The Girl with the Golden Parasol (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Prakash, Uday

  So this is what the process of globalization looks like? The whole world will become a village? Everything will turn into America. But if this is really the case, then why does Dr. Watson want to get out of here as fast as possible? Why does Sapam Tomba stand mute? Why is Madhusudan’s father telling him to come home? Why was the Christian minister Staines burned alive in his car along with his little children? Why are non-Bengalis afraid in Calcutta and non-Marathis afraid in Mumbai? Why have the few Hindus of Kashmir had to leave their house and land to become refugees, lost, wandering from door to door?

  And should only local students from the town be allowed to study here at the university? Locals only as faculty and administrators? It occurred to Rahul that the university and its hostels were like a diorama of the national makeup, now beginning to splinter. Regionalism, casteism, and the muck of cheap petty powers were suddenly seeping out, laying waste to all the great metaphors and federal myths this country had so far constructed.

  Rahul had seen a horror movie called Critters. Small, round, ugly critters rolling around like balls, gnashing their teeth and eating everything in sight as fast as they could. They’d suddenly appear out of nowhere, a gang of them together, and munch on or destroy whatever lay in their path.

  They weren’t from here. They were sent to earth from some other planet. Or maybe an alien pod fell to earth, cracked open, and gave birth to them? In no time their numbers multiplied, endlessly. One day they’d consume the entire world, leaving a scene of frightening devastation. It was truly a scary film, and scientific too. It was called “science fiction.”

  “Hey, take a look over there—that’s quite a poster up in front of the library,” Pratap pointed.

  A three-by-two-foot advertisement was stuck on the wall to the left of the main door where the steps end, showing a girl in a black miniskirt in profile, bust forward, rear end thrust backward, palms facing outward in front of her chest, all of which made her look like the letter S. Huge writing in English below the image read:

  Shipra International Enterprises Presents:

  First Beauty Casting

  Sponsored by Femina India

  A golden opportunity to become Miss World and Miss Universe

  The greatest chance for your career in fashion, modeling, advertising and acting

  Date: 10 September

  Day: Sunday

  Place: University Auditorium

  Time: 9:00–11:30 p.m.

  TWELVE

  The dates were the fifth to the fifteenth of September.

  In these ten days so many events happened one after the other that Rahul felt as if in one sitting he were watching a film in fast-forward, created by a magical device.

  The sixth of September was a Wednesday. As soon as he got up, even before brushing his teeth and washing his face, and with eyes half closed, his first order of business was to soak his handkerchief in water and moisten Madhuri Dixit’s back so much so that the adhesive loosened, and the center spread of Stardust pasted on the window of Room 252 fell to the floor.

  The wet paper had become transparent. Traces of advertisements for Honda Hero Splendor and Ile deodorant printed on the other side of the page appeared on Madhuri’s eyes and back. Gone were the startled, doe-like eyes and sculpted, tormented back wounded by Salman Khan’s slingshot.

  Rahul wiped the window until it was spotless. Now he could see clearly the playing field in the valley and the semicircular road surrounding it. From here he could also see with great clarity, without binoculars, like a butterfly could, that shining yellow spot slowly swimming in the distance. Its mere appearance would take Rahul’s breath away and rushed the blood fast through his veins. And the sound of his throbbing heartbeat reached all the way to his ears. Thump, whoosh! Thump, whoosh!

  The night has a thousand

  eyes and the day but one

  yet the light of the bright world dies

  with the dying sun

  The mind has a thousand eyes

  and the heart but one

  yet the light of a whole life dies

  when love is done!

  Rahul stooped down and picked up the pieces of wet paper that had borne Madhuri’s photo, opened the door of his room, and threw them outside in the trash.

  Arrivederci, Mrs. Nene! Bye-bye!

  THIRTEEN

  That day Rahul went to the department for the first time in the capacity of a first-year MA student in Hindi. His admission had gone through. Loknath Tripathi was teaching. The topic was “the Bhakti period in Hindi literature.” Bhakti dravidi upaji, laye Ramanand: “The saint-poets were nourished by the South, and brought by Ramanada.” Kabir, Tulsidas, Surdas, Dadu, Mira, Nabhadas, Tukaram, Gyaneshwar.

