‘You’re still the man, Ray,’ he said.
Ray smiled.
Not really. It was someone called Vinay.
13
‘Maybe I should have got handcuffs instead,’ said Vinay, as he put the ring on Padmini’s finger. The small crowd gathered in her living room laughed.
‘Kinky,’ said Abie.
‘Speech, speech!’ Sumi raised the glass of champagne.
‘The reason I said handcuffs,’ said Vinay, ‘much as I like Abie’s idea, was for an entirely different reason. I don’t know how many of you know our story but I’m going to tell you anyway. Because today’s my day and I’m paying for the champagne…’
There were enthusiastic ‘yes’-es from the room. Only Padmini held her head in mock exasperation.
‘The first time I met Padmini was a little over two years ago. I was working on an investigative piece on hospitals. She was working on a medical negligence case. We met because I needed information. It was over a coffee … all legit, or so I thought. Had a bunch of carefully prepared questions and our meeting was supposed to last half an hour or so. Had a deadline, you see, and was running short of time. Well, guess how long it lasted and how many of my questions I asked?’ Vinay said.
‘You tell us, Vinay … looks like you’re going to whether we like it or not,’ said Padmini.
Everyone laughed.
‘Well, our meeting lasted two-and-a-half hours and I didn’t ask a single question … at least not one that pertained to my article,’ he said.
‘…which proves you are a lousy journalist,’ she said.
‘That might be so,’ said Vinay, ignoring the laughter, ‘but in the art of pursuit, I, madam, am matchless.’
He took an elaborate bow as everyone applauded. Someone took a picture.
‘Two years, ladies and gentlemen, it took me two years to make this young lady here see sense. Which brings me to the handcuffs, and why I thought they would be more appropriate than a ring. So she doesn’t run away.’
~
Ray sat on the porch with his coffee. The air reeked of weekend. No reversing cars, no children waiting for the school bus. The San Jose Herald lay a few feet from him, unclaimed. Exactly where the paper boy’s throw had deposited it. He was a relic. Still relying on the papers for news when the rest of the world read it off their palms. But old habits were hard to discard. When he had come to America, he had had withdrawal symptoms from the Hindu for an entire year.
How long before he got Padmini out of his system?
He had tried hard to forget that it was the day of her engagement. In fact, it would be happening that very minute. Some guy would be laying claim to the hand that had caressed his cheek. Ray looked at the California sun up in the sky, cheery as an orange.
The world worked that way. What a lovely day it had been when his mother died. He remembered the ridiculously festive gulmohar on his street as he had hurried back home from school.
The principal had come to his class and whispered to the class teacher before speaking to him.
‘Satyajit, please go home. Your mother is not well,’ he had said.
He poured most of his coffee into the bushes by the steps. Someone had said it was great fertilizer. If how it tasted was anything to go by, they had to be right.
He thought of Padmini’s naked body below his. Why couldn’t he have died then?
~
‘I rather like him,’ said Sumi.
‘Me, too,’ Padmini said.
They were in her room. Abie, Vinay & Co had gone up to the terrace for a smoke.
‘He’s cute,’ Sumi said.
‘Not bad, eh?’ Padmini grinned.
‘So, looks like heavy loves and all.’
‘What’s love gotta do with it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What’s love but a second-hand emotion,’ Padmini sang the last bit.
‘You’re such an ass.’
‘Who needs a heart when a heart can be bro-o-kuhhhn!’
Padmini belted out the line.
‘So, does it mean you love him or not?’
Padmini shrugged.
‘Do you love Ray?’
Padmini didn’t say anything.
14
‘Raju! Summa Iruda!’ Velu said.
The dog had been fidgety all night. Pacing about like an insomniac old man, whining now and then. Velu was exasperated. It was hard enough to sleep in a new place without constant interruptions.
Raman-ayya’s son had asked him to stick around in the house.
‘Velu, you and Andal, please take care of the house. I know this is sudden but I’ll call you in a week or so and relieve you. We’ll figure out the dog, as well,’ he had said, handing over the keys and an inordinately large amount of cash.
