Family Planning by Karan Mahajan

disaster, a game of marbles that had lost its marbles, a giddy Titanic aching for its eventual iceberg, a pack of wolves with no Mowgli to raise, a team of jihadis so bored they’d declared holy war on one another.
    As Mama had one day said, “What are these Americans constantly complaining about, every day here is a September 11 only!”
    She had said, or shouted, this with special reference to a series of kamikaze paper-planes that had struck the warring pixels of the TV screen one bright Sunday morning, disrupting the eight o’clock Bhajans Sangita liked to watch.
    Varun, his hands still nimble from wing-folding, screamed from the drawing room, “MAMA, SAHIL CALLED YOU OSAMAMA!”
    But Sahil was innocent and sitting silently. On a sofa. In pajamas. With a fried egg on his lap. Which was not supposed to be in his lap but rather on a plate that was now fallen on the ground.
    Sahil screamed, “MAMA, I DIDN’T! SHANKAR, GET THE TOWEL! VARUN IS MOCKING ME!”
    Tanya put aside her Harry Potter and intervened. “Arre, Varun what has Sahil done to you? Why are you bullying him?”
    Varun was indignant. “He called Mama a bad name.”
    “But he didn’t,” Tanya yawned. “ You did.”
    “You said Mama’s Osama!” said Sahil, furiously dabbing his egg-soaked knee with a piece of toast and slurping up the yolk.
    Varun wasn’t impressed. “So? It’s funny, no? When have you ever cracked a joke?”
    “But Varun—I mean, bhaiya—” Bhaiya was the respectful term for elder brother.
    “You called me Varun ?” Varun thundered. “Is my name Varun or Bhaiya ? What, you see this?” This referred to Varun’s balled fist. Of course.
    And so Sahil learned. He had not flown the planes but he had to take the blame. The family was run on a system of mafioso respect, a constant tangle of snakes and ladders where the older you were, the longer you could rattle your tail and shake up the kiddies shinnying up the stepping-stool of experience. But being a wily old snake also had its disadvantages. It meant you couldn’t ask for favors without coiling around yourself, tying yourself into a knot that could take years to disentangle.
    Arjun understood that asking for a favor would mean years of sibling servitude, a debt that would be paid out in tiny pounds of flesh—flesh that was completely unnecessary since, ostensibly, one had the same flesh as one’s siblings. And that is what made it so much worse. It was flesh for flesh’s sake.
    But a family shouldn’t be run on a system of favors, an earnest voice inside Arjun said. Everyone should favor everyone.
    What a delusion! The only time such delusions were even remotely true was on Diwali or Holi or Rakhi or Indo-Pak cricket matches, festivals that were contingent on the collective. For a day, each enmity or plot of revenge would be buried and a terrifying fealty would take over. Terrifying because it was so vicious. You hit my brother with a water balloon? Well, Ihit you with ten thousand! You buy a ten-thousand-explosions firecracker to scare my little sister? I throw a water balloon on it too ! Plus! Plus I buy a one-trillion firecracker, one that you will hear till the day you die!
     
     
    Arjun was a part of this family too. He knew how it worked and he knew he would encounter resistance, rubbing the match-head of his request against the rough responses of his siblings. Each one would require a separate strategy of appeasement. For instance, he would have to forgive Varun for his transgressions, his reckless cricketing in the backyard and the gulley behind the house. The austere shape of a cricket ball whizzing through the air would cause a gallop of heartbeats in the Ahuja household. And, occasionally, the cracking of a windshield. But Arjun had caught Varun at his worst, most humbling moment—when he had smashed the ball straight into Shankar the servant’s brand-new Atlas bicycle, rupturing the spokes of its back wheel. The poor servant had wept, not knowing the