The Windfall

by Diksha Basu

  “You’re the one who says it’s too lonely and quiet here. It’s only the Chopras and I told them to just drop in for a quick drink, say hello. Is a tie too much? It’s probably too much. Why don’t you wear a skirt tonight?”

  “We need to talk to Rupak. I don’t know how to speak to him anymore.”

  Mr. Jha laughed and shook his head.

  “Marijuana. They call it four twenty,” he said. “There’s some debate over how that became the popular term for it.”

  “Drugs,” Mrs. Jha said, and sat down on the edge of their bed. “What did we do wrong?” She ran her hand along the off-white duvet and smoothed it down.

  “Speaking of skirts, do you think we need to get a bed skirt?” Mr. Jha asked, looking at where his wife was sitting at the edge of the bed.

  They had a coir mattress on a wooden frame, the bottom part of which had drawers that could be pulled out to provide storage space for their extra linens. Why would they want to put a bed skirt on that, and when had her husband learned what a bed skirt was?

  “You know what? I’m going to change. This looks too formal. Like you said, it’s basically a family dinner tonight,” Mr. Jha said.

  “That isn’t what I said.”

  “I’ll put on my tracksuit. Casual but still fashionable. As if maybe I’ve just been to the gym. Oh, Bindu, we simply must remember to speak to the Chopras tonight about joining the LRC. I want to start using the gym.”

  Mr. Jha went into the master bathroom and left the door half open so he could change into his tracksuit while still talking to his wife. They had installed two sinks and two mirrors in the bathroom because Mr. Jha had once seen that in a movie and he liked the idea of it, but Mrs. Jha never used the bathroom at the same time as him.

  “You’ve never been to a gym in your life,” Mrs. Jha said. “If you want to start exercising, come for evening walks with me.”

  “Nobody walks here, Bindu. We’ll make people nervous.”

  “That’s exactly why it’s pleasant to walk here—the roads are nice and empty. We don’t have to watch for rickshaws and cars and cows. Nobody walks on the empty roads here, but the roads around Mayur Palli just get more and more crowded. I don’t understand it.”

  Mr. Jha came out and stood in front of the mirror admiring his tracksuit.

  “Perfect,” he said. “But I think I need to get the elastic in the waist loosened a bit. I seem to be gaining weight. Have you noticed, Bindu, that men usually put their pants either above their paunch or below their paunch? But Mr. Chopra wears his pants smack through the middle of his paunch. What confidence that man has.”

  “Anil, listen to me. Tomorrow we need to have a serious talk with Rupak. Tonight you’ve left me no choice so we have to have the neighbors here, but only one drink and then I want them to leave, okay?”

  “And the soup,” Mr. Jha said. He had insisted that it was rude to send the guests away without at least a small snack, so he had made Mrs. Jha prepare six bowls of mulligatawny soup. He had heard on MasterChef Australia that soup was the in thing to serve these days. “I’ve heard cold soups are particularly in fashion, so see if you can put it in the fridge for some time before the neighbors arrive.”

  “I’m not serving anyone cold soup,” Mrs. Jha said. “I don’t care what the fashion is in Australia or America, but in India, serving someone cold soup is rude.”

  Despite everything, Mrs. Jha was relieved in a way. She wasn’t ready to speak to Rupak yet. Mr. Jha was still standing and looking at himself in the mirror, playing with the waistband of his tracksuit.

  “I’ll leave the shirt tucked in and the jacket unzipped,” he said.

  He patted his face, pulled back his jowls, and sucked in his cheeks. “You know there’s a new type of facelift you can do that specifically makes you look good on Skype and FaceTime. What a world we live in.” He lifted his chin and looked down his nose. “The best plastic surgeon in Delhi is a Mr. Trehan who also lives in Gurgaon, you know.”

  The doorbell rang. He looked at his watch and said, “Who comes at the exact time? Bindu, can you go and answer the door? And where are my white sneakers?”

  He bent down and peeked under the bed. His dark brown leather Woodlands shoes were lying there but not his sneakers. He pulled out the leather shoes and looked at them.

  “Look at how scuffed these are. I shouldn’t have returned that shoe polisher. We could have just kept it upstairs where nobody would have seen it,” Mr. Jha said.

