Kulfi, though, was not interested. She sat by the window, thinking of the deep-scented, deep-hearted world of peppercorn berries, of cinnamon bark, of the flowerbuds of cloves and cassia, and the saffron stigmas of the crocus. On the walls behind her were traces of the drawings she had made so many years ago, still visible from behind a thin layer of whitewash. By this time, it had been generally acknowledged that she was a little eccentric to say the least. Her hunger during first one pregnancy and then another had settled into a permanent obsession with food. As the years progressed, she grew more peculiar. Ignoring completely the hullabaloo created by her husband, she continued to stare out of the window while her daughter complained about the choice of news items being read aloud.
‘Hoo,’ said Pinky, flapping her towel in exasperation as she paused on the way to the bathroom. ‘What is there to get so excited about? It is always the same old story. Each year the same scandal. Why don’t you read something that will affect us? For example, the Cinema Monkey. Is there anything about the Cinema Monkey?’
‘What monkey?’ asked her father, bewildered.
‘See, you are completely out of touch with local issues! For the past month he has been creating havoc outside the cinema, harassing ladies, pulling at their saris until they drop their peanut cones. And all those boys from the university — they are going especially to the cinema, not to see any movies, but just to stand outside and watch the girls getting their clothes pulled off! Haw-ji-haw, I am too scared to go any more.’
Her father snorted.
‘Why don’t you take Sampath with you?’ said Ammaji, trying to find Mr Chawla a good pair of socks while also sipping tea from a saucer. ‘He can protect you.’
‘Sampath!’ said Pinky. ‘What good will Sampath be! The monkey will probably choose me as the best person to target if Sampath is with me.’
‘That’s true,’ Ammaji agreed and took another sip of tea. ‘He is not very threatening. Poor Sampath,’ she said. ‘Look at him, sitting, sitting there as usual, with no raise in pay or promotion anywhere in sight.’
Mr Chawla looked over to where his son was slouched over the table, his breakfast a spreading untidiness of crumbs around his plate. Before him a fly, vibrating like a machine, circled lower and lower over the bowl of fruit that had been bought by his wife after much deliberation from the fruit stall. Careful as a pilot, it settled on the ripest plum in the dish. Imagine its delight in finding such a thing indoors; it ran up and down to gauge the size of its discovery, stopping only occasionally to rub its thin black hands together like a greedy businessman. Sampath lifted the ruddy globe of fruit to get a better view of its long-snouted face when, right by his nose, there was a whoosh of movement and Mr Chawla, taking notice of his son’s distressing lack of initiative, brought down the rolled-up newspaper — Boom! — hard on the fly, leaving nothing but feeble legs waving above a dirty, jammy mess and a blur of iridescent wing.
‘Where is your common sense these days?’ said Mr Chawla. ‘God only knows what cowdung heaps and garbage dumps these flies come from. Come on. Eat your breakfast.’ He sat down at the table opposite him and put aside the paper. ‘How is your work going?’
‘All right,’ mumbled Sampath.
The reply irritated Mr Chawla. ‘All right!’ he exclaimed, his eyebrows raised. ‘All right? You don’t sound very certain. If things were going all right, you wouldn’t be earning the same salary you were earning last year and the year before that, now would you?’
One by one, all Sampath’s classmates had found employment. Even the ones with report cards that were just like his. Report cards with so many red Fs the letter seemed to have multiplied with abandon, run wild by the absence of competition from the rest of the alphabet. Only Sampath had been left idle, spending many blissful hours dreaming in the tea stalls and singing to himself in the public gardens, until at last Mr Chawla had found a suitable job for his son.
‘What job?’ all the curious and nosy people in Shahkot asked.
To these people, Mr Chawla said, ‘He is in government service.’
Government service! People thought of afternoon siestas. Of tea boys running up and down with glasses of steaming milky tea all day long. They thought of free medicines at the dispensary and pensions. Of ration cards and telephones. Of gas connections that could be had so easily. They thought of how this was a country with many festivals and holidays. Of how the government offices closed for each one. They imagined a job where, even if your boss turned out to be unpleasant, there were always plenty of people to shout at, people whom you could shout at even louder than your boss had shouted at you. The sweeper or the messenger boy, for example. You could say: ‘Where is your mind? Did it fall out on your way to work?’ Or: ‘Watch out or I’ll give you a good kick that will send you from Shahkot all the way into the Bay of Bengal.’ What pleasure there was to be had in a job like that! Really, it was a fine thing to have a son in the government. People thought of the Ministry of Finance. Of Industry. Of Forestry and Ladies’ Welfare. Of Fisheries. Of Art and Culture. Of Transport.
Sampath, working at the back desk in the Shahkot post office, however, did not consider himself to be so terribly lucky.
Mr Chawla swallowed a whole clove of blood-cleansing garlic with a mouthful of water and a loud gulp. His son was so very annoying. He remembered how, as a young man himself, he had been so full of promise and efficiency. He had been smart, nimble and quick, the opposite of his son, who, now that the fly was dead, sat contemplating the mushrooming of milky clouds in his tea with a blank and hopeless expression on his face.
‘A job,’ he said to him, launching into one of the lectures he felt compelled to give Sampath every now and then, ‘a job has two major sides to it. And it is of no significance if you are the prime minister or the sweeper boy, they are the same two points. First, the work itself. Put your best foot forward always. Even if it involves something a little extra, such as making railway bookings for your boss, don’t complain. It is only a small thing.’
Ammaji came in from the kitchen where she was preparing the lunch boxes. Kulfi cooked only when inspiration overtook her; she left the humdrum cooking to Ammaji. ‘Do you want plain parathas for your tiffin, or would you rather have parathas with radish?’ asked Ammaji.
‘I would like peacocks and pomegranates,’ said Kulfi, so softly that nobody heard her.
Mr Chawla flapped his hand in impatience at his mother as he answered for both himself and Sampath. ‘Radish,’ he said and waved Ammaji away. ‘When your boss speaks to you, stand up always — there is no harm in showing respect — and say: “I will see to it right now, sir.” This brings us to the second major point.’
His mother came in again. ‘I could make you aloo bhaji,’ she said, ‘if the parathas will not be enough.’
‘Pheasants, peacocks, pomegranates,’ said Kulfi.
But again nobody heard her and Mr Chawla addressed his mother: ‘We are having an important discussion, and you are interrupting us with your talk of tiffin boxes! Do you want aloo bhaji, do you want radishes … here we are trying to talk about Sampath’s career prospects.’
‘But what am I talking about?’ she protested. ‘I am also talking about Sampath’s career prospects. If he didn’t eat properly, he would not even reach the office. He would fall into the gutter from hunger. Anyway, how can you sit all day and add up numbers when in your stomach there is a zero amount of food?’ she asked triumphantly.