Ashish sighed. Time dragged on. He scrutinized the neck of the boy in front of him; it was hairy, which was off-putting, he should shave it or something. He scanned the class and spotted his favourite pair of running shoes. They belonged to a boy called Ravi, a friend of Sunder’s: they must have been bought outside India and were white and sleek, with small rainbow stripes on the side. He examined his own runners, plain and scruffy, with distaste, inspected his hands, stared at the steamed-up, dirty windows, the long-stalked ceiling fans, a puddle on the stairs leading down to the lecturer’s podium. He also managed, to his surprise, to write down much of what Sahasrabuddhe said.
All the girls in the class seemed to be in danger of shoulder strain; they bent over their notebooks, swapping frantically between pens of different colours to take notes and underline. Maybe I should get a girlfriend, he mused, then she’d take notes for both of us, that’d be restful. His gaze skimmed the heads and shoulders below: perhaps one of the really shy, swotty girls, who wore overstarched cotton salwar sets in which the dupatta was so stiff it looked like a chastity protection device.
‘In architecture,’ the precise, monotonous voice went on relentlessly, ‘the trend is for clean lines and functionality instead of decoration. Buildings are constructed in steel and glass, like the Crystal Palace, or the Eiffel Tower. In Mumbai we have Watson’s Hotel, in Kala Ghoda, where the building’s cast-iron frame is on the exterior as a design feature.’
Ashish stirred slightly at this mention of his former home – Esplanade Mansion had once been Watson’s Hotel. But the lecture moved on, and his attention wandered. How would he manage to convince any girl, even a sad one, that he was desirable? How would he convince himself, importantly, that he cared what any of them thought about him? What if he had to kiss them, or hold their clammy hands?
‘The advent of modern psychology,’ Sahasrabuddhe pronounced the p, ‘was heralded by Sigmund Freud who posited the existence of unconscious drives, primal urges, and self-imposed restrictions or repressions.’
Ashish scribbled, Freud. Had he spelt it right? He’d privately thought, most of his life, that he might be some kind of eunuch-in-waiting; in early adolescence, it wasn’t that he hadn’t had sexual urges, but these had been directionless. He liked particular girls, like his cousin Megha, that is, he liked spending time with them; but the images of desirable women that he saw – film actresses with pneumatic bosoms and attractively wobbly waists – left him uninterested.
‘At the Paris Salon of 1863 Edouard Manet displayed his famous painting Olympia, which shows a naked lady, a prostitute,’ Sahasrabuddhe’s voice lowered, ‘instead of the Greek goddess. The woman is depicted with an African servant and a black cat. The picture reverses expectations and shows us that the modern world is as much of a subject for art as classical mythology.’
He’d thought he might be a late developer, and ignored the various crushes he’d had on unattainable older boys. They’d always been exactly unlike him: conventionally handsome, popular, and brimming with ‘team spirit’ (it had been written in his eighth-standard report, damningly: ‘Lacks team spirit’). Usually, he hardly knew them. Then, in what was to have been his last year in college, he’d met Sunder. Ashish had imagined that when he fell in love it’d be with someone appropriately worthy – handsome, kind, etc – he hadn’t expected someone like Sunder who, on paper, represented little that Ashish thought he valued.
‘So we see that modernism embraces disruption and chaos as ways of organizing artwork.’
Sunder in his way was everything that Ashish could never be: rich, thoughtless, overprivileged; and Ashish found him completely desirable. Just a week ago, Sunder had called on his return from Switzerland, where he’d gone on holiday with his parents, and Ashish had gone to his house to hang out and play computer games. He’d dressed smartly, imagining that he might meet Sunder’s mother, but she hadn’t turned out to be home.
‘Traditional forms of society are seen to hinder progress. We will be looking at D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love later in the semester.’
Now he wondered, when would they meet next? There was always this uncertainty and flakiness about Sunder, who didn’t seem to control his own life, or have much idea where it was going.
‘Pessimism about human nature also characterises the modernist movement, along with an interest in the primitive.’ Sahasrabuddhe stopped and looked at the clock. Ah, she was running on time. ‘For next week, read chapters three and four and look over The Waste Land.’
