Part I
On Monday morning Sunil found himself seated before his desk at the Chennai office. The commute had been quick despite the throng of noisy traffic amidst squealing autos, whizzing bikes, long green buses and cars and women on scooters weaving through the lanes. He noted tiny shrines at road corners and T- intersections and dark women selling mounds of jasmine strings before the temples.
At office his ears picked up the strain of English and occasional laughter and odd bits of Tamil. The men looked sober and their manner relaxed when they stepped into the canteen. The team was formal and proper with him unlike the boisterous, vocal colleagues he was used to. He spotted a few women- looking modest and dressed conservatively. He noted the absence of sharp heels, formal pencil trousers and blouses or tight kurtis. And none left their hair open or flashed bright lipsticks.
Sunil’s boss Ve.Kreeshnan looked formidable and jumped into work without preamble. He overheard the brats call him ‘Brain Curry’ for having an answer to everything and capacity to argue his colleagues down. Sunil found himself missing affable Mohan Ram and his avuncular jolliness. After a meeting and a round of introduction to the members of his team Kreeshnan’s superior manner relaxed and he said, “Sunil, if you need help around the place, Chitra here can assist”. Sunil nodded at the young lady who looked up from her papers at him. He thought of something intelligent to say but ended up silent, staring uneasily at his shoes.
“It’s OK, we don’t bite”, she sat back in her seat, containing a smile.
“This is intimidating”, he muttered.
“It’s logic! Why do you think we win Nobels for absolute sciences?” she asked turning in the chair, tapping a pen on the desk.
Sunil groaned, flopping down in a chair besides her.
“Who holds forth on defence strategies on TV?” she quizzed, po-faced.
“Dunno. Some Rangachar, a random Swaminath?” Sunil guessed.
“Not bad. Who tips rockets up Indian skies? Who designs weapons at Pokhran?” she demanded.
“Uh, a Ram murti? A Chidambaram? Kalam?”
“Full marks!”
“I thought you’ll were pacifists”, he said.
“With deadly defence mechanisms”, she said, adding, “It’s lunch time. Eat up rice and rasam quick and get back to work ”.
“No! ” he said, alarmed.
“Sorry, won’t flog the stereotype further”, she smiled, “Say your prayers and you might get roti and dal at lunch”, she said turning to her monitor.
“Thanks Ma’am”, he said sullenly.
“It’s Maydam”, she corrected.
He left the spot smarting and by evening cooled down to his chatty self. “Is there a watering hole for us to gather after work?” he asked Chitra as they prepared to leave for the day.
“Well, there are pubs. Ask Vivek. He could help you with that”, she said, seeming eager to pass the responsibility.
“You don’t?” he asked.
“I can hold the odd glass of wine or syrupy cocktail at annual official functions and that hardly counts”, she said.
“And the music scene?” he asked.
“Well, in December we have the biggest concerts for classical music in the country,” she said.
“Not, not Karnatak music; rock, bands, gigs, stuff like that”.
“I suppose something happens. Ask Vivek”.
Ask Vivek suggested, “Unwind Center, Gandhi Nagar. Hmm, also, The Vineyard near a temple on Nelson Manickam Road-but no booze, or reef in there-they’ve combined charity and making music. Serious music, their June-Out fest is good too. But got to behave; head banging OK, barfing on beer no-no”.
“Fuck!” exclaimed Sunil.
“Absolutely not on their premises. Don’t want people who can’t hold a drink, OD, bash things up, and molest girls. I suppose you are familiar with that kind of mess in Delhi,” Ask Vivek remarked piously.
****************
That evening Sunil worried about his singlehood snuffed by dull evenings and had visions of rusting away. He aimlessly switched channels watching swarthy heroes and plump heroines do dance hall pelvic moves on Sun TV.
David rolled out from his room, washed and ready to leave. Sunil looked longingly at him, fighting shy to ask where he was off to. “I’m not having dinner here. You could fix your rice”, David said. Sunil nodded.
“How does one pass the evenings here?” he asked, unable to hold himself.
“Ah, you can do this and that. I’m off to check out some jazz tonight at the American Center”, said David.
“There are?” asked Sunil.
“I’ve heard bits of local groups like E Flat, Null Friction, Rusty Moe. There’s a November Fest and the Museum Theatre, Egmore, hosts such events. You could come if you want to”. Sunil stopped short of smiling like a kid offered a lolly.
He had heard better, but they had a pleasant evening and stopped by a pub on the way back. It wasn’t noisy and was at a posh hotel on Nungambakkam High Road. The beer was overpriced but hey, no one brandished a gun.They wound their way fighting auto drivers and haggling prices and stopped by a vegetarian joint. Sunil wasn’t enthusiastic but he was grateful to David for the evening’s company and he watched in fascination as David tore a dosa expertly and dunked it in a katori of sambar and wolfed it down. “Don’t you miss your home food?” he asked. David thought a bit. He said he’d left home from Cardiff at 17 as was usual in his circle as a rite of passage into independent adult life and had always managed his food on his own since. “Mum is a nurse and father worked in the factories. We’ve grown on functional meals at home and living alone, cooking, and travelling has developed an appetite for other kinds of food. And if it comes as cheap as this, who’s to complain”, he said, ordering a dahi vada.
Sunil did not want to act desperate for David’s company, but he showed extra enthusiasm asking around at office and checking the internet for making plans for the weekends. David seemed to not mind the company as well. ‘He must be lonely like me too’, thought Sunil warming up to the notion of them as lost comrades on hostile shores. David would read up travel books and make plans for the weekend. They visited film societies for alternate European cinema. Sunil found it esoteric and at times boring and if he said so after a couple of drinks, David didn’t mind in his usual polite manner. Sunil dragged David to cut the rug at a local disco but found David lagging in enthusiasm.
