Sultan of Delhi: Ascension

by Arnab Ray

  He dutifully put the magazine to the side.

  ‘So how did the meeting with papa go?’

  Oh, so that was it, thought Sudheer.

  ‘None of your business,’ he said grumpily, reaching for the

  magazine.

  They had met earlier in the day in Ranvijay Pratap Singh’s bungalow on Aurangzeb Road, on the green lawns, to a heavy breakfast served by his army of impeccably liveried servants. There was Mohan to the right of the head of the table, and Nimmi’s father, Praveen Ahuja, in a Saville Row suit to his left. Also at the table were the finance secretary and Ranvijay Pratap Singh’s son whose name Sudheer did not remember because he was known simply as ‘Rocky’ and, right opposite him, the old man, RP himself, in a long kurta and a brown shawl. That he was down there as the host, pouring tea for his guests, was a sign as big as any that this meeting was important.

  ‘Beta,’ he had said, in a gentle cajoling voice. ‘We would of course like you to talk about this with your father. I would have asked him myself – we go way back – but as you know, your father has not been very communicative of late. Not that I don’t understand, with what your family has been through.’ He stirred the milk into his tea. ‘But time is so short, I think it’s better you do this on your own.’

  Ever since Riti had left, Arjun had retreated into a shell. He still ran the business, but he rarely met any of his clients, letting his underlings handle negotiations. Sudheer had tried to suggest that he should hold durbars again, at least for the most important of his clients, because they didn’t always appreciate working with hired help but Arjun had brushed the suggestion aside, as he did with more or less everything Sudheer said.

  This was a big deal though. The government was conducting a fire-sale of public sector units, disinvesting mostly in iron and steel, and RP had worked hard to undervalue the assets through his people in the ministries. Which meant there were crores to be made by just winning the tenders, and selling the assets in the open market. Mohan had explained to Sudheer that the moneymakers would not be the machinery, but the future contracts the units held. Those future contracts had not even been priced as part of the asset sale, which meant that the government would be handing out millions in free money, and Sudheer knew that Nimmi’s father, who had recently bought a number of steel plants in Eastern Europe and the country formerly known as USSR, was the first in line to lap it all up.

  There was a problem though. The Mehtas. They were the biggest family business in India, with the power to outspend any opposition, and no businessman worth his name would make a big play without knowing their plans.

  ‘We have to know the Mehtas’ position. Do they plan to bid for the public sector undertakings through front companies? Do they want to sit out? If they are planning to bid, would they be open to an agreement, a share? We have to know all this before we put up the money,’ RP had said, wrapping the shawl round his shoulders and coughing mildly. ‘Now the Mehtas were once my men and I could have handled this myself then. But then your father took them away from me, many years ago, and now they talk only to him. No one else.’

  Sudheer had asked, ‘So you want me to talk to the Mehtas? Bring them to the table?’

  Rocky had been to the point. ‘Yes. But without involving your father. We need to move fast, real fast, and Arjun uncle has kind of become like a government department himself.’

  ‘No disrespect to Arjun,’ RP had interrupted his son with a mild glance of irritation. ‘But we think, all of us think, that it would be better if you took the lead on this deal. I mean the Mehtas talk only to Arjun, but in real terms, they talk to the Bhatias. If you know what I am saying.’

  The significance of what RP was suggesting was not lost on him. Only Mohan said it aloud first, ‘You want us to go behind papa’s back and talk to Mehta pretending as if we are speaking for papa.’

  The silence from the rest of the table confirmed that.

  ‘But if you want us to do this, we need to know why,’ Mohan continued. ‘You have to stop this “we need to do this fast” bullshit, because that’s a line used by salesmen when they are desperate for a sale.’

  It was Praveen Ahuja who spoke. ‘We are not lying to you, getting something through Arjun ji does take a lot of time nowadays. And, I don’t know how to say this better, given that we are related, but Arjun ji costs a lot of money. A bit too much, and that also people are willing to pay, but then you know…you have to move things fast.’

  Sudheer looked angrily at his father-in-law and banged the cup down on the plate forcefully. ‘You think we are wholesale cloth suppliers in Chandni Chowk, that we are going to undercut our own father?’

  RP caughed softly once again and said, ‘It’s not money Mr Ahuja is talking about. If we went to your father, no one knows when he would talk to us. Even if he did, he would then bring in other partners, work other angles, and that’s all fine for him because that’s the way he runs his business but, right now, we don’t need all that.’ He reached out and gave a loving pat on Rocky’s shoulder. ‘I don’t blame Arjun. He and I are old people, of Hindustani classical and of five-day Test matches, we move to a different rhythm. Your generation, it’s all pop music and one-day cricket and I can’t tolerate either, but I know better than to stand in front of the stream.’

  Sudheer had realized the opportunity this held for him, but his answer had been non-committal. And now his wife was pushing him on that, obviously at her father’s insistence.

  ‘Papa said you said nothing,’ Nimmi said, looking back at Sudheer. ‘Do you want that to be your answer? Nothing?’

