And Laughter Fell From The Sky Part 25

Traffic started moving again. Mahesh veered into the oncoming lane to pa.s.s a slow truck, and then veered back just before encountering a bus barreling toward them.

"I hear you have beggars in your country, too," Mahesh said. "Does that prevent you from living where you want to live?"

Mahesh was right. Abhay didn't sleep on the sidewalk with the homeless people in Portland.

Mahesh waved his hand. "That is the way it is. Will our worry feed all these beggars? Of course not. So why worry?"

Traffic had stalled again. Cars sat like glowering animals, honking and growling at one another. A truck just behind them began its yodeling horn. After several minutes, they began inching forward, and the honking subsided.

Abhay didn't know how to help the beggar boy, but he also realized that he did not blame himself for not knowing.

Later that day, to escape the commotion at home, Abhay wandered around the back streets near his grandmother's house. His euphoria was starting to dissipate. Instead, he felt a deep satisfaction. He was reminded of Nandan's words. He did feel as if he had found a glowing pearl within himself. He pa.s.sed a tiny motorcycle dealership with shiny vehicles displayed on the sidewalk. He walked past new three-story apartment buildings, and past a cow shed tucked between the houses. He nodded and smiled at everyone he saw.

On almost every block were piles of sand or dirt, and stacks of brick, for new construction. On one street Abhay saw a boy worker-perhaps ten or eleven years old-standing outside the compound wall of a half-finished house. He was wearing shorts, a colorful b.u.t.ton-down shirt, and sandals. Abhay watched from across the street as the boy used a small scoop to shovel from a pile of red earth and pour the soil through a large screen, set on the ground and tilted at an angle, so the sieved earth fell into a shallow pan below. The boy looked up and caught Abhay's eyes, and Abhay had an odd sense that the boy was himself, that he was that boy worker who perhaps did not get a chance to go to school.

In a second the boy's eyes traveled past Abhay, and he pointed and smiled silently. Abhay turned his head, and on the compound wall behind him, partly hidden by the trunk of a tree, was a large gray-furred monkey sitting on its haunches. Its body and face were perfect, beautiful. Its black eyes looked at Abhay, and Abhay, holding as still as he could, looked back at the monkey. In a moment, the monkey pulled its body onto the branch overhanging the compound wall and glided silently up into the leafy canopy until it was invisible.

The boy worker, still smiling, began gesturing and letting out a stream of words at Abhay. "Hanuman" was the only word Abhay caught. Maybe the boy thought the monkey was a representation of the divine monkey who had helped Rama in his quest to save his wife Sita. Perhaps the boy believed that Hanuman watched over him as he worked.

The boy turned once more to his scooping and pouring, and Abhay was flooded with grat.i.tude. G.o.d had given him the life he had. He had been educated. He had been blessed with shelter and food, and caring parents.

Abhay continued on his walk and came across an Internet browsing place next to what looked like an open-air workingmen's cafe of sorts, with men in pants or dhotis drinking tea and eating idlis while standing at high tables. He ducked into the low doorway of the Internet place and settled into a plastic chair. The computer whirred. He scanned his messages, deleting the junk: several messages from Chris about the latest eBay items for sale, notices about home-based business opportunities, and movie offers from Netflix.

His breath caught in his throat. There was something from Rasika. He clicked on her name with a trembling hand. She wrote: Can you meet us in Lalbagh? My cousin Mayuri wants me to meet her boyfriend, and Mayuri thought it would be better if there was another man with us, so it wouldn't look like we were there only with Khaleel. I don't want to get Yuvan involved. He might not understand.

Abhay took a deep breath and let it flow out. Although he realized Rasika was inviting him as a sort of decoy, he didn't care. At least she didn't seem to be married yet, and he would be seeing her again the next day. He wrote down Rasika's cell phone number. He'd call her as soon as he got back to his grandmother's house.

He had the nagging feeling there was something else he ought to be doing here at the computer. Abhay remembered how, in Portland, Rasika had praised his intelligence and advised him to make an impact on the world. She'd said, "If you don't pick something, you'll never get anywhere." A line of pain burned down from his neck to his fingertips, and almost as if they had intelligence of their own, his fingers clicked open a new message and typed in the address of his old mentor at Kent State-the professor who had gotten him interested in utopian communities in the first place.

