by Diksha Basu
“It will be best to focus on filmmaking now. It is a risky career but I think it will be good to try. Rupak, I have been thinking I will invest in your first film. Of course saying ‘invest’ means there will be returns, so maybe that’s the wrong word. Indian Institute of Management is a very good idea, but let’s be realistic, they won’t accept you,” Mr. Jha said.
“Anil!” Mrs. Jha said. “Why don’t I serve the soup?”
“He was kicked out of graduate school in America, so even completing in India is not really an option now,” Mr. Jha continued.
Mrs. Jha got up and walked over to Mr. Jha and took his wineglass from him. She stayed standing next to her husband, avoiding going to the kitchen in case he gave away more information to the neighbors. She looked at him and didn’t recognize him, his eyes large and wild, darting around the room from person to person. A small V-shape of sweat had formed on the white T-shirt he was wearing under his tracksuit.
“Well, no harm,” Mr. Chopra said. “There are other options. You can join a company and work your way up. Even Bill Gates was a dropout. There are many paths to success these days.”
“Oh, unlikely,” Mr. Jha said. “Very, very unlikely.”
“Don’t despair,” Mr. Chopra said. “I’d be happy to put you in touch with some people. What are you interested in? Banking? Consulting? We know lots of people. Half the board members of HSBC are members of the LRC. I will set up some introductions. Take advantage of the neighbors. Let us help.”
“That won’t work!” Mr. Jha said, more loudly than before. “Don’t you hear me? He was kicked out. We wouldn’t want to embarrass you by asking for your help. There’s no hope. I will be taking care of him forever. Forever. Thank God I’ve earned enough for the next generation. And maybe the one after that as well. But who will marry Rupak?” Mr. Jha slapped his thigh and faked a loud laugh. He took his glasses off and used the sleeve of his tracksuit to wipe the sweat off his face. “Wine! Who wants more wine? Where’s my glass?”
Mrs. Jha put her hand on his shoulder. The rest of the room went silent. Even Mr. Chopra had no words left to offer. Mrs. Chopra fidgeted slightly—a crystal was poking her right thigh.
“We should head home,” she said after a few more uncomfortable moments that felt like long minutes. “Rupak, you must be tired.”
“Not before the soup!” Mr. Jha said. “There’s chilled soup.”
Mr. Chopra put his wineglass, still half full, down on the coffee table.
“What happened? Don’t you like that wine?” Mr. Jha said. “It’s good wine.”
“It is,” Mr. Chopra said. Everyone wanted to get up, but nobody moved. “You just poured a bit too much for me. I’m not much of a wine drinker. And my wife is right, we really should get going.”
Mr. Jha nodded absentmindedly and continued, “Drugs. He was kicked out for drugs. Expelled. For drugs.”
“Anil,” Mrs. Jha said. “That’s enough.”
“Papa,” Rupak started.
“He had to leave the university and the country,” Mr. Jha said, shaking his head now but also smiling.
“You know what? I’m starting to get worried that I left the oven on,” Mrs. Chopra said. “I really should go home and check on it. You know how maids are—they’re probably watching television in the back and won’t even notice until the whole house burns down around them.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Jha said. “We can continue this some other—”
“I’ll go!” Mr. Jha said, and jumped up. “I’ll go and check the stove. Bindu, serve the soup. You can’t leave before the soup. It’s chilled soup. Like they serve on MasterChef. I’ll just dart over and check your stove and be back in two minutes flat. Meanwhile, you start with the soup. How convenient to live next to each other, isn’t it? No reason to go home early. Let the neighbors help, like you said, Dinesh. Take advantage of the neighbors.”
With that, Mr. Jha rushed out his front door into the dark night before anybody could stop him.
“Good evening, good evening, Balwinder. No need to get up. I’ll let myself in. Stay where you are. I’m just doing a quick favor for Mrs. Chopra and then I’ll be gone,” Mr. Jha said. “And Balwinder, please tell your agency to send a guard for us to interview. Tomorrow. We can do it tomorrow. I want a guard.”
