Oct 26, 2009 01:28 AM
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Opening story in my book: Instant Karma
MARINA
Harsha Ganguly was the sole proprietor of the Bombay Spice
Market situated in Jersey City, New Jersey, not far from
the Lincoln Tunnel which connected New Jersey to Manhattan
Island, a.k.a. New York City. Jersey City was home to a
significant population of Indian émigrés and Harsha’s store
was one of a handful of ethnic groceries catering to their
needs: stocking saris, hindi video cassettes and audio
tapes in addition to groceries. The neighborhood was
decrepit, the building housing his store badly in need of
renovations and perhaps treatment for pest infestation.
Harsha’s sons, Sanjay and Ajay, sixteen and eighteen
respectively, worked the cash register after school hours
and otherwise ran the store in his absence on weekends.
His ex-wife had divorced him two years ago to remarry
another Indian man who had once patronized Harsha’s store
and was a successful Met Life Insurance salesman who had
wooed his ex with a late model Merecedes and an expensive
house in Short Hills, one of the more affluent suburbs in
New Jersey. Noting the lack of love in his relationship
with his ex-wife, the marriage being the outcome of an
“arranged marriage” fixed by his parents in Gujurat while
he was still in his late teens, Harsha had agreed to an
uncontested divorce and thought very little of the years he
had spent in her company. He thought divorce to be a
compassionate gesture and simply continued what to him was
a life of quiet desperation which continued to the present
rather uneventfully. His store didn’t look like much
either inside or out but it was a veritable “cash cow”
enabling him to sustain a modest lifestyle without having
to take out any credit cards or loans with enough money to
save for his two son’s college studies: Ajay had recently
been short listed for admission into a six year medical
program at Boston University. After the divorce
proceedings were completed, he moved from his apartment
situated above his store to a newly renovated three bedroom
co-op situated a short distance away. His sons were
allotted each one of the smaller bedrooms and Harsha
occupied the master bedroom. His bedroom, like the rest of
his apartment, was decorated with furniture he had acquired
since his arrival in the United States fifteen years ago in
1970 accompanied by his wife and infant children: a gaudy
art deco platform bed, a small oak desk he had found in the
trash room of one of his first apartments, a nightstand and
chest of drawers he had purchased from a customer for ten
dollars and a bag of basmati rice.
