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  BLOWFISH

  Siddharth Tripathi was born in Allahabad and schooled in Banaras. He is a B.E. from NIT Trichy and an MBA from MDI, Gurgaon. Siddharth lives in Gurgaon with his wife and five-year-old son. The Virgins, published in 2013, was his first novel.

  BLOWFISH

  Siddharth Tripathi

  First published in India 2017

  © 2017 by Siddharth Tripathi

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  For Parul and Arhaan, and for all the wonderful people who made this book possible.

  Contents

  Part One: The hunchback’s escape

  Purple Zebra

  Pregnant Jamaican Women

  Poshampa Bhai Poshampa

  Vinod Mehra

  The Thousand-Yard Stare

  Selling Socks

  A Moss-covered Pond

  It is My Humble Submission

  Ashwatthama

  Part Two: Albert Camus’ bastard son

  Like the Pope

  Immigrant Types

  Lion with Magnets on its Paws

  Punjabi Refugee Angst

  My Pinky Baabu

  My Baby Just Wrote Me a Letter

  Fuck Apple

  FIR Specialist

  Blam! Blam!

  Colour My Hair

  Doctor Dang

  An Ashtray on my Lap

  Part Three: A Corona is like a Bloody Coke

  The Hit and Run Girl

  Kabootar Ja Ja Ja

  Bumbum has a Plan

  SkyBalcony (TM)

  The Consensual, Unpaid Sex Game

  Hard-hitting Expose

  Night Gowns and Nighties

  Acid Phos 30

  Phoney Kundera

  The Gurgaon Grand Prix

  A Short, Sweet Trip to the Gulag

  Sad Looking Man in a Shiny Suit

  How can you Mend a Broken Heart?

  Giraffe in a Trench

  Roosting, Dying

  Twiddle, Twaddle

  Resentment

  Out of Tears

  My Father’s Real Address

  Part Four: Habeas Corpus

  Being Chaddha’s Friend

  Right Intentions

  Frisking an Agitated Mind

  Dance this Mess Around

  To the Hospital

  Braxton Hicks

  Bawaseer

  Bona Fide Outlaw

  Principles of Natural Justice

  The Prisoner

  Elastic Plastic

  Crime Buster Rani

  Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

  Deepu Beta

  Parashuram-Parashuram

  Chaddha Hires an Assassin

  Duel Royale1

  Part Five: Trishanku’s heaven

  Deepu finds his Omega

  Woh to hai Albela

  Panama Filterless

  Two Kilometre Marathon

  Blowfish

  PART ONE

  The hunchback’s escape

  Purple Zebra

  I woke up with a headache. I did kapalbhati. I aimed at 15 minutes every Monday. The breathing exercise, I believed, kept me alive till Friday evening. Inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale. In-out-in-out. Stop. Repeat.

  I wore my wrinkled grey suit and a beet red tie that Nisha had got for me. I got into my carribbean blue WagonR. My office was just a 10-minute drive from where I lived. Gurgaon was all about convenience. Everything was close by: multiplexes, offices, liquor stores and that goon in a black Scorpio who’ll kill you without thinking twice.

  I noticed a mule perched on the road divider near Paras Hospital. It stood still, chewing cud happily with its eyes half-shut, oblivious of the chaotic world around him—a stoic rebel amongst the honking cars and garish billboards.

  The divider was like the edge of the world and the mule seemed to be standing outside looking in, aware but detached, not thinking of anything, not trying to get somewhere. I felt a strong urge to get out of my car; I wanted to graze free, to stand atop a pile of garbage and chew cud.

  There was a time when I wanted to be rich and famous; six years on I aspired to be an abandoned mule, I wanted to be an amoeba, a worm in the mud, a quiet bat in a dark cave, a pebble on the filthy banks of the Ganga. Someone was honking impatiently. I sighed and drove on.

  Rangoo caught hold of me the instant I reached my cubicle.

  ‘Bhandari, why can’t you ever be on time?’ he said shaking his head in dismay. ‘Josh wants to review the Bhujani client presentation. He seems to be in a bad mood.’

  ‘Hmmm …,’ I said sadly. I was still thinking of the mule. ‘Can we grab a coffee before we go in?’

  ‘No,’ he caught me by my shoulder and dragged me towards Joshi’s office. ‘What do you think? Will he be fine with our presentation?’

  ‘I don’t know. You reviewed it. You think it’s fine, don’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. I mean maybe not. I don’t know,’ he said. He straightened his tie and knocked on Joshi’s door. Rangoo had been my boss for three glorious uneventful years during which both of us had under-performed in tandem. Rangoo and I had the same aspiration: to be invisible, to be a nobody.

  ‘Come in,’ Joshi took a serious, loud slurp from his company logo embossed coffee mug.

  ‘Gooooood morning, sir! How are you?’ Rangoo sang. The high-pitched greeting was followed by a cuckoo-like enquiry about Joshi’s well-being. I could bet he had rehearsed it in front of the mirror.

