The Accidental Apprentice: A Novel

by Vikas Swarup

  ‘You know what they say about marriage. It happens when it has to happen.’

  ‘But have you found your Mr Right yet?’

  I do not reply, but her question brings back memories of that night I kissed Karan. His taste still lingers on my lips; his scent still hovers in the air around me. But there is an awkward distance between us now, as though I have crossed some kind of invisible boundary, a lakshman rekha. I feel hurt, almost betrayed, by his aloofness that night. It has left me confused and bewildered. Does he not like me any more? Does he have a secret girlfriend? Is he just very shy? Or am I unfairly rushing to judgement of someone who was probably as overwhelmed by the situation as I was? There are so many questions that burn within me. But I dare not ask him because I fear his answer. All I know is that I don’t want to lose Karan. I need time to think and work this all out, figure out his true feelings about me, feelings that he keeps hidden deep inside him, locked away in some dark black box.

  I’ll find the key to that box eventually. And till then I’ll lock my dreams inside my heart, where no one can steal them.

  * * *

  A fortnight later the Cricket World Cup starts and everything else takes a back seat. Like the rest of the country, I too get caught up in the hoopla surrounding the Indian team’s victory over Bangladesh in the opening match.

  Another week goes by. By now I have almost forgotten about my RTI application when out of the blue I get a call on the office number. It is the SDM himself. ‘Madam, I just wanted to let you know that…’ he begins, and then stops abruptly.

  ‘That what?’

  ‘That today we raided the illegal lock factory and…’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And we closed it down. We rescued thirty-five children. They will all receive…’

  ‘Receive what, for god’s sake?’

  ‘Educational rehabilitation to the tune of twenty thousand rupees each as provided under the Child Labour Act. Is there anything else…?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say and put down the receiver, unable to believe the news. It seems too good to be true. But the evening newspapers carry the story of Mirza Metal Works being sealed. There are even photos of Anees Mirza being led away by the police like a common criminal, his face veiled by a headscarf.

  Lauren is over the moon. ‘Hail to the RTI!’ she whoops. ‘I was always told that information is power. Now I’ve seen it too. Today we begin to shape the future for each of those thirty-five kids.’

  ‘Yes,’ I concur. ‘Today we unlock their dreams.’

  * * *

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me your cell phone number had changed?’ Acharya launches into a complaint the moment I step into his office. It is Thursday, 3 March, and I have been summoned, as usual, at barely an hour’s notice.

  ‘My old Nokia got stolen,’ I explain. ‘I’ve got an Indus Mobile phone now.’

  ‘That’s the same as mine. At least it won’t cost me now when I call you. Make sure Rana has your new number. It is important that you remain accessible to me at all times.’

  A ripple of irritation runs through me. I have half a mind to tell him he doesn’t own me, when he breaks into a smile. ‘Anyway, I called you to congratulate you on passing the third test.’

  ‘And what exactly was this test?’

  ‘The test of courage. The way you stood up for those kids, the way you withstood the threat from Anees Mirza, the mafia boss, refusing to back down till his illegal workshop was closed, can only be described as courageous.’

  I spring to my feet. ‘That’s it. I’m not participating in your tests any longer.’

  He looks up sharply. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’

  ‘You denied that you are keeping me under surveillance. But there’s absolutely no way you could have known about my run-in with Anees Mirza. I didn’t even tell anyone in the showroom.’

  ‘But you did file an application under the Right to Information, and I got the story from here,’ he says, holding up a magazine.

  I take it from his hands. It is the February issue of a publication called RTI News, brought out by an NGO called Resurgent India, and on page 32 there is an article expounding how my timely RTI intervention helped save thirty-five children from hazardous employment. It is unnerving how the industrialist manages to get hold of every little bit of information concerning me.

  ‘To chart out a course of action, and follow it to the end, requires a leader to show a great deal of courage,’ Acharya continues. ‘And I’m not referring to the physical courage a soldier needs for combat, but the moral courage to always do the proper thing regardless of the consequences. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear: it is the ability to act in spite of fear and overwhelming opposition.’

