“I’m joking, Mama!”
But she remained unmoved.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” said Arjun. “I was joking only. Papa was telling me a joke. I love you.”
“What is this love-shove business,” said Mrs. Ahuja. “You think I cannot joke? I was joking also.” Then she segued. “Mohan Bedi was good man. Now he is dead. End of story.” Then another segue. “Babies are crying. Tell Rita and Tanya to come. Babies need milk.”
Tell Rita and Tanya to come. No command could have been more hurtful to Arjun at that moment. There he was, standing at her command, a fully operational baby-watching machine, and she’d asked for younger replacements. Now there was nothing for Arjun to do but despise himself. He was a stepson. Whatever affections he’d garnered from Sangita, he was going to lose for good, he knew it. Mama, Papa, Rashmi: all gone, squandered. Papa lost when Arjun uttered his cruel remark—You came back because your wife died—and banged the car door shut. His siblings ganging up on him and calling him an untouchable stepbrother, misunderstanding. An uprising of the underlings. Him being booed at the concert. He was awful and alone.
His mistake had been to rely on crowds. Crowds could turn against you.
Take the band: What if Ravi’s father confiscated his drums? What if Ravi was slapped and slapped till he quit the band? He’d been foolish to imagine that Mr. Ahuja’s authority in the hospital could outdo the authority of Ravi’s father in his own house. Ravi was probably being scolded right this second for his accident.
Which meant: he’d have to win Aarti on his own.
He switched on the computer in the hallway and logged into Hotmail.
From: Arjun Ahuja
To: Aarti Gupta
Date: April 20
Subject: Stuff
Dear Aarti,
How r u??? sorry 2 b emailing so la8. Just wanted to say: I like you a lot. A lot. Plz don’t feel weird n all bout this. Jus being honest. Also, I made this 4 u.
[Actually he hadn’t “made it”; he hadn’t sat still for hours carefully dropping asterisks over the imaginary stencil of her name. He’d simply patronized one of the many ASCII-generating Web sites.]
Btw—in case ure wunderin, thatz a comma after
Hello.
Gnite!!!!
Arjun
With that e-mail Arjun felt as if his life’s work had been completed. He’d exposed himself. He’d finally braved humiliation. Immediately he was devastated. The spasms of hunger in his stomach came quicker and quicker. He realized he hadn’t eaten dinner: dinner, like lunch, was delayed. And he’d made a mistake. He’d stupidly stated the obvious: I like you. Fool! Idiot! There was a twitching in his back, like the awkward flexing of nubs left by torn wings. He’d be needled endlessly if his friends found out. Even if they didn’t, how would he possibly face Aarti now? What if she never replied to his e-mail? Worse: What if she replied-ALL to her entire school? What if not another word was spoken about this? Did she even like him? What was there to like? His hair combed in a floppy center part? The pants that tickled at his ankles? His affected swagger that friends often said looked like that of a drunken man about to topple over? Wasn’t that a compliment though? How many people of his age were drunk and about to topple over?
Also: Why had he been sent to an all-boys’ school? Didn’t people realize that it produced men capable only of copulation not conversation?
He wrote her another e-mail.
From: Arjun Ahuja
To: Aarti Gupta
Date: April 20
Subject: Stuff
Dear Aarti,
Sorry about the last email. I dint send it—my friends are here and playing a joke. I am sorry.
Arjun
Post-e-mail-#2, it took him exactly five seconds to realize he’d made another mistake. Why would the friends needle him about Aarti unless he’d told them he liked her? Crap. Now he’d sent her not one but two self-incriminating e-mails. Oh well.
Hello, Aarti.
CHAPTER 21
MEET THE NEW PRIME MINISTER
RAKESH WAS WELL KNOWN IN THESE PARTS: he chattered informally with the liveried staff and walked straight into the SPM’s drawing room. In the space of a day, 7 Ram Ram Marg had been converted from a bustling fishmarket of flattery, a place where adoring followers actually camped out in the garden for days on end in makeshift tarpaulin tents to gain the SPM’s audience—had gone from being like the court of Louis the XVI to a brilliantly lit ashram. A sanctuary. A meditation chamber. A place where bare feet pattered in soft steps on the soft carpet—Rakesh looked down. He was nearly creeping. He was beside himself with suspense. He wondered if he was too late to rekindle his ties with the SPM. He’d been too wrapped up in personal problems to pursue a full inquiry into the matter.
