Eimona Excerpt

EIMONA- AN EXCERPT

Chapter 1

This happened in Eimona.
Your experience with Eimona is so intimate that you are tempted to look it up on the world map. In vain.
You are not sure precisely where it is except that it seems to be everywhere: America, India, Europe and spreading to the rest of the world.
Its exact extent is unknown, though you know it is massive and expands inexorably every day. The annexation policy of Eimona doesn’t seem to be defined by any one individual. It is almost as if it has a diffused consciousness.
Eimona seems a bit like its only historic parallel: the Internet. Like it, everyday Eimona grows without a central authority that sanctions its expansionism.

•

Bharat was glued to the computer screen. The ticker tape indicating the stock prices on the National Stock Exchange showed prices rising every minute.
It would happen today!
Didn’t take great analysis or statistics to know that. His hand was impatiently and unconsciously rolling the nameplate meant to be stood on his worktable. “Bharat – Senior Investment Manager” it said for the benefit of his clients.
He glanced sidelong at Mangal who was sitting at the next workstation. Mangal’s knuckles that gripped the table were white. He knew that Mangal knew, too, that it would happen today.
The ticker tape showing the stock prices was on its next round. “FI – Rs. 555,” it said. That was the only share price that stood out for Bharat. FI – the stock exchange symbol of Fusion Investments. It was a tiny private American company when Mangal joined it. It was still small, but public in America when Bharat joined it five years ago. When Bharat and Mangal were both offered thousands of stock options every year, and their CEO explained seriously that stock options could make them rich, both Bharat and Mangal had to suppress the urge to say, “Oh, yeah? So you don’t want to hike our salary very much. Even though we earned the company fifty million dollars in profit last year.” Stock options, then, were an official corporate device of deception. A pacifier.
Then the dream took over.
FI, typified by smart investment managers like Bharat and Mangal, invested in software and information technology companies. And then FI went public in India. Suddenly the stock market zoomed. The daily variation in FI’s share price equalled Bharat’s salary of many years. He, Mangal, and many colleagues were officially rich.
Keshav, who never believed in stock options, had gifted many of his shares, with malicious intent, to his in-laws’ families when there were weddings and birthday parties. For his own relatives, he bought nice gifts like flasks and table lamps.
“It’s perfect comeuppance,” he lamented. “Who the hell thought our company shares would do so well? My in-laws are rich. My own relatives? They own flasks and table lamps. Is there any way of getting the shares back?”
The computer screen now showed FI-Rs. 585. It was only a few minutes back that it was Rs. 555. Bharat mentally calculated his wealth gain in the last two minutes and laughed out aloud at the absurdly large amount. Startled, Mangal looked up briefly, but returned to his trance with his computer screen.
Without speaking a word with Mangal, Bharat was sure that the tingle in his spine was the tingle in Mangal’s spine also. The screen dazzled him. He shifted his gaze to look out of the window at the sun-soaked streets of Madras. A Pizza Hut billboard announced exciting new Indian toppings, including spicy paneer. A street dog stretched itself and wandered listlessly, stopping occasionally to sniff at the food wrappers thrown into and around a garbage can. Unconsciously, Bharat downed the coffee from his mug.
It would happen today.

