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‘Let him go back to Bareilly if he is not satisfied,’ said Yashpal, declaring his aversion to Vicky.

Pyare Lal looked surprised. His brother was a mild man. Still, in turn he added, ‘Who is he, to construct on the terrace?’

Lala Banwari Lal had a problem hearing, and he looked blank.

Pyare Lal raised his voice. ‘You know how difficult it is to build anything, Baoji. It is only because his room on the barsati is not noticeable from the road that we could avoid permissions and bribes.’

‘If he sets up for himself, he can make enough money to be on his own,’ said the grandfather. ‘That is his plan. His mother would want to see him flourishing.’

‘How can he be so independent in our house? Let him go somewhere else, we are not stopping him. Who keeps their sister’s child their whole life?’ demanded Yashpal angrily.

‘One small shed,’ pleaded Banwari Lal. ‘He wants to make Baba suits. Where is the harm?’

The harm was shown to him quickly. Had the love of a daughter’s child made him forget the most basic principle of a successful joint family? All for one and one for all. No question of striking out on your own. Vicky could suggest making Baba suits, point out the market imperatives of branching into children’s clothing, but it had to be a group venture.

Besides, there was Ajay, Vijay, and Raju to consider. Tomorrow, if one of them was dissatisfied (as was inevitable, for who is not dissatisfied?), then instead of learning to contain himself, he might, with Vicky as example, start talking of his right to set up separately. Divisions were lethal for businesses. If Vicky wanted to do something on his own, he should go back to Bareilly, but if he chose to live with them, he had to abide by family rules.

As they talked, Yashpal stared out at the street from under the half-lowered shutter. It was busy as usual. Pedestrians, rickshaws, scooters, taxis, buses, and cows picked their way around each other. Cars were double parked against the kerb, making the traffic even more congested. Every inch of the pavement was crammed with vendors. Right in front of their shop was a coconut water wallah, a juice wallah, and a bhel puri wallah. Through the years they had battled with them to keep the pavement clean so their customers wouldn’t have to step through the detritus of three small concerns. The vendors, secure in the bribe paid to the local police, refused to consider tidiness in their pursuit of a livelihood. Yashpal had just today bought them a huge plastic bin as an inducement to discard peels, fruit skins, and coconut husks in a single place. He suddenly had the sense of similar debris in the shape of Vicky inside their shop. A sister’s child was not a healthy thing to have living in the family. Fate had dealt them an unfortunate blow.

After trying to make their father see reason, silence followed, while both sons fiddled with their toes.

‘Let me talk to Vicky,’ said Pyare Lal at last. ‘He won’t dare try any funny business with me.’

‘No, beta,’ sighed Banwari Lal. ‘He came to me and I will deal with him myself. I will tell him the MCD will not give us permission to build. Otherwise he might think we do not want to give him money. If he grows bitter, it will be difficult. Everybody in the house must be happy.’

Later on, the brothers agreed that age was taking its toll of their father; his concern with what Vicky might think or not think was clear proof. What did it matter whether Vicky was happy or not? They were keeping him, it would be good to remind him of that more often.

Vicky in turn resented his grandfather’s placatory remarks; he knew if left to himself he would have agreed. At this moment he was intensely conscious of himself as a poor relative, with no weight to move things his way. If his grandfather was like this, what would happen to him when the old man was no longer there?

Asha was all anticipation. What did he say, what did he say, she demanded the minute they were alone in the barsati on the night of the great confrontation. Nothing, nothing, snapped Vicky, and so dark was his face, so surly his mien, that she made an effort to comfort instead of taunt. Never mind, there is still plenty of time, we do not know what the future holds. We must wait, be patient, maybe after AjayVijay-Raju start working, and there is no room in the shop, they will want you to start something of your own.

But Vicky’s frustration was so great he was driven to speak to his grandfather again. ‘Baoji, I know I am a burden on you. Give me my share, and let me leave. I will open my own shop in Bareilly.’

The grandfather looked sad. By now Vicky should know that there was no question of his share. He had fed him, educated him, married him, then supported his wife and son. He should have the decency to be content. ‘Beta, I will speak to your uncles,’ he prevaricated. ‘You are my daughter’s child. You are our blood.’

