chapter 1🌈

'Everyone dresses up for the first day of work, beta,' says Papa.

'You will look good, Ananth. At least wear it once and see for yourself.

Just once? For us?' says Maa, dangling a blazer in front of me.

'You made me wear a frock, said I would look good and took me to

Chachu's wedding. I can't trust your word now, can I?' I grumble.

'You were three,' says Papa. 'And you looked so cute, beta.'

'He looked like a pretty girl,' says Maa.

Papa looks at Maa and both their eyes glaze over. They smile and get lost

in the memories of me as a child. My growing up has been hard on them. If

they could, they would choose the three-year-old in a white frock over the

twenty-three-year-old they are struggling to get into a blazer.

'We should get the album out,' says Papa.

'If I see that album once more, I will burn it!' I tell Papa, who is a

nostalgia addict, an obsessive recorder and revisit-er of the past, and he stays

put. 'Give me the receipt, I will return the blazer on the way back.'

'I lost it,' says Papa.

'Your papa got it with so much love. Wear it once?' says Maa.

'It's unnecessary. And who asked you get it from Zara?'

Papa gives in and fishes out the receipt from the file he maintains of the

quarterly expenses. I knew he hadn't lost the receipt. There's a file for every

quarter of our lives. Despite certain sections of our house looking like a

government office with tall stacks of files held together by strings gathering dust and cobwebs, sometimes it's exciting to see receipts from grocers,

cablewallahs, and other regular expenses from the eighties and the nineties.

Every paisa we have spent over those decades has been recorded in those

files. The ink is fading from most, so every weekend Papa and I click pictures

and upload them to Google Photos.

'Are you sure, beta, that you want to return it?' asks Maa.

'Papa's not getting paid for the overtime he is putting in for the past three

months and he's behaving like a child,' I say.

'Fine, fine, I won't spend,' relents Papa.

'If you do feel like spending, buy a new briefcase. Yours is tattered and

torn,' I tell him.

'And throw away this lucky briefcase?'

Papa has been a junior engineer in the municipality for the last thirty-three

years. The briefcase is the opposite of lucky.

For a second, I wonder what Mohini would think of me in a blazer. She

would probably think it's stupid too. I brush away the idea.

Maa serves me a big helping of curd and sugar and doesn't rest till I have

scraped the bowl clean. We leave for the Vishnu Mandir after that.

At the neighbourhood temple, Maa–Papa are the only ones chanting out

aloud, making a spectacle of their devotion to Vishnu. Papa, 5'4" and Maa,

5'1", take very little space in the world. They let people get ahead in the long

queue to the water tank. They talk so softly that one can barely hear them.

They sit through the extended lunch hours at the government bank without

complaining. But here—in this little neighbourhood temple—they walk

around with furrowed eyebrows, arched backs, angry grimaces, like titans,

like the moody gods from the Vedas.

Maa–Papa's chants are louder, more fervent than the resident pundit's,

who looks around, embarrassed, as if caught in his subterfuge. He tries to

match my parents' shraddha, devotion, and falls short every time. The

quieter devotees stare at my parents' synchronized chanting, impressed. The

bells toll urgently in the background, as if swung by the strength of their

hymns.

'You are named "Ananth" after the serpent Lord Vishnu rests on,' Maa

tells me like every time.

And like every time I watch them here, I imagine an enormous serpent

irritably stirred out of sleep, coiling and uncoiling around the earth, by the

alarm-clock like hymns of my parents.

Papa puts a tika on my head, closes his eyes and says, 'May you be the

best member the medical team at WeDonate has ever had.'

'Did you thank Mohini in your prayers? She's why you got this job,' says

Maa, thrusting prasad into my palms.

'She's the only reason?' I ask, faking anger.

'I . . .'

I laugh. 'I'm joking, Maa. Of course, I did. Did you think I wouldn't?'

When they leave the temple, Maa–Papa return to their natural,

unintimidating selves, burdened with taxes and everyday struggles like

potholes, spoilt milk and moulded bread. Papa pulls his trousers right up to

his navel because that's where he thinks they should rest. Maa pulls the saree

over her head because the sun's too bright. They both accompany me to the

bus stop, struggling to keep up with me with their short steps. At 5'10", I'm a

giant to them; but they don't forget to remind me how un-cuddle-able I'm

now.

'You don't need to come,' I tell them.

They chide me, say I'm careless, that I will trip and come under the wheels

of the bus. That shuts me up.

