by Ashok Banker
what? Cover her mouth? Muffle her manic incantation, this pathetically garbled mantra, lobotomized rhetoric. She claws his arm with her jagged nails. Once these same fingers dipped towels in eau de cologne water to lay on his feverish forehead, lifted rice and dal to his infant lips, daubed scarlet Mercurochrome on scraped knees, printed Name-Address—Standard on labels on brown-paper-covered school books, plucked out and cracked lice from his hair, massaged Iodex on sprained ankles ,Vicks on his congested nose, helped write in words of unfinished crosswords, wrapped Christmas gifts, carefully stirred Ovaltine and Horlicks in milk, beat up eggs for cheese omelettes, held hands firmly while clipping nails—her nails rasp, dig, furrow. Blood spurts, a little fountain arcing like a miniature monochromatic rainbow, straight into the plastic glass containing toothbrushes, tongue cleaner, and now this gathering pool of red liquid.
‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,' she goes, fleeing the scene, stumbling to the main door, fumbling at the locks, while he stands nailed to the cold tile floor, astonished. My blood? So red?
Really?
The front door open: ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,' doors opening all along the corridor, nice cooperative housing society staring out at this unexpected but not entirely unwelcome domestic docudrama, ‘HE'S
KILLING ME ATTACKED ME I DIDN'T DO IT POLICE HELP
EEEEEEEEEE.' Self-preservation, accuse before accused, offense the best defen—
‘Mama,’ softly, hopelessly, ‘Mama, I'm—' Bleeding? Really?
‘Mama, help me, I'm hurt, make it stop, please god make it stop.
Mama, where are—'
chapter six
‘I know it doesn’t sound nice, my saying this, but you know, maybe you should, well, for your own good... um... consider living separately.’
The words, coming out the side of Chris’s mouth, between long pulls of a cigarette, punctuated by the changing of gears, adjusting of the rear-view mirror, tapping of the flickering LED fuel indicator on the dashboard, flow over Jay’s head like the cool November wind which is making his nose run, sitting as he is unprotected in the Maruti Gypsy coasting along Mahim causeway. A stench wafts across from the left, from the foul black scum of Mahim creek. Do Siberian cranes really come here for the winter? Don’t they have noses? Doesn’t anybody in this city have a nose? Half a nose?
Chris glances sideways at him, pulling up smoothly behind a farting tarp-covered lorry. ‘Maybe even consult a good psychiatrist. She’s sick, Jay, needs help.’
(Sick, yeah, sure, what about me? I’m sick.) She’s seen three different psychiatrists, Chris. Lulla, Patkar and Alan Desouza. Desouza diagnosed her as an alcohol psychotic.’ Psychotic. Is she dangerous?’
(Sick of talking to people who don’t know shit—all about my problems but make a great show of offering advice and sympathy.)
‘I told you what happened, Chris. This arm,’ holding it up, the gauze dazzling white against the brown skin, ‘and I’ve told you about the time she was arrested by the police when she attacked my grandmother with the scissors. She—my grandmother—had to have sixteen stitches on her back and shoulder, and if she hadn’t run into the bedroom and locked herself in and called the police...’
(Like Osho Rajneesh or U.J. Krishnamoorty dispensing spiritual aid to impoverished Third-World underdeveloped halfwits.)
‘Why doesn’t your father take care of her? I mean, he can afford it, so...’
‘I talked to him, Chris, dozens of times. He knows everything. I mean, he was her husband for a while, after all. But that’s it. He says he’s given her all he could. He says he has to live for himself too.
According to him, he could have been an MD with the Birlas today, if it hadn’t been for her.’
‘Sure. But, look, Jay, he has a responsibility. I mean, you have a life of your own too, don’t you? How long can you go on this way? It’s been affecting your work. Why do you think I asked you to drive into town with me today?’
