Family Matters (25 page)

“Oh, come on – kindness is betrayal?”

Trying to make him understand, Vilas spoke with great fervour: “When a client places a letter in my hands, it’s a sacred trust. I pledge to read the words for him in the way they would be consumed by his own eyes – if he could read. That’s the inviolable contract: not one word added or omitted or delayed.”

“You’re taking it too seriously. At most, it’s like a little white lie.”

“Some things can only be taken seriously!” Vilas’s voice rose, and people passing assumed the two were quarrelling. “Little white lies are as pernicious as big black lies. When they mix together, a great greyness of ambiguity descends, society is cast adrift in an amoral sea, and corruption and rot and decay start to flourish. Such is the time we are now passing through. Everything is disintegrating because details are neglected and nothing is regarded seriously.”

Out of breath, Vilas realized he was overwrought. “Sorry, Yezad, you must think I’m obsessed with my letters. You have enough problems of your own without listening to my extended family tragedies.”

“It’s okay, they make my problems small by contrast.”

“Yes, but only for now. Once evening comes and you go home to your father-in-law’s agony, your struggling wife, and your children without the things you want for them, your burdens will become huge again. The suffering world will be no comfort.”

“Thanks, that’s very cheering.”

“So will you play Matka again?”

Yezad frowned, and shrugged. “I would prefer not to. If my salary goes up, I don’t need the Matka Queen.”

“You just need patience, my friend. Patience is within you, rupees are without you. And you are without rupees.” He laughed. “Good one, hanh?”

“Very funny. Within or without, intelligent people should know how to make money when they need it.”

“But you are not qualified, in this culture of crookedness.”

“Why not?”

“Because of your upbringing, your belief in integrity and fair play.”

“You sound like Mr. Kapur, his nonsense about Parsi honesty.”

“Not nonsense. Myths create the reality. Point is, there was a time when living according to certain myths served your community well. With the present state of society, those same myths can make misfits of men. Even the British knew when to observe their myth of ‘not cricket, old chap’ and when to hit below the belt, kick you in the balls, poke you in the eyes.”

They laughed, and Vilas continued, “Of course, now they’ll have to invent a new expression because cricket itself is not cricket – just another crooked business, with bookies and bribes and match-fixers who break the cricket-loving hearts of us subcontinentals.”

“So you’re advising me to become crooked as well?”

Vilas smiled and shook his head. “You won’t be able to. Try it if you like – you’ll always be a cricketer.”

All the cricket talk made Yezad think of the times when he and Nariman used to go to the first-class fixtures at Wankhede Stadium. A genuine fan, the chief, didn’t miss a single Test or the Ranji Trophy. Such a treat to sit with him, listen to him describe the greats of the past, the giants he’d seen in action at the old Brabourne Stadium, people like Lala Amarnath and C. K. Nayadu and Vijay Merchant and Polly Umrigar …

The memories of those days filled Yezad with a deep sadness – Nariman was now lying helpless in bed. And not even his own bed.

How time passed and changed things. For himself too, the years were slipping away – nothing but the interminable tedium of one pointless day after another … was this all his life was ever going to be? Forty-three, and what had he accomplished? Couldn’t even get to bloody Canada for a fresh start … and the children growing up so fast – what did he have to offer them? Nothing.

He said goodbye to Vilas, entered the shop, and returned to his chair. Slouching over the desk, his chin in his hand, he gazed out the window at the traffic in its usual, vicious snarl, the cars and buses venting aggression along with their exhaust fumes as they made their crawling way towards Dhobi Talao junction.

He was glad when Husain came up and distracted him, asking if he’d like some chai.

A
FTER BROODING OVER
it for two days, Jehangir shared his plan with his brother on the way to school.

Murad said first of all the neighbours wouldn’t give them any jobs, and even if they did, they would pay so little, it would make no difference to Mummy-Daddy’s money problems.

“How do you know how much they will pay?”

