The Edges of Time

by Farahad Zama

  Ramana ate in the best five star hotels and nobody thought anymore that he was out of place in them. He owned the latest cars. Khader Bhai sometimes drove him, but he had three chauffeurs on stand-by – one for him, one for his wife and kids and one for Neelima. Their success wasn't all a one-way journey by any means. A separatist movement started in Hyderabad and the surrounding districts. The Telugu speaking people had been the first in independent India to demand, and secure, their own state within the union. But now, the people of the Telangana region felt that they were being dominated by and discriminated against, by the richer, more prosperous Coastal Andhra people. Even the language that had once united them now seemed to divide them – different accents and even dialects were spoken in the two areas. Strikes and bandhs paralysed Hyderabad, denting its pro-business image. Land values fell and banks became wary of lending money against it. Ramana faced a credit crunch, but he was not as overextended as many other businessmen because of Neelima's caution. It was a tough couple of years, but he came out of it stronger. The demise of Satyam, the software giant, due to accounting irregularities was another big blow. He not only lost one of his biggest customers – he was a big supplier of their canteens – he was unpaid for several months of food he had already supplied. Ramana decided he was too exposed to Hyderabad and expanded to other cities around India.

  As Ramana entered his forties, he had cause to look at his life with satisfaction. He was a success all round – his business was doing well. He lived with Neelima, his wife and two teenage children in a mansion with seven staff to maintain the house and the garden around it. If there were any concerns, they were two. The first was that with his expanding bank balance and age, his waistline had expanded too and he no longer had the svelte figure of his youth. He now went for regular medical checkups because of his high blood pressure and diabetes and the doctor kept pushing him to change his diet and lose weight. His second irritation was his son, who, despite the best tutors and facilities, barely achieved pass marks in most subjects. Ramana couldn't understand why the boy didn't want to work hard, but as Neelima said, 'Your father was a nobody so you had to work hard. His father is a millionaire and he doesn't have to.'

  One day, as Ramana was preparing to go to Delhi for the opening of the latest restaurant of the chain, Khader Bhai came to meet him. 'Hello old friend,' Ramana said, looking at the still-slim figure of the older man with some envy. But he didn't have Khader Bhai's self discipline when it came to food. 'I thought you would be in Delhi.'

  'Something else came up,' said Khader. He ran the logistics of the chain, making sure that food and equipment was in the restaurants at the right time in the right quantities – not a mean task given India's shambolic infrastructure. He was also the company's consigliere, putting out fires, calming people down, soothing bruised egos and generally making sure that everything ran smoothly. Enormously energetic and highly respected, Khader never raised his voice, but everybody still jumped to do his bidding. The story of how the 'Big Boss' – Ramana – and the 'Boss' – Khader Bhai – had met, was now the stuff of legend and the rise of their company was now being written up in management case studies as part of the entrepreneurship syllabus. 'Madam' – Neelima – was generally written out of the story, though a recent article in Femina had suggested that the quiet lady behind the company had played a bigger part in its success than was known to the world.

  'Something more important than the opening of our biggest restaurant in the most expensive area of Delhi?' said Ramana, standing up and smiling. He had to be at the airport in a couple of hours and he wanted to go home first.

  'Yes,' said Khader.

  Ramana sat down again. 'It must be serious,' he said. 'Is everything okay?'

  'Everything's fine. I have found out where you've come from.'

  Ramana looked at him quizzically. Khader said, 'Your native village. I've finally uncovered which one.'

  'How?' said Ramana. His shirt suddenly felt tight and it seemed as if somebody had turned off the air-conditioning in the room.

  Khader said, 'It took a while. But your description gave me a start. A village between a river and a mountain with a temple and I knew you were not more than a few miles from a town with a railway station that has direct trains to Hyderabad.'

  Ramana found that he was holding his breath.

  'Himagiri,' said Khader.

