traced the line she was on. The quietness of the room had deepened because of her whispers. Nothing stirred. Perhaps the birds outside.
I did not move a muscle and did not look at her again, willing her to carry on, to not stop trying, but suddenly the kettle’s lid began to rattle as the water for our tea started boiling. She sprang up, self-conscious. “Let me make the tea. You finish your work,” she said.
We sat down with our tea and the letter. As in each of his letters, here too Kundan asked about everyone’s health and informed Charu about Delhi’s weather. He wrote of things that had happened at the hotelier’s home, his visit to the Red Fort, an accident he had witnessed. It was only in the last page that we came to the nub of the letter. Kundan’s employers had for some time been looking for opportunities abroad. The hotel industry offered plenty. They were within reach of jobs in Singapore, where they would earn five times as much and lead a better life than in Delhi. They wanted Kundan to go with them. They had told him they did not want him to lose his livelihood. I knew Kundan’s employers actually wanted him because of his culinary skills; but surely it also meant that they thought him dependable and honest – a reassuring thought for me in relation to Charu. “They said many nice things to me,” Kundan wrote. “I felt very happy.” He too would earn a lot more, they had told him, and he would be able to pay off his father’s loan much quicker, and save for his sister’s wedding. He could come back once a year – it was not that far. They saw Singapore as something they would do for only a couple of years: we cannot dream of living away from India, they said. Singapore would give everyone some quick money and show them new sights. Kundan would never again have such an opportunity. He would fly on a plane. They would live by the sea. They would never feel hot, they had said, because Singapore was an airconditioned city, which meant that even cooks lived airconditioned.
This accounted for the photograph: it was clearly a duplicate of the one that would be stuck into his passport. Passports took a long time to be made, at least six months, so it was best to start the process right away, they had said. And of course he was free to decide not to go. He was twenty, a grown-up.
The letter did not say much more. Nothing about what he had decided or was thinking. Nothing about Charu. There were no lines of longing for the hills of Ranikhet, there was no yearning for the scent of pinewood fires or cut grass. Kundan sounded different, as if he were turning into a pragmatic, city-smart young man. It was more than half a year since they had last met.
As I read the letter, I saw Charu’s face withdrawing into the expressionless immobility in which she took refuge when she was upset. She stopped me twice, to ask what a flyover was and where Singapore was. Was it as far as Jaipur or Rampur? After I finished, she got up to leave. Her head hung low and she stumbled on a rug, not looking where she was going. I had to remind her to take her letter from me. She came back for it, but as she walked away I saw her crumpling it in her fist, along with the photograph.
* * *
That night I lay awake, thinking about dreams.
I thought about Kundan’s bosses’ dreams of more money, change, travel, the sea; that their dreams had the power to alter Kundan’s own. His family would have better lives if he earned more money. Yet his new ambitions would dash Charu’s hopes.
I thought about Veer: was it only the success of his trekking company that he dreamed of – new routes, new groups to travel with, new peaks and glaciers? What did he think in the alone hours? Who did he wake up with in his head? I wondered if he ever thought of me when we were apart. He never phoned when he was away because, he said, “Once I’m on a climb, I like the sense of being on a different planet. I zone out.”
And what about Diwan Sahib? He had been in hospital for almost a month now. Some days the doctor was