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even in Calcutta. I just thought I'd say so now, because at the house I'll hardly get the chance to talk to you alone. And tomorrow you'll be gone.'
     
     
Lata spoke from experience, as Varun well knew. Arun, when angry, hardly cared what he said. When Lata had taken it into her head to become a nun - a foolish, adolescent notion, but her own - Arun, exasperated with the lack of success of his bludgeoning attempts at dissuasion, had said: 'All right, go ahead, become a nun, ruin your life, no one would have married you anyway, you look just like the Bible - flat in front and flat at the back.' Lata thanked God that she wasn't studying at Calcutta University; for most of the year at least, she was outside the range of Arun's blunderbuss. Even though those words were no longer true, the memory of them still stung.
     
     
'I wish you were in Calcutta,' said Varun.'Surely you must have some friends -' said Lata. 'Well, in the evening Arun Bhai and Meenakshi Bhabhi are often out and I have to mind Aparna,' said f arun, smih'ng weakly. 'Not that I mind,' he added.
     
     
'Varun, this won't do,' said Lata. She placed her hand
     
     
firmly on his slouching shoulder and said: 'I want you tof
     
     
go out with your friends - with people you really like and:
     
     
who like you - for at least two evenings a week. Pretend'
     
     
you have to attend a coaching session or something.' Lata*
     
     
didn't care for deception, and she didn't know whether1
     
     
Varun would be any good at it, but she didn't want things ;
     
     
to continue as they were. She was worried about Varun, \
     
     
He had looked even more jittery at the wedding than when
     
     
she had seen him a few months previously. j
     
     
A train hooted suddenly from alarmingly close, and the tonga horse shied. \
     
     
'How amazing,' said Varun to himself, all thoughts of J
     
     
everything else obliterated. i
     
     
He patted the horse when they got back into the tonga. [
     
     
'How far is the station from here ?' he asked the tonga- (
     
     
wallah. j
     
     
'Oh, it's just over there,' said the tonga-wallah, indicating vaguely the built-up area beyond the well-laid-out gardens of the race-course. 'Not far from the zoo. '
     
     
I wonder if it gives the local horses an advantage, Varun said to himself. Would the others tend to bolt? What difference would it make to the odds ?
     
     
1.11
     
     
WHEN they got to the zoo, Bhaskar and Aparna joined forces and asked to ride on the children's railway, which, Bhaskar noted, also went around anti-clockwise. Lata and Malati wanted a walk after the tonga ride, but they were overruled. All five of them sat in a small, post-box-red ' compartment, squashed together and facing each other this I time, while the little green steam engine puffed along on its p one-foot-wide track. Varun sat opposite Malati, their knees
     
     
I
     
     
almost touching. Malati enjoyed the fun of this, but Varun was so disconcerted that he looked desperately around at the giraffes, and even stared attentively at the crowds of schoolchildren, some of whom were licking huge bobbins of pink spun candy. Aparna's eyes began to shine with anticipation.
     
     
Since Bhaskar was nine, and Aparna a third of his age, they did not have much to say to each other. They attached themselves to their most-favoured adults. Aparna, brought up by her socialite parents with alternating indulgence and irritation, found Lata reassuringly certain in her affection. In Lata's company she behaved in a less brat-like manner. Bhaskar and Varun got on famously once Bhaskar succeeded in getting him to concentrate. They discussed mathematics, with special reference to racing odds.
     
     
They saw the elephant, the camel, the emu, the common bat, the brown pelican, the red fox, and all the big cats. They even saw a smaller one, the black-spotted leopard-cat, as he paced frenziedly across the floor of his cage.
     
     
But the best stop of all was the reptile