A Suitable Boy(479)

‘– He is now on the fly-over near the Prahapore Station. Mrs Tomin is with him.’

‘– Mr Tomin is visiting the 416 Department. He praised Mr Bratinka’s efforts and showed great interest in the Goodyear Welted shoe line.’

‘– Mr and Mrs Tomin will be playing tennis this afternoon.’

‘– Mr Tomin had a swim at the Officers’ Club, but thought the water was too warm. The baby too was floated in a rubber tube.’

Mr Tomin’s wife was English, with a lovely oval face to contrast with his straightforward, genial, square one. Two years ago, she had given birth to a son, and this son too had been christened Jan, like his father and grandfather before him. This son had been taken along on Mr Tomin’s most recent tour of India so that he could survey with infant eyes what would one day all be his.

But the Chairman of the Indian branch of the Praha Shoe Company, who sat in the luxurious head office on Camac Street in Calcutta (far from the sirens and smoke of Prahapore) and who lived in the posh ‘Praha Residency’ on Theatre Road, a mere five minutes’ purr of his Austin Sheerline away, was no stocky Husek or Husak but the cheerful, greying, paan-chewing, Scotch-drinking Marwari, Mr Hiralal Khandelwal, who knew almost nothing (and did not care much more) about the day-to-day manufacture of shoes. How this had come about was an interesting story.

This odd configuration had a history of more than twenty years. Mr Khandelwal had been the solicitor in the family firm of Khandelwal and Company who had handled the legal account of Praha. When one of the grand supremos of Praha had been sent out from Prague in the late twenties to establish the Indian company, Khandelwal had been recommended to him as a capable man. Khandelwal got the company registered and did all the necessary legal spade-work, tasks which the Czechs treated with incomprehension and distaste. They wanted to get down to making shoes as quickly and sturdily and excellently as possible.

Mr Khandelwal facilitated whatever needed to be facilitated: the purchase of land, the necessary permissions from the Government of British India, negotiations with labour leaders. But it was in 1939, when the Second World War broke out, that he really came into his own. Since the Germans had occupied Czechoslovakia, Praha’s possessions in India were in grave danger of being declared enemy property and confiscated. With his good contacts in government (especially with a powerful group of rising Indian officers in the Indian Civil Service whom he used to wine and dine and to whom – over bridge – he would lose money), Mr Khandelwal was able to retrieve the position of Praha. The powers of the Raj did not declare Praha to be enemy property after all; instead, they gave it massive orders for the manufacture of army boots and other footwear. The Czechs were not merely bewildered but astonished. Mr Khandelwal was promptly taken onto the board of Praha (India), and soon afterwards was made Chairman.

And he was the most shrewd and powerful Chairman that Praha had. One of his great advantages was that labour would eat out of his hands. To them he was a living deity – Khandelwal devta! – the brown man who ruled over the white rulers of Praha. Jawaharlal Nehru had met him, and several Cabinet Ministers knew him, including the Minister for Labour. The previous year there had been a prolonged strike at Prahapore, and a petition against the management had been sent by the workmen to the Prime Minister. Nehru had said to them: ‘If you have Hiralal Khandelwal there, why do you need me?’ And once the workmen had got him to agree to look into their grievances, Khandelwal had acted as the sole arbitrator between the Czech management and the union  s – and that too as the Chairman!

Apart from having met him, Haresh had heard a great deal about the Chairman of Praha from Mr Mukherji, including an interesting snippet or two about his private life. Khandelwal was fond of good living, which definitely included women; and he was married to an attractive singer and ex-Courtesan from Bihar – a woman with a formidable temperament.

The fact that it was Khandelwal who had forwarded his application gave Haresh a little courage as he stepped into the outer office of Mr Novak, the head of Personnel at Prahapore. Haresh had on an Irish linen bespoke suit from the best tailors in Middlehampton. His shoes were Saxone, five pounds the pair. He had Trugel in his hair, and he radiated a mild fragrance of expensive soap. Nevertheless, he was told to sit outside in the queue.

Finally, after an hour, he was asked to come in. Novak wore an open shirt and fawn trousers. His coat was hanging across his chair. He was a well-proportioned man, about 5 feet 9 inches in height, and extremely soft-spoken. He was unsmiling and unbending and as hard as nails; it was usually he who dealt with the union  s. His eyes were penetrating.