Chapter
1 – In an Unknown Land
"Oh come on! Money
makes the world go round, Aman." He said
into cell in English before he switched back to Hindi. "If the offer we made is not good enough, up
the ante some more." And then switched
right back to English. "I am not taking no for an answer. And that's that!"
He ended the call and just as he pulled up his emails, the
car lurched to a stop.
"Did I just lose reception?" He asked out loud before looking up and
around.
"Where the hell are we?"
he asked after a moment, looking around.
There were fields of green all around him.
Were these paddy
fields??
"Sorry sir, the tire is punctured." The driver said before opening the door and
getting out.
"The tire is punctured after
you drove us to the f**king boonies!"
He wished he had his own driver with him. But this was Kerala and he was here for just
a week to make a sale on a piece of land that he had been looking to acquire
for years with little luck. He had been
assured by the party mediating the sale that they had finally convinced the
last family holding onto their ancestral property here that it was in their
best interest to sell. He had heard that
the family had fallen on hard times anyways, so it was only been a matter of
time before he expected them to agree to his more than generous offer for the
five acres of land they owned. Kerala was
an incredibly lucrative tourist spot and an exclusive resort-spa with a bit of
their traditional Ayurveda, healing massages, and the works would make a nice
tidy package to lure NRI's and foreigners.
But the business of land acquisition was cut-throat in Kerala with so
much politics behind it that he hadn't been able to touch the market for years. The idea to acquire a large piece of land
from one or two families that still held land handed over from generation to
generation had come about several years ago.
It had required a great deal of planning with discreet sources for the
last five years for this particular deal to come about. One of the three families owning the twelve
total acres that he hoped to acquire had sold the land willingly; most of that
family had been gone from India for years anyways and they had merely held onto
the property for the sake of a great-aunt who had lived there. They had sold the house and the land as soon
as the woman had passed. That had been three
years ago. The property adjacent to it
had belonged to a family whose only son had died in an accident two years ago. They had wanted to leave behind the memories
of the empty house and they too had sold within a short period of time after
their son's death. The only remaining
property that he needed was the one belonging to a Govindan Namboothiri. They had said no to his people three years
ago and continued to say no to date. But
now that he had the other two properties and his goal was so close to being
realized, he would not take no for an answer.
And thus he had come down here to get the deal closed himself. He would get the family to sell to him one
way or the other. And if that required
intimidation, threats, coercion, or worse, so be it.
He opened the car door and shook his head in annoyance when
he saw the muddy road.
"This is bullshit.
What the hell is this, cow dung?"
he yelled out even though he knew the driver was likely not
listening.
His assistant, Ravi, had come down with some sort of
stomach bug last night and hadn't been able to come with them on this
trip. Arnav thought now that he should
have just postponed the trip instead of trying to do this by himself. He didn't speak the language here even though
the locals seemed more than capable of speaking Hindi.
When he didn't hear from the driver for close to five
minutes, he sighed in impatience and finally opened the door once again to get
out of the car.
His Cole Haan's were not going to survive paddy-field mud,
he was sure; he didn't care so much about the shoes as much as the annoyance it
posed. He wanted to be back in Delhi;
this place, while it may have its earthly charms, just didn't agree with him
with its bugs and its muggy weather and spans of open green pastures. He had too much of the city in him to ever
feel comfortable in this much... silence...
He got out of the car, closed the door, and leaned against
it, fighting the itch for a cigarette.
It was a habit that he had kicked a long time ago, but the urge came
back at times like this when he was annoyed or agitated.
The weather was so muggy that even the light breeze in the
air didn't help and he shrugged out of his vest and threw it in the car through
the rolled down window. His shirt was
sticking to him within minutes and he thought of getting back into the AC-ed
interior of the car. He had had a
meeting in Ernakulum this morning, which is why he had put on his regular
office-wear, although now he thought that he should have taken the time to go back
to his hotel room to change into something more heat-friendly rather than hopping
in the car right after the meeting to travel more than two hours to get here.
He walked around the car and looked down to see the driver
still fiddling with the tire. He was
removing the punctured one, even though there was no spare to be found.
"Where's the spare?"
Arnav asked.
"In the trunk." The
driver answered.
"Why is it not out?"
he asked.
The man got up and walked back to the trunk. He opened it and stood there for a moment
before walking back to him. When he
stood there without saying anything, Arnav rolled his eyes. "What the hell is it now?"
"The spare's missing, Sir."
"The spare's missing?"
he asked, his tone incredulous.
"Are you kidding me right now?"
he asked in English, but the man tilted his head in confusion.
He threw up his hands in annoyance and stalked off a
distance away, pulling out his cell.
Of course, there was no f**king reception in these
boondocks!
