The Householder Read Free Page B

had really only one friend in Delhi. This was Raj, who had gone to college with him in Ankhpur and now had a job in the Ministry of Food. Ever since Prem had come to Delhi, four months ago, they had made a point of meeting on Monday evenings.
    Formerly Prem had looked forward all the week to these Monday meetings. He had been so happy to have someone he knew well to talk to: he had confided all his thoughts to Raj, had recalled the old days at Ankhpur, speculated on the whereabouts and possible destinies of old friends who had gone their various ways. But he had begun to notice that Raj did not seem to be enjoying these meetings as much as he himself did. He often looked at his watch and, Prem noticed, did not always listen very attentively. And once, while Prem was talking about an old college friend of theirs, he had said with almost a yawn in his voice, ‘What is the use of remembering these people? They have gone their way and we have gone ours.’ The only two things Raj seemed to be interested in now were his job and his family.
    They always met in the same place, by the box-office of the Regal Cinema. Not that they ever went into the cinema together, but it was the only place they could think of. Prem was usually the first to arrive. He stood by the little glass window which said Booking Closed and watched the other people standing around in the foyer. These were mostly young men in coloured bush-shirts, who looked about them with lazy eyes while drinking coca-cola or eating potato chips in plastic bags bought from the refreshment bar. When a girl came into the foyer, they straightened themselves and nudged one another and made remarks at which they laughed loudly. The girls always pretended not to notice. Except for the fact that the cinema was larger and there were more people about and everything was smarter and more city-like, it was not much different from what it had been like in Ankhpur: just so had Prem and Raj and their friends stood about in the cinema, eaten potato chips and looked at girls.
    But when he saw Raj come into the foyer, Prem realized that now that time was finished for them. Beside these youths in coloured shirts, Raj looked staid and settled and married; he had a preoccupied frown on his face and his shoulders were a little hunched. It was evident that he would never again stand about in cinema foyers and look at girls.
    And indeed the first thing he said was, ‘This is not a good place to meet. All these boys standing about.… Loafers,’ he said with distaste. They went out together. Prem walked beside his friend in silence, looking away from him for he felt sad that Raj should already have forgotten what was no longer than two years ago.
    â€˜Are we going to drink a cup of tea?’ Raj asked irritably. In his more downcast moments Prem had already begun to suspect that Raj only met him for the sake of the tea for which it somehow always happened that Prem paid.
    They never went into any of the coffee-houses in the main shopping arcade. They had once ventured into one, but had been so overawed by the elaborate decorations and by the many waiters in white uniforms overlooked by a manager in a raw-silk suit that they had quickly gone out again. They felt safer turning down the side-streets and sitting down outside one of the makeshift eating-stalls called the Paris Hotel or Punjab Hotel or Pearl Palace. They always went to a different one because Raj always had some objection to the ones they had been to before. Prem thought that was a pity; he would like to have gone always to the same one, so that they would be known there, as they had been known in the places they had gone to in Ankhpur, and greeted with smiles and a jovial shout of, ‘Again the same?’
    But now nobody smiled when they sat down outside a stall; only a boy came, wiped the big wooden table and stood waiting for them to order. Raj ordered quite a lot and, as soon as it came, began quickly to eat.