The 3 Mistakes of My Life

by Chetan Bhagat

  ‘What do you mean retained? What do we need to retain it for?’ Ish questioned even as Omi happily counted his notes.

  ‘Ish, we need to keep a war chest in case we want to renovate the store. Don’t you want a better glass countertop? Or nicer lighting?’

  Ish shook his head.

  ‘Sure we do. And … I have expansion plans,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There is a new shopping mall under construction at Navrangpura char rasta. If you book early, you can get a discount on renting a shop.’

  ‘Renting? But we already have a shop,’ Ish said, puzzled and irritated at the same time.

  I knew why Ish grumbled. He wanted to buy a TV for the shop. Listening to matches on radio during shop hours was no fun.

  ‘No Ish, a proper shop. Young people like to shop in swanky malls. That is the future. Our shop has been doing good business, but we can’t grow unless we move to a new city location.’

  ‘I like it here,’ Omi said. ‘This is our neighbourhood. What we sell is being used by kids in Nana Park.’

  ‘I don’t want this short-sighted mentality. I will open a store in a mall, and by next year have one more store. If you don’t grow in business, you stagnate.’

  ‘Another shop? What? We will not be working together?’ Omi said.

  ‘It is Govind’s bullshit. We have only started and he already aspires to be Ambani. Can’t we just buy a TV?’ Ish said, ‘Shah Electronics will give us on instalment if we pay a downpayment of four thousand.’

  ‘No way. We keep the four thousand for business.’

  ‘Well, the TV belongs to the business, no?’ Ish said.

  ‘Yes, but it is a dead asset. It doesn’t earn. We have a long way to go. Three thousand a month is nothing. And Ish doesn’t let me keep notebooks and pencils…’

  ‘I said this is a sports store. I don’t want kids to think about studies when they come here.’

  Ish and I had argued about this before. I saw an easy opportunity, but Ish protested every time.

  ‘Ok, here is a deal,’ Ish said, ‘I agree to the notebooks, not textbooks mind you, only notebooks. But we buy a TV. I have to watch matches. I don’t care, here take my fifteen hundred.’

  He threw his share of cash at me.

  Omi tossed in his money as well. As usual, I had to surrender to fools.

  ‘Ok, but we need to increase the revenue. Target for next quarter is twenty thousand bucks.’

  They ignored me as they discussed TV brands. I shook my head and outlined my strategy for increasing revenues.

  ‘Will you do coaching classes?’ I asked Ish.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kids love your cricket tips. Why not do cricket coaching for a fee?’

  ‘Me? I am not that good man. And where? In the temple?’

  ‘No, we will do it in the abandoned SBI compound.’

  ‘Why? Aren’t we making enough?’ Omi said.

  ‘We can never make enough. I want to get to fifty thousand a quarter. Omi, you can give fitness training to the students.’

  ‘So more work for us. What about you?’ Ish said.

  ‘I am going to start offering maths tuitions again.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes, a couple here, or in the SBI compound itself while you guys give cricket coaching.’

  Omi and Ish looked at me like I was the hungriest shark in the world.

  ‘C’mon guys. I am making sure we have a solid healthy business.’

  ‘It is ok. Just the shop is so boring, Ish,’ Omi said. He was excited about making kids do pushups.

  ‘Yeah, at least I will get to hit the pitch,’ Ish said.

  I tossed in my fifteen hundred, too, and we bought a TV the same day. We set it permanently at the sports channel. Omi brought mats and cushions and spread them in front of the TV. On match days, we would all sit there until a customer arrived. I had to admit, it made the day go by much quicker.

  I changed the board on the shop. Under the ‘Team India Cricket Shop’, it also said ‘Stationery, Cricket Coaching and Maths Tuitions available’. I may not have diversified geographically, but I had diversified my product offering.

  Three

  Apart from cricket, badminton was the other popular game in Belrampur. In fact, the girls only played badminton. It was an excellent turnover business. Shuttle cocks needed to be replaced, rackets needed rewiring and badminton rackets didn’t last as long as cricket bats.