•

Pantu-thatha – Grandpa of the Pants – was an ironic sobriquet, a name Subbu’s grandson, Bharat, gave him as a three year old boy. Under the inescapable Gandhian influence, early in his life, Subbu took to donning a white khadar shirt and a white south Indian veshti. Not dhoti, which he considered a North Indian condescension. He had never worn any kind of trousers or pants. He had opposed his Britain-bred boss to wear veshti to work. When he came so dressed under protest, his boss threatened him with dire consequences. “Then I will quit,” Subbu had retorted quietly, but indicating that he meant business. Being a man of conscience, his boss had given in, shaking his head in despair. The issue did not bother Subbu for the rest of his working life.
Many years later, Subbu belligerently turned down speaking engagements at fashionable clubs because they required him to wear trousers. “Fie upon you,” he would bellow. “The British have left. The colonial hangover persists. How can an Indian club turn away people for dressing in traditional Indian attire?”
Karna’s tale was one of Subbu’s favourites for narration, and Bharat’s favourite for listening. Bharat was singularly fascinated to hear that, unlike other babies, Karna was not born naked. He was born with kavacha, an armour almost integral to his body, and kundalas, protective earrings—both gifts from his resplendent father, Surya-the Sun God.
It was only when Bharat was a little over four years old, he realized that the white shirt and white veshti were not a part of Subbu’s physique, unlike Karna’s kavacha and kundalas.
He asked his grandfather with a furrowed brow, “Thatha, why don’t you wear pants?”
Subbu was reading the newspaper and replied distractedly, “I don’t like pants.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I think veshti is a lot better,” he continued without taking his eyes off the newspaper.
“Oh,” said the boy, as if he understood. But he continued to be thoughtful. He was bewildered how his grandfather felt more secure with a length of cloth loosely suspended around his waist like a towel than in a pair of trousers that clasped the waist reassuringly.
The clock struck eight and shook Subbu out of his reading. “Bharat, time to eat.”
“Will you wear pants for me?” Bharat asked with his large doe-like eyes.
“What kind of idiocy is this? No, no,” said Subbu, dismissing the question. “Time now to eat. Tomorrow’s a working day.”
“Will you wear pants for me? Just once? Please?” Bharat asked his question more earnestly.
“No.” Subbu’s hostility and finality surprised the boy, and himself too. “Come now to eat,” he demanded, half expecting a yelp of protest.
Bharat did not protest loudly. A lone teardrop stood delicately poised on the brink of his eyelid, and then rolled inevitably down his cheek. He rose quietly to sit at the dining table.
In a Pavlovian response, Subbu walked into the kitchen to get the dishes. The lone tear seared through him. Had he ever spoken so harshly to Bharat after the death of his son and daughter-in-law? Not that he could recall. Their death had steeled him into the resolution of treating his grandson with the greatest possible kindness. No, it didn’t include extravagant indulgence. He hadn’t extended it to his son; he was not about to extend it to his grandson. But surely the boy didn’t have to understand his private prejudices?
With his mind made up, he went to his wardrobe. He noticed that his hands trembled when he opened the doors. Undisturbed lay his son’s trousers in sedate shades of gray and black and blue. The unmistakable odour of his son. The odour that is as distinct as a fingerprint. The odour that emanates from all objects used by a person long after he is gone.
Telling himself that he was doing this only to entertain his darling grandson, Subbu chose a pair of gray trousers and climbed into them clumsily. The wardrobe door was hastily shut to prevent the odour from escaping. Irrational, of course, since the odour had stayed for years after his son’s death. His inserted khadar shirt stuck out of the trousers awkwardly. In spite of his animosity for the two-legged attire, he curiously stared at his image in the mirror.
“Ta-da-ing…” he made his appearance in the dining room, mocking the background music that accompanied dramatic announcements in Tamil movies.
Bharat let out a whoop of joy and surprise. With the child’s instinctive genius for names, he shrieked “Pantu-thatha, pantu-thatha.”
Pantu-thatha—Grandpa of the Pants.
The name stuck even though Subbu never wore pants again. He failed to understand why he did not mind this moniker that possessed an object of distaste. Maybe it was because of his acute remorse at having been hostile to the boy. A sort of penitence. No, no. It was perhaps his sense of humour. Or the apathy of advanced age.
Then he became pantu-thatha to everybody. His friends, neighbours, all sorts of relatives, Bharat’s friends, the corner store grocer, the neighbourhood at large. Very few cousins and relatives of his age remembered him as Subbu. Of course, not a soul maybe would remember him as Subramanian. Even to him, his full name represented only a fuzzy link with the past.
Later, when Bharat was a near adult, Subbu tried to introduce him to his father’s smell. Bharat smelt the clothes and reported, “Smells of naphthalene balls. The trousers are fraying. Maybe you should get rid of them.”
