2 States: The Story of My Marriage Read online

  After finishing half the apple, I picked up the phone.

  ‘You have no qualities I can be proud of. These degrees mean nothing. Just because you send your mother money, you think you can boss around. I think a person like you. . . .’ he was saying when I put the phone down again. I picked it up again after I finished the apple.

  ‘I said, are you listening?’ His voice was trembling.

  ‘I am,’ I said. ‘Now it is late. Your bill must also be quite high. May I go to sleep?’

  ‘You have no respect.’

  ‘You said that already. Now, can we sleep?

  Good night,’ I said. ‘Good night,’ he said and hung up. No matter how mad they are, army people still believe in courtesies. I am sure Indian and Pakistani officers wish each other before they blow each other’s brains off.

  I came back to bed. I didn’t want my father’s chapter in my life again. No father is better than a bad father. Plus right now I had to deal with another father, who had folded his hands to keep me away from a daughter I so badly wanted to be with. And I have Bala and loser flatmates and psycho landlord and horrible sambhar smells everywhere in this city. A dozen random thoughts spilled out in my brain right before going to bed. These thoughts swam around like clumsy fishes, and my poor little brain begged—guys, I need some rest. Do you mind? But the thoughts didn’t go away. Each fish had an attention deficit disorder. The Bala thought showed visions of me jabbing him with something sharp. The Ananya’s dad thought made me think about a dozen post-facto one liners I could have said when uncle folded his hands—But I love her, sir; But you should get to know me, uncle; You realise we can run away, you Hindu-reading loser.

  Some people are lucky. They lie down, close their eyes and like those imported dolls your Dubai relatives give you, go off to sleep. I have to shut fifty channels in my brain, one click at a time. One hour later, I shut the final thought of how I’d admit I taught housewives to play with radioactive stocks.

  23

  ‘Ready?’ Bala jollied me with coffee in the morning. Yes, Mr Balakrishnan, branch head of customer services, brought me coffee in a mug. Too bad he didn’t carry it in a tray.

  ‘Doesn’t take much preparation to present yourself as stupid,’ I said and took the coffee. I noticed the mug had become wet at the bottom. Bala picked up a tissue from my desk for me. I could get used to this, I thought.

  We met in the conference room two hours later. Bala loaded up the presentation. True to character, he had removed my name from the title slide. Like all banking presentations in every department of every bank in India, it started with the 1991 liberalisation and how it presents tremendous opportunity for India.

  ‘As you can see, the IT space has seen tremendous volatility in the last three months,’ Bala said, pointing to a graph that only went down.

  Our country head, Anil Mathur, had come on the first flight to Chennai. His day had started bad as he couldn’t get a business class seat last minute and had to rub shoulders with the common people. His grumpy expression continued to worsen during the presentation.

  Anil was forty years old and seen as a young turk on his way up. Citi thrived on and loved the star system. People introduced him as ‘This is Anil, MD. He is a star performer’.

  Again, there is nothing starry to do in a bank anyway. It is another thing Citi invented to reduce the dullness of our jobs. However, when Anil entered the room, some Chennai bankers’ eyes lit up, much like the auto driver who saw Rajni’s poster.

  ‘And that in short, has led to the circumstances we are in today,’ Bala said as he ended his hour-long speech. I couldn’t believe he tagged his talk as short.

  Anil didn’t respond. He looked around the room. Chennai trainees avoid eye contact anyway, especially when it comes to authority. He looked at Bala and Bala looked at me. I nodded; I’d be the suicide mission today.

  Anil’s cell-phone rang. He took it out of his pocket. His secretary had called from Mumbai.

  ‘What do you mean wait-listed for business class? I am not coming back like I did this morning sitting cramped with these Madrasis.’

  Apart from me and Anil, everyone in the room was offended. However, since Anil is the boss, everybody smiled like it was a cute romantic joke.

  Anil stood up with his phone. ‘And why do I have a Honda City to pick me up? Tell them I am eligible for BMW if they don’t have Mercedes . . . yes, of course, I am,’ he said and hung up the phone.

  He let out a huge sigh and rubbed his face. It is a tough life when you have to fight for basic rights every day.

  ‘OK, focus, focus,’ he said to himself and everyone in the room straightened their backs.

  ‘Sir, as I was saying. . . .’ Bala started again. Anil had a flight back in four hours. I guess Bala hoped if he kept presenting, time would run out for Anil to ask tough questions.

  ‘Bala, you have said a lot,’ Anil said. ‘All I care about is why have you lost seven big customers in a month. In every other market we have grown.’

  All of us studied the floor.

  ‘Two crore? How can retail customers lose two crore? They come to save their money in the bank, not lose it,’ Anil said. Such truisms had led him to become the star in the jargon-filled bank.

  ‘Sir, as you know, those losses have come from Internet stocks,’ Bala said, his voice pleading.

  ‘So, whose big idea was it to sell these ladies net stocks?’ Anil asked.

  ‘Sir,’ Bala said and looked at me. Everyone turned to me. I had become guilty by collective gaze.

  ‘You are?’ Anil asked.

  ‘Krish, sir,’ I said.

  ‘You are from Chennai?’ Anil said, puzzled at my accent that didn’t match the rest of the table.

  ‘No, I’m from Delhi.’

  ‘Punjabi?’

  I nodded.

  Anil didn’t answer. He just laughed. The sadistic laugh of seeing a fish out of water gasp for life. ‘What happened? HR screwed up?’ Anil said. His phone rang again. The secretary confirmed business class and a BMW pickup at the airport. Anil asked her to make sure it is a 5-series at least.

  ‘Remember the Tata Tea deal we did with BankAm? I came back with that idiot MD from BankAm and the car company sends me a Toyota and a 5-series for him. Can you imagine what I went through?’ Anil emphasised again. The secretary confirmed she wouldn’t make him slum it in a car that cost less than an apartment. Calmness spread in the room as Anil’s mood improved.

  ‘Where was I?’ Anil said and looked at me. He laughed again. ‘Which college are you from?’

  ‘IIMA,’ I said.

  ‘Salute, sir,’ Anil said and mock-saluted me.

  I didn’t brag about my college, you asshole, I wanted to say. He got the name out of me.

  ‘I went to IIMC. I was on the waitlist for IIMA but they never called me. I guess I am not as smart as you,’ Anil said.

  I had no clue how to answer that question. Another trainee in the room was from IIMC and he introduced himself. They hi-fived before Anil turned to me again.

  ‘But who cares, I became the country manager and many of your IIMA seniors didn’t,’ Anil said and winked at me.

  Obviously you still care, you obnoxious, insecure prick, I said to myself even as I smiled. What would life be without mental dialogue.

  ‘So, you had the idea of selling Internet stocks to housewives?’ Anil asked after he touched down from his gloat-flight. ‘And Bala, you didn’t stop him.’

  ‘Sir, I always try to encourage young talent. Plus, IIMA, I thought he’d know,’ Bala said, picking on Anil’s resentment against my bluest of the blue-blooded institute.

  ‘IIMA, yeah right,’ Anil said. ‘You have cost the bank more business than you can ever make back in five years.’

  I wondered if I should cancel my deal with Bala. Even the personalised coffee didn’t seem worth it.

  ‘What about monitoring? Bala, you didn’t monitor when the losses started?’

  ‘I was getting more busin