Half of What I Say

by Anil Menon

  Cheers. Thump, thump, thump.

  ‘Now Anand will close this evening with a few words of wisdom. Anand?’

  ‘What?’ Anand gathered he was expected to say something. Now? He hadn’t expected to give any speech but suddenly he was eager to do so. His head felt foggy, slightly swollen, wobbly but the thin grey depression that had taken hostage of his soul ever since Phiroz’s funeral had retreated to the black rim of his awareness. It was a lovely feeling. He rose to his feet, someone thrust a bottle in his hand. Anand took a deep swig of the bitter fluid, set the bottle down, acknowledged the noise with a smile.

  ‘When Eshwar came to me seven months ago, I wasn’t sceptical. I didn’t understand everything he told me, but I was excited. Mind you, I wasn’t excited by his vision. We have no shortage of people with big visions. I have listened to lots of fairy tales over the years. No, I was excited because I knew Eshwar was also a doer. An entrepreneur. So when Eshwar came to me, saying, let’s do this, my thought wasn’t can he do this, but instead, is this the wrong thing to do? It was. I didn’t need to do this project.’

  He paused. Then smiled, fiercely.

  ‘But sometimes the wrong thing to do is the right thing to do.’

  Thump, thump, thump.

  ‘My sister-in-law who is a brilliant computer scientist once told me that God is a mathematician. Maybe. But if God wants to make His math available to the world, if He wants to bring it to market, hell, if the Almighty wants a market, then He is going to need an entrepreneur!’

  Cheers. Thump, thump, thump.

  ‘But I didn’t come here to talk heavy philosophy. I just want to say, I’m proud to be a part of this project, proud to be a part of this group of doers. We can’t afford to be complacent. But seeing what we have achieved so far, I’m now even more confident we will succeed in what we set out to achieve. Jai Bharat.’

  Jai Bharat. Jai Bharat. Thump, thump, thump.

  He sat down, alive and atremble from the sincerity of the moment. He had wanted to end with Vande Mataram. Oh well. Anand shook hands, accepted their congratulations though he wasn’t sure for what, and smiled when Maddy said possessively, arre, let Anand-sir breathe.

  Some of the developers asked for his business card and then everyone wanted one. Ratnakar distributed the candy.

  His kingdom partitioned into clusters and to his surprise the party had begun to wind down. People were drifting off, in ones and twos. He had expected the celebration to go on well into the midnight; he’d expected it would shift at some point to Eshwar’s mansion; he’d expected music and all sorts of naughty mischief. What about dinner? But all around him, a dissociating, multi-jointed insect was getting ready for flight. Bags being collected, last-minute commits were being made, people were having conversations with each other even as they spoke into cellphones. This was it?

  It felt too early to return to the hotel. If he’d known the party would end this early, he would have chartered a late night flight, not one next morning. Eshwar came over, put an arm around him, led him away.

  ‘Are we packing up? This is early, Eshwar.’

  ‘It’s nine, da. People have to go home. Families, kids. We’re on our own tonight. I have several options. First, do you want to take Ratna along or not?’

  ‘That sounds like I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Depends.’ Eshwar looked hesitant, an expression that didn’t suit his face. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way but I deliberately didn’t plan anything at my place. Last time, I got the feeling you were kinda put off.’

  ‘Nonsense, Eshwar! I was just tired and you’d given me a lot to think about. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Are you up for some music and dance? It’s a little non-veg. I know this place in Koramangala. It’s called Gaylords. Heard of it? Friendly ladies. Good food. Classy. You’ll like it.’

  ‘Friendly? Like a massage parlour?’

  ‘No, no. Relax Anand. It’s not a whorehouse. At least, not unless you want it to be.’ Eshwar Pillai looked as if he were regretting the suggestion. Regret also didn’t sit well on his face. ‘It’s just like a pub, but look, why the hell pay through your nose to go sit somewhere and stare at other boozy idiots? I like to look at a pretty face while I’m drinking.’

  ‘Sure.’ Anand felt his heart race. ‘I feel like celebrating.’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Eshwar punched his arm. ‘They’ll have Indian beer. Can’t guarantee desi chicks though.’

  Anand smiled. ‘Manageable.’

  ‘Ratna’s solid, right? He knows how to keep his mouth shut? I don’t want bhabhi getting annoyed with me. That could jeopardize our project.’