(Great, that’s all I needed. And who are you trying to bullshit?—
A life of my own? Easy to recite smug recipes for cure-alls sitting behind the wheel of one of your three cars, driving to your own office, your own Direct Marketing consultancy, paying yourself twenty grand a month, seven different credit cards in your wallet, a wife, and a secretary you fool around with on the side—I booked the room at Oberoi’s on the last weekend of August—a nice little paunch growing around your waist like a money belt, what more could you want?) Aloud, he says, ‘Yeah.’ Quiet for a few minutes, tired, so tired of talking about his mother. Past Siddhi Vinayak Temple—look at that line, must be 300 people waiting to get in, must be Tuesday today—
turning, and the big Bush hoarding comes into view—‘Perfection In B&W’ with a graphic piano keyboard blurs past—the sun steps out from behind the Stanrose building and shines its searchlight into Jay’s gritty eyes and he remembers he has to ask Chris about the increment.
‘Uh, Chris?’ Mm-hmm?’
‘Now that Meera is group head—’
‘Pass me that duster. Thanks. What were you saying?’
‘Now that Meera is group head—’
‘Excellent, that girl. She was a gold medallist at IIM, did you know?’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘You should pay more attention to her, Jay. Learn a few things.
Smart.And sharp.Very.’
‘Yeah, I have—’
‘Like on the ECC campaign. You were stuck for weeks, she took one look at it, and BANG! She’s always a part of the solution, not the problem.’
‘Yeah. Uh, Chris—’
‘You were really stumped on that one.’
‘I wasn’t stuck, I was just trying to get—’
‘You were dragging your feet for a month. She took one look at the research, and said to me, “Forget direct mailing. Do a direct response ad, take Times Bombay. Get that Trikaya copywriter and art director to do the creative.” So I said—are you listening, Jay?’
‘Of course, Chris. I was there.’
‘So I said to her, “Go ahead." Part of being a great manager is knowing when to say go, and when to say stop.’ He stops at the red light at Worli naka. ‘That babe, Jay. She’s really something. You should have seen the faces of the ECC guys when she showed them the ad finally. They said, “ But we have a three-lakh budget, this ad costs one and a half lakh per insertion, what’ll we do the rest of the year?” And you know what she said?’
‘Yeah, Chris, I was there too.’
‘She said, “Fuck—"Well, she didn’t say fuck exactly, she said,
“Forget the rest of the year, two insertions is all we’ll need.” And I sold them the idea, and you know what? She was right! We were sold out two days after the second insertion! But the look on Romi’s face when she said “Forget the rest of the year...”’ His beefy hand slaps Jay’s left shoulder, squat fleshy face quivering with silent laughter as he shakes with orgasmic delight at the memory. Jay nods, cheeks hurting with the mandatory smile. Yessirring is a job too. Tennis elbow, athlete’s foot, writer’s wrist, why not sychophant’s smile?
(Sick sick sick, so sick and tired.)
‘And she’s also a great lay.’
Jay’s head snaps around. ‘What?’
Wink, pat on the thigh.‘ She likes to swallow her medicine, know what I mean?’ Chris makes an upraised-cup-to-lips gesture.
‘You mean... Meera?’
‘Friday night. After she clinched the Fortham’s account, I took her out to celebrate.’
‘Friday?’
‘First we had dinner. Impressed the hell out of her. Nothing impresses a girl more than a good dinner.’
‘Uh, yeah.’ Friday. While he was carrying the vampirella on his back, she was celebrating their victory with Chris?
‘Excellent food, brilliant service, and you know, they don’t give you a bill.’
‘No?’
‘They give you a slip that says, if you enjoyed your meal, pay whatever you think appropriate. Can you be
lieve that? You can leave five hundred rupees or five thousand or fifty thousand. We had drinks and dinner, would have cost us max fifteen hundred, probably less, but do you know how much I put in? Guess. Go on, make a guess.’
‘Uh, two thousand?’
‘See? That’s the difference between you and me, Jay. You think cheap. I put four thousand bucks. What do you think of that, hey?’
(Think you’re a fucking bastard because that’s more than my gross salary, more than what you pay me for all the ass-licking, the weekends, the late nights, five nights a week, even the difference is more than what I get as my monthly allowance after I’ve paid Mama’s drink bill, society taxes, servant’s salary, etc., and you just tossed it away for a single meal, one of almost a hundred you consume monthly, just to impress a new chick—and that chick happens to be Meera? But why should I care if it’s Meera? Tuli’s my girl, Tuli, not Meera.)
