by M. N. KRISH
As soon as the door swung shut behind Durai, Joshua thumbed through his pocketbook and picked up the phone. He now had his other teammate to rally.
10
Lakshman got up in the morning in a foul mood which only turned stinkier as the day progressed. His neighbour Rishi’s words kept echoing in his head and pricking him with no respite.
Lakshman had woken up in two minds about going for his long morning walk in the stadium, a habit he was getting regular at after turning fifty. Though he had risen late, he had time as the semester was over and he didn’t have a lecture to rush to at eight o’clock. He decided to do at least a couple of rounds in the stadium to clear his head and perk himself up a bit. He was well on track to meeting his twin goals when he made the tactical error of catching up with Rishi Basavanna.
Rishi, a psychology professor who believed in a sound body as well as sound mind, was on his way out of the stadium after his morning routine when Lakshman hollered after him. Neighbours need not necessarily make great friends – often they end up otherwise – but not only did Rishi and Lakshman hit it off well, their families too had been tight for many years. Lakshman had been busy with Joshua over the last two days and hadn’t seen much of Rishi, and so decided to say hello when he saw him.
After a brief chat about his unavailability over the last few days and other odds and ends, Rishi asked Lakshman, ‘So how was the masala milk last night?’
It took Lakshman like a punch on his aquiline nose and he stood gaping at his neighbour who stood smiling mischievously in his tracksuit and training shoes. How the hell did he know? Was he a psychologist or a mentalist?
‘I hear there’s a lot of masala milk flowing in this campus these days, but didn’t know you too would fall for it, Professor Lakshman,’ Rishi said. ‘On the face of it, people claim it’s good for your stomach but in reality it could end up otherwise. So watch out.’
Rishi did not always discuss office politics openly with Lakshman. He sometimes took recourse to double entendres to make his point. Having satisfactorily done so this morning, he said, ‘Have a nice day,’ and trotted off for the house, swinging his arms smartly.
Lakshman could no longer focus on his exercise after that. Though he did two more laps around the stadium, his heart was no longer in it and his stride, breath and swinging arms were all out of whack with each other.
Lakshman wasn’t even sure how much Rishi knew or what he meant, but his words stung him and made him uneasy. Why did they have to choose Pomonia of all people? Why did they have to crown a crook in the first place? And why did they have to pick the Institute of all places? And worst of all, why did they have to get him involved in the dirty job?
Lakshman was not so naïve as to not understand the symbiotic nexus between politics and business. He knew very well that without such mutual back-scratching mechanisms, Pomonia would not have been able to walk scot-free with hundreds of crores of rupees in unpaid loans and dozens of cases of tax evasion and other corporate malpractices perpetually pending in the courts. But the Institute always commanded a pride of place and did not figure in the dynamics between money and power – until now. It was now distressingly clear to Lakshman that one should never underestimate the menace of the political menagerie, which, like the well-wooded campus, was seldom starved of maniacal monkeys – kapis – on the prowl; it was not without reason that the last time an Indian university boasted a Nobel laureate on its faculty was when the British were ruling the country. Having successfully wreaked havoc at the universities they were turning their attention to the Institutes now. And this, more than anything else, was what caused Lakshman so much pain. That he too was becoming a pawn in their game made him squirm in agonizing shame.
As always, all the Supreme Being said to Lakshman was, ‘Please do the needful,’ letting him work out the details himself.
Lakshman’s head went for a whirl when he tried to form a mental picture of the logistics involved. It was well into December already and his mandate was to complete the function by the end of January. Just identifying a suitable date was a mammoth task in itself. First there were the schedule clashes between all the stakeholders to resolve. Then the conflict with the Pongal holidays and the annual culfest in January. Once the date was fixed, all parties had to be invited, especially students. Students rarely took any interest in such cosmetic non-events on campus. They had to be lured somehow so there was some clapping and cheering during the ceremony. Without a cheering squad in the stands, the function would have a very solemn, funereal aura to it and a colourful personality like Pomonia would surely take umbrage. The media too had to be invited in advance and photo-ops arranged, for nothing kills an event like poor press coverage. The one hundred and seventy three members of the Senate had to be informed and their gowns properly laundered. They had to be called in for rehearsal to practise roaring ‘yea’, thrice in chorus, when the question was popped whether they, by the powers vested in them as the members of the august body, approved of the awarding of the honorary degree to the candidate in question. The very thought of senior professors turning into a bunch of buffoons for Pomonia twisted Lakshman’s stomach. So though he knew preparations for the ceremony ought to be on top of his list of priorities, he could not bring himself to taking it up. Instead he decided to get cracking on Joshua’s business the first thing.
