The Death of Vishnu

reason. This is the exact reason why I never go in a taxi.” Mrs. Asrani emphasized the words as if they were the final moral of a tale, being underlined for the benefit of the listeners. She turned to her husband. “Well, don’t just sit there, jee, ask him to come back.”
    “After what you said?”
    “What did I say? What’s wrong with the truth only? The meter is still on, you know. Go—you’re the only one here who knows how to deal with these people—go—all the taxis you like to take.”
    So Mr. Asrani went and talked to the taxiwalla, who came back, once he had finished his tea. They proceeded to Mrs. Lalwani’s building without incident, the taxiwalla, newly refreshed, ignoring Mrs. Asrani’s mutterings from the backseat about reporting him to the authorities.
    When it was time to pay, Shyamu, in the hope of coaxing out some last bit of entertainment from the drama, pointed to the meter and remarked loudly how high the fare seemed. For this effort he was roundly slapped, not only by Mrs. Asrani, but by Mr. Asrani as well, and yanked sniveling up the stairs to Mrs. Lalwani’s apartment.

    A T FIRST, KAVITA did not look at him. This was the way brides-to-be were supposed to behave. Their stories written by their parents and the boy and the boy’s parents, but not by themselves. What was the use of looking, when they had no say in the matter anyway? If fate decided, they would see the boy soon enough when he pulled back the gunghat on the wedding bed. A face they would have to see for the rest of their days together on this earth.
    She would be just like one of those brides-to-be who had gone before. Who had sat in countless rooms all over the country like this, and waited silently. Afterwards, she would dance like Nutan in Saraswatichandra . Hide her tears in her dupatta while singing that she loved her new life so much she had forgotten her father’s house.
    Kavita’s heart fluttered with a feeling of oneness with her predecessors. What an injustice to have to go through this. She tried to latch on to the thought, to try and experience exactly what they must have felt. But Nutan kept distracting her. Nutan dancing with all the other women in her new household. Nutan singing about sending messages of happiness back to her mother. Nutan wearing that beautiful embroidered cream sari, though it was hard to tell on the VCR, especially in those older films that weren’t in color.
    “Kavita, dear, this is Pran.”
    Pran? She couldn’t believe it. Pran? The villain who had terrorized so many leading ladies for so many years? Pran of the shifty eyes, Pran of the scheming mouth, Pran, who got soundly thrashed by the hero at the end of each movie. Who would ever name their son after him? Despite her resolve to keep looking downwards, her eyes wandered up to see what this Pran looked like.
    He was standing there uncomfortably in front of her, like a boy who had been positioned just so by his parents, and told to wait. She tried to look at him, but he would not meet her eye. He kept looking down, as she had been, and when his mother, Mrs. Kotwani, instructed, “Pran, say hello to Kavita,” a red bloom spread over his face.
    “Hello,” he said, still without looking up, and Kavita resisted the urge to act the groom and turn up his face with her thumb and forefinger.
    She tried to say “Hello” back in a voice even meeker than his. But it came out sounding assertive in comparison, and she noticed her mother wince. It was going to be difficult to maintain the role of bashfulness she had written for herself. How perplexing that she had to compete for it with Pran.
    Mrs. Lalwani and the two sets of parents stood around watching expectantly, as if Pran and she were a biology experiment that had just been set into motion. Even Shyamu was peering out with interest from behind their mother. Wasn’t someone supposed to do something, say something, to propel the action on? She herself couldn’t even decide whether to lower her eyes or keep them where they were, focused on Pran’s chin. Again, she had to stop her fingers from reaching out and gently nudging up that chin.
    It was Mrs. Lalwani who finally spoke. “Kavita is doing her B.A. at Elphinstone College,” she said, as if this somehow explained it all, as if this was the reason they were all standing around and taking part in this exercise.
    “She went to Villa Teresa,” her mother added, in further clarification of the situation.
    “Pran just