Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [141]
So, to honor him, or at least to honor the changes he brought about, I'm trying not to slip back into my old solitary habits. The flowerpots still light up the steps, bright calendars still hang from the walls, and books are neatly lined in cases. Almost in a daze I seem to find flowers to put on the table at night, and somewhere I found a bright bedspread to cover the mattress. If you ever come back to Gauripur for a short visit or resettlement I hope you'll make your first call a visit to your old friend and teacher, Peter.
P.S. You and Ali are the only two people in decades to have pierced my shell. I wanted to be an instrument in your salvation (to put a high gloss on my interventions); with Ali, my interference might prove self-defeating, if not fatal. I pray that your activities in Bangalore will redeem my clumsy but well-intentioned encouragement, as well as Ali's impulsive embrace of his life's dream.
Peter
Suddenly she was back in Gauripur. It was again the day she'd visited Peter Champion to show him her marriage portrait, and Peter had said she was dead to him if she married. "Weak and weary," she kept repeating. "Ray-venn." He called the portrait somehow obscene. Still holding it, she'd started walking back home, fighting tears, but had found herself walking past the da Gama campus. And she was sobbing again. Let Swati eavesdrop on the howls and growls of a woman breaking down. The tears were for Peter, who still cared for his protégée, and for her father, who, in his clumsy way, had cared too much for the rebel daughter.
In the garden next door, Citibank Srinivasan of the booming voice exhorted elephant-headed God Ganesha, son of Goddess Parvati, to liberate all mortals from the tormenting cycle of reincarnation. In the kitchen Swati and her sister cooked lunch and prepped dinner for the Banerjis, drop-in guests, and household staff. And in a Gauripur sparkly with Anjali's tears, "Railways Bose" lounged, whiskey in hand, feet propped on a low morah, enrapturing Mrs. Bose with his harangue on statewide graft and greed, and Angie dreamed up a perfect groom.
And then he picks up the newspaper, left over from the morning. There is a picture of a boy he remembers, and an article. What? Is he getting married? What? Is he so famous, his exploits merit the front page? But it is a police report, and the accusations against him are enough to rip a father's heart to pieces.
"Oh, Anjali," he cries, "I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? I would not have been compelled to do what I now must do."
9
Mr. GG delivered on all his promises. Mr. GG's MBA classmate, Mr. K. K. Jagtiani, director of the HR division at RecoverySys, had his personal assistant, Mrs. Melwani, call Anjali on the Banerjis' land line. Would Miss Bose care to have Mrs. Melwani initiate the setting up of "a chat" with Mr.D. K.Jagtiani, the deputy in charge of human resources (a younger brother of Mr. K. K., she assumed, in a Sindhi-owned business, if family names are any indication), to take place after his return from his business trip to California and Michigan? If so, Mrs. Melwani would request Mr.D. K. Jagtiani's personal assistant, Miss Lalwani, to get in touch directly with Miss Bose to squeeze her into his calendar.
In the Bose family hierarchy of Indian groups to avoid all dealings with, Sindhis usually ranked near the top.
Anjali summoned all of her "phone poise." "Certainly, if I am still available then," she said. "And I'd prefer Miss Lalwani to call me on my cell phone. Let me give you that number."
Mrs. Melwani stopped her. "Not to worry; we have it on file. Telephone numbers, current address, résumé."
Résumé? She had no job experience. Mr. GG must have taken liberties with truth when he'd pitched her to his friend. If Miss Lalwani called to set up the meeting with her boss, she would instruct her to spell