Made In China

By Parinda Joshi

Raghu Mehta is a desperate man. His handicraft imports business has unexpectedly collapsed and cash is drying out quickly, his wife thinks he is a loser and society considers him irrelevant. Meanwhile, his closest friends and family all seem to be running flourishing businesses and living luxurious lives in Surat, the diamond capital of India.A trip to China to scout for a new consumer goods business offers a glimmer of hope. But Raghu instead gets sucked into the black-market trade in the back alleys of Beijing. Everything about this new opportunity goes against his god-fearing, vegetarian, middle-class mindset - can he quash his natural instincts to make a success of it?Darkly comical, Made in China is a soul-stirring and thrilling entrepreneurial journey of a man willing to do anything he can to make it big.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Nov 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9789353571290

Parinda Joshi

Parinda Joshi was born and raised in Ahmedabad and later immigrated to Los Angeles with her new husband where she navigated the challenges of starting life from scratch in an unfamiliar milieu, enriching herself with an MS in computer science, testing her limits and redefining herself. She now resides in Silicon Valley where leads growth analytics for a startup in the fashion industry, is mother to her precocious mini-me, a budding screenwriter, a lover of modern poetry, fitness enthusiast, an avid traveler and photographer and a humor junkie. Her M.O. is best described by Maya Angelou's quote: 'My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.' She is the author of two novels, Live From London and Powerplay. She has also contributed to a short story anthology, The Turning Point: Best Of Young Indian Writers, and several online publications including GQ India and The South Asian Times (New York). Made in China is her third novel. It has been adapted for a motion picture by Maddock Films starring Rajkummar Rao, Boman Irani and Mouni Roy, Sumeet Vyas, and Paresh Rawal among others. Parinda has co-written the screenplay for the movie. Instagram: @parindajoshi Website: www.parindajoshi.com.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Raghu Mehta’s wide-set eyes popped open as the faint screams of a female voice called out at him. The sound pierced the calm of the water gently rocking Raghu’s float. It was a pleasant summer evening, and he was in his Olympic-sized swimming pool.

‘Sir, this way, sir,’ the woman said in an exotic accent, beckoning him to the porch by moving her arms wildly.

The sun had long gone down on the Tapi river and soft breeze was blowing through the branches of the Gulmohar trees lining his backyard. The pool was lit from underneath by countless little bulbs that made the water sparkle. Raghu pushed the float to the deck where the party planner – a young girl in a fine black blazer, matching miniskirt and headphones – balanced herself like those Russian gymnasts he saw on television; only this girl was in towering heels. When he reached the marble deck, she lent him a hand and hauling himself out of the water, he landed with a slight jolt on the ivory tiles, but not without splashing some water on his spiffy suit and handmade leather shoes, and her’s for that matter. Without getting flustered, the planner simply signalled to a helper, who was ready with a hair dryer. The helper dried Raghu right up and then the party planner adjusted his bow tie before escorting him to his sleek black Porsche.

‘Perfect,’ she said, looking at him and smiling enigmatically. He beamed, self-assured, knowing fully well that his smile was the first thing people noticed about him.

A crowd of about a thousand people, dressed in their finest suits and saris, extended a warm welcome to Raghu in the main ballroom of The Imperial Palace, the newest five-star hotel in Surat. The three-tiered cake in the centre of the hall appeared taller than Raghu’s five-foot ten-inch frame, and had ‘Happy 40th Birthday, Wang!’ written with icing on it. His childhood friend turned role model, Dev Desai, had bestowed the epithet upon Raghu after he’d established himself as a ruthless businessman and built an immensely successful Chinese imports empire in the country. Wang meant king in Mandarin. Raghu bowed, blew out all the forty candles and cut into the cake as his beautiful wife Rukmini and his two boys cheered.

The live orchestra, which had been flown in from Chicago the previous night, set the mood, although Raghu couldn’t quite follow the music. Champagne flowed freely and people danced. Raghu had wanted the event to be designed as an inconceivable extravaganza, and he smiled and noted that the event planning team had certainly delivered.

