Family Matters Read online

  “The First Battle of Panipat was fought in —?”

  “1947.” He pulled out a twenty-rupee note and Jehangir put his hand under the desk.

  “Humayun became Emperor in —?”

  “1947.”

  Jehangir pocketed the note as they went through the questions. Ten times Ashok answered 1947. He got a mark of nine out of ten in the Homework Register.

  Jehangir moved on, his palms perfectly dry, wiped clean by confidence. How simple it had been. All that fear for nothing, he thought, and took his place to test Vijay.

  Vijay and Ashok, along with Rajesh, spent the short recess together, sat together for lunch in the long recess, and travelled home together. Vijay’s mother loved coconut oil, so his hair was always shining. When the class had played the Oiled Hair versus Un-Oiled cricket match, Vijay wanted to be captain because his was the oiliest.

  Jehangir commenced the ten questions while Vijay struggled to come up with answers, pressing upon his temples with his fingers as though to squeeze out the correct words. He had soon used up his quota of three errors.

  “Sorry,” said Jehangir, and opened the Homework Register.

  “Okay,” sighed Vijay, and whispered to put his hand under the desk.

  “What for?”

  “Chal yaar, don’t pretend. I know the price – twenty rupees.”

  Heart pounding, Jehangir refused to take the money. That swine Ashok! He’d betrayed him! And after promising not to tell anyone. “I have to mark you failed.”

  “Okay. Just see what happens.”

  “What can happen?” he tried bravado.

  “First I’ll rub my hair all over your textbook. Then I’ll tell Teacher you’re taking money.”

  “She won’t believe you.”

  “Ashok will come with me, he’ll say he paid you.”

  As he crumbled under the threat, Vijay slipped the money into the history text.

  A corner of the note stuck out. Terrified it would be seen, Jehangir stuffed it into his pocket. He entered eight out of ten for Vijay in the Homework Register.

  A few desks later he came to Rajesh and, from the big grin on his face, knew what to expect without a word being spoken. They went through the routine of the history quiz, and Jehangir pocketed another twenty.

  From then on, along with Ashok and Vijay, Rajesh made up the trio that supplied him with sixty rupees each week. This ability to get money without effort, something for nothing, filled him with wonder, and a sense of power.

  Before long, he took it for granted: his due. He resented it if one of the three got the homework right (usually Rajesh, who worked harder and was not rich like the others). And when he slipped the smaller amount in his mother’s envelopes, he felt he was letting her down.

  Then he found a way to control the outcome. Miss Alvarez gave the Homework Monitors a suggested list of questions for each assignment, but they were free to make up their own. She trusted their good judgement, she reminded them.

  In geography, he first asked Rajesh from Miss Alvarez’s list, but they were too easy and he got them right. Time to bowl a googly. He combed the textbook for obscure facts: “State the total annual volume of flow from all the rivers in India.”

  “What?” said Rajesh, incredulous. “That’s not a fair question!”

  Jehangir dismissed the protest with a cold silence, and revealed the answer. “1,680,000,000,000 cubic metres per year.”

  “Bastard.”

  Fishing for two more errors, Jehangir assaulted him with similar questions of a numerical nature.

  “This is supposed to be geography homework, not arithmetic!” sputtered Rajesh. He glared at him with hatred and handed over twenty rupees. “Just wait, I’ll show you.”

  Smiling, Jehangir pocketed the money and continued down the row to the next boy.

  Haste made him shut the inside drawer noisily after he had slipped the sixty rupees into various envelopes. His mother heard it in the kitchen, and caught him at the open cupboard door.

  “What are you doing?”

  He thought quickly. “I wanted to look at Daddy’s letters, the Canadian ones.” She’d believe this, he’d always loved hearing his father tell the story about the application and interview.

  “You shouldn’t touch his shelf. Anyway, you found the letters?”

  “No. I didn’t want to mix up his things.”

  She nodded approval for his sound decision. “Ask him when he comes home, if he’s in a good mood.” Then, stroking his cheek, she brought her face close to his. “What’s wrong, Jehangoo?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you happy?”

  He nodded.