“Because. Haven’t you heard them arguing with servants, and the way they treat them?”

“They wouldn’t do that with us.”

“They’d be worse, because we’re children.”

Jehangir suggested another scheme: selling their storybooks to friends at school.

“Where do you get these brainwaves? We’ll make hardly anything – much less than what they cost. Mummy-Daddy will get angry for wasting their money. Anyway, we need hundreds and hundreds of rupees for Grandpa.”

They parted at the school gate, and Murad disappeared in the sea of beige uniforms that covered the quadrangle. Dejected, Jehangir lingered by himself, racking his brains for a solution till the first bell rang, then trudged up the stairs, weighed down as much by his worries as by his school bag. Someone came bounding up behind him and thumped his back.

“Hi, Milind.”

“Match today” said Milind. “I hope you remembered. Catholics versus non-Catholics.” He brandished his cricket bat, which was the non-Catholic bat; the other team would bring its own. And the stumps, represented by chalk lines on a tree in the playground, would be ecumenical.

Milind’s trouser pocket bulged with a tennis ball for the match. Cricket balls were prohibited, considered too hard and dangerous for the playground. He recited the names on the Catholic and non-Catholic teams, keeping his voice to a whisper; St. Xavier’s did not approve of such divisions in the student body, not even for cricket.

At the start of the school year the matter was addressed during assembly. “Many years ago,” said Father D’Silva, “when the game was becoming widely known in our country, the Bombay Pentangular Tournament was inaugurated, in which teams of Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, and Europeans, plus a fifth one, called the Rest, played for the championship. But it was a cause of great sadness for Mahatma Gandhi. He said that in work and in play, we, the children of Mother India, must be as one family in order to free her from the chains in which she was enslaved. He grieved and fasted, met with team captains and coaches, impressed them with his knowledge of batting, bowling, and field placements, and convinced them of the need for team spirit and unity. Under his guidance the Pentangular was abolished – there would be no more cricket based on religious or ethnic divisions.

“Remember, boys, in this great school of ours we strive to follow the advice of the Father of Our Nation. We must not think of ourselves as Catholic or non-Catholic, for we are all children of this gracious and loving Alma Mater who makes no distinction of caste or creed.”

Attentive during assembly, the students promptly forgot Father D’Silva’s exhortations on the playground. As far as they were concerned, there was nothing sectarian about their game, and their method was one way to organize the teams. Last week it was Vegetarians versus Non-Vegetarians. They had also played Oiled Hair versus Un-Oiled, and Starched Uniforms versus Un-Starched. Nonetheless, the school was always on its guard against the slightest whiff of communalism, and especially so after the Babri Mosque riots.

Thus Milind was careful not to disturb the secular corridor where Father D’Silva was always on the prowl, and whispered the teams in his friend’s ear. Jehangir liked the names on the Catholic team: Henry, George, Francis, William, Philip. They sounded like the names in Enid Blyton’s stories. Although the surnames were D’Souza and Fernandes and D’Mello, not at all like the surnames of the Famous Five or the Five Find-Outers. He wished he could change his own name. Jehangir, Jehangla, Jehangoo. Could be shortened to Jehan. Which was a lot like John. John Chenoy. He liked the sound of it, drawing him one step closer to the lovely world of those books.

“We’ll start the match in the short recess,” said Milind, who was captain of Non-Catholics. “I’ll put Rajesh in the extras and get you in the team.”

“I’m not feeling well,” said Jehangir.

“Come on, yaar, you never play with us.”

The second bell rang. Anxious to get to his seat, Jehangir promised to join them if he felt better by short recess. Unlike his brother, he was not keen on sports. He followed the cricket scores and listened to commentaries, but that was all.

The third bell tolled the start of the school day, the peals escorting Miss Helen Alvarez into her classroom. Sixty-one pairs of shoes shuffled, desks creaked, and benches groaned as the class rose: “Good mor-ning, Tea-cher!”

“Good morning, boys. Please take your seats.”

