Serious Men by Manu Joseph Page A

After just a few minutes of sitting with it near the fridge, Adi had declared that he had finished reading it. She did not believe him.
    ‘Did you read the full story?’ she asked again, pointing to
Tinkle.
The smell of prawn fry distracted her for a moment and she threw a foul look at her husband because she took outside food as a direct affront. Adi came to his father sniffing like a dog.
    ‘Praan,’
he said.
    Oja dragged him away from his father and looked at him severely. ‘Tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘Did you read the whole story?’
    Adi made a tired face at his father, pleading for rescue with his large eyes, and said, ‘Yes, I read it’.
    ‘So fast?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What happens in the end?’
    ‘There are many stories. Which end do you want?’
    ‘What happens in the end of the end?’
    ‘Don’t confuse me.’
    ‘Tell me, Adi, what happens in the end of the last story.’
    Adi took off his hearing-aid and shut his good ear with one finger.
    ‘Adi,’ his mother screamed, stuffing the hearing-aid back into his ear, ‘What happens in the end of the last story?’
    ‘The giant runs away.’
    Oja checked the last page of Tinkle. ‘There is no giant,’ she said. ‘Did you read this book? Tell me the truth. You should never lie, Adi. The end of an ox is beef, the end of a lie is grief.’
    ‘So what if he does not want to read silly comics,’ Ayyan said, winking at his son who winked back.
    ‘You don’t interfere,’ she said angrily. ‘This boy is going to become mad if I don’t do something about it right now. Yesterday, he was standing alone on the terrace, in a corner. Other boys were playing.’
    Adi put his hand on his head in exasperation. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? I was out.’
    ‘What do you mean, you were out?’
    ‘I was in the batting team and I got out.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘If you get out, you can’t bat till the next match.’
    ‘But other boys were playing,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t confuse me,’ Adi said angrily.
    ‘Look, Oja,’ Ayyan said sternly, ‘when a batsman gets out, his chance is over. He cannot play.’
    ‘Why are you always on his side?’ she said. ‘And why are you standing here? The meeting is going on now. You are late.’
    ‘I’ll go, I’ll go.’
    The television was on all this while. Oja now appeared to calm down and she settled on the floor to watch her soap. Ayyan observed her closely. He knew something was wrong. Her eyes had been shifting too often towards the washing machine and even now she was not in the trance she usually was while watching TV. She seemed to be very aware of him. She looked sideways to see where he was.
    ‘What is it?’ he asked.
    ‘Nothing,’ she said, and stole another glance at the washing machine. Ayyan opened its lid and peered in. There was a red cardboard box inside. Oja said, first softly and then with a rising pitch, ‘What’s wrong with having a god? All these people have a real god in their homes.’ Ayyan opened the box and there he was – a cheerful Ganesha. It was not the first time she had brought the idol of the elephant god home. Ayyan always threw him away on his way to work. But every few months, the lord returned in different moods.
    Ayyan rolled the idol in a newspaper. ‘I will throw him somewhere tomorrow,’ he said.
    ‘You cannot keep doing that,’ Oja screamed. Adi took off his hearing-aid and shut his right ear.
    ‘Isn’t Buddha enough?’ Ayyan screamed back. ‘Buddha is our god. The other gods are gods the Brahmins created. In their deviant stories, those gods fought against demons which were us. Those black demons were our forefathers.’
    ‘I don’t care what the Brahmins did. Their gods are now mine,’ Oja said. Her voice faltered. ‘I am a Hindu. We are all Hindus. Why do we pretend?’
    ‘We are not Hindus, Oja,’ he said, now calm and somewhat sad. ‘Ambedkar liberated us from being treated like pigs. He showed us how