  School stationery became the other hit item in the following weeks. Only some kids played sports, but every kid needed notebooks, pens and pencils, and parents never said no to that. Many times, someone buying a ball would buy a notebook, or the other way round. We offered a total solution. Soon, suppliers came to us themselves. They kept stuff on credit and returnable basis – chart paper, gum bottles, maps of India, water bottles and tiffin boxes. It is only after you open a shop that you realise the length and breadth of the Indian student industry.

  We kept the cricket coaching and tuitions at the same price – 250 rupees a month. Customers for maths tuitions were easier to get, given the higher demand and my track record. I taught at the SBI compound building in the mornings. Ish used the compound grounds for the two students who signed up for cricket tuitions. They were the best players in the Belrampur Municipal School and had fought with their parents to let them try coaching for three months.

  Of course, we still spent most of our time in the shop.

  ‘Should we do greeting cards?’ I wondered as I opened a sample packet left by a supplier. At five-rupee retail price and two-rupee cost price, cards had solid margins. However, people in Belrampur did not give each other greeting cards.

  ‘This is in-swinger, and this is off-swinger. By the way, this is the third ball in two weeks. What’s up Tapan?’ Ish asked a regular customer. Thirteen-year-old Tapan was one of the best bowlers of his age in the Belrampur Municipal School. Ish gripped the cricket ball and showed him the wrist movement.

  ‘It is that nightmare Ali. Ball keeps getting lost with his shots. Why did he move to our school?’ Tapan grumbled as he rubbed the ball on his shorts.

  ‘Ali? New student? Haven’t seen him here,’ Ish said. All good players visited our store and Ish knew them personally.

  ‘Yes, batsman. Just joined our school. You should come see him. He wouldn’t come here, right?’ Tapan said.

  Ish nodded. We had few Muslim customers. Most of them used other Hindu boys to make their purchases.

  ‘You want to sign up for cricket tuitions. Ish will teach you, he played at the district level,’ I could not help pitching our other service.

  ‘Mummy will not allow. She said I can only take tuitions for studies. No sports coaching,’ Tapan said.

  ‘It is ok, have a good game,’ Ish said, ruffling the boy’s hair.

  ‘You see this. That is why India doesn’t win every match,’ Ish said after Tapan left.

  Yes, Ish has this ridiculous theory that India should win every match. ‘Well, we don’t have to. It won’t be much of a game otherwise,’ I said and closed the cash box.

  ‘Our country has a billion people. We should always win,’ Ish insisted.

  ‘Statistically impossible.’

  ‘Why? Australia has twenty million people. Yet they win almost every match. We have fifty times the people, so fifty times the talent. Plus, cricket is India’s only game while Australia has rugby and football and whatever. So there is no way we should be defeated by them. Statistically, my friend, Australia should be a rounding error.’

  ‘Then why?’ I said.

  ‘Well, you saw that kid. Parents will spend thousands teaching kids useless trigonometry and calculus they will never use in real life. But if it is sports coaching, it is considered a waste of money.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we have them covered. Our shop now offers both.’

  ‘It is not about the business Govind. Really, is this just about money for you?’

  ‘Money is nice…
’

  ‘These kids, Govind. Look at them, thirteen-year-olds holding their bats with pride. Or the way they want to learn to bowl better. They have a fire in their eyes before every little match at Nana Park. When India wins, they dance. They are they only people I see with passion. I like being with them.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I shrugged.

  ‘Of course, in two years time they will reach Class X. Their bats will be replaced with physics books. And then the spark will begin to die. Soon, they will turn into depressed adults.’

  ‘That is not true, Ish. Everyone needs a passion. I have mine.’

  ‘Then why are most grown-ups so grumpy? Why can’t they smile more often and be excited like those kids at Nana Park?’

  ‘Can you stop being grumpy now and help me clean the shop?’

  ‘Ok, ok, we will do a booze party,’ I laughed. Omi and Ish had gripped me tight from both sides until I relented.

  ‘Where is my son Omi?’ Bittoo Mama entered our shop at closing time and proceeded to hug his nephew. He held a box of sweets in a red velvet cloth.

  ‘Where were you, Mama?’ Omi said. Since the shop opened, he had never visited us.

  ‘I toured all over Gujarat, with Parekh-ji. What an experience! Here, have some besan ladoos. Fresh from Baroda,’ Bittoo Mama said. I ordered a Frooti. Ish pulled out stools and we sat outside. I picked a ladoo.

