As he was sweeping the floor of the gym, the rope at the handle of the whisk broom that fastened the bristles together began to unravel. He was almost done, working on the cramped corridor between the bathroom and storeroom where hardly anyone went. But now he couldn’t finish his work properly. Annoyed, Ramnivas banged the butt of the broom against the wall to try and right the bristles. What was that? Sensing something strange, he again banged it against the wall. This time he was sure. Instead of the hard thud of a thick wall, he heard something like an echo. It was hollow, a fast layer of plaster had been applied to it. But what could be behind it? Ramnivas wondered. A table and chairs and a couple of burlap sacks stood between him and the wall. Ramnivas moved them to make space. Then he hammered the butt of the broom into the wall, hard.
It was just as he suspected: A few cracks began to show in the plaster, which soon crumbled away, exposing the inside. Ramnivas peeked in through the hole he’d opened, and his breath stopped short. He went numb. Holy cow! The wall was filled with cash, stacks and stacks of hundreds and five-hundreds.
He drew his face flush with the hole and took a good look.
The hollow was pretty big, a long tunnel carved out on the inside of the wall. Nothing but stacks of cash as far as he could see, all the way on either side until the light failed and the money was lost in the dark. Ramnivas’s heart raced. He kept glancing around to see if anyone was there.
There was no one, only him. Before him stood the wall in the big gym, at A-11/DX 33, Saket, against which he’d banged his broom and opened up a hidden cache of bills.
“Dirty money... dirty money... dirty, dirty, dirty!” came the words, like a voice whispering into his ear. His hair stood on end.
Ramnivas didn’t move for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do. Finally, he grabbed his bag from the table in the corner and, peering around to make sure there wasn’t anyone watching, took two stacks of five-hundred-rupee bills and stuffed them in his bag. Then he grabbed one of the burlap sacks and placed it in front of the wall to cover up the hole along with the table and chairs. He hoped no one would suspect anything in this forgotten corner of the gym.
It was only 11:30, and Ramnivas still had the better part of his cleaning rounds to finish. Instead, he went right to the office, hung up his broom, and said that he had received a phone call alerting him that his wife had taken a turn for the worse. He needed to go home right away.
Each stack of cash contained ten thousand rupees, meaning that Ramnivas had twenty thousand. He’d never seen this much cash in his life and was so scared that he rolled up his little bag and shoved it down his pants for the bus trip. If any of his fellow passengers had taken a good look at him, they would have instantly realized this was a man in a state of high anxiety.
Ramnivas took a rickshaw from the bus stop to Sanjay’s. He found Sushma joking around with the scooter mechanic, Santosh. This upset Ramnivas, but what really unnerved him was when Sushma said, “Enjoying a rickshaw ride today? Did you knock over a bank or something?” But then she added, “You said you were coming at 2:00, and it’s not even 1:00. How did you get out so early?”
Ramnivas laughed; maybe it was seeing Sushma. He relaxed, his worries slipping away.
“I ran as fast as I could!” Ramnivas said, looking at Sushma and chuckling. She too began to laugh. “Can I buy you guys a cup of chai?” Ramnivas then asked, turning to Sanjay and Santosh.
“What’s the special occasion? Did you get overtime?” Santosh replied, taken aback.
Sushma was also startled, since Ramnivas was known for being such a penny pincher. She never liked the way he’d come around Sanjay’s and try every trick in the book to convince someone to buy him a cup of chai. This day, however, Ramnivas didn’t just include Sanjay and Santosh in the round of chai, but also Devi Deen and Madan. And not just plain old chai, but the deluxe stuff — strong, with cardamom.
Sushma protested — why throw money down the drain like that? — but Ramnivas didn’t listen. He hired an autorick-shaw for the rest of the day and took Sushma on a whirlwind tour of the city. He fed her chaat-papri, splurged on bottles of Pepsi, bought her a handbag in Karol Bagh, and a five-hundred-rupee salwar outfit with matching chunni from Kolhapur Road in Kamala Nagar. Sushma felt indescribable happiness each time she touched, or even looked at, Ramnivas. The sad and worried little Ramnivas of yesterday (on many occasions Sushma had thought, Enough is enough) had suddenly blossomed into an uncannily happy, Technicolor lover. Though his hair was unkempt, his stubble getting scraggly, and his bidi breath hard to take, whenever Ramnivas kissed Sushma in the little backseat of the rickshaw, for some unexplainable reason, she felt as if she were rolling around on a bed of flowers.
There’s no way Sushma could have known what accounted for Ramnivas’s surprising turnaround. She knew this much:
She’d done well by showing up at the bus stand that Tuesday morning, after having spent the whole night thinking, Do I show up? Do I not show up? It turned out she’d made the right decision. There is someone out there in the world who loves me!
Sushma thought, overflowing with joy. Even after Ramnivas had gotten her pregnant and then paid for her abortion at the Mittal Clinic in Naharpur, she’d remember the whirlwind trip that day two years before in the autorickshaw.
The roots of happiness lie hidden in money. From there, a tree of pleasure can grow, and flourish, and bear the fruit of joy. Maybe the best qualities of men, too, lie locked inside a bundle of cash — this is how Ramnivas began to think. He was a new man: Everything had changed. Life at home had also improved substantially. First, his wife Babiya seemed content all the time, and now cooked the most delicious food.
They could afford to eat meat at least twice a week and eggs every day. The kids asked for ice cream, and the kids got ice cream. If a guest came knocking, Babiya would bring out the good stuff: Haldiram’s namkeen snacks and Britannia biscuits.
Ramnivas bought a sofa, a TV, a VCR, a double bed, a fridge, and a foreign-made CD player from Palika Baazar, and announced that it was only a matter of time before he bought a computer for the kids. He said everyone knew that there was no getting ahead without one. He planned to get them computer courses and then send them both to the States, where they’d make six-figure salaries.
Ramnivas’s relatives, who’d always steered clear of him, suddenly started showing up at his place with whole families in tow. His stock within his own caste community was on the rise, and he was often approached for advice about matrimonial alliances between families. He got all sorts of letters and wedding invitations. If he felt like it, he’d go. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t. But when he did — what a welcome he got!
Meanwhile, Ramnivas had begun drinking every day, and his liaisons with Sushma also became a daily occurrence. By then, Babiya knew all about the affair but had decided to keep her mouth shut. She knew enough about the kind of man Ramnivas was to feel confident he’d never leave her or the kids.
Sometimes Ramnivas wouldn’t come home until well after midnight. Sometimes he’d disappear for a few days — sometimes with Sushma, who now owned several salwar out-fits, complete with matching sandals and jewelry sets. She used to go toe-to-toe with Ramnivas no matter how small the squabble, but now, fearing he might get angry, Sushma silently put up with more and more. On several occasions her mother cautioned, “How long will this last? You have to stand up for yourself and tell him that what’s yours is yours. And he is yours, honey. People are beginning to talk.” But Sushma would reply, “I’m no homewrecker, Amma. He has kids, don’t forget. Let it go for as long as it goes.” And she was sure it would go on for the rest of their lives.