  So, Tripathi-ji, according to you, Surdas and the rest of them were members of Premchand’s Progressive Writers’ Association in 1936 along with Mulkraj Anand and Sajjad Zahir; and furthermore, that Tulsidas-ji was a Communist Party of India worker who later supported the Emergency, which made Indira Gandhi so happy she awarded him the Padma Vibhushan medal; and if Kabirdas were alive today he’d be having his photo taken accepting a 250,000 rupee award along with the ceremonial coconut and shawl from a company that makes toilets. And, Tripathi-ji, is the extent of your scholarly inquiry to focus exclusively on which Daryaganj book publisher brought out Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas version of the Ramayana, and which government minister presided over the launch party? And if Mirabai were with us today, she’d have a post at which institute?

  There were a total of eighteen students in the first-year MA Hindi class: twelve boys and six girls. All of the girls sat next to each other on seats nestled together on the right side of the classroom, as if they were a separate constituency. Chandra, Latta, Sharmishtha, Parvati Mehendale, Shubha Mishra, and her.

  Her: in other words, Anjali Joshi.

  The creator must have been in a state of deep boredom, fatigue, and uncertainty when he created the young women of the Hindi department. He must have wanted to breathe life into another kind of sentient being: an antelope, giraffe, hippo, crocodile, frog, tortoise, or horse; but in the end, growing tired, he settled on crafting these girls. These sad, weird, dull creatures were created to prove there were exceptions to all norms of proportion of the human figure. Each of the girls brought their own packed lunches from home, and during the break in between periods sat in a group secluded from the others and ate, chatting away. One day the girls decided they had to do their PhDs together as a group, and the next day they decided anew that each should be married off. Despite it all, they chirped away like birds, and when they laughed, their eyes shone brilliantly, they smiled revealing their teeth, so they’d try to cover their faces with the edge of their saris or dupattas. To watch them was like being in the era of films such as Uran Khatola, Anmol Ghari, Bhavare Nain, and Barsaat. The most modern girl of the group had bought some cheap readymade jeans from a roadside stall and wore them with a mismatched top or T-shirt that gave her the look of an extra from a Tamil film or, if one felt kind, like Sadhana, the heroine of the film Mera Saya, whose painstakingly coiffed bouffant concealed an upside-down stainless steel cup to give it the right shape. And the male students were cut from the same cloth. In the Hindi department Rahul felt he’d been transported by time machine to another place and time.

  And in the middle of the group was Anjali Joshi.

  Was she Alice temporarily passing through Wonderland? Or did her magical body house that sort of soul chemically processed from desi ghee, mango pickle, pious fasting, devotional singing, proper seasoning, home economics, Bombay cinema, and romance novels?

  But it was recorded in the diary for the sixth of September that Rahul’s fears were baseless. At three o’clock all his old friends showed up. Anima, Rana, Abha, Raju, Neera Didi, and Renu. All went to the canteen. Anjali Joshi was also with them. On their way, they had the good fortune not to run into any local goondas who might have taunted them.

  A cup of chai and samosas all around: this was the
celebration of Rahul’s admission to the Hindi department. He’d just gotten paid from his tutoring job, so the days of being broke were still a ways off.

  “You’ll rot in there, Rahul,” Rana said. “When did you get possessed with this idea of studying Hindi literature? It’s still a complete mystery to us.”

  “What are you going to do with this degree? Get a lousy academic job? You should study something that’s in demand. Some of the students in that department can’t do anything else. And others were brought in by tradition. Do you know? Dr. Tripathi, Awasthi, Mishra, Tiwari-ji—every year they try as hard as they can to keep the department from shutting down,” Raju informed everyone.

  “That Balram Pandey does all the cooking at Tripathi’s house,” Neera Didi said.

  “I know why Rahul transferred to the Hindi department,” Anima declared, breaking her silence for the first time. She said it in a way that made Rahul feel as if there was something crawling up his spine.

