by Ashok Banker
‘So you’re serious about this girl.’
‘I’ve told you. I’m marrying her.’
His father nods thoughtfully. They are standing in the lobby of the building, waiting for the chauffeur to bring the car around. ‘Dadiji knows the family.’
‘She does? She didn’t say anything to me.’
‘You have to understand, Jay. If you want her to come with us, you will have to let her handle things her way.’
‘No dowry. I’m not going to take any dowry.’
His father smiles a patronizing smile. ‘Nobody said anything about you taking any dowry, son.'The rain-washed Contessa halts before them, engine running. The chauffeur gets out and opens the door for Jay's father. ‘Give me a call next week sometime. I'm coming back from Calcutta onWednesday. Call me Thursday or Friday.We'll meet over lunch and discuss details.'And he's gone, the long black car roaring up the sloping driveway and swinging out on to Pedder Road.
Jay starts walking aimlessly along the pavement. He walks towards Kemp's Corner and turns right down toWarden Road. It begins to drizzle, but he doesn't stop to take shelter. He walks past Kwality Restaurant, past a row of new boutiques selling the latest fad in jeans—
stonewashed—past the La Maison Francais, the place which sells cold meats, past the Parsi Sanatorium where Tuli always says his mother should be locked up—not always in jest—pastAlabeli restaurant, past more boutiques and shoe-shops, past Shemaroo Book Library, past the petrol pump where two cars are being washed on the hoist, the shushing of the water sounding like heavy rain. He turns on to Warden Road and crosses the road. He goes out on to the rocks at Scandal Point. The sea is dark and angry. He walks over wet slippery mud and slick rocks. He finds a flat high rock to sit on and watches the high tide break on the rocks, spattering him with spray. Further down, the waves are so powerful that every once in a while one breaks on to the road itself, spray rising like a ghostly bunch of pearls which rattle and scatter across the asphalt. The rain grows heavier. He gets soaked through and through but can't make himself get up.
He thinks about his mother. He thinks about what it must have been like for her to have lived with Dadiji and Foiba and his grandfather whom he met only a few times.
He thinks about marriage and about Tuli and himself. He feels the determination in him not to let their marriage crumble like his parents’
marriage. He feels the desperate need to do something for his mother, anything; he thinks about the possibility of her getting married again.
He realizes the futility of this line of thought. Then he thinks about money. About working hard and earning enough money to buy her anything she wants, anything that will make her happy. Something that might even replace the drink. Like a video recorder. He knows how much she loves Elvis Presley movies. He thinks of buying her a video and a complete set of every Elvis title available on VHS. He thinks of her birthday coming up in the next ten days and of hiring a video-TV for her to watch some Elvis movies. He smiles. Yes, that's what he'll do for her birthday. He stands up and strides across the mud, the rain rolling down his collar and tickling his spine. He sees an 81 Ltd coming and runs to catch it. It only takes him up to Bandra, where he has to change to another bus to reach Lokhandwala, and it’s packed so he has to stand all the way, but he doesn't mind.
chapter thirty-nine
In the second half of 1984, as elections approach, two major changes take place in the country. One is the setting up of TV transmission stations across the length and breadth of the subcontinent. Indira-bashers claim this is the iron woman's means of ensuring a massive self-publicity blitz since Doordarshan is more a government spokesperson than a TV network. Perhaps it is. But the fact is that by seeking her own aggrandizement through the nascent power of the boob tube, Mrs G also succeeds in spearheading the most incredible media expansion in the history of the world. Never before have so many LPGs, HPGs, etcetera sprung up at such a rapid rate anywhere on the planet.An observer looking down from a suitable vantage spot in orbit—from the ill-fated Skylab, had it endured, perhaps—would gawk at the proliferation of aluminium aerials across the rooftops of the subcontinent.
This immense propaganda juggernaut has already sprung into action by September 1984. It opens up a world of opportunities for so everybody thinks—for prospective film-wallahs and hopeful film strugglers everywhere. It will be some time before this dream is turned to cynical disgust by Doordarshan's bureaucratic inefficiency, pathetic programming and cantankerous corruption.
