Anjali started laughing hysterically.
“So you think that’s funny? Wait till you get stung one day,” Rahul said angrily.
“No, I don’t. But I do wonder what would’ve happened if they’d hidden in your pants instead of the towel?”
Anjali started laughing again. Rahul watched. She was laughing so hard tears streamed from her eyes. How much laughter did this girl have inside her? As she laughed, her eyes remained fixed on Rahul. Suddenly he felt the same way he did gazing out the window of Room 252 in Tagore Hostel and watching the yellow spot bobbing along on the winding road from the field below.
Her laughing eyes floated into his insides, and Rahul felt them swim through the blood of his veins like two tiny shining fish. And in that red bloodstream, flowing in the darkness of his body’s blue veins, they arrived at the place where all arteries and veins in the body join together. The place where the fragile and mysterious clock of life beats a continuous tick-tick, tick-tick. And the moment the ticking ceases, no more life! It’s that place where the heart is.
A mild, pleasant fever crept over Rahul, the kind of feeling music can dissolve into. Rahul’s ears heard the music within the fever and sank into it. What a melody—so faint he could hardly hear it, try as hard as he might. The two shining fish laughed and swam continuously inside his body, and back and forth across to the sweet fever.
“What happened?” Anjali said, waking Rahul from his reverie. “It’s like you turned into a statue.”
Rahul was silent. Sheepishly, he regarded Anjali. As if he were still seized by his fever, she still seemed to be laughing.
“Alright, alright. So, when was the second time you were stung by a bee?” Anjali asked.
“I was riding my motorcycle. I have no idea how but it got inside my helmet.”
“My god! That’s horrifying. A helmet strapped to your head with a bee trapped inside it,” Anjali said, truly frightened.
“So then it stung me. I was so scared. I couldn’t let go of the handlebars, and I couldn’t take off my helmet . . .”
“So . . . so what did you do?” Anjali sounded worried.
“I nearly ran into an oncoming bus! If there’d been an accident, it would have been the bee’s fault,” Rahul said.
“My goodness!” Anjali said, reeling from the thought. “Then how did the bee get out of the helmet?”
“Get out? I pulled to the side, took the helmet off, and it just flew away.”
“Oh!” Anjali let out a big sigh of relief. “Just thinking about it—how awful and scary it must have been to have a bee trapped inside your helmet buzzing around on your head.”
“That’s exactly how it was. And going fifty miles an hour on top of everything.” Rahul smiled proudly.
But Anjali was no longer concerned. “You still haven’t proven your point,” she said.
“Huh?”
“The thing from before . . .”
“What thing?” Rahul didn’t understand.
“The thing about butterflies not stinging,” Anjali said.
Rahul started to laugh. “Butterflies don’t sting. I’ll bet you. Bees do, like I said.”
“Just because bees sting doesn’t mean that butterflies don’t,” Anjali argued.
“You’re weird.”
“Why?”
“Butterflies don’t sting because they land on flowers. Bees, on the other hand, land on sweets and water near tanks,” Rahul said. “Haven’t you seen all the bees swarming in a sweets shop around the jalebis, the gujhi, the barfi?”
“Bees hover around flowers, and they sting. And flies swarm around sweets. They don’t sting,” Anjali countered.
Rahul was beginning to despair. How could he convince this girl that butterflies didn’t sting? He’d been successful in convincing her that bees do. But that was only half a victory. Winning the other half was proving no easy task.
“Butterflies don’t have stingers, so they don’t sting. Bees have them. In the back, near the tail.” Rahul argued his case with careful consideration as if playing his trump card.
Anjali raised another question: “Have you seen with your own eyes that there’s no stinger on the back of the butterfly?”
Now Rahul gave up hope. He ran out of steam and fell flat on his back. His body went limp and he rolled around in the grass. “I give up! I now fully agree, Princess Diana-ji, that the butterfly that landed on your shoulder, flew off, and just landed on your parasol, stings. Okay? Happy? Can we please change the topic?”
Anjali began laughing again, maybe at her victory, maybe at Rahul’s surrender.