  “Why did he do it?” Neera Didi asked.

  “Should I tell them?” Anima gave Rahul a piercing stare.

  “Go ahead!” Rahul’s throat went dry and his face became solemn like an anxious child who wanted to keep a little secret hidden from everyone.

  “Should I tell them?” Anima said again in a cold, lifeless, yet firm voice.

  “Tell us! Why make a mystery of it?” Neera Didi began to get angry. Everyone’s eyes fixed on Anima.

  Anima stood and placed her hand on Anjali’s shoulder—

  “Anjali, can you tell us why Rahul dropped out of the anthropology department and took admission in Hindi?”

  “What do you mean?” Anjali’s eyes opened wide.

  “This is what I mean. If you hadn’t gotten jaundice, and hadn’t done so badly on your exams, then you would have been admitted to some other department, and you wouldn’t have come to our department that day to eat corn, and this poor boy would still be an anthropology student!” Anima said. Everybody laughed.

  Anjali Joshi took a good look at Rahul for the first time. Try as Rahul might to laugh it off, there was something in his voice that made him sound guilty as charged.

  FOURTEEN

  It was something like a light fever, or a mild buzz, that began to consume Rahul on Wednesday, the sixth of September, at three thirty-five p.m. He couldn’t utter a word. It was such a deep and dizzying silence it seemed as if his very sense of being was lost inside it. It was a totally new and unique experience, the first like it in his life.

  He came in and lay down on his bed in Room 252 even before the sun had set. Just that morning he had scrubbed the windowpane clear with his handkerchief. He got up a few times to look out the window. The green and brown vegetation and trees in the valley stood quietly in the evening light. The normally dull rock outcroppings scattered here and there now shone with a golden hue. On the broad, flat field, the shadows of the trees elongated with every passing moment.

  Rahul’s eyes scanned the distance for any sign of that spot of yellow, which just might be returning to the residential development. Anjali’s face flashed through his mind again and again like a bolt of lightning. In his mind she was even now on her way to see him. He held his eyes shut and froze her image in his imagination.

  There was no anger in those eyes, but rather the ache from being stung by the slingshot pellet, and her eagerness.

  When did Rahul finally doze off? He wasn’t sure. O.P. shook him awake. “No dinner? It’s been dinnertime for awhile. You’re not sick, are you?”

  Stumbling, Rahul managed to pull himself out of bed. He stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and put his head under the rush of water. It was as if the water were an entirely new sensation, cool and fresh. He’d fallen asleep sometime around six o’clock and now it was eight thirty. A long period of time had elapsed during this two-and-a-half-hour nap. Everything before had been part of a former existence; this was like a new life entirely, a feeling of a light fever and intoxication.

  Rahul splashed cold water on his eyes. I’m slowly waking up, aren’t I?

  “I’ll meet you down in the dining hall, I’m heading out,” O.P.’s voice sounded from outside.

  Rahul later bumped into Hemant Barua in the dining hall, who sometimes stopped by after beating Professor Aggrawal in a game of chess. Hemant had two items of news. One was that he hadn’t seen Sapam Tomba, whose door was locked, for two days.

  The second was the announcement that Rahul had made a terrifying mistake in taking admission to the Hindi department because every last individual in the department, from the sweeper to the chair, was a Brahmin. Save for Rahul, Shaligaram, and Shailendra George, the rest of the first-year Hindi students were all Brahmins.

  Hemant Barua, the wondrous number-crunching genius from Dibrugarh, Assam, and MSc in the Department of Mathematics, combined statistics, information, and facts into a single process. He declared that on the basis of caste, the Brahmin to non-Brahmin ratio was approximately 88 percent to 12 percent. What’s more, those who left with their PhDs and later found work reflected the same statistic. Barua said, “Rahul, you have entered a labyrinth where they will lynch you one day. Beware. It’s not too late.”

  Both pieces of information worried Rahul. Where had Sapam gone? The image of the handsome, roly-poly boy from Imphal flashed before his eyes.

  The night passed, somehow, though Rahul was not conscious.