The second revolution that takes place is not in the homes of India, but on the roads. These potholed obstacle courses are honoured with the appearance of the country's first ‘people's car’. Maruti is the dream-child of Sanjay Gandhi, the late son of Mrs G, who had dreamed of producing a car which almost every middle-class Indian could afford.
It's ironic that when the ‘people's car’ finally appears on the roads in 1984, it costs more than the price of a modest flat in the far suburbs; or that there is a substantial premium charged by middlemen for early delivery. Despite this, the little Suzuki-designed eight-cylinder
‘khilona' (as Ambassador owners call it derisively) is snapped up by the thousands, and soon, by the tens of thousands. The most remarkable thing that Maruti achieves is not the bringing of automobiles within everyone's reach—far from it—but the igniting of an explosive boom in the automobile industry and its allied industries. Before Maruti, the total annual production of all makes of cars in the country never exceeded a total figure of 50,000 cars. A year after Maruti's appearance, the industry's total production climbs to 75,000 cars annually. Three years after its inception, Maruti Udyog Ltd alone is rolling out 80,000 vehicles. Less than five years since that fateful launch, this one new company is producing twice as many cars as all the other manufacturers put together—against their total record of a combined forty-three years in the business. A revolution on wheels has taken place.
Maruti's initial vehicles are manufactured under close supervision by Suzuki technicians. Suzuki's high standards of quality infect the whole industry. Peripheral manufacturers fight to acquire prestigious Maruti OEM status, or, at the very least, to offer Maruti-standard spares and peripherals. Several of these firms grow rich overnight.
Along with them, their own suppliers also grow. Among the many suppliers to these OEMs are companies manufacturing metal dies and casts; forging companies.
The company that Conrad had chosen to invest Jay's money in was a forging company.
As the acceptance of Maruti's unqualified success spreads through the industry, futures of every company that produces any product that might some day find its way into a Maruti vehicle soar through the roof. Stock market investors run their stubby fingers down rows of names of listed companies, ticking off possible gold mines. Enforge Ltd is one of those which finds a little tick beside its name.
In August 1984, Enforge Ltd secures a Letter of Intent to supply several crores worth of vital dies and forgings to an important Maruti OEM.
Its share price, which has hovered between Rs 17 and Rs 21 over the last year or so since its first equity issue, leaps to Rs 36 for a Rs 10
share by Independence Day, 15 August 1984. By the 29th of the same month, Jay's mother's birthday, it has risen inexorably to Rs 50 . And by 30th September, it has touched the unbelievable figure of Rs 94.
Then, for a week it dips to Rs 67 and threatens to go lower, when rumours spread that Mrs G is contemplating declaring another Emergency on the eve of the elections. But when the rumour is discovered to be false and preparations for the elections are seen to proceed beyond a point of no return, Enforge rises confidently again, cresting the magic peak of Rs 100, and finally pausing reluctantly at Rs 125 a share.
Jay has Rs 25,000 worth of Enforge shares, bought at the appetizingly low price of Rs 16 a share. This meant he had bought 1,562 shares. By 18 October, these are worth 7.8 times the value Jay had bought them for; this translates into a total rupee value of Rs 1,95,250, or
in words: Rupees one lakh ninety-five thousand two hundred and fifty only. Jay's Rs 25,000 has grown to almost Rs 2 lakh in less than six months. This apparent miracle is nothing more than the third revolution of the eighties that sweeps India by storm:The Stock Market Boom.
He sits down on the toilet seat of the non-management gents’
toilet in office and buries his face in his hands. He laughs a little, cries a little, does both at the same time, likes it, does it some more, and then stares at the white tiled floor for twenty minutes almost without blinking.
‘Now what?’ he asks Conrad. They are sitting in Conrad’s cubicle, chairs drawn up close to the desk. Conrad jiggles his legs while thinking.
Occasionally, his left knee bumps Jay’s right thigh.
Conrad spreads his hands. ‘We celebrate.’
