BackElite
As long as there is the music coming out of my earphones, I have my armour, my ironic glaze, my thunderous, wondrous nullifier
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Each of us, the guiltily innocent, has his own means of getting away from the news.
It’s Tuesday and not early in the night but I anyway stop by after work at Elite, on the main road two streets away from my apartment, and head to the rooftop. If you stand by the parapet you can see, over the pots of desiccated cacti fenced in with bamboo splits, shoals of winking cars gliding by and shoppers picking discounted vegetables out of the plastic crates outside the supermarket. There’s nothing to see, really, this place is only three floors up from the road, but it makes the drinkers feel liberated—the enclosed patch of fuzzy Bangalore sky and the freedom to fill the ashtrays at your table. The laughter is always more strident here, on the roof of Elite, pronounced, for some reason, “A-Light".
I order my whisky and wafers and resist scrolling through my playlist. I’m meaning to think today. While waiting for the alcohol to hit home and help me deliver some kind of verdict on the news, I think of Elite and why I always end up here once a week, sometimes more. I consider my co-drinkers—there is one gang already pretty deep into their cups of Khodays XXX Rum—and cannot believe they’re in love with the place either. But there are so many Elites all over this city of easy drinking, semi-plausible watering holes such as these for those who like a little space for conversation, waiters in shoes, not chappals, and clean forks with which to polish off plates of chicken fry and greasy fish. By itself Elite can even depress me—how to see myself as sophisticated, someone prone to subtlety, sitting at this listing table ringed with beer and masala stains? But thinking of Elites collectively, I start to feel a certain affection for this gigantic, sweaty, toilsome city, only held together by half-decent bars such as these where men can stretch out their legs and let loose. Perhaps we all know we’re not living our best lives but these interludes between the cacti and the fogged out stars are what we have while biding our time.
There’s a girl in the corner, waiting for her boyfriend obviously. The girls don’t come here in groups and they don’t come alone either. I try not to stare, since everyone else is; she is cool, already a drink before her. She has cropped hair and is in T-shirt, jeans, sandals, nothing eye-catching. She looks like she could be thinking and I remember why I’m here. I eat one wafer after another, crunching them down slowly, and recall once reading about a man who, after the Gujarat riots, stopped taking salt in his food. Why salt? Perhaps because every time he ate, every single meal, three times a day, he would remember. But I’m not looking to make any gestures, just sort things out for myself. Sudama calls me a nihilist. I don’t believe in much and neither does he, except that he wants to make shitloads of money, while I can’t be bothered. I’m not for the Right, the Left or whatever’s in between, for marriage, family, career, wealth, for the patronage of gods or the politics of men—screw all that. None of it seems essential and all of it is messed up. And I’m not responsible for the confusion either, it was there before I got here. So what gets me out of bed in the morning? I look in the direction of the beer-drinking girl and wonder, on her behalf, where her boyfriend is. Metal, I tell her mentally. As long as there is the music coming out of my earphones, I have my armour, my ironic glaze, my thunderous, wondrous nullifier.
Yet I’m struck by the news and trying, like some conscience-stricken wimp, to work out what to do about it. I go to the loo. The graffiti is honest and tacky, like this bar. Dipali I love you chinna. Call this mobile number for ladies massage. On the way back I think of asking the girl for one of her smokes—she has a whole packet on the table—but only manage a weak smile. She actually smiles back.
“Would you like some company while you wait?" I ask her.
Maybe that’s too forward, too formal, but I’m no good at suggestive. I end up saying things straight up and it usually fails. But turns out she’s straight up too.
“I’m not waiting."
I’m stumped. This is too easy. And if it’s easy for me, whose glances never seem to find their mark, who hasn’t figured out, even at twenty-six, the secret lingo that the most callow boys and giggliest girls seem to be born with, then this chick must be up to something. Maybe she’s desperate, but she’s too pretty to be desperate. Carefully avoiding the looks of the rum-drinkers, I pick up my glass, go across and ask her, “May I?"
“Sure," she says casually.
“Have you heard the news?" I ask her.
