We that are young Page 13

  Now, as she waits on the low steps of the Farmhouse, on her way to Head Office, she breaths in jasmine – her shoulders relax – for this morning, a rare, fresh, liquid morning in New Delhi, she thinks there might be a time when Gargi Devraj Grover comes to live as she believes. A possibility that seems, on this day, when, as she waits for Satwant, her soft leather briefcase in one hand, to have become – as astonishingly as the fact there are marigolds still blooming (in August!) all the way down the drive of the Farm – an increment more real. For a chance has opened up that she never expected would come so soon.

  To take the Company forward. Her own way.

  Where is Satwant? She must wait for the car, then wait again for him to get out and open the back door and shut it behind her and climb into the front. Although she has told the drivers that this is not necessary for the younger members of the family; they never seem to remember her words.

  The Farmhouse recedes, and, though Gargi loves her grandmother, her father, her sisters every day, she feels this drive to the city as a slow, rising euphoria, the sensation that Radha says is to be had from taking selected illegal substances while trancing in hotel clubs. For Gargi, it is enough to be on her way to Company Headquarters, as close to the centre of national government as commerce is allowed to be, a secretly longed-for key in her hand and without her father with her. Hasn’t she just left him, choosing to stay home and reorganise his almari, instead of coming to office? In his white singlet, in his saffron underpants, like a hardboiled egg cut in half she had thought, he stood among the rails of his shirts and suits and ties and shoes, ordering his houseboy to pack them all up and get fresh ones, while telling Gargi (as if his mouth was full of acid and nails) that he had heard all about the moment, almost two weeks ago, when, as the Tuesday Party fell over into morning, she had sat on the pool deck with that boy, Ranjit’s returnee. Gargi, you were drinking alcohol. And touching him, and inviting him to touch you. I heard about what you did, all you said. His words had landed on her skin, she felt them burning around her mouth, her nipples and chuchi. The houseboy had scuttled around, she could see he was terrified but also scandalised, his face the colour of her father’s Y-fronts. Every passing pool-boy and member of the Hundred saw you both together. He would not look at Gargi, kept on with his toilet, slapping lemon-scented cologne into the white hair on his chest and his head, rubbing it, pinching it onto his ears. His hands are enormous she has always thought, all the better for silencing crowds, or raining down thapars onto bare skin. Slap, slap, the hands, the cologne – How fat he has become. Gargi had stood, watching but trying not to look, the sight of Bapuji like this soiled the memory of that night with Jivan, the Tuesday Party when she had sat by the pool and he had toasted her, and she – drinking more than she had allowed herself for years – had shouted, The Gargi Company! as she did it.

  Bapuji had heard about that. From whom, it does not matter. She, Gargi should have been more careful – for hasn’t she been watched on and off, every minute of her life? Shame, Gargi, shame, said Bapuji, Get out. Go see to your grandmother.

  Gargi was there, clear-eyed this morning in Bapuji’s rooms. To try to talk about why Sita left. The weight of that is on her, setting like concrete around steel. She did not bring up the splitting of the Company. She had decided business as usual: she would take it day by day. But Bapuji had seen her open her mouth. As he buttoned his kurta he said,

  —I have set the tasks in motion. Minutes have been drawn up. All you have to do is sign the board papers. It is past time.

  Behind him on the flatscreen, the latest Company advert was on, for a sound system called REVERBOT. REVERBOT responds to hand claps and obeys voice commands such as ‘PLAY.’ Bapuji turned up the volume. He watched and clapped. Gargi said please – but her father could not hear her. She was dismissed, as a difficult book is shut and pushed to one side.

  She had left her father’s rooms (for she is nothing if not obedient, and it is this knowledge of her own nature that has made her so good at HR), feeling full of secrets and tears. Her heart pounding – hehas setthe tasksin motion – in a way it has not since before she got engaged. She felt released. Almost. Free. Perhaps to make up her own story as she goes along.