“Now what’s so funny?” Rahul’s mood began to lighten as his annoyance abated.
Anjali grabbed a clump of grass with her right hand and tossed it at Rahul. “What is it with you? How do you manage to tell the truth, and still lose?” She laughed.
No one had said this to Rahul before. He felt as if Anjali, so easily, so casually, had managed to grasp this about him. This was the first time he and Anjali had quarreled, playfully, and even though he’d been right, he lost.
But why was this defeat feeling so good? Why was he so happy?
I drank
I drank
Now what? Now what?
My heart
Is hers
Now what? Now what?
Rahul began to hum the tune, slowly. There was shade under the neem tree. Thick and cool. A September breeze, filled with its afternoon freshness, moisture, and heat. The monsoon hadn’t completely receded. Heavy clouds could gather in the sky at any moment and burst into rain.
The parasol was still in the same spot, occasionally trembling in the breeze. The butterfly on top had folded its wings and had, perhaps, fallen asleep.
Do butterflies dream? Rahul had read somewhere that we humans can perceive only seven of the colors in the spectrum, whereas butterflies can see thousands. Such a teeny-tiny flying insect with such beautiful wings. How small its eyes must be! And a retina smaller yet, the size of a pinprick. What kinds of tiny images would be created by a retina so small?
But images are nothing more than representations of light, read by the brain. So is the butterfly’s brain, which senses thousands of symbols of color, more sophisticated than ours? And if that’s the case, then the butterfly must also be capable of incredibly developed and sophisticated thought. This means the butterfly that flew, frightened, from Anjali’s shoulder to the yellow parasol is now asleep, dreaming a Technicolor dream, magical, intricate, of a cosmos unknown.
If butterflies were capable of language, we could know about their dreams, colors, and world. Maybe they do have language and, just as we’re not able to perceive the thousands of colors they can, we probably can’t discern the various sounds, tones, and consonants of their sophisticaed, intricate, unknown tongue.
Butterflies would have their own alphabet if they could write. Who knows? The butterfly might be sitting on a flower or leaf and writing away. And wouldn’t we be able to read it?
My goodness! More sophisticated than even the most complex computer filled with the best microchips is the brain of the butterfly. Who installed this biogenetic microchip inside the brain of this tiny insect? Who painted all the patterns on its wings?
“Is it really true?” Anjali asked. Her voice roused Rahul from his daze.
“Is what true?” he asked.
“The thing Anima mentioned the other day in the canteen.”
“When?” Rahul played dumb.
“C’mon, don’t you remember? Just after you got admission into the Hindi department and you were treating us to chai and samosas,” Anjali said, in a serious attempt to stir his memory. However, there was absolutely no need to remind him.
“What are you talking about?” Rahul asked. “Don’t beat around the bush.”
Anjali thought about it for a moment and then haltingly began, “You know, the thing about dropping out of anthropology and transferring to the Hindi department because . . .”
R
ahul studied Anjali. This was his chance to get revenge for the earlier defeat. “Because what?” he said innocently.
“Because . . .” Anjali said, glaring.
“Becaaauuuse?” Rahul asked again, drawing it out as far as he could.
“You’re impossible!” She was annoyed. “Never mind. I don’t care anyhow.”
Anjali’s remark stirred up something inside Rahul, and it was fear. Rahul felt that Anjali, even as she was asking him, was in no mood for jokes. She actually had been eager to find out why. But now the giggling was over and a kind of suffering and torment had begun. The lines of tension intersecting on her forehead were quite visible.
How beautiful those lines were, but why did they need to be there at all? Why did stress show up on the forehead of a girl who, ordinarily, was laughing? This too was because of him.
Rahul noticed that Anjali’s eyes were fixed on him with an expression of eagerness or plea. There was something in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Rahul felt his throat was dry, as if the sweet fever were again creeping up. He swallowed hard. His mouth was getting dry. He looked at Anjali and slowly said, “Yes.”
“Yes what?” Anjali asked, her voice trembling.
