Wish I Could Tell You Read online

  ‘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.

  Anusha Sardana

  There was no reception area at the bare-bones office of WeDonate. Just a desk where the disinterested guard made me write down my name, the time of visit and purpose.

  ‘Vishwas ji, I have been waiting for two hours now,’ I said to the guard who was glued to his phone.

  ‘Monday busy hota hai (Mondays are busy),’ he said.

  Vishwas ji didn’t look up from his phone. I’m sure if I were a man he would engage me in a conversation. He seemed the type who would look at the girls working at WeDonate and grumble inwardly about their presence outside their homes. Pretty sure he went back home and beat up his daughter or wife, or both.

  I thought of reporting his excessive phone usage during work hours to his security guard agency but assumed this behaviour was long-standing and tolerated.

  WeDonate.org managed to beat other crowdfunding companies and raise 250 crore and yet they couldn’t schedule an interview on time? I wouldn’t be surprised if Sarita Sharan is caught siphoning money two years from now. Why would an IIM Ahmedabad graduate with six years of consulting experience work here?

  When Mumma called I told her I was still waiting for the interview. She thought I was lying.

  ‘Did you get rejected?’ she queried.

  ‘No, not rejected yet. Arre? Why would I lie?’

  ‘You tell me why you would lie? How am I supposed to know that?’ she said.

  Mothers have a way of getting under your skin.

  ‘I will talk to you later,’ I said and disconnected the call.

  This was my fourth job interview that week. After every rejection Mumma would go on like a broken record asking me to do a post-graduation instead. When I would ask her where the money would come from, she would mutter incoherently about education loans. Who takes a loan to learn writing? What course can possibly teach someone to write?

  ‘Your Poonam chachi keeps telling me about prospective grooms. How long do you think I can hold them off?’ she would tell me.

  Poonam chachi, that pockmarked pig, would like nothing better than to get me—an only child—married, change my surname, forsake the house we lived in. Mumma never took my suggestions of checking Surinder chachu’s phone history seriously. If she had, she would find a viewing history of a multitude of jawaan devar–bhabhi (young brother-in-law–sister-in-law) sex videos.

  I waited for another two hours rehearsing for the interview before I was summoned in by Karunesh Talwar.

  ‘Hi!’ said Karunesh Talwar and thrust out his hand.

  When he shook my hand, it felt like I had dipped my hand in a tub of Vaseline. Karunesh Talwar was more nervous than I was. He looked the kind of awkward man-boy who shares fat girl memes, and prefers skinny, fair girls with big breasts. Do I have any proof? No. Do I still firmly believe in that? A 100 per cent. People are the worst.

  He walked oddly with his legs splayed apart—rashes from thighs rubbing together, I guessed.

  The cramped open-plan office had around thirty people sitting on long desks, eyes on their computer screens. There were a few boys prancing about in their shorts. The girls were better dressed but I’m sure these boys in shorts would harass them if they too came wearing shorts to office. It’s a universal truth—men are the fucking worst! Women are a close second.

  In my white shirt and a solid dark pair of jeans—I was more sharply dressed than anyone around me—I looked like I was there to take an interview, maybe audit their books, restructure their debts. My relatives often
told me my face didn’t match the rest of my body. I was big-boned like Baba, but my face was a mismatch. Sparrow-like and fleshy; Mumma told me I looked like Durga. Not the high-jawboned, fierce Durga of the northerners, but the soft, grandma-like, duskier Durga of eastern India.

  Karunesh led me to the interview room and kept turning back to check if I was following him.

  ‘There’s not much to get lost around here,’ I said.

  We took our seats in the allotted interview room. I remembered my mother’s words. At least pretend to like your interviewer.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘So, you’re Anusha Sardana.’

  I smiled as widely as my cheeks allowed me. ‘Good morning, and yes, as it says on the résumé.’

  ‘You know what we do here at WeDonate?’

  ‘It’s a crowdfunding company. WeDonate collects money for people who can’t afford certain things—medical emergencies, indie film projects, college start-ups and the like. Last year you raised 250 crores and beat out the competition by a margin.’

