The Hope Factory (6 page)

In the early morning cool of an awakening world, through traffic as yet muted and desultory, the small sedan maneuvered its way toward the distant city outskirts. Forty-five minutes later, he appraised the approaching factory with a stern, clinical eye: the dust and distressed road yielding to a manicured strip of green grass; the glossy factory wall, freshly repainted the previous day, the large manufacturing sheds beyond.

RIGHT ON THE APPOINTED
hour, two cars pulled into the compound. Six people emerged; at quick scan, they seemed to
cover all the races: two Japanese, two Europeans, a man from England of African parentage.

Anand felt the usual awkwardness well up within him. He wished he could be at ease with foreigners; they were sometimes intimidating and frequently incomprehensible; he did not have the means within him to easily cross vast cultural divides. His management team stood behind him: Mrs. Padmavati’s oiled hair and silk saree glistening in the morning light; the HR man wearing a startlingly strong checked jacket for the occasion; Ananthamurthy’s tie looking narrow and uncomfortable, but all of them with smiles rich with expectation and nervous excitement. Anand dried his palms on a handkerchief, thankful that the gray jacket he wore covered the sweat that had soaked instantly through his shirt, and hastened forward to meet the visitors, pinning a warm smile of welcome to his face.

THE DAY PASSED SURPRISINGLY SMOOTHLY
. The visitors toured the factory and seemed interested and impressed. Mrs. Padmavati had had the foresight to make copies of Anand’s presentation; he was gratified to see the visitors scratching notes as he talked. The projector did not fail; the computer’s hard drive did not die halfway through. Ananthamurthy did not bring up his antediluvian notions on caste, worship, and vegetarianism but instead led the tour through the plant with the calm competence that came from knowing the location of every nut and bolt on the manufacturing floor and answered all the questions posed to him thoughtfully and capably. The lunch had been organized from a five-star hotel; the visitors appeared to enjoy the food, though Anand was too nervous to eat.

In the late afternoon, the entire team collapsed in Anand’s
office. They congratulated themselves. Everything had gone well, they agreed. They could not have planned anything better. They reviewed the questions that had been asked, trying to discern in them a measure of approval. As they talked, rehashing the various conversations of the day, Anand received an email from the liaison who had set up this visit.

Alas, the excitement it generated was soon laid to rest; it was just a routine email of thanks for the visit. Any real indication on whether Cauvery Auto had passed muster would have to wait while the visitors toured other factories in the country and then returned to their own home offices and talked things through. The discussions, negotiations, and due diligence might take days, weeks to resolve.

Ananthamurthy said he would redouble his prayers. Anand smiled automatically in response, already feeling the excitements of the day recede from his being, immediately replaced by everyday operational concerns.

As though on cue, his cellphone rang.

Anand hesitated before reluctantly touching his thumb to the screen of his iPhone.

“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. Hello?” His father-in-law distrusted cellular technology and bellowed to compensate.

“Hello,” said Anand.

“It must be a bad line…. Right. You will be glad to know. I have organized it.” At Anand’s cautious silence, his father-in-law’s voice grew slightly more impatient. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Organized it?” said Anand.

“Yes. That is what I said…. The land you require for your factory…. I have set up some meetings. You come and meet me tomorrow—no, wait, I can’t tomorrow—fine, you meet
me next week and I will brief you,” shouted his father-in-law before ringing off.

The second window in his office faced the factory campus, and Anand frowned at the view. This two acres—bought so very proudly just four years before, two acres for which Anand had mortgaged all he owned (which admittedly had not been very much) and taken an additional bank loan—was now too small. Orders had flooded in; Anand and Ananthamurthy had built factory sheds to the very edges of the lot; there was no further room to grow unless one counted the flower beds, the watchman’s room, and the realms that existed between the earth and the holes in the ozone layer.

“We are needing more land, sir,” Ananthamurthy had taken to saying on an almost daily basis, “especially if this Japan deal comes through and even,” he would say, “if not.”