“It’s true,” Rahul said. He lowered his head and ran his fingers over a blade of grass. Where had this sprouted from?
A cool breeze suddenly arrived. Even though it was September, the breeze retained some of August’s leftover humidity. The blades of grass gently blew in the wind. A silence had descended.
Rahul lifted his head up; her eyes were as before, fixed on him. Rahul couldn’t meet her gaze. He looked in the other direction, at the butterfly asleep atop the parasol rocking gently in the wind. The butterfly must certainly be dreaming now.
Right that instant, the magic began. Holding his breath and not blinking, Rahul’s gaze fixed on the full expanse of that magic. There are twenty-four frames in each second of film. In slow motion he watched every instant and detail of whatever took place in that scene. It was surprising, amazing—Rahul could hardly breathe.
The butterfly, which had been sleeping, silently changed its form. A metamorphosis. It might not have even realized someone was watching this marvel. At least the butterfly was a living creature. But this marvel went so far that it even included the parasol—a lifeless thing made of fabric, plastic, and metal—in its magic. Now the parasol itself was silently changing its form.
Rahul was flabbergasted. It was the first time anything like this had happened to him, and right in front of his eyes. I’m awake, aren’t I? He rubbed his eyes. So this is truly happening in reality?
The butterfly grew bigger and rounder. It grew larger with each passing instant, in each of the twenty-four frames for every second.
The parasol grew smaller at an identical rate. This meant that the butterfly and parasol were in cahoots, playing a game. They both knowingly participated in this act of magic. No more than thirty seconds could have elapsed by the time the butterfly had completely changed into the parasol and begun to flutter in the wind, as if it were the real parasol.
And the parasol had changed into a butterfly and was perched atop the parasol as if it were the real butterfly.
The color had drained from Rahul’s face. He was dumbstruck. O god, what kind of jest is this!
Was this the dream the butterfly dreamed when it flew from Anjali’s shoulder and fell asleep atop the parasol? Could it be that the thing Rahul saw was the butterfly’s dream, occurring inside of its sleep? Or who’s to say Rahul didn’t have a quick nap and himself have a dream?
In the meantime he rubbed his eyes and saw clearly he was awake. Then he looked at Anjali. She was quite real, sitting in the same spot, eyes fixed on Rahul. Her gaze entered his pores, and Rahul felt it swim through the blood of his veins like tiny shining fish, swimming toward his heart, the place where the mysterious clock of life beats, tick-tick: the sound on which the whole of a life hangs.
This meant that the magic was real: the butterfly had really changed into a parasol and the parasol into a butterfly.
Just then, a leaf fell from the neem tree and floated down to the spot where the butterfly sat, which was, just a short while ago, actually a parasol. Frightened by the neem leaf, the butterfly took flight. But Rahul knew full well that it was not a butterfly at all, but a parasol.
“Look, the parasol’s flying away,” Rahul cried.
Anjali looked back to the ground, puzzled. “What are you talking about, it’s right there,” she said.
“No, that’s a butterfly. Believe me. It’s a butterfly.”
Anjali had a good laugh. “You really are a joker.”
Rahul accepted defeat. He realized it would be nearly impossible to explain to this girl what had happened: the thing that just flew away was a parasol, and the thing still on the ground wasn’t a parasol at all, but a butterfly.
“Johnny joker, that’s my name . . .” Rahul said. In despair. These were the lyrics from a Shweta Shetty pop song.
Anjali looked at Rahul. This was the first time. Nothing needed to be said. It had happened, the thing that happens. Rahul felt as if a symphony inside him had begun to play for the first time.
Anima, O.P., and Hemant had returned. They brought cake, biscuits, a bag of Uncle Chipps, and five bottles of Pepsi.
“So did the two of you discuss Hindi literature?” Anima said, looking at Anjali. Anjali remained silent. Why did Anima’s voice sound so flat and sorrowful?
When all who had gathered there began leaving, and Anjali had picked up her parasol, Rahul turned around and wanted to tell her the truth: it wasn’t a parasol protecting her from the sun. It was actually a butterfly.