  She is Gargi, the key is in her hand. How good it will feel to put it in, turn it, open Bapuji’s office door. She will lock herself inside. Alone. The silence. She had not imagined this – it was Radha (backed by Ranjit Uncle, over dinner last week) who suggested Gargi take the office for now. He could see, he said, that Bapuji’s actions were testing. But Ranjit Uncle, Gargi said, don’t you think this is all too extreme? Even for Bapuji? He looked at her, and for once did not resort to star-charts or prayers. In a steady voice, he said, Let him be. You forget. Your father has always been a master of the long game. He has given you this gift. You must play along, for now.

  Before she left for Goa, Radha said: I am Executive Director with responsibility for Public Relations. For now, we must introduce you properly to the outside world, while showing them no change.

  —Radha is right as usual, Ranjit had said. Gargi beta, all you have to do is steer the ship. A day later, on a rare, fresh morning, she had the key.

  She will order the blooms for her father’s Mughal desk herself. Swollen, pink-scaled Gingers, bright orange Birds of Paradise with thirsting beaks and spiked blue tongues that pierce the air. They will become Gargi’s audience; their shadows will be her chorus. She might order a REVERBOT, so she, too can play music with a clap of her hands. Her own selection, gathered over years of day-dreaming about what it might be like to travel to the furthest curves of the world: Cuba and the Buena Vista Social Club, the American South and Nina Simone, Mali with her favourite – Rokia Traoré. Blackie songs to her father, to Ranjit Uncle and Kritik Sahib. In the hour between work and drinks, she will put one of these tracks on loud, and when Jeet returns from wherever he has gone, ear pierced, his throat full of stories, that engraved silver kara she gave him when they were sixteen – Jeet Singh with love from Gargi – still circling his wrist, she will ask him to gift her a sculpture. Some elegant, fierce, Durga – from the fourth century, Gupta period – as he would tell her, with one bare breast, to witness Gargi’s private dancing, to wrong-foot unwanted visitors and to glare at the secretaries for her.

  Though she is, she reminds herself, only the custodian of this key, as the car speeds up the flyover (Company high-performance concrete, here), ahead of the smog and the punishing traffic, Gargi will set up camp in Bapuji’s office. And wait to see what comes.

  When the lift doors open on the Bapuji floor, Uppal is waiting. His bald head in furrows, his palms up, as if to push Gargi’s plans back down to ground. Behind him is not an empty corridor but a total, actual carnival of people in black T-shirts and black pants, all making hungama. There are three-legged stage lights and rails of clothes; makeup-stands, a mirror framed with bulbs. Everyone seems to be rushing – although for what she cannot tell.

  —Photo shoot, interview, Uppal says.

  —Isn’t that next week? she says.

  —Next week, Gargi Ma’am, has already come.

  The key hangs flaccid in her hand. She is supposed to be in charge but in fact, she’s only the performing elephant for Radha’s PR team. As ever. And there is the journalist, already inside Bapuji’s office, sitting before the vast, carved Mughal desk – younger than Sita, Gargi guesses – in faded skinny jeans and leopard print flats, a white shirt buttoned to her throat, a dark blazer hanging open, the sleeves rolled up. Her hair is in a kachcha bun, lose entrails fall around her face. Her glasses are thick rimmed and square, as if she is the model on a shoot for ‘reporter: lifestyle magazine’.

  —Hi, says the woman. Nina Sengupta, Perspectives.

  Nina does not get up, or hold out a hand, just ticktocks her pencil on the desk.

  —Congratulations, Mrs Grover, she carries on. How does it feel to be, albeit temporarily, in the driving seat? Is that the key to the office? Wow. Looks heavy
.

  Gargi Devraj Grover looks down at the key drooping from her fingers. She decides she will do a Nanu on this girl. She sits in her father’s chair, powers the computer.

  —Welcome, she says, not looking up. Can we offer you something to drink? Are you tired? You seem a little dehydrated. Uppal?

