Rupee Millionaires

by Frank Kusy

  Unsure of how to proceed, I decided to take the Colonel’s advice. I ordered a load of stuff from Gordhan—mainly patterned waistcoats, velvet purses, and embroidered wall-hangings—to cover our bets. Oddly, just as Spud and I were finalising the deal, Gordhan informed us that, ‘velvet purse are going Saddam Hussein.’ Even worse, ‘wall-hanging not available because of Guleff’. When I asked what the Gulf War had to do with wall-hangings, Gordhan shrugged.

  ‘Pakistan border is seize. All embroidery item come from Pakistan.’

  He didn’t know who had seized the Pakistan border, but he was pretty sure it was Saddam Hussein.

  In the evening, Gordhan treated us, his new foreign friends, to dinner. At the meal we learnt Gordhan was a good, almost extreme, Hindu. He didn’t smoke or drink, he didn’t eat meat, and he was strictly non-egg. He was also, though he didn’t look it, very rich. The threadbare shirt he wore, along with the moth-eaten jumper and beaten-up leather sandals, were part of an act which created the illusion of poverty in an attempt to deter theft. The throwaway remark that he had £100,000 of interest at his local bank rapidly dispelled this myth. Yet he never tired of telling us throughout the meal that he was a ‘poor man who makes no profit.’

  At the end of the evening an even fatter individual turned up, driving a tiny transit van. This was Gordhan’s son, Girish, and he had come to collect both his father and his daily pint of ice cream. The sheer bulk of Girish was awesome. His name meant ‘King of the Mountains,’ and he certainly lived up to it. Only seventeen years of age, he was already twice the size of his father. He also carried twice the responsibility. Gordhan had given him “Silver Mines”, the shop opposite his, and foreign buyers trooped in and out of it all day long, buying jewellery.

  ‘Yeah, I spoke to Girish earlier on,’ Spud informed me, ‘and while these buyers bitched and complained and generally gave him a hard time, he just sat there like a sleepy Buddha, switching in mood between childish tantrums and stoical resignation. He never gets a holiday, he never takes a day off, his average lunch break is only eight minutes, and he never stops thinking about business. An ideal son for Gordhan really!’

  Spud also discovered that all the jewellery we had ordered from the Colonel originated with Girish. This meant Fateh was no longer necessary. From now on we would buy all our silver direct from Girish. Not only was it a cheaper option, but we could also export it—along with our clothes from Gordhan and our Pushkar silk—from one place.

  Now all we had to do was buy some silk. ‘I heard it down the grapevine,’ grumbled a worried Spud as we boarded the bus on to Ajmer, ‘that Ivan is trying to buy every piece of silk in Pushkar. We’d better get our skates on or there won’t be any left!’

  But I wasn’t worried. Yes, there were a finite number of second-hand sarees for sale at any one time, but I had already phoned Mendu, my silk supplier in Pushkar, to make sure he had stock. I had even wired Mendu some money to make doubly sure of some stock. So what could possibly go wrong?

  Three hours later, having taken the two-rupee ‘pilgrim bus’ over the Snake Mountain from Ajmer, we arrived at the Pushkar Palace hotel. The hotel was an old favourite of mine. I liked it for its wacky staff, its breezy, palm-fronded terrace, and its amazing sunset views over the holy lake. I also liked that this imposing whitewashed structure, which had originally been built as a royal hunting lodge, had anti-elephant spikes on its huge wooden doors.

  The first thing I did on arrival was grab my camera. The first thing Spud did was complain. He had discovered that Pushkar was totally vegetarian, which meant no meat—not even eggs. He was distraught. When Jagat Singh, the hotel manager, was heading out to Ajmer later on, he asked if we wanted anything, Spud shouted, ‘Yeah, a pound of sausages!’ Jagat was not amused.

  I was glad to be back in Pushkar. It was a magical place, my second ‘home’ in the world, and I knew I would return time and again. I well remembered my first impressions of the place: a small jewel in the navel of India, ablaze with its colourful mix of pilgrims, hippies, merchants, and holy men, its outdoor menagerie of cows, pigs, dogs, and monkeys. Most of all I remembered being lulled by its unique blend of romantic mysticism and hard-nosed business practice.

  When I had first arrived in 1985, just as the tourists had begun to trickle in, I had found it wonderfully unspoilt. The ancient buildings were whitewashed and flaky, the lake was peaceful (apart from a few leaping carp), and the sleepy marketplace was dotted with a few browsing backpackers.

