“In Delhi?” Serena said. And that was all she needed to say. Of course she did not have pets growing up in Delhi. Like him, she had also grown up in a crowded apartment complex with little room for extravagances like pets. He learned that she had lived in a more fashionable part of Delhi than him. Her parents were both political activists and instructors at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She came from a world in which money was never too little nor too much to be an issue. He could sense a slight anger toward money, though. When he mentioned the school he had attended, full of Delhi’s financial elite, she shook her head and said, “Was that difficult? I’ve heard all the big business families manage to get their kids in there even if they fail the entrance exam just by paying a huge amount.”
“It was pretty bad,” Rupak said.
He didn’t tell her that, yes, even though it was known that his school put more emphasis on “donations” than entrance exams, and he had originally probably been accepted to fulfill a quota of nondonation students, he still hadn’t graduated anywhere near the top of his class. He didn’t tell her that he envied his classmates and their foreign summer vacations and private tennis coaches. He didn’t tell her about his friend Apoorv’s twelfth birthday party for which his parents had rented an elephant to give guests rides in the front yard of their large home on Shah Jahan Road. He didn’t tell her that he could hardly sleep that night out of envy and excitement. He didn’t tell her that in their new home they could easily fit pets. And not just fish, or birds, or maybe a cat. In Gurgaon they could have Alsatians, and golden retrievers, and Dalmatians.
“I envy the people out there in a way,” Serena said when they walked over the bridge where other students jumped confidently into the water. “But I envy them in a strange way,” she continued. “It’s not that I envy that they’re in the water right now and I’m not. I have no desire to be. I envy the fact that they really want to be in the water and so they’re in the water. Does that make sense?”
It did. And it was comforting. Boring, but comforting. He had jumped only once, with Elizabeth, even though he didn’t have his bathing suit on that day and had jumped in his boxers. At least he had had the sense to switch to wearing boxers as soon as he came to America, before the first time that Elizabeth reached into his pants. His whole life in India, he had worn and liked only what Americans called “tighty-whities.”
Rupak wondered how tastes in underwear changed. In Mayur Palli, where everyone’s underwear dried on ropes on balconies, people wore underwear that was gray or white or brown or beige. He had sometimes wondered why some of the older women bothered with bras that did nothing to actually support their breasts.
Gurgaon would be different. The wives of the neighbors there probably bought their underwear from La Senza in the big DLF malls, or from Victoria’s Secret on trips abroad. In Mayur Palli, the women bought their underwear from the traveling salesmen who came to the neighborhood every Thursday evening with the weekly market. It was such a public way for women to buy such personal items. The undergarments would be stacked unceremoniously under naked lightbulbs, next to fake plastic flowers and metal tiffin carriers. Women, including his mother, would stand at the stalls holding up the underpants and bras, testing the elasticity of the straps or the metal hooks of the bras.
“I like that you suggested Beebe Lake,” Serena said. “That’s unusual.”
“It’s nice out here, isn’t it? Next time we should go down to Cayuga Lake. You can rent Jet-Skis there,” Rupak said. He knew this only because he had gone Jet-Skiing with Elizabeth in May to celebrate the end of the last academic year. He loved the way the water moved like glass in the middle of the lake.
“I don’t even know how to swim,” Serena said with a laugh. “How did you become such a water baby, growing up in Delhi?”
“You don’t need to know how to swim. They give you life jackets. And the first time, you can just ride on the back of my Jet-Ski and then you’ll get the hang of it.” That was exactly what he had done with Elizabeth at first—sat on the back while she drove.
“I like the idea of doing stuff like that; I just never have,” Serena said.
“We aren’t in Delhi anymore,” Rupak said. “We should take advantage.”
He smiled at her. Unlike Elizabeth, she would fit in more in Mayur Palli than in Gurgaon, he thought. But he wasn’t completely convinced that was a good thing.
Their last weekend in Mayur Palli, Mr. Jha went to the market to get a shave and a head massage because he probably would not be able to get one, at only a hundred rupees no less, in Gurgaon. There, he assumed, people got a barber to come home and provide the services, or went to one of the posh salons in the five-star hotels. He would have to remember to ask Mr. Chopra.
The local market in Gurgaon was smaller and better kept than the one they were used to. The one in Gurgaon had a shop that sold the basics—milk, daal, rice, nail cutters, soap, butter, oil, ghee, cigarettes. There was an auto repair shop that had big signs boasting that it was a licensed mechanic for BMW, Mercedes, and Audi. There was one fruit seller who set up below a big banyan tree and one vegetable seller with a pushcart filled with brightly colored vegetables. And there was a small coffee shop that had big glass containers filled with coffee beans from different parts of the world that you could buy by weight. For everything else, you had to drive to one of the big new malls in the area.
The market outside Mayur Palli was completely different: scattered and dusty and crisscrossed with residential buildings and the local school. There were cycle rickshaws pulled by shirtless men in dirty dhotis to help you get from place to place. There were local tailors—some of whom sat with their sewing machines on the street to watch the people go past while they made a woman’s blouse or altered a pair of pants for a man who had gained weight recently.
On the corner near the barber there stood a large, open Anand Sweet Shop. Outside, on huge big metal platters, potato patties hissed as they fried. The cook used a large ladle to toss the ready patties onto bowls made from banana leaves. Another cook crushed the patties, covered them with spiced yogurt, drizzled tamarind chutney, sprinkled chili powder, covered the dish with coriander, and passed it to the men waiting. Big heaps of garbage overflowed from the small blue garbage bin that sat on the side, and a cow grazed through the empty banana leaf plates. Nearby a dog lounged in the sun, and two small puppies were jumping and falling over themselves near the big dog. A driver had abandoned his rickshaw to play with the puppies. Mr. Jha dropped a two-rupee coin in a beggar’s bowl as he walked toward his barber.
With Mr. Jha gone to the market, Mrs. Jha found Mr. Chopra’s business card and dialed the landline number and asked to speak to Upen Chopra.
“Hello?” Upen Chopra said when he came on the line.
“Hello? Mr. Chopra? Upen Chopra? This is Mrs. Jha calling. My husband and I are in the process of moving into the house next to your brother’s in Gurgaon. My husband met your brother just a few days ago. And I believe you met my friend, Reema Ray?”
“Yes, yes, of course. I did. I think you must be looking for my brother—Dinesh? Why don’t you hold on and I’ll see if he’s home; I’m afraid you may have just missed him.”
“No, no, I am calling to speak to you. My husband mentioned that you are visiting from Chandigarh, is that correct? You and your family live in Chandigarh?” Mrs. Jha said.