"What the f**king hell!"
he said out loud as he looked around.
Aside from a few workers that he could see in the paddy
fields at a distance, there was no one else to be found.
He stood there for a moment to get his annoyance under
control before he turned back to the driver.
"Alright, how far is the house from here?"
"Sir?" the driver
asked.
"The house that we are going to! How far is it from here??" he asked, rolling his eyes.
Seriously, the world was run by nincompoops!
"2 Kilometers, sir."
"2 kilo...!!! Are you f**king with me right now??"
The man blinked in confusion but said nothing else.
He stood there fuming for several minutes until the driver
asked, "What should we do now, sir?"
"How far do I need to go for cell phone reception?" he asked instead of answering the man's
question.
"I don't know, sir."
He shook his head and walked away.
"Do you know the way to get to the house? The exact way?" he asked.
The driver shook his head.
"We'll have to ask, sir."
"Ask who?" he almost
yelled in frustration.
There was a pause while the driver didn't answer, but then
said, "Let's ask her."
"Who?" he asked
without bothering to look back at the driver.
"Her." The driver
said again and then heard it.
It sounded like the chiming of bells. Soft bells though, almost like... anklets.
He turned around then and saw her.
She was coming from a distance still, wearing a long skirt,
a sari blouse and a long shawl wrapped over both like a sari. He had seen several women wear this here and had
heard that it was called something like "half-sari". He remembered because he recalled thinking
that that made perfect sense –the thing did look like half a sari. She had long
hair that was in a plait that she had pulled to the front and she was swinging
the tail end of it round and round and round as she walked towards them.
Great! A local! He just hoped the chick was like the rest of
the population here and understood Hindi.
Although, she had a total village look, so it was still doubtful.
"Mole... (A loose translation would
be "beti") He heard the driver
call to the girl when she was within earshot.
When she turned in his direction, he asked, "Ee Kalarikkal
veedevideyannariyamo?" ("Do you know where the Kalarikkal House is?")
She paused in front of him. "Orichiri dooramundu. Entina chetta?" ("It's a bit of a
distance. Why, brother?")
"Ee sarinavade vare onnu ponam." ("This Sir wants to go there.")
Arnav saw them both look at him and he nodded briefly in
acknowledgment, keeping his annoyance in check.
"Eyakkentha avide karyam?
Kandittu ividunnonum allannu tonnunallo." ("What's his business
there? He doesn't look like he is from
around here.")
She said turning back to the man. Arnav wanted to tell them to save the idle
chit-chat for later and to see if the chick knew where the house was, but he
held his tongue for the moment.
"Saru Delhi-yil ninnu vannatha. Athallathe enikku prathyekichonnum
ariyilla." ("He came from Delhi. Aside from that, I don't know much.").
"Alright, let's get
a rush on this. Ask her if she knows the
house or not. Otherwise, we will have to find someone else." He said now, his impatience breaking through.
He saw the girl raise an eyebrow at his tone but then she
looked back at the driver as the driver asked, "Molu njankalkonnu vazhi kanichu
tarumo? Ee car-inte oru tire keeri poyi" ("Will you show us the way? One of the car's tires got torn.")
Arnav saw the girl shoot him a look before she turned back
to the driver and nodded.
The driver looked at him and nodded.
"Innu mazhakolundu.
Vegham nadakkan parayu aa manushanodu."
(It's going to start raining soon. Tell him to be quick about it.") Arnav heard the girl say to the driver who in
turn looked at him and said in Hindi, "She says it's going to rain soon, so
we'll have to walk fast."
"That's f**king great!"
he muttered under his breath before he told them he was ready.
The girl walked ahead of them and the driver followed suit
and he followed behind them.
Her pace was fast and he found that his shoes truly were
not made for the uneven muddy ground.
"Hey! Hey! Slow down!"
he yelled out and when the driver turned around, but the girl kept
going, Arnav asked in annoyance, "What the hell is her name?"
"Molde perentha?"
(What's your name?") the driver asked.
The girl didn't slow down, but yelled over her
shoulder. "Kaveri. Pakshe ellarum enne Kashi-nna
vilikkane." ("Kaveri. But people call me Kashi.")
The driver turned back to him and answered, "Her name is
Kashi."
"Khushi?" he asked.
The driver looked confused for a moment, but then he nodded. Arnav thought he heard the man mutter
something like, "Ivide Kashi avide Khushi aayirikkum. Aarkariyam."
("Kashi here might be Khushi there.
Who knows?"), but he ignored him.
"Khushi? Hmm... I
never knew Malayalees had names like that."
He muttered to himself as he followed the two, cursing Govindan Namboothiri
for making this so difficult for him all the way.
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Edited by -publicenemy- - 11 years ago
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