Forcefully and acutely, as if it were being pushed into his limbs, he could feel the insanity of this moment breeding with another problematic thought, one completely disassociated from political matters:
It came upon him like someone putting a coat over his shoulders: a powerful feeling of spite. He felt a dart of metal flick up his throat. He was sizing up Avnish Uncle, his blocky torso, face encased in thick glasses and topped by a shiny, perfectly symmetrical swath of black hair. Here was a man who had never worried about his appearance in his life. Sure, he had to be mindful of hygiene—he had likely learned, via his mother, how to chew aniseed to keep his teeth clean and how to put baby oil into his hair to keep it soft. But these concerns were dictated by routine, not by the motive of wanting to seem attractive. If he had a sense of his appearance, it was cultivated by tradition, not vanity. Diploma and engineering expertise in his hands, he had been married off to Manjeet Auntie and had continued his life methodically. Here he was, exactly where he wished to be, successful by every measure he valued.
And yet, what use did he have for that hair? None. He had never really had any use for it. Sure, not being bald had perhaps made him a more sensible suitor, but Prashant was pretty damn sure that during their courtship, Manjeet Auntie had never pined for the thick strands of Avnish Uncle’s hair, never imagined her painted fingernails running through it. If she thought of it, it was in miniature, how it would give rise to children with equally black strands of hair. It made Prashant furious that he, now in the throes of love for someone as polished, classy, and beautiful as Kavita–who not only deserved but needed someone handsome—was saddled with this horrible puffball of hair while someone like Avnish Uncle got the hair that Prashant deserved.
Whether God was one or several entities, he was cruel. Prashant pictured the numerous portraits of Ram, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva that he had seen over his lifetime, and in every one, God had an enviable cascade of hair that could be styled and cut and primped into any number of impressive styles. Prashant, meanwhile, a mere mortal, had this mess on his head to deal with. And Avnish Uncle—far from a hero but, rather, an extra in a film—got the prized looks. Avnish Uncle had not only been given everything that he desired; but he also had been given things that Prashant desired, both a certainty and nonchalance about the pleasures of life that Prashant didn’t know if he could ever experience. The fact that he continued to second-guess every move he made with Kavita confirmed this. Even if, by some miracle, Prashant cleared that hurdle, he would still know that, deep down, he was fragile and vulnerable.
He wanted to start from scratch. He wanted to be born again and restart his entire history with women. He would be more assertive, focus less on masturbating and more on sex, do away with his high schools friends’ “bros before hos” mentality and instead focus solely on hos, the way true players did. For all of his pretension, for all of his newly groomed snobbery, for all of his collegiate airs, what he wanted was to be a straight-up cad. But a smart cad—a hardworking, bright, smart cad with legitimately phrased political opinions. Was that so much to ask?
Hearing these men talk about the president in such a demeaning way—this was unbearable. He needed to get up, leave the room, and blow off some steam. Maybe he’d take a drive; maybe he’d find Gori’s number and see if there still remained a spark—or at least a joint—from his long-ago fling with her.
As soon as he made a motion to rise, Avnish Uncle gave him an odd crick of the neck and asked what was wrong.
“Nothing,” Prashant said dismissively, but Avnish Uncle laughed and nudged him ever-so-slightly down.
“Beta…”
Avnish Uncle had chosen the wrong time to touch him. What may have been intended in that moment as a friendly jibe was, to Prashant, no less than a shove.
“Fine,” he said. “You want to know what the matter is? It’s the fact that you’re all fucking bigots.”
His father would have leapt up and started scolding him if he hadn’t been as dumbstruck as the other men. Prashant, exhilarated by how he had disarmed them with one expletive, felt his anger transform into bliss.
“Are you fucking kidding? Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist? Are you hearing yourselves?” He saw his father stir slightly, in the beginning stages of a reprimand, but the steel in Prashant’s voice stopped him. “What kind of community is this if we start criticizing the first minority president? Did you guys ever think you’d see the day a person of color was the leader of the free world? It’s like you’ve taken thirty years of progress—that you started, mind you—and thrown it out the window! Can’t you see that Modi is just riling up nationalist sentiment, making puppets of you all? Shouldn’t you be focusing on that?”
He felt like a hero, a sterling product of his college. This was exactly what he should have been doing with his education. He wasn’t even sure if he’d ever said Modi’s name out loud before, but here he was, proselytizing like a revolutionary.
(He knew as he was delivering his tirade that he was doing it because it was the type of passion that Kavita would find sexy.)
However, once the initial rush of this speech faded and he surveyed the room, he saw that all of his father’s friends wore bemused, condescending grins on their faces. He had seen this face before, a look that simultaneously laughed at youth and reiterated the superiority that these men had demonstrated in traveling halfway around the globe. They didn’t appreciate Obama’s struggle—his ascent from a mixed-race, gangly teenager to a highly educated senator to the commander in chief—because they already saw their own journeys as vastly more impressive. They were not looking for a sense of communion with other people. They were looking to lord their accomplishments over others, as they lorded their accomplishments over each other—who had bought which car and who had won whichever game of cards and whose kids had gotten into which college.
Prashant’s father finally, hilariously shouted, “Prashant! Go to your room!” If Prashant were still in high school, he might have replied with an equally melodramatic “I’m eighteen; you can’t tell me what to do!” Instead, he snickered. He was better than this, better than these petty men. It was upsetting that they suffered from such myopia—he thought of this word specifically, savored it—but he didn’t need to save them. They couldn’t be saved.