  —Yes, Ma’am?

  —Please organise Rina a Coke or whatever. Now, Gargi says. Are your questions about the Company? Or me? Not that there is any separation.

  She waits.

  Nina Sengupta stands up, she pulls at her shirt, tucks a strand of her hair back, out of her face.

  —Thank you so much for your time, Ma’am, she says. We want our readers to get to know your softie side. We want to emphasise that aspect.

  Look at that! Gargi feels a piercing pleasure to see young Nina, still standing. Now she’s chewing the end of her pencil, flipping the white pages of her notebook.

  —Oh God. Where to start? Gargi smiles. Please sit, Rina, sit.

  Nina sits.

  —So, says Gargi. Why don’t I begin by telling you about our new eco-car. We are really excited about the upcoming launch. After that, you can ask me whatever you like, OK?

  —Great, thank you Ma’am. Your school days. And then, your beginning in the Company. How did you come to be here in this office?

  Gargi looks around – the leather armchair in the corner – the carved wooden elephants holding up lampshades on their trunks – and back to Nina, sitting, waiting, almost on the very spot where Gargi, when she was young, was called by Bapuji to stand every Friday after school. Riding in the car with her Lottie, stuck together in the jams. On the way to this place, Gargi would want to talk to her, would want to know about her, because the Lottie had looked young in the body but old in the face, and could not remember her own age. Gargi had wanted to ask about her village, whether she ever had to go to school, and why did she not speak good English? But Nanu had instructed the Lottie not to answer any questions, just to keep Gargi clean, her hair tight in her plaits. The Lottie used to say chup chaap bhaitho, or threaten to tell Nanu, and the fear of her kept both of them silent, Gargi, with her school uniform and the Lottie in her dark blue salwar kameez, the Company logo stitched over the heart.

  —School was school, you know? Gargi, now sitting in the office, for the first time behind her father’s vast Mughal desk, says to Nina. Tell me Nina, where did you study?

  This response is a Bapuji tactic, cultivated over years of milking contacts and contracts from little men and large ones. Take the question with a question and listen while the other person shares. Let them finish with nothing you have given: yet feeling so good and understood. Next time you see them, watch as they fall over themselves to adore you.

  —DPS, R.K Puram, Ma’am, says Nina. Then Hindu College, English Hons. I wanted to go into financial journalism. But I got assigned to lifestyle. Yet, I love writing about details of you know, deals and so on. I’d love to do in-house work like that one day.

  Nina looks around the office. Though Gargi has not spoken, she scribbles intensely. Her pencil nib breaks.

  —You don’t use a pen? Gargi says. Here take this. She passes Nina a black ink, Company Executive rollerball from her father’s stash.

  —Keep it.

  Gargi watches Nina look at the logo and smile. She, as a child, had loved those damn pens. She had polished her shoes to prepare each Friday in the hope Bapuji would reward her with one or two extra pens for her pen-case. Sat, on the way to Head Office after school, legs swinging in the back of the white Ambassador, counting her pens, or watching as the city sprung its elegant surprises: an arrangement of gerberas sprouting bamboos on the phoolwala stand – now vanished, for the new city rules have clumped all the flower sellers in a market outside the ringroad – and she had waited to snatch glimpses of the crumbling mosques, blushing to be caught by the sunset. In Lutyens’ Delhi she had loved the roundabouts best, they showed off their planting like the English women, the Doras, Amelias, Rosas in hats who, she imagined, used to trot around the circles in their carriages – would they have had carriages, or open-top cars? Her grip on time and its details is hazy. She was not allowed to wind down the window; but had spent the journey counting the Company ads on boards by the side. Daddy’s toothpaste, whiter than white, bathrooms, tiles moulded, for the clean of tomorrow, hot tawas and happy children – that’s a Company non-stick smile, all her father’s goods on display from home to school to office and all the way back. Chi chi chi chi, the Lottie would say if the street vendors tried to hawk them a magazine or a coconut or a balloon – two bucks, what was it to Gargi – but the Lottie always said no.

