Taking Stock
Pallavi Rao
At noon I entered the Indian Financial Times office situated in the centre of the old Smith Mills complex in Lower Palace and was greeted by two simultaneous blasts: one from the industrial air conditioner’s vent and one from my boss, Anant Joshi, the Bombay Bureau Chief.
“Where—” he ground the words with his paan-stained teeth, “—have you been?”
“At Crawford Market,” I shot back, exhausted from the travel and the heat, “where you sent me to do the social video for Holi.”
This he digested as poorly as the paan leaf in his mouth and jerked his thumb at the many TV screens adorning the walls of the office. All of the channels had the same stolid footage of the high-domed Bandra Police Headquarters with traffic rushing by.
“They’re letting Zoravar Khan go,” Joshi said, casually, as though his temper wasn’t already at boiling point, “everyone else is all over it.”
Shit, I thought, but didn’t say out loud.
Joshi glowered from beneath his bushy brows. “Where’s your guy? He didn’t think to drop you a class note?”
This I didn’t answer because the truth was my phone had died and I’d forgotten my portable charger.
“Go,” Joshi spat—verbally that is, not physically, thank God— “before the Boss remembers you exist.”
I fled.
◆◆◆
I snuck back inside when Joshi had left the entrance, found my back-up portable charger and plugged in my mobile, dialing. Gautam picked up on the third ring.
“Where are you?” he demanded, the hum of the police station filtering through, “we’re about to let him go!”
Shit, shit, shit, I thought, but didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I said, “how much time?”
“Within the hour,” Gautam said promptly, “you know how—” his voice dropped to a whisper, “—His Lordship likes to make them sweat a little.”
“I’m coming—” I said, struggling with cable and phone, “—meet you at Sai Sagar?”
Gautam grunted, “No—the whole bloody world is out there. Come to the Mughal Sarai down the street.”
“But I need footage to send!”
“After that then.”
“Okay—okay, fine, see you in twenty minutes.”
“Where were you?” He wondered but I’d ended the call.
Don’t ask. I looked down at Holi-stained jeans and cursed. Then before Joshi found me lurking, I scampered.
◆◆◆
The March warmth welcomed me back with open arms. It hung, curtain-like over the entire Bombay Presidency and I was pouring sweat by the time I reached Lower Palace station—running full tilt by cutting across Burnaby Mills—out of breath, disheveled and with minimal energy reserves. My Press pass let me jump the ticket queue, but on the platform I hesitated. The angry heat sapped my strength as I stood there and I thought longingly of the First-Class air-conditioned coaches. I was allowed to travel in them. Everyone was allowed to travel in them after the Bombay High Court’s landmark judgment three years ago but as a journalist I was doubly allowed. Old Anglican ladies could be seen through the windows, knitting and reading the papers. Other, well put-together white men sat beside them, talking importantly on their phones. Still more white children stood around the poles laughing at their jokes. I envisioned myself—dirty, exhausted, sweaty, but most importantly brown—entering their clean, well-lit space, and I thought of the expressions on their faces. The polite disgust masked as polite indifference. I thought of the ticket collector making a beeline to check my credentials when I disembarked. My heart quailed. I squashed into second-class instead (the women-only carriage); breathing through my mouth as the scent of the great unwashed—that I contributed heavily to—rose and fell over me.
The King George VI’s station was a ruckus of loud panhandlers and soft beggar-children, the kind who looked plaintive; an unwelcome reminder of the accident of birth. I dodged both and crossed the road at a jog. The unstoppable infection of auto-rickshaws spread across the road: gaudy, ugly contraptions that belched noise and smoke in equal amounts and caused consternation to automobile and pedestrian alike. I loved them and hated them in equal measure: affection for their affordability, antagonism for what they represented, especially when I had to take one. Several drivers called out to me, but my target was down the road and the crush of news vans and reporters announced its presence long before I reached it. The imposing Victoria-era edifice cast a long shadow across the suburb, even one that boasted of a rich and powerful—admittedly brown—populace. I whipped out my still-charging phone, took a few videos and shot them off to the social media desk. That they already had this footage from BBC India was not a good enough reason for Joshi. He wanted boots on the ground. My boots—chappals—specifically. This task done, I went looking for my contact.
Gautam lurked at the back of Mughal Sarai smoking cigarettes that had tiny Union Jacks stamped on the filter. His pack of Navy Cut kept him company until I slid in opposite and pleaded for a cold Irn Bru to lift my spirits.
