Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich

Author:Katherine Russell Rich [Rich, Katherine Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

11. "I do not like that"

For a long time, the chickens of Sukhadia Circle did not come home to roost. For months following the ill-fated drive with the Whisperer, Jain Dad 2's own clucking had been steady and, all things considered (his personality), good-natured. Kathy, you have paid three hundred and fifty rupees for curtains; too much. Kathy, you have invaded Afghanistan. Then one day, there were problems.

Around this time, early December, the first semester was drawing to a close. It was now Adhikmas, a sniveling, bad-tempered stretch when "the god is sleeping," as an Indian friend explained, a kind of horological bin for filler days. In the Hindu lunar calendar, the months don't add up neatly to solar years. When too many fall short, the pandits called for a leap time, usually lasting a fortnight. Adhikmas, "half month," was highly inauspicious. With no god on the case, you could not get married, purchase housewares, start a business. Whatever you bought now would jam, crack, or smoke.

An all-night chanting began, a low tumbling hum, impossible to locate, that quickened my pulse in the dead of night, when I'd pause on the way to the bathroom and forget why I'd left the bed. By day, the distracting echoes sounded in everyone's head. Later, I'd wonder whether this hadn't perhaps explained the lawlessness that mid-month slithered into Antriksh Flats.

It was on one of these afternoons without steerage that Rajesh, the Art Carney one, Dad number 2, started up in the kitchen. Alka had been reporting a pleasant remark the candy shop owner had made about me when he interrupted. "He said you were sincere because you pay whatever he asks you," he said. "You know, Kathy, he asks you three hundred, you pay three hundred. People in India think you are a ... child. Somebody asks you two hundred rupees"—he demonstrated me gladly peeling off two bills—"you give them two hundred rupees." The subject of the Jaipur curtain extravaganza was placed back on the table. "You paid three hundred fifty. You could have gotten them here for fifty," he said, raspy voice rising in wonder. "For fifty!" he said. Alka nodded.

I would never live down the infamy of the nine-dollar curtains, I conceded then. The purchase would be remarked on long after I'd packed up my overcharged possessions and boarded the flight I'd paid too much for home. I did, I thought. I forked over three-fifty, because the curtains were pretty and came from an elegant store and you, you marble head, wouldn't recognize good taste if it came sliding up the drive and bit you on your cherry-shorted butt. If you put one more plastic bouquet in the stairway-to-heaven room— the unnaturally pink and yellow flowers having come to mind —you're going to start getting mausoleum inquiries.

"Haan, three-fifty," I began, but he'd moved on. Having established that the man across the street did not, contrary to what Alka had indicated, like me, that he in fact regarded me as an easy

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.