THE POOR MR. STEVEN MANTLE AND HIS GREAT INDIAN LOVE STORY

Perhaps Mr. Steven Mantle will never fall in love again. Or perhaps, by one of those delightful twists of fate, he will find true love in some other South Indian girl, equally beautiful, one who could dance Bharatanatyam equally well, one who could even play the Veena maybe, with whom he could whisper sweet nothings on cool moonlit nights back in his father's farm in Texas.

I met Mr. Steven Mantle quite by chance. My job as a manager in the Internal Audit Department of one of the fastest growing banks in India often tossed me from one city to another, ensuring that internal checks and controls were indeed working fine in branches all across the country, and that morning I was returning from Bangalore on the 7:45 a.m. Jet Airways flight to attend a discussion back at the Head Office on Branch Management. I had gallantly offered my window seat to a sulking little girl from a rather small Punjabi family consisting of a father, mother, two grand parents and four daughters, and was following the pretty air hostess as she found alternative seating arrangements for me.

My new seat (not a window seat) was next to this lanky American who had his nationality stamped all over him: unkempt curly hair, crumpled t-shirt, faded Levi's, sneakers, no socks, and the quintessential 'I-am-at-home-everywhere' attitude of geniality stamped all around him. I nodded a greeting at him (his being a warm 'Hi!' to my courteous 'good morning') and we buckled ourselves for the flight ahead.

Perhaps the act of offering one's window seat to cheer up sulking little girls on morning flights manages to worm its way to find a mention as a 'good deed' in that Big Book maintained by the Gods high up in heaven, so when the God of Good Deeds teams up with the God of Good Books and the God of Good Conversations to reward an early morning do-gooder, the results can be quite electric.

The God of Good Deeds had set the ball rolling by placing me next to this American, now it was time for the God of Good Books and the God of Good Conversations to play their part.

"Hey! I love Sherlock Holmes too!" screamed the American, seeing the image of the great detective printed on my t-shirt.

"Yeah? That's great! I've been reading Holmes stories since I was twelve!" I hollered back, happy at finding a Conan Doyle fan at so unexpected a place.

"You know what? In addition to Sherlock Holmes, Doyle has written a lot of other stuff too... Guess what I picked up at the airport bookstore this morning..." the American said as he proceeded to dig into his knapsack to bring out a shiny blue copy of 'The Collected Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle', a book that I have unsuccessfully hunted in not less than 23 book stores all over the country over a span of 3 years.

"Hey! I've been wanting to purchase that book for ages!"

(I am sure that there have been a lot of conversations that have started on something which one person said about something written on another person's t-shirt, but here we had the added advantage of having the God of Good Conversations on our side, and I am sure that a good conversation could have started on any other topic that morning, even about the blue ring that the pretty airhostess wore on the third finger of her left hand.)

And thus paving the way for a stimulating conversation between the two of us erstwhile strangers on that morning flight, the God of Good Books and the God of Good Conversations bid us adieu.

The American's name was Steven Mantle. He worked for an international call centre at Andheri, and was returning back to Mumbai after a voice workshop at Bangalore. He stayed at the International YMCA in town, and had his own 'smashing' views on everything that Bombay offered - from its crowded trains to its tangy bhelpuri.

We shared similar interests, from music to art to literature and therefore quite naturally, there was a lot to talk about. We had one of the best travel conversations that morning, talking of subjects as diverse as UFOs to paleontologists to fashion to Lenin to the intriguing Mona Lisa smile. By the time the air hostesses served their first orange juice, we were ready to swear that Calvin & Hobbes were the best thing to happen to comics for a long time, that after marveling the world with the evergreen “Summer of ‘69”, Bryan Adams was lately losing his golden touch, that try as he might, Dan Brown didn't quite hold a candle to Michael Crichton when it came to hard-core research as far as novels were concerned, and that despite of all his external goofiness, George Bush stood a better chance at winning the presidential elections than Senator John Kerry. By the time breakfast was served, we had progressed from speaking of our interests to our lives in general, and about our respective childhoods - his in Texas and mine at Cochin.

Much to our mutual delight, we even shared the same birthday.

We got off at Mumbai, exchanging visiting cards, promising to stay in touch.

***  ***  ***

Corporate Jungle is perhaps an apt term to define the working environment in bustling metros like Mumbai. Each organisation has its own share of predators and prey, the lions and the gazelles, each working on its own designs to grab a greater share of higher ratings and bonus cheques when it was time for performance appraisals. Banks and call centres, with their accent on quality of service, are no exception. In our days filled with the never ending search for excellence and Six Sigma, 'social life' is often an apparition that materialised sporadically, almost as if to remind that such a word indeed existed in the dictionary. Yet despite of our grueling work hours, we kept in constant touch, whereby he, a senior executive at a leading call centre, and I, a new age banker, shared our views on life.

