Thankfully, his sisters—with their newly formed, if feigned, Western notions of privacy—left them alone. But it wouldn’t last long—someone would barge in sooner or later.
Agastaya was glad he had read Nicky’s e-mail earlier that morning. He would otherwise not have known how to react to his lover’s arrival. The e-mail, sent to Anthony, was revelatory—it showed that Nicky had a side that cared.
Hey love,
Giving Foolito a surprise. Heading to his hometown. Will be there by the 21st or 22nd. Some silly permits required for his state, like its a country within a country or something. What do us ignorant Americans know? Will be there a full week before schedule. Wonder what India will be like. Probably hot, polluted, and hairy men. As long as there not as hairy as A . . . just kidding, he’s perfect the way he is. My love to Tony II.
Nick
First, it was euphoria that set in. He was described as “perfect” to Nicky’s old lover. That was the nicest compliment Agastaya had ever received from Nicky. Elation had then given way to panic when the magnitude of what Nicky was about to do hit home. His boyfriend would show up in Gangtok. What after that? Giving surprises was Nicky’s forte, but this was taking it a little too far. Had Nicky booked a hotel, or did he foolishly think that he would stay in Aamaa’s house?
Well, Nicky was here now, and Agastaya would have to deal with him.
“God, you are here!” Agastaya said.
“Something makes me feel that’s not an exclamation of happiness,” Nicky replied.
“You look good.”
“Once again, not an expression of happiness.”
“Thanks for the surprise.”
“Are you sure you’re grateful for it? Your face says otherwise.”
Yes, it was a very generous gesture on Nicky’s part. Yes, it was good to see Nicky.
“I just can’t believe it—you in my home world,” Agastaya finally said because he didn’t know how to keep the conversation moving.
“I know, right?” Nicky exalted. “Don’t worry—to everyone, I am an anthropologist.”
“I guess I should feel grateful.”
“What the fuck? Oops, am I allowed to use the f-word here?”
Hadn’t Agastaya imagined Nicky in this setting just two days before? His boyfriend had met half his family and would soon meet the other half. How careful Agastaya had been about divorcing his New York life from his family life. Now the two had collided. “I am sorry. It’s great to see you. I’m just slightly taken aback. You know how it is with me and surprises.”
“This was supposed to be the greatest surprise of your life,” Nicky said. “And now you’ve ruined it.”
“How have I ruined it?”
“You’re so . . . what’s the word? . . . whatever . . . You’re so difficult to please.”
Agastaya looked around to see if anyone was within earshot. Ruthwa would be back at any time. Nicky’s making a list of his shortcomings now in his loud voice wasn’t safe. Agastaya wouldn’t put it past any of his siblings to listen in on this conversation. Worse, the eavesdropper would report the exchange to everyone. This garden wasn’t a secure place at all. Someone was probably behind the curtains right now, judging his body language.
“Where are you staying?”
“At the Mayfair—so beautiful, so Thai. They treat me very well there, but my room is booked only until tonight.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t know. It’s your town. Figure shit out. This wasn’t the response I expected. I hate this. I should never think of doing anything good for you. You always have a problem.”
Nicky had still not realized the gravity of showing up unannounced. He now wanted credit, teary-eyed gratitude. If they were somewhere else, Agastaya would have asked his partner if he was right in the head, but he couldn’t afford to be melodramatic here.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s my family—you know what they do to me.”
“I quite liked Byaag-wutti. Manasa was a little bitch.”
“Yes, she can be difficult at times.”
“Isn’t Roota here, too?” Nicky asked.
“He is.”
“Manasa told me—that little gossip. Is he as hunky as he was in those pictures?”
“Still doesn’t shower.”
“He doesn’t need to with a face like that.”
“Smokes like a chimney.”
“Hence the smell, I’d think.”
“Oh, no, that’s from me. I smoked a cigarette today.”
“Good for you.” Nicky lifted his hand for a high-five. “Indulging in a vice or two might be right for you.”
Agastaya wouldn’t high-five back. “I was stressed.”
“Who isn’t? I was, too, especially when crossing the border into Sikkim. Why does one require a permit to come to your state when you’re already in the country? Why do we need visas to visit this country in the first place? I don’t get it. It’s not like any American would want to live here forever.”
