Narayanan and the wannabe writer

The wannabe writer was scared of his father no doubt about that The man was saturnine and nonverbal and believed that life consisted of a series of duties including transforming his useless sons into marriageable chartered accountants or engineers Back then those were the choicesPlease donrsquot think Narayanan was a colourless man He was cracking dad jokes half a century before they were a thing His terrified sons fearing yet another joke always pretended irrepressible laughter right on cue Unfortunately this was guaranteed to provoke four or five more ghastly jokes each worse than the one beforeHe worked as an airconditioning engineer for Voltas a company famous for having airconditioned the firstever Rajdhani Express Among Delhirsquos south Indian Iyers all loyal company men he was almost certainly known as Voltas Narayanan His friends might have included a Wimco Venkatraman a Philips Ramamurthy a Cadbury Karunakaran and perhaps a Parle PadmanabhanOne day Voltas informed Narayanan they were relocating him to Bombay as it was called then Narayanan the genius airconditioning engineer was slowly but surely inching up the corporate ladder With a quiet smile he announced the news to his family over dinnerEveryone nodded It was not like they had a choiceThe younger boy had no strong feelings either way but Narayananrsquos wife was excited to see yet another large Indian city It was only the older boy the wannabe writer who didnrsquot like the idea one bit He had just finished school and fancied himself as a journalist or perhaps an authorHe had stumbled upon a tabloid newspaper called Dateline Delhi published by a cooperative of journalism graduates They paid nothing but were happy to publish him and seemed to like him a lot This he knew was where he needed to beWhen the wannabe writer told his father that hersquod rather stay in Delhi Narayanan was reasonable Get admission into the IIT or a commerce college son he said and you can stay wherever you like The boy tried St Stephenrsquos College then Hindu College and even Kirori Mal College but without luckDDay came and everyone left for the railway station their lives packed into holdalls and tin trunks I donrsquot think they had invented planes back then Just as the train whistle blew the wannabe writer did something utterly cowardly Saying he needed to pee he stepped off the train With a crooked grin he waved goodbye to his family from the platform as they disappearedNarayananrsquos reaction conveyed a few days later by his wife to the wannabe writer was crisp Your father says you may not expect any money from him Yoursquore on your ownThe next six months were hell The wannabe writer found a room on a terrace in Lodhi Colony One wall consisted of wooden planks through which hot sand blew in during summer and freezing winds in winter The rent was a mere Rs 50 but he had to bathe on the open terrace in water coaxed from a hand pump and go downstairs when he needed a serious toiletFor dinner it was Rs 50 every month to Mr Grover who ran a restaurant in Lodhi Market Add bus fare cigarettes lunch sometimes beer the occasional dosaYou might ask how did the wannabe writer pay for all this At that time Delhi had four art galleries that changed their artists every week for a total of 16 a month The evening papers paid Rs 50 per artist interview which netted the wannabe writer over Rs 500 every month way more than he neededBy then hersquod been admitted at Shri Ram College to study Economicsmdashgratefully accepted The tuition fees were R75 every three monthsHis mother wrote anxious letters asking if he was well but from Narayanan not a wordBut then Christmas came Voltas sent Narayanan to Delhi for some work He could hardly not meet his goodfornothing strongheaded son so one evening the wannabe writer took his grim father to his terrace room Narayanan saw the mattress on the floor the Janata kerosene stove in the corner on which his useless son made himself puffed wheat in milk followed by coffeeUnbelievably a tear rolled down Narayananrsquos cheekThere are times when a father cannot help being a father Narayanan had just received Rs 400 a Christmas bonus Narayanan blew the entire sum buying his son a pressure cooker utensils warm clothes and a quilt for winterHis boy he knew was now a manI will soon be 70 years old roughly as old as my father was when he died I am still writingAnd I know this nowmdashthe best kind of writer to be all your life is a wannabe writerHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper