The Hope Factory Read online

  Anand was given to impatience, but he sat quietly. Today he would hear his fate. He had left copies of the Landbroker’s papers with the lawyers. Rural land records were notorious for their dubious provenance. If the papers were dubious; if the titles were not clear; if there could be multiple confusing ownership histories; if the deal smelled even the slightest like fraud, Anand would learn of it today.

  At some point in the past, someone in the law firm had made a redecorating effort with heavy wood and potted plants, but like the junior lawyers and clerks bustling by, the plants looked tired and gray, as though they too were fed on half-emptied, cold cups of tea. At last, a clerk summoned him into the air-conditioned inner office.

  The senior lawyer, despite his reputation for real estate prowess, was dressed in a badly fitted suit and glasses that slipped down his nose and framed an overgrowth of nostril hair. He sat behind his desk, imprisoned by stacks of files. “Come, come, sir, sit,” he said to Anand, while simultaneously dictating to a clerk in a corner. “Vere-to-four—and he-yur-under—the vendaar—shall be—required … Please sit, sir…. Required! Fool!”

  Anand sat.

  • • •

  THE LANDBROKER WAS WAITING by his car. “Well, saar?” he said and smiled, seeing Anand’s expression. He removed the gold-edged glasses and flung them on the car seat beside him.

  Anand laughed in response. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll organize the money as you require.”

  He gripped the Landbroker’s hand. When he turned away, the scent of soil, of that rich, magnificent piece of land seemed to linger on his skin.

  HIS RELIEF WAS ENORMOUS; in the car, flush from the Landbroker’s success, he telephoned Harry Chinappa.

  “Ah, Anand,” said his father-in-law. “So glad you called. Now, about Sankleshwar … I have been in touch, things were a little slow because of the Diwali holidays but should get moving now. I don’t want you worrying.”

  “No. That’s okay,” said Anand. “Actually there is something else that has worked out, so there is no need for me to proceed with Sankleshwar. Thank you,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Something else?” said Harry Chinappa. “What do you mean, something else?”

  “Twelve acres,” said Anand. “Remember that Landbroker I was telling you about?”

  “What? That Vinayak Agarwal’s fellow? I thought we had decided that he was entirely unsuitable, most unreliable….”

  “He seems reliable. I have just received the lawyer’s opinion on the title papers.”

  Harry Chinappa was silent. “I see,” he said, finally. “One rather wishes”—and Anand could hear the wind that presaged the storm—“that you could have told me a little earlier that you were dealing with that fellow.”

  “I did,” said Anand, and he was surprised when Harry Chinappa said no more.

  Anand asked: “Shall I speak to Mr. Sankleshwar? About this?”

  “Good lord, no,” said Harry Chinappa. “I’ll tell him myself. I’m meeting him next week for my own development work. I don’t want you saying something to mess that up.”

  “Okay,” said Anand. “Excellent. Please tell him thank you.” He felt a ridiculous sense of freedom, like a schoolchild who learns that dreaded exams have been canceled. Around him, the traffic seemed to toot and whistle in happy celebration.

  *

  HIS MOTHER TELEPHONED ON a Sunday morning as Anand and his daughter grappled with geometry, Anand applying a varied and pungent vocabulary to a cylinder that defied the normal rules of existence and presented a new surface area with every calculation. Anand turned to the phone thankfully—his mother’s plumbing problems were surely easier to solve.

  His mother was not calling about plumbing. He listened to her, sat in silent thought, and then went in search of Vidya, finally running her down in the bathroom where she was applying hot oil to her hair.

  He tried to keep the momentousness of his announcement out of his voice; the doubt that had flooded his system when he listened to his mother, the sense of awkwardness that still would not fade, even half an hour afterward.

  “My father,” he said, “is coming on a visit.”

  Vidya’s eyes widened in the mirror; she continued to massage her scalp. “Oh.” Hot oil in the spoon, onto her palm, into her hair. “After all these years? Wow.”

