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His parents hailed from two blue blooded families and looked the part. The father was tall with pleasant features and a giveaway aquiline nose typical of his ancestors, who had built Bombay. The mother was graceful with high cheek bones, blue eyes and slightly cruel lips. Both were extremely fair complexioned. So were his elder sister and he. When the family travelled, in great style, to the French countryside or the principality of Monaco or the Black Forest region for the numerous vacations they enjoyed, it was impossible to distinguish them from Europeans. He learnt his table manners during Mediterranean cruises on fancy liners. A Rolls Royce dropped him to school and liveried waiters served roast lamb on vintage oak wood carved dining tables. His parents partied almost every evening, as a German governess tutored him at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then they packed him off to England to study at Harrow, the fourth most expensive boarding school for boys founded in 1572, with its motto — Donorum Dei Dispensatio Fidelis (the faithful dispensation of the gifts of God). Harrow was followed by Eton, the alma mater of British prime ministers and Nobel laureates (the apocryphal quote attributed to Wellington: "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”). The boy was as pucca British as they come.
His elder sister though had to remain in Bombay. One afternoon, when she was barely two, a huge door shut with a bang during the monsoon. The child, instead of being petrified, nonchalantly continued to play. It was soon discovered that she had zero hearing. Later, she would attend a special school in the USA, though there was no cure for her condition. While the parents were saddened, their party spirits were not diminished. Due to this, her brother was as good as an only child. Doted upon, pampered, spoilt silly. The lad had a natural flair for English and a talent for literary skills.
After the public schools, he managed admission to Oxford University. His father’s ship chandling business was booming, operating on auto pilot, leaving its owner with oodles of free time, to be spent on the ski slopes of Switzerland. The boy, despite his public school background, could not assimilate at Oxford. He also found the rigors of tutorials and long hours of reading dreadfully boring. "No problem, son!” the parents said, "in any event you don’t have to work for a single day if you do not wish to. Just enjoy life and be happy.” So he returned to India.
Rising at midday, the boy spent leisurely afternoons at the Willingdon Club, gorging on potato and ham salad, and sometimes swimming. He had inherited the good looks of his parents, was calm, charming and unruffled. Life passed in slow motion with not a worry in the world.
His sister got married to an American who was similarly disabled, never to return to India. One Xmas eve, his parents returned from a rambunctious party, slightly inebriated. Later, the servants returned from midnight mass at the local church. He was watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on video, then a banned film in India. His father suddenly lurched into the living room, clutching his chest, choked, and died.
The accountants informed the traumatized mother and son that there was no cash and much debt in the business. They were technically bankrupt. Apparently, the father was maintaining a facade of normalcy by funding their lavish lifestyle out of borrowings. Almost all assets had to be sold except the luxurious apartment in an iconic Carmichael Road building, where their immediate neighbor was the scion of a venerated Parsi family. An arrangement was reached with the insurers that the family could continue to occupy the apartment. Cars, drivers, ayahs, "boys,” mistarees (domestic help, cooks) all disappeared almost overnight. His mother, who had never scrambled an egg for the last three decades, had to cook their meals on a gas stove. Their aristocratic neighbors were terribly embarrassed with this island of poverty and deprivation which had overnight sprung up in their midst. Occasionally, they sent them a box of Belgian chocolates to salve their conscience, which the recipients greedily finished in one go.
Well-wishers arranged for the boy to be employed by a large advertising agency as an assistant copywriter on a monthly salary of Rs 33,000, enough to cover his taxi fare and cigarettes. His bosses realized that he had talent and could produce decent copy. A couple of his brainwaves resulted in increased sales of luxury soaps. However, he was ill at ease in the office. His colleagues came to work, travelling in packed-to-the brim local trains and ate veggies and roti out of plastic lunch boxes. The smell of cabbage and cauliflower nauseated him. His colleagues had never been on a cruise ship and knew nothing about Bordeaux. Surprisingly, they did not even know how to play the piano and seemed to be amused by his slightly guttural German accent. He thought and spoke so differently. A temperamental boss once screamed at him for some minor mistake. He never went back to work.
Being ship chandlers, they possessed an almost unending stock of liquor: unheard of single malts, rare wines and cartons of Caribbean rum and gin. No lender attached this asset. The magic potion was consumed, in large proportions by the son wanting to slip into oblivion. He was instantly transported onto a huge liner, royally sailing on blue waters, while he popped some caviar and white asparagus into his mouth. He slept late, but what was there to wake up to anyway?
At dusk, mother and son sat glumly looking at each other without uttering a word. Not even bothering to switch on the lights. Layers of dust gathered on the silent grand pianos and the many antiques. The silence broken only by the sound of water being poured into that glass of whiskey. They never reminisced or talked about Papa or lamented their state. If some kind relative or friend sent them food, they ate mechanically.
One such morose evening, the doorbell rang. A European gentleman, whom they vaguely knew, apologized for arriving without an appointment. He was Papa’s private banker from an Alpine region. The bank wanted to transfer Papa’s funds to them. A modest amount though. They wryly smiled at the banker.
Strangely, the infusion of money did not dispel the gloom. They were too much in love with their sadness. Maids were once again engaged and the pianos were dusted but remained silent. More whiskey was consumed. The medics say that the liver is a silent organ. One night, like his Papa, he had severe abdominal pain. An eminent physician examined him. Virtually no liver was left. Within weeks, life ebbed away. Late one Sunday evening, as the monsoon winds whistled ominously and the ocean looked particularly ugly, he smiled and asked his mother to kiss him one last time on the forehead. "What does Donorum Dei Dispensatio Fidelis mean, Mamma?” he asked in his delirium. She shook her handsome head.