Class was over. There was a general scraping of feet and a cloud of voices rose to fill the room. Ashish filed out with the others into the damp-smelling corridor. He saw Mayank and they were just starting to chat when a familiar voice, deep, loud and unselfconscious, brayed as its owner heaved himself into view from the stairs, ‘Fuck yaar, these stairs again, I can’t believe they don’t let us use the lifts. Ashish, what’s up? What was first class?’
‘Modernism,’ said Ashish, grinning foolishly.
Sunder thumped him on the shoulder. ‘You have the notes?’
‘Yeah.’
Sunder was wearing sunglasses and new designer clothing. His shirt hung off his sloping shoulders and stretched at the stomach.
‘It’s not sunny inside,’ Mayank pointed out. He reached towards Sunder’s glasses. ‘Oye,’ the other boy protested, ‘watch my Tommy’s.’ But he removed the sunglasses. His eyes were brown and uneasy-looking, innocent of intelligence and set in pouchy sockets decorated with smears of tiredness. He looks like he jerks off a lot, Ashish thought, and liked the idea.
‘Come on,’ Mayank said; the five-minute break was over.
Ashish went home that day in an excellent mood. College was starting, he was utterly on top of his studies, and only slightly behind his timetable. Moreover, Sunder had asked him home for lunch on Sunday.
He told his aunt on Saturday, ‘I’m going to a friend’s tomorrow for lunch.’
‘Yes, fine,’ she said. And then, ‘When will you be back? Take your key. We’re invited to a wedding reception in the evening, six o’clock, you could come if you feel like. Or if you don’t want to we’ll say you’re studying.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Ghatkopar.’
‘Maybe I should use the time to study,’ Ashish said hastily.
‘Decide on Sunday if you feel like,’ his uncle cut in. ‘It doesn’t matter, one more or less.’
‘Well,’ he revealed, ‘I’ll be going for lunch in Cuffe Parade, so I don’t know if I’ll be back in time.’
‘Oh, Cuffe Parade?’
‘My friend Sunder’s house.’
‘Achchha. Anyway, up to you.’
He was slightly annoyed that they hadn’t been more impressed.
The next day he dressed carefully: he wanted Sunder’s mother to like him. He imagined her, gliding around their enormous apartment and murmuring orders to the servants, all of whom stood continually at attention. So he put on his good trousers and, furtively, polished his shoes; he removed all his shirts from the cupboard before deciding which to wear.
‘Wah!’ said Mohan mama when he looked up from the newspaper.
Lakshmi mami looked him up and down and smiled.
On the way to the station Ashish rolled up the sleeves of his shirt; otherwise, he worried, he’d look like a bank clerk or a shop assistant, instead of a young film-maker or painter, one of the Top Fifty People Under Thirty that news magazines listed.
It struck him when he was in the train that he didn’t have a gift for Sunder’s mother. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have occurred to him. But he had an image in his mind, perhaps related to the suave way that people behaved in English films; he saw himself carrying a bottle of wine and handing it over. No, that might give the wrong impression. Flowers, then.
He took the bus from VT, got off at Old Cuffe Parade, crossed the road towards the President hotel and saw the flower vendor near the milk booth. Ashish had spent the bus journey with his eyes closed,
visualizing, as the book he’d read suggested, a perfect version of the encounter he was to have with Sunder’s mother. It began with her opening the door, radiant and friendly. ‘So this is Ashish – I’ve heard so much about you,’ she purred, giving him her hand. The apartment was suddenly illuminated as though by Diwali lights; its vastness became cheery. They sat on a chair and sofa respectively and sipped watermelon juice, while they discussed college, Sunder, and Ashish’s artistic ambitions; Ashish made astute remarks; Sunder’s mother laughed tinklingly.
‘Yes?’ said the flower vendor. He glanced at Ashish, then resumed scraping lengths of metallic ribbon against the dis-coloured blade of a pair of shears; the ribbon squeaked in protest, then curled into coy ringlets. In the absence of rain, it was humid and still.
Ashish imagined Sunder’s mother, smiling, lipsticked, choosing flowers.
‘These, how much are they?’ he asked, and pointed to some massive pink and white lilies.
‘Five hundred rupees.’
‘Huh?’
The flower man paused, his thumb holding the ribbon against the blade. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you want to spend,’ he suggested.