When Subbu stepped out to do his daily shopping that morning, a cosmic question was troubling him. The previous night, Maya, his great-granddaughter, had sought his assistance to complete her science assignment. She had just started her third standard and was overburdened with homework. How Subbu hated homework, tests and assignments which held young children indentured slaves of the educational system. When Maya thrust her notebook under his eyes, he couldn’t help wondering how similar the gesture was to Bharat’s. Not too long ago, he was helping Bharat with his science assignments. He found it hard to believe that he was helping Bharat’s little daughter with her assignments too.
Her teacher had asked the students to figure out, with the help of elders at home, what caused waves and tides in oceans. With an imperfect recollection of his baccalaureate physics, Subbu explained the interaction of winds and waves, and how the moon’s gravity affected tides. Maya did not understand gravity. At some length, he taught her what gravity was.
When he was done, Maya pondered for a quiet, long minute—the way she pondered always. She lacked the impetuous responses of children, which was fine with Subbu, who had an aversion to pompously smart children with brimming, inane questions.
At the end of the long minute, she asked, “Why are there no waves in a lake? Or in a bucket of water. Don’t the winds and the moon’s gravity act on it too?”
That stopped him short.
Why, indeed? Why is there no wave in a bucket of water? Why can’t there be a storm in a teacup?
Subbu would turn eighty-four next month. Why had this question not troubled him till now? He was a little ashamed.
That morning, ever since he sent Maya to school, the question tortured him intensely, distracting his attention. But due to sheer force of habit, he unconsciously managed to navigate his way to the mall and to the grocery supermarket, Foodmania. They were very lucky to have a supermarket within walking distance of their apartment. Most others had to drive to complete their shopping. Subbu detested driving as much as he loved walking—even in the discouraging Madras weather. For most part of the day, he was walking, outside the apartment or inside.
The question so engaged his mind that with the shopping list in his hand, he asked the first Foodmania helper he sighted, “Where can I find a storm in a teacup?”
The helper responded with a baffled, “Excuse me?”
Regaining his composure, Subbu asked, “Where can I find teacups, please?” He had no need for teacups but since his first question contained “teacups,” his second question had to contain “teacups” to permit him a dignified recovery.
As he expected, the helper did not say, “Aisle 13,” and walk away.
“What type, exactly, are you looking for?” he asked most kindly. Intrusive courtesy when you didn’t want it.
“Never mind. I’ll come back,” said Subbu in a hurry to extricate himself.
After paying for his purchases, when he collected his bags and was about to leave, another helper, in a ridiculous orange uniform, with a plastic grin pasted on his face, looked Subbu in the eye and said, “Have a nice day.”
The statement infuriated Subbu. It had become a world of words.
“Do you know me?” Subbu asked the helper.
The helper, who did not expect to have a conversation after chanting his customary greeting, stopped, a little startled. “Sir, were you talking to me?”
“Yes,” said Subbu, repeating, “Do you know me?”
“I am sorry, sir, but…” the helper stammered, searching Subbu’s face for some sign of familiarity. “No sir, I don’t think so.”
“Why then do you want me to have a nice day?”
Relieved at this question, the helper said, “It is Foodmania’s policy to greet customers this way.”
Wearing an innocent expression, Subbu continued, “If your company did not want you to greet customers this way, would you still?”
Not sure of the intentions of the silver-haired gent, dressed in white, the helper replied, “Maybe not. We say what the company policy asks us to say.”
“That means you say it like a robot. Without expression or feeling. You are paid to say it. Right?”
“Yes, sir…no, sir.” The helper wondered if the man was senile or mad. The old man’s firm posture, piercing expression, and studied casualness belied any such possibility.
“Is it yes or no? Do you really care whether I have a nice day or not?”
“Yes, sir. I care.”
The old man scratched his head. “How is Foodmania doing?”
“Not too well, sir.”
“Have there been layoffs?”
“Yes, sir. Some.”
“Have some of your colleagues been laid off?” This last question of the old man perturbed the helper. What was he getting at? Was he a corporate spy or something?
Hesitantly, looking both ways, the helper answered, “Yes, sir. Many of my friends have been laid off.”
“Is there a chance that you’ll get laid off?”
“Yes…yes, sir. That can’t be ruled out under current conditions.”
“Let’s assume that you are laid off. You and I meet at the bus stop. Would you wish me ‘Have a nice day’?”
“N…No, sir,” the helper responded with greater uncertainty.
“I thought you just said you cared whether I had a nice day or not.”
“Sir, I do.” The helper’s professional earnestness was back.
“Then you must care, whether you are employed by Foodmania or not.”
“Sir, but it is our company policy to greet you that way.”
“Oh, then you are a paid robot. You don’t really care.”
The helper began to protest once more.
When Subbu was done with the helper, he walked away licking his lips like a lion after it has demolished its prey.
The automatic doors of Foodmania swished open to let him outside. Just then he heard a loud, cheerful greeting from another helper near the next door, “Have a great weekend.”
The helper wondered why the old man, instead of proceeding outside, started heading towards him.

