The Hope Factory A Novel - By Lavanya Sankaran Page 0,39
being. He voiced none of these thoughts, noting that his father-in-law too was relatively reticent on a normally favorite topic. “A garden,” said Harry Chinappa in some abstraction, “is a lovesome thing, God wot!” A mall built with Sankleshwar presumably even more so.
“They spoke to me as well,” said Mrs. Nayantara Iyer. “Those construction people. Twice.”
“Dear, dear,” said Harry Chinappa. “If they should turn troublesome, please let me speak to them on your behalf, Mrs. Nayantara. I know just what to say to them. One needs to take a firm hand. In fact, I will give them a call tomorrow.”
“No, that’s all right. Thank you. I’ll attend to it myself.”
Anand wished he could refuse Harry Chinappa’s offer of involvement with the same ease that Mrs. Nayantara displayed. It behooved him to be grateful: he did so by wishing that with any luck the construction company in question would approach the development of the Pinto property as a cost-cutting, tightfisted venture and put up a vast apartment complex of tiny-tiny apartments, all of them with their service balconies built facing his father-in-law’s home, so that each morning Harry Chinappa could wake up to the sight of a hundred drying bras and chuddies, fluttering like banners in the early morning breeze.
Furthermore, Anand would, in future, take to emphasizing, particularly, the table in vegetable. And why not? He had recently read an article about how English had become a true Indian language; that from being the language of the colonizers, it was now colonized in turn; Indianized; used in ways new and original and made in India, mixing and settling with the 550 other Indian languages; that, far from languishing amid its imported Victorian roots, it (like the ancient country it now inhabited) had turned inexplicably young and vigorous. Anand would play his role. He was part of the loyal, proud, nationalistic mainstream; the language would serve him, rather than he serving the language.
His mother-in-law called her guests in to dinner, doubtless the same menu of pork and chicken and baked cauliflower that Ruby Chinappa had served with due veneration, like prasadam after a pooja, at every dinner he could ever remember, and Anand treated this as his signal to exit.
HE COULD HEAR THE television in the upstairs living room, tuned to a show favored by his wife and daughter. They would be settled next to each other on the couch, Vidya and Valmika, giggling and gasping over the unreal, unpleasant drama about rich teenagers and their parents in New York; Pingu dozing with his head on his mother’s lap. Anand walked slowly up the stairs, the exhaustion of the day settling on him with every step. He did not join them as he normally might; Vidya would subject him to a detailed catechism that he could not yet face.
His bedroom was gifted with a momentary peace, rich in solitude, gilded in silence, the silk of lamplight captured against the warm colors of the bedspread. He locked the bathroom door and stripped, glancing at himself in the full-length mirror. He was lean, which was good, and short, which was not; his height a victim, he had always felt, of the spartan vegetarian diet he’d had growing up.
The session with Harry Chinappa had created unnatural bands of tension in his neck muscles, which welcomed the soothing fall of hot water in the shower. His right hand reached for his penis; he tugged at it briskly, catching the eventual release of semen in his cupped left hand and depositing it tidily in the drain, watching it flush away with the shower water. He was always fastidious about this, ensuring no glutinous streak left accidentally on walls or floor to be discovered later by a disconcerted wife or maid.
• • •
WHAT IS A WIFE?
In the simplest sense, the mother of your children.
In the grand Indian sense: the purveyor of domestic comfort; the chief priestess of patriarchy; the legislator of harmony and peace; the weaver who knots the extended family together; the Diwali firecracker who creates a sense of celebration in the home; the keeper of spirituality and a reminder of earthly goodness; the creator of future life and the guardian of the ancient ways; a partner in earthly pleasure; the feet-presser and old-age comforter to his parents; the role model for his sisters, and the object of secretive devotion of his brothers and friends.
In a more modern sense, as per the women’s magazines Vidya left around in the bathroom: all of the above, but let’s add