The Perils of Being Moderately Famous

by Soha Ali Khan

  Those of you who have studied away from home know that you spend the better part of your three years at university trying to get rid of the friends you made after that fourth gin and tonic at the freshers’ week ABBA-themed party. No offence to Jack, Jill, Mary and Humpty Dumpty (not real names).

  Luckily I soon met Charlotte and Tom (real names). Tom helped me expand my horizons, literally. In the spring breaks we travelled through Europe and Africa together, hitch-hiking from the Oxford city centre to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, backpacking through the quaint Spanish towns of Toledo and Granada, exploring the Sahara Desert atop camels we named Ixa and Humpy Thing, whilst reading 1001 Arabian Nights, feasting on tagines in Fez and oranges in Marrakesh and marvelling at how seedy and unromantic Casablanca really was.

  Tom and I—the call of the trail

  Charlotte lived across the corridor from me and we became friends while waiting in line to use the one bathroom all fourteen of us on Staircase XVII had to share. Someone was having a tub-bath and so we got chatting about India and how a diet of processed food and aerated drinks was severely constipating—in hindsight I think I was doing all the talking—when the bathroom door opened and a young man came out, towel around waist and soap in hand. I was about to enter when a girl came out after him, shaking the excess water from her hair. I tried to hide my amazement at this casual exhibition of communal bathing and made for the door again when, incredibly, another man came out whistling a merry tune. This time I couldn’t help but stare slack-jawed at him, my cheeks red with embarrassment. To be honest, I felt like a prude for being so Victorian. It was quite responsible of them really, I tried to reason—think of all the water they must have saved by not bathing independently. I looked at Charlotte, then at the tub and then back at Charlotte.

  ‘There are some showers across the quad,’ she said, breaking the awkward silence, and we both fell into a fit of giggles. That very night I wrote to my mother asking her to send me a balti and a lota, post-haste. Unfortunately the concept of a bucket bath is alien to the British and my precious balti was consequently used for mopping purposes, as a makeshift stool and on the weekends for drunken students to indiscriminately throw up in.

  Charlotte, Tom and I lived together in a house in our second year with four other people. In our fourth week there I confessed to them about the Nokia phone and waited for their expressions to turn disapproving. Thankfully my father’s fears were unfounded and they looked, at worst, uninterested. Were it not for them I would have found it much harder to adjust. As it is, there was nothing regular about being a student at Oxford. We did not have regular classes—Oxbridge prides itself on its tutorial system, so once a week you research and write a 2000-word essay and then spend an hour discussing it with your tutor, one-on-one. It is considered an incredible opportunity to learn from the experts who have written most of the books on the subject of choice. You would think then that we would spend the better part of the week studying hard, putting our carefully weighed words on paper to glean the most from this amazing chance—but somehow, between costume parties (where I would rack my brain time and time again to think of some ingenious ensemble, and time and time again I would resort to my Ritu Kumar green salwar suit and go as ‘some kind of Indian princess’), pub crawls, burning pasta and watching daytime TV, the week would slip away, and we would inevitably find ourselves pulling the dreaded all-nighter.

  My tutorial was scheduled from 4 to 5 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. At 4 p.m. on Wednesday was when I got down to my desk to speed-read the forty-odd essays and books on my reading list and then hastily scramble together my sleep-deprived notions. My tutorials were nerve-racking—not enough sleep, too much coffee, creases from my pillow lining my face and drool still caked to my cheek as I faced the man who had written the book that I had pretended to read and then copied liberally from. In short, a nightmare.

  Then there was the age-old tradition of wearing a uniform called subfusc for exams—a black suit for boys and a black skirt, white shirt and black jacket for women, with a big billowing black robe and a black ribbon around the neck.

  You must also carry a hat, called a mortar board, which you are never ever allowed to wear. And if that’s not stressful enough, for your first exam you must wear a white carnation in your buttonhole, a pink one for the ensuing exams and a red carnation for your last exam.

  As a result, the night before our final exams, instead of revising our notes in the library, we would be tearing our rooms apart in a state of blind panic looking for anything that could be fashioned into an improvised black ribbon! There is also the bizarre tradition of ‘trashing’ students coming out of their final exam with flour, eggs, champagne, baked beans—basically anything else left over in your fridge from last night’s dinner! So when I exited the grand hall in the summer of 1999 hoping to finally feel the sun on my face after months of vitamin D–deprived dedication and to breathe in the invigorating air of liberation from academia, I was met instead with a mouthful of rotten eggs and doused in a gloopy cake mix from hell.

  A common sight at university was the recently dumped boyfriend/girlfriend who had come to college as one half of a solid partnership that neither time nor distance could tear asunder. I watched each of these committed long-distance relationships crumble one by one until only one remained. Benjamin and Jennifer were our star couple. Jennifer studied at Bristol and we looked to them for hope when the world seemed too cruel to bear, and the radiance of their love never failed to soothe our troubled souls.