  Fingers on the scalp, running down her hair. “When’s he coming?” she asked. “God, yaar, what will he eat? He’s very strict veg, no? Remember that fuss he made at that hotel? We’ll have to not cook any meat in the house. Is he just dropping in, or will he actually spend a night?”

  Actually, said Anand, I think he is coming to stay for a while. A few weeks.

  “What!” she said, finally stopping the hair massage. “How come? What happened? My god!”

  His mother had maintained a studied carelessness over the phone, as though this arrangement was standard operating practice between them: she was to go nurse her mother, who was teetering, aged ninety-three, on her deathbed in Anand’s maternal uncle’s house. In the interim, could Anand please take care of his father. “Come to Mysore,” she said, “this very week and pick him up and take him back. I will keep everything he needs packed. Good, very good. And don’t forget that he has to take his blood pressure pills. He does not like to and he pretends to forget.”

  I won’t forget, said Anand.

  He recounted his mother’s conversation to Vidya very briefly, and something about his demeanor altered the multiple hasty comments that rose to her lips.

  “I’ll get the guest bedroom ready,” she said.

  “Will he be here very long?” she couldn’t help asking.

  Anand did not answer.

  HIS FATHER SPENT THE DRIVE from Mysore to Bangalore with his eyes closed, sleeping or otherwise. He emerged from the car and confronted the bulk of his son’s house, representing as it did the fruits of a path he had always opposed. Anand kept silent, embarrassment warring with the pride within him. Would his father see his house as an affront? As a repudiation of his own strictly austere, lower-middle-class brahmin lifestyle? Why couldn’t Vidya have agreed to a smaller house? Happily, the house did not suffer its supersize alone: every home in this neighborhood seemed to suffer from architectural avoirdupois. And, at least, thank god, it wasn’t showily encased in sculptured white marble like the house opposite. The garden flowers were nice. And the house, though overly large and gleaming, was considered, by their friends, to be in good taste. Would his father recognize that?

  His father turned to him. “Where is my bed? I hope,” he said, “it is not too soft.”

  Years before, when Anand had told his father about his choice of profession, the conversation had not proceeded successfully. “A factory? But you are talking of becoming a businessman!” his father had said. “That is no sort of profession for us.” A businessman. A profit maker. Someone who spends the day counting money and then holding out his hand for more. That is who you wish to be? There is no respectability in such a work. What learning does it require? Tchi-tchi. Anand’s family had agreed.

  “Child, you do not come from such a tradition,” said an uncle. “Leave it to those who do.”

  “One cannot maintain sound moral and spiritual outlook in the face of the temptations that such a choice of work will bring,” said a grandfather, before passing away.

  His father, of course, knew where he had erred: in letting Anand go, at the age of eighteen, to Bangalore to study; and in compounding that mistake by not forcing him to choose between the serious-minded Venkata Iyer Engineering College and the Sri Guru Sevak Engineering Institute, both with excellent academic reputations and very suitable, but allowing him to opt for the Jesuit-run St. Peter’s Academy of Arts, Sciences, Commerce, and Engineering.

  Like Mysore, Bangalore might be in South Karnataka but, alarmingly, it prided itself on being “cosmopolitan.” Anand’s parents had had no illusions as to the meaning of this word: an influx of people from the farthest reaches of the
state, well beyond the influence of Old Mysore. Worse: people from North India, as bad as foreigners in their habits. The very brahmins of Kashmir were rumored to eat meat—and when you said that, you had said everything. His father had inspected the two-page cyclostyled college prospectus dubiously. “Studying engineering? In this place? They are also teaching science, and your marks are good enough to register for either. One may say that science is a good subject, one can obtain a Ph.D. and become a professor, good, good, but,” his father said, forcing himself to practicalities, “an engineer has more scope.” Medicine or law would have done just as well; Anand’s father had a classical respect for all three. Later, when Anand’s mother was absent, he had given his son advice that embraced the nonacademic as well. “They drink,” he said, with a vague notion of Christian mores derived entirely from the cinema. “In church. They drink wine to show that they are good Christians. Please don’t drink.”

