Free A New World: A Novel (Vintage International) by Amit Chaudhuri Page A

next to the building,” said Jayojit’s mother, her face turned away from him. “That big one.”
    Jayojit did not know the one she meant. He’d explored from the outside the large houses like memorials in the lane, but hadn’t seen the one next to the building, or perhaps his memory had refused to give individuality to the neighbouring houses.
    “I should have known.” He made a face, as if disparaging the wastefulness of the community mentioned, but from the safety and distance of irony, without quite the crude derision he’d overheard in conversations.
    They ate at eight-thirty; they would seldom eat later because of the Admiral’s health. Behind the sound of the cutlery—the Admiral habitually made a lot of noise, like one busily dispatching a meal in a railway canteen—the shehnai could be heard, high-pitched, almost intrusive; and then a watchman’s voice on a loudspeaker announcing the numbers of cars, speaking an urgent Hindustani version of English letters and numbers, became audible.
    “But who lives in that house?” asked Jayojit, midway through a spoonful of rice.
    “I don’t know their name,” said his mother.
    “No, no, not that one,” gesturing to the noise. “I meant the other big one opposite. The Jhunjhunwala house.”
    The Admiral looked up; he had been chewing on a small piece of vegetable. “His father started out as a supplier to the automobile industry”—he held up one hand as Jayojit snorted, “What automobile industry!”—“and now they’re in all kinds of things including cement.”
    “A-ha!” as if this had confirmed the essential murkiness behind the existence of that mansion.
    “Can I have some daal, tamma?” Bonny, his gaze nervous and transparent, surprised at his own voice, looked askance at his grandmother, who leaned forward to serve him.
    “Wonder of wonders,” said Jayojit, reaching ostentatiously and serving himself some vegetables. Behind his exaggerated movements was also a returning pain, not so much a backache or an ache in the joints as a discomfort that he was repeatedly trying to exorcise. “I didn’t know you had an appetite.”
    “He has investments abroad,” said the Admiral, continuing undeterred about Jhunjhunwala.
    Bonny was only eating daal; this mild gruel, with one green chilli afloat in it, had become the most desired, sometimes the only, component of his everyday diet. It seemed to demand less of him and leave him alone; and, instinctively realizing this, both his father and grandmother pretended not to care about the unvarying nature of his food. Fish-bones he had trouble with; he only accepted bhetki, and that didn’t always come from the market.
    He finished before the rest were done, and got up and went to the far side of the sitting room and, dabbling with the remote control, turned to MTV; unconcerned that the volume was low, he sat on the rug before it. The sound of the shehnai mixed with this other sound; a succession of images, quicker than a train of association, hurried through the screen. For the Admiral and Mrs. Chatterjee, the television was always on in the evening until a year ago; it didn’t matter if they were watching it or not; the colours of one of the five channels, a rainbow of the chatter and information of the new India, kept changing in one corner of the room. Then, last year, during the second, prolonged custody battle, they’d neglected a couple of episodes of a soap, forgot, as if they’d inadvertently swallowed a pill that erased recent memory, whether Hersh was sleeping with Jordan (you couldn’t tell, from the names, which sex who belonged to) or Richard had finally deserted Anastasia; they’d found they could no longer immerse themselves, or even find a centre, however temporary, in a proxy existence. One day, three months ago, when Mrs. Chatterjee was sitting absently before the TV with the remote control in her hand (she could never fathom how best to use it; she couldn’t cope with the choice