  Rangoo believed his fake enthusiasm would somehow exonerate him of his incompetence. I smiled and nodded shyly. Reticence, I believed, would somehow make me seem like an eccentric genius.

  Joshi didn’t share Rangoo’s sunny disposition. ‘What is it Ranganath?’ he asked.

  ‘Sir, Bhujani brothers, sir.’

  ‘Ah, sorry, I forgot about it. Mind fuck ho gaya hai. I just got off my fourth straight con call with those fuckers in the region! They just don’t get India. They think this firm can do business here with
their stupid American approach, I just told them to screw themselves. What do you think, eh? What does it take to do business in India?’

  ‘Sir, I think what you’ve done here is right,’ said Rangoo.

  It was good that Joshi didn’t ask Rangoo what he thought he had ‘done here’ because I could swear Rangoo was clueless.

  Joshi nodded. He was nicknamed ‘Josh’ for his enthusiasm for the ‘firm’ and the ‘business’—two words that he used often, words that made me feel like my head was shoved inside a toilet. And his office gave me the heebie-jeebies. The walls were dotted with star performer trophies and framed photographs: Josh in a flashy overcoat and green moccasins standing amongst firangs in the company’s ‘Nurturing Great Leaders’ training; Josh receiving this award and that recognition; Josh with the global CEO at a ‘Coffee with the CEO’ tête-à-tête; Joshi with his big, black dog—both wearing yellow bow ties; Joshi on the beach with his skimpily clad wife and teenage daughter; Josh with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar at a mountain retreat. That room encapsulated everything that I didn’t want to become.

  ‘Ok, let’s get back to this Bhujani brothers presentation. Do you have a copy?’

  ‘Yes sir, here it is,’ Rangoo gave him a printout.

  Joshi put on his thin-rimmed specs and started reading. He sniggered. It sounded like a neigh, ‘It’ll have to do. We hardly have any time left. Can you show me the financial projections please?’

  Rangoo got confused, his face turned red. ‘Bhandari, where are the financial projections?’ he said turning around.

  ‘I didn’t put it in. We didn’t have any reliable data to do that analysis.’ I said.

  Joshi wasn’t happy with the truth. He ignored me, ‘I asked you Ranganath, can you answer instead of looking at your deputy,’ he said.

  ‘Sir, we can’t present financial projections. We don’t have the data for that,’ Rangoo’s apologetic rephrase of my statement sounded even worse.

  ‘Ah,’ Joshi emitted a dry, cruel laugh, ‘Ranganath, do you remember our meeting with Manoj Taparia?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Rangoo said.

  ‘Let me tell you Bhandari. It’s always good to learn from others’ mistakes. We are sitting in a swanky conference room at The Oberois, I am painting this picture for Manoj bhai—how working with us is like travelling on a Gulfstream Five with strippers and champagne and caviar. The man laps it up. He doesn’t show it yet but I know what he likes. I’m about to close the deal when this thing here,’ he said wagging his finger at Rangoo, ‘decided to butt in and spat out a minute-long discourse on how restructuring would be difficult to manage.’

  ‘I was advising the client, sir.’

  ‘That was the fucking problem. That idiot was not our client yet. First you sell, then you advise Ranganath.’

  ‘But sir …’

  ‘Here’s how I see it Ranganath, I was showcasing a fairytale and you were shoving him into a local train with a beedi in his mouth and piss-stink up his nose. I had warned you then not to ever, ever fuck up like that again.’

  I didn’t want to but I was grinning. Rangoo looked at me beseechingly. I took a deep breath and said, ‘But sir, we really don’t have sufficient data. It’s a five-year project; it won’t have an immediate impact.’

  Rangoo added quickly, ‘We have done exhaustive arithmetic, sir.’

  Let me summarize what you’re telling me Ranganath,’ Joshi said quietly, ‘we are meeting one of our biggest clients and you don’t have impact projections for the money they’re spending on us! Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘Yes sir, no sir, we’ll churn out something soon sir,’ Rangoo stood up—a last ditch attempt to flee. I was half out of my chair. I could see us in my head. We were pathetic, Rangoo and I.

  ‘Churn out something! I shouldn’t have trusted you with this,’ Joshi lost it, ‘where are you going to churn it out from?’

  ‘I’m not sure sir. Do you have any ideas?’ asked Rangoo.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ replied Joshi.

  ‘What is it sir? Tell me, I’ll work on it quickly,’ said Rangoo.

  ‘Ok, here it is,’ Josh took a pen and promptly drew a table on a piece of paper. He paused for a while before filling in some numbers. He pushed the paper towards Rangoo, ‘This should do it. I have put a few pointers, just add one more footnote that says the projections are based on Gibbons Moore’s proprietary research and our extensive experience of working with business conglomerates in the US, Europe, Middle East and APAC.’

  Joshi’s handwriting was precise and clean, the numbers seemed well thought of, the footnotes had been scribbled with a flourish—that table was the work of a master con-man.

  Rangoo’s face lit up, ‘This is pure genius sir! How did you arrive at it?’

  ‘I always say, there are two ways to get something Ranganath. One way is to simply work hard and learn fast …’

  ‘What is the other way sir?’ Rangoo knew the first way hadn’t worked for him.

  ‘That’s even simpler Ranganath! Do you really want to know?’ Joshi said, his tone clearly telling Rangoo to back off.

  ‘Yes sir, very keen sir.’

  ‘I don’t think you’d want to know,’ he said, this time with a dissuading glare.

  Rangoo still didn’t get it, ‘I do sir. Try me,’ he said.

  ‘Okay!’ Joshi gave in. ‘Try sucking my dick!’ he roared, ‘its better than staring at your screen like an imbecile the whole day long.’

  ‘Sorry sir, sorry,’ muttered Rangoo. That was the moment—I saw a momentary flicker in Rangoo’s eyes, a micro-second dip of the eyeballs; Rangoo was looking at Joshi’s crotch—the bastard was considering it!

  I left the office sharp at 5 pm that day, Rangoo was too shaken, he had spent the rest of the day staring at his screen. His laptop’s wallpaper hadn’t changed since I met him—it was a photo of Rangoo standing with his arms crossed in front of his VX4, his Canon SLR slung over his shoulder. Rangoo’s melancholic face cast a shadow on the otherwise cheerful picture that summarized all the “good things” in his life. I was vicariously witnessing my burnout. It was terrifying.

  Pregnant Jamaican

  Women

  I came back home with a Blenders Pride quart. I needed to do some serious thinking.

  I had struggled long and hard to convince myself that this life was right for me. I got my MBA thinking I would someday be the cover boy of Businessworld. And why not? I was a college topper with a pre-placement offer from a high-paying consulting firm. I had bought my first Hush Puppies, I had bought a nice dark blue Marks & Spencer’s suit, a few months later, I got a WagonR on a five-year EMI. I worked hard, I tried to network as much as I could. I did manage good ratings in the beginning, but soon I began to slip: what I thought was important was not, what I thought was my job was not my job. I realized I was forcing myself to become someone I wasn’t. I was trying to impress people I didn’t even like. I was living a lie. I saw good people suffer, I saw cunning and mediocrity thrive—soon my cynicism and boredom metamorphosed into indifference. I turned into an old, weary machine creaking and clanking my way to the weekend. My lack of “initiative” became legendary. Six years on I was a nobody at Gibbons Moore.

  I didn’t even feel like changing my job. It’s all the same. Another company, another “exciting” role, another “challenging” assignment—doesn’t it all eventually fade into a black hole of low self-esteem and disappointment?

  I guess we all find out at some point or the other that we were not meant for this. Some amongst us accept our limitations and move on to seek happiness in kids or strap a camera like Rangoo and go shoot pictures on weekends; a few do something random like becoming a primary school teacher in a boarding school in the hills. The rest of us, unable to find distractions or an escape, drown in the never-ending cesspool of people running to get a job with more pay. I thought I was made for bigger things. I needed to find my purpose. I needed to know what I had come here for.

 
I took a large gulp of the whiskey and lit a cigarette. I was sure if I gave it enough time it would come to me. I was just about to pose a Zen Koan to my dead TV set when Sampu landed with a thud on my bed. He was carrying a big black poly-bag.

  ‘What’s in that bag?’ I asked irritated. This was unwanted intrusion at a crucial juncture in my evolution.

  ‘Clothes, a toothbrush and my fake Ray-Ban,’ he sighed. His shoes made large dusty imprints on my recently-washed sky blue pillow.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m going to live here for a day or two,’ he said.

  This was bad news. How could I do any thinking with his bloated face chomping off chunks of my precious time?

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Shweta kicked me out,’ he said.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yeah’.

  ‘What did you do this time?’

  ‘I was smoking weed in the loo. It was late at night. I thought she was sleeping. Preggo women have a sharp sense of smell, I’m telling you … note it down.’

  ‘But, you have smoked in the loo before, haven’t you? ‘

  ‘Yes, I have, but times have changed. She says smoke harms the baby and how could I be so insensitive not to have thought of that. I’m screwed man! You know how it is. She still thinks I don’t want the baby so it’s easy for her to typecast me as an irresponsible father.’

  ‘Is that baby getting affected by pot thing possible?’ I asked, curious. This baby stuff was all new to me.

  ‘Maybe … I’m not sure. I googled it—Jamaican women smoke pot regularly during pregnancy to relax. It also says cannabis is good for babies.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah … that’s what it says. It says babies born to cannabis-smoking mothers are better adjusted to the real world than babies with moms who had ample paneer and desi ghee.’

  ‘It says that?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Paneer and desi ghee?’

  ‘No, not that … you know what I mean.’

  ‘Hope you didn’t say this to her?’

  Sampu smiled sadly, ‘Guess why I was chucked out? She handed over this bag in the morning and told me to get out. I went to office thinking she’ll be ok by evening. No, nothing doing, she won’t give in,’ He lit a cigarette, he looked worried,