‘No, you should take it. Offer it to Sami to ensure a happy life for the bride and groom,’ the woman said.
‘Got anything to stop the wedding?’
‘Ennappa, appidi sollupputey?’
‘Chumma, tamas,’ said Ray, intoning the magic words that could take the sting out of most barbs in Tamil Nadu.
He felt something brushing up against his leg. It was Dog Raj, the Harry Houdini of canines. There just didn’t seem to be any way to contain the mutt.
‘Will you take care of the dog? I’ll pay you,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to pay me. Just buy a basket,’ said the woman. ‘It won’t bite, will it?’
‘No, but it’ll lick you to death, be careful.’
Ray took the basket, left the ever-willing Dog Raj with his new friend and ran up the stairs. On about the thirtieth step, he couldn’t run any more. His heart pounded like the distant gatti melam. Treadmills were bogus, he realized. It was one thing to jog at 6.5mph at a 5 incline in his air-conditioned gym. It was quite another to run up temple steps to thwart the nuptials of one’s lady love. This is what hospitals should be simulating if they wanted their annual health check-up plans to be cutting edge.
The sun had shed its urban filter of smog and now glowered like a dhoti-clad, sickle-wielding Tamil movie villain. Ray himself was drenched like a Tamil heroine. It was hard to believe the sun was just a harmless citrus only a little while ago. He wondered whether it was because it was still cool from having come out of the sea.
Good god, was a couple of months all it took for a logical, no-nonsense predictive scientist to turn into a schmaltzy Tamil lyricist in this town? Or was it delirium?
Now for the speech.
What was he going to say to Padmini? Everything that could be said in this situation had already been said in a hundred movies in a hundred languages. If it was a church wedding, he would have at least had had an opening. Someone had thought it fit to include a bit by the priest that went ‘…if anyone wishes to protest, do so now or forever hold your peace…’ or words to that effect.
A dhoti-clad man stood at a landing looking at his watch. Ray realized he had scaled the damn stairs. The music seemed to have stopped. The man looked with a half-smile and tilted head at Ray. His expression said ‘whose side are you from?’ clear as subtitles.
‘You are?’ Ray said. If he was here to kidnap a bride, this was as good a time as any to be cheeky.
‘The groom’s father,’ said the man. ‘You?’
Ray didn’t know why but he gave the basket to the man who was on the verge of being Padmini’s father-in-law. If the groom, Vinay, took after his father, it would be a no-contest. Ray figured it would be hospitalization, at the very least. Maybe if he had had Dog Raj as backup, he might have landed a couple of well-aimed bites.
‘I’d like to speak to the bride,’ Ray said.
The man yelled out a couple of rural-sounding names. Two men clad in similar gear to his materialized from behind the pillars. They were bigger, younger and meaner looking. Ray realized there wasn’t going to be much left of him for Vinay after these two had dealt with him. The two – one called Thangarasu and the other whose name Ray hadn’t quite caught – hoicked the hems of their dhotis in unison and tucked them in. Ray wished he had brought an abdomen guard along. He may have been in the US for some time but he knew when dhotis were folded, the scene could pretty much unfold only in one way.
‘Come,’ said the bigger of the two.
‘Where?’ said Ray.
‘Follow us.’
Maybe it was one of those temples that sanctioned human sacrifice. If he made it out of this place alive, he would have to ask Velu why he had left out certain important details while waxing poetic about Sirukoviloor.
Ray followed the men. He had avenged his father using the most unlawful of means. Perhaps it was now his turn to atone for his sins. One couldn’t rule out the presence of a small section of gods who were on RR’s side, organizing a ritual beating for him to restore order in the universe.
After all, who had decided he was Rama and RR, Ravana?
Ray followed the dhotis through the innards of a temple whose size had nothing to do with its reputation. The groom’s father walked a few steps behind him, talking on his mobile. Ray wondered if he was calling for an ambulance or a hearse. The gatti melam party were still seated on their mat, their instruments silent.
‘Wait,’ said Vinay’s father to the musicians.
Probably the guys doubled as saavu melam guys as well.
Soon, they were at the back of the temple. The dhoti-clad man stretched out a hand. Ray followed it with his eyes and came to a woman sitting on the outer parapet of the temple. Wearing what appeared to be a kanjeevaram with accompanying finery, her head turned the other way, it was the bride. Padmini.
There was no sign of the Balans anywhere.
‘We are not animals, you know,’ said the man.
‘Er … no,’ said Ray.
‘We may be rural folk but we have no intention of getting the girl married into our family against her wishes.’
Where were Abie & Co?
‘Go on, son, she is yours. If you both had come up with this earlier, all this drama could have been avoided.’