‘I mean, about the shares.What do we do now?’
‘What’s to do? They’re doing it all for us.We’re rich, man!’ Conrad tosses a 555 at Jay. Jay fumbles it and almost drops it, puts in his mouth and lets Conrad light it. He puffs nervously, unable to get satisfaction from such a mild cigarette. ‘No, I mean, shouldn’t we sell? While it’s up? Before it goes down, I mean? Shouldn’t we? What do you think?’
‘Are you nuts?’
‘Why?’
‘You don’t fool with a thing like this. It’s magic, pal. You don’t fuck around with magic. Just let it happen and keep your hands ready.’
Conrad makes a cupping motion with his palms, like a man waiting for manna to fall from the skies.
Jay thinks a bit. He’s surprised to find that the 555 is finished. He presses the smouldering filter in the ashtray and takes another one, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What? What do you want? You want to have your cake and eat it too?’
‘Maybe—’ Jay hesitates, afraid of Conrad’s laugh. Conrad has a terrible laugh. Everybody turns and looks this way when Conrad laughs. Once a new product manager, Sreenivasan, came out of his cabin to find out who was dying; it was only Conrad laughing at one of his own jokes. ‘Maybe we should sell them, cash in, you know. I mean,’
voicing the thought that has been nagging him ever since the initial euphoria lessened enough to allow him to think, ‘what good are they unless we sell them, right? I mean, what if they drop again? It'll all be down the drain, won't it?'
Conrad shakes his head sadly. ‘Poor Jay-bird. Poor birdie. Scared, baby? Scared of your shares crashing?'
‘ Come on, Conrad. Think about it. Maybe we should sell now and get out while we're ahead. After all—'
‘They'll cross Rs 200,' Conrad says. ‘After the elections, when Mrs G comes back into power. Maybe even Rs 250. Bluechip in the making.' He crosses himself and knocks on the desk as he says this, lifting the little silver crucifix from around his neck and kissing it.
‘But what if Mrs G doesn't come back? The Opposition may not support Maruti Udyog because they know it was her idea, her sentimental tribute to Sanjay's memory.What if—'
Conrad is grinning athim . ‘Fuck off,' he says loudly, ‘Fuck off, pal.'
‘Conrad, think about it.'
‘Look, I'll tell you what I think. I think we should hold on to this paper'—he taps the share certificates in a plastic folder on his desk—
until they touch Rs 200 at least. Then we can think about selling part of the portfolio—if, and only if—there's a better investment. That's what I think and that's what I'm going to do, okay? Now, you have the right to do what you please with your shares. You can take them into the loo and use them for toilet paper for all I care. That's your problem, buddy.'
Jay bites his lip. Conrad sweeps his shares into a drawer, slams the drawer shut and stands up. ‘Coming for lunch? I'm going to have a few beers and celebrate.'
‘Uh, I don't like to drink during the day. It gives me a headache.'
‘Come on, man. Loosen your asshole. You just made an 800 per cent profit. Can you beat it? What are you crying for?' Conrad punches Jay playfully in the stomach.
‘I don’t know,’ Jay says anxiously. ‘What about tax?’
‘Jay, that’s wonderful. Are you serious? Wow!’
‘Yes, yes,but what do you think,Tuli? I mean, don’t you think it’s risky keeping them any longer?’
‘Oh, Jay. Now we can buy a flat of our own!’
‘For two lakhs? Where?’
‘At Bandra at least?’
‘Are you joking? Do you know what the rate is at Bandra? Do you know what Mama’s flat is worth?’
‘Not a big flat. Maybe just a one-bedroom hall.’
‘Tuli, even a one-bedroom hall will cost something like fifteen lakhs in a good area.’
‘Really? I don’t think so.’
‘There’s nothing to think. That’s the going rate. Nothing less than Rs 2,500 a square foot, in a good area.’
‘Anyway, there’s no harm in looking, is there?’
‘The second thing is, we don ’t have the money in hand, which is the point I’ve been trying to make but nobody seems to understand. The shares may be worth two lakhs, but we have to sell them to get the money.’
