An Obedient Father Read Free Page A

three typists inside. They see the monkey and begin screaming. The monkey begins screaming, too." I made the sounds of the women and the monkey screeching. "One woman runs out of the bathroom. And she shuts the door behind her. Shuts it and holds on to the doorknob. By now everyone has come to see what's happening. The screams are still going on." I started laughing. "The monkey has begun flushing the toilets." I pretended I was jerking the toilet chain. Mr. Mishra joined my laughter. "I have to pull the first woman's hands off the doorknob. One of the other women runs out. And she shuts the door and holds on. I tell her to open it and she says, 'If I do, the monkey will bite me.' Now the woman left inside is weeping. I open the door. The woman runs out. She's been bitten on her arm, her leg, her stomach. The monkey didn't leave till the hall was empty."
    "Human nature," Mr. Mishra said. As he laughed, he leaned over one side of his chair.
    "The needle for the rabies injection is a foot long." In my anxiety to please him, I had been talking faster than normal.
    When our chortling stopped, Mr. Mishra asked, "Is there an inspection today? My stomach says, 'Feed me.' " Every school we were responsible for had to be inspected twice a year to see if government regulations were being followed. For us, these occasions were something close to a party. The home economics department of the school would spend all day cooking an elaborate lunch for us. Everywhere we went in the school, we would be met with obsequiousness.
    Mr. Mishra's gentle corruption renewed my confidence in our

    friendship. "Father Joseph's school," I said, and rubbed my hands for him to see. "And tonight is the wedding reception for Mr. Gupta's son. We can fill up for the next three days."
    Narayan, the driver I always used, was sitting on the building's front steps drinking tea from a glass and reading a Spider-Man comic book. He was a short Brahmin in his late thirties who shaved his head and wore a blue uniform every day, even though drivers aren't required to wear a uniform.
    "Narayanji, we are ready to go," Mr. Mishra said.
    "Is the thief coming?" Narayan asked, glancing up at me standing beside Mr. Mishra.
    Neither of us answered for fear it would encourage his insults. Mr. Mishra bent and adjusted the rubber bands that held up his socks. Narayan finally stood and walked ahead of us to the jeep.
    Narayan and I had been friendly till I became Mr. Gupta's man. We still shared a small business of renting out the education department's jeeps at night and on holidays. Our friendship ended because Narayan had expected to grow rich from my new position, but since nearly all the benefits the position bestowed flowed directly to me, he felt cheated. He relieved this disappointment by insulting me whenever he could. Lately he had begun to claim falsely that I owed him fourteen hundred rupees from some complex embezzlement of the education department's diesel.
    Our office is near Delhi University, and on our way to the inspection, we went through Revolution Square, where last winter several college students had set themselves on fire to protest V P. Singh's increase in caste quotas.
    As we entered the square, Narayan snorted and said, "Rajiv Gandhi's sons." The outrage over their deaths had led to Rajiv Gandhi's overthrow of V P. Singh and Chandrashekar becoming Prime Minister. This was the first thing he had said since we got in the jeep, and I think he said it because he knew how much I had been moved by the actions of those foolish boys.

    "Be kinder," I said, leaning over the front seat. "They didn't know better."
    "How smart do you have to be? Even I know a few thousand government jobs don't matter."
    "Don't be an animal," I said. "Laughing at young boys dying."
    "Call me an animal, and I'll make you walk."
    In the way that some people get religious with old age, over the last few years I had become sentimentally political. The young men's actions reminded me of the