•

Indu had the air of a rambunctious horse under restraint. It did not help this image that she wore her hair, almost invariably, in the form of a ponytail. She had good taste and was always dressed nattily in western clothes, though her equal opportunity employer permitted Indian clothes. “As long as you have something on,” her company CEO would remark, and everybody would laugh obligingly at the boss’s joke that stank with staleness. She was impatient and restless with everybody and with herself. A trait that had earned her widespread popularity with her bosses, the respect and awe of her peers, and the ambivalence of those who worked under her. When something did not get done, particularly if it was elementary, her restlessness suggested a racehorse kicking its feet, raring to go.
Many did not know her precise age, though they knew she was very young. Not too long ago, she had joined Paragon Software as a graduate programmer trainee. With lightning speed she had risen to become the youngest vice-president. She managed complex computer programming projects for customers all over the world.
When she was not reading computer-programming books, she was reading or re-reading Sidney Sheldon novels. Somebody commented that it was old-fashioned to read Sidney Sheldon. It didn’t matter. For her Sheldon’s heroines were an addiction.
Her office had an anteroom with a bed and a wardrobe. When she had to put in long hours, she would shower in the office, change, and be ready for the next round. She would go to bed around midnight and be up again at 3:00 AM.
Her colleagues, who were forced to stay back, cursed her. “Stinking armpits don’t increase programming productivity,” one of her meek male colleagues remarked once. “Madam enjoys a bed and a wardrobe and access to executive showers. It’s okay for her to stay back. What about me? Don’t I need a wash?”
When another colleague offered to represent this grievance to Indu, the meek one was petrified. How foolishly he had provided others a perennial taunting opportunity! Indu’s irascibility was legendary. Nobody messed around with her. Men found her irresistibly attractive, but nobody made passes. Her one-liner insults, while evaluating her team’s professional work, had paralyzed people for weeks. Since she punished herself equally and was technically competent, the others grudgingly tolerated her tough treatment. “Madam” was married, but little was known about her husband. His plight was the subject of much speculation. The office was rife with ribaldry about “positions.”
Indu married Bharat nine years ago. Both were twenty-seven at the time. They met when Bharat, as a representative of Fusion Investments, had visited Paragon Software. Bharat’s company was planning to invest in Paragon. His boss had asked him to visit Paragon to check out the quality of management. Even though she was not a vice-president then, because of her confidence and presentability, Indu was asked to manage many of the presentations to Bharat and his team. On returning from these meetings, Bharat recommended Paragon very favourably to his boss. Fusion became the largest shareholder of Paragon.
Thinking about this later, Bharat had often wondered whether the extremely positive image of Paragon that he went away with was an exaggerated impression created by the young woman with a perfect figure. That figure was firmly etched in his mind, not so much the figures the woman, her CEO, and the rest of their team presented.
Indu also grew interested in the young man from Fusion Investments. He was not only good looking, he was also intelligent. More importantly, he was a winner. And best of all, she could gather, he was one his firm’s most successful investment managers—and, very well compensated.
Even in the slickly managed presentations, Indu could not help revealing her volatile temper. They were tiny slivers, but unmistakable. Bharat became cautious. Though the young woman appeared interested in him, he could not summon up the courage to ask her out. His doubt, his cursed doubt, which was the leitmotif of his life, stopped him from inquiring. Luckily for him, the young woman took the first step.
With a sense of joy, Indu realized that the young man from Fusion had a very desirable trait. For all his strengths, he was meek. That’s exactly how she wanted it. She hadn’t been too sure until then whether good looks, razor-sharp intelligence, meekness at authority, and a capitulating instinct could all be part of one package. Bharat confirmed that such a package existed.
Reluctantly, many years into her marriage, Indu had to admit that her marriage was an extension of her office life. She certainly did not enjoy the company of idiot slaves. Just as she required resourceful but servile subordinates at office, she had subliminally desired a meek but intelligent husband. She ran her home affairs with the same iron hand with which she ran her office. Just as easily as she could be filled with certainty and confidence, her husband could be filled with doubt.
Much ahead of Bharat receiving compensation through stock options, Indu did likewise from her company. Paragon Software did very well in its international business. Like Bharat, she became rich beyond her expectations, though unlike Bharat, she had determined to become rich, to win. Stock options and her status were wins at the office, her marriage to Bharat and her almost complete control over their daughter Maya were her wins at home.
Like Bharat, she, too, was waiting for it to happen. But her expectation was filled with a cool certitude, unlike Bharat’s expectation, which was marked by nail-biting anxiety. At well-timed intervals, she was taking a look at share prices. Paragon was at Rs. 155; fifteen minutes before it had been at Rs. 140.
Her heart rhythm was not varying with the stock price as Bharat’s was.
She was sure.
It would happen today.

