Free The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran Page B

uninteresting; an outing that would not register on his wife’s sensitive social radar. “With Vinayak …”
    “Vinayak Agarwal?” she asked, looking up from her magazine. “Will his wife be there?”
    “No … he wants my help …”—he aimed for vague and boring—“on some engineering matter.”
    As he hoped, she immediately lost interest.
    Unfortunately, Vinayak, like Vidya, had his own set of socializing concerns; he wanted to meet at the new pub that was the latest in latest things. It would be noisy and crowded, not conducive to the kind of discussion Anand had in mind, but he did want Vinayak’s help and could not quibble.
    The Latest Latest Bar was located in the ELIPT Mall—its name was supposedly an acronym for the names of the four brothers who built the mall, but a local wag had immediately expanded it to Extremely Luxurious but In Poor Taste, an opinion that Anand found difficult to disagree with. Shiny escalators swooped upward in a space seemingly imported from shrieking Dubai; an amazement of gilt and a fresco-covered ceiling in a mock-up of the Sistine Chapel: Man reaching upward, milky-eyed with greed, the Creator’s hand holding out not the promise of life at the tip of a finger but, Santa Claus–like, a gift wrapped in paper and ribbons, the angels clustered behind him carrying the urgent promise of more: handbags, perfume bottles, designer-labeled shopping bags. Let there be Lights—and an explosion of spending.
    Anand was the first to reach the bar, submitting to the lazy security check and fighting his way to a corner of the bar counter.He ordered his beer and sorrowfully contemplated the bowl of olives that accompanied it. What, ultimately, was the magic of the olive that allowed it to flourish at the expense of other condiments; that took it from being a local fruit in a regional cuisine—probably once plucked and eaten by sweat-streaked, tree-climbing schoolboys in Italy before angry farmers could chase them away, much as he had raided nellikayi gooseberry trees in Mysore, dipping the spoils in salt and chili powder for a stolen after-school treat—and raised it to the status of an internationally hallowed bar food? He ate one: salty, squashy, cold, and green.
    “Want to order some snacks, sir?” The bartender was dressed, like the other bar employees, in a white shirt, black pants, and red Converse shoes. SELVADURAI , his name badge said. Anand shook his head and noticed with relief the large figure lumbering in.
    Vinayak levered his bulk with effort onto the barstool next to Anand. “Shit! These things are damn uncomfortable.” He placed an olive in his mouth and looked around, but all the tables were occupied. “Whiskey please, yes, that Aberlour is fine, and some paneer tikkas and masala nuts … What do you mean, no masala nuts. No tikkas also? Let me see that menu…. Okay, fine, bruschetta and, yeah, grilled mushrooms. Okay with you, Anand?” Anand nodded; he didn’t actually care. Vinayak was a strict vegetarian, having apparently attained his size on ghee and dal-bhatti alone. Food and drink ordered, Vinayak relaxed and inspected the other people in the bar. He waved at someone at a distant table. “See that guy? He got that large government order apparently by providing whores to the minister involved. What a pimp job, yaar …” Like his namesake, Ganesha, Vinayak was gifted with a potbelly, a penchant for prosperity, the cunning to market a stroll around his parentsinto a world odyssey, and a long, trunk-like nose perfect for poking into everyone else’s affairs. “Are we seeing you at Chetty’s party this weekend?”
    “Yeah,” said Anand. “I suppose so.”
    “Lucky bastard, Chetty, he sleeps around and his wife celebrates by throwing parties.”
    “Ey, regarding that land broker you were mentioning,” said Anand, refusing to be sidetracked by Vinayak’s bits of heated gossip.
    “Right,” said Vinayak, agreeably. “So you are planning some