A Bad Penny Always Turns Up
By Roopa Swaminathan
Anirudh Sethi prided himself on being a good father. A great father, actually. He was the annoying type, you know? He was an average man. Average looking. He was slim but had a slight paunch that showed. At 5’7” he was just shy of being called a ‘tall man for an Indian.’ He had the coveted ‘fair skin’ but it was marred by a few pock marks – remnants of a childhood ravaged by acne. He was someone that people stared at for a second because they thought they remembered him from ‘somewhere’ but then shook their heads and moved on.
Anirudh Sethi might’ve been an average man but he was an exceptional father. He was the kind that showed up for all of his kids’ soccer practices at the newly constructed Jogger’s Park, stood on the sidelines, yelled at the referees at all the bad calls they made against his kids and their teams, carried flavored water, coconut water, and unsweetened milk and apples and oranges and almond flax chewy granola bars, grape, and mango fruit bars – all of which resulted in a collective sigh from the deeply impressed aunties, uncles, nanas and nanis and the married women – Mrs. Karwe, Mrs. Patil, Mrs. Mathur, Mrs. Singh and more – who would then pile onto their about-to-be-hit-by-a-tornado husbands and say, “Look at Anirudh! He searches all around Koregaon Park and Viman Nagar and gets all the tasteless but healthy snacks for the kids!”
Meanwhile, Anirudh would quietly sneak the kids to the tiny walkway behind the seesaws and swings and distribute fresh bhakar wadi and chakli from Chitle Bandhu, 5-Star and Oreo cookies, and Coke and Pepsi and modestly shrug off chants of “Anirudh uncle is the best!” and hi-five the kids.
Anirudh was also obnoxious enough to show up – not with his iPhone 14 or 15 – but with his old-fashioned Sony camcorder to Bollywood dance and music concerts and Bharatnatyam and Bollywood dance performances that his children were in. During his children’s convent school’s annual Christmas celebration, it was a common sight to see Anirudh as he recorded the ‘two trees that did not speak’ as they stood at the edge of the stage in the nativity play. He would show footage of those ‘trees’ to anyone and everyone and give a running commentary on how well his kids didn’t try and ‘act like trees’ but that ‘they lived their roles’ and ‘became those trees.’ To hear him talk his kids as ‘trees that didn’t talk’ had the charisma of Amitabh Bachchan (he was an 80s kid and worshipped on the altar of Bachchan Saab), the commitment to his art like Kamalahasan, and Ganpati Bappa’s God-given talent of Vikram Gokhale.
He was also an easygoing father with his children’s school. He sent his children to an ISCE school and never demanded that his kids should be class toppers. “Just do your best,” he’d tell them. And when their best was a solid B average during a good semester, he was proud AF. On the rare occasions that they made a 90% in their jazz dance or a pottery class – he showed off their misshapen pots to everyone and claimed that they were imperfect for a reason. The imperfection was designed to be that way, he’d claim. The one time his daughter got a 100/100 in her creative writing essay when she was in her 4th grade – the kids had to make up a story using all 10 words that the teacher gave them – he put it up on their fridge door where it still stayed.
Anirudh was a hard worker in every aspect of his life. He did not have a fancy job. He was just a manager at their local Kotak Mahindra bank. But he worked long and hard and saved his money. He also took on weekend jobs tutoring kids in Math and Physics. He was lucky to be working during the 90s and early aughts when India was just becoming a global player. It was when everyone talked about globalization and borderless worlds and the Indian economy had started to thrive. His hard work and his rupee went far. He’d paid off the house loan that he took from his father-in-law by the time he’d turned 45. He’d opened college accounts for his children. And when his in-laws gave them money for Diwali every year, he used it to take his family for comfortable vacays to Bangkok and Nepal and Bhutan and the Andamans.
By the time Anirudh’s children graduated from college (his son from Dr. DIY Patil Institute of Technology, Pune, and daughter from Symbiosis Institute of Design, Pune) and got jobs from their campus placement, the Sethis belonged to a solidly upwardly mobile middle class with the future looking bright for all of them.
