Three Marketeers

by Ajeet Sharma

  ‘That’s why we are here, brothers. To clear up matters,’ said Balraj to all. ‘Let me refresh everyone’s memory. Since the beginning, I’ve been maintaining that I will reward each one of you with an enormous payout of 12 per cent of your shareholding.’

  ‘Enormous? Really? The percentage is what is to be decided today.’ Singh had been showing his disagreement about it since day one. ‘You can’t have my vote for 12 per cent.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother about the percentage, Mr Singh,’ assured Balraj. ‘I’ll see to it that you get a fair deal. Let’s first discuss—’

  ‘I’d like to know how I’ll get a fair deal. Don’t forget, I was the one to convince these three men about your buyout.’

  ‘Why’re you so stuck-up about it?’

  ‘What else do you think made me fly down here? Houseboats?’

  Everyone was quiet. The sound of sea waves beating the shore accentuated the tension building up in the room. Sarraf looked through a windowpane and squinted at a steamer far away. Patel was getting squirmy in his chair. Virani, with his imperceptible expression, seemed unaffected.

  ‘Balraj,’ said Patel. ‘I’ve been a close associate of Mr Singh for years and I can tell you he is most rational in business. As far as his payout is concerned, he has a strong argument.’

  Rustom Patel, the owner of cloth mills, once held a large stake in Balraj’s realty business in Noida for a brief period. Frequent differences between the two on concerns related to upcoming home projects eventually resulted in the wind up of the venture. After that, the two never met until Surendra Pal Singh approached Patel on behalf of Balraj concerning his takeover plan. Patel only reluctantly agreed to do business with the builder again.

  ‘Who’s denying his payout?’ shot back Balraj, throwing his hairy hands in the air.

  ‘Many a slip between the cup and the lip,’ commented Virani.

  Balraj looked at Patel. The rifts between the two still existed. He has a reason to side with Singh, thought Balraj. Patel was in jail, recently, for a week, concerning an excise-duty-evasion case. While all newspapers and other news channels came out with stories damaging his reputation, it was Singh’s channel that saved him by repeatedly broadcasting positive stories about him and his business. In return, the channel got advertisements worth crores from Patel’s flagship company.

  ‘Don’t bring up your old grudge here, Patel,’ advised Balraj, adjusting a ring with a special gem.

  ‘I don’t care about any association we ever had,’ said Patel. ‘If we don’t get what we expect, we’ll drop the idea of selling our votes for your ambitious plan.’

  ‘Let’s first resolve Mr Singh’s issue,’ intervened Sarraf, like a counsel defending his client. ‘Mr Singh, what’s your demand?’

  Singh snorted at the question. ‘Won’t accept anything less than 16 per cent of my holding, considering the amount of money I’ve lost holding the shares.’

  ‘Sixteen per cent?’ Balraj’s silver kara clanked against the table as he turned his wrist angrily. ‘This is going out of control.’

  ‘Do we have to fight it out, Balraj?’ chided Patel, disgusted.

  ‘Fight your foes, not your friends,’ said Virani, raising a finger.

  Balraj slumped back in his chair pulling a long face.

  ‘Mr Balraj,’ said Sarraf, ‘if Mr Singh’s demand is not met, none of us will vote for you.’

  The other three directors promptly nodded in agreement.

  ‘Fine,’ bellowed Balraj. ‘Sixteen goes to Mr Singh and the rest of you take 10 per cent each.’

  Patel cackled. ‘This is getting hilarious. Count me out for anything less than what you initially promised, 12 per cent.’

  ‘We too won’t strike a deal for anything less than twelve.’ Sarraf pointed to Virani and himself.

  ‘None of us,’ confirmed Virani.

  Jaggi Balraj was worried as the situation was getting out of hand. He speedily calculated in his mind what the total payout to the four men would be if he acceded to their demands. The figure that came up made him queasy. That would be a hell of an expensive takeover.

  Three waiters entered the room one by one. They served big fizzy mugs of beer and platters of prawn rissoles and deep-fried cheese cubes.

