Thankfully, the rain had stopped. As Juhi walked down the road leading to the front gate of Royal Foods, she kept an eye out for the puddles that were indistinguishable from the grey-black path at dusk. She let out a small yawn. What a long day it had been! The meeting with Tarun Ahuja had gone on for three hours; then the one-on-one meetings with the product managers of G and TeaTime – both products gearing up for a relaunch – working through lunch; and in no time, it was 5.30 p.m. At least there had been biscuits to eat. Throughout the day, she had helped herself to those: fortified glucose ones, crunchy chocolate biscuits and filling wholewheat ones. She was careful to do it delicately, without arousing interest from any disinterested observer. But if someone were to take stock of the clean platter at the end of each meeting, they wouldn’t know that ninety per cent of them were in Juhi Jha’s tummy. It helped that her frame was – what was the English word for it? The one used by clothes brands … ah, petite!
No one would believe she had devoured an entire carton of Royal Foods biscuits. But Juhi wasn’t greedy; Juhi was hungry. Famished. Ravenous. She ran through the synonyms she was learning every night in her head. It was 28 September, and all she had to do was get through three more evenings before payday! On the first, I swear I’ll go to the Starbucks on BEL Road and have a panini, a frosted doughnut, and a grande Frappuccino with extra cream. O! She clutched her mouth as she had begun to salivate. With a tissue from her purse, she wiped the drool from her mouth.
The security guard at the gate watched her as she signed her exit. Get a handle on yourself, girl, no need to act like a loser even if you feel like one. She made the effort to look up and smile at the guard, ‘Thank you.’ The guard, a genial old man with grey hair, raised one hand in goodbye.
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Juhi waited by the roadside for an auto. If she was lucky, it wouldn’t be too long. On days like this, when sheets of water cascaded onto the roads, Juhi wished she could afford to hire an Uber or be able to get reimbursed for one. But DreamCom didn’t reimburse cabs, only auto fare.
When she had joined six months ago, her salary of `25,000 had seemed like Kamadhenu, capable of providing for her endlessly – or at least for the thirty or thirty-one days that make a month. And so it had seemed to the twenty-one-year-old from Unnao near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Wet behind the ears. Yes, that was the expression, funny one though. Juhi liked that other word better; she snapped her right finger and thumb trying to retrieve it … clueless. Yes, she’d been clueless.
There was a blur of yellow in the distance, and Juhi almost teetered at the edge of a giant lake that grew from where the gently sloping ramp of Royal Foods’ compound met the road. Answering her frantic hailing, the auto sailed forth, splicing water like the prow of a boat and Juhi stepped back. The auto driver was smart enough to mount the ramp so Juhi could jump right in without getting her feet wet. Thankfully, the auto wasn’t rickety, and she settled in for the hour-long commute ahead.
As the vehicle sailed over watery roads, Juhi sat in the middle to avoid splashes from either side. Her precious portfolio bag, full of artworks, stacked at her back, was in the most secure and dry spot. The steady rhythm of the auto made Juhi settle back as tiny, biscuity burps surfaced from her beginning-to-growl stomach. The sky was darkening rapidly as they went down Outer Ring Road, a blush painting the tops of high-rises and tall constructions, making the tangle of brick-steel-glass look beautiful somehow. Here and there, giant trees stood by the roadside, or in a plot where vigorous digging was underway. The trees of Bengaluru were so beautiful and so alone.
The city is fuelled by aspiration, Juhi, her boss liked to say. And we are the fuel that fuels those aspirations, magicians who create ads that convince people that what they want is what they don’t have.
There was a cost to those aspirations, Juhi was learning. She had so desperately wanted to flee Unnao, Kanpur, UP, even Delhi and get far away from home to a big city where she could get a job and earn a salary. And she had done just that. After completing her BA in English and a one-year course in mass communication from Kanpur University, Juhi had literally flown the coop, with DreamCom paying for her flight from Kanpur to Bengaluru.
After which, though, it had been a bumpy ride.
She’d had to find accommodation quickly, because DreamCom only paid for a week-long stay in a budget hotel. A colleague had told her about findmyPG.com. A whole array of options had opened up – single, sharing, attached bath, with balcony, dining hall, with LED TV, etc., and in localities whose names she pronounced like a foreigner: Domlur, Bannerghatta, Chamrajpet, Ulsoor, Yelahanka. She had been bewildered until a colleague advised she find a place as close as possible to the office to avoid the commuting cost and time. An entirely sensible proposition, Juhi concurred. By Sunday, she signed a one-year lease on a ladies-only PG, which gave her a single room with independent access. When she slept in her bed that first night, her well-thumbed copy of Roget’s Thesaurus by her pillow, she smiled as she ran the address through her mind: Princess Paradise in Dollars Colony. If that was any indicator in a city of aspirants, she had jumped the queue!
But the monthly rent was `12,000 – a no-share PG was a luxury – and after the `5,000 she sent home every month, she should have `8,000 left. But her in-hand salary was `22,500. So, she had `5,500 in which to live through a month. In Unnao, that might have been a lot of money, but in a city of two-hundred-rupee coffees, expensive team lunches and drinks, it amounted to little. In fact, Juhi had tried to be a non-drinker but it had left her feeling alienated. And each month, she invested in one branded clothing item to shore up her tacky wardrobe. By the beginning of the fourth week, she had no money left for food—
This is an excerpt from Manreet Sodhi Someshwar’s latest novel Girls And The City, published by HarperCollins India
Goodreads rating: 4.1
Available to buy on Amazon.
About The Author:
Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is an Indian author. She is known for her versatile bibliography. Manreet’s novels The Long Walk Home and The Taj Conspiracy. She is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. After graduating from IIM-C, she worked in Hindustan Unilever where she was an area sales manager for Gujarat and Maharashtra.
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