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carrying trays. I took Asha's hand in mine and walked up to Mr. Gupta. He was wearing a handsome blue suit and a tie flecked with yellow and blue. "This is my granddaughter, Asha," I said after he had thanked me for coming.
    He bowed and shook Asha's hand. "You do my house honor," he said. Asha was so surprised by his formality she moved behind me. Mr. Gupta is tall and muscular, with delicate features and hair that is just turning gray. "We have all this ice cream and cold drinks and so few children," he said seriously. "Children are the only ones who can really appreciate ice cream. Don't you think so, Mr. Karan?"
    "I'll eat a lot," Asha promised.
    "I know you will," Mr. Gupta said, and prodded Asha's stomach with a finger. "You're so thin you look as though you could die right here." He looked at me. "If you could, you'd bring your entire family to eat." Mr. Gupta laughed.
    Sisterfucker! I thought. He reached around me to shake someone's hand. Without knowing it, I put my hand on Mr. Gupta's shoulder and shouted, "Happy?" He appeared surprised. "Happy?" I bellowed again to fluster him. Mr. Gupta looked embarrassed and I felt powerful. "A gift," I said, and from my pants pocket pulled out an envelope with a hundred and one rupees.
    "Very kind." He smiled and wrote my name on the envelope with a small pencil.
    "Any booze tonight, Mr. Gupta? We should celebrate. Guess what Father Joseph gave. I will only drink foreign whiskey, though." I let my voice ring with a village accent to remind him that we were both small corrupt bureaucrats.
    Mr. Gupta looked confused but kept smiling. He tried leaning around me and shaking a hand. I moved into his way to tell him how much Father Joseph had given. But Mr. Gupta stopped smiling and snapped, "J^st ask the waiters and they'll get it from the back."
    I moved onto the veranda. I stopped a waiter and asked for a whiskey and a Pepsi Lahar for Asha. Asha peered around. Her hand was so small in mine that I felt enormous.
    More men than usual were wearing traditional kurta pajamas instead of suits in anticipation of a BJP victory. There were perhaps a dozen Sikh men with their beards tied beneath their chin. All the Sikhs wore suits. After the thousands of Sikhs who had been set on fire and macheted to death in the riots following Indira Gandhi's assassination, some of these men must carry a constant sense of physical danger with them. What did they feel, I wondered, at seeing all these Hindus so adaptable to the possibility of BJP power?
    My whiskey came and I drank it in two gulps. The force of it made me shake. "Acid," I said, grinning at Asha. She was sucking her Pepsi Lahar through a straw. After she finished, she asked if she could save the straw and take it home. I felt embarrassed for her. "I'll buy you a box of straws tomorrow." I ordered another whiskey and a cold drink. "A full glass of whiskey," I said.
    "Of course, sahib," the waiter said, and I knew he would want a tip.
    I saw Mrs. Chauduri moving around the veranda. She was talking and eating a samosa from a little plate and looking as if she could live forever. "Hello! Mrs. Chauduri," I shouted at her. I towed Asha behind me as I moved through the crowd. Mrs. Chauduri was wearing a purple sari that made her look like an eggplant. "What a nice sari," I said, feeling the slight anger of sycophancy and the sly joy of lying. "I hope you are better." She had had her second breast removed recently and I wondered whether her husband was unhappy about this or whether he found some strange pleasure at seeing a scarred woman beneath him.
    "It is as God wills," she answered, shrugging. "I have to live for my husband and sons." Whenever she talked of her illness, her voice became soft and slightly vain. The voice made me think of how when Mrs. Chauduri was a school principal she nearly ended up in jail for secretly selling ten thousand rupees' worth of her science department's mercury.
    "God is only testing you, Mrs. Chauduri. I am sure