  ‘What your father is asking me to do, I can’t. I am in enough trouble with the old man from the last time I did something on my own. If he finds out now I went behind his back…’

  ‘Oh please. You did the right thing. You behaved, for once, like a man. I so wish my husband would do more of that. Be a man.’

  ‘That’s not the way papa saw it. I have had enough of “being a man” for some time now.’

  Nimmi moved her feet up and rolled on to the waterbed. She bounced slightly, and with it her cleavage did too, revealing even more as she lay on her stomach, the mangalsutra nestling in between.

  ‘This is a bit different from what you did last time, right? You almost killed those two, not that I am saying that would have been a big loss to the world, but I can understand why he would be angry, she being his daughter and all.’

  She rolled once again, and playfully kept her hand on Sudheer’s chest. ‘I hate your sister. I can’t go to one party without hearing whispers and rumours about her, and of course they make sure that I get to hear. Do you know anything about where she is now?’

  ‘Don’t know and don’t care,’ Sudheer said with a wheeze, feeling intensely the soft fingers of his wife moving down his chest. ‘Well, what are the rumours about her?’

  ‘Leave it, it would make you angry.’ Nimmi’s long red fingernails seemed to sink into Sudheer’s soft, flabby chest.

  ‘Go ahead. You wouldn’t have told me if you didn’t want to tell me.’

  ‘They say she is a high-class call girl and that her husband pimps her out. One person even claimed…you know…that he knows someone who has…you know…done her.’

  ‘My sister, working? Even as a call girl? Now that’s funny.’ Sudheer laughed, a big guttural laugh, shaking the folds of fat on his chest and his stomach like rings of jello. ‘She never saw what it means to be poor. I did. Papa had lost all his money and Mohan and I had to be taken out of school because he could not afford to pay our fees. Riti was too small then. She never saw that life. As long as she can remember, life has been Geneva, Monaco or New York, all paid for, and not even the heat of this blasted city. How long has she even been in India?’

  ‘I was just saying what I heard.’

  ‘Riti cannot work a single day in her life, unless you call shopping at Spencer’s or Macy’s work.’

  ‘You say that but I don’t think so, I mean why would she ha
ve gone with that man then? He looked like a beggar on a local train.’ She touched her palm to her forehead and made the sign of begging. ‘Allah ke naam pe kuch de de types.’

  ‘Hah, he looked like a hero when we found him though. Saala Romeo.’

  ‘Well, seeing what you did to him, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan have nothing to fear.’

  He grunted and moved a bit closer so that her breasts were pressed against the side of his chest. She seemed to press back.

  ‘He is just a phase in Riti’s life, her little rebellion against papa. It’s like this. When your life has no problems, you need to invent them, else why are you alive? The moment that idiot asks her to work, which I am pretty sure he will once he realizes she isn’t bringing any money from this house, she will come running back with her tail between her legs.’

  ‘It’s been more than six months now since your sister ruined that cake I got for your father.’

  ‘Give it a year. Remember what papa had said. The door of this house closes on you forever. He was sending a message to her husband. No money from here. Of course papa didn’t mean it, papa loves her more than his life. The moment her husband turns her out, papa will take her back. She will be married off somewhere abroad, and her misadventure will be forgotten, unless of course the bastard puts his little seed in her, which I am sure he will want to do as soon as he can, because that will be his insurance.’

  ‘What about putting your seed in me?’ Her hand had now gone down to his fly, which he could not see any more, hidden as it was by his surging belly.

  He wanted to ask her why she was being so agreeable tonight, and then he didn’t because he knew why, so he closed his eyes and felt the motion down below, as her hair fell on his stomach, covering it, and he felt thankful that for a few seconds he mattered.

  It was then the decision was taken.

  He would do as Nimmi’s father wanted. He would talk to the Mehtas.

  ‘ Dada-babu and boudi, they haven’t been here for a while?’ Sonali asked, her back propped against the big Godrej almirah, as she munched on puffed rice and looked up at the framed picture of Arijit and Riti on the shelf.

  ‘You are distracted today. I have been trying to teach you this

  song for the past hour, and there you go again,’ Nayantara said, her left hand on the harmonium. She could not bear to look at that picture any more, for it reminded her of how her son used to look, once upon a time, handsome and with both eyes that could see, and yet she could not take it down and put it away, like she had the other pictures.

  ‘No, no,’ Sonali said, sticking her tongue out and making a face of contrition, ‘it’s just that I have to go right now to the Haldars and do the dishes. I will be back in half an hour, and then we can start again.’

  ‘I have nothing better to do, so I am going to wait here for you holding my harmonium?’ Nayantara asked. ‘No, you don’t have to come back, I am angry.’

  Sonali had a large toothy grin which she now flashed. ‘Please, didimoni, I will make it up to you with a nice cup of ginger tea.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Nayantara, her mock frown dissolving away. ‘By the way, they haven’t caused any trouble for Rupali, have they?’

  ‘Not after you spoke to them, didimoni, you are the goonda of the area,’ Sonali said with another titter.

  Goonda. Ruffian. Nayantara made a tired gesture with her hand, wondering when she had become an enforcer herself. Perhaps, as they say, when you hang out with the wrong crowd, you become like them.

