Rupee Millionaires Page 5

  The supplier had smiled nervously, then stuttered, ‘Ha, ha, ha! You are a good joking man!’

  That was moments before Spud punched his cow.

  It was the same with the name-calling. Spud had endured being called takala, or baldy, up to now. Today, when the abuse extended to ‘Full Moon!’ or ‘Sethi Ganga!’ (a bald film star), he found a way of avenging himself. For every Indian who shouted 'Ganju!' (egghead) at him, he shouted ‘gan-DU! or ‘gay-boy!’ back at them, followed by various threats of horrible injuries.

  Unfortunately, the Indians weren’t the only ones who suffered Spud’s spite. With his dream of silk gone forever, Spud started laying into fellow travellers.

  ‘What a bunch of losers!’ he sniffed. ‘Lots of manic traders charging up and down the market with no time for chit-chat, only interested in filling their orders. And then there’s the wobbly-heads sitting around in lakeside cafés, playing guitars, and getting wrecked on bhang lassis!’

  Intrigued, I asked Spud what he meant by wobbly-heads.

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he retorted. ‘A wobbly-head is someone who’s been in India for two months and looks like they’ve been here for five years. They’ve got off the plane, put on their hippy glad-rags, and charged off to Goa or some place they can live for next to nothing. Then they spend half their day smoking their chillums and the other half conversing in broken Hindi with local holy men.’

  To make his day complete, Spud was next accosted by Lalit Jain, alias Mister Bullshit.

  ‘Hello you!’ brayed Lalit, apparently unaware of the shift in climate. ‘You are my underwear friend!’

  Spud told him to get lost, but Lalit pressed on. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night because you are not here!’

  Spud eyed him warily and suggested he lay off the bhang.

  Undeterred, Lalit laid his palms on Spud’s bald pate—not generally a good idea at the best of times—and asked, ‘What are you growing in your head?’

  Spud leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

  Lalit ran off screaming.

  On our last day in Pushkar, Spud was still in a foul mood. He strode into the market and promptly took over someone’s shop. To be fair, before he actually stepped in, he took a few minutes to observe a rookie shopkeeper who had no idea of how to sell to tourists. Then he walked behind the table, shoved the man behind him, and informed him, ‘You’re crap, mate. Move over and watch me.’

  Over the next hour, much to the amusement of surrounding Indians, Spud sold two expensive wall-hangings, did three big money-changing deals, and offloaded a horrible brass statue that had been collecting dust for years. The shopkeeper was so impressed he offered Spud a job.

  I was not so impressed. As far as I could see, Spud was spinning out of control. Everything had been okay when I was in charge of the buying end of things and Spud was in charge of the selling, but now that the roles were reversing I was fast losing track. How come, for instance, we had run out of money? All of it had apparently gone on silver and handicrafts. We even owed thousands of pounds to people like Gordhan.

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ I told Spud as we retraced our steps back to England. ‘The bigger we get, the more we seem to owe.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Spud assured me with a familiar grin. ‘We’ve got lots of stock now, haven’t we? And remember: stock is power!’

  Chapter 9

  What Makes a Rupee Millionaire?

  Time proved Spud right. After a good Christmas and an even better show in Torquay, where we collected a load of new shops to whom we could wholesale, we finally moved into profit. Not that I saw much of it. Spud held a tight grip on the purse strings and allowed us both just £2,000 a month, barely enough to pay our rent and necessary expenses. The rest went back, naturally, into more stock.

  ‘What’s the plan now?’ I asked Spud. ‘Why can’t we just rest up for a bit and enjoy the fruits of our labours?’

  He looked disgusted at the question. ‘Because we’re in for the long haul, mate! And that means working our bollocks off until we’ve made twenty grand!’

  When I enquired why twenty grand specifically, Spud asked, ‘You want to be a rupee millionaire, don’t you? Well, that’s twenty grand. The first twenty grand is the hardest. After that, money makes money. It’s simple mathematics. The more you have, the more you can invest, the more profit you make. And we don’t stop there. We go on from being rupee millionaires to being Belgian Franc millionaires, then German Deutschmark millionaires. Then, after we’ve worked our way through all the Western currencies, we’ll end up being actual millionaires!’