Between their differing interests they found common areas of peace. They drove on motorbikes to Mamallapuram and burnt their backs under the glare of the sun; took a bus to Puducherry and slept on the sands and found a sense of peace by the whispering waves; Sunil tagged along David and visited ruined Jain temples in neighbouring Kanchipuram and uploaded photos on flickr and received a, ‘Wow! You should seriously hold an exhibition of your photographs,’ comment from Tejal. They hung around a car rally, thanks to free corporate tickets at Irungatukottai at Sriperumbudur. Sunil tried his hand at fishing alongside David at Puzhal Lake in Red Hills and failed, but shared a sense of quiet in the village and ate at tiny eateries. He was surprised to note David take to grimy buses and awful hotel rooms and bad food without much grumbling on their travels. Sunil didn’t want to act fussy and spoilt and held back from complaining.
One holiday, they landed at a carnival of transvestites and transgendered people at Koovagam near Villupuram; they passed grass between each other on the stops down ECR Road; got invited to farm house dinners thrown by advertising professional folks. David seemed attracted to bharatanatyam recitals by bejewelled women. “They look like goddesses”, he remarked. Sunil found its depth and tradition too weighty for him. He felt light after he got laid near an artist’s colony at a farm house gathering. It was a tumble after a bout of heavy drinking and she had been dusky, lithe, with long hair raining down her back. He vaguely remembered she was working on experimental dance and chhau. The morning after he found no trace of her and was left nursing a bad hangover at work. But the dreamy recollection of her suppleness disturbed him on nights to come.
**********
Ask Vivek and Chitra accompanied David and Sunil to the cinema to take in a Tamil film experience. The film was dreary about a thick-set hero who morphed into a vigilante rooster to combat villains. The heroine was curvy.
“Great tush”, Sunil said. David nodded eagerly.
“She’s Punjabi like you”, Ask Vivek informed.
“I’m Haryanvi. Why do you have some many north Indian heroines here?” Sunil asked.
“Revenge, for stealing some of our most beautiful women into Bollywood”, Chitra remarked.
He turned to look at her and smiled. They were seated besides each other in one of Chennai’s new seaside cinema and entertainment complexes. He had been surprised that she had joined them that evening. Apart from small talk over work or cursory greetings she kept to herself pretty much or with her circle of colleagues. At office, in the canteen, or while they took the lift together, she ignored Sunil with studied politeness, her manner icy, and that was sign enough she was aware of his presence. It gave him a little satisfaction that he did not go unnoticed in this alien city.
***********
Sunil’s life had settled to a steady hum with the months rolling. David and he picked up a few words in Tamil, and a select vocabulary of expletives. They learnt to handle the auto drivers by releasing a volley of curses in Hindi and Welsh alternately. Sunil made bold to try his hand at making rajma and failed as the beans refused to boil into juicy softness. He lost it with the cleaning woman who struggled to roll out rotis but stopped himself yelling at them as he did back home. His immediate neighbour, a couple with a college-going son, had warmed to them. The wife helped him with vegetarian recipes and explained to the cook their needs in Tamil and other smaller tasks. Despite the suspicious glances they got as bachelors among the families with stern looking elders, David and Sunil managed to keep to their own. “Bringing girls in and playing loud music is a no-no”, their neighbour warned. David winked at this.
Diwali was when homesickness hit Sunil most. He missed the shopping, revelry, festivities, gifts, parties, twinkling lamps and pretty string lights that would excite his mother and sister. Here he was woken up by firecrackers early on in the morning and TVs blaring talking-hosts show; and he received a plate of hard squiggly namkeen and homemade sweets from his neighbour, and ‘Happy Deepavali Bhaiya ’ greetings by the schoolboys bursting crackers in their compound.
Local expats invited David for a turkey dinner at Christmas and Sunil went along. “You’re religious?” Sunil asked at the end of the evening. David shrugged. “My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister; my parents went to church on occasions and I think that it is enough religion in the family. My brothers and I are not into it.”
Sunil felt a guilty pang when he ate Chettinad chicken on an odd Tuesday for breaking an unspoken commitment to his mother. He stopped to stare at the black gods on roadside temples where women gathered in large numbers on Fridays and thought of her. And he did something never done before-write his mother a letter. It was a shy and clumsy note, but her heart had melted, her eyes misted over. Nani didn’t fall short of serving a rustic aphorism for the moment: “When a daughter stares into the mirror for long, she has matured into a woman; when a son feels for his mother, he has turned into a man.”
*******
They met at a micro-brewery at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon.
“The Chennai sun has turned you dark in the past two years,” Amit said accusingly while Sunil played with the icy sweat on his tumbler. Pablo’s nicotine-inspired brooding was the same. Karthik apologised that he had missed meeting him while he came south on a holiday.
“Are you happy to be back?”Tejal asked.
“I suppose so”, grinned Sunil.
“You don’t seem dead!” commented Amit surprised.
“I wasn’t unhappy and learnt to take care of myself ”, he shrugged.
“You scored-a?” asked Unni.
“That too”, winked Sunil.
“Ja baba! And now have they converted you to the greater cause of the Tamil nation!” Pablo exclaimed.
“Nah. But they’ve co-opted me into their tendency to acclimatise well”, said Sunil smiling.
“Helloji, please place the order first”, said Tejal, playing unofficial hostess.
“Make mine a masala dosa and whisky on the rocks”, Sunil played up, with an evil grin at his friends.
“Let’s drown this Rajnikanth ass-licker in sambar”, Amit cried.
“Perhaps the next to go on deputation to Chennai will be Amit”, Karthik joined in the dare.
“Over my dead body”, Amit roared, pelting them with peanuts from the snack bowl.
