The Heat and Dust Project

by Saurav Jha

  We imagined very mixed friends’ circles for ourselves – and for the more political ones among us, that was to some extent true – but the rest of us mostly associated with batchmates from similar class backgrounds in smug interdepartmental galaxies. Everybody knew everybody else would go places and everybody was competitive. Our group included a large number of people from the economics department – S’s juniors – a few from English, physics (this included Diego), sociology and political science. At one point, all of us marched to the American consulate to protest the attack on Iraq, and on the way back, munched peanuts and made plans for the weekend. Perhaps it was on that march that Jiya and Diego really became friends, and then, quickly, that friendship deepened into love, tempered by the possibility of some family drama. Jiya was an heiress (her dad and the American consul were often at the same parties) while Diego was middle-class like the rest of us.

  Diego and Jiya’s is one love story that I have been tracking since long before it even became a love story – so yes, I have my reasons for wanting to look him up in Ahmedabad. They seem to have run into some sort of a rough patch now, though Jiya, ever loyal, is evasive about it in the phone calls she occasionally makes to me from Kent. Ever since she went to England to study, our daily phone conversations have stopped.

  Finally our jeep arrives. It seems all the people around us, clutching their precious kites, are also going to Ahmedabad. We jostle with them and eventually get our tickets. Seventy rupees each. Our backpacks, along with other assorted baggage and the kites, are tied securely on top of the jeep. When everyone has been crammed in, in sheer disbelief I begin a headcount, and finally whisper to S, who is sitting opposite me so our legs are tangled together, the number. Twenty-one people. In addition to the driver and two children (fortunately, not whiney in the least) on parental laps. ‘Greed, sheer greed,’ S tells me, an acerbic twist to his lips. ‘Sheer, sheer greed on the part of a driver who expects impossible profits,’ I write in my yellow notebook. Later on, after travelling with twenty-one people in a vikram in Mathura, I’d look back fondly on this journey.

  We cruise through the darkness, and thankfully, the roads are smooth. The moment the jeep begins to move and I lean back, I realize that I am doomed. The horrible window clasp is going to cut into my flesh if I rest even a little. For the rest of the journey, I must hold my back ramrod straight. It is particularly difficult on a full bladder. S is half-asleep, an expression of pain writ on his face, I notice his lips are chapped. His legs have been tamed to fit into the jeep in such a way that they appear dead – and definitely separate from him. I resolutely discourage conversation and entertain myself by imagining what reviewers will say when my novel finally appears. It always works.

  A couple of hours later, the view outside begins to change from the highway mode – the warehouse-like structures, tyre shops, dhabas and darkness gives way to brisk city lights. In fact, I realize with a sudden unleashing of happy butterflies in my stomach that I have, in fact, been missing the stomach-crunching, cheek-by-jowling big-city madness I am used to, a great deal. All the touristy small-town wonders are great for the soul, no doubt – but the anticipation of sharing the air with at least a few million others drives an electric spark through my cells. The sort of anticipation my body reserves for a meal at my mother’s, after months of staying away: it goes to the heart of what human cells recognize as home.

  People start to get off in the suburbs and the jeep slows down in the thickening traffic. I dial Diego’s number, once, twice. But there’s no response.

  32

  ‘Do you have the address?’ S asks me.

  ‘Yes, it’s in my inbox. But he’s going to meet us somewhere central, he said, and take us home with him.’

  By now the back of the jeep is relatively empty. Three or four people are still in the middle, and two are sitting next to the driver. But behind, we can stretch our feet and breathe and talk like human beings.

  ‘Where exactly are we supposed to meet him?’

  ‘He told me to call him once we near the city.’

  ‘Hmmm, okay. Just remember – at some point we also need to buy tickets for tomorrow night.’

  ‘What tickets?’

  ‘To Junagadh. We’ll take the train. Don’t make a face. Hurtling pace, remember? I have a feeling you’ll love Girnar.’

  ‘But how far is it from Ahmedabad?’

  ‘Quite far. We’ll take an overnight train.’

  ‘Damn. I am exhausted. I was hoping to rest a day or two. Drink a cappuccino maybe. Go to a beauty parlour.’

