2 States: The Story of My Marriage

by Chetan Bhagat

  ‘I was going to do that, soon.’ He swallowed hard.

  I kept my left elbow on the table and my palm on my forehead. I flipped through the slides in reverse to reach the first.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘Anything wrong in what I’ve done?’

  I turned to him and gave a slight smile. ‘No, a few finishing touches left,’ I said.

  ‘So, how do we do it?’

  ‘Let’s start by you telling me what exactly you do at the bank. And then take me through these files.’

  I shut the laptop. For the next three hours I understood what a deputy district manager does at a public sector bank. Actually, there is a lot of work, contrary to my belief that government bank staff did nothing. However, a lot of the work is about reporting, approvals and maintaining certain records. It is more bureaucracy and less business.

  I yawned as he finished explaining how the staff-recruiting process works in his Egmore district. I looked at the wall clock. It was nine-thirty.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t even ask you for dinner,’ Mr Swaminathan said.

  ‘It’s OK, keep going. I’ll wash my face,’ I said and pulled back my chair.

  I came back from the bathroom and uncle had brought two steel plates and a bowl of lemon rice. He put the bowl in the microwave to heat the food. ‘Sorry, I can’t give you proper dinner tonight. I told the maid to make something simple,’ he said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said as I took the plates off him. I went to the kitchen. I picked up the curd and water. I saw the spoons but decided not to take them.

  ‘Manju?’ I asked as I returned to the table.

  ‘He ate already. He wakes up at four so he has to sleep now,’ uncle said.

  We ate in silence. For the first time in their house, I felt welcome. Sure, they’d given me breakfast and a lift to work three days a week. However, today was different. Uncle refilled my plate when I finished and poured water for me. We continued to work after dinner until he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  ‘It’s eleven-thirty, I’d better go,’ I said. I shut down my laptop and stacked all the papers together.

  ‘Yes,’ uncle said as he looked at his watch. ‘I didn’t realise this would be so much work.’

  I came to the door and outlined the agenda.

  ‘Here’s the plan,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow we make a structure, so we at least have a title for all fifty slides that need to be there. The next day we will put the text. Day after we will start on the figures and charts.’

  We came out of the house.

  ‘It’s late. I will drop you?’ uncle said.

  ‘No, there are autos on the main road. Good night uncle, tell Manju I will see him day after.’

  ‘Thank you, Krish,’ uncle said as he waved me goodbye.

  ‘Anytime,’ I said.

  28

  I spent the next three evenings in the company of Mr Swaminathan. The Bank of Baroda Egmore district business plan had become the focus of my life. I brought some of uncle’s work to my own office and worked on it in the afternoon.

  ‘What are you working on?’ Bala said as we met near the common office printer where I had come to collect a printout of uncle’s presentation.

  ‘Personal research,’ I said as I clenched the sheets in my hand and ran back to my desk.

  It is uncanny, but I could tell Ananya’s call from the phone ring.

  ‘Hi hottie. How is it going?’

  ‘Did you know Bank of Baroda had no ATMs four years ago, but now there are over a dozen ATMs in Egmore alone,’ I said as I opened the twelfth slide of the presentation.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘And in two years, there will be thirty,’ I said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I am working on your dad’s presentation, in my office,’ I said and swivelled my chair to turn away from the monitor.

  ‘That’s why you are such a sweetie,’ she said.

  ‘I am stealing a talented MBA’s time paid for by Citibank. I could go to jail for this,’ I said.

  ‘How exciting! My lover goes to jail for me,’ she chuckled. ‘Manju told me you are there every evening until late. And today you took Manju’s morning tuitions, too. Take care of yourself.’

  ‘I’m fine. I rest in office. And the presentation should be done tonight.’

  ‘Cool. How’s the bonding with appa?’

  ‘Well, it is pretty business-like. But let’s just say, I saw him smile. I bit a whole chilli at dinner and ran to the kitchen. When I returned, he smiled for three whole seconds and I created it.’

