by Diksha Basu
He found himself missing a Delhi he never thought he liked. So now on Friday night, when Elizabeth was in Minnesota visiting her old college roommate, he texted Serena again to invite her out. Rupak wanted to suggest something unusual and, he hoped, interesting, so he asked her to join him for a walk around Beebe Lake the next morning.
“Did you have pets growing up?” Rupak asked as they strolled down the wooded path.
“In Delhi?” Serena said. And that was all she needed to say. Of course she did not have pets growing up in Delhi. Like him, she had also grown up in a crowded apartment complex with little room for extravagances like pets. He learned that she had lived in a more fashionable part of Delhi than him. Her parents were both political activists and instructors at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She came from a world in which money was never too little nor too much to be an issue. He could sense a slight anger toward money, though. When he mentioned the school he had attended, full of Delhi’s financial elite, she shook her head and said, “Was that difficult? I’ve heard all the big business families manage to get their kids in there even if they fail the entrance exam just by paying a huge amount.”
“It was pretty bad,” Rupak said.
He didn’t tell her that, yes, even though it was known that his school put more emphasis on “donations” than entrance exams, and he had originally probably been accepted to fulfill a quota of nondonation students, he still hadn’t graduated anywhere near the top of his class. He didn’t tell her that he envied his classmates and their foreign summer vacations and private tennis coaches. He didn’t tell her about his friend Apoorv’s twelfth birthday party for which his parents had rented an elephant to give guests rides in the front yard of their large home on Shah Jahan Road. He didn’t tell her that he could hardly sleep that night out of envy and excitement. He didn’t tell her that in their new home they could easily fit pets. And not just fish, or birds, or maybe a cat. In Gurgaon they could have Alsatians, and golden retrievers, and Dalmatians.
“I envy the people out there in a way,” Serena said when they walked over the bridge where other students jumped confidently into the water. “But I envy them in a strange way,” she continued. “It’s not that I envy that they’re in the water right now and I’m not. I have no desire to be. I envy the fact that they really want to be in the water and so they’re in the water. Does that make sense?”
It did. And it was comforting. Boring, but comforting. He had jumped only once, with Elizabeth, even though he didn’t have his bathing suit on that day and had jumped in his boxers. At least he had had the sense to switch to wearing boxers as soon as he came to America, before the first time that Elizabeth reached into his pants. His whole life in India, he had worn and liked only what Americans called “tighty-whities.”
Rupak wondered how tastes in underwear changed. In Mayur Palli, where everyone’s underwear dried on ropes on balconies, people wore underwear that was gray or white or brown or beige. He had sometimes wondered why some of the older women bothered with bras that did nothing to actually support their breasts.
Gurgaon would be different. The wives of the neighbors there probably bought their underwear from La Senza in the big DLF malls, or from Victoria’s Secret on trips abroad. In Mayur Palli, the women bought their underwear from the traveling salesmen who came to the neighborhood every Thursday evening with the weekly market. It was such a public way for women to buy such personal items. The undergarments would be stacked unceremoniously under naked lightbulbs, next to fake plastic flowers and metal tiffin carriers. Women, including his mother, would stand at the stalls holding up the underpants and bras, testing the elasticity of the straps or the metal hooks of the bras.
“I like that you suggested Beebe Lake,” Serena said. “That’s unusual.”
“It’s nice out here, isn’t it? Next time we should go down to Cayuga Lake. You can rent Jet-Skis there,” Rupak said. He knew this only because he had gone Jet-Skiing with Elizabeth in May to celebrate the end of the last academic year. He loved the way the water moved like glass in the middle of the lake.
“I don’t even know how to swim,” Serena said with a laugh. “How did you become such a water baby, growing up in Delhi?”
“You don’t need to know how to swim. They give you life jackets. And the first time, you can just ride on the back of my Jet-Ski and then you’ll get the hang of it.” That was exactly what he had done with Elizabeth at first—sat on the back while she drove.
“I like the idea of doing stuff like that; I just never have,” Serena said.