  VERY QUICKLY, ANAND’S FATHER settled into a daily regimen indistinguishable from his routine in Mysore—establishing himself on the sitting room verandah mid-morning, cross-legged on a divan, a stack of newspapers at his side. His spine was invariably upright, his feet neatly submerged beneath his thighs; the vibhooti-ash markings on his forehead indicating that he had finished with both his bath and his morning pooja. His clothing was free of the shirt-pant-belt-shoes he had worn to work for forty years as a minor bureaucrat; instead, he dressed in a faded banian vest and a white cotton dhoti, freshly laundered and crisp. As the weather cooled through the day, various other items settled like sediment over this basic outfit: a half-sleeved shirt, a sweater, socks, and, finally, the sign of true winter: a long woolen muffler wrapped under the chin and over the head.

  Vidya, in some consternation, suggested to her father-in-law that on unseasonably warm days he might, in his son’s house, consider donning a shirt and (if he so wished) turning on the air conditioner, but Anand’s father dismissed such artificial measures with scorn. “I am quite comfortable,” he said austerely, returning to his daily solution of the sudoku puzzle printed in the newspaper, which exercise, in its wake, left the paper littered with pencil markings and creases where it had been folded down to a small square, the size of the puzzle. Anand was in the habit of reading his newspapers with his morning coffee; his father rose betimes and got to them first, subsequently regaling anyone who passed with a précis of the daily news that he considered important. “The blighters,” he would say, “have increased the price of the rail tickets again. Is this how they practice socialism? Will this help the poor?”

  His conversation with his son revolved around the news. He evinced no interest in visiting Cauvery Auto, evidently not hearing the question when it was asked.

  VIDYA BROUGHT ANAND A message from her father, sandwiched between the stress his father’s orthodox lifestyle was placing on the house. “Shanta is really grumbling; she is having to cook two separate meals: one veg, one nonveg—using separate dishes. By the way, my father called. For you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your father won’t eat from any dish that has been previously touched by meat. You know that. And now she may quit.”

  “I’ll speak to Shanta,” said Anand. “Why did your father call for me?”

  “Call him back, no?” she said.

  But he did not need to. Harry Chinappa, after waiting impatiently for his message via his daughter to take effect, called him directly, the phone buzzing relentlessly at Anand like a highly strung mosquito. “My dear boy,” Harry Chinappa said, “I believe your father is in town. Excellent! Must plan a visit. Or perhaps you can bring him by one day with you after work? We can have a whiskey and catch up.” This was his father-in-law’s number two method of dealing with him: orchestrated cordiality when he needed something done. “By the way, I’ve had a word with Sankleshwar. It’s a good idea if you come and meet him with me anyway.”

  “Why?” said Anand. “You’ve told him, no? That I am not interested.”

  “It doesn’t pay to be shortsighted about this, m’boy. I am not at all convinced about this Landbroker of yours.”

  “Why?” said Anand. “He’s okay. I think. I am moving ahead with that.”

  “Well, come for this meeting anyway. Mr. Sankleshwar is an important, successful man, and it behooves you to at least say thank you to him personally.”

  “Fine,” said Anand. “Fine. Fine. I’ll come.”

  eighteen

  IF HER OPINION WERE SOLICITED, Kamala might have said otherwise—instead, it was generally accepted that an old man of particular habits placed fully as much burden upon the household as a demanding new baby.

  Shanta, naturally, was the first to complain. “Separate vessels,” she said. “Separate menu. Who is to cook? Who is to clean all those extra vessels?” But this was Shanta’s normal mien, usually ignored by everyone else. Except this time, when she won an unusual sponsor: Vidya-ma herself, who, instead of rebutting each of Shanta’s complaints with one of her own, only said: “You are right. It is too much. You are right.”

  Shanta was unused to such easy victory and received it with open-mouthed befuddlement, but it quickly spurred on Thangam, who, nose twitching, complained to Vidya-ma dolefully about her own workload. “Extra clothes to wash, ma,” and Vidya-ma listened again, though perhaps not with the same sympathy she had displayed to Shanta (for everyone knew that it was technically impossible to increase Thangam’s workload: work added in one area yielded an instant scrimping in another).

