Aatish Taseer - The Temple-Goers

We ate dinner in the community centre. There was little conversation, but Anil pointed out that the pumpkin sabzi would aid digestion. I threw my tray away and saw irritatingly that I had made a little yellow stain on my kurta. I had hardly spoken to Aakash so far and thought I might lure him away for an after-dinner cigarette. But he was not in the mood. He passed me on to Amit, who was only too happy to take me to the neighbourhood convenience store, provided he could borrow Uttam to pick up some friends of his. When I said he couldn’t, he became sullen.

The convenience store was the front room of a ground-floor flat in another block. It had a single grille window overlooking the park and contained sacks of grain, bottles of tomato ketchup and some tinned food. We entered it furtively, almost with the air of people entering a back room for a line of cocaine. The barrel-stomached owner sat in his vest in the window, and like a card dealer, fanned out two Gold Flakes as we came in. We took one each and sat down on a charpoy. The owner threw us a box of matches without interrupting his vigil at the window. The harsh tobacco had begun to compress the food in my stomach when the second power cut happened. Again, voices filled the darkness; the boulder-shaped owner lit a match. People scurried in and out of the convenience store, now asking him for candles, now for five more kilos of flour. This last request was handled by Amit, who dashed out of the room, leaving me alone in the convenience store, with the orange end of a Gold Flake burning steadily to the butt. I was beginning to feel completely bereft of company and purpose when Aakash’s face became visible through the candle-lit bars of the grille window.

‘My friend in here?’ he said quickly.

The shop owner didn’t reply.

‘Yes,’ I said frantically, like a castaway calling out to a ship.

‘Come on. We have to go,’ he hissed into the darkness.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’ll tell you on the way. Hurry up.’

Outside, people shuffled urgently about as Aakash searched for his bike among dozens of others.

‘Let’s take Uttam.’

‘We can’t,’ he said distractedly.

‘Why?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘What do you mean? Where did he go?’

‘My brother sent him to pick up some people from the airport. He said he asked you.’

‘Yes, and I said no.’

‘Fucker,’ Aakash said. ‘He’s always doing this. Anyway, don’t worry. He’ll be back soon.’

Aakash, having found his bike, was wheeling it out into the street.

‘Come on. Get on,’ he said.

‘Where are we going?’

Aakash stopped wheeling back his bike, swung one leg over the seat, and trying to locate me in the darkness, said quietly, ‘To pick up Megha.’

‘She’s back!’

‘Yes, man. She’s run away.’

‘Fuck. When did you find out?’

‘Just a few hours ago. Can’t you see I’ve been taking so much tension? I couldn’t even greet you properly.’

‘What’ll happen now?’

‘I don’t know, man. We’ll find out.’

We couldn’t continue the conversation because, at that precise moment, a large, moustached man, seeing Aakash on his bike, approached, asking if he could have a ride.

‘Sure,’ Aakash said, ‘let my friend get on, then you get on.’

‘How can three go?’ the man asked, eyeing me morosely.

‘They can.’

I got on and, a moment later, felt the fat man’s stomach pin me in place. The bike sank, then rose and rolled out of the colony gates. Aakash steered it unsteadily, speaking to Megha on his mobile as he drove.

We headed down the dark, keekar-lined road that ran from Aakash’s colony to the main intersection. At the fruit stall the fat man got off. A little further on there was a line of yellow lights gathered under a flyover, and a restaurant with a sign saying ‘Sher-e-Punjab’ in red letters on a white background. Aakash ordered a few bottles of Thums-up, which arrived with straws on metal trays, and we sat down to wait. I made a few attempts at conversation, but Aakash seemed too tense to talk. The only question that aroused his interest, and that had been circulating in my mind from the moment I heard of Megha’s return, was how changed she would be after the lipo.

‘I don’t know,’ Aakash said, with some wonder in his voice. ‘We have to be prepared for any eventuality. She told me on the phone that they gave her lipo in eight places and removed nearly five litres of fat. Five litres!’ he repeated, flaring his eyes. ‘Apparently, she still has her bruises and her skin has become very dry.’

With this, we sank again into a solemn silence, like two children newly aware of the hard realities of adult life. But neither the silence nor this mood lasted long, as a few minutes later Megha’s grey Hyundai pulled up in front of Sher-e-Punjab.

‘Oh my God-d,’ Aakash said, and chuckled with delight at seeing Megha step out of the little car in a pink silken kurta and beige capris. ‘Loddof difference.’

Megha stood timidly in one spot, smiling up at us, her nose ring catching the light from the restaurant. Aakash trotted down the two steps that stood between them and took her in his arms.

‘Come here, and look at my brand-new wife, thin and all,’ Aakash yelled back to me. As I made my way down to them, Aakash was saying, ‘Appu, these lipo people are for real! They’ve pulled off a miracle, no? Sir, whaddyou say?’

I was dumbstruck.

‘Yes, yes,’ I managed. But it was a transparent lie. And Aakash and Megha must have seen it was, because she said angrily, ‘Five litres, they took out, you know!’

Looking at her, you wouldn’t have known it. There wasn’t an ounce of visible difference. The greasy rolls below her neck were intact; her breasts were still vast; and above the hem of her pink kurta, her stomach still sprawled. I was also puzzled by how, if she had run away from home, she was able to pick up her car. These questions, swarming in my mind, were put temporarily to rest by the appearance of the fat man Aakash had given a ride to. He wanted a ride back. Aakash handed him the bike keys and told him to drive it back to the colony. We would go with Megha.

In the little Hyundai, with plastic still covering the seats, Megha, perhaps thinking of the experience of the past few days, looked back at me and sighed. ‘Look what trouble your friend causes me. I think he’s going to cause me a lifetime of troubles only.’

‘This is just the beginning, my darling,’ Aakash replied stylishly, and leaned in to kiss her.

In the car, it emerged that although Megha had run away from the lipo clinic, she had not actually run away from home. She had taken advantage of a journey from the lipo clinic to the house of a suitor to give her uncle in Bombay the slip and escape to Delhi.

‘I went straight to the airport,’ she said. ‘Thanks God, my father hadn’t cancelled my credit card. So I bought a ticket and came back.’

She had even gone home, met her family and picked up her car. Her father was angry at first, but then pleased to see his little girl. He had said to her, ‘The problem is you’re too healthy. We’ve tried our best, but I suggest now that even when you go to the market, you try and look nice. You never know where an offer might come from.’ She also added that among the Aggarwals, there had recently been five or six love marriages. ‘Then there is the age factor and that I have had lipo. The doctor told my parents that I should wait six months before getting married. I’m twenty-six, running twenty-seven. So if I wait three months, twenty-seven will be complete. All this makes me feel that my parents will now be willing to hear my choice.’

Hearing this, Aakash leaned over and kissed her, softly whispering, ‘Appu.’ Then abruptly: ‘What did you tell them before coming here?’