Family Planning Read Online Free PDF Page B

eat Maggi Noodles. Then I sit still for two hours. At ten I watch Friends . I hate my life.”
    One finger plucked away at the belt-loop of her skirt as she spoke. She was unconvincing. She seemed to Arjun to be proud of her own hardship and boredom. He responded in kind, and explained at great length how he had shown talent at a young age in singing and so his school principal made special concessions for him, letting him practice in the small auditorium during the morning assembly, saying, Arjun you can skip extra classes; you have done so well in your exams , and how when the principal’s wife had died, he had asked Arjun and the band to play behind the funeral pyre so that the fire was between the principal and the band, andArjun said that was the only time he couldn’t sing because his throat was full of tears and soot, but he had seen the principal singing his songs through the heat mirage of the pyre, the principal had made their music his (oh, you want to know why a Christian’s wife was having a cremation, er, she was Hindu, yaah), but apart from that, the only time the band met was for three hours two times a week. Otherwise, he was studying, studying, studying, he also wanted to get into IIT. His Papa was an IITian—see there was all this pressure, could she understand?
    Apparently she did. She gravely nodded and said, “When is your concert?”
    What did he look like to her? he wondered. Was his hair sleekly angled so as to cover his massive forehead? Had she noticed the way his nose was ribbed in the center?
    He said, “No set date yet.”
    Aarti looked crushed that he hadn’t mentioned a date she could have mulled over, considered, and then denied with an explanation of how busy she was.
    Now it was her turn to be silent.
    “When are you free?” he asked.
    She scrunched up her eyes and thought and thought and thought. “Sundays only.” Then she added, “And even then I am busy sometimes. My Dadi is very religious and we have to go to the mandir and do this puja for three hours. I can’t tell you how boring it is, yaar. First, we sit on the floor and the pandit brings samagri and oil. Then we recite Om Bhur Bhava Swaha fifty-five times. I believe in God, but do I have to sayit fifty-five times? So yaah. Even on Sundays sometimes I am with my family.”
    “So what?” said Arjun. “You can bring your Dadi and your Mama and your Papa—whoever. The concert will be part of a flyover opening. My dad is a minister.”
    “Your dad’s a minister?”
    “Not corrupt, I swear. So far, I think I’m the only one taking any kickbacks in the family.”
    This was his standard line for girls.
    “You mean?”
    “Football team,” he said. (He wasn’t on the football team.)
    She laughed. “What’s your dad’s name?”
    “Rakesh Ahuja. He’s the Minister of Urban Development.” He quickly added, “He wasn’t involved in the Gujarat riots.”
    “No, no, I’m sure.”
    “Yes. And he hates Yograj. You know? Yograj Commission. The guy who caused the Gujarat riots.”
    “Accha,” she said. He could tell she appreciated his openness. She continued. “I hate him too. When the riots happened, I wanted for the first time to be a politician, yaar. I thought this is really too much. In this day and age for this to happen. But everyone makes fun of me for being idealistic. Also, you cannot enter politics without time and connections. I have neither—”
    Marry me! thought Arjun. Marry me!
    Then the bus braked and he strode past her and stepped off the goddamn bus into the divine and dehydrating afternoon light.
     
     
    Now all he needed was to organize a concert. On a Sunday. He walked home with growing excitement. He’d talk to his brothers and sisters. He couldn’t tell them what he had seen last night in the nursery, obviously not: firstly, it was disgusting, and secondly, people have sex all the time in this country, doing it in fields and huts and buses and naalis and even in servants’ quarters