‘So what’s the use of keeping track of who’s going to be late...’
Marathi novel Khidkya Ardhya Ughadya, by Ganesh Matkari, is a satirical take on the Indian middle classes. Thanks to Jerry Pinto, it is now available in English as Half-Open Windows.
by Ganesh Matkari (Author), Jerry Pinto (Translator) Pages: 194 Price: Rs 299
It was nine thirty in the morning by the time I got to the funnies in the Mirror. Sanika’s SMS—“Rchd office” — had just made my phone vibrate. Sanika adores short messaging. I do not find it necessary to announce, “Reached Suchand- Such” or “Doing soand-so” or “Leaving in 10” or to even be informed of that kind of thing. In a city like Mumbai, you have to factor in some unpredictability. It is now a fact of life that traffic or trains will delay you or a rickshawalla won’t take you where you want to go. So what’s the use of keeping track of who’s going to be late and by how many minutes? And we don’t live close to the station. In Evershine Nagar, half the problem is the last mile. On top of that, the rains are here. Getting to work on time means a battle with unwilling rickshaw- or taxidrivers and then the Chinese torture of a dripping train carriage. N TIO FIC
But there’s no use telling Sanika any of this. She lets me know her entire timetable, amendments included. Even now, a long message is waiting as it always is: “Got such-and-so train, rchd @ dis time, afternoon meeting wid da consultant postponed, mayb l8”, etc.
And as always, I reply with an okay and a smiley stuck on.
Actually, Sanika has no need to use the trains. I cannot understand why a partner in an architectural firm the size of SNA should find it a bore to drive her own car. But that phrase—“a bore”— is mine. According to Sanika, she has too much on her mind to concentrate properly on driving. If you ask me, you don’t need concentration to drive. It’s a reflex. One drives on auto-pilot, as if by a routine so fixed that should it need changing, the situation is already so bad that one’s skill has not much chance of saving one’s life. If this were not the case, if driving truly takes skill and concentration, how do countless people steer their cars through traffic even as they listen to third-class Hindi film songs and the meaningless babble of RJs? Or chat on their cell phones? So Sanika’s refusal to drive herself probably arises out of her not wanting to. And so the car is largely mine to use even if it is in her name.
Mirror done, I turn to Times Ascent. 9:30 a.m. I have time. It was only three months ago that I quit my job as a lecturer in an engineering college. I had no idea what I wanted to do but I was bored. I found it difficult to teach students who had no real interest in learning. I didn’t want to sit around and moan about my lack of job satisfaction.
Sanika too felt it was better for me to quit than for The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on a journe y of many years – the story spooling outwards from the cramped neighbourhoods of Old Delhi into the burgeoning new metropolis and beyond, to the Valley of Kashmir and the forests of Central India, where war is peace and peace is war, and where, from time to time, “normalcy” is declared. her to bear my complaints about my work. I had hoped that the excellent marks with which I had finished my 3 BE (Civil) would mean that I would be snapped up by some hot architectural firm or real-estate developer but there was no sign of that happening. However, I had finished my education a while ago and my work experience was only academic. Besides, the job market is in bad shape. The Japanese and Chinese companies are now so fashionable in engineering and architecture that Indian companies are struggling to survive. Thankfully, SNA is one of the exceptions. It’s doing well and that means we’re doing well too.
I have a standing offer from Sanika to join the SNA project management team.
She had got together with two of her college friends and started SNA; it was now one of tone of the up- andcoming architectural firms. They were in demand and the realty magazines had run several features on them. But from my limited social interactions with her partners, I knew that they were likely to be arrogant. I didn’t think I could work with them. And Sanika was one of the bosses. One of my fears was that our relationship might not survive my working under her. Even if we had fallen in love with each other in college and had lived together for four years afterwards, a livein relationship is a live-in relationship. How long would it take to end, should that thought occur to either of us? Playing at being modern, we hadn’t married but the insecurity of our relationship was a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Or maybe it didn’t hang over Sanika’s head. That has nothing to do with the self-confidence SNA’s success brought with it; it’s just who she is.
Even if we had fallen in love with each other in college and had lived together for four years afterwards, a live-in relationship is a live-in relationship. How long would it take to end, should that thought occur to either of us? Playing at being modern, we hadn’t married but the insecurity of our relationship was a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.
Extracted with permission from Half-Open Windows, by Ganesh Matkari(author), Jerry Pinto (translator), published by Speaking Tiger Books