Three Bargains: A Novel Page 23

  After their wedding, Madan would rush home, paying no mind to Ketan-bhai’s teasing, knowing that when he entered he would be greeted not with silence, but with laughter, as Preeti’s friends were always dropping by, staying for dinner, playing silly pop songs, sharing opinions and raucous tales over bottles of gin and single-malt, and at night, with her next to him, her arm flung across his chest, with his every robust breath he could slowly, surely, feel himself getting stronger.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE GATE SWUNG OPEN, AND THE DRIVER PULLED THE black Mercedes into its usual spot by the steps leading up to the entrance of a stout, glass-faced building. Madan stepped out of the car, glancing up at the sign spread over the entrance, MERIDIAN INDUSTRIES. The guard jumped up and saluted before pulling open the heavy glass door, releasing a blast of air-conditioning. The tapping of heels on parquet floors accompanied the soft hum of conversation as managers and assistants made their way to their desks with cups of steaming tea or files and papers. They greeted Madan when he came in, nodding their heads and murmuring good morning as he strode past the leather sofas in the visitors’ lounge, and past the glass cases along the wall displaying a sampling of their wares—smooth and supple leather jackets, calfskin gloves, embossed belts, pebbled leather handbags, luggage and briefcases of every shape and size.

  He took the stairs to the top floor, to his office: a functional, carpeted room with a long hand-hewn desk of dark walnut, a matching credenza, an oval conference table and art worth over a million rupees on the walls. He thought, always, of the other office he had known so well, Avtaar Singh’s room with its yellowing walls and sagging sofa, the scratched desk and the rickety metal filing cabinet. How well he remembered the mingled scents of incense, motor oil and Avtaar Singh’s cologne, the air outside heavy with sawdust and black smoke.

  His past was still unknown to Ketan-bhai or Preeti. He told them enough to satisfy their initial curiosity. He had a family once, he said. “What happened?” Ketan-bhai prodded. “Where are they now?” Madan found he could not say. Anytime he tried to put the story together, to take Ketan-bhai in his confidence, he was filled with unease and a certain fear. He had taken succor from his memories. They were his, and he recoiled from sharing them, as if, once he did so, they would become diluted or unreal. Already, with time, everyone seemed to be getting more distant, as if they were part of a folktale he’d heard.

  In the end, he had said to Ketan-bhai, “Sometimes a storm comes and knocks just one tree down, and sometimes the same storm lifts away your house and takes everything with it.” It was as close to the truth as he could get.

  He had moved on. Any day now, Preeti was going to have a baby, a thought that filled him with as much anxiety as excitement. In Gorapur, they would have moved on too. There would have been changes. Avtaar Singh was still there, he was sure. Avtaar Singh’s soul was so entrenched in Gorapur that to separate one from the other would kill them both.

  Meridian Industries, meanwhile, was growing from leather-goods manufacturing into a multifaceted organization with concerns in many sectors of industry, such as telecommunications and wind energy initiatives, and they had recently partnered with a luxury hotel group to open five resorts in India. When Sourav approached Madan with the idea of building a township, Madan had been as skeptical as Ketan-bhai still was today. It would be a massive project, bringing them great acclaim, yet Madan was hesitant to tie up their company’s time and resources. But Sourav had found a way to persuade him. When Madan entered his office, the two men were already there, Sourav speaking animatedly, making the same arguments that he had to Madan.

  “This will not be the same old townships we’re seeing everywhere,” Sourav was saying. “It’ll be a world-class town, accessible to Delhi but far enough away from the crowded city. A lot of these international conglomerates are moving their back-office work from Gurgaon and Manesar. We will make it a green city, use technology in ways that will make everyone hold it up as an example. It will change the landscape wherever we decide to build it. Out with the old, in with the new. And, make no mistake, everyone will know your name because of it.”

  Madan could envision it now, this new city drawn from scratch, built to specifications, built with intention instead of whim. Not like the metropolis of Delhi, where the old constantly battled with the new, and modern, cookie-cutter apartments worth crores of rupees were superseding crumbling colonial bungalows, and everywhere people squeezed in and fought for space, while the everyday conveniences of water and electricity and drainage struggled to keep up with their burgeoning demands. Nor would it be like Gorapur, which started as an afterthought, a place to store the refugees streaming in at the time of India’s partition, and then never growing, never flourishing beyond the control of men like Avtaar Singh.

