Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [53]
“Come, sir. Let’s go to Breach Candy Hospital. I’ll call Doctor Nayak.”
“Nayak will frighten me again, and tell me to stop coming here. We have to finish the civil work before the rains come. That will happen only if I am here every single morning.”
Shanmugham knew it was true: the master’s fat-bellied body was a human version of the cement mixers that churned and set the workers in motion.
“Mr. J. J. Chacko,” Shah said. “Right here. Under my nose.”
He looked over at the large plot of land, right opposite the Excelsior, with the big Ultimex sign on it.
“Do you know when he’s starting work? Is there a date?”
“No date, sir. But he’ll start building some time in October.”
“Let’s go back.” Shah rose to his feet. “I don’t want the workers thinking something is wrong.”
He pointed a finger at his left-hand man’s chest.
“I want each of those Nos to become a Yes, Shanmugham. At once.”
BOOK THREE
FOUR OR FIVE SECONDS OF FEELING LIKE A MILLIONAIRE
4 JUNE
Vittal, the old librarian at St. Catherine’s School, was probably the only man in Vakola still unaware of the good news. Masterji was glad to be in his presence. Exercising his privilege as a retired teacher, he came to the school library every Monday to read the Times of India for free.
“We don’t see the likes of you any more, Masterji,” Vittal said, as he bent low to arrange volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the bookshelf. “Young people don’t want to go into teaching. Computers or banking for them. Money, money, money.”
Masterji turned the pages of the newspaper. “No sense of public service, is there?”
The librarian blew his nose into a handkerchief, moving his head from side to side.
“Remember when we were young. We had to walk to school every morning. Study by candlelight during exam-time. Now the computers do their work for them.”
Masterji laughed. “I don’t know anything about computers or the internet, Vittal. I don’t even have a mobile phone.”
“Oh, that’s extreme, Masterji,” the librarian said. He took a shiny red object from his pocket and smiled proudly.
“Nokia.”
Masterji turned the pages of his newspaper.
“Why does a physics teacher need these things, Vittal? The facts of life do not change: high tide is followed by low tide, and the equinox is still the equinox.”
He tapped a finger on his paper, and drew Vittal’s attention to a proposal to restore Crawford Market to pristine glory.
“The sculptures outside the market were done by Kipling’s father. Lockwood Kipling. Did you know that?”
Vittal stretched his back.
“Know nothing about Mumbai, Masterji. Not a genius like you. If you were a young man today, working at a foreign bank, playing with stocks, God knows how much money you would be making.”
“What would I spend it on?” Masterji folded the paper with a smile. He beckoned to the librarian.
“Vittal ….” he whispered. “Purnima’s one-year death anniversary is around the corner. I want to call Trivedi about it.”
“Of course.”
It was a little conspiratorial luxury the old teacher enjoyed here; Vittal allowed him (provided no one was watching) to use the black payphone for free.
A student in white-and-navy-blue uniform sneaked in through the side-door as Masterji dialled. He gaped at the two old men as if he had discovered two palaeosauruses.
In the market, Masterji walked with his head to the ground, sniffing citrus and apple, raw shit (from the roosters in the chicken coops), raw carrot and cauliflower.
“Great man! Look up!”
Under the banyan tree in whose shade the business of the market was conducted, a vendor was waving at Masterji, from behind a stall full of onions.
Chubby, with a bulbous nose and knobby lumps on his dark forehead, he looked like an anthropomorphic advertisement for his produce.
“I’ve seen you for a long, long time.” The onion-seller found a small red stool and placed it before Masterji. “But I never knew until now that you were a great one. There is something special about all of you