The Girl with the Golden Parasol

THIRTY-ONE

Rahul and O.P. were eating dinner in the hostel dining hall. It was about nine thirty at night. It seemed Balbir was happy about something; he’d been serving roti, puffed up and piping hot, tinda and potatoes, and channa dal. O.P. ate a lot of raw green chilies.

Suddenly they heard a commotion coming from outside.

O.P. and Rahul ran out to find a group of boys circled around Pratap, Kartikeya, Parvez, Masood, and Praveen.

As soon as Pratap saw Rahul he shouted, “C’mon over here, yaar! And bring your ‘superstar’ with you too.”

O.P. had beaten him to it and had already joined them in the middle of the circle.

The news was that the students from the hostel had, once again, beaten up Lacchu Guru, right in the middle of town, no less, in front of the Ganesh Talkies. This was the revenge for what they’d done to Niketan and Masood.

The whole idea had been Kartikeya’s and Pratap’s, and they’d been backed up by ten members of the SMTF. The plan was to send Masood and Niketan into the cinema while Kartikeya, Pratap, Parvez, Praveen, Niranjan, Ataluri, and the rest would wait in front outside in a parked Tempo minibus. As soon as Masood and Niketan took out their wallets at the ticket window, two individuals appeared on either side and a scuffle broke out. When Masood began showing some moves, the two of them started to get tougher.

“Guru! The sisterfucker ain’t playin’ nice,” one of them screamed.

“So the Muslim fucker eats halal cow and now he thinks he’s Gabbar Khan?” the other screamed.

Lacchu Guru was sitting on the bench next to the paan stall with another sidekick. They sprang up to help.

The boys sitting in the Tempo saw their chance, and the attack was on — with Lacchu Guru once again the target.

In less than ten minutes Lacchu was writhing on the ground, his comrade was begging for mercy, and the other two had fled.

Two policemen were sitting in a nearby tea stall. Each tilted his bald head upward to the sky. That’s where Aishwarya Rai was smiling with her fair-colored, lusty eyes, hands raised above her head, underarms exposed. When she arrived in Delhi, the tricolor Indian flag flapped from a mast fastened to the car carrying Miss World. The prime minister and president had photos taken with her. The four lions of the Ashoka Pillar lapped at the soles of her feet. From inside the poster pasted beside the Ganesh Talkies, Miss World’s breasts, midriff, and underarms beckoned the town’s citizenry: “Give me your money, I’ll show you my bunny.”

“The two goondas who ran off must have gone straight to Lacchu Guru’s big brother’s place. Right to Lakhan Lal Pandey’s, head of the town council. So we came back here as fast as we could.”

“We really hit them where it hurts. Next time they’ll think twice before laying a hand on someone from the hostel,” Pratap said excitedly.

“VC Agnihotri and the other officials will also get the message. If they only want to listen to the criminals and the goondas, we’ll show them we’re just as tough,” Kartikeya said.

There was an air of festivity that night.

The next day Janvani, the so-called national but actually local newspaper, ran a page-one headline that read, “Hooliganism by University Students Causes Anguish to Town Residents.” According to the article, many “criminal type” students were inhabiting the university hostels. Dangerous firearms were being amassed in several rooms. According to reliable sources, some students were secret Pakistani ISI agents and members of Naxalite factions. The students were also connected to the smuggling and sale of narcotics.

The article also gave an account of the incident of the night before. Some students with concealed weapons launched an attack on family members of the current head of the town council, Mr. Lakhan Lal Pandey, in the Ganesh Talkies cinema. The head of the Municipal Business Association, Mr. Lakshpati Lal Pandey has been admitted to the local hospital. His condition is said to be stable and not life threatening.

Lastly, an appeal was made to VC Agnihotri and the superintendent of police by certain “eminent” citizens that concrete actions be taken with all deliberate haste and grant the peace-loving citizens of the town greater law and order. The article was signed by reporter Rajeev Shukla.

On page three of the newspaper, which bears the masthead of “Education, Culture, and Entertainment,” was an article in praise of Vice-Chancellor Agnihotri by Dr. Chandramani Upadhyay. Also included was a poem by the VC’s brother, Prashant Agnihotri, a short travel memoir by the VC’s personal secretary M. L. Soni, and an opinion column entitled “Language and Globalization” by the VC’s accountant.

It’s safe to say that the tattered editor of that newspaper will get sloshed on Chivas Regal tonight in the Asiana’s “family cabin no. two,” eating so much there’s not even room to belch.

Shit! What kind of world are we living in? Rahul thought.

Shaligaram, Shailendra George, and Rahul were all in the same boat in the Hindi department. They went to the Hindi literature section at the library and did a survey, by caste, of the names of the authors of the books. They then moved to periodicals and did the same with the writers and editors of the newspapers and journals. They underlined the names and noted the castes of poets and writers who’d received literary prizes, and the individuals who had awarded them. They compiled a list of who held office and who was ordinary staff for all institutions, academies, and the like associated with the world of Hindi literature. They closely examined the names of reporters, editors, bureau chiefs, and producers of TV and print media.

There couldn’t possibly be another place on this planet where one gang of caste members has seized control of an entire language.

“It is a total solar eclipse of literature, culture, and language here in this country!”

No one actually uttered this sentence, but any number of varieties, framed with different words, but all with the same meaning, echoed in the heads of Shailendra George, Shaligaram, and Rahul.

Rahul’s financial situation was going downhill. Every couple of days someone would show up and inform Rahul that they’d been forbidden to continue private tutoring with him. He hadn’t been able to pay his dining hall bill for two months. Even his toothpaste was running low, and he borrowed detergent from O.P. to wash his clothes.

Yesterday had been Thursday, and in spite of everything turned upside down, the organic timepiece in Rahul’s heart had been beating through every second in wait: tick-tick, tick-tick.

And at such a moment this love had chosen to come into his life! In his whole life, it was the first such wondrous, magical sensation! Time and again the yellow butterfly disappeared into the darkness and fog that crept through those days.

Two days earlier, Hemant Barua had treated everyone in the dining hall. He’d accepted an offer from IBM, dropping out of the PhD program in mathematics. “What can I do? And besides, what kind of scholar was I really going to make?” He was very pleased. He was offered a yearly salary of 900,000 rupees, after first being sent on a three-month training course.

“I’ll write emails from California, and you guys had better write back,” Hemant said with a touch of sadness in his otherwise shining eyes. “Let’s see if Americans have any free time to play chess.”

Then he took Rahul aside and said, “I’m leaving in ten days, so take what I have to say very seriously. Get yourself out of this gutter. I’ve warned you from the beginning, and I’ve given you all the data. You will neither get a job in this Hindi business, nor will you become an author. You are a neoromantic idealistic simpleton.”

Hemant thought a bit more and continued. “You’re not going to like this, and I couldn’t decide whether or not it was best to spell it out for you. But I’m your friend and really love you. So here it is. The truth is that you’re never going to get this girl you’re chasing after and, by the way, also gambling your life with. You’ll end up on the losing end. Mark my words: when it comes time for her to make a choice, she won’t choose you, she’ll choose someone from her own caste. Get yourself out of here, Rahul. You’ve become their walking target,” Hemant said. He began to get choked up, and his eyes filled with tears.