We need to make a list…. From a financial point of view, we need to speak to the bankers to extend the loan facility.”

“We need more land, sir. From a production standpoint,” said Ananthamurthy. “We cannot proceed otherwise. Even if bank funding comes through.”

“Right,” said Anand.


IN THE EARLY YEARS of his working life, meetings with bankers were frequently combustible affairs, where need and dignity were in opposition; Anand had to convince skeptical bankers of both his desperation and his worthiness at one go, a humiliating process with variable outcomes. But he had been meticulous about his loan repayments, and he hoped that such scruples had earned him a measure of goodwill.

He decided to take Mrs. Padmavati with him to the meetings, to reinforce his organizational capability in front of the bankers; it would also be a good proving ground for her. Both of them spent the rest of the day preparing for the meeting, calculating their future requirements: for purchase of the land, for equipment, for new buildings, for new employees. Mrs. Padmavati was conscientious and conservative in her estimates, which pleased Anand, for despite their steady growth, Cauvery Auto was not flush; every expense still needed to be carefully planned for. Hopefully this Japanese deal would give them a much-needed financial fillip; filling the company coffers and allowing employees to take home nice fat bonuses.

At the bankers’ offices the following afternoon, Anand once again wore his jacket but with no tie. Mrs. Padmavati sat next to him, besilked and earnest. He spoke of their work with conviction, needing no reference to the papers in front of him to recall figures and details. Occasionally Mrs. Padmavati provided concise answers to certain questions. Their nervousness seemed unfounded. They were received with a smile; the bankers were receptive and, gratifyingly, seemed to see Anand as a man of promise and reliability; they finally said, with an ease that left Anand feeling light-headed, that they would back Cauvery Auto to the extent required, no problem at all; they were very pleased with the company’s performance—words he wished to record just for the pleasure of replaying them later to himself and to everyone at work.

But the bankers were regrettably firm on one point: any loan they provided would have to be backed by Anand’s personal guarantee. If his company defaulted, the bank would seize his personal assets. Anand agreed, his mind going to his house, already mortgaged, and the other asset he owned: a small flat in Mysore that his parents lived in. If Cauvery Auto ever defaulted on its loan repayments, he stood to lose everything. He could see that the seriousness of such a guarantee was not lost on Mrs. Padmavati.

“We will succeed, sir,” she told him as they stepped outside the bank doors, with a queer gravitas that touched him deeply. “We will not fail.”


ORCHESTRATING THE OTHER REQUIREMENT was less straightforward.

Land.

He called the Landbroker, who picked up the phone after five interminable rings.

“Yenu ri,” Anand said, forcing himself to sound casual. “What, any progress?”

“What, saar?” said the Landbroker, sounding vague and distracted. “Aanh, yes. Yes, saar?”

“Are you ready to show me something?”

“Ila, saar, not yet. You be patient …”

Anand thought about the long red fingernail of the Landbroker and frowned. His promises seemed like passing shadows in a dream, things of no substance whatsoever. As was his wont at moments of strain, Anand cursed multilingually: f*ck, thikka munchko, behenchuth. “Not to worry, saar,” said the Landbroker, with illegitimate confidence, the f*cker. “One day, two days, not more.”

Anand telephoned Vinayak. “Listen,” Anand said, “that Landbroker …”

“Arrey, give him time,” said Vinayak. “Putting together these land deals is really complicated; it needs a good guy—and takes time. If you hurry, you’ll end up with some f*cked-up piece of land that six other people also think they own and you’ll get tied up in the courts for years. You give him time …”

Time, like money, was something Anand could not afford to be generous about. Over the past few weeks, he had busily investigated other land-buying options: the businesswoman, for instance, who used her contacts in political circles to put together vast swaths of land for software companies was reputedly reasonable and efficient in her approach, but, alas, seemed to work exclusively in the Whitefield area, at the opposite end of a vast city; or, another option, the government-developed properties, also too far from his current factory and not always reliable in their deliverability. What he would have appreciated was an industrial land website: simple, logical, and transparent. Instead what he faced was very different: however much he might not like to, he was going to have to speak to Harry Chinappa.

In doing so, he was going to have to violate his own precept of never combining work with his personal life, and do so, moreover, with someone with whom mutual dislike was tempered only by familial association.

He quietened his distaste: surely Cauvery Auto was worth it?