  ‘She won’t mind.’ Padma couldn’t care less, he thought. There wasn’t a marital sin he could commit she wouldn’t forgive. She had lavished more attention on him in the last few weeks than she’d done in the past five years. She seemed determined to act as though nothing had broken, everything was just the way it always had been, that there wasn’t this desolate emptiness between them.

  She had insisted on giving him a clumsy blowjob before he’d left for Bangalore.

  He held on to the hope that his real Padma, the one who lay, head turned, eyes closed, as he made love to her, the one who took him for granted, the one who ignored him, the one who could make his day with a spontaneous tender gesture, the one who had been his wife, that Padma was still there somewhere in this disgusting lesbian—

  ‘Gents’ night out,’ he told Eshwar, smiling.

  ‘Bombat! Still, what happens here, et cetera. Believe me, I speak from experience. Wives and good times with other women don’t mix.’

  ‘Of course. Yes, Ratnakar’s solid. No need to worry. And I’ll be discreet.’

  ‘Yes, discreet. Lying makes everything twice as fun, doesn’t it? The place picks up around ten, so let’s grab a small bite first. I know this ex-stockbroker who makes kathi rolls you’d die for. Bit of a hike, it’s in Jayanagar. The rolls are a little heavy on the ghee but it will help keep the booze down. We’ll gorge ourselves after the club. I know another place you got to try. Do you smoke, Anand?’

  ‘Briefly, in college. Gave it up.’

  ‘Smart guy. Yes, it’s a filthy habit. Toxic.’ He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply.

  Eshwar Pillai talked non-stop as he navigated the Lexus through the streets of Bangalore. Eshwar’s driver sat with Ratnakar in the backseat, and Anand sitting up front with Eshwar, reflected that this arrangement would upset Padma more than anything else he might do that night. Not that he was going to do anything per se. He checked his phone. Another smiley message from Padma. Luv u! Call me! The fourth this evening.

  ‘Everything okay?’ asked Eshwar.

  ‘Yes. I was really impressed with your QA manager. What is her name?’

  ‘Maddy? Yes, she’s a firecracker. I found her rotting in a Cupertino sweatshop. One of my best hires. She just got engaged to some IIT twit. Last June. Arranged.’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Anand, approvingly.

  ‘Nice? What’s nice about it? Are we breeding dogs?’

  They argued. Eshwar thought the debate was between arranged marriages and love marriages. Anand thought the debate was between arranged marriages and accidental marriages, or if Eshwar preferred, coincidence marriages.

  He’d had enough arguments with Eshwar Pillai to take advantage of the general pattern. Eshwar wasn’t a disciplined debater and the less he knew about a subject, the more emotionally he frothed. The only danger was his brilliant mind which had to be kept busy with data to keep it from thinking. Anand could cite data proving arranged marriages were not only natural, not only found in every era and every society, not only more robust and long-lasting, not only to the advantage of ugly people, they also removed a major source of distraction from one’s most fruitful years.

  When Eshwar was reduced to ‘Balls!’, ‘Gimme a break’, and ‘C’mon, Dixit!’, the argument was won.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Anand, reflectively. �
�Arranged marriages have their pluses and minuses. You don’t know what you’re getting in an arranged marriage. I have a friend whose spouse turned out to be a lesbian. Terrible shock.’

  ‘You don’t say. We’ve reached.’ Eshwar turned into the C-shaped plaza’s parking lot. ‘Roll Of A Lifetime. Cool name. Names are half the battle.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Anand, and then added, ‘What would you do if something like that happened to you? Discovering the wife was a lesbian?’

  ‘I’d enjoy it. You know Anand, I’d like to take Indian snacks global. We have such great lentil snacks. Let me intro you to the owner.’

  The ex-stockbroker, a chilled-out six-foot-plus Punjabi, was one of those chaps who’d had a mid-life crisis, and in this case, met the Buddha of the art of making delicious kathi rolls. He spoke excellent English, wore a chef’s cap of his own design, and took orders from his wife, a short, skinny, high-energy woman. Together the couple seemed as much in sync as the two hands of a perfectly functioning clock. Anand couldn’t take his eyes off the fridge to the left of the cash register.

