Mr Gupta's Hardware Store

K. Karla A.

Description

A migrant's taleSet in 70s suburban London, the hardware store is the apple of Mr Gupta's eye, and he craves Englishness as much as Meera opposes it. She longs for home, India, although the issue of home becomes more complex as time goes on. Just where is it, and once uprooted can one ever truly belong anywhere? Chandu and Babita have their own battles to fight, and together the four become bound to a destiny over which they have little control...By writing bird's-eye observations of people's lives and believing that the minutiae, the small things that occur often without note, are equally as important and life changing as huge catastrophic events, Karla sets out with passion and skill to bring them to light. Tugging at every known emotion the reader is transported both around the world and through time, to share and be a part of igniting something that will never be forgotten.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 08 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800467101
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

about the author
A. K. Karla is a pseudonym of B. A. Cibulskas . Mr Gupta’s Hardware Store is the first novel in her world fiction series. Born in England to refugee and economic migrants, she studied at the University of Bristol where she was awarded a doctorate in Narrative and Life Story Research. Her working life is split between writing and as a clinical psychotherapist in the mental health sector.

She also writes European fiction under her own name and psychological fiction under the pseudonym Jack Duval .


other books by the author
In this series…
The House of Rani Kapur
Harish Hope and the Earls of Wishanger Hall
The Man from Carcassonne
(Jack Duval)
The Interloper
(B. A. Cibulskas)






Copyright © 2020 A. K. Karla
The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


Matador
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Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 978 1800467 101

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd



There is only one moment in time
when it is essential to awaken.
That moment is now.

(Attributed to the Buddha)
(C.563BC – 483BC)



A. K. Karla has an obsession with difference, the meaning of belonging, and the incessant, often unconscious search for a homeland that can no longer be found. Through richly woven ‘world’ stories A. K . continues to journey, guiding the reader and writing with words that are never far from the heart.


Contents
c hapter o ne
c hapter t wo
c hapter t hree
c hapter f our
c hapter f ive
c hapter s ix
c hapter s even
c hapter e ight
c hapter n ine
c hapter t en
c hapter e leven
c hapter t welve
c hapter t hirteen
c hapter f ourteen
c hapter f ifteen
c hapter s ixteen
c hapter s eventeen
c hapter e ighteen
c hapter n ineteen
c hapter t wenty
c hapter t wenty-one
c hapter t wenty-two
c hapter t wenty-three
c hapter t wenty-four
c hapter t wenty-five
c hapter t wenty-six
c hapter t wenty-seven
c hapter t wenty-eight
c hapter t wenty-nine
c hapter t hirty
c hapter t hirty-one
c hapter t hirty-two
c hapter t hirty-three
c hapter t hirty-four
c hapter t hirty-five
c hapter t hirty-six
c hapter t hirty-seven
c hapter t hirty-eight
c hapter t hirty-nine
c hapter f orty
c hapter f orty-one
c hapter f orty-two
c hapter f orty-three
c hapter f orty-four
c hapter f orty- f ive
c hapter f orty-six
c hapter f orty-seven
c hapter f orty-eight
c hapter f orty-nine
c hapter f ifty
c hapter f ifty-one
c hapter f ifty-two
c hapter f ifty-three
c hapter f ifty-four
Author’s note
Acknowledgements