  Sometime later, after the men had argued more, Balraj got up. They had sat for more than an hour. ‘Let’s take a break,’ he suggested and walked out with his mug. For a change, everyone agreed with him and followed him to an open area of the deck. The weather was pleasant and the sky overcast.

  ‘Hey, men! The Arabian Sea is calling me,’ said Balraj in his croaky voice, cosying up to everyone.

  Spontaneously, Sarraf snubbed him. ‘Suit yourself. I don’t think anyone here will care if you drown.’

  All except Balraj laughed.

  Enjoying himself, T.C. Virani took a sip of beer, looked up at the sky, and recited aloud a verse to all of them:

  ‘The sea forms the clouds, and the clouds form the rain

  In Goa we all gather, and Jaggi becomes a pain.’

  A kilometre away, inside her room, Leena Goswami heard the men laughing. She had been recording the entire conversation for Shigeru.

  26

  Delhi.

  ‘Welcome again, Rishiji,’ said Niranjan Fotedar as Rishi Verma and Ira Bhat entered his office. ‘What is the agenda this time?’

  ‘Nothing new, Mr Fotedar. We’ll finish the physical verification this time.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Fotedar eyed his female guest.

  ‘Nothing else,’ assured Rishi.

  ‘How long will it take?’ Fotedar jiggled his legs impatiently.

  ‘Five to seven days. My colleague, Ira Bhat, will assist me.’

  On Rishi’s advice, Ira went to the clinic and encountered a long queue of patients waiting outside for their turn—some squatting on the ground, others standing. Walking along the queue, she entered the clinic. Dr Radhika Sapru, a naturopath and herbalist, was examining an infant crying uncontrollably.

  The doctor was a survivor like the inmates. She had lost her family—her husband and two teenage sons—in the earthquake of October 2005. A hardworking and disciplined woman, she decided to dedicate the rest of her life to herbal medicine, and over the years, had turned into an expert on the subject. Fotedar couldn’t have been happier. He had a doctor, who not only supervised the inmates in the medicine-making process but also treated patients from nearby villages for a low fee of fifty rupees.

  Sitting behind her desk, on which were arranged many medicine vials, bottles, and reference books, the doctor glanced at Ira and continued to examine the infant with her stethoscope. The small room was full and smelt of repulsive body odour. The patients were mostly women and children—some sat on a wooden bench along a wall, not leaving any space between one another, while others stood languidly in the queue that entered the room through the door. Other than those with common ailments, there were a few patients who suffered from tuberculosis. Ira pulled a shaky iron chair.

  A nurse, standing near a wooden almirah, prepared and handed the patients their prescribed medicines. Ira could see the reverence for the doctor in the patients’ eyes.

  A thin, old woman in a lehnga-choli and a chunri that covered her head, came around coughing unstoppably and sat down on a wooden stool for examination. The doctor took a break and stretched her back.

  Getting a chance, Ira introduced herself, ‘Good morning. I am from a company that donates funds to this NGO. Could I have a word with you about things in general here?’ The doctor put her stethoscope in her ears again. ‘Or could you suggest a suitable time when I can come back?’

  ‘One thirty,’ she replied, examining the patient’s chest.

  Rishi met Bagga, the estate manager.

  ‘I’d like to verify the stock in the store upstairs,’ said Rishi. Bagga was quiet. ‘Any problem?’

  ‘There are strict instructions from the chairman not to allow anyone on the upper floor,’ said Bagga.
r />   ‘But for our verification, we will have to go there.’

  ‘Let me think how I can help you.’ Bagga thought over it for a few seconds. ‘Can you come at night?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you right here at eleven.’

  ‘But are you otherwise supposed to be here that late?’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother, Rishiji.’

  At 1.30 p.m., Ira went to the clinic again. There were no patients inside and the doctor was free.

  Dr Sapru was slightly overweight and fair with long, plaited, greying hair. She had a morose look, yet her presence brought a smile to the inmates’ faces.

  Ira curtly introduced herself again.

  ‘I was not aware of any company donating money to our Home. What brings you to me?’

  ‘Well, Dr Sapru, the whole NGO concept and the cause for which the Home is working, intrigue me. So I thought I could have a chat with you and learn more. I hope I am not eating into your precious time, am I?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ The herbalist clutched a few vials, reached for the almirah, and placed them on different shelves.

