Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors by Aravind Jayan

Author:Aravind Jayan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

On Thursday evening, we had a second visit from Anita’s mother, with her husband and Mohan trailing behind. All three of them looked like they had been spending nights at Castle Dracula, especially Anita’s mother. Her nose was running and she asked for some warm water. Anita’s father was still wearing his lanyard from work. He kept tugging at it and, for some reason, mumbled, ‘So that’s where we are.’

This visit was short. The chit-chat part was powered entirely by Mohan. He really was a machine. If you fed him paper while he talked, you could shred the constitutions of at least three democracies in no time.

Anita’s mother said, ‘I don’t want Anita living with some strange man just like that.’ She wiped her nose on a kerchief and cleared her throat. ‘You should talk to your son. Tell him they can’t stay together like this.’

Appa spoke with more confidence now.

‘Let me just tell you something first,’ he said. ‘We aren’t on talking terms with our son. He doesn’t live here any more. We don’t give him money in secret. If you want your daughter to do something, isn’t she the person you should talk to?’

Anita’s mother turned to her husband. ‘Imagine this.’ She paused, and it looked like he was supposed to contribute. He scratched his ear instead.

Forcing a laugh, Mohan said, ‘No no, everyone should speak their minds now. That’s the best thing for all of us. Let’s all speak frankly, even if it’s a bit rude, it’s okay. It’s only the circumstances, nothing personal.’

Appa said, ‘What I’m saying is the sad truth. I’m sorry if I offended, but it has nothing to do with rudeness.’

Anita’s mother said she disagreed.

This started a back and forth, moderated by Amma and Mohan, that went on for a while and remained unresolved as Anita’s mother got up and left.

The next morning I heard Appa and Amma discussing the possibility of talking to Sreenath, but as far as I know, nothing happened.

In between this, Appa found out about the fifty thousand rupees Amma had pledged to charity.

‘School children?’ he screamed, like they were his mortal enemies, always scamming him. ‘Do you not have any sense? Why would you do this to me?’

‘It’s our money,’ Amma shouted back. She mentioned the new TV. Appa said he’d bought it for us. I thought he’d throw something at it, but he must have remembered the bill.

Upstairs, I downloaded Tinder out of restlessness. There was a web designer near Infosys. A Punjabi tourist in Varkala. An NGO worker near Kollam. I expanded my search to Maximum Distance and slowly started reading each profile in bed. Then I downloaded Bumble and, later, Hinge.

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