Vertigo

by Ashok Banker

  The lunch goes as well as can be expected. Tuli is a hit. Both his father and grandmother approve of her. Afterwards, he learns from Tuli that the muttered comment concerned the boyish slimness of her hips which was perceived as being not-ideal for childbearing.

  Cows are treated better than women in India. And youth is regarded as an inferior state in a land where crabbed age and silver locks are symbols of wisdom and authority. Jay tells himself he is lucky that he and Tuli happen to be of the same community and caste; their sub-castes and gotras don’t match, but that ought to be possible to overlook after consideration of factors such as the parallel status of both families.

  He leaves Tuli to a cab and takes another cab back to office. Another painful inch of progress. Perhaps they will marry after all. He tries not to think of the all too likely possibility of Tuli’s father summarily dismissing the proposal—especially in view of the fact that it is norrnally the girl’s people who approach the boy’s not vice versa as will happen in his case; this fact alone is bound to make the Jhaveris suspicious. If they suspect or learn that he and Tuli have actually been seeing each other for over four years, that itself could mark disaster. On the other hand, if they were to learn that she has already been ‘polluted’

  by him, then it would surely guarantee a quick marriage; though not one thatTuli desires. ‘Yes, Mr Jhaveri, I slept with your daughter,’ he says softly to himself, looking out the window at the unseasonal October drizzle.

  That day and the next, he receives two surprises. One is seated on the couch in the reception when he returns from the Purohit’s lunch.

  ‘Jay? Hi, man.’

  Jay stops and stares at this apparition from the past. ‘Mittal?’

  They shake hands, grinning happily. Jay feels like he has aged five years in as many seconds. Just the sight of Mittal rolls back layer after layer of dusty memories. Can it be just one and a half years ago that he last met this man? Impossible!

  ‘So, what’s happening? How’s Chris?’

  ‘Same, man. You know.’

  ‘Is he still sowing his wild oats?’ Jay glances at Suchitra as he says this, keeping his voice low but inflected with a touch of lightness.

  Mittal laughs; an abrupt coughing laugh.

  ‘Same, man. Never changed.’

  So what brings you here? Thinking of joining Synergetics? ’ As he says this, Jay is surprised to detect a hint of superior-than-thou in his own tone.Without knowing it, he has assimilated the puffed-up pride that infects this mega-hype multinational culture. It seems to him that his new soft-leather shoes look more sophisticated and elegant than Mittal’s patent leather lace-ups. Then the shirts: he has on a Zodiac pinstriped formal while Mittal’s is a tailor-stitched one with too-large too-dark horizontal stripes. Lastly, Jay’s trousers are narrower and more elegantly fashionable than Mittal’s wide-bottomed ones. Jay is glad he let Tuli talk him into spending Rs 780 of that money left over from the Rs 5,000 to buy this new set of clothes, and that he happens to wearing it today. He is also sharply aware of all the hours of multinational brainwashing—the seminars and talks by visiting foreigners from the parent company, the exposure to international marketing and management information, systems, case histories, et al—and of how all this has created a gap between him and Mittal. All this passes through his mind as a series of emotional rather than logical impulses, little neuronic pulses of pleasurable realization, in the space of a few seconds. He does not understand it fully until several days later; but meeting Mittal makes him more aware of himself, of the new improved Jay, and of the direction in which he is now travelling.

  ‘No, man.Where am I, where are you,’ Mittal says in confirmation of his feelings of superiority. Mittal gestures around the reception lounge which Jay realizes—he’s like a man with new eyes—is truly distinguished in contrast with DM’s ostentatiously gauche decor: ‘Big time, eh?’

  Jay shrugs, grinning happily, letting the compliment settle comfortably on his shoulders. Dave and Sreenivasan stroll in, back from lunch. Dave is dressed in his usual suit with suspenders, missing only a hat to qualify him for Best Imitation of aWestern Manager; Sreenivasan sports a well-cut expensive suit over his gaunt but seasoned frame. Both look like portraits from a Business India feature.

  Both nod at Jay as they pass, casting a briefglance at his companion, and walk past. Dave pauses, turns and walks back to Jay : ‘I say, Jayesh, about those storyboard changes. Did you brief the agency? They were waiting to start shooting the commercial tomorrow, you know. And we are spending eight bloody lakhs on that accursed thing.’