  “What shoe polisher?” Mrs. Jha asked.

  “Bindu, please just go and open the door. I need to find my sneakers,” Mr. Jha said, and walked into the closet to search for his shoes.

  Mrs. Jha patted some baby powder on her nose, checked the pleats of her sari in the mirror, and headed down the stairs to greet the guests.

  “Hurry up, please,” she said. “I don’t want to be the one to explain why Rupak is visiting again so soon.”

  “I already told them he’s in town,” Mr. Jha said, emerging from the closet with his white sneakers in hand.

  “What?” Mrs. Jha said. “What did you say to them?”

  “Nothing, Bindu. Nothing much. I just bumped into Dinesh and told him that Rupak had decided to take some time off from his program. I didn’t say anything more than that.”

  “Please don’t tell them anything more. We can imply that he’s going back next semester. I don’t want the Chopras being so involved in our lives. Now hurry up.”

  Mrs. Jha walked out of the room toward the steps. Rupak heard her footsteps from his bedroom, which was the guest room. There was nothing of his in this room; his parents had clearly not expected him to ever live here. His things were in suitcases and boxes that were hidden away around the house. Most of the furniture in this house was new, and if he were brought to this room, blindfolded, he would never have known that it belonged to his parents. One of the walls was fully mirrored; their Mayur Palli home didn’t have even a single full-length mirror, let alone a mirror wall in every room. Rupak waited until he could no longer hear his mother. He was glad his parents had invited the neighbors over tonight. While his father seemed only happy to have him home, his mother seemed to be avoiding eye contact with him. He knew his parents were not the type to discuss things explicitly, but how could he seamlessly return to life at home after what had happened? Surely it was going to be brought up. And the longer it took to bring up, the more it made Rupak uncomfortable.

  What was he supposed to do next? Was he supposed to enroll in an MBA in India? Was he really supposed to pursue a career in film? And in the meantime, was he supposed to settle into living at home and get back in touch with his old friends and develop a life here in Delhi? Was he supposed to date? Was he supposed to let his parents set him up as an apology for what he was putting them through? As usual, he did not feel like he could make any decisions on his own, but he also did not know how to talk to his parents right now. Which was exactly why he needed a drink, but he decided it was best not to have anything to drink tonight. His parents would think he was not taking the situation seriously if he sat and sipped whiskey with the neighbors all evening.

  Rupak pulled a cream-colored sweater over his dark blue collared shirt that was tucked into a pair of jeans. He was wearing clean brown leather shoes, and he had shaved. He ran his hand through his hair and went downstairs to meet the neighbors.

  His father, in a tracksuit, was coming out of his bedroom at the same time.

  “Ah it’s nice to have you at home, Rupak,” Mr. Jha said. “But why so stiff? It’s just a casual drink with the neighbors tonight. You don’t have to be dressed so formally.”

  Rupak looked down at his outfit.

  “I’m just wearing jeans and a sweater, Papa,” he said.

  “You don’t need to, you know. You can wear shorts and a T-shirt,” Mr. Jha said. “Or a tracksuit. Would you like to borrow one? I bought three.”

  “I’m fine in this. It’s getting cold anyway,” Rupak said.

/>   “It is. It really is. You know what we need? Central heating. Have you noticed that no homes in Delhi have that yet? Everyone still just has those small room heaters that you have to turn on when you enter a room and then you spend half the evening huddled as close to it as possible. Although, come to think of it, I haven’t been in the Chopras’ home since it started getting cold. I wonder if they have central heating. We’ll get it anyway. It’s important these days. Thank God for global warming. Although, in Delhi, it really should be called global cooling,” Mr. Jha said with a laugh. “Oh, Rupak, it’s good to have you home.”

  “Papa, what have you told the neighbors?” Rupak said.

  “I was telling your mother about how in Korean homes, you can turn on appliances from your phone. So I suppose the other option would be to get the room heaters but to hook them up to our phones so we could put them on an hour or two before entering the room to make it nice and warm. That could be an alternative to central heating, if your mother insists. But then I would insist on getting a heater in the bathroom also, and I don’t know how safe that would be.”

