Blue Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

mustered for this service, my father is once again tall.
    “ Beta , vhat’s wrong,” he “asks,” although his tone gives no hint of questioning.
    “Nothing,” I say, stepping back and shrugging.
    “ Beta , vhat is the matter.”
    “Nothing,” I repeat, scurrying away, reminded that there is a language even harder to master than Sanskrit.
     
    After we kids eat our prasad , teetering as we try to sit cross-legged and balance sectioned foam plates of food on our knees, it is time for us to have our version of Sunday school. Our mothers make us put on our shoes, which everyone has to take off before entering the temple, then push us out of the basement door, which lets onto the parking lot. From there we Hansel-and-Gretel our way along flat, round stepping-stones to the front door of the house, then enter the main floor—taking off our shoes again—and seat ourselves on the spongy brown carpet of the pundit’s main sitting room. We use his book-furniture to lean on.
    The class is taught by the pundit’s wife, a woman with an enormous nose that is augmented by her bull-worthy nose ring. She is the only balding woman I have ever seen, a saucer-sized circle of hair missing at the back of her head.
    The kids that make up the Sunday school are all celebrities from my childhood. Meaning: they are the core group of Indian friends I have in my life, even if they are more like enemies.
    There is Neha Singh, at twelve years old already a great Indian beauty, with eyes as brown as chocolate cake and hair so black you want to fill a Bic pen with it. Too bad those eyes are hidden right now behind enormous, plastic-rimmed glasses. And just two months back, Neha had braces slapped on her perfect teeth, her parents making sure that any potential misalignment was stopped before it began. Still, everyone affords her complete submission, knowing that the moment the glasses and braces come off, the beauty will be back full throttle.
    Seated with Neha are the rest of the powerful prepubescent Punjabis:
    Shelley Aggarwal, whose real name is Shalini, but her TOEFL-impaired parents are trying hard to make up for their accents by giving her an American nickname. She is a very thin girl with an equally thin, long nose, which is almost hooked at the end. (“Almost hooked” meaning that there is no actual curving under; rather, the point is so fine that it casts a shadow under the tip that gives the illusion of hooking.) She likes to wear saris as much as possible, probably because they make her look older and wiser.
    There’s Shruti Gupta. Of all the girls, she’s the biggest bitch, and if Sarah and Melissa ever wanted to make an Indian friend—not that they ever would —Shruti would fit right in with them. She speaks rarely, but when she does, it’s usually to show how superior she is. She is in the fifth grade but takes seventh grade math, which she studies at home with her doctor parents. Her parents are so conservative—they conserve so much—that Shruti, though born and raised here, has the same Anglo-accented English they do. The Guptas really do construct the perfect paradox: they practically keep their daughter locked up in a (gold-plated) cage, and yet they both practice very progressive forms of medicine, her father being an internist, her mother a cosmetic surgeon. One day I’ll have to solicit both of their services—a cure to prevent me from retching whenever I see Shruti and plastic surgery to get rid of the rock-hard frown she etches onto my face.
    Completing Neha’s sidekick trio is Neelam Govind. She is a morbidly obese girl with skin so dark she could be Aretha Franklin’s twin sister. Her big mouth doesn’t just take in food, though; the loudest voice in the world comes out of it frequently.
    There are a dozen other Indian girls in the room, ranging from two to twelve, but whether they are older or younger than the quartet, they know they are inferior. There is always one bitch posse in a group, and they