AskManiG.com
‘We never talk. At home, my mom and dad, they hardly talk. We’ll talk about the news, the food, the weather. But we never talk about our feelings. I only do that with you,’ she said.
I kept quiet. She sat up to wear her clothes. She picked up the pillows from the floor and placed them back on the bed. I pulled her arm and made her sit down with me again.
‘How come you don’t ask me to run away with you?’ she asked.
‘You want me to? What if I did ask you to elope?’
‘I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t want to hurt them. I already have by choosing a Punjabi mate, but I think we can win them over, I want them to smile on our wedding day. That’s how I imagined my marriage since I was a child. What about you?’
I thought for a minute. ‘I don’t want to elope,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘It’s too easy. And that doesn’t serve the greater purpose.’
Ananya stepped off the bed and brought back the leftovers. She took the crumbs of chicken and ate them as we talked. ‘Greater purpose?’
‘Yes, these stupid biases and discrimination are the reason our country is so screwed up. It’s Tamil first, Indian later. Punjabi first, Indian later. It has to end.’
Ananya looked at me. ‘Go on,’ she coaxed mischievously.
I continued, ‘National anthem, national currency, national teams – we won’t marry our children outside our state. How can this intolerance be good for our country?’
Ananya smiled. ‘Is it the chicken, is it the beer or is it the sex? What has charged you up so much? Flatter me and say it is the sex. C’mon say it,’ she said.
‘I’m serious Ananya. This bullshit must end.’
‘And how are we making it end?’
‘Imagine our kids.’
‘I have, several times. I want them to have my face. Only your eyes,’ she said.
AskManiG.com
‘Not that, think about this – they won’t be Tamil or Punjabi. They will be Indian.
They will be above all this nonsense. If all young people marry outside their community, it is good for the country. That is the greater purpose.’
‘Oh, so the reason you sleep with me is for the sake of your country,’ she said.
‘Well, in some ways, yes.’ I smiled sheepishly.
She took a pillow and launched an attack on my head. And then, for the sake of my country, we made love again.
‘Open up, Krish,’ Ramanujan’s worried voice and loud bangs on the door woke me from my nap.
AskManiG.com
19
Ananya was sleeping next to me and my head hurt from the beer. Ramanujan continued to slam the door.
‘What?’ I opened the door.
‘I’ve been knocking for five minutes,’ Ramanujan said. ‘Come out, the landlord is here.’
‘Landlord?’
‘Yes, be nice to him. It’s the last chummery in Nungambakkam. I don’t want to be kicked out.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Come out first.’
I shut the door and wore the rest of my clothes.
‘Ananya,’ I said.
‘Baby, I’m sleepy,’ she said, trying to pull me back into bed.
‘My landlord is here,’ I said. She didn’t respond even though I shook her maniacally.
‘Your appa is outside,’ I said.
She sprang up on the bed. ‘What?’
‘Come out. My landlord is here,’ I said.
I went to the living room. My flatmates sat on the dining table. Mr Punnu, our sixty-year old landlord, gravely occupied the largest chair. His face had a permanently tragic expression.
I sat next to him. No one spoke.
‘Hi guys,’ Ananya came out after five minutes. ‘You want tea? I’ll make some.’
She started to walk towards the kitchen.
‘Ananya, I will see you later,’ I said.
AskManiG.com
Ananya looked at me, shocked. She tuned into the mood on the dining table.
‘I’ll leave now.’ She picked up her bag.
Mr Punnu stood up after Ananya left the house. He sniffed hard. He peeped into my room. ‘Chicken?’ he frowned.
I didn’t respond. Beer bottles lay on the bedside table.
‘Ladies?’ he said.
‘She works in HLL,’ I said, having no clue why I had to mention her corporate status.
‘Chicken, beer, lady friends – what is going on here?’ he said.
Fun, I wanted to say but didn’t. Those three things are what men live for anyway.
Everyone kept quiet. I wondered who had sneaked. My flatmates were no friend material, but somehow I didn’t expect them to be suck schmucks. Maybe the watchman did it.
‘I didn’t expect this from you boys,’ Punnu said in a heavy Tamil accent.
‘It’s my fault. I brought the chicken and beer for my girlfriend,’ I said.
‘Girlfriend?’ Punnu said as if I spoke in pure Sanskrit.
‘She is my batch-mate. A nice girl,’ I said.
Mr Punnu didn’t seem impressed.
‘She’s Tamil Brahmin,’ I said.
‘And you?’
‘Punjabi,’ I said and my head hung low a little by default.
‘How is she a nice girl if she is roaming around with you?’ Mr Punnu asked.
He had a valid point. I decided to change the topic. ‘Mr Punnu, this is not a boarding school. We are all professionals and what we do in our own home…’
Mr Punnu banged his fist on the table. ‘This is my home,’ he pointed out.
‘Yes, but you have leased it to us. Technically, we have a right to not let you into the property.’
AskManiG.com
Mr Punnu looked aghast. Ramanujan had to save the situation. ‘He doesn’t know, Mr Punnu. He is new here. We should have told him it is a veg building and no alcohol.’