An answer awaited him in the drawing room. There he found a mirror image of his own conference with the SPM earlier that morning: a young man crossing his pajama’d legs in stiff but confident posture as the SPM regaled him with some trademark story. Four bowls of snacks laid out on the table. The napkins in the napkin holder still blowing in the fan blast. Rakesh knew immediately who the man was and what was happening. Yes. The man—wearing one of those minimalist designer kurtas, stark white with an intricate necklace of embroidery around the collar, face fashionably charcoal-sketched with stubble—was Mohan Bedi; it had to be. He was in his mid-twenties at the most. A cherub with pink lips despite the gangsterish disposition. Cheeks baggy with having been pulled too much by cooing aunties. On seeing Mr. Ahuja, the supposed-Mohan shifted into a more aggressively male position: legs spread wide, hands sternly clasped near his chest, his torso neatly reclining. Maybe he was simply avoiding the SPM’s force-feeding. Her fingers indicated the four snack bowls constantly in hypnotic circles. She had changed out of the morning’s saffron sari into white widow’s garb.
She was probably begging him back to TV life. For the sake of the party. For the sake of the country. To placate her unforgiving party of resigners.
On seeing Rakesh, Rupa stood up with much effort and flashed a mischievous grin. “Ah. Ahuja. Perfect timing. How are you?”
Rakesh bent down, touched her feet, and sprang back up.
“Fine, ji. And you? Looking lovely as ever. Thank you for seeing me. All I need is your blessings.”
“No,” she said, “thank you for coming.”
Then, turning to Mohan Bedi and looking askance at Rakesh, she said, “Meet the new Prime Minister.”
Because his hearing was strained, and the SPM’s gesture at this late hour was loose, vague, a twirl of the wrist come unstuck from its associated muzzle of words, and moreover the man who woud be Mohan Bedi had leaped out of his chair to touch his feet, Mr. Ahuja thought, not unfairly, that he was being introduced as the new PM. Even if the statemnt was a joke, he assumed he was it’s handsome subject.
After all, the SPM knew the embattled post of Prime Minister was often on Rakesh’s mind.
While most governments in the past decade had nominated a puppet Prime Minister—an elected head of state that deferred to an unaccountable behind-the-scenes Rupa Bhalla–style lynchpin—the KJSZP (H202) Party had done away entirely with the pretense. For the first time in history, India hadn’t had a Prime Minister. The country itself was strangely sedate on the issue, the stock market whistled its ebullient electronic tune, the sun still blasted away at the earth and its inhabitants with irritating effulgence, men and women still risked beatings and violence to cast their votes—only party members had protested. It became a hot-button issue. The post of PM was a crucial one, they argued, and it would help diffuse power, wouldn’t it? What did Madam think? Madam thought nothing. Madam said nothing. Simply sat on a throne and smiled her threatening fixed smile, all her teeth jagged like the peaks of crushed glass adorning the top of unscalable walls.
So the party members—Rakesh included—tried bribing her with the idea that having a
PM would, in fact, concentrate power in her favor. She could pick her second-in-command for the world to see, present him as her most trusted public aide, privately crush his spirit, and continue on with the glorious mission of being an autocrat in a democracy.
To this idea she seemed receptive. She kept saying she was choosing a PM, just give her time. Rakesh knew he was one of the finalists for this fantasy job. But he’d assumed he’d drastically damaged his chances—first with his unpopular stance on the Muslim issue, then with his feisty resignation letter, and finally with his opportunistic scheming. Unless: she respected the forthrightness of his resignation. Or: if she hadn’t read it at all. And: Hadn’t heard about his magnificent lying at the Meeting of Pay Scales. Why else would she offer him this post if not for his unwavering support?
Mohan Bedi had vacated his seat and was touching Mr. Ajuha’s feet in a show of respect. He ruffled the supine boy’s hair the way one pets a dog. Mohan Bedi, lifting himself up from his haunches with a flap of the arms, perfumed the room with the cologne secreted in his armpits. Mr. Ahuja was overwhelmed. His luck had finally turned. He didn’t need to apologize for the letter.
