It was a bolt from blue for Ravi. It was only four months earlier that he had moved to Mumbai after getting a job at a large construction company via a campus interview at his engineering college in Coimbatore.
He had been forced to leave his mother and young sister behind at their home in Salem when he got the job. Since it was pretty much the top company in India in the field of infrastructure and construction, he didn't want to give up the opportunity. More than him, it was his mother, Lakshmi Ammal, who pushed him to take up the job, assuring him that his younger sister, Karpagam, would take good care of her when he was away.
Though his stipend at present would not allow him to bring his mother and sister to Mumbai to live with him, given the prospects of the job, it would be able to bring them to live with him in Mumbai soon.
Since money was a problem, Ravi had taken a one-room apartment in a 13-storey slum redevelopment project in Dharavi. Even so, the rent of Rs 14,000 was nearly 50% of the 30,000-33,000 that he got every month as a stipend.
In fact, he was thinking of asking someone at the office to share the house so that he could save more.
It was at this point that he got the terrible news that Lakshmi Ammal had suffered a massive stroke. Since time was of the essence, he borrowed some money from his boss -- who was very impressed with him -- and reached his home by the 6 PM.
Several of his relatives were already there. Ravi's father, who was a postman, too had died of a heart attack two years ago. With Lakshmi Ammal's pension, the family was able to meet its expenses without too much stress, though Ravi's last year at engineering college was slightly harder due to the sudden dip in income.
Ravi's father was the eldest of four siblings, and had three sister. All three aunts, who were married off to nearby farming households, were already there, as were their husbands.
Parvati Ammal's brother too was there.
For Ravi, it was a shock to see his mother, still young at 50 years of age, lying lifeless. He had planned to take Lakshmi Ammal and Karpagam to Bombay in December and show them all the sights of the city.
He saw Karpagam sitting on the floor, exhausted from all the crying, her hair strewn over her face. She burst out again when she saw Ravi, crying 'Anna [brother], mother is gone, anna, mother is gone.."
Ravi was still in a daze, as he had been from the second he heard the news when he picked up the phone from his uncle at 6 AM, still in bed.
The ceremonies lasted for a week. Ravi's aunts and uncles were always around, and took care of most of the arrangements.
Over the week, everyone weighed in on what to do next. Some of Ravi's aunts invited Karpagam to stay with them. But Karpagam said she did not want to stay with anyone.
Instead, she asked if Ravi could stay back.
It was a difficult decision for Ravi. He knew there was no future for him in a farming village with one grocery shop. At the same time, he was not so well settled that he could afford a decent apartment in Mumbai to invite Karpagam.
A one-room apartment next to congested slum was okay for him. But what about a young girl of 19? She could hardly be kept in such a place, he wondered. Of course, the building and its inhabitants were decent enough, at least from what he could tell. More than half of the apartments were given on rent.
There was even an old security guard, Ramavtar Singh.
But a one-room apartment with half a kitchen was hardly what he had in mind when he thought of bringing Karpagam and his mother over to Mumbai.
Ravi tried to make Karpagam understand over the next couple of days. Finally, she said she will come and stay with him, instead of staying with the aunts or uncles.
It was perhaps understandable, given that most of Ravi's paternal relatives had boycotted their family for years. Ravi's father had defied his own father to marry Lakshmi Ammal. Lakshmi Ammal was from an economically backward family, and couldn't offer much by way of dowry.
Ravi's paternal grandfather belonged to a well-off family with considerable land, at least back in the days. But Ravi's father was smitten with Lakshmi Ammal, who was a beauty in her younger days.
Eventually, most of the relatives forgot the quarrel, and started visiting Ravi's family. However, Karpagam still didn't want to stay with any of her relatives.
Finally, ignoring the protestations of his uncles and aunts, Ravi booked a ticket for himself and his younger sister to Bombay.
"I'll move out to the suburbs and rent a bigger flat," Ravi thought, as he helped load Karpagam's bag into an auto rickshaw.
MUMBAI
The train pulled into Kurla station by 9 AM, and the brother and sister took a taxi to the apartment.
Karpagam knew hardly any Hindi, and could speak and understand some English. As soon as she saw the room and the kitchen, she made a list of items that was missing and the duo went out to get them.
On the way, Ravi realized that he should have asked Karpagam to change into a salwar kameez or something so as to stand out less. Karpagam always wore a half saree, what is referred to as a dhavani back home.
Both Lakshmi Ammal and her husband had been somewhat conservative in these matters, which was the norm in their village, and Karpagam had only two pairs of salwar kameezs -- both gifted by her aunts -- in her entire wardrobe, which was otherwise filled with dhavanis and a couple of full sarees.
Karpagam was not unattractive looking. In fact, Ravi had taken after his father -- dark skinned and somewhat graceful with wavy hair. There was a certain refinement in features which, together with his spectacles, marked him out as a geek.
Karpagam, on the other hand, was more like his mother. She had shiny skin that was a mix of yellow and pink, red lips, and wore her straight, shiny black hair in pleats on both sides. One of the first things anyone noticed about her was her skin. It was smooth and blemishless, and shiny.
Her face was sort of cherubic, dominated by two prominent cheeks. Her baby-like facial features were accentuated by how smooth and unblemished her skin was.
In skin tone, she was less Indian and more Japanese or Korean. However, she certainly had bigger bones than an average Japanese or Chinese woman, Ravi thought. There was a definite femininity about her, about the way she walked, about the way she turned, about the way she bent over.
Despite the fact that her face was somewhat cherubic, and she walked with the gait of a woman, she was not overly endowed as far as her chest was concerned. Perhaps a little above average, but one look was enough to make it clear that she was still unmarried.
Altogether, it was difficult to believe that Ravi and Karpagam were related to each other, forget being siblings.
But the contrast was hardly surprising, given that they each resembled one of their two parents so closely.
Karpagam, like Ammal, was of the quiet, but determined type. She preferred pulp fiction to classics. Though Ravi had tried to get her interested in some kind of vocational course, instead of a BA in history, she had refused.
Ravi was surprised how she could be so different from him. Ravi had always been an extremely hard working student, and topped his class in the village, and stood out even in his big-city college.
His skills and dedication, together with his humility and focus, had won over his supervisor, who had already hinted to him that he would get confirmed in his job in another two months, at which point he would also get a small raise.
He had always been a geek, but like most geeks, he didn't want to be one. He envied the 'studs' of his class, who managed to win over the women with ease. Given that he had taken mechanical engineering -- a branch of little interest to girls -- there was almost zero opportunity to meet girls at the college too; at least within his class or department.
There were a couple of girls, a Maharasthrian and a UPite, in the batch of trainees at his present company. He would help them out with work related issues, but it didn't really go beyond that.
In fact, Ravi always felt very self-conscious when speaking to girls. Girls just was not his sphere of expertise, give him an engine or a machine to fix, and he could tell you exactly what was wrong with it in two minutes. But girls, they simply were not his area, and he kept away from them.
That doesn't mean that he was not interested. He yearned to have a stylish girlfriend like Rhea, the Punjabi receptionist at his new office. But he couldn't even manage to look her in the eye as he passed her by every morning.
Anyway, Ravi made sure that Karpagam also bought a couple of salwar suits for daily use -- the cheap variety that came for 350 rupees. In fact, it was Karpagam who insisted on buying the cheaper ones, perhaps sensing the financial stress that Ravi was in.