  ‘Before anything else, let me tell you, what a fine job you’re doing for the inmates and the villagers.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You stay here in the campus? Where’re you from?’ asked Ira, flicking a mosquito away from the tip of her nose.

  ‘I have a room right on top of this clinic and I belong to Kashmir, like many inmates here.’ The doctor regarded her visitor’s stylish kurta suit. ‘Where are you from? You don’t sound Indian.’

  ‘You’re right. I am an Indian but brought up in the US.’

  ‘There you are.’

  Ira smiled. ‘How are things here?’

  ‘My medicines have benefited a good number of tuberculosis and gastroenteritis patients.’

  ‘Never thought of a change, or setting up a separate practice?’

  ‘I could have easily quit, set up my own clinic in the city, and earned much more. What stopped me was the misery of these women.’ She did not mention her own loss. ‘What do you think of this place?’

  ‘It’s a beautiful effort by Mr Fotedar.’ Ira studied the doctor’s expression.

  ‘I need to rush to the nursery. Would you like to come along?’

  ‘Oh, that’d be great.’

  The weather was pleasant. It was spring and flowers bloomed in the nursery. The inmates were at work as usual—gathering roots, barks, leaves, and flowers; tending to plants; and carrying out the medicine-making processes. Dr Sapru introduced her to some of the women and told her stories about the earthquake that brought widespread destruction. It was a sight of crying people running aimlessly, looking for their close ones. Those trapped under the rubble of their homes eventually died of thirst and hunger, if not of their injuries, before the disaster relief teams arrived.

  As they walked ahead, they came across two women, Hamida and Zarina, in their late twenties. The doctor told Ira their story:

  They were sisters and belonged to a village in Farrukhabad district, Uttar Pradesh. In a communal riot in 2006, the arsonists locked their parents and brothers inside their kachcha house and set it on fire, shouting hateful slogans. With their arms flailing out of the windows, they cried and begged for mercy, but the slogan shouting only became louder and more intense. Soon the entire village was on fire. That day, Hamida and Zarina were in a neighbouring village at a relative’s place. When they returned the next day, what they found in place of their home was a dark heap of charred belongings, bones, and ashes. Finding no other survivors, the two sisters left the village with whatever money they had and boarded a train from the nearest station. They got down when the train stopped at Old Delhi, the last station. A journalist saw the two terrified girls sitting huddled together under an overbridge at the platform. She arranged to send them to Fotedar’s Home for Women, whose chairman she had once interviewed for a story in her newspaper.

  Even before the tale of the two sisters could sink in, Dr Sapru introduced another inmate to Ira. Her name was Janaki, a thirty-one-year-old woman from Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2007, a group of Pakistani militants infiltrated the district in the middle of the night and broke into her house. She, her husband, and their two children were asleep. The sound of machine-gun fire awakened Janaki. When she turned to her side, she saw blood flowing out of the bullet holes in the tattered quilts. Her family was sent to the gods and she was spared to serve a purpose. For the next two hours, the militants gang-raped her beside the mangled bodies until the Indian army men arrived. Before the militants could lay their hands on the guns again, the soldiers fired indiscriminately, shooting each one of them dead. An unconscious Janaki was rushed to hospital. Niranjan Fotedar, the member of Parliament representing that constituency, took the responsibility of providing her security and shelter. After she was discharged, she was brought to Fotedar’s Home for Women, where she would spend the rest of her life.

  By the time Ira left for the guesthouse, she had met a number of inmates, each with an equally horrid story of hardships. When she met Rishi that evening, she said, ‘Is there any humanity left in this world? I feel so sorry for these women.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Dr Sapru told me their stories.’

  ‘Their stories are written on their faces, Ira.’

  ‘Is there any humanity left, Rishi?’ Her eyes welled up with tears.

  At 11 p.m., Rishi and Ira went to the Admin Block where Bagga was waiting.

  ‘Are we on?’ Rishi entered the reception area of the building.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ replied Bagga, looking at Ira.

  ‘She’s my colleague, Ira Bhat.’

