River of Smoke(21)

In Canton, stripped of the multiple wrappings of home, family, community, obligation and decorum, Bahram had experienced the emergence of a new persona, one that had been previously dormant within him: he had become Barry Moddie, a man who was confident, forceful, gregarious, hospitable, boisterous and enormously successful. But when he made the journey back to Bombay, this other self would go back into its wrappings; Barry would become Bahram again, a quietly devoted husband, living uncomplainingly within the constraints of a large joint family. Yet, it was not as if any one aspect of himself were more true or authentic than the other. Both these parts of his life were equally important and necessary to Bahram, and there was little about either that he would have wanted to change. Even Shireenbai’s unemotional dutifulness, her scarcely hidden disappointments, seemed indispensable within the contours of his existence, posing as they did, a necessary corrective to his natural ebullience.

Such was Bahram’s success that he could very well have hived off from the Mistrie firm and set up a trading firm of his own – but this he was never seriously tempted to do. His compensation, for one thing, was so generous as to leave no room for complaint. But even more than his earnings, Bahram enjoyed the perquisites that went with serving as a representative of one of Bombay’s most highly regarded companies: the fact of being able to command some of the finest lodgings in Canton, for example, and of having a near-unlimited allowance for his personal expenses. And then there was the comfort and prestige of having at his disposal a ship like the Anahita, which his father-in-law had built with his own hands, specifically for his use, so that it served almost as his personal flagship: few traders, in Canton or elsewhere, could boast of travelling in such unmatched luxury.

Besides, breaking off from the Mistrie firm would inevitably have entailed a change of residence as well – and Bahram knew that Shireenbai would never agree to leave the family mansion. Every time he had ever suggested it, she had burst into tears. How can you speak of leaving? Ay apru gher nathi? Isn’t this our house too? You know my mother wouldn’t survive it if I left. And what would I do during those months and years when you’re away in China – alone on my own, with no man by my side? It would be different of course if gher ma deekra hote – if there was a son in the house, but …

So Bahram had been content to remain within the Mistrie fold, quietly building up his part of the business, grooming it into a worthy sibling for the family’s shipyard. But strangely, Bahram’s success did nothing to soften Shireenbai’s brothers’ view of him: on the contrary, it added an element of fear to their long-held suspicions, for they now began to resent their father’s growing reliance on him.

If the younger Mistries’ attitude was puzzling to Bahram, it was not so to his mother, who accounted for it by reaching into her ditty-bag of proverbs. Don’t you understand why they’re afraid? she said. What they’re saying to each other is: palelo kutro peg kedde – it’s the pet dog that bites you in the leg …

As so often before, Bahram had laughed at her homespun wisdom – but in the end it was she who was proved right.

Through all his years of working for Mistrie & Sons Bahram had assumed, with his father-in-law’s encouragement, that he would one day be given full control of the division he had founded and nurtured. But then, unexpectedly, the Seth had a stroke that left him paralysed and unable to speak. For many months he hovered between life and death, throwing the family, and the firm, into turmoil. The will that he was rumoured to have made was never found, and after his death his sons and grandsons quickly came to be embroiled in a struggle over the future of the firm. Neither Bahram nor Shireenbai played any part in this tussle, for her inheritance was held in trusteeship by her brothers, and Bahram himself did not possess enough of an equity stake to be considered a principal.

Bahram’s first inkling of what was afoot came when he was summoned to a meeting with his brothers-in-law. Sitting around him in a semicircle, they told him that they had come to a decision about the future of their company; the shipbuilding business had been in decline for a long time and they had now resolved to liquidate the whole firm in order to provide the brothers and their children with seed capital to start other businesses. Since the export division, and the fleet, were now the most valuable parts of the company, they would be the first to be sold. It was unfortunate of course that he, Bahram, would have to go into retirement; but in recognition of his contribution, the firm would certainly award him an extremely generous financial settlement – and it was true after all, that he was in his fifties now, with both his daughters married and well provided for. Had he not reached a point in his life when a luxurious retirement would seem like a fitting end to a brilliant career?