Karl, Aaj Aur Kal , livre ebook

RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Published by Random House India in 2010
Copyright Cyrus Broacha 2010
Random House Publishers India Private Limited
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Random House Group Limited
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EPUB ISBN 9788184002171
For my wonderful parents, Olivia and Farrokh, my Shahenshah Mikhaail, my Princess Maya, and also Ruffo and Ayesha.
And for Volpi see you on the terrace soon .
The author has asked me to write a note on his behalf as he s not feeling well.
First and foremost, the author is no longer a woman.
Second, he wrote this book under severe duress. His wife had an ingrown toenail that caused her to scream the whole time he was writing, and often the author couldn t hear his own words.
Third, the book was intended as a murder mystery, but due to the author s revulsion towards blood, it was adapted into a historical documentary with elements of drama, melodrama, but none whatsoever of lovemaking.
Fourth, all the characters portrayed in this book are fictitious, including the real ones. Especially the real ones.
Fifth, the author traces the journey of a young boy from adolescence to manhood and beyond, until eventually the young boy realizes that adolescence is far more fun and returns to it.
Sixth, and this is very important so pay close attention-there is no sixth
Now in the words of the author s probable father, Elvis Presley, Read on.
In many ways, Karl and Kunal were like most boys their age. They shared a passion for the four things schoolboys seem to love most: bunking class, films, food, and pornography. And growing up in 1980s India-when people went to the movies only to watch Amitabh Bachchan-they must have been among Amitabh s biggest fans. That Amitabh was the King of the silver screen was a plain fact, just as night followed day, and Marlon Brando once weighed less than 400 pounds.
The two boys were entranced by a film called Amar Akbar Anthony in which Amitabh played a heroic vagabond, Anthony. It was at about this time that Karl discovered his passion for theatre. The noblest of reasons drew him to the stage: the need to perform and express himself but chiefly, the desire to bunk class. It was well known that anyone who was chosen for the school play would get to bunk the last two periods of the day, which were used for rehearsal.
The play that year was The Frog Prince and the parts up for audition were for the princess, the prince, and the frog. The princess s role suited Karl s artistic temperament the best, as it involved lying supine with eyes closed for the better part of the play, and only occasionally pushing away the frog in disgust. However, the school didn t want to waste money on a wig, so a real female was used. The next role that beckoned was the prince s. It was one of those forceful quality-over-quantity roles. You appeared on stage for a total of seven seconds, and that too at the fag end of the play. No great thespian skill seemed necessary: the entire act consisted of opening one s eyes and hugging the princess, after glimpsing whom one felt tempted, in any case, to shut one s eyes again.
But the drama teacher, Mrs Sahyani, took one look at Karl and shrieked ecstatically, There s my frog! This was followed almost immediately by, Stop my frog! as Karl prepared to flee, and, finally, Somebody catch my frog, pin him down, and bring him here ASAP!
Mrs Sahyani looked proprietorially down at her frog while it tried to explain, in vain, that it had never played a frog before. In fact, Karl had never really known a frog and didn t even know of anyone who might. Furthermore, he couldn t distinguish between a male frog and a female frog, or between a frog and a toad. He ranted on about his family being more of a dog family than a frog family, and said that if he had to play the part of an animal, he would be far more accomplished as a goldfish or an elephant. When all this fell on deaf but finely groomed ears, he offered Mrs Sahyani a compromise candidate . A boy who, Karl assured Mrs Sahyani, would play the part perfectly-his best friend, supporter, and confidant, Kunal. Mrs Sahyani would have none of that. She cast him with immediate effect.
Mrs Sahyani was a realist. And a frog would have to appear shorter than the other actors. Thus it came to pass that a dismayed Karl suddenly found himself in a half-squat position on an empty stage during the last hour of school.