  ‘I still don’t get how courage applies to a corporation.’

  ‘It’s simple.’ Acharya smiles. ‘The most common fear in a CEO is the fear of failure. A good leader has learnt to conquer this fear. He or she takes calculated risks boldly, knowing that the greatest fear is not taking the wrong action, but not taking action at all. That is the fear of regret, the regret of not having tried.’

  I nod. It brings to mind a quote of Kierkegaard I read once: ‘To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.’

  ‘We should never allow fear to limit ourselves. To face a challenge with courage is the true test of leadership. Leadership without courage is like a racing car without an accelerator. It can sputter about for ages but will never cross the finish line.’ His voice drops a little low, and a tinge of bitterness creeps into it. ‘Of course, sometimes even with the best racing car you can fail to cross the finish line, if you have a saboteur in your midst.’

  I seize on his cutting allusion. ‘This reminds me, any further news on that mole in the company?’

  ‘No,’ he sighs. ‘But last week we lost yet another tender to the Premier Group to supply technology for the national ID card.’

  ‘So the mole is obviously someone supplying information to the Premier Group.’

  ‘Correct. That has always been the way my brother Ajay Krishna Acharya has operated. Subterfuge, duplicity and chicanery come naturally to him.’

  ‘I hope you find the traitor, whoever he is,’ I commiserate.

  ‘That I will,’ he says grimly.

  I glance at my watch. It’s almost 2 p.m. ‘I’d better go.’ I rise from the chair. ‘I should also tell you that I won’t be around for the rest of the month.’

  He looks up. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘To Mumbai. My sister Neha has been selected for the final audition of Popstar No. 1 and I will be accompanying her. I’ve already taken leave for a fortnight.’

  ‘In that case, good luck to your sister. And to you too.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Who knows? There may be another test in store for you.’

  * * *

  ‘Have you considered one possibility?’ Karan asks me when I narrate my latest meeting with Acharya to him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That those boys who attacked you outside the Japanese Park might not be Anees Mirza’s men.’

  ‘Then who sent them?’

  ‘My hunch is they were hired by Acharya. Just so that he could give you the certificate of courage.’

  The suggestion is so horrific that I am startled into silence.

  ‘Why don’t you just quit this nonsense, stop seeing that warped bastard?’

  With a determined thrust of my chin, I take his hand in mine. ‘You have yourself a deal. If this turns out to be Acharya’s handiwork, I am not going to have anything to do with him. Ever.’

  The Fourth Test

  The Blindness of Fame

  Suddenly there is a hush in the air. The sky blushes with the opalescent tints of the dying day as the red ball of the sun begins to slowly sink into the ocean, silhouetting the fishermen’s boats bobbing on golden water. In the far distance the ramparts of skyscrapers and high-rise condominiums stand ou
t in clear relief. The incessant clamour of the world is stilled, with not even a wispy breath of wind. It is just the gentle waves lapping at my feet, the sand getting into my toes, the shrill cries of the gulls circling overhead, and the crisp tang of salt in my nostrils.

  For someone like me, who has never dipped her toes in an ocean before, it is an exhilarating feeling of pure transcendence. The mountains of Nainital evoked in me a spiritual experience, a sense of endurance and timelessness. The frothy ocean of Mumbai conveys a feeling of boundless freedom, much like the city itself. Delhi seems like a bastion of conservatism compared with the relaxed promiscuity of Mumbai. There are lovers necking unabashedly behind me on Chowpatty Beach, oblivious to the tittering onlookers. The fashionably forward girls have no qualms about flashing their cleavage and their bellybuttons to the world. And even the beggars who besiege tourists at the Gateway of India aren’t the least bit embarrassed to show off their dance moves in public.

  Neha and I arrived here less than twenty-four hours ago and already we are under Mumbai’s spell. People say Mumbai is about money, as Delhi is about power, but that’s not entirely true. Mumbai is ultimately about opportunity, a brash city of big dreams and rough ambition, which wears its heart on its sleeve. This is also a city of hyperbole, where everything is bigger, higher, faster. For those who live here, Mumbai is its own country. But, for the rest of India, it is a Siren, singing an irresistibly enticing song of glamour, glory and gold.

