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

by Prakash, Uday

  “What!?” Anjali said, quickly getting up. Rahul pulled her down onto his bed.

  “So is this the window where you used to . . . ?” Anjali asked.

  “Yes—this is the window where your yellow parasol meandered,” Rahul said, covering it.

  And suddenly he realized that the two of them, even when out in the open, under the sky, on campus, had never felt so free as they did now. Was it possible that the outside world was more constricting than this little tiny room whose door was closed and locked from the outside?

  Anjali looked at Rahul so intensely her eyes penetrated his face. She clasped her hands around the base of his neck, drew herself up, and began kissing him.

  Just then Hemant’s words flashed through Rahul’s mind. Is it true that I’m just a sentimental clown who will be left with nothing? I’m always a loser. When it comes time to make a choice between one of her own caste and me, she’ll choose one of her own. She’ll take power, not me! Why? Because she is the daughter of L. K. Joshi, a cabinet minister of this corrupt government, and a Brahmin. It’s the same caste whose wicked reign has been like a curse to me and millions of others like me. They’re the same “critters” who have for centuries created this unjust, corrupt, gluttonous, vile hell on earth. They are the children of Ravana who kidnapped Sita, destroying Ram’s life in exile from his kingdom.

  The terrifying faces of Acharya S. N. Mishra and Balram Pandey leered at him from above, both of whom wore moustaches like tiny black moths seated below their noses in the style of the Führer. It was the same fear that prevented him from sleeping that night. These conspiratorial, indestructible hypocrites ripped people like Rahul out of the ground and with a snap of their fingers threw them away like a simple blade of grass.

  The fish in Rahul’s arms got agitated. The little red river running through the veins of his body where, up until a few seconds ago, had been playing a sweet-sounding melody for two teeny-tiny shining swimming fish, now portended a maelstrom. His hand advanced to her shirt, where he started jerking open the buttons.

  “Wait, wait, what are you doing, Rahul?” Anjali wanted to grab his wrist. Her appeal was in vain, since by now her shirt was totally unbuttoned. Rahul’s hands were insistent.

  “Rahul!” Anjali said, her voice cracking. “What are you doing? Please! Why are you in a hurry?”

  “Because I’m not Rahul, I’m a leopard, a panther,” he said as he unzipped her jeans.

  The leopard attacked his prey with full ferocity. Anjali stopped resisting. She gazed with the startled eyes of a doe at the animal atop her.

  “Girls like to be roughed up, don’t they? They’re aching for Shahrukh Khan, aren’t they? The guy who he played in Darr.” Or, Salman Khan, who eats deer—Black Buck.

  A fierce storm and the excitement of a wild, vicious animal surged together inside Rahul. With all the strength he could muster, he took revenge for centuries of injustice against downtrodden castes. Thup, thup, thup. His every thrust was a sting of revenge; his every movement part of the business of payback.

  Anjali’s eyes were half closed, her mouth hung open, and her face glowed like hot embers.

  It surprised him that as his vengeance on behalf of the oppressed castes grew deeper and sharper, Anjali’s eyes showed a look of near bliss, while her lips drew into the outline of a faint smile. “Oh, oh!”

  A scene from that movie flashed in Rahul’s mind—no, it was a novel, Coetzee’s novel, In the Heart of the Country, the part when the black servant, after killing his white master, takes revenge for centuries of slavery and oppression of the black race by raping his daughter. But his revenge turns out to be something pleasurable for the girl.

  Is it possible that Anjali . . . ? At the very heart of her biological makeup she’s inherited genes that make her prone to be a pleasure-seeking sensualist—hedonism is present in her DNA. Isn’t it possible she traveled all this way, braved rocky roads, climbed over hills, whacked her way through thorny thickets, just to get to this room, just to get her kicks and have some fun?

  Rahul was suddenly swept with a strange feeling of inferiority. What if he was just a pleasure-giving plaything to her? Just some sex toy? A dildo?

  Rahul was nearly at a loss. The leopard gathered every last bit of strength in his body and pushed for one more attack.

  “You are really insane,” Anjali said afterward. “You said that you’d ‘arranged’ everything. Now look—what if something happens?”

