Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam

Author:Rajeev Balasubramanyam
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

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In 2014 Radha quit her job to go traveling around Europe with three friends. When Chandra asked why she felt the need to do this, she told him she was “burned out” and needed time to “reassess.” He wanted to put a few hundred pounds in her account, but knew she would yell at him if he did, so he took her to dinner at a new Indian restaurant in Mayfair instead.

They spent much of the meal in silence, so aware were they that nearly any topic of conversation would end up in mutually assured destruction. He wished they could talk about sports but, like Sunny, Radha had no interest. This only left health and the weather, which could lead, respectively, to the privatization of the NHS and the inevitability of global warming under the free market. At last, unable to hold his tongue any longer, Professor Chandra asked her:

“So, are you seeing anybody these days?”

Radha, who had ordered a slab of paneer with nothing on it for her main course, stared up at him, her paneer untouched.

“Why?” she said. “Are you?”

He shook his head. “No. I am not.”

“So your question,” said Radha, “is am I seeing anyone?”

“I mean,” said Chandra, sipping at his Merlot as casually as he could, “do you have a boyfriend?”

“Why should it be a boyfriend?”

“What?”

“Why do you assume it’s…a…boy?”

“Oh, God,” said Chandra, putting his head in his hands.

“So the thought that I could be with a woman is so unbearable to you, is it, Dad?”

“No,” said Chandra, straightening his back and rearranging his blazer. “No, the fact that you have to do this to me is. All I am trying to do is have a civilized dinner with my daughter and you have to make it so…horrible.”

“Horrible?”

“It never stops!” said Chandra. “All the time, Radha, with this nonsense.”

“So my life is nonsense, is it?”

“Yes,” he said, slamming his fist against his thigh. “All this obsession with he, she, P.O.C. There are serious problems in the world. You’ve had a good education, a good upbringing, and all you do is complain.”

“What’s nonsense,” said Radha, “is your refusal to even contemplate that I may have ideas and principles of my own. Have you ever considered that, Dad?”

“Why do you hate me so much?” he said, putting his glass down. “What did I do to you?”

Radha fixed him with her eye. She had started to wear a lot of eye makeup again, as she had in her teens. Her eyeliner extended outwards into her face; a “cat’s eye,” he believed it was called.

“Can you see me, Dad?”

“Yes,” he said, angrier than it was safe to be in public.

“When did you ever see me, Dad? When did you ever see any of us?”

“Nonsense,” he said. “This is nonsense.”

“When did you ever see Mum?”

“What?”

“Why do you think she left you, Dad?”

“How dare you!”

“Right. You never even thought it could have anything to do with you, did you?”

“What do you think you are?” said Chandra. “You little hussy!”

“Yeah, that’s all you’ve got.

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