When Two Worlds Collide, Part 14

“Kumar! How nice to see you again. It’s been a very long time.” Kumar for his part had to steady himself. He knew if he took a step backwards, something he contemplated doing, he would’ve fallen down the stairs to the embarrassment of everyone. He immediately recognised the man. Yes, he was older. A few years older. A little more grey hair, but other than that, there was something different about Brinkmanship Rosenbaum. That’s it, realised Kumar as he walked forward gingerly and connected with Mr Rosenbaum’s outstretched hand. “How have you been?” asked Brinkmanship. Yes, that’s it realised Kumar. Gone was the permanent scowl on his face, the hard lines around his eyes and the non-existent smile. His eyes were sparkling. He didn’t realise he had green eyes. His smile stretched from one ear to the other and yes, he appeared to be genuinely excited to see Kumar, a man he had first met in the foyer of his home at 16 Rachel Road, Short Hills, NJ a few years ago. Then it dawned on Kumar why the welcome. He was no longer an unlikely suitor for his daughter, Marjorie. She had already been swept up by a most suitable boy and so now he could relax and enjoy life with a little more earnest.

“The wedding was something out of the movies,” he was told by a member he had met a few years ago and who now remembered him fondly. “It was like out of, have you ever seen the movie Goodbye Columbus?”

No Kumar had never heard of the movie. “Well, you should see it. It was as if Brinksmanship had used the wedding from that movie as a template.” Kumar smiled and asked how his family was before he was pulled away by another member who also had seen Kumar and remembered him with a certain fondness.

“What did you think of the UJA fundraiser?” he was asked.

“Very interesting!” were the only two words that came to Kumar’s mind. Very non-committal and just the way Kumar wanted it. He was finally rescued by Stanley who after watching from afar walked over with his hand outstretched and a genuine smile on his face. And there, right behind him was a woman he had once considered but ceased to consider, as marriage material. This time he did take a step backwards. Not only was Marjorie beautiful in a full-length designer gown, only the tiara was missing, but wore a radiance on her face he had never seen before. Yes, she was with child. It was either that or she had put on a great amount of weight in one particular part of her body. He smiled. He was pleased. He now knew that any thought he had of rescuing her from the clutches of the upper classes who stalked the corridors and changing rooms of the club, had evaporated.

“Marjorie!” he said rather loudly. Loud enough to cause panic which was very noticeable on one Sarah Rosenbaum’s face as she hung in the background, maybe unaware that Kumar was joining her brood for dinner that night. Finally though, after Kumar had kissed Marjorie on both cheeks and squeezed her hands playfully, something that did not go unnoticed by the matriarch of the Rosenbaum family, she stepped forward more to act as a wedge than in any delight to see someone she considered very unworthy of her daughter.

“It’s so nice to see you again Kumar,” she recited as if she was reading it from a board held in front of her and then quickly changed the subject before Kumar could reply to her opening gambit, “isn’t it wonderful I’m going to be a grandmother.”

Kumar thought, ‘how about Marjorie becoming a mother, or is this how you view the world through your eyes only?’ But as always, he refrained from commenting and smiled enough for those around them to believe he meant it.

And then they were called to dinner. The maître de who as Kumar sat down seemed to be the most genuine of the lot. “It’s wonderful to see you again sir,” he said as he handed out the menus for that night’s feast. And a feast it was. Stanley sat to Kumar’s immediate left and whom Kumar congratulated on the upcoming birth as he had to Marjorie earlier. She sat to his right, which he thought was slightly unusual. But maybe there was a plan he knew nothing of. Brinkmanship stood up a few moments later and proposed a toast to Kumar calling him, ‘my friend,’ which made Kumar chuckle under his breath. Yes, he was right. Now that Marjorie had chosen a most suitable boy and the Indian of dubious heritage was on the periphery of their lives, he could afford to play the gracious host. Kumar for his part reciprocated by raising his glass of most wonderful red wine, acknowledged Mr Rosenbaum’s praise of him and then turned to both Marjorie and Stanley and congratulated them. And then the rest of the dinner went off without a hitch.

Many years of catching up went by rather quickly. The conversation could now move to the present with the opening line from Brinkmanship, “I understand from my son in law that you’re at Columbia law school.” Yes, the words son in law were well placed. Maybe he still feels a little threatened by Kumar.

“I am yes….”

“And maybe he will join our law firm,” interjected Stanley, “once he has graduated.”

“We shall see,” Kumar answered.

“Especially now,” added Stanley, “that we have opened an office in Hyderabad.”

“Oh, that’s right,” cued Marjorie, “did Stanley tell you he was in India?”

“Yes, he has,” replied Kumar thinking though from a different perspective. To Kumar it was that India was finally coming out of the third world wilderness and was being seen by the western world as a place worthy of assimilation. “I’m glad there’s an office there,” he added, “I would love to work in India as an attorney but not necessarily for an American law firm. My focus is to help the country become an economic superpower.”

Stanley applauded Kumar’s sentiment, though the others were either not able to process what he had said or didn’t think of India in those terms. So the conversation took another more familiar turn, that of the expanding Rosenbaum or was it the Kramer family.

And not a moment too soon, dinner was over and Kumar decided to exit stage left. “I’ll walk you to the door,” said Stanley and as they did, he surprised Kumar by telling him that he felt more at home with his thinking than with his father in law’s. “He’s old school,” he said shaking Kumar’s hand before he got into the back seat of a taxi which would whisk him into New York, courtesy of his host. No Newark railway station for him. “Let’s talk more,” he added as he patted Kumar on his back. “I’ll call you.”

Kumar looked out of the window as the taxi left the driveway of the country club and sped down Plainsboro Road towards route 46. He smiled at what Stanley had said. “Yes, I like him,” he said out aloud and the taxi driver nodded his head. It was then that Kumar noticed the man was Indian as well. “Namaskar,” Kumar said and the driver looked up in the rear-view mirror and grinned.

“Namaskar, sahib,” he replied with a genuine smile that stretched from ear to ear.