‘Then I hired us a double room at Nataraj. And,’ long low wolf whistle, ‘what a weekend!’
(Know, I was almost there, but I puked and had to be sent home, and then you got called in to celebrate in my place.) Chris squeezes Jay’s shoulder. ‘God, Jay, my cock was so sore by Sunday night, I almost cried when I pissed! I tell you, if there were five other guys with me, she would have taken them all on. She’s a nympho, real wild child. Have you fucked her yet?’
Jay is staring white-eyed at a traffic snarl on Pedder Road.
Zombified. ‘What?’
‘A little advice for you in case you manage to get her into bed—
shouldn’t be too difficult with a hot cunt like that—don’t drink too much before.’
‘Drink?’
‘Five or six pegs, not too much.’
(Sure, Chris, in any case, after three glasses of beer, I start puking over paintings, so drinking is definitely out.)
‘Yeah. Yeah, Chris.’
‘She likes you. She was talking about you all through dinner, telling me how good you were at the Fortham’s presentation. I’m glad you’re cooperating with her, Jay. You can learn a lot from her. You want me to fix you up?’
‘Huh?’
‘I could suggest she take you out to lunch, maybe!’
He turns off into the gate of their office building, honks at a taxi blocking the way to his parking spot, glances at Jay, sitting hunched, round-shouldered, wood-faced. ‘Loosen up, Jay. Start living. Think about what I said. About living separately from your mother.’
‘Chris, I need a raise.’
‘Um-hmm?’
‘I need an increase in my salary. Last July, when Swami left, you said you’d give me a chance, but now that Meera’s joined as group head—’
‘I told you, you’d have to prove yourself. You had your chance.’
‘But, Chris. I’ve worked like hell. I got the ECC account—’
‘And nearly lost it, would have lost it, in fact, if Meera hadn’t come in at the right time.’
‘Yes, but I got the account in the first place. And Fortham’s. I worked day and night on that, Chris. I even created the ad myself.
They loved the ad. You were saying they wouldn’t like the ad, remember? But they loved—’
‘Ah, but then Meera changed that visual, and that made all the difference, didn’t it?’
‘Yes, but we got it, Chris. We got them on a fifty-grand-a-month retainer. I mean, you even took Meera out to celebrate that, but what about me? I was a part of it too, wasn’t I?’
‘Frankly, Jay, you couldn’t have done it without Meera, and you know it.’
‘That’s not—’
‘Jay, listen to me. Are you listening or are you just going to blabber on all day?’
‘—true. It was my idea. And last month, when I was down with that viral fever, I took all those files home and did that cluster analysis for you. With 102 fever. 102!’
‘Jay, shut up and listen.'
He shuts up. Chris parks the car, puts both hands on the steering wheel, stares at the M emblem on the horn. ‘You're like a younger brother to me, Jay. Frankly, I've overlooked a lot of things only because I'm such an emotional person. Pinky keeps telling me I get too attached to my people, but I tell her, where am I without my people. I believe—
this is my secret—that it's more important to be good than rich. I've always been willing to discuss your problems, about your mother, advise you, help you out. .. Look at us now, I've driven you to work in my own car. Which boss drives his employees to work?'
(That's because you need me here early for a goddamn client meeting not because you care shit-all about me.)
‘And when you had that trouble some months ago, you needed some money, I gave it to you without a word, didn't I?'
(Two thousand, two lousy thousand rupees, which you deducted meticulously from my salary over the next six months, and you threw away more than that on that dinner with Meera.)
‘And I gave you the chance of a lifetime, to try and take Swami's place.'
(Yeah, sure, three weeks you gave me, and one lousy account, which was the one account even you couldn't handle, and even that
‘once in a lifetime chance' was probably because Meera still had a few loose ends to tie up before she joined, so what big favour did you do me, you asshole?)
‘I think I've given you a lot, Jay. I've given you more than any employer in my position would have given. In fact, I haven't been a boss to you, I've been like an elder brother.'
Quit, his brain screams, spit in his face and tell him to shove his elder brother spiel up his ass. You have some dignity left, don't you?