At least Nicky’s tirade wasn’t against him.
“If we have to apply for visas to go to America, why should you be exempt from visas to enter India?”
“First world,” Nicky said. “First world, third world.”
“India is second world now.”
“Yes, second world with all those slums. The kids in the slums were so cute—even cuter than those in Slumdog Millionaire.”
“Where did you see slums in Gangtok?”
“All of Delhi is a slum. The kids waved at me as I passed them. I wanted to hug every one of them and shower them with kisses.”
Nicky’s desire for children wasn’t going to change even if he changed continents. Wholeheartedly believing that trivializing his boyfriend’s hankering wasn’t enough, Agastaya tried sexualizing it. Perhaps that would make a difference. “That sounds creepy. Please don’t say anything like that.”
“Anything involving kids is creepy to you,” Nicky said.
“Well, you did sound like a pedophile when you said that.” Agastaya was being cruel.
“I am this close to yelling. You welcome me to your hometown by calling me a pedophile. I think I should leave.”
“Now, don’t take everything so seriously.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do, then? You just called me a pedophile. You look more like a pedophile than I do.”
“I was joking,” Agastaya said.
“You don’t joke—ever. You have no sense of humor. The nurses at Beth Israel think you’re weird. You aren’t funny. Your jokes aren’t funny.”
“You’re raising your voice, Nicky. Can we talk about this later?”
“When? In Agra? Outside the Taj Mahal? Let’s solve our problems outside the most romantic place in the world.”
“I didn’t mean that, Nick. It’s just that this house isn’t the place to do it.”
“I hate you,” Nick said.
“I know,” Agastaya said. “At the moment I hate you, too.”
Bhagwati’s face materialized on the balcony. She asked Agastaya if he might want some tea.
“No, thanks,” Agastaya replied.
“And, Nicholas, you?” Bhagwati said.
“Chai-tea would be great.”
“And we will also have some sel-roti coming your way. It’s a special Nepali bread.”
“How exciting,” Nicky said. “I feel the need to feel special.”
Once Bhagwati went inside, Agastaya warned: “She was probably standing there. She must have heard us.”
“Paranoia, paranoia—all your doing.”
“She has been pestering me to get married since I saw her. She wants me to meet some doctor girl.”
“Doctor or not, the girl has no penis—that disqualifies her.”
“I can’t say that to Bhagwati.”
“Why not?” Nicky said. “Just why not? It’s not like you have to come back and live here. You see these people once every two or three years. Why do you care?”
“We’ve been through this, Nicky. Plenty of times.”
“Yes, we have, and I’m tired of it.”
“Are we doing this here again?”
Prasanti put an end to the silence that followed by marching outside like a drill sergeant. “Would you like your tea inside or outside?” she asked Agastaya.
“Outside.”
She reemerged, armed with a tray of tea and sel-roti.
“Thank you,” Nicky said as she placed the tray on a stool.
Prasanti giggled.
“Do you speak English?” Nicky asked.
Prasanti giggled in reply.
“She doesn’t,” Agastaya dismissed, and in Nepali said to the eunuch: “Prasanti, why are you behaving like a spoiled child in front of my friend?”
Prasanti provided her answer in a giggle.
“If she can openly be a trannie, why can’t you?” Nicky said.
Prasanti, covering her face with the tray, giggled again and marched back into the house.
“Left-right, left-right,” she bellowed. “This will be the new tune I’ll march to.”
•
Desirous of taking full advantage of her last three days of freedom, Manasa made a call to book a spa treatment at the luxurious new Mayfair Hotel.
She had planned the massage partly because of Ruthwa’s unflattering opinion on the way she had aged. She had noticed a new sagging above her jawline, and her hair had stopped brushing in the direction she steered it. The problem with her hair could be attributed to the water in Gangtok, but she couldn’t be too sure. The lifelessness she felt inside showed outside, she knew, but she also had an excuse—Bua couldn’t be left alone while she gallivanted from beauty parlor to beauty parlor. She rarely wore nail polish these days—that’s how far vanity had been demoted in her life.
Bhagwati had just showered and was sunning herself in the garden. That beauty needed no spa.
“I’ve booked some treatments at the Mayfair,” Manasa said.
“Good—you have fun.”