There are other children with their parents at the bus stop too. None of

them are over thirteen.

The chartered bus turns around the corner. Maa slams her hand on the side

of the bus till it comes to a complete stop.

'I will call the police if you drive an inch before everyone boards,' she

uncharacteristically threatens the bus driver who had done nothing wrong.

She makes sure I'm the first to get on.

If there's one thing she hates more than bus and truck drivers, all of them

murderers in Maa's eyes, it was Papa's scooter. It was the only topic they

argued about. For ten years, Maa had asked Papa to stop driving the scooter and take a bus instead. But he wouldn't budge. He loved his two-stroke grey

scooter.

The day I turned eighteen and expressed the desire to drive it to college,

Maa—who didn't know how to drive a scooter—dragged it for miles and left

it to rot under a flyover. We didn't find the scooter for years after that. She

threatened to leave the house if either Papa or I even talked about it. Later

when we needed the money, she led Papa to the scooter. It was hidden but

clean and well-maintained. She used to wash it twice every week. Maa–Papa

still share a good relationship with the ones they sold the scooter to. They live

two colonies away from us and Papa drives it sometimes on Sundays.

'Sit behind the driver,' she shouts. 'That's the safest seat in the bus.'

Papa adds, 'Don't throw away the ticket.'

'And don't do tukur tukur on your phone too much. Concentrate or else

you will miss your stop,' says Maa.

They wait at the bus stop till the bus drives away. A few children on the

bus giggle as I take the seat Maa–Papa asked me to. The middle-aged woman

sitting there shifts to make space for me.

As the bus turns around the corner, Maa calls me and starts to sob. She

tells me it was just yesterday that it was my first day at school. 'How awfully

you cried and how heartlessly we pushed you inside the gates of the school!

And look at you now, you're happy to leave us behind,' says Maa.

'I will be back by 6 p.m.,' I say.

'Go now, do your job,' says Maa, angrily.

'Dream job, my foot,' says Papa.

'Papa—'

The call's cut.

'Parents, eh?' says the woman sitting next to me. 'I have a thirteen-year-

old and he makes the same face you just did.'

'I'm twenty-three. They need to learn to spend a little time without me,' I

say.

'First day?' she asks.

I nod.

When I'd told my parents about WeDonate's joining date, their faces had

fallen. In another family, that might have been a reason for celebration—not

in mine.

My restraint gives away after ten minutes and I send a group text 'will

miss you'. And like petulant teenagers, they read my message and don't

reply.

Google Maps shows the office is another forty minutes away. I will have to

eventually find the right combination of metro and chartered buses to

minimize travel time.

I type WeDonate.org in the address bar on my phone. I read up on all the

medical campaigns they are running on their website. I take notes on how the

stories can be told better. I share the stories on all my social media profiles,

urging people to donate for the medical procedures of people who can't

afford it. When I'm done, I update my LinkedIn profile: Ananth Khatri,

Campaign Manager, Medical Team, WeDonate. I met most of the team on

the day of my interview, so I send them friend requests.

Helmed by Sarita Sharan, WeDonate was one of the first crowdfunding

platforms in India. The concept was too simple for it to not exist. People who

need money—for medical purposes, for college projects, for creative

enterprises—sourcing money from everyday people. An online version of

chanda ikkhatha karna, collecting donations.

The woman sitting next to me—she works in the HR department of a call

centre—is intrigued when I tell her about the organization I'm joining and

wants to know more.

'Two weeks ago, they had a case, that of a twelve-year-old girl who

needed 15 lakh for a kidney transplant. So someone from the medical team

wrote her story and the campaign went live. People shared and re-shared it on

social media, thousands of donors read the story, took note and contributed,' I

tell her. 'There were young people in colleges and schools parting with

pocket money for a girl they didn't know and will never meet.'

'Anyone can contribute?'

'Yes, not only that. If you can't contribute, just share the story with others

on social media. It might reach someone who can. The girls' parents got the money in ten days. Can you imagine? Everyone who gave a little was a

hero!'

'And you're joining this team?' she asks.

'Absolutely, bang in the middle of all the action, like in a whirlpool of

good karma. Matching people who need money the most to these heroes.'

She takes my number before alighting at her stop and wishes me luck. I

might have made my first office-commute friend.

