She grunted. She was trying to make sure she didn’t get mud on her sari.
The philosopher led the intimates into the house. When they had finished scraping their chappals and shoes on the coconut-fiber mat, the visitors found old Sharadha Bhatt squinting at them. She was the proprietor of the place, a widow whose only son lived in Bombay. It was understood that the Raos stayed on in their cramped apartment, so far from the heart of town, partly out of concern for Mrs. Bhatt-she was a distant relative. A suggestion of intense religiosity clung to the old lady. The visitors heard the drone of M. S. Subbulakshmi singing “Suprabhatam” from a small black tape recorder in her room. Sitting with her legs folded on a wooden bed, she struck at her thighs alternately with the front and back of her left palm as she followed the rhythm of the holy music.
Some of the visitors remembered her husband, a celebrated teacher of Carnatic music who had performed on All India Radio, and paid their respects: politely nodding toward her.
Done with their obligation to the ancient lady, they hurried up a wide stairwell to the Raos’ quarters. The childless couple occupied a crushingly small space. Half the living area consisted of a single drawing room, cluttered with sofas and chairs. In a corner, a sitar was propped up against the wall, its shaft having slid down to a forty-five-degree angle.
“Ah! It’s our intimates once again!”
Giridhar Rao was neat, modest, and unpretentious in appearance. You could tell at once that he worked in a bank. Since his transfer from Udupi-his hometown-he had been the deputy branch manager at the Corporation Bank’s Cool Water Well branch for nearly a decade now. (The intimates knew that Mr. Rao could have risen much higher had he not repeatedly refused to be transferred to Bombay.) His wavy hair was flattened with coconut oil and parted to one side. A handlebar mustache-the one anomaly in his demure appearance-was neatly combed and curled at the ends. Mr. Rao had now thrown a short-sleeved shirt over his singlet. The fabric of the shirt was thin: inside its dark silk, the thick singlet glowed like a skeleton in an X-ray.
“How are you, Kamini?” Mr. Anantha Murthy asked in the direction of the kitchen.
The drawing room furniture was a motley mix-green metal seats discarded from the bank, a torn old sofa, and three fraying cane chairs. The intimates headed for their favorite seats. The conversation began haltingly; perhaps they sensed, once again, that they were as haphazard a collection of people as the furniture was. None was aware of any blood relation to the other. By day, Mr. Anantha Murthy was a chartered accountant catering to Kittur’s rich. In the evenings he became a committed philosopher of the Advaita school. He found Mr. Rao a willing (if silent) listener to his theories of the Hindu life-and that was how he had become part of the circle. Mrs. Shirthadi, who usually attended without her busy husband, had been educated in Madras and espoused several “liberated” views. Her English was exceptionally fine, a marvel to listen to. Mr. Rao had asked her to speak on the subject of Charles Dickens at the bank a few years ago. Mrs. Aithal and her husband had met Kamini at a violin concert the previous May. The two of them were originally from Vizag.
The intimates knew that the Raos had selected them for their distinction-for their delicacy. They realized that they bore a responsibility upon entering that cozy little garret. Certain topics were taboo. Within the wide circumference of acceptable conversation-world news, philosophy, bank politics, the relentless expansion of Kittur, the rainfall this year-the intimates had learned to meander freely. Forest breezes came in from the balcony, and a transistor radio precariously balanced on the edge of the parapet emitted a steady patter of the BBC’s evening news service.
A late arrival-Mrs. Karwar, who taught Victorian literature at the university-threw the house into chaos. Her vivacious five-year-old, Lalitha, charged up the stairs shrieking.
“Look here, Kamini,” Mr. Rao shouted at the kitchen. “Mrs. Karwar has smuggled your secret lover into the house!”
Kamini rushed out of the kitchen. Fair skinned and shapely, she was almost a beauty. (Her forehead was protuberant, and her hair thinnish at the front.) She was famous for her “Chinese” eyes: narrow slits that were half closed beneath the curve of heavy eyelids, like prematurely opened lotus buds. Her hair-she was known to be a “modern” woman-was cut short in the Western style. Ladies admired her hips, which, never having been widened by childbirth, still sported a girlish slimness.
She rushed up to Lalitha. She hoisted the little girl into the air, kissing her several times.
“Look, let’s wait till my husband’s back is turned, and then we’ll get on my moped and drive away, huh? We can leave that evil man behind us and drive away to my sister’s house in Bombay, okay?”
Giridhar Rao put his hands to his waist and glared at the giggling girl.
“Are you planning on stealing my wife? Are you really her secret lover?”
“Hey, keep listening to your BBC,” Kamini retorted, leading Lalitha by the hand into the kitchen.
The intimates acknowledged their keen delight in this pantomime. The Raos certainly did not lack the skill to keep a child happy.
The voices of the BBC continued from the radio outside-a gravy of words that the intimates dipped into when their conversation ran dry. Mr. Anantha Murthy broke one long pause by declaring that the situation in Afghanistan was getting out of hand. One of these mornings the Soviets would come streaming over Kashmir with their red flags. Then the country would regret having missed its chance to ally itself with America back in 1948.
“Don’t you feel this way, Mr. Rao?”
Their host had never anything more to express than a friendly grin. Mr. Murthy did not mind. He acknowledged that Mr. Rao was not a “man of many words”-but he was a “deep” fellow all the same. If you ever wanted to check little details of world history-like, for instance, who was the American president who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima; not Roosevelt, but the little man with the round glasses-then you turned to Giridhar Rao. He knew everything; he said nothing. That kind of fellow.
“How is it you remain so calm, Mr. Rao, despite all this chaos and killing that the BBC is always telling you about? What is your secret?” Mrs. Shirthadi asked him, as she often did.
The bank manager smiled. “When I need peace of mind, madam, I just go to my private beach.”
“Are you a secret millionaire?” Mrs. Shirthadi demanded. “What’s this private beach you keep talking about?”
“Oh, nothing, really.” He gestured toward the distance. “Just a little lake with some gravel around it. It’s a very soothing place.”
“And why haven’t we all been invited there?” demanded Mr. Murthy.
The guests sat up. A triumphant Mrs. Rao entered the drawing room bearing a plastic tray whose multiple compartments brimmed with the evening’s first offerings: dried walnuts (which looked like little shrunken brains), juicy figs, sultana raisins, chopped almonds, slices of desiccated pineapple…
Before the guests had recovered, the next assault followed:
“Dinner is ready!”
They went into the dining room-the only other room in the house (it led into a little alcove-kitchen). An enormous bed, plump with cushions, lay in the middle of the dining room. There was no pretending not to see the conjugal site. It lay there, brazenly open to view. A small table was pulled up right next to it, and three of the guests hesitantly took their seats there. Their embarrassment disappeared almost immediately. The informality of their hosts, the voluptuous softness of the bedding beneath them-these things soothed their nerves. Then dinner rolled out of Kamini’s little kitchen. Course after course of fine tomato saaru, idli, and dosas flowed out of that factory of gustatory treats.