The Girl with the Golden Parasol

TWENTY-THREE

In the morning, Rahul stood next to the window in Room 252 brushing his teeth. It was barely seven thirty. O.P. was showering in the bathroom. Rahul stared out at the winding road that ran alongside the playground below.

The yellow meandered its way up from the residential development. Rahul, startled, looked over to the clock on the wall: seven thirty-two. What had happened? She was supposed to come at eight thirty.

Rahul wiped the window with his hand and looked carefully. It was the same yellow butterfly from the other day that had changed into a parasol. There was no doubt, none at all. The blood in his veins picked up pace. Desire seized him. The sound of his throbbing heart went straight to his ears. Tick. . Tick. .

The words tumbled out of his mouth: “That’s the one! I’m sure of it.” He jumped right into his pants, dried his face with a towel, threw on his shoes, and ran out, leaping down the stairs three at a time.

Anjali absolutely glowed — she wore a white salwar with a scattershot-dotted almond and light green kurta. Her chunni was light green. Her hair was clean and shiny, blowing every which way with each gust of wind.

She spotted Rahul. “Jeez! How did you know I was here? You’re completely out of breath!”

“I was standing at the window of my room.”

“So that’s where you’re posted these days, standing at your window?” Anjali asked, looking around. She seemed a little nervous. The morning sun shone far off in the distance; the grass on the playground was still moist with dew.

“Can we cut through the park instead of going by road?” Rahul asked, touching Anjali’s elbow. “And weren’t you coming at eight thirty?” he added, slowly sidling up to her. He inhaled deeply the sweet fragrance of her body and clothing.

“I was getting bored. Papa’s never around since the state assembly is in session. My brother stays up until three in the morning and then sleeps until noon.”

“Do you ever think about me? Even sometimes?” Rahul touched her arms.

Anjali stopped. Her eyes were timid and anguished. She looked at Rahul as if expecting his insides to react to her distress. “Why just sometimes?” She fell silent for a moment as if she were searching for her lost voice. “Each and every moment, Rahul!”

Rahul’s insides jumped. He was seized by that sweet fever, penetrated by deep desire, one barely audible to the ears. Why was this? Rahul thought. Why was it that the moment he neared Anjali, or saw Anjali, the mysterious churning began inside his body, like some kind of chemical reaction, slowly encasing his sense of being, taking his breath away; why was it he’d never felt like this before?

This life belongs to me. So how did it change itself without my consent?

Rahul thought, I’d wanted to pump myself up in the gym until I became a cheetah or sleek panther, ready to pounce on my prey. So who was that Shahrukh who bloodied the girl he fell in love with? He raped her. Called her on the phone, frightened her. I thought girls went for this sort of guy, the violent kind who leaves scars. But between Anjali and me there’s nothing but butterflies and parasols. On TV you see a woman in a bathing suit lounging on a beach under a palm tree, wearing sunglasses, arm around the waist of her man — that feeling must be the same as I’m feeling for Anjali, no?

Rahul looked at Anjali. And she looked at him. He took Anjali’s right hand into his. And that was that. He immediately felt the electromagnetic storm begin to surge through his body. Anjali’s face reflected the morning sunlight, giving it a dusky copper color. Now the storm had become an inescapable whirlwind that caught Rahul like a helpless stalk of grass, unbound.

“Should we go over there?” Rahul suggested. At the base of the hill leading up to the hostel were huge rocks, the ground covered with semal and babul trees, sirkin and lentina shrubs. There was a small storeroom tucked away where sports equipment was kept. It was always locked. Behind it were more bushes, and no one.

Rahul brushed aside the strands of hair that had fallen in Anjali’s face. For the first time, she gave Rahul’s hand a tight squeeze, with all her strength. Then she smiled at him.

“That’s all you’ve got?” Rahul teased. “Want to hand wrestle?”

“You’re on!” Anjali linked her fingers into Rahul’s hand and tried to overpower him. Oh! How far away this girl had once been. Walking underneath her yellow parasol. Eating roast corn that day, totally absorbed.

Rahul pulled her toward him after she’d given up and let go, nearly falling. In a deserted area behind the field storage, in a small space between a few big rocks and lentina bushes, Anjali’s and Rahul’s lips madly began exploring each other’s faces. The only sound was of hot breath.

The butterfly that had fooled the whole world by turning into a parasol was now visited by another butterfly, which fluttered down and sat atop it, and, perhaps guessing the secret that it wasn’t a parasol, but really just a butterfly, decided to whisper something in its ear in its own language.

Rahul and Anjali had planted so many kisses on one another’s faces that they’d become moist and sticky. They could hardly catch their breath. Passion, distress, and restlessness all mixed in their eyes.

“I love you, Anjali,” Rahul managed to say, his voice choked. He wanted to hear the same words from Anjali, but she was silent. Totally quiet. Rahul once again pressed his lips to her face.

Anjali took Rahul’s right hand and traced the words in his palm: “I love you too!”

“Thank you! Thank you! Very very very very much.” Rahul again drew her closely to him.

How had nearly two hours managed to fly by? A couple of people had started toward the road by the field. There was the occasional sound of a bicycle bell. Someone was taking their water buffalo out for the day. Now the worry was that goat herders might come to this spot for the shrubs.

Anjali’s clothes were soiled with leaves and grass. Rahul’s were in the same state. They both stood up.

“It’s not a good idea for both of us to leave here at the same time. Someone will see us. I’ll leave first and go back to my room,” Rahul said.

Just then, Anjali said, “Rahul, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Last night Lacchu Guru, that goonda, he came over and was drinking with my brother and was talking about you, Kartikeya, O.P., Parvez, and Pratap, all by name. The police just let him go. Papa phoned the police superintendent from Bhopal. I have the feeling that he may have talked with VC Agnihotri and will frame all of you in some police case. Be careful!”

Rahul was dumbfounded. Lacchu Guru and his accomplices had been turned over to the police by a crowd of three hundred students in the presence of the vice-chancellor. Dinamani had positively identified Lacchu Guru as the individual who had robbed, beaten, and acted savagely toward Sapam Tomba. Had VC Agnihotri and the police just been putting on an act that night?

This was beginning to seem like something right out of some formulaic Bombay action film. So this was the reality after all? Did Bollywood commercial cinema represent the most authentic and credible expression of the reality of our day and age, where everything is considered cheap, obscene, two-bit?

The intense spray of water from the shower completely refreshed Rahul. It was as if water from a clear, cool, mountain spring were cascading over his body.

Even his body was no longer its former self. It seemed that the cool, fresh September breeze was flowing through every fiber in his being, which shuddered with rapture.

Rahul realized that for the first time in his life he’d had an experience and a happiness that he could utterly call his own. Private, personal, and secret. A kind of treasure chest, hidden from all the others, carefully kept in some secure corner of his memory. Forever.

Now the heart sings with all its thousand voices

To hear this city of cells, my body, sing!