The cobblestones on the Chopras’ driveway crunched under his white sneakers, which were looking bright in the moonlight. He entered the foyer of the Chopras’ home and looked up at the mural on the ceiling. He walked through the quiet living room toward the kitchen at the back—the ground floor of their home was designed almost exactly the same as the Jhas’ home. He could hear the television on in the back room. Everything in this home felt expensive. He took his sneakers and socks off and let his feet sink into the thick carpet in the living room. He stroked the smooth head of the Buddha bust as he walked past it. He stopped and kneeled and touched his hot cheek against the cool stone.
He continued past the dining room to the kitchen. The home was perfect, not a thing out of place yet not a trace of the maids, except for the faint sounds of the television from the back. But the kitchen, their kitchen wasn’t as nice. A wooden stepladder leaned against the wall, a cobweb thick under one of the steps. Under it, on a yellowed newspaper, lay a rusted paint can and a hardened paintbrush. He looked at the kitchen counter and noticed a round metal spice box, the kind every home in Mayur Palli had and he was certain no house in Gurgaon had. The fridge handle was sticky. The faucet dripped. Mr. Jha leaned against the fridge and steadied his breathing, tied it to the sound of the drip—breathe in for two drips, out for two. He should hurry. If he didn’t go back home, one of them would come looking for him. The stove wasn’t on; he knew it wouldn’t be. Mr. Jha walked back out to the dining room, then the living room.
He stopped to put on his socks and sneakers. The light from the foyer trickled into the living room. He had one sock on but he left the remaining sock and shoes on the floor in the living room and walked into the foyer and looked up at the Sistine Chapel. The painting was ugly, the lines too harsh, and the colors too basic.
He walked back through the living room and dining room to the kitchen and kneeled by the paint can. He used the wooden tip of the paintbrush handle to wedge the lid open. The paint was yellow. Mr. Jha dipped the hardened bristles into the paint, stood, and picked up the stepladder. He didn’t like spiders. He was, in fact, quite scared of spiders and under any other circumstances, he would have first used something to clean the cobweb off before touching the ladder, but he had no time tonight. He took the ladder and paintbrush back out to the foyer, a series of yellow paint drops marking his path behind him. The leg of the ladder bumped a shelf in the living room on the way, and a small glass figurine of a butterfly tumbled to the ground and shattered. Mr. Jha stopped. He leaned the ladder against the wall and used his socked foot to kick the broken pieces under the shelf. He picked the ladder up and continued to the foyer.
He placed it down and looked up, the paintbrush now hanging limply from his hand, paint pooling under it, where he stood. The ceiling was domed here and he could see that the top would be difficult to reach. They say you aren’t supposed to climb to the top platform of a stepladder. But then they say a lot of things, Mr. Jha reasoned with himself. They say every generation should be more successful than the previous one, but they had clearly never lived in Gurgaon. He climbed up the ladder as it creaked under his weight. Slowly he reached the top, one foot still socked, one still bare. He stood upright. With his left hand he held the light that hung about a foot down from the ceiling and steadied himself. With the paintbrush in his right hand, he reached toward the sky, toward the center of the mural. He would need to perch higher on his toes. The ladder shifted slightly and Mr. Jha tightened his grasp around the metal rod of the light. With the brush, he reached up and pulled a small yellow streak against the painting. He needed a bit more height. A drop of yellow paint dripped onto his forehead and blended with his sweat. Mr. Jha shook his
head to stop it from falling into his eye. He reached higher as he heard behind him, “Papa? Papa? What are you doing?”
Mr. Jha turned to look and saw his son standing in the doorway. As he turned, the ladder creaked and swayed and gave way below him. Rupak reacted immediately. When he was growing up, his father had always taught him that if someone was about to fall from a ladder or a chair or a stool, you had to rush to grab the person, not the ladder or chair or stool. The person—it was the person who needed protecting. Rupak remembered standing guard as his father climbed on stools and chairs in Mayur Palli to change lightbulbs or fix the time on clocks. He had always stood there nervously, unsure he was big enough to save his father from a fall. But his father never fell. Rupak thought of that as he rushed to his father. Mr. Jha fell into his son’s arms. Rupak fell to the ground. His father, with one sock on, fell on him. The paintbrush fell on the floor beside them. The wooden ladder fell on them both. A small spider scrambled off the ladder and down Mr. Jha’s pant leg.