Fifty rupees? thought Ashish. Instead, after a moment of agonized concentration, he pointed to some carnations. ‘And those?’
At the building, the watchman, who had probably seen him before, made a point of asking, with an aggressive lift of the chin, which flat he was going to. A maidservant, small and efficient in a Kanjeevaram-effect sari, was waiting for the lift. She held a lead; at the end of it was a tiny white dog who pattered agitatedly on diminutive legs. The presence of the dog appeared to mean she wouldn’t take the servants’ lift. She pushed the button with one finger and, bored, stuck her hand on her hip. When the elevator arrived she, without any token submissiveness, marched into it and stood expectant. Ashish followed, and the liftman, seated on a wooden stool under the panel of buttons, seemed to look at the bunch of carnations in their tissue wrapping with amusement.
‘Which floor?’ he asked Ashish.
‘Fourteen.’
The servant, Hitesh, came to the door and opened it just wide enough for Ashish to sidle in. He stopped to remove his shoes, then decided not to; smiled at the servant, who remained impassive, and finally made a feint at shutting the heavy door. But the catch was stuck.
‘Ek minute,’ Hitesh said. He shoved Ashish lightly aside, and released the huge brass lock, which looked like it had been looted from a fourteenth-century temple, or the set of a television historical drama. ‘Baba is inside,’ he added, politely yet managing to convey that Ashish was an idiot.
‘Thanks. Uh – please take these.’ Ashish gave him the flowers and went down the quiet corridor to knock on Sunder’s door.
‘Yeeeah?’
Ashish opened the door and put his head in. ‘Hey. Oh, sorry.’ Sunder, clad in only a pair of boxers, stood peering into the cupboard; the room was dark and the air conditioner blasted. Crumpled clothes lay on the floor.
‘Oh hi. Just come in. Shut the door, I’m nearly naked.’
Ashish nodded. He closed the door, and turned on the light. The room smelled as though mild fermentation had been taking place in it. He hovered near the door, examining the shelves: Junior Britannica (looked untouched), a full set of Hardy Boys, their course books, all bought new, and a No Fear poster, which showed an unpleasantly sinewy man, wearing a low-cut vest and a strange pair of baggy leggings; he was abseiling down a cliff, while the view to his right disappeared in a chute of blue sky and, somewhere below, green fields.
Sunder came to stand right in front of Ashish, who tried to look casual. In the cold room, he could almost feel the warmth from Sunder’s thin chest and hairy stomach.
‘So what do you think?’ Sunder enquired in his deep voice.
‘Hmmm?’ Ashish’s voice went squeaky. He would have been turned on if he hadn’t been so incredibly nervous; a sort of paralysis focused his mind and his eyes darted to the white-painted bookshelf, off whose edge the electric light glinted, then back to Sunder (don’t look at his crotch). Finally, Sunder held the two shirts in his hands up again and repeated, this time with a touch of pique, ‘So whaddya think?’
One was checked and preppy, the other flowered.
‘Oh, that one.’ He jabbed at the floral shirt.
His friend dropped the other shirt over the back of the desk chair and put on first a t-shirt vest, then the flowered shirt, and finally a pair of jeans. He kicked the remaining clothes into the bottom of the wardrobe.
Ashish wandered around the room. There was a wonderful desk, with shelves above it and concealed lighting that cast a bright, warm glow – a desk that someone who actually enjoyed studying would have loved. Next to it, a piece of paper was tacked to the wall.
Sunder’s handwriting was childish and round; he wrote (in magenta ink) like a recent convert to literacy.
1. 50 crunches every day
2. 50 squatts
3. 50 dips
4. Learn five new words a day
5. Read Wall Street Journal online
God almighty, Ashish thought; then he smiled, thinking, the squats at least are a good idea, should I add something to the list? And Sunder wasn’t even embarrassed. He, Ashish, had made countless such lists, but had he thought anyone might see them he would have been mortified.