  ‘What is this, Omi? Wearing shoes?’ Bittoo Mama’s eyes were lined with kohl. He had a red tikka in the middle of his forehead.

  ‘Mama?’ Omi squeaked. I looked at my feet. I wore fake Reebok slippers. Ish wore his old sneakers.

  ‘Your shop is in a temple, and you are wearing shoes? A Brahmin priest’s boy?’

  ‘Mama, c’mon this is outside the temple. None of the other shopkeepers wear…’

  ‘Other shopkeepers are useless baniyas so you will also become like them? Do you do puja every morning before you open?’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ Omi lied point-blank.

  ‘You also,’ Mama said, referring to Ish and me. ‘You are Hindu boys. You have your shop in such a pure place. At least remove your shoes, light a lamp.’

  ‘We come here to work, not to perform rituals,’ I said. I now paid full rent every month to be in this shop. Nobody told me how to run my business.

  Mama looked surprised. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Govind.’

  ‘Govind what?’

  ‘Govind Patel.’

  ‘Hindu, no?’

  ‘I am agnostic,’ I said, irritated as I wanted to shut the shop and go home.

  ‘Agno…?’

  ‘He is not sure if there is God or not,’ Ish explained.

  ‘Doesn’t believe in God? What kind of friends do you have, Omi?’ Mama was aghast.

  ‘No, that is an atheist,’ I clarified. ‘Agnostic means maybe God exists, maybe he doesn’t. I don’t know.’

  ‘You young kids,’ Bittoo said, ‘such a shame. I had come to invite you and look at you.’

  Omi looked at me. I turned my gaze away.

  ‘Don’t worry about Govind, Mama. He is confused.’ I hate it when people take my religious status for confusion. Why did I have to or not have to believe in something?

  Ish offered the Frooti to Bittoo Mama. It softened him a little.

  ‘What about you?’ Mama asked Ish.

  ‘Hindu, Mama. I pray and everything.’ Ish said. Yeah right, only when six balls were left in a match.

  Mama took a large sip and shifted his gaze to Omi and Ish. As far as he was concerned I did not exist.

  ‘What did you want to invite us for Mama?’ Omi said.

  He lifted the red velvet cloth and unwrapped a three-foot-long brass trishul. Its sharp blades glinted under the shop’s tubelight.

  ‘It’s beautiful. Where did you get it from?’ Omi queried.

  ‘It is a gift from Parekh-ji. He said in me he sees the party’s future. I worked day and night. We visited every district in Gujarat. He said, “if we have more people like Bittoo, people will be proud to be Hindu again.” He made me the recruitment in-charge for young people in Ahmedabad.’

  Ish and I looked at Omi for footnotes.

  ‘Parekh-ji is a senior Hindu party leader. And he heads the biggest temple trust in Baroda,’ Omi said. ‘What, he knows the CM or something, Mama?’

  ‘Parekh-ji not only knows the CM, but also talks to him twice a day,’ Bittoo Mama said. ‘And I told Parekh-ji about you, Omi. I see in you the potential to teach Hindu pride to young people.’

  ‘But Mama, I’m working full time…’

  ‘I am not telling you to leave everything. But get in touch with the greater responsibilities we have. We are not just priests who speak memorised lines at ceremonies. We have to make sure India’s future generation understands Hindutva properly. I want to invite you to a grand feast to Parekh-ji’s house. You should come too, Ish. Next Monday in Gandhinagar.’

  Of course, blasphemous me got no invitation.

  ‘Thanks, Mama. It sounds great, but I don’t know if we can,’ Ish said. How come some people are so good at being polite.

  ‘Why? Don’t worry, it is not just priests. Many young, working people will also come.’

  ‘I don’t like politics,’ Ish said.

  ‘Huh? This isn’t politics, son. This is a way of life.’

  ‘I will come,’ Omi said.

  ‘But you should come too, Ish. We need young blood.’

  Ish stayed hesitant.

  ‘Oh, you think Parekh-ji is some old, traditional man who will force you to read scriptures. Do you know where Parekh-ji went to college? Cambridge, and then Harvard. He had a big hotel business in America, which he sold and came back. He talks your language. Oh, and he used to play cricket too, for the Cambridge college team.’