After the play was performed, Karl, like most great actors, made a smooth transition into his next role-from a frog to Anthony. His friend Kunal had styled himself after the other leading heart-throb in Amar Akbar Anthony , Vinod Khanna, who played Amar. Karl started referring to himself both in the third person and as Anthony. He also began to make definitive and dramatic statements. If told that dinner was ready, he would reply, Dinner may be ready, but Anthony isn t. His father Jehaan, an English movie buff, once asked in perplexity, But who is Anthony? To which Karl responded with a flick of his fringe with a comb, This is Anthony. An exasperated Jehaan asked, Your comb is called Anthony? Karl drew very close to his father s face, grit his teeth, pulled out a tiny hand mirror, and peering into it, murmured, This is Anthony. The pater was confused. I am Anthony? Karl then performed a military-like about turn and strode away in what he imagined to be an Amitabh Bachchan stride . The Anthony fixation didn t end there. Twice his mother was summoned to school as her errant son had signed his project as the work of Anthony Gonsalves , not Karl Marshall.
Kunal, for his part, at the age of twelve, already weighed more than Vinod Khanna ever would, but that didn t stop him emulating Inspector Amar . To play the part, Kunal would wear his mother s sunglasses, which were about the size of a table fan. Amar and Anthony, one with his face concealed by a woman s shades, and the other with his affected swagger, did well with the ladies though. The girls enjoyed calling the pair by their screen names. Other boys, of course, felt that dried fish may have been cooler.
The Beatles once wrote, What would you do if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me? As far as Karl was concerned, the answer was certainly a yes , particularly if the question was asked by his rather top-heavy best friend, Kunal. The two boys were inseparable. But while Karl was ordinary looking, boyish, and goofy, Kunal was rotund, with a large, round face, rounder torso, and grasshopper-thin legs. Ah, those legs! Perhaps jeans weren t necessary-a pair of socks may have fitted snugly enough. In fact, Karl often rather unkindly asked the other kids to look at Kunal from a distance, whence his two spindly legs looked like one. Kunal had inherited his shape from his father-except for the difference of an inch in height, they shared exactly the same figure.
But that s enough about Kunal. This isn t his story. He didn t commission me to write it, Karl did. So let s get this straight. This tale is all about Karl, the Karl Katha , the Karl-nama . It s Karl s story.
The only problem is that Kunal s a big part of it.
Jehaan and Karl shared a fairly close father-son relationship, although their roles depended on their moods and were often reversed.
Jehaan Marshall was a Senior Copywriter at a distinguished advertising agency called D Souza s in Mumbai. As a young man, Jehaan had wanted to be an operatic tenor and had initially modelled himself on Mario Del Monaco. During his teenage years, his voice became both sweeter and more lyrical (or so he thought), and he switched to Giuseppe Di Stefano. Sadly, in 1950s India, you couldn t find three people who could pronounce Giuseppe , and his passion didn t get much encouragement except from his neighbour Sarabjeet Kaur, who would make the young Jehaan belt out Di Quella Pira just to enrage her husband. At family get-togethers, Jehaan was a great hit. He was treated like a sound system. Jehaan, sing Santa Lucia . Jehaan, sing Ma appari . Give us O Sole Mio . And most often, For God s sake Jehaan, STOP singing.
On his fifteenth birthday, Jehaan fell in love with his neighbour Priya. Normally, this may have been quite acceptable, except that Priya was 44 years old and a mother of three. Priya lived in the building opposite Jehaan s, and one floor higher. Since the flats were diagonally across from each other, in order to get a glimpse of Priya, Jehaan would have to wriggle-much like an eel-into a compact accordion-like position, with his back on the window rail and his nose pointing up at the sky. Since getting into this position took him about 50 seconds, there would occasionally be a slip twixt the cup and the lip. In an upright position, he d vaguely see Priya, but by the time he had contorted his body, Priya might have been replaced by her husband, Mr Godhwani, whom the neighbourhood commonly referred to as The Hairy Beast. Nothing could kill a fifteen-year-old s fantasy faster than the sight of Mr Godhwani s torso. Of course, no one had ever seen Mr Godhwani s torso, least of all Mr Godhwani himself, because it was completely buried in a forest of hair. It was said (and only half in jest) that at funerals, he wouldn t have to wear a black shirt. A black pair of trousers and nothing on top would suffice. One lucky day, from his contortionist s position, Jehaan witnessed the mos