  A lightning bolt seemed to go off in Ramana's mind. Himagiri… The name was instantly familiar to him. He realised that he had known its name all along even though he hadn't been able to articulate it. He remembered the smell of his mother though when he tried to recall her face, she looked like Neelima. And his father - a thin, wiry man with a stern face – a bit like Khader Bhai. He had thought they were old, but in reality, they had been so young; they would both have been in their twenties when he had left them. He tried to imagine what would happen to him if either of his children suddenly disappeared. His eyes filled with tears and he suddenly started sobbing. Khader came round and held him by the shoulders until his sobs slowly died down. 'My parents?' he asked softly.

  Khader shook his head sadly. 'They left the village after the floods of 1988. Nobody knows where they went.'

  Ramana started crying again. Eventually the tears stopped. 'What do I do Khader Bhai? I want to visit my village.'

  Khader nodded. 'Of course,' he said. 'It's your village where you spent the first part of your childhood.'

  'I want to go right now,' said Ramana.

  Khader shook his head. 'Let's not be impractical about this. The restaurant in Delhi is opening tomorrow and we've invited the Commerce Minister to cut the ribbon. If you are not there, he'll take it as an insult and make our lives difficult.'

  Ramana's expression became mulish. 'Now!' he said, like a child asking for a treat.

  'If your parents were still in the village, I'd have said yes,' said Khader Bhai. 'But they are not there. The place will keep for another two days. Let us finish our business in Delhi and as soon as we are back, I'll personally drive you there.'

  Neelima had been afraid when Khader Bhai had told her that he had found Ramana's native village. Would he forsake her when he got in touch with his real family? Then Khader Bhai had told her that Ramana's family were not in the village and could not be traced and she had felt a surge of relief followed by a massive guilt attack. How disappointed Ramana would be to not find his parents. She should not be so horrible. Once Ramana was back from Delhi and came to tell her that he was going to Himagiri, she had hugged him. He wasn't sure if they should all go, but she had told him to go on his own with Khader Bhai the first time. He nodded – the children's exams were coming close anyway and while he was anxious to show them all the sights of where he had grown up and played, he suddenly realised that his children would be bored in the little village and would probably find it too dirty and shameful. Better to see what it was like for himself first.

  Khader Bhai brought the Toyota 4x4 rather than the Mercedes-Benz because they were going out of the city. The village was about six hours drive away. Ramana hugged his children and nodded to his wife. Neelima, looking frail in the cold early-morning air, put her hands on his shoulders and intoned the traditional blessing in Telugu: go safely and return profitably.

  The highways had been improved over the years and Khader Bhai was an expert driver so they made good progress. They stopped occasionally for comfort breaks and had a quick lunch on the outskirts of Vijayawada. 'We are almost there,' Khader Bhai said as they set off again and left the highway to take a smaller road. This was a narrow road and they passed bullock carts taking produce to market and boys going to school on bicycles. 'Do you know the Rao family in the village?' asked Khader Bhai.

  'The landlords?' said Ramana. He remembered how he had queued in their yard for sweets and how his life had changed that afternoon. All he had wanted was one sweet – the same as his friend, what was his name? Sreenu!

  'Yes, the landlord's two sons are in the States and his da
ughter is divorced and living with him, and he is now looking to sell some of his lands, so I've made an appointment with him.'

  Ramana was confused. He didn't remember the patriarch having a daughter. And he had only one son.

  The railway gate dropped at Kottapeta and they waited in traffic for a train to go past. A railway station could be seen about a quarter of a mile away. 'I think that's the station you got the train from,' said Khader Bhai.

  Ramana tried to find something familiar about the station, but failed. The Hyderabad Mail went past, its horn sounding as it went past the traffic, and the gates opened. There was a rush of traffic and it was several minutes before they could cross the tracks and several more minutes before they left the cycles, scooters and trucks behind. Shortly afterwards they could see the river and the road ended abruptly and became a dirt track. There were huge potholes and despite Khader driving slowly, they were jostled like riders on a camel until they reached a bridge over the river. 'They build miles of road and leave the last few yards incomplete,' muttered Khader.