  ‘I am sure there are beauty parlours in Junagadh. But I doubt if the budget can afford these frivolities.’

  ‘First, a beauty parlour is not a frivolity but a necessity. I definitely need to get my eyebrows done. Do you know how much more it hurts if I let it go for weeks and weeks? And the budget is exactly why I thought I should do it in Ahmedabad where there’s no hotel bill to be paid. But apparently we have to rush through to Junagadh in five minutes.’

  ‘You know what you signed up for.’

  I glower. He glowers. The phone rings. It’s Diego.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, and his voice, I swear, has not aged a day from when S introduced him to us as his ‘protégé’. It makes me smile. ‘Sorry,

  I missed your call,’ he says. ‘I’ve come to buy our dinner. At this local restaurant. Usually they deliver but today the delivery guy’s not

  turned up.’

  ‘Hi,’ I say, finally getting a word in. ‘No problem. Hey, it’s been a while, right? Hmm. So we’ve entered Ahmedabad. Where do we

  see you?’

  ‘Right. How about the GPO?’

  ‘Sure. We’ll get there. Oh, and Diego, about dinner…’

  ‘Ya?’

  ‘S doesn’t eat meat any more, only fish. So vegetarian is fine for us if that’s alright?’

  ‘Oh?’ he says, surprise flickering in his voice. We have shared many, many meals in the past. Lots of chicken biriyani and chicken chowmein. The canteen used to make these incredible chicken rolls and chicken samosas. ‘Sure, sure,’ he tells me, ‘I’ll get some paneer.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  ‘So we’ll see you then. GPO in forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Hey, Diego, wait. Who’s we?’

  ‘Remember Rohan? Rohan Saraf from economics, our batch, Saurav’s junior? He’s in Ahmedabad too. On work. Since you guys were coming, I thought it would be good to have a reunion. He’ll be here any minute now, so we’ll see you guys in forty-five.’

  ‘Sure. I mean that’s great.’

  33

  Diego’s flat is large and airy, and when we hear the rent, we shut up and sit back for a bit. For 5,500 rupees, he has what would be called a 2BHK, in a decent homey neighbourhood with nice if slightly clean-freakish neighbours and ample parking space, though he does not yet have a car. Rohan tells us, settling into one of the chairs in the drawing room, ‘I love this city, yaar. Every time I come here I find myself saying, I could easily live here. It’s getting cooler too. There are discos and stuff now. Good restaurants.’ Rohan studied at the IIM here and is intimately familiar with the city. ‘I mean, I like Bombay a lot, sure, but it’s such a battle every single day. Think about it. I pay 22,000 for a smaller place; I spend hours on the commute; the girls are impossible to please. I tell you, I’d move to Ahmedabad in a heartbeat.’

  ‘I don’t mind Ahmedabad actually. At least, I didn’t while I had a bootlegger,’ Diego says. Affecting a grown-up manner that sits slightly heavy on his youthful frame, he brings out a squat bottle of whisky and glasses. He has also, thoughtfully, got coke for me since he couldn’t find any vodka, my usual poison. Not that I particularly want a drink. I go into the kitchen and help with the food. It’s still hot. There’s a spicy chicken curry and kadhai paneer with rotis. I find four plates. Diego bustles around, handing me ladles and bowl
s, and his household avatar unleashes a new flood of nostalgia in me. I was a third in so many of Diego and Jiya’s big moments. The first day Jiya visited him at his house, I’d been dragged along too. As some sort of a chaperone to placate Jiya’s drivers. Diego lived in a wonderfully well-maintained small two-storey house, with his parents and aunt. He was an only son.

  ‘We are meeting after, what, five years?’ Diego stops for a second. ‘Well, we haven’t met since you came from JNU in your first year. Ya, about five years.’ He flashes his snaggle-toothed smile and takes off his jacket. I notice that Diego, who was always reed-thin, now has a small beer belly. He goes off to the drawing room carrying two plates and I follow with the other two.

  ‘So what happened to your bootlegger?’ S asks, taking a gigantic bite of the tandoori roti. He’s sprawled on the divan – and I curl up next to him. The food is oily and very comforting.

