The Walls of Delhi Read Free Page A

at the bus stop waiting for him next Tuesday, it meant she wasn’t interested, and they were through.
    Now it was Tuesday. Every morning after washing up, he’d ask Babiya for last night’s leftover roti, eating it before he left. This morning, he wasn’t hungry, but weirdly nervous, and tried to hide it from his wife. His heart sank as he left the house, thinking, as he often did, that Sushma was having serious doubts. So when he saw her at the bus stop waiting for him, Ramnivas was so overjoyed that he declared they should ride in an auto rickshaw instead of taking the bus. He insisted and insisted, but Sushma wasn’t persuaded. ‘Why throw away hard-earned money? Let’s just take the bus like we always do.’ Ramnivas had fixed on the idea of sitting very close to her in the little back seat of the rickshaw, and maybe even getting a feel – and so he was crushed at her refusal. But Sushma’s coming to the bus stop was a ‘yes’ signal to Ramnivas, and the man was beside himself. Now really and truly happy, he sensed that his life was about to turn a corner.
    He was always picking fights with his wife, Babiya. Doing the housework and looking after the kids left her with no time,and one of the kids was always getting sick. Ramnivas could only remember one time (and he wasn’t even sure of that) when he saw Rohan, his son, horsing around and having fun. Moreover, Ramnivas’ pay cheque wasn’t enough for Babiya to cover household expenses. Even though it wasn’t her fault – she bought only what they needed – Ramnivas would let loose. ‘It’s like your hands have holes in them! Look at Gopal! Four kids, parents, grandparents, and god knows who else living with him, makes less than I do, and still gets by! And you? Night and day, bitch and moan.’ She’d remain silent, but glare at him with a stare whose flames licked at the inside of his head all day long. That stare made sure he watched every penny. When he got hungry, he let his stomach cry out in pain. If he felt like chai, he did what he could to get someone to shout him a cup. He rode the buses all the time without a ticket. Babiya’s burning stare, the one etched in his head, saw to it he never had fun.
    That Tuesday, Ramnivas told Sushma he’d leave work early and be at Sanjay’s by two, since that’s where she’d be waiting; then they’d go home together. Sushma had said that she didn’t like waiting for him at Sanjay’s (Santosh, the scooter mechanic, was always trying to flirt with her, and Sanjay, too, was always cracking dirty jokes), but in the end, she agreed.
    And then, for the very first time, Sushma, very slowly and very deliberately, instructed Ramnivas to bring her some of those chili pakoras, the ones he’d been going on and on about that they sell by the Anupam Cinema. When Sushma made her request, Ramnivas could swear he heard a note of intimacy in her voice, even a hint of possessiveness, and it made him feel very good indeed. He said casually, ‘I’ll see what I can do, let’ssee how things go,’ but had a very hard time concealing the fact that he was jumping for joy.
THE BROOM, THE GYM, AND MARS STARES AT JUPITER
    Ramnivas went on his way, happy, while singing that song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. After punching in, he told his boss, Chopri sahib, that he needed to leave work early to go home because his wife was so sick she needed to be taken to the hospital. Even though he usually gave employees a hard time about leaving early and would insist that vacation forms be filled out, for some reason he readily agreed. ‘Today’s a lucky day,’ Ramnivas thought.
    That day, Ramnivas was sweeping the floor of a fitness club in a building that housed various businesses. Cleaning the gym technically wasn’t his responsibility since it wasn’t a government building, but Chopri sahib had instructed him to