  Rahul experienced an entirely new sensation from the way she was looking at him. Her eyes shone with guilelessness, suggesting their deep physical intimacy, and it was a look she’d never given him before.

  Rahul’s gaze fell on the bedsheets; there was Anjali’s blood. A lot of it. He looked at Anjali, froze, and stopped thinking altogether. It was like a blow to the senses.

  She was looking at him with an unwavering gaze of deep maternal affection and warmth, her eyes brimming with the twinkle of a faraway star.

  Her elbow was cut up, her feet were bruised, her sandal had broken, the bedsheets were soaked in blood, and on top of it all the scratches and fingernail marks on her back and arms, all of which she’d endured without so much as a peep, and now she was looking at him with such a deep, wordless compassion, sensuality, and tenderness. They were the eyes of some small child, incredibly innocent, free from the foul and filth and shame of the times. They were like newly sprouted, fully formed blossoms.

  Rahul placed his head into Anjali’s lap and began to cry like a baby. Anjali kissed his forehead continually. She cradled his head in her arms and tried to calm him. She still wasn’t wearing any clothes; her thighs, stomach, and breasts were moistened by Rahul’s tears. His teardrops mixed with the blood and come on the bedsheet.

  “Why are you crying? Shhhhh . . . shhhhhhh. Someone might hear.” Anjali couldn’t understand why Rahul was crying. She kept repeating, “You are a real clown! Johnny Joker. My crazy boy.”

  Finally she guessed why Rahul was crying and began to kiss his forehead. “Listen! I really do love you, you know. No one can separate us, I promise. Now please calm down.”

  “Please, calm down!” Anjali said more loudly, teasing him, without caring that her voice was a girl’s voice that could carry outside, a voice that had never been heard coming from a room in this hostel.

  Rahul became frightened. He kissed Anjali and began to laugh. A laugh on a helpless face covered in tears, anguish, and regret.

  That Thursday, until four o’clock in the afternoon, Rahul and Anjali made love two more times with impatience and longing to be united with one another, as if they were two little fish swimming toward one another in a choppy sea. A pure, primal, ancient, eternal, natural impatience.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The story after this becomes very brief for the reason that it’s not something that took place once upon a time, long, long ago. The story is, in fact, just a fraction of a larger narrative that is still taking place, even today. It’s a work in progress, a tale that’s under construction, a report of what just happened one second ago in a life very much still being lived.

  Anjali came to Rahul’s room three more times over the next month in the same manner: under the radar, clawing her way through the thicket, stumbling over rocky ridges, with a broken sandal, banged-up body, torn clothing, and a sunburned, exhausted-looking face huffing and puffing away. This was the condition of Anjali Joshi, daughter of the cabinet minister, billionaire builder, and Brahmin by caste L. K. Joshi.

  Were these two trapped inside a clichéd Bollywood screenplay, waiting for the shoe to drop, like in the formulaic tragedies popular in the ’60s of poor boy–rich girl romance?

  During that month, the police came at night and conducted a cordon-and-search operation. Half a dozen rooms were searched. Kartikeya Kajle, Masood, Praveen, Madhusudan, D. Gopal Rajulu, and Akhilesh Ranjan were taken by the police. Luckily, Rahul’s room had not been raided; maybe he’d been spared since Pratap Parihar’s uncle was a police office
r.

  Two days later, Praveen, Gopal Rajulu, and Madhusudan returned to the hostel. The police had beaten them and let them go, while Kartikeya, Masood, and Akhilesh Ranjan remained under arrest.

  The oversized headline on page one of Janvani screamed, “Stockpile of Weapons and Contraband Recovered from Student Hostel: Three Arrested.” Praveen reported that first the police, then Lacchu Guru, beat up Kartikeya until he was in sad shape. They broke Masood’s kneecaps. The policed brandished the fake evidence they’d planted; meanwhile, they’d failed to find the pistol that was actually hidden in Pratap’s room.

  Madhusudan said that Kartikeya had cried his eyes dry. He’d been preparing to take the civil service exam; now his entire future was ruined. The head of the municipality, Lakkhu Bhaiya, and the state cabinet minister Joshi were behind the whole thing. It was only after the VC had given his blessing that the police entered the university hostel. They were kept in custody, and, not only were they charged with selling narcotics and possession of illegal weapons, but the crimes they were charged with were additionally subject to counterterrorism laws.

