An Obedient Father by Akhil Sharma Read Free Book Online Page A

for Asha to be born. Even when I am angry with her, I always think there is a reason for her to be in the world, and for me. I may be stupid, but Asha was born from me.
    I did love Rajinder once, through an afternoon's end, the whole of an evening, into a night. I was only twenty-two when I fell in love. It was easy then to think that even love was within my power. Six months married, suddenly awake from a short deep sleep in love with my husband for the first time, I lay in bed that June afternoon, looking out the window at the swiftly advancing gray clouds, believing anything is possible.
    We were living in a small flat on the roof of a three-story house in Defense Colony. Rajinder signed the lease a week before our wedding. Two days after we married, he brought me to the flat. Although it was cold, I wore no sweater over my pink sari. I knew that, with my thick eyebrows and broad nose, I must try especially hard to be appealing.
    The sun filled the living room through a window that took up half a wall. Rajinder went in first. In the center of the room was a low plywood table with a thistle broom on top. Three plastic folding chairs lay collapsed in the corner. I followed a few steps behind. The room was a white rectangle.

    "We can put the TV there," Rajinder said softly, pointing to the right corner of the living room. He stood before the window. Rajinder was slightly overweight. I knew he wore sweaters that were large for him, to hide his stomach. But they suggested humbleness. The thick black frames of his glasses, his old-fashioned mustache thin as a scratch, the hairline giving way, all created an impression of thoughtfulness. "The sofa in front of the window."
    I followed Rajinder into the bedroom. The two rooms were exactly alike. "There, the bed," Rajinder said, placing it with a wave against the wall across from the window. He spoke as though he were describing what was already there. "The fridge we can put right next to it," at the foot of the bed. Both were part of my dowry. Whenever he looked at me, I said yes and nodded my head.
    From the roof, a little after eleven, I watched Rajinder drive away on his scooter. He was going to my parents' flat in the Old Vegetable Market. My dowry was stored there. There was nothing for me to do while he was gone. I wandered around the roof Defense Colony is composed of rows of pale three- and four-storied buildings. There was a small park edged with eucalyptus trees behind our house.
    Rajinder returned two hours later with his older brother, Ashok. They had borrowed a yellow van to carry the dowry. It took three trips to bring the TV, the sofa, the fridge, the mixer, the stainless-steel dishes. Each time they left, I wanted them never to return. Whenever they pulled up outside, Ashok pressed the horn, which played "J^^g^^ Bells." With his muscular forearms, Ashok reminded me of Pitaji's brothers, who. Ma claimed, beat their wives.
    On the first trip they brought back two VIP suitcases that my mother had packed with my clothes. I was cold, so when they left, I went into the bedroom to put on something warmer. My hands were trembling by then. When I swallowed, my throat felt scraped. Standing there naked in the room gray with dust and the light like cold clear water, I felt sad, lonely, excited to be in a place where no one knew me. In the cold, I touched my stomach, my breasts, the inside of my thighs. Afterward I felt lonelier. I put on a salwar kameez.

    Rajinder did not notice I had changed. I swept the rooms while they were gone. I stacked the kitchen shelves with the stainless-steel dishes, saucers, spoons that had come as gifts. Rajinder brought all the gifts except the bed, which was too big to carry. It was raised to the roof by pulleys the next day. They were able to bring up the mattress, though. I was glad to see it. Sadness made me sleepy.
    We did not eat lunch. In the evening I made rotis on a kerosene stove. The gas canisters had not come yet. There was no