Sour-Face for Prime Minister

It was unfortunate that my father did not look after his heart the way he looked after me. He worked relentlessly, traveled a lot and ate whatever came his way, with obvious detrimental results as far his health was concerned. When his arteries starting clogging up, he came to the States for his angioplasty…and brought the family doctor along. Most people bring medicine with them when they go on a trip, my father brought Dr Ambalal, the stalwart family physician, who had been with us since our childhood.

For a doctor, he seemed extremely reluctant to hand out prescriptions and drugs. For an Indian, he was surprisingly tall, dressed impeccably in a crisp white shirt and the usual cream-colored suit (did he own only one?), with stark, black-framed glasses, and smelling of cologne and cigarettes. He cut a fine and scary figure…scary, because to a small child he represented the monster, who came to your house to give you shots. This was the time that my sister Varsha chose to hide, and when found, would shriek bloody murder and it would take all the servants in the house to pin her down. This revelation will come as a big surprise to my relatives who have known her as Walkeshwar no Vagh. Not so tough, was she then, my middle sister and my teaser and tormentor for all those years of my childhood. A detailed account of the mental anguish and torture inflicted upon me will be revealed in my tell-all memoir. Varsha has her lawyer all ready on speed dial to sue me for libel. It is unfortunate that all my witnesses are long since dead, and the only corroborating evidence will have to be given by my psychiatrist.

Anyways… back to my father. Given a clean bill of health after the angioplasty, he typically went back to his hectic lifestyle and so, five years down the line, he needed to come back…this time for a bypass. The first trip had made the doctor lose half his hair and out of an intense desire to keep what was left, bowed out of accompanying him again. The chaperoning fell to my sister Nina. I joined the two of them and we flew down to Houston.




The pre-op appointment was in a building close to St.Luke’s hospital, the cardiologic equivalent of Mecca. They come here in hordes, like a hajj, clean up the arteries and take the revolving door back to their sedentary life of TV and fried foods. The few that take the doctor’s advice live out their ten promised years, or more.

We sat in the waiting room and waited. And waited, as all patients do, with ennui and out-dated periodicals laid out for our perusal. There was a small commotion, and we looked up to see a bunch of bush-shirted Indians herding a frail, sour-faced, kurta-clad gentleman into the room. In his defense, if your ticker is telling you it’s about to clock out, you are not going to sashay into the room, belting out a Broadway melody. The unctuous attendants, in true subservient form fussed around him, propping up pillows and bringing him water. He was obviously someone important, or rich, or both.

My dad recognized him and true to his congenial personality, went over to pay his respects. True to our snobbish selves, Nina and I stuck our noses into the air and then went back to reading about the royal wedding of Prince…not Charles but Edward to Wallis Simpson. They really should renew their magazine subscriptions.

The quadruple bypass went well, Dr. Cooley’s colleague having apparently paid good attention in med school. While he was recuperating at the hospital, Nina and I stayed in one of the hospital-affiliated suite-type hotels, equipped with a kitchenette. The whole lower floor was apparently occupied with green-card/tourist-visa carrying relatives, who would prepare meals and take it back to the hospital as an alternative to the fare served there. As we walked down the corridor to our room, we inhaled the potpourri of smells: phô and daal, kimchi and kielbasa, fish sauce and garlic, durian and tuna. The pervasive odor seeped into our room, our hair, our clothes and long after, any time I felt like heaving, I just had to take a deep sniff of the suitcase I had taken to Houston.

Not to be outdone, we decided to do bring our father some delicious, hotel-cooked meals as well. I use the word ‘we’ out of sheer politesse. As regards making food, Nina had never seen anything more than a cookbook in her life, and was of no help whatsoever. Her idea of preparing a meal was to call the maharaj on the intercom to give the order.

And so it was left up to me to cook. Without a masala no dabbo. And no pressure cooker. So I did the best I could, improvising with paprika and curry powder and Uncle Ben’s rice.

On the third day, my father gently told me to stop bringing him crunchy daal and gluey rice and he was just fine with hospital jello and mystery meat, thank you very much.

My dad flew back, all patched up and read to take on the business world again, one meeting at a time and an agenda that was fast filling up at the same rate as the plane taking him back to India.

Six months later, I got a call from Nina, full of exciting news.

Sour-Face turned out to be Narasimha Rao and he had just been elected Prime Minister of India.

Thanks to our snobbery, we had missed our chance of befriending him and being invited over for chai at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. If it was any consolation, my dad’s five minute socializing didn’t get him an invitation either.

Note: Narasimha Rao ended up being one of the best Prime Ministers India ever had. His economic transformations helped the country out of near-bankruptcy and gave him the moniker “Father of Economic Reforms”. He was a polyglot and could read and write in 17 languages.


Glossary:

Walkeshwar no Vagh: The Lion of Walkeshwar Road (the street we lived on)

masala no dabbo: A spice-box found in every Indian kitchen

daal: lentil soup

maharaj: cook (not to be confused with Maharaja)