  “Anil, Rupak, what are you both doing standing up there? Come downstairs. The guests are here,” Mrs. Jha said, looking up from the base of the stairs.

  “Yes, we are coming. We were just discussing central heating. Rupak also agrees that it’s a good idea. I’m going to look into it tomorrow,” Mr. Jha said. “Global warming, you see.”

  “No, I didn’t say,” Rupak said, but he couldn’t finish his defense to his mother because his father was booming, “Dinesh! Mrs. Chopra! Welcome, welcome. Make yourself at home. How wonderful to see you. Johnny, hello. How nice that you could come too. Sit, sit. Wonderful that we can have both sons home as well. This is Rupak.”

  “Ah, the prodigal son returns. Or is it prodigy? Prodigal? What’s the word I’m looking for?” Mr. Chopra said, looking around the room. Everyone shrugged. “In any case, welcome home, Rupak. It’s nice to finally meet you. Here, we brought along a bottle of white wine for you from”—Mr. Chopra squinted at the bottle—“Italy. A bottle of white wine from Italy. It’s not quite cold enough for now, I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you so much, Uncle,” Rupak said politely. “I’ll put it in the fridge. Please sit.”

  “Careful there,” Mr. Chopra said to his wife. “Do not sit on those small pieces of glass.”

  “Crystals,” Mr. Jha said. “Swarovski crystals. And they are perfectly safe to sit on.”

  “Right,” Mr. Chopra said.

  “I like how they glint,” Mrs. Chopra said.

  Mr. Jha smiled. “I like that also. I ordered it from Japan. I’d be happy to give you the details if you’d like.”

  “So what are we drinking to welcome Rupak home?” Mr. Chopra said.

  “Right this way. All the drinks are set out here,” Mrs. Jha said. Even though it was just the neighbors, Mr. Jha had insisted on setting up a bar of sorts on the side table. He had put out all their spirits, glasses, and even a stainless steel ice bucket with tongs that she didn’t remember ever having bought.

  “And there’s red and white wine if you prefer. The red wine will just have to be decanted first,” Mr. Jha said, smiling and pointing to a crystal decanter.

  “What is that?” Mrs. Jha whispered.

  “I bought it from Amazon. I had to have it rush delivered but thank God, it arrived this morning,” Mr. Jha whispered back.

  “I wouldn’t mind some white wine,” Mrs. Chopra said.

  “You know what? I’ll start with some white wine as well,” Mr. Chopra said. “To toast. And then we can move on to the real liquor.”

  “Excellent idea,” Mr. Jha said.

  “We could have the one you brought with ice if it isn’t quite cold enough yet,” Mrs. Jha suggested, thinking the guests might appreciate that. So she was surprised when Mr. Chopra laughed and her husband joined in laughing even more loudly.

  “Oh, Bindu, we can’t ruin the wine they brought with ice,” Mr. Jha said, shaking his head at Mr. Chopra. “I’ll get a different chilled bottle.”

  Mr. Jha turned to walk toward the kitchen and glared at his wife along the way. In the kitchen, he opened the fridge and took a deep breath. No, he would not be defeated today. Everything was going well—his son was back, halfway through his MBA, which meant that he did not need to earn money, so even if his wife had suggested putting ice cubes in the wine, it was clear that they were wealthy. He reached for the bottle of wine and noticed that the soup was not in the fridge. He looked around and spotted a large glass bowl with the mulligatawny soup on the marble countertop. Soup looked a lot like daal, he thought. He put the large bowl of soup in the fridge and took out the wine.

  When he returned to the living room with the bottle, Mr. Chopra was looking around the room and saying, “Big houses take longer to decorate. It will all come together soon.”

  “Are you planning to put in carpeting?” Mrs. Chopra asked.

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Jha said. “Although I quite like the marble floors. It feels nice and cool in the summers.”

  “Yes, but carpeting feels nice and warm in the winters. It’s difficult to decide,” Mrs. Chopra said. “Global warming has made interior decorating more difficult.”

  “Do let us know if we can help with anything,” Mr. Chopra said. “We have worked with some of the best contractors in the area. They’re more expensive here than in other parts of Delhi, but I say when you’re paying for quality, it’s worth it. Pay less, get less, isn’t that so? I still think you should consider getting some artwork done like we have in our foyer.”

