The Girl with the Golden Parasol

TWENTY-TWO

Dr. Rajendra Tiwari’s class was over. He’d been lecturing about the poet Vidyapati. With half-closed, lust-filled eyes, he’d been explaining the “meanings” of words like bosom, teat, loin, and fornication. To him, it seemed, women equaled bosoms, teats, loins, and the three auspicious folds of the belly. The girls in class stared at the floor. The boys — Balram Pandey, Vijay Pachauri, Vimal Shukla, and Vibhuti Prasad Mishra — winked and smiled at one another.

Because of his connections through his brother-in-law, who was a member of the Rajya Sabha, Dr. Rajendra Tiwari had been awarded a prestigious Indian government Padmashree award. Among the professor’s habits were gawking at female students, spying on them in the library, and phoning their parents. He’d been beaten up twice for it. His favorite pastime was having big conferences organized in his honor in various cities and towns. He was famous for carrying a bag containing a shawl, a coconut, an envelope with 501 rupees, and a framed, printed certificate of appreciation wherever he went. The local headlines would read, “Special Function Held in City to Honor Renowned Hindi Scholar Dr. Rajendra Tiwari.” Every fortnight he would receive an award or prize, for which he had personally made the arrangements. The title of his PhD dissertation was “Erotic Sentiment in Krishna Poetry,” but no one had ever seen it.

The girls stood in the door to the classroom. Rahul, Shailendra George, and Shaligaram were leaving for the library. They needed to check out some books. As he passed her, Rahul touched Anjali’s elbow. She looked at him and began to follow behind with Sharmistha toward the library.

At the steps of the library, Anjali called out to him, “Rahul! Come here for a second!”

Rahul approached her.

“I need to talk with you,” she said.

“Now?”

“No. Tomorrow morning, I’ll come early.”

“What time?” Rahul’s heart started racing. Anjali’s face looked as if it’d been licked by the flames of fever.

“Eight thirty,” Anjali said, voice trembling.

“Done! I’ll be waiting,” Rahul said before running off to the library, where Shaligaram and Shailendra were standing at the circulation desk.

Rahul requested three books, The History of Hindi Literature, by Professor Ramchandra Shukla, Anamdas ka Potha, by Hazariprasad Dwivedi, and The Collected Works of Nirala, which contained the poem “How Rama Worshipped Shakti.”

As he left the library on his way back to the department, he thought for a moment, why are all three authors Brahmins?

And Anjali? Daughter of the state minister for the Public Works Department L. K. Joshi? She too, no?

What a paradox, thought Rahul, that the caste determined to eradicate him and countless others like him, whose immoral, unjust, and corrupt conduct has stretched this moment in time to the breaking point, is the same caste that claims among its numbers the writers whose works he’s reading, and a certain girl who pulses inside each and every tick of his heartbeat.

Who has power over my heart and mind? Who rules my thoughts and deeds, and who controls my perceptions? The language in which I speak, write, and think is under the authority of whom?

O bastard offspring of Ravana, cackling through the centuries, seizer of socioeconomic power, head of the caste system, I truly don’t know whether I love you or hate you!

Rahul was struck numb. A strange battle was being waged inside him, like the process in which an antibiotic, injected into the bloodstream, fights the disease-causing bacteria by giving birth to the same microbe, in the same body. His own brain had become a hellhole and host of a bitter struggle. The struggle in his blood between disease and treatment, affliction and cure, was fearsome.

Rahul opened The Collected Works of Nirala and began reading:

Oh night of deep silence! The heavens vomit darkness; all sense of direction lost, even the wind’s flow stilled; thundering behind them the vast unconquerable sea; the mountains as thought plunged in thought, only one

torch burning.

Again and again doubt rocks Lord Rama, and gradually with the dread of Ravana’s victory in the universe. .

These lines were from the poem “How Rama Worshipped Shakti.” Rahul, strangely, had opened the book to find that particular poem right in front of his face.

So? It means that. . there is someone, observing this struggle being waged in my consciousness. Silently. Invisibly. Thank you. . thank you. A cool gust of wind came from the direction of the neem tree, providing Rahul with a sense of peace.

“What happened, Rahul-ji? Are you lost somewhere?” Shaligaram said.

Rahul put his hand on Shailendra George’s shoulder and said, laughing, “No, Shaligaram-ji, I’ve been swept away with the feeling. . ki kariye, ki kariye.”

“You’re a funny one, yaar Rahul brother!” Shailandra George said, placing his arm around Rahul’s shoulder.