How could he say no to Raman-ayya’s son? Ever since he had set up his vandi in Santhi Colony, ten or so years ago, Raman had been a great help. He had even lent him money for his son’s school deposit and refused to take it back. It was pretty generous considering he didn’t have much to spare. Velu knew from the frayed collars of the old man’s shirts, which he ironed day in and out.
The boy, Ray, was a bit odd. Velu had seen him only three or four times in the last ten years. And that, too, maximum, for a week or ten days. He would zip in and zoom out. The daughter was more relaxed. She had stayed for a month once. But Raman-ayya was happy to have his kids over. He would prepare days in advance. He would pay Andal an extra five hundred for all the pre-arrival sweeping and sprucing.
What was the point, anyway? He was gone. All the love he had showered, god knows where that had gone. The boy would sell the house now. America pasanga didn’t care about India soththu. They had dollars. The house would go faster than the barota-kurma on the cart at the street corner. Minimum, one point three. Two per cent on it would be two point six lakhs. Maybe he could find the buyer, he sure could use the commission. But he had heard the boy saying something about the house to that Shobha woman. Maybe she would buy the place.
The ceiling fan was great compared to the rickety pedestal model at home, the mattress was soft and Andal was snoring like a strangled pig. Velu wondered why he couldn’t sleep. Nothing like being in one’s own house.
Dog Raj whined again. Was that a clink he had heard? It sounded like the gate latch was being fiddled with. That’s all he needed now – a burglar. Velu pulled open the window curtain a bit. It was coal-dark, with the street lights off. But there was someone. He could make out an outline.
Dog Raj ran up to the front door and began scratching it violently.
‘Shhhh!’ said Andal, half asleep.
He needed a weapon.
Velu crept over to where the chappals were kept. The stick was there as always. It was the one Raman-ayya carried when he took the mutt for a walk to keep the street dogs at bay. It wasn’t a Thirupachi sickle, but it would do.
Velu slunk back towards the door, the stick held high.
‘Pisasu!’
It was Andal yelping in pain. He had stepped on her.
Outside, it sounded like someone was meddling with the lock on the grille-door.
‘Mavaney, you’re dead,’ said Velu under his breath. Dog Raj wagged his tail. There was a big grin on his face.
Velu undid the old-fashioned vertical and horizontal latches one by one, as quietly as he could. Then he turned the Godrej door lock clockwise, holding his breath. Changing gears, he yanked open the door with a scream and jumped out, brandishing the stick.
‘Velu! Stop! It’s me,’ said the intruder.
Lights came on instantly. Andal jumped up, her eyes marbles.
‘Yaar-ra, dai!’ she screamed.
The free karate class she had taken with other women who worked as domestics hadn’t gone to waste. Her defence position was copybook. It was just that she had her back to the assailant. Dog Raj took this as an invitation to bite her bum.
‘Sar, neengala!’ said Velu, dropping the stick.
&
nbsp; ‘I surrender,’ Ray said, his hands going for the ceiling.
Ten minutes later, Ray sat on his father’s favourite chair, fussing over Dog Raj.
Andal was still in the bathroom. Her bowels were not designed to withstand midnight stealth attacks.
‘What, saar? Back like this. Sollamey – gillamey,’ Velu said.
‘Don’t know, pa. Felt like it,’ he said.
‘Home is home, saar.’
~
He lay on his bed and the Lab was in his usual place. The sunshine outside the window indicated that the day was well on its way but he didn’t care. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have a plan.
In San Jose, there had been a persistent buzz in his head. Like a bee was trying to get out through his ears. He had put it down to the events of the last twenty days. But a couple of days later, the buzz had turned into something almost distinguishable, like the recording on a long-unplayed tape. On the fifth day, after his successful meeting with the Japs, the tape self-repaired and he realized what the lyrics of the crystal-clear recording were: go home, go home, go home…
Home? Wasn’t he home already?
