But a few days before the beginning of the festivities, with all the arrangements made and anticipation at its height, fate intervened: one of the Dadiseths’ associates in Aden had presented the prospective bridegroom with a fine Arab stallion, and the boy, who was only fifteen, had insisted on taking it for a ride on the beach. Disoriented after the long journey across the sea, the horse was sorely out of temper: galloping headlong on the sand, the boy was thrown and killed.
For the Mistrie family the boy’s death was a double disaster: not only did they lose the son-in-law of their dreams, they had also to reconcile themselves to the knowledge that the tragedy would make it difficult, if not impossible, for their daughter to make a good marriage: her prospects were sure to be contaminated by the stain of misfortune. When they began to send out feelers once again, their apprehensions were quickly confirmed: the girl’s plight occasioned much sympathy without eliciting any acceptable offers of marriage. When it became clear that no proposals would be forthcoming from within their circle, the Mistries reluctantly took their search beyond the city, to their ancestral town, where they presently found their way to Bahram’s mother’s door.
Although they had fallen on hard times, this branch of the Modis was acknowledged to be of respectable pedigree, and Bahram himself was a sturdy, good-looking lad, more-or-less educated, and of an appropriate age, being almost sixteen years old. Hearing good reports of him, the Seth met with Bahram during a trip to Navsari and was favourably impressed by his eagerness and energy: it was he who decided that the boy would be an acceptable match for his daughter, despite the disadvantages of a rough-edged demeanour and a poverty-stricken upbringing. But the circumstances being what they were, the proposal that was sent to Bahram’s mother was qualified by certain stipulations: since the boy had no money and no immediate prospects for advancement, the couple would have to live in Bombay, in the Mistrie mansion, and the groom would have to enter the family business.
Despite the undreamt-of advantages offered by this match, Bahram’s mother did not press it on him: the hardships of her life had given her many insights into the world, and in discussing the conditions that accompanied the proposal, she said: For a man to live with his in-laws, as a ‘house-husband’ – a gher-jamai – is never an easy thing. You know what people say about sons-in-law: kutra pos, bilara pos per jemeina jeniyane varma khos – rear a dog, rear a cat, but shove the son-in-law and his offspring into the gutter…
Bahram laughed this off as a piece of rustic wisdom that had no application to people as wealthy and sophisticated as the Mistries. He himself was impatient to quit his rustic surroundings, and he knew that an opportunity like this one was unlikely ever to be presented to him again: his mind was made up almost from the first, but for form’s sake, he let a week go by before asking his mother to accept the proposal on his behalf.
And so, with appropriately muted celebrations, the marriage came about, and Bahram and Shireenbai moved into an apartment in the Mistrie mansion on Bombay’s Apollo Street.
Shireenbai was a shy, retiring girl whose spirits had been permanently dimmed by the tragedy that preceded her marriage; her demeanour was more of a widow than a bride, and she seemed always to be shrouded in melancholy, as though she were mourning the husband she should have had. Towards Bahram she was dutiful, if unenthusiastic, and since he had not expected much more, they dealt with each other well enough and had two daughters in quick succession.
If there was little passion in Bahram’s relationship with Shireenbai, there was also little rancour – but such could not be said for his dealings with the rest of her family. The Mistries’ sprawling compound housed a great many people, including Shireenbai’s parents, her three brothers, their wives and their children – and with the notable exception of the patriarch, they seemed mostly to be united in their wariness of the penniless provincial who had come into their midst: it was as though a bumptious and somewhat uncouth poor relative had insinuated himself into their home with an eye to dispossessing them of it.
That Bahram was sometimes clumsy in his ways, he himself would not have gainsaid, any more than he would have denied that his rustic Gujarati and inadequate English were something of an embarrassment within the urbane confines of the Mistrie mansion. But these were no more than minor issues; the truth was that he would not have been quite so much of a misfit had he not been so utterly bereft of the aptitudes that the Mistries expected of their menfolk. They were a lineage of builders and master-craftsmen, who prided themselves on their technical skills. Shireenbai’s father, Seth Rustamjee, had made it his mission to prove that Indian-made vessels – which Europeans commonly spoke of as ‘country-boats’ or ‘black-ships’ – could perform as well as, if not better than, any in the world. Not only had the Seth been personally responsible for several significant innovations in shipbuilding techniques, he had also trained his apprentices to stay abreast of technological advances in this rapidly changing field. Bombay was regularly visited by some of the sleekest and most sophisticated foreign-made vessels: by befriending the artisans and repairmen who serviced these ships, the Mistries kept themselves informed of all the latest technical improvements and nautical gadgetry, which they quickly adapted and refined for their own use. Indeed, their ships were so advanced in design, and built at such little cost, that many European fleets and shipowners – even Her Majesty’s Navy – had begun to send commissions to Mistrie amp; Sons in preference to the shipyards of Southampton, Baltimore and Lubeck.
If the Mistries had succeeded in making their firm into a formidable force within a fiercely competitive industry, it was because they had kept their attention closely fixed upon their chosen fields of expertise. To fit into such a specialized organization required, of a newcomer, certain skills and abilities that Bahram did not possess: tools did not sit well in his fidgety hands, details bored him, and he was too individualistic to stay in step with a team of fellow workers. His tenure as an apprentice shipwright was a short one and he was quickly shunted off to a dingy daftar at the back, where the firm’s accounts were tabulated. But this suited him no better for neither numbers nor the men who worked with them were of the least interest to him: shroffs and ledger-keepers seemed to him to be painfully constrained in their vision of the world, devoid of imagination and entrepreneurship. His own gifts, as he saw them, were of a completely different kind; he was good at dealing with people, staying abreast of the news, and was blessed moreover with a sharp eye for sizing up risks and opportunities: not for him the tedium of coin-sifting and column-filling – even while serving time in the daftar, he was careful to keep himself informed of other openings, never doubting that he would one day chance upon a field of enterprise that was better suited to his talents.
It wasn’t long before Bahram knew exactly what he wanted to do: the export trade between western India and China was growing very fast, and offered all kinds of opportunities – not just of profit but also of travel, escape and excitement. But he knew that to persuade the Mistries to enter this arena would not be easy; in matters of business they were deeply conservative and disapproved of anything that smacked of speculation.