•

Subbu had married early. His son, Krishnan, was born when he was in his early twenties. Immediately, Subbu vowed to his wife, Jaya, that they would have no more children. He was just waiting for a safe delivery and a healthy child.
“I want to give all I have to just this one boy,” he had explained.
There was no need to explain. Jaya understood him on cue, and was moved by the remarkable dedication of the young father. Instantly, her desire to have any more children dried up. Until she died, her world did not extend beyond her husband and son.
Subbu gave everything of himself to Krishnan. Not in an indulgent way. In fact, his expression of affection was understated. Many times, he was left wondering if he was being communicative enough. His government job gave him the luxury of coming home early on working days, and enjoying pressure-free weekends. He taught the boy his school lessons only when Krishnan came to him with doubts, but took charge of initiating him into history and economics, literature and art.
Subbu’s favourite pastime became taking the boy to the public library or to music concerts. It was anathema to him to feed Krishnan with predigested knowledge. He believed in providing broad direction and planting a few clues. He determined way-stations in the boy’s journey of learning, but allowed the boy to beat his own path between way-stations. Eventually, the boy would determine his destination and the new way-stations.
Subbu actively recommended The Picture of Dorian Gray to Krishnan. After reading the story, the boy asked, “Appa, what does one learn? What’s the meaning?”
“Everything you need to know is in the story. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“But I didn’t understand it. Does that mean we shouldn’t be immoral?”
“Maybe,” said Subbu, not giving in.
“But then Dorian Gray’s sins don’t affect him when he lives. They get him only after he dies. Right? So maybe it’s okay to sin?”
“Maybe.”
“Why don’t you tell me for sure?” little Krishnan demanded angrily.
“I don’t know for sure.”
“You are a grown-up. You must know,” insisted Krishnan.
Subbu gave him a cryptic smile for a reply.
Krishnan’s intellect was precocious, but his emotions were a child’s. “You don’t want to tell me.” He stomped out of the room angrily, turning away to hide his tears of frustration.
Anybody who saw Krishnan’s professorial demeanour when he was barely eight would not have been surprised that, later, he became a professor of economics. A professor who constantly disproved that economics was a dismal science. His manner was quiet. He conspicuously lacked the high decibel monotone that teachers were either born with or very assiduously cultivated. His lectures were scintillating and generously sprinkled with humour. At the height of humour, his voice dropped so much that students leaned forward, anxious not to miss the best parts. He adopted the technique of telling tales that personalized impersonal economic theories like capitalism, free markets, and mercantilism. Instead of cutting economics classes, which was the universal student routine, students thronged to attend his classes.
When Krishnan fell in love with Sharada, a fellow professor who taught history, it was a most natural act. If Krishnan had been a woman, he would have been Sharada. She had the same scholarly, inquiring mind, the same sharp sense of humour, the same quiet manner. In the first year of their marriage, their home had hardly any noise of inhabitation. Each would be stuck to his or her favourite chair with a book. Conversations were low-pitched and the lighting was soft.
When Sharada became pregnant, Subbu was elated. While he had relished bringing up Krishnan, he did not have the luxury of enjoying Krishnan’s company without the strain of chores. Plus there was the distance between man and son that cannot be shrunk, but magically shrinks between man and grandchild.
Every morning he woke up with a lurch of his heart looking forward to the arrival of his grandchild. He was waiting to minister to its every need when Sharada resumed work. But Sharada would have none of it. She was determined to look after the baby, and resigned from her job two months before her due date.
Subbu was a little disappointed that he could not monopolize his grandchild, but was grateful that the child would get a full share of its mother’s love. Later in his life, he regretted that he so fervently wished to take care of the child. Maybe that was why it was granted.
He distinctly recalled a day when Bharat, nearly six months old, was playing with his favourite teddy bear while Sharada watched with shining eyes. Krishnan was lounging in his chair poring over The Brothers Karamazov, something he had been longing to read for a long time, but had never managed to. Subbu was gazing at the newspaper without reading anything. His mind was taking in the scene and contrasting it with the clamour outside.
Krishnan and Sharada, genuinely affectionate, artistic, understated and phlegmatic—conspicuously incongruous with the world outside. So incongruous that they had to depart early.