“Why is His Lordship letting Zoravar Khan go?” I asked, taking my first sip.
Gautam, shrugged, “we didn’t have enough to charge him in the first place.”
“Yes but—did you guys run out of questions?”
Gautam didn’t answer, watching his smoke spiral into the air. He rolled the cigarette back and forth between his fingertips, looking for the correct words.
“He’s cooperating,” he said finally.
I spluttered and dropped orange soda on my jeans, adding to their general, colourful personality. “Cooperating?” I hissed, mindful that other policemen lurked in the outside room, “you have to give me better than that. C’mon! I rode second-class here!”
“Why?” Gautam asked, mystified.
I didn’t answer.
“For God’s sake,” he said, stubbing out a cigarette and lighting another one immediately, “the more you make it a big deal, the bigger deal it becomes.”
I glared at him. “Easy for you to say. I don’t have a khaki uniform or a police ID.”
Gautam digested the words for a moment. “You have a point.”
“Give me more than cooperating,” I said, “please—Joshi will make me work the night shift and the Sunday shift.”
Gautam sighed and leaned in close. I humoured him; no one was going to eavesdrop on an Inspector in Her Majesty’s Indo-Colonial Police. Not in a way that would make them visible anyway.
“Khan’s giving us information on another case,” he said, “and he’s agreed to stop muddying the waters between the brothers.”
“That’s it?” I asked, unimpressed, “you’re letting him go for that? What is this other case?”
I don’t know why I bothered asking because Gautam said what I expected him to, “I can’t talk about that.” I finished my drink and contemplated ordering another. My jaw and brain hurt from the cold so I gave it a moment. Tell me this,” I said, at last, “will the brothers be happy with this?”
“His Lordship has their blessing and undying thanks,” Gautam said, “now that they’ve found mediation, they suddenly don’t want us investigating any further.”
“Brilliant.” I stared sourly at the dirty glass. There went another story.
“It’s not so bad,” Gautam said sympathetically, “I’ve been assigned to the other case Khan’s helping us with. You could write about that.”
“Is it financial news?”
“Nope. Political.”
I sighed. Whatever information Gautam could give me would be three days old and missing large gaps compared to what the political journos got. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“Thanks,” I said and added, “for paying.”
Gautam rolled his eyes but didn’t contest this. Even he knew a journalist’s salary didn’t afford such luxuries. I took out my phone and began to type the copy before Joshi called and threatened to fire me for the third time that day.
Outside, a group of children ran past, tossing water balloons at each other.
◆◆◆
Joshi said nothing when I slunk back into the office later that day. He’d already said whatever he’d wanted to in three blistering emails, the last of which had been cc’d to the Editor so I sweated some more in the frigid office. As I bent to do his bidding, I kept an eye out for any peripheral movement near the big cabin. Nothing untoward happened, unless you counted Joshi wandering by every hour to laugh at the Editor’s jokes and further his tenure by another few years.
At four, Anahita came by. “Drinks?” She came straight to the point.
I grimaced. “Sorry.”
“It’s Saturday,” she said, outraged, “what’s he got you working on?”
“The Dasgupta story,” I muttered, “he wants all the numbers again, in pretty charts this time.”
Anahita groaned. “I’ll murder him,” she said, which made me feel better.
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to smile like I was completely unbothered by yet another weekend—one where I wasn’t even on shift! —going up in smoke.
“See you tomorrow,” she said in a tone that wondered if I was going to survive till then.
Anahita departed, taking the rest of the morning roster with her. They grimaced at my luck but didn’t stick around to commiserate. At six, Joshi came around to check on my progress and then left as well. An hour later—just to make sure he wouldn’t sneak back and try to catch me off-guard—I packed up my things and went home.
◆◆◆
At twenty-two, working at The Indian Financial Times wasn’t the worst job in the world. I had a lot to be grateful for, and aside from Joshi, I liked my job. Financial news was less demanding than political but taken as seriously. I started out as a cub reporter, assiduously writing market reports—that the subeditors would scrap and send back—until, working my way around, I managed to claim economic policy as my home-ground. This, of course, was a beat in name only since most of that work happened near Her Majesty’s Colonial Government in Delhi, and Joshi, the news editor, took great pleasure in having me fill in places where he felt another body was needed. This was usually soft social write-ups and videos, but occasionally I got to visit a few conferences and write copy for smaller, sector-specific events: the steel sector’s switch to electric arc furnaces, the IT sector’s pivot to AI, and of course the seasonal roundup of which promoter was in trouble with the Financial Services Authority of India.