In his e-mail, Abhay updated Dr. Ben-Aharon on his departure from Rising Star and his visit to Auroville, and asked about graduate school possibilities. "I want to study different kinds of communities and societies, and find out what is satisfying to people about various ways of organizing life," he wrote. "Would this be anthropology? Or sociology? And could I get into a graduate program in either of those fields, given that my undergraduate degree is in general studies?" He didn't know if he really wanted to be a professor or not, but figured it couldn't hurt to explore this avenue.

After lunch the next day, a Sat.u.r.day, he took an autorickshaw to Lalbagh, where he met up with Rasika, Mayuri, and Khaleel as they stood on the gra.s.sy strip next to the small parking lot. The day was hot, and Rasika wore a pretty sleeveless white embroidered top over jeans. Her hair was gathered into a large barrette at the nape of her neck, and she wore her usual sungla.s.ses. As soon as Abhay saw her, he knew his love for her was no distraction, no mistake. She barely acknowledged his greeting, and in fact stepped away from him, to the other side of Mayuri and Khaleel.

They walked up a slanted expanse of bare rock, on top of which was one of the Kempe Gowda watchtowers, which looked from a distance like a small temple with a white carved dome on top.

"There are four such towers in Bangalore," Khaleel said. "They were built in the sixteenth century by Bangalore's ruler, Kempe Gowda, to mark the four corners of the city."

Khaleel apparently thought of himself as a travel guide. Abhay knew all about the Kempe Gowda towers. Of course now Bangalore sprawled for miles beyond these watchtowers.

At the top of the rock, next to the tower, a dark man squatted on the ground, roasting corn over coals in a shallow pan. Khaleel took out his wallet and said something to the man, who began to shuck ears of corn from the pile next to him.

"I don't want one," Rasika said.

"Come on. My treat," Khaleel insisted. Abhay sensed that he wanted to impress Rasika.

"They're very tasty with the salt and masala." Mayuri smacked her lips.

"Just a small one," Khaleel suggested.

As the man rotated four ears of corn over the coals, Abhay inched closer to Rasika, who was standing with her back to the pan, gazing at the scene below. The gray rock sloped down and away from them. Layers of Lalbagh trees in various shades of green appeared below them, and past that was the busy intersection outside the park entrance. "Those look like toy cars, don't they?" he remarked.

"What do you mean?" She gave him a small smile. He couldn't see her eyes behind the black lenses.

"You can't really hear the traffic or smell the exhaust, so it all looks really calm down on the street, like something a kid would play with."

Khaleel handed around the hot corn, wrapped in husks and smeared with red spices. Abhay bit into his. Indian corn tended to be tough, for some reason, yet he enjoyed gnawing on the scorched, mealy kernels. The spices made his lips burn.

Mayuri and Khaleel wandered down the slope, and Abhay and Rasika were left to each other. Rasika held her corn carefully in one hand. Her forearm trembled slightly. She didn't eat any of it. At the bottom of the rock, they reached a shaded dirt path among the trees.

"How was your trip?" she asked.

"I had an amazing experience."

She stumbled on the sandy path. He put a hand on her elbow to steady her, and she shrugged him away.

"Are you going to move there?" Her voice was low and hard.

"No, but I'm thinking of applying to graduate school. Maybe I'll even get a Ph.D."

She turned her face to him. He smiled. He wished he could see her eyes. She looked away and sighed deeply. "Of course you will. You're so smart. You'll be a great professor."

He felt an outpouring of love for her. He wanted to look into her eyes, to touch the twinkling diamonds in her earlobes, the wisps of hair escaping her barrette. On her upper arm were several dime-size b.u.mps. "Mosquito bites?" He brushed a fingertip against them.

"Don't touch me," she murmured.

"You're way too thin," he said. "Your hand is trembling. You're a mess."

"Leave me alone."

"Why'd you invite me out here?"

"I just wanted to help Mayuri."