  Neha is completely seduced by it. She can sniff her destiny in Mumbai’s humid air. This is the city she was born to rule. And her ticket to success is Popstar No. 1, the singing talent contest that has brought us here.

  We landed at VT station last evening by train from Delhi and were whisked away to Colaba, at the southern tip of the city. That is where we received our first shock. The accommodation provided us by the organisers was a dilapidated primary school. The classrooms have been converted into dormitories and we were put up in one with seven other outstation contestants and their chaperones. Neha was horrified at the thought of sharing a room with a bunch of strangers and having to use communal toilets. She was probably expecting to be put up at the Taj.

  Today was an off day, for sightseeing. And we saw everything, from the Hanging Gardens to Marine Drive to Haji Ali. We passed by the slums of Dharavi and the skyscrapers of Nariman Point. We travelled in the jam-packed local trains where the crush of sweaty bodies pressing in from all sides was almost overwhelming. We peeped into the chawls – the tenements offering cheap, basic accommodation – which were full of men in vests who leaned casually on their balconies and watched street life below. We had vada pav in Prabhadevi and bhel puri in Juhu. And now we are in Chowpatty, the last stop before heading back to Colaba.

  The sheer size of Mumbai is breathtaking. It really is maximum city, where the rich and the poor, the worldly and the saintly, jostle each other every day, chasing that same elusive dream of making it big.

  Now the denizens of the city have been joined by forty new contenders, the contestants of Popstar No. 1, all of them between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, each one of them lured by the promise of overnight success and instant fame.

  * * *

  That night I get my first introduction to the seven in our dormitory.

  Gaurav Karmahe is from Jharkhand, a state made famous by M. S. Dhoni, the captain of the Indian cricket team. A third-year student of mechanical engineering at IIT-Kharagpur, he claims that singing is in his blood. ‘You just hear me sing, and you’ll think Mohammad Rafi has been reincarnated in me,’ he asserts.

  Anita Patel is a bespectacled home-science student from Bhavnagar in Gujarat. Her spokesman is her father, a shrewd businessman with a calculative mind and a tendency to deal in big figures. ‘When Anita wins the contest, she will get a recording contract and forty lakhs cash,’ he says. ‘I have decided to plough the forty lakhs into a fixed-income fund. At the end of twenty years we will get a minimum of two crores plus free life insurance. Not a bad investment, eh?’

  Javed Ansari, the sixteen-year-old son of a rickshaw puller from Lucknow, exudes a boyish charm and a cocky confidence. ‘I have been singing since I was five. It is my destiny that has brought me to Mumbai,’ he tells me. ‘I don’t care if I win or not, but I am not going back to Lucknow after this. This is the city where I have to make my mark. And make my mark I will. Nothing can stop me.’

  Eighteen-year-old Koyal Yadav is another child prodigy from the backwaters of Bihar. ‘She started singing when she was just two years old. That is why we named her Koyal – cuckoo,’ her mother says proudly. ‘Her father is himself a well-known harmonium player who works with a Bhojpuri musical troupe. My daughter’s kismat is very strong. I can sense something big in store for her.’

  Jasbeer Deol is the only Sikh in the competition. He is a strapping teenager whose father runs a prosperous business in Ludhiana making woollen blankets. ‘What made you decide to become a singer?’ I ask him. ‘Wouldn’t you have done quite well in the family business?’

  ‘I don’t want money,’ he answers frankly. ‘I want recognition.’

  ‘And why is that so?’

  ‘See, my father has slaved for the last thirty years to earn his wealth. But even then his photo did not appear in the newspaper even once. I sang for just three minutes to win the regional audition and the very next day my photo was splashed in the local papers. What does this show? That it’s better to be famous than rich.’

  According to the rooming list given to us, there is another girl in the dormitory, nineteen-year-old Mercy, with no surname. I discover her hiding behind the curtain, a silver crucifix dangling from her neck. Dressed in a cheap cotton sari, she is frail-looking, with frizzy hair, crooked teeth and a face disfigured by leucoderma. The blotchy white patches give her skin an unhealthy pallor, as if it were made of wax that is slowly melting away.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I query her gently.

