A Suitable Boy

  Haresh decided that he would go to Calcutta anyway, and he lost no time after his arrival in trying to get Praha to change its corporate mind. He went to Prahapore by train, a journey of less than fifteen miles. It was raining, so his first impression of the grand complex—one of the largest and most efficient in Bengal—took place under gloomy conditions. The endless rows of workers’ houses; the offices and cinema; the green palm trees lining the road and the intensely green playing fields; the great, walled factory—the wall itself painted in neat segments advertising the latest lines of Praha footwear; the officers’ colony (almost exclusively Czech) hidden behind even higher walls; all these were seen by Haresh through the discomfort and greyness of a hot, wet morning. He was wearing an off-white suit and carrying an umbrella. But the weather and Bengal itself—both of which he found dampening—had seeped a little into his spirits. Memories of Mr Ghosh and Mr Sen Gupta came flooding back as he got a rickshaw from the train station to the Personnel Office. Well, at least I’ll have to deal with Czechs here, not Bengalis, thought Haresh.

  The Czechs for their part treated all Indians (with one exception) the same, whether they spoke Bengali or not: with contempt. Indians, they had decided from experience, were fond of talking, not working. The Czechs liked nothing better than to work: in order to increase production, quality, sales, profits, and the glory of the Praha Shoe Company. Talking usually put them at a disadvantage; by and large they did not speak or write good English, nor did they have a great deal of culture. It could be said of them that when anyone talked about culture they reached for their awl. People started out young in the Praha Shoe Company, whether in Czechoslovakia or in India; they began on the shop floor; there was no need for the niceties of a university education. The Czechs mistrusted on the one hand what they saw as an Indian glibness with words (union negotiators were the worst), and resented on the other the fact that the British commercial establishment in Calcutta did not treat them, although they were fellow-Europeans, as anything like their equals. The directors and heads of department and even covenanted assistants of the managing agency of Bentsen & Pryce, for example, would not dream of fraternizing with the Czechs of the Praha Shoe Company.

  The Czechs had transformed the face of the Indian footwear industry by rolling up their sleeves and creating a great factory and township on what had been virtually a swamp, by following this up with four smaller factories including the one at Brahmpur, and by running a tight network of shops throughout the country, not by hobnobbing over Scotch at the Calcutta Club. The Czech officers, including their Managing Director, had not been born to white collars. For them the Praha Shoe Company was their life and the Praha creed virtually their religion. Their branches and factories and shops spread around the world; and though they had been taken over by the communists in their own homeland, those ‘Prahamen’ who were abroad at the time or had managed to escape had not been dispossessed of their employment. The Praha Shoe Company was owned and run by Mr Jan Tomin, the eldest and identically named son of its legendary founder, now referred to as ‘Old Mr Tomin’. Mr Tomin had made sure that his flock, whether in Canada or England or Nigeria or India, were well taken care of, and they repaid his loyalty to them with a fierce gratitude that verged on feudal fealty. When he decided to retire, this vassalage had been transferred to his son. Whenever Young Mr Tomin visited India from his world headquarters in London (not, alas, Prague any longer), the entire Praha world would be abuzz with excitement. Telephones rang all over Prahapore and urgent messages went back and forth from the head office in Calcutta to announce his god-like progress: ‘Mr Tomin has arrived at the airport,’ the rumour would go around. ‘He is now on the flyover 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 spadework, 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 on to 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 unions—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 unions. His eyes were penetrating.

  He had Haresh’s application before him as he interviewed him. At the end of ten minutes he said:

  ‘Well, I see no reason to change our offer. It is a good one.’

  ‘At twenty-eight rupees a week?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You cannot imagine I can accept an offer like that.’

  ‘That is up to you.’

  ‘My qualifications—my work experience—’ said Haresh helplessly, waving a hand at his application.

  Mr Novak did not deign to answer. He looked like an old, cold fox.

  ‘Please reconsider your offer, Mr Novak.’

