"Maybe that's a price they're prepared to pay-not that I agree with them. I just think that people like your grand-dad, who came here from U.P. with nothing, and built a successful business, owe something to the state. The ones who have it all have to share some of it with the ones who have nothing. The people you call fanatics can only get others to listen because there's a grain of truth in what they say. People are angry. The ones who came here from outside and made their fortunes are getting the blame. It's going to get worse, my dear third brother-in-law, and I hate to think where it's going to end."
"What do you think, Lin?" Chandra Mehta asked me, appealing for support. "You speak Marathi. You live here. But you're an outsider. What do you think?"
"I learned to speak Marathi in a little village called Sunder," I said in answer. "The people there are native Marathi speakers. They don't speak Hindi well, and they don't speak English at all. They're pure, shudha Marathi speakers, and Maharashtra has been their home for at least two thousand years. Fifty generations have farmed the land there."
I paused to give someone else a chance to comment or query what I'd said. They were all eating, and listening intently. I continued.
"When I came back to Bombay with my guide, Prabaker, I went to live in the slum, where he and twenty-five thousand other people live. There were a lot of people like Prabaker there in that slum. They were Maharashtrians, from villages just like Sunder.
They lived in the kind of poverty where every meal cost them a crown of thorns in worry, and slaving work. I think it must break their hearts to see people from other parts of India living in fine homes while they wash in the gutters of their own capital city."
I took a few mouthfuls of food, waiting for a response from Mehta. After a few moments, he obliged.
"But, hey, Lin, come on, that's not all of it," he said. "There's a lot more to it than that."
"No, you're right. That's not all of it," I agreed. "They're not just Maharashtrians in that slum. They're Punjabis and Tamils and Karnatakans and Bengalis and Assamese and Kashmiris. And they're not just Hindus. They're Sikhs and Muslims and Christians and Buddhists and Parsis and Jains. The problems here are not just Maharashtrian problems. The poor, like the rich, are from every part of India. But the poor are far too many, and the rich are far too few."
"Arrey baap!" Chandra Mehta puffed. Holy father! "You sound like Cliff. He's a fuckin' communist. That's one of his raves, yaar."
"I'm not a communist, or a capitalist," I said, smiling. "I'm more of a
"Don't believe him," Lisa interjected. "When you're in trouble, he's the right man to call."
I looked at her. Our eyes held just long enough to feel good and guilty at the same time.
"Fanaticism is the opposite of love," I said, recalling one of Khaderbhai's lectures. "A wise man once told me-he's a Muslim, by the way-that he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Jew than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. In fact, he has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic from his own religion. I agree with him, and I feel the same way. I also agree with Winston Churchill, who once defined a fanatic as someone who won't change his mind and can't change the subject."
"And on that note," Lisa laughed, "let's change the subject. Come on, Cliff, I'm relying on you to give me all the gossip about the romance on the set of Kanoon. What's really going on there?"
"Yes! Yes!" Reeta cried out excitedly. "And all about the new girl. There's so much of scandal about her that I can't even say her name out loud, yaar. And everything, anything at all about Anil Kapoor! I just love him to pieces!"
"And Sanjay Dutt!" Geeta added, trembling dramatically at the mention of his name. "Is it true that you actually went to his party in Versova? Oh, my God! How I would love to be there! Tell us all about it!"
Encouraged by that febrile curiosity, Cliff De Souza spun out yarns about the Bollywood stars, and Chandra Mehta added titillating ruffles of gossip throughout. It became clear during the lunch that Cliff had an eye for Reeta, and Chandra Mehta directed much of his attention to Geeta. The long lunch was the beginning of a long day and night they'd planned to spend together. Warming to their themes, and with half their minds on the pleasures of the night to come, the movie men gradually shifted their gossip and anecdotes into the area of sex and sexual scandals. They were funny stories, sometimes straying into the bizarre. We were all laughing hard when Kavita Singh entered the restaurant. The laughter was still rippling through us as I introduced Kavita around the table.
