by Anil Menon
‘Thing is sir, I was writing Tanaz a love letter—’
‘A love letter!’
‘Yes, sir.’ There was nothing for it but to thrash on. ‘I, well, write, that’s to say, sometimes I’m moved to write—’
‘Love letters? On paper?’
‘Yes. Long story short, there was a screw-up. I accidentally had my assistant send the wrong set of papers to Dhasal—’
‘Papers. Plural? How many pages is this Song of Songs?’
‘Twenty pages or so.’ I coughed. ‘Maximum twenty-five. As I was saying, I sent the wrong set and a week later, Tanaz called to ask why I’d sent her a subpoena. Dhasal must have got my love letter.’
Silence. Then I heard a howl of laughter.
‘So you see,’ I continued, ‘I’d like to search his place, find the damn thing. I don’t want Archives leaking it to someone—’
‘Yes, I bet. I bet. By Jove!’ More laughter. ‘I’m tempted to let them have it. Most tempted. Just to teach you a lesson.’
‘General, the letter was rather intimate.’
‘Rather intimate? A sex letter? Good God man, this is the era of the sex tape.’
‘Sir, I’m thinking about Tanaz. And you know how it is. Your enemies are just waiting for a chance to embarrass you.’
‘Hold on, let me think.’ He sucked on his cigar. Irritated. ‘I see your concern. I won’t be made a laughing-stock. Okay, find the damn letter. But make it quick. I’ll send some muscle to help move things around.’
‘Thank you sir, but that’s not necessary—’
‘Oh it is. Believe me, it is necessary. By the by, when did all this happen?’
I told him the incident had happened last week. I had planned to approach Dhasal, explain the error, retrieve my letter, hand over the subpoena.
‘That simple, is it? You blithering idiot. You and your scribbling. Vyas, you realize your cock-up could have compromised my niece’s honour? Compromised me! You realize Dhasal could have placed you in his debt? That is, he could have made you just a little less loyal to me? A loyalty I’m increasingly beginning to question. A questionable loyalty, Vyas.’
I said nothing. My silence would reassure him more than any words I could offer.
‘Oh, I suppose we should make a good fist of it. Love is batty and all that.’ I could again hear Dorabjee sucking on his cigar. Suspicious. ‘And now, it so happens you can do me a favour too. Mind you, it still won’t be quid pro quo. Not by a long shot.’ He gave me his instructions. ‘Don’t take too long to wrap your nonsense. No more letters! Use the phone like every other sad panda. I want you to focus on the student radicals. They’re really getting under my skin.’
I told him I would. Thanked him.
‘Carry on then. Kiss my niece for me. Cheerio.’
I would certainly kiss Tanaz, perhaps even on his account. Tanaz wasn’t his niece exactly, more like a cousin’s daughter. But Dorabjee liked to play the family connection on occasion. He had the Mafiosi’s faith in love. Love strengthened him.
‘Bad news?’ said Bilkis, when I returned to her side.
‘Yes, in a way. Durga Dhasal is dead.’
‘Dhasal? Which unit?’
I laughed. ‘Never mind.’
‘Excuse me, I do mind.’ She hadn’t liked my laugh. ‘What’s the crisis?’
‘Did I say there was a crisis?’
Bilkis gazed at me. I had missed that wolf-eyed inspection.
‘Do you keep secrets from Tanaz too?’
‘My existence proves I don’t.’
I like to see Bilkis laugh. When she laughs it’s possible to see the little bully in pigtails she must have been.
‘Sensible girl,’ said Bilkis approvingly. ‘I like Tanaz a lot.’
‘No you don’t. You can’t stand her.’
Blood rushed to her face and I knew I was in for an elaborate cover-up.
‘Hai Allah, where do you get these crazy notions? You’re so wrong! I don’t judge her one bit. It’s obvious from her photo she’s a sweet girl. So pretty, almost like one of those lovely American dolls. In fact I’ve often wondered how you managed to hook her. I had a doll just like her—have I told you about Shahzadi Nafisa? No? Really? How strange. I thought you knew everything about everyone.