“We aren’t in Delhi anymore,” Rupak said. “We should take advantage.”
He smiled at her. Unlike Elizabeth, she would fit in more in Mayur Palli than in Gurgaon, he thought. But he wasn’t completely convinced that was a good thing.
Their last weekend in Mayur Palli, Mr. Jha went to the market to get a shave and a head massage because he probably would not be able to get one, at only a hundred rupees no less, in Gurgaon. There, he assumed, people got a barber to come home and provide the services, or went to one of the posh salons in the five-star hotels. He would have to remember to ask Mr. Chopra.
The local market in Gurgaon was smaller and better kept than the one they were used to. The one in Gurgaon had a shop that sold the basics—milk, daal, rice, nail cutters, soap, butter, oil, ghee, cigarettes. There was an auto repair shop that had big signs boasting that it was a licensed mechanic for BMW, Mercedes, and Audi. There was one fruit seller who set up below a big banyan tree and one vegetable seller with a pushcart filled with brightly colored vegetables. And there was a small coffee shop that had big glass containers filled with coffee beans from different parts of the world that you could buy by weight. For everything else, you had to drive to one of the big new malls in the area.
The market outside Mayur Palli was completely different: scattered and dusty and crisscrossed with residential buildings and the local school. There were cycle rickshaws pulled by shirtless men in dirty dhotis to help you get from place to place. There were local tailors—some of whom sat with their sewing machines on the street to watch the people go past while they made a woman’s blouse or altered a pair of pants for a man who had gained weight recently.
On the corner near the barber there stood a large, open Anand Sweet Shop. Outside, on huge big metal platters, potato patties hissed as they fried. The cook used a large ladle to toss the ready patties onto bowls made from banana leaves. Another cook crushed the patties, covered them with spiced yogurt, drizzled tamarind chutney, sprinkled chili powder, covered the dish with coriander, and passed it to the men waiting. Big heaps of garbage overflowed from the small blue garbage bin that sat on the side, and a cow grazed through the empty banana leaf plates. Nearby a dog lounged in the sun, and two small puppies were jumping and falling over themselves near the big dog. A driver had abandoned his rickshaw to play with the puppies. Mr. Jha dropped a two-rupee coin in a beggar’s bowl as he walked toward his barber.
With Mr. Jha gone to the market, Mrs. Jha found Mr. Chopra’s business card and dialed the landline number and asked to speak to Upen Chopra.
“Hello?” Upen Chopra said when he came on the line.
“Hello? Mr. Chopra? Upen Chopra? This is Mrs. Jha calling. My husband and I are in the process of moving into the house next to your brother’s in Gurgaon. My husband met your brother just a few days ago. And I believe you met my friend, Reema Ray?”
“Yes, yes, of course. I did. I think you must be looking for my brother—Dinesh? Why don’t you hold on and I’ll see if he’s home; I’m afraid you may have just missed him.”
“No, no, I am calling to speak to you. My husband mentioned that you are visiting from Chandigarh, is that correct? You and your family live in Chandigarh?” Mrs. Jha said.
“I live in Chandigarh, yes,” Upen said.
Mrs. Jha appreciated the clarification. So her husband had been right—there was no family. That was the likely situation, of course. Family men didn’t co
me to visit their brothers without the rest of the family.
“Well, my friend, Reema…she has been wanting to visit Chandigarh for some time now. She is very interested in the Rock Garden there, but she doesn’t know much about the city and I’m afraid I’m of no help either—I have never been there. Perhaps you could give her some advice? It isn’t easy to travel in India as a single woman, so as her friend, I would feel much better knowing that a neighbor is helping her,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Of course. It would be my pleasure. Chandigarh is indeed a great city. It was designed by Le Corbusier, did you know that?”
“Oh yes, I’m sure it’s lovely,” Mrs. Jha said. “But no need to tell me all about it. Why don’t you give Reema a call instead?”
