The Hope Factory

by Lavanya Sankaran

  “Yeah,” said Anand. “I suppose so.”

  “Lucky bastard, Chetty, he sleeps around and his wife celebrates by throwing parties.”

  “Ey, regarding that land broker you were mentioning,” said Anand, refusing to be sidetracked by Vinayak’s bits of heated gossip.

  “Right,” said Vinayak, agreeably. “So you are planning some expansion, is it?”

  Anand explained briefly, glossing quickly over his expansion ideas and just speaking of the land he required.

  “So, about ten, fifteen acres, right? … And in that area? … Who did you deal with last time? Your father-in-law?”

  “No, no,” said Anand, explaining.

  “Great man, your father-in-law.” Vinayak spoke in tones that were entirely reverential. “Met him over the weekend, at that art thing … He knows everybody, no? Politicians, industrialists, everyone … even in Bombay-Delhi.”

  “Yes, he certainly knows everyone.” Anand saw that Vinayak was looking at him quizzically. “And of course, my first thought was to talk to him, but the thing is, he deals with these high-profile types. And someone was saying that it’s better to keep these land transactions low-key until everything comes through … What do you think?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Vinayak was gratified to have his opinion solicited. “Yeah, best to keep it low-key … And I know the perfect guy for you. I’ll ask him to call you,” he said. “He is very good. Very low-key.”

  “Great,” said Anand. “And listen, nothing too expensive, okay? We’re a small company; making those damn monthly debt obligations is still a struggle …”

  “Arrey, don’t worry,” said Vinayak. “He’ll get the job done for you.”

  Anand nodded and then stifled a groan when he saw who approached their table. He should have anticipated this, for where Vinayak roamed, could the rat he rode on be far behind?

  “Vinayak,” he said urgently. “Don’t discuss any of this with anyone. Not my expansion, and not the land thing. Anyone.”

  Vinayak’s eyes gleamed with the wet pleasure of secrecy. “Of course not, yaar,” he said. “I don’t believe in gossip. Hey, Sameer!”

  “Bastard,” said the new arrival, placing a sweaty hand on Vinayak, “what’s all this ghaas-poos veg shit, yaar? Where’s my chicken? Hi, Anand.”

  Sameer Reddy was the dumb son of a smart father, whose growing mining empire and political contacts were sufficient cause for Vinayak—who never did things without an implicit calculation—to claim a friendship with him and act as his social sponsor. “Cute chicks here tonight,” Sameer said. “Damn hot babes.”

  The pale granite glitter of the bar was ice-cold, yet the heat and noise rushed at Anand; he was submerged, drowning, the sound of music so loud he could feel the drum beat in his chest, crowding his heart. Faces passed flushed with a strange, pulsing fervor, the men inexplicably abandoning their calm morning demeanors for spangled shirts and gel-spiked hair and restless, roving eyes; the women in tight skirts and painful shoes and bright, exclaiming smiles. A cocktail of races, European, African, East Asian, percolated and distilled into this lounge bar by the virulent forces of international mercantilism.

  “Hey, buddy, how are ya?” A blond man emerged from the crowd, red-faced, an arm draped around a pretty girl.

  “Hi, Brian,” Vinayak said: “He’s with Cisco …” he explained to Anand and Sameer. “A good guy. From California, I think. But did you see who he was with? Dilip Bannerjee’s daughter. I wonder if the parents know she’s hanging out with phirangs. But they are quite liberal themselves, her parents, so they probably won’t mind.”

  “She’s hot.” Sameer Reddy eyed the young woman’s elegant legs, accentuated by her short dress and high heels.

  “I have to go,” said Anand.

  “No, no,” said Vinayak. “Stay, bugger. Have another beer.”

  Anand acquiesced reluctantly. Vinayak was doing him a favor; he would stay.

  Sameer Reddy was nodding his head at a trio of Japanese businessmen. “They are going to kick our arses. Those guys.”

  “What?” said Anand. “Who? The Japanese?”

