Page 33 of All Our Evenings

“Puli Raja?” I repeated and burst out laughing.

He glared at me.

The phrase must have brought up some unhappy memories for him, I could tell. Surely, with a name like that, he must have been bullied cruelly at school. Rumors and whatnot.

“Puli Raja ki AIDS vasthunda?” I said. I laughed again. I waited for him to join in the joke, but he just glared at me.

Of course, I was sorry. I paid him twice the amount owed but he snatched the money and left without counting the notes, tossing the crumpled receipt at my feet.

After he left, it occurred to me that I must have misheard him, he might have said his name was Raja or Raju; both very common names. Who would name their child Puli Raja? Of course his name can’t have been that. But I didn’t go after him to apologize or ask him to clarify, I would have appeared insane. Better to be mistaken for cruel, rather than crazy.

XII

The Eagles Are Dying

“I’ve moved. I won’t ask you to do anything, just come to my new place. Please.”

It was Priya again. My sister was relentless.

“Your place?” I said. Nobody got invited to Priya’s, not even our parents. I was tempted.

“Bought it,” she said.

“You bought a house?”

“I bought a flat. You’d know, if you bothered to talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, Priya,” I said.

“Say congratulations, Arjun.”

“Congratulations, Priya.”

“I need you to come, Arjun. Please.”

I said I will, and took down the address. It was in the old neighborhood. I changed into my office clothes but didn’t look in the mirror before leaving.

“He hasn’t been coming home at all,” Priya said of my father.

We were in her kitchen. She was filling up a saucepan with water.

“It’s funny. The last time he left like this? Not returning for days or weeks, he did that when you graduated from college, and you were supposed to move to Bombay for that job. He didn’t do this when I left.”

By her tone, Priya was interpreting this as a lack of affection for her.

Her apartment was large and sparely furnished. The door to the smaller bedroom, which her boyfriend was using as an office, was shut. I could hear him puttering inside, but it didn’t bother Priya; she didn’t seem to think it awkward at all that he didn’t come out to say hello. I really wouldn’t mind saying hello.

“What’s with the stupid beard?”

I laughed.

“It looks terrible on you. And you’ve gotten so skinny. Are you dieting? Tell me the truth, I’ll make you live at home again you hear.”

I laughed.

Priya looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. She lit the gas under the saucepan. She opened the cupboard and took out the tea box, put in two spoons. She went to the large steel fridge and brought out the ginger box, broke off a nub, smashed it in the pestle and added it to the saucepan, turned up the heat. I admired her looking so capable like this. So domestic. So grown up. So independent. I loved that for her.

While the tea boiled, she came to sit at the granite island. “I really like the apartment, Priya,” I said. “It’s great.”