But the boy/man knew that the blood lines from the female side can only whisper.

That night Vicky stared moodily at his plate on the plastic-covered tablecloth. Sona was serving the men, his wife was in the kitchen making hot chapattis. Virat had already eaten, and was sitting next to them with his homework.

‘Virat did very well in his test,’ said Asha brightly on her way to and from the stove. ‘The teacher says he will go far.’

‘That’s good,’ said Sona. ‘I had so much trouble with his father here, you don’t know. The teachers complained all the time. Kept running off to the shop.’

‘
He
is very devoted to the shop. It is his whole life, working, working all the time. Being the oldest brother of course it is necessary,’ commented Asha.

The men silently continued to eat.

Later, walking up the three flights of stairs that took them to their room on the terrace, Vicky said angrily, ‘You don’t have to say anything about Virat, all right? Always you are talking. Nobody is interested.’

‘Why shouldn’t they be interested? He is their grandson after all.’

‘Grandson-shamson. We will soon be leaving, then we will see if their interest extends to visiting him.’

‘Oh, where are we going? Have they agreed to give you your share?’ Asha hoped her husband hadn’t done anything foolish.

‘I have said. Uff, this child is heavy,’ Vicky groaned. He was carrying the sleeping boy, while Asha was clutching his school bag, tiffin, and water bottle.

They reached the barsati, the boy was laid on the bed where all three slept.

‘What? What have you said?’ Asha bent to take off the child’s shoes.

‘I have said I am going back to Bareilly.’

That was the trouble with her husband speaking, the man was so simple, it was as though he had a disease. How happy the whole family would be to see him go, she could just imagine.

If only she could talk on his behalf to Baoji. She sat on the bed and sighed. Life seemed so promising when she first married. She, a small-town girl, with only fairness to recommend her, had managed to catch the scion of a big business family in Delhi, or so Murli had said. The pleasure of her mother now seemed foolishness. As though catches came for people like her. She had married into the station where she belonged. It may be that she slept in a big house in Karol Bagh, that her husband was connected to a well-known trader family, but that did not make the daily realities of her existence any different. Crowded, uncomfortable, marginal, and poor – this was her life in Bareilly and this was her life here. From morning to night she was in the kitchen, chopping, cleaning, cooking meals, making drinks and snacks. She was twenty-three, and her youth would soon fade.

Still, in Delhi lay possibilities. And in this house their basic needs were taken care of. She didn’t even want to know what it would be like with Vicky on his own, and no money.

‘You go where you want,’ she declared. ‘I cannot abandon Sona Maji, it is too much for her to manage everything alone.’

‘You are the one who is always complaining how uncomfortable everything is here.’

‘I only want you to get your due. How will you get it if you leave? Once out of sight, out of mind. I’m not going anywhere,’ she repeated, putting out Virat’s school things for the next day.

Vicky ground his teeth. Why was his wife like this? First she made him feel he was not a man, then when he asserted himself like the man he was, she started objecting. Truly women were a curse. He was quite happy till he got married. He worked in his uncle’s shop and his future was mercifully hazy.

With these thoughts he put on his pyjama kurta and jumped into bed. But he couldn’t sleep. It was his wife’s fault. Always raising issues, but never satisfied. Meddle, meddle, meddle. What comfort was there that she did not have? She dressed in the latest fashions, she had leisure enough to watch TV downstairs, she only had to care for one child, and that a bright sweet boy. She had no need to do outside work, all that was done by the men. Even cooking she did with Sona.

Since her marriage she also looked much better. She had put on weight, she had breasts he could do something with, her skin was less sallow, her now unoiled hair fell around her face before being gathered in a plait below her shoulders.

She would be nowhere without his family, nowhere.

These thoughts created so much turmoil in him that he got up, circled the bed in the dark, crept to his wife’s side, and tugged at her kurta. Drowsily she opened her legs. They were used to not saying much, there was always the sleeping Virat to consider.

