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his polyester-cum-cotton-weave pants, even his undershirt. That morning as a special treat, Meha put the chappatis and curried eggs in front of Bikaner instead of his father.
Chandar left first in his khaki security guard’s uniform, the name and logo of Farmer’s Bank emblazoned across his chest pocket in red thread. Bikaner left at nine-thirty A.M ., a whole hour after his father. Meha cried as she swirled the flame of the aarti around his bright face and marked his forehead with a streak of vermilion.
By the time Bikaner arrived at the bank, Chandar was already on his stool outside the huge glass doors. The heat had begun to pick up and beads of sweat dotted his forehead under his Nehru cap. He leapt up smartly and brought his hand to his forehead.
“ Salaam, sahib,” he said, almost choking.
Bikaner stopped and looked at his father. “Bapa …”
“Go, go inside, sahib,” Chandar said, opening the door for him. Waves of air-conditioned air swung out and Bikaner squared his shoulders, wiped his sweaty palms against the front of his shirt and stepped into the bank. Behind him, reverently and firmly, Chandar shut the glass door.
Later he told Meha of this first morning, because she pestered him about it. When he came to this part, she had been anxious. Why are you ashamed? she remembers asking him. Not ashamed, just … now Bikaner is a big man. We should not pull him down, he can go far, he had said.
*  *  *
Meha shakes her head and closes her eyes, thinking of this man next to her, her husband of so many years. What a big mistake that had been.
No one at the bank knew Bikaner was his son. Chandar saw no reason why they should. His place was here, on the concrete steps leading to the bank—and Bikaner’s was on the other side, enclosed in an English-speaking, ledger-rifling glass world where a uniform did not point out his occupation.
For the next few months, as Chandar salaamed with alacrity and jumped from his stool to open the door, Bikaner’s nods of greeting became more and more distant, just like the other clerks and officers at the bank. The only time he looked at his father was when he was slow in opening the door. But Chandar did not complain. Every day, at least a few times, he flattened his face against the sunglare of the glass and looked with pride at the bent, well-oiled head of his son, the bank clerk. Every day, Chandar came home with his uniform armpits and back ringed with sweat and the soot of Mumbai, and Bikaner returned home flush with the pink coldness of air-conditioning.
Three seconds.
A year later, while Meha pored over horoscopes of girls for Bikaner, he told them he wanted to marry a fellow clerk atthe bank. Chandar knew the girl, of course, but he told Meha later that night that she was of a different caste. Even after seventeen years in the city, Meha and Chandar were not used to living shoulder-by-hip with people from all castes. Things were simpler at home where they rarely met or saw other communities. Everything had an unquestioned system—the village well, the patshala, the vegetable market timings, but here…. They thought for a long time, agonizing almost. Bikaner was going to bring home a bride who was not Kshatriya, not of their warrior caste. But things were changed now, everyone said so. Besides, they could not argue with their son. He had told them of the girl, not asked their permission.
Their first shock came when she visited with her parents. Meha cleaned the flat meticulously. The mosaic floor shone with scrubbing; their mattresses and bed linen were piled neatly in one corner; the kitchen counter glowed with trays of golden laddus and jalebis and onion bhajjias; and ginger and cinnamon simmered in the chai water, awaiting the guests and tea leaves. Meha dressed in her second-best sari, a green-and-pink Banarasi silk Chandar bought for her the day Bikaner started working. Then they found they had no paan at home. Chandar rushed out to the corner shop for ten paan