HE HAD MISSED A CALL from him the previous night and received two messages via his wife.

“Ah,” said Harry Chinappa, when Anand returned the phone call. “Anand. How nice to finally hear from you. I thought, from the lack of response, that you had perhaps lost interest.”

“No, no, of course not,” said Anand. He forced his voice to sound cheerful. “How are you?”

Harry Chinappa did not waste time in pleasantries. “So, did you get my message? I told Vidya. I have arranged the meeting for tomorrow afternoon. Come over this evening to my house. I will brief you. Don’t be late,” he said, and disconnected.

Vidya, predictably, was aware of all the details about his planned meeting with her father. To this day, he knew, she talked with her parents several times a day, discussing family matters with her mother and matters of social importance with her father—unquestionably a better child to her parents than he was to his.

Now she said, “Daddy wants you to wear a white shirt for tomorrow’s meeting. With a jacket and no tie. And a nice shirt for tonight as well.”

“Why tonight?” Anand asked, puzzled. She was pouring tea: served as she liked it, English-style, with hot tea in a tea-cozy-covered pot, milk, and a bowl of sugar lumps. “Pingu! Sweetie, no,” she said, stopping her son from grabbing a second sugar lump. “All your teeth will fall out…. Because,” she said to Anand, handing him a cup, “they are having a few guests over. But Daddy says to come over anyway; he wants to finish the discussion with you. Ey, it’s so nice of him, no? To help you like this. He’s so busy …”

Yes, said Anand. It is very nice of him.


THE CHINAPPA HOUSE WAS at the end of a warren of lanes off Richmond Road. It had been built in the seventies, along with a few other houses in a plot subdivided from the remains of a large colonial bungalow and—as though to apologize for the lack of taste and heritage inherent in such a proceeding—the cement-roofed, mosaic-floored house was relentlessly stuffed with memorabilia of times past.

Years before, Anand, beguiled and lulled by his college sweetheart’s modesty in describing her home as small and cramped, “nothing compared to the old bungalow,” had accompanied her to her home and stared in amazement at the chintz-covered sofas, the heavy rosewood furniture, the windows swathed in heavy curtains, the lavish precision of the manicured lawn. Anand, awed, had thought it looked like something out of a magazine. He had wondered, abashed, what she would say when she saw his own childhood home in Mysore.

He had grown up in Lakshmipuram, not in one of the lovely old bungalows of that neighborhood but in the alleyways behind, in a tiny two-room house that was in its entirety smaller than his current living room. His parents had subsisted on the modest salary that his father made as a senior government clerk, refusing to augment it either by bribery or by better wages in the private sector. They seemed to think that the security provided by a nondismissible government job and a clear conscience were entirely sufficient to live upon—a state of contentment that provided Anand with little consolation, especially when watching classmates scatter after school to their own large homes.

Vidya’s Mysore connections were of a very different nature. Harry Chinappa’s family had been dignitaries in the old Mysore maharaja’s court; the walls of their home were littered with fading sepia photographs of dead Chinappas with visiting members of the Nehru family, old hunting guns, and eviscerated, plaque-mounted skulls of animals killed in erstwhile times when such pleasures were legal.

The house had not changed much since his first visit. He could hear a piano being played; he did not recognize the song. He had his cellphone pressed against his ear, trying to complete a conversation with a rascally supplier, and walked straight into a chorus of singing voices that drowned the conversation on the phone. “What? Hello?” he shouted and drew the suddenly silent attention of many astonished eyes.

Ruby Chinappa levered herself out of an overstuffed armchair and came surging toward him, breaking like a sturdy, determined wave about his ankles. He was short; she was shorter still and terrifyingly wide. “Anand!” she said. “Put away that silly phone; so busy all the time…. Come and enjoy the music! We are having such a nice sing-song.”

He hesitated and was lost, swept in her wake into the paralyzing throng; he would complete his phone call later. He recognized in some of the guests the fixtures of his in-laws’ social life: fossils from the club and relicts of the city’s old homes; as far as he knew, the patrons of the newer apartment buildings were never welcome in his father-in-law’s house unless he knew their parents and approved of their antecedents—or unless their successes earned for themselves a mention in the newspapers.

Harry Chinappa was as tall as his wife was short, towering over Anand; the hospitable smile on his face tightened as he beheld his son-in-law. “Ah, Anand, come in, come in…. You’re late,” he said, bringing his voice down.

