NEVER SAY NEVER

Kaushal Patel

ISBN 978-93-5559-002-2 Copyright © Kaushal Patel, 2022 First published in India 2022 by Leadstart Inkstate A brand of One Point Six Technologies Pvt. Ltd. 123, Building J2, Shram Seva Premises, Wadala Truck Terminal, Mumbai 400022, Maharashtra, INDIA Phone: +91 96999 33000 Email: [email protected] www.leadstartcorp.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Editor: Sanjhee Gianchandani Cover: Ilayaraja Layouts: Ashwini Rane

To my late grandfather, a farmer and a visionary, with whom I have a special connection. Pranam

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KAUSHAL PATEL is a father to two beautiful daughters, best friend to his wife, and a decent enough son. He fared poorly in accountancy and maths, studied branding in MBA, but he has been a banker for over 18 years – other than that he has good control over his life. This is his first novel so he has no writing achievements to gloat over until the next book unless one counts the innumerable action packed office emails. Please beware, for he is determined to write more books! Kaushal grew up and lives in Mumbai with his family and his sense of humour.

CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27

9 13 17 22 29 38 48 53 59 68 77 83 88 95 101 111 123 129 135 144 153 159 165 173 180 186 190

Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Epilogue Acknowledgements

196 203 210 217 223 231 239 244 250 256 265 267 270

CHAPTER 1

I

t was Monday morning. I had woken up an hour ago but I wasn’t out of bed yet.

As the city of Mumbai purposefully rushed out to start its day 25 floors below me, I was lying in the bed and staring at the ceiling. I had no purpose in life. It was as if I was a part of a different world now, which probably was a valid inference of my current situation. One single event - a meeting, which had barely lasted ten minutes, had suddenly offset the whole purpose of my getting up and getting ready. It takes a pink slip to appreciate how innocent Monday mornings are and how insignificant Friday evenings can become. Maybe it was always brewing; I had simply missed smelling the coffee. I was too immersed in the glory of my own success in the Bank, blindsided to the reality that it was an MNC after all, where a few fat-assed board members sitting miles away could decide to cut down South Asia operations over a cup of coffee. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. That’s how my boss had started the discussion in his final act as my boss. I had zoned out after hearing that, knowing fully well where this was going. Those ten minutes had washed ten years of my hard work in the Bank away. On the inside, I also wanted to wash my boss away in the toilet. A few clients and colleagues had made their consolation 9

NEVER SAY NEVER

calls the next day to mourn, and to enlist all the nice qualities that I possessed, which, strangely, they had forgotten to express while I was working with them. They had said that they were going to miss me immensely. I now knew how dead people felt when they witnessed their own prayer meet. The morning maid walked in the room. This was the fourth day in a row when she had entered the house with the spare key and the assumption of an empty house only to find me, lying on the bed, listless and lost. As she kept the coffee on my bedside table today, I noticed incredulity in her eyes, probably she was worried about her own pink slip. I meant her job. What a vicious circle, I thought as I sat up on the bed and wrapped my hands around the cup of coffee. I looked around my bedroom and recalled the special efforts I had taken to make this rented apartment my own. The corner nook had my bar and books, and a lounge chair; my most favourite spot. I often used to whine that I didn’t get a chance to savour the place; I longed for some free time to sit there, sip a beer and devour Sherlock Holmes. But I hadn’t felt the urge to sit on that chair even once in the last three days. It seemed that I wasn’t clear in my communication with the Universe, this wasn’t the sort of free time I had longed for. I got out of the bed and went up to the balcony. I placed the cup on the coffee table in the balcony, just next to the bottle of Hendricks, which was full till last night. Now it was empty, like my schedule for the day. The expansive view felt meaningless, just like the corner nook and everything else about the room. It was ironic to learn that the yearning for all these leisurely things was tied to the constraints of my busy corporate life. Now that the constraint had vanished, the yearning had vanished too. Such life lessons were the only things I had garnered in the last three days. I guess failure and setback turned everyone into an Aristotle. Some of them became wiser. Some of them fell in a bottomless pit of depression and fatal thoughts. I realised I was 10

KAUSHAL PATEL

slowly proceeding towards the same pit by allowing my mind to have a free run. I had to get my bearings right. My years at the boarding school and later at the Investment Bank had given me abundant training on how to soak the pressure in. I needed to dig into that reserve. I pulled up my office bag from the floor and plunged my hand inside to pull out some blank papers. A few visiting cards carrying the imprint of my name and designation slid through those papers and fell on the ground. Tragedy loved drama. I stepped on them and walked across to the table. I wanted to make a realistic assessment of my situation. I drew two columns on the paper – ‘Good’ and ‘Screwed’. Under Good, I first wrote – ‘No dependents’ My parents had died long years ago. As such it was inappropriate to put it under ‘Good’ but it did give me some relief from knowing I didn’t have to worry about their care. I was yet to get married. Few days back it seemed odd that I was into my fourth decade but still wasn’t married. Today it seemed like a blessing. I didn’t have a girlfriend presently. I had overcome the temptation of a live-in relationship with my ex for which I felt glad today. The constant company of my own self since childhood had made me wary of staying with anyone. Not that I was an introvert. I had a decent count of friends. I enjoyed the company of women. I was reasonably popular, known for my wise cracks and dry humour, both of which were presently AWOL after the pink slip. Probably pink wasn’t their favourite colour. After some thought, I added ‘No home loan’ to the list. After some more hard thinking I wrote ‘long career ahead’ just to make the list a little longer and make myself feel a little better. That was it on the ‘Good’ side. Next, I started writing under the ‘Screwed’ side. I started with ‘Economy’ then added ‘No job interviews’, ‘Hardly any Savings’, ‘Car Loan’, ‘Personal Loan’, ‘Rent’, etc. Clearly this was turning out to be a one-sided affair. I 11