  I stared. ‘You mean in sterling?’

  ‘Yeah! Fuck, why not? And when you’re an actual millionaire, you won’t be whining and complaining that I worked you so hard. You’ll be grateful. You’ll be the man!’

  Even with this kind of promise, I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t had a day off in months and was close to collapse.

  ‘What’s the big rush?’ I asked. ‘Now we’ve actually got some money, why aren’t we getting drunk and celebrating?’

  Spud’s face split with an evil grin. ‘Because I’ve just had a word with Liberty’s, that big department store in Regent Street, that’s why. They want us to snap up every piece of old embroidery in Rajasthan. According to their head buyer, it’s running out real fast, so we’ve got to get our skates on.’

  ‘Okayyy,’ I said slowly, ‘but we’re not going to make much out of heavy bedspreads and wall-hangings. They cost more to send home than to buy them.’

  ‘You’re missing the point,’ replied Spud. ‘If we get in with Liberty’s, the largest chain of Asian textile shops in the country, we’ll be made for life. Let Ivan have his little silk empire. We’ll be dealing with the big boys!’

  *

  In February 1992 we touched down once more in Delhi airport. This time, however, we had forty grand to spend. Half of it would be going on jewellery for our markets. The other half was slotted for old embroidery for Liberty’s.

  Within minutes of arrival, Spud caused a near-riot. ‘Check this out!’ he said, stuffing a wrapped handkerchief into my hands.

  The package wriggled. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  His expression reminded me of a little boy with a freshly caught frog. ‘It’s a two and a half inch cockroach!’ he crowed happily. ‘I found it perched on the urinal in the immigration hall. Don’t you want to see it?’

  ‘No!’ I cried, dropping the offending hankie. ‘No, I don’t!’

  Six neat lines of passengers queued up with their passports instantly broke rank as the busy beetle scurried over their luggage and ran up skirts and trouser legs.

  ‘Oh my God!’ shrieked a flight attendant. ‘It’s in my hair!’

  Her friend screamed, then shouted, ‘Why doesn’t someone do something?’

  Spud, ever the considerate traveller, decided to do something. He seized a long broom from a passing cleaner and beat Ms Hysterical round the head with it.

  ‘I think he got it!’ cried an old lady standing beside me.

  But no, he hadn’t. He had simply knocked over the flight attendant. The panicked insect, having been dislodged from its high-rise perch, promptly scuttled off in search of a new haven. It took Spud, still wielding the broom, five more minutes to chase it round the concourse and stomp it into oblivion.

  ‘Ooh, what a brave young man you are!’ the old lady congratulated him. ‘Someone should give you a medal!’

  We stepped out of the airport and straight into a waiting taxi. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ muttered Spud, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Before they find out who put that roach there in the first place!’

  Over the next few hours, while Spud dozed in the back seat, I found myself wondering why he was dragging us back to India so soon, and on such a weird mission. I had to suspect an ulterior motive. I’d been in his train wreck of a house a couple of weeks earlier and had seen the clothes and debris strewn all around since Lou had left him. His c
omputer had been open, and I noticed he’d applied to several online dating agencies. Not surprisingly, his grim, unsmiling face had elicited zero replies. Nor had his “chat up” line, which said simply, ‘My name’s Spud. I’m coming into money. Do you fancy a shag?’

  He was lonely. I could see that. He was working his butt off—and mine, too—in the hope that a million rupees might sort out his sex life. I prayed to Buddha he would be successful. If he didn’t get some action soon, I doubted I would, either.

  In Jaipur, we tried to check in at the Colonel’s guesthouse, but it proved impossible. Some kind of wedding party was going on out back of his hotel, and a huge pavilion had been erected—dangerously close to the edge of his new swimming pool. Inebriated guests wove in and out of its canvas walls.

  ‘It’s one of Fateh’s latest pet projects,’ confided Indu with a frown. ‘I just hope none of these fellows drowns!’