  “The Chinese. They are going to kick our arses to Mongolia and back. There’s no way we can compete with them. In manufacturing or anything else.”

  “I hope you are wrong,” said Anand.

  “I am not wrong, yaar. This is what my father thinks. And do you know why they will succeed? I’ll tell you. No democracy. They can do whatever they want. They don’t have to worry about elections and how to win votes. If they have to defend the country, they do it. If they have to build a new road, they just do it, without running around asking each and every villager what to do before they take a single decision.”

  “That’s a good point,” said Vinayak. “Though, I have to say, your father, Sameer, is an expert at getting around this system.”

  “Yeah, he keeps those government guys happy. They look after us well. And they should. I mean, we taxpayers are the true unprotected minority in this country. Right, guys, right?” Sameer Reddy laughed heavily.

  Anand struggled for diplomacy and failed. “A really privileged minority,” he said, pushing his glasses up. “And, secondly, of course we can manufacture things as well as the Chinese do. And as cheaply. We’re doing it already. And we’ll get better. We have no choice. And, thirdly, bugger, if there was no democracy in India, you know where we’d all be sitting?”

  “Where?”

  “At the gates of the American Embassy, squealing to get in.”

  He said good night abruptly, too annoyed to stay longer.

  Sameer Reddy was an idiot, an incompetent behenchuth who couldn’t fuck his own sister without assistance. Like so many people, he tended to confuse democracy with the problems of bad governance—that endemic, virulent disease that made working in India akin to racing a car in low gear: a sense of strain and impending doom.

  His mind went to the foreign team who had visited the factory…. What must they have thought? Would they confuse the apathy of poor governance with the quality of Indian people themselves? Or were they able to see through the noise and the dust to the will of the people and their desire for better circumstance? Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t government be a support? To build what they build well, to maintain it, to work hard, to think sensibly. To ask of themselves, in short, what the citizens asked of each other. Inviting visitors to the country was like bringing friends to a home where alcoholic parents rampaged out of control. One could apologize once or twice for the inconvenience rendered, but, beyond that, simply bury one’s face in one’s hands in embarrassment.

  THE PHONE ON HIS table buzzed the following day.

  One landbroker, Kamath said, had arrived. Did Anand want to see him? The austerity in Kamath’s voice suggested otherwise.

  The Landbroker walked in, and Anand could immediately comprehend Mr. Kamath’s disapproval. A bright red polyester shirt molded his lean torso, gold chains rested on a hairy, partially exposed chest, sunglasses (tinted gold) sat on his hair, a luxuriant mustache above his mouth. The Landbroker was like a peacock amidst the sober plumage of the factory employees. Through the open door, Anand could see others stopped in their tracks, staring curiously after this apparition, Mrs. Padmavati craning her neck for a better look.

  Without even stepping outside, Anand knew that the Landbroker’s car would be big and expensive and flashy.

  “Namaskara,” said Anand, after a pause. “Bani, bani.”

  “Aanh,” said the Landbroker. “Namaskara.”

  He did not sit down when Anand offered him a chair. He spent a few moments wandering around the office, inspecting the furnishings, staring at the files on the table, coming to a halt before the production bay window. He leaned one hand against the glass, staring intently at the workers, at the lines of machinery, absorbed in an intense process of internal computation and evaluation, as a callused, yellow-nailed toe in a black Bata sandal scratched the back of his calf through the shin
y gray material of his pant. The Landbroker radiated a restlessness that carried the scent of him over to Anand, a musk of sweat and sun and some deep, fervent desire.

  Within moments, all sense of amusement had vanished from Anand.

  The Landbroker looked like a first-rate thug; Anand felt annoyed at his blatant, unshadowed assessment of the factory. He should have refused to see him; he should have met him outside; he should have thought of some other alternative; Vinayak was a buggered-up idiot and Anand a bigger one for listening to him. This man was startlingly different from normal real estate agents, who inhabited nice offices and accompanied their sales of city properties with a line of upbeat, cheerful patter. The Landbroker did not spring from such a pleasant-faced, well-regulated mercantile landscape. He seemed the embodiment of a more primitive commercial force, like a tiger in the wild, rare and thrilling to encounter but admittedly not without its risks.