Mama hasn't eroded all your self-esteem yet. Walk out . You know the truth, what you've done and what has been done unto you. You've been used. Like a condom, used. Now you're dripping and flaccid and yechy to look at—Chris hasn't looked at you once in these last few minutes and he's acting like he's your adopted father. Come on, move it. What have you got to lose? A letter of recommendation?
Fuck it. You've got three years under your belt, you can get a job. Go on. Tell him like it is.
‘Of course, if you're able to keep up with Meera, since she's taken a shine to you, then in April, you'll be eligible for the usual increment, along with everyone else.'
Jay thinks of his mother, the electricity bill he must pay by this Friday if he doesn't want the power cut off, the milk bill he hasn't paid yet, the new shirt he needs desperately, and he chokes back the prickling abuses, the outraged ego, hot shame.
He nods slowly, feeling Chris looking at him now, looks up and meets his eyes, forcing his face to remain expressionless—then, forcing a hint of an acquiescent smile, says, ‘Whatever you say, Chris.
I guess you're right.'
(For now.)
chapter seven
Sperm-giver.
That's what this man is, sitting across the table from you, peering at a menu through gold-rimmed bifocals.
Sperm-giver.
What else do you call a man who swept your mother off her feet in a whirlwind April romance, dazzled her with his phoren-returned manner, pseudo-American accent and sleek new Jaguar; seduced her in May, blinding her middle-class Catholic morality with visions of love eternal; married her in June, carrying her off not to a castle in the clouds but to a wealthy and orthodox Gujarati household where even to speak of eating meat and fish—or eggs—was enough to turn the smouldering resentment into a blaze of righteous fury; left her there to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged misfortune while he travelled around the country ‘on business’ ; allowed her to return in tears to her mother's house six months pregnant, where he visited her not more than twice in the next three months; left her to deliver her 8.5-pound mass of mucus-covered new life with only her mother present through the event and for three days after, visiting her only after he heard that the child was a boy, and then too in the company of his entire family, at which august gathering his mother spoke more words than he, mainly to insist that the boy be given a Hindu name and that all Hindu rites and ritual
s be followed rigorously; divorced her in April, a year to the day he first met her, using legal recourse to demand custody of his boy-child, finally losing in court and thereafter promptly stopping all alimony payments, knowing that your mother didn’t have the money to sue him for it. This is that man, if man you can call him; but his crime is hardly more or less than that of countless millions of other Indian men who believe that to possess and impregnate the female of their species is their birthright. A nation of sperm-givers and receivers: that is how Jay sees his country on days when he wakes and sees his mother still drooling over her cheap bottle of government country liquor, giggling at the marriage and honeymoon photos (in Matheran!) spilling out of the frayed old album that she uses for a pillow; on days like this, Jay could take a stainless steel blade from the washbasin and slice off his own testicles rather than endure another day as a man. Or perhaps, even better, slice off his father’s testicles. Ah, but it is much too late for that, isn’t it?
Twenty years and nine months too late, precisely. Because today is his birthday. And here he is, sitting across a table in Gaylord’s, allowing his father to buy him his birthday lunch. Rage enough to emasculate violently: reduced to polite small talk and lunch with the man who ruined your mother’s life and left you with the burden of supporting and caring for an alcoholic mother from the tender age of thirteen (when your grandmother turned you out on the street, claiming that her responsibility was over, she had had enough, and that after all you were a man now—a man!—and it was your responsibility to care for your mother).
‘Chicken a la Kiev?’
‘Anything you like.’
‘We’ll have a Chicken a la Kiev and a Chicken Princess, but to start with, two Cream of Mushroom soups and garlic toast. Jay?’
‘I guess so.’
Glancing around, the restaurant is filling rapidly, what an odd assortment of people: Executives in pinstripe shirts, even suits, on their lunch hour; businessmen entertaining clients; a group of fat over-made-up women, probably a kitty party; some young couples talking softly, drinking beer together. Jay remembers meeting his father here for dinner once a long time ago—his fifteenth birthday, or sixteenth—there was a jazz band playing here, no dancing because it’s a small place, but he liked the music, though it was the first time he was hearing jazz live; he’d reached half an hour late that evening.