“I’ve booked the both of us in.”
“I can’t afford such luxuries,” Bhagwati replied.
“It’s a gift from me.”
“I was being sarcastic,” Bhagwati said, on her face a duplicate of the disgusted look she’d had earlier when Manasa asked her if Aamaa was paying her to talk sense into Agastaya. “Do you think I can’t afford a spa trip? You seriously think I am worse off than a beggar, don’t you?”
Manasa couldn’t think of a way to defend herself, so she kept quiet, which infuriated Bhagwati further.
“I feel insulted by you, Manasa,” Bhagwati said, her tone uncontemptuous. “All the time, with your smug attitude. Money isn’t everything, you know. If it was, you’d have been far more blessed than any of us.”
Manasa meant to tell her older sister that all her money-related comments had been inadvertent, but she was tired of treading on eggshells with Bhagwati. “I don’t mean to be rude, Bhagwati, but why do you become so sensitive when money comes up?”
“Because you’re all constantly implying that I am poor. Yes, I am—so what?”
“I never purposefully tried to do it. It’s just that every time there’s money talk, you become stiff. I don’t know what to do.”
“So, it’s my fault now?”
“Look, I am sorry. Can we go to the spa? We need to look nice for the party tomorrow. I feel hideous. I look so dark these days.”
“I don’t need to go to a spa,” Bhagwati snapped. “I am whiter than a quilt cover.”
“The quilt covers in this house have yellowed, so, yes, you are whiter than they,” Manasa replied.
“Terrible joke.” Bhagwati started filing her nails. Even her nails were shiny. How could someone’s nails—nails!—be so pretty?
“Okay, I know you don’t need to go to a spa—you’re gorgeous. You don’t even need to wear makeup, but can you please accompany your ugly sister?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Bhagwati said, softening. “I didn’t mean I don’t need to go to a spa because I’m beautiful. I just don’t like spas. I feel they’re a waste.”
“See? I misconstrued what you said,” Manasa said.
“So?”
“You’ve been misreading all my money-related comments. Maybe you’re sensitive about money the way I am about my looks.”
Bhagwati smiled. Perhaps she understood.
“Yes, everyone here is so worried about my poverty,” she said. “But now please shut up about it. Don’t come up with examples that make no sense. You’re making things worse.”
“So, you aren’t coming?”
“No, and I wouldn’t mind being left alone for some time.”
Her noble intention rebuffed and her nobler attempt at drawing a connection between misinterpreted remarks trampled upon, Manasa called the spa to cancel her reservation.
Being misunderstood for no fault of her own wasn’t amusing, but Manasa wouldn’t let her sister’s surliness affect her. She had promised herself that she’d have fun these last few days, so when she saw her brother and Nicholas involved in deep conversation, she called out to them.
“Aamaa wants to meet Nicholas!” she shouted.
“What will she talk to him about?” Agastaya replied.
“About life,” Manasa said.
“In what language?”
“I’ll translate for them,” Manasa offered. “Or you can.”
“I’d love to meet your grandmother,” Nicholas said.
“Nicky, please, don’t,” Agastaya said to Nicholas.
“Why not? She sounds like a lovely lady.”
Manasa galloped to Aamaa’s bedroom, where her grandmother was changing channels.
“The gorey wants to come up and get your blessings,” she informed the old lady.
“What blessings will I give a beef-eater?” Aamaa replied without looking away from the TV.
“I am a beef-eater, and you bless me. Oooh, they are here. Get up. You want him to have a nice impression of you.”
“The most important thing in my life a day before my eighty-fourth birthday,” said Aamaa, “is to impress a gorey?”
“And please don’t smoke in front of him.”
Aamaa fished out from her pouch a beedi and lit it up just as Agastaya and Nicholas entered the room.
“Aamaa, this is Nicholas,” Agastaya said in Nepali.
Aamaa smiled shyly at Nicholas.
“Nicky . . . Nicholas, this is Aamaa, my grandmother,” he said in English.
“Hello,” Nicholas said.
“Won’t he do Namaste to me?” Aamaa looked at Manasa.
“She’s asking you why you don’t wish Namaste to her,” Manasa translated to Nicholas.
“Oh, Namaste,” Nicholas said and in a theatrical gesture brought both his hands together.