‘Who knew our own Raghu would be king one day!’ Dev said as he raised a glass of Japanese Scotch and made a toast. He said a few more things, some in jest, others in praise, patting Raghu on the back. More gushing speeches by friends and family followed, and Raghu’s chest swelled with pride and delight. He caught his own reflection in the silver coated glass he was holding and saw that he cut a fine image today, as if he himself were an import from a First World nation. There was not a hair out of place, and radiance reflected off his face like a disco ball or an aluminium foil, whichever sounded more masculine, he reckoned. His dimpled chin was the cherry on the cake, he thought smugly, knowing that this was his best feature, and sure to mesmerize the ladies – the young and beautiful ones, not the middle-aged flabby ones, who unfortunately filled much of the room.

The food was a work of art; French recipes blended with Himachali flavours, Italian dishes with Goan spices, complemented by the finest wines from Tuscany.

Raghu glanced around the room and saw the happy faces of his wife and kids; the kohl-lined eyes of his wife sparkling with delight, his children laughing with abandon. He raised his flute and toasted to the occasion, to the joy in his life and to those present.

‘Where did you learn to speak like that?’ Rukmini asked softly once he’d finished the toast, ‘Such an impactful speech! Better than the prime minister’s.’ She looked at him with love and awe, her lips curving slightly as she smoothed a slight crease on his shirt. Those shimmery lips with a tint of coral appeared so inviting; he could have sucked on them right then and there.

‘Your husband is a big shot now,’ Raghu replied with an air of self-importance.

She nodded in agreement, brushing off a few strands of hair from her forehead.

The event had something to offer for everyone; one of the rooms was reserved for the women, who watched as a couple of male performers sang and danced and also entertained in other ways. For Raghu and his men friends, Russian dancers in silver Madonna-esque bras and matching hot pants who swayed to pulsating, exotic music had been brought in from oversees. When one of the dancers had a wardrobe malfunction, the crude cheers and whistles were enough to wake the city up. If he hadn’t ventured into the ladies’ party and faced the absolute horror of watching his wife dance on the bare-chested male performer’s lap, his slender limbs not offering enough surface area for her ample posterior, her sheer sequined sari’s pallu covering his face, his hands running ravenously all over her curves, it would have been a perfect night.

‘Rukmini,’ Raghu bellowed from his gut, the roaring voice piercing through his lungs and out his throat as anger pulsated through his veins. Then suddenly, there was nothing but an expanse of black around him.

Raghu awoke covered in sweat, his heart pounding.

It must have been late morning, for Rukmini wasn’t by his side. He placed a hand on his forehead and groaned.

What kind of a bizarre dream was that, he wondered, breathing heavily. A business tycoon! He smiled ruefully to himself. He wasn’t a business tycoon in any sense of the word; in fact, he still ran the same shop in Surat that his father had set up forty-odd years back, where Raghu now sold Nepali handicrafts. Cash was drying up and Raghu hadn’t even dared to daydream of luxury in months. He’d certainly never been to anything that remotely resembled the party from his dream.

Lying in a cocktail suit on a float in my swimming pool! he thought to himself. And that’s just dumb, to wear a suit in a pool, he added as an afterthought, his head shaking in disappointment.

Raghu tried to recall more details from the dream. Champagne? Honestly, he wouldn’t be able to tell soda from champagne if he were to ever taste the latter in real life. Casino? The only gambling he allowed himself was playing cards with his friends on Janmasthmi, with nothing more than pennies at stake. And what was with that DJ and the dance floor? Why had those featured in his fantasy? It wasn’t like he craved for them in real life. His brain must have pieced together bits of information from movies, newspaper gossip supplements and those never-ending stories his wife subjected him to each time she returned from the salon she worked part-time. Then he suddenly remembered the Russian dancers, and buried his face in his palms, his heart beating faster. Feeling both stimulated and discomfited, he decided to not pursue the dream any further. It was just a dream, he thought, pulling the bedsheet off himself and stepping onto the granite-tiled floor. He ran both hands through his hair and thought, ‘I should shave my head. If nothing, it’d at least remove this barrier of hair between any good thoughts wanting to soak into my head, and my poor, scattered brain.’