  No one appreciated a novel idea, a grand plan, a triumph of ambition more than Avtaar Singh. It would be exactly what Madan would give him. And the township would make way for his return to Gorapur, proud and unafraid.

  “Your recent wedding has had a good effect on you,” Ketan-bhai said to Sourav now. “We don’t want anything to do with the old Sourav, you understand? No dirty business. Madan brought to my attention that with the current rate of attrition from rural to urban areas, India will need a slew of new cities to accommodate the migration. Our current cities won’t be able to handle the load for much longer. If we’re building planned, sustainable cities, then perhaps we’re doing the best we can in the situation.” He picked up Sourav’s proposal and shook it at him. “But, for what you suggest, we’re going to need land, and plenty of it.”

  Land. Even a small patch could make you a king. Madan could see in his mind the land stretching so far and flat one could forget that beyond it there were the deepest, darkest oceans and mountains of unscalable height.

  “Leave that to me,” Madan said.

  They were wrapping up, discussing specifics when the call came, at last, from Preeti’s mother that Preeti had checked into the hospital. “No need to rush,” Ketan-bhai said. “These things take their own time.” So after he and Sourav left the room, Madan, telling them he wanted a moment alone, returned to work. He had promised to see to the land for the project. It felt important to him, all of a sudden, to begin the progress on the township before the birth of his child.

  They could spend years buying small parcels from this person and that, but he had a quicker way in mind. Within the space of a phone call to their detective agency, his messenger was on the way with their retainer and starting expenses. With the two nuggets of information Madan had provided—jewelry shop in Mumbai—they shouldn’t find it hard to locate the man who, Madan hoped, had outlived the death sentence bestowed on him by Avtaar Singh nearly a quarter century ago. Having set this first surge in motion, he was ready to go and see Preeti.

  Madan did not notice the entrance to the hospital, or the way to Preeti’s room when he got there. Preeti glowed through her exhaustion, and he sat with her before being relegated to pace in the waiting room, while Ketan-bhai and Dilip flipped lazily through magazines and talked into their cell phones. Every time the elevator doors swished open he snapped to attention, not knowing whether to be excited or terrified, swinging between relief and anxiety, until the doors revealed Sarla, walking toward them, beaming, her open arms enveloping them all. She said something to them but Madan could not comprehend a word.

  Sarla took him to Preeti’s room, and when the nurse moved toward Madan, he planted his feet as if to block her in case she whisked away the bundle in her possession. She did not notice, placing the tightly wrapped bundle in his arms. “Congratulations, sir,” she said. “It’s a boy.”

  He glanced down. This time he did not let go. This time, he held on.

  “Looks like his father,” Ketan-bhai said, coming in behind them, but Madan barely heard him. He eased away the wrap, and the baby squirmed in protest. Madan tightened his grip. How could he have known that everything he had endured was to bring him to this moment? To
this bundle in his arms?

  A second chance yawned and raised his tiny fist in greeting.

  CHAPTER 17

  MADAN TRIED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETECTIVE ON the line but his baby son was playing in his bassinet, distracting him.

  “I’m sorry,” Madan said. “Give me the particulars again. You said where in Mumbai?” He took down the details quickly so he could get off the phone. He pulled Arnav’s bassinet closer. “Look,” he said, after hanging up the phone, “Papa has to go to Mumbai. For a short time. For this,” Madan unrolled a swath of waxy, opaque paper. Arnav gurgled when he heard the rustling, and smacked his lips.

  “This, my son, is Jeet Megacity,” Madan said, presenting the rendering of the township.

  Preeti came in, the maid trailing behind her with Arnav’s bottles. “Time to eat,” she said.

  “Feed him here,” Madan said.

  “Your father is crazy,” Preeti said, cradling Arnav in her arms and settling down on the study’s couch. “It’s a good thing he can’t take you with him to the office or to meetings or on business trips, or Mama would get no time with you.”

  The maid smiled too. “Memsaab, you’re right. Saab would put him in his briefcase and take him if he could,” she said.