“He’s even fairer than those people from Belgium,” Aamaa said to Manasa.
“She says you’re very good-looking.” Manasa stretched the truth.
Agastaya fidgeted a bit.
“Oh, thank you.” Nicky smiled.
“Aamaa, aren’t you going to ask him to sit?” Manasa asked.
“Sit? Where? Do these goreys sit on the bed? Tell him to remove his shoes if he wants to put his feet on my sheet.”
Manasa laughed at her grandmother’s newfound concern for hygiene. Agastaya smiled.
“Aamaa has seen on TV that some Westerners don’t take off their shoes when they go to bed,” Manasa said to Nicky. “That’s how well informed our grandma is. She says you remove your shoes if you have any intention of placing your feet on her sheet.”
Manasa laughed harder. Agastaya’s smile narrowed as his forehead creased.
“I’m fine,” Nicky said. “I’ll stand. What’s that cute thing she’s smoking?”
“It’s a disgusting cigarette—favored by lowlifes,” Manasa said.
“What’s he asking?” Aamaa asked.
“He wants to know why you won’t give up your terrible habit of smoking,” Manasa said.
Chitralekha smiled. “Come, come,” she said in English, and she signaled for Nicholas to walk to her.
Nicholas hesitated but inched toward the bed. Aamaa handed the beedi she was smoking to him.
“She wants you to smoke it,” Manasa said, looking unsurely at Agastaya but delighted by Aamaa’s generosity.
“I’d love to.” Nicholas took a puff of the beedi. He coughed and choked but made another go.
“These goreys can’t smoke a harmless beedi,” Aamaa said. “How could they have ruled us for all those years?”
Everyone but Agastaya laughed. Agastaya didn’t seem very amused. Manasa found that even funnier.
•
Aamaa’s room was a mess when Bhagwati walked in—a smoke-filled, people-filled, cough-filled, laughter-filled mess.
“They are bonding,” Manasa said to Bhagwati. “Look at how strangers bond over beedi. Beedi is a universal language.”
This was like trespassing into a Hollywood comedy in which the characters were all smoking pot. But no one here was high. Everyone was just being silly.
“Shouldn’t we eat lunch?” Bhagwati asked. Then, in Nepali, she asked the same question to Aamaa.
“Ask him what he likes to eat,” Aamaa said, which Manasa submissively translated.
“Curry,” Nicholas replied.
“I understood that,” Aamaa said. “But what curry?”
Manasa did the two-word interpreting: “Which curry?”
“Chicken curry.”
“This is a vegetarian Upadhyay Baahun’s house—no chicken here,” Aamaa said. “He will be thrown out if he wants chicken.”
Nicholas may have sensed her meaning. “Okay, vegetables, then.”
As Aamaa got up and led her merry entourage downstairs, a confounded Bhagwati focused on the sole sullen person left behind.
“What, exactly, is going on?” she said.
“She wanted him to try the beedi, and since then they’ve become best friends,” Agastaya answered.
“I assume he is staying for lunch,” Bhagwati said.
“He doesn’t deserve to, but it’s Aamaa’s house, and she’s already asked him what he wants to eat.”
“How do they even speak to each other?”
“Manasa has volunteered to do the translating. She orchestrated all this.”
“That’s what boredom does,” Bhagwati said.
“I know. This guy is a leech. He’ll never let go of my side—or any of your sides now.”
Downstairs, Ruthwa was already seated with the trio.
“Have you been introduced?” Agastaya asked Ruthwa.
“Oh, you are Roota,” Nicholas said.
“How do you do?” Ruthwa said in a stiff manner.
“Very nice meeting you,” Nicholas replied.
“So, I am not the only gatecrasher around here?” Ruthwa asked no one in particular.
“Is this the entire family, then?” Nicholas surveyed the entire table, where Prasanti was yet to serve food.
Aamaa wanted Manasa to translate what the gorey said.
“Everyone but the spouses,” Aamaa said.
“I am not going to translate that,” Manasa said to Aamaa.