chapter one
1972
Meera Gupta sat by the window and looked down at the busy street, her head covered in a loosely draped, sage green sari. She had made a gap in the fabric to see out, but her mouth was covered as was her beautiful long black hair, now in a tight oiled plait which fell down her back reaching almost to her waist.
She wasn’t actually wearing the sari, not in the way it should be worn, anyway. More she had placed it over herself, almost like a tent. It had become something to hide under, and this she did, maintaining her innate modesty in any way she could whilst Mr Gupta was downstairs in the hardware store. She rubbed the thick, silver embroidered border rhythmically between her fingers, mumbling quietly to herself as she did so.
‘Crimplene, Crimplene, this is all I hear. “Do you not want to be like a modern English lady, Mrs Gupta?”’ She mimicked her husband’s excellent English from that morning, the lilting Indian accent rising and falling perfectly. ‘“Why do you persist with this sari – pari rubbish? We live in England now, and you must behave and dress like an English lady. Wear the beautiful Crimplene suit I have bought for you. You are going to see Mrs Kumar this morning, I believe? You must set an example, Mrs Gupta. You must set an example to those beneath our standing in life.”’ She let out a loud humph.
‘An example of what, Mr Gupta? That I am a foolish Indian woman, pretending to be an even more foolish English woman?’
She continued to rub the sari border, now rocking slightly – backwards and forwards. She was due at the Kumars’ room in a nearby boarding house at ten-thirty. Chandu Kumar was her husband’s employee, and it was his wife that she would be visiting. The previous evening she had made Jalebi, a traditional Indian sweet much loved by her friend, Babita Kumar. This morning she noticed that two were missing, eaten no doubt by her husband despite his protestations about fatty Indian foods, and his preference for the ‘Rich Tea biscuits’ which she detested. She spoke out loud again, her head moving from side to side as she did so, a sneer on her smooth dark face and her eyes flashing with anger.
‘Mrs Gupta – Mr Gupta, what have we become? My name is Meera, Mr Gupta – Meera! And you are Vasu – Vasuman, if you must. You are a crazy man that you do not even know your wife’s name! Perhaps you should have married an English woman instead of me? Yes, an English woman in a mini-skirt! Let us divorce, Mr Gupta, the English do it all the time, so that should suit you very well,’ she almost shouted, her good but heavily accented English becoming even more so as her rage grew. She swore in Hindi, which along with the head gesture was banned by Mr Gupta, then banged her fist down on the wooden arm of the chair before roughly swiping at the tears that now careered down her face. She swore again, more quietly this time, the anger cooling almost as quickly as it had come.
Glancing upwards through the glass, she noted the grey suburban London sky, laden with rain that would no doubt empty itself upon her just as she was walking to see Babita. Perhaps for the thousandth time she longed for the hot Indian sun; for proper monsoon storms, for the sights and smells of home, and mostly for her family – her father, her brother and his children, and for the close, almost indistinguishable lives that they had shared. Here, she had nothing. The husband that she came to England with had changed beyond recognition, as had her life, and she let out a sob of despair and longing for that which had been lost.
Once again, although this time more gently, she raised her hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks before standing up – the green sari falling softly to the floor. Pulling the thick nightdress over her head, she flung it down onto the linoleum, kicking it away as she walked quite naked to the bathroom. Mr Gupta would not approve of such wanton non-English behaviour, she thought, as she slammed the door behind her. But Mr Gupta was in the shop amongst his beloved paint and screwdrivers and, for now, at least, she would do as she pleased.


chapter two
Downstairs, Mr Gupta stood behind the wooden counter, smiling broadly as he opened the till. This was one of the main pleasures of his life as a shopkeeper – pressing the buttons and seeing the pile of notes grow under their clip as the day progressed. He handed over two brown paper packages of screws, a paintbrush and a large tin of mushroom-coloured paint.
‘Thank you for your custom as always, Mr Jackson. Do please come again,’ he said, in his finest English.
Mr Jackson, who was a regular at the store nodded his head, half an inch of ash falling onto the quarry-tiled floor from the cigarette that appeared to be permanently wedged between his lips. Waiting until the customer had gone, he then went through to the back storeroom to fetch the dustpan and neatly swept up the ash.
‘Filthy habit you have, Mr Jackson,’ he said aloud.Mr Jackson was long gone by now, but Mr Gupta often entertained himself by saying what was on his mind when each customer was no longer in earshot. Sometimes he would be complimentary, perhaps ingratiatingly so, but more often it was critical, these comments rarely failing to provide him with endless personal amusement. He never shared this with anyone else, and was particularly careful that Chandu didn’t hear these sarcastic and often denigrating verbal asides aimed at the customers, preferring to keep this other side of himself hidden.
He had just pulled out a duster to polish the wooden counter when Chandu walked through the door, the bell announcing his return from delivering a parcel to a customer nearby. As slight as Mr Gupta was full-figured, he was little more than five-feet-five inches in height and compared to Gupta’s nearly six feet, appeared at a quick glance to be little more than a child. A child however he was not, at just eight years younger than his employer who was soon to be forty-four years old. Another difference between them was that Chandu’s complexion was dark, considerably darker than Mr Gupta’s who wrongly liked to pride himself on the fact that he m