  ‘Oh that. It’s a tragic story.’ Diego folds his legs under him on the other cane chair, next to Rohan. ‘So one of my colleagues gave me this guy’s details. And I kid you not, it was very cloak and dagger. I’d call him – but he wouldn’t talk business then. It would be a hi-hello sort of conversation. Then, later, he’d call back from a different number. I’d tell him what I needed. He had the Gujarati work ethic. Very prompt.’

  Rohan gets up. ‘I need some more chicken. Do you guys need something?’

  ‘Roti?’ S gestures.

  ‘Carry on with the story. I’ve heard it once.’

  ‘You eat non-veg now?’ I ask Rohan’s retreating back, finally putting a finger on the thing that had seemed odd to me. Odd because back in the days we hung out – Rohan was not a close friend, we didn’t, for example, invite each other home – he was a vegetarian. Or eggetarian.

  ‘Like most good Marwari boys, I am a vegetarian at home. Outside, I eat everything. Now. After IIM.’

  In a fraction of a second I remember something, with the peculiar clarity our brain reserves for the stories of our youth: when you remember what you wore or ate, when you can recall exact conversations. It is 2002. A large party of Presidencians is gathered around two tables joined together at Coffee House, perched atop Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Street with its booksellers, just off College Street, breathing in the smoke – all around us there are smokers – and talking nineteen to the dozen. Jiya and I have come along, ostensibly to research an article we will write for the college newspaper we have just started. S is there too, along with two of his friends who are always called by their last names: Rao and Bhotika. We are not yet lovers – but there is a certain tension between us, and I watch him as he eats his mughlai paratha with immense rapidity, demolishing it with a knife and a fork in a few minutes flat. ‘This is my lunch every day,’ he tells us, and this girl from political science, Piya, asks, ‘You come to Coffee House every day?’ ‘Yup,’ he says, and spears the last piece of potato with his fork. Rohan Saraf, who we later learn lives with his uncle’s family since he’d lost both his parents in an accident, promptly orders a mughlai paratha too. When it comes, crisp and smelling delicious, he abandons the knife and fork in two minutes. The rest of us pretend not to notice this – and I am pretty sure some of us don’t notice it at all – and carry on talking, but Piya from political science, whose father is a bureaucrat, giggles sweetly and pokes Rohan with her elbow. ‘Aahaa, after all, the good Marwari needs to eat his paratha with his hands, no, for full satisfaction?’ The rest of us are quiet for just an instant, but when Rohan laughs along gamely, we may have joined in.

  ‘What news of Piya?’ I ask, interrupting Diego’s story. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I mouth immediately.

  ‘No, no, that’s fine. She’s gone off to Italy – and in fact she’s in love with an Italian guy. In fact, some of her stuff is in my house. In this house. When she left Bombay, she left a bunch of things in my hostel room, in two bags, and I’ve had to bring them here with me to Ahmedabad. And there’s no sign of Piya. I think I’ll have to take them to Calcutta and dump it at her parents’.’

  ‘That’s very Piya,’ I say. ‘I’m pretty sure she’ll settle down in Italy. I always felt she’d be an NRI.’

  Rohan has returned and we can now focus on the tragic tale of the bootlegger.

  ‘So with his Gujarati work ethic, supply chain and business instincts, he was running a good dhanda. We were his regulars. And once he promised to deliver something, he never failed. Then I went to Calcutta for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘The time Jiya came from Kent?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, right,’ he says vaguely. ‘And after that I called him. Usually he called back within the hour. But a whole day went by and no response. I called him again and again. Same thing. I phoned around – tried some of his other regulars. But no one had any news. For a while I worried about him. Had he lost his phone and with that all our contacts? Or had he died suddenly?’

  ‘Did he die?’ S asks. He collects our plates – only Rohan is still eating – and goes to the kitchen. Diego refills all the glasses.