Buying industrial land outside the city was fraught with complications, very different from the relatively straightforward process of buying property within the city through real estate agents. This, instead, was a murky business, with dubious titles and complicated family ownership histories, influenced by different mafias and forever enmeshed with inscrutable political machinery and zoning laws.

In the distance stood the neighboring property, with enormous warehouse walls, in disuse and covered with rusty metal sheets, built right up to the common compound wall, looming, entirely spoiling the vista. The factory gardener had planted an intervening hedge of bright pink bougainvillea, but this obscured only about three feet of the eyesore, which, if anything, seemed even uglier in contrast. Anand had approached his idiot neighbors, whose property stretched beyond the ugly warehouses for twenty acres, much of it in disuse and disrepair.

He had heard that they were in trouble; a pair of quarreling brothers, one prone to drink and the other to whores; they might be willing to sell. They were—and proved their reputations as business failures by quoting a price so ridiculously high and greedy, even for this city, where escalating land prices seemed a way of life, that Anand glared in disgust at the rust on their encroaching warehouse walls. May it grow, bastards, this rust, until it filters and covers all parts of your life, from your dick to your drinking glass. Behenchuths.

When Anand had bought his current two-acre site, the seller had been a friend of a friend, in financial trouble and eager to sell, with clear titles. That kind of serendipity couldn’t be counted upon—and this time, his requirements were larger. There were land brokers, of course, for this sort of purchase, but they did not advertise themselves or work without personal reference.

He had mentioned some of this, in passing, to Vidya. She had apparently conveyed it almost immediately to her father, who, naturally, had taken it upon himself to get involved in the matter.

His father-in-law’s phone call acted as a trigger. Anand mentally worked his way through a roster of friends and acquaintances who might be able to help him. His friend Vinayak claimed to know everything and everyone; he was the person to call. Anand fingered his way through the iPhone menu, forgiving its occasional telephonic inefficiency with the blind affection a parent reserves for a wayward but much-loved child.

“Vinayak?” he said. “Listen, buddy, I need your help.”

IN THE LIGHT OF THE EARLY MORNING
, Kamala was engaged in lecturing her son.

“So will you hurry yourself? As quickly as you can manage? Do not delay, do not engage in useless conversations with your friends, do not be distracted by anything other than the desire to please your mother and present yourself to the house in good speed.”

“I will, Mother,” said Narayan.

“And dress well! I do not want to be shamed by the rags you are so fond of wearing.”

“Mother,” said Narayan, “I am not the one who is going to be late. Weren’t you supposed to be there by now?”

Kamala glared at such impertinence and continued to scold: “And do not forget, while you are there, to keep a civil tongue in your head, to speak respectfully, to work hard, and …”

“I will, Mother,” said Narayan. “Calm yourself. I will do just as you have said.”

“Yes,” said Kamala. “I know that. I know that.”

THE DAY WAS BARELY
birthed when she walked with quick, urgent steps to her employer’s house. She had promised to be there early—for there was seven days’ work to be completed in one.

“Even the gods”—Thangam seemed barely able to open her irritable, sleep-encrusted eyes—“could not commence work on such a day without something first to eat and drink. Have you broken your fast this morning, sister?” She banged the bucket on the floor. “And when does your son arrive?”

“He will be here very soon,” said Kamala. “He was awake when I left and he is not one to tarry.”

Narayan appeared when they were drinking their tea. There was a crowd in the kitchen that early morning. In addition to Kamala and Thangam and Shanta, there was the driver, the driver’s wife, and two watchmen, none of whom were normally encouraged to visit the kitchen, but exceptions were being made.

Kamala saw immediately and with approval that her son had followed all her instructions. His face was washed, his hair was neatly parted and combed, and he was dressed in his best shirt and pants. She had readied them for him the previous Sunday, washing them and then plucking them off the drying line when they were still warm from the sun, folding and pressing them with her hands. The result was almost wrinkle-free. She thought he looked very smart. His eyes were bright and eager, and a little shy.

“What is it, boy? What is it you want?” Shanta the cook spoke first, her voice sharp.

“Vidya-ma has summoned him here today,” said Kamala. “To help us.”

