under each halogen lamp, there stood a couple in a perfect Khajuraho pose.
Soon I began to feel really cold and a little uneasy. There were only men left, many of them alone, and they seemed to know I was wearing nothing underneath. One approached, expensively dressed.
I had an idea and let him follow me into the Mughal sentry tower beside the rose garden. When he arrived, I told him abruptly to take off his clothes. “How much?” he asked first.
“Free if you take off all your clothes first,” I replied.
“You want to see my jewels then?” he asked.
I didn’t know what he meant, so I nodded.
He began to take off his clothes.
I didn’t move a muscle until they were in a pile on the floor and he was naked before me. Then I took off my dead man’s sheet, threw it over his head, kicked him in the groin a few times, and stole his clothes.
Decently clothed once more, I said goodbye to my days of consulting and ventured into the hospitality industry. Lodhi Gardens’ lovers paid me to ensure an uninterrupted session in a tomb. I provided a bed, water, and talcum powder for after, and I even charged those who were waiting to watch.
After all, they were one big family of lovers, weren’t they? And watching others gave them ideas. So everyone was happy.
As for me, I invested in the stock market, stopped taking drugs, and grew rich. My son and wife eventually moved back in with me and we all lived happily ever after in a brand-new flat on the right side of the Yamuna.
And every once in a while, when I find myself on the Japanese Bridge to NOIDA, I think about the man whose clothes I stole. And I wonder whether he ever realized the gift I’d given him or whether he simply wrapped the dead man’s sheet around him, crawled back into his car, and drove home to his empty life.
LAST IN, FIRST OUT
BY I RWIN A LLAN S EALY
Delhi Ridge
A wise man would have gone home when he heard the tube light smash, but my wife calls me an unwise man and I must be, since I smoke as well as drive an autorickshaw on Delhi roads, and I butted in.
For that matter, a wise man would have finished his BCom and gone into marketing, but I thought: No office for me, no boss for Baba Ganoush. And this looked like the life back then, not that I’m saying it isn’t still, some days, maybe even many days. But autorickshawry has its own traps and it’s always tempting to get that last fare, just one more, and that’s the one that takes you out of your way—when it doesn’t land you in trouble.
God knows there’s trouble enough by day on Delhi roads. And three wheels aren’t the steadiest undercarriage when the going gets rough. Better than two is all you can say, and probably not all the time either. You see some sights on the road that you’d like to forget, and when it comes to the crunch, the guy with the least steel is the loser. I’ve seen some two-wheeler accidents where the helmet didn’t help much more than the severed head. Bastard Blue Line buses! people screech, me too, but might is right in the jungle.
Keep well in, I tell my passengers, and they do. (As if it would make a whole lot of difference when the bus rams you.) But a wraparound shield is better than nothing—even if the dents are starting to join up on my Bhavra. The Bee is what I named her in the good old black-and-yellow days before this greenie shift.
You could say I own the buzzer. I’ve paid back most of the deposit on her to the Punjab National Bank, and I can usually go home by 9, maybe 10. Mornings I start early with schoolkids, twelve monsters packed in with a little removable wooden bench, schoolbags outside. And I don’t always work late. I’ve saved a bit of money in term deposits at the PNB. If I overdraw on the current account, they automatically take it out of the next deposit: last in, first out.
Most days I wear a clean white polyester safari to work. Impractical, I know, and the wife never fails to remind me, though secretly she likes me in
Soon I began to feel really cold and a little uneasy. There were only men left, many of them alone, and they seemed to know I was wearing nothing underneath. One approached, expensively dressed.
I had an idea and let him follow me into the Mughal sentry tower beside the rose garden. When he arrived, I told him abruptly to take off his clothes. “How much?” he asked first.
“Free if you take off all your clothes first,” I replied.
“You want to see my jewels then?” he asked.
I didn’t know what he meant, so I nodded.
He began to take off his clothes.
I didn’t move a muscle until they were in a pile on the floor and he was naked before me. Then I took off my dead man’s sheet, threw it over his head, kicked him in the groin a few times, and stole his clothes.
Decently clothed once more, I said goodbye to my days of consulting and ventured into the hospitality industry. Lodhi Gardens’ lovers paid me to ensure an uninterrupted session in a tomb. I provided a bed, water, and talcum powder for after, and I even charged those who were waiting to watch.
After all, they were one big family of lovers, weren’t they? And watching others gave them ideas. So everyone was happy.
As for me, I invested in the stock market, stopped taking drugs, and grew rich. My son and wife eventually moved back in with me and we all lived happily ever after in a brand-new flat on the right side of the Yamuna.
And every once in a while, when I find myself on the Japanese Bridge to NOIDA, I think about the man whose clothes I stole. And I wonder whether he ever realized the gift I’d given him or whether he simply wrapped the dead man’s sheet around him, crawled back into his car, and drove home to his empty life.
LAST IN, FIRST OUT
BY I RWIN A LLAN S EALY
Delhi Ridge
A wise man would have gone home when he heard the tube light smash, but my wife calls me an unwise man and I must be, since I smoke as well as drive an autorickshaw on Delhi roads, and I butted in.
For that matter, a wise man would have finished his BCom and gone into marketing, but I thought: No office for me, no boss for Baba Ganoush. And this looked like the life back then, not that I’m saying it isn’t still, some days, maybe even many days. But autorickshawry has its own traps and it’s always tempting to get that last fare, just one more, and that’s the one that takes you out of your way—when it doesn’t land you in trouble.
God knows there’s trouble enough by day on Delhi roads. And three wheels aren’t the steadiest undercarriage when the going gets rough. Better than two is all you can say, and probably not all the time either. You see some sights on the road that you’d like to forget, and when it comes to the crunch, the guy with the least steel is the loser. I’ve seen some two-wheeler accidents where the helmet didn’t help much more than the severed head. Bastard Blue Line buses! people screech, me too, but might is right in the jungle.
Keep well in, I tell my passengers, and they do. (As if it would make a whole lot of difference when the bus rams you.) But a wraparound shield is better than nothing—even if the dents are starting to join up on my Bhavra. The Bee is what I named her in the good old black-and-yellow days before this greenie shift.
You could say I own the buzzer. I’ve paid back most of the deposit on her to the Punjab National Bank, and I can usually go home by 9, maybe 10. Mornings I start early with schoolkids, twelve monsters packed in with a little removable wooden bench, schoolbags outside. And I don’t always work late. I’ve saved a bit of money in term deposits at the PNB. If I overdraw on the current account, they automatically take it out of the next deposit: last in, first out.
Most days I wear a clean white polyester safari to work. Impractical, I know, and the wife never fails to remind me, though secretly she likes me in
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