Anand felt himself flush. “I had some meetings with the bank,” he said.

“Anand’s work is going very well,” announced Ruby Chinappa in some haste, and Anand felt the chill of polite attention settle upon him.

“Oh, yes!” said Colonel Krishnaiah. “Vidya was telling me the other day. Factory full of orders, is it? How nice. Well done.”

“Vidya seems so proud of your successes,” he heard someone else say.

“Yes, yes,” said Ruby Chinappa. “We all are.”

“Ruby! The chip bowls appear empty,” said Harry Chinappa. “I have to keep reminding you. Really,” he announced, “if one wants anything done well in this household, one is almost forced to do it oneself…. Now, if you will all excuse me for a few minutes.” He waited until a flushed Ruby Chinappa hurried in with freshly topped chip bowls before sweeping Anand before him into a little side alcove lined with books, a desk, and uncomfortable wooden chairs that could never be criticized because they were older than all the humans in the house.

Anand settled himself into a chair, feeling the knots of wood press into his back. If the object of highest veneration in the Chinappa household was the piano, the books in this alcove came a close second. Anand had not closely encountered the first before his marriage and had never displayed any affinity for his father-in-law’s library of books by dead English writers with names like P. G. Wodehouse and H. H. Munro; all this apparently served to put him even further beyond the pale of Harry Chinappa’s approval.

Harish “Harry” Chinappa was a proud man—who had made one incalculable mistake in his life—selling most of his vast Coorg coffee plantation when land prices, and coffee prices, were at their lowest. He sold and, having sold, was destined to spend the remainder of his existence watching land prices rise and recalculating his putative net worth had-he-but-not-sold. His son-in-law’s small successes might be a source of comfort to his wife; he himself appeared to reserve judgment.

Harry Chinappa sat down at the table. “The meeting tomorrow,” he said, “is with Mr. Sankleshwar.” In the brief silence that followed, he seemed to sense Anand’s surprise and hesitation and said: “Are you having any success in sourcing the land?”

“Yes,” said Anand. “That is to say, I have spoken to a landbroker of Vinayak’s. My friend, Vinayak Agarwal? But nothing has yet come through. They said these things take time.”

“Vinayak Agarwal?” said Harry Chinappa. “That young fellow? He has no concept of these things…. Why should it take time? What utter nonsense. No, don’t bother with him. My boy, when someone says something will ‘take time,’ it either means that they don’t have the resources to do the job or that there is some other unknown complication.” Harry Chinappa seemed to gain confidence as he assessed the effects of his words on Anand. “Now, about Sankleshwar. It is a big opportunity. I think I do not need to spell that out for you. Really, you are very lucky to be invited to his office. I know people who wait weeks and months just to see him, in fact, just the other day, who was saying? … I forget who, someone was saying that they have waited now to meet him for two and a half months…. You are very lucky. Very lucky indeed. But, as you know, I begrudge no effort if it will benefit you youngsters.”

“Okay,” said Anand.

Harry Chinappa waited for him to say more and then sighed. “It might be best,” he said, “if you were to allow me to handle it. At least initially. It would not do to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I’m sure I needn’t remind you to be anything less than respectful to Mr. Sankleshwar. Such an important man. Really, you are quite lucky. But follow my lead in tomorrow’s meeting and we should be okay. Let me see, we need about twenty acres for the factory …”

“Ten,” said Anand. “Ten acres.”

“Yes. That is what I thought. Ten would be about right. Or perhaps twenty … Very good! … And of course I will absolutely ask for no special favors from Mr. Sankleshwar. In fact, I will insist that we pay a fair and reasonable price for the land. Not only must one be fair in one’s business dealings, one must also appear to be fair. At least, I like to think so.” Harry Chinappa moved a few objects absentmindedly about his desk; his gaze encountered Anand; he continued with some effort: “Very good! … Two o’ clock, tomorrow afternoon; you can pick me up and we can drive out to his office together. Excellent! … Oh, and I hear,” he said, with that slight softened change of tone that came about whenever he spoke of his grandchildren, “that Valmika is doing well in her studies. That’s wonderful! Vidya should see that the children spend more time out-of-doors. In fact, we should consider banning them from using things like computers…. I have said the same thing to Vivek in an email,” he said, as though Vidya’s brother in America were not alcoholic, divorced, and immeasurably distant from both his parents and his children.

“They should exercise,” said Anand. “But I don’t think banning computers is the answer.”

“I am not surprised to hear you say so. Vidya tells me,” said his father-in-law, “that you are rather addicted to your gadgets…. I am thinking of taking the children with me to Coorg next weekend. They can jump about in the fresh air …”

“Yes, they’d like that,” said Anand.

“Well, time for me to rejoin my guests. Come, come. Don’t just sit here, come and have a drink.”

Harry Chinappa swept out of the alcove, leaving Anand mulling over the conversation, several aspects of it slowly falling into place. For weeks now, his father-in-law had enlivened family gatherings with his planned foray into the world of real estate development: an old family property that he had decided to develop into a shopping mall in collaboration with this Sankleshwar, Harry Chinappa’s contribution to the venture consisting of the property itself and, no doubt, a supply of unsolicited advice. His interest in Anand was not entirely altruistic; orchestrating the purchase of several acres would add to his business credentials—which, as far as Anand knew, were otherwise nonexistent. Harry Chinappa had kept occupied his entire life by busying himself in other people’s business.

But Sankleshwar was a well-known name in real estate; if he had a reputation for slightly dubious deals (which Harry Chinappa liked to gloss over), he was also a property developer of stratospheric proportions; it was very probable that he would be able to help Anand find the land he needed—that was the rice in the midst of all the husk of Harry Chinappa’s words, and Anand forced himself to concentrate on that.

He trailed out of the alcove to find his father-in-law installed behind the carved rosewood bar, where he was once again dispensing drinks in his best plantation manner. “Ah, Anand! I thought we’d lost you to the lure of fine literature …” Harry Chinappa laughed at his own joke. “What will you have to drink, my boy? A beer to wash away the factory soot?”

“A beer will be fine,” Anand said. “Or a whiskey.”

“Ruby!” said his father-in-law. “Ask the boy to get another beer from the kitchen. And more ice, Ruby, for goodness’ sake! Quickly, please. Mrs. Nayantara?” he said. “Another sherry for you?”

Mrs. Nayantara Iyer shook her head, but the Colonel at the piano raised his glass for another whiskey.

“Ah,” said Harry Chinappa, in a pleased way. “I have here a single malt that I think you will enjoy. One of my collection,” he said, “that I save for special guests.” Anand knew that single malt; he had bought it himself (on his wife’s suggestion) the last time he’d passed through the Singapore duty-free as a ritual sacrifice on the altar of family relations.

“Actually,” said Anand, “I think I’ll have a whiskey too.”

To be honest, he was not that fond of whiskey; the strength of it tested his tongue and blurred the edges of his resistance after a single sip. He saw an empty chair next to Mrs. Nayantara Iyer and, on an impulse, made his way over. He sat down and wondered what to say, feeling foolish. He could not ask after her daughter; he did not know how to phrase the question in a casual way. Instead, he said: “Aunty, I saw your granddaughter in the park when I was out running with my daughter. Very sweet child.”

He saw by the smile on her face that he had said the right thing. She reciprocated by asking after his own children; this was a topic he could converse on easily.

Kavika’s mother lived next door in an old stone bungalow set in a large property; she had been a prominent High Court judge in her day. Years before, on the occasion of their wedding, Ruby Chinappa had introduced her: “And this is our great and famous judge, Nayantara Iyer, our next-door neighbor and our dear friend.” Anand, newly married, virgin shy, awkward, had barely touched her extended hand and said: “Oh, yes, madam. I have read your articles in the newspaper.”

The judge had smiled kindly at Anand and the nervousness within him had quieted, but Ruby Chinappa had quickly swept him away, to introduce him, in appalled fashion, to the people she thought of as her most important connections, not so much to propagate his interests as to impress upon him the heights into which he had married. She had had no intention of letting him talk to anyone, hurrying him from guest to guest before depositing him next to his parents in the far corner of the room, where they were sitting in their own distressed fashion, staring at the other guests across a wide chasm: they were provincial, traditional; caste still mattered and Chinappa social connections did not; they, as much as the Chinappas, could not approve of their son’s ill-considered liaison. The Chinappas had proceeded to ignore Anand and his parents while they fussed over the rest of their guests; Anand and Vidya sat silent under the weight of general disgrace.

