by Preti Taneja
She has kept one photograph for her desk. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Company Delhi hotel. Foundations had not even been laid. There was mud, and squares cut into it, as if an ancient city had been dug up. Nanu wore a printed silk sari, Bapuji was in his toosh and cap. Gargi herself was five-years-old, a plumpy peach with ribbons in her hair and socks with a frill. It had been Gargi’s job to garland the guest of honour, Madam Indira Gandhiji. She remembers the stomach churning feeling of grownups crowding around. The pressure of Indira Aunty’s hand, terrifying on her shoulder – and the words she had said: Never forget whose daughter you are.
Gargi had declined her head and stepped back. The adults around her applauded. Then she watched, holding Nanu’s hand as the Swamiji blessed the earth. In his saffron robes, she had thought him the brightest colour on the barren land. But his smell, she remembers, was almond oil; she didn’t like it when he came close to her and put his wrinkled hands on her head.
—Thank Swamiji for his blessing, Nanu had told her.
—He smells like the bath salts.
For that, she got one tight slap.
—Bhagwan sabh kuch dekh rahe hain. Papaji sabh kuch dekh rahe hain. Don’t ask questions, do as I say.
Nanu filled her hand with earth. Gargi threw it into the fire. She felt she was marrying the land. So it would provide for her always. (But, she had wondered, if the land was a husband, why was it always called Ma?)
Gargi remembers asking this question and getting no reply, just a hand held up as if to slap again. She remembers the day ending, Radha crying in a Lottie’s arms. Where had their mother been? Probably away: it was that time of year. Spring in Srinagar. She always went back for the flowering of tulips.
Now Gargi sits at the Mughal desk. She stares through the glass wall, into the jungle. The trees need spraying, the leaves are grey with city dust. A small bird, not a sparrow or pigeon lands on a Jamun branch, close to the glass. Monochrome, slim, with a forked tail – a Black Drongo – Gargi thinks, so elegant, though people think it’s a bad kind. For a second it observes her, head on one side. Then it flies away.
Dhanya, her father’s secretary, knocks on the open door.
—Gargi Madam, can I get you anything? The Director Sahibs are on their way up.
Dhanya is from Cochin. She reports back to Gargi on life in the female staff hostel, a new build in Paschim Vihar, telling stories about the other secretaries she lives with. All from every part of the country, all working in head office. Dhanya sniffs at the Bengali girls, who think they are all that. She struggles to cook home food (fresh fish is hard to get for her.) She eats with one or two girls from Trivandrum, as if her city and theirs are close as first cousins not ten hours distant by bus. She has bought earplugs, since her roommate Aarti either snores or sings all the time, mostly Kannada songs that Dhanya cannot understand. Dhanya cannot get the coffee she likes in Pashchim Vihar. Nor do the market men open early enough. She rides to office each day in the metro. On a good day it takes seventy-five minutes, half the time of the staff bus; she sits in the main carriage so she can watch boys. But her year in Delhi, so she tells Gargi, has given her nosebleeds and asthma. She cannot go out alone, and how is she to meet a man while living only with women, especially since Delhi is so big? She is thinking of returning home – if a place could be found for her in the Company hotel there, she would like to retrain for management. Gargi has told her, We’ll see.
Dhanya, one hand on her chunni, now flattens herself against the doorframe to let three men in.
—Kishoreji, Deepakji, Sunilji. To see you, Gargi Madam, she says. She shuts the door softly as she leaves.
Gargi observes them, the three independent directors of the Devraj Group; the first meeting Gargi has called here since the paint on the ceiling dried. Sama, dama, bheda, danda. Engraved on her heart is this Vedic lesson, which Nanu and Bapuji schooled her in. Make friends, give gifts, divide the parts and use the stick. These men, pulling up their chairs, getting out their papers, each of them like a thick jar of Company pickle; mangoes she thinks, no, amla, the round, brown fruits. Gym jao, she wants to order them, and stop stuffing paranthe.
