In high school, Swamy and Murthy’s whole world had revolved around gaining admission to the engineering college of their choice in India. The entrance exam had taken four years of preparation; they had competed with a hundred thousand others; their chances of being two of the two thousand finally selected were slim. They had studied together, but as they waited for their results, an odd constraint had developed between them. What if they were not admitted? What if only one of them was? But such possibilities remained outside their realm. Admitted they both were, and survived together on an odd combination of brilliant peers, awful food, and meager academic facilities; repeating that feat, again and again, in different environments in a different country; a strange, undefined, never-discussed partnership of twenty years.
Murthy is laughing at something Ashwini is saying. He looks wonderfully peaceful, and for one quick minute, Swamy is again seized with doubts as to the wisdom of his own decision, doubts he is quick to dismiss as they arise.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rahul wandering back in his direction. In desperation, Swamy interrupts Murthy.
“Did you bring your guitar?” he asks. “Where is it, in the car?”
Ashwini says: “I’ll get it.”
Murthy takes the guitar and settles it comfortably on his leg and against his body, one arm draped over it. His fingers pluck and dance their way over the strings, the other hand forming chords in leprous imitation of a dancer’s
mudras
. A random run of notes and chords emerges, segueing from one barely recognized progression to another. Someone lights the second joint and it circulates, eventually reaching Swamy, who accepts it with pleasure, not removing his gaze from Murthy and the magic he is creating. And as he has a thousand times through their years together, he calls out his request.
“California Dreamin’,” he says.
All the leaves are brown / And the sky is gray . . .
Soon, in perfect pitch and right on time, Ramu’s voice joins in, an Art Garfunkel to Murthy’s Paul Simon. Ramu has a mild tenor voice, trained by years on the school choir and, subsequently, by singing harmonies on college bands.
The others listening join in as well, usually at the chorus, as the music takes them back a decade or more, to a thousand such song sessions around a thousand guitars on college campuses scattered around India. The music was always the same, seven-ties rock and roll, unchanging through the decades.
You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye
Murthy wanders through CSNY, the Eagles, Jethro Tull,
Jesus
Christ Superstar,
smiling as Swamy peremptorily tugs him from one song to another.
A long, long time ago, I can still remember, how
that music used to make me smile . . .
It has been years since Swamy has heard Ramu and Murthy sing together, and now they harmonize tentatively, slowly gaining confidence as they go, singing bye-bye miss american pie, smiling ruefully as they make an occasional mistake, mouthing the songs that have countless memories stamped into each. Memories of copying words down painstakingly from LP records and cassettes, and rehearsing, rehearsing for all those intercollege cultural festivals, trying as best they could to reproduce the ragged, magical, astonishing sounds of Neil (Young), Don (McLean), Ian (Anderson), and Roger (Waters). Old legends still abounded: how one lead singer of some college band had actually written to Ian Gillian of Deep Purple, to ask him how a voice trained in the liquid melody of
ghazals
could achieve the power it needed to do justice to a song like smoke-on-the-water, and by return mail, they said, the advice arrived—go to a field at night, it said, and scream. Scream your desire up to the sky and the power will come.
The harmonies, the smoke, wash through him, relaxing his body, opening his mind to random thoughts and impressions. He watches the moonlight strengthen, heightening the contrasts of the night, sending the sand waves scattering helplessly across the clearing towards the sanctuary of the dark shadows beyond. The music drifts to Simon and Garfunkel.
And here’s to you, Mrs.
Robinson. Jesus loves you more than you will know.
Swamy feels his breath warm his lungs and heat the tips of his fingers, which press against his cheek.
“ ‘Gerry Niewood,’ ” he says, “ ‘on saxophone.’ ”
The 1981
Concert in Central Park
is one of his favorite recordings, and Swamy is familiar with every nuance. The spoken interludes addressed to the crowd of thousands by Simon and Garfunkel between songs trickle through the cracks in the music to resonate in his mind, over and over, sometimes escaping in a carefully intoned murmur through his mouth. “ ‘Whata
night
. . . I thought it might be . . . uh, somewhat crowded, but we seemed to have filledtheplace.’ ”
There are periods in his life when he becomes obsessed with a particular piece of music, playing the same tape or CD obsessively over and over until his blood moves in rhythm and the words stamp themselves deep into his consciousness, to emerge suddenly, to sprout life at the least propitious moments. What, da? What did you say?