Bhagwati felt a wave of anger overpower her. This easy acceptance by Aamaa of a stranger—a non-Hindu, a non-Nepali, a non-Indian, a white man—was jarring when Bhagwati had for the last year and a half been toiling to get Aamaa to approve of her children. Aamaa had remained resolute, unmoved, but here she was, best friends with a man whose last name she didn’t know. What had happened to her beef-eater/non-beef-eater nonsense? Her grandmother’s mouth had even gladly puffed on the same beedi that the beef-eater had smoked.
“I will.” Bhagwati offered to translate. “She says all the family members are here but the spouses.”
“Oh, yes, all but the significant others,” Nicholas said. “Why are your partners not here?”
“Mine is an untouchable, so he couldn’t come,” Bhagwati said.
“And you?” Nicholas directed the question at Manasa.
“I didn’t bring mine because . . . too long a story,” Manasa said. “I didn’t bring mine because I didn’t want him around.”
“And you, Roota?”
“It is Ruthwa,” Ruthwa corrected the American.
“What about you, Roota?”
“I don’t believe in monogamy.”
“Good for you. And what about you?” Nicholas turned his attention to Agastaya. “You’re loaded and a catch. Don’t you have anybody you could bring to the event?”
“No one, really,” Agastaya said.
Bhagwati seized the chance. “He berates me for asking him to get married,” she said. “He needs to find a nice girl . . .”
“Key kuraa gardaichan?” Aaamaa asked Manasa.
“I don’t want to be the translator anymore,” Manasa replied. “Someone, please take over.”
“I will,” Ruthwa said.
“Not you,” came Manasa’s reply.
“Why not?”
“All right, you’re more than welcome to,” Manasa deigned. “Aamaa, Ruthwa will do the translation.”
Aamaa pursed her lips.
“Prasanti, where’s the food?” she shouted. “We have a guest.”
“I am a guest, too,” Ruthwa said in Nepali.
Prasanti brought everyone’s plate—each had some rice on it. She laughed when she placed Nicholas’s plate in front of him.
“I’ll slap you if there is any stone in my rice,” Manasa said to Prasanti.
“Do you eat the rice by itself in Sikkim?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes, we do,” Manasa said. “We can’t afford vegetables in India.”
“Ignorant American—get it, get it.” Nicholas proudly looked around.
Prasanti emerged again bearing two bowls with two ladles and placed them on the table. She portioned onto Nicholas’s plate a ladleful of daal from one and the squishiest squash Bhagwati had ever seen from another. The solid vegetable chunks had all been battered into a paste.
“What’s that guacamole-like thing?” Nicky asked.
“Serving done only for the guest,” Prasanti said, and she giggled.
She repeated the process for Chitralekha and added, “And for the ghar-Aamaa. The others should serve themselves.”
“It smells like heaven,” Nicholas said.
Ruthwa scoffed. Agastaya glanced at Ruthwa.
“Be careful,” Ruthwa said. “They frequently find pebbles in the rice here.”
“Can you tell him we usually eat more than one vegetable?” Aamaa asked Manasa. “What if he thinks this is what our everyday diet is like?”
“No, I’ll not tell him that,” Manasa replied. “Are you worried about your social status with a stranger?”
“Can I eat with my fingers, too?” Nicholas asked. “It’s always been a dream of mine.”
“We aren’t a dictatorship, Nicholas,” Manasa said. “You do what you want.”
“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Bhagwati said. “When I had American guests over in Boulder, they all gave up.”
Ruthwa lifted his left hand and brought all his fingers together in demonstration. “It’s easy—this is it, right?”
“Wait until you try it with the rice,” Bhagwati warned.
“Tell him he can’t eat with his left hand,” Aamaa said to Bhagwati, which Bhagwati conveyed.
“But why?” Nicholas asked.
“We use the left hand exclusively for fun things in the bathroom,” Ruthwa explained.
“I needed something that well described to whet my appetite for this repulsive food,” Manasa said.
Nicholas took a few grains of rice, yellowed on contamination with the other contents of his plate, between the fingers of his right hand and made a small ball of it with the squash and daal. He then tilted his head, and, with his mouth facing the ceiling, lifted his hand up in the air, aiming for the rice to drop into his mouth in a shower. Half the grains entered their desired destination while the other half fell onto his shirt.
“Prasanti, come look at this!” Aamaa shouted, delighted with the spectacle.