  Nina twists the pen. Says,

  —What is the cause closest to your heart?

  —I personally sponsor several charitable initiatives including education for girl children. I have projects in almost every state, training women to become schoolteachers. We focus on local languages and Hindi, and run sponsorship programmes to get them into English medium schools. We also teach core subjects – mathematics, so they can account for their households. Geography so they understand the scale of the world we are in. Governance structures, so they can challenge any official. And in some places we run the schools, for a closed system of supply and demand inspires loyalty, impact and longevity.

  Gargi watches Nina’s hand – is she writing, or doodling? Making circles, circles, an eyes, nose, mouth. A monstrous face with long dark hair.

  —Our next aim is to start a water salvation programme. We in this country are facing a crisis. Hence, the new Company Eco-car.

  In the car every Friday since she was seven, Gargi never drank water because then, she knew, she would need to do susu. She did not listen to her own music, because Nanu had told the driver he should only play Krishnamantras. Even when a girl in her batch had leant Gargi a cassette tape of Alisha singing Madonna, she was not allowed to put it on.

  Looking out of the car window she had seen the old green-line buses spilling men into the road, the boys on their scooters out-racing her car. She wanted to be cheating the traffic, even with such a big bundle on her bike. She wanted to balance like that and go fast on two wheels, not be stuck inside four.

  —Water, she says again.

  —Right. What is your one secret for absolute wellbeing? Nina sucks on the Company pen.

  God, what crap this woman is asking.

  —I compile lists, Gargi answers. Any busy woman who also runs a household does the same.

  Those Friday car journeys were Gargi’s chance to list everything that had happened that week. All the things that Radha had done wrong: Bapuji particularly wanted a report on those. A full account of what Cheti the gardener said to Topu, the cook. And all the shlokas and asanas she, Gargi had been given by Nanu that week: seventeen different Vedic ways to say prayers for Bapuji’s good health. Then there was Sita. Her first words – Aape-aape – her first step, her many first-division marks at school. Whatever masti she was getting up to – letting loose the house goldfish into the outside pond, cancelling the mutton order behind Gargi’s back – Gargi always told Bapuji that Sita was perfect. She saved all her points about her youngest sister until last, to put Bapuji in the best mood.

  —Do you have a favourite place? says Nina, leaning in. Somewhere, you know, that inspires you?

  —Here, of course, Gargi says.

  —Right behind Bapuji’s desk? asks Nina. She looks surprised, as if Gargi has said some bad word in public.

  —I mean, in the Company.

  Not this office, where Bapuji had waited for her each Friday, where, when she arrived she had to knock and wait, and was never able to sit down. Why not? Because Bapuji never invited her to.

  Nina is chewing the pen.

  —Was Bapuji the kind of father you could goof about with? He’s such an amazing role model for all of us, she says.

  —Naturally, Gargi says. He has a great sense of humour. He loves Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Mr Bean. All the pra
ctical jokers. And memory games. That is how he keeps his mind sharp.

  His favourite game was played for exactly one hour, every Friday without fail – Gargi – stand, memorise, repeat – what he told her about the things he had eaten outside that week and with whom. Bapuji counted all the most prominent political families, especially Sanjay and Ranjiv Gandhi, among his best buddies. He told Gargi all about what was served at this or that lunch with them; it was in their home that he first tasted Italian wine and olives. Focaccia bread so rich and tasty, he said. It was up to Gargi to teach Topu these recipes, or source those same things through Company contacts and present them also at home.

  —How do you think a woman’s touch has helped the Company thrive for all of these years? says Nina. Her voice is eager, as if there is a secret to female success that Gargi will freely share.

  —You can read our history on the website, you know? Gargi says. But really, it is simple. Everyone loves Bapuji. He does everything by the book. This is the reason for our success. Just straight talking, no backhanders. What you see now is the result of that ethos, that ethic.