Uday Prakash - The Girl with the Golden Parasol

Rahul finally understood what he’d been talking about. So the head of the Hindi department, S. N. Mishra — that dwarfish, fat, pugnosed, fat-lipped tilak-wearing darky, was the fruit of the seed of a foreign mleccha or other non-Aryan sprayed into the womb of some foremother.

The demon devil used the ancient text of Manusmriti, the basis of caste, as his ladder to ascend to the top of the sociocultural power structure in the country, and now that he’s there, he sits as the head of the caste system. Bastard son of Ravana. If I ever get a chance I’ll prepare his gene map and definitely put in his de facto file.

Rahul regarded Gopal Dwivedi. He was rubbing tobacco and lime in his palm, readying it for a chew.

“Gopal-ji, tell me, between Hema Malini from Tamil Nadu, or Dr. S. N. Mishra from Uttar Pradesh, which one do you think is the Aryan? Could you say?”

Gopal rolled the plug tobacco around his tongue and said, “What kind of a question is that?”

“You think it’s probably Mishra-ji, no?” Rahul said. He continued, “What about me? What am I: Dravidian or Aryan?”

Gopal Dwivedi began to laugh. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Forget about the anthropology, dear boy! And go read Ramchandra Shukla’s A History of Hindi Literature. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

“Hoo! Hoo! Oooga booga!” Rahul made gorilla sounds.

This sound mixed with the rumbling of the clouds and echoed all the way to campus. There was something in it that made Gopal Dwivedi feel a bit uneasy for the first time.

The next day Rahul spent the entire day in the Hindi department attending to admission formalities, running to and from all sorts of offices. During lunch he caught up with Anima, Bhagvat, Raju, Seema Philip, Rana, and Abha, who were all a bit down. They couldn’t understand the sudden whim of Rahul to study Hindi literature. Even O.P. put in his two cents. “I still can’t work out this stupidity of yours. What are you thinking? Best think twice, otherwise you’ll regret it later.”

Rahul smiled and gave O.P. a little pinch. “Yaar, you remember that little bird? Well, she’s all grown up and has already ravaged my field. Isn’t it a little late for regret?”

“You bastard. As soon as you get into the Hindi department you start pulling out Hindi proverbs. Why, I oughta. .”

Rahul took mental note that Anima didn’t laugh once. He couldn’t understand why this sad girl was so sad today.

And Rahul didn’t even see Anjali Joshi once in the department. Maybe she hadn’t come to campus that day.

After dinner, Rahul went out for a night stroll with O.P., Kartikeya, Pratap, and Praveen. They ran into Hemant Barua. It was the fifth of the month. Attacks from the local goondas usually took place between the eighth and fifteenth. It was decided that the SMTF meeting would be at Praveen’s the following night, and that next time they’d take the fight to the goondas themselves. The postman had been seen on campus two days ago. The middle-aged man was bald and decrepit, but shrewd and cunning. The son of a bitch gave the goondas a list of which students got how much in their money orders. No one knew whether he did it because he was afraid of the goondas, or whether he was greedy to get his commission. Rahul had once read a poem in Hindi and seen a Chinese film, both about postmen. But this local letter carrier had made a mockery of those noble characters. The era has descended on humankind where the sole purpose of everyone’s life has become money. The Angry Young Hero of prior decades’ film fame had transformed in the blink of an eye into the Middle-Aged Greedy Cunning Stock Market Player, and then was appointed game-show host of the superhit of the day, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Sapam Tomba’s name also came up. He no longer laughed or, for that matter, even spoke much anymore. He’d stopped coming to the badminton court. Considering what he had gone through, everyone could guess why.

Kartikeya and Pratap prevailed upon Madhusudan not to return to Kerala. It was decided that a few students would write a letter to his father and explain that there was no need for him to return. His future wasn’t ruined. There was absolutely no need for alarm. Everyone was standing beside him.

So this is what the process of globalization looks like? The whole world will become a village? Everything will turn into America. But if this is really the case, then why does Dr. Watson want to get out of here as fast as possible? Why does Sapam Tomba stand mute? Why is Madhusudan’s father telling him to come home? Why was the Christian minister Staines burned alive in his car along with his little children? Why are non-Bengalis afraid in Calcutta and non-Marathis afraid in Mumbai? Why have the few Hindus of Kashmir had to leave their house and land to become refugees, lost, wandering from door to door?

And should only local students from the town be allowed to study here at the university? Locals only as faculty and administrators? It occurred to Rahul that the university and its hostels were like a diorama of the national makeup, now beginning to splinter. Regionalism, casteism, and the muck of cheap petty powers were suddenly seeping out, laying waste to all the great metaphors and federal myths this country had so far constructed.

Rahul had seen a horror movie called Critters. Small, round, ugly critters rolling around like balls, gnashing their teeth and eating everything in sight as fast as they could. They’d suddenly appear out of nowhere, a gang of them together, and munch on or destroy whatever lay in their path.

They weren’t from here. They were sent to earth from some other planet. Or maybe an alien pod fell to earth, cracked open, and gave birth to them? In no time their numbers multiplied, endlessly. One day they’d consume the entire world, leaving a scene of frightening devastation. It was truly a scary film, and scientific too. It was called “science fiction.”

“Hey, take a look over there — that’s quite a poster up in front of the library,” Pratap pointed.

A three-by-two-foot advertisement was stuck on the wall to the left of the main door where the steps end, showing a girl in a black miniskirt in profile, bust forward, rear end thrust backward, palms facing outward in front of her chest, all of which made her look like the letter S. Huge writing in English below the image read:

Shipra International Enterprises Presents:

First Beauty Casting

Sponsored by Femina India

A golden opportunity to become Miss World and Miss Universe

The greatest chance for your career in fashion, modeling, advertising and acting

Date: 10 September

Day: Sunday

Place: University Auditorium

Time: 9:00–11:30 p.m.

The dates were the fifth to the fifteenth of September.

In these ten days so many events happened one after the other that Rahul felt as if in one sitting he were watching a film in fast-forward, created by a magical device.

The sixth of September was a Wednesday. As soon as he got up, even before brushing his teeth and washing his face, and with eyes half closed, his first order of business was to soak his handkerchief in water and moisten Madhuri Dixit’s back so much so that the adhesive loosened, and the center spread of Stardust pasted on the window of Room 252 fell to the floor.

The wet paper had become transparent. Traces of advertisements for Honda Hero Splendor and Ile deodorant printed on the other side of the page appeared on Madhuri’s eyes and back. Gone were the startled, doe-like eyes and sculpted, tormented back wounded by Salman Khan’s slingshot.

Rahul wiped the window until it was spotless. Now he could see clearly the playing field in the valley and the semicircular road surrounding it. From here he could also see with great clarity, without binoculars, like a butterfly could, that shining yellow spot slowly swimming in the distance. Its mere appearance would take Rahul’s breath away and rushed the blood fast through his veins. And the sound of his throbbing heartbeat reached all the way to his ears. Thump, whoosh! Thump, whoosh!