Ray wasn’t sure, but he thought the big guy looked a bit teary.
Just like that, Ray was alone with Padmini. This was it. No ritual beating, no long speech. All he had to do was take her home.
Ray walked up to her slowly and sat beside her. Padmini didn’t turn. He heard a muffled sob.
‘C’mon, yaar,’ he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’
The bride turned and looked at Ray.
She wasn’t Padmini.
The bride, whoever she was, took a deep breath and screamed a long, involved scream worthy of a slasher pic. Ray had an unrestricted view of her uvula vibrating like the mallet of the temple’s bell.
A half hour later, stories exchanged, Ray walked down the stairs. The groom’s father, Kadiravel, scrap-iron merchant from Trichy, gave him a cheery wave. The henchmen didn’t. Maybe they were disappointed at having neither wedding nor fight.
‘Please visit my son when you go to Seattle,’ Kadiravel said.
‘I will,’ said Ray, patting the visiting card in his pocket.
Apparently, Kadiravel’s other son (the groom’s brother, who hadn’t been able to make it to the wedding that wasn’t) worked with Intel in Seattle.
‘No leave, pa,’ Kadiravel had said, ‘tell him his mother is upset.’
On his drive back, Ray wondered what he would be up to next. Anything was possible. Firstly, he had pulled off an elaborate scam that could still get him into jail, then he had crashed a wedding involving a bunch of strangers, simple rural folk who were apparently far more enlightened than many urban sophisticates he had come across, and attempted to steal one of their women who wasn’t interested in marrying the man her parents had chosen for her and was waiting for her ‘lover’ to arrive with the support of the man whose son she had ditched.
‘Who am I, Raju?’ he said.
The Lab ignored him. On the silver-sequined waves to his right, a boat with a red sail drifted southwards.
It was time for him to drift westwards.
~
Dear Uncle Mouli,
I’m sure you’ve seen the papers and the TV coverage on Rajarajan’s downfall (for want of a better word). I guess my name features in all those reports, too. Guilty as charged, Uncle. Most of what they are saying is true.
I somehow felt the need to tell you about what happened. After all, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have got to know about my father’s script or RR.
But don’t worry, even if they drive pins under my fingernails in jail, I won’t rat on you
In a nutshell, I figured out quite quickly that reason wasn’t going to work with RR in re my father’s script etc. So I did what any sensible son would do. Planned an elaborate revenge.
Jokes apart, Uncle, nothing was really that planned or anything. I went into it like the average Indian film director – without a proper script. All I felt was this imperative need to make sure my father’s life didn’t go unsung. Things just evolved after that.
Happy to say, Uncle, that, other than putting a stop to RR (at least for the time being), I’ve managed to expose the rampant thievery of ideas that has become the norm in our country.
Hopefully, RR is done. All the old cases on him have been reopened. There are a slew of new ones. He’s going to be a busy man.
I’m hoping people will think twice before ripping off other people’s work. And, hopefully, people like my father will learn to stand up for themselves and fight for the rights of their intellectual property.
I’m alive, not yet in jail and back on my way to the US. I leave behind my father’s dog (with a most loving family), and a bunch of friends, both old and new, who decided to support my insanity.
By the way, I didn’t get the girl. Long story, Uncle.
Will tell you some day.
Thanks for everything.
Ray
PS: Something tells me your friend will be peering over your shoulder and reading this along with you.
Epilogue
Six months later…
Sumi pointed a pointless finger in the direction of Kriti’s bedroom. The little girl, at least an inch taller from his last visit, pretended she didn’t know what that meant. And Abie replenished Selva’s drink.
Leaning against the balcony wall and looking in, Ray suppressed a laugh.
The Rangoon creeper, that wasn’t there the last time, had the pergola in its fragrant, red-and-white death grip. The night sounds from the Theosophical Society below were the same as a hundred years ago.
Some things changed while some things never did.
‘Good man, saar, your friend.’ Selva stirred the ice in his glass with his finger. ‘Bought and kept Napoleon for me. This Scotch-geech doesn’t work.’
‘You mean your friend,’ Ray said.
‘Whose friend?’ said Abie, joining them.
‘You two gay boys,’ Ray said, ‘buying each other drinks and two-timing me while I was away. Is this serious? Does Sumi know?’
‘Ada, ponga saar,’ Selva said.
Abie pretended there was something in his glass.
The bell rang and Kriti wriggled out of Sumi’s grasp to answer it.
It was Padmini.
Abie stopped examining his drink and gave Ray that special look reserved for all things Padmini he had been giving him since school. He placed his glass with deliberate care on the parapet, cracked his knuckles and rubbed his hands.
‘You’re like one of those cartoons,’ Ray said.