  ‘Goa,’ she replies, staring fixedly at her feet encased in worn-out rubber slippers.

  ‘Who has come with you? Your father?’

  ‘I don’t have anyone,’ she replies, shrinking in on herself, as if trying to make herself smaller than she already is.

  Before I can probe her further, I am waylaid by Nisar Malik, a handsome seventeen year old, who has come all the way from Pahalgam in Kashmir. ‘Didda, would you lend me twenty rupees?’

  ‘Why?’ I raise my eyebrows. ‘Don’t you have any money?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I left my house three days ago with just a hundred rupees in my pocket. Now I don’t even have a twenty-five-paise coin on me. Don’t worry, I’ll return it to you with interest once I win.’

  I reluctantly part with a twenty-rupee note. ‘What made you participate in the contest?’

  ‘Just one thing – the desire for fame,’ he says with mournful earnestness. ‘I don’t want to live a life of anonymity, didda. I’d rather die tomorrow as a famous person than live a hundred years in obscurity.’

  Hearing the painful convictions of these contestants, the way they boast without irony, gets me thinking. What is it that makes people so desperate to be famous? Why this perpetual clawing for recognition, this obsession to be noticed, to stand out from the crowd? I think it’s a kind of sickness, a virus in the blood, circulated by television. And the infection has spread far and wide, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Fame is no longer seen as a by-product of talent, but as an end in itself. Everyone wants to become an instant celebrity. And being on TV is the quickest way to achieve this. That is why we have contestants willing to do just about anything to get on a reality show. They will eat cockroaches, abuse their parents, have sex, get married, announce divorce and even give birth on camera. Anything that can possibly be done in real life is now being packaged as a reality show. And the envelope is constantly being pushed. We now have a show based on past-life regression, as if this life weren’t exciting enough.

  I find reality TV as morbidly fascin
ating as watching a car accident: you want to avert your eyes, but you cannot help but be captured by what is taking place.

  Neha is not thinking such thoughts. She is busy checking out the competition. ‘If the rest of the field is like these idiots’ – she flicks a contemptuous look around the room – ‘I’ll win hands down.’

  I admire her steely self-confidence. But I also worry how she will handle failure. As with other TV contests, the winner of Popstar No. 1 will be chosen ultimately by audience vote. And, as our politicians have learnt time and again, there is nothing more fickle than a voter.

  * * *

  The show begins in earnest the next day. We are all taken to Mehboob Studio in Bandra where the forty contestants are formally introduced to each other.

  The set is retro chic, made to look like a classy nightclub of the kind that used to be quite common in Hindi movies of the 1970s. Painted with a dark palette of reddish brown, deep mauve and blue, it features a black, grooved, circular rotating stage modelled like a record from the 78-r.p.m. era. The noir atmosphere is accentuated by the dramatic lighting, hazy reds and purples that bathe the stage in a dreamlike glow. There are more than two hundred people in the studio audience, consisting of members of the general public and friends and relatives of the contestants.

  The producer-cum-director is a tall, gangly hipster who looks like a reggae musician with his goatee and dreads. A Syrian Christian from Kerala, he goes by the name of Mathew George. Dressed in scuffed jeans and sneakers, he explains the ground rules to the contestants like a coach prepping a new team. ‘The first thing you all must know is that Popstar No.1 is not a musical talent show. It is an entertainment show, a cross between Bigg Boss and Indian Idol. So I don’t want just your songs: I also want your life, with all its messiness, sorrows, uncertainties, with all its beauty and ugliness. I want your tears, I want your fears. I want catfights, scandals, lovers’ tiffs. I want your dark secrets, your dirty laundry. I want everything that you have within yourself to come screaming out, announcing to the world why you and only you deserve to become Popstar No. 1, and how you will stop at nothing to get there. Remember, the world only worships number one. It has no place for the number twos. History is severe upon the vanquished. So rise up, fight and claim your crown.’