Just then, his eyes fell on the picture frame hanging on the wall across from him. It was a wedding photo of him and Rukmini, taken fifteen years ago. They could both be mistaken for teenagers in the picture. In it, he was wearing a beige-gold kurta and sporting the most oblong smile he could have managed. A bulky garland of red roses hung from his neck. He still remembered how the garland had left behind permanent pinkish stains from the wet flowers on the silk.

Raghu had met Rukmini at a cousin’s wedding eons ago and had instantly felt attracted to her. An enterprising aunt had been quick to notice the irrepressible lust in his eyes, although she self-righteously proclaimed it love, and had initiated the conversation with Rukmini’s family. Tall and curvy, Rukmini was well-spoken, and had been educated in English-medium schools throughout. She had a BSc in chemistry, and long, wavy hair; Raghu’s family had taken an instant liking to her.

Raghu wasn’t too bad himself either. Tall, with muscles that belied his Gujarati genes, a thick mop of malleable hair and a diploma in mechanical engineering, he’d been educated partly in an English-medium school, and was a story spinner; Rukmini had taken a gradual liking to him as well (or so she had him believing).

He had been twenty-five then, she a couple of years younger. Soon the two were married. He’d been smitten with her for years until the boys came along.

He shook his head furiously, returning to the present but unable to shake the mental picture of Rukmini in a compromising position with the male performer from his dream.

‘What kind of a pervert thinks of his wife like that,’ he thought to himself, ‘a wife who has been nothing but loyal and loving.’ The guilt seemed to bring forth a bout of uncomfortable hiccups. Combined with the swirl of latent anger, the whole thing made him feel nauseated.

He turned to make his way to the bathroom and accidentally stepped on something. Books covered in brown paper lay under his foot. Next to them lay a box of pencils and other school items. He picked up the books and rushed to the dining table.

‘Which one of you thinks my room is a dumpster?’ He roared, brandishing the books at his boys, Arjun and Aman, who were seated at the table with their mother.

‘But it is a dumpster, Papa. My books make it somewhat bearable.’ Arjun, the twelve-year-old reacted instantly and unapologetically.

‘When Papa gets angry, he looks like Red Herring,’ ten-year-old Aman tittered.

‘Who’s Red Herring?’ Rukmini asked, amused.

‘That mad guy from Scooby-Doo,’ Aman replied.

Rukmini shot her son a stern glance, shaking her head slightly at both of them, conveying with her eyes that they shouldn’t mess with Raghu when he already seemed to be in a bad mood.

‘No, really, Mumma. Red Herring is such a bully. Once he was being so mean that the neighbourhood kids pushed him into a trash can. And then he couldn’t climb out only. The kids pointed at him and laughed for a long, long time. It was sooo funny,’ Aman explained, his eyes sparkling.

‘You … you … you think you can get away with this over-smartness? See if you think this is funny!’ Raghu rushed towards Aman and began to spank him.

‘Why are you taking out your frustration on my children?’ Rukmini cried, putting a protective arm around Aman and pulling him to her. Raghu’s eyes fell on her properly for the first time that morning. Dressed in a maroon nightgown, with a bindi on her forehead and a delicate, pure gold mangalsutra adorning her supple neck, she was still the beauty he’d married – the woman he adored every now and then, the mother of his children. Suddenly, the image of her from his dream flashed in front of his eyes and made him feel sick to his stomach.

‘You don’t know what these brats have been up to,’ he said, but his tone had mellowed a tad. Hard as he tried, he could not make eye contact with her.

‘If anything, these brats have brought you good luck,’ she said. ‘Don’t make me remind you every day. You only had a local handicrafts supplier before Arjun was born,’ Rukmini reminded him heartlessly.

‘I don’t want to hear all that again. Please,’ he said, pulling out a chair, his eyes firmly on the table. ‘It seems to have become your morning ritual.’

‘I’m going to finish. And you will listen,’ she said, spooning upma and curd into his plate. ‘Right after Arjun was born, you were blessed with a national supplier. And after Aman’s birth, you found an international one, didn’t you? Now sit and eat,’ she commanded, sprinkling some salt and red chili powder on the curd. Sometimes, Raghu felt like his wife treated the tattered pieces of furniture in their house with more love and care than she did him.

