The meeting was over breakfast at the luxurious Teresa’s Hotel in Connaught Place in central Delhi, and after filling himself up with mini croissants, fruit tarts, sliced cheeses, salami, coffee, and orange juice, Mr. Jha went for a stroll through the lobby and the other restaurants in the hotel. All the five-star hotels in the center of town were little oases of calm and cool. Mr. Jha was walking by the large windows that overlooked the swimming pool that was for guests only when he thought he would book a two-night stay here. He knew his wife loved the indulgence of nice hotels and he had recently read about what youngsters were calling a staycation—a vacation where you don’t leave the city or the home you usually live in, but you give yourself a few days to take a holiday. Of course, since he didn’t work much anymore, most days, weeks, months were a staycation, but how wonderful it would be to check into a hotel and have a lazy few days. Having room service—or, like they were called at Teresa’s, butlers—was a different sort of pleasure than having servants bringing you food and cleaning your home. Butlers showed that you had made the progression from servants to expensive appliances to uniformed men who ran the expensive appliances.
He was about to go to the front desk to inquire about rates for the following week when he saw an electronic shoe polisher on the floor. He had not used one of those in ages. Mr. Jha placed his right foot in between the motion-sensor bristles, which promptly started whirring around his shoe. He did his left foot as well and then looked down happily to see how shiny his shoes were. They hadn’t looked this good since the day he bought them, so he changed his mind and decided that an electronic shoe polisher was a much better use of money than a staycation. They had just bought an expensive new house, after all, and thinking of a stay in a hotel as an “escape” was offensive to the new home. But the one thing missing in their hotel-like home was an electronic shoe polisher.
So instead of making a reservation for the following week, Mr. Jha asked the pretty woman at the front desk where they bought the electronic shoe polishers. She had no idea, so she had to call the manager while he waited. A shop in INA Market, she said, and wrote down the name on a small yellow sticky paper.
Mr. Jha left Teresa’s and went straight to the market, found exactly what he was looking for—more than what he was looking for—the newest model of the polisher had arrived recently, so Mr. Jha bought that one—and was now arriving in Gurgaon with the box safely belted on the front seat where there were front and side air bags for safety. He did not want to take the box back home to Mayur Palli, because he got the feeling his wife would not like it quite as much as she would have liked a staycation, so it would be best if she saw it later, when they were settled in and happy and excited about their new lives.
Mr. Jha reached the big metal gate of their new home in Gurgaon and was about to step out of the car to push it open—they would have to hire a guard soon—when the gate next door opened and a man walked out followed by what looked like a guard wearing a white uniform. Mr. Jha pressed the button to roll his window down. Had he remembered to show Rupak the power windows?
“Look at the chair,” the first man said to the guard. He pointed at what Mr. Jha assumed was the guard’s chair placed right outside the gate. It was plastic, with a dirty-looking brown cushion on it. A stack of newspapers lay under it. “This reflects on the house, Balwinder. I can’t keep repeating myself. Get the cushion cover washed, and throw away all the papers. What will people think?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Balwinder said, while looking at the idle car parked near the next gate. The new neighbors, he realized! The ones Mr. Chopra was waiting to meet. “Sir,” Balwinder whispered, pointing toward Mr. Jha’s car. “Sir, look behind you.”
“Balwinder, focus. I’m late for golf already. Clean this up and take the contractor to the backyard when he comes,” Mr. Chopra continued. “If my wife is going to keep objecting to a swimming pool, we’re just going to have to have the contractor take measurements when she’s out shopping.”
“Sir, madam told me this morning not to let the pool contractor in when she goes shopping. I think she knows,” Balwinder said.
“How does that woman know everything I’m doing? Before I’ve even done it. Never get married, Balwinder.”
Mr. Jha stepped out of his car and said, “Good morning! Hello!”
Mr. Chopra spun around. He was wearing khaki pants with a single crisp crease running down each leg. Mr. Jha would have to tell his wife to get their clothes ironed more carefully. He looked down at his pants, which were crushed along the upper thighs, and tried quickly flattening them with his palms. Mr. Chopra was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt on top that stretched taut over his belly that looked hard like a well-tuned drum. He had a white baseball cap on his head. He might not be a foreigner, Mr. Jha thought, but he certainly looked fashionable.
“Good morning, good morning, good morning. Lovely day. Are you our new neighbor? Chopra. I am Mr. Dinesh Chopra. Welcome. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Anil Kumar Jha,” Mr. Jha said, extending his hand. “A pleasure. We are not shifting in yet—just dropping some things off, and getting the place cleaned and some work done.”
Mr. Chopra’s cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, looked at it, motioned to Mr. Jha to please excuse him for one moment, answered, and said, “I will be there in under ten minutes. I am just leaving now. Seven. Seven minutes. I will be on the course in nine minutes.” He hung up and shouted, “Balwinder! Tell Nimesh to hurry up and get the car out.”
“Course?” Mr. Jha said.
“Golf. My golfing partner at the club is waiting for me. Do you golf? Where are you from? Delhi? London?”
“I haven’t golfed in a long time,” Mr. Jha said, which was technically true. His lifetime was a long time and he hadn’t ever golfed during it.
“Once you have settled in, we must play,” Mr. Chopra said. “What do you do? Oh, I want to know all about you.”
“We must, we must,” Mr. Jha said. “I work in technology. Computers. And you? We must have a meal and get to know each other.”
Computers. Maybe they had moved from San Francisco, then. Mr. Chopra looked into the window of the Mercedes. An image of the shoe-polishing machine was clearly printed on the box in the front seat.
“Oh good, are you throwing away Mr. Mukherjee’s shoe polisher? Thank goodness. Who gets shoes polished these days? Am I right? It is so much easier to buy new ones. I’m glad we will have neighbors with better taste now!” Mr. Chopra said.
His car came out of his driveway right as his phone rang again.
“So sorry,” Mr. Chopra said again to Mr. Jha. His phone kept ringing. “Oh dear. I simply have to run. But will you be here soon? We must chat. I don’t even know where you’re moving from. But I am in the process of getting a swimming pool put in, so maybe we’ll make it a pool party once you’re settled. I know your house does not have a pool.”
He opened the back door of his car, and the air-conditioned air spilled out and cooled Mr. Jha. He would have to learn golf and he would have to hire a driver who would quietly pull up in the car and wait patiently while Mr. Jha wore a baseball cap and pants with crisp creases in them. But first, he had to see if the shop in INA Market would allow him to return the shoe-polishing machine.
“We will be fully moved in soon,” Mr. Jha said. “But it is so nice to have already met a neighbor. It will make my wife happy to know there are friendly people in the area.”
“Wonderful. I’ll be off then, Mr. Jha. Here’s to our friendship!”
“Please call me Anil,” Mr. Jha said as Mr. Chopra’s car door slammed shut and the car pulled away down the lane.