2 States The Story Of My Marriage (12 page)

Miss me? I do. I miss our cuddles, I miss our walks in campus, I miss studying together
and then going for midnight chai, I miss running to my dorm every morning to brush my
teeth, I miss eating pao-bhaji on the char rasta with you, I miss playing footsie in the
library, I miss the glances we stole in the class, I miss my bad grades and the tears
afterwards that you wiped, I miss how you used to watch me put eye-liner, I miss…..oh,
you get the drift, I miss you like hell.

Meanwhile, I am fine in Chennai. My mother is at her neurotic best, my father is quiet
as usual and my brother always has a book that says Physics, Chemistry or Maths on the
cover. In other words, things are normal. I mentioned you again to my mother. She

called a priest home who gave me a pendant to make me forger you. Wow, I never

thought they’d react to you like this. Well, it is going to take more than a pendant to
forget you, but for good measure I tossed it into the Bay of Bengal on Marina Beach. I
haven’t mentioned you since, because I know you will come to Chennai and charm them

yourself – just as you charmed me.

Bye, my Love,

Ananya.

PS: Oh did I mention, I miss the sex too.

I read the letter ten times. I read the last sentence a hundred times. I wanted to
be with her right that moment. I realised I could have written ‘Chennai’ in the form
but I had played roulette with my love-life due to some vague sense of

responsibility and guilt towards home. I wondered if Citi would need more people

in Delhi as this is where all the money is. After all, a Punjabi is far more likely to
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want foreign bank accounts than a Tamilian. And I am a Punjabi, so they would

give me Delhi. Something yelped inside me. I read the letter again and again until

I fell asleep.

One week later, I received a call at home. Mother picked it up and said it was from

a guy who sounded like a girl.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Hi Krish, it’s Devesh from Citi HR.’

‘Oh, hi Devesh. How are you?’

‘Good, I just wanted to give you your joining date and location.’

My heart started to beat fast. ‘Yes,’ I said, excited and nervous.

‘So you start on June 1.’

‘OK.’

‘And we are placing you in Chennai.’

Imaginary fireworks exploded all over the Delhi sky. I felt real love for Devesh,
the HR department and Citibank for the first time in my life.

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Act 3:

Chennai

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15

My flight landed in Chennai at 7 p.m. we had a six-hour delay in Delhi because a

psycho called the airport and said the plane had a bomb. My bag took another

hour to arrive on the conveyor belt. As I waited, I looked at the people around me.

The first thing I noticed, excuse my shallowness was that almost ninety percent

of the people were dark complexioned. Of these ninety percent, eighty percent

had dabbed talcum that gave them a grey skin tone. I understood why Fair &

Lovely was invented. I couldn’t understand why people wanted to be fair so bad.

Most women at the conveyor belt looked like Ananya’s mother; I couldn’t tell

one from the other. They all wore tones of gold, but somehow it looked more

understated than Pammi aunty’s necklaces that had precious stones and pearls

hanging from them like shapeless dry fruits.

I came out of the airport. I had to find an auto to go to my chummery. I fumbled
through my pockets to find the slip of paper with my new address. I couldn’t find

them in my jeans and almost panicked. I didn’t know any place in Chennai except

T. Nagar. And I knew t. Nagar as I took Brilliant Tutorials once upon a time.

Somehow, I didn’t think they’d shelter one of their lakh of students from eight

years ago.

I opened my wallet and found my address. I heaved a sigh of relief. I came to

the auto stand. Four drivers argued with each other over the next passenger.

‘Enga?’ one driver pushed back three drivers and asked me. ‘Enga hotel?’

‘No hotel,’ I said and took out my wallet. I opened it and the drivers saw the ten
hundred-rupee notes my mother had given me before leaving Delhi. He smacked

his lips. I pulled out the slip with the address.

‘English illa,’ he said.

I looked around. No one proficient in English seemed visible. I read the

address.

‘Nung-ba-ka-ma-ma?’ I said.

‘Nungambakkam?’ the driver laughed as if it was the easiest word to say in the

world.

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‘Yeah,’ I said and remembered a landmark Devesh had told me. ‘Near Loyola

College. You know Loyola College.’

‘Seri, seri,’ the driver said. My stay with Ananya had told me that ‘Seri’ meant
an amiable Tamilian.

I loaded the luggage. ‘Meter?’

He laughed again as if I had made a bawdy joke.

‘What?’ I tapped the meter.

‘Meter illa,’ the driver said loudly, his personality taking on a more aggressive
form as he left the airport.

‘How much?’ I asked.

‘Edhuvum,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand. Stop, how much?’

He didn’t stop or answer. I tapped his shoulder. He looked back. I played dumb

charade with him, acting out ‘How much money, dude?’

He continued to drive. After ten seconds he raised his right palm and stretched
out his five fingers wide.

‘Five what?’

He flashed his fingers again.

‘Fifty?’

He nodded.

‘OK,’ I said. He understood this word.

‘Vokay,’ he said and extended his hand for a handshake. I shook his hand. He

laughed and zoomed off into the Chennai sunset.

I saw the city. It had the usual Indian elements like autos, packed public buses,
hassled traffic cops and tiny shops that sold groceries, fruits, utensils, clothes or
novelty items. However, it did feel different. First, the sign in every shop was in

Tamil. The Tamil font resembles those optical illusion puzzles that give you a

headache if you stare at them long enough. Tamil women, all of them, wear

flowers in their hair. Tamil men don’t believe in pants and wear lungis even in

shopping districts. The city is filled with film posters. The heroes’ pictures make

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you feel even your uncles can be movie stars. The heroes are fat, balding, have

thick moustaches and the heroine next to them is a ravishing beauty. Maybe my

mother had a point in saying that Tamil women have a thing for North Indian men.

