1.10
1155 Words
The tonga clip-clopped along the road, and the tonga-wallah sang out:
‘A heart was shattered into bits—and one fell here, and one fell there. . . .’
Varun started to hum along, then sang louder, then suddenly stopped.
‘Oh, don’t stop,’ said Malati, nudging Lata gently. ‘You have a nice voice.
Like a bulbul.’
‘In a china-china-shop,’she whispered to Lata.
‘Heh, heh, heh.’ Varun’s laugh was nervous. Realizing that it sounded weak,
he tried to make it slightly sinister. But it didn’t work. He felt miserable. And
Malati, with her green eyes and sarcasm—for it had to be sarcasm—wasn’t
helping.
The tonga was quite crowded: Varun was sitting with young Bhaskar in the
front, next to the tonga-wallah; and back to back with them sat Lata and Malati
—both dressed in salwaar-kameez—and Aparna in her ice-cream-stained
sweater and a frock. It was a sunny winter morning.
The white-turbaned old tonga-wallah enjoyed driving furiously through this
part of town with its broad, relatively uncrowded streets—unlike the cramped
madness of Old Brahmpur. He started talking to his horse, urging him on.
Malati now began to sing the words of the popular film song herself. She
hadn’t meant to discourage Varun. It was pleasant to think of shattered hearts on
a cloudless morning.
Varun didn’t join in. But after a while he took his life in his hands and said,
turning around:
‘You have a—a wonderful voice.’
It was true. Malati loved music, and studied classical singing under Ustad
Majeed Khan, one of the finest singers in north India. She had even got Lata
interested in Indian classical music during the time they had lived together in the
student hostel. As a result, Lata often found herself humming some tune or other
in one of her favourite raags.
Malati did not disclaim Varun’s compliment.
‘Do you think so?’she said, turning around to look deeply into his eyes. ‘You
are very sweet to say so.’
Varun blushed to the depths of his soul and was speechless for a few minutes.
But as they passed the Brahmpur Racecourse, he gripped the tonga-wallah’s arm
and cried:
‘Stop!’
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Lata.
‘Oh—nothing—nothing—if we’re in a hurry, let’s go on. Yes, let’s go on.’
‘Of course we’re not, Varun Bhai,’ she said. ‘We’re only going to the zoo.
Let’s stop if you want.’
After they had got down, Varun, almost uncontrollably excited, wandered to
the white palings and stared through.
‘It’s the only anticlockwise racecourse in India other than Lucknow,’ he
breathed, almost to himself, awestruck. ‘They say it’s based on the Derby,’ he
added to young Bhaskar, who happened to be standing next to him.
‘But what’s the difference?’ asked Bhaskar. ‘The distance is the same, isn’t it,
whether you run clockwise or anticlockwise?’
Varun paid no attention to Bhaskar’s question. He had started walking slowly,
dreamily, by himself, anticlockwise along the fence. He was almost pawing the
earth.
Lata caught up with him: ‘Varun Bhai?’she said.
‘Er—yes? Yes?’
‘About yesterday evening.’
‘Yesterday evening?’ Varun dragged himself back to the two-legged world.
‘What happened?’
‘Our sister got married.’
‘Ah. Oh. Yes, yes, I know. Savita,’ he added, hoping to imply alertness by
specificity.
‘Well,’ said Lata, ‘don’t let yourself be bullied by Arun Bhai. Just don’t.’ She
stopped smiling, and looked at him as a shadow crossed his face. ‘I really hate it,
Varun Bhai, I really hate seeing him bully you. I don’t mean that you should
cheek him or answer back or anything, just that you shouldn’t let it hurt you the
way that—well, that I can see it does.’
‘No, no—’ he said, uncertainly.
‘Just because he’s a few years older doesn’t make him your father and teacher
and sergeant major all rolled into one.’
Varun nodded unhappily. He was too well aware that while he lived in his
elder brother’s house he was subject to his elder brother’s will.
‘Anyway, I think you should be more confident,’ continued Lata. ‘Arun Bhai
tries to crush everyone around him like a steamroller, and it’s up to us to remove
our egos from his path. I have a hard enough time, and I’m not even in Calcutta.
I just thought I’d say so now, because at the house I’ll hardly get the chance to
talk to you alone. And tomorrow you’ll be gone.’
Lata spoke from experience, as Varun well knew. Arun, when angry, hardly
cared what he said. When Lata had taken it into her head to become a nun—a
foolish, adolescent notion, but her own—Arun, exasperated with the lack of
success of his bludgeoning attempts at dissuasion, had said: ‘All right, go ahead,
become a nun, ruin your life, no one would have married you anyway, you look
just like the Bible—flat in front and flat at the back.’ Lata thanked God that she
wasn’t studying at Calcutta University; for most of the year at least, she was
outside the range of Arun’s blunderbuss. Even though those words were no
longer true, the memory of them still stung.
‘I wish you were in Calcutta,’said Varun.
‘Surely you must have some friends—’said Lata.
‘Well, in the evening Arun Bhai and Meenakshi Bhabhi are often out and I
have to mind Aparna,’said Varun, smiling weakly. ‘Not that I mind,’ he added.
‘Varun, this won’t do,’said Lata. She placed her hand firmly on his slouching
shoulder and said: ‘I want you to go out with your friends—with people you
really like and who like you—for at least two evenings a week. Pretend you have
to attend a coaching session or something.’ Lata didn’t care for deception, and
she didn’t know whether Varun would be any good at it, but she didn’t want
things to continue as they were. She was worried about Varun. He had looked
even more jittery at the wedding than when she had seen him a few months
previously.
A train hooted suddenly from alarmingly close, and the tonga horse shied.
‘How amazing,’ said Varun to himself, all thoughts of everything else
obliterated.
He patted the horse when they got back into the tonga.
‘How far is the station from here?’ he asked the tonga-wallah.
‘Oh, it’s just over there,’ said the tonga-wallah, indicating vaguely the builtup area beyond the well-laid-out gardens of the racecourse. ‘Not far from the
zoo.’
I wonder if it gives the local horses an advantage, Varun said to himself.
Would the others tend to bolt? What difference would it make to the odds?
- Writer