Lakshman was marching up to his office with a frown rippling his forehead, mulling his plan of action, when he noticed a motley crowd of students and staff hanging about the corridor. When he went closer he could see that they were huddled in two clusters, one near the computer lab and the other near his office, talking in whispers as if outside a house in mourning. Even that turned mute when they saw Lakshman approaching.
Lakshman paused by the lab and asked no one in particular, ‘What happened?’
They looked at each other but no one seemed willing to say anything. Lakshman’s heart started beating faster. Something was definitely wrong somewhere.
The lab administrator Mahendran who’d been waiting in front of Lakshman’s office saw him arrive and came rushing.
‘Mahendran, what happened?’ Lakshman asked.
‘Bad news, sir. Please come and see for yourself. We have all been waiting for you.’ His diminutive form energetically cleaved through the crowd and led Lakshman into the lab.
11
Divya arrived for breakfast decked in a pair of charcoal grey jeans and an amber top, her face dazzling with a dab of Ponds Dreamflower talc. Her father Chander had gone to work before she got up and her mother wouldn’t eat until everyone else in the house had eaten, so she sat down at the table by herself.
Meenakshi had made mor kali for breakfast – a gluey meal made by cooking rice flour in buttermilk with just a dash of coconut oil, a dish the cooks in the hostel mess couldn’t make if their life depended on it. Divya wolfed it down and Meenakshi let her eat in peace. But she flew off the handle as soon as the last morsel slithered its way down the throat.
Divya knew opportunity when she saw one and how to seize it. She wanted to do a good job on the write-up for Joshua and had spent much of the previous evening in the library and online, poring over journal papers to get the hang of writing formally with all the bells and whistles of a research paper. She wanted to keep up the momentum today and start typing things in LaTeX. She tried explaining it to her mother but she just wouldn’t listen.
‘Only last night you said you’ll surely help me tomorrow. God promise, you said. God promise,’ Meenakshi growled.
‘No Ma, you’re mistaken,’ Divya said sounding as earnest as possible. ‘I didn’t mean yesterday’s tomorrow, which is today; I meant today’s tomorrow, which is . . . tomorrow, meaning, the day before day after tomorrow. Think logically.’
Meenakshi gave Divya a laser-eyed stare. But the girl just burst into a laugh. ‘I promise I’ll help you tomorrow, Ma. I mean the tomorrow that is twenty
-four hours from now. No room for logical ambiguity there, right? I know it’s for my own good. I’m going to be a great cook by the time Vanathi wakes up from her coma and starts getting beaten up by her husband again.’
Meenakshi was fuming now. So Divya switched to a pleading tone. ‘Come on, Ma. Please try to understand.’
‘It’s not just cooking. What about Sri Ramajayam? This is a holy month and today is a particularly good day. I was thinking we should at least get it started today. We’ve been delaying it far too long.’
‘As far as that goes, there is no we, Ma. Only me, which is you, Meenakshi Chander.’
‘It was your engagement, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t make the vow. You did,’ Divya said.
Divya was barely into her first semester when her parents fixed her marriage with Venus who was in his second year at that time – sophomore year as Joshua would’ve said. The wheels were set in motion right after the Divya’s entrance exam results were out in the open, heralding her spectacular success – ninth rank on an All-India basis. The domestic machinery worked overtime at both ends and brought things to fruition in a matter of weeks before Divya and Venus even realized what their parents were up to. By the time the two of them got wind of it, it was already fait accompli. Not that it was something they had a serious objection to.