  “We have to enroll him in a school. There are such long waiting lists,” Preeti said to Madan. To Arnav she added, “And what will your papa do when you start school? Poor Papa won’t be able to drop in and see you anytime then.”

  “Which schools?” Madan said, already worried as well. His son would have the best of schools. “Give me a list. I’ll start on it right away.”

  “I can do it,” Preeti said with a laugh.

  Arnav could not fight off his sleep any longer and the maid took him up to his room. Preeti had chosen the name Arnav after an intense search, and though she had consulted Madan about a host of baby names, he never felt any particular affinity for any of her suggestions, until she said Arnav, and it fit. Ketan-bhai rocked him in his arms and agreed, “Yes, he is Arnav, the vast ocean, and like his name he will immerse you in waves of his love.” It was the truest thing Madan had ever heard.

  Landing in Mumbai always made Madan glad he had ended up in Delhi, and not this sludgy seaside city. The information Madan had shared with the detective agency proved invaluable. It hadn’t taken them long to locate Dhiru Sood, now a prosperous dealer of diamonds and semiprecious stones in Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar. Shortly after Arnav’s birth, Madan had called Dhiru Sood to remind him of who Madan was. Dhiru Sood, whose skin had slackened and belly had grown, had not forgotten. He came to the airport to pick Madan up, taking him to his house for lunch.

  “Forgive me,” Dhiru Sood said, when Madan caught him staring at him yet again. “It’s hard for me to believe you’re the same boy from Gorapur.”

  Madan indulged Dhiru Sood’s reminisces, bringing him up to speed as to Madan’s reasons for seeking him out. He was here for Dhiru Sood’s vast tracts of ancestral land on the outskirts of Gorapur. Though Avtaar Singh had claimed the land for his own, for all intents and purposes the land still belonged to Dhiru Sood. The township of Jeet Megacity would rise from this land.

  Dhiru Sood was cautious at first, becoming more intrigued as the scope of the project sank in. “Will Avtaar Singh allow it? If this big city comes up next to his, what will happen to Gorapur? The influx of people from the outside who don’t give a damn who Avtaar Singh is will bring big changes to the area. These new people will have their own ideas and ways of doing things, and will not give him or his town the importance he’s used to. And who will want to live in Gorapur with Jeet Megacity offering jobs, and security, and a life where they don’t have to be beholden to Avtaar Singh? Gorapur will be reduced to a dusty village, sucked dry of its people and its influences.”

  “He can’t stop us,” Madan assured him. “We have the political will on our side, we have the financial backing, we have resources and we have the manpower to get it done.”

  “You don’t need to give me this salesmanship talk,” Dhiru Sood said. “I understand what you’re doing. Avtaar Singh is Gorapur, and Gorapur is Avataar Singh. You destroy one, it’s the same as getting them both.”

  Dhiru Sood wasted little time accepting Madan’s offer. “Of course,” said Dhiru Sood, nervously touching the spot where the bullet had struck him. “A shot to the heart would be quicker. But you’ve decided to give him a long, slow death.” Dhiru Sood signed and transferred the yellowing title papers to the Jeet Megacity project. Madan promised Dhiru Sood a share in the township project for his children. He shook Madan’s hand and folded Madan into a tight embrace as he took his leave.

  That was seven years ago now. Avtaar Singh did not give up Dhiru Sood’s land easily. Assuming that Dhiru Sood was fodder for the field rats, Avtaar Singh hadn’t bothered to issue another title, but had paid revenues on the land, which he believed made him the de facto owner after all these years. He was angry and stupefied to find himself fighting for what he had thought was his. With revenue records in hand, Avtaar Singh’s lawyers swept into court to contest the title, but the lawyers for Jeet Megacity, with the original title papers, fought back.

  Madan spent his days plotting with the lawyers, and lying in bed at night he wondered if Avtaar Singh was up as well, gazing unseeing into the dark fields, puzzling out Dhiru Sood’s reappearance. When Avtaar Singh realized that the only way Jeet Megacity Enterprises could have got the title papers was from Dhiru Sood himself, did he question who had let him down so long ago? Did he think back, and recall who had sauntered into his office to assure him that Dhiru Sood would never trouble Avtaar Singh again, that he was no more than a corpse rotting under the cornstalks? It should not take Avtaar Singh long to recall. It had been Madan.