“Yeah," she says. “Serious stuff."
“Coming from work?"
“Not working right now, I’m taking a break. Was in corporate communications. Five whole years devoted to that shit. Shit!" she exclaims, as if suddenly realizing she’s lost something, forgotten her phone or handbag somewhere. “You?"
“Oh I never talk about work. Can’t bear to bring it up. I come here often, live nearby. And it’s with just this one idea—to kill all thought of my current employment. I turn on the music high…," I indicate the earphones strung around my neck, “…and try to think of other things."
“Nobler concerns?" She smiles.
I nod. “I’m a nihilist though, so nothing’s too precious."
“Why that?"
“Ah," I say and order another whisky. She puts her fist under her chin and looks at me. I noticed it earlier too, from my table: her steady gaze and the thin silver ring on a left hand finger. Like she was utterly comfortable here, in this bar full of men. Amused even. I want to ask what brings her here. But I’m enjoying this enigma. A woman in a bar, sharing her table and her cigarettes, not self-conscious, not waiting. This town is easy with a lot of things but this is still weird. And I’m okay with weird. I can enjoy weird.
When the drink comes, I try to explain my nihilism. How it’s not just about not believing in anything but a test of conviction. Hold things up to the strongest light and see if they can withstand the scrutiny.
“It’s an attempt at purity, you could say. Who’s that European novelist, Drakune or Drakund, you know him? I’m thinking of this one novel, it’s the only one by him I’ve read. There’s a man, a minor character. He works in a factory, labours with his hands all day, and spends his evenings at home in the bathtub, reading. That guy is my hero. He has no truck with anything. He has no philosophies or opinions. No family or obligations. Earns a living for himself, eats his bread and meat, spends his own time his way. Has sex now and then."
She looks at my drink and smiles again. I realize I don’t yet know her name.
“So this is your ‘bathtub’?" She’s pointing to the whisky. We laugh and I take a big gulp.
“You’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water," she adds. She’s drinking slowly, so slowly it almost seems like a ploy, like she’s a spy in disguise, an infiltrator. She’s not smoking either. It’s a new pack.
“Won’t there come a time when you really must have a point of view?"
“No," I declare. “Let them take me down but I won’t take sides."
“But you did ask me about the news?"
“Aye, there’s the rub."
“You’re bothered."
“I ought not to care. But my friend Sudama is involved. His uncle is among the people who’ve been shot. He wants me to write a letter of protest to the authorities. He can’t write, he’s not into grammar and stuff. As for me, I could do it with my eyes closed. But Sudama is … well, he knows me. I can’t fake things for him. And neither can I wriggle out of this. It’s his uncle and all."
“Existential dilemma," says my mystery woman, then extends her hand and adds, “Hi, I’m Vidya."
“So who’s the baby, really?"
There’s a tiny flutter in her equipoise, then she remembers and says, “Oh yes, yours. The poor discarded baby. I don’t know. But I’m too young to give up. There’s got to be something to keep us going, beyond the distractions we surround ourselves with, never mind how numerous and enticing they are. When I was a kid I was sure it was physics. I loved physics like it was my whole identity, just this obsession with how things behave. I was reading encyclopaedias on the Greeks, Spanish Muslims, Arabs, Galileo, Newton, then I grew up and read whole books on the same guys. I loved the past especially, the story of each milestone. The big adventure was over, but one could still partake of it by getting into the history."
I try, and fail, to imagine myself, at ten or thirteen, being seized by an equivalent passion. I dipped into comics and then, with reluctance, dipped into my homework, but my major preoccupation was playing the fool. My dad would never give up trying to rein me in. Looking back now I wonder which came first—his pig-headedness or mine.
“I remember being mildly amazed by Archimedes’ claim that he could lift the earth if he had a long enough lever and a pivot for it, but other than that…"
“I was obsessed," says Vidya. “Everyone around me knew I was big on science. They were quite bored by my certainty. But I didn’t do well in college, almost flunked. I fell ill in the second year, like really ill. Spent six months in bed. And somehow in that time I didn’t feel much like physics, all I read were kids’ books. I was twenty years old and reading my battered copies of Little Women and The Enchanted Wood over and over again."