The Dasgupta family saga erupted the previous winter but it was only in January that one set of brothers went to the police, and to my utter joy, picked the police station where my best friend worked. Suddenly I had the scoop at the same time as the other bigwigs, if not sooner. I got a couple of big bylines—Zoravar Khan’s initial detainment—and suddenly I was hot stuff. Joshi couldn’t stand it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Of course, equally suddenly, everything fell through. The Dasguptas retracted their report in favour of mediation, the police hadn’t made much progress to begin with, and now Zoravar Khan—the man who held all the secrets to this sordid tale—was let go, without charge. My career as an investigative journalist was over before I’d even realised I wanted it. I was on thin ice and I knew it, and worse, Joshi knew it. He was one bad day away from telling me to move to Delhi—which I would refuse—after which he would gleefully type and sign my resignation letter.
That Joshi hated me didn’t perturb me as much as why he hated me. I didn’t fit into the careful—caste-based—hierarchy of his newsroom. Everyone liked to pretend that Editorial positions weren’t reserved for Brahmins—or Anglicans—and if the Bombay Editor, David Smith—who claimed some tenuous connection to Adam Smith, happened to notice—he didn’t care. For him, we were all natives, but for some natives—like Joshi—a chosen few were inherently better than the rest. My name—my weird, anachronistic, unique name—was homage to a 20th century French-American author and marked me from the rest of the troops. And it marked me in a way that suspicious Joshi—who saw non-traditional names as a way to disassociate from their caste identity—loathed to let go. He was a pahari Brahmin and proud of it. And I? I was the worst kind of criminal: a thief and a liar. I had stolen a new name and identity and was hiding my unclean, impure roots; an indelible stain in his newsroom. He wanted me gone, and as much as I was resisting for now, it was only a matter of time. Two journalists had left in the new year, ostensibly because they hadn’t been given a raise, but mostly because they knew they’d never get one as long as Joshi was around.
The only avenue to stay despite him was if I managed to get the Editor-in-Chief on my side. But for that, I needed a big story. A big break.
An exclusive.
◆◆◆
I took the train back home—second-class once again—stopping to admire the restoration work of the gate at Churchgate station. An enormous mural of the current heir to the throne adorned one wall, accompanied by his two sons (but not his wife.) The restoration work extended to St. Thomas’ Cathedral and the Clock Tower (affectionately called Bigger Ben,) with newer murals of the next-in-line to the throne being added everywhere. Clearly, Her Majesty’s Government was preparing for a His Majesty’s Government soon. I found a black-and-yellow cab, passed the maidan—where cricket whites dotted the ground—and with enormous relief made it home in one piece.
My roommate Varuna was waiting for me.
“You’re here!” She beamed. “We’re just about to start!”
I blanked for a second, and then remembered. Movie night. I groaned and headed to my room, bumping into Devarshish, her boyfriend, who hated his name and refused to answer to anything but Dev (to rhyme with rev.) I thought achingly of my paramour, safely ensconced in the Taj Mahal Hotel a few kilometres away.
“You have to make time for movie night!” Varuna said, trailing behind me, carefully rolling a joint as she walked, “it’s tradition!”
I entered my room, ignoring the saffron-white-and-green flag that hung limply over my window and dumped my bag on the floor. Then I dumped myself on the bed.
“I’ve had the worst day,” I said, which was a mistake to say out loud because I would truly have my worst day soon.
“What happened?”
“They let Zoravar go,” I said, wondering if it was polite to disappear for a few seconds to scream into my pillow. “And along with Zoravar, goes my story.”
“Why?” Dev entered, blinking at the photograph-and-string riddled ‘crazy wall’ that took up one side of my room. “Sorry,” he said at my expression, “I haven’t been following the case. Could you tell me about it?”
“No!” Varuna said warningly but it was too late. Suddenly energised, I leapt up from the bed. “Now you’ve done it,” she groaned.
“Take a seat,” I waved to him, “and behold my masterpiece.”
My masterpiece referred to the three-by-four feet of softboard I’d acquired to prepare myself to write about the Dasguptas. I had the photographs (black-and-white!) of every single relevant person and (red!) linking thread to show their relationships. Copious notes—handwritten and scribbled on every scrap of paper—had also been pinned ad-hoc wherever I found place. It was a work of labour. It was a work of genius. It was a work of love.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Dev said.
I rounded on him, “excuse me?”
“That’s why you have to explain!” He said, hastily.