‘Well, it happened like this. I had an uncle, Siddiq-chacha, who worked in Saudi Arabia. For my seventh birthday, he sent me a Princess Charm-School Barbie doll, and I named her Shahzadi Nafisa after my mother, who died, as I’ve told you, from a womanly cancer. I loved that doll. Oh how I loved it. Unfortunately, I accidentally left Shahzadi Nafisa in the sun and she was ruined. When you first showed me Tanaz’s photo, I had to control myself from breaking down and apologizing. It was like meeting Shahzadi Nafisa all over again. You almost expect Tanaz to say ‘Ma-ma’ if you press her belly button. Of course, she doesn’t have a belly, so don’t go around saying I said that. If anything, she is skinny, even too skinny. But you said her mother was really fat, so maybe that’ll change. Tanaz is a very nice girl. What do you call her? Chakli? I like your chakli a lot.’
‘Yes, now I am convinced.’
She looked satisfied. ‘Good.’
We headed for the railway’s VIP waiting room. The air was cold enough to satisfy a Canadian buffalo. My men had ejected a couple of Majors from their seats. I gestured to Bilkis to make herself comfortable. We sat side by side, in silence; the unexpectedness of our meeting had finally caught up with us. Finally, she asked: ‘What are you thinking about?’
I told her I was working on a story about a man who had decided to write a story about giving up on stories.
She looked interested. ‘Does it have a happy ending? Otherwise, don’t bother.’
‘It will have a happy ending. Unlike what happened to Shahzadi
Nafisa.’
She laughed. ‘Listen, about my doll, Shahzadi Nafisa. You know I would never leave her in the sun. I’m sure it was my friend Jehan—she was so jealous of the Shahzadi. Have I told you about Jehan? Jahanara?’
She had. Often. Like Tanaz, Bilkis didn’t seem to have made any new friends after her school days. Jehan figured large in Bilkis’ landscape. Jehan; Jahanara. Jehan, back bencher, orphan, speculative glances throughout the year. Jehan, who had suddenly cornered Bilkis in the madrasa’s prayer room, pressed her against the wall, breast to breast, and hissed:
Fatty, you’re the grass the donkey has; you’re the dung from his ass.
Jackass.
Pain in the ass,
Still man, whatever.
‘Jehan and I didn’t become real friends until she murdered my Nafisa. So no regrets.’
Bilkis leaned against me, ever so slightly. She is sleepy. I liked Bilkis against me, her shoulder pressed against mine. She exuded warmth. Perhaps it was me, I felt a little feverish. Train journeys always did that to me. And my journey wasn’t done yet. I had to find my compromising letter. I’d lied to the General. The letter compromised me, not Tanaz. Still, at least I wouldn’t have to write any more love letters. I closed my eyes and thought about my wife. In a few hours I would be home.
#
(Tanaz Chikliwala is on her way to the next site, the Govindas Industrial Estate in the lower west side of Delhi. She has been in constant motion since morning.)
I’m not tired at all. When I’m out doing field surveys, I never feel tired. Plus today I have extra motivation. My husband is finally coming home! I’ve taken a half-day, but it means moving twice as fast.
(She checks the time.)
Great. It’s only ten. I can do at least five more forms. Maybe six. The Kanpur train’s scheduled to arrive at one-thirty. But the train will be late. I bet I could do seven forms. It isn’t just about the money. It is also about being responsible. About doing your job properly. You have to be sincere.
Cubic-boron-nitrite. No, not nitrite, nitride. I need to practise. Say it once, say it twice, say it true and say it thrice. That’s what Francesca-madam, my third standard English teache
r, used to say. Cubic-boron-nitrite—nitride. Oh God! Cubic-boron-nitride. Why do scientists think up such weirdo words? If I were the Queen of Science, I’d rename the elements after people. Cubic-boron-nitride would become Chris-Boris-Natrajan. Simple! I should have become a scientist—no running around, just wear a white coat and look all serious. (Laughs.) I bet they make pots of money.
Not much probably. Scientists seem to enjoy their jobs. And if you like to do something, people think you’ll do it budget. That’s why I never let on I love this job. Then they’ll have me by the throat. Is Tanaz a team-player? Yah. Hard-working? Yah! Responsible? Totally! Loves the job? Uh huh.
(Checks the time.)
Yah, I am nervous. My stomach has been doing its item number all morning, squeezing, cramping. I need to pee too. I guess that’s too much information. (Laughs.)
