Manu Joseph - Serious Men

The door finally burst open and about two dozen men rushed in with iron rods. They began to break everything in the room. Then they began to beat up the astronomers with the rods. The scientists screamed in mortal fear as they had never screamed before.

‘Not on the head,’ one of the goons screamed. He observed the assault keenly, academically and looked somewhat disappointed. ‘Stop,’ he screamed. The thugs stopped. There was the sound of men groaning and weeping. The leader of the raiders then placed his rod below the knee of Nambodri and told his men, ‘This is how you must do it.’

It took three hours for order to be restored in the Institute. Police carried away happy rioters who waved to the cameras. One car burned in the driveway. The windscreens of the other cars were broken. Windows dangled from the main block. Stunned inmates walked out in a silent file escorted by the police.

Across the city there were protests, but they were less violent. Later in the evening, outside the Bombay Hospital, mobs paraded an effigy that was named after Nambodri. They beat it with slippers and finally burnt it. There were reports of stray violence in other parts of the country but after two days the riots receded.

LAVANYA ACHARYA SURVEYED the room with the autocracy of a wife. The last two weeks she had supervised the resurrection of her husband’s office. The textured walls seemed too empty, but he refused to allow any adornments except the framed poster of Carl Sagan.

‘They broke everything but this?’ she asked, looking at Sagan’s charming face. ‘Arvind, can’t you let me put up at least one painting? After all, you begged me to come back.’

‘I like the walls blank,’ he said stubbornly, looking at the sea through the new window.

‘OK, then,’ she said. ‘I’m too tired to argue.’

On her way out she smiled at the clerk, who was half standing, and she said to him in Tamil, ‘Take care of him, Ayyan.’

‘I always will,’ he said, touching his chest with the tips of his fingers.

That evening, Ayyan Mani and Adi were sitting on a pink concrete bench, one of the many benches on the Worli Seaface that were dedicated to the memory of a departed member of the Rotary Club. Adi was peering into the paper cone searching for hidden peanuts at the bottom. Ayyan studied the walkers. Young women in good shoes walked in haste, as though they were fleeing from the fate of looking like their mothers; proud breasts bounced and soft thighs shuddered. Newly betrothed girls went with long strides to abolish fat before the bridal night when they might have to yield on the pollen of a floral bed to a stranger bearing K-Y Jelly. Old men went with other old men discussing the nation they had ruined when they were young. Their wives followed, talking about arthritis and other women who were not present. Then came Oja Mani, walking swiftly in slippers.

Adi started laughing. He could not bear to see his mother like this. Ayyan laughed too. She gave them a foul look and marched towards the other end of the promenade.

Adi was muttering something to himself and looking at the fluorescent shoes of the boys who were passing by.

‘Adi,’ his father said, ‘look what I have in my hand.’

The boy looked up. His father was holding a spoon.

‘Do you know that some people can bend a spoon with their minds?’

‘Really?’ Adi said.

‘Do you want to bend a spoon with your mind, Adi?’

‘Yes,’ the boy said.

‘OK, then listen to me carefully,’ Ayyan said, ‘but this is the last time. The very last time we do something like this. OK?’

They looked at each other for a moment. And how they laughed.