We met at various coffee houses in the city, discussing a slew of things from films to Paris Hilton to aviation technology to sports. We made it for every rock concert that the city had to offer (we do have a serious dearth of them in Mumbai, don't we?) from U2 to Bryan Adams to Deep Purple. During Sundays, we went for trekking in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. And during the course of all these talks, a beautiful friendship began to bud, blossom and flower.

And that is when he began to mention Ms. Ragapriya Narayanan.

The enigmatic Ms. Narayanan worked as an expert on Eastern Languages in the call centre ("She's cool man! I mean, have you ever met an Indian girl whose Japanese is as fluent as her Chinese?!?!"). Like most of the South Indian families in Mumbai, she stayed in the suburb of Matunga. Her Mom made the best idlis ("what do you call those flat circular rice cakes? 'Piddleys', I think") with the most divine coconut chutney ever. And did I want to know, she was a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, having won quite a few prizes during her school days for her dancing skills.

Steven Mantle was madly in love with Ragapriya Narayanan.

Love makes a man do several things. And when love strikes a full-blooded American like Steve, the results are just blinding fireworks. Our coffee house meetings gradually shifted venue to become Udipi restaurant meetings, our previously diverse talks now soon found their epicentre in all things South Indian. Steve was determined to win the heart of 'Rags' (as he now called her), his first trans-cultural, trans-national love.

He would pester me with all things I knew about South India - places, customs, people, food and what not. He would google a search on anything that I could not answer to his satisfaction, and then continue to expound on that topic till his mouth dried up. Or until out of sheer exhaustion, I told him to shut up.

Like did I know that Shiva, the God of Destruction, was one of the most popular Gods of the South? Or that King Chola built all those beautiful temples in order to escape the divine cycle of karma for waging so many battles in his life? Or that Madurai was known as the Land of Temples? That South Indian temples were designed strictly on the principles of Vaastu Shaasthra, to radiate cosmic energy to all the devotees, and that was why men had to take off their shirts as a general custom while entering them? Or that down South, devotees were not allowed to touch the deity at all, a sharp contradiction to the practice followed in the North? His knowledge of the South was endless.

His mails, I amusedly noted, were now signed off as "Shivan" Mantle, in perhaps an eager attempt to assimilate all things Indian.

"You know Paulie, what is that red dot I see on her forehead? A lot many other women here seem to be putting it too", asked Shivan Mantle one morning.

"That is called the Bindi" I explained to him, introducing to his eager mind the concepts of purity and power of women, and about his favorite God Shiva, whose third eye it was supposed to indicate.

"Hmmm... I thought so, it gives her a kind of you know… exotic look."

When it came to making inroads to the lady's heart, there was no stopping Steve.

They had their first date at Cafe Coffee Day, during which he marveled her with his knowledge of temple architecture (a result of seven hours on Google, and 32 sheets of computer stationery). The second date was at McDonalds, during which the conversation was on Bharatanatyam (three and a half hours on Google, 58 sheets of paper, complete with diagrams). And on the third date at Bombay Blues, Steve got down to speaking about families, dreams, hopes, wishes and fears.

Of course, being his South Indian confidante and counselor, I got a word-to-word commentary on what transpired during each date.

'Damn I wish I were Indian' (often accompanied by a violent punch against the wall) was a common refrain. And in a frantic haste to adopt (and get used to) all things Indian, the new Mr. Shivan Mantle even started using coconut oil instead of Brylcream to set his hair.

His exuberant ‘hellos’ on the phone changed into an accented ‘Namaskaram.. ningal eppidee irrike..’ whenever I called.

"Hey Steve! How's the babe?" I would ask him.

"There is no babe..." Steve would reply, sounding exactly like the spoon bending boy that Keanu Reeves meets in the Oracle's living room in Matrix ("there is no spoon..."), "She's a goddamn lovely woman… and if things go right, someday she would be Mrs. Steven Mantle…"

While I was preparing for a branch visit at Calcutta, Steve called in to report that he managed to share the same table in the cafeteria for lunch as Rags. By the time I got back from the audit, Steve had progressed to giving her lifts on his motor-bike till the railway station during occasional late nights.

The erstwhile ‘Damn-I-wish-I-were-Indian’ anthem made way for ‘Damn-how-do-I-tell-her-that-I-love-her’ (accompanied by an even more violent punch against the wall).

“I don’t know Steve, but let me remind you, South Indian girls are usually a lot more orthodox than the North Indian ones, so don’t scare her off with any big moves” I used to caution him.

“Yeah man… I mean, I don’t know man… shit man… she’s pretty good at times, but she keeps this wall between us, you know… this is so frustrating.”