•

“Excuse me, Bharat. Do you have a minute?”
“No,” growled Bharat like a sage whose penance had been interrupted. “Leave me alone for now.”
Now FI’s share price was Rs. 600. A short distance to go.
In anticipation, he had retrieved the phone number of Indu on his phone so that he could just press the “Call” button when it happened.
He briefly glanced at Mangal. Gentle beads of sweat had broken out on Mangal’s brow. The air-conditioning thermometer indicated 19 degrees centigrade. Unobtrusively, Bharat pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his brow just in case the sweat was showing.
The price of FI dropped to Rs. 595.
“Oh, come on,” Bharat said. Mangal gave him a meaningful look.
A presence behind him made Bharat turn around. It was Keshav.
“Not bad, yaar, for you guys. Any idea how I can get my shares back?”
“Keshav, beat it,” Bharat said menacingly.
“Okay, yaar. Take it easy,” said Keshav and walked away.
After staying for the five longest minutes at Rs. 595, the price of FI started inching up: 600, 607, 608…609, 610, 611…
Bharat realized that he had been drinking water indiscriminately while waiting for it to happen. His kidneys were bursting. He pressed one hand on his crotch as if to silence it.
611…612.
It had happened!
Simultaneously, Bharat and Mangal thumped the table and said, “Yes!”
Yes. Rs. 612 was the stuff that dreams were made of.
It had happened!
Both he and Mangal were now millionaires. Not rupee millionaires, which was like yen millionaires. They were full-blooded, US dollar millionaires. The stock options that they had derided so much, had been so sceptical about, that Keshav had thoughtlessly distributed to his in-laws, had now made them millionaires.
Indu had to be told. As he reached out to press the “Call” button on his phone, it startled him ringing shrilly.
“Hello,” said Indu from the other end.
“Indu…” Bharat was gasping. “It…”
“…happened.” Indu completed helpfully.
“Yes.”
“So looks like you were watching my company’s share price quite closely.”
Bharat didn’t get it for a moment. He had not been watching the Paragon stock price. It sank into him slowly.
“Indu…really?”
“What do you mean? So you were watching only your company’s price, weren’t you? I was watching both.”
“I am sorry,” he said, a little guiltily.
When he put down the phone, he couldn’t help emitting a low whistle. His indignant kidneys said, “Hello?”
Indu was also a US dollar millionaire. On her stock options.