  ‘With my dad, that’s huge,’ Ananya said. ‘He didn’t smile in any of his wedding pictures.’

  ‘Well, he had to marry your mom,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up,’ Ananya said.

  The peon came to me to say Bala had tried my extension and couldn’t reach. I told Ananya to hold.

  ‘Tell him I am with a prospective new client. Inviting them to the concert,’ I said. The peon nodded and left.

  ‘Concert?’ Ananya said.

  ‘It is a private client event. At Fisherman’s Cove,’ I said.

  ‘Fisherman’s Cove is nice. Can I come?’ she said.

  ‘Only if you have ten lakh to spare,’ I said.

  ‘Sure, my husband will send the cash,’ Ananya said.

  ‘Yeah, right after I execute my bank robbery. OK, now should I humour you or make sure your father doesn’t get laughed at in five days?’ I said.

  ‘Daddy first,’ she said. ‘I am back in three days.’

  ‘How is Thanjavur?’

  ‘Temples, Tamilians and a temperamental mother. Care?’ she said.

  ‘Maybe next time. What’s causing the temperamentalness?’ ‘Me, me and only me,’ Ananya said and laughed, ‘as is always the case.’

  ‘Really? What’s your crime now?’

  ‘I don’t have time for her. Which is true, as I’m all over the district in meetings the entire day. Of course, she also feels saying no to Harish is like declining the Nobel Prize. And so, that’s the dinner appetiser. Main course is a lecture on how I’ve abused my privilege of being allowed to study further. Dessert is usually tears. I have to go to Pondicherry next week. No way I am taking her.’

  ‘You have to go?’

  ‘Just a day trip.’

  ‘Hey, isn’t Fisherman’s Cove on the way to Pondicherry?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Good, I should take the initiative and check out the venue. I’ll come with you that day,’ I said. Anything to get out of office.

  ‘Oh, cool,’ she said.

  The peon came again.

  ‘Yes,’ I turned to the peon after asking Ananya to hold.

  ‘Sir is asking which client?’ peon said.

  I looked around. Outside the office window there were several hoardings. I saw one for fireworks.

  ‘Standard Fireworks, Sivakasi. OK?’ I said.

  The peon nodded.

  ‘Bye sweetie, am I disturbing you?’

  ‘Yeah, but what is life without being disturbed by the right people,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you. Love you,’ Ananya said.

  ‘I love you, too’ I said and hung up the phone. The peon stood in front of me, his eyes big after my last line.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ I said.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ the peon said and left.

  I left my office early to finish the presentation at uncle’s house. We had come to the end with only final formatting left. I passed a CD store in Mylapore. Some music would be nice while I completed the presentation, I thought. I went in.

  ‘What you want, sir?’ the shopkeeper said.

  I scanned the shelves filled with Tamil CDs in psychedelic covers resembling crime novels. ‘What non-Tamil CDs do you have?’ I asked.

  He shook his head in disappointment. ‘Non-Tamil you go to Nungambakkam, sir.’ But the shop attendant looked through his collection to find something.

  ‘OK here,’ he sa
id as he took out three CDs.

  The first CD was non-stop Hindi remixed hits. It had girls with cleavage on the cover. I had to reject it. The second was a romantic love-songs collection that had a heart-shaped cover. The third CD was nursery rhymes in English.

  ‘Give me the love songs,’ I said.

  The shopkeeper made the bill as I scanned a section on Carnatic music.

  ‘Any good Carnatic music CDs?’ I said.

  ‘Good meaning what, sir?’ he said as he wrapped my red-coloured CD.

  I looked at the Carnatic covers. Most of them had middle-aged Tamilian men and women on them. ‘Do you have any greatest hits collection in Carnatic?’ I said.

  The shopkeeper looked puzzled. I threw up my hands in despair. ‘I have no clue. I want to get started,’ I said.

  ‘North Indian?’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘Then why you want to learn Carnatic music?’

  I didn’t answer.