Nicholas was a great performer. He slurped his food, made “mmm” sounds to pronounce its deliciousness, accepted a second helping before dropping on himself almost all of what was served, and continued eating, distracting and delighting Prasanti and Aamaa, who had stopped chewing because she was so engrossed in the gorey’s rice-eating skills.
“So, is it acceptable for him to sit at your table, Aamaa?” Bhagwati quietly said. “He’s not an untouchable?”
“He is different,” Aamaa said.
“How, different?”
“He’s not the husband of one of you,” Aamaa said. “He’ll never be married to any of you.”
Manasa, momentarily forgetting that she had given up the role of interpreter, translated Aamaa’s commentary for Nicholas. “She says it’s okay for you, a beef-eater, to be seated at the same table as us because you will never be married to one of us.”
“Yes, she has a point,” Nicholas said. “She has a point.”
Bhagwati didn’t say anything to that. Aamaa continued being fascinated by Nicholas’s adventures with food. She called out to Prasanti again when some rice—the biggest fistful so far—fell to the floor.
The piety Bhagwati felt every Lakshmi Puja was slowly and surely deserting her today.
•
Prasanti had secured decorations from the driver’s cousin and made a pageant of chaining the string of lights to the roof.
“Where are all the condo men when you need them?” She was out of breath. “Why do I have to do everything here?”
Manasa and Agastaya were immersed in deep conversation up on the balcony . . . in English. Ruthwa and Bhagwati were playing cards while occasionally talking . . . in English.
“Come, come,” Chitralekha said to her grandson’s friend, who was touring the garden by himself. “Help, help.”
She hadn’t given it much thought when they were growing up, but she found it odd that all her grandchildren talked to one another mostly in English. She found it even more peculiar that the children even spoke to one another. They were a fractious bunch as youngsters. As adults, they seemed to have set aside their differences, if for a few days, and that made her wonder why she couldn’t become like them. It’d make her life—and the lives of those around her—so much easier if she simply faked forgiveness for the time they were here. They’d all be gone after that. She’d maybe see them for a few days once every two years. A protean Chitralekha for her protean grandchildren—that would be an ideal world. But she wasn’t used to living in an ideal world.
“Prasanti, those lights aren’t attractive at all,” Manasa said. “I like the marigold garlands by themselves better—the décor is more natural that way.”
“Look which condo is talking about beauty,” Prasanti said. “A Chaurasi comes only once in a lifetime. Subba will be here. Ministers will be here. We have to make this house look like a palace.”
“Except it’s looking like a hijra house right now,” Manasa said.
Agastaya’s friend—Chitralekha still couldn’t pronounce his name—gave Manasa an expectant look.
“He must be feeling left out,” Chitralekha said to Manasa. “Why don’t you translate what you just said to Prasanti for him?”
Thankfully, Manasa complied without argument.
An exchange occurred between the white man and her rude granddaughter. This one was speckled with laughter on both sides.
“He likes the lights,” Manasa explained to Chitralekha. “He thinks they are important for a festival but even more fitting for a birthday that falls on a festival.”
Ruthwa whispered to Bhagwati, and they both laughed.
“Ask him if they have something like this in America,” Chitralekha said. “I don’t know how to say his name.”
Manasa and the friend tossed words at each other.
“He says American festivals are boring, and he wants you to call him Nicky. All people who like him call him Nicky.”
“Nicky, Nicky,” Chitralekha practiced while Nicky beamed. “That’s not difficult at all. It could even be a Nepali name.”
Manasa did what she had to.
“Nicky wonders if you’ll give a speech tomorrow,” Manasa said to Chitralekha.
“A speech? Now, why?”
Words were swapped between Manasa and Nicky.
“It’s like stones rattling in a plastic bottle.” Chitralekha described what she thought of the give-and-take in English to Manasa, who was still mid-dialogue with Nicky. Only Ruthwa heard her and smiled.
“I know,” he said.
Chitralekha looked in the direction of Bhagwati and Ruthwa, who were playing some puerile card game. “Playing joot-patti like five-year-olds,” she said.
Once the babble of English voices died, Manasa said, “He thinks you should deliver a speech tomorrow. It is a very big occasion. It’s a very important birthday. All those invited need to be inspired by you.”
