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Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. - Neel Chowdhury

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166 pages

English

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Lohia & Co-one of India's largest commodity traders, the country's biggest jute supplier, owner of tea estates, as well as cement, steel, shipping and motor cycle firms, and its own insurance arm-is in trouble. Now a strike, led by ageing Marxist trade union leader Hirenmoy Chakroborty, is destabilizing its Calcutta headquarters-and Aruna the bitter, power-hungry sister of Hari Lohia, the head of the dynasty, is using the opportunity to launch a covert takeover of the business with the help of her two ambitious sons. But Hari Lohia, who single-handedly built up Lohia & Co from a tiny jute trader in the crowded alleys of Barabazar to a sprawling global conglomerate, is not willing to let go of his empire so easily. He comes from a family of survivors, ancestors who moved across the country from Rajasthan with nothing and built their fortunes from scratch. And he discovers unlikely allies in this last great battle he has to fight-Anjali, his tough, cynical sister, a fiery opponent of Aruna's; and Shivani, his beautiful, rebellious daughter who has always been too busy having love affairs to pay attention to her father's business. Who will lose? Who will win? And most importantly-will the house of Lohia fall like a pack of cards? Moving from the crumbling offices of Calcutta to hedge funds in Hong Kong, from the Mumbai stock market to nineteenth century Rajasthan, and boasting an enormous cast of characters, The Inheritors is quite simply sensational.

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Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	01 octobre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184002089
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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the
INHERITORS
Neel Chowdhury

RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Published by Random House India in 2008
Copyright Neel Chowdhury 2008
Random House Publishers India Private Limited
Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B,
A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, U.P.
Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 2SA
United Kingdom
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184002089
To Pooja, of course
There is a crack, a crack in everything That s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
Book One
Lockout
I
F rom behind her thin curtains, Anjali saw two dozen dhoti-clad men loitering around the corner sweet shop, polishing off their clay cups of tea. The owner pulled down his tin shutter. After the din abated, the mob swelled by half a dozen more, and their monotonous tirade began.
Will not! they started to chant in Bengali, shaking their fists at the walled mansion from where she was secretly observing them. Can not! We ll never give in!
Idiots, Anjali thought. Day after day of shaking one s fists and screaming at the top of one s lungs was noble, at least according to the ascetic union leader whom she suspected was cowering nearby. But to pick up one s tools and return to work, for a thoroughly respectable wage, no less? Oh no, that would be as impure as a bloody steak dinner to that old Marxist.
The narrow alley where the mob gathered was a bit less filthy than usual, a result of the latest cleanliness campaign, which the new chief minister had piously launched a few months ago with a bamboo-handled jhadoo in the next lane. Mounds of garbage had been evacuated. The foot-deep gutters now rarely choked up after the rains. Some betel nut chewers had even begun to drop their gobs of reddish spit into plastic cups, which had become cheap and plentiful after the last chief minister had drained the mangrove swamps and erected a petrochemical factory on the Ganga s eastern tip.
But nothing else around Lohia Park had changed. The young men still wore their lungis and strolled the back lanes of Ballygunge hand in hand, like lovers. The women still stayed indoors, pounding their daily turmeric, chilli, mustard seed, and ginger against stone mortars, intermittently wiping the sweat from their brows and fantasising about the hard, smooth pestle in their hands. The children well, there were still children, too many of them, Anjali often felt, and they still ran home from the corner bus stop in the stupefying afternoon heat. Not unlike her sister and herself.
Or had they run? No, Anjali suddenly remembered. There was never room to run in the overcrowded gullies of Barabazar. They used to alight in front of their grandfather s haveli from a rickshaw. Well, there were still plenty of those in this hellish city, she thought, moving away from the window.
Anjali tossed off her rubber slippers and lay back on her bed, oblivious of the spidery veins spreading across her silk sari. The fight with the trade union had dragged on for six months. It had begun after her family firm, Lohia and Company, started a motorcycle factory on the outskirts of Calcutta. It was an unlucky decision, as so many of her brother s recent ones were. Tariffs on Japanese motorcycles began to drop steadily after the purchase, stripping away their protected market. Moreover, the Japanese motorbikes, especially the fast-selling Ohga Spiders, were light, fast, and cheap. Theirs were heavy and ugly. The Japanese splurged on TV ads featuring Bollywood actresses, usually with ravine-deep cleavage. By contrast, they ran tombstone-like ads in the dowdy Calcutta Observer.
The Lohia motorcycle factory soon began to bleed cash. Eventually her older brother Hari, who handled the unions, had to ask them for permission to lay off workers. This was haughtily denied. So a lockout was imposed. The mob began to gather outside.
Anjali stared up at the dust-caked fan blades, rarely cleaned despite the platoon of servants downstairs. Because of this dirt, its breeze was feeble. Coins of sweat began to appear under her arms. Inside their walled estate in Ballygunge, there were pockets of shade and shadow, of course, but it wasn t as cool as it used to be. The laburnum and blood-hearted palm trees in the garden were wilting from the pollution. The twin mansions of Lohia Park felt hotter and dirtier ever since they began copulating with themselves, spitting out rooms and floors, all done in haste and, Anjali suspected, on the cheap. Now they were like gingerbread concoctions, with slapped-on rooms everywhere.
It couldn t be helped, Hari claimed. The Lohias had grown grand. Her sister Aruna and her husband presided over the house across the garden. Under that roof were her younger son Piyush, his wife, and their two children, Kavita and Manoj. Hari and his newly divorced daughter Shivani lived in the house on the other side of the compound, which Anjali also shared. Here she lived in attenuated splendour: the childless fifty nine year old widow, with a suite of rooms.
Anjali was waiting for Kavita, her grandniece, to come home from one of her half dozen tuitions. Despite the protesters outside, she wasn t worried about the little girl s safety. As long as the union leader, an eighty two year old Marxist named Hirenmoy Chakraborty, was in charge, they wouldn t dare touch the child. She brought her dead husband s Longines to her nose. The leather strap still smelled of Kamal s sweat. Three fifteen. The driver would bring the girl home in twenty minutes. This too had changed. Not the advent of private tuitions, but the remorseless punctuality and efficiency of south Calcutta s coveted tutors, yet another new feature of the city to which she was having trouble adjusting. Or was it the old features that were giving her trouble? Hearing a knock on the door, Anjali turned over, startled into a delicious memory. It wasn t to be, she knew.
Yes? she asked, irritated. Who is it?
It s me, Anju, her friend Priti Sengupta said. I ve brought you some tea.
Oh, she said. Come in, then. The door s open.
Priti came in with a tea tray. The smell of the strong Assam tea made Anjali feel a little less lethargic; but she was no happier. Priti put the tray down on the hard bed and began to stir the pot.
I didn t see you last night by the lakes, Priti scolded her. Where were you hiding?
Oh, here and there, Anjali yawned. Mostly avoiding that witch downstairs -she pointed her thumb down to indicate her sister, who was furiously cooking in one of the ground floor kitchens- I m not too good at these hide and seek games anymore, I suppose.
Priti bit her lip and poured the tea, adding an extra teaspoon of sugar into Anjali s cup, ignoring her protests.
How s your boy? Anjali asked. Still looking for a job?
Priti s only son had returned home after years of trying to finish his doctorate at Oxford.
Not very hard, Priti grumbled.
What does he want to do? Journalism? Accountancy? Law?
God only knows! Priti exclaimed. The Observer has offered him a fine job but the stupid boy can t make up his mind. Not enough money, or some such rubbish! They re waiting for him with open arms over there, but, oh no, Arjun is too smart to follow in his father s footsteps
Priti s disdainful attitude towards money, Anjali thought, was typical Bengali stupidity. Why shouldn t the boy, an Oxonian after all, expect a decent wage from that cadaver of a newspaper?
So what s the latest? Priti cut in eagerly. Is Hari still talking to Hiren-babu? The man may be a Marxist and all that, Anju, but everyone says he s a gentleman.
Anjali s older brother Hari harboured a grudging respect for the union leader, mainly because he was a restraint on the rabble-rousers in the crowd, who might have otherwise physically attacked Lohia Park. But the aging Marxist also commanded a more generalised awe because of his celibacy and poverty, both of which infuriated her.
A gentleman? Anjali scoffed. He s a stubborn old man, that s what he is. Just because he doesn t use his droopy, old lingam doesn t mean he s right.
Yes, yes, of course, Priti frowned, as much at the scandalous remarks as Anjali s switch to Bengali, the fluency of which always discomfited her. In any case, the rumour is that Hari is still talking with the union. And Hiren-babu is a reasonable man. Let s hope this will be settled soon.
Anjali only shrugged. So Priti settled into a duller circuit of gossip. Gradually her eyes raked across the bed. A corner of the Observer was sticking up from a heap on the floor. She picked it up and studied the Club functions.
Oh, one of the old Pink Panther movies is playing down the road at the club, she said. With Peter Ustinov. You like him, don t you? He does that fuddy-duddy Bengali imitation quite well. What s his name? Dr Chatterji, or something like that
That s Peter Sellers, Anjali said. Not Peter Ustinov. Ustinov s the fat man.
Oh, Priti frowned again. Well, here it is, anyway. A four o clock screening, in that fancy new bar upstairs. Why don t we go?
They went down the staircase made from Burmese teak and coiling in several loops up to the top floor of the mansion, where her brother lived alone. Crowning the staircase was a dove-coloured dome made, it seemed to Anjali, from clamshells. It filtered a chalk-coloured light into the rooms. The two women walked down in this light, like chatty ghosts.
Downstairs, Anjali left instructions with two Oriya servants to warm up a bit of bread pudding and pour out two