On a Prayer

Yashovardhan Birla

Description

A touching story of love, faith and redemption Twenty-two-year-old Yash Birla wakes up at the break of dawn to a phone call that changes his life a plane with his parents and sister has just crashed in Bangalore. Leaving his college in North Carolina on a flight to Mumbai, Yash finds out that they have all passed away. Everything he has known is destroyed and his world is suddenly torn apart. Reeling from the loss, Yash is handed over a vast empire of companies that he is now at the helm of, where he has to fight for his rights and manoeuvre through relatives who have their own agendas. This is the story of a man who overcomes one of life s toughest hurdles and lives to tell the tale. It is Yash Birla s journey from a state of oblivion to survival, where his deep belief in spirituality and his faith in true love act as a crutch for him to go on. Money, greed, God and an inside view of one of India s oldest industrial families . . . that is the story of On a Prayer.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 15 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351186250
• Langue: English

Extrait

Yash Birla with Vishwaveer Singh

ON A PRAYER
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
CHAPTER I: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 6 a.m.
CHAPTER II: Bombay, Midnight
CHAPTER III: 29 September 1967
CHAPTER IV: Yash Birla, Aged Nine
CHAPTER V: Yash Birla, Aged Thirteen
CHAPTER VI: Yash Birla, Aged Eighteen
CHAPTER VII: Yash Birla, Aged Twenty
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII: Yash Birla, Aged Twenty-two Two Days after the Funeral
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
Illustrations
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright Page
Shobhaa D Books is a special imprint created by one of Penguin India s best-loved and highest-selling authors. The list will feature celebrity authors hand-picked by Shobhaa, and will focus on lifestyle, business, cinema and people.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Ashokvardhan Birla; my mother, Sunanda Birla; my sister, Sujata Birla Mehta; and my grandmother Gopi Birla. The memories of you never fade and my love for you becomes stronger and deeper with every passing year.
CHAPTER I
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 6 a.m.
The phone call came in the morning. It must have been early since the sunlight had just started to seep in through the gap in the curtains of my bedroom. No matter how hard I tried to close them just right, there always remained that little space that acted like nature s own alarm clock. I looked at my watch on the bedside table: a Rolex that Dad had bought me for my eighteenth birthday on one of our holidays in Geneva. The lime-green hands told me that it was six. I buried my head back in my pillow and my hands clutched the duvet, pulling it under my chin. Babu, Bombay se kisi ka phone hai, said Bahadur in a hushed voice, peering in from the bedroom door. He knew I was not a morning person. Dressed in his shirt and trousers, Bahadur looked like any other fresh-off-the-boat desi in America. At home in Bombay I d always seen him in a steel-grey safari suit, just like all the other men we had working for us there. He would wake up at five every morning and get my breakfast ready, following my mom s orders; Babu ko classes ke liye kabhi bhooke pet jaane mat dena , she d said.
Urgent hai , Bahadur said meekly in an attempt to make me realize that I had to take the call. My sleep could wait. Lumbering out of bed, I mumbled something to Bahadur as my feet hit the ground. The carpet felt rough and it was that typical grey that was found in furnished-apartment buildings. I stumbled to the phone-which sat in the middle of the living room-blinded by the light that suddenly hit me in the face. The place was much tidier than my bedroom, which had books piled high in one corner, a huge heap of clothes lying in another, and my shoes kicked off several feet away. This was how students lived, or at least how I lived. Bahadur couldn t wait for me to leave every morning so he could start arranging things and cleaning the place up. No matter how hard he tried to keep things in some order I d always manage to get them back in a mess within a few moments of returning home. Everywhere else in the apartment he had access to was spotless though.
Rubbing my eyes with one hand I lifted the receiver of the bulky AT&T phone. It was 1990 and cell phones weren t that common. The only ones I d seen were with Wall Street bankers in New York, who clutched them to the sides of their faces like they were holding a huge brick. The seven-inch antenna protruding from them made it seem like their owners were chatting with someone on another planet.
Hello, I said groggily, surprised by the sound of my own voice, kaun hai? I didn t recognize the lady on the other end; she said that she was Asha bua, my father s sister, and I could make out from her voice that she was nervous. Guddu Mummy-Papa ka accident ho gaya hai , she blurted out, tum ko waapis Bombay aana padega jaldi . The first thing that went through my mind at hearing this was that it must be someone s sick idea of a practical joke; waking me up in the morning just so they could have a laugh and a new gag to gloat over. Lalit and Gautam always fooled around with me and I wouldn t have put anything past them.