  The same day, an English-language newspaper published a front-page photo of a young Sikh who had been a victim of police harassment standing in front of the Supreme Court in Delhi. He had poured gasoline over his body and had set fire to himself. In the photograph, both of his arms were raised in the air as the flames engulfed him. There was a small crowd of spectators watching nearby. In the background was the highest court of this country.

  A seminar had been organized in the Hindi department during that time. The topic of the first session was “Instances of Mannerism in Contemporary Poetry” and the topic of the second, “The Question of the Autonomy of Literature.” Dr. Jarihar Dwivedi, Dr. Sohan Lal Chaturvedi, Dr. Marudhar Pandey, Professor Ajayab Aggrawal, and K. L. Vajpayee came from Delhi to attend. In addition, some dozen poets arrived in the state capital cities like Lucknow, Patna, and Bhopal. Save one or two, all of the poets’ names ended with caste surnames like Shukla, Tiwari, Pandey, Joshi, “Aal-Waal,” and Sharma.

  They were given fare for air-conditioned passage, travel allowance and expense allowance, a bouquet of flowers, and, on top of that, a 7,000-rupee honorarium. The Hindi department, in cooperation with the state ministry for culture, made all the arrangements and ran up a total bill of some 500,000 rupees.

  The letter of invitation to the seminar, the lovely program of events, and the participants’ souvenir were all printed by the Janvani printing press.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  When Anjali visited Room 252 of Tagore hostel for the fourth time, after O.P. had padlocked the room until four o’clock and left singing in his special camel-like style, as Rahul took Anjali’s hand into his, and their fingers became entangled, until both of their bodies were enveloped by an electromagnetic storm, or swept up in a twister, or tossed by big waves in an unsettled sea in which they’d shed their clothing, and as they were beginning to swim like two tiny fish crashing into one another in an attempt to pierce one another through and through, just then . . .

  . . . there was a knocking noise. Anjali and Rajul froze and looked up.

  In the ventilation space above the door were two faces. One of the faces belonged to hostel warden Chandramani Upadhyay’s servant, and the other to Gopal Dwivedi. It was the same Gopal Dwivedi who had spoken with Acharya S. N. Mishra and secured Rahul’s admission to the Hindi department. “Esteemed brother,” he had called him. Rahul shuddered. These were the very eyes underneath which was the nose that sheltered the infamous black moth of a moustache made notorious during the 1930s and ’40s. It was frightening, like an evil omen.

  The two covered themselves with the bedsheet.

  The faces vanished from the ventilation space.

  The worst of it was nothing could be done: the door was padlocked from the outside. O.P. had locked it, and wouldn’t be back until four o’clock.

  Sometime around two-thirty the sound of footsteps was heard somewhere outside; it was the sound of feet marching closer, until they stopped in front of the door. The key turned in the lock; it snapped open; the sound of the latch handle squeaking. The door opened.

  The six-foot-three ostrich stood outside; his face was drained of color. His heron-like neck was totally rigid with fear. His lips were quivering. Five others were with him: warden Dr. Chandramani Upadhyay, Anjali’s brother D. K. Joshi, and three unknown individuals—massive, flat-faced characters.

  “Come.” Anjali’s brother flatly issued this directive in a voice like cold iron.

  Anjali grabbed her bag from the table and quietly exited. Rahul stood in the middle of the room.

  The others escorted Anjali away. Her brother D. K. Joshi and O.P. remained standing in the doorway. Looking at Rahul with eyes at once cold and penetrating to his very core, the former said: “I don’t want to ‘create’ a ‘scene.’ This is a question of honor. But you’d better think twice before making a move. Keep your mouth shut. If you try to do anything nasty, you’ll end up as a corpse in the city hospital waiting for a postmortem in the same place as that little monkey motherfucker Sapam.”

  Having said this, he turned and left. After a few steps he spun around to add, “Did my words sink into that head of yours? Think before you act.” And he continued on his way.

  O.P. looked at Rahul with deeply frightened eyes.

  THIRTY-SIX

  And now, the part of this unfinished tale that can be reported in any fashion.

