Dev, Harry and I

"Kuch nahi hoga is desh ka."

I looked up a little startled. Dev is not given to dire predictions. But three pegs of Old Monk loosen a few inhibitions and tongues.

"Why so negative, man? Here, have another drink," I offer a non-sequitur in the hopes of avoiding one of those futile, yet inevitable, discussions.

It’s always a rather sensitive topic for guys my age. Carried away by misplaced patriotism and a rather low opinion of our own ability to deal with homesickness, we’d made our career choices and stayed back home, while flightloads of eager friends made the pilgrimage and never returned. Now we have our parents close by and the smell of our own soil, so on the whole we’re happy with our choice.

Dev snorts, "Smell of the soil? That’s shit, man. You’ve grown so used to it, you don’t know your mitti from your tatti." Rambunctious laughter. Cheers the party up somewhat.

Some party. We’re sitting in what purports to be a dhaba but charges rates that any restaurant would and saves on air-conditioning costs in the bargain. This one serves booze by the quarter (they call it "nip" for some strange reason), so it’s our current favourite.

Harry laughs so hard at the tatti reference, some of the rum goes up his windpipe. A paroxysm of coughing follows. Dev rolls his eyes. Dev tolerates Harry at best. They have a history going back to engineering college days. Only Dev got smart along the way and acquired an accent and a VP job. Harry slogs it off at his salesman job and plots magnificent dreams of being a CEO someday. He also quotes Tom Peters, one of whose books he picked up at some airport bookshop on one of his frequent trips to Delhi, where his pharma company holds their monthly sales meetings. Someday, Harry’ll be the CEO. For now, Jet Airways silver card is his only pride.

"Abey bhosdi ke, you’ve been nursing that beer for hours now. I know chicks who drink faster than you!" Dev throws out taunts by the bucketful, as if to punish Harry for that coughing fit. I groan. Once these two start one of their stupid fights, guess who’s stuck with the job of making peace.

"You fucker, just because you drive a Lancer and drink Antiquity, doesn’t give you the right to make fun of me. I’m going to be a CEO one day. You wait and see." Harry doesn’t know that Dev considers his tired second-hand Mitsubishi just a BWM-in-waiting. And he certainly doesn’t know about the bottles of duty-free Blue Label stashed away for special occasions, because he isn’t invited to any of those. Dev draws very clear lines between friends you can drink with at dhabas and those you invite into your home.

Time for an intervention, "Kya bol raha hai, Harry? Nobody thinks you’re a loser. Dev is just kidding, man. That beer’s cold anyway, let’s order you another one."

Harry pauses a minute over the "loser" comment, then grunts and decides to let it pass. He makes no move to resist as I order and then pour him an icy Kingfisher.

The tension relieved for the moment, Dev expands his theme. "I was telling Devika yesterday, bhenchod chance mila tab we should have escaped this hellhole. I had 2180 in GRE, dude. Would have easily got in at some state univ, and then head on to Microsoft or Sun. She’d be taking yoga courses for ageing goras, I’d be giving a wax job to the bimmer. And the baby’d be playing on the lawn…"

He nearly chokes as I flash him a warning look. Harry doesn’t know about the baby Devika lost when some moron tractor-trailer coming the wrong way bounced her off her 75 cc Scooty onto some pretty rugged terrain on her way back home from the supermarket. He doesn’t know this because he isn’t invited to Dev’s house to finish off bottles of Blue Label in a desperate attempt to drown his sorrows that only leaves Dev more frustrated and confused. Being a good friend, I go along. Losing your first-born is no picnic.

Needn’t have bothered, though. Harry misses the reference completely, instead gives one of his lopsided grins that make him look a lot sillier than he actually is.

"What’re you smirking about, fartface?" Dev snaps.

"Your wife’s name is Devika!"

"Yeah, so?"

"Dev-Devika. Haha. Did you change it at the wedding? Made for each other and all, hain?" Somehow Harry seems to find it all very amusing.

Dev stares at him for a moment, then relaxes. Laughs a little too and puts his arm around him. Sometimes the strangest things create intimacy.

"How’s your family doing? Shalini must be what- seven now?", Dev asks.

Harry needs an excuse to whip out his photo wallet, "Eight, yaar! They grow so fast, it’s incredible. Doing so well in school and all. She was telling me the other day, daddy, can you put me in the National Public School? They have horse-riding lessons! If only…." Harry’s eyes cloud over.

"Oh fuck, ab tereko kya hua?" That’s me, rather exasperated.

"Nothing, yaar. Do you know how much my Head of Sales spends on his kids’ education? 3.75 lacs a year! No exaggeration," he adds quickly, noticing our skeptical looks.

"Is his name Captain Von Trapp?" Dev’s idea of wit, no matter that the target completely misses it. He gives me a wink, I grin faithfully.

