Saraswati Park

by Anjali Joseph

  ‘This is a really nice area,’ Ashish said, suddenly enthusiastic (to Mayank, earlier, he’d only moaned about how far Saraswati Park was from anything familiar). ‘Of course, there’s no sea view, but there are a lot of open spaces – old trees, that kind of thing. And my aunt and uncle are nice, aren’t they? My mama knows a lot, because he reads so much –’

  Wearying, apparently, of these subjects, Sunder came a little closer to Ashish, and kissed him, a perfunctory swoosh around Ashish’s mouth by a fat, hot tongue. Then he grabbed one of Ashish’s hands and guided it towards his zip, at the same time reaching for Ashish’s crotch, which promptly and politely sprang into responsive life. They were safe there for some time; Ashish had half bolted the terrace door so that anyone who came up would have to rattle it and shout to be let in.

  He opened the bedroom curtains. This morning it was raining lightly, almost a mist, but the air wasn’t dark. He sang to himself as he bumbled into the bathroom, a film tune that mixed Hindi and English, soppy lyrics and pumping beat: ‘Dus bahaane kar ke le gaye dil, le gaye dil, dus bahaane kar ke le gaye dil, you stole my heart away.’

  The textile company that Satish mama had nearly joined had continued to send him their annual calendar, a mistake of record-keeping that had survived half a century. In years when profits had been high, the calendar had been more lavishly produced; one of these hung in the bathroom. It was a large canvas sheet, printed with a scene from the life of Krishna: the god appeared as an adolescent cowherd, hiding coyly behind a piece of cloth and playing his flute while semi-naked, round-breasted milkmaids took a bath in the river. It was a stock subject, but it had been nicely executed. The year of the calendar was 1969 – the months and dates were printed along the bottom in neat batches – and the painting’s clean lines and flat colours had a hint of Pop Art.

  The milkmaids covered their mouths, laughingly aghast: their clothes had been thrown into the branches of nearby trees and they’d have to come out of the river naked. The young god smiled naughtily. Ashish, as he brushed his teeth, winked at him.

  He and Sunder developed a routine. They’d hang out together in college – Mayank had now been sidelined – and, after classes ended, they’d eat cake in a coffee shop in Colaba; sometimes they’d go to Sunder’s flat, especially if his mother was out.

  ‘Let’s go to your place,’ said Ashish one afternoon when they came out of the day’s final lecture.

  ‘Uh…’ said Sunder.

  ‘Why, is aunty home?’

  ‘Oye, Sunder, where are you and your girlfriend off to now?’ Someone thumped Ashish between the shoulder blades.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Ashish said.

  ‘Calm down miss, don’t get upset.’ Snickers from the other two boys; one was Ravi, Sunder’s friend. They laughed and ran down the stairs, jostling a caretaker who was half-heartedly mopping one of the landings.

  Sunder looked hangdog.

  ‘Ignore it, they’re just idiots,’ Ashish said. He almost enjoyed these small displays of antagonism; they were what he was used to. At the gate they got into a taxi. Sunder couldn’t deal with buses; he said they were dirty and mosquitoes bred under the seats, a claim so bizarre that Ashish hadn’t known how to respond.

  ‘Cuffe Parade,’ Ashish told the taxi driver. He put his arm across the back of the seat. Sunder twitched and readjusted himself until Ashish removed his arm.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Sunder looked hassled. ‘Nothing. Stop being such a girl’.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Ashish sulked for a bit in his corner of the cab.

  Sunder leaned towards the driver. ‘Don’t go via Causeway, go from outside.’ He sat back again and said, without looking at Ashish, ‘My dad’s on my case, he’s told me to get on with studying and make something of myself.’

  ‘Make, like what?’

  ‘You know, do better: pass stuff. He says he can’t get me into a good business school just by giving them a donation.’

  The cab took the left turn near the Cooperage, honking futilely at a BEST bus ahead to hurry up. Ashish tried to imagine Sunder impressing any business school professors at an interview; he’d look bullish, trussed into smart clothes, and be as inarticulate as ever. The thought brought a rush of affection. He put his arm back around Sunder, who this time didn’t resist. ‘Chill maaro, you’re attending regularly, we’ll study together; you’ll be fine.’

