Excerpt: Fall Winter Collections by Koral Dasgupta

Narration by Rajput sculptor, Aniruddh Jain Solanki; chapter 2

Our business was started by my grandfather and it has flourished with time and expanded in product lines, thanks to the business acumen of his sons and grandsons. Every male at home is supposed to grow up breathing and dreaming diamonds. Joining the business is an achievement; an elaborate puja where the entire family comes together to pray for success and prosperity of the new entrant is an auspicious prelude to the joining. And thus starts an endless journey where every mistake is ripped apart and every success celebrated. Big families like ours have their own cultures of kitchen politics, envies and futile power equations; yet the business keeps us together. All women of the household prepare food together and the entire family still comes together for the morning puja, breakfast and dinner in deference to a non-negotiable rule. I happened to be a special favourite of my grandmother. They say that the goddess of prosperity showered special blessings during my birth and business multiplied immediately after. My birth lakshans were perfectly crafted by the goddess! As I grew up, a lot of my demands were treated with special favour, drawing prolonged arguments and comparisons in the kitchen. However, my grandmother believed that I am blessed by Lakshmi-Narayan and settled all debates with a ‘let him be!’ After school Dad expected me to study metallurgy; I said if at all I have to continue with academics then it will be Mathematics from Delhi University. All wars that continued for weeks behind closed doors initially and with the participation of a greater audience later, were settled with a ‘let him be. No one knew that the worst was yet to come.