* Conditions Apply - First Look.
After thorough deliberation, Mohit decided to send an invitation card to the Talpade family too. Alas, the wedding menu included alcohol, but the Talpades would have to make peace with that little hindrance. He stopped by at their house one morning before work, welcomed by a look so grumpy it could put Karan to shame.
‘Hello, uncle.’ Mohit smiled.
The uncle did not smile back. He looked at Mohit closely, and then frowned. ‘Sinha?’
‘Yes, you can call me Mohit.’ His suggestion was conveniently ignored by the uncle who had already turned his back to the guest.
‘Please come in, Mohit,’ Amit shouted, leaning from his dining chair.
Mohit stepped in. All of a sudden, time seemed to have come to an abrupt halt in the Talpade household. Everyone except Amit stopped whatever they were doing and started staring at Mohit, silently and intently. The aroma of thalipith had filled the house and Mohit hoped the mother or the aunt would fetch some for him from the kitchen. But all he got from them were the same investigative looks. Just then, Amit’s father and the dictator of the camp marched out of the bedroom, adjusting the knot of a tie knitted in a very archaic fashion. He suddenly gagged on seeing Mohit, as though his own tie was doing him in.
‘Uncle, I wanted to invite you all for my wedding next month,’ Mohit finally broke the awkward silence and handed Ashok Talpade a wedding card.
‘You are getting married!’ Ashok Talpade exclaimed. ‘To whom?’
‘Her name is Neha,’ Mohit said.
‘Neha who?’ he demanded. The uncle on the sofa turned his attention to Mohit too and listened on carefully.
‘Baba, please,’ Amit pleaded as he got up from the table.
‘That’s not a problem,’ Mohit cut in. His voice grew somewhat stern. ‘Neha Tandon.’
‘Tandon Bihari?’ the uncle threw up an open question to the audience and looked around the room like a curious little teenaged brat.
‘Tandon Punjabi,’ came a woman’s reply from the kitchen.
The uncle gave a disappointed look and lay back on the sofa with one wagging leg crossed over the other.
‘Same thing,’ the father commented drily.
‘Baba, please,’ Amit said more firmly this time. ‘We are late. Let’s go, Mohit.’
‘Yeah, you can go sit in his lap all day if you want, I don’t care,’ Ashok Talpade grumbled in a fluent dialect, parts of which Mohit latched on to, much to his own displeasure.
‘Why, is something the matter?’ Mohit asked with a frown. As he had anticipated, his question was ignored once again. Ashok Talpade pulled the card out of the envelope and began examining it with a grimace, as if reading a statement from the bank.
‘Where is the wedding taking place?’ Amit’s mother asked the first kind and relevant question as she came out of the kitchen, wiping off a thin sheet of flour smeared on her palms with the corner of her sari.
‘Delhi.’
Ashok Talpade suddenly shouted excitedly. The grimace turned into a delighted chuckle, just like that. ‘Are you going to Delhi?’
‘Just for the wedding,’ Mohit clarified. ‘Neha will be moving here after we are married.’ Ashok Talpade looked crestfallen once again.
‘Why?’ the uncle demanded gruffly.
‘Why not?’ Mohit retorted.
‘Isn’t Delhi a rather spacious city?’ the uncle asked curiously, once again throwing the question open to the audience. ‘And then this CWG gang decked up the city even more – Delhi looks like an extravagant garden now.’
Even till this point, Mohit was gullible enough to consider that to be a friendly suggestion from his neighbours. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But Bombay is home, after all.’
The father’s voice shot up. ‘First of all, please get the pronunciation right. It is called Mumbai. And why do I feel this isn’t really home for you?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Mohit craned his neck forward and looked at Talpade almost threateningly. ‘You belong to Calcutta,’ Ashok Talpade explained, changing tack suddenly to a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Isn’t that where your parents live?’
‘My parents lived in this city for thirty-five years before going back to Calcutta,’ Mohit reminded him angrily. ‘My father has served a long tenure in this city, and I think you know this. We also own a house here.’
‘In a suburb far from here, I know.’ Talpade nodded with a smirk. ‘And yet you decide to rent a separate apartment here in Versova – now tell me, what’s the next game plan to stuff this city like a chicken coop?’ Amit’s mother sauntered gently towards her husband, beseeching him to stop. But he would hear none of it and dismissed her with a flick of his fingers.
‘I meant this to be an invitation,’ Mohit said, clearing his throat. ‘I’m afraid it’s turning out to be an interview. But if you insist on knowing, I chose to rent this apartment because it is closer to office and makes life more convenient. It’s not illegal, is it?’
‘Bhau, Sinha’s landlord is even smarter.’ The uncle laughed bitterly, thoroughly enjoying himself as he gently stoked the argument. ‘Vipul NRI Mehta.’ All this while, Mohit had not even been offered a seat. Sensing this was taking longer than he expected, he sought a chair himself, an action that did not please Talpade in the least. Amit whispered something to Amita; she scurried into the kitchen, came out with a glass of water and handed it to Mohit courteously.
Mohit took a sip of water and looked at Ashok Talpade once again, who had been staring at him all this while. ‘Sir, it is important for me to know this because we are neighbours,’ he began cautiously, ‘is there a very specific reason you seem to have a problem with me?’
‘Mohit, I think we must leave,’ Amit said anxiously. ‘We are running late.’
‘Let him get his answer,’ his father growled. ‘Tell me, Sinha, have you ever stood in a crowded fair?’
‘What about it?’
‘How does it feel when someone in a crowded fair stamps your foot?’ Talpade asked. ‘That’s what people like you make me feel.’
‘People like me would be …?’
‘All of you.’ He wagged his finger at Mohit angrily, now bellowing with rage. ‘You, your idiotic landlord who buys a house here and runs off to another country, and all of you in the new tower whose maintenance we have to pay for, at the cost of our own comfort.’
‘We shouldn’t have allowed the construction of the new tower at all,’ his wife concurred remorsefully. ‘It has left us with nothing – no space to walk, to park our cars, and certainly no ground for our children to play.’
Mohit laughed nervously. ‘Wow! I didn’t see this analysis coming. You know what – I’m out of here. I don’t think I should entertain this discussion any further. Amit, I’ll see you downstairs.’
‘What sort of a friend is he, Amit?’ a belligerent Talpade demanded. ‘Look how he talks to your father. Is this what his parents have taught him?’
‘Sir, may I request you not to say a word against my parents?’ Mohit charged down the aisle and breathed down Talpade’s throat. ‘Not one about my parents, not one about my fiancée. I’ll hear none of it.’
He thumped his way out of the room and was just about to slam the door when he decided to give Talpade a final piece of his mind. As he would opine often in his life later, it turned out to be a bad decision.
‘And, sir,’ he said. ‘If I may – your problem does not lie in the way we live our lives. It lies in the way you cannot live yours. Don’t blame an NRI who can afford to buy a house here and fly off elsewhere, simply because you are holed up with a family the size of a film starcast.’
---- * Conditions Apply: Coming soon to a bookstore near you.