  When they got to Sunder’s building, Sunder paid the cab driver (he regularly demanded, and got, chunks of money from his mother) and they sauntered through the cool black lobby. The security guard salaamed. Ashish had nearly forgotten the nerve-racking first few visits. He chattered happily while they waited for the lift. ‘So, should we do something after this semester’s exams? Maybe get a few people together and go to Lonavala or something, Karjat? Mayank, you don’t know Mayank properly but you’d like him, his dad could probably get us a reservation at a circuit house somewhere, what do you think? It’d be fun, waterfalls and everything.’

  Sunder stood silently staring at the indicator that showed the lift’s descent from each floor to the next. Finally it arrived, levitated for the prescribed instant above the ground floor, then came to earth. The doors parted; the attendant touched his cap to Sunder. ‘You again,’ his gaze said to Ashish. Being polite to people never worked, they always thought it was because you had no power. Ashish gazed modestly at the floor of the lift, where little mounds of dirt gathered, and then at the shoes of the attendant, who probably lived in a far-away suburb and had a long train journey to get here – he must polish them again after he got to work, otherwise they’d be mud-spattered in this weather. Then they were at the fourteenth floor. They came out on the landing: a window was open in the stairwell. From outside, the smell of salt and the cry of seagulls. Sunder rang his own doorbell.

  ‘Don’t you have your key?’

  Sunder shrugged. ‘Why bother, Hitesh should be there, anyway he doesn’t need to sleep all afternoon.’

  The servant duly appeared, opened the door, simpered at Sunder and stood aside to let them in. They set off down the corridor. ‘Is my mother here?’ Sunder asked.

  ‘Gone out.’

  In Sunder’s room, Ashish threw down his bag. Sunder turned on the light and the air conditioner and half drew the blinds. He kicked off his shoes. Ashish sprawled on the bed, and Sunder came and sat next to him; he sighed.

  Just as Ashish was undoing Sunder’s belt the door opened noiselessly.

  ‘Madam said to give you this,’ Hitesh said. He came in, assessed the situation with sharp eyes, and put down a tray with glasses of juice and a plate of cake on the bedside table. When he went out, eyes lowered, he closed the door properly; the insolent click was a comment.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  Sunder shoved away Ashish’s returning hand. ‘Obviously, don’t be stupid.’

  ‘But why, what could he say? And even if he did –’

  ‘Look, you don’t understand,’ Sunder spat out.

  ‘Oh, I don’t?’ Ashish felt a prickle in his eyes. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I have responsibilities to my family, to the business,’ Sunder muttered, a line he’d apparently been hearing a lot recently.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I can’t just – anyway, my father told me when I didn’t clear last year that I have to be more sincere.’

  ‘But you are – we’ve been through this – I thought I explained –’

  ‘No.’ Sunder batted Ashish’s hand away again, this time from his shoulder. He looked cow-like, miserable, and obstinate. ‘Anyway, what’s the point? I don’t want to be one of those paedo types.’ He avoided Ashish’s stare. ‘I’m not judging you,’ he went on, looking shifty.

  ‘Don’t talk shit, you’re just repeating things you’ve heard on Dawson’s Creek.’.’

  ‘I don’t want to deal with all this. I don’t want the hassle. I don’t feel the same as you. How do I know you’re not just using
me?’ He lifted his head and gazed securely at Ashish.

  ‘For what?’ said Ashish incredulously. His mind went back to all the homework assignments he’d written for Sunder, all the times he’d sat and explained class notes to him.

  ‘For my money, or because my house is in town, or anything – how do I know?’

  Ashish bounded up. ‘What do you mean!’ he found himself yelping, hands on hips, like one of the characters in American soaps.

  ‘You never pay cab fare,’ Sunder intoned, ‘you never have any money.’

  ‘But you always said it was fine – and you’re the one who can’t take the bus!’

  Sunder looked stubborn. ‘I think you should leave.’

  ‘You can’t just throw me out!’ Actually, of course, he could. Ashish had a mad urge to do something, he didn’t know what: break something or run to the kitchen and scream at the servants, Do you even know what we do in the afternoons here? But perhaps that was the point.