"So it had nothing to do with me?"

Rasika bit her lip. They walked along a path through the gra.s.s. On their right was a strip of colorful flowers; on their left, a grove of trees. Mayuri and Khaleel were several yards ahead. As Abhay and Rasika pa.s.sed a trashcan, she calmly tipped her corn into it and brushed her palms together.

"When's the wedding?"

"Next Friday. January fourth."

"And your birthday is, when?"

"End of January. So we'll be fine."

"You're really going through with it?"

She pressed her lips together and watched her sandaled feet taking one step after the other.

"I don't think you like him," Abhay said. "Do you have to marry him?"

"Everything's been arranged. The guests have been invited. I've bought my saris and jewelry."

"Does anyone care that you don't actually want to spend your life with this man?"

"How do you know what I want?"

"It was completely obvious when I saw the two of you together. I don't understand why you're doing this to yourself. You look completely lifeless."

Rasika cleared her throat. "I'm just kind of stressed-out because I'm dreading all the Hindu rituals-sitting in front of that hot fire, and changing my sari halfway through, and chanting all those prayers." Her voice quavered. She cleared her throat again. "That's all. After the wedding's over, everything'll be fine."

"Stop." Abhay stood still and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're running blind. You need to open your eyes. Listen. We've both been looking for an ideal. You think your life will be perfect if only you can be the kind of person your parents seem to want. I thought my life would be perfect if only I could find a place on earth that matched the utopia in my imagination. We're both searching for something we've built in our own brains."

While he was talking, Rasika stopped, but she seemed to be looking past him, at something in the distance above his ear. He stopped talking, and she walked ahead. He trailed behind her. They came upon a pond, shining blue water edged with greenery. No one stopped to look. Mayuri and Khaleel seemed deep in conversation, and Rasika just kept walking. They pa.s.sed benches from which people were selling cuc.u.mber slices, newspaper cones full of peanuts, sliced guavas smeared with chili paste.

They pa.s.sed a small garden of bushes clipped into animal and cartoon shapes, and reached a clearing with a huge tree. Its roots climbed out of the ground, and its branches rayed out just above the roots. The whole thing, roots and trunk, seemed to have a diameter as broad as a bus. They all stopped near the tree, and Rasika strayed a few steps away from the group. Abhay noticed her remove her sungla.s.ses and dab carefully at her eyes with a hankie.

"This is the largest tree in Lalbagh," Khaleel said.

The tree was obviously a photo opportunity: women in bright saris, boys in shorts, and girls in dresses were crawling all over its roots to find places to sit, before smiling for the camera.

"Mayuri, you and Rasika stand near the tree. I will take a photo." Khaleel held up his cell phone. The sun dappled the ground around them.

"I'll take the picture," Abhay offered, holding out his hand. "You go stand with Mayuri and Rasika."

Mayuri stepped toward Rasika to bring her into the picture. Rasika was now blinking her eyes and trying to smile brightly. Suddenly, Mayuri clutched at Rasika's arm. "My cousin is here," she whispered.

Abhay looked in the direction of Mayuri's frightened gaze. A group of young men strolled toward them over the sandy earth, holding newspaper cones and tossing peanuts into their mouths.

Mayuri turned and walked swiftly away in the direction of the tree. Abhay, Khaleel, and Rasika stood around awkwardly. Mayuri disappeared behind the tree. Khaleel slipped his phone into his pocket.

"Do you come here often?" Rasika asked Khaleel, smiling at him.

"Yes, I do," Khaleel answered, grinning and playing along.

The young men had stopped to watch. Rasika and Khaleel kept up their silly banter. Abhay wandered a few steps away. The young men were now whispering to each other.

Rasika called cheerfully, "Abhay, come on. Let's get our picture taken." Khaleel was displaying his phone again. She hooked an arm through Abhay's- he winced in pain as his arm was jerked-and marched him over to the tree. He was surprised at her willingness to touch him in public. He obliged by slipping an arm around her shoulders. She held her sungla.s.ses in the fingertips of her other hand. As Khaleel held out his phone to frame them, one of the young men from the cousin group seemed to be aiming his cell phone at Rasika. Abhay glanced at Rasika to see if she noticed. She wasn't looking at the men. She was beaming determinedly at Khaleel.