  ‘Hmmm. What made you apply here?’ he said, squinting at his phone. For someone who had prepared for the interview I found his questions quite basic.

  ‘I want to be a writer,’ I said. ‘And being in the entertainment vertical will help me be a better writer.’

  ‘What do you want to write?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe medium is irrelevant. Books, scripts, plays, they are all interchangeable if the story and the characters are in place. I just like to write, be it anything.’

  ‘They say the best way to learn writing is to just start writing. Why haven’t you started doing that till now?’ he asked as if he had himself been awarded critical acclaim for what he had written. At best, what WeDonate has produced till now is average.

  ‘I have tried more times than I can remember. I will go back home and write about this interaction too, how my day went, etc., just to practice. But I don’t have an interesting character to write about yet. I figured I need to live a little more, see a little more, experience a little more. And while I do that, I need to learn the craft of writing.’

  ‘Why didn’t you join a film school then?’ asked Karunesh.

  ‘I don’t have the money,’ I said.

  Karunesh Talwar, the head of the entertainment division, kept asking hackneyed, obvious questions and swiftly ran out of even those. So much for being creative, eh?

  The interview went infinitely better than the ones I had given earlier at publishing houses, newspapers and streaming platforms.

  When Karunesh was done with his questions, Ganesh Acharya from HR joined us. He introduced himself, sat right across from me and did what HR people do best, indulge in split-second judgements. Like every HR person, he exuded a false confidence. I guess it helps them hold on to the delusion that their jobs are important.

  He looked at my résumé, squinting and grimacing and smiling, trying to throw me off my game. I would wrap up this life, move to the hills the day I let an HR person outsmart me.

  Ganesh made a dramatic gesture of keeping my CV to the side and said, ‘Tell me about yourself? Something that’s not on the CV. I have read of all this.’

  I could see the pointlessness of this question reflect even on Karunesh’s face. Ganesh was asking to be screwed with.

  I lowered my voice and said, ‘Ganesh, I thought you would never ask. But since we will work together, if we work together, and since WeDonate touts itself more as a family and less as a corporate, I should probably share with you what I wouldn’t in any other interview.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Ganesh.

  ‘Ganesh, my father’s dead. He’s been dead for seven years now. My mother and I haven’t quite gotten over it. If you ever come to our house, you will feel like he never left. Of course, we don’t talk about his departure, or the big hole he left in our lives. We just let it be. Like he was a guest who had to leave sooner than later. We have left it at that. What will we talk about anyway? It’s done. We should get over it. What do you suggest we should do about it? Don’t tell me we should visit a therapist. We can’t afford one. Especially now that their rates have ballooned no thanks to everyone advertising on Instagram that they are going to a therapist. Life’s strange, isn’t it, Ganesh?’

  I watched Ganesh’s Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat.

  ‘I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that. Do you have any more questions?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Ganesh. ‘Do you have any questions that you have for me?’

  ‘I just wanted to know if ethnic wear is allowed on Fridays,’ I asked.

  On my way out, Vishwas ji was sleeping.

  I was jostling for space with annoying little shits in the bus when they called to tell me that I had been selected and would be needed in office the next week. I was over the fucking moon! In my happiness I even gave up my seat to an old man who was pretending to be more tired than he was. I regretted it immediately when he stared at every woman who entered the bus. Why do I give them the chance to disappoint?

  It was a big day.

  At night, to celebrate, Mumma and I ordered Chinese. We put out a plate for Baba. The chowmein on his plate swam in soya sauce and chilli vinegar. Just like Baba used to like it. Years of smoking had numbed his taste buds. We watched Arjun Reddy on cable TV. Baba loved the sharp cuts and rapid-fire machine-gun storytelling of Telegu movies. He didn’t understand the language and often watched the movies on mute. Looking back, it seemed like his life was a reflection of those movies—concentrated moments of happiness, anger, work and love, and an abrupt departure.

