ONE
The honking started early. It was not yet seven in the morning and Mr. Ali could already hear the noise of the traffic on the road outside. The house faced east and the sun’s warming rays came filtering into the verandah through the tops of the trees on the other side of the road.The curved pattern of the iron security grille was reflected on the polished black granite floor and halfway up the light green wall. Motorcycles, scooters, and buses went past in a steady procession, noisily tooting away. A speeding truck scattered other traffic out of its path with a powerful air horn. It was a crisp winter morning and some of the motorists and pedestrians were wrapped up in watch caps and woolen clothes. He opened the gate and stepped outside.
Mr. Ali loved the garden he had created in the modest yard, about twenty feet wide and ten feet long. He rubbed his hands to warm them up—sure that the temperature was less than seventy degrees. On one side, a guava tree spread its branches over most of the area from the house to the front wall. Under it grew many curry leaf plants, a henna plant, and a jasmine climber. There were also several plants in pots, including a bonsai banyan tree that he had planted eleven years ago. A well on his left supplied their drinking water, and next to it, there was a papaya tree and a hibiscus plant—morning dew shimmering silvery white on a perfectly symmetrical cobweb stretched between them.The low wall at the front continued around the house, separating his property from the road. He took a deep breath, taking in the fragrance of the jasmine flowers, and enjoyed the illusion of being in a small, green village even though his house was on a busy road in the middle of a bustling city.
Two maroon flowers had blossomed overnight on the hibiscus plant. They were high on the plant—above the height of the front wall. Mr. Ali walked up to them to have a closer look.The petals were bright and glossy; the edges fringed delicately at the end of a long fluted trumpet. The stamens peeked out of the center of the blooms, bright yellow pollen dotted among tiny, velvety, deep-red hair. Mr. Ali ran the back of his knuckle along one of the petals, luxuriating in the soft, silky touch.
Lovely, he thought, and stepped away to pick up some yellow guava leaves that had fallen down, and put them in a small plastic bucket with a broken handle that he used for a wastebasket.
He turned to the front and noticed a man reaching over the wall to pluck one of the flowers and shouted, “Hey!”
The man jerked his hand away, detaching the flower from the branch. Mr. Ali walked over to the front gate and opened it. The thief looked like a respectable man. He was wearing smart clothes. He had a mobile phone in his shirt pocket and he was carrying a leather briefcase in one hand. In the other, he held the bright blossom.
“Why are you stealing flowers from my garden?” Mr. Ali asked.
The man said, “I am not stealing them. I am taking them to the temple.”
“Without my permission,” Mr. Ali said angrily.
The man just turned and walked away, still holding the flower.
“What’s happening?” asked Mrs. Ali from the verandah. Mr. Ali turned back and looked at his wife. Her hands were covered with flour and dough from the morning chappatis.
“Did you see that?” Mr. Ali said, his voice rising. “That man just—”
“Why are you so surprised? It’s not unusual. These people want to lay flowers at the feet of the idol at the temple. It’s just that normally you are not awake at this time. And anyway, don’t start shouting so early in the morning. It is not good for your health,” she said.
“There’s nothing wrong with my health,” muttered Mr. Ali.
“I heard that,” said Mrs. Ali.
“There’s definitely nothing wrong with your ears,” he said, turning back to close the gate. “Hey!” he shouted. “Shoo . . . get out. Out . . .”
A white, skinny cow rushed back outside through the gate. It must have come in when his back was turned. Something red flashed in its mouth. Mr. Ali looked at the hibiscus plant and it was bare. Both its flowers were gone.
He struck his forehead with his hand in frustration and Mrs. Ali laughed.
“What?” he asked. “Do you think it’s amusing to lose all the flowers from the garden before the sun has even risen fully?”
“No,” she said. “But you are getting worked up too much over trivial things. After retiring, you’ve been like an unemployed barber who shaves his cat for want of anything better to do. Let’s hope that from today you will be a bit busier and I get some peace,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Mrs. Ali rolled her eyes. “I have been running the house for more than forty years, and the last few years since you retired have been the worst.You keep interfering and disturbing my routine,” she said. “You are not the first man in the world to retire, you know. Azhar is retired, too, and he keeps himself occupied quite well.”
Mr. Ali said, “Your brother goes to the mosque regularly to spend a little time saying his prayers and a lot more time sitting around on the cool marble floor discussing important matters like politics, the Indian budget, the shameless behavior of today’s youth, and the Palestinian problem.”
“So what’s wrong with that? At least he is not troubling his wife at home while he’s at the mosque,” said Mrs. Ali.
Mr. Ali knew that this was an argument he could not win, so he did not reply. Besides, despite Azhar’s newfound piousness (he had recently started growing a beard), he actually liked his brother-in-law and got along well with him.
Mrs. Ali nodded as their servant maid opened the gate. Leela was a thin woman in her forties with a perpetual wide smile that showed her big teeth, and she was wearing an old, faded cotton sari that had once belonged to Mrs. Ali. She came into the yard.
“Start by sweeping here first,” Mrs. Ali said to her.
Leela nodded and said, “All right, amma.”