Anirudh Sethi was truly the best dad. So said everyone on 5th Avenue, Koregaon Park, Pune, where the Sethis had lived the past two decades.
*****
That day started like any other.
It was the 4th of November and the entire building had gathered in Anirudh’s terrace apartment for their annual Diwali teen patti celebrations. The terrace groaned with the rows and rows of potluck food everyone in the building brought with them. From chaat to jalebis, medu wada and sambhar to kaande pohe, from rasmalai to puran poli – like their building, the entire country was represented in the food on display. The 40-something inhabitants of Senhorita Building on 5th Avenue were gorging and overeating on the smorgasbord array of delectable food in front of them and chilling and waiting for the teen patti card games and fireworks to begin.
Anirudh was on barbecue duty that evening as fiddled around with the kababs with his tongs and then applied a secret family recipe rub on them and took a deeply satisfying slurp of his cold Kingfisher beer…
…and sensed her the second she walked in.
After living in the same apartment, the same street, with the same friends for over 20 years now – Anirudh knew every sigh, every smile, every laugh, every groan, every tear, and everything else from those around him without even turning around. She was different. He sensed anger. He sensed confusion. He sensed edgy energy that was out of sync with the happiness surrounding the Diwali celebrations of that evening.
A bad penny always turns up, he thought.
He turned around and saw her.
And sighed.
A bad penny always turns up!
All those years later…he could still recognize her immediately. He’d gone out of town on a conference for bankers. As a clerk, he wasn’t required to go to those mid-management out-of-town conferences. But Anirudh’s fame had spread beyond the nativity plays and soccer games to his work.
He’s so social!
He’s so friendly!
He’ll be perfect to represent us at these events!
Despite never wanting a promotion (I don’t want a fancy job that’ll take me away from my family he said) Anirudh attended these conferences. While he hated being away from his children and their myriad soccer and Kathak practices and swimming practices – a few days away from it all every year rejuvenated him. Each time he went away he came back with a renewed sense of purpose and more love for his family – if that was even possible.
And that year – when he’d met her – he was actually bummed he had to go away and miss his son’s soccer game. They’d made the quarterfinals of their little league that year.
But needs must.
So, he’d gone. And schmoozed around the conference floor as he always did.
And that’s when he saw her.
She was one of the waitresses that evening. There was something about her. Her perky face. The red lips. The red mehndi streaks in her hair. Her tight yellow blouse. The sequins in her yellow and black saree that was draped around her body. Every click of her black stilettos as she swayed around offering drinks and tiny samosas and meat cutlets and a hint of ‘come-get-me’ looks to everyone gathered at the conference. One look at her and Anirudh knew – she ticked all the ‘too desperate’ and ‘trying too hard’ boxes.
He could tell she was one of those who’d like it rough. They all did, actually. He could always pick them from a crowd. The ones who lived hard. And drank hard. And played hard. He knew he’d have her. He always had them.
He’d had so many over the years. While there was always someone during his work trips – he had them even during trips he took with his family. Like, there was that one when he’d gone to Chennai for a weekend when his father was hospitalized. Then there was the other one he’d had when he went with his son’s soccer team to Ranchi.
There’d been so many over the years. From Indore to Dehradun and Cochin to Guwahati. There had been so many over the years.
He liked them young. Always young. But he was always careful. And never too greedy. And always did his business only in India. Do it where you know your way around. Do it just right and you’ll never get caught, he always told himself. And he’d been right. So far.
He always picked ones that had no one who’d miss them. The runaways. The one who’d been abused by her mummy’s new husband. The beautiful one who’d been tossed onto the streets by her own mother because daddy liked the daughter more now. Oh, yes. He knew how to pick them. And he picked them only once every year. Don’t be greedy, he’d warn himself when he wanted more. And he always picked them in completely different cities that were far, far, far away from the previous ones.
He used condoms. And used gloves when he finished with them.
He thought he never missed.
But apparently, he did. He’d missed this one by a mile. And this one was different. Not just because she was actually in his living room.
A bad penny always turns up. Too bad it had to be this way, he thought. Really too bad. He sighed. And asked his friend Ramesh to take over Kabab duties and started to make his way toward her.
And said hello to his daughter.