•

With bags slung from both arms, Subbu paused at the foot of the staircase. Though their apartment was on the fourth floor, unlike Bharat and Indu and the rest of the occupants, Subbu never used the elevator except when Maya wanted to amuse herself. She was still thrilled by the prospect of going up an elevator. The elevator was a play object for her. Just when they got to their floor, she would command it to go down. Up and down a few times. Subbu would indulge her so long as no one appeared to be waiting. After a few times, he would keep the “door open” button pressed, and would order her to leave. When there were other people, she would politely press the “door open” button for everybody to get in, sweetly ask for the floor numbers, shield the switch panel with her body lest somebody should press the buttons, press each floor button in order, blush for every “thank you” that was said, and say a polite “bye, bye” to somebody that might be left in the elevator when she exited.
To her the elevator was a ceaseless wonder. To Subbu, every elevator experience with her was a ceaseless wonder.
He took in the height of the first flight of steps, braced himself, and ran up the stairs, skipping every alternate step. Occasionally, the Coiffured Man, who lived in the apartment above theirs, took the stairs, and saw him doing it. Unhesitatingly he said, “Wow!”
Even as he inserted the key, Subbu knew Aaya was home. She had gone to her village for the weekend. Her slippers were outside, near the doormat. The sound of running water was unmistakable, as were the other intimations of the woman at work.
As he entered, he perfunctorily called out, “Aaya.”
“Here, pantu-thatha,” she called out to confirm it was she.
“Okay. Carry on.”
Aaya must be between sixty and sixty-five now, Subbu calculated. He had brought her from his village as a ten year old girl to help at home when Krishnan arrived. She helped with the household work, barely a half-adult herself, and had stayed with them ever since. Jaya jealously looked after all of Krishnan’s needs leaving only the chores to Aaya. Subbu was certain that Aaya wistfully desired the duty of looking after the child. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so wistful; perhaps his wishes had a misplaced intensity.
After the accident, when Subbu wasn’t tending to Bharat, it was Aaya. And now she looked after Maya and the home. Her real name, Meenakshi, had disappeared from all records except Subbu’s memory. She used to call him “saar” without complete conviction, until Bharat named him “pantu-thatha.” She clung on to it as did Subbu and the others, to “Aaya.”
Many times, in the presence of guests, Subbu had embarrassed Indu by introducing Aaya as “Aaya.” Indu would suppress her rage with a smile when only her lips smiled without the cooperation of her eyes, and explain, “Nanny, you know.” She had considered the possibility of “governess” and quickly dismissed it as absurdly regal.
Once later on, flicking the hair from her eyes, she demanded, “Why don’t you introduce her as the nanny, or better still, as the au pair?”
Subbu rolled the word on his tongue and said, “You know, a name must fit a personality. Au pair? No good. Nanny? Worse. Aaya is good.”
Knowing this was an unproductive battle, initially Indu stuck to her “au pair” and Subbu to his “Aaya.” Maya, of course, called her “Aaya.” She had a compelling reason. “Aaya” rhymed better with “Maya” than “nanny” or “au pair” did, and that was that. Bharat called her “Aaya” loudly, with affection and authority, when Indu was absent. But when Indu was around, he called her, “Aaya” timidly, and consciously limited the need to address Aaya. Indu herself was forced to call her “Aaya” when guests were not around because she could not think of any other name. Besides, Aaya was beyond the age when she would respond to a new name. Her partial deafness was tuned to responding to Aaya, and not to any other name. Aaya lived in mortal terror of Indu.
“Aaya, water…” Before Subbu could finish hollering, Aaya had appeared with a glass of water. This was routine. Shopping at Foodmania carefully including a choice of Post cereals, his breakfast favourite. A run up the stairs. Panting for breath. Flopping into the sofa. A drink of water. And a second round of detailed reading of the newspaper after the cursory first round with morning coffee.
Something disturbed his concentration. He had forgotten a tiny bit of his routine. Controlling his rising chagrin at himself for forgetting it—how many times must a man disturb himself before he can settle down to the day’s papers—he walked to the niche on the wall near the shoe cabinet, reached into it and shut off the central air-conditioning. In a quick stride, he was opening the windows one after another, his impatience evident in the windows banging open.
With matching impatience, when Indu returned home, she would replay the sequence in reverse. After shoving her shoes into the closet, she would slap the air-conditioning switch on, and go about shutting the windows one after another. She couldn’t imagine, why in such hot and humid weather, anybody would deny himself the elementary comfort of air-conditioning.
Even with pollution reaching record levels in Madras, Subbu longed for fresh, natural air, not the recirculated, stale air-conditioned air. Besides, on the fourth floor, pollution wasn’t as bad as on the ground floor. The stale air-conditioned air and the perpetually closed windows were not the only things that Subbu disliked about this apartment: The Home. Maya had named it The Home to distinguish it from their weekend beachside apartment, the Second Home. The Home depressed him in many ways. He did not like the antiseptic decor created from pre-assembled pieces, the decor that was in virtually every apartment in the block, the duplex organization, the smell of the room freshener which had become permanent on repeated use, and the neighbours.
The part of the duplex level that annoyed him the most was the bedroom section. Maya had a bedroom to herself. Aaya slept in the passage just outside Maya’s bedroom. Next to Maya’s room was his bedroom. Across the passage were two bedrooms, one for Indu, and one for Bharat. When Indu moved in and made this demand, Subbu was incredulous, but did not express it. Bharat fumbled, but quickly agreed. A child learns about matrimony from the marriage it observes most intimately—its parents’. Bharat was significantly disadvantaged in this respect. In this and in other marital matters later, his understanding stemmed from consultation with friends or from Indu’s proposals.
“I want my space,” Indu had emphatically declared. Her bedroom had a corner patio and a wardrobe. She was the only person who had keys to the different drawers and would not brook even Bharat wandering about her bedroom too often without purpose. She was fair to let Bharat have his patio and wardrobe in his bedroom.
A door connected their bedrooms. It appeared locked every time Subbu had a passing glance at it. Maybe it was sensitized to hormone levels and opened automatically when the hormones surged. Where did this mischievous thought come from? Must be the insidious influence of early Sean Connery James Bond movies.
In general, Subbu hated apartments.
The Second Home was an apartment too, but he tolerated it. Because it was built on special soil. The soil on which Subbu’s house originally stood.
He had a sprinkling of the articles of Krishnan, Sharada and Jaya in both the apartments. That’s about the only thing that helped his transition from independent house to apartment. These articles—Krishnan’s clothes here, Sharada’s clothes in the Second Home, his son’s cherished book collection here, Jaya’s bronze statuette supposedly dating to the Chola period in the Second Home—were his few but strong roots in a rootless apartment existence.
After much deliberation, he had decided to leave the family photograph—his greatest treasure, his guarantor of sanity—in the Second Home. Krishnan and Sharada would smile from it. Their eyes radiated sublime, inexhaustible serenity. Bharat, with a mop of curly hair and sitting on his father, would look at him from a peculiar angle (he had been torn between a moving spider on the wall and the photographer’s call, “Readyyyy…smile.”). Even though he visited the Second Home only during weekends, Subbu decided the photograph belonged more there than here. That’s where Krishnan, Sharada and Jaya belonged.
The most striking part of the photograph was his wife, Jaya. Somehow she managed to convey her great but undemonstrative compassion for her limited, yet infinite, world of her family. It was the only surviving image on paper of her. She was very photography-shy. He could still feel her wriggling against him in the few long seconds when the photographer was peering into the camera to make fine adjustments.
Out of view, he had to squeeze her hand in admonition. She grimaced for a second in pain, and then became photography-ready as best as she could.