  But in that state of unconsciousness a yellow parasol quietly fluttered like a butterfly coming up the hills from the valley below on the semicircular road, and each moment stretched out for such an eternity that his sleep was encircled from below him. Rahul, deep inside, slept without a care in the world, like an innocent, orphaned baby.

  It was something like after the apocalypse that ends creation, when a tiny god resting on a tiny leaf rides the waves of a fathomless sea, asleep, engrossed in the redreaming of his next creation.

  FIFTEEN

  Some sort of predetermined rule dictated that Rahul’s first, and best, friends would be Shailendra George and Shaligaram. The three of them, instinctively, of their own accord, began to sit together. They talked among themselves and discovered that each of the other students had some sort of connection, either with one another, or with the teachers, or some family connection, or they had some other basis for rapport. These were confident boys who didn’t have to worry about their future. They were chiefly foot soldiers in the political machinations of the department. Less interested in books and literature, they took greater interest in the tricks of the trade that would help get their hands on degrees, positions, promotions, and fellowships. And they were very quick to master their training. There was some gene in their DNA that allowed them to learn this knowledge with the same ease a squirrel learns to scramble up a tree or a fish how to swim in the water or a kingfisher how to dive or a bandicoot how to make a hole in a wall and sneak in the house.

  Shailendra George said that when his family had still been Hindu, his father had been an untouchable in charge of the cremation grounds. He’d converted from Hinduism thirty years ago.

  Shaligaram was a weaver by caste. He said that upper-caste people, particularly Brahmins, made up jokes and sayings as proof of the idiotic ways weavers act. One joke goes that once upon a time a weaver had a dream that five two-hundred-pound jute sacks, normally filled with grain, were lying behind the house stuffed with rupees next to a pile of firewood. The weaver awoke and, remembering his dream, immediately marched out back. When he arrived, you can’t imagine his surprise when he found five sacks, as real as can be, lying next to the pile of wood. He shouted for all his neighbors to come, and once they were gathered, he told them all about the dream.

  The weaver’s neighbors saw that millions of rupee notes and coins stuffed the five sacks. First they conferred among themselves. They then turned to the weaver to explain that, yes, the gunnysacks indeed contained a great harvest of wealth. But there was a lot of chaff and only a bit of grain. So they instructed him t
o separate and get rid of the worthless chaff and keep only the valuable grain.

  The joke continues that the weaver’s womenfolk sifted out the chaff: the paper bills in denominations of 500, 100, 10, and 20, which, like chaff, is carried off by the wind. The weaver’s womenfolk kept only the grain. With five full bags, they managed to collect the quarter-, half-rupee coins, pennies, and cowries totaling something like 2,500 rupees.

  Divvying up the spoils, the neighbors all became millionaires, while the dreaming weaver became a “pennyaire” and hero of this caste joke. It’s interesting that countless such jokes have gone around about lower-caste people; the punch line is always followed by the sound of a belly laugh, a dark echo that has rung through the centuries.

  Goondas have a long tradition of these kinds of jokes about simple, honest castes, communities, or men who get tricked. Each joke ends with the same kind of mass laughter: cruel, dripping, self-satisfied, uncivilized, full of power.

  The same sort of group guffaw could be heard in the Hindi department during the break between classes, when Balram Pandey, who served as cook for Dr. Loknath Tripathi, told a new weaver joke. The girls, as a group, had already slipped outside to eat apart from the rest, carrying their little tiffin food cylinders filled with parathas they’d brought from home.

  Balram Pandey’s weaver joke went like this: Once upon a time a weaver got married. The next day his upper-caste friends from the neighborhood asked him, “So, did you feed your new bride a little snack at night?” The weaver had, in fact, fed his wife all sorts of sweet desserts like laddus, motichurs, and a whole string of jelabis, and said so to his friends.

  The weaver’s friends started to laugh to themselves that this idiot doesn’t know a thing, and this imbecile hasn’t even the good sense to feed a snack to his new bride’s other mouth. The poor girl must still be hungry. And he doesn’t even realize that women’s other mouth must be fed with something else entirely, not just with jelabis and motichur.