Bharati Mukherjee - Miss New India

His architectural consulting company, a Swiss-Canadian collaboration, 50 percent locally financed, was three years old. It had started with five architects who returned from the United States and five engineers, and now it employed three hundred people.

So he inspects buildings that aren't there, in cities he's never been to.

"Every business in the world is outsourcing. Without us, the world would collapse. Maybe in a couple of years some version of a Bish Chatterjee will come along and buy us out and we'll sit down and figure out the next big thing."

Idly, she said, "I know Bish Chatterjee's son, Rabi. Wouldn't we collapse without them, Mr. GG?"

"Hold on a second. You just said you know the son of Bish Chatterjee? I'm still processing that. How many Chatterjees are there in Bengal? A guess."

"Crores," she said.

"How many of them might be named Bishwapriya Chatterjee?"

"Lakhs," she said.

"And how many Rabi Chatterjees and how many Anjali Boses, would you say?"

"Crores of Anjali Boses." But maybe only one Rabi Chatterjee, she thought. She flashed a smile.

"Ah-hah! Very cool." He smiled back. "So technically speaking, some cognomen of yours has met the cognomen son of some cognomen Bishwapriya Chatterjee. Maybe you should be a lawyer. To answer your other question: yes, we would collapse without international collaborators. For a while, at least. Then they'd collapse without us."

"You're very sure of yourself, Mr. GG," she said, and thought, but was afraid to ask, What's a cognomen?

"I'm beginning to think I'm not nearly as brazen as you. That's a compliment, by the way."

Bangalore was endless! Just when the tall new buildings began to fade, a new center opened up, a new satellite city with even more office towers, car dealerships, dug-up sidewalks, and cranes, with never a letup in traffic. If Mr. GG intended any funny business with her, it would have to be in front of thousands of people. But she couldn't imagine him even trying. He seemed a round-faced jolly sort, not like Subodh Mitra, whose profile reminded her of a long-snouted street dog.

"Have you seen Chinatown ?" he asked, and she thought immediately, So that's his little game! That's where he's taking me. Back alleys, and men in pigtails. She'd read about evil Chinatowns, with their opium dens and concubines.

"I like sweet and sour," she said. Gauripur once had a Chinese restaurant, run by a refugee family from Calcutta's Chinatown. Her parents took her there once and declared the food inedible, although she'd liked it, but it soon went out of business. "Premature sophistication, misreading of the commercial environment," Peter would say. Mr. GG was laughing. Apparently she'd said something funny, or else he was making fun of her.

"I was referring to an American movie. It's about how L.A. really got built. It's about power and deals and corruption and a lot of buried bodies. You can rent it some night."

She remembered the newspaper article from that distant time a few hours ago, at the Bangalore bus station. "Why should I?"

"Because you said you wanted to know what Bangalore is like. Well, it's a lot like L.A., but it took L.A. a century. They had a movie industry, and we've got hi-tech. We're both virtual and we've both got buried bodies, but we'll be a much bigger city in maybe five years."

She really didn't understand. She'd used a computer in the da Gama Common Room, but only for games. Virtual was one of those frightening words. "I have a question. What is an L.A.?" she finally asked.

"Oh, my God-and you say you're from Kolkata? It's Los Angeles. California. U.S.A. Hollywood, the poor man's Bombay."

In front of pokey little shops where pariah dogs still languished in the sun, rows of posters proclaimed: AID PRESENTS: SITE OF FUTURE FIVE-STAR LUXURY HOTEL and FUTURE HEADQUARTERS OF (fill in the name) MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION, ending in the parenthetical (INDIA, LTD.). Painted signboards featured luxury flats underscored with prompts: SUBSCRIBE NOW! ONLY TWO REMAINING! Artist's renderings of strolling couples in a landscaped garden, flowers and fountains, and flashy cars pulling up-all in a place where nothing had yet been demolished or erected and no trees were standing. Future, future, future! And enough of the future hotels and headquarters had already been built and filled to lend credence to any claim. Every company in the world had to have a Bangalore address, and every modern mogul from India, Korea, Japan and the Middle East had to have a Bangalore condo or mansion.

"Who do you know in Kent Town?" Mr. GG asked. He acted as though she had no right even to know any resident of Kent Town. "That's old money. The money's so old, it's moldy. It's so old, they still calculate in annas, not rupees."

She hadn't realized that Kew Gardens was a street in Kent Town. "I don't know anyone. I have a letter of introduction from my old professor to Mrs. Minnie Bagehot."

This too amused him. "A letter from an old professor who knows Minnie Bagehot. So, you've got powerful connections. You want to be a Bagehot Girl, then?"

For the first time, he sounded slightly interested in something she'd said. "I didn't know there was such a thing. What does it mean-a 'Bagehot Girl'?"

"It means a very proper, upstanding girl from a very good family. Or it can mean someone who does a good imitation of being a proper, upstanding girl from a very good family."

"And am I special enough to be a Bagehot Girl, Mr. GG?"

"I detect possibilities."

"You have software for that too? Detecting possibilities?"

"You have a certain style. Even without software I predict that you'll do fine. You'll get a job, no problem."

"Why do you say that? You don't know a thing about me. Maybe I'm a total fraud. Maybe I'm a dolt and I'll flub my interviews." Of course, she was fishing for compliments-you're fresh air, you're radiant, and your English is perfect.

"Your English is decent and you've got a pulse. In Bangalore that means you'll find a job. And if you feel your highest calling is to know the difference between NH and NC or MS and MD or maybe even AK and AR, you'll do fine."

She had no idea. Strange monsters dwelt in the linguistic interstices of the English language. All things were possible. Morays could paint French cathedrals, but at least she already knew the difference between medical doctors and multiple sclerosis, thank you very much.

And then for some reason, perhaps to clear the air of her misrepre-sentations, she confessed, "Back at that Barista, everyone was friendly, but I didn't understand a word of what they were saying."

"It's just Bangalore babble," he said. "It's not meant to mean anything. Just that they're here and have jobs and with it comes the freedom to talk nonsense. They're like locusts-in six weeks they'll be moving on. Chennai and Hyderabad beckon."

"Will I be moving on?"

"I don't think so. I think you'll stick in Bangalore. I hope so, at least."

Chennai or Hyderabad would be unacceptable. She saw herself as a high-quality individual, destined for the best job in the top place, and according to what she'd heard and what she could see, that was Bangalore. If she needed a job, why not start at the top? Why not use her only "contact," as the business world put it? She pulled out some old questions from Peter Champion's class. "What is your corporate culture, Mr. GG? Are you hiring?"

"My 'corporate culture'?" He seemed amused. "I've never been asked a question like that. Offhand I'd say it's making the most money with the fewest people in the shortest time. And yes, absolutely, we're hiring. If you have an architect's or engineer's license from an IIT or an overseas equivalent."

"Now you're being mean. You must be needing someone to answer your telephones. I have a high school-leaving cert and two years of college, B. Comm. with English proficiency, first class."