He continued standing where he was as Sumi, Abie and Kriti fussed over Padmini. Selva shook hands with her formally.
‘Idiots,’ he said under his breath.
‘Ray’s here,’ Sumi said.
‘Oh,’ Padmini said.
She walked out into the balcony and leaned against the parapet a good seven–eight feet from him. She raised her hand in a silent ‘hi’. He did the same. Abie placed a drink next to her.
‘Patiala,’ he said.
They were alone.
‘So, I hear you’re back for good,’ she said.
‘Kind of.’
‘What’s the plan?’
‘Nothing, so far. Chill. Maybe co-produce the film Selva is directing. You?’
Padmini shrugged.
‘Heard you didn’t go through with the wedding thingie,’ he said.
‘Heard you tried to stop it. The previous day.’
Ray felt like laughing but held it in.
‘So, if you’re jobless, who’s going to feed you?’ she said.
‘I figured you make enough for both of us.’
Ray walked to the far end of the balcony and looked out. On the sodium-lit street, a man walked towards the main road and disappeared into the night.
His gait reminded him of his father.
Acknowledgements
To the oldest plot in the world, my first thanks: the ‘you-mess-with-my-father/mother/brother/sister-and-I’ll-be-obliged-to-get-you’ tale. Thank you, Sergio Leone, Veda Vyasa, Charles Bronson, Mom, Nasir Hussain, Sidney Sheldon, K. Raghavendra Rao, Mario Puzo, S.P. Muthuraman, Salim–Javed and all you other fine champions of this theme for making me spend the better part of my childhood wanting to wreak vengeance on the bookie who wrongfully, continuously, and seemingly effortlessly, kept taking my father’s money at the races.
Then, my eternal gratitude to those intrepid members of the Indian creative community who do not know the meaning of the words copy, lift, plagiarize and steal, and seem to get them confused with the words adapt, inspire and remake.
Thirdly, to us, the Indian public, for knowing all there is to know about property, whether residential, commercial or benami, and yet thinking that intellectual property is a gated community for nerds.
Thanks must go to my editor V.K. Karthika for fearlessly listening to my narration of Jump Cut with background score and impossible camera angles without requesting for HCI’s armed response unit, and instead, approving it and supporting it along its two-year journey from raw stock to final cut.
Thank you, also, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, fellow frustrated film-maker, for your Avid editing, and the always scholarly and sometimes hilarious asides on the right margins of the manuscript.
Thanks to Rajinder ‘Whizkid’ Ganju for his patience, promptness and help in producing a good-looking book.
Thanks, Sirish Patel, friend, guide and philatelist, for holding my ms up to the light and giving it your stamp of approval.
Considering the theme of this book, it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t confess that, for its cover, I took some Ekalavya-style assistance from the inimitable Saul Bass. I encourage readers to Google him and decide whether my design comes under the purview of tribute, inspiration or shameless copy.
Finally, I would like to reassure everyone that while several dogs may have been cuddled violently, teased mercilessly and made to fetch old tennis balls hundreds of times, none were harmed during the making of this book.
About the Author
KRISHNA SHASTRI DEVULAPALLI is an illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer and writer. He has been in advertising, designed greeting cards and written and illustrated books for children. His first novel, Ice Boys in Bell-bottoms, is a humorous chronicle of a 1970s Madras childhood. Jump Cut is his second novel. He lives in Chennai with his wife and two imaginary dogs.
Praise for Ice Boys in Bell-bottoms
‘A must read for those seeking recovery and escape from
Indian writing in general’ – Business World
‘The descriptive yet simple writing tugs at one’s heart and
leaves a deep impact’ – New Indian Express
‘A scrumptious piece of writing’ – Deccan Chronicle
‘One of the sharpest, funniest novels ever’ – Vamsee Juluri,
author of The Mythologist and Bollywood Nation
‘A wonderful, humorous book … that will keep you laughing,
that will touch you with its truth value and will leave
you a little sad at the end’ – The Book Review
‘Good for much laughter’ – Expletive Deleted,
Hindustan Times blog
‘A rambunctious, stylishly told tale whose appeal
is universal’ – Madras Musings
‘A laugh riot. Finally, a genuinely funny, sweet, sensible
Indian book about the angst of growing up.
Two thumbs up!’ – lalipond.blogspot.com
First published in India in 2013 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © Krishna Shastri Devulapalli 2013
ISBN: 978-93-5116-038-0
Epub Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 9789351160397
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
; Krishna Shastri Devulapalli asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Google is a name owned by Google, Inc., USA. The name ‘Google Films’ is used in this novel for fictional purposes.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design: Krishna Shastri Devulapalli
Cover photographs: 123rf.com, fotolia.com
www.harpercollins.co.in
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