She didn’t say if she’d read Drakune but she would probably recognize him if she did. And she speaks well. I speak well. We all speak well. That’s what we have in the final reckoning. But it won’t save our necks. It didn’t help Sudama’s uncle, whatever his name was. He spoke well all his life. He pretty much died speaking well.
“I’m considering my options," Vidya says. “Further study could be one. I still have my dream of really getting into something."
“You want to go abroad, I suppose."
She shrugs. “I could but not as a career thing. It’s the idea of scholarship. That appeals to me."
I feel old, like I’ve lived a very long time. Vidya must be about my age but she’s looking forward. Me, I have the distinct sensation of already staring at the end. The news stumps me. Meanwhile, Elite has emptied out and starts to fill again but the boisterous group is still around, ordering their second bottle of Khodays. I am reckless suddenly. I want to get drunk and try flirting with this girl.
“My father," she’s saying as she tastes a drop of her beer, “is convinced that we have lost touch with the people."
I want to match this with a platitude from my own father but nothing comes to mind. He’s not a moralist. You could say that, or you could say he’s pitiless. His thing has been to make a living and, in the name of providing for the family, take a few cuts on the side. We’ve had our bitter fights about it and now we have our bitter silences. He’s risen slowly through the ranks in the state audit and accounts department, sharing the shabbiest room in the building with the other flunkeys and now, two decades and many deputations later, as audit officer, the proud occupant of a carpeted room of his own with a nameplate on his door. His specialization is the system and how to work it. And to him, the news is just politics, not apocalypse.
“Your father’s right," I say.
“We’ve been too busy, speaking in English among ourselves. And now the chickens have come home to roost."
I’m trying to catch Bhaskar’s eye. Come to me, my friend, bring me my salvation. All the waiters in Elite look alike—teenage, skinny, enthusiastic yet somehow distracted, dressed in cut-price white shirts and black pants. But Bhaskar’s my man. I signal to him and he’s at the table pronto with the 60ml shot glass of whisky, the ice bucket, the new plate of wafers. Vidya looks on in silence.
“Listen, do you want to go somewhere nicer?" I ask. “It’s only ten o’clock. I have my bike."
“No, I’m fine. Weren’t we having a conversation?"
“Oh come on. You really are the most serious person I’ve met in a while." I regret at once the sardonic tone this comes out in. I’d meant to be flattering.
“And you’re the least," she shoots back at once.
“I’m not surprised. But I’ve been dying to ask—what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this, etcetera, etcetera."
She raises her eyebrows at me and doesn’t smile.
“Does it bother you? A woman just hanging out?"
No, it’s sexy, I think. I wonder if I’ve already exhausted my repertoire of socially acceptable nice things to say to women.
“Oh I get it. You’re here to connect with the people." I laugh out loud.
She turns expressionless.
“Seriously, is that it? Fieldwork?"
I’m laughing harder now and she’s starting to look hurt but it’s hilarious. This girl, a well brought up creature without the least interest even in drinking, sitting here in earnestness and trying to take things in, get close to the real world. Taking the measure of Elite which is pronounced A-light, a place that has nothing—just the random, insistent talk and the men drinking. Over on one wall is a muted TV playing the same news clip over and over again. Images of suspects and no one apprehended yet for the murders. In another corner is a sad little cloudy aquarium with fishes the colour of rangoli powders.
“This is not the place to be. Perhaps you should go do social work in a slum or something."
“Fuck off. Leave me alone. What gives you the right?"
I look at her and think, I’m being an asshole and she’s so pretty.
“Sorry," I say. “Would you like another drink? Ever so sorry. I thought I’d dispensed with the world but this thing about Sudama’s uncle and the letter, it’s getting to me."
She doesn’t reply.
At the table next to ours, the conversation is in morose Tamil and the drink is the most ridiculous in my book: vodka with Sprite. Meanwhile, more men have joined the Khodays party and they’re bragging about their business pursuits, comparing notes. They seem to be into hospitality, running hotels or something, and report on how much they pay their staff. They’re all from Assam, one guy declares. Another says, they say they’re from Assam but they’re actually Bangladeshis. Check out their papers, they’ll be forged.
