Free The Leaving of Things by Jay Antani Page B

said and went into the kitchen where we kept a bottle of malaria pills in the cabinet. These were gargantuan pills—horse pills—pink, the size of nickels. I choked one down with a swig from the water bottle on the dining table.
    “Thanks, Vikram,” my mother said. “Now if I could just get your father and brother to take.”
    “I took mine!” Anand snapped.
    “Easy, easy,” my father said. “After breakfast, I’ll take the pill. It gives me nausea. After I eat, I’ll take.”
    “You’re going to cause problem by not taking those pills.”
    My father discarded the matter with a fan-like flip of his hand as he savored a bhajiya.
    “Not so many, watch it,” my mother warned.
    “Don’t worry, bhabhi. We were the first customers at that stand this morning. This is good oil, it’s fresh,” Hemant Uncle assured her.
    “Not just that,” my mother replied, a note of tenderness in her voice. “He has a weak stomach.”
    “I’ve been eating this all my life,” my father boasted, picking up another bhajiya. “Since I was a child.”
    “You’re not a child now, are you?” my mother countered steadily, quietly.
    I glanced at the book that Anand was flipping through. “What is that?” I leaned over him to take a look. “Holy crap, is that Sanskrit?”
    “I have Gujarati, Hindi and Sanskrit,” my brother said glumly.
    “Don’t worry,” my father said to Anand, “we’ll get you a tutor.”
    “You will learn,” Kamala Auntie said with a snap of her fingers, “very fast.”
    Anand groaned and picked through the book.
    I examined the fafada, turning it over in my hands, sniffed it.
    “What’re you sniffing it for?” my mother scolded.
    I took a bite. Like the bhajiyas, the fafada was redolent of corn flour, masala, and oil. Not bad, I thought, and finished it. I took another.
    “When does your school start?” I asked Anand.
    “Monday,” he muttered, putting aside his book.
    “Me too,” I said. “Don’t worry,” and, in a lower tone, I added, “you’ll be okay.”
    From the radio came the eruption of cheering crowds, and the announcer’s voice lit up with enthusiasm—a jubilant tumbling of Hindi words poured from the radio, filling the room.
    “This is Indian national team,” Hemant Uncle said, glancing first at me then at Anand. “They’re playing match against England.”
    “You’ll like this, Anand,” my father urged. “Similar to baseball.”
    “Doubt it,” Anand muttered and sipped from the cup of milk.
    “How did everything at Xavier’s go?” Kamala Auntie asked my parents hopefully.
    “A bit of
dada-giri
, but he’s all set now.”
    “You’ll enjoy Xavier’s,” Hemant Uncle told me. “We had much fun during those days.”
    “Heard you kept getting in trouble with the principal,” I said.
    “Achcha,” Hemant Uncle said. “That Father Prieto, I did not like him. He did not like me.”
    “That’s what Pappa told me,” I chuckled.
    “Father Prieto, he was living in housing colony near Xavier’s at that time. I used to make
mushkari
with my friends, and all the time getting into trouble for that. One time, we made this, uh, enormous
jaangiyo
… how you say … underwear … from
dhoti
fabric, and we hung on his clothesline. So that all the students passing his house, they’ll see that only. So whenever someone would ask in which house is Father Prieto staying? You tell him look for the biggest jaangiyo. That’s his house.”
    The thought of a humongous pair of underwear hanging outside the principal’s front yard was enough to get Anand, Anjali and me laughing pretty hard.
    Hemant Uncle solemnly added, “But such mushkari got me suspended from cricket team. And also I got low marks on my exam.” He smiled, taking a sip of the chai. “So now I’m in State Bank only.”
    I plucked up another piece of fafada, ate it, and started into another, laughing in fits and starts. It was reassuring to know that I still had it in me, this instinct to laugh.
    The