But it isn’t only because pati-dev is on his way. I’m always a little freaked before interviews. I have done surveys a thousand times but I still get nervous. You never know what kind of person you’re going to meet. That’s why it’s such fun. I’ve had all sorts of experiences. Most people are nice, generous with their information. But some are weird. They just hate to give information. They have the information. The information is not a big secret. The information may be something as simple as the annual output of some unit or the number of employees. But because it’s their information, it’s my wits against theirs. They act like I’ve come to audit them even though I’m there only because they agreed to answer my questions. It is like trying to take a bone from a dog. Staring at me, eye to eye, baring their teeth. Such types are really something.
But I love the challenge. I remember this NGO project where we were surveying the difficulties Indian politicians faced in implementing policies. Their policies. It’s the kind of project only Social Weather can do because other companies won’t be able to even get in the door. Anyway, I got through to this politician, won’t mention his name, some Sri Khadi-chhod let’s say, and I fixed an appointment. His assistant says his boss gives darshan between nine and twelve every morning. I’m like, did he say, darshan? But whatever. I go at nine to get some darshan at his office, and there are hazaar people in his office. Now this office is like a cricket field, it’s that large. And its packed with people. I have to shout my questions like I’m a reporter. Everyone’s listening in, some are recording the whole thing with their smartphones. And he either gives answers like ‘no comment’ or launches into small speeches. I don’t think he got the concept of a survey.
But sometimes I have the opposite problem. I get too much information. Like when a UN outfit asked us to survey subjective well-being among urban middle-class women. These firang outfits are real cash-cows but we have to use their materials. This time, we had to use the Gallup-Healthways Index. The women told me all sorts of stories about their families, sex lives, how they longed to give their children rat poison and all that jazz. I was like, um, excuse me, I just need to put down whether you’ve had five or more servings of fruits and vegetables in the last week.
When I complain, pati-dev says: why not ask for another project? It’s true, I could. Social Weather is usually quite flexible. But you can’t run from problems like that. I get all kinds of people in this job. I just deal with it. It can be stressful. I get tense. I cry. That’s just how I cope. He never seems to get tense, ever. He just gets a little quieter, that’s all. It’s pretty creepy when he’s hurting. Seen a block of ice sweating quietly in the sun? That’s Vyas-ji.
(She’s checking her cell for messages and doesn’t notice a small pothole; her Hyundai dips and then veers into the other lane. A truck roars by, a mere inch or two away, and she quickly steers back into her lane.)
Wow, that was close! Vyas might have got a totally different Tanaz from the one he expected. There’s only so much change love can tolerate. Tanaz he loves, but Tanaz plus two bionic arms? (Laughs.) I used to torment him with this kind of irritating and ghastly scenario all the time. Stuff like: if I told you I’ve always felt I was a man trapped in a woman’s body, would you still love me? What if I changed my name to Rosemary-Marlowe and I refused to let you shorten it? You would still love me if I put on extra two kilos, right? How about extra twenty kilos? Fifty? What’s the absolute limit, kilo-wise? Vyas? Vyas? How fat can I get, Vyas? He’d really think about these dilemmas. Poor honey-bunny. It was like catnip for his khopdi. It likes to think.
Vyas just sent an SMS saying the train’s going to be late. Of course it is. Didn’t I say it would be late?
It’s ten-twenty. Time flies, time crawls. It is either whoosh, whoosh or crawl, crawl. I hate to be on the clock. If pati-dev had turned up a month later, I could’ve taken a little time off. We could have gone somewhere. God, I so want to go somewhere, just go somewhere where I no longer want to go somewhere. Right now, I’m in the middle of the Hindustan Tools project. We are tasked with finding out why small machine shops still use tungsten-carbide-tipped tools when there are alternatives like ceramic-graphene-matrix composites, cubic-boron-nitride and titanium-aluminum-nitride surface-layered tools. Aha! Got it!
What all the gobbledygook means for me is that I have to complete a hundred and fifty survey forms per week. Each form takes about thirty-five minutes, plus minus ten minutes, which means I can complete a max of fourteen forms per day, plus minus four, which means under hundred forms per week, max. So where am I going to find the time to do the extra fifty to seventy forms? It’s mathematically impossible. Just because my boss Supriya-ji has an MBA doesn’t mean she can change physics. Either Social Weather will need to hire more people or they’ll have to get more breathing space from the client or Bitch-ji will just have to be reasonable. That’s three impossibilities for you.
Still, I’m starting to think surveys are getting to be too easy. I have to aim for bigger responsibilities. I want to be more than just a field rabbit. Life is a project and it has to be managed well.
