Cross and naughts

Sarita Lall folded the tabloid so that only the color picture of the ancestral Tambaram abode was visible. The village home of the illustrious Tambaram family. Synonymous with telecom, infrastructure investments and frontline politics.

Someone with a good eye for architectural detail had taken the photo from the entrance, doing justice to the vast central courtyard with carved teak pillars lining the sides. The stone floor of the open courtyard was polished; the doors of the rooms that led off the balcony were somberly painted. Old money and culture. Traditional South Indian culture: vast estates, women in rustling silks, jasmine strands and diamond ear-rings.

“ Not good enough for the servant’s quarters”, Sarita mocked the tiny paying guest accommodation that she shared with two other girls; a room and a tiny balcony that almost touched the tenth floor balcony of the flat opposite. Green paint, large strips of plaster peeling off, posters of Bollywood stars on the walls. Standard issue metal furniture, cheap square-patterned bedsheets bartered off a hawker. A far cry from the Tambaram’s, for sure.

Positioning. Creating an image, a past that didn’t quite exist. For their eldest son, they’d seek a good girl with a public school education at the very least. A convent education or similar. A good background. Maybe a diplomat’s daughter. Or an expatriate doctor’s. Someone who had the polish, the breeding, St. James and Champs Elysees. Someone who could fit into the family, light the lamp at religious ceremonies and still hold her own with tinkling glass and gleaming lights.

Positioning. Something that her army background with its frequent postings had taught her. Show, don’t tell. Show just what you need to, traces and wisps and leave them wondering about the rest.

She’d find a way.

Chinar

Annapurna Shekhawat ran her fingers through her short gray hair, put her gold-framed specs away and stacked the business and general newspapers meticulously in two heaps. So Mr. Patel had been right about Kashyap, her nephew and heir apparent to the vast Shekhawat fortunes built on oil, textiles and steel.

Kashyap. Kash. That’s what his friends called him, a rather fast set of youngsters, all born to the manor, born with silver spoon privileges. Falling profit at the conglomerates that their forefathers had painstakingly built, and ever- increasing party-time, fashion shows, art events. Lamborghinis and pedigreed horses had enthralled Kashyap even as their oldest factory, the one her father-in-law had first built in Calcutta in 1955, was shut down, the real estate squirreled away and sold.

Mr. Patel, ever the loyal retainer, had coughed politely as was typical when he wanted to say something unpleasant. But he had been right. Something had to be done, and quickly.

Annapurna sighed. It was not the boy’s fault. No. It never was the boy’s fault. A pampered upbringing, the very best public school, hobnobbing with the sons of erstwhile rulers, offspring of politicians, old-money business scions. Vacations in Paris, in Lucerne. The best of this and that. Pampered, like fine china.

After all, he was the heir-apparent, she had no children, it was assumed the legacy would pass to Kash. Spoilt, indulged. None of that rough and tumble her husband had been put through, worked to the bone even as he was studying. No far-flung factory assignment, no punishing training in the Indian system of numbers after school hours, every moment accounted for. No ambition. And the tragedy had made it worse.

Kash had lost his parents in an air crash that had no survivors. He was suddenly the poor boy in tragic circumstances. It was impossible to tell him anything after that, he could do no wrong, not to the cloying relatives and hangers-on. Even his arranged marriage to a good girl from a middle class family hadn’t worked as she’d expected, for the girl had changed overnight; now the constant partying and socializing kept the young couple busy.

It was too bad she had no children. “ Perhaps if there were sibling rivalry. Perhaps if he had had more time..”. Annapurna looked into the distance past the row of chinar trees that lined the curving drive to the portico of the mansion. But now something would have to be done.

The bearer knocked politely before clearing away the silver tea service. The lawyers would be here soon. There’d be a ruckus when her will would be read, glaring headlines and outcry, an outsider walking away with the family fortune!

She must begin the process of creating a meticulous paper trail to back her decision.