  The shopkeeper gave me two CDs. One had a woman holding a tambura on the cover. The other had the picture of an old man. The entire text was in Tamil. I flipped it around.

  ‘T.R. Subramanium nice,’ said an elderly lady who had just walked into the shop and noticed my CDs.

  ‘Yeah, my all-time favourite,’ I said as I kept the CDs in my bag and walked out of the shop.

  I reached Ananya’s place at 6.30. Uncle already sat at the table. He wore reading glasses and made corrections on a printout of the presentation. He had kept hot vadas on the table with red, green and white coloured chutneys.

  ‘Take one. It is a famous shop near my office. I brought them for you,’ uncle said.

  I looked at him as I picked up a vada. We made eye contact for the first time ever since I had known him. I noticed that if you ignored the wrinkly face and reading glasses, he had the same eyes as Ananya.

  ‘So today, no matter how late it gets, we finish this,’ I said as I opened the file.

  Uncle nodded. He pulled his chair close to mine to see the screen.

  ‘OK, so let’s go through each slide. I will format as we go along,’ I said.

  I went through the first five slides in an hour.

  ‘Uncle, do you mind if I put some music on? This formatting is quite tedious,’ I said. I opened the CD player in my laptop.

  ‘Play it on the stereo,’ uncle said and pointed to the hi-fi system kept in the living room display cabinet. I took out the CDs from my office bag.

  Uncle walked up with me to connect the system. He fiddled with the wires as I noticed a one-litre unopened bottle of Chivas Regal whisky kept next to the stereo system.

  I took my chances and asked him. ‘You like whisky?’

  ‘No, just a little peg sometimes when I have a cold. Harish gave me this big bottle. It will last me years,’ he said.

  I kept quiet.

  ‘You know Harish? The boy who came to see Ananya.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Really good boy,’ he said.

  Uncle switched the stereo on. I gave him the heart-shaped CD in my bag.

  Uncle turned it around in his hands a few times.

  ‘That’s all the Mylapore shop had,’ I said in a sheepish voice.

  ‘What are the others?’

  I showed him the other two CDs.

  ‘T.R. Subramanium and M.S. Sheela? Who did you get this for?’

  ‘For myself.’

  ‘You understand Carnatic music?’

  ‘No, but I want to learn. I’ve heard it is the purest form of music,’ I said.

  Uncle shook his head. I wondered if my reason had not come across as real. He put the CDs back in my bag. ‘Sometimes, I wish I had never encouraged Radha in Carnatic music. It has only given her pain.’

  I nodded, not sure of how I should respond. Uncle was talking personal for the first time. It is amazing how much closeness two men with a laptop in a closed room can achieve in five days.

  We sat back at the table as I worked on the sixth slide. Mandy Moore’s romantic track filled the room.

  I wanna be with you

  If only for the night

  The lyrics were a little odd for a work date between a fifty-year-old Tamilian and a twenty-four-year-old Punjabi boy, but better than the silence. I enjoyed putting the textboxes, tables, charts and lists in their right place and making each slide look slick. Uncle read each point and checked the figures. The song continued.

  To be the one who is in your arms

  Who holds you tight

  The CD played itself over three times before I reached the halfway mark. We paused for dinner at ten. Uncle went to the kitchen and came back with tomato rice in two plates.

  ‘You must be bored of South Indian food?’ he said.

  ‘No, I am used to it now. Feels like home food,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ he said. He went to the display cabinet.

  I had made it to the category of ‘good’ though still not ‘really good’ like Harish, I thought.

  ‘The presentation is under control now. You want a drink?’ uncle said.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  Uncle took out two glasses from the crockery rack in the display cabinet. He told me to get a spoon and ice from the kitchen. He opened the bottle.

  ‘Five spoons for me is enough,’ he said as he made his drink. ‘How about you?’

  ‘We don’t use spoons to measure alcohol,’ I said. I was a little agitated. One week of working my ass off and still Harish was the ‘really good’ boy. Fuck you, Harish, I am going to have your Chivas Regal. I poured the golden coloured liquid four fingers thick.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Making myself a real drink. Cheers,’ I said and lifted my glass.

