Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Five minutes. Shalini knew when they were up. For as long as she could remember, she had had an unerring instinct for time, she could tell it down to the minute without ever needing a watch. She woke always without an alarm, and every day arrived at the station gate precisely six minutes before her train came in. She knew her rest was over, and so she got up. There was only a moment, a heartbeat or two, when her body was reluctant to leave its repose, its luxurious resting on brick and wood. Then Shalini gathered herself up, and got up. 'Ambabai,' she said gently, with a glance towards the deity on the shelf, 'rise, awaken. We have work to do.'

She had dinner ready when the boys came in. Rohit took half a bucket of water and led his younger brother out. Shalini could hear them murmuring under the splash of water. This was something that their father had insisted on, that when they returned from their games they had to wash their hands and feet before sitting in the house. In his presence they had always muttered against it, treated it as an unbearable fatherly burden, especially Rohit, who refused to do it if his father was not at home. Now that his father was really gone, Rohit performed the evening ablutions with a ritualistic seriousness, and led his brother through it with an unrelenting, police-like discipline. He had become very serious, Rohit had. He spoke to Shalini every morning about what was needed for the house, and went to the bazaar in the afternoon, after school. He brought back exact change, and showed her the lists of accounts he kept in a special notebook. He had a key to the house now, and wore it round his neck on a red string, and took it off only to sleep. As he ate now, he had it slung over his right shoulder, down his bent back.

'All homework is done, Mohit?' Shalini said.

Mohit had fast, stubby fingers. He was eating quickly, with his thali held in his lap and his head low. 'Mmmm,' he said. 'Mmmm.'

'Aai, he's got a maths test on Friday,' Rohit said, 'that he hasn't even started studying for.'

'Friday,' Mohit managed to get out between bites.

He had a smear of dal on his upper lip. He meant that Friday was three days away, Shalini understood this. He had done quite badly in his last exams, but that was only to be expected of a small boy who had gone to his father's funeral. Shalini had assumed, as had everyone who knew him, that he would adjust, cope, forget a little, and get back to his quiet, steady ways. But Mohit was still slipping, leaving his work undone while he sped through life on some secret mission. He hid himself behind his bed, in a nook filled with comics with lurid covers featuring moustachioed, pistol-clutching adventurers. He drew rifles in the margins of his notebooks, and muscular heroes firing enormous, blazing guns. He had a private life now, an inner world that Shalini could no longer reach. This happened with children, with sons, but not so soon. She patted the atta off her hands and reached out and tapped the top of his head with her forearm. 'Start studying tomorrow,' she said. 'Yes?'

'Yes,' he said.

'Want rice?'

'Yes,' he said.

Shalini fed them, washed up, slid the dishes into the rack on the wall, hung the pot and the pans and the spoons on their designated hooks on the roof. She took up her tooth powder and a glass of water and sat in the doorway. The lane held only a scattering of walkers, who stepped through the throw of light from each door. In another lane, long ago, he had said once that this repetition of light looked like a waterfall. That had been early in their marriage. Yes, she had said, like the cascade at Karla. They had been very poor then, and the trip to Karla and its caves had been a special treat a year after their marriage. He had walked inside the caves, marvelling at their roofs carved to look like wooden beams, and had stood before the stupas and become solemn, despite his scepticism, which even then was sharp and unrelenting. Now, in this lane, everyone was watching Sabse Bada Paisa , and the colours flickered in unison on the mud, up and down the street. She could hear the host's voice leaping from television to television, offering the chance of very large money. In her house there was a television, and usually there was no watching it this late on a weekday. That had been his rule. Study hard, he said to his sons, and when you have your own house you can watch television whenever you want. He made an exception for Kaun Banega Crorepati , though, because it was a knowledge-based show. Answer the right questions and you could win, you could own a crore, just like that. If you knew enough, you could be rich. Learn, learn, he told his sons, and they watched it together, seated cross-legged in a row. They used to shout out the answers. She used to call them the three monkeys, and they made monkey faces at her. Now Rohit was watching Sabse Bada Paisa intently, and its blues and greens moved across his face. Mohit was back in his nook, muttering out his secret stories to himself. He had lost interest in the show after the funeral. And Shalini sat in her doorway. On the television, the host asked, what is the name of the largest irrigation project ever built in India?

'Arre, Shalu.'

It was their neighbour, Arpana, with her man, Amritrao Pawar, both walking home in outing clothes. They seemed friendly enough tonight, so they must be going through one of the peace cycles in their lifelong war. Shalini made room for Arpana on the step. 'Out so late?' she said.

'My niece's Kelvan. In Malad.'

'Sudhir's daughter?'

'Yes. They are doing the wedding near his kholi itself.'

Arpana had two younger brothers, and she was close to the youngest. With the middle one, there was a feud of obscure origin. Shalini had heard the whole story when she had first moved into the house and met Arpana the feisty neighbour, but she couldn't remember the details. For many years she had known Arpana, and watched her quarrel with Amritrao Pawar, who had another woman and another family not so far away. At first Shalini had advised giving him up, sending him away. Then she had seen how they went from fighting to lifelong promises and opulent gifts, and one monsoon night, when she had herself been pregnant, she had gone late to ask Arpana for two onions. And standing outside their door she had heard how they made up, with what extravagant, moaning ecstasies they forgave each other. She understood then why the women on the street laughed when Arpana complained about her man's indifference and cruelty. He was standing facing them now, this Amritrao Pawar, with his hands in his pockets and a lordly smile of satisfaction teasing his mouth. Shalini didn't like him looking at her like that. Let him feast on his Arpana. She turned her shoulder to him. 'How was the boy?' she said to Arpana.

'Too thin,' Arpana said. 'He looked like that drainpipe, only not so black. But the family is good. He has a job at the airport.' She looked up from massaging her feet, at Amritrao Pawar. 'Why are you standing here like some lamppost?'

Shalini was afraid they would start a fight at her door. Sometimes all it took was a certain look. But Amritrao Pawar was happy tonight, and he only burbled into laughter. 'Waiting for you, rani. But I will wait at home.'

They watched him go, and Arpana snorted. 'They were drinking behind the house. He thinks I can't tell.' They nodded together at the foolishness of men, and then Arpana leaned in. 'Bharti came today?'

'Yes. How do you know?'

'That Chitra was on our bus.' Chitra was another neighbour, two doors down on the right. 'She said she saw Bharti at the bus stop.'

And other neighbours would have seen her at the road turning, and walking down the lane, and in the house, and noted her expression, and made their deductions. 'Yes,' Shalini said. 'She was here.'