‘What do I do?’ he had said that evening at his boss’s place, having a celebratory drink.
Clive had shrugged and looked at Joanna, his wife of thirty-two years.
‘You’ve got to do what you think is right, Ray,’ she had said.
‘But what if I don’t know what’s right?’
‘I think you’d better go anyway,’ said Clive, who had mostly been listening the whole evening.
‘What about work?’
‘Look at you, Ray. You’re no good to me this way. You got the Mizoguchi deal on autopilot. Go on … get outa’ here … figure it out.’
‘Is it your father?’ Joanna had said.
He had nodded.
‘Or a girl, maybe?’ said Clive, his hand on Ray’s shoulder.
He had nodded again.
When they had wished him good luck at the gate, he realized he hadn’t told them all.
‘…and a dog.’
~
It was late evening, and Ray was in the study. He had read every one of his father’s scripts and shoebox ideas, taking breaks every now and then by looking at life on the gulmohar outside. At the end of it, he was sure of a couple of things. His father was a terrific writer, with a great love for human beings. Two, squirrels thumped their tails against tree trunks every time they squeaked.
He had considered calling Abie but hadn’t and hoped, quite irrationally, Padmini would call him, which she didn’t. He didn’t know what his plan was but he knew one thing: he had to get out.
15
The third gear of the Tata Indica refused to mesh into the upper-right corner of the ‘H’, like it was supposed to. It did a dead-on imitation of an old mixie.
‘Damn manual shift,’ he said, worrying the lever into place.
The car smelt of sweat, cigarettes and dead jasmine – the favourite ingredients of the Tamil porn the boys used to sneak into school sometimes. But it was all he could get at short notice from Annai Cabs.
When he had told the cab operator that he wanted just the cab – without a driver – he hadn’t batted an eyelid. He had put up five fingers. Only five hundred bucks, other than rent, to hand over a car unsupervised? It wasn’t like he had a deposit or they knew him. Some people weighed trust and risk differently from others.
‘I stay on the next street,’ he had said. ‘Late aagalam. Is that okay?’
‘Don’t worry, saar, give it whenever you want to,’ the driver had said.
For more than an hour, he had gone where the beat-up car had led him. Absorbing the swerve and screech and the honk and hustle of the Chennai traffic like a neutral observer. He hadn’t wanted the easy solution of Abie’s spare car. He had wanted to be alone, to sniff around, do things he hadn’t done. It was like he was taking a test dose of the real India.
Ray slid into a space and stopped the car. He kept the engine running. The last of the families were leaving Palavakkam Beach. Cheery, ensconced in shiny little cars, unmindful of being a hundred instalments away from calling them their own.
Ten years ago, things were quite different. Other than the loutish locals or lustful lovers, no one would have been caught dead on this beach after dark. Rumour was you didn’t go there unless you wanted to be mugged or raped or both. But the IT revolution had changed all that. The city had grown aimlessly, bringing white-collar folk to shirtless areas. In a strange way, the West had stolen from the mugger.
In two minutes, he had been propositioned by three beggars, each one more menacing than the last. Probably muggers on a sabbatical. He didn’t want to find out and reversed his car. He had to get to ECR to get anywhere. He made a couple of turns and found himself on a familiar-looking road. Even with the street lights off, he recognized it. The jagged outline of huts on one side of the road juxtaposed by a relentless grey wall on the other.
He was on Rajarajan’s road.
The only lights on the road were the glass domes high up on the director’s gates and the bulb that illuminated the lone potti kadai on the other side. He stopped the car fifty metres or so from the gate. He looked around to see if there were any more ‘beggars’. A couple of bikes and a bus with the name of a college on it lurked in the shadows with no claimants in sight. It appeared safe-ish. He switched off the lights and turned off the ignition. The car let out a smoker’s cough and died.
He waited.
A man on a cycle wobbled up to the shop.
‘Vaappa, Muruga! Where have you been?’ The shopkeeper’s greeting was loud and clear in the dead silent street.
