The Interview
A short story by
Anirudh Deshpande
Associate Professor
Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Delhi University.
I
Clad in night clothes, unbathed, bearded with shoulder length black hair, Sameer Ranade, Ph.D. in modern Indian history, approached his retired well settled father with an air of false nonchalance. The Brigadier had settled in his favorite white cane armchair in the whitewashed veranda of his bungalow on a July morning. He saw his languorous son walk towards him from the corner of his eyes shrouded in thick grey eye brows.
The gentle monsoon breeze caressed by the drops of night rain which hung in the air felt cool at eight in the morning. Sameer smelled the mixture of cologne and after shave in the air and almost winced. Since his childhood he had regarded his father with a feeling of admiration diluted with criticism. The reed slim Brigadier with the bushy moustaches had driven to his bungalow in Defense Colony at seven after a leisurely morning of golf with his south Delhi club friends.
Now, bathed a second time and dressed in impeccable clothes, he was relishing an edition of his favorite newspaper over a cup of sweet black coffee under a clean white Usha fan rotating at medium speed. The former officer had issued instructions to all the domestics that no fan in the house, excluding the one in his son’s room upstairs, were to run at full speed. The Brigadier also disliked air conditioning. In his considered view comfort softened the human race. Indeed, as his acquaintances found out soon enough, almost all his views were considered. In other words, they were informed by the conservative newspaper which was read widely in his neighbourhood.
The society of card playing and club going friends knew him as the man who began most of his sentences with the wise sounding “In my considered opinion…etc….” Very few in fact knew that he had picked up the phrase from a British Army officer he had befriended at an Army Orientation Course at the National Defense College in New Delhi some decades ago. Sameer and his friends understood the Brigadier as a stuffed shirt but not necessarily a bad man. The Brigadier was the exact opposite of his son. Every day between seven and eight in the evening he drank two customary single malts either alone at home or in the club with a couple of golf friends. This was followed by a light supper of soup, roll and salad. At home he allowed himself the luxury of watching TV for an hour at nine after which he cursed the politicians and went to bed thinking of either business, pension or golf. He switched off the lights at ten thirty and woke up at five every morning to a cup of Lipton green label tea brought into his spacious bed room by a servant in uniform. He never comprehended why and how his “over educated” son worked late into the night reading, listening to music at low volume and sometimes drawing cartoons or writing essays.
The boy had never belonged to him and was an acquaintance as a man.
Brigadier Ranade had retired from the Army at a vigorous fifty-eight. He mastered golf and the business of running a security agency with two ex-Army partners soon after the retirement. The roaring security agency business gave him the reassuring feeling of being a self-made man and golf taught him the subtle art of looking down upon his countrymen symbolized by the caddies and other servants on the course and in the club.
But this successful man, a distinguished PVSM of the world’s third largest army, had some regrets which haunted him on days when he neither played golf nor whiled away time at the club.
His attractive blue eyed wife from Ratnagiri had deserted him for a young film actor many years ago. His mother less son had been reared by his unmarried older sister who had taught English and Critical Theory in a women’s college in the city. In the company of writers, journalists and theatre artists the boy had grown studious and dreamy eyed early in life. He was tall, lean and handsome but, to his father’s frustration, not fond of manly sport and activities. The Brigadier was unimaginative but on the rare occasion when he imagined his son in an Army or Naval uniform his heart, to his own surprise, ached.
Love was alien, but duty sacred, to the Brigadier. Thus, unlike most of his small town and rural class mates in the university, Sameer was assured of shelter and food in the country’s unfeeling capital. His aunt lived in a self-owned “poky little flat”, as her brother called it, across the pestilential river which struggled to flow through the city in a north-south direction. The former professor felt at home in her flat than in tony Defense Colony where the retired Uncles and bored Aunts spoke of little else but their NRI kids, rents, maids, drivers, illnesses and card parties. Her artistic flat was shared with a female friend. It was rumored that she was lesbian without basis. Her flat was full of books and ethnic nick knacks. It stank of a mixture of whiskey, beer, wine and cigarette butts crushed in ash trays. This atmosphere kept the Brigadier at bay.
The Brigadier hated tobacco but knew his intellectual son smoked hand rolled cigarettes behind his back not only alone but with his journalist girlfriend.
Over time his anger against his family had settled into an irritation hidden behind a stiff upper lip. In his considered view his sister, son and their friends epitomized everything wrong with the country. He did not understand the conversation which occurred loudly in his house when the small family got together during festivals or the rare parties which the Brigadier’s sister hosted in Defense Colony at her expense.