“Vidya, we could talk."
She clears her throat, takes several sips of her beer, and finally looks at me.
“So why was he killed, what had he done?"
“He gave a public speech recently asking if fellow feeling was not morally superior to idol worship. So he had to be fixed. We’re in the Middle Ages after all."
“No, we’re in 2015. Let’s not resort to historical determinism."
“Why does it all seem like it’s happened before? Think of the futility. People crying themselves hoarse over the same things through the ages. It makes my position the only tenable one."
“Let them take me down but I won’t take sides." She’s quoting me back to me but not entirely with derision. There is a reflective note in her voice for sure.
“What would you do?"
“Wrong question, no?"
“But this needs conviction, feelings. Which you, remarkably, have. I came here to drink some and obsess about the damn thing, and I run into you. I’m sure you were meant to be involved."
“What would you lose if you lost your nihilism and did put real hurt into that letter?"
Before I can answer, we hear something break out at the other end of the terrace and turn to see one of the burly rum-drinkers hitting Bhaskar, yelling at him.
“What the…," exclaims Vidya.
Before I can rise from my chair, Bhaskar is on the floor and the fatso is kicking him as he lies there, shielding his face with his hands. There’s a second guy—tall, thin, pierced ear—aiding in the kicking and shouting.
I rush across, try to push them away.
“Gentlemen," I say. “Stop it."
“Too late," says fatso.
“Bhaskar, get up!"
He’s on his feet very quickly and the other waiters who’ve gathered around add their voices to the clamour, demanding to know what happened, trying to find out if he’s badly hurt. He looks embarrassed, dazed. Meanwhile the fat man and his friend want to get to him again. They’re pulling at his neck, twisting his arm. And the fool does nothing. He appears to be made of matchsticks.
“Go downstairs," I tell Bhaskar. His colleagues take him away, and the pair, who hasn’t looked me in the eye so far, makes as if to follow them. Their formerly animated drinking companions continue to sit at the table, not saying a thing.
I face off the bullies. The last time I was in a brawl was in junior school when a snide remark I made about a fellow cricketer’s batting skills led him to smash the handle of his otherwise ineffective bat right into my forehead. It wasn’t much of a fight, more a murderous attack, and I lacked the means to retaliate, except with more sarcasm. Already then all I could do was talk. I went home grim-faced and bleeding and didn’t cry till my mum opened the door.
I don’t want to fight these men but I can’t stand by either.
“Leave him alone, will you. What really happened?"
“What business is it of yours?"
Aggressive of course, spitting into my face as they talk, but they’re not going to touch me, I determine that. They’ve seen my chinos and my fitted linen jacket, they’ve heard my accent, so they’re keeping their hands off me, at least for now.
“Boss, my friend and I are sitting there quietly having a drink. You’re disturbing the peace."
“He insulted me."
This is Fat Man. Drunk, pockmarked, dark, overweight, and speaks like a caveman. Thin Guy, equally drunk, says nothing, just weaves a little, shaking his head. The perversity of the situation—these two hooligans and their gang of silently supportive friends against one poor serf—seems not to have struck them and, indeed, to be bothering no one else in the bar. Half the tables are taken but no one moved when the fracas started and now they’re pretending all is well, not a whimper can come between them and their oil-fry kebabs. Some of the waiters have drifted back up and are taking fresh orders.
“Look, I know this waiter. He’s a good waiter."
“I told him, get me some food, and you know what the motherfucker replied? He said, I will clear the other table, then take your order."
“He said that to our face. Which good waiter treats people like that?" chips in Thin Guy. The stooge, obviously, which is strange because he looks like the stud. Taller, better-looking, more sharply dressed.
“Fine," I say. “Why don’t you put in a complaint with the manager?"
“I’m not used to taking insults lying down. You’re asking me to take an insult just like that?"