  As I watched, Fateh drifted over to one of his ex-army buddies, a strict Hindu, and began scoffing at the sacred nature of cows. ‘There is nothing in Hinduism which says cows should be allowed in the middle of the road,’ he stated. ‘Neither can I find anything in the Gita which says we can’t eat cow meat. I’ve eaten tons of the stuff!’

  Before his guest could respond to this blasphemous piece of news, Fateh launched into an even more contentious story.

  ‘During the war with Pakistan,’ he recalled fondly, ‘we laid an extensive minefield. We got the citizens of the town to leave, but they left their cattle behind. In time, a cow wandered into the minefield. All my soldiers were in a panic, so I suggested, ‘Why don’t we shoot it?’ They stared at me with horror in their eyes. ‘What? Shoot a cow? Just before a war is about to start? Ayeee! What bad luck!’ But none of us could sleep. The cow kept moaning right through the night. The next morning, I got my gun and shot it. Funnily enough, the men respected me for that.’

  Fateh’s elderly guest tottered away, shaking his head in rage. A small, almost imperceptible smile played across my friend’s lips. If I hadn’t known better, I’d say he’d just made that story up.

  Fortified by the Colonel’s drinks trolley, we took rooms at the Arya Niwas, just off M.I. Road. This was another of my favourite hotels – a clean and cosy oasis of calm, with a wide green lawn to relax in and the best budget food in town.

  The following evening, after checking some silver from Girish, I took Spud to the cinema. This wasn’t just any old cinema, but the Raj Mandir, one of the biggest flick-houses in Asia. The vast lobby screamed with art-deco, and within the theatre lights flashed urgently around the screen whenever a film reached a crescendo. We were there to see Hum, the biggest blockbuster of 1992. It starred Amitabh Bacchan, India’s answer to Rambo. And like all Bollywood films, it totally defied description.

  ‘What did you think of that?’ I asked Spud afterwards.

  He blinked at me, confused. ‘It’s like a cross between On The Waterfront and Saturday Night Fever, innit? The heroine spent most of the film either being doused with water or chased around a disco floor by maniac gangsters wielding bicycle pumps!’

  Leaving the cinema by rickshaw, we came across the ultimate ‘veggie’ of Jaipur. He was even more extreme than Gordhan. The driver of the rickshaw, a Mr Kumar, was not only non-meat and non-egg, but non-onion as well.

  Spud shook his head, mystified. ‘I can understand about not eating cows and pigs. Even eggs. But how can anybody be offended at the death of an onion?’

  After we’d sorted out our silver and left half our cash with Gordhan, we proceeded to Pushkar in search of old embroidery. But, as I had secretly suspected, there was none left. All those stunning, turn-of-the century zari bedspreads, shiny with gold and silver threadwork, had been sold. All that was left was a dusty collection of salmon-pink pieces produced around the time of the 1947 partition. Even these had doubled in price since our last visit.

  ‘Well, that’s that, then!’ Spud muttered grimly. ‘We’re fucked.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I mused. ‘What about Jaiselmer?’

  ‘What about Jaiselmer?’

  ‘I was there a few years ago, and the whole place was simply dripping with old embroidery: wall-hangings, bedspreads, cushion covers, the lot. The city has fallen on hard times lately, and I’ve heard the people are being forced to sell off all their antique handicrafts. As far as I’m aware, they’re still doing it.’

  Spud’s eyes widened. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ he asked. ‘When’s the next bus?’

  The bus ride to Jodhpur took a long six hours, after which we had to book a ten-hour overnight train on to Jaiselmer. This was easier said than done. The Jodhpur railway booking office was famously inefficient.

  ‘It only opens at 4pm,’ I informed an impatient Spud, ‘except when it doesn’t. And it won’t open for a whole host of reasons, like festivals, holidays, sick relatives, or if the booking clerk has an extended tea break. Why do you think Liberty’s didn’t go to Jaiselmer themselves? It’s a total nightmare to get there!’

  The booking office didn’t open until 5.30pm, and when it did the clerk smiled placidly and informed us, ‘So sorry, bedroll not available.’

