Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [126]
When Auro first got in touch with Ideal Retirement Paradise Development Corporation of Bangalore, it was the early 1980s, and he was working in the Hong Kong office of his multinational company. IRPDC brochures didn't list the soon-to-be-constructed housing complex as Dollar Colony but pitched the complex to nonresident Indians, the NRIs, overseas-based Indian nationals amassing hard-currency wealth. Auro guessed that Dollar Colony, the name that stuck, was the genius shorthand of cabbies and auto-rickshaw drivers.
Their generation of investors was made up of nostalgic expatriates planning far, far ahead for retirement. They knew that America, or anywhere other than the homeland, was no place for an elderly Indian. They dreamed of an enclave of fantasy retirement palaces for like-minded cosmopolitans. Their homes and their neighborhood would reflect the best of the West they'd grown rich in and the romanticized best of the country they'd abandoned as ambitious young men. They demanded mansions grander than the houses they could afford in Britain or Canada or America. And they rewarded themselves with all the luxuries they'd missed out on while growing up: the country clubs, the residents-only parks with jogging paths, the tennis courts, the fitness center and spa. High-end architects and contractors happily realized their fantasies in brick, granite, marble, steel and plate glass.
"Parvati sacked two architects before she was satisfied! The Bhattacharjee sisters know what they want, and they don't quit till they get it. What's that American phrase CCI teaches students? Steel magnolia? Well, Parvati and Rabi's mother are titanium lotuses!"
Parvati came back, carrying a bowl of tiny balls of minced fenugreek leaves and shredded coconut, which she had just fried. "Consider yourself lucky, Auro. Without your titanium lotus you would have been stuck with a white elephant. Did you tell Anjali how the NRI repatriates are becoming younger and younger, and Dollar Colony is looking dowdier and dowdier compared to the new communities?"
"Infrastructure," Auro announced, before popping two of the fenugreek balls into his mouth. "That's the buzzword. Infrastructure."
Grease glistened on his mustache. Parvati blotted the grease with a linen cocktail napkin. "Oh dear, I'm not helping you with your cholesterol problem, am I?"
"We have the best doctors in the world in Bangalore, so why worry? American hospitals are outsourcing diagnoses to us, and I have instant access to the Mayo Clinic. Enjoy today, solve tomorrow. Anyway, these repats are cross-breeding brand-new East-West fruits in their gated Edens."
"We oldies had to send Dinesh and Bhupesh to Britishy boarding schools in the hills," Parvati remembered. "Now the new colonies are setting up their own private schools. Learn yoga, recite the Vedas in Sanskrit, and prepare to ace the SATs. They have it all."
"As I said, infrastructure. Medical, economic, educational, communication. I could go on."
Honestly, Anjali didn't understand a word, even as she appreciated being included in the discussion.
DOLLAR COLONY MAY have slipped from being the best address to merely something distinguished, but Anjali was still dazzled by the slightest luxuries, like the Instamatic hot water faucet in the Banerjis' kitchen. Even more than the comforts of the Banerji house—and was this a sign that she was coming out of her depression?—what she coveted as she listened to Auro was the Banerji family. Why couldn't she have been allotted Auro and Parvati as parents, Rabi as cousin? How different a person she might have been if...
4
Rabi came back from his photo shoot