Sultan of Delhi: Ascension

by Arnab Ray

  ‘And you know what your problem is? You don’t appreciate what God has given us. Look at Mrs Lakhotia’s sons, and yes, those Kanal twins, they are at each other’s throats. And look at our sons. They call them Ram and Laxman for a good reason. Or will you deny that too?’

  ‘Yes, they love each other and that’s all very good but…’ Arjun accepted that the brothers loved each other, though comparing Sudheer to Ram and Mohan to Laxman seemed blasphemous. However, they did get along much better than other brothers with a lot of money and power between them, despite the fact that they were so different from each other.

  Two hundred and fifty pounds of lard and body hair with a fondness for tandoori chicken and Jack on the Rocks, Sudheer had a loud voice and an even louder laugh. The nickname ‘Big Bear’ was well earned and not just for his size. When in the grip of rage, he would make a grizzly baulk. Once, a bartender had refused to serve him any more whisky because he was falling off his chair and in a rage, Sudheer had proceeded to trash the whole bar, smashing all the glassware, leaving the bartender and anyone foolish enough to get in his way, spitting teeth and wiping away blood. Another time, at a traffic signal, a beggar had asked him for money and he had been too busy eating to notice, only for the beggar to scratch the side of his Mercedes with a bottle cap. Sudheer had gotten out of the car and had then, in broad daylight, pounded the beggar into submission. When other beggars had rushed to help, he had brought out his gun and waved it around, and all this when he was not even drunk. He was free with his money, and that was why he had such a crowd of hangers-on. The Big Bear farts cash was what they said in Delhi and people got rich just by walking behind him and cleaning the seat before he sat on it. Known as a soft touch, anyone with a hard-luck story had a good chance of leaving with a lot if they managed to make the Big Bear sentimental, particularly after he had downed a few.

  Mohan was the exact opposite. Thin, and handsome in a slightly chocolate boy way, he barely spoke and when he did, you could barely hear what he said. If Sudheer was bright colours, with clothes that were flashy and tight, and nearly always sweaty and smelly, Mohan was Bond himself, never a hair out of place or an untidy fold. He hardly ever laughed, and the best one could get out of him was a sideways grin, here one moment and gone the next. Mohan trailed Sudheer like a shadow, always in his party on their nights about town, but he never drank. They called him ‘Milk Moustache’ for that, and also for his well-known fondness for women with ample breasts. He was obsessed with them, and by porn in general, of which he had an apartment-full. His Panchsheel flat was stuffed with VHS tapes and toys and contraptions from Japan to Germany, that required infinite imagination and flexibility. Besides that, he had many other lonely passions, jigsaw puzzles, dominoes, stamps, coins and the newest Japanese swords. Unlike Sudheer, he had no propensity for charity nor did he have any real friends, and the only emotion he ever showed was absolute devotion to his brother.

  Preeti would continue, ‘They enjoy themselves and why does that bother you? They are young, they can afford it, and if they don’t enjoy themselves now when they are young, when will they?’

  ‘The problem is that they only enjoy. Sudheer’s mind is busy thinking about what he’s going to eat next. Mohan, God knows what.’

  This was when Preeti would start to get angry. ‘But you don’t give them any responsibilities. You don’t let them handle the business. You put more faith in outsiders than in your own blood.’

  Arjun knew these were Sudheer’s words. He complained to his mother. Often and loud.

  ‘They are afraid of you. Both of them. They are afraid because they respect you and you don’t seem to even acknowledge that… how good they are as sons.’

  Arjun had a different explanation for their respect. They knew where the money came from and they knew the Golden Rule: ‘He who has the money makes the rules.’ Of course, Arjun was careful not to say that to their mother. Instead he would say weakly, ‘Their time will come. I mean everything I have will be theirs’, hoping that Preeti would change the topic.

  She didn’t usually.

  ‘You don’t like them because they didn’t have a rough life like you had.’

  ‘No, it’s not…’

  But then she would not be stopped.

  ‘No that is the reason. You believe everyone needs to have a hard life. You would have been happy if they had been doctors or engineers or I don’t know what else…but you want them to suffer, to travel by DTC bus, to get pushed around…’

  ‘People learn through hard times. Not if everything is given to them on a plate. And I don’t know what gave you the idea that professionally qualified men, doctors and engineers suffer.’

  Preeti had developed quite a little temper as she had grown old. That and a prominent limp, which she had refused to get treated with a knee replacement. She would say, loudly now, ‘My sons are born to be kings. Sure, they are not perfect, but when you have diamond rings, who cares if they are a bit bent here or there.’

  This was when Arjun would throw his hands up and walk away. But Preeti needed to get the last cut in.

  ‘What about Riti? What about all the money this family has put into her? In Switzerland and then the US and for how many years, ten or is it twelve, and it’s not cheap. Private school and then college. All in dollars. What has she done with all that? Does she do anything? And yet you can see nothing wrong in her.’

  She was right. Riti was different. Riti resembled Arjun’s mother, the same aquiline, almost fragile beauty, with gently forgiving eyes. She had spent most of her adult life in Europe and the US, first at a private school in Lausanne, then in Massachusetts, then at a woman’s Catholic college near San Francisco and was now majoring in theatre and film studies from NYU.