  The non-availability of a bedroll was a serious matter. Without one we were looking at ten hours of insomnia, lying on a couple of bare planks in a cramped bunk bed. When the clerk indicated that a bedroll might be available if some money was forthcoming, I promptly laid fifty rupees on him. He returned ten minutes later carrying two brand new bedrolls which he had just nicked off a train headed to Delhi.

  At two the next morning a loud banging on the door of our compartment woke us up.

  ‘You can’t come in,’ I mumbled. ‘Go away!’

  ‘Open door! This is the guard!’ came a shout from the corridor.

  ‘Go away,’ repeated Spud, fumbling in the dark. ‘I can’t open the door!’

  ‘Why not? Why you cannot open door?’ The voice had developed a definite edge.

  Spud sighed. ‘Because the fucking light’s gone out, and I can’t see where the lock is.’

  ‘Why you not open?’ the guard demanded. ‘If you can close, you can open!’

  I could sense Spud’s rising irritation and hoped the guard would just go away. Quickly.

  ‘Well, the light was on then, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Now I can’t find the damn thing.’

  There was a pause, then the voice shouted, 'Hello bedroll!'

  With a grunt, Spud finally got the door open. A troll-like figure with a woolly sock on its head stepped into the compartment. 'I am HERE!' it announced.

  As one we asked the man why he was here.

  ‘Jaiselmer coming,’ he replied, holding out his hands. ‘Deposit me bedroll!’

  With a growl, Spud stepped toward him and he took one step back, giving us the opportunity to slam the door on him. Problem resolved, we settled back onto our bedrolls for another three hours sleep.

  Chapter 10

  Mister Bank-Rupert

  It was 5.30am when we finally pulled into Jaiselmer. Poking our heads out the train window, we caught a brief glimpse of the city’s majestic 12th century fort rising from the flat desert floor. Then a cloud of sooty steam from the nearby engine forced us, coughing violently, back into the compartment again. I made a mental note to sit at the back of the train the next time.

  Outside the station I braced myself for the usual crowd of jeep drivers wanting to take me to their choice of hotel and collect their commission. Brushing them all aside, I led Spud to the jeep driving to my choice of hotel: the Paradise, situated at the top of the old fort.

  I liked the Paradise for three reasons: it had the quietest rooms in town, there were hardly any rabid dogs around, and all the shops were close by. Chandra, the smiley owner, gave me his best room, right on the fort ramparts, overlooking the desert. After we’d settled he directed us to the new Trio restaurant, just inside the fort walls, for a ‘happy breakfast.’ Trio, we found, was Jaiselmer’s only claim to a decent restaurant i
n the western sense. It had a proper table service, turbaned and cummerbunded waiters, and a tastefully embroidered menu, at the bottom of which they’d printed, ‘Thank you for patronising us.’

  Spud ordered the Murgh Biriani, which translated as ‘Less of chicken with egg,’ while I had ‘Cream of Chicken Soup – the Soup which is known to You and Everyone.’

  Pleasantly full, we headed out to start shopping. It was far easier than we’d imagined—all the embroidery we were looking for was located in one shop called Damoder Handicrafts, situated just down from our hotel at the fourth fort gate.

  Damoder, the proprietor, was a young, roly-poly guy with a pencil-thin moustache and an oily grin. He was very glad to see us. He was very glad to see us was because he had just bought up all the old zari bedspreads in town and couldn’t find anyone to buy them. Plus he owed an impressive £20,000 to his various suppliers.

  The shop was stacked to the ceiling with the most beautiful pieces we had ever seen.

  ‘Bugger me!’ Spud muttered respectfully. ‘Liberty’s will just eat this stuff up!’

  With some effort, Damoder climbed slowly to his feet. ‘Buy lot!’ he wheedled. ‘I am poor man. I sell you cheap. I am bank-rupert!’

  Apparently the only things that could save him from bank-rupertcy were our dollars. And since the price was right, we quickly emptied our pockets and transported the entire contents of Damoder’s shop into a waiting jeep. Two hours later, after a short rest, we were on our way back to Pushkar, mission accomplished.

  Or so we thought.

  Ten minutes out of Jaiselmer the jeep blew a tyre, and all our goods were tipped into the road.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I wanted to do a bit of sightseeing anyway!’