Mrs. Jha gave him Mrs. Ray’s phone number and felt an odd thrill. Surely they were too old for such behavior. This was what the young girls did—calling boys and telling them to call their friends. This was not what her generation did. In her generation, parents called other parents and talked about their children, who then met and got married. She was a little envious, she admitted to herself. After all, it was Mrs. Ray who was now going to get the phone call and whatever else followed. But probably nothing else would follow, Mrs. Jha reasoned. They were all too old now.
Mrs. Jha was in the bedroom closing the last two suitcases when she heard Mr. Jha come in the front door from his haircut.
“Bindu!” he shouted. “The sofa has arrived. They brought it to the Gurgaon house but I did not want them to leave it there unattended so I told them to bring it here. We’ll take it with us when we go on Monday.”
“How is the sofa here early? Anil, there’s no space for it. And now we’ll have to pay again to move it to the new house. Why did you get it sent here? I thought you were out getting a haircut.”
“I was. You know, in America, they call a haircut lowering the ears,” Mr. Jha said while behind him three men carried in the large black sofa with Swarovski crystals embedded into the stitching that Mr. Jha had had custom-designed and ordered from Japan. “See? Because the tops of the ears are more visible after a haircut.”
“Anil, why did you tell them to bring it here?”
“Bindu, they called from Gurgaon and there was nobody there to accept it. This is exactly why we need to hire a guard. The Japanese are too efficient is the problem. I wonder if the new neighbors will like this sofa. Just look at how the crystals catch the light.”
“What do the neighbors have to do with it?” Mrs. Jha asked.
“They just seem like they have good taste,” Mr. Jha said. “It doesn’t make sense to live in a new neighborhood and stick to all our old ways.”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Jha said.
“Nothing in particular. Just that the same way Mayur Palli has its norms and customs, so does Gurgaon. You asked for Mrs. Ray’s opinion before we bought our new fridge, didn’t you?”
“Anil, just please don’t let them remove all the packaging. I don’t want to have to repack the whole thing in two days.”
The men put the sofa down in the middle of the living room, waited for their tip, and left. The sofa was not made for their small Mayur Palli living room, and between the old furniture, the packed boxes and suitcases, and now the new sofa with the glinting crystals, you could no longer see the floor. Perhaps it was better this way, Mrs. Jha thought; perhaps it was better to spend this last weekend surrounded by chaos and furniture so that when they did finally get to Gurgaon with all their things and all the excess space and silence and greenery, she would feel a sense of relief that would overpower her sense of sadness.
On Monday morning, Shatrugan opened the gates to allow the Reading Moving Company van into the Mayur Palli compound. Nobody had moved in or out of this building in years. Some of the older couples had gone abroad to spend months at a time with their children, but no family had fully packed up and left in at least the last ten years. It was only the younger generation that left—to go to colleges or to their husbands’ homes in other parts of Delhi or the world. When the younger ones left, it never felt permanent. Their moves did not involve vans and sweaty men. Their departures were not talked about for weeks in advance and for weeks to follow. Their moves were done by their parents, in their cars, with suitcases and bags. The only other departures that took place were by hearse or ambulance, and those were a different breed of good-byes entirely.
Most people, Shatrugan found, did not die at home. People would get sick and go to the doctor or to the hospital and not survive, but there had only been two deaths in the actual compound. The bodies of those who died at hospitals were usually brought back to Mayur Palli for the neighbors to pay their last respects and because the soul can be freed more easily if the body is brought home before it is cremated.
Mr. Jha’s mother was one of the two who died at home. Shatrugan heard rumors from the maids that she had a heart attack on the toilet in the morning. He had never liked Mrs. Jha Senior, but that was an undignified death for anyone. All the rites were performed quickly. She had no other children and her husband had died years before, so they did not have to wait for anyone else to come to town for the cremation. They did not even need to put the body on ice. She was dead in the morning and her body was reduced to ashes by sundown.
