Helium by Jaspreet Singh

Author:Jaspreet Singh
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

Father’s translation or rather ‘lack of translation’ distracted us. Instead of helping me persuade Nelly to reveal details about her adoption, we got sidetracked. Nelly had just begun telling me about the origin of the word ‘caste’ when the package arrived. How the Portuguese seafarers saw social relations in India in the fifteenth century . . . I must have been completely out of my mind. I told her about the details, the ‘translation’. Now I know I committed a big faux pas by handing her the package.

Nelly read the untranslated passages silently towards the end. After she was done I murmured a few incomprehensible words. She didn’t ask me to repeat or explain; slowly the disturbance within me dissipated on its own.

She was not mad at me, but she gave me an interrogative look. ‘Instead of composing these absurd “modern myths” why not write about the boy who didn’t return? It is not just your father who is living the lie, but you as well.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you.’

Now that you have shown me these pages, and before this asked all your schoolboyish questions, let me ask you my own, said Nelly. Not that they are significant, not many things in my remaining life are, but they might be to you. I know the answer, and perhaps I am right, but I would like to hear it from you, said Nelly. (Some of her old gestures returned, and her hands were shaking.) That answer is more significant than any real or imaginary drops of blood you happen to have seen now or twenty-five years ago . . . You were Mohan’s favourite student. In his eccentric scheme you were placed at the very top, special. You knew this, the entire class did. Mohan rarely invited students home to dinner, not even star students, but he made an exception. The star students would come to tea (two or three times a year) and my interaction with them was minimal. Open the door, make tea, serve snacks, then disappear to my room. It was useless eavesdropping. After the students left he would tell me about them, what he really thought about them despite the grades; at times he would pronounce harsh judgements.

You were an exception. You came with exceptional talent, a ‘model’, an ‘ideal’, and you were well grounded in the arts. It was possible to have a real, intelligent conversation. He made a judgement about you as well – the difference is that he made the judgement before inviting you to our place. I was curious. When you first came to our house I was not taken by you. You were shy and did not say much, and you were in awe of your professor. Mohan looked visibly pleased with himself. Then I looked at your sandals, the black sandals and they made me laugh. The sandals didn’t match your body, you had a strange aesthetic sense . . .

Twenty-five years later you did not have to come back to tell me that you had joined Cornell.

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