But the edge is going out of his voice and he pulls out his chair angrily and slumps back into it. A Bhaskar lookalike comes up to the table and apologizes on Bhaskar’s behalf.
Fat Man repeats the story of the insult and why he was entirely justified in hitting Bhaskar, and why he wants to go down to the kitchen where Bhaskar is hiding and hit him some more. Thin Guy repeats what his friend said.
I go back to Vidya and outline the scenario. She seems shaken but is trying not to show it.
“Just an ordinary Tuesday night at Elite," I say grinning and mock dusting my hands.
“Brutes," she says, then shrugs with some effort. “Thank you," she adds.
I assay heroism, and some of the more macho songs on my playlist do begin to stir in me, but mostly I feel paltry. I’m a man who patronizes dives where the servers are stomped on and those who try to intervene spat on. I rearrange my chair so I have a clearer view of the vile Khodays. A new guy has just joined the group, some kind of a boss man judging from the welcome he receives. All the handshaking and high-fives raise their collective spirits and, apparently forgetting dinner, they call for yet another bottle of rum.
“I’ve been giving it thought, your letter."
“Fantastic, I knew I could depend on you."
“It looks like you’ve tried hard to kill your instincts but what if there’s some life in them yet?"
“How about if you decided to help a friend and write it instead of me? I’ll tell Sudama. It’ll be hard but I’ll speak to him."
“It’s not about Sudama. Or me. The thing is we’re brats. You know that, no? We’re spoilt to death. And only some of us get a chance to break out of it. This is it for you, a real opportunity."
I say nothing, think nothing except what I’ll have to tell Sudama in office tomorrow. I share your grief but please don’t entrust this sacred duty to a brat like me.
Vidya is getting her things together, abandoning her beer.
“I could drop you somewhere."
“Thanks, just to the nearest auto stand."
Fat Man has now collared the manager. He’s on his feet again, Thin Guy there to pitch in as usual, and the manager is trying to reason with them in a soft, conciliatory tone. Fat Man puts a hand on the man’s chest and pushes him, but not too hard. A manager-level shove as against the waiter-level shove he gave Bhaskar, the one that sent him to the floor. What was the boy thinking as he lay there? That he’s not going to make it back up? I don’t want to know what all was running through his head. The manager’s shirt is rose-coloured and of a nicer texture than Bhaskar’s and he looks better-fed too. And he’s standing his ground, not raising his voice to match Fat Man’s, but not getting browbeaten either. Thin Guy’s bellowing, from what I can tell, is along the lines of—Do you know who we are? Or, don’t you know who we are?
The crowd has swelled, waiters rush about, the bill arrives. Vidya is saying that she’s fine with Elite, despite everything.
“I might come back here. Bring a book."
“Break up fights."
“It’s part of the atmosphere."
“Oh yes, I forgot. These are the people, after all."
We’re almost at the door when I hear someone yelling, “Sir, please wait, sir."
That awful pair are waving from their table.
I turn away and follow Vidya.
“Boss," I hear in the stairwell.
They’re coming after us. It makes me uneasy. Maybe they remembered they have a score to settle with me too. For interfering.
Vidya notices and I say, “Let’s just ignore them."
But they catch up with us outside. The lane with my bike runs on the far side of the building and we are by the main road with its milder traffic at this hour and the shops shuttered. The air smells of what the air smells of every evening when the city is done with it. The sorry, wrung-out Bangalore night. The two men have their drinks in their hands and say they just want to talk.
“I wanted to apologize for the disturbance," begins Fat Man, and I’m flabbergasted. “You were with your girlfriend, hanging out."
I don’t know if he’s being ironical, they probably saw me go over to Vidya’s table earlier in the night. What is clear is that he’s beyond drunk and yet still able to stand here, continue drinking, frame largely coherent sentences. What could it be? Monstrous vanity or a marvellous liver? Thin Guy is almost smiling at us.
“You shouldn’t have hit that waiter," says Vidya, emboldened.
“Madam, let me tell you. I run six hotels in this town. I have dozens and dozens of staff working for me. If any of them answered back to a guest the way this boy did tonight, I wouldn’t stand for it. I’ve taught them respect."
