The Sialkot Saga

by Ashwin Sanghi

The moment passed was history, the unborn moment a mystery.

I’m clean but the towel’s dirty. There’s simply no way to get something clean without getting something else dirty.’

‘Why are these people called waiters, when we are the ones who wait?’

That particular dichotomy was to be found in almost everything about the Bagadia family. They would take holidays in fashionable destinations but stay in the cheaper hotels. They owned a car but would invariably use public transport. The Bagadias seemed to be keeping up appearances of an alternate kind.

the looks of a Marwari man rarely mattered. What usually mattered was the thickness of his wallet.

Some animals hunt. Others hide. And a few hunt while they hide.

Dear Paromita. You don’t know me but I know you. My name is Arvind and I was hoping that we could be friends. I think that you are a compound of copper and tellurium. I can best be described as an unstable mixture of carbon, ruthenium, sulphur and hydrogen. Do you think that our chemistry could work? — Arvind

Dearest Arvind. Thanks for calling me a compound of copper and tellurium. I sympathize with you for your unstable mixture of carbon, ruthenium, sulphur and hydrogen. To me, you are a combination of hydrogen, erbium and oxygen. Just remember that I’m not and will never be a compound of helium, argon, thallium, einsteinium and sulphur. — Love, Paromita.

a jeweller had explained the four Cs of diamonds to him—cut, clarity, colour and carat. No jeweller ever talks about the fifth and most important C—cost, thought

‘Revenge is delicious but can sometimes cause indigestion. Tread carefully,’

weekends were meant for the white-skinned only. Brown skins needed to work all seven days to stay in business.

‘Rule number one: your accounts must always present a true and factual picture of your business operations.’ ‘And what’s the other rule?’ asked Arvind. ‘Rule number two is to occasionally forget rule number one.’

‘I have learnt that one should be cautious when others are eager and be eager when others are cautious.’

the fight between cops and gangsters was only a choreographed drama for the poor suffering masses; behind the scenes they were all in it together.

Marry your daughter into a family that’s richer and take a daughter-in-law from a family that’s poorer, had been the old maxim.

‘There are two rules for a happy marriage,’ he began. ‘Really?’ asked Arvind. ‘What are they?’ ‘No one seems to recall what they are,’ said Munimji smiling.

‘Promises are like babies,’ said Khaitan. ‘Easy to make but hard to deliver.

‘Retribution is like ice cream. It tastes terrible if it’s melted.’

‘A businessman with a clear conscience is an oxymoron.’

It was one of those usual cocktail parties at a five-star hotel where complete strangers learnt more about you in an hour than your spouse ever could in a lifetime.

Those were simpler times when being ‘gay’ meant being happy!

‘Most government servants are like faulty guns,’ replied Arbaaz. ‘Huh?’ ‘They don’t work and you can’t fire them. In any case, let’s try,’

Mr Tiwari. He was seen as a man who could ‘get things done’. If a school admission was needed for a child, Mr Tiwari was the man to approach. If a telephone line needed to be allotted out of turn, Mr Tiwari could handle that too. If an appointment with a senior doctor at a hospital was not possible, Mr Tiwari could pick up a phone and organize that in a jiffy. Mr Tiwari was a miracle man of sorts.

Dada’s Pandavas, the five people that Abdul Dada always wanted on his side—the police, Income Tax, Municipal Corporation, the judiciary and God.

‘The police are our partners. Without them we cannot carry on our business. The Income Tax people are our partners-in-waiting. They want a piece of the action but we don’t want them in so we keep them happy with a few morsels thrown their way now and then. The municipal authorities are the partners that we want. They can bring us untold riches through land-grabs but we have to woo them to join. The judiciary is the angry partner, the one who is not getting any piece of the action. We need to keep this partner cool so that he doesn’t harm us.’ ‘And God?’ Arbaaz had asked. ‘He’s the senior partner. Without his blessings and agree-ment, nothing can move.’

The decade of the ’70s had produced an Indian tax structure that was unrealistic. At its peak, the maximum marginal rate of tax for an individual was a staggering 97.5 per cent.

Who will cry when you die? Quite a few if your son is rich and powerful.

Ah make the most of what yet we may spend, before we too into dust descend!

Rajiv Gandhi philosophically suggested that when a big tree fell, it was only natural that the ground around it would shake. It had taken Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s wit to refute the words of Rajiv. Vajpayee had responded that Rajiv was too young to understand that it was the other way round—trees usually fell when the earth shook.

Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, had once famously observed, ‘A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.’

there are three ways that serious money is currently made in India. One: a resource-grab; two: a licence-grab; three: a land-grab. Very few have bothered with the fourth.’ ‘What is the fourth?’ asked a curious Yash. ‘An information-grab. The ability to get information well in advance.

‘Ask not what your police officer can do for you, ask what you can do for your police officer,’ was the accepted motto

‘In India you are not supposed to fall sick if you are poor. Only the rich have the right to fall ill.’

Succeeding with fraud is so much better than failing with honour,

‘They say that no man is regular in his attendance in Parliament unless he is married!’

‘The greater fool theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants. As long as there is a greater fool around the corner willing to pay a higher price, the value will continue to rise,’

‘Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge,’

Committees never did anything. Someone had remarked that a committee was usually a group of the unwilling chosen from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.

There was no such thing as an honourable man with a fortune.

‘Philosophy concerns questions that may never be answered,’ said Baba. ‘And religion?’ asked Karma. ‘That’s about answers that may never be questioned.’

Eat with your relatives but do business with strangers,

remember, in life there are indeed angels with blemishes and devils with beauty.’

‘The truth is that a little lie is like a little pregnancy. It’s never long before everyone knows.’