  But the old Pushkar was changing fast. In the short space of six months, it had morphed from a quiet, laidback hippy outpost into a busy, bustling hive of business activity. Hordes of foreign buyers were now in town, and the long, winding market street around the lake and bathing ghats was full of newly built hotels, cafés, and restaurants. Everyone was there for the same thing: second-hand sarees. Wherever we looked, Spud and I saw lorryloads of silk, freshly arrived from Bombay and Ahmedabad, manned by rag merchants who had paid a fraction of their original worth—say 30 pence for a £50 saree—to bored housewives wanting to clear out their bottom drawers.

  ‘What a buzz!’ enthused Spud. ‘You can almost smell the money!’

  A gauntlet of hallooing traders and shopkeepers lined the market street, all vying for our attention and our dollars. Beggars and so-called holy men rose from the pavement to block our way, and puja boys—the kids who sold prayers for money at the ghats—kept stuffing rose petals in our hands, trying to lure us down to the lake.

  We fell into Mendu’s shop with a sigh of relief. ‘Is Ivan here yet?’ I asked, trying to sound unconcerned, but Mendu shook his head.

  'Not come. Today lucky day, big stock!’

  I shot Spud a look of triumph, and the two of us dug in, choosing the best pieces. Four hours later, I turned to Spud.

  ‘Well, that’s that done, then,’ I said with a smirk. ‘Four thousand pieces of top-of-the-range silk with a street value of £40,000. Eat your heart out, Ivan!’

  But Spud wasn’t listening. He was staring outside, distracted by a manic little figure dancing up and down in the street.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s Lalit Jain. Mister Bullshit.’

  ‘Mister who?’

  ‘Mister Bullshit. That’s the name I gave him a couple of years back, when we first met. He stopped me in the street and said, “Come my shop! It is cool like supercomputer and we can talk bullshit for the laughing!” So, he’s been Mister Bullshit ever since.’

  ‘Why do you talk to him?’ marvelled Spud. ‘He’s a wanker!’

  ‘He’s also the biggest moneychanger in town,’ I explained. ‘There’s a huge black market for foreign currency in India, and he can give us up to fifteen per cent more for our dollars than any bank. It pays to keep on the right side of him.’

  Once we were on the street, Lalit stuck out his hand and proclaimed himself ‘double-delighted’ to see me again. ‘Ah, Mister Frank,’ he declared. ‘Famous writer! You are always on my dreams!’

  Spud stared at him, agog. ‘Well, you’re certainly on something,’ he remarked.

  Which was true, since Lalit had something of a drinking problem. We encountered him later on, weaving unevenly down the road on a moped. ‘I am having double-much fun!’ he giggled happily.

  Then he ran into a sacred cow.

  Chapter 8

  The Ups and Downs of Spud

  The following day, Spud – putting aside his earlier reservations – had occasion to use Mister Bullshit. He had heard Ivan was coming into town and, not being content with having bought up all the best silk, he decided to rub Ivan’s nose in it. Somehow he persuaded Lalit to loan him every black market rupee in town for a few hours, then he took over the shop opposite Mendu’s, setting himself up as a moneychanger.

  ‘Hallo, Mister Moscow!’ he shouted as Ivan came into sight. He did a frighteningly good impersonation of the local dialect. ‘Change dollar? Good rate for yoooou!’

  If Ivan was startle
d at the sight of Spud sitting up there, surrounded by piles of Indian banknotes, he didn’t show it. He kept his cool. He went into a quick huddle with his brother, Viktor, then narrowed his eyes and asked, ‘What rate you geeve?’

  Spud gave him a sly, conspiratorial grin and whispered, ‘Twenty per cent better than bank. Only for you!’

  Viktor tugged Ivan away. ‘We know this guy. He’s crazy! Let’s check somewhere else!’

  But when they did, they discovered nobody else had any black market money for sale. Minutes later, they were back at Spud’s ‘shop’, thrusting all their foreign currency at him.

  Spud wasn’t through with them. ‘So sorry,’ he said triumphantly. ‘You had your chance. Now you’re fucked!’

  Mendu, and every other Indian within earshot, laughed Ivan out of town.