I took a deep breath and relaxed my shoulders. After spending three months on this family, I could recite everything in my sleep, and in a different language—had I spoken one.
“We begin,” I said, in my best speech voice, “with the grandfather. Purshottam Dasgupta.” I pointed to a picture of the man, who, with his hooked nose and bushy eyebrows, could have given Joshi a run for his money.
“I know about him,” Dev said, “He had a dyeing company.”
“Yep,” I said, “and he was very cozy with Her Majesty’s—
“—Secret Service—” interjected Varuna.
“—Lordships—” I glared at her, “over in London.”
“Right.”
“Over time—and after amassing an enormous fortune—Purshottam began to diversify. First garments, then rubber and then oil.”
“Oooh,” said Dev, eyes shining with interest.
Varuna, who had lit her joint, kept him company with bad grace. “Get on with it,” she said.
I scowled at her. “Purshottam had two sons: Daman and Palvit. Daman was older but incompetent, so Palvit was given charge of the companies.”
“Daman resented this,” Dev said.
“Yes. Now they both married—” I pointed to both couples on the board, “—and had some more sons. Palvit had five, Daman had two.”
“But what about—?”
“Yes, yes,” I said testily, “Daman was also a serial philanderer. He was blind to the concept of fidelity, but of all his rumoured children, he only acknowledged one: Kersasp.”
“He’s a tennis player,” Dev said, “he was at Wimbledon last year.”
“Palvit’s sons,” I continued, ignoring this digression, “that is: Yaduvir, Biru—whose actual name is Kaustubh, long story—Anand, Nihal and Sahir inherited their father’s stake when he died.”
“Cancer,” said Dev who seemed to know a great deal for someone who claimed not be following the case.
“Yes,” I said, “Daman’s sons—Deep and Darsh—asked their father to split his stock between them. He agreed—keeping a minimal amount for himself. He didn’t give Kersasp any but Deep stepped in and gave him some of his shares.
“So, all cousins have some—but differing—stakes in the company. Everything was smooth sailing until Deep—who had been pushing for a telecom venture to no avail—accused his cousins, Yaduvir especially, of attempting a hostile takeover. Someone had been shoring up the extra stock in the last decade.”
“Someone!” Dev excitedly, “Zoravar!”
Annoyed that he took away my punch line, I continued, “yes. Yaduvir denied the charges and in turn accused Deep of a hostile takeover. In the midst of all this, Deep had in fact approached Zoravar into throwing his lot in with them, and someone leaked that to the Press. Yaduvir was enraged and went to the cops.”
“And then your life began to revolve around this story,” Varuna said, blowing smoke rings.
I ignored her. “Now’s where it gets interesting. None of the cousins have enough to form a majority stake. Zoravar doesn’t have enough to do anything on his own, but he can provide a swing majority. Both sets have been courting him while simultaneously accusing the other side of trying to bribe him.”
Dev waved that aside and pointed, “where does he come in?”
“Ah,” I said, tapping the photograph of a younger, dashingly handsome man. “Vishnu Yadav, founder of Ensign Electronics, and in this saga, the mediator. He’s an old friend of theirs and has—somehow—managed to escape being pulled to either side. He’s convinced both parties to try mediation with him.”
“How’s that going to work?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Unless he does something drastic, they won’t trust each other when all it takes is Zoravar’s stake to form a majority.”
“And now Zoravar’s been let go,” Dev said.
My shoulders slumped, “yes.”
“And you won’t be able to find out what’s going on.”
I sighed, “yes.” My eyes hurt from the long hours and I still hadn’t finished the numbers Joshi wanted. I sighed, “I’m sorry but I can’t watch a movie tonight.”
“But its James Bond,” Varuna protested, “your favourite!”
They both smiled, earnest, pleading smiles and I thought of Joshi and his life-ruining frown. “Okay,” I said, feeling irresponsible, “fine, let’s do it!!”
“Yes!”
◆◆◆
I awoke on Monday morning in a blind panic. My phone was going off next to my ear, dragging me out of a pleasant dream where I danced under the dome roofs of the Taj Mahal Hotel, with the Nizam’s seventh daughter held close in my arms. I peered at the screen, praying it wasn’t Joshi.
“Hello?” I managed.
“Jamie!” Gautam’s voice, muffled—and slurring? —sounded in my ear. “Jamie, wake up!”
“I’m awake,” I said untruthfully, “why are you awake?”
“I haven’t slept!”
“Good God,” I looked at the time, “what have you gotten into?”
