The Red Carpet Read Free Page B

delicious prospect of bedding Ashwini was slowly superseded by other considerations.
    Of all the women he was considering for a life together, she was undoubtedly the best choice. And yet, and yet, so dreadfully inadequate an option. Ramu knew himself to be well read, deliberate, with, he assured himself, a certain Depth of Purpose that extended beyond foolish, frivolous conversation and endless social preoccupations. Shouldn’t there be some compatibility of natures for this sort of thing to work?
    Ramu mentally revisited their encounter at the club and anxiously listed to himself the possible signs of Ashwini’s superficiality.
    The manner, for instance, in which she coyly insisted on questioning Swamy about his work. Swamy hated small talk about the software company he had founded. It was his baby, not to be trifled with. This was a message that Ashwini, in her social delight, seemed oblivious to.
    Her insistence on dropping names, especially names she’d left behind in Bombay.
    Her habit of referring to a fat-pocketed bore, whom Ramu despised, as a “dear friend”—instead of, correctly, as a pompous turd accompanied (as such turds often are) by a lot of verbal flatulence.
    The unwarranted number of expensive brand labels on her clothes, a type of wanton advertising that Ramu could not condone.
    Worst, her anglicized nickname: her close friends, it seemed, called her “Ash,” and she encouraged them to do so. Ramu abhorred that: converting a thing of beauty into a thing for western convenience.
    Perhaps her nickname provided an apt metaphor for her progress through his mind: Ashwini, the star-like, consort of the sun, rapidly reduced to a lump of dusty carbon residue.
    It was his mother, naturally, who first noticed the difference.
    A lifetime of training had rendered her excellent at reading Ramu’s moods, though somewhat indifferent at interpreting the causes. She gazed at him uneasily at mealtimes and redoubled her energies towards finding him a wife. Ramu sidestepped her efforts and kept his thoughts to himself, as though that might in some way contain them, reduce them, send them packing.
    But the depression that had set in kept growing, his desires trapped between his unenthusiastic appraisal of Ashwini (and the even less appealing choices conjured up by his mother) on the one side, and the loneliness that was beginning to whisper through his life on the other. Ramu had long conversations with himself about frying pans and fires, and in the endless watches of the night, knew not which he preferred.
    Increasingly, he found himself staying away from dinners at the houses of his married friends. Changing the subject in the face of KK’s obvious happiness. Changing television channels in irritation, switching from the mating habits of birds to the hero who found comfort in the arms of a deep-bosomed lovely to, finally, the news, which offered no romance whatsoever.
    Occasionally, the scorn he poured on Ashwini’s head missed its target and fell, splashing, towards him instead, covering him with self-doubt. Perhaps he was intrinsically unsuited to the quotidian pleasures of marriage?
    Inadequate in some way?
    The thought wrapped itself depressingly around him until, one day, he decided: it was no use; it was time to call a halt to this whole foolishness.
    Time to tell his mother to stop looking.
    He never got the chance.
    His mother came to the dinner table one evening with the irritated expression of a woman who’s been had.
    “You are not going to believe this,” she said. “I mean, how could she not tell me? Does this not affect us? Will we not have an interest if you marry that girl? Is it not important?”
    Ramu waited patiently for his mother to come to the point.
    “You can’t marry Ashwini,” Ma said, slapping a hot roti down on his father’s plate. “Out of the question.”
    Uh-oh, thought Ramu. She’s heard about the dope.
    No.
    “I mean, I realize she has one left. I am not a fool. But