*****

WeDonate is on the fifth floor of an old building in Paschim Vihar. It's an

unlikely place for a start-up. Sarita Sharan, the pied piper of the

crowdfunding industry, wanted to keep the costs down and pump every

available resource into scaling the business.

Vishwas ji, at the guard's post, looks up from his cell phone and waves at

me as I walk out of the elevator.

'Stud lag rahe ho (you're looking like a stud),' he says.

'Aap se kam (less than you),' I answer.

Vishwas ji smiles. He would have been quite a stud, middle-aged no doubt,

with his bright smiling eyes and the dimpled cheeks had his teeth not rotted

with gutkha. But I don't tell him that.

Last week, Vishwas ji chatted me up when I was waiting for my interview.

He told me how WeDonate had crowdfunded 5 lakh for his daughter's

engineering studies when he had given all up as lost; she's now in second

year, mechanical engineering. We shared my lunch after the interview.

'Did you get the books I couriered?' I ask.

'Haan ji. My daughter told me there are notes on the margin too—that's

really helpful.'

'If she needs anything else, will you tell me?'

'Of course,' says Vishwas ji. 'Aur bhabhiji kaisi hai (how is the sister-in-

law)?'

I tell him she's fine. Mohini and I aren't married but I don't correct him.

Girlfriend kaisi hai wouldn't have the same ring to it.

Twenty pairs of eyes look up from the laptops and phone screens, flash the

briefest of smiles, synchronized more tightly than the Olympic swimming

teams, and get back to work. The medical team sits in a far corner of the

room. That's where I will be sitting from today. My hands are clammy from

nervousness.

Nimesh Arora from IT is scratching his head, making dandruff flecks rain

on his keyboard when I find him.

'Don't mind him,' says Nikhat Shaikh.

'Been there, done that,' I say and Nimesh flashes me a thumbs-up.

I had mistaken Nimesh and Nikhat for siblings. They are dating—I found

out when Karunesh had made me meet the team after my interview. Nikhat

and Nimesh are older than I am, but with their small round faces, big,

surprised eyes, turtle shell eye glasses perched a centimetre too low on their

tiny noses, and big ears jutting out from their faces, they look childlike. The

only difference between the two is that Nimesh towers over Nikhat. At 6'4"

he's the tallest boy I have ever met, while Nikhat is diminutive at 5'1".

These two—graduates from NIT Surathkal—are amongst the dozens of

employees who had responded to Sarita Sharan's call for applications to join

WeDonate, and make a real difference.

Nikhat makes me sign a form and hands me my work laptop. Nimesh and

Nikhat handle the back-end of the website. Legend has it that they haven't

left the office in two years.

I feel the weight of the ThinkPad in my hands.

'Always wanted to have one of these. This one has a great keyboard,' I

say.

'Finally, someone recognizes that!' says Nimesh and looks up. Both their

specky eyes light up.

'They do, Ananth, they do,' says Nikhat.

'I have to tell you guys this. You two look great together. You guys are

custom built for each other—just revoltingly, unbelievably cute,' I say.

They smile and retreat shyly into their shells. I want to keep them in a little

glass box in my house.

'Go see Sarita first. She's expecting you. It's regarding your department.

There has been some change,' says Nimesh.

'You and Mohini look great too,' says Nikhat as I'm leaving.

It is my turn to smile shyly.

*****

Sarita Sharan's laughably small cabin is a mess. There are papers and boxes

of her protein supplement, Glutamine, BCAAs strewn all over, and there's a

strong stench of cheap perfume. She doesn't look up when I enter her cabin.

'I'm glad to be here. Thank you for giving—'

Sarita cuts me with a smile. 'I'm assuming Nimesh and Nikhat have

already set you up with the laptop. I know you wanted to be a part of the

medical team but as it turns out, the management feels it's best if you start off

with something lighter.'

'Lighter?' I ask.

'I am putting you under someone from the entertainment division. You

will be trying to get music albums and movies funded . . . that sort of thing.

Karunesh will tell you more. It's our fastest growing vertical.'

The words don't register; this is unacceptable.

'It will be a good start for you,' she says.

'But Sarita, I was told—'

'It's what the company has decided,' she says.

'Can you please put me in medical? There's nothing more I have wanted

—'

'The decision is final. You can talk to HR but I don't think that will help,'

she says and gets up.

She thrusts her hand out and I see no option but to shake it. As my hand

disappears into hers, my metacarpal bones crumble to dust.

'Best of luck,' she says.

'Thanks.'