“The question isn’t what I’ve gotten into,” Gautam said, definitely slurring, “It’s what I’ve got for you!”
“Which is?”
“Zoravar,” Gautam said, “or, more precisely, what he told me!”
I woke up very quickly in one go, “what did he tell you!”
“He doesn’t own the stock!” Gautam said, stumbling over words in excitement now, “he’s just been managing the shell companies buying it up!”
“What!” I shrieked, “So who owns it?”
“Guess!”
The answer came, unbidden. “Vishnu Yadav!”
“Yes!” Gautam shrieked back at me, “and get this—he convinced the brothers to sign over half their stake to him last week!”
“What!”
“I know!” Gautam crowed, “It’s bizarre. He told them that’s the only way to get them to trust each other because even if they did go to Zoravar now, nobody would have a majority!”
“That’s genius,” I whispered in shock, “I mean the Dasguptas are imbeciles but Vishnu—that’s genius! And—”
“Hostile takeover!” Gautam said the words for me, “he’s been planning this for years! Zoravar told me everything!”
“How did you manage this!”
“Got him drunk,” Gautam said smugly, “it’s an old tactic.”
“Gautam—” I said, but we’d been best friends for a decade and he knew what I was going to say.
“Go for it,” he said, “we aren’t even officially investigating anymore so His Lordship—I mean Sir Deputy Inspector General Daniel Taylor—won’t care.”
“I love you,” I said.
Gautam laughed, “don’t let your princess hear you say that!”
It took three tries but eventually Joshi picked up.
“Do you want to be fired?” He snarled at me.
I didn’t attempt for any politeness. “Vishnu Yadav’s succeeded in taking over the Dasguptas’ company. Zoravar Khan was always his stooge.”
Silence on the phone. Then: “Tell me everything,” Joshi said, eerily calm.
I did, with no drunken slurring or confusion. I was wide-awake. Adrenalin coursed through me. As I talked, I booted up my laptop and opened a fresh page. By the time I finished, it was 7.30 in the morning. The market opened in exactly two hours. Pre-open would start fifteen minutes earlier.
I finished, holding my breath.
“This is from your guy?” Joshi said, “your friend?”
“Yes,” I said, “he got it straight from Zoravar.”
Silence over the line. Then: “write it,” Joshi said, “write it and send it to me. Don’t mark Desk, don’t mark social media, and don’t mark anyone else. Send it only to me.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’ve to call David,” Joshi grumbled, “He has to sign off on it.”
“Yes sir,” I said, my fingers itching, one eye on the clock.
“You have half an hour,” Joshi said, “and send me the analysis you were supposed to have given in yesterday!”
I swore under my breath but he’d already hung up.
◆◆◆
In a haze, I poured out everything I’d just learnt into a semblance of a news report. Then I went back and added details—names, connections, shell companies, who Vishnu Yadav was—all the while sweating with anxiety, one eye on the clock. At eight-fifteen—one hour to pre-open—I fired off the first e-mail and went back to the numbers one which had been lying unfinished since Saturday night. I’d spent the whole of Sunday at a Reserve Bank press-meet to teach us how use their databases and had come home to an impromptu party thrown by Varuna and Dev. The numbers languished in the Excel sheet I’d left them in. It was too much: there was no way I would finish it and get to work on time, so I gave it up as a bad job, threw on some clothes and bolted out of the house.
On the way to Churchgate station, Joshi called me.
“What is this absolute, incoherent mess?” He yelled, loud click-clacking of keys behind him. “This looks like it was written by a five-year old!”
I’d used the word insofar in the report, so I didn’t think this criticism was fair.
“I can re-do it,” I said, wondering if I could edit it in a moving train.
“Just get to the office,” Joshi growled, “and where’s the other report?”
I hung up.
◆◆◆
The office was a beehive of activity when I skidded in at 9:10 AM. The Editor-in-Chief stood in front of the sub-editors, talking rapidly on the phone. Joshi stood next to him; shirtsleeves rolled up as though he’d spent the last two hours working.
“I just want to know if we’ll be sued,” Smith was saying, his accent carrying clear across a room full of brown voices, “if we’re wrong about this, how much of a stink will FSAI make?”
“If you’re wrong about this,” Joshi said in a low voice when I came up to stand next to them, “you’re fired.”
I rolled my eyes.
Smith hung up and nodded to Desk Head. “Put it up.”
I watched breathless as the website refreshed in front of my eyes and my report came into view. The byline simply said, The Indian Financial Times.