  ‘I thought he had, really I did. Then one day I was shopping for grocery and I ran into him on the road. “Where have you been?” I asked him, genuinely affected. “We were so worried, man.” He looked weather-beaten. Then, over a cup of coffee in Barista, he told me the whole story. You see, he would bring the bottles of liquor in water tankers. In the middle of the tanker, there would be barrels filled with sealed bottles. He had perfected the chain – worked on the contacts. It was a good business. Great returns. Then one day, his water tanker had an accident. Nothing major, but in the impact the bottles broke. Soon the scent of whisky began to waft around. Policemen who had come to inspect the minor accident were suddenly alerted to the strong smell of liquor. He had to pay six lakh as fine. That’s the standard. Now he’s changed trades – he’s thinking of opening a shop.’

  ‘Listen to this,’ Rohan says. ‘I heard this at work. Why can’t a Gujju or Maru play hockey?’

  I remember. Rohan’s talent was PJs.

  ‘Why?’ we chorus dutifully.

  ‘Because the moment they’re in a corner, they open a shop!’

  That we would get to the dreaded part sooner or later was a given. And after we’d put away the plates and decided on the sleeping arrangements – Rohan and Diego would share the bedroom while we slept on the divan – it begins. Who’s doing what these days? Rohan is in corporate high-flier mode. (And he’s never going to leave Bombay, unless he’s going to Hong Kong or Singapore. I mean, obviously. Who does that?) Diego enjoys his job – it’s responsible and grown up – but the government stodginess of it, and the fact that none of the others is in Ahmedabad, makes him hold on to the college gang tighter. He’s in touch with everyone. Add to that everyone else he was pals with in the master’s programme. And I begin to sense what makes Jiya uncertain. He recites the exact coordinates of people – most of the science guys and several of the economics ones are doing research in America, the rest have fancy jobs. And then there’s us – we got married and now we’ve quit our jobs to travel and to write these books? It’s a bit surprising.

  Books are okay, Rohan says. It’s not that he doesn’t read. He does. The idea of the journey is interesting, sort of, but why aren’t we simply blogging about it? And we’ve moved back to Calcutta? That’s brave, both of them say. Rare. Very rare. Everyone leaves Calcutta after Presidency – that’s the rule. Soon I begin to get a headache. My nose begins to itch. The last dregs of pure and authentic feelings that had flooded through me yesterday now vaporize, leaving me open to doubt or despair – both to be honest. It’s like a Sunday, when you’ve had a glorious brunch, browsed in a bookstore, walked in the park, and then, come dusk, your parents drag you to the nursing home to meet an old grand-uncle who’s very ill. Suddenly, in the famed cancer hospital with its marbled doorways and tasteful art, you see the lobby full of people with wilting faces and dishevelled clothes, people who have learnt to rearrange their
lives around their loved ones dying over a reasonable time frame. It sounds self-involved but you cannot help wonder what you would do in case of illness, given your financial circumstances. My last two bank statements dance on my eyeballs, and largely to distract myself I start an eyebrow exercise I’d learnt online to quell my throbbing forehead.

  I’d begged S to be nice – a general code in our public interaction, since he displays an alarming tendency to shock people the moment they begin to tot up their pretty successes and trot out their certainties – whether revolution or consumption. S will take up the challenge pronto: be all-annoying and against the grain. Things can get ugly.

  My stomach feels queasy.

  Five years are a little bit too soon, I begin to think, for reunions. Ten years are better. In ten years, there are other things that blur self-definition – spouse, kids, parents getting old, parents getting sick, the ease with which one puts on weight, even lay-offs, perhaps, since in ten years, economies can shift tectonically. My eyes glaze over and I begin to get that slightly breathless feeling I recognize from Monday evenings in our garret apartment when though there’s food at home we would go out to eat just in order to blur the general sense of uneasiness, and then, while waiting, worry about the money we are spending unnecessarily eating out.

  I excuse myself and get up to go to the bathroom. I lock the bedroom door. I shower and douse myself in talcum powder. I root through our bags, then, finally, I unpack stuff on the bed. I find fresh clean clothes for both of us for the night and then pack everything in the bags again. When I return to the drawing room, feeling chirpier, I find the atmosphere convivial again and they are talking about other things. Diego has been joking about a colleague, a scientist, who has recently got married. He got 15 lakh in dowry. Rohan pipes up with far more salacious details. It is possible for an IIM grad to get dowry up to 1.5 crore. More, maybe, if he’s both IIT and IIM.