  It was a late Delhi afternoon, heavy clouds and the monsoon breezes tempering the heat of a particularly scorching summer, when Madan heard Avtaar Singh had withdrawn his case. Perhaps he realized a corporation of the size of Jeet Megacity would not give up easily and there was no point in paying lawyers to drag out the case in court for years to come. Or perhaps it may have been the additional pressure by Jeet Megacity lawyers who threatened to lodge other cases against Avtaar Singh for fraud and criminal intimidation. Dhiru Sood, they told Avtaar Singh, was willing to appear in court to give witness. Avtaar Singh capitulated, postulating that he had better things to do with his time than argue over an inconsequential piece of land. The team celebrated the news in Madan’s office. Madan wanted to warn the revelers to remain vigilant. This was but the first skirmish. Avtaar Singh would not disappear so easily.

  Finally they began laying ground. As Madan had planned, Ketan-bhai became the public face of the Jeet Megacity project, talking to the press and overcoming hurdles on the ground. “Why don’t you do it?” he said once to Madan. “Didn’t you say you spent some time in your childhood in this area?”

  Madan had deflected, saying that Ketan-bhai was much better at dealing with such matters than himself. He had done his utmost to ensure that when Avtaar Singh dug deeper into the provenance of Jeet Megacity, he would not find any connection to the Madan he had known over two decades ago. He had listed Preeti as a major shareholder instead of himself.

  Going over the progress a few months after construction began, Madan noticed the first real casualty of the behemoth that would be Jeet Megacity. Guru Gianchand’s akhara had disappeared from the map, demolished, the land cleared for what would take its place.

  Avtaar Singh’s response came swiftly, beginning with a project manager pulled out of his car and roughed up enough for him to quit while recovering in the hospital. The harassment continued. Equipment vandalized while guards or workers who were supposed to be on the lookout made themselves scarce, allowing property damage, labor strikes, work stoppages and financial losses. Then reports came of a large fire that consumed two godowns, one on the north side of the construction site and the other on the west. Both contained large quantities of construction material. Madan c
ould not stand any more delays. He waited for the time when Jeet Megacity would be ready. He could feel Avtaar Singh urging him on, pushing him for completion so they could face one another again. Yet, perversely, it was Avtaar Singh who stood in the way, causing problems.

  And so, unbeknownst to Ketan-bhai, Madan met up with Sourav in a hotel bar. Ketan-bhai would not approve of what Madan was going to ask of Sourav, who was on his second martini, olives tossed aside in disgust, when Madan brought up Jeet Megacity.

  “I understand this is a big problem,” Sourav said. “For someone like Avtaar Singh, this is war. We are threatening his domain, and he’ll do all he can to disrupt us. There are no rules in a battle like this. One way or another, Avtaar Singh wants to win. Ketan-bhai is well meaning, but his ways will have no effect on Avtaar Singh.”

  Ketan-bhai had wanted to buy Sourav out some time ago, but Madan resisted cutting Sourav loose. He and Sourav shared more than their recent affiliation. Sourav could have grown up in Gorapur. Madan could see Sourav hanging out with Jaggu and the rest of the boys, playing truant from school, living for the next cricket match, ending up every evening in Avtaar Singh’s office, grateful for any word, any sentiment Avtaar Singh deigned to bestow.

  Madan said, “I need someone to show Avtaar Singh that we’ll reply in kind to any nuisance he creates for us. Show him in a way that he’ll understand that any losses on our side will mean losses for him. Don’t get us any undue attention, but you know what needs to be done.”

  Sourav nodded. “I see what you’re getting at. I’ll have my nephews send their people. They’ve been helping me take care of my concerns in Punjab.” Madan had scant knowledge of Sourav’s large clan, spread over Haryana and Punjab. Sourav, as the most ambitious and educated of the lot, headed their family business, and one could forget the web of brothers and uncles and cousins running and helping with the different arms of his organization. “My nephews, they’re young guys, in their early twenties, full of action, running around town with their guns and cars. Better they make trouble where I tell them to, than cause me trouble.”