  Cream-white, squat, ugly-adorable, a pug in the family of fridges.

  ‘Would you be interested in selling that fridge?’ he asked the owner, casually.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t!’ The wife’s outraged expression suggested the proposal had been most indecent indeed. The man said something to her, she barked something back in Punjabi. In all likelihood, the next kathi roll would be ruined.

  ‘It’s a 1972 Godrej,’ explained Anand, in response to Eshwar’s enquiring look. ‘The Housewife’s Delight.’

  ‘Collecting?’

  ‘Using. They’re hard to come by. I have one in my bathroom. I’ve been trying to find a duplicate for my office. The fridge’s a technical triumph. Like our tablet. Made by Indians, in India. Same spirit. When Godrej introduced the fridge, they were having major union problems. Naval Godrej was even stabbed in his home. He died from the wounds. Nobody sees the effort and the politics in these things. My fridge still works, thirty, forty years later. But even if it didn’t, I’d still keep the fridge. I love antiques, ruins, old things.’

  ‘If you love it, you love it. The way I think of passion is, it’s like Indian plumbing. There’s no rhyme or reason. By the way, your friend, what happened?’

  ‘Friend?’

  ‘The one with the lesbo wife?’

  ‘Oh. Well.’ Anand hesitated. ‘He told me he’s looking for a cure.’

  ‘Cure for what?’

  ‘He’s convinced lesbians can be converted.’

  ‘To what? Christianity? Islam?’ Eshwar laughed. ‘What was your gyaan?’

  ‘Do I look like an expert on lesbians?’

  ‘Hilarious!’ This time Eshwar’s laugh was a howl. ‘Anand Dixit, the Gay Whisperer.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘I have a question. You and bhabhi, arranged marriage or love marriage?’

  ‘Love marriage.’

  ‘You bastard! And the way you defended Maddy—’

  ‘Mine was an arranged love marriage.’ He felt nostalgic just saying the words. ‘We are from different castes et cetera, so I had to do some arranging to get my family to accept her. But Padma gave me a lot to work with. It was harder to get Padma to accept me. I found mutual friends, we met several times. I was very attracted to her but I always think long-term and I wasn’t hundred percent sure. Also, she came across as modern and sophisticated whereas I am somewhat old-fashioned. But her family was a big help. Especially her mother and younger sister. I think Padma had so many men chasing her, she couldn’t tell signal from noise anymore. So she relied on her family. In statistics, there’s this concept—’

  ‘Dude, I know all about signal and noise. So you patao’d the younger sister first. This is fascinating. Ratna my man, were you around at the time?’

  ‘That’s another story,’ said Anand. ‘Padma—’

  Suddenly he couldn’t go on, the rush of memories crowding out the desire to share. He hadn’t really been sure about Padma until after some three months of courting he’d paid a visit, unannounced, to the family’s small 3-BHK apartment in Chembur. She hadn’t been very pleased. Her parents had made up for Padma’s coldness. They’d been jovial and welcoming. He always got along really well with mothers. And Kannagi, of course, impish and American, displaying innocent flashes of belly button, thighs and cleavage, until her mother had barked something in Tamil, very rude, very fast, and she left in a huff, saying something about board exams.

  Padma, clad in a frumpy potato-sack of a nightdress, her hands marked with fading henna, distracted and irritated, yet unlike in previous meetings also strangely unguarded, all defences lowered, as if she had resigned to being exposed, he had thought, for exactly who she was, a simple middle-class girl.

  Should have been kinder after Padma’s failed attempt at a blowjob. He’d been repelled and angry. Should have been kinder.

  ‘Someone doesn’t like me any more,’ she’d said, managing a smile. Padma had gone to the bathroom for her ablutions and he’d fallen asleep.

  ‘Anand? You’re null looping, man. You and bhabhi?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. Truth is Eshwar, I don’t recall how we decided to get married. I’m not sure I even made a decision at all. But I can’t think about it or talk about it except as a story. I don’t see any inconsistencies but I’m not sure whether events really happened the way I remember them or I’m simply a collection of liars all converging on a common story. In a way I’m glad. A perfect memory will leave no room for illusions at all.’

  ‘Very true, brother Anand.’ Eshwar’s smile was genuinely affectionate. ‘I’m glad it worked out. I can tell you two are still in love.’ He paused. ‘You are, right?’

