The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,81
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