Taju Tijani
Raj is a dashing bloke. A true rags-to-riches of the Patel scion. He is a thorough breed. He had the best education money could buy. Eton, Oxford and Harvard. He moves with extraordinary human beings who live forever in the bubble of high life, affluence, fast cars and classy babes. He sees life in rose tinted glasses. He lives in a glass house in Surrey, so to speak.
His bachelor pad is situated gorgeously in the rural ambient of sleepy Orkneyshire, in between a confluence of lakes, daffodils and wild trees. The house perched majestically on a rugged hill. It is well hidden from the poor Joneses of neighbouring villages. The building was painted in soft grey. The windows were azure white. The lawns are aesthetic wonder. The mesmerising greenery of “The Raj”, the name of his house, could be regarded as the tenth wonder of the world. Raj loves his peace and quiet. He loves his hidden identity. He loves the fortress of his rural hideout. The machine symbols of his affluent identity was everywhere in the courtyard. A grey Merc here. A black BMW there. A flaming red Ferrari. More black Range Rovers and a vintage Ford.
But this particular Monday morning Raj is angry. Very angry. Money is the only thing that makes him happy and respectable. He hides behind its sheltering influence and power. He understands the language of money. He could interprets its many tongues. He could equally unleashed that tongue on anybody who crosses his path. He is the epitome of a bullshitting bad boy. For years he has been hiding this crude side of him from his aged dad. His mum died in Uganda. The memory of his mum’s death has remained a hysterical nightmare. It is etched in his psyche. His education, cosmopolitanism and liberalism will not cleanse off the memory. He harbours something against “them”. The killers of his mum. They are still there. Yes, there! In the forgotten wasteland of Kampala.
Each time he relapses into the memory lane, he is inconsolable. Years on the psychiatric chair and the voodoo magic of a gay hypnotist will not erase the barbarity of “those savage beasts” from his permanently broken heart. The exoticism his dad still harbours for Africa as a young business man has no room in his heart. The ancient echo of those times still disturbs him. He nags his dad with deadly existentialist question asking why he went to Africa?
Why did he have to go and dilute the gene and share his business genius with those darkies of primordial orientation? His dad will maintained a dead silence. Many times his dad had been aghast with his unconcealed stereotype and racism towards Africans. The father had forgiven. To Raj, the vengeance against “them” has just begun. Nightly tutorials on forgiveness has had no effect on Raj and his perceived enemies. He called his enemies absconding scoundrels. He called them idiots. He called them thieves. He called them lazy. He called them carriers of AIDS. He called them dodgy. He called them savages. He called them bastards.
Then something happened. His delicate house of cards fell. Spectacularly. One of his escapades includes tucking into a book at the odd weekend. There was a book he bought on his way to a business meeting in Rio at Heathrow. It had been gathering dust. The Saturday Guardian had bored him to sleep. Then he grabbed “The Colossus”. The pages turned his adrenaline. The characters popped up as next door neighbours. Fiction in the hand of this obscured writer has turned into reality. He could see himself straddling the pages.
At 07.00pm he left “The Colossus”. The phone rang. “Hello Raj, it’s Sindhi, cooed the mellow voice of a lady.” Heyyyy Sin, will be there in minutes…going to shower then I’ll zoom out,” Raj promised.” The strobe lights of the exclusive club called The Prometheus, whirled around hypnotically. Faces of merrymaking rich Indians outnumbered the white. These set are number crunchers in city banks. Many are stock brokers. There are doctors. There are dentists. There are dotcom whizkids. There are programmers. There are businessmen and women out to pay homage to Cool Britannia that had given them a sense of belonging which then encouraged their upward mobility. They are out to get drunk. They are out to shit in their trousers and knickers tonight.
“I have one of “them” here,” Sin warned Raj. “Don’t dare bring no black cunt here,” Raj retorted. Sin is a quietly defiant woman. She could see far into the hidden world of Raj and his fear of black man. The Prometheus is her racial tolerance laboratory tonight. Like an arranged marriage she had arranged for a black dude to meet her at The Prometheus. The solemn fortress of Surrey will not offer protection for Raj tonight. Yes, Raj’s sweeping judgment must be put to the test tonight. Sin is warming up for an audacious, heady, adversarial encounter.
Abandoning all pretences to Asian’s social, racial and cultural etiquette, Lance Milford emerged with a smile and edged toward Sin.
Raj made to pull her away. Sin remained solid like the rock of Gibraltar. “Hi Sindhi..hope you are enjoying the night,” Lance opened. “I’m fine and having a whale of a time”, Sin answered. “Raj, this is my mystery guest I met on Facebook.” “Oh hi,” Raj retorted rudely. “My name is Lance Milford….and a pleasure meeting you. Sin has spoken to me about you and how you…..”. A suspension of disbelief covered Raj like confetti. “Sorry, did you say your name is Lance Milford…which one?”, Raj queried. “I am the……” “No…no…no are you the author of a book”, Raj cut in. Yes, I wrote Colossus. “You wrote that book…you?”
Lance understood Raj’s mentality. He understood the prevailing Asian ambivalent attitude toward black intelligence and success. Lance shattered the cloistered canon of Raj’s loathing of black people. Nazi in its odious thrust. Money, class and high education can constitute wreckers of human understanding in the hands of every Raj. Sindhi had a life mission. She had vowed to undo and unpack the bundle of flamboyant lies about “them” on Raj’s subconscious. A small tip off from Raj about his love for Lance writing set Sin to work. She researched Lance on Facebook. She made a Puritan confession to Lance about her boyfriend and a deal was seal to deliver him from arresting racism.
“Hello Sindhi, it’s Pradhi.” “Papa…hello, how’s Raj….tell him I will come over to Surrey this night,” Sindhi answered. “You did a good job on my son with Lance…Did you tell him not to sin no more?”, Pradhi probed. “Hahaha….papa…..a sinner cannot marry a Sindhi,” she said.