coated with grime and soot, the dark enfolded within barely alleviated with a few tube lights. He ignored the somnolent watchman who sat on a stool below a board bearing the name of the current proprietor and peeped in.
The hot-oil odor of the place, the clangorous noise of overworked secondhand machines remained unchanged. He didn’t know the present owners, whoever they were, but this shed held the history of his first years as an independent businessman. He could not afford a car then and had driven to work through mud and rain on a sky-blue scooter, license number KA O4 R 618, which, by the end of its days, had sported dents and a long rip on the backseat.
Anand had recently watched, mesmerized, a National Geographic television program about early American pioneers pressing into the hostile western regions of their country—and had thoroughly identified with them. Like those pioneers, he had survived an unimaginably hostile world. A world where everything had to be fought for, every detail planned. Things that could go wrong, would. Things that shouldn’t go wrong, did. Add to that the Indian government, a strange, cavernous beast that lay hidden in grottoes and leapt out, tentacles flailing, suckers greedy for bribes. When things broke down, one kept moving, for to stop was to signal the end. To complain was to waste breath. To fuss was a luxury. And the next time around, one planned even more cautiously, as best as one could, creating backup at every level, for untrained workers that the law did not easily allow to fire, for insufficient power, for no water, for no sewerage, for telephones-on-the-blink, pot-holed roads, disintegrating ports, for whimsical suppliers, careless of quality, who had to be chased and cornered to deliver on their promises—yes, sir, of course, sir, I am delivering today, sir. Oh, sir, don’t say that, of course I am delivering today. God promise, sir. Problem is, sir, my sister’s husband’s niece’s wedding.
There were times, in the early years, when the battle fatigue hit Anand so hard he would almost stop, dreading the next phone call, harbinger of trouble, of something gone wrong, of chaos unanticipated. But something in him had clung on, blindly, and he had managed to pull himself out of the primordial slime and say, very simply, yes, we can do it. We can produce things of world-class quality, and we can deliver them on time. And in him lay the strength that comes from such alchemical magic, the power discovered within himself to take environmental dross and turn it into pure gold.
He walked back to his car and reversed slowly out of the area. He would mention this visit to Ananthamurthy, who had toiled in this old, greasy shed by his side. Or perhaps not. Neither of them was particularly given to romanticizing their past; Ananthamurthy would probably stare at him in surprise and wonder why Anand was telling him things he already knew.
ON THE DRIVE HOME, Anand found himself rehearsing parts of the speech that he would be making the following day. “Welcome,” he said, to the steering wheel. “Welcome.” He fell prey to his usual insecurities for a fleeting moment and wished that he had certain natural advantages: of height, a better speaking voice, the ability to size up people at a glance and the charisma to instantly win them over. “Welcome,” he tried. The highway bestrode a gentle ridge, covered by the rising tide of the endless city, colored cinder-block houses topped with black plastic water tanks racing up the slope in a wave. His car nudged past stained city walls layered with cinema and political advertisements, the film actors posed with an engaging artfulness not quite mastered by the politicians: plug-ugly, with odd hair and shifty smiles like wanted crime posters gone coy and desperate to please. “Welcome,” he said, in passing. Not. Motherfuckers.
two
THE SHINY LITTLE HATCHBACK CAR appeared in exquisite contrast to its surroundings, the metal glossy, the padded interior cool with air-conditioned comfort. The road it traversed was composed of tar and dirt and fetid garbage and flooded with a wash of pedestrian traffic that spilled into the path of the car in careless, dusty profusion. There was little room to maneuver within the press of human habitation: shops, dwellings, tiffin rooms, all crammed together, higgledy-piggledy, dangerously one-atop-the-other, falling right off, a miracle of wishful architecture and denuded finances.
From where she stood, next to the onion seller’s cart, Kamala studied the passage of the vehicle with something