Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [23]
“You’re a big, spoilt child, Dharmen. You don’t do what your doctor tells you to do, and you think he won’t find out as long as you turn up for blood tests and X-rays. I’ve been warning you for months. It’s the construction business that is doing this to you. All the dust you inhale. The stress and strain.”
“I’ve been at construction sites for twenty-five years, Nayak. The problem began only a year or two ago.”
“It’s all those old buildings you’re around. The ones you break up. Materials were used then that are banned now. Asbestos, cheap paint. They get into your lungs. Then these places you like going to, these slums.”
“The place is called Vakola.”
“I’ve seen it. Very polluted. Diesel in the air, dust. The system is weakened by pollution over time.”
“What is this, then?” Dharmen Shah drummed on his stomach. He pinched his thick forearms. “What is this, then? Isn’t this good health?”
“Listen to me. I gave up three paying appointments for this. You’re picking up fevers, coughs, stomach illnesses. Your immune system is weakening. Leave Bombay,” said the doctor. “At least for a part of each year. Go to the Himalayas. Simla. Abroad. The one thing money can’t buy here is clean air.”
The fat man reached into his shirt pocket. Straightening out a cheaply printed brochure, he handed it to Doctor Nayak.
The “King” of the Suburban Builders, J. J. Chacko, MD of the Ultimex Group, has astounded all his observers, friends, and peers, by acquiring a prime construction plot in Vakola, Santa Cruz (East), at an audacious rate that constitutes the HIGHEST PRICE ever paid for a redevelopment project in this suburb, despite the vigilant and audacious efforts of various competitors to bag the prize instead.
Mr. Chacko exclusively discloses to “Mumbai Real Estate News” that an architect from Hong Kong, the noted land of modernism, will be called in to design the world-class apartments; Mr. Chacko also believes he will add a park and shopping mall to the area in a few months’ time. Hotels, plazas, gardens, happy families will follow.
Ultimex Group’s motto is “The Very Best” and it has been progressing all over the city of Mumbai. On the personal front, Mr. Chacko, visionary, Ultimex Group, is not a known figure, preferring to keep away from the glamour scene of So-Bo (south Bombay) social life. He is “mischievous,” “shy,” and “a family man with simple pleasures,” says one private friend. He is nimble in his thoughts, and sly, like the man of the future; he is a great philanthropist, winner of thirteen gold medals, plaques, dedicatory poems, and paper-based awards for his humanitarian achievement in the field of social work.
He is also passionate about chess and carom.
The doctor read the brochure, and turned it over, and read it again.
“So?”
“So that’s J. J. Chacko, head of the Ultimex Group. The area around the Vakola train station is in his pocket. Has three buildings on that side already. He’s coming over to my side now. Know what he did the other day? Paid eighty-one lakhs for a one-room in a slum. Just so everyone would talk about him. In my own territory. Even sends me this brochure in the mail.”
“So?”
Shah took back the piece of paper, folded it, and replaced it in his pocket. He patted it.
“How can I take a holiday when J. J. Chacko doesn’t? Does his doctor tell him to slow down?”
Doctor Nayak’s forehead filled with lines.
“I don’t care if he kills himself. But you can’t go straight into another project. Are you doing this for Satish? What could he want more than for his father to live a long life?”
Dharmen Shah drew a line on the window with his finger.
“There is a golden line in this city: a line that makes men rich.”
Now he dotted three points on it.
“You have Santa Cruz airport there, you have the Bandra-Kurla Complex there, and you have the Dharavi slums there. Why is this line golden? Air travel is booming. More planes, more visitors. Then”—he moved his finger—“the financial centre at Bandra-Kurla is expanding by the hour. Then the government is starting redevelopment in