"No, it’s Sunder Raman. You met him at my housewarming party last year…" a confused Harry wonders what it is we are guffawing about, then gives up. "Anyway, man, I can barely scrape together enough for Shalu’s education at the Vidya Mandir, what chance do I stand of getting her admitted into that place? Bade log, badee baatein," he finishes rather inappropriately. Harry’s command over language isn’t the best. He often uses phrases wrongly. One of his legendary malapropisms was to greet a recently bereaved colleague with "Please accept my heartiest condolences."

Dev smiles, "Abey, horse riding seekhaake kya teer maar lega? Save up for her higher education dude. Send her to America."

Harry is uncertain. "She’s my only child yaar."

"Then have another."

"Don’t joke about such things."

An awkward-ish pause. Time for me to make an entry.

"What I don’t understand", I begin grandly, "is why anybody would want to blow that kind of money on a primary education. The aim of education should be to empower, not discriminate. Unless we eradicate elitism in our education system, what hope is there for the generations to come? They will only grow up with a fractured self-esteem, while the country continues to be run by a select English-speaking few."

"Thus spake the IIT-IIM grad, to wild applause," said Dev quietly. I looked at him a little surprised. He’d never aimed his acerbic wit at me before. It was a new experience, and frankly, a little disconcerting.

"You asshole," continued Dev, almost affectionately, "what education system are you talking about? My bai gets her boy along and keeps him in the house while she finishes her work. You come and give her one of your fucking bhaashans. Ask her why she doesn’t send him to school. You know why? Cuz there is no school. Got washed away in the rains and nobody’s bothered building it back. She sent her son on the first day after the rains, and you know what the teachers made him do?" He’s furious now, "They made the kids clean the place! They’re fucking six years old man, they gave them jhaddos and pochas and made the older ones carry out the ruined benches and desks. They’re still waiting for replacements, and meanwhile she brings her kids along when she goes swabbing people’s floors."

"She could still leave him at home…" Trust Harry to butt in with a fatuous comment just at the right time. Dev stops glaring at me, and turns his anger on him.

"And do what, get mixed up with the boys from the neighbourhood and end up a drunkard like his father? That prick… Lakshmi tells me their girl is eleven now and he’s already started giving her leery looks. Can you imagine….!" Dev stops and gulps his drink down, too upset to even finish.

"Yaar, yeh sab chalta rehta hai , in these lower-caste people’s lives. Sometimes you have to just count your own blessings and carry on. What else can one do?" The second beer has made Harry philosophical.

"Yeah, right, count my blessings,"snarls Dev. "Let’s see now… I blow my ten-years savings on a house I build brick by brick. And what does the government do? Builds no roads worth speaking of to lead there! I am completely embarrassed to even invite anybody there yaar. Half the time, we don’t have power, the other half, no water. There’s a cricket season on, so naturally the cablewalas are on strike. I spend four hours a day commuting on roads that look like moon surfaces, to a boring job I hate, sucking up to fucking goras I abhor, who blame me for stealing their jobs and expect to me join along in their fake laughter. And don’t even get me started on those morons who think the road is theirs to dominate, with their ancient 20-year old smoke machines and their "I am bigger so I own your ass" approach to driving. No discipline, anyone can do what he wants and the cops are just mute spectators after the incident. Turn without signaling, drive with your high-beams on, take the wrong side because its faster and knock over a woman and her unborn baby, then run away without even offering to stop and check on her, because hey, it’s her fuckin’ fault she’s on a little bike, the bitch…"

I should have seen this coming. Dev is shaking, on the brink of tears. Harry is chalk-faced, shocked. The silence is deafening. Nobody knows what to say next. At least I don’t.

"When did this happen?" asks Harry quietly.

"Two months ago."

"You should have told me, yaar"

"Kya bolta, mere bhai? You know how it is with having a baby. You have to be ready. Your job. Her job. The additional expense. The loss of freedom. The incessant hints and reminders from parents, ’Beta we’re not getting any younger’…and to top it all, those annoying friends your age who had kids when they were teenagers, probably and now complain about not being able to send them for horse-riding lessons!" Dev shot Harry a sour look.

"Hey, you think it was easy for me? My Mom waited a year, then started suggesting ayurvedic options to ’increase my strength’. Geezus, it was so embarrassing…." said Harry, caught in a rare moment of candour.

We all laughed. The image was so funny. After a short pause, Dev says, "And imagine, after all that planning and preparation- five years of it- then starts the "trying"---fuck! all that trying—counting the days, false alarms, doing it without really enjoying it even sometimes, dude, after all that, to lose it all- all because some fucking asshole couldn’t stick to his side of the road!"

Silence. Then a sigh from Dev, "Kuch nahi hoga is desh ka"

"Have another" says Harry mildly. I freeze. Somehow it doesn’t sound like he’s talking about a drink.

"Don’t joke about such things," replies Dev.

But he’s smiling. He beckons the waiter for the bill, "Guys, this place sucks. Next weekend, we meet at my place. I’ve got a shitload of Blue Label I want to finish off."