‘Hey, that’s IIT?’ the auto driver said a word which would have led to trouble if
he had spoken it in Delhi.

I looked at the campus wall that lasted for over a kilometre. The driver recited
the names of neighbourhoods as we passed them – Adyat, Saidapet, Mambalam

and other unpronounceable names so long they wouldn’t fit on an entire row of

Scrabble. I felt bad for residents of these areas as they’d waste so much of their

time filling the address columns in forms.

We passed a giant, fifty-feet-tall poster as we entered Nungambakkam. The

driver stopped the auto. He craned his neck out of the auto and folded his hands.

‘What?’ I gestured.

‘Thalaivar,’ he said, pointing to the poster.

I looked out. The poster was for a movie called Padayappa. I saw the actors and
recognised only one. ‘Rajnikant?’

The auto driver broke into a huge grin. I had recognised at least on landmark

in the city.

He drove into the leafy lanes of Nungambakkam till we reached Loyola

College. I asked a few local residents for Chinappa Towers and they pointed us to

the right building.

I stepped out of the auto and gave the driver a hundred-rupee note. I wondered

if I should give him a ten-rupee tip for his friendliness.

‘Anju,’ the driver said and opened his palm again.

I remained puzzled and realised it when he gestured three times.

‘You want five hundred? Are you mad?’

‘Illa mad,’ the driver said, blocking the auto to prevent me from taking out the
luggage.

I looked at the desolate street. It was only nine but felt like two in the morning
in the quiet lane. Two autos passed us by. My driver stopped them. One of the

autos had two drivers, both sitting in front. The four of them spoke to each other

in Tamil, their voices turning louder.

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“Five hundred,’ one driver who spoke a bit of English turned to me.

“No five hundred. Fifty,’ I said.

‘Ai,’ another driver screamed. The four of them surrounded me like baddies

form a low-budget Kollywood film.

“What? Just give me my luggage and let me go,’ I said.

‘Illa luggage. Payment…make…you,’ the Shakespeare among them spoke to

me.

They started moving around me slowly. I wondered why on earth didn’t I

choose to work in an air-conditioned office in Delhi when I had the chance.

‘Let’s go to the police station,’ I said, mustering up my Punjabi blood to be

defiant.

‘Illa police,’ screamed my driver, who had shaken hands with me just twenty

minutes ago.

‘This Chennai…here police is my police…this no North India…illa police,

ennoda poola combuda,’ the English-speaking driver said.

Their white teeth glistened in the night. Any impressions of Tamil men being

timid (influenced by Ananya’s father) evaporated as I felt a driver tap my back.

‘Fuck,’ I said as I noticed one of the drivers take out something from his

pocket. Luckily, it wasn’t a knife but a pack of matches and cigarettes. He lit one

in style, influenced by too many Tamil movies. I looked down the street, for

anybody, anyone who would get me out of this mess.

One man came out of the next building. I saw him and couldn’t believe it. He

had a turban – a Sardar-ji in Chennai was akin to spotting a polar bear in Delhi. He
had come out to place a cover on his car. Tingles of relief ran down my spine.

Krishna had come to save Draupadi.

‘Uncle!’ I shouted as loudly as I could.

Uncle looked at me. He saw me surrounded by the autos and understood the

situation. He came towards us.

The drivers turned, ready to take him on as well.

‘Enna?’ the uncle said.

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The drivers gave their version of the story to him. Uncle spoke to them in

fluent Tamil. It is fascinating to see a Sardar-ji speak in Tamil. Like Sun TV’s

merger with Alpha TV.

‘Where are you coming from?’ he said.

‘Airport.’

‘Airport cannot be five hundred rupees. Hundred maximum,’ he said.

The four drivers started speaking simultaneously with lots of ‘illas’. However,
they had softened a little due to uncle’s Tamil. After five minutes, we settled for a
hundred bucks and disgusted glances from the drivers. My driver took out my

luggage and dumped it on the street as he sped off.

‘Thanks, uncle,’ I said. ‘You’ve lived in Chennai long?’

‘Too long. Please don’t stay as long as me,’ Uncle said as he helped me with

my luggage to the lift. ‘Punjabi?’

I nodded.

‘Come home if you need a drink or chicken. Be careful, your building is

vegetarian. No alcohol also.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, people here are like that. For them, anything fun comes with guilt,’ he

said as the lift doors shut.

I rang the chummery doorbell. It was ten o’clock. A sleepy guy opened the

door. The apartment was completely dark.

‘Hi,’ I said. Krish from Delhi. I am in consumer finance.’

‘Huh?’ the guy said. ‘Oh, you are that guy. The only North Indian trainee in

Citibank Chennai. Come in, you are so late.’

‘Flight delay,’ I said as I came into the room.

He switched on the drawing-room light. ‘I am Ramanujan, from IIMB,’ he said. I

looked at him. Even just out of the bed, his hair was oily and combed. He looked

like someone who would do well at a bank. With my harried look after the scuffle

with the auto drivers, I looked like someone who couldn’t even open a bank

account.

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‘That’s Sendil’s room, and that’s Appalingam’s.’

He pointed me to my room.

‘Anything to eat in the house?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ he said and opened the fridge. ‘there is some curd rice.’ He took
out the bowl. It didn’t look like a dish. It looked like rice had accidently fallen into
the curd.

‘Anything else? Any restaurant open nearby?’