She pictures them as characters from her childhood books as a way of tempering her fear. They are Serious Men – each of them with his story. And degrees. So many – learning gathered from Stanford, Harvard, IIT. If Jivan were here, Gargi thinks, he would read these men in a way I cannot – all I see is the same face, repeated. When I was young I thought these men were the three bears, or sometimes, the three little p’s.
No, she decides now, they are the three monkeys – see no, speak no, hear no. It is easy, on the basis of appearance, to write them off: so bland in their uniform shirts, plain ties and grey suits. Same. Old. But between them, they can spend half a lakh on a five-star dinner, then take a frugal breakfast: perhaps one (or two) ajwain ke paranthe, a little homemade dahi. They could do this and call themselves fair. All would agree.
Always they agree with each other (though in private they diverge, she thinks, but only late at night when they count their sons and maybe they whisper, the Company is waiting for you). She watches them look around the office. Take in the city on fire. Now the men look straight at Gargi’s shorn hair, she should have worn salwar kameez, the suit is too harsh, makes her look top heavy. Stop.
—Come sit, Kishoreji, Deepakji, Sunilji. Welcome.
Scenes like this do not belong in books, she thinks, in which little people reflect without pause on art and violence, the big questions through the worship of everyday things. The colour of her lipstick (Plum Dynasty), or the deep, sideways part in her fringe. Jivan does not read fiction, she knows. Do these men? They are listed on the ‘Real-world giants’ page of the Company website. They are here to give wisdom and get answers. They demand answers. First and foremost to the all-important questions:
—Gargi beta, what new ideas is Bapuji experimenting with in office design?
—Gargi beta, you cut your hair? Looking very professional.
—Gargi beta, I have brought the papers of divestiture. Will Surendraji be joining us to sign?
The final speaker is Kishoreji, an Independent Director of the Devraj Group for just five years but Bapuji’s legal council for forty at least. He got into college on the archery quota, played for India in the Olympics, then became a lawyer in his uncle’s firm. Kishoreji, who wears a cravat whatever the weather; today’s is a plain, dark blue.
—Gargi beti, is there a problem in progressing your Bapuji’s desires? he asks. Ranjitji tells us you are somewhat reluctant. But may I remind you: delay causes doubt, the most dangerous disease.
Kishoreji likes his coffee with pista burfi, he likes that Gargi always supplies this. Does he remember every time she has sat, listening to him talk about the implications of new laws, how to thread the Company through loop after hole – two words, she thinks, she has always associated with going fast and being crazy? Cartoons again – a wedge of Swiss cheese with big eyes and wild arms, waving from a rollercoaster carriage. There’s a mouse chasing the cheese, a cat chasing the mouse, not catching up, never catching up, for roller coasters run on rails, like at Apu Ghar, the first ever theme park opened in Delhi, where she went with Jeet as a young girl. He had fed her ice-cream from a paper tub with a small plastic spoon (she always chose green) as they sat waiting for the ride to take them up, up, up! Gargi, with mehndi drying on her hands (done by a woman the Lottie had not wanted her to touch) – had tasted the air, flavoured with vanilla, hands stretched out as the cart rose higher – higher – higher – and plunged, all the moments of childhood passing in a blur while the young Kishoreji loopholed the Company with his fine legal brain. Money and land and pleasure, tangled in the steel of a helter-skelter track.
—Everyday you wait puts lakhs at stake, Kishoreji says. He hands her a brick of Company papers.
—These are for you. Please, take them to Surendraji for reading. But as the eldest biological child, it is you who must sign.<
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Gargi thinks about all the lakhs, tied to the stake like witches from white fairytales, burning, burning, burning. Money is not real, it only exists in the mind of a computer. Jeet – where is he? – had laughed so much when she, as a girl, asked him where the bank vault was, the one that stored all the rupees for every person in the world? How did the bank know what size safe each person would need? Jeet – with his precious hardback Sanskrit–English dictionary – bought by Bapuji in London, from Sotheby’s when Jeet was seven-years-old. Jeet loved that book so much he would fall asleep over it some nights; was bullied for that from tenth standard onwards – but he used it to teach eight-year-old Gargi the language of money; that the word ‘lakh’, with its one and five zeroes, comes from either the Pali (masculine, noun) for ‘stake in a gamble’, or the Sanskrit ‘laksa’, ‘a target’, ‘a sign’.
