Chapter 4 – What Do You Know of Us Anyway?
She looked at her father and saw the hard set of his jaw; that combined with his earlier irritation with her and she knew that there was no point in arguing with him right now. The eminent Mr. Raizada didn't know that and he was going on and on in Hindi about how such a condition was unacceptable and how he couldn't possibly live in this house and whatnot. She thought briefly of smacking the back of his head to get him to snap out of his existence on Mars or Pluto or whatever alien world that he had dropped down from. She had been to Delhi before; she had also been Bengal and Varanasi and Chennai and Mumbai and Hyderabad and Bangalore and a few other places too. He, evidently, did not hail from any of those places. He hailed from the land of private jets and skyscrapers and designer-clothes. He spent his time in AC-rooms with the silent hum of computer screens, laptops, and smart-phones and wide vertical blinds that with the snap of a wrist cut off his vision of not just the streets but that of the entire world outside his office room. She had seen men like him before – her family was only down on money, not in name or prestige, and they had their share of inordinately wealthy relatives who had sailed off to greener pastures selling off everything here – and had learned that if she was allergic to anything in the world, it was short-sighted men. Men who never saw anything beyond their own comforts. Men who didn't know anything about history or traditions or heritage or nature or what a need to preserve something on the verge of extinction would ever feel like.
She watched him still trying to argue his case, talking with not just his mouth but also with his hands, as if her father didn't truly understand Hindi and needed the flailing around of his Tag Heuer in his face to properly understand the point. The only advantage she could see in the entire situation was how grossly Mr. Raizada had misjudged her father and her family. Whatever education that he had received – and she was sure that he had received some high-falutin' degree from one of those Ivy Leagues in America that her cousins went to that her uncles boasted about to her father or maybe Oxford or Cambridge in the UK – he seemed to have forgotten the basics of doing business.
Never underestimate your enemy.
"What's the literacy rate in Kerala, Mr. Raizada?" she asked, cutting off his useless elocution.
He looked at her first in confusion, then with an eyebrow cocked, as he asked, "How is that relevant?"
She bit her tongue so that she wouldn't release a load of the vile curses floating around in her head – curses that no good Brahmin girl should know – but her caustic tongue found another way to release her agitation, "Your interest in buying our house does not coincide with our interest in not selling it. Yet, here we are indulging your whims. So, I ask again, what is the literacy rate in Kerala?"
He rolled his eyes as he said, "Pretty high."
"Try putting a number on it." She goaded.
"93.91%" He answered.
For a moment, she faltered at his exact answer and her brief glance at her father showed surprise on his face too.
Alright, so Mr. Raizada's secretary had briefed him on the basics of Kerala a la Wikipedia on his flight over. That didn't make him an expert. She recovered quickly enough, and went on to ask, "Do you know Hindi is required study in most schools here?" English is spoken more in Kerala and the South than most northern states? Even those who don't know English have a pretty good sight-word vocabulary so that they can understand the rampant signs in English on every store-front and shop and ad. Most families here, regardless of whether they can afford it, have still made it their life's purpose to get the most education for their children. It may be the only contender to rival going into debt to give a dowry. So, you see, Mr. Raizada...?"
"Then how come you don't speak English?" He asked, cutting her off.
"Who says she doesn't speak English?" her father asked, the affront clear on his face now.
She was about to interject but the man had already turned to hear her father continue. "My grandmother spoke English when she was still alive, did you know that, Mr. Raizada? We may be toeing the line of economic hardship now, but I'll have you know that both my children hold Master's degrees, Pallavi in Music Theory and Kashi in Economics. And I'll also have you know that it's mighty difficult to go to good colleges in Kerala without having a sufficient grasp of English." Her father replied to the man in full English with his distinctly clipped accent and even as she cheered at his set-down, she did cringe a bit at the unmasked anglophilic sentiments. It couldn't be avoided though; such was the psyche of her countrymen in general, she had learned. The insidious air of the colonial rule had been breathed in and out for too long to not leave lasting marks. And even she, as hard-nosed as she may be, did pride herself on being fluent in the language.
"You did read the Godfather in English." He said as he turned to her.
What?? That was what he had gathered from her father's speech??
She had to laugh.
"Mr. Raizada. A word of advice, if I may. In our short interaction with each other, I have gathered that you are used to artificial comforts, prefer the city to the countryside, have no tolerance for the elements, not a lick of knowledge of India aside from the vantage point of your AC room, and your knowledge of the land outside of your state is limited to Wikipedia. And yet here you are, betting a pretty large fortune on your personal prowess in convincing us to sell our home to you. I would encourage you to spend a bit more money on your R&D department and a little less on your watch."
She stopped when she felt a tug on her arm and turned to see her sister standing there.
"Mathi. Ini athazhamunnam." (That's enough. Let's have dinner.") Pallavi turned to Mr. Raizada then and translated, "Dinner is ready. I don't know how familiar you are with our food here in Kerala, but we are also vegetarians."
"He doesn't get to choose!" Kashi piped up, earning the ire of both her sister and her father simultaneously. "Mathinnu paranjille!" ("That's enough!").
It made her dislike their "guest" even more and when she looked at him, she could see the smirk on his face even in the dim light of the kerosene lamp.
She had one week. She had one valuable week to convince the rich prick that this would be the worst investment that he had ever thought of making!
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Edited by -publicenemy- - 13 years ago
Anupamaa
36