  *

  I could barely sleep the entire week. I spent my waking hours watching and re-watching every documentary, music video and short movie WeDonate had made in the past couple of years. When the day came, I was one of the first ones at work. I went straight to Nikhat Shaikh and Nimesh Arora to pick up my office laptop.

  Nikhat and Nimesh were amongst those handful of fools—including Karunesh who’s a bigger fool given that he was an IITian—who had given up better jobs to be at WeDonate. All for the greater good.

  ‘You’re giving me this?’ I held up the Lenovo ThinkPad Nikhat handed over to me, heavy as a boulder, with a design aesthetic of a brick. ‘Is there a password or do I need to sacrifice a lamb on this slab?’

  Then I pretended to drop the ancient sundial they called a laptop. The faces they made. Classic!

  ‘ANUSHA!’

  ‘Behind you,’ said Nimesh.

  ‘That’s Sarita Sharan,’ said Nikhat.

  Sarita Sharan—standing tall over the troops she commanded—was calling me from the other side of the office. I had seen every one of her interviews. She was composed and sharp; the interviewer was the one usually fawning and bumbling. She looked older in person, more intimidating and very attractive. I felt a growing need to impress her, to be friends with her, to go to her house and cook her dinner, be in her good books, call her to my wedding, make sure the paneer’s soft for her. I hated to admit it, but I liked her. I still harboured suspicions that she siphoned money from the donations, of course.

  ‘IN MY CABIN,’ said Sarita.

  I followed her into her cabin which was a mouse hole for someone built like her. At 5’6” I was used to being taller than the average girl around me, but sitting across the table from her, she towered over me. When she rested her elbows on the desk, the veins in her forearms snaked like an intricate, unplanned roadmap. I could make out in incredible detail the place where her shoulder muscle ended, and her biceps began. A stern smile rested on her face, a striking resemblance to the Night King.

  ‘I have some great ideas, Sarita. I was looking through all the filmmakers’ works and I was thinking—’

  Sarita spoke as if I wasn’t in the middle of my sentence.

  ‘You’re in the medical emergencies team. I have mailed you the guidelines and cases where we have registered impact. Go through them as soon as possible. I will find you someone to wor
k with. You have to hit the ground running, there’s no time to waste,’ she said.

  What.

  ‘I’m here to work in entertainment. I will be a bad fit in medical.’

  ‘What made you reach that conclusion?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not that type.’

  What I really wanted to say was that when I saw their medical campaigns I could only think of fraud. Twelve-year-old girl whose parents don’t have a single rupee left needed Rs 15 lakh for a liver transplant. Are you sure about that? Maybe they do have a little tucked away in bank lockers? Where’s the wedding jewellery? What if they are trying to cover this expense through donations while they have the money?

  That’s how I looked at the world. That boy in the school uniform in the metro? Pretty sure he stole money from his father and sniffed glue. The auto driver? Definitely rapes his wife every night. The boy who I shared the lift with to WeDonate? Well, he could damn well be cheating on his fiancé. That’s how I saw the world, and in all likelihood that’s how the world was.

  ‘Anusha? I’m free the entire day to talk to you about how you think I should do my job,’ Sarita said, looking into her computer.

  ‘Sarita.’

  ‘Great, then. Ganesh told me about your father, so you know a good deal about loss,’ she said. ‘So here’s what we do in the medical vertical. We vet the stories of patients, check the estimated costs with the hospitals and then the writers write out the stories. We check the urgency with the hospitals, talk to the doctors and then fast track them. The urgent ones get promoted on our social media channels. Most of our donors are the ones who have donated before. The stories need to be written in a way that even if it doesn’t make someone part with their money it will make them share the stories on their profiles,’ she droned. ‘What you need to do right now is to edit them and iron out the mistakes. We are all looking forward to your contribution here.’

  ‘Sarita, anyone can write these stories. I’m a writer and I think—’

  Sarita squinted her eyes and my words dried up.

  She said with pursed lips, ‘I started here as a writer for the medical team, so when you say “anyone” you’re talking about me, Anusha. I have saved more lives here than I would have in a hospital. So don’t tell me this is a talentless job. Now get out of the cabin and do the job you have been assigned to.’