  ‘Actually, Radha stops me from having more,’ uncle said and took the bottle from me. He tilted it and made his drink level with mine.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, ‘and thank you. You IITians are very smart. What a presentation you have made.’

  ‘You are welcome,’ I said.

  We finished our dinner and first drink by ten-thirty. I brought the whisky bottle next to the laptop. I poured a second drink for myself and offered it to uncle. He didn’t decline. The song changed to Last Christmas.

  Uncle went to the stereo and increased the volume. ‘I gave you my heart,’ uncle sang in sync with the song and snapped his finger. He came back and sat down.

  I had witnessed an amazing sight. A Tamil Brahmin had set himself free probably for the first time. If I didn’t have the presentation to make, I’d have loved to observe him more. All I remember is that in the next two hours, we reached the last slide and the one-third mark on the whisky bottle.

  ‘And thank you,’ I said as I read the last slide. ‘Here we go, it is done.’

  I saved the file.

  ‘Save it twice,’ uncle said.

  I saved it again and checked the time. It was 1 a.m. In three hours, Manju would wake up.

  ‘All ready to present it?’ I asked.

  ‘Present? Me? No, no, Verma will present this. My job was to complete this and it’s done.’

  ‘Uncle,’ I said my voice firmed by the whisky, ‘you have to present. What’s the point of slaving over this for weeks if you don’t get to present.’

  ‘I have never operated that projector,’ uncle said.

  ‘There’s nothing to it. Your IT will set it up. And you press the forward button to move to the next slide.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He turned quiet.

  I closed my laptop and shook my head. ‘This is unbelievable. The presentation is in such good shape. Your country manager will be there. And all you want to do is sit in a corner. Verma will take all the credit.’

  ‘Really?’ he said.

  ‘That’s what all bosses do, without exception,’ I said.

  ‘Bloody North Indian fellow,’ uncle said.

  I stood up to leave.

  ‘Sleepy?’ he asked.

  ‘Not as much as you. You sleep at
ten, right?’ I said.

  ‘This has woken me up,’ uncle said, pointing me to his drink. ‘Want another one?’

  ‘Uncle, I have to find an auto. It’s late.’

  ‘Why don’t you just stay here?’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I’ll give you a set of nightclothes. Mine should fit you,’ he said.

  I had past-life trauma of wearing my girlfriend’s father’s clothes. This can’t be a good idea, I thought.

  Before I could respond, uncle had poured us another round of drinks.

  ‘Change the music if you want,’ he said.

  I rifled through Ananya’s tapes in the drawer. I found a Pink Floyd album and couldn’t resist. The alcohol demanded Floyd.

  The long, trippy opening note of Shine On You Crazy Diamond played in the room.

  Uncle tapped a foot gently to the slow beats. I wondered if he would be able to handle so much alcohol. I longed to smoke. No, don’t think about smoking, my mind advised. Don’t think about being with Ananya. Think about the worst-case emergency plan. What if uncle threw up or fainted? How do you call an ambulance in Chennai? How would you explain it to Ananya’s mother?

  However, uncle seemed to be having a good time. He sat on the sofa and put his legs on the table. ‘One thing Verma told me I will never forget,’ he said.

  I nodded.

  Verma said, ‘Swaminathan, do you know why they made you deputy GM and sent me to become GM?’’

  ‘Why?’ I said, too drunk to show restraint.

  ‘He said it was because South Indians are top class number two officers, but horrible in number one positions.’ Uncle shook his head as he took a big sip. Even in his drunkenness, I could sense his pain. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Do you agree?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. My boss is South Indian,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but you have just started. Maybe he is right. We hate the limelight. I know I should present this, but I don’t want to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because knowledge is not for showing off. If I do good work, people should notice me. I cannot go sell myself like that shameless Verma.’

  I nodded, more to tell him I listened than in agreement. There is no better source of wisdom than two drunk men.

  ‘Right?’