Blue Boy Read Online Free PDF

of prosperity and wealth, the other to the bevy of plump women who cook the after-temple prasad , an assortment of marzipan treats, sweet rice, and oil-glistening puri .
    Two lines form along the aisle—a plastic throw rug, one that digs into the carpet with myriad pointy teeth. Parents push their children to the front of the lines. I dawdle, trying to avoid being at the front of the line, mainly because I suddenly can’t remember which way we are supposed to circle the tray. Clockwise? Counterclockwise? And wait—which way is clockwise anyway? And how many circles to make? Two? Three? Ten?
    There is another reason I dawdle. I look up at the ceiling, from which hang, at different corners of the room, steel bells the size of heads. At three of the four bells, the tallest of the Indian men—correction: the anomalous Indian men who happen to be anything over 5'9"—are reaching up and clanging the clappers against the sides of the bell, complementing the pundit, who leads the singing at the front of the room from an old but effective silver microphone. I look up at the bell in my corner, the only one left alone. How I wish I could reach up there and ring the bell, how I wish I could translate my acuity at the hand cymbals to that louder instrument. And just when I am at the height of my wishing, I feel someone rush behind me and grab my legs. I squeal, terrified, but my squeal is unheard due to the peals filling the room. I nearly topple due to the force moving below me, but suddenly I am hoisted within inches of the bell, and when I look down I see my dad’s head.
    “Ring the bell, Kiran,” he encourages, and I am so surprised that I do so right away, as if somewhere among the ringing there will be an explanation of where this burst of affection has come from. Literally bolstered by my father’s mirth, I give the other three ringers a run for their gold-tray-borne money. I ring and clang with a virtuosity never before heard in these parts, any of the physical and emotional pain I was feeling beforehand disappearing. The men gathered in our corner look at the tiny totem pole my father and I have made and smile the same serene smiles they aimed toward me during my hand-cymbal performance. From the corner at the other end of the room, Mrs. Jindal looks up from her Elysium Harmonium and acknowledges my music with a grin.
    At the end of aarti , everyone in the room kneels down and touches his or her forehead—a dot of red powder pushed onto it by the pundit’s middle finger—to the orange, frayed, flat carpet in a silent kowtow finale. The ring of the bells, though technically over, is somehow louder during this. The negation of their sound seems to make that sound all the more important, as if for a brief moment I’m a deaf person longing desperately for any mundane noise that used to fall on my ears.
    My father is kneeling right next to me. This has never happened before. Usually, he is back with the men while I sit with the children near the front. But now he is arched next to me in the same position as mine, and in this position he doesn’t seem all that much bigger than I am. In fact, when I dare a look over, he seems to be scrunching himself as small as he can, his knees almost touching his chin. I come close to laughing—or, I think about what I would look like laughing at him, for I would never have the courage to laugh openly in front of my father. Still, a wave of sadness rushes through me. I am smart enough to realize that this laughter, this perception of his ridiculousness, must be exactly what my father feels every time he looks at me and gives me That Stare—the one that makes me think, immediately, I am wrong. There is something wrong with me.
    Just thinking of That Stare makes anything magical that has happened to me in these past several minutes vanish, and the wound from the playground seems to throb again. I am a ball of disappointment, and as everyone stands up and releases the penitence they’ve