THE IMMIGRANT by Manju Kapur Read Free Book Online Page A

food: burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches filled with bright pink meats.
    Carefully he started with a fish—that almost vegetable—taking his first bite of a fillet soaked in lemon and tartar sauce, asking his mother’s forgiveness, but feeling liberated. By the end of the summer he had graduated to processed meats. Culinary convenience entered his life.
    His uncle approved.
    iii
    At last the long holidays came to an end. Now, with his feet on the ground and the confidence of independent living Ananda could look beyond the seasons, trees, ground, skies, and let his gaze alight on the enticing figures of girls. Not for the young the separation that was mandatory in Dehradun and Lucknow. Here the sexes twinned—arms, legs, lips, anything, anywhere. He stared in fascination until he learned that his innocent looking was considered ill-mannered and obtrusive. Then it was all covert, corner of the eye stuff.
    Many twosomes were casual. Sex did not mean commitment. The possibilities this opened were endless, Ananda only wished for the panache to take them. Self-doubt plagued him.
    ‘Why don’t you go out on a date?’ Gary often urged, concerned about his friend’s celibacy. ‘Do you have a girlfriend in India?’
    Inspired by the question Ananda told Gary about a long ago girl, fellow dental student, weaving a relationship out of something whose strongest feature had been his fantasies.
    ‘Her name was Priyanka,’ he started.
    ‘Your girlfriend’s?’
    ‘We don’t have this girlfriend–boyfriend concept in India,’ said Ananda severely.
    ‘Is that why you don’t go out? You want to be faithful to her?’
    ‘She was very pretty, lots of boys liked her. In college the ratio of boys to girls was 6:1. Some girls were so shy, they didn’t even talk to us,’ said Ananda sidestepping the question.
    ‘Lucknow has a small town mentality. Segregation was the norm. Dating was not possible; people would see, talk, the girl’s reputation would get spoilt. Of course everything was done, but not out in the open.’
    ‘So, is she still your friend?’
    ‘Some years ago she had an arranged marriage.’
    Gary took a moment to contemplate this tragedy of Indian life. ‘Is that why you are so sad all the time?’ he finally asked.
    Had Gary forgotten the death of his parents that even now weighed his heart down with a mountain of stones? Was the absence of some ephemeral girlfriend easier for him to understand?
    Yet he desperately wanted to be the kind of person Gary could connect to. His only experience with a girl had concerned not the unavailable Priyanka, but Nandita, bespectacled, plump, dark, with long black hair and a snub nose. Nandita from Kanpur, who had flattered him with her interest, but who had only one thing on her mind, even snuggling up to him in a taxi after suggestively taking her glasses off. He was slow to respond to her demands. Later he heard that she had cast aspersions on his manliness. He had never hated anyone as he hated Nandita.
    Three months after Ananda had moved into the Geller home Gary acquired a girlfriend who was training to be a nurse. She had an unattached flatmate, and thus Ananda found himself fixed up with Sue, uninhibited and willing to like him. ‘I love the colour of your skin,’ was one of her early statements. ‘We lie in the sun for hours to get a tan like that.’
    This remark grated on Ananda, because he knew that even in liberal Canada an artificial tan was considered superior to natural brown. And if she really did like his colour he didn’t want to reveal that all his life he had been considered too dark. Instead he reciprocated by telling her that in India, her skin would be loved.
    It was so pale, in places you could trace the green lines of her veins beneath the surface. Her eyes were big and blue, the eyelashes blond fringes, the eyebrows almost invisible arches. Fascinating gold patches glistened in her hair.
    Sue smiled and reached for his hand. They had just parked and