  “Come, your tea is ready. Why is Murad so late again? How does he miss the bus and you don’t?”

  “I go full speed down the stairs and run to the bus stop.” He wasn’t going to reveal that his brother had lately been walking. Murad must have a good reason for saving the bus fare – maybe he, too, wanted to help their parents.

  But Murad was home before long. And his mother didn’t ask again, for his father also arrived soon afterwards and said “Unbelievable” as he unlatched the door.

  She wondered what could have annoyed him the moment he stepped inside. “Is something wrong, Yezdaa?” she asked timidly.

  “For the first time in weeks, something is right.”

  Her anxiety melted into a smile. “What is it?”

  “See if you can guess. Here’s a hint – I didn’t climb three floors to get home today.”

  “What did you do, fly up?” said Roxana, and Jehangir laughed, relieved at the way they were talking.

  “Yes, I did,” said Yezad. “I flew up in a cage.”

  “The lift is working!” shouted Murad.

  “After eight years. Can you believe it, chief?”

  “Good news, indeed,” said Nariman. “The miracle of modern technology has returned to Pleasant Villa.”

  They laughed, and Jehangir, feeling exuberant, said, “Three cheers for the good old lift!” He was happy that his father was happy this evening. “Hip-hip-hooray!”

  “Sounds like you read that in Enid Blyton,” said Yezad, while Roxana told them all to sit at the table, the food was ready.

  Dinner began. The dish consisted of potatoes, boiled, sliced, and fried with onions, chopped green chilies, and cumin seed. She knew the preparation was incomplete, cooked without the final layer of four eggs beaten to a froth. As she was serving, she became concerned that the meal looked much too plain.

  “Very tasty,” said Yezad. “Green chilies are magic.”

  Jehangir nodded in grateful agreement. “Daddy, can I change my name to John? As a short form?”

  “Did you hear that, Roxie? Your son wants to become a Christian.”

  “No, I’ll still be a Parsi, just my name will be slightly different.”

  “Listen, Jehangla, your Christian friends have Christian names. Your Hindu friends have Hindu names. You are a Parsi so you have a Persian name. Be proud of it, it’s not to be thrown out like an old shoe.”

  “An old zapato,” said Jehangir.

  “Not that we can afford to throw out anything these days.”

  The unpleasant subject of money was coming close again, worried Jehangir, and he stopped chewing. His mother asked if he didn’t like the dinner.

  “It’s very tasty,” he said, picking up speed.

  “Did you tell Daddy what you were doing in the cupboard?”

  The question turned Jehangir dumb with fear. He was barely able to shake his head.

  “What were you up to, rascal?”

  “He wanted to see your letters,” said his mother. “All your Canada correspondence.”

  Relief rolled over Jehangir. Like waves of water, he thought. He knew that his mother brought it up because, like him, she wanted to extend Daddy’s good mood for as long as possible.

  When they had finished eating, he asked his father to tell the story.

  The immigration story us
ed to have two parts: dream and reality. But over the years the dream – of prosperity, house, car, CD player, computer, clean air, snow, lakes, mountains, abundance – had been renounced, since it was never going to come true. That part of the story had shrunk to almost nothing. To compensate, the other part had grown, and was now the entire story, beginning with the letter Yezad had written to the Canadian High Commission about his desire to emigrate with his family, which, at the time, consisted of Roxana and three-year-old Murad.

  “You’ve heard it all before,” said Yezad, as Jehangir kept badgering him.

  “Yes, but you’ve never read us the letter, Daddy.”

  “I think I have.”

  “I, for one, would love to hear it, Yezad,” said Nariman.

  “Oh, all right.” He went to the cupboard and, while rummaging for the correspondence, took the opportunity to insert the remainder of his Matka winnings in five envelopes at random. In the front room he opened the package of letters and found the one they wanted to hear.

  Pulling out a sheaf of pages, he explained that years ago, when he was writing to the Canadian High Commission, he had decided that because his qualifications were limited – he was not an engineer, nurse, technician, or anyone in high demand – his letter would have to accomplish what degrees and diplomas normally would. It should make the High Commissioner sit up and take notice that here was an applicant worthy of Canada. Words had power to sway, words had accomplished mighty things, they had won wars. Surely the language of Churchill and Shakespeare and Milton, ignited with a careful mix of reason and passion, could win him a mere immigration visa.