Swamy, people say, has a magic touch. The not-insignificant money he has made from the sale of his company. The job that now awaits him. In these recessionary times, this is a sign of success, but to Swamy it feels strangely like indelible compromise.
He leaves tonight.
Like the nabob in the storybook, another foolish Indian abroad.
The fire is still burning strongly, kept alive by one of the little ragamuffin boys, who adds firewood to it every now and then. Murthy’s glasses glint in the light; he had attempted replacing them with contact lenses at one stage, but they gave his face a raw, nude look, and finally it had all been too much to bother with the daily rinsing and cleaning routine. Now that he thinks of it, Swamy sees that there are differences in Murthy’s appearance. When they had first left India for America, college life and awful canteen food had elongated Murthy, stretching him out to an incredible length but keeping him painfully thin, a constant target for his mother’s concern. Stylish he had never been, with hair that flopped over his forehead onto his glasses despite applications of Brylcreem to keep it in place, and a valiant growth of fuzz over his lips and on his chin. He had dressed, whatever the occasion, in faded T-shirt, jeans, and rubber bathroom
chappals.
That was Murthy then. Now he has filled out, his clothes, though casual, are expensive and branded. Working in corporate America has taught him to style his hair without the use of pomade. Swamy recognizes these changes in himself as well. They are turning into their fathers, though a little less homespun, and with confidently deeper pockets.
Murthy places his guitar to one side, lights another joint, and inhales. The music swells from the innards of the car parked next to them, and Swamy recognizes the familiar comfort of Dave Brubeck. He glances at his watch.
He has just enough time to drive home, to collect his bags and his parents, who insist on coming with him to the airport, where he is scheduled to catch the middle-of-the-night Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. From there another plane will fly him over the cold wastes of the Arctic, straight to San Francisco. Two flights, two days of travel. Swamy stands up and stretches. He can see people turning towards him, smiles of good-bye pinned tentatively to their faces. He does not look at them.
See you later, he says.
Murthy nods and says, Okay, then.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nikhil Kumar, for convincing me that I should; for supporting me while I did; and for enduring cheerfully the dread consequences of such rashness: having just-printed manuscripts shoved anxiously into his face in the middle of the night for that important first opinion.
Lane Zachary, agent extraordinaire, for taking this book to places never imagined, and for bolstering the journey with editorial wisdom, and, towards the end, occasional glasses of whiskey.
Susan Kamil, for her inspiring energy, intelligence, humor, and tireless commitment to bringing out the best in the book. Laughter in the longest transcontinental phone calls.
Laxam Sankaran, for providing a patient, erudite reference point on matters of Sanskrit and Tamil and cultural heritage.
Early readers Andrew, Chandran, Dermot, Kamal, Pam, Shivram, Sylvia, Vivek, and Wendy, for invaluable feedback and insights. Esmond Harmsworth at ZSH. The wonderful Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, for the space to learn and explore.
C. Michael Curtis, for his encouragement and the gift of stern editorial rectitude.
For bringing the cover to life: Tania, Anandi, and Ruchika. Venky at the lovely Tamarind Tree. And, of course, Asha and Shreya.
Dinesh and Jayashree Kumar, for vital structural and family support in Bangalore.
For lifesaving skills deployed daily: Abdul Mujahid, Asha Rani, Teresa Peter, and T. G. Ranganath.
Aarya, little one, source of unending joy.
The city of Bangalore; errant muse, you.
Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lavanya Sankaran is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. She resides in Bangalore, the city of her birth, along with her husband and her daughter. Her previous employments have included investment banking in New York and consulting in India. Her writing has been published in the
Atlantic Monthly
and the
Wall Street Journal
.
The Red Carpet
is her first book.
THE RED CARPET
BANGALORE STORIES
A Dial Press Trade Paperback Book
Published by The Dial Press
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The story “The Red Carpet” appeared in the December 2003 issue of the
Atlantic Monthly
.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Lavanya Sankaran
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004060918
The Dial Press and Dial Press Trade Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-42336-8
v3.0