I opened my mouth to argue when a voice spoke in my ear.
“It’s so that we can delete it without culpability,” Anahita said, making me jump. “In case the information is wrong—” she caught my expression, “—not that I think it’s wrong!”
“Put it on the social,” Smith was saying, “Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. Google. Myspace—whatever—put it everywhere.”
I caught Anahita’s eye and we both shook our heads. David Smith was a fossil that had long outstayed his talents and held on to his seat office with the sheer power of his sex, his skin, his accent, and his last name—and we weren’t convinced he was related to Adam Smith to begin with.
“It’s up,” one of the social media kids said.
“Turn up CNBC India,” Joshi snarled.
An intern hurried to comply and the mute dialogue picked up words halfway through. “—And we’ve got Perseverance Industries in the green in pre-open,” the anchor said, “investors relieved after the police let Zoravar Khan go on Friday, hoping that this will be the end of the uncertainty rocking the company—”
“Damnit,” Joshi swore and glared at me.
“Patience old boy,” Smith said, smiling, “patience—ah here we go.”
The stock—which had green arrows up till now—turned red, percentage points next to it increasing slowly. The anchors took puzzled notice.
“Ah, hullo, Perseverance has slipped back to the red—maybe some shorts in the system—?”
“Bloomberg’s got it,” said the website team. “They’re reporting with credit to us.”
“Same for Reuters,” said another person, “BBC India is reporting it. The Indian Globe, The Midsummer Sun…”
“Down 10 percent!” Smith called, grinning broadly. “It’ll open locked in lower-circuit!” Someone producer had finally cued the anchors because one of them, the blonde-haired man was now saying, “colossal shake up coming in. According to IFT a hostile takeover has been orchestrated and Vishnu Yadav—friend to the Dasguptas—reportedly has majority stake…”
I tuned out of the rest, my heart hammering. There was general chaos in the room, people chiming in with other news outlets reporting it, Joshi firing off orders to the morning journalists to rustle up comments from anyone and everyone. I edged closer to the Desk team, hoping now at least the byline could be changed when Smith held up a hand to take a call.
“Hullo,” he said smiling, “ah—yes, thank you for getting back to me.” A pause, “yes—yes—certainly. We can schedule a proper one for later in the day. Thank you.”
He hung up, every eye on him.
“Add copy,” he said to the website team, “Vishnu Yadav has confirmed he owns majority stake.”
Bedlam in the newsroom and I thought about Gautam and promised myself I’d get him a whole box of Navy Cut. Anahita—and the rest of the journalists—clapped me on the shoulder, mouthing congratulations while rapidly speaking to institutional holders, mutual fund leaders, corporate lawyers and market experts. This was the biggest story of the year. Possibly the decade. And I had broken it.
“Rao,” Smith called out—already on his way back to his cabin— “change the byline.”
I felt a warm flush of pride.
Standing over Balaji Rao’s shoulder I saw The Indian Financial Times removed and—and David Smith written in.
“But,” I stammered, “You can’t—he can’t—” I looked around. No one was paying attention to me except for Joshi.
“Go home,” he said, an expression of understanding that made me sick with realisation. “Go home,” he said again, “it’s your day off anyway.”
I looked towards the Boss’ corner. He was pouring champagne out for his marketing and sales heads, all white, accented individuals. I felt hot with anger and shame.
“He can’t,” I said again.
Joshi rolled his eyes. “He can. And he will. It’s his world. You and me? We’re just here for the scraps.” He paused for a moment considering, then added: “and you’re here for my scraps.”
I thought of the trains and names and murals and the Clock Tower. This was his world. Their world. Not mine.
“Go home,” Joshi said for the third time.
I stumbled my way back to Lower Palace to catch the train to take me home. At the Burnaby Mills gate, twin Union Jacks hung limp in the sticky air, flashing their blues to the passing crowd of brown. Did I even have a home?
As I stared at the Jacks, my mind turned to the saffron-white-and-green flag—picked up when covering a protest—hanging on my window. A familiar defiance surged within me.
Did I have a home?
Not yet.
Pallavi Rao is a financial journalist based in Mumbai, India. Her fascination with the stock market, the economy and all things business began when her father dragged her to a mutual fund seminar that served excellent hors d'oeuvres. She is currently attending grad school at the University of British Columbia.
Taking Stock is inspired by the persisting colonial hangover that haunts modern-day India, despite the country's titanic freedom struggle, ambitious Constitution and deep, sometimes problematic love for its own roots.