X

Death in the family

Lala Banwari Lal was by this time seventy-three years old. His walk was slow, his memory faltering, from time to time his head felt heavy. His sons urged him to stay at home and take it easy, but the father could no more avail himself of this solicitude than he could stop breathing. Not go to the shop, not light incense before the gods every morning, not hear the thud of bolts of cloth as they were thrown on to the display area, not hear the rustle of saris as they were unfurled before customers, not see his grandsons drape material on their left arm to demonstrate how a particular sari or suit would look, not count the money they made every evening – not to do these things was virtual death. Time enough to rest when his body gave way. The shop was the fruit of his life’s labours, and old age entitled him to enjoy it just the way he pleased.

Unfortunately, the way he pleased clashed with the ideas of the younger generation. How long could duty jostle with business considerations? The sons had been trained in both, but in the grandsons the clash became explicit. First Ajay and then Vijay looked around and saw their shop as mingy compared to the lush beauties that were springing up everywhere. Shops were now masquerading as five-star hotels, with glass doors, smartly turned-out doormen, chandeliers, and marble interiors. Spotlights trained on goods in a seductive ambience and the air-conditioning was so cold it felt like the mountains. The windows were decorated with imported mannequins, allowing the customer an easy transition from imagination to reality. But the greatest change lay in what they offered. Clothes ready to wear in both Indian and Western styles were becoming popular, and there was to be no reversal of this trend.

Western clothing chains slashed their way into Indian markets, cutting wide commercial swathes. Benetton came in the late 1980s, followed by Wrangler, Levis, Calvin Klein
et al
. The Banwari Lal cloth shop needed to keep up, if not with Western styles then at least with Indian ready-made, to which women were increasingly turning.

But for Lala Banwari Lal, fabric, weaves, textures were the eternal verities; bolts of cloth, yards of sari his steadfast companions. In vain did Ajay make his father point out that this was the 1980s – the timeless appeal of the sari was timeless no more. Stitched garments may be transitory, but they were also practical, simple to look after, easy to travel in, work in, walk in, and women, first young, then old, were taking to them in droves. The salwar kameez, once considered a Punjabi garment, was becoming the vogue all over India, while the trendiest were going in for pants, jeans, tops, and T-shirts.

‘Baoji,’ Ajay said, simultaneously respectful and emphatic, ‘all the shops in Karol Bagh are doing ready-made. We are losing our market.’

‘Our customers are loyal to us, beta. If no one buys this ready-made, what will you do? Next year it will be a different fashion. Look at the sari – one size for everybody – no stitching, no tailoring, no fitting, no complaints, everything beautiful and simple.’

‘We need to be market leaders, not followers.’

The old man’s voice quavered. ‘We are market leaders. Remember when we started printing shawls to match saris? Now everybody is copying us.’

The silence of despair followed. That was eight years ago. Who was going to confront the old man with his sense of time?

‘Our bridal saris are famous all over Delhi,’ went on Lala Banwari Lal.

‘Yes,’ said Pyare Lal, ‘and Kumarsons is famous for its lehngas, which brides now prefer. The same size with a few easy alterations fits all, and there is a big profit margin in the embroidery, sequins, beads, and threadwork.’

The grandfather looked at Yashpal, and seemed to address him alone. ‘If saris are out of fashion, then where does the food we eat come from? Besides, we have no space for anything else.’

Yashpal was silent. He knew Pyare Lal and Ajay were talking sense. For how long could the sari be their main selling garment? But his father was anxiously blinking, clearly not following the rationale behind the obvious arguments to their exasperation and Yashpal’s distress.

‘We can build a separate section,’ put in Pyare Lal, worrying another bone of contention. Building involved bribes, a domain Lala Banwari Lal was reluctant to enter. Ajay picked up the thread. Did Baoji think the shops that were expanding were following the law? It was illegal to change land use, but did that stop anybody? Look, look at Bansal and Sons. They were building a third floor, which would double their floor area and multiply their profits. And observe, there were the police sitting in the shop drinking tea.

‘And the MCD? How many people can you force to look the other way?’ quavered the grandfather.

Who were they forcing? The MCD searched for opportunities to make money. The established rate to keep all the officers from top to bottom happy during construction was fifty thousand a month. The price was cheap for the extra space, enough room to stock both ready-made and traditional wear.