Read Online The Accidental Apprentice by Vikas Swarup - Free Book Online

a Nonresident Indian from Stockholm. She is excited about going to Sweden, a country about which I know next to nothing.
    In the afternoon the manager calls me to his cubicle. ‘Sapna, I was just checking your sales figures. You are top of the list again,’ he beams at me. His forced, yellow, toothy grin reminds me of an old Hindi film villain called Jeevan, putting me instantly on my guard. Madan smiles only when he wants to coax a favour out of an employee, like requiring us to stay overtime or come to work on a Sunday.
    â€˜You remember Mr Kuldip Singh, the man who bought a truckload of goods last week?’ he continues.
    â€˜You mean that farmer from Haryana?’
    â€˜Yes, yes.’ Madan nods. ‘Well, he called today to say that no one in his household knows how to operate any of those appliances. Now he wants someone from the shop to come to his village and explain all the operating instructions. You understand?’
    â€˜Yes, so why don’t you send one of the sales boys?’
    â€˜That’s the problem,’ Madan sighs. ‘He wants only you. Apparently you impressed him no end. So here’s the deal. We want you to go to his village tomorrow, and show him how the TV and the washing machine and the music system and DVD player work. We’ll bear all your travel costs and, on top, you’ll receive five hundred rupees for expenses.’
    â€˜I’m not wasting my Sunday just for five hundred rupees.’
    â€˜Think of it as easy money. I’ve found out that it takes just three hours to Chandangarh village. You could easily go in the morning and return by evening. Is it okay with you?’
    â€˜It’s not okay. How can you ask a single woman to go all alone to a remote village?’
    â€˜I understand, I understand.’ Madan waggles his head. ‘But Gulati sahib will consider this a personal favour. Please, just this once,’ he pleads.
    â€˜I can’t go this Sunday,’ I say with a grave shake of the head. ‘It is Alka’s birthday.’
    â€˜Who is Alka?’
    â€˜My sister, who died two years ago.’
    â€˜Why do the dead have to interfere with the affairs of the living?’ he mutters under his breath, before nodding resignedly. ‘ Theek hai. Can you at least go on Monday?’
    â€˜Yes, that should be possible. But I’ll not stay longer than a few hours in that village. At what time will the taxi report to my house on Monday?’
    â€˜Taxi? Who do you think you are? Priya Capoorr? You’ll take a bus, understand?’
    I feel like telling him to go take a hike but there’s only so far you can push Madan and I think I’ve pushed him close enough today.
    If ever I get to become the CEO of the ABC Group, the first thing I’ll do is buy up Gulati & Sons, and make Madan the office sweeper. For now, however, I simply nod and swallow my pride.
    *   *   *
    An air of deep unsettling gloom hangs over the house. The cruel and mocking stillness of fate. Today is Alka’s birthday. She would have been seventeen today. Mother dabs at her eyes. I have a lump in my throat that refuses to go away. The mood of homage and penitence wraps me in its suffocating embrace.
    There has not been a single day in the last two years when I have not thought of Alka. The dead don’t die. They simply transform into phantoms, hovering about in the air, preying on our thoughts, invading our dreams. Alka’s absence haunts me every day, but more so today. There’s something particularly damning about being alive on your dead sister’s birthday.
    As I sit staring at her photograph, consumed by survivor’s guilt, memories of our time in Nainital come rushing back to me.
    We used to live in Number 17, a large, four-bedroom house on the campus of Windsor Academy, an all-boys residential school, where Papa was the senior teacher for mathematics. Built in the 1870s, the school is like a