On her birthday, Steve surprised her with a strawberry cake that he personally baked (did I mention that he had great culinary skills? Oh I didn’t, did I? That is simply because he was not a great cook. The cake was a result of not less than four fumbled attempts, six packets of strawberry from Akbarallys’ lost in trial runs, eight packets of cream, heaven knows how many other packets of the other ingredients, and of course, endless cursing when things didn’t turn out right). He purchased her a copy of Dances of India – A Complete Study, a book she had once mentioned to him that she wanted but did not know from where to obtain from (she was touched by his thoughtfulness).

But Rags remained as icy as ever, not even giving the slightest hint that she was even aware of Steve’s amorous feelings.

One day as I was busy preparing for an audit of the Guwahati branch, Steve called in with some brilliant news. There was going to be pooja at Rags’ place and guess what, Steve was the only one from office who was invited.

"This is my big chance to win over her family, dude.... I can’t afford to mess this one up… help me out!"

We spent time doing some serious strategising. Steve was determined to blend in as much as possible to the South Indian atmosphere. He had a sparkling white kurta that he picked up from FabIndia ("this ought to impress the pants off them!") and probably all the tapes from Times Foundation on shlokas ranging from the Gayatri Mantra to Shiva Chants. Within a week, he could recite to near perfection 'Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara...' the ancient ode to the Hindu trinity. I tried to help him with pronunciation as much as I could, and general tips on etiquette in the family. ("Four letter words are a no-no with South Indians, Steve, not even 'shit'!)

"Call me as soon as it is over, alright? No matter however busy I might be, I'll take your call", I assured him.

"Shit man, I wish you were here with me. I am as bloody nervous as a stuck up frog."

"Relax Steve, you'll do just great. Call me as soon as you get back from her place."

“Yeah I’ll do that. You don’t call me okay… I’ll do the calling. I mean, if things indeed work out, you know, I will be slightly tied up with her… and if things don’t work out, you know, I’ll need some quiet, yeah?”

“Oh relax Steve, you’re a nice guy, and if things are meant to be, then you’ll get the girl for sure. Just relax…”

And with that valedictory blessing, we parted ways that day – I, to my routine of studying the business models, the customer base, the financials, etc. of the Guwahati branch (we call it ‘pre-audit study’), and he, to his routine of yet another round of listening to Pandit Ravishankar’s melodious Chants of India.

Oh, the Guwahati branch was a mess. The geographical reach assigned to the branch was unjustifiably large, the people were mostly new, the products were tailor made to suit the local needs, and as for controls, they were more absent than present. In short, I had a lot of work to do studying the situation.

And amidst going through countless spreadsheets of financial information reflecting information as diverse as year-on-year segment-wise performance comparisons, actual v/s. budget comparisons, justifications for overruns, backing calculations for statutory returns filed with the regulatory authorities, listening to endless repetitions of assurances by the operations personnel on their compliance to process manuals and all the other merry chaos that routinely takes place in an audit, the fate of my American friend and his trans-lingual romance was relegated to a deep recess somewhere in the back of my mind.

Even when I boarded the flight to Bombay a couple of weeks later, I was buried neck deep in deadlines and yet to hear any news from Steve.

*** *** ***

By now, we had reached the last week of September, the nightmarish time for us bankers when books have to be closed, provisions have to be made and the half-yearly results have to brought out as per RBI's directives. All of us literally lived at the office, meeting one crisis after the other. The transition from daylight to twilight to moonlight was often such a blur that one lost track of when one day ended and another one began. And of course, we drank enough coffees to last a lifetime.

It was not until October 18th, our mutual birthday, that I could speak to Steve again.

"Hey Steve-man! You got the girl and you've forgotten me! Happy birthday dude!" I hollered from my end.

Nothing quite prepared me for what I heard next.

"There is no babe", Steve replied, his tone a lot darker than the Matrix-boy, "and I haven't forgotten you".

This wasn't the usual way that Steve replied, his inherent exuberance a lot more obvious by its absence. There was certainly something wrong here.

"What's wrong Steve? How's Rags? Sorry I couldn't catch up dude, hope all's fine?" I asked, genuinely concerned.

"Rags is fine dude, as fine as she ever was…" And he proceeded to tell me the details of his home visit and the aftermaths of it, and that one tiny detail that we overlooked which brought his trans-cultural love story to a grinding halt, rather than gliding it gently to its desired conclusion.

Remember me speaking about the Bindi? You see, in addition to the Bindi, there is one more dot that Indian women put on their forehead. Quite simply, it is called the 'Sindoor'.

And that dot on a lady's forehead changes a lot of things altogether.

THE END

© Cyril Paul