The men walked away. Khaleel pocketed his phone.

"We should leave," Rasika said as she and Abhay joined Khaleel.

"Yes," Khaleel agreed. He continued to look at the tree.

"You go first," Rasika said. "We'll find Mayuri and walk in a different direction."

Khaleel put his phone back in his pocket and walked away, still gazing sideways at the tree. He gave a surrept.i.tious wave and a quick smile, after which his pace quickened.

Mayuri and Rasika gave Abhay a ride back home. Mayuri had use of the family car for the day. No one spoke of Mayuri's narrow escape, and she herself seemed fairly calm. She wove comfortably through the traffic, accelerating aggressively whenever anyone threatened to cut her off.

As they dropped Abhay off at the gate of his grandmother's house, Rasika said, "You're not far from our place."

"We could walk home from here," Mayuri said.

"It might be faster," Rasika agreed, and they looked at each other and giggled.

Abhay, unlatching the gate and stepping into the compound, still heard their laughter from the car. He rubbed his sore neck and shoulder. As the car pulled away from the curb, Abhay looked back at Rasika and discovered her eyes on him. She turned away as soon as she saw him looking, and the car moved off.

"How do you know Abhay?" Mayuri asked casually. "You seem on very good terms with him."

Rasika and Mayuri sat on the flat rooftop in the evening, eating slices of cuc.u.mber and talking. Rasika felt exhilarated, as she often did when she flirted with the life she wasn't supposed to live. In this case, she was experiencing it vicariously, through Mayuri's narrow escape that afternoon.

"He's just an old family friend. n.o.body, really." Rasika laughed.

Mayuri dabbed her cuc.u.mber slice in the small pile of salt on her plate. "I wondered if you had ever dated him. I wondered how your parents would feel if you were in the same situation I am in."

Rasika glanced at Mayuri's pretty face. She felt a connection with Mayuri, since she had helped her cousin in a way Jill and other friends had always helped her. "I have dated," she said quietly. "Not much. And my parents don't know."

"You never wanted to marry anyone else?" Mayuri's eyes looked eager.

Rasika felt that Mayuri would understand her own predicament. As the sky grew darker, Rasika began to reveal more and more about her own life. She started out cautiously, talking merely about being "friends" with men in college. When Mayuri didn't seem shocked, Rasika told her about her friendship with Abhay. She left out the part about the Renaissance Hotel, but mentioned that she had visited him in Portland. She felt more relaxed now than she'd ever been on this trip. It was a relief to confess to someone who cared.

"You have experience with men, but you have not fallen in love like I have." Mayuri covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what I should do."

Rasika laid a hand on Mayuri's shoulder. "It's hard for us. We have a little more freedom than our mothers did, but just enough to get ourselves in trouble. They still expect us to do what they tell us."

"You are the only one who understands me," Mayuri said.

"Now you know what I'm going through. I don't know if Yuvan is really the right person for me, but time is running out, and everyone wants me to do this. So I'm going to go through with it. This is what we have to do."

Mayuri looked up and nodded sadly. "I don't know if I'll be able to be like you, Rasika. I'm afraid for myself."

Rasika held Mayuri's hand in silence. All that mattered now, in the darkness, was that Mayuri understood her-that an Indian woman, someone in her own family, was aware of what she was sacrificing in order to sustain the structure of tradition. In some way this almost made up for what Rasika was going to have to go through.

Chapter 17.

Early the next morning, while Abhay's uncle was still sitting in the living room in his dhoti, watching the dawn pooja from Tirupati on television, the doorbell screeched through the house. His grandmother was taking her bath, and his aunt was in the kitchen grinding something in the blender, so Abhay answered the door. Rasika stood on the doorstep. She looked terrible. Her eyes were wild, her hair was uncombed, and she had on a pair of jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and unmatched sandals-one brown, one black.

"What're you doing here?" He stepped out of the house and pulled the wood door shut behind him. The bore well drilling was finished, but the yard was still muddy.