  But Ramana was not paying attention to his friend. He was looking at the ford fifty yards upstream – the one he had crossed so many years ago. 'They've built a bridge,' he said.

  They crossed the river and entered the village. Ramana's head swivelled from side to side. The scene was instantly familiar, yet new. The washermen still dried clothes on lines hung from wooden poles by the side of the river. The road was the same dusty strip and he wondered if it had been repaired at all in the years he was away. The houses looked more prosperous. Many of them were two-storied now and the shops were more numerous. When he was a kid, cars and jeeps were rare and he and the other boys used to run after them like street dogs, but now nobody paid any attention to their 4x4. 'Do you know the way to the Rao house?' said Khader.

  'Just follow this road,' Ramana said. The street was narrower than he remembered. It was also much shorter than his memory told him. They arrived at the landlord's house sooner than he expected. The house was no longer the grandest in the village, though it was still the one set in the biggest grounds. The house had clearly not been painted in years and it was black with moss; the boundary wall was broken in places and a peepul tree had taken root on the side of the roof of the house. Left unchecked, its roots would spread through the bricks and shatter the wall.

  'I didn't tell them you were from this village,' Khader said as he drove the car into the yard. As the car stopped, a servant came running to them and bowed to them when they stepped out.

  Ramana looked at the servant in shock. It was Sreenu, his old friend. He almost hugged the man, but stopped himself. He had clearly not been recognized. There was no reason he should be, of course. He wasn't a small, thin, lower caste boy who had been driven out of the house as a thief. Ramana was now a prosperous, successful man, an invited guest of the landlord.

  The landlord was in his sixties and came to them with a limp, smiling and greeting them. 'Welcome, welcome!' he said.

  Ramana's confusion was finally resolved. The landlord was Nagesh, the old patriarch's son. The patriarch must have died a long time ago. They sat down and a woman came in with coffees on a tray. Ramana looked at her in surprise. This was Sudha, the impossibly unattainable girl, who had seen him last as a boy crawling through the crowds for the plate of sweets. She was no longer young, but still handsome.

  'Namaskaram,' he said.

  'Namaskaram,' she replied softly. They clearly did not get many visitors and Sudha stayed in the room, her eyes on Ramana, clearly approving of him. Several minutes later, Ramana looked at her directly and their eyes met. She blushed and and withdrew from the room.

  After some preliminary chat, they moved on to discussion about the land. 'I am getting old,' said Nagesh. 'I cannot manage the land anymore and my sons are both abroad and not interested in coming back. This house needs repairs, so I want to sell some of the land.'

  They discussed prices – Ramana was used to the price of land in Hyderabad, which was quoted in square yards or even square feet. Here, the unit was in acres and Ramana found he could easily afford to buy the land, though he let Khader Bhai negotiate it down. Finally his friend looked at him for approval and Ramana nodded discreetly. Khader Bhai said yes to the landlord and smiles broke out on everybody's face. Ramana now owned twenty-five acres of prime land by the river. The idea that he, Ramana, the cowherd's son, was sitting in the landlord's house, negotiating as equals and buying their land was more intoxicating than even the meeting with the Commerce Minister in Delhi the previous day.

  Sudha came back into the room with a silver plate covered with sweets. Ramana's eyes widened. This was the same platter that had been next to the patriarch that day. Even the sweets were the same variety that had attracted him like a bee to a flower. She pulled out a small wooden table with hand-carved legs and placed the salver on it. 'Congratulations on the deal,' she said in a soft voice. 'Please take some sweets.'

  Ramana looked into Sudha's eyes and she smiled softly before dropping her eyes demurely. Ramana reached out for the Mysore Pak and picked it up. 'No,' said Khader Bhai, stopping him with a hand on his arm. 'Remember what the doctor said. You are diabetic. No sweets for you.'