  ‘I will come if Govind comes,’ said Ish the idiot.

  Mama looked at me. In his eyes, I was the reason why Hindu culture had deteriorated lately.

  ‘Well, I came to invite the three of you in the first place. He only said he doesn’t believe in God.’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ I said. Oh, forget it, I thought.

  ‘Then come.’ Mama stood up. ‘All three of you. I’ll give Omi the address. It is the grandest house in Gandhinagar.’

  People called me Mr Accounts; greedy, miser, anything. But the fact is, I did organise an all-expense-paid booze party to motivate my partners at the shop. It is bloody hard to get alcohol in Ahmedabad, let alone bulky bottles of beer. One of my contacts – Romy Bhai – agreed to supply a crate of extra strong beer for a thousand bucks.

  At 7 p.m. on the day of the party, Romi Bhai left the beer – wrapped in rags – at the SBI compound entrance. I came to the gate and gave Romi Bhai the day’s newspaper. On the third page of the newspaper, I had stapled ten hundred-rupee notes. He nodded and left.

  I dragged the cloth package inside and placed the bottles in the three ice-filled buckets I had kept in the kitchen. I took out the bottle opener from the kitchen shelf, where we kept everything from Maggi noodles to boxes of crackers to burst when India won a match.

  Another person may see the abandoned SBI branch as an eerie party venue. This used to be an old man’s haveli. The owner could not repay and the bank foreclosed the property. Thereafter, the bank opened a branch in the haveli. The owner’s family filed a lawsuit after he died. The dispute still unresolved, the family obtained a court injunction that the bank could not use the property for profit. Meanwhile, SBI realised that a tiny by lane in Belrampur was a terrible branch location. They vacated the premises and gave the keys to the court. The court official kept a key with Omi’s dad, a trustworthy man in the area. This was done in case officials needed to view it and the court was closed. Of course, no one ever came and Omi had access to the keys.

  The property was a six-hundred square yard plot, huge by Belrampur standards. The front entrance directly opened into the living room, now an abandoned bank customer service area. The three bedrooms on the f
irst floor were the branch manager’s office, the data room and the locker room. The branch manager’s office had a giant six-feet vault. We kept our cricket kit in the otherwise empty safe.

  We hung out most in the haveli’s backyard. In its prime, it was the lawn of a rich family. As part of the bank branch, it was an under-utilised parking lot and now, our practice pitch.

  I rotated the beer bottles in the ice bucket to make them equally cold.

  Ish walked into the bank.

  ‘So late,’ I said. ‘It is 8.30.’

  ‘Sorry, watching cricket highlights. Wow, strong beer,’ Ish said as he picked up a bottle. We had parked ourselves on the sofas in the old customer waiting area downstairs. I reclined on the sofa. Ish went to the kitchen to get some bhujia.

  ‘Omi here?’ Ish said as he opened the packet.

  ‘No, I am the only fool. I take delivery, clean up the place and wait for my lords to arrive.’

  ‘Partners, man, partners,’ Ish corrected. ‘Should we open a bottle?’

  ‘No, wait.’

  Omi arrived in ten minutes. He made apologies about his dad holding him back to clean the temple. Omi then prayed for forgiveness before drinking alcohol.

  ‘Cheers!’ all of us said as we took a big sip. It was bitter, and tasted only slightly better than phenyl.

  ‘What is this? Is this genuine stuff?’ Ish asked.

  We paused for a moment. Spurious alcohol is a real issue in Ahmedabad.

  ‘Nah, nobody makes fake beer. It is just strong,’ I said.

  If you filled your mouth with bhujia, the beer did not taste half as bad. In fact, the taste improved considerably after half a bottle. As did everyone’s mood.

  ‘I want to see this Ali kid. Three customers have mentioned him,’ Ish said.

  ‘The Muslim boy?’ Omi said.

  ‘Stop talking like your Mama?’ Ish scolded. ‘Is that relevant? They say he has excellent timing.’

  ‘Where does he play?’ I enquired through a mouthful of bhujia.

  ‘In our school. Kids say his most common shot is a six.’

  ‘Let’s go check him out. Looks like the school has your worthy successor,’ I said.