“Dash it” the Brigadier often said to himself, “I was the Company Major at thirty-five. So what if my wife deserted me for a good for nothing actor.”
The cursed fellow became an established artist in cinema and on television after some years of struggle in Bombay. In a much discussed and shrill war soap opera the Brigadier’s former cuckolder had appeared perfect as a middle aged, physically fit, colonel. The mildly envious Brigadier had watched a few episodes of this program in the secrecy of his room at night. He kept a straight face in society. Since his wife’s elopement his career became his spouse and decades of uninterrupted celibacy finally drove the sexual impulse out of his heart.
“Good riddance” he would think and became surprised at his own feeling.
“Sir. May I use your car this afternoon? I must go to a job interview.”
Sameer had addressed his father Sir since his childhood. Whenever he visited his father during vacations he heard the officer’s subordinates call him Sir. And, to the Brigadier’s barely hidden pleasure, he began calling him Sir. In return the officer called Sameer by the Hollywood sounding Son. Father and son usually exchanged sentences in English.
Some of Sameer’s Professors also liked his habit of punctuating his sentences with a pause and Sir. It made them feel equal or even superior to the civil servants. No professor likes being commanded by civil servants !
“What is this job about? A newspaper ?” the Brigadier queried. His eyes were fixed on the paper from which the caricature of a common man stared at him.
“It is a permanent lectureship interview at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Evening College. They have recently revised the pay scales and the pay is quite good. In fact, five hundred rupees more than the basic of an IAS. I want the car because after the interview, which may end late, I must drop Antara home. I shall meet her in connection with some work in the City Centre.”
“I shall top up the tank” Sameer added to win over the Brigadier. The officer maintained a Fiat in excellent condition. The car had a long front seat which aided the young lovers.
“Doctor Ranade has decided to serve an evening college. I would rather that you find something more suitable to your station. You draw fair cartoons which sometimes are mentioned by my friends. I dare say, some even admire you! Why don’t you join a big newspaper or magazine? There the pay will be better.”
The Brigadier opined that the private sector was superior to the Government. Colleges, which he associated with his sister, were pansy producing pits! In his considered view there was no point in joining the government unless the incumbent was assured of a steady supply of subsidized rations and booze post retirement.
He admired his whiskey collection and thanked his stars. Sometimes the admiration overflowed in front of his awe struck underlings. They ate out of his hands and looked forward to a monthly quota of CSD Hercules Rum provided for their consumption under strict rules. On rare weekends Father and Son shared a couple of chilled beers or whiskeys with soda over a conversation which neither of them made sense of. Occasionally the aunt dropped in for the night after a shopping trip to the tony parts of the city.
A weaker man might have fallen to the martinet. Sameer, to the contrary, used the Brigadier as a confidence board to rebound into society. His erudition was inspired and nurtured by his accomplished aunt and soared to great heights as a response to his father’s indifference to art and education. He never missed a mother thanks to the English professor.
Only his close friends and Antara recognized the wellsprings of his life.
“I don’t know what you plan to do, because at your age I had become a Captain in my regiment” the Brigadier looked up at his son who heard this sentence at least once a week. There were days when the Brigadier felt sorry for the happy go lucky young man.
To soften the blow which had caused no harm, he shrugged and added “Take the car but drive carefully. I have a club engagement in the evening, but never mind, I shall ask Khanna to pick me up.” Khanna’s son worked fourteen hours a day as a manager in a private bank. His ‘package’ and ‘perks’ were hot topics in the club.
Sameer nodded and grinned. His father forced a smile.
Sameer was sleepy and started walking back to his room when the Brigadier asked him “How many interviews so far, Son?”
“Twenty-seven, including the ones for ad-hoc and guest lectureships” Sameer threw over his shoulder, ascended the tiled stairs and fell asleep in bed.
He had drawn a few cartoons late at night for Antara to place and was in the mood for the Brigadier’s caustic comments. He missed the perplexity on his father’s face. His father rose, straightened his back and walked to the garden to inspect something with exaggerated self-importance. Unlike his son, he was driven by the compulsion of being relevant to a world which did not belong to him.
This sometimes made him envy Sameer.
“Young men these days” he would mutter in private and public under his breath.
The pot-bellied morning colony guard had awaited his appearance for a while. He saluted at attention and handed over a crisp brown long envelope with the monogram ‘Writers in Residence Program: School of Written and Visual Arts, Manchester, UK’ addressed to Dr. Sameer Ranade [Creative Writer and Artist]. The Brigadier glanced at the nomenclatures, smiled to himself, and passed the envelope to the cook with suitable instructions.
****