Now Ruby was tugging at his arm. “Come and sing,” she said. “You must sing. Colonel Krishnaiah is at the piano, as usual, and he can play anything you want.”

No, no, said Anand, embarrassed.

The piano started up again; everyone else seemed to know the songs and the mysterious source from which they sprang; they added their voices to the chorus, weighing it down and letting the music sink around the soft, encroaching chintz sofas. Mrs. Mascarenhas, another neighbor, now opened her mouth: “I could have danced all night,” she sang. And still have begged for more.

It was a ludicrous assumption; she was fatter than his mother-in-law; she couldn’t have danced for two minutes at a stretch. Was he the only person here to catch the f*cking irony of this? Apparently so. Mrs. Mascarenhas’s efforts were greeted with applause.

Harry Chinappa maneuvered his way to the front of the piano. “Elvis!” said Mrs. Mascarenhas. “ ‘Blue Suede Shoes’! Or ‘Hello, Dolly!’ ”

Harry Chinappa smiled. “I will, later,” he said. “But you have inspired me …” He signaled for silence from the piano and, instead of singing, began to recite what sounded like dialogue from a play or movie: “Look at her,” he said, “a pris’ner of the gutters.” His gaze seemed directed at Anand, who felt himself flush.

A few years before, the old buzzard took the freedom of speech offered by his fourth glass of whiskey to lean across the dining table one evening and say confidentially: “My dear fellow, of course you may have some, but—you won’t mind me saying this—one doesn’t quite pronounce the word in that way. No table in it, you know.” And when Anand had looked bewildered, his father-in-law had been happy to oblige: “It’s ‘veg-t-bil,’ ” he said, with a kind smile. “Not ‘vegie-table.’ Oh, and one other thing: it’s ‘there,’ not ‘they-are.’ And your daughter likes to play with ‘Don-ild’ Duck, not ‘Don-ald’ Duck.” In the face of his father-in-law’s happiness, Anand had sat still and silent. Vidya had quickly passed him a roti, Ruby Chinappa had quickly chattered about curtains, and the moment had passed—straight into his stomach, where it lay for quite a while, leaking acid.

Now, once again, his father-in-law’s finger seemed to be pointing at Anand; Look at him, he seemed to say, that creature of the gutters, Harry Chinappa’s words flying, spittle-flecked, vomitous, straight at his son-in-law: “He should be taken out and hung, for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.”

Loud, shattering applause greeted his words; the piano struck up again; voices rose in song; Anand looked around, bewildered.

“They have demolished the old Pinto house, those developer chappies,” said Colonel Krishnaiah, refilling his whiskey glass. “Rascals. Really, forgive me, but that was a beautiful old home. Much like yours, Mrs. Nayantara,” he said, raising a glass to Mrs. Nayantara Iyer.

“So awful,” sighed Ruby Chinappa, “to think of having another apartment building going up close by.”

“In our time,” said Colonel Krishnaiah, “we preferred gardens and fresh air to the smell of concrete. But that was Old Bangalore … nowadays, money is more important.”

Anand could not understand what the fuss was all about. Yes, gardens were lovely—but a city that did not build was a city that had stopped growing and the idea of such stasis was appalling, abhorrent to his very being. He voiced none of these thoughts, noting that his father-in-law too was relatively reticent on a normally favorite topic. “A garden,” said Harry Chinappa in some abstraction, “is a lovesome thing, God wot!” A mall built with Sankleshwar presumably even more so.

“They spoke to me as well,” said Mrs. Nayantara Iyer. “Those construction people. Twice.”

“Dear, dear,” said Harry Chinappa. “If they should turn troublesome, please let me speak to them on your behalf, Mrs. Nayantara. I know just what to say to them. One needs to take a firm hand. In fact, I will give them a call tomorrow.”

“No, that’s all right. Thank you. I’ll attend to it myself.”

Anand wished he could refuse Harry Chinappa’s offer of involvement with the same ease that Mrs. Nayantara displayed. It behooved him to be grateful: he did so by wishing that with any luck the construction company in question would approach the development of the Pinto property as a cost-cutting, tightfisted venture and put up a vast apartment complex of tiny-tiny apartments, all of them with their service balconies built facing his father-in-law’s home, so that each morning Harry Chinappa could wake up to the sight of a hundred drying bras and chuddies, fluttering like banners in the early morning breeze.