I think I’m good at managing things. I have had to manage our separation all these months.
At first it was like I’d gone with him. I was still mentally connected, if that makes sense. All I needed to do was to close my eyes and I’d see him, working, smiling, eating, or thinking about one of my stupid questions. Then he began to fade. Just fade. I think it was my khopdi trying to protect me. I was so miserable. I cried a lot in those days. But that was no use, so I stopped. The situation in Odissa and the North-east was really bad. He was very busy and couldn’t always call me on schedule. When he called or Skyped, it just didn’t work.
Technology is not really his thing. He still uses a typewriter! He sent me long typewritten letters, which was really sweet, but I think they helped him more than they did me. They didn’t sound like him at all.
Bunk! My honey-bunny is safely home and we’re going to live happily ever after. I know it isn’t going to be easy. He’s sure to have changed a lot, I know that. I’ve changed too. We’re going to have to figure out how to be a couple again. Fall in love all over again.
I like having stuff where I can reach it—okay, maybe I’m bit of a slob, but excuse me, I’m not doing heart surgery in my house. Whereas he’s a neatnik. Shoes have to be kept to the left of the slippers. Hand-towels have to be folded length-wise.
Pati-dev also bitches about my socks. Hello, I’m a woman, I have socks. It’s perfectly logical. I need thick woollen ones for Delhi winters.
Then I have two different kinds for sneakers, black and white. I can’t wear black socks with white sneakers, can I? Everybody knows that. Black sneakers are casual but they look formal. Obviously I need stockings for pumps; just the basic colours. Brown, navy and black. You should see some of the other girls; they buy the rainbow. I need tan stockings for the brown pumps, but the navy stockings don’t come in uni-colour so I have to get gray and violet stockings too. So
I bought pumps for those colours; it would just be a waste otherwise.
And yah, I’ve discovered these new Puma socks. I wish they came
in knee-length too, because they are awesome for walking. Its elastic rib provides great arch support, and my feet just weep with happiness. I walk a lot. Plus I’ve got club shoes, Stilettos, Sunday pairs, the stuff
I use for quick errands, it’s all logical!
I’m nervous, I have to admit. It’s been so long. My fingers have forgotten the feel of his skin. They’ll touch him and wonder why the screen feels so different.
(Checks time.)
Ten-fifty. Shit, it’s so humid. I’m so looking forward to winter. Then business-formal makes sense. The jacket keeps me safe from male tentacles but right now it’s like being in a sauna. Can’t help it. You have to look professional or—There it is! Govindas Industrial Estate. Okay, time to get to work. My usual strategy is to visit a few shops, get a feel for the micro-culture—every industrial estate is unique, people think they’re all the same, but that’s totally wrong. I like engineering types, I’m going to make a lot of new friends. I’ll do a few forms, then head straight for the train station. I can’t wait to have my honey-bunny’s arms around me. PDA, big time! We’re going to make animal noises. I just have to finish a few surveys first. Whoosh, whoosh. I’m going to be on time, the train will just have to be late. I’ll have to come back tomorrow, no way I can meet quota today. Still, four forms should be doable. A few hundred rupees. It’s not about the money. Well it is, but it really isn’t. I’m the Goddess of Questions and I love my job.
3
ANAND DIXIT WOKE UP AT FIVE SHARP, HIS EYES FOCUSING, AS THEY did each morning, on the steel shield and crossed Maratha swords that hung at the exact centre of the facing wall. He continued to lie in the position he’d awoken in, fingers interlaced on his stomach. He flexed his toes, calmed his mind, gathered his will. Anand held up his right hand, gazed at his palm, and muttered the Marathi couplet he’d learned as a boy.
Karagre vasate Lakshmeeh, karamule Saraswati;
Karamadhye tu Govindah, prabhate karadarsanam.
The Gods could do with the invocation as they wished, but the prayer invoked his Aayi’s gentle face, an auspicious beginning for any morning. Anand swivelled his feet off the bed in one powerful motion, rolled his shoulders, flexed his bull neck, and reached for the one-litre bottle of water resting in its ice-bucket on the bed stand. He finished the bottle’s contents in four long glugs, pausing only to notice the bottle’s brand. Aquafina. The water’s temperature was perfect. If only Padma would drink one litre of cold water first thing every morning, then all her headaches and bowel complaints would vanish.