“Oh, it’s good you have arrived, young one!” said Thangam, in a mixture of friendliness and relief. “Come in, come in, lad. Have something to eat—your insides must be as empty and parched as the wells in summer.”

Kamala was grateful for Thangam’s kindness in making Narayan feel welcome. Shanta looked sulky but did not hesitate to put a tumbler of hot tea in front of him, a slice of bread placed over it like a lid, saying: “After you are done, boy, be sure to rinse your tumbler and place it behind the sink. I have too much to do to clean up after every tousle-headed urchin who wanders through my kitchen.”

Narayan’s cheeks worked quickly at his food, his eyes meeting Kamala’s in a glimmer of amusement, as though he recognized in the cook’s rudeness all the truth of the gossip his mother brought home each evening.

KAMALA AND THANGAM, WITH
Narayan’s help, concentrated on cleaning the ground floor of the house well ahead of their normal schedule. They were barely done when the family upstairs awoke—and on the heels of their rising came an endless array of other chores: of carrying the tea trays up and the water jugs down, of beds to be made and breakfast to be served. None of the jobs were difficult to do, all of them were routine, but between them they engaged all the women until it was time to break for their own meal.

They collected in the kitchen, their faces sharp with hunger.
The driver’s wife was washing up the family’s breakfast plates, Shanta was wreathed in enticing-smelling steam, and with a little bounce of pleasure, Kamala realized that this would, after all, be one of those good days.

The long central platform in the kitchen was laden with semia upma and a plate of hot dosas, with chutney and sambar on the side. Kamala helped Narayan to a plateful before getting her own, suspending the feeding of her own appetite in the enjoyment of sating his, watching his eyes close in happy disbelief and his mouth open again and again in greed and hunger. Everyone ate quickly, saving their conversation. Narayan washed his plate and tumbler out and was careful to thank Shanta: “Please forgive my impudence in saying so, aunty,” he said, “but your cooking is the finest I have ever tasted.”

Shanta’s mouth twitched into a reluctant half smile, she said: “Your good mother surely does not say so.”

“Indeed, she is the first to praise your cooking, always.”

“Indeed, Shanta, we all are,” said Thangam, eagerly reaching for a last dosa. But before she could lift it up and place it on her plate, a voice rang out from the dining room.

“Oh, my god! So little has been done! And there’s simply no time left for anything!” Vidya-ma appeared at the kitchen door, and her face was set in scolding, panicked lines. “Come along, everybody, do not linger. So much to be done! This is not the time for relaxing!”

Every now and then, Vidya-ma and Anand-saar liked to invite guests to their home, in intimate gatherings of ten to large crowds of a hundred, and the staff work varied accordingly. “I thought twenty couples,” she had said to Anand-saar over breakfast one morning. “It will give Kavika a chance to meet some people …”

“Great,” he had replied. “That sounds nice.”

“Should we not finish the upstairs first, Vidya-ma?” Thangam’s query was waved aside. Vidya commandeered all the staff—the maids, Narayan, the driver, the driver’s wife, the watchmen, and even, briefly, the transient gardener—to roll the carpets out of the way, push the sofas to the walls, and shift the coffee tables from the center of the room to the edges. She walked about, talking aloud to herself.

“The caterers will set up there, and the bar will be here; this area should be kept free for people to stand and mingle, the tall lamps here …”

But it appeared that arranging the main ground-floor rooms for the evening was neither a quick nor a simple process. “Oh yes,” Vidya-ma would say as the sofas and tables and potted plants settled in place and, two minutes later, “No, that really doesn’t work, does it?”

She did not expect agreement from them, so they kept silent as she devised anew. The telephone, never silent, seemed to ring today with a great energy and tenacity. Vidya-ma refused no telephone calls, and as she talked—“Oh, I’m so glad. Looking forward to seeing you then,” or “Oh, no special occasion, extremely casual evening, just throwing together some food and friends, making no effort at all, really”—she continued to direct them in their dance; waving them about, sending them staggering this way and that, and shaking her head. Occasionally, she would scold: “Be careful!” and “Please, do as I say! Do you not understand me?” and “Careful, you fool!”