  ‘I did it first thing this morning, Dave. Arvind said he’d get back to us after the producer confirms whether he’s shooting in Famous as planned or some other studio.’

  Dave nods curtly and walks away without another word. Jay turns back to Mittal, whose eyebrows are raised very slightly. Dave Rai.

  My superior.’

  ‘MD?’

  ‘No, no. Product manager. But very senior.A martinet to work for.

  But brilliant marketing mind. One of the best.’ Mittal nods.

  ‘So what brings you here, Mittal? Business or pleasure?’ Mittal looks down at his hands. ‘Jay, I want a change.’

  ‘You’re leaving DM?’

  ‘Want to.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ After a pause: ‘Any vacancies?’

  ‘What? Here? Oh... well, Idon’t have any idea. This place is like a battleship. I don’t think I’ve even met everybody here yet.’ He laughs self-deprecatingly. Suchitra happens to be looking at him just then and she flashes one of her dazzling white smiles.

  Mittal nods. Jay takes a pack of Benson & Hedges from his pocket and offers it to Mittal. He only bought three, but that was how many there were left in the ‘loose’ pack the paan-wallah had, so he got the handsome gold and white box too. What is it admen say about cigarettes? You can sell beedis for ten rupees a dozen if you put them in gold packs and create slick advertising to promote them? Mittal declines. ‘Don’t smoke.’

  Jay lights the cigarette with the slim gold and black lighter he bought second-hand outside Andheri station a few days ago. He allows it to catch the light, clicks it shut and places it on the gold pack on the table, smoking the cigarette slowly and casually. How’s your mother?’

  The question shakes him.

  Like a bolt of Rin lightning, it streaks across the dark-blue surface of his gloating superiority and strikes right at the heart of his most vulnerable root. In the same flash it occurs to him that Mittal must have been present in office on the day his mother arrived drunk, semi-nude, and proceeded to create an abusive, violent, destructive spectacle which ended in her arrest and his getting sacked. He swallows. The cigarette loses its flavour, if it ever had any to begin with, and he stubs it out half-smoked, wasting 30 paise of B&H and not caring. ‘Oh, fine, fine,’ he says noncommittally. He remembers that he never did go to see her last Sunday as he’d intended to. A cold bead of sweat forms on his right temple; his palms and the soles of his feet grow damp.

  Mittal nods. ‘I was the one.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘That day?’

  Jay knows which day he means but can’t bring himself to admit it.

  ‘When?’

  ‘You know. The trouble.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  I was the one who convinced Chris not to press charges against her. He wanted to file a criminal charge.’ Jay swallows again. His throat is very dry. The sweet-sour flavour of shrikhand lingers in his mouth. He looks at the clock on the wall behind Suchitra. ‘I see.’

  Mittal shrugs. Jay waits, but he doesn’t say anything else. ‘I see,’

  Jay repeats numbly. Then, several seconds too late: ‘That was. . . very nice of you. Uh …’ swallowing, ‘thanks.’

  Mittal waves away gratitude and compliments. He makes a show Of looking at his watch. ‘You must be having a lot ofwork.’ He gets up, offering Jay his hand. Jay doesn’t
notice the hand; Mittal lowers the hand. Then Jay realizes he was just offered a handshake and puts out his hand, but by then Mittal has already started around the coffee table. ‘So,’ he says at the doorway, ‘in case there’s anything, any vacancy, let me know. I’ll give you a call sometime?’

  ‘Oh, sure. Sure.’ Jay fumbles in the pocket of his Zodiac shirt and fishes out a visiting card. ‘Any time.’

  Mittal puts the card in his pocket without looking at it. ‘By the way, your old girlfriend is in town.’

  Jay blinks several times. ‘Yes, of course. I just had lunch with her.’

  He adds belatedly: ‘You mean Tuli, don’t you?’

  Mittal grins wryly. ‘Meera.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’

  ‘She was asking about you. I said I was planning to drop and say hi to you one of these days. She said she might call you.’ He makes a circle with his forefinger and thumb and gestures with it: ‘Solid one, man.

  Jay smiles weakly. He doesn’t know what to say. ‘We had lunch together a couple oftimes,’ he tries.

  Mittal smiles inscrutably.