  “That is true,” Mrs. Chopra said. “It really changes the feel of the home to have original art. Did Dinesh tell you that the artists can also do Bollywood re-creations? That’s what I want to get done in the upstairs hall. Maybe a still from some old film. Dhoom—the first one. And now is the time to do it, really. The Singhs who live at the end of the lane—they got their living room wall done just hardly a year or so before their daughter had a child. Practically the week the child started walking, he took a colored marker and destroyed the painting. Can you imagine? I’ve heard the Singhs haven’t spoken to their daughter in over a year now. The artist refused to just clean up the area that was ruined—he said that isn’t how art works. You can’t blame him. So they had to pay the full amount again.”

  “Hard to say who is to blame. That’s why I, personally, think the painting works best on the ceiling,” Mr. Chopra said. “The Singhs should have thought it through. You don’t leave the Mona Lisa lying unprotected on the floor when there is a toddler running around.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Mrs. Chopra said, taking a sip from her glass.

  “Well, I was hoping at some point to get a full bookshelf made along that wall,” Mrs. Jha said. That was really the only decorating thing left on her list.

  “If your books are causing a space problem, you should invest in a Kindle. There’s no reason to fill up the house with books these days,” Mr. Chopra said.

  “He is correct,” Mrs. Chopra said. “I download everything onto my iPad. You can even get full magazine subscriptions. All the film magazines—can you imagine? But I just love the feel of magazines in my hand, so I still get hard copies of those. I can’t resist. And I love those folded pages with the perfume samples—say what you will, you can’t get that on an iPad.”

  “I like books,” Johnny said to Mrs. Jha. She smiled at him.

  “Drinks! Here’s the white wine we have. It’s from Chile and it’s nice and cold,” Mr. Jha said.

  “You know, I’m glad Chile has started manufacturing wine,” Mr. Chopra said. “Those wines are so much cheaper to get in India. Italian wines or French wines cost an arm and a leg here. Does it taste decent?”

  Mr. Jha put the bottle down on the counter with more force than he had expected, his limbs suddenly heavy.

  “I’ll have a whiskey, if you don’t mind,” Johnny said. He moved to the counter and poured himself about four f
ingers’ worth from the bottle of Black Label. He dropped two ice cubes into the glass and returned to the sofa.

  Mr. Chopra said, “Look at that. Look at how much he drinks. He has no sense of the value of money. Rupak, you must speak to Johnny. You heard about the plagiarizing.”

  Johnny looked at his father, raised his glass, smiled mischievously, and drank.

  “Well, Mr. Chopra,” Mr. Jha said. “Look on the bright side. At least he is plagiarizing from a talented poet. He has taste. And that is the first step for success. Mark my words. And writing can be very lucrative these days. It is a good decision. Secure. Wine for everyone else?”

  “I’ll just have a plain soda, Papa, thanks. I’ll get it myself,” Rupak said. His mother smiled at him. Mr. Jha was silent. His family was so uncooperative. He was worried he would never completely win.

  “Did you hear that, Johnny?” Mr. Chopra said, laughing and shaking his head. “Rupak, I want to know more about your filmmaking plans. I want you to talk to Johnny. He should learn some sense of responsibility from you. Look at you working hard. You know that you can’t rely on your parents’ money forever.”

  “Filmmaking is more of a hobby for him,” Mrs. Jha added. How did Mr. Chopra know about Rupak’s interest in film?

  “You know how young people are these days,” Mr. Jha said. “Not a care in the world—they think hobbies can be real careers. What can we do? It’s our fault really, for having spoiled them so much. Anyway, what can we do but support him?”

  “You shouldn’t worry; you won’t have to support him,” Mr. Chopra said. “Filmmaking is where all the money is these days. Your son is your own retirement plan, Anil! Just look at all those Bollywood people—they’re buying up homes in Dubai left and right. Very good decision, Rupak.”

  “No, my mother’s right, it’s more of a hobby. I’m probably going to finish my degree in India itself. The Indian Institute of Management has a good program and I like living here,” Rupak said. “There are so many opportunities. America just hasn’t been the same since the recession.”