  Sunder merely slouched on the bed, looking sanctimonious, and slightly anxious. Ashish picked up his bag. ‘You’re making a mistake,’ he said bitterly. ‘I’m the only interesting friend you have. And anyway, who’ll help you with your work now?’ He wanted to cry.

  ‘My parents are getting me a tutor.’

  ‘Oho, so who was using who then? Whom, I mean! Who was using whom, haan?’ Ashish’s voice was rising.

  ‘Don’t shout.’

  Ashish stomped towards the door, and looked back, waiting for Sunder to say something else. He didn’t. He yanked it open and began the walk down the long, suspiciously quiet corridor towards the front door; he wrestled with it for some time before the servant appeared and, smiling to himself, opened it. He pressed the button for the lift, then, not wanting to wait, began to walk down. The stairwell was surprising for a building like this: bare grey cement and plain tiles, a smell of the sea. Ashish passed a sleeping servant or two and sniffed to himself; he couldn’t cry here. Finally he reached the lobby. A man with a briefcase was waiting for the lift; he turned to look at Ashish, who flapped stormily out in his sandals. In the sun, the noise of buses and taxis and the warm air recalled him to the world.

  He walked slowly down Cuffe Parade, eyed by a couple of liveried drivers who leaned against shiny cars. In the open air, he felt saner. It couldn’t be such a big thing, this argument; maybe it had just been brewing. ‘People who are really close to each other always argue,’ his mother had told him when he was a small child, after he’d spent an evening huddled on the end of the bed listening to his parents blast each other. He had with relief accepted this as the truth. Most of his friendships puttered along satisfactorily without upheaval; this one was different, that must mean something. Still, he cringed at the things Sunder had said, especially about money and his house; in his mind he’d replayed a thousand times that Sunday lunch, especially the part where he’d walked, apparently for miles, across the white marble floor of the living room towards Sunder’s father.

  On Cuffe Parade the gulmohars were dropping tiny wet leaves that stuck to the pavement. A man outside a building with an odd, sharply sloping drive was sweeping up; but the leaves kept falling.

  When he got home he closed the outer door with a quiet click, hoping to slip into his room. But his uncle jumped up from the cane chair. Ashish’s heart sank; Mohan mama’s face was eager and he held a small sheaf of paper. It was a story he’d written.

  ‘Do you – ahem, you could read it if you want,’ Mohan said.

  Ashish took the papers from him and smiled. ‘I’ll just read it,’ he said. He went to his room, sat at the desk and puzzled through the thing, written out in his uncle’s neat hand. The story seemed to be about a woman who worked as a prostitute, and a day when she realized that she couldn’t do it any longer; then she carried on. The turning point was an encounter she had with an old neighbour, who had a discussion with her about freedom. But Ashish found it hard to concentrate. Mohan mama would be waiting in the other room to hear what he thought. He flicked through the book, Become a Writer. Surely it had answers for moments like this? Across the lane, the empty apartment which the owls visited was blank. Ashish thought of other afternoons at Sunder’s house, in the half-dark, air-conditioned room, and his stomach felt hollow. For the first time he feared that Sunder might tell other people about what had gone on – but no, that would implicate him too. Ashish saw himself, again, walking across the white living room, and the lunch that had followed, with CNBC on the television behind him.

  He went back to the living room, holding the paper and Become a Writer. ‘It’s interesting, Mohan mama. It’s good – very good,’ he said. But his voice was flat. His uncle’s face, which had lit up, began to look gloomy. ‘No, really. It’s good,’ Ashish repeated.

  ‘But – I feel,’ his uncle began, and stopped.

  ‘Maybe you could put it away for a little while and then look at it again. See, here,’ he held out the book. ‘There’s a chapter on revision, and it says that often the real work isn’t the first time you write the story, but when you work on it later and make it better.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Mohan, taking the book, which he put beside him, a heavy hand on top of it. He reached out his other hand for the paper.

  ‘And what will you write next?’ Ashish hated having to be in this encouraging role.