  ‘Riti is getting a degree. An American degree,’ Arjun would say sternly. ‘It requires brains. If your sons had wanted to go to the US to study, I would have had no problems in paying for that. But they want to go to Vegas and Monte Carlo and Paris and Milan with their friends. And it’s not that I haven’t paid for that too.’

  ‘But why bother? Why bother with all this fancy education and all when Riti is going to get married and go to someone else’s house? Why spend all this money on top of how much we will spend on her wedding?’

  Arjun always ended the conversation here. He refused to argue over Riti.

  It was Preeti who had fixed the match for Sudheer. Nimmi Ahuja, the only daughter of British steel magnate Praveen Ahuja. Arjun had found Nimmi Ahuja a decent enough girl, and Preeti could not stop talking about Nimmi’s milk-white skin and the old-world Indian values the Ahujas had instilled in her despite her foreign upbringing. Sudheer had agreed to the marriage because it allowed him to do what he had been wanting to for a long time

  – move out of his father’s mansion to the new place that Arjun was building in Fatehpur Beri, and even more importantly, take a seat among his father’s inner circle of advisers. Arjun had agreed, albeit reluctantly, to his son’s involvement in his business. But then, like the story of the camel that starts off with the nose and ends up ejecting the bedouin from the tent, Sudheer had insisted on Mohan being allowed ‘in’ too. Arjun had resisted but had finally given in to that too. At least one brother spoke for the other and there was much to be said for that. As they stood, the two brothers and Arjun, on the stage with the cameras clicking away, the tension of that reluctance still hung around them like a cloud.

  Arjun was brought back to the present by a gentle hand on his back. It was the father of the would-be bride, Praveen Ahuja, and in his hand was a mic that he was extending towards Arjun.

  ‘Everyone wants a speech…come on…something.’

  Arjun was not prepared to give a speech. He looked to the left. There was Preeti beaming conspiratorially along with Nimmi. Then Sudheer said, ‘Come on, papa, please, don’t say no today,’ and suddenly, for a fleeting second, he felt a tenderness for his son.

  Arjun took the mic, patted it with his index finger to se
e if it was live, and then began.

  ‘I am not too good with words and I also know that, standing between my son and his engagement ceremony, how eager he must be for me to finish.’ He paused to let the polite laughter subside. ‘So I will be very brief. When I came to this country with nothing, if someone had told me I would be here in my own home, with my family and friends, celebrating the engagement of my son this way, I would have perhaps uttered an obscenity and told that person to shove off.’ There was more laughter. ‘I am where I am today only by the grace of God. I have had the best of friends and the best of family and here, tonight, as Sudheer and Nimmi embark on a journey together, I ask God to watch over them as he has watched over me, to bless them with the same kind of family and friends as he has blessed me with.’

  Arjun’s voice choked a little, just for a moment. He was thinking of other people, his best friends, the ones he would never see again, and wondered whether his love had been a blessing or a curse. Then he resumed.

  ‘Nimmi, look after my son. He eats too much, and watches way too many films.’ More laughter and even Sudheer let out his belly laugh. ‘And Sudheer, I am not going to give you any advice because it’s your day and you deserve a break. But tomorrow, I am going to start shouting at you again.’ Sudheer laughed some more and reached his arms out. This time Arjun hugged him closer.

  Preeti’s voice came back to him. ‘They just want your approval. They live for a kind word from you.’

  ‘Now my friends, I ask for my wife to please preside over the exchange of rings.’ Arjun stepped to the side as Preeti proudly took centre stage and the cameras flashed in unison.

  He looked at the dais and then at the crowd. Where was Riti? Why would she not be here on the dais? What could have been so important…

  Suddenly he caught sight of her. She was standing behind the main crowd. There was someone with her. A man. Riti’s eyes met his and she immediately moved awkwardly and Arjun was quick enough to understand that this man had been holding her hand.

  Once the ceremony was over and the stage cleared for the concert, Arjun moved to the place where he had seen Riti and the man but they were no longer there. The servants were arranging the chairs now and people were taking their seats, which left Arjun the freedom to move about without being ambushed by photoseekers. It took five minutes before he found Riti again.

  He was about to admonish her for not being on the stage when something about her expression made him stop. She looked flustered, her cheeks had taken the colour of the pink lehnga she was wearing. Arjun could not remember having seen her as unsure as she seemed right now.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, frowning slightly.

  ‘Papa, I want you to meet someone. Someone I have been wanting you to meet for a long time.’

  So that’s it, thought Arjun. My little daughter has brought a boyfriend. He could not help but stifle a smile. So that’s why she looked so flushed.

  He looked to the right. The man, who had been standing in shadow, stepped out.

  It was then that Arjun felt it. A hammer to the heart, a wobbling of his knees. All at the same time.

  There was Bangali, exactly as he remembered him. Except it was also Nayantara, the way he could never forget her.

  ‘Let me introduce you, papa. This is Dr Arijit Banerjee and this is…’

  The man extended his hand and smiled politely.

  ‘How are you, uncle?’