Once more the shuffle and rumble swept the room as they did her bidding. Most of them had lost their hearts to her, for Helen Alvarez was pretty, and fragrant with perfume. A petite Goan in her twenties, she had prominent cheekbones and a button nose. She was always smartly dressed, wore high heels, and kept in step with fashion. This year, because hemlines were rising, the boys’ pulses also rose quite often, especially when she ascended the two steps to the platform, settled in her chair, and crossed her incredibly smooth legs.

The straight-backed chair had a cane seat. If Miss Alvarez stood up after sitting for a few minutes, the pattern of the weave was impressed upon her tight skirt. This made the boys feel she was sharing an intimate secret with them. They wondered if the geometric design went deep enough to leave its imprint on her lovely bum.

Jehangir feasted his eyes shyly on Miss Alvarez’s charms. He adored her, and it upset him when some of the fellows, latching on to her first name, likened her to the Helen of the old Hindi movies, the actress in revealing outfits, with whom they were familiar because of the videos their parents rented to indulge their 1960s nostalgia. The Hindi-movie Helen was always cast as the vamp, the seductress who performed sexy cabaret numbers to entice the hero away from his one true love. Though the hero sometimes faltered, he always renounced Helen before the movie ended, returning safely to the arms of his virginal heroine.

For Jehangir, however, Helen the teacher was the virginal heroine. He felt angry when the boys spoke of Miss Alvarez in crude ways. But he held his tongue, or life at school would have become intolerable with teasing. To be one of the three Homework Monitors appointed by Miss Alvarez was difficult enough.

Homework Monitoring was Miss Alvarez’s pet project, her system of having assignments checked by the pupils’ peers. The goal, she said, was to inculcate the qualities of trust, honesty, and integrity in her students. She told them the classroom was a miniature model of society and the nation. Like any society, it must have its institutions of law and order, its police and judiciary. And it could be a just and prosperous society only when the citizens and the guardians of law and order respected and trusted one another.

“If you are good citizens of my classroom,” said Miss Alvarez, “you will be good citizens of India.” She believed this was the way to fight the backwardness and rot and corruption in the country: classroom by classroom.

Back in June, as she was explaining her homework system at the start of the school year, Jehangir had been deeply moved, for he related her words to the things he overheard when Daddy and Grandpa and Jal Uncle discussed politics: about poor people in a village in Bihar who’d died of hunger because money for food and irrigation went straight into the pockets of corrupt district officials; about the four hundred and fifty children crushed to death while attending a school function because the contractor who built the hall had cheated on the cement; and about the dozens who were burnt alive in a fire at a cinema without a sprinkler system because the owner had bribed the safety inspector to give him a false certificate.

Yes, thought Jehangir earnestly, his heart beating with ardour and enthusiasm, yes, he would help Miss Alvarez fight corruption and save lives, he would make things better for everyone in the country. He resolved to be the best Homework Monitor possible, hard-working and impartial and scrupulous.

The thoroughness with which he approached his duties at once made him unpopular with the habitual offenders. They badgered him for leniency, they cajoled and intimidated, promised friendship and threatened enmity. Resisting them endlessly was hard. Sometimes he wavered: would it hurt to let Arvind off for getting the East India Company’s dates wrong, to overlook Vasant’s incomplete arithmetic, to ignore Anthony’s muddled précis?

Then he would glance at Miss Alvarez on the platform with her kind eyes and silken legs, and, like the hero of Helen’s Hindi movies, his sinews would be stiffened afresh, the vamp of temptation shaken off. Summoning up the blood, he would make an honest entry in the Homework Register.

Now five months into the school year, he was more at ease with his role, inured to his classmates’ blandishments and insults. It was poetry homework day, and next in line was Ashok’s desk. He sat beside him, made him shut the book and recite.

“Hey, sala Jehangir,” he was softly menacing, “be nice to me, I’m warning you.”