But then there was the young Patel boy who died when he was only sixteen years old in an accident in South Delhi on a Saturday night. He had been riding on the back of a friend’s motorcycle without a helmet, Shatrugan heard. It was after dark and a car door swung open. The motorcycle had swerved to avoid the door and the young boy had been tossed from the bike into the middle of the road and a truck went over him before anyone had a chance to react. Shatrugan wasn’t on duty the night that the police came to Mayur Palli to tell the Patels the news, but he was there forty-eight hours later when the boy’s body had been sent back on ice so that his soul could be freed. Shatrugan had opened the gates for the hearse and he saw the boy lying in the back. His whole body was covered with a sheet, even his face, because the damage was so severe.
All the ladies, in their white mourning kurtas and saris, had held Mrs. Patel upright while she just stood screaming. As the hearse pulled away that day, Mrs. Patel vomited directly on Mrs. Jha’s sari. Mrs. Jha and Mrs. Patel weren’t even close friends. Mrs. Jha simply covered the area where Mrs. Patel had vomited and helped to take her home while her husband and the other men took the boy to the crematorium. Two years later, when the Patels finally cleared out their son’s room, they gave Shatrugan his transistor radio. Shatrugan thanked them and then threw it away.
By the time he had helped the moving van park in the middle of the courtyard, Mr. Gupta appeared on the scene.
“This van is going to get in the way of the cars.”
“It’s only blocking Mr. Patnaik’s and Mr. Jha’s parking spots,” Shatrugan said. “And Mr. Jha spoke to Mr. Patnaik already.”
“Mr. Patnaik agreed? He yelled at everyone when the milk boy’s bicycle was parked in front of his garage. What if there is an emergency? Did Mr. Jha pay Mr. Patnaik for this? I will not have Mayur Palli become a commercial center,” Mr. Gupta said.
He went up in the elevator and rang Mr. Jha’s doorbell. Mr. Gupta wondered if the Patnaiks actually had given permission to block their car in. As if allowing them to block their car would get them the Jhas’ son’s hand in marriage. Everyone wanted to set Rupak up with their daughters or nieces. His own wife wanted to set up Serena, her niece in America, with Rupak, but Mr. Gupta did not want his wife’s brother’s family getting their hands on the Jhas’ wealth, so he had discouraged that.
Mrs. Jha opened the front door. She was wearing a starched green sari. Her glasses hung on a gold chain around her neck and her hair was pulled into a bun but parts of it—especially the grays that framed her face—had escaped.
“Oh, Mr. Gupta, good morning. It is a bit chaotic—the movers are arriving just now,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Yes. Shatrugan has helped them p
ark the van downstairs. Mrs. Jha, is your husband at home?”
“He is in the shower. Is there anything I can help with?”
Mr. Gupta peered over Mrs. Jha’s shoulder into the living room. There was a black sofa that he had never noticed before. It looked soft and plush and there were what looked like diamonds studded into the intersections of the seams.
“I’ll tell my husband to come and find you as soon as he’s ready. Be careful in here—all the dust has been churned up while packing. I don’t want you to start wheezing,” Mrs. Jha said while starting to inch the door closed.
“Not a problem. My asthma has been cured. I found an excellent ayurvedic doctor in Defence Colony. I can inhale all the dust in the world. I’ll wait for your husband,” Mr. Gupta said, pushing the door open. “I haven’t seen that sofa before. Diamonds?”
“Oh no, no. Diamonds would be crazy. Only crystals,” Mrs. Jha said.
The doorbell rang once again and as Mrs. Jha went to open the door, Mr. Gupta tapped on one of the crystals with his fingernail.
“I see the movers have arrived,” Mr. Patnaik said to Mrs. Jha when she opened the door. “I picked up a papaya for you while I was out. Something sweet for this auspicious day.”
“Mr. Patnaik, is that you?” Mr. Gupta said.
Mr. Patnaik looked past Mrs. Jha’s shoulder.
“Good morning, Mr. Gupta. It’s a big day at Mayur Palli. Would you like some papaya?”
“No, I would not like any papaya. I am waiting for Mr. Jha.”
Mr. Patnaik entered the Jhas’ living room. Mrs. Jha gave up. There was nothing she could do today. Now there would be no way of avoiding the whole housing complex knowing about the new sofa.
“Is this a new sofa?” Mr. Patnaik asked.