  Thangam and Kamala were summoned to Anand-saar’s study that evening. It was immediately evident that he was angry, a state that was rarely directed at them.

  “The work in this house is too much for you, it seems,” he said, addressing Thangam.

  “Saar, no … that is …”

  “If so,” said Anand-saar, “perhaps I need to look for someone new, Thangam.”

  “Oh, no, saar,” said Thangam, hastily and with undue fervency. “I can manage quite well.”

  “Good,” said Anand-saar. “I am happy to hear it. What are your responsibilities?” he asked Kamala and listened, frowning, as she enumerated her daily tasks. “Well, Thangam,” he said. “You will be happy to hear that you no longer have to wash my father’s clothes or clean his room. Instead you will manage the upstairs by yourself, for Kamala can no longer help you with that; she will attend to his room and his clothes before her other duties.”

  Thangam dared not complain. “Okay, saar,” she said meekly enough and was dismissed, shutting the door behind her. Kamala waited alone. Anand-saar said: “Vidya-ma tells me that Shanta has plenty to do with her regular work…. Can you cook?”

  Kamala said, in some alarm: “Very simple food, saar,” but Anand-saar did not seem concerned. “That will suit him well. A little anna-soru, without garlic or too much spice. Some curd rice. Dosa in the afternoon for his tiffin…. You can manage?” Kamala nodded. Such dishes were well within her capability.

  Anand-saar had more to say: “Vidya-ma is also very busy, so if there is any problem or anything else, will you please come directly to me? Do not bother her.” He smiled. “I rely on you to keep my father comfortable.”

  Kamala nodded dutifully, though she was far from comprehending.

  Beyond the paying of their monthly salaries, Anand-saar had never directed household activities before. Certainly, beyond his occasional interactions with Narayan, Anand-saar did not intrude into Kamala’s daily consciousness beyond the detritus of his existence, the socks and underwear she washed, the clothes she ironed, matters that did not bring her into any direct contact with him. Occasionally, he returned from the office before she left for her house; in such a case, she might bring him a glass of water or the tea that Shanta made, spilling not more than a few drops in the process.

  Mostly, what she knew of him was derived from the truisms that Thangam offered with her superior knowledge of the workings of the household. “One must never approach Vidya-ma for money. Speak to Anand-sa
ar. He is the one who fixes and pays our salaries.” Kamala would listen to such statements with half an ear, for how did it matter who fixed the salary as long as it was paid regularly?

  And now here he was, asking her to report directly to him, in a manner most unprecedented.

  THE DUTIES WERE SIMPLE ENOUGH, easily accomplished but for the complications thrown in her path by the rest of the household. It started that very day, when Kamala entered the kitchen and approached the storeroom.

  Ey, said Shanta. What do you think you are doing?

  “Anand-saar’s bidding,” said Kamala, facing her foe and not attempting to hide a slight smugness. “Since you are too busy to cook for the grandfather, he has asked me to. If you have a problem with that, my dear sister, please go tell him yourself.”

  It was a temporary victory. Shanta did not dare complain to Anand-saar, but Kamala quickly discovered that her daily task of entering the kitchen and emerging with meals for the grandfather was not to be a straightforward process. She had recently seen a movie with Narayan where the hero, armed (like all heroes) with little more than good looks and excellent musculature, had to penetrate a chamber of villains and extract a precious jewel, dodging (in the process) flying bullets, well-aimed knives, and a villainess who kicked in high-heeled shoes. Her task, Kamala considered, was no easier than his.

  She could reach for no knife without Shanta grabbing it first, the cutting board was always busy, all four burners on the stove occupied and Shanta not above pushing her rudely out of the way. Every half hour’s job doubled in time. Worst, when Kamala’s cooking was done, Shanta would make a great show of smelling the food and gagging. “Poor old man,” she would say, addressing Thangam if she happened to be around, or the refrigerator otherwise, “his aging digestion is sure to suffer. I hear,” she would say, “that you were raised like a royal princess in your village. Perhaps that is why no one taught you how to cook.”