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dropped the pen and reached out for my bag again to pull out the old pack of Benson & Hedges; I had cut down on my smoking off late but I needed one right now. As I rummaged through my office bag, my eyes fell upon an unopened envelope that was lying inside. Pulling it out of the bag, I recalled that I had bumped into the courier fellow on the way to office a few weeks ago, when life was normal. Since I was in a rush, I had just shoved the envelope in my bag and forgotten about it. I was too busy and unconcerned at that time. With the unlit Benson dangling between my fingers, I curiously rolled over the envelope a couple of times. It had come from Shimla. My name and address were hastily written on it. It looked like someone had sent me a letter but it wasn’t a love letter because the sender’s name was mentioned as Ravi Bhatia, Advocate and Legal Consultant. I was already screwed and now it looked like I was getting sued too. I tried to think back if I knew Ravi Bhatia. I didn’t. I knew my late mother was from Himachal Pradesh. And I knew that I had a maternal grandfather, my last living chromosome connection, who lived there. But I had never seen him or spoken to him. I knew of his existence. I wasn’t sure he knew of mine. I tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter to read it. One pink slip had already rocked my life. Little did I know that another letter was about to cause a tectonic shift in it!

12

CHAPTER 2

‘E

xcuse me sir, Veg or Non-Veg?’ asked the airhostess, breaking into my chain of thoughts. ‘I am good’, I replied.

The flight was full and my seat was cramped. It had been a while since I had flown in the economy class but I rationalised it by thinking this was the least of my problems at the moment. The gentleman next to me was snoring away to glory. I winced and looked at the airhostess. ‘Can you do something about this relaxed soul? Can you change his seat?’ I asked. ‘Sorry sir the flight is full.’ The air hostess replied with a smile. ‘OK, can you upgrade him?’ ‘Even the business class is full,’ she informed me. ‘Is there place in the cockpit?’ The airhostess chuckled and left. As if this was his cue, the gentleman started snoring louder. I turned my attention towards the window to distract myself. I wondered at how life had changed. If someone had told me last Tuesday that by coming Tuesday, I would be out of work, and in a flight going to a small town in Himachal Pradesh, sitting next to a World Class snorer, I would have laughed. But I guess the joke was on me today.

13

NEVER SAY NEVER

The letter from the advocate was short and to the point. But it had packed a punch in its brevity. Representing his client, my maternal grandfather, who it appeared, had recently relocated to heaven, Adv Ravi Bhatia had sent the posthumous communication to me. It had to do with the will of my now late grandfather. It was incredible that my grandfather had reached out to me from heaven considering he had never done that when he was on earth; we had never met, we had never talked and we had never crossed paths. Had I drunk dialled God that night? I had read the letter over several times to be sure of what it entailed. Mr Biren Kumar (Prem) Dhumal, resident of Garli Village, Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh had died peacefully at his residence on 10th May 2017. He had bequeathed all his savings, investments and properties to the only son of his only daughter. That would be me. Simple enough. Or was it? Mr Dhumal and my mother, who was Mr Dhumal’s only daughter, were estranged. That’s what I had heard from my parents’ friends. That was one of the reasons they had to enrol me in a boarding school after their death. It was well known that the father-daughter relationship was always strained; they were perpetually at loggerheads. But when my mother had decided to marry a certain Mr Apte - a Maharashtrian from Mumbai, the relationship had given away. I didn’t even remember seeing my grandfather at my mother’s funeral, but I couldn’t say for sure. I was only 8 years old then. I must have spent the first few months of my life there, a deduction I had drawn from my birth certificate. But I had no recollection of him or of the place, for obvious reasons. In one way, this was as good as a stranger leaving behind all his wealth to me. Reading that letter after losing my job had made me ecstatic. 14

KAUSHAL PATEL

Unfortunately, that ecstasy had lasted only as much as an orgasm. The second para of the letter had the effect of the Asterix mark that accompanied a never before, once in a lifetime annual sale at a shopping mall. The terms and conditions were complex, onerous and frustrating. The combined assets of Mr Biren Kumar Dhumal, deceased at the age of 73 Years, including but not limited to 3 Apple Orchards, 1 Mansion, 2 Commercial Buildings, Liquid Investments, Ancestral Jewellery, etc. was to be bequeathed to the only son of Mrs. Purva Apte provided: 1.

The claimant proves his identify beyond reasonable doubt Though I was presently struggling with identity crisis, I thought this could be managed.

2.

The claimant is alive and in good health - Being dead and in good health was not acceptable.

3.

As per the last wish of the deceased, the claimant will have to relocate to Garli at his residence to manage the transition of ownership and complete a few unfinished tasks – What kind of tasks? Mr Dhumal seemed to be a strange man, like me. Or perhaps I was like him

4.

Upon relocating, the claimant will have to visit the under mentioned advocate at the start and once every week thereafter - I figured this was to ensure I didn’t come up with some stunts.

5.

The detailed valuation of the assets would be shared with the claimant after he visits the under mentioned advocate - cute!

6.

The above referred will of Mr Dhumal provides for an acceptance window of one month from the date of this letter failing which all the assets in question will be transferred to a charitable trust of Mr Dhumal’s choosing – That, ladies and gentlemen, was why I was on the plane subjecting myself to the snores of the gifted gentleman. 15