Kaun bol rahe ho? I barked into the phone. She d got my attention and with it my anger. In the haze of the situation all I could understand was that she was in fact my aunt. I hadn t spoken to her in years because my mother and she weren t on speaking terms, but it was her voice. What happened? Mummy-Papa kahan hai?
She didn t have the answers to my questions. Adit chacha tumko phone karenge. Tumhari flight bookings agent kar raha hai. New York mein tumko Mohanji milenge, woh tumhare saath Bombay tak ayenge , said my estranged aunt to me. I didn t understand what was going on. My mind had gone numb and I was suddenly very worried about my family. I wanted to talk to my mom and dad. Sujata kahan hai , I asked her about my sister. Woh bhi Bangalore gayi thi , she replied, saying she had also gone to Bangalore. Unka number do mujhe, I was beginning to shout, angered by her mysteriousness. Guddu, tumko Adit chacha phone karenge, tum pack karke airport chale jao. Agent tumhare tickets udhar bhija raha hai, and then she abruptly said something which sounded like a very awkward goodbye, even though I wanted her to answer my questions.
The phone went dead and I felt a numbness creep over me. Where were my parents? What had happened to them? What kind of accident were they involved in? Were they in a hospital? I had to get some answers. My stomach was cramping as Bahadur got me a cup of coffee. He had no idea. Kuch accident ho gaya hai , I told him. Mein airport jaane waala hoon , I said almost in a whisper while rushing to my room. I was looking for my phone book. What did she mean by Adit chacha phone karenge ? My uncle was a man of few words. He was my father s first cousin and a busy man. No one would be able to get him involved in any practical joke.
I ran back to the phone and first dialled my home. Babu, sab Bangalore gaye hai , said Leelu behen, the maid who had literally brought me up. I began to pray. Please God, don t let it be something bad! I was begging. I was begging God to let my family be okay. My fingers fumbled with the buttons on the phone as I tried to call Adit chacha s office. After three tries I got through to the switchboard. Industry House, announced the operator to what was probably the thousandth call of the day. Connect me to Aditya Birla s office, this is Yash, I said. If there was anyone who would know what was going on it would be him. He d tell me whatever I needed to hear. I knew Adit chacha would stop me from worrying. No, I prayed that he would stop me from worrying.
There can never be a worse feeling in the world than knowing that something bad has happened to your parents. Where was my sister? Was it something at a construction site? A car? I just couldn t think straight. My mind was blank. Adit chacha s secretary was an elderly lady whom I d always found scary. But right now was not the time for formalities. I was not sure where my parents were, and my aunt had sounded so weird, almost paranoid, that I feared the worst. My brain was coming up with all sorts of scenarios. He s not in the office, she said, almost politely in a tone that I had never heard her use before. The matron, the school principal, had been replaced with someone who sounded like a thief. Like she was guilty of having stolen something, like she d committed a crime and I had caught her bang in the middle of the act. But it wasn t so. She was not guilty. She knew something I didn t know. Where are my mom and dad? I got a call from my aunt that there was an accident, I said wanting to throttle the answer out of her. Yash, Mr Aditya Birla has just left for his house to meet his father urgently. I will ask him to call you immediately, she said in that same voice and hung up.
My questions were leading nowhere. I knew that if Adit chacha had just left his office it would take him twenty minutes to reach Malabar Hill. Industry House was near Churchgate and at this time in the evening there would be traffic. Panic seized me and I decided to follow the instructions my aunt had given me: Guddu, tumhare tickets airport pe hai . I had to go to the airport. I had to go back home. Something was wrong. I had begun to sweat and my palms were wet.
I ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I wanted to catch Adit chacha as soon as he would reach home. The water hit my face like icy needles piercing my skin. I didn t have time for it to get hot and stood under the stream as the warm water mixed with the cold and made it more bearable. My body felt nothing as I picked up a bar of soap and rubbed my closed eyelids with the foam I had lathered on my hands. Running my fingers through my hair I could see an image of the three of them. My dad in his high-collared shirt, smoking a cigarette, talking to my mother about a slab of granite that had been wrongly mounted on the floor they were renovating when I saw them last. My mother in her salwar kameez, with a red bindi on her forehead, with her hair reaching her shoulders and her eyes-those distinct eyes, filled with unconditional affection yet weathered by the experiences only a Birla matriarch could deal with. She was explaining something to my father about the room. The stone was chosen by her. She had liked the colour. I don t know why, but this memory came back to me like it had just happened a day ago. Sujata didi had been downstairs that day. Seeing me she had smiled that smile that everyone said the both of us shared. She was dressed in something blue. The construction and drilling had bothered her.
As I opened my eyes, reality dawned on me and I began to shake. The soap had gone inside my eyes and they were burning red. Getting out of the shower I walked to the mirror and wiped its steamed-up surface with my hand.