Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

Back at the table, the star was out of breath, paunchy, and suddenly twenty years older. A guest asked for an autograph; the film star obliged on a napkin.

The napkin flew from the table. The builder had burst out coughing.

The film star was worth every rupee he charged to appear at such events: placing his hand on Shah’s, he grinned, as if nothing had happened.

‘They call me a dream-merchant, I am aware of this. But what am I, really? Just a small dream-merchant next to a big one.’ He pointed at the builder, who was wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

‘When they come out of a film, people throw away the tickets, but the builder’s name is always on the building. It becomes part of the family name. I am a Hiranandani Towers man. He is a Raheja Complex man.’

The builder swallowed his spit and turned to the Secretary.

‘And what about you, Mr Kothari? Will you be a Raheja man or a Hiranandani man after 3 October? Or do you plan on spending all your money on expensive vices?’

The Secretary, who had been watching a platter of mutton kebabs, turned around. ‘My vices are sandwiches and cricket. Ask my wife.’

People laughed. The film star clapped and said, ‘Just like me.’

Which provoked much more laughter.

‘What do you do, exactly ?’ Shah asked.

‘Business,’ Kothari said.

The builder coughed again.

Kothari handed him a napkin, and said, ‘I was in timber. Now I keep myself happy with some bonds, some stocks. I don’t have vices, but…’ He took a breath and puffed his chest, as if the attention were expanding his personality, ‘I do have a secret. I am moving, after 3 October, to Sewri.’

Shah, wiping his lips with the napkin, had to explain to the others.

‘In most redevelopment projects, as you know, the residents are offered a share in the new building. In the case of the Shanghai, however, the new place will be super-luxury. A mix of Rajput and Gothic styles, with a modern touch. There will be a garden at the front, with a fountain. Art Deco style. Each place will cost two crores or upwards. The current residents certainly have the option of purchasing in the Shanghai, but they will be better served by moving elsewhere.’

Then he turned to the Secretary and asked: ‘Sewri? Why not Bandra or Andheri? You’ll have the money now.’

‘The flamingoes, sir,’ the Secretary said. ‘You know about them, don’t you?’

Of course, Shah knew . Sewri in winter was visited by a flock of migratory flamingoes, and bird lovers came to watch with binoculars. But he did not understand .

‘Were you born here, Mr Shah?’ the Secretary asked.

‘I was born in Krishnapur in Gujarat. But I am a proud tax-paying resident of Mumbai.’

‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ the Secretary said quickly. ‘I have nothing against migrants, nothing. I meant, all of you at this table were born in India. Correct?’

‘Of course.’

‘Not me. Not me.’

The Secretary smiled. ‘I was born in Africa.’

His father, lured from Jamnagar to Kenya by an African-born cousin, had set up a grocery shop in Nairobi in the 1950s; the shop had prospered; a son had been born there. Ashvin Kothari spoke now of things even his wife had never heard. Of an African servant lady wiping a large porcelain dish and laying it on a table with a blue tablecloth; a market in Nairobi where his father was a big man; and then one more thing, a memory which blazed in his mind’s eye like a pink flame.

Flamingoes. A whole flock of them.

When he was not yet five, he had been taken to a lake in the country side full of the wild pink birds. His father had put his thumbs under his armpits and lifted him up so he could see to the horizon; the flamingoes rose all at once and he had screamed over his father’s head.

Shah listened. The dream-merchant listened. Waiters gathered round the table.

Now the Secretary felt something he had felt only once in his life, when as a ten-year-old schoolboy he had recited the famous lines from the Ramayana:

Do as you will, evil king:

I, for my part, know right from wrong

And will never follow you,

said the virtuous demon Maricha

When the lord of Lanka

Asked him to steal Rama’s wife

so perfectly at a poetry competition that everyone in the audience, even his father, had stood up to applaud. He sensed that same shimmer now around his bald head: his comb-over felt like a laurel wreath.

‘And then?’ Shah asked. ‘What happened to your father?’

Kothari smiled.

‘He found out that Africans did not like Indian men who did well.’

When he was eight years old, there was a threat to their business, and his father had sold it for a pittance to return to Jamnagar, to die there in a dingy shop full of green-gram and brinjal.

‘That was how they treated us then,’ the Bollywood actor remembered. ‘Idi Amin saying to the Indians, get up and get out.’

The builder coughed. ‘They look up to Indians in Africa now. We’re drilling for oil in Sudan.’

A quarter of an hour later, with a valedictory flourish of dance steps, the dream-merchant bowed and vanished. Mr Shah looked at his guests and at once they knew it was time to leave. By the same power, Kothari was made to know he was not to leave. He sat at the table as hands came to shake the builder’s; some of them shook his hand too.

‘Do you know why I did not invite Mr Ravi of Tower B here tonight?’

The guests had left. Shah watched the waiters clear the buffet.

Kothari sensed that Mr Shah, who had changed from a vivacious host into a sick man with a cough in the course of the evening, was now about to turn into yet another man. He shook his head. ‘No, sir.’

‘His building won’t make any trouble: it’s full of young people. Reasonable people. So you are the key man, Mr Kothari. Do you follow me?’

‘Not exactly.’

The birthday boy joined the table, sitting between his father and the Secretary.

The builder moved his son out of his line of sight. He spoke softly.

‘In my experience, some older people oppose a redevelopment project because they are frightened of any kind of change. Some just want more money. And then there is one kind of person, the most dangerous, who says no because he is full of negative will power: because he does not enjoy life and does not want others to enjoy life. When these people speak, you must speak louder and clearer than they do. I will not forget it; I repay kindness with kindness of my own.’

The waiters, having removed the food, were now taking away the totemic bottle of Johnnie Walker.

‘My father used to say,’ Kothari cleared his voice, ‘my father… the one who was in Africa, he used to say, a man who lives for himself is no better than an animal. All my life I did nothing for anyone but myself. I even married late because I preferred to live alone. My wife is a good woman. She made me become the Secretary of Vishram: so I would do something for others. I am grateful for any… extra kindness you show me. But I cannot accept until I ask you this: what about everyone else in Vishram Society? Will you keep your word to them and pay each one his rightful share?’

Shah said nothing for a beat, then reached out and took the Secretary’s hand.

‘I am honoured, Mr Kothari, to be doing business with a man like you. Honoured. I understand why you are worried about me. Perfectly understand. In the old days, a builder in this city thought he could get rich only if he cheated his customers. He would cheat them as a matter of routine — on cement, on steel rods, on finishing. Every monsoon one of his buildings collapsed. Most of those you saw here today were old builders.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘They would strip you in a second if they were doing this redevelopment. But now there is a new builder in the city. We want to win, yes, but believe me, Mr Kothari: we also want our customers to win. The more winning there is, the better; because we think Mumbai will again be one of the world’s great cities. Ask at any of my projects about Mr Shah’s reputation. Find a single customer of mine who has a complaint. I am not one of the old builders of Mumbai.’