North From Calcutta by Duane Evans

Author:Duane Evans [Evans, Duane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Terrorism, Thriller
ISBN: 9780981945408
Google: DndwPgAACAAJ
Amazon: 0981945406
Publisher: Pecos Moon LLC
Published: 2009-05-01T23:00:00+00:00

38

The heat from the late morning sun was intense. Despite having all the office windows open and the ceiling fans at maximum speed, there was nothing Anil Deshmukh could do to cool himself. There simply was no escaping from the heat of late spring in Calcutta. The smell of rotting refuse and the cacophony of cars, horns, motorcycles, and shouts of vendors rising from the street poured into the fourth-floor suite of the West Bengal Protocol Office. Anil did not know what annoyed him most—the heat, the smell, or the noise.

These were not the conditions he had imagined he would be working under when he accepted the provincial governor’s offer of a job as the protocol officer for the province. Governor Ghule had made the offer almost two years ago while he and Anil sat ever-so-comfortably in the governor’s tranquil air conditioned office, sipping ice-cold Coca-Cola served to them by the governor’s office assistant, truly one of the most beautiful women Anil had ever seen. Looking back to that meeting, he had to admit that Governor Ghule had not exactly promised him an air conditioned office, or that he would be “assisted” by a beautiful woman. But still, the implication was there. At least in Anil’s mind it was.

Since then, Anil had somehow grown to accept the reality of his current station within the West Bengal government. After all, he was very fortunate to have landed a government job of some responsibility, given his young age. He had a steady if low salary, and employment with the government meant that he received some health benefits. Should he endure until retirement, he would have a pension in his old age.

The job had other benefits, as well. As the protocol officer, he had met a number of celebrities who had visited the city, most having come to make highly publicized donations to organizations that helped Calcutta’s poor.

He had also organized open-air concerts for Western rock bands, primarily from the UK, who came to Calcutta while on tour. This had happened with much more frequency prior to Mother Teresa’s death, but still, every now and then, a band of tattooed long-haired rockers would arrive. Some were actually unaware Mother Teresa had died years before and would no longer be available to see them when they visited her orphanage, their mouths dropping open in shock when told of her passing.

No, his job was tolerable, as long as he kept reminding himself that his current post was only temporary. Anil was convinced the job in Calcutta would be his stepping stone to a position in India’s Ministry of Culture, with all of its possibilities—service abroad, perhaps, maybe even New York on assignment at the United Nations. This had been his dream for as long as he could remember, and he was confident he would one day fulfill that dream and the world would be his oyster.

But for the present time he had no oyster, only cold left-over lentils and hard naan to sustain him. Pushing

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.