•

When Bharat came that evening and broke the news, he was visibly excited. His fair face was suffused with a red blush. He was hardly able to shut his smile. There were many raucous phone calls. He called Mangal at least thrice. He had spent the whole day with him. What world-changing events happened between then and the ride home that he had to call him thrice, Subbu wondered.
Even Indu’s armour of composure showed chinks. She did not like to expose them, so hers was repressed gloating. When Bharat exuberantly suggested that they go out for dinner with friends, Indu accepted dinner outside but ruled out going with friends. “Just you and me.”
When Subbu’s own marriage was contemplated long ago, his mother reported that during the pre-marriage discussions, the whisper doing the rounds in the bride’s family was that the bridegroom had a salary of four hundred rupees. A salary that would assure the couple later of a reasonably affluent life.
The numbers that Bharat and Indu were discussing had so many zeroes and so many currencies that Subbu was beyond caring. He wondered if he could write correctly such large numbers.
“Pantu-thatha, can you take care of Maya this evening? Indu and I want to go out to eat,” Bharat implored.
Quite unnecessary, Subbu thought, the imploring part. What else did he have to do? Maya, uncomprehending, had her left hand index finger stuck into her mouth, as ever. It gave the impression that her hand, hanging limply, was suspended from the mouth by her index finger. Subbu was desperately hushing her to drop her hand since this irritated Bharat. Because it irritated Indu. But Bharat was too distracted.
“Of course, I will take care of her.”
“Can I go, too?” Maya asked.
“Not today, darling. Some other day. That’s a promise,” Indu responded.
Not even waiting for her to complete her reply, Maya ran away calling out “Aaya…” She didn’t expect her mother to say “yes”, but nobody should blame her that she didn’t ask.
When they were leaving, Subbu asked anxiously more than once whether they had taken the keys to the apartment. Bharat was peeved by the repeated question, but Subbu had his reasons. The one thing he would never give up was his sleep. He had to sleep at 9:30 PM, a half-hour after Maya went to sleep, and get up at 4:30 in the morning for his walk. He knew Bharat and Indu would now return only in the wee hours of the morning.
This time, however, they returned at the stroke of midnight. Slightly drunk, Bharat lurched to switch on the light of his bedroom. Indu had gone into her bedroom. He stood staring at the connecting door for a long moment. Then, muttering something, clumsily he climbed into his bedclothes and switched off the light.
The connecting door opened. Indu stood silhouetted. She knew Bharat would have been staring expectantly at the door, willing it to open. Permission was now granted.
Blowing whisky fumes into each other’s faces, they made violent love.
He, thinking of his million.
She, thinking of her million.

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