Mrs. Jha came to the door, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Chopra and Johnny, to see what was taking her husband so long. Balwinder came running up behind them and said in Hindi, “He’s gone mad?”
Everyone else remained where they were. Rupak could feel his father breathing heavily on top of him. He thought he felt him trembling and he wanted to put his arms around his father. There was a click and Rupak looked toward the door and saw Balwinder putting his phone away, having taken a picture.
“Balwinder, get out,” Mr. Chopra said. “I should never have bought you a phone with a camera.”
“I…” Mr. Jha stuttered. “I was…”
Mrs. Jha wanted to go to him but she didn’t move.
“Papa…” Rupak started, unsure how to go on. “Papa has been to the Sistine Chapel. He loves it. And he was trying to correct one of the…” Rupak looked up at the ceiling. There wasn’t any yellow anywhere. “Rays of sunshine? There’s some more sun right in the middle of the original.”
“What? There’s no sunlight…” Mrs. Chopra said.
“He’s right,” Mrs. Jha said. “The sun. Anil has always been such a fan of the Sistine Chapel. And he’s such a perfectionist, you know. That’s why he’s so successful, but sometimes it goes too far.”
Rupak got up and helped his father up. They left the ladder and the paintbrush on the ground. Rupak guided his father to the door, where his mother took over, putting her arm through her husband’s and leading him out. Rupak looked into the living room, found his father’s shoes and second sock, and picked them up.
“It was very nice meeting you tonight,” he said to the Chopras, then followed his parents out into the darkness.
“She’s too old to be getting married,” Mr. Jha said. It was Saturday afternoon and he was lying on the sofa, a crystal poking him in the back, blankly flipping channels. A flannel blanket was wrapped around his legs. He had been avoiding discussing Mrs. Ray’s wedding celebration ever since she had announced it three weeks ago.
“It’s a mockery of the whole institution,” he continued. He changed the channel again from the news about an unexpected winter downpour in Bangalore to a channel that played Bollywood songs on a loop. “There’s nothing good on television these days.”
“Stop wasting time watching television every evening. You need to get out,” Mrs. Jha said. She was sitting on the chair near him, putting an extra hook on her blouse because, much to her pleasure, she seemed to have lost a bit of weight since returning from New York. “And there’s no such thing as too old to be getting married. We should be happy for her. I’m sad that she’s moving to Chandigarh, but it’s very exciting for her. Reema deserves this.”
“They’ve only known each other for a few months,” Mr. Jha said. “Besides, it’s too cold to even go outside. I wouldn’t be surprised if it starts to snow in Delhi one of these years.”
He adjusted his blanket.
“They call these ‘throws’ in America, Bindu,” he said. “You’re meant to just casually throw it on the sofa, not keep it neatly folded away in the closet.”
“We had only met twice before we got married, Anil. These things don’t matter. In many ways online dating is similar to arranged marriage. I think gradually people are returning to that way of doing things.”
“There’s an app now that lets you find someone according to distance—so you can say you want to find a person within only a one-kilometer radius and bam, you can marry your neighbor,” Mr. Jha said.
“I don’t think those programs are for marriage,” Mrs. Jha said. “Tonight will do us good. All three of us just need an evening out. Reema has asked Rupak to film the whole reception. He’s saying he’s going to edit it and make it into a video to give them. The dinner starts at eight p.m. If we leave at seven forty-five, that should give us enough time. Although I’m not quite sure how parking works.”
“How will it take only fifteen minutes to get there? Where is it? If it’s outdoors, I don’t think we should go. It’s too cold in Delhi this time of year,” Mr. Jha said. “I don’t want to get sick. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“It’s at the LRC,” Mrs. Jha said. “Maybe we can even look into a membership while we’re there. Surely that’ll cheer you up.”