The man responded by falling off his bike. There was laughter. The talk was of the falling quality standards in Indian Made Foreign Liquor and how TASMAC, the state-owned alcohol dispensers, ought to be brought to book.
He couldn’t suppress a smile, reminded of the racy Goundamani–Senthil comedy tracks without which no film in the ’90s was complete.
Murugan got back on to his cycle and teetered off into the dark.
From inside the slum a transistor played an Ilaiyaraaja song he couldn’t quite identify.
There was the sound of clanking. It seemed to come from Rajarajan’s gate. It was as though someone was trying to open it and couldn’t. After a bit, the gate opened and a man in white stepped out. He turned around and said something to the watchman, who had his head stuck out. The tone and volume indicated that it wasn’t anything complimentary. The man headed over to the shop, his stride purposeful, aggressive even.
‘Thevidia pullai!’
The Number One cuss word of Tamils from Jaffna to Jersey City. The man in white gestured towards Rajarajan’s building. Then a loudish conversation Ray couldn’t quite hear, thanks to Ilaiyaraaja. But he could make out the man’s repeated finger-pointing.
Ray got out of the car and walked towards the shop, his hands in his pockets. The man in white had calmed down a bit now. He was sitting on the bench outside, blowing smoke. Ray approached the shop in what he hoped was a casual manner. He was happy he had a stubble, was jetlagged and his clothes weren’t his Sunday best. He wouldn’t be mistaken for a local, but he would blend. A bit.
‘Enna vaenum?’ said the shopkeeper.
The copper boiler was letting off steam like the man in white a minute earlier.
‘Tea,’ he said.
The shopkeeper took a small glass and sloshed it about in an aluminium drum. He then took it out and wiped it with the cloth slung across his vest. Ray noticed the water and the cloth were the same brown. There were worse ways to die.
Ray sat on the bench, next to the man in white. His outfit looked like a uniform. The kind chauffeurs – not drivers – of the pseudo-sophisticated wore. The man blew a plume of smoke and gave him a smile with raised eyebrows, the Indian equivalent of ‘howdy’. Ray smiled back.
‘I’ve never seen a fellow like him! He’ll die like a mangy dog, I tell
you,’ said the driver, addressing no one in particular. ‘Dog,’ he added, in case one didn’t get it.
‘Ada, po, pa,’ said the shopkeeper. He handed the tea to Ray. It was the same brown as the water. Maybe it was the water, heated up.
‘Same tune, every day,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘You come, you smoke two cigarettes, you crib and you leave. No change.’
Ray took a sip of his tea. It wasn’t half bad.
‘You tell me, saar,’ said the driver.
Ray realized he was being addressed.
‘What can I do? I’m just a driver. My family needs the money.’
Ray nodded, unsure of what was expected of him.
‘Aren’t bosses the same everywhere?’ he said. Ray didn’t know if the question was rhetorical.
‘I suppose so,’ he said.
‘Can you quit because your … manager … supervisor is a bastard?’
Ray shook his head.
‘See, I told you,’ said the driver. He wagged a finger at the shopkeeper. ‘Same for me, same for saar, same for everybody.’
‘Not for me. Self-employed. I’m a raja,’ said the shopkeeper.
‘Enna job, saar?’ said the driver.
‘Er … technology,’ said Ray.
‘Oh, IT-va? Super. Where, OMR?’
Ray shook his head.
‘US,’ he said. He still couldn’t lie.
The driver gave him a thumbs up.
‘And you?’
‘Driver,’ said the man, pointing to his uniform.
‘Who for?’
‘Cinema fellow. Motherfucker called Rajarajan.’
‘Oh,’ said Ray.
‘Heard of him?’
~
The valet looked at the duo. They didn’t exactly go together. And this was the first time he had been asked to park a cab, that, too, one that had a driver.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Park the car. He’s with me,’ said Ray, handing him the keys and a hundred.
The couple that had got out of the Mercedes alongside were handing their keys over. They gave Ray a look. He knew the car to be a model that had come out three years earlier and had since been recalled because of defects.
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