The three men do not yet understand. She will not take from Sita. Nor will she be responsible for splitting the Devraj Group. The future, the market, the Country, she thinks. What will people say?
This is a question which Deepakji could answer as a media man, before he joined the board he was one of a conclave of graduates from the Bapuji Hundreds of years gone by, who work across the papers, and TV stations as proprietors, editors, reporters, as advertising salesguys – isn’t Barun one of them also? – Gargi cannot remember – must be, she thinks – it is not like her to forget such details, but Deepakji is talking, his voice riding over her thoughts.
—Gargi beti – your sister Radha and Bubuji take their lead from Surendraji and from you. Please, set the example. Let Bubuji manage his share, and let us call Surendra Sahib to talk over the next stage. When the details are worked out, we would all three stay with him. And you.
He waits for her to thank him. She does not blink.
—Sunilji, as our expert on Financial Oversight, will you not agree that splitting the Company is absurd at this stage? she says.
—Absurd is as absurd does, says Sunilji. Nothing is absurd here.
—Get me all figures for the Kashmir hotel, she says. It is already over budget and invoices are not being monitored correctly. The news around this construction has always been against us, and I am concerned about its legality. This is on your watch, all three.
Kishoreji wants to explain it to her, she can see in his face. He wants to tell her that in the year 2000, the State law was changed so that Kashmiri women who married outside, for example as her dear Mama married Bapuji, would still be able to buy land inside the State. Where before this had been prohibited under Dogra laws of 1846, when the Hindu Maharajas bought the territory and its people ‘direct’ from the British with the Treaty of Amritsar. Gargi has Jeet to thank again for this knowledge, and she trusts it – Jeet, who used to pretend he was a distant descendant of those Dogras – their rule lasted for one hundred years, until the beginning of ‘India’. Jeet, who has gone on a bloody trip just at the moment he is most needed – nevertheless Gargi thanks him, silently, while she watches Kishoreji’s mouth moving, explaining what she already knows. In any case, his answer is incomplete, because the real question is: What is the case if the law changed when that woman was ten years dead already? This is what Gargi does not ask, what Kishoreji does not explain. It is too late. The hotel is only months from being finished. Bapuji wanted a November opening, to make the most of the drama of snow.
—Perhaps we should halt all construction, Gargi says. We should wait. I am sure Bapuji will reverse his decision. Something might give.
No one mentions Sita. What do they know?
Three pairs of eyes on her, behind her father’s desk. She smiles her best smile and says,
—Sunilji, please share your thoughts.
—Ah, Madam, says Sunilji. The opening of the Company Srinagar hotel – it cannot be halted now. The financing chain is finer than the filigree on a bridal nath from nose to hair. We cannot pull it, for fear of drawing blood.
What it would take to stop this business – too late – she knows – for it is not just financing, but staffing too. Company policy has seen hundreds of workers shipped into Kashmir from Maharashtra. A whole new town has sprung up for them. Informal shops selling their songs and their Gods. Schools in Hindi and Marathi; restaurants serving their food. There have been local protests and some bad press. But all men love a dhaba, whoever is the cook.
Now, a question hangs over Gargi, like the mountains above the city where her Mama died. Does she love her country? No one has ever convinced her that they know what her country is, or could be. Does she love the Company? Her sisters? Both.
She reaches across the table. Pulls the papers towards her. Holds them in a verticle stack. If I sign, she thinks, all will fall.