  I have to tell papa first. He will make the others understand. Riti had told herself this many times over the last few months.

  If she told anyone else in the family, it would be a disaster. If ma got wind of this, she would, of course, weep her eyes

  out, rush over to the temple, and then after all that drama, she

  would truss her up like a chicken and get her married off. It’s

  something ma had wanted to do ever since Riti turned eighteen,

  because according to her ‘a daughter is a responsibility you hold

  for another family’. She had made no secret of her not liking Riti

  staying alone in the United States, or doing theatre with strange

  men, and if she had gotten any hint of what had been going on,

  she would immediately have gotten her husband’s men to pick Riti

  up, pack her off in a plane mid-term, and bring her to Delhi where

  she would have been passed on to that lurking ‘another family’. It

  would have been the diamond merchant’s son from San Francisco,

  Sushant or Prashant, Riti could never quite remember what his

  name was or perhaps even Sudheer’s pervy brother-in-law, now

  that he was running the steel mills in Milwaukee.

  One would normally be expected to confide in their brothers

  or sisters. But she could not tell Sudheer. Because Sudheer would

  tell their mother. She could also not tell Mohan. Because Mohan

  would tell Sudheer and then Sudheer would tell their mother. Things would escalate rapidly after that.

  Papa, though, would understand. Every time ma had brought

  up marriage, which was more or less every time they had all been

  in a room together, he had shot it down. Two years ago, Riti had

  come back for the summer break and she was showing pictures

  of New York to Sudheer and Mohan and ma, and one came out in

  which she was wearing a skirt that was on the shorter side. Sudheer

  had said, in a tone that was less brother and more father, ‘Is this

  why we have sent you abroad? To wear such clothes? Have some

  thought of our reputation…’ Ma was just going to take the ball and run with it when papa, who had been reading the newspapers with what seemed to be intense concentration, looked up and said, ‘Sudheer, I am glad to hear you are so concerned about our family’s reputation. Seeing you behave as you do, I would never have thought that possible.’ Ma had tried to say something in support of her dearest son but papa’s silence had made her stop, and Sudheer was, from that day, too scared to comment on Riti’s pictures even when their father was not around. There had been this incident, she knew, when she was very little, when papa had flown off his handle and after that her brother had never hid the fact that he was afraid of him. Riti had once asked Mohan what had happened, and all he said was ‘none of your business’. She remembered what Yadav uncle, who looked after the security of her papa and their family, had once said, ‘Why blame Sudheer? The whole country fears your father. Even the prime minister shakes in his shoes if he frowns.’ Maybe Yadav uncle had been exaggerating – after all, he did like to talk big – but even the little time she had spent in India had made her realize that very important people talked respectfully in her father’s presence, with

  their eyes lowered and their voices down.

  Yet Riti had never been afraid of her father. She had always

  looked forward to his visits to New York. Sometimes he came

  with the rest of the family, and sometimes alone, though she

  preferred the times he was alone. Ma could be so overbearing at

  times, openly resentful of her African American friends or anyone

  she felt looked weird, which included people who had piercings

  or tattoos or men with Mohicans and black eyeshadow, to the

  point where Riti would be embarrassed to be with her. And, to

  be honest, neither her mother nor her brothers were particularly

  interested in what she was doing. Ma would spend most of her

  time shopping on Fifth Avenue, while the brothers would be out

  on their own, possibly scoping out the delights on 42nd Street or a luxury limo out to Atlantic City. Only her father would sit down and ask her about her life. She had gone to Broadway productions with him, explained to him the nuances of set design and lighting, and though she was sure that her father did not understand much of what she said, he never
seemed disinterested or even politely detached. Her father was great with her friends; he would take them out to nice restaurants in New York and be charming and engaging. The best memories of course were when they were alone. The last time he had visited, en route from Toronto in the summer, Riti and her father had walked around Central Park. For some reason, he had become very nostalgic, and told her stories of Lahore and of Delhi before she was born, of politicians and men in power and how he kept them in line, which made Riti feel privileged for she was sure he never discussed these things with anyone else, at least not in the family. She had been nervous all that afternoon, hiding her secret, and she had come close, once or twice, to even telling her father about Arijit, but something had held her back. She knew what it was, the fear of losing that

  perfect day.

  ‘I want you to settle down here in the States, bring up your

  family here. Else your US accent will go waste,’ he had said with

  a glint in his eye, while digging into a banana split. Ma had made

  it impossible to have sweets back in India, what with the doctor

  having diagnosed him with diabetes, and he more than made up

  for it outside the country.

  ‘Why is everyone in such a hurry to get me married? And why

  should I live forever in the States? Don’t you want me back, papa?’

  Riti had asked, even though she also did not want to go back to

  India, but still hearing her father say this made her a bit sad. The vanilla rolling down the side of his lips, he had suddenly

  becoming serious. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Why, you don’t love me any more?’

  ‘I do love you. But love is not just about drawing in and clinging

  on. That’s being selfish. It’s about wanting the best for someone,

  even if that best entails being away from each other.’

  She had wanted to argue but then again, she did not want to

  lose that perfect day.

  But now, back in India for her brother’s wedding, she had to

  tell her father. She had to.