  So he had written a paean to Canada, its awe-inspiring geography, its people, its place in the world, and the munificence of Canada’s multicultural policy, a policy that in the beauty of its wisdom did not demand the jettisoning of the old before letting them share in the new. He had written that much had been made about the American dream and its melting pot, which, in his opinion, was more a nightmare: a crude image better suited to a sulphurous description of hellfire and brimstone than to a promised land. No, the mosaic vision of the Canadian dream was far superior – a mosaic demanded imagination and patience and artistry, an aesthetic lacking in the brutality of a fiery cauldron.

  He paused. “It all sounds so pompous now.”

  “Go on, Daddy,” said Jehangir. “It’s a letter-and-a half.”

  Yezad laughed, turned to the next page, and read aloud: “The generosity of the Canadian dream makes room for everyone, for a multitude of languages and cultures and peoples. In Canada’s willingness to define and redefine itself continually, on the basis of inclusion, lies its greatness, its promise, its hope.

  “My family and I would like to share in this dream. We believe in its nobility, and wish to spend our lives in a society that dedicates itself to becoming a light unto the world.

  “I have a dream that one day soon my family will depart this place of disaffection forever, and will live where the values of compassion are paramount, where the creed of selfishness is caged and exterminated, where compromise is preferred to confrontation, and the flower of harmony is cultivated.

  “Most of all, I have a dream that one day soon my wife, my son, and I will be able to lift our heads towards the Canadian sky and sing ‘O Canada’ with all our hearts.”

  The letter ended with details of the usual practical nature, which Yezad skipped over. “God,” he said. “Did I really write all this naive nonsense?”

  “Well,” said Nariman, “it’s very good for what it was meant to achieve. Sufficient unto the day —”

  “Would you believe, I spent six weeks of hard labour in composing it, drafting and redrafting, agonizing over the commas, adding one, removing another, before mailing it to New Delhi. Then there was three months of silence from the bloody High Commission. I wondered if I’d said something to offend them. The echo of that Martin Luther King speech – perhaps they were upset I had quoted an American hero in the process of applying to Canada. Maybe I should have done more research, found a Canadian quote. Or maybe I had written too harshly about the American melting pot, which could have gone against me, marking me as a radical, an America-hater or – baiter who might be trouble. Perhaps there was a slight note of disloyalty to India? That was something I wanted to avoid.

  “Finally a response came. Guess what, chief – a two-line form letter, saying an application was enclosed, with instructions regarding its completion. Look, here’s the photocopy.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” said Roxana. “How could those people have ignored a letter like that?”

  “Bureaucracy,” said Nariman. “The wa wa worst enemy of humankind.”

  “True,” said Yezad, exchanging glances with Roxana – she had heard it too, the falter in her father’s speech. “So I filled out the application form, but my hopes were low by this time. If I could not impress them with my letter, what was left to influence their decision? Nothing.

  “Imagine the surprise when six months later they requested an interview. Once again, I became enthusiastic, because the High Commission never interviewed applicants unless they were likely to be accepted. And the whole family was invited, not just me.”

  “I still remember what we wore that day,” said Roxana. “Daddy had on his dark blue double-breasted suit, I put on the mauve skirt and jacket I used to have. For Murad we bought a very sweet bow tie. We took a taxi so we wouldn’t get all sweaty.”

  “Yes,” said Yezad. “When we reached there, the receptionist said the Immigration Officer, Mr. Mazobashi, would be calling us in shortly. We sat on a sofa in the waiting area. The room was full of families dressed up like us – as though we were a wedding party. Some women were wearing kilos of gold jewellery. How ridiculous, when I think of it now. But at that moment, all I could think of was the Immigration Officer’s name: Mazobashi.