Furthermore, Anand would, in future, take to emphasizing, particularly, the table in vegetable. And why not? He had recently read an article about how English had become a true Indian language; that from being the language of the colonizers, it was now colonized in turn; Indianized; used in ways new and original and made in India, mixing and settling with the 550 other Indian languages; that, far from languishing amid its imported Victorian roots, it (like the ancient country it now inhabited) had turned inexplicably young and vigorous. Anand would play his role. He was part of the loyal, proud, nationalistic mainstream; the language would serve him, rather than he serving the language.

His mother-in-law called her guests in to dinner, doubtless the same menu of pork and chicken and baked cauliflower that Ruby Chinappa had served with due veneration, like prasadam after a pooja, at every dinner he could ever remember, and Anand treated this as his signal to exit.


HE COULD HEAR THE television in the upstairs living room, tuned to a show favored by his wife and daughter. They would be settled next to each other on the couch, Vidya and Valmika, giggling and gasping over the unreal, unpleasant drama about rich teenagers and their parents in New York; Pingu dozing with his head on his mother’s lap. Anand walked slowly up the stairs, the exhaustion of the day settling on him with every step. He did not join them as he normally might; Vidya would subject him to a detailed catechism that he could not yet face.

His bedroom was gifted with a momentary peace, rich in solitude, gilded in silence, the silk of lamplight captured against the warm colors of the bedspread. He locked the bathroom door and stripped, glancing at himself in the full-length mirror. He was lean, which was good, and short, which was not; his height a victim, he had always felt, of the spartan vegetarian diet he’d had growing up.

The session with Harry Chinappa had created unnatural bands of tension in his neck muscles, which welcomed the soothing fall of hot water in the shower. His right hand reached for his penis; he tugged at it briskly, catching the eventual release of semen in his cupped left hand and depositing it tidily in the drain, watching it flush away with the shower water. He was always fastidious about this, ensuring no glutinous streak left accidentally on walls or floor to be discovered later by a disconcerted wife or maid.

• • •

WHAT IS A WIFE?

In the simplest sense, the mother of your children.

In the grand Indian sense: the purveyor of domestic comfort; the chief priestess of patriarchy; the legislator of harmony and peace; the weaver who knots the extended family together; the Diwali firecracker who creates a sense of celebration in the home; the keeper of spirituality and a reminder of earthly goodness; the creator of future life and the guardian of the ancient ways; a partner in earthly pleasure; the feet-presser and old-age comforter to his parents; the role model for his sisters, and the object of secretive devotion of his brothers and friends.

In a more modern sense, as per the women’s magazines Vidya left around in the bathroom: all of the above, but let’s add to that, girls, the secrets of looking hip and sexy; of working a job that sounds glamorous (but that doesn’t take time away from the home and hearth); of adding that touch of panache to your hostessing and home interiors; and the art, for god’s sake, of giving your husband a decent blow job.

Anand had seen Vidya on the second day of college at St. Peter’s Academy. He watched her walk across the campus to her classroom; later, he watched her leave through the college gates.

If, at that stage, he had paused to examine the qualities he looked for in a wife, the list would have been short and very simple: someone with whom to share sex, some laughs, some music, some dreams. Instead, he found himself fascinated by Vidya and charmed by her evident reciprocal interest in him. There she was, beautiful, vivacious, with her precise convent accent, westernized, her father a member of the best clubs—and she had leaned toward Anand as a sunflower to the morning sun. This had completely captivated him.

If the list of Anand’s transgressions against his father’s wishes was long, Vidya’s solitary moment of rebellion had occurred in her marrying Anand, an act of filial disobedience that was quickly buried beneath the birth of the children, two intervening miscarriages and Harry Chinappa’s defiant public face of scandal-averting acceptance.

Eventually, the origins of such an association became lost in the mists of time and youthful passions. In fifteen years of marriage Anand had still not summoned up the courage to request a blow job and indeed, at this late stage of things, could not imagine ever doing so. As for the rest, he had never thought to quarrel with Vidya’s choices or the pressured influences of her parents, quelling his moments of marital rebellion in the interests of domestic peace. Now they were just who they were, destined, it seemed, to continue as such until the end of time, when they would merge into one peculiar and badly-constructed unit, as his parents had done and hers. What remained vivid between them were the children; Vidya was a good mother, and whatever their own incompatibility, Anand never let himself forget that.