Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [116]
Head down, Parekh was on his mobile phone, the three silver strands over his bald head shining in the light. The gold medallion was tucked into his shirt, and bulged between the second and third button.
Parekh looked up, and stared through his thick glasses at Masterji, who had decided to sit down.
“You phoned me, Mr. Parekh. You said there was good news and I should come to see you before noon.”
Nodding, as if he remembered now, the lawyer summoned his mucus and discharged it into the spittoon.
“You are not my only client, Masterji. I am at any given moment fighting a baker’s dozen of slum rats.”
Masterji, appropriately chastened, nodded. A peon came in with tea for the lawyer. Some minutes passed like this, with Parekh reading a typewritten letter and squinting at his mobile phone each time a text message arrived with a loud chime. Feet thumped on the low ceiling. The cracks in the wooden planks expanded.
The door to the office opened, and an assistant—or was it his son?—approached the lawyer. Parekh took a document from him, squinted, and threw it back at him.
“This is not the right good news. Not relevant to Masterji’s case.”
The assistant left; Masterji waited; feet moved across the ceiling.
“One thing has to be confessed, Masterji,” Parekh said. “I had doubts: that night when they cut off the power, for instance. Or when your co-petitioner, that Mr. Pinto, was threatened. But you have stayed true. You have proved yourself sovereign of your plot of earth.”
Masterji nodded. “Men of our generation, we have seen much trouble. Wars, emergencies, elections. We can survive.”
“True,” Parekh said. “Men of a certain generation, you and I are.”
The assistant reappeared in a few minutes with another document; and this time, the old teacher knew it was relevant to his case. Parekh looked at Masterji; his browless eyes sparkled.
“The good news is a sizeable one.”
Masterji smiled. “What is the good news?”
Still flipping through the pages of the document, Parekh said: “A settlement. It will be a famous settlement. Shah versus Murthy.”
“But who has given me this settlement?”
Mr. Parekh turned to his assistant or son, as if in appreciation of this joke.
“Oh, Masterji,” he said. “The builder, of course. And in fact—between us, Masterji—we have fooled Mr. Shah.” He wiped his lips. “Because you had a weak case to begin with. We can say it openly now.”
“A weak case?”
“Of course.”
Masterji turned from Parekh to the other, and back to Parekh.
“How can you make a settlement without speaking to me? I have the share certificate: I own my flat.”
Parekh smiled sadly. “No, sir. You don’t. Fundamentally speaking, sir, neither you nor any member of any registered co-operative housing society anywhere in this state is the proprietor, strictly speaking, of his or her flat. Your Society is the sovereign of your flat. You own a share certificate in that Society. If the Society decides to sell your flat, you have no right to dissent. Regarding which ….” He turned to clear his throat. The son or assistant recited: “Dhiraj T. Kantaria and others versus Municipal Corporation and Co., 2001 (3) Bom. C.R. 664; 2002 (5) Mh. L.J. 779; 2004 (6) LJSOFT 42.”
The lawyer wiped his lips and said: “Exactly.”
“But MOFA ….” Masterji mumbled. “MOFA, MOFA?”
The lawyer ran his hand over his three silver strands. “The name of MOFA Act is not to be taken lightly.” He shook his head. “For thirty years you have taught your students in accordance with Dharma. Now let us be two teachers to you, Masterji. Even some lawyers who have been twenty, thirty years in this honourable profession don’t understand what MOFA Act is, frankly speaking. Common man cannot understand subtleties of MOFA Act. Because you have to think of how MOFA behaves with MMRDA and BMC.”
“MHADA,” the other reminded him. “MHADA.”
“Very true. In this city, MHADA is always there. Somewhere