  ‘All the disadvantages of being in a relationship, and none of the advantages,’ it is said of long-distance romance. But Ben and Jen were unmoved by the cynics. Towards the beginning of the second year, when Jen left Benjamin for Dave, who could play the ukulele and was such a good listener, she didn’t just break his heart; she shattered our collective belief that love could survive long-distance. We took turns to sit with Ben under the oak tree, cursing Douchebag Dave who had stolen our Jen, and swigging from bottles of liquid anaesthetic.

  So what was the sum of my Oxford education? A yellowing parchment securing a BA Honours in modern history from the premier educational institution in the world—sure there’s that, but it was so much more than that. I learnt how to catch a bus, how to use a washing machine, how many gin and tonics I could drink with my judgement intact (2.5), how to manage a bank account and live on a budget, how to play pool, how to say no to drugs and not feel uncool, how to be an ambassador for my country in a foreign land, how I like my eggs cooked, never to wax my eyebrows . . . and that when you strip away all cultural affectations, you can make a genuine and lasting connection with people if you can accept, embrace and simply be who you are. But first you have to find yourself. And sometimes you need to travel 6000 kilometres to do that.

  Time is a slippery mistress. Feel free to reimagine that sentence with a more elegant metaphor. Just when I was starting to feel at home, when I had forged real bonds with people, when I finally understood what Professor Conway wanted from my essays, it was time to up and leave. It was time to face the outside world. It was so difficult to accept that we were all never going to be in that one place again. There would be reunions, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same. Our graduation ceremony was a sombre affair. Students wore the subfusc and this time, as graduates, we were finally allowed to wear our mortar boards. There was some last-moment panic when I looked down and saw that my feet in my new black heels were missing the mandatory black stockings women must wear. It was too late to go to the shops and I was furious with myself for forgetting. I wasn’t going to be able to graduate because of a pair of absent socks. And then my father came to my rescue—he took off his shoes, took off his socks and handed them over to me.

  Does this mean I need to get a job now?

  They were four sizes too big but they were black and that was all that mattered. I may never know what it feels like to walk in my father’s shoes, a mantle my brother has inherited, but I can say that I once walked in his
socks. And those 100 metres were the most defining of my life.

  The ceremony itself was not how I had imagined it would be. I had expected speeches, a live band, cheering crowds and confetti. Instead everyone was seated silently in a predefined order in the grand old Sheldonian Theatre.

  The grand old Sheldonian

  A very very old lady read out some Latin for an hour, there was a sceptre and a lot of nodding and quite frankly I didn’t understand a word of it. No one really does unless you’re ancient Roman. I had almost nodded off when my neighbour nudged me in the ribs, indicating it was my turn to go up to collect my degree. As I bent down on one knee in front of the vice chancellor, I couldn’t resist glancing at my parents. The look on their faces made me feel . . . well . . . pretty darn awesome. I don’t think Abba had ever been so proud. There are many good universities to graduate from in the world, but at the end of the day there’s only one worth taking your socks off for.

  A proud papa

  Hurrah! Class of 1999

  5

  Wakeful City

  It was all going so well. It was 2002, I was twenty-three years old, I had a plan and I was on track. I was working at Citigroup Private Bank in Mumbai as a Management Associate, a post-MBA designation with a coveted salary and a number of valued perks, the most prized being the assured transfer to London within eighteen months of commencement. My job description read ‘High Net Worth Asset Management’. In other words how to get rich by making rich people richer. An indisputably sensible career choice for the young and ambitious, and one I knew my parents approved of. They had invested substantially in my first-rate education and soon the returns on that investment would start to show.

  Human Resources was stymied by my presence at Citibank. Every time I had to go to the department to get my expenses vetted or to collect the latest banking compliance guidelines I would be greeted by staff members unable to contain their curiosity. ‘Why are you working here?’ ‘Don’t you want to be an actress?’ ‘Do you need this job?’ I don’t think it was their intention to make me feel unwelcome but sometimes I felt like my desire to earn my own money was a frivolous whim that was depriving someone genuinely in need of employment. I would hastily finish my work with them, turn tail and run back to the sanctuary of the small cabin I shared with my boss. There was not a lot of time for introspection: The work was unfamiliar and intense and my days were long and tiring. I would make the commute every day from my 2BHK rental at Rs 17,000 a month in Lokhandwala to Lower Parel at first and later, when the head office moved, to Bandra Kurla Complex. By the time I got home from work there was only enough time to shower, microwave my pre-cooked dinner, swat mosquitoes for an hour and then fall asleep watching TV.

