The Ever After of Ashwin Rao Read Online Free PDF Page A

our young democracy’s history. That any Sikhs, whose community was famously loyal to the multiplicitous notion of modern India, could feel so marginalized as to resort to this act seemed as tragic as the act itself. None of us was a fan of the prime minister, which fact also saddened us. She’d increasingly played the paranoid autocrat, rather than the freedom fighter and democracy defender she had been in her youth. But even through her various national and local suspensions of civil liberties, it had been possible to maintain the idea that civil society would ultimately triumph. Somehow, this violent end seemed the final shattering of that dream. I don’t think any of us suspected that the final shattering was yet to come.
    The head of the office staff, a former stenographer promoted repeatedly for her unusual acumen, looked in the open door. “I am sorry”—she frowned—“but I must advise you learned people to go home.” She rarely encountered disobedience from those she supervised or those she served. We left.
    My bus would take me right past the hospital where our prime minister lay dying. As we approached, government cars, with police motorcycles weaving and buzzing around them, overtook us. The crowds thickened—mourners, I supposed. The closer we got, however, the younger and more male the crowds appeared. Our bus slowed to walking pace, unable to get through; then a couple of young men stopped it, banging on the door until the driver opened it.
    “Show me the Sikhs!” the first shouted as he leapt up the steps. He started down the aisle, checking the empty seats to make sure no turbaned head was ducked below, out of sight. Several of his fellowsappeared behind him. Their eyes were red—not from crying, my guess. They wore half-unbuttoned shirts, moustaches, shaggy hair. Bollywood villains.
    There were no Sikhs on our bus, but, as we arrived at the transit depot, I saw a tall gentleman dragged out of another bus by his shirt, spectacles askew. He was pushed down into the sweating, crushing sea of the crowd, where I lost him.
    My second bus home contained a number of wary-looking Sikhs. I knew none of them. We reached my neighbourhood. They went to their homes, I to mine.
    I found my father pacing in front of the radio. “Outrageous!” he said when he saw me, shaking his finger in the air. He had been a lifelong civil servant, dedicated to civility and servility. He liked a pendulum best when it was still. He had been piously regretful at the Golden Temple invasion, but extremists must bend or be bent to the rule of law.
    Vivek’s children had come home early from school. They were mainly worried about whether our Halloween party that evening would be cancelled. I told them that although I wasn’t much in a mood, I would go ahead with our plan if their friends showed up.
    Three did, surprisingly. Although I couldn’t bring myself to dress up, I gave them sweets and a tour of my Room of Doom, which included a disembodied hand that gripped their small necks and a ghost that popped out of my almirah. I had also strewn “poppers” on the floor so that their entry seemed to trigger gunfire. On other days, their screams would have been delightful.
    Rumours floated in that I was not the only one distributing sweets: some Sikhs were celebrating the assassination. My sister phoned from Canada to tell us they had seen images on TV of Sikhs in Vancouver and Toronto laughing, dancing bhangra, that Punjabi celebration dance made famous via Bollywood and weddings: arms aloft, shoulders shaking, wrists twisting to an infectious beat.
    “It’s just a handful behaving like this,” she said, “but that’s what makes the news, right? The rest of them are going about their daily business, but you can’t show that on TV. I saw a bunch at a vigil downtown.”
    By the time the children finished their candy, their parents were at the door, anxious to get them home. We expected a curfew to be called, and one was. We