Free The Folded Earth: A Novel by Anuradha Roy

small change to buy sweets with, as was the custom. Living alone I lost track of these things. Now I remembered that Phooldeyi, springtime’s flower festival, was not far off.
    I realized when I went for the party that the hotel manager had intended to invite only those he considered people of consequence. As a penniless teacher I was out of place among the generals, brigadiers, bureaucrats. Even Miss Wilson had not been thought grand enough for the occasion. But the manager had found me with Diwan Sahib when he came to ask him, and could hardly avoid including me. “Just a few friends,” he had said, “nothing much,” and I had pictured five or six people around a sunny table in the garden.
    When I reached Aspen Lodge, I stood for a few minutes at the edge of the lawn, looking at the crowd and considering a quick retreat. Silk saris shimmered past. There were men in tweed jackets and lamb’s-wool pullovers. The lawn was full of people I had never seen before. My fingers plucked at my clothes. I wished I had not arrived straight from work. I had put on my best kurta that morning in honor of the lunch, but it was hidden beneath my thick, many-colored winter shawl, which Diwan Sahib always said would do nicely for a rug. My hair was probably dusted with white chalk from writing on blackboards.
    I took shelter behind a wide-trunked chestnut tree, plucked out the striped pencil that held my untidy bun in place, and ran my fingers through my hair. I neatened my shawl, rubbed the dust off my shoes with a handkerchief, and before I could change my mind and leave, I made my way toward the nearest person. It was the Subdivisional Magistrate, who was talking to Mr. Chauhan, the administrator, congratulating him on the educative slogans he was putting up all over the town. Our host, the hotel manager, stood by looking deferential, as was politic before our town’s two highest-ranking bureaucrats.
    “The messages are very good, especially for the young,” the Magistrate was saying to Mr. Chauhan. Mr. Chauhan looked down at the glittering toe caps of his shoes. Ever since he had been posted to Ranikhet, about six months before, he had been writing slogans, which he then made his staff paint on rock faces, or on boards that were then nailed to trees all over town. You could no longer take more than a few steps without meeting a sign.
    “It gives a certain distinction to the place,” the hotel manager said. “Such educative signs.”
    Early in his time in Ranikhet, Mr. Chauhan had brought a school exercise book to share with us when we invited him to St. Hilda’s to give away prizes on one of our sports days. The book had a bright, hard cover that showed a magenta-cheeked baby with large eyes, holding a pen in dimpled hands. The cover said “Apsara Single Ruled for your Writing Pleasure.” In the slots for “Name/School/Subject,” he had written, “Avinash Chauhan/Administrator Ranikhet/Signs for People Betterment.” When Mr. Chauhan held the exercise book toward me and Miss Wilson, I had noticed a tremor in his hands. For a moment, he had looked very much like one of our students.
    “I have not shown these to anyone before. Please give me your honest opinion, Mams,” he had said.
    Inside the exercise book were line after line of slogans, written in blue ballpoint:
    Get Fresh on This Footpath
    Keep Your Side, Don’t go Wide
    Forest is Poor Man’s Overcoat
    Enjoy Thrills of the Hills
    Mountains are Fountains of Joy
    Walk in Nature Zone, It is Health Prone
    Be Careful of Flying Balls
    “The last one is for the army golf course,” he had said, noticing my nonplussed look. And then: “My teacher—in Ranchi, you know, that is where I grew up—my teacher told me I had real talent. I won all the essay-writing prizes. Once I wrote an essay on a picnic to Dasham Falls and he said: ‘You have real talent, young Avinash,’ that is what he said.”
    “Yes of course you do, Mr. Chauhan,” I had said. “You must not waste