“Respect," I repeat. I’m still stunned.
“These people should know how to talk to their customers. They’re running an establishment," says Thin Guy.
“You respect people, they might respect you back," says Vidya. “It’s a mutual thing."
“Never would any of my staff behave that way—with me or anyone else. And you know why?" Fat Man’s on his own trip. “Because I feed them. They have food on their plates thanks to me. And they know that."
You feudal bastard, I think. So you’re their mother and father and doting great-grand-uncle too.
“When a man is misbehaving…" says Thin Guy. “Can you hold my glass?"
He hands it to Vidya and lights a cigarette. Then he extends the pack to me. I take one.
“Are you saying that we should just sit back and keep quiet when something really bad is happening before our eyes?" asks Fat Man. “Suppose that waiter was troubling a girl, suppose he did something to your girlfriend here. Would you keep quiet? Should I keep quiet, even though I don’t know you?"
We’re standing around smoking and chatting. Late night bonhomie. But in truth I’m quite sure this fucker is off his rocker. He’s the kind of citizen who throws his garbage into the street, plays Honey Singh loud enough to wake the dead, prays vociferously to all the deities but will happily run his four-wheel-drive over a beggar. And has a best friend whose singular role is to always swear he’s right.
Fat Man is eyeing Vidya in the dark.
“What’s your name?"
He introduces himself and so does the sidekick. Hands are shaken all around. They’ve inched very close to us as they’re speaking so that Vidya and I are compelled to retreat till we’re backed up at the steps of Elite.
“Actually we’re Kshatriyas," says Fat Man.
“You could say it’s in the blood, fighting," adds Thin Guy.
Again I try and fail to respond. Their logic is all the sicker for the sureness with which it’s belted out.
“There are ways to be honourable and express displeasure at the same time," Vidya says. “You might have withheld paying."
Fat Man launches into a speech on how no one in India can be expected to rely on the rulebook or the law.
“My father," he tells us, “was involved in a property dispute for fifteen years. He’s dead now. And still that dispute is unresolved. I’m the one who has to land up every time for the court hearings. That’s the justice system in this country."
He looks sad for a moment. Then he says, “I know one of the chaps who runs Elite. I could have called him and got that boy fired. But I didn’t do it, why?"
“Because he wouldn’t have anything to eat then," says his echo. “He’d be out of a job."
I feel, with this revelation concerning their hearts of gold, that the conversation is at an end. But they’re still hanging around.
“I don’t quite understand the problem. He said he would clear the table and then serve you, how is that an insult?" asks Vidya. She’s a scientist. And I sense that her lucidity makes her vulnerable. She’s probably the kind of girl who, if attacked, will try to get her attacker to first submit a concise account of his motives.
“Madam," says Fat Man and sighs. “You got distressed. For that I’ve tendered my apologies."
“Still, you shouldn’t have hit the boy," insists Vidya. “You were wrong to do that."
“I didn’t know what else to do at that moment, I was so angry."
Vidya says, “Whatever problems you have, violence is not the answer."
“I was born on October 2," says Fat Man.
“What I’m saying is, you’ve achieved nothing by this. He will not become a better waiter, if that was your aim." Her face is tight with emotion.
Fat Man thinks for a moment, then declares, “I own a gun but I wouldn’t shoot a person straight off. If someone provokes me very badly, I’ll aim at his legs to begin with."
“He was weaker than you. A young boy."
“True," says Fat Man. “All right."
His friend is swaying, on the point of but not saying anything. I notice for the first time that he looks a bit like Eddie Van Halen.
“Okay, I shouldn’t have done it. Sorry."
We’re all silent now, us talkers. Us brats. The few passing cars pick out our vacant faces, before Vidya turns away and I follow.
“Goodnight," she says to the two men still standing there, holding their empty glasses, their half-smoked cigarettes. Above us the lights of Elite go out all at once.
Anjum Hasan is the author of five books, the latest being the novel ‘The Cosmopolitans’. She is the books editor at ‘The Caravan’.
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