2 States: The Story of My Marriage Read online

  ‘Hey, that’s IIT?’ I said out aloud as I noticed the board for IIT Chennai.

  ‘Guindy, guindy,’ 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 – Adyar, 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 film 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 one landmark in this 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.

  ‘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 from 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 oombuda,’ 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.

  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 bed, his hair was oiled 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.

  ‘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 accidentally fallen into the curd.

  ‘Anything else? Any restaurant open nearby?’

  He shook his head as he picked up two envelopes and passed them to me. ‘Here, some letters for you. The servant said a girl had come to see you.’

  I looked at the letter. One was the welcome letter from Citibank. The second envelope had Ananya’s handwriting on it. I looked at the curd rice again and tried to imagine it as something yummy but I couldn’t gather the courage to eat it.

  I came to my room and lay down on the bed. Ramanujan shut the lights in the rest of the house and went back to sleep.

  ‘Should we wake you up?’ he had asked before going to his room.

  ‘What time is office?’

  ‘Nine, but trainees are expected to be there by eight. We target seven-thirty. We wake up at five.’

  I thought about my last two months in Delhi, when waking up at nine was an early start. ‘Is there even daylight at five?’

  ‘Almost. We’ll wake you up. Good night.’

  I closed my door and opened Ananya’s letter.

  Hey Chennai boy,

  I came to see you, but you hadn’t arrived in the afternoon as you told me. Anyway, I can’t wait any longer as mom thinks I am with friends at the Radha Silks Shop. I have to be back. Anyway there is a bit of drama at home but I don’t want to get into that now.

  Don’t worry, we shall meet soon. Your office is in Anna Salai, not far from mine. However, HLL is making me travel a lot all over the state. I have to sell tomato ketchup. Hard, considering it has no tamarind or coconut in it!

  I’ll leave now. Guess what, I am wearing jasmine flowers in my hair today! It helps to have a traditional look in the interiors. I broke a few petals and have included them in this letter. Hope they remind you of me.

  Love and kisses,

  Ananya.

  I opened the folds of the letter. Jasmine petals fell into my lap. They felt soft and smelt wonderful. It was the only thing about this day that made me happy. It reminded me why I was here.

  16

  It is bad