  This is a train. A Rajdhani Express. Train no. 2002. Anjali Joshi and Rahul are occupying berths 41 and 42 in compartment N-8. It is nighttime, and the clock reads eleven twenty-three. The Rajdhani Express is racing along at a fast clip.

  There’s no sleepiness in Anjali and Rahul’s eyes. They’re looking at each other, wide awake. It seems that the very reason they’re awake is because they need to keep looking at one another.

  Today is Anjali’s birthday. She’s a Capricorn.

  Abha, Anima, Sharmistha, Neera Didi, Parvez, Pratap, Shailendra George, Shaligaram, Seema Philip, Chandra . . . they were all in on the conspiracy that, under the pretense of a night at the movies for her birthday, plotted to spring Anjali from a monthlong house arrest. During the intermission at eight thirty, Anjali snuck out under a shawl to cover her face and got herself to the train station. Neither she nor Rahul, who had arrived first, was alone. The whole flock of conspiratorial friends was with them at the station, including the six-foot ostrich.

  There wasn’t a hint of fear on any of their faces; rather, they showed strength, smarts, resolve, and joy, and their eyes twinkled with compassion. As the train pulled out of the station they all jumped up and down and waved their hands to bid them farewell.

  Rahul and Anjali remained standing in the doorway, watching, until the train had gone some distance. Until his tears of gratitude and ecstasy erected a wall of water in front of his eyes, Rahul kept his eyes fixed on the smiling, wagging head that was fixed atop the longest, heron-like neck.

  This journey was uncertain, but full of hope and longing. Rahul and Anjali stared at each other, never blinking, with the fixed posture of two celestial bodies.

  It was five minutes to two in the morning when they heard the screeching sound of the train braking. After sliding down the tracks a bit, the carriages came to a halt. They’d stopped in the middle of nowhere; it was totally dark outside. Maybe someone had pulled the emergency chain, or the train engineer had received a red stop signal.

  Suddenly there was a loud racket. Someone was forcing their way in the carriage by first banging on and then succeeding to break through the door. A dozen or so people barged into the compartment N-8, all bearing weapons. Their faces were flat. Two of them came forward and grabbed hold of Anjali. Another quickly covered her in a black blanket, scooped her up like a bundle and, in the blink of an eye, whisked her away.

  Several people pounced on Rahul. Someone had switched off the main circuit breaker, and the entire compartment was plun
ged into darkness. Three or four people had seized Rahul, who was struggling to break free. He realized someone had leaked the information. Was all lost?

  Through the darkness, Rahul could see a man bring in a big tin bucket and set it on the ground. Some wood was put into it and something like ghee was dumped in with the wood. A match was lit, it was set on fire, and the flames began shooting up.

  A dark face with a ceremonial tilak mark of sandalwood paste on his forehead, black moth moustache, caveman-like apparition flickered in the flames.

  Om bhuh swaha idamagnaye na mam

  Om bhuh swaha idam vayave na mam

  Om bhuh swaha idam brahmane na mam

  The scary gorilla was chanting a mantra and stoking the fire with something. The flames leaped higher and higher.

  The rest of the people were seated in a circle around the raging inferno. They had placed their guns, switchblades, swords, and billy clubs on the ground next to them and, god knows how, but they all now had books in their hands.

  Om bhuh swaha idam na mam

  Rahul saw one of them who was holding a copy of the Rigveda rip out a page and toss it in the fire . . . swaha!

  Another was stoking the fire with pages from Marx’s Das Capital.

  Om bhuh swaha idam na mam

  Another had a copy of the works of Gandhi.

  Om bhuh swaha

  Then they all ripped out pages and stoked the fire with Lohia, Narendra Dev, Buddhist scriptures, the Bible, the Quran.

  Om bhuh

  Om bhuh swaha

  Swaha! Swaha!

  The flames began licking the roof of the compartment. People who’d been sleeping on the upper berths jumped down and began to flee. At the other end were commandos armed with AK-47s.

  Just then Rahul saw the potbellied goonda, broker, and rich-looking man stand up, just as fat, frightening, and loose as ever. He had his cell phone out and was dialing a number. “Hello! Hello! I’m Nikhlani here! Speaking on behalf of the IMF! Get me to the prime minister, okay?! Ask him to call me back on my mobile!”