Karan Mahajan - Family Planning

“Sorry Papa. Please come.”

Then Arjun explained the complications. The dutiful policeman. Ravi’s stubborn father.

“Coming,” said Mr. Ahuja.

In the hospital Mr. Ahuja found the four boys crouched low over a table in the waiting room and was so relieved to see Arjun that he immediately botched the moment. “You must be the famous band,” he beamed.

The boys, Arjun included, jolted upright, said their “Hello uncles.”

Ravi’s father looked a little upset, his cheeks twisted into a scowl.

“Where is the policeman?” asked Mr. Ahuja. “Let me talk to him.”

Unnecessary. The policeman — harassing some other innocents outside the ER — simply saluted him and followed, looking pale. Mr. Ahuja was now his concentrated best, marching through the neon-lit corridors with his arms wound into his three-piece suit, his chin tucked into his neck, shoulders hunched — the entire world gets sucked in when a powerful man turns brusque and broody. He exuded importance. He had brought his two Black Cat Bodyguards — Balwant Singh and Ram Lal, former washermen — out of their laundry fellowship; they followed him with upright machine-guns. The receptionist came to meet him at the automatic doors to the waiting room, palm curled like a rose. He was so sorry. He was the one who had called the police. It was simple protocol. Now he was sorry. So, so sorry to offend the Minister-ji.

Ravi got up and kept saying thank you.

After conferring with the policeman, Mr. Ahuja said, “Okay, so we need to write out an agreement if we want to settle out of court. So — who is the driver?”

“ He is the driver,” said Arjun, a bit irritably. “I told you on the phone.”

“Please be quiet. He is not the driver,” said Mr. Ahuja, matter-of-factly. “Correct, Mr. Mehta?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But we need to put a name down.” Mr. Ahuja paused. “Not you boys. We need to say someone else was driving.”

“How about one of your bodyguards?” said Mr. Mehta, looking askance at Balwant and Ram.

“ID card?” said Mr. Ahuja.

“Bodyguards,” repeated Mr. Mehta.

“No, no,” said Mr. Ahuja dismissively. “They are poor people. The last thing poor people need is their name on a legal document—”

“My driver—” said Mr. Mehta.

“No, no. If you don’t mind, can you put your name?” asked Mr. Ahuja. Only it wasn’t a question; it was a command. Mr. Ahuja was looking Mr. Mehta in the eye, his head tight and trembling with authority.

Mr. Mehta hesitated. “Well. There’s one issue. I’m not sure—”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Ahuja, appalled by Mr. Mehta’s cowardice. “I will put my name down. How does it matter if I am a minister? I will say I hit the girl. I am to blame. It is my fault.”

And before anyone could stop him, he’d written out a statement in Hindi and signed it. Mr. Ahuja was now officially the driver. Mr. Ahuja had hit the girl. Arjun was impressed by his father’s self-sacrifice, and he understood from the lovelorn expressions on his friends’ faces that they would be eternally grateful for Mr. Ahuja’s intervention. That he — Arjun — could misuse their gratitude to establish complete control over the band. That he’d never have to invite them home to practice.

MR. AHUJA DID, IN THE END, have his revenge on Mr. Mehta. He walked into the ward, shook hands with the girl’s parents, patted the girl on the head, and pointed to Mr. Mehta. “He is a great man. He has agreed to pay for all medical expenses.”

Mr. Mehta frowned, assented.

“Your good name?” asked the girl’s father.

“Minister Ahuja.”

They signed the agreement. Then, to cement the situation, Mr. Ahuja gave the girl’s parents the ultimate prize — his phone number. He told them they could call if they ever needed “help.” Yes, help: in Delhi, the only thing that mattered was who you knew, and now — for the rest of their lives or for the duration of his term — the girl’s parents knew a minister (whether they’d be able to get through Mr. Ahuja’s peons and busy phones was another matter). They signed the legal document and the case was closed. Mr. Ahuja was triumphant: he inhaled deeply and took in the peculiar odor of the hospital, a smell he associated with babies being born, kick-started with a little slap on their backs to out any fluid.

He walked toward the car with Arjun. The parking lot was floodlit and finished with tiny, ugly peaks of concrete.

“Thank you, Papa.”

“You’re welcome, son,” said Mr. Ahuja. Then he added, “I hope you’re not upset about last night.”

“I’m normal,” said Arjun.

“It must be upsetting. What you saw last night. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk about it.”

“Papa, the more you ask me if I’m upset, the more upset I’ll get.”

Mr. Ahuja said, “Come sit here with me in the car. I need to have a father-son talk with you.”

They remained standing, knees awkwardly bent in the breach between cars. Mr. Ahuja asked the driver, who had been sitting with one leg out of the car, smoking, to take a bus back home.

“I’m going to drive,” he told him. The driver handed Mr. Ahuja the keys and walked away.

Mr. Ahuja gestured at the open driver’s door. “Let’s sit in the car and have a father-son talk.”

“This is a father-son talk,” Arjun reminded him.

“Very funny, young man. But what I am going to talk about is very serious. Get in.”

“Papa, I know how sex works. I’m sixteen.”

“No, of course, beta. Of course! In this day and age how can one not? But I also wanted to use this opportunity to talk to you about, well, a question you asked me some years ago.”

“What question?”

“Well. Do you remember you asked me why your penis looks different from that of other boys?”

“What? Did I? No.”

“You asked me. And I said then that it is because they have foreskin and you don’t. Remember?”

“No.”

There was a point to this excruciating exchange. Mr. Ahuja wanted to use Arjun’s mandatory circumcision in America as a segue, applying to dialogue the same tricks of photography that showed a flower retracting into a bud in a few seconds. A concentrated life span. Circumcised penis = America = Rashmi. Later, Mr. Ahuja would wonder if this was unconscious revenge he’d taken on Arjun. Hitting back with a sexual secret.

“Please bear with me for a minute. This will all be clear to you soon. I’m not doing this to needle you. But there is a reason why they have foreskin and you don’t. I want to explain it properly.”

“How do you know what my penis looks like?”

“I am your father! Of course I know what every part of you looks like! I gave birth to you—”

“Mama gave birth to me,” Arjun corrected. “You just watched.”

“Exactly,” said Rakesh, “but I washed you sometimes also.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Okay, I understand this is a sore topic, but it is also a salient one, and I just want you to know that your penis is perfectly normal. It’s different because—”

“I know! Papa, everyone can HEAR US!”

“No, no — no one can hear. We are in the parking lot.”

“NO, ONLY YOU CAN’T HEAR.”

“Okay, okay,” said Mr. Ahuja. He decided to retreat. “I just didn’t want you to think that because you are circumcised you are a Muslim or any such thing. These days there are all these movies in which people who are circumcised are mistaken for Muslims and then killed in riots or arrested as terrorists, and I just wanted you to be aware—”