“The LRC? Where every single person from this neighborhood will be? Interfering in everyone’s business? Rupak really wants to go?”
“He’s already gone. He wanted to set up his equipment; he rented everything from a shop in INA Market—he said he didn’t want to buy new equipment until he could prove he was good at it. He’ll meet us there.” Mrs. Jha stood up and picked up her blouse and her sewing kit. “And he invited Serena along as well, so he’s picking her up. She’s in town for the holidays and I think it’ll be nice for all of us to see her.”
“He’s seeing Serena again? Bindu, doesn’t it worry you that she would put up with him after what he did?”
It was true that Mrs. Jha was surprised that Serena was coming—from everything Rupak had said about her after their Ithaca trip, she got the distinct feeling that Rupak and Serena didn’t actually get along. She hoped Rupak wasn’t forcing things just because he felt he ought to. As upset as Mrs. Jha was about his actions in Ithaca, she didn’t want him to live his life with some false sense of duty. She wanted him to be happy. But she was glad Serena would be there, because having an outsider in the midst always makes things easier. Knowing they could not discuss any private family matters took the pressure off needing to discuss private family matters.
“Anil, this isn’t about Rupak, or you, or me. This is about Reema and Upen. And we are going. Get up, get ready, and plan to leave the house at seven forty-five,” Mrs. Jha said. “And put the blanket away when you get up. It makes the living room look messy.”
“I’m not at all happy about this,” Mr. Jha said. “And it’s called a throw, not a blanket.”
They were both silent for some time.
“Bindu,” Mr. Jha said.
She looked over at him. He had taken his glasses off and was rubbing his eyes.
“Bindu. Do you think if we asked the Ramaswamys to leave early, they would? I could return the rent they’ve paid so far.”
Mrs. Jha said nothing. She wanted to go over to him, but her body felt too heavy.
After picking up his equipment from INA Market, Rupak drove to Khan Market to get Serena. He wasn’t feeling particularly excited about seeing her, but he was grateful that she had agreed to come tonight. His parents were making a real effort to forgive him and resume some sort of normalcy, so he still felt he owed them Serena even though it was Elizabeth he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Rupak was fiddling with the radio tuner, trying to find a channel that played anything other than Bollywood hits or the news, when Serena approached the car and knocked on the window. She was holding a cup of take-out coffee from Café Turtle, and her hair was loose and more wavy because of the humidity, and she was wearing a bindi on her forehead that made her dark kohl
-lined eyes somehow look even bigger. She smiled at him as he unlocked the doors. When she got in, he noticed that she was wearing an off-white salwar kameez with a green and gold dupatta draped like a scarf around her neck, and was carrying a cloth bag. She certainly looked beautiful but her clothes were completely inappropriate for the LRC. He had assumed she would be wearing jeans and heels like she always wore in Ithaca.
“You look nice,” Rupak said, hoping she would respond with an explanation for why she was dressed like this.
“Thank you. I love being back in my Indian clothes,” Serena said.
“It’s strange seeing you in Delhi.”
“I can’t believe we’re going to the famous LRC. I never thought I’d set foot in there,” Serena said, as if she could read his mind.
“Do you know much about it?”
“I know that they frown upon Indian clothes. On Indians anyway. I’m sure they’d be thrilled if a white hippie showed up wearing a shabby kurta. Right?”
Rupak didn’t answer. He was irritated that she was trying to turn dinner into a statement of some sort.
“How are all your friends in Ithaca? Is everyone back in Delhi for the holidays?” he said.
At the Moti Bagh intersection, on the pavement, a young girl sat in a torn salwar kameez, two sizes too large, her face dirty and her hair matted. She was watching over a toddler who sat between her legs, naked with dried snot on his face. A man with one arm moved from car to car selling strings of fresh jasmine flowers wrapped in newspaper.
“Uncle! Uncle!” Serena called out to him, and turned to Rupak and said, “I’ve seen him on this corner for years. I wonder if he’ll remember me.”
The man came over.
“How are you, Uncle?” Serena said in Hindi.