  But when Jay comes in to office the next day at 11.30—after stopping en route at the ad agency—he finds enough good news waiting on his desk to wipe out all unpleasant and embarrassing old memories. This second surprise is a cheque for Rs 94,502 from Chagganbhai, the payment for the ten lots he asked him to sell the day before. Rupees ninety-four thousand five hundred and two only, Payees Account only, Jayesh Mehta. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Henry James, Conrad, Austen or George Eliot never wrote more exciting words.

  He sits down, his entire body numb with excitement, his eyes unable to focus clearly. Oh god oh god oh god oh god,’ he whispers almost inaudibly, over and over again.

  It takes him three misdialled numbers before he calms down enough to dial Tuli's number. The familiar voice of the servant calls out to Tuli as the phone is set down with a heavy wooden clunk. He taps his fingers rhythmically on the desktop. The tune of the Chamatkar jingle keeps playing in his head endlessly: La. La-la. La-la-la-la-la-la. Dum-dum-di-di. La-la.

  ‘Tuli,' he says, when she comes on the line and says hello cautiously.

  ‘Tuli, I'm rich. Can you believe it? I'm rich. Rich.’

  chapter forty-one

  Where did you get it?’

  ‘I earned it, Mama. Take it.’ He holds the brown paper envelope out to her. She takes it gingerly, opening the flap and looking inside.

  ‘How much is it?’ Five thousand.’

  She looks inside the envelope again, then at him. ‘Five hundred?’

  ‘Thousand.’

  These are what? Ten-rupee notes?’ Fifties. Open it, Mama.’

  Still she won’t open the envelope fully, won’t take the money out, won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her reaction. He snatches the envelope from her, rips it open and slaps the bank-pinned bundle of currency notes. ‘Five thousand, Mama. Your birthday present.’

  She peers at it suspiciously. She needs glasses, refuses to let him take her to the opticians to get her a pair, claiming they’ll give her eye cancer. ‘Where did you get it from?’

  God, Mama. What the hell does it matter? Take it.’ She looks at it a moment longer, this thick wad of stapled notes held between his forefinger and thumb; slowly, deliberately, she turns to her little black table and pours liquor into her water bottle. He grimaces and slaps the money down on the dining table.

  She raises the bottle to her lips and drinks slowly. Putting the bottle down she says something he doesn’t quite catch.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where did you get it from?' He sighs and crosses his legs.

  ‘Was it your father or your grandmother?'

  ‘What?' His pulse leaps, races. How does she know he's been seeing them? Is she clairvoyant? Psychic?

  ‘Did that bitch give it you? Give it back to her and tell her—'

  ‘Mama, nobody gave it to me.'

  ‘—seduces you again I'll kill her with my own bare hands ,' showing him her clawed fingers glistening with spilt liquor and water.

  ‘I told you, I earned it.'

  ‘They gave you a raise? How much did they give you? Those bastards will never pay you what you're worth. Your fucking father must have told them something.'

  ‘Mama, please listen. I made a small investment a while ago and it appreciated … appreciated quite well in fact,' he fights to control the urge to tell her precise figures. He's embarrassed that he's only giving her a fraction of his windfall, which is why he can't tell her exactly how much he got. ‘That's the honest truth, and I want to give you this five thousand as a gift for your birthday. You've given—'

  ‘If he tries to come near me, I'll cut his balls off.'

  ‘Mama, let me finish. Please.' She picks up the bottle.

  ‘You've given me so much, raised me through such hard times, educated me, fed me, clothed me, I want to do something for you.

  This is just my way of saying thank you.' This half-rehearsed little speech sounds too glib now, said out aloud to this sceptical audience, but he feels bolstered by the sincerity of his impulse. He really does feel grateful to her for all those things. Grateful for what she's done and—’

  ‘I don't need your pity, thank you.'

  ‘—sorry—’

  ‘And even if you did earn this money—through an investment or by selling your ass—you can keep it.'

  ‘—for what she’s become.

  ‘Mama, but—’ he can’t understand this. He always believed that the one thing that mattered to her above all was money. All these years, all their major fights have been about money. Too little money.

  So what is this? What’s happening?

  ‘But why won’t you take it? I mean, I’m your son. I love you. I want to help you. Take it, Mama. Come on.’

  He holds it out to her, curiously keen that she should take it, accept it and use it. Perhaps deep inside, he wants to return all those little squirrelled-away savings he ‘borrowed’ from under the newspapers in her cupboard. ‘Take it, Mama, for my sake.’