  Anand felt like a cow left tethered in the middle of the jungle.

  He cleared his throat. The Landbroker turned away from the window and eased himself into a chair. He placed an ankle on the opposite knee and then proceeded to scratch it absentmindedly with the nail of his left little finger, which, unlike his other bitten-to-the-quick nails, was long and luxuriant and painted a bright red. As he talked, the red nail moved to his ear, to explore the interiors and extricate what wax it could.

  “Aanh, saar,” the Landbroker said. “So you need land, it seems.” His Kannada bore the rough edges of street-speak.

  “For the factory,” said Anand. “We have fully expanded here.”

  “Yes, I saw, I saw.” The Landbroker’s assessment was now concentrated on Anand. “So how is it you know Mr. Vinayak? Joint business with him?”

  “No,” said Anand, wrenching his gaze away from the long red fingernail. “He is a friend. You have done work for him, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, a little,” said the Landbroker. “Some twenty acres in Bangalore and then again some land in Hubli. I have contacts there as well. He has told you about that?”

  Vinayak hadn’t, but Anand nodded anyway. “He is a good person, a good businessperson,” said the Landbroker, “so when he mentioned about you, I knew it would be no problem. In my line of work, it is very important to work only with people who are of good quality, who will deal straight. No tricks, no games, no crooks.”

  “Yes,” said Anand.

  “So, how much land are you looking for, saar? And how soon?”

  “About ten acres would be perfect. As close to this factory as possible. And the need is urgent.”

  The Landbroker sank into brief thought. “I will show you two plots this morning,” he said. “Come, saar.”

  They took the Landbroker’s car; contrary to Anand’s expectations, it was small and nondescript.

  “What are the payment terms as such?” asked Anand.

  “We will discuss everything, saar, the rates, the payment terms,” said the Landbroker. “But first we will find something that you like. Then we will discuss everything else.”

  He drove quickly and efficiently, speaking brusquely into his cellphone, the car juddering over ill-finished roads that led into the interiors of the land. A few minutes’ drive brought them to the first plot.

  It was surrounded by a high concrete wall, with power cables running into the property and a bore well sunk in one corner. “This is about four acres. It is officially converted to industrial land—therefore more expensive.”

  Anand stood at the entrance for not more than a minute; the convenience of such a plot was rendered irrelevant by its size—four acres was too small.

  The second plot was larger. It was unfenced; Anand tracked the land visually from the side of the road to the distant tree and again to the hillock and back to the road.

  “This is about six acres. This is farmland, so it is slightly cheaper. But you will have to pay to get government sanction to convert it to industrial land…. It is very good soil, saar.” The Landbroker could not seem to help saying this even though he knew Anand’s interests were not agricultural, “and the water table is not too deep.”

  It emerged that he was a son of the soil, this very soil, having his roots in a village of the area and, if the condition of his feet was any indication, not even one generation removed from the farmers he was now seeking to do business with.

  “How large, you said?” Anand asked, “Six acres, no?” and he turned away, shaking his head, dissatisfied. A waste of time.

  In the car, the Landbroker spoke airily of other deals he had put together and the other investors he had worked with. He kept his left hand on the gear stick, his little finger extended, the long red nail almost scratching at Anand’s leg, such an affront, Anand was tempted to reach over and break it off.

  If Anand spent the drive back to the factory sunk in annoyance, the Landbroker seemed to spend it arriving at some conclusions of his own.

  “Saar,” he said. “Maybe I can find you a slightly larger spread…. It will take a few days. You let me work it out.”

  “Larger?” said Anand. “How much larger?”

  “About twelve acres,” said the Landbroker.

  “That would also work,” said Anand. “Is it possible?”

