‘And speaking of sons, I want you to meet my son today,’ Mama said and shouted, ‘Dhiraj! Dhiraj!’ Dhiraj, Mama’s fourteen-year-old son, came running from the temple compound. His Spiderman T-shirt and jeans contrasted with the plate of vermillion and saffron paste that he was carrying in his hand.
‘Baba, here you are. Let me put the tilak,’ Dhiraj said.
Dhiraj put a tilak on Mama’s forehead. ‘Meet your brothers,’ Mama said. ‘Govind, Ishaan and, of course, Omi.’
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘The cricket shop owners. I love cricket,’ the boy said in a voice that had just broken into adolescence.
‘So young, yet he helps me with my campaign after school,’ Mama said with pride in his voice. ‘Two trips to Ayodhya already. Put tilak on your brothers, son.’
Dhiraj put tilak on our foreheads too. ‘I have to finish puja. Ish bhaiya, you have to give me cricket tips someday.’
‘Sure, run along,’ Mama said.
We came out of the godown. Mama bolted the door.
‘How is it going, Mama? You need me?’ Omi said.
‘Elections are only six months away. In a few months, the rallies will start. I have to show Parekh-ji what a brilliant job I can do.’
I took out ten one-hundred-rupee notes and placed them in Mama’s hand.
‘Rent for the godown, Mama,’ I said.
‘Leave it no,’ he said.
‘Don’t say no, Mama. I am already obligated to you. Business is looking up. We will repay your loan soon, too,’ I said.
‘Hello, Pandit-ji? Can you hear me?’ I said. I received a call from Pandit-ji a month after I had opened the godown. The temple bells made it hard to talk and I had to strain my ears to hear his voice on the horrible line.
‘I have had enough, Govind. I want to marry my daughters off and go back to my Kashmir.’
‘I know Pandit-ji,’ I said. He had told me this story a dozen times.
‘Yes, but last week a nice family came to our house. They have two sons, both based in London. They will take both my daughters. Want to do it as early as possible.’
‘In one ceremony?’
‘Yes, imagine the saving. But if it is one ceremony, they want it in style. I have sold the godown, but I need a buyer for the goods.’
‘How much is the stock worth?’
‘Two lakhs of sale value. Of which retailers like you took twenty per cent margin, and I kept another ten per cent. The true cost is around one lakh forty thousand.’
‘I’ll take it for one lakh,’ I said on impulse. Ish and Omi looked at me in suprise. What crazy scheme was I up to now?
‘One lakh forty is the cost, and now you want to buy it off me at a loss?’
‘I am buying everything.’
‘Give me the money by next month, you can take it for one ten,’ Pandit-ji said.
‘I said one lakh. No more.’ I said in a firm voice.
‘When can you take the stock? The godown buyer needs possession fast,’ Pandit-ji said.
‘Today,’ I said.
When I told Ish and Omi about the deal later, worry lines crisscrossed their foreheads. I saw a gold-mine trade. India had performed great in the recent series. The summer vacations would start in a few weeks. If I sold it all, I could double my money.
‘You know what you are doing, right?’ Ish was doubtful.
I looked at him. My risks had let him down before. Yet, you can’t do business without taking bets.
‘Yes, I do. Do you trust me?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But his daughter is gone.’
‘What?’ I said, puzzled.
‘You had a thing for her,’ Ish reminded me.
‘Oh,’ I said and looked away. You have no idea who has a thing for whom buddy, I thought.
Business exploded in the next three months. Every Indian kid played cricket in May and June. Experts had called the India-Australia series historic. The actual matches had taken place during the exams. The pent-up cricket fix came out properly only in the vacations.
‘Is this how Harbhajan grips the ball?’ a seven-year-old tried to fit the cricket ball into his tiny fist.
‘Laxman and my batting styles are identical,’ said another boy in the park.
Customers at the temple shop tripled. Our wholesale business fared even better. Retailers never stopped calling.
‘What? Pandit-ji is going back to Kashmir? Anyway, two boxes of balls in City Mall sports shop?’ said one.