‘Not even a drop,’ Mr Punnu said. “I have not touched it all my life.’
Mr Punnu looked like he had touched neither wine nor a woman all his life, but badly needed to.
‘Apologise,’ Ramanujan told me.
I glanced around. Tamils gathered around me like the LTTE. I had no choice.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘No ladies from now on.’ Mr Punnu wagged a finger.
‘And beer and chicken?’ I said.
“That wasn’t allowed from before anyway,’ Sendil said. Everyone around me nodded as they felt the warm fuzzy feeling of having set rules on how to live their life.
I wondered where I’d take Ananya the next time.
AskManiG.com
20
‘I am good at chemistry. I need help in physics,’ Manjunath, nerd-embryo and Ananya’s younger brother, spoke with eh energy of a rooster. His eyebrows went up and down as he spoke, in sync with the three rows of ash on his forehead.
I had come for my first class. Ananya had left for Madurai the night before for a weeklong sales trip. My head hurt from waking up early. Ananya’s mother had sent coffee to Manju’s room. It didn’t help.
Neither did the fact that I had only read up chemistry.
“let’s revise it anyways,’ I said and opened my sheets.
‘Hydrocarbons?’ he said as he saw my notes. ‘I’ve done this thee times.’
I offered him a problem and he solved it in two minutes. I tried a harder one, and he did it in the same time. A tape played in the next room. It sounded like a chorus of women marching towards the army.
‘M.S. Subbulaxmi,’ Manju said, noticing my worried expression. ‘Devotional music.’
I nodded as I flipped through the chemistry books to find a problem challenging enough for the little Einstein.
‘Every Tamilian house plays it in the morning.’
I wondered if Ananya would play it in our house after we got married. My mother would have serious trauma with that sound. The chants became stronger with every passing minute.
‘What is IIT like?’ he asked.
I told him about my former college, filtering out all the spicy bits that occurred in my life.
‘I want to do aeronautics,’ Manju said. At his age, I didn’t even know that word.
He took out his physics textbook after an hour. He gave me a problem and I asked for time to solve it. He nodded and read the next chapter. The tutor was being tutored.
AskManiG.com
I passed the rest of the hour learning physics from Manju. I stood up to leave. I reached the living room where Ananya’s dad was making slow love to The Hindu.
Ananya had instructed me to spend as much time with her father as possible. I waited for ten minutes until he finished his article.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I finished the class.’
‘Good,’ he said and flipped another page.
‘How’s the bank, uncle?’
He glanced up from the newspaper, surprised. ‘Which bank?’
‘Your bank.’ I cleared my throat. ‘How is your job?’
‘What?’ he said, stumped by the stupidity of the question. ‘What is there in job? Job is same.’
‘Yes, sure,’ I said.
I stood for another five minutes, not sure of what I should do. I couldn’t compete with The Hindu, and a fresh one came every day.
‘I’ll leave now, uncle,’ I said.
‘OK,’ he said.
I had reached the door when he called out, ‘Breakfast?’
‘I’ll have it in the office.’
‘Where is your office?’
‘Anna Salai,’ I said.
‘That’s on my way. I leave at eight-thirty. I can drop you,’ he said.
I realised eight-thirty would mean I’d reach an hour later than my boss. It didn’t work for me. But the lift also meant I could be in this house for another two hours and be in the car alone with my father-in-law-in-courtship.
‘That’s perfect. I have to reach at the same time,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said and went back to hhis paper again.
AskManiG.com
We sat for breakfast at seven-thirty. Ananya’s father went to the temple room to pray, and came back with the customary three grey stripes on his forehead. I wondered if I should go pray too, but wasn’t sure how I’d explain the three stripes in office along with my lateness.
We had idlis for breakfast, and Ananya’s mother put fifty of them in front of us.
We ate quietly. Ananya had told me they never spoke much anyway. The best way to fit in was to never talk.
‘More chutney?’ Ananya’s mother’s question (and my shaking my head) was the only insightful conversation we had during the meal.
Uncle reversed his Fiat from the garage. He peeked out to look at me several times. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to avoid me or make a direct hit.
‘Sit,’ uncle said. I went around the car to sit next to him. Sitting with my girlfriend’s father in a car brought traumatic memories. I took deep breaths. This is not the same situation, play cool, I said to myself several times.
Uncle drove at a speed of ten an hour, and I wondered what reason I’d give my boss for not coming to office two hours ago. Autos, scooters and even some manual-powered vehicles like rickshaws came close to overtaking us.
I wanted to talk but couldn’t think of any trouble-free topic. I opened my office bag with the dubious ‘Citi never sleeps’ logo and took out my research reports to read. Dot com stocks had lost 25% last week. The analysts who had predicted that these stocks would triple every hour now claimed the market had gone into self-correct mode. Self-correct – it sounded so intelligent and clever it sort of took out the pain away from people who had lost their life savings. It also made you sound dumb if you’d ask why didn’t the market self-correct earlier? Or the more basic, what the fuck do you mean by self-correct anyway?