  ~ ~ ~

  7. The Truth Serum

  'My son wants to marry somebody tall,' the woman said. She was thin and quite tall herself.

  'Okay, madam,' said Aruna, making a note. 'Anything else?'

  The woman shook her head. 'We have no other requirement. He is only an inch shorter than six feet and the girl should come at least to here.' She put her horizontal palm level with to the top of her ears.'

  'That's good madam,' said Aruna. 'As long as there is only one requirement, we can find somebody. That's what my boss always says.'

  Aruna worked in The Marriage Bureau For Rich People helping the people of the coastal town of Vizag on the eastern coast of India to find brides and grooms for their sons and daughters. Arranged marriages were still common in India and it is still considered the duty of parents to find good matches for their children – and for the children to accept their parents' choice.

  Mr Ali, the owner of the marriage bureau, walked in from his evening walk and Aruna recapped the conversation. 'That's right,' said Mr Ali. 'If you want to marry your son to a rich girl, let me know – but then you shouldn't care if she's fat or short or dark. Or if you want a girl who is well educated and has a good career, that's not a problem either. But then you can't expect a big dowry. Success in life is about deciding what's important to you and keeping that in mind while compromising on everything else.'

  The woman smiled. 'All my relatives make fun of me and my son for saying that we want a tall bride for him. What will you do with a tall woman? Will you store lots of stuff in the attic and expect her to fetch it? That's how they talk. You are the first people who have not made fun of me.'

  As if we would make fun of a paying customer, thought Aruna, later that evening as she picked up her handbag and made ready to leave. Her car had just pulled up outside. She drew the curtain to the house to one side and peeped inside. The bureau was run from the verandah of the Ali's house and she heard something sizzling in the kitchen. Mrs Ali was probably frying the fish that Mr Ali had bought earlier that afternoon in the market. Aruna was a Brahmin, and hence a vegetarian, and it had taken her quite some time to get used to the smell of meat and fish being cooked. 'I will be coming, madam,' she called out. By habit, she did not say that she was going, because to say that was to bring bad luck. There were two angels on each person's shoulders and they randomly said Thadastu, Sanskrit for Amen, and if they happened to say it just as you uttered something – good or bad – it was bound to happen. So Aruna had been taught from childhood and so she believed and kept a tight control on her tongue.

  Mrs Ali looked looked out into the straight corridor from the kitchen. 'Latch the gate behind you, Aruna. See you tomorrow.'

  'I will not be here tomorrow, madam.'

  'Oh, that's right
. Have a good day and see you on Tuesday.'

  Aruna nodded to Peter, the driver, sank into the rear seat and closed her eyes as he pulled out into the traffic. It had been a long day and she seemed to be getting tired easily these days. When she opened her eyes, she saw a young woman walking by the side of the road with a child in one arm and his schoolbag in the other. School had finished long ago, so she was probably picking him up from some after-school arrangement. Aruna wasn't pregnant, and she didn't want to be for some time yet, because her parents needed the money from her job. Her husband and his family were wealthy, but her own parents were not. They and her younger sister Vani had just her father's meager pension and her salary to live on. Aruna felt quite schizophrenic these days – she herself lived in a big house with a garden, servants, a car, a driver, a marbled bathroom and a wardrobe full of saris but when she visited her parents (which was several times a week), she was back in her pre-marital situation of one room with a kitchen, a tiny, dark toilet and threadbare clothes. Her sister-in-law had once accused her of funneling her in-law's money to her parents, but Aruna had always been very scrupulous about only giving her money to her parents. And even if she wanted to, her father would never agree. Her father, a Sanskrit scholar, had very strict ideas of propriety.

  'God knows that I loved your father, but that was one time that I hated him.'

  'It was a difficult time amma. The land ceiling act had just been passed and there were worries that the government would confiscate all our lands and distribute them to landless people. Don't keep it in your heart.'

  'But why did he keep all the land he inherited from his father, but sold off the land that I got from my parents?'