  “Possible, saar,” said the Landbroker. “It is little more complicated. But you leave it to me. It will happen.”

  “Complicated how?” said Anand.

  “You leave it to me,” said the Landbroker. He gave Anand a sudden, startling smile. “Not to worry, sir. When I am making a promise, I am keeping it.”

  Anand got out at the entrance to the factory and waited until the Landbroker bumped away in his little, nondescript car. He called Vinayak. “Nice shirt he wears, your Landbroker.”

  “Come on, yaar, what are you, the fucking fashion police? He’s really good.”

  “Yeah? He took me to two useless plots and then said that he would find what I required.”

  “Congratulations. That means he has decided to work with you.”

  Anand went silent, digesting this. “By the way, what does he mean when he says something is ‘complicated’?”

  “You leave it to him. He has to put together these deals. It’s not like there is just one seller and one buyer. Each two-, three-acre plot of farmland will be owned by several people, usually many members of a family. He has to contact all the individual owners of each plot and convince them to sell and put the deal together. Like creating a land bank. It’s not easy or straightforward.”

  “He keeps talking about work he has done with that politician … that film actor…. I don’t want any political goondas or land-mafia types getting involved in this …”

  “Are you crazy?” said Vinayak. “Who does? No, bugger, don’t worry. He’ll steer clear of all of that. He’s very good. Very discreet. Not one to talk. Very low-key.”

  He then proceeded to contradict himself by describing a progression of prominent politicians and film stars and businessmen who had bought properties through this Landbroker. Sensing Anand’s growing dismay, he laughed. “Don’t worry, bugger. He’s very discreet. He’ll do your job for you. And he’s an expert at handling those corrupt bastards at the land registrar’s office. He has them eating out of his hand. But don’t worry, he’ll see that they don’t overcharge you on the bribes. He’s very pragmatic.”

  Anand was used to thinking of himself as pragmatic—which, for him, translated into doing what one can with what is in front of one. To Vinayak, however, being pragmatic seemed to mean living easily and comfortably in a world of official corruption, wasting no energy on the matter beyond recognizing how to survive it. Anand wondered, uncomfortably, if their respective positions were separated by nothing more than a slippery slope.

  “And his prices?”

  “Are reasonable…. I would still negotiate, but if he holds firm, pay him what he asks. And he will ask for cash up front—that’s okay. He will need that money to put the deal together. To make advance payments and keep every
one happy.”

  “What happens if he can’t?”

  “Don’t worry—he hasn’t failed yet.”

  eight

  WHEN SHANTA’S LOAN REQUEST was repeated and again refused, she sulked for a day and then vanished, without notice, in the middle of a working morning. The first Kamala learned of this was when she was interrupted while flicking her dusting cloth over the upholstered armchairs in the drawing room. “Has your hearing failed?” Vidya-ma’s voice was sharp with annoyance. “Did you not hear me calling for her?”

  “Amma?” said Kamala, confused.

  “Shanta! Where is she? Don’t just stand there. Go and see where she is!”

  Kamala went to the kitchen to do her mistress’s bidding, and then to the backyard, to the small bathroom they all shared, and then, in mounting surprise and still clutching her dusting cloth in her hand, up the side path to the front gate. “Anna,” she asked the watchman, “the mistress is looking for Shanta?”

  “I saw her leave,” said the watchman, “ten minutes, thirty minutes ago. No, I have no idea where.”

  “What? What nonsense!” said Vidya-ma. “What do you mean, she has left? Where to? Why did you not tell me she was leaving? How irresponsible!”

  “I did not know, amma,” said Kamala. “She did not tell me.”

  Thangam, when questioned, also denied knowledge of Shanta’s whereabouts. And when minutes passed and Shanta did not return, as Vidya-ma’s anger escalated, Kamala resumed her own work with a pious sense of satisfaction. After the way Shanta behaved, like some all-knowing supervisor appointed by the gods themselves to supervise lesser mortals, it was a sound moral victory to see her get into such trouble. And for dereliction of duty, no less.