—I want to know, she says. Every link in that money chain. Make me a full report. Show me how delaying on the Kashmir hotel is more complicated than splitting the whole Company between—
She stops herself from saying two or three. She catches the men’s eyes and the thought comes again. What do they know? In Srinagar this question is debated over kahwa and cigarettes. Jeet goes there, he knows what they talk about in the coffee houses, where a girl walking by might taste tobacco just by breathing through her mouth. Gargi does not smoke, she never has, though Radha once dared her to try. Once, before Sita left for Cambridge, she found the two of them together, Sita and Radha, on Radha’s small terrace at the Farm, sitting and smoking and laughing together. They stopped when she appeared.
—The Farm, she says. What about the family owned properties, apart from the hotels. Where do we stand on those?
Kishoreji says that though she might successfully stall the generous sharing of the Company that Bapuji has mapped out; she cannot stop the gifts of his personal wealth from being distributed. The Company Kashmir hotel, the Farm, Delhi townhouse, and the Napurthala Palace (under renovations since the last seven years), shall go to their named beneficiaries according to Bapuji’s design.
—With due respect, says Kishoreji. Bapuji is both wise and good, avoiding conflict by deciding now. Hindu Undivided Family law would do so equally between you and your sisters, married or unmarried, if ever your father should expire. But with no son to be the karta, and sons-in-law not counted, there would naturally be a difficulty between you girls in trying to share.
Karta. The law of inheritance and power of authority passed to the eldest male in a family. In my lifetime this may change, Gargi thinks. As the eldest, why shouldn’t she be the karta and decide who gets what and how much and when, and not have to consult with anyone? This future imaginable would mean Bapuji gone. She looks up to the ceiling. Bhishma, now hidden behind a white emulsion, is still dying, after all these years.
From the dark of the office, she steps into the slanted sun. Satwant is already waiting, holding the car door open for her. He chooses the Parliament route, they get traffucked by the metro construction. It will take over an hour to reach home. She takes a can of Coke from the car fridge, presses it to her forehead. A man on a scooter pulls up alongside the car. He raises his visor and stares in through her window. She stares back until the jam starts moving and leaves him behind. She shuts her eyes as they cross Rajpath, Rashtrapati Bhavan just over the hill. As they inch towards the artery roads, she slides the car window down. The sun is a golden gulab jamun sinking in a syrupy sky, the smell of sweat and traffic fumes deep-frying under the smog. It coats her skin, a layer of dirt made from the breath of thousands of striving humans. There are the college boys in their knock-off Nikes, standing ten deep at the side of the road, waiting to catch the bus home to the outer colonies of the city. There are the college girls, Fab India block print kameez and jeans, heading for wood-fired pizza in Khan Market, maybe smoked salmon bagels in Haus Khas Village; perhaps crowding into the ladies’ carriage of the metro, hungry at the end of the day.
She puts the window up again. Her dream of a city is no more than this: New Delhi in its sunken layers, every roundabout and enclave, every scooter and auto and
bike. She wants to say to the swarms tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine: I am the reason you are riding that bike – we make the parts. I am the reason your truck is running so smoothly – we designed the engines. I am the reason you can dream of your perfect wedding venue, your honeymoon destination – because my hotels are the best. Whose story is whose? Mine is yours and yours, mine.
The Coke goes down in gulps. Sugar and guilt. It tastes so good, even without lemon and ice.
—Make sure there is ice and lemon in the car next time, Satwant, Gargi says.
She presses 1 on her phone.
—Uppal?
—Gargi Ma’am, are you on your way?
—Kyun? What’s wrong? Nanu?
—No, although she is still not eating. Both breakfast and lunch she refused. It is your father, Gargi Ma’am.
Oh God. What now?
—He went to your studio. He ordered the women to stop packing. Ten of the Hundred came with him, and they took Sita Ma’am wedding ladoos. For cricket.
She lets out a bark of shocked laughter. Drops of Coke spill and settle on her hands like Bapuji’s liver spots. She licks them.