The Temple-goers by Aatish Taseer Read Free Book Online Page A

I said, that he was nearly a decade younger than our parents. But he said life had made him old.’
    ‘Oh, you must keep him. Where will we put him?’
    ‘Sanyogita, he has his own house. He’s only coming for a few hours in the afternoon.’
    ‘But it’ll be so nice to have him here, in the evenings, when all the other creepy-crawlies come out.’
    I suddenly felt very sad, thinking of him going home: the ‘conveyance’ he mentioned, an auto-rickshaw; through the smoke and roar of Connaught Place; past naked bulbs and into the evening congestion of the old city; his safari suit stained blue; his wife and her acknowledgement under dim fluctuating light that it couldn’t be saved.
    Sanyogita thought I’d taken her joke amiss. She pulled me towards her.
    ‘Come here, baby. I’m only joking. I think he’s the sweetest man I ever saw.’

5
    Before the metro claimed her house, my aunt had a Holi party every year. The house was in the centre of Delhi with a large lawn and the party was famous. Hundreds of people came. And armies of children, of which I had been one, attacked them at the door, shooting jets of blue and pink paint on to their white clothes. They shrieked, shielding cold glasses of beer and Bloody Mary. Their starched muslin clothes caved in and clung to their bodies; paunches and lace bras appeared through the cloth. Then grown-ups who had already been coloured came with handfuls of green, yellow and pink powder. They smeared the faces of the newcomers, who put up token resistance but knew that there was no isolation greater than being left uncoloured. By noon the colours began to coalesce into a single rust red. As the sun climbed higher, the festival became more adult. Clay cups of bhang and small portions of food in leaf plates went through the crowd. Glasses of beer were traded in for full bottles. Musicians appeared with drums around their necks. By lunchtime, as the children wandered around vagrantly, the dance floor began to fill. The sun’s blaze fell on the yellow bungalow and its pale reflection appeared in steel tubs of red water. These late-afternoon hours, a painted crowd with gleaming eyes and teeth, dancing on the lawn, were difficult for me as a child. I think, though I didn’t know it then, that I felt their menace. My good memories of Holi were formed by those hours that came before.
    But at the Times of India ’s Holi party, there were no hours that came before; it began after lunch. In the years since the metro claimed my aunt’s house, it had become the city’s main party. It was also in an old bungalow with a lawn, but had an impersonal quality. At the door there were bouncers in black T-shirts with pre-splashed daubs of green and pink on them and ‘It’s Holi!’ written in rubbery white letters below. One held a clipboard with a list. Sanyogita’s friend, Ra, slid ahead of us, saying, ‘Princess of Kusumapur and her boyfriend.’ I didn’t mind, but Sanyogita was embarrassed. She was not the Princess of Kusumapur, her mother was; and technically, even she wasn’t any more. The bouncers looked blank but waved us in. Ra turned back, rolled his eyes bitterly and whispered, ‘Happy Holi.’
    We came into a large lawn protected by dark, heavy trees with strangler roots. On one side of it, a dance floor was full. A multi-headed sprinkler system spat clear water clockwise, then anticlockwise over the crowd below, making their colour run. A DJ with a goatee sat on a high stage, fortifying old film and Holi music with dull, electronic thuds. Beyond the dance floor was a wide makeshift bar crowded with people. It was the first time I had seen so many people since I arrived. My eyes played with the faces like with a hologram, but no one was recognizable. They were younger and more beautiful than I remembered them; many more Junglee-made bodies – and freer with each other. Couples kissed openly in the sun, the pink of their tongues showing like exposed flesh against their smooth,