Miss Alvarez called Ashok a Perpetual Problem, and periodically sent notes to his parents. They owned textile showrooms, a Maruti dealership, and three petrol pumps, and regarded the teacher’s notes with grave concern, but Ashok’s punishments at home did not improve his performance in class.

“Ready?” asked Jehangir.

“ ‘Break, Break, Break’ by Lord Alfred Tennyson,” said Ashok.

“Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”

“How can that be, yaar? Alfred is his name, the surname is Tennyson. Do you say Jehangir Mr. Chenoy or Mr. Jehangir Chenoy?”

Jehangir decided to let it pass. Miss Alvarez had decreed that sixteen lines of the poem be memorized; the poet’s name wasn’t part of the homework, strictly speaking.

Ashok started, “ ‘Break, break, break, break —’ ”

“Only three breaks.”

“Ya, ya, I know. The extra break is for your head, if you act smart.” He sniggered at his cleverness in covering the error. “I’m warning you, don’t count that as a mistake, it was a joke.”

Jehangir gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“ ‘Break, break, break,’ ” Ashok started again. “ ‘On thy cold —’ ” he paused, “wait, don’t tell me, I know it. ‘On thy cold, grey stones, O Sea! And I’ – umm – it’s something about my tongue, my tongue something something —”

“Give up?”

Ashok refused; Miss Alvarez’s rule permitted three prompts, and he didn’t want one so early in the poem. He gave his head a vigorous scratching, started again, and stalled at the same place, glowering at the Homework Monitor: “What’s the line?”

“ ‘And I would that my tongue could utter —’ ”

“I knew it, I said tongue. ‘And I would that my tongue could utter,’ ” clearing his throat, he went for the stanza’s last line: “ ‘The thoughts that arise.’ Okay? Second verse?”

“First one isn’t complete.”

“What? ‘The thoughts that arise’ – that’s the last line.”

“ ‘The thoughts that arise in me.’ Second mistake.”

Ashok wrung his hands and pleaded to let it go, but Jehangir would not relent.

The next quatrain went at breakneck speed: “ ‘O, well for the fisherman’s boy, / That he shouts with his sister at play! / O, well for the sailor lad, / That he sings in his boat on the bay!’ ”

“Good,” said Jehangir, hoping the Perpetual Problem would make it this time.

“ ‘And the stately ships go on, / To their heaven under the hill.’ ”

“Haven, not heaven.”

“What’s the difference? Heaven, haven, same thing, yaar. Please don’t,” he begged, as the Homework Register was opened. “Please, I’ll get into big trouble with my parents.”

Jehangir prepared to make the entry. “I can’t help it, Miss Alvarez said—”

“Wait a second.” Ashok put his hand in his pocket and fished something out. “Here,” he pulled Jehangir’s hand under the desk.

It was ten rupees. Jehangir shoved the note back as though it had burned his palm.

“It’s for you,” pleaded Ashok. “Just mark me correct.”

Jehangir refused.

Ashok visited his pocket again and added another note to the first. He thrust them both at the Homework Monitor.

Twenty rupees! This time, Jehangir paused to examine the money before pushing back the crumpled notes. “No.”

“Keep it, yaar, it’s a gift. No one will know. I won’t even tell my best friends.” He pressed the cash on him again.

Jehangir hesitated. “You’ll tell Vijay and Rajesh,” he said, knowing the three were inseparable.

“Not even them.”

He looked once more at Ashok’s money. A small packet of butter. Or mutton for one meal. Or a week of eggs for Daddy’s breakfast. That’s what he was holding in his hand.

His heart pounding, he put a tick beside Ashok’s name and pocketed the money. His head swam with the enormity of what he had just done.

By the end of the school day the weight of the clandestine transaction had quite disappeared, replaced by another burden: spending the money. If he bought food, they would ask how he had paid for it. Giving the money to Mummy meant the same problem. He could say he found it in the quadrangle. But they would insist he turn it over to Brother Navarro in the Lost Property Office.