‘What if we just look around a bit and if we find a place we like we can think of selling them off. Oh, Jay this is terrific. Let’s celebrate!’
‘But,Tuli, these damn shares may be worth nothing tomorrow for all we know. Besides, I don’t have the money to celebrate with, you know. I’m still the same broke Jay Mehta, remember? All I have is some very expensive paper. Not money.’
‘Jay, you’re such a pessimist.’
‘I’m practical. An idealist, yes, but a practical one. Say, that’s nice.
Practical idealist. That’s me.’
‘Anyway, is Saturday’s lunch fixed?’
‘With Araldite. Come over to office, we’ll go to Purohit’s together.
Daddy and Dadiji will meet us there directly.’
‘Jay, remember that bedroom set we saw in Benzer? The one with the mirror-work?’
‘The one that costs fifty thousand bucks? Are you crazy?’
‘Come on, we have the money.’
‘I keep telling you. Doesn’t anybody understand me? I don’t have the money. All I have is a few hundred to manage till the end of the month, which is still two weeks away.’
‘Don’t be mean.’
I’m not—yeah? Okay, tell him I’ll be right there. Tuli, I have to go, Dave’s calling us. See you Saturday, love. One sharp, okay?’
‘The bedroom set, la-la-la-la!’
The next day, terrorists kill thirty-five people in Punjab, including three candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The stock market index slumps. Enforge’s share price drops to Rs 117 by close of trading.
Conrad laughs away Jay’s ‘I told you’ look and repeats his confident assurance that the price will top Rs 200 by the elections.
But on Wednesday and Thursday, the price continues to plummet.
On Thursday evening, Jay panicks and prevails on Conrad to call their broker and give him orders to sell. Conrad spends half an hour trying to persuade Jay, but he’s adamant. Finally, Conrad picks up the phone in disgust and tells Chagganbhai to sell ten lots of Jay’s Enforge shares at the current price of Rs 98 per share. Even the broker says its stupid to sell at this point. Jay prevails over all arguments. He can be stubborn when he’s convinced what he’s doing is right. He signs the required transfer forms and sends them to Chagganbhai the next morning. By that time, he is of a mind to sell the remaining 562 shares too but Tuli gets so upset when she hears of the sale that for her sake he relents and lets them stay. Conrad lets his investment—close to sixty thousand rupees initial capital in Enforge alone—stay. He passes biting comments on Jay's lack of ‘balls' in the conference room while they are waiting for the ad agency guys to arrive with their storyboards for the launch commercial for Chamatkar. Jay has grown used to Conrad's witticisms. They bother him less and less as time goes by.
chapter forty
The day after Jay
sells off the ten lots of Enforge shares, he andTuli enter Purohit's Restaurant near Churchgate station and find his father and grandmother sitting at a table, waiting. His grandmothers wizened round face cracks into a wide smile as she sees Tuli. She looks her up and down minutely, examining her clothes—a beige silk saree—and her looks. She evidently likes what she sees because she rises and lifts her hand in a gesture of blessing. Tuli, an orthodox Gujarati girl for all her convent education, bends unhesitatingly and touches first Jay's grandmother's feet and then his father's feet. Both pat her on the head and sit down again, exchanging an apparently expressionless glance which Jay knows to be more eloquent than Indira Gandhi's election speech.
They sit silently as the waiter lays down the inevitable steel thalis before each one. His grandmother mutters something to his father in Gujarati. Tuli shoots a sharp look at jay, then lowers her eyes in keeping with her demure Gujarati bride-to-be image. Jay doesn't understand what was said but he can't help noticing that both his grandmother and father look pointedly at Tuli's lower body for a moment. Only, he thinks they're looking at her saree, and he doesn't give it much attention. The waiter returns with his portable buffet and Jay's grandmother authoritatively supervises the feeding of her grandson and prospective daughter-in-law. Jay doesn't even bother to protest this time, but he promises himself that once they ’re married he will make sure that Tuli never cooks Gujarati food.