Mrs. Ali turned to go back into the house. She said to her husband, “Come in and eat your breakfast before the painter comes.”
Mr. Ali took one last look at the bare hibiscus plant and shook his head before following his wife inside.
The doorbell rang soon after they finished their breakfast. Mr. Ali went to the verandah and opened the gate. The painter grinned at him and waved toward a large, rectangular package, wrapped in newspapers and lashed to a bicycle standing just outside the gate.
“All ready,” he said. “I’ll need your help to set it up.”
“Okay,” agreed Mr. Ali, going onto the street with the man.
They unwrapped the package, and a sign painted on a galvanized sheet with a wooden frame behind it came to light. They carried it to the wall outside the house. Mr. Ali held up the sign so it was square, and the painter hammered long nails through the wood and fastened it.
Mr. Ali was pleased with the way it looked, but out of sheer habit he said, “Five hundred rupees is too much for a simple sign like this.”
The man’s smile dropped. “Sir, we’ve already agreed on the price. I am doing this at a special rate for you.The cost of paints is going up day by day. See,” he said, touching the edge of the painted metal, “I’ve used special galvanized sheets that won’t rust after the first rains. I’ve also put it up for you on the wall. I didn’t just dump it like so much junk on your doorstep, did I?”
Mr. Ali quietly handed over five hundred rupees and the painter left. He wanted a better view of the sign, so he started across the road. A thin cyclist in an ill-fitting brown pullover almost bumped into him; Mr. Ali had to move smartly aside to avoid a crash.
“Look where you are going,” said the cyclist.
“You should have rung the bell,” Mr. Ali said. “How will people know you are there if you don’t ring?”
“I was right in front of you. Did your eyesight fail when you got gray hair?” asked the cyclist, shaking his head and pedaling away before Mr. Ali could reply.
Mr. Ali dismissed from his mind the rude man, who did not even know the rules of the road, and walked forward until he was in the shadows of the houses opposite. He stood under a tall gulmohar tree. Its crown was still green, with just a few hints of budding red. A crow cawed raucously in the tree’s branches. Sparrows twittered and flew busily about on their duties. Mr. Ali turned and looked back at the sign hanging on the wall of his house.
ALI’S MARRIAGE BUREAU FOR RICH PEOPLE it proclaimed in big bold red letters on a blue background. Underneath in smaller letters, it said, PROP: MR. HYDER ALI, GOVT. CLERK (RETIRED) and PH. 236678.
Four-story apartment blocks overshadowed his small house on either side. His house was the only one with a garden in front. All the others had been built right up to the street. Two doors to the left, he saw the temple that was the bane of his garden. A tiny shop, already open, hugged the temple’s walls and sold newspapers, magazines, fruits and flowers. Mr. Ali looked at the flowers outside the shop and scowled.Why did people steal flowers from his garden when there was a shop selling them right on the temple’s doorstep?
Mr. Ali looked back toward his house and saw two boys walking to school stop to read the new sign. He was so pleased that he quickly crossed the road and asked the boys to wait while he got them guavas from inside.
Mr. Ali’s house was built on a long, narrow strip of land about twenty feet wide, and the rooms were all laid out in single file. After the garden, there was a verandah at the front, sharing the roof with the rest of the building, open on three sides to light and fresh air but secure against people, with waist-high walls and an iron framework above it to the roof. The house proper started behind it—living room, bedroom, dining room, and kitchen. At the back, there was a little cemented yard.
Standing in the verandah, Mr. Ali called out, “Let’s set up the office.”
His wife came out, wiping her hands dry on the edge of her old blue cotton sari. She had brushed her hair and plaited it. The braid was not as thick as it used to be years ago and there were streaks of gray in the black hair.
“Let’s clear everything first. There is a lot of junk here that’s not suitable in an office,” Mr. Ali said.
Mrs. Ali nodded and they set down to work.
“We should have done this yesterday,” said Mr. Ali, picking up a lampshade. “What will clients think if they come in?”
“The ad in the paper is being published tomorrow, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Ali. “Anyway, you told me that our address was not included in the advertisement. Isn’t that true?”
Mr. Ali looked at his wife and laughed. “Don’t be so suspicious. Of course I haven’t put our address in the paper. But what if someone looks at the sign outside and walks in?”
“I doubt if anyone will come in that soon. Come on, let’s finish this. I want to start cooking. Remember, Azhar and his wife are coming over for lunch,” said Mrs. Ali, gathering a bunch of old Reader’s Digest magazines and taking them inside the house.
“Take that photo off the wall,” said Mrs. Ali when she came back.
Mr. Ali looked at the picture of their son with a young couple and a three-year-old boy, which hung by a wire off a nail. He reached out and started to take it down, but then stopped. “Leave it,” he said. “It won’t look out of place in an office and Rehman put it up.”
Mrs. Ali looked at him oddly and Mr. Ali said, “What?”
She shook her head and didn’t say anything.
Half an hour later, the verandah was completely empty. Once Leela had swept away the cobwebs and mopped the floor, Mr. and Mrs. Ali surveyed the space.
“Wow!” said Mrs. Ali. “I had forgotten how big this verandah is.”