“What is this PM business?” he said gruffly, gladly, to the SPM. “This is unexpected.”
“Yes, it was, Uncle,” said Mohan Bedi, “that is why I want your blessing.”
Uncle. That word was like a Q-tip shoved straight past the terrible stalactites of wax in his ears and into the troubled brain, where it turned and turned and turned, shoveling out gray matter. Uncle. I am your uncle, you are my prime minister: No! He had walked into a terrible joke. This TV star who spoke like an awestruck child simply could not be the Prime Minister. Comedy was comedy, but this was otherworldly grotesque.
“Your good name?” said Mr. Ahuja, for the sake of severity.
“Prakash Singh.”
“Not Mr. Mohan Bedi?”
“No, Uncle! Mohan Bedi is my screen name, Uncle. My real name is Prakash.”
“You look thunderstruck, Ahuja!” said Rupa, slapping her knee. “Here, I will order namkeen lassi. Two times a day is good for you.”
“No thank you, ji,” said Rakesh. He patted his stomach to divert attention from his admittedly fallen face. His muscles worked overtime to keep the mask of earnestness in place.
The SPM started again. “You know I don’t like being refused on the issue of lassis. And that is hardly a paunch worthy of a man as powerful as—”
“Rupa-ji. Is this a joke?” Rakesh interrupted. “Don’t mind,” he said, turning to Mohan, “but is this a joke?”
“No, Uncle,” the boy stuttered. “No, Uncle.”
Rupa sighed. “But I can see why you feel this way. Of course, I can see! Very easy to understand actually. You are thinking, What experience does this young boy have—” She patted him on the back. “Well, it is not experience that is important. But bravery! Courage! Strength! This bright young man over here wanted to leave the show. So he did. At the height of his popularity. What courage. But, as you know, all of the people in this party wanted him back so badly—didn’t they, Mohan?—that I thought, okay, they can have him back. As their leader!”
She cackled. So there it was, thought Rakesh. She’d had her revenge on the resigning hordes by giving them what they wanted par excellence. And she’d had her revenge on him, Rakesh, by denying him the post he had so truly deserved, the job he’d had in mind when he’d made his ministerial reputation with the flyovers. She had won. This was why she was the Super Prime Minister and he was not.
“But I don’t understand,” said Rakesh. “He is not a Member of Parliament—”
“Yes, yes.” Rupa yawned. “That also, bhaiya, I have taken care of. Why are you worrying? Late Satish Kumar’s seat is now available. As a result, there is a by-election in his district in Bihar one week from now. The Rajya Sabha seat. From there he will run.”
Mohan added congenially, as if to erase doubt, “I have had an interest in politics since young age, Uncle. My late father was a magistrate in U.P. My mother was active in village panchayats. All my chachas and taujis, they were IAS officers. I know men in every place. I have a man in the tax department. I know the heads of all corporations through advertising campaigns. Sanyo. BPL. Videocon. Reliance. Airtel. All CEOs are my friends. With some of them I have even played golf. These connections, obviously, I would like to use to whatever ends possible.”
“Very impressive,” said Mr. Ahuja sarcastically. Then he turned to Rupa. “Maybe you can get me a job being the new Mohan Bedi?”
But this elicited no response from Rupa. Her right hand twitched nervously as she stared blankly at the paintings on the wall. She seemed to be not listening. He had never seen her like this, this serious. And that was when Rakesh understood: he was right, this was too comic even for Indian politics. Even the comedian-in-chief, the SPM, knew it.
This was tragedy masquerading as comedy. Appointing a guileless TV star as the Prime Minister was the rhetorical move of a person at the very end of her tether. Rupa Bhalla had realized that she was isolated in the party, and instead of resigning, she’d chosen to implode in a great fit of ridiculousness. Rakesh understood; he had done the same by marrying Sangita. The only difference between him and Rupa was that Rupa Bhalla had no regrets. He’d never known her to doubt herself. She wouldn’t be calling everyone up and saying she was sorry for picking Mohan Bedi as her deputy, whereas Mr. Ahuja exploded and then whimpered his sorries. He was not fit to take revenge. He was always reneging.