  ‘No.’ The voice was soft, and the eyes unsmiling and even—it seemed to Haresh—unflickering.

  ‘I have come here all the way from Delhi. At least give me half a chance. I have been in management on a reasonable monthly salary, and you are asking me to take the weekly wage of a workman—not even a supervisor, a foreman. I am sure you see how unreasonable this offer is.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Chairman—’

  Mr Novak’s voice cut across like a quiet whip:

  ‘The Chairman asked me to consider your application. I did that and sent you a letter. That should have been the end of the matter. You have come here from Delhi for no reason, and I see no reason to change my mind. Good morning, Mr Khanna.’

  Haresh got up, fuming, and left. It was still pouring outside. In the train back to Calcutta, he considered what to do. He felt he had been treated like dirt by Novak, and it burned him up. He had hated to plead, and his pleading had not worked.

  He was a proud man, but now he had other compulsions. He had to have a job if he was to court Lata. From what he knew of Mrs Rupa Mehra, she would never allow her to marry an unemployed man—and Haresh could anyway not be so irresponsible as to ask Lata to share a hand-to-mouth existence with him. And what would he tell Umesh Uncle when he went back to Delhi? It would be galling beyond endurance to have to put up with his taunts.

  So he decided to take the bull by the horns. He stood in the rain that afternoon outside the Praha head office in Camac Street. The next day was sunny, and he did the same. As a result of this reconnaissance he worked out Mr Khandelwal’s movements. It became clear that at one o’clock in the afternoon he left the office for lunch.

  The third day at lunchtime, as the gates opened to let the Chairman’s Austin Sheerline glide out, Haresh stopped the car by standing in front of it. The watchmen ran helter-skelter in confusion and dismay and did not know whether to reason with him or drag him away. Mr Khandelwal, however, looked at him, recognized him, and opened the window.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, trying to recall the name.

  ‘Haresh Khanna, Sir—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember, Mukherji brought you to see me in Delhi. What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Haresh spoke calmly, though he could not bring himself to smile.

  ‘Nothing?’ Mr Khandelwal frowned.

  ‘As against an offer of seven hundred and fifty a month with James Hawley, I was offered twenty-eight rupees a week by Mr Novak. It seems that Praha doesn’t want qualified people.’

  Haresh did not mention that the James Hawley offer had been effectively rescinded, and he was glad that that aspect of the matter had not come up when he and Mukherji had met Khandelwal in Delhi.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mr Khandelwal, ‘come and see me the day after tomorrow.’

  When Haresh went to see him two days later, Mr Khandelwal had got his file before him. He was brief. He nodded at Haresh and said: ‘I have looked over this. Havel will meet you tomorrow for an interview.’ Havel was the General Manager at Prahapore.

  Mr Khandelwal appeared to have no further questions for Haresh except an inquiry or two about how Mukherji was. ‘All right, let us see how things go,’ was his parting comment. He did not seem unduly concerned whether Haresh sank or swam.

  13.27

  But Haresh was nevertheless very encouraged. An interview with Havel meant that the Chairman had forced the Czechs to take his application seriously. The next day, when he boarded the train for the forty-five-minute trip to Prahapore, he was in a fairly confident mood.

  The Indian personal assistant to the General Manager told him that Novak would not be attending the interview. Haresh was relieved.

  In a few minutes Haresh was ushered into the office of the General Manager of Prahapore.

  Pavel Havel—so named by playfully idiotic parents, who had no conception of how he would be teased at school—was a short man like Haresh, but almost as broad as he was tall.

  ‘Sit, sit, sit—’ he said to Haresh.

  Haresh sat down.

  ‘Show me your hands,’ he said.

  Haresh offered Mr Havel his hands, palms upwards.

  ‘Bend your thumb.’

  Haresh bent it as much as possible.

  Mr Havel laughed in a not unfriendly but rather final way.

  ‘You are not a shoemaker,’ he said.

  ‘I am,’ said Haresh.

