an erstwhile Maharaja of Punjab. We had also invited our clients Saxena and Harsh, who were old friends and well-wishers from my Myers days. Others were relatives and friends, chosen for their personality, their ability to speak English and their general reliability. Two of them were, of course, Kitty and Shree, who had stopped in Dubai on their way to South Africa to see the FIFA World Cup. I had promptly roped them in, much to Peggy’s discomfiture and to Kitty’s delight. The idea of fooling the chairman of a multinational bank appealed greatly to Kitty. While Shree initially dragged his feet, he was fine once he found that the suit he had borrowed from Kitch fit him perfectly and that the chairman was a football fan. Others included Kapoor at his flamboyant best, Rachel looking gorgeous, and her fiancé Tim, who held his own with Sir Sid with his ideas on solar energy and wind farming.
Flushed with our success, we left the hotel to find some place to celebrate with our distinguished group. I was delighted. Shree had kept the chairman enthralled with the latest on the odds that bookmakers were offering on Brazil, England and the others. My dear sister Kitty, looking charming, perhaps even stunning, in a black and orange salwar kameez with mirror-work, had so enchanted Sir Sid with stories about the dance school she was running in India, that he wanted to send his grand-daughter to India to ‘learn Indian dance and absorb the great Indian culture’. Then there was Kitch’s cousin Ravi, a Dubai-based social worker of sorts, who looked like an Indian version of George Clooney. Kitch’s brother Andy had wanted to come to the party as well, posing as a rich man’s son, but Kitch wouldn’t hear of it.
‘Let’s go home and celebrate, guys,’ Kitch said. ‘I’m starving. The décor and the music were lovely, but somehow the bigger the hotel, the less I like the vegetarian choices. I’ve got plenty of drinks at home for everyone and I can eat some curd rice.’
‘With VK,’ Galiya added.
Andy joined us at home with a young Filipino lady in tow, and promptly proceeded to have a go at the scotch. The kid was really living it up.
‘I love this bank,’ Kitty announced as she raised a toast to the private banking team. ‘It’s such fun. I thought banking was a boring business with forms and documents and numbers. But see how easily we impressed your chairman. I had him eating out of my hand. I think, after dancing, banking is the thing I like best.’
Peggy smiled. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘believe me, the banking I have always known is all about business and fourteen-hour days. I have never seen banking as it exists in this bank. It’s all about meetings and hype. But you look terrific, sweetheart. Any chairman would have been taken in by you today.’
In a corner of the room, right next to the corridor that led to the bedrooms, Andy was sitting on a two-seater sofa, smooching the young lady and simultaneously kneading her bare calves. I shuddered at the audacity of today’s younger lot, and remembered his mother holding my hand a few months ago, fervently pleading with me to take good care of her son. ‘Please teach him to be responsible like you,’ she had said. And I realized that I hadn’t so much as given the guy a second thought in all these days.
Suddenly a small figure with tousled hair and sleepy eyes appeared from the passage. It had a thumb in its mouth. The other hand clutched a fluffy pink rabbit. It was Olga Dharini Krishnan, the pretty little daughter of Kitch and Galiya. She stood just behind the smitten couple who were deeply absorbed in their task, and registered a formal complaint with an abrupt announcement.
‘Too many people. Too many noise!’ she said in her squeaky two-year-old voice. I know you will say that it is not possible for a sitting person to jump and I will admit that this is true in most cases. But if a person is taken completely by surprise when he or she is
Flushed with our success, we left the hotel to find some place to celebrate with our distinguished group. I was delighted. Shree had kept the chairman enthralled with the latest on the odds that bookmakers were offering on Brazil, England and the others. My dear sister Kitty, looking charming, perhaps even stunning, in a black and orange salwar kameez with mirror-work, had so enchanted Sir Sid with stories about the dance school she was running in India, that he wanted to send his grand-daughter to India to ‘learn Indian dance and absorb the great Indian culture’. Then there was Kitch’s cousin Ravi, a Dubai-based social worker of sorts, who looked like an Indian version of George Clooney. Kitch’s brother Andy had wanted to come to the party as well, posing as a rich man’s son, but Kitch wouldn’t hear of it.
‘Let’s go home and celebrate, guys,’ Kitch said. ‘I’m starving. The décor and the music were lovely, but somehow the bigger the hotel, the less I like the vegetarian choices. I’ve got plenty of drinks at home for everyone and I can eat some curd rice.’
‘With VK,’ Galiya added.
Andy joined us at home with a young Filipino lady in tow, and promptly proceeded to have a go at the scotch. The kid was really living it up.
‘I love this bank,’ Kitty announced as she raised a toast to the private banking team. ‘It’s such fun. I thought banking was a boring business with forms and documents and numbers. But see how easily we impressed your chairman. I had him eating out of my hand. I think, after dancing, banking is the thing I like best.’
Peggy smiled. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘believe me, the banking I have always known is all about business and fourteen-hour days. I have never seen banking as it exists in this bank. It’s all about meetings and hype. But you look terrific, sweetheart. Any chairman would have been taken in by you today.’
In a corner of the room, right next to the corridor that led to the bedrooms, Andy was sitting on a two-seater sofa, smooching the young lady and simultaneously kneading her bare calves. I shuddered at the audacity of today’s younger lot, and remembered his mother holding my hand a few months ago, fervently pleading with me to take good care of her son. ‘Please teach him to be responsible like you,’ she had said. And I realized that I hadn’t so much as given the guy a second thought in all these days.
Suddenly a small figure with tousled hair and sleepy eyes appeared from the passage. It had a thumb in its mouth. The other hand clutched a fluffy pink rabbit. It was Olga Dharini Krishnan, the pretty little daughter of Kitch and Galiya. She stood just behind the smitten couple who were deeply absorbed in their task, and registered a formal complaint with an abrupt announcement.
‘Too many people. Too many noise!’ she said in her squeaky two-year-old voice. I know you will say that it is not possible for a sitting person to jump and I will admit that this is true in most cases. But if a person is taken completely by surprise when he or she is
Similar Books