‘I’ve taken over Pandit-ji’s business. Call us, we deliver in two hours,’ I told another large shop in Satellite.
‘No, cash down only. Ahmedabad has no quality stock. You want now, pay now,’ I said to a credit seeker.
I kept track of cash, Omi did deliveries, while Ish manned the shop. When schools reopened, he also looked after the monthly supply business. We now supplied to four schools. It took a national holiday on 15 August for us to have a quiet day at the shop.
‘We should have kept kites. Look at the sky, that’s easy money,’ I said as I counted cash.
‘Hurry up with the accounts,’ Omi said. ‘Mama wants us there by four.’
Mama had planned his rally on Independence Day, the same day as Ali’s dad had planned a speech for his party’s candidate. What’s more, both the rallies took place at the same venue, at the opposite ends of Nana Park.
‘We will get there by four. But guess what’s our profit for the last four months,’ I faced the two.
Both shrugged.
‘Seventy thousand,’ I said.
‘Seventy what?’ Ish said.
‘That’s right. Out of which forty thousand will be used to repay our loans. The remaining thirty is ours,’ I said and passed on a bundle of notes to each of them.
‘Who decides how to cut this money?’ Ish said.
‘I do, any problem?’ I said and realised I had come across too firm.
‘Nope. So, how many loans do we have left?’
‘Only twenty thousand more, if you count the interest. We will repay all by the end of the year,’ I said and locked the safe. I kept the key in my shirt pocket. I stood up to do a stock inventory in the godown.
‘Hey, Govind,’ Ish said as he pulled my arm down.
‘What?’
‘Australia,’ he said.
‘C’mon, we have discussed it. Yes, it was nice to meet Fred and Ali is good. Just the visas cost three thousand each.’
‘Fred is giving the tickets,’ Ish said.
‘But we will still spend a lot. I’d imagine at least ten thousand a head, or forty thousand for the four of us,’ I said. I wanted to go as well, but I couldn’t afford to spend so much on a junket.
‘Here is my ten,’ Ish said and tossed the bundle back to me. ‘My contribution to the Australia fund.’
I looked at Ish and Omi. These guys are nuts. Super nuts.
‘Take this money home and toss the bundle at your dad. You need to.’
‘Dad is only going to find another reason to curse me,’ Ish said.
‘Here’s mine.’ Omi tossed in his bundle, too.
‘C’mon Omi,’ I said.
‘I don’t work for money. I’m with you guys and don’t have to be a priest. That’s good enough for me.’
‘Well then let’s save it for the business and…,’ I was interrupted immediately.
‘No, this money is for Australia only.’
‘Just when the business was looking up! Oh well,’ I said and tossed my bundle too.
‘There you go,’ Ish said, ‘we’ve got thirty grand done. Now if only you don’t pay the loan this time.’
‘No way Ish. The loan has to be repaid.’
‘We will repay it – later,’ Ish said.
‘Ish, you don’t listen. What if the other expenses end up higher?’
‘We will spend as little as possible. We’ll take enough theplas and khakras to eat for the stay. Fred will arrange the stay. Think about it man, the Australian cricket team,’ Ish
said.
I sat down and sighed. My financially clueless partners looked at me like kids waiting for candy.
‘All right. Who is the bloody travel agent, let me bargain with him,’ I said.
‘Yes, here we go,’ Ish said as he dialled the agent’s number.
‘One week, I can’t leave the business anymore and everyday will be expensive there,’ I said as I took the phone.
Omi disconnected the phone.
‘Later, let’s go to Nana Park now,’ Omi said.
‘Twice. They dug up the Ayodhya site twice.’ Mama raised two fingers.
His voice echoed, more due to the poor quality of loudspeakers than the impact of his words. Ish and I sat at one end of the first row. Omi stood on stage. He felt important wearing a party badge, though he only had an errand-boy status. His responsibilities included placing mineral water bottles for everyone sitting on the stage.
Mama had done a good job of publicity. Two hundred people had shown up, not bad for a neighbourhood gathering. The candidate, Hasmukh-ji, a veteran of state politics and a longtime associate of Parekh-ji, sat centrestage. Mama was enjoying his five minutes of mike fame before Hasmukh-ji’s speech.
