“Twenty-three.”
“OK, let’s go.” She pressed RECORD, and the red light came on. “I’m here with Vijay, twenty-three, we’re in Khan Market, and the question of the day is malls and markets. Vijay, please tell me what you do.”
He took a long drag of his cigarette, frowned at the table a moment, placed the cigarette in the ashtray. When he looked up next, he’d not only switched personas but languages. “I work in a call center, madam,” he replied, in strong, Western UP–accented Hindi.
It took her by surprise, the earnest, hopeful, confident voice. And it occurred to her: maybe this is his real voice, his real accent.
“OK, Vijay, twenty-three, call center worker,” she replied, sticking to English, “here’s the question: Are Delhi’s new malls a death knell for the city’s traditional markets?”
“Madam,” he said, “the malls are very exciting for me.”
“Why is that?”
“So much things, all under one roof, with the best brands. If you have no brand, madam, you have no style.”
She had to stop herself from smiling. It teased her lips.
“Madam,” Vijay cringed, “what is funny?”
“Kuch nahi,” she said. “Nothing.”
“Madam,” he said, “you are making fun of me, but you don’t understand what it is like, going here, going there, trying to find all the things a fellow needs in all the different markets. Also, mall has AC. Nice climate.”
“OK, OK,” she said, “so malls will destroy traditional markets? That’s what you think?”
“No, madam,” he smiled, “there will always be big men and women like you who like to use these markets, climbing out of your nice cars with your drivers.”
“I don’t have a driver!” she said.
He held up a hand for her to wait. “And there will always be the common man who cannot afford to go to the new mall, and they too will use the market. But in the middle, there is now a person like me.” He switched to English and spoke one heavily accented word. “Aspirational.”
He watched her in silence, perfectly straight faced, not breaking in the slightest.
“Oh, come on,” she finally said, “this is just you giving your sales pitch.”
“Madam,” he said, almost cracking, “what are you saying?”
She threw up her hands, “Whatever!”
“Besides,” he said, picking up the cigarette and returning to Sunny Wadia. “Do you even know how Khan Market started?”
She looked blank.
“Of course you don’t,” he went on. Now she listened for small tells in his honeyed, international voice, but it was flawlessly vague. “It started with Partition refugees. They came to Delhi and landed up in that colony with nothing. And they adapted because they had to. If they didn’t adapt, they died. So more than anyone, they shouldn’t be surprised when the city changes. And if they can’t keep their customers happy, why should they stay in business? They have no God-given right.”
“So the moral of the story,” she said, “is adapt or die?”
He sat back in his chair. “Pretty much.”
“Go on then,” she said. “Say it.”
“Adapt. Or die.”
“Vijay, twenty-three, then . . .”
“Listen,” he said, cutting her off, “seriously speaking, markets have their place. But there are thousands, millions, of young Indians who can’t go to a place like Khan Market, who can’t navigate Old Delhi all the time. Who don’t want to, who don’t have the time. Young people everywhere, from all backgrounds, are getting jobs, they’re living alone or with friends, they have disposable income, and they want to get on with things. Our market research shows a high percentage of those entering the workforce want a more concentrated, immersive, convenient shopping experience everywhere, in B-towns, satellite cities, in places that people like you don’t dream of going.”
“Your market research?”
“Yes.”
“You’re building malls. Aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he said.
“You’re twenty-three years old.”
“Twenty-four.”
“Wow.” She glanced at the Dictaphone to see if it was still running. “And there I was thinking you were a patron of the arts.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he said.
“Well, no,” she fumbled.
“Who do you think funded art, historically speaking? The Medicis were bankers.”
“Yeah, I mean, of course.”
“Besides, I have bigger plans than malls in mind. I want to turn Delhi into a truly global city.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“Well, that’s kind of insane.”
“Are you happy living here?”
“Excuse me?”
“I hear you’re not. I hear you want to leave.”
She was taken aback. Hari must have told him.
“And I don’t blame you,” he went on. “Trust me, I didn’t grow up with the West beamed into my living room like you, but I’ve traveled, I’ve seen how people live in other parts of the world, I’ve seen what’s available, what’s open, what’s possible. We lag so far behind here. We have all the potential, the human capital, we just have to harness it.”
Did he do this with everyone? Could he simply not help himself?
“Let me ask you something,” he continued. “What do London, Paris, and Singapore have in common?”
“I don’t know. Tell me.”
“No, I’m asking you, what do they have in common?”
She shrugged. “Capital cities?”
“They have rivers.”
“OK. And?”
“And what do we have here in Delhi?”
She was rapidly tiring of his rhetorical grandstanding.
“A river.”
“Now listen,” he said, launching into a monologue. “Throughout history, rivers and cities have been entwined. A river is a city’s lifeline, its artery.” And she knew as he spoke that he’d practiced this, that it was a speech he’d prepared. “At first trade, then industry, then leisure. And all the best cities in the world have something in common. They face their rivers. Their rivers become their centerpiece.” Maybe it was even an essay he’d written once. “Now what do we do? Right here in Delhi? To the Yamuna?”
She shook her head, because she knew she was expected only to listen.
“We turn our back to it. Think about it,” he said, slipping out of the prepared and into the evangelical. “Imagine the city from above, picture it, can you see it? Can you see the Yamuna running through? Now think about all the colonies, the things everyone does every day. Does anyone look at the river? Does anyone have anything to do with the river? No, we shun it, we ignore it. It should be sacred, but it becomes profane, fucked up with sewage, banked by slums. And we just accept this. Right?”