Part 98--Him

Part 98

April 3^rd 2011

Him

Golf Links

His privileged upbringing helped a little, but from when he was young, he had expensive taste, “wanted to be different”. All the young Kapoors went to Modern School Barakhamba, including the senior Kapoors, but Raghav was sent to Sanawar.

He had few friends while growing up, Ateendra and Anuttam could be considered his “buddies”. He played  music, DRUMS! A boy so seriously quiet loved LOUD music. Hard Rock…. His favorite bands  being Metallica and AC DC….

He grew his hair long, almost got tattoos, and almost pierced his tongue and nose…. His teen pictures sport many a mohawks in colors ranging from deep purple to feisty orange…..

His band “friends” 2 girls and 5 guys, were not very popular at home… his first tryst with  sex was with his band mate.. Koyal at 14…

He either listened to music, wrote music, played music or slept through his teen years…. except when he was in bed with someone.. :-)

Ateendra and Anuttam tried unsuccessfully to pursue “cool” things like Rags as they called him… academia took over and they abandoned Rags.

Raghav didn’t pay much attention to what was being taught in college or school, his Grad school venture was the result of a botched “chasing hard rock band” US tour. Blessed with his parents intelligence and genetic shrewdness got him one of the highest GRE scores and then CMU happened…

He called his Mom every week, Krishan was sure he had abandoned school and lived under a bridge someplace, smoking pot…

Even video chats did not convince him

Raghav didn’t actually…. Try to convince his Dad

He never “tried” to do anything for his Dad… there was an animosity that got built early on straining the relationship… he either spoke to Pawan Uncle or Mom…

Some of the father son friction even got written about in Biz Today and such…

Didn’t faze the guy though…

Summer vacations in India brought with it interrogations by Dad about drug, sex and philandering… Krishan couldn’t get too many answers though… the questions hung around in the room until Pawan took him away for work…

He loved to watch his Mom cook and actually offered suggestions, would taste and write reviews for her. Would find articles online or eat out while at CMU and email her all about it…

He was adventurous, a thrill seeker, loved everything from flying single engine planes to zip lines to bungee jumping and paragliding… he sailed solo once to a remote island off the Canadian coast…. Ran out of fuel and floated for 6 or so hours until a yacht flagged down the coast guard….

Bottom line, he would DO it if someone tried to talk him out of it… he was compulsively drawn to a challenge…

He quit wearing contacts and started sporting glasses during the last semester……. He scanned his commencement invitation and sent it to his Mom

She flew first class to attend it

Krishan did not…

Pawan wrote to him asking him to apply for the VP Operations at the machine tool division…

Raghav emailed his Chachu back with a “smiley face symbol and Thanks Chachu” but can’t imagine working for a living”

He was a TA and started to write apps to make a living while in the US… his Dad’s money remains in the account till date…. Untouched…

A car stood in the driveway on the day he returned… a gleaming Corvette… a red one… he test drove it with Ruchira and Rohini and brought it back… and bought himself an SUV… a beefy… “manly” testosterone explosion” as Atee would say…

His testosterone didn’t explode… he found ways to assuage it along the way… starting with Koyal… until Nayana…

The reigniting leather venture  was the first thing he had somewhat of a curiosity towards.. the idea of operating through “holding companies” to subvert the legal system and eventually transform it into a successful operation triggered the thrill seeker in him. He looked at it like a free fall from a cliff… skirting rules, dodging principles excited him.. he never played by the book… ever…

The interest he was showing in this enterprise was a first for him and a first for the Kapoor business…

Krishan was holding his breath…….. not visibly though……. He would never want Raghav to find out…….

Raghav neither…… he would never invest more the minimum involvement…… lest Dad got a whiff of it…

Then Radhika happened… the day he met her at the UP State Govt office, he had lay awake….. staring at the moon through the fine mosquito net covering the bed…. At the Circuit House..

He imagined her lips under his… he fantasized shutting her up… he had chuckled…

He was sure her eyeballs were bigger than any body else’s… she was almost as tall as he was.. the women, girls he had dated thus far had all be a foot shorter…

She looked like she air dryed her hair, there must have been a million curls… he wanted to count… wearing them like rings on his fingers… while she lay on him… naked…

Her laughter was husky, she wore provocative clothes… racy at times… she didn’t care if men looked…he had traced the V of her kurta once… “V for Valley” she had croaked… hoarsely… “This more like a gorge” he said laughing into her cleft…

He had told her about his bands, his love for travel, unconventional outlook towards life……..

“Life behind a desk is like being nailed to a wall” he said to her

 “I can’t quit. It’s like I am on a high speed treadmill with a broken power switch” she told him in response