  Seeing his need, his eagerness, she displays her characteristic virtuosity, her wide range of histrionic stances. First, petulant: ‘Why should I? You wasted all that mince. And after I spent two hours sweating over that stove.’

  ‘Mama, the cockroaches-’

  Angry: ‘Fuck your money? What do you think I am, anyway? A whore? What’s the matter? That cunt doesn’t want you any more? So you’ve come to me? Paying your own mother? For sex?’ Oh, god,

  ‘Mama. I only-’

  Confused: ‘I don’t understand.What did I do wrong? Tell me? Did I ever torture you? Force you to drink? You’re not drinking, are you?

  And drugs. Don’t touch drugs. Just say no. No. Firmly.’ Please, please.’

  Hysterical: ‘What a comedy! What was that lovely poem you wrote for me when you were in school? “Life’s a musical comedy, enacted by our—”‘

  Mama, I’m leaving.’

  “‘—funny hearts." That was a beautiful poem. You should get it published. Why don’t you sell it to this fellow? What’s his name?

  Michelle Jackson. But make sure you get cash in advance. At least one lakh. Two lakhs.’

  He leaves. Having left the money on the dining table.

  Walking down the driveway of the building, on the verge of tears from the frustration and misery, he hears her call out his name from above. Looking up, he sees her standing in the balcony, stops, and is about to ask her what she wants when—

  WHAP!

  —something hard and flexible strikes him on the nose with the impact of a heavy rubber brick. He staggers, sits down on the concrete, shakes his head several times to clear it. He looks around to see what struck him and sees the wad of money lying a few feet away, the top note loosened by the impact and flapping in the wind. He gets up slowly, bends, picks it up and stares at it. From upstairs his mother shouts hoarsely:‘I DON'TWANT YOUR STINKING MONEY,YOU

  BASTARDS. GIVE ME BA
CK MY SON.’

  Namaste. A vertical joining of the palms before one's chest as a form of greeting. Jay finds himself surrounded by a little thicket of namastes in Tuli's doorway:Tuli's father, mother, brother, Tuli herself, her grandmother, his own grandmother, his father, himself. Eight namastes bristling on the threshold.

  Nervous as he is, uncomfortable in the churidar kurta he has been dressed in—the flimsy silk caresses his bare skin so airily, he feels like the emperor in his new clothes—he is relieved after a while to note that he is not the centre of attention.

  After a few preliminary glances during which the Jhaveris seem to approve of his general appearance, their attention shifts to his father and grandmother. Chattering in Gujarati, interrupting and counter-interrupting one another, the two white-haired white-clad grandmothers cluck and flutter over Tuli who sits with her head covered by the pallu of her saree, not meeting Jay’s repeated glances.

  The two fathers talk in rolling deep accents, gesturing widely, chewing paan, laughing boisterously, speaking the queer mixture of Gujarati, Hindi and English that characterizes both the Gujarati and the Parsi communities in Bombay. The only one left out is Tuli's mother who watches Jay covertly through sharp cold eyes. Once, accepting her offer of some chewda, he smiles nervously at her and receives one of those classic smiles that involve the use of all the facial area except her eyes. He finds it difficult to accept the fact that he is really here, in Tuli's house. For four years he has lived with such a fear of being seen by her parents, now that he is sitting before them, he feels the impulse to run, flee.

  Her brother returns to the room, a broad-shouldered, short hairy lout chewing tobacco paan and walking with a legs-apart gait that communicates firmly his superior position in the household. Jay watches him swaggering into the living room, settling himself with his legs crossed on a low divan, chomping his betel nut, and compares him to Tuli, sitting in a half-crouch, entire body concealed except for the lower half of her face, nose strung with an enormous bovine gold nose ring, feet bound with tinkling gold payals, eyes lowered, not spoken to nor daring to utter a word at a gathering held solely for the purpose of deciding her matrimonial future, and he hates himself for consenting to this hypocrisy, this spineless continuance of hateful tradition designed to elevate the male and remind the female of her subordinate status. Manu, that fatherhead of Indian male chauvinism, stipulates the importance of keeping women ‘in control’, and through this long distasteful luncheon meeting, Jay finds little evidences of Manu's legacy of‘wisdom' showing up in unexpected areas.