He had come, he remembered, to apologize about his letter.
“What about my letter?” he asked. “What did you think? Are you suspending Yograj?”
“Ah, yes,” she said. “The famous letter you sent me, how could I forget, baba? You know what my first thoughts were when I read it after you left? That I should have it framed. But you also, Ahuja, you are always throwing spanners in my works. How can I get it framed if you sent it via the e-mail? Tell me? See, that is the problem. When paper is there, I remember. When e-mail is there, I forget. E-mail I cannot frame.”
“Yes, ji. And?”
“I have forwarded your e-mail to all your resigned colleagues for their consideration. I hope you are happy? Haan-ji?”
“Thank you, Rupa-ji,” said Rakesh. “I shall now be going.”
He had better be going. He could feel his left eyeball rattling in its cage of nerves. As he walked out, he placed both hands on his eyes and tried to convince himself that it was his sinuses. That he wasn’t plain uneasy. That the sadness he felt for Rupa’s imminent departure—the automatic sadness one feels when a towering personality, howsoever evil, is about to be toppled; the realization that life hereon for them will be a crushing chore of humiliation—wasn’t preemptive sadness for himself. After all, he’d lost Rupa’s patronage—lost Rupa altogether—and his resignation letter, that scribbled stupidity, was doing the rounds of the party’s upper echelons. Exposing his utter contempt for the Hindu nationalist engine that powered his peers. These could be his last days in the KJSZP (H202), the party that had been his life.
Mr. Ahuja drove home. Delhi appeared to be cleansed, dipped in Dettol and covered in yellow pointy neem leaves. It must have drizzled when he was in the SPM’s drawing room because the mascara of smog ran dark in drains, the air so clean that Mr. Ahuja didn’t blink for a full minute and scarcely noticed it. From his car window Delhi seemed as solid and surreal as the inside of a paperweight: not a beggar in sight under the Secretariat Flyover, the gardener at the entrance to his house holding down the mouth of his hose pipe so that water peacocked out across the shrubbery, his free hand saluting Mr. Ahuja who realized that he, too, lived in a bubble, in Central Delhi, Manicured Delhi, Delhi of Roundabouts, Cluster of Bureaucratic Juggernauts. The clutch was tight so he pressed down. His thigh muscles were swimming in lactic acid. He was sweaty, tired, grubby; he was home.
The forbidding iron-and-bamboo gate to his house was decorated with twisted tin plates that had been pain
stakingly calligraphed in fluorescent greens and bright reds by his children. These plaques issued dire warnings before disappearing from view as the guard swung back the gates:
TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
BEWARE OF GARD
PRIVAT PROPERTY
LINGER HERE / BE SHOT LIKE DEER
WELCOME TO AJUHA HOUSE, POPULATION 21
The signs lightened his mood as he parked the car. He hadn’t corrected their silly mistakes; mistakes were exactly what one cherished sometimes about one’s children.
The house, too, he’d refused to renovate. The great colonial bungalow before him twinkled on its private sea of grass. He loved it as it was—its powdery white walls, expansive rooms, the high ceilings that overlooked a circus of convection currents, the ancient wire-insulating wooden tubes running at sharp angles along the walls before imploding in the round black plastic terminals of this or that light switch—and all of a sudden, entering through the front door, he was sad he’d spent so little time here with his children. They surrounded him immediately, and he wanted to hug them and kiss them, and so he did. He noticed everything about them: the gluey smell of their bodies; their sickly thin limbs; the girls with their braids they’d inherited from Sangita (braids that were easily pulled and thus led to frequent fights); the boys wearing sleeveless basketball shirts with American brands printed in absurd fonts; the varied fuzziness of their cheeks as he went around twisting them to unlock the steel smiles of their braces.
Only Arjun was missing. He was sitting at the dinner table with his feet kicking at one of its solid legs. The rest of the children joined him in their regular dinner positions. Mr. Ahuja at the head; Sangita at the other end; Arjun only an elbow away from his father.
Family Planning Page 16