  ‘No, no, no—’ Mr Havel laughed. ‘Some other line, some other job is best for you. Join some other company. What do you want to do in Praha?’

  ‘I want to sit on the other side of this desk,’ said Haresh.

  Mr Havel stopped smiling.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That high?’

  ‘Eventually,’ said Haresh.

  ‘We all start on the shop floor,’ explained Mr Havel, feeling sorry for this rather incapable but ambitious young man who would never make a shoemaker. It was perfectly obvious the moment he had tried to bend his thumb. The way shoes were made in Czechoslovakia required bending the thumb. This young man had no more future with Praha than a one-armed man in a wrestling pit. ‘Myself, Mr Novak, Mr Janacek, Mr Kurilla, all of us, we all started on the shop floor. If you cannot make shoes,’ he continued, ‘what hope is there for you in this company?’

  ‘None,’ said Haresh.

  ‘So you see—’ said Pavel Havel.

  ‘You have not even seen me trying to make a shoe,’ said Haresh. ‘How would you know what I can or can’t do?’

  Pavel Havel got slightly irked. He had a great deal of work to do today, and endless empty talk bothered him. Indians always talked big and performed miserably. He looked slightly weary. Gazing out of his window at the bright—too-bright—greenery outside, he wondered if the communists would ever leave Czechoslovakia, and if he and his family would ever get the chance in his lifetime to see his hometown of Bratislava again.

  The young man was saying something about being able to make a shoe.

  Pavel Havel stared at the lapel of his fancy suit and said rather brutally: ‘You will never make a shoe.’

  Haresh could not understand Havel’s sudden change of tone, but he was not cowed by it. ‘I think I can make a shoe right from the design pattern to the finished product,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ said Pavel Havel. ‘You make a shoe. You make a shoe, and I will give you a foreman’s job at eighty rupees a week.’ No one had ever started as a foreman at Praha, but Pavel Havel was sure that this was a riskless bet. Paper qualifications were one thing, rigid thumbs and a flaccid national spirit another.

  But Haresh was willing to try for something better. He said: ‘I have a letter of appointment here from James Hawley offering me a job at seven hundred and fifty rupees. If I make a shoe to your satisfaction, not just an ordinary shoe, but the most difficult one on your production line, will you match their offer?’

  Pavel Havel looked at the young man, disconcerted by his confidence, and put a finger to his lips, as if reconsidering his calculated likelihoods. ‘No,’ he said, slowly. ‘That would put you in the managerial grade and cause a revolution at Praha. It is impossible. As it is, if you can make a pair of shoes—of a kind I will choose—if you can make it—you will beco
me a foreman, and that in itself is half a revolution.’ Pavel Havel, having suffered from one in Czechoslovakia, did not approve of revolutions.

  He phoned Kurilla, the head of the Leather Footwear Division, and asked him to come to his office for a few minutes.

  ‘What do you think, Kurilla?’ he said. ‘Khanna wants to make a shoe. What should we give him to make?’

  ‘Goodyear Welted,’ said Kurilla cruelly.

  Pavel Havel smiled broadly. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Go and make a pair of Goodyear Welted shoes according to our ready-made pattern.’

  This was the most difficult type of shoe to make, and involved over a hundred different operations. Havel frowned, looked at his own thumbs, and dismissed Haresh.

  13.28

  No poet ever worked harder or more inspiredly to craft a poem than Haresh worked for the next three days on his pair of shoes. He was supplied the materials, and told where the various machines were, and he set to work amid the heat and din of the factory.

  He examined and selected fine pieces of upper and lining leather, measured them for thickness, cut, skived, cemented and folded the components, stamped the lining for size and style, fitted the upper and lining components together and carefully stitched them to each other.

  He inserted and shaped the counter and toe-puff in the upper, and attached the insole to the last.

  Then he mounted the upper to the wooden last and attached it to the insole by toe-lasting, heel-lasting and side-lasting, and checked with satisfaction that the upper was truly down to the last without a wrinkle, that it clung as tightly as a skin.