Listen:
Assam, India
Tuesday 15th July, 1997
‘Walls and water are what the people need; water to drink and walls
so as not to drown.’
President Gao Yi. Speech to the Grand Council. November, 2112.
The Hindustan lurched into another rut gauged by the monsoon rains, swinging the emblems and pendants dangling from the rear view mirror to and fro and jolting Mr. Rajeef Dutt’s right
shoulder against that of his driver.
He cursed.
The car righted itself like a trawler in a gale and then with a thud, jolted into another red mudded rut. Dutt pushed both hands hard against the glove compartment to steady himself. ‘Arstee, arstee!’ he hissed at the Sikh driver. ‘Slowly damn you man!’
The driver snorted, twitching his greying moustache in disdain. ‘Ucha – yes,’ he said after a few moments, though not adding the courteous sahib. Dutt did not like Sikhs and often complained about their arrogance. His mood was compounded because he was late. He hated being late. It was unprofessional.
As the company’s senior auditor he was making his annual rounds of the company’s tea estates. They should have been at the manager’s bungalow at Malijan by 6 p.m. where a bath, a drink and dinner would be waiting for them. And he loathed the plains of Assam at this time of year; all muggy, monsoonal and the damned mosquitoes were implacable.
Brooding on the back seat and feeling sorry for himself was Dutt’s twelve year old son, Sanjay. It was the holidays and Dutt had been obliged to take the boy with him. The boy’s mother was dead and unusually for Indians, he had no close family nearby to pass him off onto. The boy sensed the sullen mood and relished the disrespect the driver was showing to his father. He observed him through the rear view mirror. He was holding his head high and looking down his aquiline nose at the upcoming road. Young Sanjay noticed that the driver was wearing medals and must have retired from the army, probably as a Subedar. He knew that the other managers, mostly ex-officer sahibs, looked down on his workaholic father. He was idly wondering how he too could irritate him.
