Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

edging towards the drunks to interpose himself between their boisterousness and his family. But when his manoeuvre was complete, they noticed the change.
    “Bhaisahab, I already said sorry to your wife!”
    “Yes, it’s okay.”
    “Don’t be scared, let her stand next to us!”
    “It’s fine,” murmured Yezad.
    “Aray, bavaji, we are not bad people! Little bit of bevda we drank, now we are feeling happy, so happy, so happy!”
    “Good,” said Yezad. “Happiness is good.”
    Ignore them, Roxana mouthed the words silently.
    Then one of the men began singing “Choli Kay Peechhay Kya Hai.” He sang it with an exaggerated leer, and the crude question in the song, directed at Roxana, made her stiffen, fearful about Yezad’s reaction.
    She said, with silent lips again, Just ignore them, Yezdaa.
    Murad and Jehangir, who understood the popular lyric’s double entendre, took their mother’s hand in a confusion of shame and anger.
    Their father waited a little, then turned to the drunks. “Shut up,” he said quietly.
    “Don’t threaten us, bhaisahab, don’t spoil our happy mood! What’s wrong, you don’t like Hindi film songs?”
    “Not that one.” He kept his tone even, to contrast with their intoxicated braying. “You want to know what’s behind the blouse? I’ll show you what’s behind my fist.”
    “Stop it, Yezad!”
    “Stop it, Yezad!” they shrieked in falsetto, and stumbled about, hysterical with laughter, clutching each other for balance. “Don’t tingle-tangle with us, bavaji! We are Shiv Sena people, we are invincible!”
    To Roxana’s relief a bus rattled into view, route number 132: theirs. The drunks did not get on.
    “Bye-bye, bye-bye!” they waved, as the bus carried the Chenoys away. Another shriek of “Stop it, Yezad!” was followed by drunken laughter floating in the dark.
    After he bought their tickets, she chided him about his two Scotches, they had clouded his judgement. And he was setting a bad example for the children, they would also be tempted to fight in school.
    “Daddy and Murad and I could have given them a solid pasting,” said Jehangir.
    “See what I mean? You shouldn’t react to such loafers. Especially two together.”
    “Two drunks are two half-men. Besides, when I’m angry I get very strong.” Then, in her ear, “And when I’m aroused I become very long.”
    “Yezad!” she blushed.
    “I’d have straightened them out with my karate chop. I used to break bricks with it.”
    She knew he could, she’d witnessed it a long time ago, when they were still unmarried. They had been strolling near the Hanging Gardens late one evening, past a deserted construction site, where the watchman dozed in a secluded corner. There was a stack of fresh bricks awaiting the mason. Let me show you something, said Yezad with all the confidence of youth out courting. He formed a trestle of two bricks, placed a third across them, and broke it with a blow of his hand. Show-off, she exclaimed, then was sceptical: You must have picked a cracked one. Okay, you select. She did, and he broke that one too.
    She looked at him, smiling at the memory. “You were young then. Your hand has become soft now.”
    “Still hard enough to break their necks.”
    Murad said he had never seen Daddy chop a brick in two, and his brother said, Yes, Daddy, yes, please show us, which annoyed their mother. “Are there any bricks in this bus?” To Yezad she repeated, “Ignoring low-class drunkards is the only way.”
    “Some things can’t be ignored. Maybe Jal is right, Bombay is an uncivilized jungle now.”
    “You should try again for Canada, Daddy,” said Jehangir.
    “No. They don’t need a sporting goods salesman. You try, when you’re older. Study useful things – computers, M.B.A., and they’ll welcome you. Not useless things like me, history and literature and philosophy.”
    As the bus approached the Sandhurst Bridge turn to Hughes Road, the boys pushed their faces closer to the