  Investment banking is a great turn-on for many people but it did nothing for my mojo. Frankly, forget loving the job, I barely understood it—calculating the yield to maturity of a bond or comparing the internal rates of return of investments was simply beyond me. I sat through countless meetings with clients, selling them highly sophisticated and personally tailored investment products, knowing full well that if their questions were to scratch at the meticulously manicured membrane of mumbo jumbo, I would be exposed. Even today, when my private bankers come home to analyse my portfolio, they speak to me as a former banker accustomed to their industry acronyms. When they refer to the need for ABS I nod wisely and my hand involuntarily moves towards my midsection before I realize they mean Asset-Backed Securities. I have to keep reminding myself SLB is Securities Lending and Borrowing, not Sanjay Leela Bhansali and to them PC is P. Chidambaram, not Priyanka Chopra! I make non-committal noises at their suggestions and leave the room under some pretext only to call up my second-opinion financial adviser for her reaction, which I then return to the room and confidently regurgitate.

  The job then was a means to an end—a secure life in England, the country I had spent the last half-decade in and was starting to call home. Not everyone has a dream job. Not everyone knows exactly what they want to be from when they are six years old. When I was six I wanted to do manual labour. I spent the afternoons camped out in the garden, sweeping dead leaves off the veranda and eating orange biscuits and water for food.

  At the age of nine I discovered money and I couldn’t get enough of it. I became an entrepreneur. First I sold cosmetics to the staff, ideal customers who couldn’t say no to me. I gathered up all the used make-up my mother had tossed into the bin—almost empty bottles of nail polish and lipstick, near bare pots of cold cream—placed them on a tray and marched down to the servants’ quarters. Each item was then ‘sold’ to my captive consumers for a grand sum of Rs 2. Inevitably there was rioting in the ranks and news of my greedy exploits reached my mother’s horrified ears. My flourishing business was forced into immediate closure and I got my first lesson in economic protectionism versus a free market. So I branched out—I packed a small suitcase with a plastic syringe, some small towels, a box of Band-Aids and a fistful of mints and went around the house administering medical aid to those I thought in need. Headaches were treated with a cold compress and a mint in lieu of aspirin, joint and muscle pains eased with massages, and injections were given for more baffling ailments. The fee for each visit was again the grand sum of Rs 2. My doctor’s practice was actually quite successful and received much encouragement from all members of the household; I was even offered the handsome sum of Rs 25 from an anonymous investor to buy balms and ointments when I turned ten and outgrew the business.

  Being enterprising with my photography chops

  When I was twelve I was reading the Famous Five and Nancy Drew books and so, naturally, the only possible career option in my mind was that of a detective. My father didn’t take well to my following him around the house, jotting down notes on who he was seeing and what he was doing, and that was soon the end of that vocation. The following week I was enrolled in the Delhi School of Music, first for ballet classes—I was unceremoniously dropped from these within the month with the forthright explanation that I had the grace of a five-legged spider—and then for piano lessons in which I fared only marginally better. My family was then subjected to endless post-dinner recitals of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ for which the admission fee was—you guessed it—Rs 2 per person!

  Virtually a virtuoso

  Twelve years later, at twenty-four, sitting in my corporate cabin overlooking the business hub of BKC, I would ask myself if I had made the right career choice and if there was such a thing as the right career choice. I wanted to be financially independent, free to make my own decisions. I wanted to earn enough to lead the lifestyle to which I had grown accustomed, which included air conditioning, travel, a diet rich in overpriced exotic fruit and adding to my most cherished possession: my ever-expanding library of books.

  Banking made all that and more possible and then there was the lure of London. But I had felt instinctively on moving to Mumbai and taking up the job at Citibank that this was not what I wanted to do with my life. I had even called up Amman to say that I wasn’t happy and that I wanted to return to Delhi.

  ‘Give it three months,’ she told me. ‘You have never enjoyed change, and you need time to adjust so give it three months and if you’re still unhappy then come home.’

  This was what being an adult was all about, I told myself. Not doing the fun thing or the easy thing or the impulsive thing but doing the right thing and sticking it out.

  To ease the transition phase Amman gave me the number of her friend’s son who had also moved from Delhi to work in Mumbai and was obviously enjoying it more than I was.

  ‘You need to make friends and Rohan is a lovely boy. I have never met him but he must be. His father went to Harvard.’

  I figured there was no harm in testing this feeble theory and called Rohan that night. We arranged to meet the following Friday to see a play at Prithvi followed by dinner at the Marriott. What followed was one of my two most embarrassing text message-related storie
s. (The other I cannot tell you as I am sworn to secrecy but let me just say it involved the words ‘I love you chickadpoo’ and was meant to be sent on behalf of a young relative of mine to her father but went instead to the head of a major pharmaceutical corporation whose name starts with Bhai . . .)

  After the play ended, we made our way to the Italian restaurant Mezzo Mezzo at the Marriott. I excused myself and went to the loo, leaving Rohan to order drinks.

  ‘Bored witless and we haven’t even eaten yet. Yawn.’—I typed the message out to send to my best friend Priyanka, but before I could stop myself I had sent it to Rohan instead.