‘And I’m sure if you had a third child, I would have received supplies from Mars,’ grumbled Raghu. ‘Silly woman. Besides, Nepal is barely international. And the more the business has expanded, the bigger the problems have become. According to you then, they are the reason,’ he growled at the kids, who ignored him and went on with their breakfast.

‘Don’t blame your misfortunes on my boys. If you had it in you, you’d have done better for yourself, like your friends.’

That last line felt like a slap. He could feel his blood boiling, anger churning up a tornado in his gut. He wanted to push her and walk out but thought better of it. ‘Forever disgruntled and sarcastic. That’s who you are!’ he yelled at his wife in a tone he mostly reserved for the dogs that routinely peed on the rear wheel of his two-wheeler parked outside. ‘If only I had married someone who hadn’t eloped at eighteen with her Christian boyfriend.’ With that parting shot, Raghu stormed out and locked himself in his bathroom, almost in self-defence. Good thing the bathroom door was sturdy. He knew that he’d gone too far, and Rukmini wouldn’t spare him for bringing up her ill-fated elopement, which had anyway lasted only a day before her brother and cousins tracked down the couple and brought their sister back home. They’d told her succinctly that the Christian boy was no match for her, in appearance, personality or intelligence, but Rukmini knew far too well that the real problem was his religion.

In reality, Raghu did not hold the elopement against his wife. But he knew that bringing it up got her goat and he used it to his advantage.

He started inside the bathroom as something hit the door outside with a bang. She must have flung his phone at it.

When his fifth international call of the morning to Kathmandu went unanswered, Raghu Mehta gnashed his teeth. He felt like smashing his phone on the floor, but stopped himself just in time, realizing how much he’d paid for it.

Outside, he kick-started his archaic Bajaj scooter, which the mechanics had begun refusing to even look at when Raghu took it to the garage for technical malfunctions. Thankfully, it started without a problem that morning and he sped off to his shop. A quick ten-minute ride later, he arrived at his destination. He opened the shutter and entered the cluttered space. He was in no mood to indulge window-shoppers today. Over the years, Raghu had developed the ability of accurately categorizing customers into casual browsers, serious shoppers and pesky onlookers. He lit an incense stick next to a stupendous Radha-Krishna bronze idol, then sauntered towards the far end of the shop and brought out massive banners that read ‘SALE’ in several different fonts in red. He strategically positioned them all at various spots by the shop entrance. Then he dumped the big-ticket items in the front. He wasn’t going to tread the age-old technique of marking up prices by thirty percent and then offering a twenty-five percent discount. Seasoned customers would see through it immediately. He wasn’t savvy enough for them anymore.

Raghu had been itching to get rid of a large part of the inventory and potentially floating something new – a new line of business. He’d thought of myriad options in the past months. As he kept weeding out ideas, he realized, much to his dismay, that his only speciality was an utter lack of talent. All he knew was how to run a small-scale business. He’d been doing it for decades, but it hardly translated into anything that’d look great on a business card.

To his left was a sweet shop that specialized in jalebis, rabdi and besan laddoos among other stroke-inducing desserts. The high point of Raghu’s day was to indulge in some rabdi to beat the 2 p.m. slump and curse Adarsh Patel – the owner of the sweet shot – under his breath. Raghu harboured great disdain for the man. Ten years into their marriage, Patel’s wife had left him and run away with a younger chap who ran a swanky Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of the city. Patel had been down and out till recently, when his libido resurfaced. Ever since then, he’d been lusting after Raghu’s wife. Raghu despised him with passion.

To his right was a shop that sold religious items and clothing – saffron robes for men and women, as well as the long white fabric worn by everyone from pundits to monks, and colourful dupattas with golden and silver trimmings for goddesses. Hordes of people stopped by this shop every day. The usual process of these shoppers was yanking out a list given by pundits from the temple for a home puja, and buying everything on it. They’d then almost always check out the freshly prepared goodies at the sweet shop.

The impulsive shoppers, which Raghu had calculated to be 11 per cent of the total number of people who came to either of the two neighbouring stores, would stop by his shop as well. These were mostly women looking to either add an idol or a statue as a showpiece in their homes or buy them as gifts, mostly for newlyweds. On a good day, which meant the Sunday preceding a festival or good wedding muhurat (auspicious hour), somewhere between twenty to thirty customers stopped by Raghu’s shop. Half of those would begin by appraising the large idols, then asking for the medium-sized ones, and eventually settle for the smallest size. On top of that, they’d haggle endlessly and lowball audaciously. Hence, it wasn’t as if even the occasional high volumes led to high profitability. The margins were slim and the local women had become subject matter experts in bargaining over the years. If one succeeded in getting an exceptional bargain, she was sure to spread the word and send ten others his way, all of whom would then attempt to squeeze Raghu for the last penny. He often succumbed to these murky mind games.

The phone rang, interrupting his slew of thoughts. It was his Nepali distributor, finally calling back.

‘I’ve been calling since morning,’ Raghu barked into the phone.

‘Yes, yes. I saw the missed calls,’ the distributor, Bishnu, said rather nonchalantly. ‘I was tied up. In any case, I was going to call you today.’

‘The stock from the past three months is almost intact. I’m going to send it back. No one wants to buy Nepali idols here anymore,’ Raghu complained.

‘Listen—’ Bishnu began, but Raghu was out of patience.

‘And I need more of the smaller murtis. Those are the only items that sell lately.’

‘I have some terrible news.’ Bishnu interrupted in a sombre tone and sighed.

CHAPTER 2

‘Oh no. Your father died?’ Raghu asked, and then immediately regretted the unrefined question. Bishnu’s father had been ill and on his deathbed for a few months now, but this kind of probing was too direct and insensitive.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Bishnu yelled into the phone. ‘What kind of a nutcase says stuff like that?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t—I mean—you said bad news—’

‘Huh, leave it. And that wouldn’t be news in any case. We’ve been told to expect that. The real bad news is what I’m going to tell you. I’m winding up this business.’

‘Which business? The idols?’

‘No, handmade alligator skin Italian shoes,’ he mocked and paused for effect. ‘Of course idols. Which other business do I have going on?’

‘No! Bishnu! Don’t even say—’

‘I’ve not made a penny in weeks. The manufacturer is selling off his factory to a stone tycoon. Other manufacturers have set distributors. Plus, the heavy discount to you guys is killing me. I’m going to liquidate and stop the bleeding while I can.’

‘What will I do then?’ Raghu said, pacing between a chair and a floor lamp and accidently knocking over a Lakshmi idol. He almost laughed at how symbolic that was.

‘I don’t know, man. You’re a good businessman. You’ll figure something out,’ Bishnu said.

‘No, no, no. I need to send all this stock back to you. It’s not selling. I have no money,’ Raghu’s words came rapidly as he struggled to find the right question to ask.

‘Then liquidate and get out of it. That’ll make the two of us.’

‘Is this a joke?’ Raghu shouted, losing his cool. ‘Is this a bloody joke to you? I’m telling you I need to send your junk back. I haven’t been able to buy my boys anything. No laptop for school, no new mobile phone for my wife. She is ready to chew me to pieces. And you’re telling me to just close the shop?’

‘You have that trust money to fall back on. I have nothing except a dog. I’m going to move into the dog house in my backyard and rent out my house. Spare a thought for poor Bishnu.’

The stray mention of his trust money caught Raghu off-guard. When and why had he shared that piece of information with a random supplier who lived two thousand kilometres away?

Trust money! A good amount of trust money to fall back on! He closed his eyes, banging his head against the phone receiver. He despised it when people brought up that money as a means of salvaging him from financial mess. As if he would ever use it for personal benefit. There was a reason the trust had come into existence. His father had established it in his heyday, when he owned a small unit that manufactured plastic polymers. When that fell apart and the family lost its fortune, Raghu’s father had still refused to tamper with the trust.

It was only later that Raghu had found out why, when he discovered a receipt for textbooks for the postman’s boy from his father’s trouser pocket. It turned