“Is this an election rally?” Chitralekha asked. She thought for a moment. The idea made sense. A roomful of people—well-wishers, VIPs, dignitaries, jealous neighbors—would hang on every word that came out of her mouth. And it would be a novel thing to do. No one delivered speeches during personal celebrations.
“People in America give speeches,” Agastaya, even quieter today than his usual self, said.
“Maybe I could do it,” Chitralekha said.
“Please don’t,” Manasa begged. “No one does that here.”
“That hasn’t stopped me from doing things no one has done before,” Chitralekha replied. “Had I not done things that hadn’t been done before, I am sure I’d have been able to give you the best of everything.”
“Embarrass the whole family if you want,” Manasa said. “Do it. I’ll hide when you give the speech.”
“Nicky—Nicky has good ideas,” Chitralekha remarked. “What else should we do?”
“He thinks you should also dance,” Manasa said after an exchange with Nicky.
“I am not a cheap dancer.” Chitralekha waited for a response.
“He thinks you should dance.”
“That I won’t do. Prasanti will do the dancing for me.”
“I only dance for Aamaa these days,” Prasanti said, untangling a knot of wires. “You unlucky people will not have me dance on your birthdays. And I give up on these condo lights. Two men in the family, and I have to do this alone.”
“I am a guest, so I shouldn’t be expected to help,” Ruthwa said.
“You helped me yesterday, condo—and I thought you were a changed man,” Prasanti huffed. “Now I know it must be because you wanted to ask me about my past.”
“Wait, he asked you about your past?” Manasa said. “What did he want to know?”
“Oh, this and that. My father and mother’s story. Made me cry. This man isn’t a good man.”
“Wait a second—you told him everything?” Manasa asked.
“Yes, everything—even about my operation. He was the most interested in that. Do you also want to get a surgery, chakka?”
“He’ll write a book about you now,” Manasa said. “Everyone will know your story.”
“And then I’ll become famous,” Prasanti retorted. “And people will make a movie about me.”
“Did he promise you that?” Manasa asked.
“No. I know. I know these things. I know. And you will be even more jealous of me than you are right now. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the slap.”
“Isn’t it time for the puja?” Bhagwati asked.
“It is,” Prasanti said. “Will this gorey also come?”
“Let him watch it from the outside,” Chitralekha said.
“Do I also have to watch it from the outside, then?” Bhagwati asked.
“You and your siblings have already defiled the entire house—what would it matter if you were to degrade one more room?” Chitralekha responded. She was very pleased with her answer.
The puja ushering the goddess of wealth had always been a short affair in their house. It defied tradition in almost every way—the brevity, the absence of incantations, and the general lack of knowledge of what precisely was to be done on a puja, any puja. Participants would stand in front of the altar, pray in silence, and Chitralekha applied a red dot of a tika on each one of them. They’d then light the lamps, gamble, and welcome the Bhailo singers. This one was no different, but again, this one was different—the entire family was celebrating the festival under one roof after eighteen years.
And it was her birthday that enabled that. This was a singular affair.
When Chitralekha offered tika to Bhagwati, Bhagwati might have been crying. When she applied it on Manasa’s forehead, Manasa stuck out her tongue and made a monkey-like face. When she put tika on Agastaya, he touched her feet with his head. She looked away when she gave Ruthwa his tika. After she applied the red dot on Nicky, he hugged her. She turned red.
Outside, the first group of Bhailo girls chorused:
Blessed be he who gives us a handful of gifts with a roof of gold
Blessed be he who gives us a bagful of gifts with a golden shed
Blessed be he who gives us a quintal of donation with a golden mansion . . .
May this house be blessed with a lot of cattle
May this family flourish and prosper
May the elderly have long lifelines like those of banyan trees
May the stone the elderly touch turn to gold
May the mud they touch turn to paddy
May the water they touch turn to oil . . .
Nicky took pictures. Manasa and Bhagwati changed into blue saris, which did nothing to accentuate the appearance of the former yet immensely flattered the latter. Agastaya and Ruthwa played cards. Prasanti lit a sparkler near a nervous Nicky. Chitralekha asked Prasanti to double the offering for the young girls who had just finished their singing.
“Give them three hundred rupees,” she said. “They’re the first to come—they’ll bring us luck. This has been a good year.”