The time before last when he’d come to Sunder’s house, just before he’d moved to Saraswati Park, they’d sat in the room, on facing black leather armchairs, and talked in brief, scornful phrases about life and their plans. Then they’d lain on Sunder’s bed reading a Calvin and Hobbes book. At a certain point they’d both started to laugh. Their heads, bent over the wide pages with their beautifully inked strips, were close together, and their hair touched as they shook with laughter. When Sunder’s fringe mingled with Ashish’s, the other boy had leaned forward slightly, and his lips, which had been dry, had brushed Ashish’s. In the same instant, they’d heard the door catch, Sunder had drawn back quite naturally, and the servant had come in with cold, grey glasses of lemonade on a tray, only to see Baba and his friend reading the same comic and lying at an oblique angle from each other on the large bed so that they looked like the hands of a clock at some insignificant moment of the day: twelve thirty-five, or ten twenty-three.
As Ashish watched Sunder now, rolling up the sleeves of his expensive shirt and making a poor job of it, then squaring up to the mirror, putting a glob of imported gunk into his hair and spiking it, he found it hard to believe the earlier incident had taken place. Maybe it hadn’t. He threw a superstitious glance at the No Fear poster.
‘Okay, come on. My dad hates to be kept waiting,’ Sunder said. He snapped off the light and the AC.
The passage opened into a bright space that smelled of the sea breeze. Ashish was marginally aware of paintings and art objects at the peripheries of this room, which was so large that it was unreal, like a film set. In the sea of expensive white, a baroque sofa, all claw-like gilt legs and serpentine frame, made a tiny atoll. Here sat Sunder’s father, a small, skinny man who appeared to have put a spherical clay pot down his polo shirt. He smiled, like a frog smiles when a chubby young fly bumbles towards its lily pad. ‘Ah, hello, hello,’ he called across the expanse, and waved a beringed hand.
They approached, and Sunder stopped en route to grab a magazine from a coffee table. Ashish proceeded alone until he was within a metre of Sunder’s father.
‘Hello uncle, I’m Ashish, I go to college with Sunder,’ he said, smiling what he hoped was his ingratiating, clean-living smile.
‘Hm, yes, you are studying?’
‘I’m studying English as well, uncle.’
‘English, mhmm!’ remarked Sunder’s father throatily.
Ashish shifted from foot to foot.
‘Hm, what does your father do, Ashish?’
‘Uh, my father is an engineer, uncle.’
‘Very good. Does he have his own company?’ In the froggy, affable f
ace, the beady eyes were quite hard.
‘No, he works for, uh, the government. My parents are posted in Indore at the moment, actually. I’m staying with my mama in Bombay.’
‘Your mama?’
‘Yes, he’s a – writer.’
‘Oh, a writer! Very good.’ And, obviously dismissing Ashish and all his race, Sunder’s father rose and stalked towards the huge, polished dining table. Sunder beckoned to Ashish to follow. On the way, Ashish spotted his flowers on a side table; they looked stringy and underequipped for the occasion in a large vase.
Sunder’s mother appeared, smiled distractedly in Ashish’s direction, and issued instructions to one of the servants. Lunch was brought by a white-clad Maharaj, who pointed out what the various dishes were before leaving the bearer to serve them. Ashish ate a lot. Sunder’s father ignored the enchiladas and pasta in favour of the standard food, which was vegetarian and excellent.
Ashish was still putting his best foot forward. ‘So aunty, Sunder said you all had a great holiday in Switzerland; what was your favourite part?’
Sunder’s mother had to have the question repeated. By way of apology, she told the bearer to give Ashish more pasta. ‘Switzerland, yes,’ she said, her uncertain face showing some enthusiasm. ‘Very good shopping and then, you know, all the lakes. We went to Berne, a lovely medieval town. Have you been to Switzerland?’
I haven’t even been, Ashish silently wanted to say, to Kulu-Manali, but he smiled, kept his end up, and said, ‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, you must go,’ Sunder’s father said suddenly and firmly. ‘Travel is very important, it broadens the mind.’ He stared pointedly at Ashish as though he’d said something very original, and Ashish, unsure of what to do, tittered politely. ‘Besides, there are a lot of things to do in Switzerland, walking and boating, cities. It’s also,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘a popular place for people to move to from Europe, because it’s central and has good tax arrangements.’ Again he made eye contact with Ashish. ‘One of the things wrong with this country, Ashish, is that we don’t reward entrepreneurs. The government, bureaucrats, politicians, they all want a cut. Finally, there is little incentive to develop industries. Abroad it’s different.’
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