Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

‘What is this, then?’ Dharmen Shah drummed on his stomach. He pinched his thick forearms. ‘What is this, then? Isn’t this good health?’

‘Listen to me. I gave up three paying appointments for this. You’re picking up fevers, coughs, stomach illnesses. Your immune system is weakening. Leave Bombay,’ said the doctor. ‘At least for a part of each year. Go to the Himalayas. Simla. Abroad. The one thing money can’t buy here is clean air.’

The fat man reached into his shirt pocket. Straightening out a cheaply printed brochure, he handed it to Doctor Nayak.

The ‘King’ of the Suburban Builders, J. J. Chacko, MD of the Ultimex Group, has astounded all his observers, friends, and peers, by acquiring a prime construction plot in Vakola, Santa Cruz (East) at an audacious rate that constitutes the HIGHEST PRICE ever paid for a redevelopment project in this suburb, despite the vigilant and audacious efforts of various competitors to bag the prize instead.

Mr Chacko exclusively discloses to ‘Mumbai Real Estate News’ that an architect from Hong Kong, the noted land of modernism, will be called in to design the world-class apartments; Mr Chacko also believes he will add a park and shopping mall to the area in a few months’ time. Hotels, plazas, gardens, happy families will follow.

Ultimex Group’s motto is ‘The Very Best’ and it has been progressing all over the city of Mumbai. On the personal front, Mr Chacko, visionary, Ultimex Group, is not a known figure, preferring to keep away from the glamour scene of So-Bo (south Bombay) social life. He is ‘mischievous’, ‘shy’, and ‘a family man with simple pleasures’, says one private friend. He is nimble in his thoughts, and sly, like the man of the future; he is a great philanthropist, winner of thirteen gold medals, plaques, dedicatory poems, and paper-based awards for his humanitarian achievement in the field of social work.

He is also passionate about chess and carom.

The doctor read the brochure, and turned it over, and read it again.

‘So?’

‘So that’s J. J. Chacko, head of the Ultimex Group. The area around the Vakola train station is in his pocket. Has three buildings on that side already. He’s coming over to my side now. Know what he did the other day? Paid eighty-one lakhs for a one-room in a slum. Just so everyone would talk about him. In my own territory. Even sends me this brochure in the mail.’

‘So?’

Shah took back the piece of paper, folded it, and replaced it in his pocket. He patted it.

‘How can I take a holiday when J. J. Chacko doesn’t? Does his doctor tell him to slow down?’

Doctor Nayak’s forehead filled with lines.

‘I don’t care if he kills himself. But you can’t go straight into another project. Are you doing this for Satish? What could he want more than for his father to live a long life?’

Dharmen Shah drew a line on the window with his finger.

‘There is a golden line in this city: a line that makes men rich.’

Now he dotted three points on it.

‘You have Santa Cruz airport there, you have the Bandra-Kurla Complex there and you have the Dharavi slums there. Why is this line golden? Air travel is booming. More planes, more visitors. Then’ — he moved his finger — ‘the financial centre at Bandra-Kurla is expanding by the hour. Then the government is starting redevelopment in Dharavi. Asia’s biggest slum will become Asia’s richest slum. This area is boiling with money. People arrive daily and have nowhere to live. Except’ — he dotted his golden line in the centre — ‘here. Vakola. The Fountainhead and Excelsior will be ready by November this year. I’ve sold most of the units in them already. But the main show is next year. The Shanghai.’

Doctor Nayak, who had been yawning, closed his mouth shut. He grinned.

‘ That again. That city is going to kill you, Dharmen.’

‘You should have come with me, Nayak. Roads as far as the eye can see, skyscrapers, everything clean, beautiful.’ Shah hit the window; it trembled. ‘Those Chinese have all the will power in the world. And here we haven’t had ten minutes of will power since Independence.’

The doctor, with a chuckle, got up from his sofa and went to the window. He stretched.

‘The experience of Shanghai being to a middle-aged Indian businessman what the experience of sex is to a teenager. You can’t keep comparing us to the Chinese, Dharmen.’

Shah turned to look at him.

‘How else will we improve? Look at the trains in this city. Look at the roads. The law courts. Nothing works, nothing moves; it takes ten years to build a bridge.’

‘Enough. Enough. Have some breakfast with us, Dharmen. Vishala wants to thank you. You arranged that deal for her friend in Prabha Devi.’ Nayak placed his hand on the fat man’s shoulder. ‘You’re starting to grow on her. Stay. I’ll cancel a fourth appointment for you.’

Dharmen Shah was gazing out of the window.

The hawks rematerialized. Still in combat, blown towards the building by a sudden gust, they came straight at the window and slammed into it, before another current lifted them, as if at a cliff face, vertically up.

‘Bloody nuisance,’ Doctor Nayak said. ‘Leave shit on the windows, fight all day long. Someone should…’ He pulled an imaginary trigger. ‘… and knock them off. One by one.’

*

Punching the buttons on his mobile phone, Shah walked through the basement car park until a spectral voice began echoing under the low ceiling.

‘Mr Secretary, members of Vishram Society…’

Shah slipped the mobile phone into his pocket and walked with stealth.

A tall dark man in a white shirt and black trousers stood at the open door of the basement lift. Facing its half-mirror, he raised his left hand towards it.

‘Mr Secretary, members of Vishram Society, Towers A and B, all your dreams are about to come true.’

The man shifted the angle of his jaw: a broken upper tooth now showed prominently in the mirror.

‘Mr Secretary, members of…’

A boy in dirty khaki, a tea tray in his hand, poked the man from behind, asking to be allowed into the lift.

The man spun around with a raised hand. ‘Sister-fucker, don’t touch me.’

The tea boy stepped back, shifting the tray with its leaping glasses to his left hand.

Shah cleared his throat.

‘Shanmugham,’ he said, ‘let the boy use the lift.’

With a ‘yes, sir’, the tall man hurried to a grey Mercedes-Benz, whose door he opened for his coughing employer.

On Marine Drive.

Coconut palms bent by the ocean breeze and pigeons in sudden flight added to the sensation of speed on the long straight dash down the avenue. A satin patch of sun gleamed on Back Bay.

‘Has everything but the deadline in it,’ Shanmugham said, turning from the front passenger seat of the Mercedes-Benz to show his boss a printed page. The driver changed gears as a red light finally snared them.

‘I went over it word for word last night, sir. Made sure every comma was right.’

Ignoring the letter, Mr Shah opened a little blue metal box, and flicked what was inside with a plastic spoonlet into his bright red mouth. Small black teeth chewed the gutka : he had lost a few.

‘Don’t worry about words, Shanmugham. Tell me about the people.’

‘You saw them, sir.’

‘Only once.’

‘Solid people. Tower B is modern. Finance, high-tech, computers. Tower A is old. Teachers, accountants, brokers. Both are solid.’

‘Teachers?’ The fat man winced. ‘What else about this Society? Has anything bad happened there?’

‘One suicide, sir. Many years ago. A boy jumped from the roof. They didn’t tell me, but I found out from the neighbours.’