  “I was thrilled. This was the beauty of Canada, I felt, that Mazobashi could be as Canadian as any other name. Chenoy, for example. Then a voice called out in the hallway: the Chenoy family. Like a doctor calling the next patient into the examining room. And when I saw the man, I didn’t think it was the Immigration Officer – the fellow was dressed like a chaprassi, in a crumpled kurta-type shirt hanging over his pants, feet in Kolhapuri chappals, filthy toenails.

  “But we went in to the office, and he slid into the big armchair behind the desk. On the desk was a brass nameplate: M. M. Mazobashi. So this shabbily dressed man was going to conduct the interview. Was this how little he thought of us? Then I decided to suspend my judgement. Perhaps Canadians were even more casual than Americans.”

  “Going native is what the British used to call it,” said Nariman.

  “Right,” said Yezad. “Mr. Mazobashi opened our file without asking us to sit. There was only one chair, I nudged Roxana to take it. He noticed, and said, ‘Yeah, sure, go ahead,’ pointing to another chair in the corner.

  “When we were seated he said, ‘Aren’t you people feeling hot in your suits and jackets?’ and I smiled, ‘No, sir, the AC is working most efficiently.’ ”

  “Actually,” said Roxana, interrupting the story, “the office was freezing, I wished I’d taken my nylon scarf. And I was worried Murad might catch a chill. That man must have seen me shiver. He was so abrupt, ‘Whatsamatter, too cold for you? And you want to live in Canada?’ Such an uncultured fellow, I didn’t like him from the first minute.”

  “Anyway,” said Yezad, “he suddenly left the office, and came back with a glass of water. I thought he was showing some courtesy at last, but he poured it into a little plant on his desk. ‘How far is Canada, do you know?’ he asked me without warning. I said it would depend on which part of Canada, the figure could increase by almost six thousand kilometres if he meant the West Coast.”

  “Good point,” said Nariman.

  And Jehangir was pleased, for Daddy had scored over the mean Mr. Mazobashi. “Is this when you told him he was a rude man?”

  “No, not yet
. He opened the file again, lit a cigarette, studied his nails, asked why we wanted to go to Canada. I repeated some sentences from my long letter, and ended by saying something I shouldn’t have – that we wanted to go for the same reasons his family went.

  “He sneered at me: ‘My family was born in Canada.’ I kept quiet. He now asked me the first relevant question of the interview: ‘You sell sports equipment, it says here. Tell me more about that.’

  “I began answering, but he cut me off. ‘Okay, okay, that’s enough about cricket and badminton and table tennis. You plan to sell sports equipment in Canada?’

  “ ‘Yes, but I’m willing to do any job if —’

  “ ‘Well, tell me something about Canadian sports. How many players on an ice hockey team?’

  “ ‘Eleven?’

  “ ‘Wrong. How many periods in a game?’

  “ ‘Two?’

  “ ‘Wrong. What’s a power play? Do you know what it means to deke? What’s an icing penalty? Tell me the difference between the CFL and the NFL. How many franchises in the NHL? How is lacrosse played?’

  “He was firing questions at me like a machine gun. ‘You Indians,’ he said finally. ‘You’re so naive. You want to go and freeze your butts in a country you understand nothing about, just to make a pile of money. Well, thanks for your interest in Canada, we’ll let you know.’ ”

  Jehangir waited – he knew the good part was coming.

  “He was expecting us to meekly rise and leave,” said Yezad. “But I stayed in my chair. ‘Excuse me, sir, may I say something?’ He said, ‘Sure, but make it snappy, I’ve got more of you people to interview.’ And I said, ‘Oh yes, I’ll certainly be snappy.’

  “I leaned forward in my chair. ‘You, sir, are a rude and ignorant man, a disgrace to your office and country. You have sat here abusing us, abusing Indians and India, one of the many countries your government drains of its brainpower, the brainpower that is responsible for your growth and prosperity. Instead of having the grace to thank us, you spew your prejudices and your bigoted ideas. You, whose people suffered racism and xenophobia in Canada, where they were Canadian citizens, put in camps like prisoners of war – you, sir, might be expected, more than anyone else, to understand and embody the more enlightened Canadian ideals of multiculturalism. But if you are anything to go by, then Canada is a gigantic hoax.’ ”