These days
I’m back to writing about hills, rain and greens.
These days
I walk tall.
I learn a cuss word a day.
No-nonsense. Don’t mess. Please.
No fripperies, and thank you very much.
These days
I get a surprisingly lot done. I’m not jumpy anymore.
I don’t stop to analyse,analyse. Not much.
Or fret.
What have I said now to offend.
Why do you suddenly call me “ austere”, o’my, that’s quite a tumble.
Or wonder about ghosts and sundry gremlins in mailboxes.
I don’t need to be making a living from questions people don’t ask
To fathom.
But no, that’s not rocket science.
You’ve to be reminded about manners?
Don’t you know when someone’s ill you ask?
Or were you always like this.
I was blinkered, I couldn’t see.
My bad.

“Five million euros at LIBOR,” Nikki murmured softly, watching in the mirror the outline of crisp salt and pepper hair and the dim reflections of the party in room behind her; a golden haze of soft laughter, muted undertones and the tinkle of cut glass. “ You think that’s good?” he asked in an amused deep baritone. Gere for sure, Nikki thought, as she touched the lace ruffle at her neck, loosening a satin bow. Her long fingers briefly flitted at her nape before she looked up and replied, “for Luxemburg?” Green eyes narrowed for a brief moment as they noticed the crispness of an unruly lock of gray that fell over his forehead. Gray- crisp white- worsted black. The dawn mist over a quiet St Peters as church bells peal in the distance. Green eyes quickly darted to the white-red- white neon lights of the billboards lining the seaboard, the sparkling lights by the bay, the lapping waters beyond and the roaring echo of the waves that seemed to draw her in.

A persian carpet, the finest weave in white silk, shot with gold thread here and there, sparkling white gems and the gentlest white pearls adding to the luster, designs built on the waft of a breeze and a whisper-sigh, patterns that shimmer and change with the light. You see what you want to, a mosaic now, an intricate floral pattern next, the sky and stars and universe then, for it has taken master craftsmen their lives’ blood to fashion this offering, but a dream, nazrana.

A tattered tarpaulin, paint, oil smudges, age, grime, old folds apparent, the cloth worn in parts where a frayed backing is visible, used till one day it withers to threads, its eventual destiny rags and then some landfill. Reality.

Once upon a time, a prince had been unable to distinguish between an ingeniously crafted pond and a rich carpet, so fine was the craftsmanship. A queen had laughed sarcastically her voice cutting past centuries, “ The son of a blind man is but blind!” Then, much blood had stained the rivers; so many widows had shattered the silence of the dead with their screams and curses.

One wonders what would happen now.
For in this game of one-upmanship, jabs and slights, deceit-mirages and reality, not much has changed.

Raindrops shimmer on the windscreen, their shadows dull gray on the dashboard. Lightening crackles and splits the night, all dancing silver and purple. Vast acres flash with an other-worldly light. Rain pelts like sharp needles on the asbestos road, drenching trees and the bougainvillea on the divider. Absolute silence except for the crack of thunder and drumming rain, a sharp edge to the air, ozone, the gift of life. She reaches out, past the confines of the seat belt, past the glass and bounds of the horizon it defines, and connects if only for a microsecond with that vibrant, dancing light connecting sky and earth; the charge coursing through her veins, illuminating every nerve, saturating every pore of tissue, like a million scintillating rays.
She sits up straight.

She rolled on a draft that came in seawards, using the extra heft to fly higher with just a wing turn, and drifted lazily above the wooly monsoon clouds that blanketed the city. The gleaming towers of BKC lay to the left, lights ablaze, all edges, metal and glass. The radio had said winds of 30 to 40 miles per hour, but this was a strong gust really, as the wind whistled past nodding palm leaves fringing the shore a tin roof or two flew off, but up here it all was all serene and calm. Perhaps in a while she’d swoop and check on lunch in the glittering waters off the sea-link, but not just yet.