  Rupali was Sonali’s sister. They lived in the slum down the road and both worked as maids. A few days ago, Rupali had come back crying, because the man of one of the houses where she worked had tried to pull her on to his bed. She was afraid because he was the local councillor from the ruling party. When Nayantara had come to know of this, she had gone to his party office, where he stayed all day with his bunch of louts playing cards and carrom, and had a few words with them. There must have been something about the way she had given them a piece of her mind, because they stayed quiet all through.

  I am not afraid any more and they can sense that. There is nothing they can take from me that has not been taken yet.

  Today she felt happy in a loopy sort of way. There was no reason to be happy, not after what had happened to Arijit, but she just did. She had to get up and make something for herself, because the sun was going down and there was nothing in the fridge. But she didn’t want to stand in front of the gas stove, at least not before she had the ginger tea that Sonali had promised. Though she knew Sonali hadn’t gone to work today because she had seen the Haldars leave in a taxi with suitcases tied to the top of the Ambassador, which meant she was probably flirting around with that Bihari guard from the new multi-storeyed building. It would take her more than half an hour to get back.

  Love, Nayantara wondered, what a strange little thing that was. She had seen that Bihari guard walking down the road, checking out every woman that passed by, and he reminded her of Nilendu, the height, the broad shoulders and the roving eye, and could not help but think Sonali would probably end up like her. Or maybe she was a smart girl, though Nayantara was not quite so sure of that, and would take a different path. The girl did have a sweet voice and very good musical memory and she was gifted with a good hand for the sewing machine. But then I had all of that too, Nayantara thought, and look what happened to me.

  There was a lovely breeze outside, rustling through the leaves. The sky was painted in a palette of red and yellow, and the birds were flying home for the day. Two kites swayed crazily up above, and there at the corner house, was a boy and his father holding them up. That boy reminded her of Arijit, he always did – there was some similarity though she never could figure out what it was, or maybe she had reached that point where everyone that age reminded her of Arijit. She sat near the window, watching the kite and the birds fly, lifting her legs up so that they were balanced on the sill. She started humming one song after another, some that her mother had taught her, some she had learned herself, tapping her thigh with her palm in rhythm, looking upwards.

  Everything was finally perfect.

  When Sonali came back, almost two hours had passed.

  ‘Sorry, didimoni, it took a bit longer than I expected, let me make the tea for you.’ The words had barely tumbled out of her mouth when she noticed Nayantara lying on the ground, slumped over to the side.

  ‘Didimoni, didimoni, are you all right?’ Sonali bent down, shaking her by the shoulder.

  There were two perfect wet lines down Nayantara’s cheeks where the tears had rolled down, and yet there was just a hint of a smile still on her lips.

  Nayantara Banerjee was no more.

  Arjun Bhatia looked to his left, and then to his right. It was eight, and there was a cricket match going on. He could hear the commentary coming from multiple houses, which meant there was little chance that anyone would see him. He bent forward, took something out from his pocket, and popped the lock. The last time he had broken a lock was thirty years ago but it felt just like yesterday. It took him a bit more time though, but then again his hands had never shaken like this before, and when the rusty Godrej lock gave way, he breathed easy, unbolted the door and stepped in. The numbness returned to his arms and legs and he stood there alone in the dark.

  He had felt the numbness the day the call had come from Calcutta. It was as if the news was a drug, the type that doctors inject you with before an operation, draining all the sensation away from his arms and legs. At first he could not believe what he heard, and then once he could, he had not been sure what to do. He would not make it to her last rites, he could not, because Arijit and Riti would be there and because he had promised his wife, and yet he had to, just had to, say goodbye, even if it was a hurried visit in the dark, silent like a thief, to the place where they had met for the very last time.

  Arijit was selling off this place, Arjun’s men had told him, and they were giving Nayantara’s stuff away just as she had wanted, s
o there was not much time left before everything was gone. As he moved his torch around, being careful not to turn the lights on lest he alert the neighbours, he realized he may be too late. The living room was almost empty, the table was gone, so were the shelves and the pictures and the chairs, except one chair whose leg was broken, and no one had wanted to take that. Arjun walked into the bedroom and that too had been emptied, the bed was not there though the steel almirah stood heavy, perhaps too ancient for people’s taste. It was open, its contents gone with a few saris still left in the corner. There were boxes packed everywhere, cobwebs on the wall where furniture had been, and Arjun moved the spotlight of his torch around, hoping to recognize something that would trigger a memory, something that held meaning, something of Nayantara that he would recognize.

  He felt forlorn, like he was standing at a desolate station after the last train had left. There was nothing remaining of the person who had once been here, nothing to hold on to, nothing to take back.

  It was silly of me to come, he thought, as he turned towards the door. In the darkness, his foot hit something hard and he winced in pain. Turning his torch downwards, he saw what it was.

  A trunk.

  His heart skipped a beat. He recognized that trunk. Even more than the trunk, he recognized the lock.

  They had bought the lock together from New Market, and he sank to his knees and ran his fingers over the dials. A number-lock.

  Could it still be?

  He turned the black dials slowly, scared that it would not open. But it did. She had not changed the combination all these years. It was the numbers of his birthday.