“Let’s look at it from a client’s point of view,” Mr. Ali said.
He stepped outside into the front yard and closed the gate to the verandah. He waited a moment, then pushed the iron grille gate and stepped inside. He stood just inside the gate in one corner and pointed left. “Let’s put the table so that I will be sitting with my back to that wall and facing any customers walking in,” he said.
He then walked to that wall and stood with his back to it, facing the width of the house. “Okay,” he said. “I will sit here and the table will be in front of me. I will need a cabinet to hold the files and other stationery. Let’s use the wardrobe for that.”
Mrs. Ali nodded and said, “Let’s put the sofa against the front wall so clients can sit here and talk to you without shouting. We can put a couple of seats against the other two walls, so other clients can sit down as well.”
“All right, let’s do it,” he said.
They started moving the furniture from inside the house. The table and chairs were relatively easy to move, but the wooden wardrobe and the sofa proved much harder, especially at the doorstep between the living room and the verandah.
Mrs. Ali said, “We really shouldn’t be doing this at our age. Let me call Rehman. He will help us. After all, what are sons for, if not to help their parents in their old age?”
“No!” said Mr. Ali firmly. “I’ve already told you. I don’t want him here now. If he comes, we’ll just end up having an argument. I don’t want any fights today.”
Finally, all the furniture was in place. Mrs. Ali looked around, breathing heavily, and said, “I will put up curtains to cover all the grille-work, so you have privacy. Also, keep the door to the house closed as far as possible, so people sitting here cannot see inside.”
The next day, Mr. Ali sat on a chair in his new office and laid out the newspaper on the desk. He opened the paper to the matrimonial section. Sunday was the most popular day for this and it ran to one whole page of closely typed ads. Mr. Ali ran his finger from the top trying to find his ad. He could not afford a proper “display” advertisement, so he had paid for a classified advertisement. He had agonized over his ad many times to pare it down to the absolute minimum because the newspaper charged per word and he didn’t want to pay more than was necessary. He skipped over a “fair, slim, 22 years . . . ,” a “Christian Mala, 28 years old . . . ,” a “software engineer working in Bangalore . . . ,” and a “London settled doctor, caste no bar.”
He was more than three quarters of the way down the page before he found his own ad—“For widest choice among Hindu, Muslim, Christian Brides/Grooms, contact Ali’s Marriage Bureau for Rich People.”
Mr. Ali knew that he was exaggerating just a bit when he promised a wide choice. The biggest problem with a marriage bureau, he thought, is that the start is the most difficult time. If he had wanted to go into the restaurant business instead, he would have done up a place, hired some waiters, a cook or two, and opened with as big a dhoom-dhamaka as he could afford; people would come to try the food. The restaurant may not run in the longer term, but if the money and inclination were there, it would have been easy for Mr. Ali to open one. A marriage bureau is quite different. When the first client walked through the door and wanted to see suitable matches before parting with the fees, Mr. Ali would not have any matches to show the client. To get around this problem, he had decided not to put his address in the ad, and to run the business over the phone.
He felt proud to see his name in print. He took out a red ballpoint pen and circled his ad. He called out, “Wife, come and see this!”
“What is it now? How am I supposed to get any work done if you keep calling me like this?” Mrs. Ali said, coming out into the verandah.
Mr. Ali showed his wife the paper. She read the ad and smiled.
“Very nice,” she said, and then frowned suddenly. “There are so many ads in this paper. Will anybody notice ours?”
Mr. Ali had been having similar doubts, but he put on a brave front. “Of course they will!” he said.
Mrs. Ali went back into the house and Mr. Ali started reading the newspaper. He skimmed over the headlines: a terrorist incident in Kashmir, an interstate spat about the River Krishna’s waters, and a new shopping mall that was being planned in the grounds of the old Central Jail that had been moved out of the town. After folding the newspaper neatly, he rearranged the still-empty files.
An hour later, Mrs. Ali came out with two cups of tea and gave him one cup. Mr. Ali came out from behind his table and they both sat on the chairs by the verandah gate, sipping their tea and looking at the people and traffic on the road.
“Did anybody call?” Mrs. Ali asked.
“No. But it is still early.”
“Do you think anybody will ring?” said Mrs. Ali.
Just then the phone rang and Mr. Ali jumped up, grinning smugly at Mrs. Ali. He picked up the phone and said in his most professional voice, “Ali’s Marriage Bureau.”
“Salaam, bhai-jaan! How are you today? Did you get any customers yet?”
It was Mrs. Ali’s brother, Azhar. Mr. Ali’s voice dropped in disappointment. “Not yet,” he replied.
“I am thinking of going to the Pension Line Mosque for the afternoon prayers. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Why?” said Mr. Ali. “Today is not Friday.”
“Where does it say in the Quran that you should only go to the mosque on Fridays?” asked Azhar.
“No, thank you,” replied Mr. Ali, “I’m busy.”
He passed the phone to his wife.
The business took off slowly, as expected. A few people became members and Mr. Ali advertised on their behalf. He forwarded the replies to his members but also kept their details, and as the weeks passed, his files steadily grew.