  Unfortunately, Ivan had the last laugh. Three weeks later, back in England, we waited with bated breath as our first consignment from Gordhan was unloaded outside Spud’s house. There were nine large boxes in all, but something was missing. Perplexed, we dug into the boxes, checking our inventory. Waistcoats, wall-hangings, bedspreads, and purses all flew over Spud’s shoulder. Then he turned to me.

  ‘Where is our silk?’

  It was a good question, and one to which only Gordhan had the answer. Over the phone Gordhan explained he had tried to export the silk along with the other goods, but had failed. ‘No get licence for silk export,’ he’d moaned to Spud. ‘Better you send gift parcel!’

  Spud asked how this worked, and Gordhan suggested sending the silk as forty separate ‘gift’ parcels in order to circumvent Indian customs and avoid heavy export duties. The important thing, he had stressed, was to send each ten-kilo parcel to a different address in the UK. This was to disguise the fact that they contained commercial goods and not gifts.

  But Spud had been impatient. Without telling me, he instructed Gordhan to put his address on every single parcel. As a result, they all got confiscated by English customs.

  And from being rupee millionaires one day, we were broke the next.

  For the first time in our partnership, I was furious with Spud. ‘If you didn’t have forty friends or family to send those parcels to, why didn’t you say so?’

  His grin never wavered. ‘I don’t do sorries,’ he said.

  I considered cutting my maverick ‘friend’ loose and going solo again, then thought better of it. A little voice deep inside told me we still had a future together. And this little voice overpowered the other little voice, which nagged constantly.

  ‘Frank,’ it urged, ‘you’re losing your Buddhist centre. You’re on a dangerous roller-coaster, and if you have any sense you’ll get off right now.’

  Just as I was about to get off, just as I was ready to throw in the towel, I received a phone call from Gordhan. My portly Indian friend had been back to Delhi airport, servicing another customer, where he had discovered twelve of Spud’s forty parcels sitting in a backroom store. Gordhan had tipped a customs guy £100 to release them and was now posting them to London. He gave each one a different address to ensure their safe arrival.

  I couldn’t believe my luck. If Gordhan had been standing in front of me, I would have kissed him.

  A few days later, with all twelve parcels in hand, we were back in business—albeit on a much smaller scale than anticipated.

  ‘We’ve got to move this stuff quickly,’ Spud informed me, ‘so we can buy back all the silk we lost. And that means more market stalls.’

  The very next day Spud redeemed himself in my eyes by barging his way into north London’s biggest market, Camden, and obtaining a permanent double-pitch there. His sister had ‘connections’, he said. Besides, the market manager was shit-scared of him. Lighting a huge gob of Pushkar temple dhoop (incense) beneath the manager’s office and smoking him out of the building had terrified the poor guy.

  Camden was the ideal venue for selling silk. It was more ‘alternative’ than St Martin’s, drew a bigger crowd, and commanded better prices. In a matter of weeks Spud and I were solvent again, and planning our next move.

  On 11th March 1991 we worked our first festival. It wasn’t much, just a one day music event at Hythe, near Folkestone. We arrived early, around 7am, and seized the best pitch, right up by the performance stage.

  ‘This is where we want to be,’ Spud said, smirking. He grabbed a “Psychic Tent” and tossed it into the field below. ‘I bet they didn’t “see” that coming!’

  Business was slow until dusk, mainly due to the rain, then it became hectic. The night was so dark people couldn’t see what they were buying, but by then they were too drunk or stoned to care.

  ‘What colour’s this bag?’ they asked.

  ‘It’s black,’ we said. Suits you, sir!’

  ‘What stone’s in that ring?’ they asked.

  ‘Black star sapphire,’ we said. ‘How lucky can you get?’

  If they didn’t have money, they paid in other ways. ‘I got some wicked mushrooms, man,’ offered one punter. ‘I want that floppy hat!’

  ‘I’m just off the boat from the Dam,’ suggested another. ‘Here’s an ounce of primo black for that pair of tie-dye dungarees!’

  If they didn’t have drugs, they brought over a burger or a few beers. At the end of the night, we were so stoned and drunk we could barely stand up, let alone pack away. None of the other vendors made much at this event. Spud and I went home with over a grand.

  The Hythe gig was significant in one other respect. It marked the first step on the road to Spud’s planned wholesale empire. At the end of the fair we came away with a list of ten shops to whom we could sell, and finally saw an end to working six days a week on a market stall.