Divya and Venus had known each other since they were kids. Their families had been friends for as long as they could remember. Chander and Venus’ father Sampath started their careers together at the same branch and became good friends over the years. Meenakshi and Venus’ mother Vandana had grown up together on the same street in Nanganallur. When Meenakshi got married to Chander she got to know Sampath, a most eligible bachelor at that time. She had him introduced to Vandana’s family and facilitated all their communications, culminating in holy matrimony in a matter of weeks – dowry free, which was quite an achievement during those days when marriages were more about matrimoney than matrimony as the gag went. The friendship between the two families grew from strength to strength over the years and Divya’s engagement to Venus almost seemed like a natural next step in the progression of things, a logical corollary – but for one little fact.
Though Tamil Brahmins both, Venus was an Iyengar whereas Divya was an Iyer. The difference? Venus’ family were Vaishnavites who believed in the primacy of Vishnu, while Divya’s family were Smarthas who believed in the primacy of Shiva, though both families had no qualms worshipping the other God. That was the practical side of the matter. On the philosophical side, Venus’ ancestors had sworn allegiance to the school of Qualified Non-Dualism, Vishishta Advaitha, while Divya’s forebears had reposed faith in the school of Absolute Non-Dualism, Advaitha, both of which disagreed with each other and with the other school of Dualism or Dvaitha. Though the debate between the three schools was never quite resolved in a thousand years, it no longer caused a firestorm in the country as it once did; there wasn’t much room for such philosophical hair-splitting in modern public discourse. In fact, like most brahmins of this age, the two families did not know or care much about Dvaitha or Vishista Advaitha. But what they did know and cared about was that one didn’t marry into a family on the other side of the divide. So the match between Divya and Venus kicked up a major row with some self-appointed custodians of family tradition looking askance at the proposal at both ends, driving childhood friends Meenakshi and Vandana to despair.
Vandana at least had her brother Sadagopan to champion things at her end. But Meenakshi did not have anybody; even her own brothers turned against her. Meenakshi was shrewd enough to surmise that what drove her relatives was not Dvaitha or Advaitha but Divya. In some corner of their hearts, they were all envious of her little girl’s accomplishments vis-a-vis their children – Divya was featured in many newspapers for winning the gold at the math Olympiad in Buenos Aires – and it came to the fore now. Their vile manoeuvres – sly comments, sarcastic allusions, curious phone calls from people who hadn’t called in years, rumour-mongering, politicking behind the scenes and downright confrontation – sent Meenakshi sulking in spite of her clear knowledge of where they were coming from. As people often did in moments of distress, she turned to the only place she could always count on for succour: her hometown. She hopped into an auto-rickshaw to Nanganallur and made a popular vow at the Hanuman temple there: if the alliance firmed up smoothly, her family would write the chant Sri Ramajayam on 1,008 slips of paper and string them together into a garland for the idol. Under normal circumstances, she would have stopped with a promise of 108 Sri Ramajayams, but finding the right match for her daughter was no ordinary matter and she started the bid at 1,008. When the chorus in the family got louder and she grew more desperate, she raised the stakes ten times to 10,008 – the Nanganallur Hanuman was a deftly chiselled monolith who stood thirty-two feet tall and had all the strength to bear a bigger garland of words hailing his lord and master Rama.
Whether it was the power of Hanuman or that of their own perseverance, one couldn’t tell, but Meenakshi and Vandana, supported steadfastly by their husbands, managed to prevail over their hidebound relatives and formalize the match at a small function in Vandana’s house. It was a simple but highly significant ceremony. Only close relatives, especially the dissenting ones, had been invited and their voices went missing soon thereafter.
Over a year had passed now since the engagement. But the vow Meenakshi had made to Hanuman still remained unfulfilled and kept pricking her conscience every day. He had delivered His end of the bargain and she had to deliver hers. It didn’t bode well for the family to keep Him waiting for so long. Writing the chant 10,008 times was not a job for one person and Meenakshi could do with some help from her husband and daughter. With the year-end approaching, Chander spent all his waking hours at the bank, often even on Sundays, leaving her at Divya’s mercy.