The finality and the tenor in her voice, the broadness of her shoulders, keep

me from saying anything more. By the time I reach my desk, my new mail ID already has a bunch of Excel sheets with the list of all the entertainment-

related, successful and unsuccessful, crowdfunding projects. I feel nauseous;

this is a mistake.

When I find Karunesh who heads my team, he has industrial strength

headphones covering his ears and is bobbing his head to someone's demo.

Some say he rejected an offer from Google to work here.

'Hey?'

'Hey! Welcome to the team,' Karunesh says brightly.

'I watched the last one you produced. It was phenomenal. I loved it!' I lie.

I haven't seen what he's made, but creative people lap up any

encouragement. He's smiling like a labrador after lunch, glowing like the

sun. He seems like a nice guy.

'So now we can—'

I cut him.

'About that, Karunesh. I wanted to be in the medical team so if you can

talk to Sarita and make that happen, it would be great.'

It takes a few seconds for him to register what I have said.

'Ummm . . . Ananth, that's either her or the HR's decision, not mine. And

don't worry, you will be fine!' he says. 'Look, why don't you start off by

watching a few things we have done in the past. Maybe you will warm up to

it?'

I realize the futility of the conversation. I turn and go back to my seat.

With every music video, with every short film that I watch produced on

crowdfunded money by WeDonate, it becomes clearer to me that this

division should shut down. The money for these projects should be diverted

to people who really need it; the entire team should be dissolved.

Why are people paying to get these made? Just last month WeDonate had

collected 1 crore for entertainment projects and it was the second fastest

rising category in crowdfunding.

I drop in a mail to Ganesh Acharya in HR for a meeting. He doesn't reply

till the evening when it is time for me to leave the office.

Once home, Maa notices my sour mood. Maa–Papa sit me down for one of

our family discussions. It started when my father read a self-help book a few years ago written by a Western writer. It said that a family should sit and talk,

peeling off the layers of the problem to its bare bones to solve an issue. It's

not the Indian way. We do not discuss issues but let them build up over years,

over decades, take it to our deathbeds, even.

They grill me till I spill everything.

In a bid to be fatherly, Papa tries to relate his own experience to mine.

'It's like when Sharma ji wanted the Shalimar Bagh road to be repaired,

but Mandal bhai sahab wanted the funds to get more machines to replace

manual scavenging.'

'More or less,' I say.

'Sharma ji had a lot of support. He lives in AP Block. You should see the

road in front of his house,' he says.

It's not the sixth standard. Maa–Papa don't have to revise reverse-angle-

bisector-theorem just because I have an exam, and yet they spend the entire

night watching the short movies and the videos WeDonate has helped make.

Through the paper-thin wall I can hear them in the living room, watching and

discussing every video. It's not a wall really. It's an MDF board erected in

the middle of the room to make a one-room kitchen into a one-bedroom

house. Our landlord—Jasveen Makhija—on her monthly inspections calls the

house a one-bedroom apartment to justify the higher rent she charges. She

lives in Chandigarh and comes every month to shop at Emporio and collect

the rent from six of her houses in Delhi.

Every month after paying the rent, Papa talks like he has savings, a fat PPF

somewhere, an LIC policy about to mature, and talks about moving from this

rented house.

'The plots in Najafgarh are cheap,' he says.

Papa—the youngest of four siblings—who had been swindled out of his

ancestral property, of his office lunches by colleagues, of his scooter by his

own wife, is a perfect target for conmen. Sometimes, he comes home with

brochures of infrastructure projects in Greater Noida. 'It says the handover is

in 2025 but I'm sure we will get the possession earlier,' he says.

Maa and I let him indulge in these fantasies. At his age, we couldn't have

rewired him to think differently.

But Maa and I know we are not leaving this house in a hurry. Anyway, I

like it here. I like sleeping to the murmurs of their voices. I like knowing

what Maa's cooking seconds after the oil starts to splutter. I like that I can

give Papa a handkerchief within the minute of his first sneeze. It's the house

where Mohini and I started our relationship. Where she met me and my

parents for the first time. How can it be someone else's?

This isn't Jasveen Makhija's house, it's ours.

'The movies are bad,' Maa says in the morning.

'You were right,' says Papa.

'I'm talking to Ganesh from HR. He has said he might be able to help me

out.'

I take my bag and turn to leave.

'Where do you think you're going?' asks Maa.

'We are coming to the metro station with you,' says Papa.

____________