Corporate Carnival by P. G. Bhaskar Read Free Book Online

glimpses of greenery and water. Mr Shah had recommended a hotel for me to stay in. It was close to his house, where I was to meet him the next morning.
    It was an interesting hotel, built with substantial amounts of wood. The place seemed rather old, the walls filled with pictures of the British gentleman who had started the hotel decades ago, as if they were worried that someone would cast a doubt over its antiquity. If that didn’t convince you, the bathroom certainly would have, since the wash basin had separate taps for hot and cold water. So if you were among the vast majority of people who like their water somewhere in between scalding hot and icy cold, you had to take a glass and mix water from the two taps.
    That night, after carefully drawing the mosquito net on all sides and making sure there were no gaps, we went to bed, the two of us – I and a well-hidden mosquito. The latter, possibly frustrated at being trapped within a net and not being able to leave after having its fill of blood, gave vent to its frustration by feasting some more on the former. When I woke up in the morning after a fitful, painful night, I was a series of mosquito bites in human shape, not to mention the bruises I had acquired as a result of a couple of vicious slaps I had dealt myself in an attempt to eliminate the mosquito. But as advised by Norman Vincent Peale and other proponents of positive thinking, I tried to think positively about not getting malaria and proceeded towards my destination, scratching and fuming.
    To reach Kanti Shah’s house, I had to go past the Tiny Toddlers nursery school, which he owned. I saw two boards in front of the school, one beneath the other. The first read: ‘Vision Statement – to uplift the children of Kenya’. The other one read: ‘Mission Statement – to uplift the children of Kenya through quality education’.
    The door to his house was half open. As I reached for the bell, a lady pulled open the door, smiling at me. ‘Kanti is stuck up,’ she told me. She was not accusing her husband of being a snob, just letting me know that he was delayed.
    He came soon enough. A short, rotund man wearing a panama hat, he looked rather like Elmer Fudd, his round, childish, almost silly face punctuated by a broad, easy smile. He always did his morning rounds, he said, at both his schools, to meet the management team and those parents who insisted on meeting him.
    ‘I am starting a third,’ he told me. ‘Can you suggest any good names? My existing two schools are called Tiny Toddlers which is a nursery school and Laughing Lilliputs which is a primary school. I want a similar name for the third one, which is for big boys. Both words should start with the same letter, like Delhi Daredevils, not like Mumbai Indians. But it should be a little more serious than the junior school names.’
    ‘I get you. An alliteration,’ I murmured. ‘How about simply Big Boys? Both words start with B.’
    ‘No, it will have girls also.’
    ‘Hmm… What about Smart Scholars?’
    He mulled over it, biting his lip.
    ‘Or Shining Stars?’ I persisted.
    He brightened considerably. His eyes lit up, rather like the potential name of his third school. ‘Shining Stars!’ he exclaimed. ‘I like that. Yes! I really like that.’
    I looked suitably gratified.
    ‘Do you have any children?’ he asked suddenly.
    ‘Er… no, not yet.’
    ‘When you do, they are welcome to join the Shining Stars school, free of charge. Free! That is my reward to you for your suggestion.’
    I thanked him. However remote the possibility of my children studying in Mombasa’s Shining Stars school, I appreciated his spontaneous gesture.
    ‘Jai bhai, I will open the account now with a small sum,’ he told me with just a touch of guilt. ‘For big money, you know, you have to approach government people. It’s just like India and every other country. Anybody connected with the government will have cash to spare. That’s how the system works.