‘Who asked you to go to Hanuman in the first place?’ Divya crinkled up her face and asked. ‘Defies all logic.’
Meenakshi looked at her daughter aghast.
‘First, Hanuman is not an Iyer like us. He is an Iyengar who is never without his namam on his forehead. Venus and his parents should be the ones writing things like Sri Ramajayam or Hari Narayana or Hari Gopala, not us. You could have just prayed to the Iyer gods. They’re less demanding. We can easily make them happy, cooking some sweet at home and having it for lunch.’
‘Keep quiet, Divvy,’ Meenakshi fumed.
‘Also, Hanuman is a confirmed bachelor for heaven’s sake, a life-long Brahmachari. And here you are begging for his help in a marriage!’
‘But He was the one who got Rama and Sita united.’
‘Maybe. But tell me, what’s the deal with the paper garland? Which genius came up with the idea? Paper wasn’t even invented when the Ramayana happened. . . . But if you still insist on it why don’t we type up Sri Ramajayam in a computer? We can print as many copies as we want and string them up. . . . I have another idea if that doesn’t work. Does Hanuman accept Sri Ramajayam by email? One small script and the mail can go out a million and eight times.’
‘Shut up, Divvy,’ Meenakshi thundered. ‘Writing Sri Ramajayam is a sacred duty, something you do with devotion, with your own hand. . . . You used to fill up dozens of notebooks with Sri Ramajayams when you were small. Don’t know what has happened to you.’
‘I know, Ma,’ Divya giggled. ‘I know. Don’t take everything I say so seriously. I’m very busy now and just don’t have time for things like this.’
‘Why don’t you say that straight and stop there? Already there are so many evil eyes jinxing you two. If you keep insulting gods like this, we’ll end up writing it 100,008 times for your marriage.’
‘Ayyo Amma! Please don’t scare me. I don’t even want to get married if that’s the case.’
Meenakshi laughed, having scored a point over her brilliant daughter at last. ‘Then you’d better help me now.’
‘Not now, Ma. Later. I’ve really got to go to the campus now. I have work to do.’
She picked up the Scooty keys and started searching for her missing Eastpack backpack – a local rip-off of the American brand, an Indian answer in kind to Texmati.
12
With all the lights out, the lab was plunged in semi-darkness with just a little sunlight streaking in through the windows at the far end. As soon as Lakshman stepped in, a smell fouler than his mood wafted up the air and smothered him. Wary of going further in, he stood by the door, wrinkled his nose and looked around. Having just come in from outdoors, his eyes took time to adjust to the darkness and he had to strain a little to see. It took a few seconds for things to come into focus and when they did, his heart nearly stopped.
The lab looked like a mini warzone with the furniture and equipment in complete disarray. It didn’t take Lakshman long to realize what must have happened. A window or two had been left open overnight and a gang of monkeys from the woods had sneaked in and turned the place upside down. The chairs, tables, floor tiles, monitors, CPUs and keyboards had all been indiscriminately doused with urine and decorated with droppings as far as Lakshman could see. Keyboards precariously dangled off the table, and monitors and CPU boxes lay all askew. Three monitors were on the floor, two smashed to bits and the other with a Y-shaped crack on the screen. Wires had been pulled out and they lay here and there tangled up like serpents. The power surge protector had been fatally damaged, prompting Mahendran to turn off the mains.
‘Who left the windows open?’ Lakshman asked Mahendran.
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘Why haven’t you gotten it cleaned up yet?’
‘I was waiting for you so you could take a look and decide what to do as the head of the department, sir,’ Mahendran said, as always firm on the protocol.
‘What’s there to do?’ Lakshman sighed. ‘Clean up the place, take inventory of damaged items, repair and salvage whatever possible, properly dispose of the rest. I’ll sign off the paperwork. We need to get the lab going as quickly as possible. There are a lot of students who aren’t even going home for the holidays so they can work on their thesis.’