  ‘I am aware, Rishiji. Hello, madam. It’s a pleasure,’ he said, as she bowed her head.

  ‘Other than the store, what else do we have upstairs?’ asked Rishi.

  ‘A hall and two special guestrooms. Let us go to the store first.’ Bagga put a flashlight on.

  They climbed the stairs and walked into a dark gallery. Bagga stopped near a door. Fixing the long, steel flashlight in his armpit, he took out a bunch of big keys and inserted one into a round and heavy lock hanging against the door.

  They entered a store that smelt of spices, cereals, and oils. There wasn’t much space for one to move about freely, as the floor area was occupied by stacks of cartons, boxes, sacks, and bags.

  ‘What’s in them?’ enquired Rishi.

  ‘Flour, pulses, sugar, spices … All kitchen stuff.’

  Ira and Rishi couldn’t breathe well because of the pungent smell. Bagga pointed to a row of big wooden boxes. ‘And they contain saris, woollens, and other clothes for the inmates.’ Then he turned to his left. ‘Can you see those iron cupboards there? We have books in them.’

  ‘What books?’ asked Rishi.

  ‘Books for the inmates. We encourage them to read books as per their education levels. Around 11 per cent of these women are postgraduates.’

  ‘Postgraduates?’ Ira was amazed.

  ‘That’s true, madam. And about, half of them are matriculate and above.’

  ‘Are there any criteria on which you admit them?’ asked Rishi.

  ‘Other than their age, there’s no criterion, or we would be defying our own objective, which is to provide shelter to any woman in need. Of course, she should be physically fit to work at the nursery all day long.’

  ‘What are their age groups?’ asked Ira.

  ‘According to our records, 50 per cent of them are below thirty and only 20 per cent are above forty. The oldest inmate is fifty-three years old, and we don’t take anyone below eighteen or above fifty-five.’

  ‘What if there’s a survivor below eighteen or above fifty-five?’ asked Ira.

  ‘There are a number of such welfare homes in India and all of them vary when it comes to age. Madam Bhat, keeping very young girls or old women can raise objections from various corners, as we have to employ them at our nurs
ery. So we send them to other homes we have a tie-up with.’

  ‘Are all of them married?’ she asked.

  ‘Almost all of them were, once upon a time. They are now either widowed, abandoned, or displaced.’

  Ira went near the cupboards. ‘What subjects are these books on?’

  ‘Yes, the books.’ Bagga followed her. ‘This is a charity collection from school and college students in Delhi. So far, we have been able to collect more than ten thousand books on subjects such as herbal medicine, naturopathy, yoga, spiritualism, and religion, including subjects taught in school at various levels. The objective is to keep them busy when they are not at the nursery. Books are great friends and healers, as they say.’ Bagga took out another bunch of keys, inserted a small one into the lock, and opened the cupboard.

  They could see a collection of old books neatly arranged on its shelves.

  ‘A store is not where books should be, Mr Bagga,’ said Ira. ‘Why don’t you shift this library to the hostel where they can browse through them anytime? I’m sure they aren’t allowed in here, right?’

  ‘We do issue a relevant book to an inmate once she gives her request to the office. Come, I’ll show you the hall.’

  They walked out of the store and encountered a cool gust of wind travelling into the gallery. Bagga slid the switch of his flashlight on, fixed it in his armpit, and locked the door. They followed him to the dark hall adjacent to the store. Tonight, the estate manager of the Home was doing things without his chairman’s permission.

  ‘What is this for?’ asked Rishi, as they entered the hall.

  ‘When we have to address them, this is where they assemble.’ Bagga put the lights on.

  The floor was unswept, there were cobwebs hanging in the corners, and the place, which looked like an old-time banquet hall, smelt damp. At one end of the hall was a low and wide dais. There were no chairs or benches to sit on.

  ‘Quite a dingy one.’ Ira looked up at the thirty-feet-high ceiling. ‘Does anyone ever clean it?’

  ‘Sweeping, mopping, laundry washing, and other household jobs are done by various teams of inmates on a rotation basis. There are no servants here. This hall will be cleaned a day before the next assembly.’ They hung around for a while until Bagga said, ‘We’ll go to the guestrooms.’