The Girl with the Golden Parasol

THIRTEEN

That day Rahul went to the department for the first time in the capacity of a first-year MA student in Hindi. His admission had gone through. Loknath Tripathi was teaching. The topic was “the Bhakti period in Hindi literature.” Bhakti dravidi upaji, laye Ramanand: “The saint-poets were nourished by the South, and brought by Ramanada.” Kabir, Tulsidas, Surdas, Dadu, Mira, Nabhadas, Tukaram, Gyaneshwar.

So, Tripathi-ji, according to you, Surdas and the rest of them were members of Premchand’s Progressive Writers’ Association in 1936 along with Mulkraj Anand and Sajjad Zahir; and furthermore, that Tulsidas-ji was a Communist Party of India worker who later supported the Emergency, which made Indira Gandhi so happy she awarded him the Padma Vibhushan medal; and if Kabirdas were alive today he’d be having his photo taken accepting a 250,000 rupee award along with the ceremonial coconut and shawl from a company that makes toilets. And, Tripathi-ji, is the extent of your scholarly inquiry to focus exclusively on which Daryaganj book publisher brought out Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas version of the Ramayana, and which government minister presided over the launch party? And if Mirabai were with us today, she’d have a post at which institute?

There were a total of eighteen students in the first-year MA Hindi class: twelve boys and six girls. All of the girls sat next to each other on seats nestled together on the right side of the classroom, as if they were a separate constituency. Chandra, Latta, Sharmishtha, Parvati Mehendale, Shubha Mishra, and her.

Her: in other words, Anjali Joshi.

The creator must have been in a state of deep boredom, fatigue, and uncertainty when he created the young women of the Hindi department. He must have wanted to breathe life into another kind of sentient being: an antelope, giraffe, hippo, crocodile, frog, tortoise, or horse; but in the end, growing tired, he settled on crafting these girls. These sad, weird, dull creatures were created to prove there were exceptions to all norms of proportion of the human figure. Each of the girls brought their own packed lunches from home, and during the break in between periods sat in a group secluded from the others and ate, chatting away. One day the girls decided they had to do their PhDs together as a group, and the next day they decided anew that each should be married off. Despite it all, they chirped away like birds, and when they laughed, their eyes shone brilliantly, they smiled revealing their teeth, so they’d try to cover their faces with the edge of their saris or dupattas. To watch them was like being in the era of films such as Uran Khatola, Anmol Ghari, Bhavare Nain, and Barsaat. The most modern girl of the group had bought some cheap readymade jeans from a roadside stall and wore them with a mismatched top or T-shirt that gave her the look of an extra from a Tamil film or, if one felt kind, like Sadhana, the heroine of the film Mera Saya, whose painstakingly coiffed bouffant concealed an upside-down stainless steel cup to give it the right shape. And the male students were cut from the same cloth. In the Hindi department Rahul felt he’d been transported by time machine to another place and time.

And in the middle of the group was Anjali Joshi.

Was she Alice temporarily passing through Wonderland? Or did her magical body house that sort of soul chemically processed from desi ghee, mango pickle, pious fasting, devotional singing, proper seasoning, home economics, Bombay cinema, and romance novels?

But it was recorded in the diary for the sixth of September that Rahul’s fears were baseless. At three o’clock all his old friends showed up. Anima, Rana, Abha, Raju, Neera Didi, and Renu. All went to the canteen. Anjali Joshi was also with them. On their way, they had the good fortune not to run into any local goondas who might have taunted them.

A cup of chai and samosas all around: this was the celebration of Rahul’s admission to the Hindi department. He’d just gotten paid from his tutoring job, so the days of being broke were still a ways off.

“You’ll rot in there, Rahul,” Rana said. “When did you get possessed with this idea of studying Hindi literature? It’s still a complete mystery to us.”

“What are you going to do with this degree? Get a lousy academic job? You should study something that’s in demand. Some of the students in that department can’t do anything else. And others were brought in by tradition. Do you know? Dr. Tripathi, Awasthi, Mishra, Tiwari-ji — every year they try as hard as they can to keep the department from shutting down,” Raju informed everyone.

“That Balram Pandey does all the cooking at Tripathi’s house,” Neera Didi said.

“I know why Rahul transferred to the Hindi department,” Anima declared, breaking her silence for the first time. She said it in a way that made Rahul feel as if there was something crawling up his spine.

“Why did he do it?” Neera Didi asked.

“Should I tell them?” Anima gave Rahul a piercing stare.

“Go ahead!” Rahul’s throat went dry and his face became solemn like an anxious child who wanted to keep a little secret hidden from everyone.

“Should I tell them?” Anima said again in a cold, lifeless, yet firm voice.

“Tell us! Why make a mystery of it?” Neera Didi began to get angry. Everyone’s eyes fixed on Anima.

Anima stood and placed her hand on Anjali’s shoulder—

“Anjali, can you tell us why Rahul dropped out of the anthropology department and took admission in Hindi?”

“What do you mean?” Anjali’s eyes opened wide.

“This is what I mean. If you hadn’t gotten jaundice, and hadn’t done so badly on your exams, then you would have been admitted to some other department, and you wouldn’t have come to our department that day to eat corn, and this poor boy would still be an anthropology student!” Anima said. Everybody laughed.

Anjali Joshi took a good look at Rahul for the first time. Try as Rahul might to laugh it off, there was something in his voice that made him sound guilty as charged.