Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [27]
“They say, sir, the heat … they want to go and tend their field ….”
Shah clicked his tongue.
“I want them to speak for themselves.”
One of the group of mutineers, a small man with neatly parted hair, explained.
“We can’t work in these conditions, sahib, please forgive us. We will finish the day’s work honestly, and leave in the evening. Ask the contractor. We have been your best workers until now.”
Shah looked up at the Fountainhead, and then at the Excelsior, and raised his eyes to the sun.
“I know it is hot. The coconut palms are turning brown. The cows don’t want to stand even if you put food in front of them. I know it is hot. But we have only a month before it starts raining, and we must finish pouring concrete now. If we don’t, I will lose a month and a half—two months, if the rains are heavy. And time is one thing I cannot lose.”
He spat something thick, pink, and gutka-stained. He stroked the cow again, and spoke.
“You may think, looking at me, he is a rich man, what does he know about the heat? Let me tell you.”
Using the hand which had been rubbing the cow, he pointed a finger at the men: “This Dharmen Shah of yours knows what it is to work and walk and sweat in the heat. He did not grow up in luxury like other rich men. He grew up in a village called Krishnapur in Gujarat. When he came to Bombay he had just twelve rupees and eighty paise on him and he came in summer. He took the train, he took the bus, and when he had no more money for the bus, he walked. His chappals wore away and he tied leaves around his feet and he kept walking. And you know what he found when he came to Bombay?”
Two fifty, Shanmugham thought. Don’t offer them more than two fifty.
“Gold.” Mr. Shah now showed the mutineers all his fingers and all his rings. “And the hotter it becomes, the more gold there is in the air. I will increase your pay ….” He squeezed his fingers back in and tingled them as he frowned. “… to … three hundred rupees per day per man. That’s a hundred rupees more than you are getting now, and more than you’ll get anywhere else in Santa Cruz. You say you want to go home. Don’t I know what you’ll do? Work your farms? No. You’ll lie on a charpoy in the shade, smoke, play with a child. When the sun sets, you’ll drink. You’ll run out of money, come back on 15 June, when it’s raining, and beg me for work. Open your ears: the contractor will remember each worker who leaves now when the boss needed him most. No man who does not work for Shah when it is hot will work for him when it is cool. I will send buses around Maharashtra to pick up villagers and bring them here. It may double my expenses but I will do it. But if you stay and work, I’ll pay you three hundred rupees, day after day. I’m tossing gold in the air. Who will grab it?”
The workers looked at one another: indecision rippled over them, and then the one with the neatly parted hair said: “Sahib, do you mean what you said, three hundred a day? Even the women?”
“Even the women. Even the children.” Shah spat again and licked his lips. “Even your dogs and cats if they put bricks on their heads and carry them for me.”
“We will stay for you, sahib,” the worker said.
And though none of the other men in banians and dhotis looked happy, they seemed powerless to resist.
“Good. Get to work at once. The rains are coming closer to Bombay every second we waste.”
When they were out of earshot, the contractor whispered: “Are you really going to pay the women the same, sir? Three hundred?”
“How much are you giving them now?”
“One twenty-five. If they’re hefty, one fifty.”
“Give the women two hundred,” Shah said. “The fat ones two twenty. But the men get three hundred as I said.
“And you—” he jabbed a gold-ringed finger at the contractor’s chest. “Next time something is wrong at the site, don’t tell me: ‘All is well, sir.’ Does it hurt your mouth if the truth comes out of it once a year?”
“Forgive me, sir,” the contractor said.
“They’re social animals, you understand. If one complains, all will