The Temple-goers by Aatish Taseer Read Free Book Online

birth to nine PhDs before I was born, and after my birth I have given birth to three more. It’s dishonest, I know. I take money to write people’s theses for them, undeserving people. It’s wrong, I know. But I only ever did it from need. I feel that makes it less wrong.’
    ‘How did you start doing it?’
    ‘I used to work as an accountant,’ he replied, ‘but that slipped away from me. The accounts were computerized. I needed money badly. I even had a breakdown, you know?’
    ‘What kind of breakdown?’
    ‘A nervous breakdown. I was lucky. A south Indian doctor helped me. Only he knew what it was. Without him, I wouldn’t be here today. There was a danger of brain haemorrhage.’
    ‘Can that happen from a nervous breakdown?’
    ‘Yes. My head used to become so hot my wife couldn’t touch it.’
    I began to think of his sores differently.
    ‘He used to tell me, “You have to stop thinking.” I said, “Doctor saab, it is my nature. Can you order a flower to stop giving off its scent? It is God-given.” ’
    He shook lightly with inaudible laughter, finishing in a wheeze.
    ‘At that point,’ he said, ‘a PhD candidate came to me. He had a famously strict adviser. A man who used to tear up theses if he didn’t like them. He asked me to help him. I said, “Listen, I can’t do this. I haven’t done your research. I don’t know what you wish to say.” But he went away and came back with all his books, begging me. I said, “Let’s just try it. If he likes it, then we’ll continue.” He agreed and I wrote the thesis.’
    ‘Did the professor like it?’
    ‘He said it was the best thing he’d read in twenty years of advising. After that,’ he added bitterly, ‘word spread. Would you like a cigarette?’
    ‘Yes,’ I replied, though I wasn’t really a smoker, ‘but outside.’
    We smoked a Win cigarette on Sanyogita’s front balcony. There, overlooking the single mango tree, he brought up money.
    ‘I can’t accept less than five thousand,’ he said, taking back the blue and white packet.
    ‘A month?’
    ‘Yes.’
    My face became hot with shame, but I said nothing. Neither his sores nor his haggard face could have expressed his poverty more extremely. He wanted five thousand rupees for two to three hours, five days a week. I didn’t know how to say I wanted to give him more. I didn’t want to upset his calculations.
    Then there was a soundless disturbance in the air and a splatter. I turned to Zafar and saw that a moist indigo wound had appeared on his safari suit. I followed its dripping to the floor. A red rubber hoop lay among the drops. Zafar’s face screwed up like a child’s about to cry.
    A white sedan with tinted windows drove by, leaving behind a trail of hiphop.
    ‘Holi,’ he spat, and dropped his cigarette into the colour. It fizzled and ran blue.
    ‘A water balloon. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.’
    ‘Why are you sorry?’
    ‘I don’t know, for bringing you out here.’
    Just then the front door rattled and Sanyogita came in. She had been Holi shopping. The wooden ends of steel water guns stuck out from the bags she carried. I tried to signal to her to put them down. Zafar saw and looked irritated. I think he felt I was portraying him as a Holi curmudgeon.
    ‘By all means play,’ he said, ignoring me and addressing Sanyogita, ‘I’ve played too. But these balloons are not nice. Spoiling people’s work clothes when they’re not prepared. Zafar Moradabadi.’
    Sanyogita smiled, suppressing greater amusement. She held out her hand. He seemed unsure what to do with it. He dropped his head in greeting. Then he said he would call me after all the madness was over. It was Holi that weekend.
    ‘Baby’s found a creature!’ Sanyogita said after he had left. ‘He seems so sweet.’ She made her eyes big and sorrowful and scrunched up her mouth in imitation. ‘How old do you think he is?’
    ‘He said he was born in ’51.’
    ‘But he’s young, then!’
    ‘That’s what