  Only one thing stuck in Spud’s craw. It was the Petrovs again, and this time they meant business. Ivan and Viktor had just returned from Delhi with eight suitcases apiece of saree clothing, and they were flooding all the London markets with it. To make things worse, they were being regularly restocked by a dozen young hippies. The Petrovs apparently paid the kids to go to Pushkar and bring back forty kilos of silk every month.

  ‘What a brilliant fucking idea!’ spat Spud. ‘Why didn’t we think of it?’

  The summer over, we returned to Pushkar – only to find a full-scale ‘saree war’ in progress. Truckloads of sarees bound for one shop were being diverted (bribed) on their way from Bombay to go to other shops, and the central marketplace now resembled a bull run on the stock market, with traders and silk merchants hysterically exchanging money and orders. One wholesaler stole his ‘friend’s’ glasses, forcing him to buy a load of damaged stock ‘unseen’. Another spiked a competitor’s coffee with acid, taking him out of the game completely.

  Spud waited for an opportunity to sabotage Ivan. Then he took it. We were sitting in a café, enjoying a banana lassi, when a distressed—and voluptuous—Italian tourist chanced by. Her pouting bottom lip quivered enticingly, and her sash-bound breasts followed suit.

  ‘I lose my passport!’ she wailed to the street. ‘I cannot go home!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ commiserated Spud in a rare display of pity. ‘Can I be of help?’

  The sultry siren ceased trembling and sat at our table. ‘How can you help?’

  ‘Well, I saw you in the market earlier. You were talking to that Russian guy, Ivan.’

  ‘Yes. So what of it?

  ‘He’s a good-looking geezer, isn’t he? Do you like him?

  ‘Yes, I like him.’

  Spud leaned across the table towards her. ‘How much do you like him?

  She flushed. ‘He is very nice.’

  ‘Okay, well,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, ‘I’m going to give you three hundred English pounds. I want you to be extra-special ‘nice’ to him for a few days. Keep him in his room. Don’t let him out for any reason.’

  She gasped, scandalised. ‘You think I am prostitute?’

  ‘Nah, as I said, I’m just trying to help.’ Spud’s smug grin was back. ‘You want th
e money or not?’

  She took the money.

  It was six long days before Ivan emerged from his hotel room. Then, just as he prepared to settle down and do business again, he stuck his hand in his secret money stash, only to find someone had put a cobra in it. Apparently the Italian temptress had warmed to her mission and gone the extra mile.

  Poor Ivan. Once bitten, twice shy; he left town in a coma. Though not, we soon found out, before his brother Viktor had bought up every piece of silk in town, damaged or not. That crafty move put the rest of us out of business.

  Spud was enraged. ‘Right. That’s it!’ he spat. ‘Victor’s going to the top of my death list. With Ivan a close number two.’

  ‘You’ve got a death list?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘Me and my mate cooked it up in the army.’

  ‘You’ve got a mate?’ I exclaimed. ‘Where’s he, then?’

  ‘What, fat Pete? He’s in Parkhurst for molesting a bus driver.’

  ‘Was the bus driver on your death list?’

  Spud waved a hand, dismissing the idea. ‘No, Pete did him for free. A bit like I’m going to do Mendu right now, given half the chance!’

  Spud located Mendu playing cricket out back, and demanded to know where our vanload of silk was. Mendu shrugged and said, ‘Gone Pakistan.’

  Spud promptly broke his bat in half.

  ‘Better you take T-shirt!’ offered Mendu, still unaware of the danger he was in. ‘T-shirt good!’

  This suggestion did not go down well with Spud. Now that his Harry Enfield ‘loads a money’ dream was in tatters, he informed Mendu that T-shirt was not good. He wanted silk and nothing but.

  ‘No buying T-shirt?’ wheedled Mendu. ‘For you, T-shirt better!’

  Spud lost it. ‘I don’t want T-shirt!’ he exploded. ‘Don’t say T-shirt again, or I’ll pull out all your teeth!’

  Mendu’s jaw dropped. ‘No angry!’ he bleated, then he ran out of the shop.

  I found myself curiously amused. Up until now, everyone in Pushkar had thought Spud a ‘very nice man.’ This was strange, because I was well aware Spud was wont to kick down doors and threaten loss of limbs when things didn’t go his way. Only the previous day, he had told one supplier, ‘I’m going to kill all your cattle.’