  ‘Hrrm.’ Mohan looked at him, but apparently without recognizing him. Good, now I’ve also managed to make him miserable, Ashish thought; but he had no energy to find the right thing to say. He went back to his room and sat at the desk to stare into the vacuum of the darkened lane.

  If only he had been like his uncle, someone for whom each detail of life had its own significance, revelatory as though it had been a clue in a cosmic detective story. Yet there were moments when the story seemed to go out of life. He only saw his desires clearly in the world, and then the forest of obstacles that would prevent them from being attained. Ah dear Juliet / Why art thou yet so fair? Well, not Juliet exactly, or fair exactly; but there was nothing like deprivation to sharpen longing. Surely Sunder would call?

  ‘Eh.’ It was his uncle, bringing him tea. He put the cup on the desk and then lingered to say, ‘I got the name and number of an English professor who might give you tuition, from your aunt. Someone Satish mama knows or knows of.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Ashish said without enthusiasm. Since his uncle still wasn’t leaving, he added, ‘Good.’

  ‘Call him some time, go and meet him, he might be able to help you.’

  ‘Okay, sure.’

  ‘How’s the studying going?’

  ‘Not bad.’ He was so tired of life he wanted to cry, quietly, with his face buried in a soft cloth, while someone patted him between the shoulder blades.

  ‘Well, don’t stay up late working every night.’

  ‘Okay’.’

  When his uncle had gone, he shoved the piece of paper under a book, checked his phone again, and returned to staring out of the window.

  The next day it was easy to be on time for college, since he’d slept only part of the night. At three o’clock, on the dot, he woke with a start, sweating, in the midst of a terrible dream. After that, he couldn’t sleep; he rolled over and over, got up, turned off the fan, then turned it on again, tried pushing off the sheet, then swaddling himself in it: nothing was any use. He spent the extra hours thinking about Sunder and what would happen at college in the morning.

  In the lecture theatre, he sat three rows from the back, on the same side as the entrance. He tried not to look at the door; he opened his bag, took out his notebook and two pens, stared into the distance, frowned down at his paper. Suddenly he heard the familiar deep voice and laughter, and whipped his head round. Sunder came in, walked past Ashish, and went to sit with Ravi and one of the girls.

  Ashish felt the blood rush to his face and neck. He must have gone a dark red, perhaps purple. He began to doodle furiously in the margin of his page. He always drew the same things, he had no idea why:
plain, square apartment blocks with darkened windows; palaces with striped domes that looked like ice cream; stars in the sky; palm trees. He was sketching a coconut, and trying not to be aware of the girl who sat next to Sunder pointing at him and whispering, and the two boys laughing, when someone came to sit next to him. A hand nudged his elbow. Mayank.’

  ‘Hey!’ He smiled.

  Right after that, the teacher came in, a predictable mauve cloud of bad sari, bad hair, bad glasses and bad mood. She was dripping wet and extracted her lecture notes from a plastic shopping bag. ‘Someone open a window,’ she said irritably, and so they had the sound of the rain to listen to as well as her even voice following the familiar headings.

  Eventually the bell went. Ashish hadn’t known what he’d do in the longer break between classes – he’d thought of walking around the block and returning only for the next class – but Mayank stuck to him. The other boy put an arm around his shoulder when they walked towards the cafeteria.

  The stairs were slick with dirty water. Ashish heard Ravi’s voice: ‘Coming to the dhaba?’

  ‘No, let’s go somewhere decent.’ They pushed past and went unhurriedly down the stairs, jostling each other and laughing. Ashish caught the eye of one of the cleaners, who was pretending to mop a puddle on the floor; then the whiskery, spectacled face turned away again.

  Ashish was so grateful to Mayank he didn’t know what to say. He sat in the cafeteria, feeling tender enough to cry, and smiled at his tea, and his potato vada; it lay on his plate, round and fat, smelling of oil.

  Now he spent the hours outside lectures at home in Saraswati Park, reading old comics and popping comfortingly cardboardlike Marie biscuits into his mouth one after the other. He was exhausted all the time; the three o’clock internal alarm continued to operate, as though the world needed urgently to alert him to the fact that he was still unloved.