  ‘Of course I love Padma—I love ruins.’ The joke made Eshwar laugh but Anand only felt the desolation return. He had been disloyal. She had been unfaithful. What a twist of the natural order. ‘What about you, Eshwar? Why didn’t you re-marry?’

  ‘If you want to live my life, you have to pay a price. I figured if you want to like women, you can’t love them. But enough about wives. Are you done, Anand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Anand pushed away the plate. ‘I’m stuffed. I don’t think I’ll need dinner.’

  ‘You will, later. Okay, let’s get going. We’re going to need some cash. The place we’re going takes cards but the girls need cash.’

  Anand glanced at Ratnakar, who nodded.

  ‘I don’t need to get cash,’ said Anand, getting up.

  ‘Okay, but I do. Ratna my man, I might have to borrow some money before the night is out.’

  ‘No problem, sir.’

  ‘He says money’s no problem,’ joked Eshwar to Anand. ‘I need an Ratnakar. Where do you shop for a Ratnakar? Hang on, I won’t be long.’

  When Eshwar had disappeared into the ATM booth, Ratnakar caught Anand by the arm and murmured: ‘Sir, madam has sent me an SMS, asking me to inform you to call her.’

  Nuisance. Now she’d begun pestering Ratnakar with SMS messages. What next? An FIR? He knew the simplest solution was to call Padma and get it over with. But the more she wanted a response, the less inclined he was to give one.

  ‘Tell madam I’m busy and will call tomorrow.’

  ‘Call madam…’ Ratnakar fingered his button. He didn’t like lying to Padma. ‘Her message asked me to inform you to call her, sir.’

  ‘SMS her that I’m busy.’

  ‘Okay sir.’ Ratnakar started to key in his response. But his face remained distressed and when he was done typing, he said: ‘Sent. But madam won’t be happy.’

  Stuff it. Padma certainly wouldn’t like having to go through the help. She had an overly keen sense of status. An SMS message from the Maharani and Ratnakar hadn’t called her back immediately? Ratnakar was screwed. Well, it was his own bloody fault. He could have called, but noooo, Harishchandra had scruples. Harishchandra didn’t want to lie. Suffer, then. Padma wasn’t paying his salary. Loyalty man! Some loyalty.

  Ratnakar ra
rely showed any expression but tonight his face seemed judgmental. Anand began to resent the fellow’s attitude. It smacked of ingratitude and presumption, not to mention, hypocrisy. He had wanted to bring Ratnakar along on the gents’ night out, because he wasn’t just an assistant. He deserved a good time. Also to prove that he, Anand, had nothing to hide. But if this was Ratnakar’s attitude, might as well ask him to return to the hotel.

  That might be a lot safer too. If Ratnakar didn’t want to come along and it was obvious he didn’t, he was liable to spill the beans to Padma with some inadvertent remark. Why give the universe an opportunity?

  ‘You’re very boyish today, sir.’

  ‘Boyish?’ Anand laughed, surprised. ‘Yes, in a mood for celebrating. This project wasn’t like other projects. Now let’s have some harmless fun, eh Ratnakar? Life is not just work-work.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You deserve to relax.’

  Splendid fellow. You could always count on Ratnakar. Worth his weight in gold. Anand felt virile, unencumbered.

  ‘Madam,’ said Ratnakar uneasily, touching a pocket of his safari-suit. Anand first pretended he hadn’t heard, then held out his hand for the cell.

  Padma had left a message on Ratnakar’s phone. She had checked in at a Vipassana meditation retreat in Gurgaon. No calls unless there was an emergency. It was a three-part program and each part was week-long. Padma was sorry she hadn’t been able to discuss the retreat with him but she hoped Anand would understand. She just needed some time to think things over. She had some instructions for Kannagi; the wretched girl was also offline for some reason. Anand was to take care of himself. She would see him soon.

  The voice, the detachment. He caught a reflection of himself in the bank’s large glass windows. Still vital, still capable of delusions of eternal youth. He was going to paint the town red. The situation is excellent!

  ‘Everything all right?’ Eshwar put away the wallet, loosed his belt a notch. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. I just fucking hate banks. Okay Anand, ready to bring some Anandam to the ladies?’

  ‘Eshwar.’ Anand put away the phone.