‘As far back as 1978, ASI, the government’s own entity, found temple evidence. But the secular government hid it. Then in 1992, our dear kar sevaks were pushed into breaking the structure. And they found something.’
Ish started cracking knuckles, punctuating Mama’s words.
‘They found a Hari-Vishnu inscription that established without doubt that there was a temple in the past. But the secular party buries that news, too. The focus shifts to the kar sevaks as vandals. But what about that evidence? Can a Hindu in India demand justice or not? Where should we go? To America?’
Everyone applauded as Mama left the stage. Mama had candidate potential, I thought.
Hasmukh-ji came to the mike. He requested everyone to close their eyes to say the Gayatri Mantra, thrice. It always worked. The crowd became involved. They liked Hasmukh-ji before he had spoken a word.
Omi stepped off the stage and came to me. ‘Govind, Mama wants you to spy on Ali’s dad’s rally. And Ish, can you come backstage, the snacks need to be distributed.’
‘But why?’ I was bewildered.
‘You promised to help Mama, remember?’ Omi said, his silk badge fluttering in the breeze.
I walked over to the other end of the park, to the other rally. The decorations here were less saffron and more white.
‘Gujarat is a place of intelligent people,’ Ali’s dad was speaking, ‘who know politics and religion are separate.’
I took a seat in the last row and eyeballed the crowd. Unlike Mama’s hundred per cent Hindu, this was more of a mixed bunch. If the secular party was so pro-Muslim as Mama suggested, why were so many Hindus sitting here?
‘The gods we pray to, stayed away from politics in their time. If we truly want to follow our gods, we must keep our religion separate from politics. Religion is private, politics public,’ Ali’s dad said.
‘You a party member?’ someone asked me. I shook my head. I guessed he was Hindu.
‘How about you?’ I said.
‘Yes, for generations,’ he said.
Ali’s father invited the main candidate, Ghulam Zian, on stage.
As the septuagenarian began to talk, the microphones turned silent and the pedestal fans conked off. Murmurs ran along the crowd. Was it a power failure? No, as the event had its own generators.
‘It’s sabotage. The Hindu party did it,’ said one person in the crowd. Tension filled the air. People talked about raiding the Hindu rally.
‘Let’s teach those guys a lesson,’ a muscular man led the pack and lifted his chair. I wondered if I should run back and warn Mama.
‘It’s back. Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down. The power is back,’ Ali’s father came to the stage with folded hands. The fans whirred again.
I remembered the kissing chimpanzees and reconciliation mechanisms. But right now, there were no kisses. Only chairs that could be thrown everytime the power went off.
I stepped outside. I called a travel agent. ‘We want to apply for four passports and visas to Australia. And don’t give me a crazy price.’
I returned to Ghulam Zian’s speech. Ali’s dad spotted me and came over. ‘Inaayat, Govind bhai. What brings you here? Welcome, welcome.’
‘You speak well. You know Ish’s plans to take Ali to Australia?’ I said.
‘He told me, Inshallah, you will go. Ali mentions Ishaan bhai’s name at least ten times everyday. Sometimes I feel Ishaan bhai is more his father than me. Goa, Australia, I never say no to him. Why isn’t he here?’
‘Well he and Omi are…’
‘At the other rally, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I understand. Your choice.’
‘I am a businessman. I have no interest in politics,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’ll go now.’
He fell into step with me. ‘I’ll come and say hello to Ishaan bhai.’
I wanted to tell him it was a terrible idea for him to come to Mama’s rally. Politics may be his pastime, but for Mama it was life and death. I kept quiet as we walked back to Mama’s rally. Hasmukhbhai was still on, with lots of hand gestures. ‘Put your hand on your heart. Don’t you feel wronged as Hindus? And if we had the best culture and administration thousands of years ago, why not now?’
Mama saw us from the stage and pointed a finger. A few people in the crowd looked at me and Ali’s father.
‘Hey, who is that?’ a party worker said.
The crowd booed at us. Ali’s dad’s beard looked extremely out of place.
‘Get lost, you traitor,’ said a person from the crowd.
‘Let’s teach him a lesson,’ said another.
Hasmukh-ji stopped talking. Luckily, he kept quiet.
Ali’s abba raised his hand to wave to Mama and Hasmukh-ji.
‘Go away, Ali’s abba,’ I murmured without looking at him.
Omi came running to me and grabbed my hand. ‘What the hell are you doing? I sent you to spy and you bring back another spy?’
Ali’s dad heard Omi and looked at me. I shook my head. He gave me an all-knowing smile and turned to walk back.
‘I don’t give a fuck about this,’ I shouted back. I doubt he heard me.
Thirteen
‘First Goa, now Australia. What business do you do?’ said Vidya, her eyes the size of the new one-rupee coins.
‘Fred kept his promise when Ish wrote to him again. We received tickets in the mail,’ I said. We had finished class and I wanted to tell her about my impending absence.
‘So who are the two people going?’ she said.
‘Not two, four. Ali and the three of us are going,’ I said.
‘Lucky bums,’ she laughed.
‘So, I will be away for ten days. But your books won’t be. Vidya, all my students do well. Don’t let me down.’
‘You also don’t let me down,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘Forget it. So where are you going in Australia?’
‘Sydney. Fred is from there. Ali will practice in his academy for a week. When your brother sets his mind on something, he goes real far.’
‘Unlike me. I can’t focus. I’m sure I will flunk my medical entrance. I will be stuck in this hellhole home even in college. And then I will get married into another hell-hole in some backward part of Gujarat.’
‘Gujarat is not backward,’ I retorted.
‘Maybe I am too forward.’
We locked eyes again. In an entrance exam for insolence, Vidya would top easy. I opened her guide books.
‘Why are studies so boring? Why do you have to do something so uninteresting to become something in life?’
‘Vidya, philosophical questions, no. Mathematical questions, yes,’ I said and stood up to leave.
‘Will you get me something from Australia?’
‘Ask your brother, he will get you whatever you want.’ I restacked the boo
ks. No way would I spend more cash than I needed to.
‘Anyway, we are on a tight budget,’ I clarified.
She nodded as if she understood.
‘So, will you miss me?’
I continued to look down.
‘You have a budget for how much you can miss people, too?’ she asked.
‘Do your sums, Vidya. Focus,’ I said and left.
‘You guys tired or wanna hit practice?’ were Fred’s first words of welcome at the airport.
‘Where is my bed?’ I wanted to ask.
We had taken an overnight train from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, waited six more hours to board a fourteen-hour flight to Sydney via Singapore. Thirty hours of travel in cramped environments and I wanted to kill myself with sleep.
‘Oh, so we made it in time for practice?’ Ish looked out at the streets of Sydney. At 7 a.m. in the morning, joggers clogged the pavements. Picture-postcard coffee shops advertised delicious muffins.
I patted the khakras in my bag. We couldn’t afford any cakes in this town.
‘I go to the academy ground in the morning,’ Fred said as he stepped on the gas. ‘I’ve put you up in a hostel. Take a nap first I’d say. Philip will pick you up for the evening practice.’
‘Guys, this is Ali. He is a batsman,’ Fred said to the other players who came for practice. Apart from Philip, there was a beefy guy called Peter and a spectacled spinner called Steve. I forgot the other names instantly.
Fred screamed, ‘Five rounds everyone. Close to the boundary line, no short-cuts.’
The first two hours of our Australian practice was the practice of death. Five rounds of the academy grounds equalled twenty rounds of Nana Park and fifty rounds of the bank’s courtyard. After the run, we did innumerable sit-ups, push-ups and crunches. Three personal trainers supervised five students each. The first time I groaned, one came running to me. The next time he said, ‘Cut the drama, mate.’
We came to the pitch after endurance training. I told them I was no player, but I had to field anyway.
‘Here, bowl,’ Fred tossed the ball to Ali.
‘He doesn’t really bowl,’ Ish said.
‘I know, give it a burl,’ Fred clapped his hands.
Philip took his fielding place at the boundary near me.