Aatish Taseer - The Temple-Goers

It was in this period, walking one day in Lodhi Gardens, that I ran into Megha’s brother, Kris, the creative writer. The park was full of early-evening mists and bougainvillea. The number of walkers had multiplied with the cool weather, and the hurried fall of evening seemed to correspond with their eagerness to go home and dress for the endless engagements, weddings and card parties whose fairy lights filled the trees.

I had come around a shaded corner of the park when I saw him, pulled along by a basset sniffing the cold, moist earth. His thin figure, and the round hardness of his collarbones and wrists, were visible through the T-shirt and light, V-neck sweater he wore. Because I knew him through his short story, and saw him now almost magically in the story’s setting, I had no trouble recognizing him. It was as if he had always been there. But then what I knew of him beyond the fiction, here from Megha and Aakash, there from Ra, returned to me. I remembered that he was Megha’s brother, that he didn’t live in this part of town, and thought it strange that he would have brought his basset from Sectorpur, nearly an hour away, to walk him here.

These thoughts rose so fast in my mind that their very momentum made me blurt out his name as he passed. He looked up; his eyes, set deep in their dark sockets, were wide and expressionless. A faint smile rose to his lips.

‘Aatish?’

‘Yes.’

He held out a large dark hand.

‘How are you?’ I said, taking it in mine; it was slightly damp. ‘I haven’t seen you around for a while. Do you still go to Junglee?’

He replied, ‘Me? Yes, I’m fine. Junglee, you said?’ Then laughing awkwardly, he added, ‘Yeah, I still go to Junglee, but at a different time, and so that’s why you haven’t probably seen me around. And you? All well there?’

His speech, though still American, had more Indian rhythms than I remembered.

‘Yes. Fine, fine.’

‘Good, good.’ He smiled.

An uncomfortable silence settled round us.

‘Well then, chalo, I’ll see you around.’

‘Yes, Kris, definitely.’

We were about to part. His basset, after panting patiently at our feet, had stood back up on his heavy paws when I said, ‘Kris, actually, do you have a moment?’

‘Yes, yes, why not?’ he said, with some satisfaction. ‘Why don’t you walk with me? Beyoncé here won’t let us stand in one place and talk.’

‘Beyoncé?’

He laughed. ‘My sister named her.’

Beyoncé had now picked up a scent, and nose down, waddled forward, her ears dancing about her.

‘Kris, actually… it’s your sister,’ I began, ‘that I’d like to talk to you about. You know I’m a friend of Aakash’s.’

‘I know,’ he replied.

Then I wasn’t sure what to say.

‘I hear your family’s very upset about their relationship.’

‘Well, thank God my parents don’t know anything about it. But yes, us brothers and sisters are naturally very upset. She’s compromising all our futures over this low-grade person who’s only after our money.’

I began to see now for the first time how Megha and Kris were brother and sister. His entire language, even his facial expressions, changed as he spoke about Aakash. The creative-writing language of the short story fell away. He made grammatical errors in his speech, almost as if a different language was needed for the different values expressed.

‘Do you think that’s what he’s after?’

‘What else? Aatish, have you seen my sister?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you honestly believe a guy like Aakash would go for her for any other reason except that she’s loaded? Let’s see, she’s a dwarf -’ he tapped his fleshy, nail-bitten digits – ‘she’s healthy as hell, she has a face like a chapati, she’s of a lower caste than him… I can’t think of anything else, except that she’s also very annoying, but probably he isn’t too concerned about that.’

‘What about that she loves him? Maybe that’s what he sees?’

‘Everyone loves Aakash! Find me a person that doesn’t love Aakash. The trainers at Junglee love Aakash, the clients love Aakash, my friend Sparky Punj loves Aakash, you love Aakash, even my fucking chowkidar loves Aakash. So many people love Aakash that I don’t think he even notices until he comes across someone who doesn’t love him.’

His mention of his chowkidar brought to my mind the description of the man from the story. How real he had seemed, with his smooth skin, stained teeth and murky, amber eyes; it was as if I had seen him myself.

‘Yes,’ I said, forcing my mind back to what was being said, ‘but people like that, people who please, can be very insecure.’

‘Aakash is not insecure; he’s ambitious. There’s a difference. He doesn’t doubt himself for a minute; he just sometimes doubts whether the world will deliver.’

I laughed; Kris’s face was still. ‘But don’t you like that? Don’t you think his ambition is an impressive thing?’

‘Not when it’s aimed at my family’s wealth,’ he replied.

‘And what about your sister? What about her happiness?’

‘Aakash will not make her happy, believe me. She’s happy now because she’s getting some Brahmin cock. And we all have this thing, us baniyas, this love of Brahmins. We’re like the untouchables of the upper castes, you see, so nothing excites us more than Brahmin love. But believe me, when Aakash has her in the bag, she won’t be getting Brahmin cock no more.’

I had forgotten Kris was a ‘Western-educated homosexual’; I had forgotten how freely he had learned to speak of these things. And his language, now discussing the subtleties of caste, now of cock, was unpredictable in tone and in content. Its fluctuations, going so easily from mellow to harsh, gave me an intimation of his disturbance.

‘Where’s your sister now?’ I asked, concealing in the airiness of my tone knowledge of her disappearance.

Kris seemed to search my face for any sign of previous knowledge.

Seeming either to make a decision to trust me or just acting out of indifference, he said, ‘She’s getting that gross body of hers…’ He put his large hands, with their fleshy fingertips, to his mouth, making the shape of a nozzle, and emitted a long and graphic sucking noise, like a child blowing into his hands to make a fart sound. Then he laughed garishly and was once again of a piece with his sister.

‘And then?’

‘Marriage, I suppose. She’s holding up the queue, you know. I have two younger sisters, less fat, who are both eager to get married.’

He seemed so pleased with himself that I experienced a feeling of triumph on Aakash’s behalf. I wanted almost to say, ‘Well, you’re too late. He’s already married her and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ My face perhaps gave away some of my distaste, because he became conciliatory. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘don’t think I don’t share your values. I’ve been to college in America too. I’m all for the little guy rising. But you know, don’t mind my saying this, I understand this country a little better than you and Ra and people.’

‘Who is me and Ra and people?’

‘You know, English-speaking people.’

‘You’re English-speaking.’

‘Yes, but only first generation. We’re still very much part of the Hindu way of life; we’re still very traditional. To you, Aakash is someone exotic and fascinating; to me, he’s very close. He knows that he can fool you, but he can’t fool me. He knows that when he does his poor boy from Sectorpur number around you, he’s got you where he wants you. The filmy dialogue, the temple visits, the red teeka on the head, all that works on you, but not on me. I have neither any caste fascination nor any love of Bollywood heroes. And in India, aside from film and religion, what else is there? Aakash knows this and that’s why he hates me. He knows that I know what neither you nor my sister knows.’