Goal: Stay cool Conflict: Daddi drunk Disaster: Punk him
After the temple, Pinder took him to a water treatment plant near the village. He had brought a digital camera he had borrowed off Shera for the trip. Pinder made him take pictures of the water treatment machines. He had been adamant about it. It seemed a big deal that the community was getting clean water, even though it was unremarkable to Happy. The staff came out and told them to stop taking pictures, protecting their apparently top secret water filtering tech, proud to be guarding it for mother India.
The driver took them home, with Happy’s head nodding off in a nap as each bump jerked him back awake. He went on a conscious roller coaster.
When they got home, daddi was there, in his India uniform. At the airport on arrival he always changed from his perpetual work uniform into a white kurtha, with a checkered chadra wrapped around his waist, jeweled juthis and a dupatta. He also wore a solid gold kara and a newly bought gold plated watch. He was keen to show everyone in India who wealthy he was back in Canada, refuting Mummi’s assertions of their poverty.
“Malkit syon, welcome,” Pinder said. Walking up calm to shake his hand in a firm, two handed clasp. Daddi was shit drunk.
“I’ll get the whisky,” Pinder said. He pulled out the same brand Daddi drank back in Canada. It wasn’t available in India, so Pinder had taken great care to keep a bottle from the last visitor for his brother in law.
Happy couldn’t stand it, this respect for a wasteman drunk from someone he’d grown to respect. He knew he had to do it as the man was married to his sister. But Pinder’s manners betrayed no sense that it wasn’t genuine. How could he respect a man like his dad?
Daddi clasped Happy’s thigh in a gesture of intimacy. They hadn’t seen each since the airport in early July. Happy held the camera point blank to Daddi’s face and took a photo, blinding him with the flash. He wanted to show him how pathetic he looked back in Canada.