I had two clients who had lost ten lakh each coming to visit me today. With my IIMA degree I had to come up with a sleight of hand to make the losses disappear.
the car came to a halt near a red light.
‘You wrote those reports?’ uncle asked.
I shook my head. ‘It’s the research group,’ I said.
‘Then what you do at the bank?’ he was more rhetorical.
‘Customer service,’ I said, not sure how anything I did was service. Asking people to give you their money and scraping away at it wasn’t service.
AskManiG.com
‘Do you know how to write those reports?’ he said.
The cars behind us began to honk. The Fiat didn’t start instantly. Uncle made two attempts in vain.
‘Illa service quality,’ he cursed at his car as he pulled the choke. I kept the reports inside as I became ready to push the car. Fortunately, the car started at th e third attempt.
‘I can write them, why?’ I said, answering his earlier question.
‘Nothing. Stupid joint venture my bank has done. Now they want us to submit a business plan. And that GM has asked me.’
‘I can help,’ I screamed like a boy scout.
‘Raascal,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘That GM Verma. In my thirty years at the bank I haven’t done any report. Now I have to make a pinpoint presentation as well.’
‘Powerpoint presentation?’ I asked.
‘Yes, that one. Intentionally rascal gave me something I don’t understand,’
uncle said.
‘I can help,’ I said. Maybe I had found a way to bond with uncle.
‘No need,’ uncle said, his voice serious. He realised he had opened up more than he should have.
‘You get off here,’ uncle said and drove to a road corner. ‘Citibank is hardly hundred metres.’
I stepped out of the car. I said thanks three times and waved him goodbye. He didn’t respond. He put his hand on the gear-shift.
‘Don’t meet Ananya too much. We are simple people, we don’t say much. But don’t spoil her name in our community,’ he said.
‘Uncle, but…’
‘I know you are classmates and you are helping Manju. We can be grateful, we can fed you, but we can’t let Ananya marry you.’
AskManiG.com
I stood at the traffic intersection. Autos blared their horns at each other as if in angry conversation. It was hardly the place to convince someone about the most important decision of your life.
‘Uncle, but …’ I said again.
Uncle folded his hands to before pressing the accelerator. The car started to move. Fuck, how do I respond to folded hands? I thought. Uncle drove past me. Like a defeated insurance salesman, I lifted my bag and walked towards the bank.
AskManiG.com
21
‘Welcome sir, welcome to State Bank of India,’ Bala said. His tone couldn’t hide his anger, thereby ruining the sarcasm of his lines. He sat on my desk, waiting for the exact joyous moment when he could squash me.
‘I’m really sorry, my auto met with an accident,’ I lied.
“Your chummery servant said you left at five,’ he said.
‘You called my chummery? It’s only nine. Isn’t that the official time anyway?’
‘No, this is Citibank. Not a public sector bank,’ he said.
‘So, people who work here cannot have life,’ I mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Ms Sreenivas is coming at ten today,’ I said.
‘And you haven’t prepared for it. Have you read the reports?’
‘Yes, I have. But the tricky part is she is down ten lakh. And that is because she believed these reports. So no matter how well I read these reports, she won’t trust them. Can I sit on my chair?’ I asked.
Bala stared at me, shocked by my defiance. I took my seat. ‘You told me to push these stocks,’ I said, ‘and now our clients are down. Ms Sreenivas is an old lady. She will panic. I want you to be prepared.’
‘Prepared for what?’
‘That she, and some other clients too, could move funds elsewhere.’
‘How? How can they? This is Citibank,’ Bala said.
‘Because even as the Citi never sleeps, we make our customers weep.’
AskManiG.com
Ms Sreenivas’ panic mode was entertaining enough to attract bankers from other groups to come to our area. First, she spoke to me in Tamil for two minutes.
When she realised I didn’t know the language, she switched to English.
‘You, you said this will double. It’s down seventy percent-aa,’ Ms Sreenivas said.
‘Actually madam, the market went into self-correction mode,’ I said. I now understood the purpose of complex research terms. They deflect uncomfortable questions that have no answer.
‘But, I’ve lost ten lakh!’ she screamed.
‘Madam, stock market goes up and down. We do have some other products that are less risky,’ I said, capitalizing on her misery to sell more.
‘Forget it. I am done with Citibank. I told you to do a fixed deposit. You didn’t.
Now I move my account to Vysya Bank.’
My sales rep brought several snacks and cold drinks for her. Ms Sreenivas didn’t budge.
‘Madam, but Citibank is a much better name than Vysya,’ I said.
‘Give me the account closing documents,’ Ms Sreenivas said. We had no choice. First hour in office, strike one. The TV in the reception showed the CNBC
channel. Internet stocks had lost another five percent that day.
In the next two weeks, our most trusting customers, hence the most gullible ones to whom we had peddled companies that did nothing more than make a website, lost a total of two crore. My own customers’ losses were limited to the two ladies, as I could never sell those companies well anyway. Bala, however, with his empire of smart people who rip off rich people, had to answer country headquarters in Mumbai.
?