But he stayed silent and trailed behind the six-foot-three giraffe-like bamboo stick all the way back to the hostel and, once in the room, fell flat on the bed.
“I think I have fallen in love . . . for the first time in my life!” Rahul whispered into his pillow.
NINETEEN
Sapam’s body still lay atop a slab of ice in the mortuary of Mahatma Gandhi Hospital waiting for either his father to retrieve him or to be shipped back home. The day of the month when the goondas normally attacked was drawing near. What a time it was.
Gopal Dwivedi said that S. N. Mishra, the senior professor of the Hindi department, was angry. He had said to Gopal he’d been wrong to secure admission for a certain student who had no business being there. The student was stirring up caste issues. Dr. Rajendra Trivedi and Dr. Loknath Tripathi said they always weed out such bad apples.
Parch them dry with not one drop, we’ll hit and strike till dead they drop!
Rahul was face-to-face with a darkness that was closing in on him. But somewhere, far in the distance, he could make out the fluttering of a yellow butterfly. So even amid this anxiety, Rahul’s lips were quick to trace the outline of a smile, and he fell asleep.
The eighth and ninth of September came and went. Meanwhile, Sapam’s body had been shipped to Imphal by train. Kartikeya, Madhusudan, Pratap, Masood, Praveen, O.P., and some twenty-five students, among them girls, too, presented Vice-Chancellor Agnihotri with a petition in which they demanded Sapam’s body be returned to Imphal by airplane and that the culprits responsible for robbing and beating him be arrested.
Regarding the latter demand, the vice-chancellor gave the students the assurance that he would liaise with the police, but as far as sending the body back to Manipur by air, he continued, there simply was not enough money in the University Welfare Fund.
During the same period, a meeting of the SMTF was held in Praveen’s room. The core committee member students of the Special Militant Task Force from the four hostels (Arbind, Raman, Tagore, and Desai) decided to link the hostels by a restricted frequency radio transmission. The total expenditure was only 800 rupees, which, through donations, was collected in under three hours. Hemant, Madhusudan, and Praveen teamed up to install speakers in designated rooms in each of the four hostels. Pratap, Kartikey
a, and Rahul procured three microphones. It took three run-throughs to ensure that when the time came the students would be ready for action in less than ten minutes. They also collected data on which students expected money orders or had received them, and for how much, for all four hostels. These were the students the goondas usually targeted—those who were receiving the most money.
D. Gopal Rajulu, Akhilesh Ranjan, and Naukant Jha—these three students topped the list. Winter was approaching, and their families had sent them additional funds to buy warm clothing. Gopal Rajulu’s brother was a doctor. For years Rajulu had wanted to buy a camera. He was going on a bus tour to Calcutta, and before he left his brother in Virginia wanted him to have 20,000 rupees.
At the top of the hit list was D. Gopal Rajulu. Number two: Akhilesh Ranjan. Number three: Naukant Jha. Three students, one from Andhra Pradesh and two from Bihar.
But during this period of time Anjali was everywhere, too!
TWENTY
The days were largely filled with the kind of bankrupt happenings found on the pages of a third-rate dime store romance or in the usual Bollywood fare. The main storyline’s sequence of events had no rhyme or reason, filled with all manner of coincidence and happenstance. Absurd, sophomoric, and cheap—yet thrilling. Sex, violence, glamour, intrigue, obscenity, special effects, tears, screams, and heartwarming situations, all laced with song.
The screenplay for this snapshot of time seems to have been written by a sensitive gambler; each time he makes a new move in the plot, he immediately fears its consequences.
But during this period something else was happening—something as beautiful, cool, and pure as drops of morning dew falling from a leaf.
As Rahul emerged from the classroom into the corridor, someone snuck up from behind and bumped into him. Rahul turned around to look—it was Anjali, with her laugh.
In the library, Rahul was hunched over a desk, taking some notes, when suddenly someone blew into his ear—pffffff!—so intense it sent shivers up his spine. It was Anjali.
The Girl with the Golden Parasol (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) Page 9
